Are Dev's Bad, or do MMO PVP Games Not Work?

[eldaec]

That is right.

Though the weapons are armour from in there were only really interesting for the amount of high end material they salvaged for.

It is a great example of a simple realm level objective though. And on most servers having DF meant you lost some number of players from RvR to the diamond seal mines, which in turn made it easier for other realms to capture it (to gain access you just had to be holding more keeps than the other realms).

DF was introduced in an early patch, before the first expansion.

[Sipes]

There are a number of things that need to be touched on in terms of future PvP MMOG success, so I apologize if my post seems jumbled.

The reason why a PvP MMOG has not been done at a masterful/popular level is mostly due to developers' lack of the proper mentalities for crafting such a thing.


On the topic of PvP popularity:
Contrary to murmurs by mostly PvE players, competition is a hugely popular thing. Sports have been mentioned in this thread already, and really, there is no better proof of the sheer market for PvP. A secondary proof for the sheer market for PvP is simply non-MMOG video games: Counter-Strike (as has been mentioned already), Call of Duty 4, Halo, and others represent the huge segment of PvPers; these gamers simply haven't seen any reason to move to the MMOG.

On the topic of sports system benefits:
Creating sports-like combat systems and the like would solve a number of issues, the primary being the character progression grind. When improving on one's own skill at using the game's systems (as well as properly infusing and utilizing strategy and tactics), one finds himself less concerned with loot or other grindy elements. Look to any mainstream sport: dedicating time to the sport in question doesn't grant one magic feet or arms; it does, however, grant one with increased performance and ability. And if the systems are deep enough, the carrot-on-a-stick never ends.

On the topic of "skill:"
It has been mentioned in this thread that an emphasis on twitch may be disrupted by server issues and the like. I agree: raw physical ability should not be the dominant factor in a competitive situation. In a majority of sports, simply being strong or tall or fast doesn't mean much if the skills are not put into use through tactics and strategy. In a sports-like MMOG, I would see the emphasis placed on tactics, strategy, teamwork, and then physical ability. I would hope to see player psychology, analysis, and similar actions placed as the deciding factors in a competitive MMOG.

On the topic of gear:
As has been mentioned in this thread already, a PvP game with a focus on gear (and thus, with a focus on raw time spent) is hardly competitive. As such, I would see gear (if it must exist in an MMOG) as being the following: [1] for gameplay styles and the like, where gear choice would impact the manner in which you play; [2] fairly commonplace so competition remains competitive; and [3] customizable in terms of aesthetics so that character persistence remains. On the other hand, gear could act as an economic asset to be consumed, created, and distributed. Whichever path taken ((a) commonplace or (b) rarer asset), the emphasis would have to still remain on player skill.

On the topic of grind seekers:
There are those who would argue that MMOGs are about the acquisition of physical upgrades; so, to satisfy those people without hamstringing the competitive people, I would propose systematic (that is, numerical or aesthetic) progressions focused on either groups (guilds, factions, economy) appearances. So those who seek to pour inordinate amounts of time into something to reap some type of tangible reward (that is, it is not something as abstract as player skill) could seek to improve their guild/faction/economy or attain an aesthetic improvement.

On the topic of massively-multiplayer PvP:
The truly mainstream PvP MMOG would have to, I believe, implement other special elements in addition to the sports-like systems in order to be enveloping. Player politics is another form that PvP could take that, like combat, has been underexploited by most developers (EVE and Shadowbane have gotten the closest to such a thing). A focus on warring and economics could add another layer of depth for another type of competitive player. Of course, with the additional focus on guilds/factions, developers would have to be careful not to allow the zerg to be the dominant competitor.


I am of the thought that contained PvP (sports) and persistent PvP (politics and economics) can both be implemented together in fashions that allow the two to directly complement each other and, in a sense, merge (I see no other way for such systems to coexist successfully without being detrimental to each other). Player politics and economics, done correctly, can serve as that draw into the MMOG for competitive gamers, so long as a sports-like competitive scene is active at the same time.

[Ratman_tf]

*Stuff*

Have you played Planetside?

[Xanthippe]

*Stuff*

Have you played Planetside?

I haven't, but have heard so many references to it and still don't know what it was like.  How was pvp set up and what was great about it?  Why did Planetside fail?

[ajax34i]

The reason why a PvP MMOG has not been done at a masterful/popular level is mostly due to developers' lack of the proper mentalities for crafting such a thing.

Contrary to murmurs by mostly PvE players, competition is a hugely popular thing. [paragraph]

Proof?

[Ratman_tf]

*Stuff*

Have you played Planetside?

I haven't, but have heard so many references to it and still don't know what it was like.  How was pvp set up and what was great about it?  Why did Planetside fail?

It was a three faction FPS MMOG. (I'm starting from scratch here, bear with me.)

Gameplay mostly focuses on taking and defending bases on a continent map. There are multiple continents, multiple bases on each continent, and towers around each base.

Game includes vehicles and power armors and multiple types of armor and weapons. Eventually they added mechs.

It has a cone of fire bloom, which basically means bunny hopping and circle strafing were discouraged. With somewhat success. Strafing and jumping around were still valid tactics.

The height of it's popularity and awesomeness is when two or more factions finally clash (usually over a choke point, like a bridge.) And much destruction and mayhem ensues.

Also, combined arms were grand. You could fly a dropship and drop your teammates onto a contested base. Have air support and armor zipping around doing things.

There are levels and gear in Planetside, but it isn't gated content. Anyone can take any certification (ability to use certain equipment and abiliites) but those of higher Battle Rank can just carry more certs at one time.

Thoughts on why it failed vary. The game is still running. Most seem to think the game lacked "stickiness". Much like DAOC, you take a keep, they take it back, ping-pong all the day-long. Also some did not like having to re-cert in order to be able to do certain roles for their Unit. (Clan)

There was (AFAIK) one expansion. Core Combat. Generally thought to have been horrible. It introduced an undergound area of caverns to fight over. Mostly only used to farm the ability to pilot mechs. (BFRs)

I think they're planning a city expansion and a starbase expansion, but I haven't been to their site or played the game in a while.

[Stephen Zepp]

The one major thing I would add regarding describing PlanetSide to someone that has never played is that there is 0% PvE (well, ok, unmanned base defenses). It's all PvP, FPS-like although at a slower pace for the most part compared to many other FPS games.

[Venkman]

Anyone who's never played PS should immediately go do so. It is an example of what could have been for MMOFPSes but with some key early decisions being off target (wrong target audience, wrong business model).

[Sipes]

*Stuff*

Have you played Planetside?

No, but I have friends who have; they've informed me of most of the game's aspects. From what I can piece together, Planetside was somewhat lacking in the way of persistence (save for character names and objective control that ping-ponged back and forth), a problem of which I could see alleviated with increased customization options and greater emphases on skill and player politics.

The reason why a PvP MMOG has not been done at a masterful/popular level is mostly due to developers' lack of the proper mentalities for crafting such a thing.

Contrary to murmurs by mostly PvE players, competition is a hugely popular thing. [paragraph]

Proof?

I already stated that the popularity of sports and non-MMOG PvP video games is proof of competition's popularity. PvP, as it's been iterated in MMOG format so far, lacks the proper draw for grabbing the large competitive segment that enjoys sports and non-MMOG PvP video games.

[Count Nerfedalot]

There needs to be some kind of carrot (or whatever the fuck sheep like to eat) to lure the sheep out of the safe pasture and into the forest. Something so tasty they would regularly risk their lives for it.

THAT may well point to the core of the problem.  The attempt to mix sheep and wolves into a single gamespace in what is, by definition, a voluntary recreational activity will NEVER work.  Not unless you somehow eliminate all games that are wolf-free so we're back to early UO days where the choice for the sheep was to play with the wolves or don't play at all.  And those conditions will likely NEVER exist again. 

So the only alternatives for developers are to make something that caters to wolves and sheep separately, limit their market by making something that wolves will enjoy in the absence of sheep, or try to grow the wolf market by making something that will convert sheep into wolves.   WoW, Shadowbane, and WAR are examples of these three respective approaches.  None of these approaches are going to satisfy the rabid wolf who requires sheep to prey on to have his fun.  He's just SOL.

As for modeling PvP play on sports, first you have to concede that sports are inherently unrealistic and ritualized competition, so forget about trying to make it fit into a world-type environment.  Then consider that sport requires sportsmanship, the enforcement of which requires rules and referees, segregation of players by skill level, etc.  Those are hugely developer time intensive.  Or you can have sport among self-selecting and self-policing groups who have the ability to restrict those they play with to others willing to abide by the same rules.  Anything else devolves into jungle rules where the thugs rule the playground and all the other kids go home and play video games. 

[tmp]

More edits- christ, EVERYTHING people say they want  on this page is IN WW2OL right now. Granted you can't build your own little empire to lord over and beat up anyone who comes inside it, you can't choose the colour of your pants (..)

This seems to be big part of appeal in the PvP games though. Especially if you can then pick colour of pants for your little army.

[tmp]

As for modeling PvP play on sports, first you have to concede that sports are inherently unrealistic and ritualized competition, so forget about trying to make it fit into a world-type environment.

Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh etc.

[LC]

There needs to be some kind of carrot (or whatever the fuck sheep like to eat) to lure the sheep out of the safe pasture and into the forest. Something so tasty they would regularly risk their lives for it.

THAT may well point to the core of the problem.  The attempt to mix sheep and wolves into a single gamespace in what is, by definition, a voluntary recreational activity will NEVER work.  Not unless you somehow eliminate all games that are wolf-free so we're back to early UO days where the choice for the sheep was to play with the wolves or don't play at all.  And those conditions will likely NEVER exist again. 

WRONG

It works in Eve, but not as well as it could. I think the sheep would venture into the forest much more often if there weren't so many bottlenecks. It could work very well in a more open world without gates to camp. The only hard part is to make the RISK worth the REWARD in the mind of the sheep.

[Nebu]

Planetside seemed to have many of the same shortcomings as GW for me.  PvP was deeply dependant on having the right group mix and builds.  They also felt much more strongly tied to FPS mechanics than to MMO play.  If you liked twitch with some strategy, Planetside was good.   I personally couldn't find the hook in the game.  After a while all of the battles seemed to play out very similarly even though the scenery changed.  There were also some balance issues, but that isn't what turned me off to PS.

[tmp]

I think the sheep would venture into the forest much more often if there weren't so many wolves.

Fixed.

Incidentally, the sheep are just a crutch for these wolves that can't quite cut it in wolf-only environment. Asking to have some easy prey to feed on delivered right under one's nose is about as carebear as it can get.

[Venkman]

I already stated that the popularity of sports and non-MMOG PvP video games is proof of competition's popularity. PvP, as it's been iterated in MMOG format so far, lacks the proper draw for grabbing the large competitive segment that enjoys sports and non-MMOG PvP video games.

You can't say Baseball works because Golf does. People are competitive. They're competitive even in PvE games. In fact, a large part of all modern features are specifically in place because of that competition (anti-twink stuff, instancing, tiered PvP, etc).

However, your earlier point is spot on, and I believe is something a few of us have long felt as well: the wrong devs are trying these things. It's why I added Planetside to schild's list. And why WoW has been so successful. You can't rely on the establishment to radically shake things up. That's why they're the establishment.

However, companies like SOE and Mythic, as much of the establishment as you can get, at least deserve credit for trying. SOE for PS and the upcoming Agency (as well as building a business of their infrastructure to be able to give titles like MxO, PotBS and others a chance they'd maybe otherwise not get). And Mythic because of things they were trying for WAR (PvP all the time in form that allowed everyone a roughly balance chance of participating). Where these things fall down is in the delivery; however, if they weren't creating the rules to avoid, there wouldn't be these chances being made to bring in the attention of outsider companies.

Basically: you couldn't get WoW without SOE having done all sorts of crazy things with EQ1.

[Ratman_tf]

I think the sheep would venture into the forest much more often if there weren't so many wolves.

Fixed.

Incidentally, the sheep are just a crutch for these wolves that can't quite cut it in wolf-only environment. Asking to have some easy prey to feed on delivered right under one's nose is about as carebear as it can get.

Ideally there would be no sheep. The players venturing in the forest would become wolves during their stay. But we know that honks off wolves something fierce when they have no sheep to eat.

[Warskull]

For Guild Wars it is important to note that there are multiple points in GW's history.  At release GW was a PvE game with a considerable amount of grind required to properly PvP.  This drove a large portion of potential PvPers away.  They started fixing it and you could get into PvP with reasonably low grind around 4-5 months after release (I think that's about the number), basically around the start of the GWWC.

Currently Guild Wars is one of the lowest grind options to get to PvP.  If the game released with the current concepts in play it would have been amazing and still going strong.

As for Dev kill, I wouldn't quite call it a kill.  Guild Wars is still sort of limping along half-dead after taking a number of savage beatings.  It truly died the death of 1,000 paper cuts.  Getting into high level PvP was difficult, so losing players hurt.  I think the game was at its peak in the middle of the GWFC and very slowly bled to death after that point.  Little things like specific balance issues being ignored for too long, PvP issues going unfixed too long, the poor implementation of ATs, ect killed it a little at a time.  Arena.net is one company I can say who in the end has almost always done the right thing for the game, just too late for it to matter.

Basically the community would solve the current meta and A.net would take a bit too long to catch-up and fix things.  Then the community solved the GvG game type and realized it wasn't so fun.

Moving on to MMO and PvP.  Grind and PvP are enemies when you move beyond the most casual level.  Class based systems and such are fine, the problem is a player needs a high degree of flexibility to swap between classes, skills, and specs as needed in PvP.  Leveling and grinding systems hurt this.  The provide barriers limiting your ability to get into PvP and kill your flexibility.  At the same time PvE and most of the MMO player base loves the grind.  They won't admit it, but that false progression of power is what makes MMOs work.  Without the carrot on the stick they don't bother leveling, why do those dungeons or raids if there is nothing to reward them with?  They want to feel special and unique, the grind and rare items it takes ridiculous grind to get is what enables that.  Feeding this desire while maintaining an easily accessible power cap to keep PvP thriving is a fragile balance.  You directly saw this in Guild Wars, PvE players would ask for diablo style super loot and more levels.  PvPers would ask for less grind and more instantly equipped PvP characters which PvErs stonewalled at every opportunity.

As it stands there are only two games in existence I would use successful and competitive to describe their PvP, Guild Wars and WoW.  One has way too much PvE and stuff I don't want to do to even get close to the stuff I want to do.

[UnSub]

WRONG

It works in Eve, but not as well as it could. I think the sheep would venture into the forest much more often if there weren't so many bottlenecks. It could work very well in a more open world without gates to camp. The only hard part is to make the RISK worth the REWARD in the mind of the sheep.

In EVE, can't the wolves come get the sheep nearly regardless of where they are?

Of course, then the wolves would face penalties, which they don't like:

[WindupAtheist]

Does EVE really have "sheep" in the classical sense, or is Empire mostly wolf alts taking a breather and farming resources to go towards more wolfing? (Well, and a minority of dedicated craftards who love the idea of being spreadsheet entepreneurs.) Because everything I've heard says the PVE is terrible and beside the point unless you just need to make money.

[tmp]

Does EVE really have "sheep" in the classical sense, or is Empire mostly wolf alts taking a breather and farming resources to go towards more wolfing? (Well, and a minority of dedicated craftards who love the idea of being spreadsheet entepreneurs.) Because everything I've heard says the PVE is terrible and beside the point unless you just need to make money.

It seems to have enough genuine PvE players, ones who aren't in the least interested in PvP aspect and express resentment at being subjected to it... for most of them all to be alts would require some serious personality split disorders all across the playerbase. Yes the PvE aspect of EVE ain't anything to write home about but it's also not *that* much different from other MMOs in this regard. imo. Whacking easy to beat foozles for loot drops has its fans, no matter how simple it might appear.

[wuzzman]

If your game has pve, even if it is originally designed for pvp and you had a solid pvp playerbase in beta, please expect a massive influx of pve'ers in your game come launch. with that said, EVE has a dedicated crowd of players who been putting up with that game since....forever? by that same token I say that while a huge portion of EVE current player base are players that been playing EVE for at least a year and thus are able to PVP like a PK'ing snob, there  is a good portion that Pve like no tomorrow. I mean it is a space mmo, that has to make some lore loving pve'er somewhere happy.

[Tige]

playerbase in beta

The practice of allowing thousands of players into any stage of development should be immediately and permanently banned.

Ninety nine point nine percent of the players have no intention of testing.  They are there to see how easy it will be to continue their play style into this new wrapper.  If the player has to shoehorn his/her old playing style into the new game you can count on epic forum whines on how the game will fail miserably.

On the flip side, the developers have little or no intention of changing any game mechanics because we all know developers are always right and players know not of which they speak.

In the end it really doesn't matter, everyone blames the publisher and the circle is complete.   

[ashrik]

Ninety nine point nine percent of the players have no intention of testing.

I disagree. A lot of us thought that world RvR would work fine because it did in the focused beta tests. Unfortunately everyone was testing it and no one was playing it.

When you're past the "let's find all the bugs we can" stage, I think you want people who are going to play it like they will after release.

[Nonentity]

At this point in time in my life, I don't think I really want the large-scale politics-based Guild vs. Guild-esque PvP game. A lot of people do, and while I still find it fun, I just really don't think I'd have the time for it.

I think honestly they should push more for the small-scale competitive PvP Team vs. Team-type stuff. Take at look at what Blizzard is doing - they're trying to shoehorn competition events into World of Warcraft. You can argue how large of an audience it is, but in all honesty, it's working. You know damn well that the next MMO that Blizzard makes is going to have an even larger focus on this small-scale competitive angle. Get the competitive gaming audience interested in MMOs, and you expand the audience. I honestly don't think that audience would give a hoot or holler about large-scale sieging and so forth (unless it could be replicated on a smaller scaller, such as in a 10 on 10 man format or some such - even then, it's hard to keep track of what is going on).

The hardest hurdle into getting competitive interest is that you need to have a large amount of knowledge regarding the game in order to see what is going on. The 5 vs 5 arena events in World of Warcraft were way too hectic to keep track of, which is why they brought it down to the 3 vs 3 bracket this year. With a game like Counter-Strike, it's super obvious what is going on, even to the layman. Same with a game like Halo - the guy shot the other guy a bunch and he died. The average player is not going to understand what is going on when the Warrior runs in and Spell Reflects the Druid's Cyclone, allowing the DPS train to burn down their Rogue.

If it's complicated in that small scale, imagine how impossible it is for large-scale stuff to communicate what is going on.

Anyways, that's my somewhat unrelated tangent.

Shadowbane, right guys?

[Slayerik]

I ended up getting drunk and I fired up Subspace (Continuum) again. I went like 16-1 on the Chaos zone. Was a lot of fun, if anyone is looking for a fun, free PVP game here you go. You will get your ass handed to you for a while, but it is quite entertaining. They also have a sport version of it called Powerball, but its kind of a vets only thing.

If anyone wants some advice or gets into it, let me know - we can get on my vent server and I can teach you the ropes.

[Nonentity]

Ah, Subspace. So many hours wasted on that game!

Wasn't that game Infantry on the Sony Station account made by the same guys? I want to be able to play Infantry without having to pay for a Sony Station account. :(

[Slayerik]

Yeah, same guys I think...though I never got hooked on Infantry like I did SS for some reason.

[Mrbloodworth]

Ah, Subspace. So many hours wasted on that game!

Wasn't that game Infantry on the Sony Station account made by the same guys? I want to be able to play Infantry without having to pay for a Sony Station account. :(

Infantry went F2P a while back. I think.

[Ingmar]

At this point in time in my life, I don't think I really want the large-scale politics-based Guild vs. Guild-esque PvP game. A lot of people do, and while I still find it fun, I just really don't think I'd have the time for it.

I think honestly they should push more for the small-scale competitive PvP Team vs. Team-type stuff. Take at look at what Blizzard is doing - they're trying to shoehorn competition events into World of Warcraft. You can argue how large of an audience it is, but in all honesty, it's working. You know damn well that the next MMO that Blizzard makes is going to have an even larger focus on this small-scale competitive angle. Get the competitive gaming audience interested in MMOs, and you expand the audience. I honestly don't think that audience would give a hoot or holler about large-scale sieging and so forth (unless it could be replicated on a smaller scaller, such as in a 10 on 10 man format or some such - even then, it's hard to keep track of what is going on).

The hardest hurdle into getting competitive interest is that you need to have a large amount of knowledge regarding the game in order to see what is going on. The 5 vs 5 arena events in World of Warcraft were way too hectic to keep track of, which is why they brought it down to the 3 vs 3 bracket this year. With a game like Counter-Strike, it's super obvious what is going on, even to the layman. Same with a game like Halo - the guy shot the other guy a bunch and he died. The average player is not going to understand what is going on when the Warrior runs in and Spell Reflects the Druid's Cyclone, allowing the DPS train to burn down their Rogue.

If it's complicated in that small scale, imagine how impossible it is for large-scale stuff to communicate what is going on.

Anyways, that's my somewhat unrelated tangent.

Shadowbane, right guys?

I think some of the success of the arena model is a bit false because there is a large segment of people who only do it to pick up gear to PVE with (like me for example.) We will see how popular it remains after the expansion releases and almost every bit of gear has a rating requirement. I'm guessing arena participation will be way down without those S1/S2 type items that anyone can use.

[Jayce]

At this point in time in my life, I don't think I really want the large-scale politics-based Guild vs. Guild-esque PvP game. A lot of people do, and while I still find it fun, I just really don't think I'd have the time for it.

The thing I've found is that I hate sport PvP, but I love the above style game.  I don't have more than an hour or two per day to play it, but fortunately there are a lot of people who do, and can handle all the political crap while I just shoot who they tell me to shoot.  I can do that within an hour while still having the illusion of context.

[Warskull]

I ended up getting drunk and I fired up Subspace (Continuum) again. I went like 16-1 on the Chaos zone. Was a lot of fun, if anyone is looking for a fun, free PVP game here you go. You will get your ass handed to you for a while, but it is quite entertaining. They also have a sport version of it called Powerball, but its kind of a vets only thing.

If anyone wants some advice or gets into it, let me know - we can get on my vent server and I can teach you the ropes.

Never got into subspace as much as I got into Infantry.  Cosmic Rift is free to play now too, it is essentially a remake of subspace.  The energy as life and energy as shield mechanics those games used worked brilliantly.  In Subspace you use energy to attack and lose energy when you get hit, if you hit 0 energy you die (if you fire all your weapons you get stuck at 1 energy.)  In infantry and cosmic rift they tweaked it a bit so energy acts as a shield protecting your health, still works really good.

Infantry and Cosmic rift have a very minor grind factor.  You can get fully equipped in short order though.  You can really see these games were the predecessors to Planetside.

[Tarami]

...stuff...

I think some of the success of the arena model is a bit false because there is a large segment of people who only do it to pick up gear to PVE with (like me for example.) We will see how popular it remains after the expansion releases and almost every bit of gear has a rating requirement. I'm guessing arena participation will be way down without those S1/S2 type items that anyone can use.

Aside from all the intrinsic difficulties of rewarding PvP in relation to PvE and all that -

I find it very hard to believe that MMOs as we know them today will ever flower as true competitive games, mostly because they change/evolve too fast and not necessarily in the direction the community is pushing. Games that have been popular competitive games this far have had very strong, player-run communities, that have organized and created the sport aspect themselves, not had it created for them. I don't think any developer can aspire to running the competition for the players, because it'll be too monolithic and slow for players to feel engaged. Competition for the sake of competition (ergo, for fun) always works best.

Perhaps most of all, previous games have almost mutated into something new, where the original tenets of strategy and skill have been tossed out for a new way of playing, and that is something that doesn't wash well with the majority of modern MMO developers. If you "exploit" the game (that is, play it -too- well), you get nerfed. A sport-like game can't suffer that for long - compare to how fractions of larger gaming communities stop in time, keeping to one version of a game that they liked best (before change X, Y, Z).

:eidT spleling is hard.

[Fordel]

Does EVE really have "sheep" in the classical sense, or is Empire mostly wolf alts taking a breather and farming resources to go towards more wolfing? (Well, and a minority of dedicated craftards who love the idea of being spreadsheet entepreneurs.) Because everything I've heard says the PVE is terrible and beside the point unless you just need to make money.

There are real 'sheep' in EVE, they probably still make up the bulk of the player base. EVE has the advantage of being the only Space MMO around for the most part. (There are dev chats showing something like 70-80% of the player base never ventures into 0.0, the open conquerable pvp zones. )

I would not be even a little bit surprised if EVE subs dropped off dramatically once someone made WoW-InSpace!

[UnSub]

I find it very hard to believe that MMOs as we know them today will ever flower as true competitive games, mostly because they change/evolve too fast and not necessarily in the direction the community is pushing.

As an addition, I think any MMO that relies heavily on gear (especially gear on rare drops) is also not going to gain traction just as a competitive game because too much of getting to the competitive bit relies on getting the gear, and those without the gear are sorely disadvantaged.

Taking CounterStrike as the comparable experience, as a character I'm still dangerous with the basic pistol and knife. Compare that to any MMO (even those with sports features) where I'd just be meat if I never upgraded to the top level gear.