Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: Difference between revisions

** This goes for most [[Roguelike|RogueLikes]] descended from ''Angband''. The deeper in the dungeon, the greater the loot.

 

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' extends this to almost items. At the higher ends of the game the loot becomes increasingly stratified and specialized, with some items only usable by their intended class and given official tiers of quality.

* ''[[EVE Online]]'' has a couple exceptions, but generally this is true. The "meta level" of an item is a rough measure of its quality. The best gear supplied by players is meta 5. The elite gear given to favoured pilots of the major empires is meta 8. If you run into pirate commanders in dangerous space, they drop meta 11-14 gear. Similarly with ships, random groups of crazy pirates will give you fancier ships than major empires with massive space navies.

* Averted in ''[[Rainbow Six]]: Vegas 2''; despite the game featuring a level-up system where you unlock new weapons as you score points during the campaign, the weapons with the highest overall stats are ''the default ones you start the game with''. Additionally, a lot of the later-unlocked weapons can be grabbed off of dead terrorists if you want - the AK-47, for instance, is both the last assault rifle unlocked with Assault points and the most common enemy weapon in ''the first mission''.

 

* ''[[Perfect World]]'' kind of halfway subverts this. You can buy all weapons and armor from level 1 to 6 (that is around character levels 1-mid 40s) in your starting zone, but you can't use them. As you grow in levels and add attribute points, you will be able to use the stronger weapons/armor. Then Twilight Temple becomes available, you get godlike gear, and the merchants in any part of the world are all but useless.

* ''[[Star Trek Online]]'' averts this completely at the endgame. You have basic phasers as a Starfleet player or disruptors as a Klingon player, both of which require the lowest skillpoint cost to be fully effective. Each weapon type has a 2.5% chance to cause a special debuff on a target: phasers cause a target's shields/weapons/engines to fail for 10 seconds, and disruptors cause a target to lose damage resistance for 10 seconds. Later you will get access to plasma beams/cannons that have a chance to cause cause (minor)damage over time, tetryon weapons that can do extra shield damage, polaron weapons that can drain enemy ship power and antiproton weapons that simply do more critical hit damage. Each of these special abilities only has that 2.5% chance to activate on a successful hit and all weapons do the same damage when fully skilled. However, the skillpoint cost of plasma/tetryon is higher than phasers/disruptors and polaron/antiproton weapons cost even more skillpoints. This means phasers and disruptors are still viable options at endgame.