Pokosaurous wrote: » Uhm yeah. Without a doubt I probably won't even want to play if it's only based on how good your gear is. If someone just wants to they can use mostly tab targeting, have good gear and just press keys and win. It takes 0 skill at all and it will really suck if it's that way. I can understand if that person is outleveling you by like 10 - 20 levels that it should be PRETTY dang hard to just outskill them BUT. I feel like the opportunity should be there, with action combat requiring a lot more skill. You both have to aim and time abilities, along with rotations and anything tab targeting could have; just with added mechanical skill instead of clicking on someone and not even having to look at your screen to win. I really hope outplay potential is there, I haven't seen that in an mmorpg before and it really made me want to play ashes. Thinking about being able to outplay people rather than just have to farm more to beat them. It feels so boring and easy and bland if you just basically have to outfarm and grind to beat people. I'm NOT saying someone who is lvl 5 should be able to "Outskill" a level 40 or something. I just mean within a reasonable range, lets say 10-15 levels, maybe even more but I wouldn't push it past 20. I agree, I really just don't want it to be a farm and grind fest (I know farming and grinding will be in the game, no problem with that at all) I just don't want to see items determining how good you are TO A REASONABLE EXTENT.
Damokles wrote: » There is a reason, why many guilds say in recruitment to bring the player not the character... When we recruited for Mayhic Raiding in WoW, we had so many people with good gear that did nearly zero dmg because they didnt know their rotation and how to properly play their class. It became so bad, that we started to bring applicants into high challenge dungeons to see their dps etc. Gear is important, but knowing what to do with that gear has the highest priority. But classes should not be so easy/strong, that you can kill people with no gear equipped, no matter how good you are (see rogues in WoW Vanilla)
Dygz wrote: » In RPGs, character skill should trump player skill. If I max my character's Intelligence - the character should be able to acquire knowledge better than I can as a player. If I max my Dex, my character should be able to aim better than I can as a player. And if I max my Wisdom, my character should be able to perceive things better than I can as a player. Same for abilities like Stealth - if I max my character's Stealth, that character should be better at hiding than I can hide the character manually as a player. Player skill should really be about knowing how to build your character to best enact its role(s). But, most people who play MMORPGs really want to play them like an MMOFPS and don't care about roleplaying. That being said, player skills/knowledge can trump character skills. A newbie player who jumps to max level in a game like WoW or EQ might not know basic combat tactics. With Ashes, in addition to stats and gear, we will have to factor in augments and possibly racial, social and religious progression. But we should expect stats and gear to a point where the discrepancy in level is significant enough that a lowbie cannot compete with a high level character. That damage and mitigation of the high level character will easily outclass what the lowbie can achieve, regardless of player skill, in 1v1 direct PvP combat. Whether one high level player could win against two lowbies really depends on the level gap. Obviously, the wider the gap, the more likely it will be for the high level character to win. But, for example - if one of the lowbies is a Rogue who doesn't know that some abilities will increase damage when delivered from behind the target, it will be easier for the high lev character to mitigate their damage. If the other lowbie is a Cleric who focuses to much on attacks and not enough on heals, they might be surprised by how quickly the high lev dispatches them. And, yeah, definitely depends on the class because I could see a knowledgeable Paladin tossing up a lot of barriers as well as self-healing. Even if the Paladin was a relative lowbie who is unable to kill the Rogue and Cleric, she might be able to prevent them from killing her if she uses her abilities wisely.
wanderingmist wrote: » Pokosaurous wrote: » Uhm yeah. Without a doubt I probably won't even want to play if it's only based on how good your gear is. If someone just wants to they can use mostly tab targeting, have good gear and just press keys and win. It takes 0 skill at all and it will really suck if it's that way. I can understand if that person is outleveling you by like 10 - 20 levels that it should be PRETTY dang hard to just outskill them BUT. I feel like the opportunity should be there, with action combat requiring a lot more skill. You both have to aim and time abilities, along with rotations and anything tab targeting could have; just with added mechanical skill instead of clicking on someone and not even having to look at your screen to win. I really hope outplay potential is there, I haven't seen that in an mmorpg before and it really made me want to play ashes. Thinking about being able to outplay people rather than just have to farm more to beat them. It feels so boring and easy and bland if you just basically have to outfarm and grind to beat people. I'm NOT saying someone who is lvl 5 should be able to "Outskill" a level 40 or something. I just mean within a reasonable range, lets say 10-15 levels, maybe even more but I wouldn't push it past 20. I agree, I really just don't want it to be a farm and grind fest (I know farming and grinding will be in the game, no problem with that at all) I just don't want to see items determining how good you are TO A REASONABLE EXTENT. I'd just like to point out that just because a game uses a tab-targetting system doesn't mean it is "easy" compared to an action-combat system. Some people look at WoW's combat for example and think it requires no skill at all, and yet you can have 2 players with the same gear score playing the same class and spec, doing vastly different dps. That's because there is a difference between mechanical skill and game knowledge/decision-making. Anyone who has played League of Legends should be familiar with this concept. You take a champion like Zed vs a champion like Pantheon. Zed is mechanically a lot harder to play than Pantheon but Pantheon requires greater game knowledge and decision-making to play well. That's because Zed has lots of ways of escaping a bad fight. If he jumps in to a bad fight he has the option of jumping out again relatively easily. On the other hand, once Pantheon jumps into a fight he can't easily escape, meaning he has to think a lot more about the play before he commits. Action-combat systems often favour mechanical skill, whereas Tab-targetting systems favour game knowledge and decision-making. Anyway, going back to the topic at hand, are we talking about PvP or PvE here? Because that completely changes the situation. That said, no matter if it is PvP or PvE, both skill and gear always matter in an mmorpg. The difficult part is deciding which should impact your performance more. I think it's important in this to distinguish between PvP and PvE in this context, since in PvE especially, gear scaling is important to show character development and progression. What makes this even harder is a third element that nobody is considering, which is class balance. Often in mmorpgs you can have 2 players with similar skill and gear levels, and one person wins purely because their class is stronger in x situation. Is that fair? Not at all, but that is the sad reality of online games. EDIT: One more thing I've just thought of when it comes to skill. Part of the skill in games like WoW is deciding which stats to focus on. Now this process has been made a lot easier in recent years thanks to all the third party tools players have access to, such as gear calculators and simulators to tell you exactly which gear piece is better. And yet, there are still lots of players who just automatically equip the gear with the highest item level even though their character would actually perform better with a "worse" piece of gear.
kayra wrote: » Dygz wrote: » In RPGs, character skill should trump player skill. If I max my character's Intelligence - the character should be able to acquire knowledge better than I can as a player. If I max my Dex, my character should be able to aim better than I can as a player. And if I max my Wisdom, my character should be able to perceive things better than I can as a player. Same for abilities like Stealth - if I max my character's Stealth, that character should be better at hiding than I can hide the character manually as a player. Player skill should really be about knowing how to build your character to best enact its role(s). But, most people who play MMORPGs really want to play them like an MMOFPS and don't care about roleplaying. That being said, player skills/knowledge can trump character skills. A newbie player who jumps to max level in a game like WoW or EQ might not know basic combat tactics. With Ashes, in addition to stats and gear, we will have to factor in augments and possibly racial, social and religious progression. But we should expect stats and gear to a point where the discrepancy in level is significant enough that a lowbie cannot compete with a high level character. That damage and mitigation of the high level character will easily outclass what the lowbie can achieve, regardless of player skill, in 1v1 direct PvP combat. Whether one high level player could win against two lowbies really depends on the level gap. Obviously, the wider the gap, the more likely it will be for the high level character to win. But, for example - if one of the lowbies is a Rogue who doesn't know that some abilities will increase damage when delivered from behind the target, it will be easier for the high lev character to mitigate their damage. If the other lowbie is a Cleric who focuses to much on attacks and not enough on heals, they might be surprised by how quickly the high lev dispatches them. And, yeah, definitely depends on the class because I could see a knowledgeable Paladin tossing up a lot of barriers as well as self-healing. Even if the Paladin was a relative lowbie who is unable to kill the Rogue and Cleric, she might be able to prevent them from killing her if she uses her abilities wisely. Thanks for putting an effort to explain the basics of MMORPG combat @Dygz. However, I believe what you've mentioned applies to traditional MMORPGs and unless someone is dumb enough to not know how to build the character and can't even understand the basics of combat tactics, it really doesn't apply to what I call 'skill' - they should stick to crafting or something - if they can even do that ffs. What I meant by 'skill' isn't just being skilled in taking good aim but a variety of strategies that includes taking good positions, being aware of your surroundings\enemies and thinking ahead of your opponents etc. A truly skill based combat would allow the most skilled player to excel against other players with similar stats\gear scores. Augment is system imo shouldn't just allow the player to beat others just bc he\she counters them but make the combat even more in depth. Although I disagree, I respect your opinion.
wanderingmist wrote: » [A]re we talking about PvP or PvE here? Because that completely changes the situation. That said, no matter if it is PvP or PvE, both skill and gear always matter in an mmorpg. The difficult part is deciding which should impact your performance more. I think it's important in this to distinguish between PvP and PvE in this context, since in PvE especially, gear scaling is important to show character development and progression. What makes this even harder is a third element that nobody is considering, which is class balance. Often in mmorpgs you can have 2 players with similar skill and gear levels, and one person wins purely because their class is stronger in x situation. Is that fair? Not at all, but that is the sad reality of online games.
Dygz wrote: » wanderingmist wrote: » [A]re we talking about PvP or PvE here? Because that completely changes the situation. That said, no matter if it is PvP or PvE, both skill and gear always matter in an mmorpg. The difficult part is deciding which should impact your performance more. I think it's important in this to distinguish between PvP and PvE in this context, since in PvE especially, gear scaling is important to show character development and progression. What makes this even harder is a third element that nobody is considering, which is class balance. Often in mmorpgs you can have 2 players with similar skill and gear levels, and one person wins purely because their class is stronger in x situation. Is that fair? Not at all, but that is the sad reality of online games. In EQ2, my Lev 80 character only wore starting rags. She got her armor rating from weapons and crafted jewelry. She was still able to complete quests. More challenging than necessary but was great for RP. Being restricted to only starting rags was a great character flaw and always sparked conversation when encountering unknown players. When I played NWO, I mostly duoed with an MMORPG newbie who didn't know tactics. He would frequently rush into battle in dungeons without thinking about basic tactics. We might wipe several times before finding a strategy that would allow us to prevail, but we had the time to devote to making mistakes. And it was fun figuring out to defeat a dungeon designed for a larger party. I prefer wiping with a subpar party until we figure out a viable strategy over being ordered to follow maximally efficient strategy with a cookie-cutter build and ability rotation. Also, in NWO PvP, I would typically top the leader boards for most deaths but highest number of pylon captures. My role in Arena PvP was to capture pylons. I would ignore combat as much as possible. And for the Raid PvP sessions, I would focus on the PvE objectives over direct combat as well. So, yes, really depends on the specific set of circumstances. Stats and gear will matter. Character skills will matter. Player knowledge and player skills will matter. But, how much they matter should be determined by individual playstyle and specific circumstances and objectives.