The Inherent Problem with Loot Systems

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

But then where's the actual growth of the character? Part of the fun for some of these people IS unlocking new skills. And sometimes, these items acts as previews.

I think there's some communication/understanding issue on both our sides here. I'll just use Borderlands straight-up as an example. I don't have any problem with the loot system where a new gun can give me a new ability/skill or boost something I like therefore making it better. All of that is great. What I don't like is having to give up that gun just because it's damage becomes for too low to be a viable. Then I'm forced to give up that ability at least until I find a new gun that grants the same thing. And then every gun manufacturer sorta specializes in something; for example, I liked to a corrosive sniper rifle from a specific manufacturer (I forget who it was), then I had to find basically that same gun again once my current one became obsolete. How is that a better experience for the player? Just remove damage scaling from the loot and the loot system is perfectly fine. You can move damage scaling to character leveling and it accomplishes the same thing without the mess of every hour re-going through your inventory to equip your new slightly better gear. Another example is say I really like the special ability of the orange Flame of the Firehawk [http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Flame_of_the_Firehawk] shield but you get it in a rather low level quest so if I want to use that shield at endgame I basically have to reach max level, then do the quest so the quest reward is then a max level shield. Then, I'd also have to reload a save before that quest as I wouldn't know ahead of time it had my favorite shield as a reward. Then, even if you do that, Gearbox then updates the game and raises the max level, thereby making all your endgame stuff useless again. It's not like progression ceases because I can use the shield literally all game as I can find a shield with a better version of that special ability or find a shield with a different special ability that I like even more. Taking damage scaling off of gear makes the player jump through far less hoops to be able to play the game the way they want.

Also, the whole damage scaling makes playing co-op such a pain in the ass. If you wanna play with your friend and you're 5 levels apart, nobody is going to have fun because 1 person is going to be one-shotting everything (if the lower level player hosts) or 1 person isn't going to be able to kill anything to get their needed skills to proc (if the higher level player hosts). It just creates so much of an unneeded mess just so the player can see bigger numbers.

Thats more your individual experience. I've had a ton of exposure to PnP players, and it goes all over the place. Some basicall ignore combat entirely, others literally play them as tactics games, some crazy nuts even play them as PvP games (Absolutely bloody horrible in D&D, by the by).

Now, with the disclaimer of not having muddled much in it since 3.5/earl 4e. You can flank, but thats just a better hit chance. Parrying, riposting, targeting limbs, different styles of attacks (like bludgeoning a skeleton with the flat of a sword to get by the damage resistance), offhand throwing weapons, shield bashing, use of legs, environmental attacks are all mainly ignored in D&D for fighters, at best surfacing in homebrew or as expansion prestige class features. If you want much alternative or boost to what a fighter does you primarily are just going to flatout have to get a sword with some sort of perks to it. MEenwhile on the mage's side there's a thousand odd spells ranging from utility to direct damage to do all sorts of things with.

I don't get people playing DnD as a straight-up tactics game because it's not really that great at it and there's other games that are totally dedicated to that that of course do tactical combat much better. Same thing with PvP as well, and DnD isn't balanced all that well if you literally do make the best character possible because there's quite a bit of brokenness to be found.

No doubt DnD could have better fighting but again, it's not dedicated to just be a wargame though. I bet most DMs would allow using a sword's dull side to be bludgeoning. I'm kinda surprised you can't target limbs as GURPS even allows for that. Speaking of GURPS, there's a podcast called FilmReroll [http://www.filmreroll.com/] where this group plays through movies using GURPS and basically reroll them and its quite entertaining.