Level Based or Skill Based Systems?

So I haven't played an MMORPG yet, Ashes of Creation will be my first one. The closest thing I've gotten to an MMORPG is Runescape. This is where my question resides. Level based or skill based systems? What I'm mainly asking is, from what I've seen in MMORPG's it's mainly min/maxing and less skill based PvP. Somebody enlighten me, I want to be able to outplay and outsmart my opponents.

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Azryil

Ashes uses a level and gear power progression system, so there are limits to what pure player skill will get you, a level 1 will never be able to compete with a level 50. When it comes to end game PvP and players are the same level, gear will have some impact, but player skill will likely have more benefit.

Jjampong

Most MMO's do have progression based on level, although there are quite a few who have a hybrid in between the level and skill-based system. This link here might help you too understand as to what system will be implemented in Ashes of Creation. Personally I feel like it's in a good place.

Karthos

Depends on the game. The following is 100% my observations and opinion.

Gear will win out most of the time, but good gear on a good player will win out every time.

Let me use WoW for example, and talk about Twinking. For the unitiated, Twinking is where you stop leveling a character at the top of the PvP bracket (level 19, 29, 39, 49, ect) and gear them out in as best in slot for that level as possible. The goal is to be so buff, you're a god. Other players do this too, making some games be filled with Twinks, essentially showcasing talent and comp. But most of the time, it's the "more complete" Twink that wins in a same class on class fight, but there are classes that are more meta than others.

A very meta Fury Warrior will stomp 90% of his opponents without being better than an average player. This is because the class skills are strong. However a talented player as a Fury Warrior is a God. Throw in Disc Priest pocket healer and he's all of Mount Olympus. Two full Twink warriors fighting, with the same skills, same gear, will depend on talent to win.

However, an "un-twinked" fury warrior will just do okay, yet can do better than some weak Twinks. So gear is important, but Talent and the right skills are still big.

So from this information, I feel we can best answer you question by ranking these three things.

Class
Gear
Talent

The "right" class gives you an edge.
Good gear gives you an advantage
Talent helps you augment the first two.

Damokles

@Karthos
Or sometimes, a class is just so broken, that they dont NEED any gear!

*cough* vanilla rogue *cough*

Wandering Mist

I see where people come from when they want player skill to trump everything else, but at the end of the day this is an mmoRPG. One of the key elements of an RPG is character progression, which is usually done through some kind of leveling system. Your character starts off weak but over time gets stronger and stronger.

If you take out that character progression, are you still playing an RPG?

Karthos

Damokles wrote: »

@Karthos
Or sometimes, a class is just so broken, that they dont NEED any gear!
*cough* vanilla rogue *cough*

Sad but true. It seems the "meta" is just something MMOs seem to really get stuck in.

Im sure we will see the "flavor of the week" builds come launch. I remember all the Darkrunners, Stone Arrows and Daggerspells in Archeage until the first update, and they made way for the next ones and you rarely saw Daggerspells anymore.

Damokles

@Karthos
The thing i liked most about ArchAge was that you could mix three classes together xD
(Left after a week, because i realised that it would just turn into a mnoey grab at that point)
My build was nearly only CC and dot melee double handed sword based (dont ask me how, but it was tons of fun to be a heavy weapons assassin ;D)
I am also always a fan of the not so favoured builds, like the Combat rogue in WoD (I loved that class together with multistrike, I had around 80% chance to hit more than once and my top dps came from autoattacks xD)

Wandering Mist

Karthos wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

@Karthos
Or sometimes, a class is just so broken, that they dont NEED any gear!
*cough* vanilla rogue *cough*

Sad but true. It seems the "meta" is just something MMOs seem to really get stuck in.

Im sure we will see the "flavor of the week" builds come launch. I remember all the Darkrunners, Stone Arrows and Daggerspells in Archeage until the first update, and they made way for the next ones and you rarely saw Daggerspells anymore.

Every online game has a meta, there is no getting around that. Perfect balance is almost impossible to achieve and actually undesirable in a pvp environment so there will always be things that are stronger than others.

Even games that are entirely skill based like fighting games have a meta.

dphantomtv

See this is much different than games that I'm used to, which is: "everyone has the same advantages going into the game." Which is something I really love. You can't blame anything but yourself for losing. And it feels less like "Whoever is more OP wins" and more "I'm better than you." Cause let's be honest, nothing is worse than dying to someone who is lesser skilled than you but is playing something OP.

Rem_

Ugh I'm so concerned about this. I really want Ashes to be my first mmorpg, it still probably will BUT. It will be a super big shame if just farming and putting more time into the game = 100% win all the time.

Higher gear should = better, TO AN EXTENT though. I'm not saying a level 1 should be able to "Outplay" a level 30 or 20 or something but I'd love to see like... if you're within 10 levels of someone gear should matter less, and it should be more about skill. I hate to see people with just thousands of hours be gods and unstoppable, that should only be reserved to like literally gods and maybe kings and queens being guarded.

I just feel like that will add a HUGE amount to the game, and bring in other players like me who haven't ever really heard of mmorpg games.

I reallly heccin hope that some outplay potential will be there if you're using mostly action combat, maybe a 5-10 level difference in where you're able to outplay someone based on skill rather than gear.

Azryil

Steven has also mentioned that the class balance is going to be in a rock paper scissors style, so there are going to be some classes that just simply have an advantage over you. But balance is based on group play on 1v1, so there is also going to be a level of skill when it comes to putting together a team.

Karthos

MMOs are less about what you know and more about who you know.

Or rather how many.

We don't call it "Custer's Last Stand" because Custer had better guys and better gear.

Magic Man

@Dphantomtv Agreed. Unfortunately, Ashes will have many traditional MMORPG elements which are uninteresting combat, lack of deep exploration, being non-immersive, unexciting\boring story and quests and in general the 'artificial' feel that most MMOs have in which case you just click stuff to do things. The MMO community - 'MMORPGers' comprises of truly pathetic and desperate people who played WoW clones and 'different but still the same' kind of games for years - Some of them are beyond help so it's pointless to explain the importance of 'skill'. They would try to convince you that MMORPGs requires a 'different set of skill'...For Ashes I will still wait till alpha 1. If I feel like it's 'just another MMORPG', I might still play till Chronicles of Elyria and some other truly unique MMOs release.

Wandering Mist

Dphantomtv wrote: »

See this is much different than games that I'm used to, which is: "everyone has the same advantages going into the game." Which is something I really love. You can't blame anything but yourself for losing. And it feels less like "Whoever is more OP wins" and more "I'm better than you." Cause let's be honest, nothing is worse than dying to someone who is lesser skilled than you but is playing something OP.

Losing to someone less skilled than you isn't limited to mmorpgs. Many competitive online games have that problem, known as cheesing. Fighting and RTS games are notorious for having cheese tactics that are very easy to execute, but incredibly hard to defend against.

Volgaire

I hope skill makes a huge difference compared to most mmo's where it's level > gear > skill

seaber

Gear will always play a part; I very much doubt many people would play an equalised mmorpg.

I strongly suspect many people in this thread have seen some mmorpg gameplay and thought something like 'they are just pushing cooldowns' without actually seeing what is happening in the fight.

The two mmorpgs that I have pvped in extensively are eso and aa. Both have hybrid (tab and 'action') combat, with aa being more towards the 'action' end of the spectrum. Despite gear being extremely important in both, you could still win outnumbered and outgeared by playing more 'skillfully'. I really think y'all need to stop worrying.

nb I am using 'gear' to mean level, unlocked skills, gear etc
in this context tab and action are what Steven defined them
to be on Jahlon's recent interview
skill means whatever the 'ree tab takes no skill' people think
counts as skill as well as skills like building your character,
positioning, knowledge etc

Karthos

^ defuq is that formatting?

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