Dev Discussion suggestion:

I'd like to see a Dev Discussion on "Power Creep", the formula for determining just how much more powerful a top-level player is compared to a lowbie.

In a pure PvE game, it makes absolutely no difference other than who can tackle a specific dungeon, etc. But in a game with PvP, it's the difference between who sticks with the game and who doesn't. I'm currently playing Archeage Unchained (only because I have friends there) and the formula works on an Equipment Points system:. the more Equipment Points you have, the more powerful you are. (While you also have a Character Level, like most MMOs, the equipment, itself, basically has Levels, too.) Thus, what we see is people working towards being able to attend events because they've reached a high Character Level, but then being one-shot because other characters have more Equipment Points.

While I'm sure it's fun for that high Equipment Point character to hit the battle field and start dropping people left and right with a single arrow shot, that's one person having fun compared to the 10, 20, or more people who traveled all the way to the fight just to drop dead as soon as they showed up.

The point being, while a player should always feel like they're getting better and growing stronger, there comes a point when having players that much more powerful than everyone else completely ruins the game for those other people. What's the point of showing up to a fight when you don't even get to chance to actually fight?

Thus: How would you design the system to keep a high-level player from basically becoming a "god" compared to lower-level players, while also ensuring that players continue to feel like they're growing stronger?

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Wandering Mist

I personally think power creep would be a very poor dev discussion, not because it isn't important (it absolutely is) but because in my experience most players don't understand what power creep is, what causes it or what effect it has on the game.

Jahlon

The thing is if you use Archeage as an example then you are absolutely going to confuse people, since Archeage has a horrible method for determining power and level based against your Equipment Point score.

In Archeage if you invest the majority of your time, effort, energy, and resources into your weapon, you are absolutely more power than someone who has diversified their TEER across their armor and their weapons.

As a 12,500 Healer on the Legacy in AA, there are 14k Gear Score players who can't burn me down, yet there was an 8.8K 2-hander Darkrunner who depending on the RNG of his trips could burn me down in 3 seconds.

I absolutely 100% agree with you that power creep and scaling needs to be discussed, but everyone is going to bring their own game history with them, and that's not necessarily going to be the best for discussions.

Rabbit

I simply used the example to explain what Power Creep is. The fact that I used Archeage makes absolutely no difference. The point is, different games do have different formulas for determining how much more powerful someone is, and I'm asking what type of system would you suggest.

Jahlon

Rabbit wrote: »

I simply used the example to explain what Power Creep is. The fact that I used Archeage makes absolutely no difference. The point is, different games do have different formulas for determining how much more powerful someone is, and I'm asking what type of system would you suggest.

No, I get that, the problem is that Power doesn't always directly correlate to a Gear Score or an Equipment Score. In a lot of games the "equipment score" is there so gamers can stroke their E-peen while having either no correlation or a very poor correlation to the actual power of a character.

Personally I hate Equipment Scores/Gear Scores. Its just an artificial method people use to set a bar for acceptance, when often times the developers have done a bad job of making 1=1

Wandering Mist

Rabbit wrote: »

I simply used the example to explain what Power Creep is. The fact that I used Archeage makes absolutely no difference. The point is, different games do have different formulas for determining how much more powerful someone is, and I'm asking what type of system would you suggest.

This shows what happens when I try to write replies after literally just waking up because I kinda skimmed over your OP and missed some things. Now, I'm not very familiar with the gearing system in Archeage but are you sure that you are actually talking about power creep? To me, power creep happens when newer content is put into the game that makes the previous content/gear obsolete or less powerful by comparison. WoW is the classic example of this where the gear you get in each major update or expansion is much stronger than the previous gear, to the point where you can solo older raids or other group content.

What you are talking about is more of just the standard progression you see in every RPG. As you pointed out there needs to be some form of character progression as this is one of the core elements of the RPG genre. And given that there will always be a vast difference in strength between a level 1 character and a level 50 character. Is that a bad thing? I would say not but you might think differently.

Going to end-game content, unless Ashes follows the GW2 example there will again probably be a difference in power between a newly capped character and one that has been capped for a long time. Again, is this a bad thing?

Noaani

Rabbit wrote: »

I'd like to see a Dev Discussion on "Power Creep", the formula for determining just how much more powerful a top-level player is compared to a lowbie.

Power creep is correctly used to refer to an increase in potential character power as new content is added to a game, not to the difference in power between a character that is newly at the level cap vs one that has been at the level cap for a while.

The term to correctly refer to the difference in power between a character that is newly at the level cap vs one that has been at the level cap for a while is as follows; Progression.

I see no reason this needs to be addressed, as it is working as intended in Archeage.

The problem is when players think that level is all that matters - your progression has not stopped because you have hit the level cap (and this is more true in Archeage than in most MMORPG's - though is true in all of them).

Plateau

I'm hoping that at max level they take more of a GW2 approach, where there's a cap to how strong gear can get, and no expansions or content updates can introduce a new cap. Like there's a max amount of stats you can get. New content might let you side-grade and get different stats in different combinations, but they never release higher levels of gear with overall higher stats.

It's not that GW2's system is better; I think power treadmills are probably more fun long-term in themepark, raid-centric MMOs. But in this game where open-world PvP will be a big part, it doesn't make sense to say "New players will get one-shot until they catch up to the people who have been playing for years. So have fun grinding for months before you can actually participate in the core conceit of them game." So Intrepid can't really afford to let the gear ceiling get very high, or at least not without introducing major catch-up mechanics.

Noaani

leonerdo wrote: »

So Intrepid can't really afford to let the gear ceiling get very high, or at least not without introducing major catch-up mechanics.

The single best "catch up mechanic" that a game can introduce is destructible gear.

It means players have to continue to farm just to maintain their current level of gear, and if they opt to then spend a whole lot of time PvP'ing, that gear won't last long.

---

The funny thing about this as a discussion is that literally every expansion any MMO has released that increased the power cap also provided players entering that new content with gear right out of the gate. I mean, how many times have WoW raiders complained that 4 quests in to leveling in the new expansion they are getting equipment that is obsoleting their hard fought for raid loot...

The answer is - every time.

Yet how many of those expansions have players complained that the players that were top end raiding in the previous expansion have an insurmountable advantage in that new content - the same content that is obsoleting that raid gear that those players have?

The answer is, once again - every time.

This whole discussion reads to me like people that are not very good at the game trying to find anything at all to blame their not being very good - other than themselves.

They notice that people that are better at the game also tend to have better gear than they do, and so blame the gear.

They would probably do well to look at it the other way around. Rather than thinking that player is better because they have better gear, look at it as that player has better gear because they are better.

Look at it that way, learn how to get better, better gear will follow being a better player, and then go round one shotting people that have not yet made that leap.

Wandering Mist

leonerdo wrote: »

I'm hoping that at max level they take more of a GW2 approach, where there's a cap to how strong gear can get, and no expansions or content updates can introduce a new cap. Like there's a max amount of stats you can get. New content might let you side-grade and get different stats in different combinations, but they never release higher levels of gear with overall higher stats.

It's not that GW2's system is better; I think power treadmills are probably more fun long-term in themepark, raid-centric MMOs. But in this game where open-world PvP will be a big part, it doesn't make sense to say "New players will get one-shot until they catch up to the people who have been playing for years. So have fun grinding for months before you can actually participate in the core conceit of them game." So Intrepid can't really afford to let the gear ceiling get very high, or at least not without introducing major catch-up mechanics.

GW2 is very much an outlier when it comes to mmorpgs as the focus in that game is exploration and open world events rather than combat, and the end-game progression heavily reflects this. Instead of having an endless gear grind where your character gets stronger and stronger, you gain abilities and items that allow you to explore more of the world and be more effective in world events. Once you reach level cap you have a bunch of mastery tracks that unlock various modes of travel (mounts, gliders, access to teleportation, etc) and other things that give you access to events that you couldn't do previously.

So there is progression in GW2, just not necessarily combat-oriented. Make no mistake though, there is still a huge difference between a newly capped character and a character that has been capped for a long time. This system only works because the core focus of GW2 is exploration. If you tried to put the same kind of progression into a game like WoW or Archeage it would be a complete disaster.

Ishka

To me becoming stronger and stronger over time is legit, even to the point that you're incomparable to a newly lv.max character. The way I see a "Power Creep" is not a problem as long the game has a system that mitigate their "godly strength".

I'll take my experiences (of course) for example. I tried AAU a few days after it was released. Note that I never played it before, with the little time I spent in it, my progression was slow, but that is not the point, upon reaching endgame I started to pvp a little just to get OS or two shots by other players. The time I took to get there was the time they took to get there & get a decent stuff if not a very strong one. In the end I was just a moving piece of bread waiting to be eaten. Since I was lazy asf, and the game did not pleased me anyway for many other reasons. I did not try to improve that much, just to understand later that (in my eyes) the end game pvp was just about who could OS faster than the other.

Now I'll talk about Aion, you can truly become godlike, but thanks to a simple feature that reduces every damage dealt to a player by half it gives more chances for the new player in their fights. You'll think what is the point of this if everyone, even the new player got their damage decreased. Well by the simple fact that the way the classes are designed, the success in pvp also depends on the player's skill. You all know some ppl that spend their time increasing their gear, but never try to improve their gameplay & class mastery, this gives the player a chance, be better than them and you can win. The damage mitigation prevents OS mechanics and the player's skill gives a chance to outplay and compensate for the gear difference. But obviously that's not enough.

A system that could balance things is not possible in my eyes, but give chances for newer players yes.
These types of players will always be stronger no matter what, as a new player you'll end up crushed almost every time. I was crushed for years, and I crushed other players too. This process is normal and people complaining about it needs to man up and spent less time whining and more time practicing.

What you need to ensure is that you can't OS, what is the point of pvp if you press 3 keys to kill someone. Then you need to make sure that the classes mechanics can compensate for gear differences. In the best possible outcome, skill can match the power that gears gives and balance everything. There are a lot of tools to do such a system which I did not think of. But the main one is how the pvp is designed. This is a rough idea, but it is definitely a good way to make things working out.

Noaani

Ishka wrote: »

Now I'll talk about Aion

The fact that damage is halved to players is more of a result of mobs and players having stats assigned differently - a lot of MMO's do something similar to this, especially if they add PvP to the game post launch (which afaik is not the case for Aion, but still).

If both mobs and player characters follow the same system for how stats are applied, then this is not necessary. If Aion did this, then you could have the same PvP in that game, but without the need for players to have their damage halved.

Not that I'm saying that is a bad thing. I'm just saying that if your combat system is designed around both PvP and PvE initially, at the same time and by the same group of developers, it isn't needed. On the other hand, if you have these systems designed by different people or at different times, making an adjustment like this may be the best idea (as was the case in Aion).

I think the thing that will stop people from being one shot most of the time is the fact that if you kill a player faster than they can react, then you are guaranteed to get corruption for that kill.

Players about to attack someone would likely want to at least give that other player a chance to fight back - even if there is a chance for a one shot kill.

This obviously changes up a bit when PvP is ongoing - but if you are in an area where PvP is happening, and you are flagged as a combatant, you can't blame anyone but yourself for what happens next.

Ishka

Well, the one shot for me is just a way to illustrate the problem that rises from having a power creep with a half-made pvp system. Basically my thought is that there is no problem with a power creep if the pvp is well made.

Regarding AOC, I really hope there will be no ways of OS someone corruption or not, just for the fact that I want to enjoy a good pvp system. In my eyes corruption is not a priority compared to having a good fight.
There are games out there where you have a lot of abilities, but gears makes you kill someone with 3 skills, what's the point of having these, better play a mobile game... This makes the concept of pvping useless.
It's like having a piano and using the first 10 keys on the left.

Regarding the corruption, I am unable to guess how it will impact the pvp even more in the case of power creep. I am simply clueless, even with the information I found on the subject. Too much possibilities, I'll wait and see ^^'

The little I can think is, if you get to the point of OS someone, why bothering about corruption, if no one can defeat you. Of course in the case of group fight, everything can happen, but you see my point, if the player's strength is so high it takes him above the system.

LieutenantToast

Hiya! While our designers have helped come up with the rest of the Dev Discussion topics to carry us through 2020 based on what we'd like to gather feedback on, this is a great topic as well! Our recent discussion on content level equalization was to help shape conversation and thought around a similar theme

consultant

Well think Ashes of Creation should ask same or similar questions were it may apply after the game comes out. Right now we are giving bling input cause while we do know a lot about the game there is a lot more we do not know. Think players will be in a position to give better and more helpful answers. One Example is raid and event difficulty. Think this would be a great discussion to have during Betas and after game comes out. Does not apply so much to other topics. Bascially getting more educated responses.

Thanks for having this discussions. All you get with some companies is a brick wall.

Rabbit

LieutenantToast wrote: »

Hiya! While our designers have helped come up with the rest of the Dev Discussion topics to carry us through 2020 based on what we'd like to gather feedback on, this is a great topic as well! Our recent discussion on content level equalization was to help shape conversation and thought around a similar theme

Yep! I read that. I created this post because I was curious about player-vs-player, specifically. I've been working up ways to "even the playing field" with a system, and was curious how others felt about it. Some folks seem to like becoming so powerful they can insta-kill another player, others want a longer/meaningful fight. This discussion, I think, could help gauge where that percentage sits: 50% for/against, etc.

Noaani

I'm going to go back to the OP here, ignoring the incorrect use of the term "power creep" completely, and perhaps pointing the OP to where they went wrong...

But first, a small story.

I started playing Archeage about a month after release. I missed the initial land rush, I missed the Auroria land rush, but that was all good.

I eventually found a plot of land in Auroria, but no where nearby to build packs and no land left in the zone to put up a workbench (and none that I could find set to public). In order to actually build the farmhouse that I put down (this was before gazebos were released, the farmhouse was the only 24*24 with any room to farm), I used my clipper to ferry packs one at a time from Nuia.

Once I built my farmhouse, I started farming. I eventually got enough money to buy a few plots of land next to mine, and then a few more next to those. Before long I had ownership of about 30% of the land in that zone (and was smart enough to buy a lot of full stacks tax certs when they were under 20 silver each).

All this happened even before braziers were in the game - and when they were introduced I started farming 80 - 120 of them a day (and a few archeum trees as well). I made absolute bank, and then used that to craft my own gear to become one of the top 20 best geared characters on the server (A real feat in a pay to win game, if you are not paying for more than a few subscriptions).

After that effort, I then became the person that was able to one shot you.

Rabbit wrote: »

Thus, what we see is people working towards being able to attend events because they've reached a high Character Level, but then being one-shot because other characters have more Equipment Points.

This one sentence spells out enough about you to tell me what kind of gamer you are - and the answer is; not a very good one.

If you are at an event and are being one shot, it is because you are not with the rest of your faction.

If you are away from them, even by 10 meters or so, then yeah, expect to be one shot. But don't blame your equipment, don't blame the progression of the player that attacked you, blame the fact you were standing in a stupid spot.

This is what frustrates me about game forums today. People read up on others demonizing specific aspects of games, and then when a bad thing happens to them, they scroll through all the demonized topics they have read about until one comes up that they think they can use to soak up some of the blame. Then they post about it, and others read about it, spreading the demonizing of that specific thing even more.

Pro tip, if you are one shot in a game, the only thing to blame is you. Clearly, if you are being one shot, you are doing something wrong. Don't try and say the game developer is doing something wrong, because if another player is able to get good enough to one shot you in that game, then that game will provide you with means to get good enough to not be one shot.

Find that path, take it, and shut up.

Wandering Mist

Rabbit wrote: »

LieutenantToast wrote: »

Hiya! While our designers have helped come up with the rest of the Dev Discussion topics to carry us through 2020 based on what we'd like to gather feedback on, this is a great topic as well! Our recent discussion on content level equalization was to help shape conversation and thought around a similar theme

Yep! I read that. I created this post because I was curious about player-vs-player, specifically. I've been working up ways to "even the playing field" with a system, and was curious how others felt about it. Some folks seem to like becoming so powerful they can insta-kill another player, others want a longer/meaningful fight. This discussion, I think, could help gauge where that percentage sits: 50% for/against, etc.

"even the playing field" is always a matter of huge contention, especially in a game like Ashes that focuses heavily on world pvp. In instanced (arena-based) pvp it's fairly easy to give everyone access to the same gear and even boost low level players up to max level whilst in the instance, making the gameplay entirely skill oriented.

In world pvp you can't easily do this so there will always an imbalance of power. You can't get rid of this imbalance without taking away the character progression that is integral to the rpg genre. What most games do instead is put in penalties to stop high level players from constantly killing low level players.

That's partly why the corruption system exists in Ashes.

Wandering Mist

Pro tip, if you are one shot in a game, the only thing to blame is you. Clearly, if you are being one shot, you are doing something wrong. Don't try and say the game developer is doing something wrong, because if another player is able to get good enough to one shot you in that game, then that game will provide you with means to get good enough to not be one shot.

@noaani I disagree with you on this, a lot. I can think of many situations where you can get 1-shot in an mmorpg due to no fault of your own. One of the reasons why I swapped from a PvP realm to a PvE realm in WoW was because I would be questing in a low level area on a low level alt when suddenly a max level player would appear out of nowhere and 1-shot me. There was no counterplay available (if I tried to run they would mount up and run me down), I would just die. Grouping up with people can sometime help but if the power difference is big enough then the high level player can kill my entire group no problem at all.

That said I assume you and the OP are talking about max level characters fighting, with one character having much better gear than the other to the point where 1-shots can occur. You could argue that all you had to do was get better at the game to obtain the better gear and even the playing field, however that all depends on how the better gear is acquired. If acquiring the better gear is either based on time or RNG regardless of skill then I would say there is a problem with the game design.

Unfortunately a lot of mmorpgs these days allow less skilled players to acquire the best gear if they play for long enough or are lucky enough.

Noaani

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Pro tip, if you are one shot in a game, the only thing to blame is you. Clearly, if you are being one shot, you are doing something wrong. Don't try and say the game developer is doing something wrong, because if another player is able to get good enough to one shot you in that game, then that game will provide you with means to get good enough to not be one shot.

@noaani I disagree with you on this, a lot. I can think of many situations where you can get 1-shot in an mmorpg due to no fault of your own. One of the reasons why I swapped from a PvP realm to a PvE realm in WoW was because I would be questing in a low level area on a low level alt when suddenly a max level player would appear out of nowhere and 1-shot me. There was no counterplay available (if I tried to run they would mount up and run me down), I would just die. Grouping up with people can sometime help but if the power difference is big enough then the high level player can kill my entire group no problem at all.

I'm sure you expect this, but in this specific scenario, it is your fault for playing WoW.

If you play a game that is as badly designed as WoW (the definition of a polished turd - many players can't look past how polished it is to realize that it is actually just a turd) then you should expect all sorts of things like this to happen.

And I would also argue that starting late (or leveling slow) on an open PvP server is also your fault. Regardless of the game, if the server is full open PvP (as opposed to Ashes where it is constrained open PvP), then you really need to expect to be ganked if you are not at the leading edge of player progress.

That said I assume you and the OP are talking about max level characters fighting, with one character having much better gear than the other to the point where 1-shots can occur. You could argue that all you had to do was get better at the game to obtain the better gear and even the playing field, however that all depends on how the better gear is acquired. If acquiring the better gear is either based on time or RNG regardless of skill then I would say there is a problem with the game design.

Unfortunately a lot of mmorpgs these days allow less skilled players to acquire the best gear if they play for long enough or are lucky enough.

I've never seen a game where gear is allocated based on time. And I'd agree that such a game would be a stupid design.

RNG though, that is the basis of acquiring gear in Archeage. My way of getting through the RNG barrier early on in Archeage was simply brute force. In my initial gearing up I had some rotten bad luck at times, but if you brute force your way through it, then you eventually get through it.

It isn't fun, I'm not going to argue that point. But if you're playing a game where that is how you get gear, then that is what you do. The player that one shot you went through it...

Rabbit

Noaani: Obvious Troll is obvious. Take your hateful attitude, and personal attacks, elsewhere.

Wandering Mist wrote: »

Rabbit wrote: »

LieutenantToast wrote: »

Hiya! While our designers have helped come up with the rest of the Dev Discussion topics to carry us through 2020 based on what we'd like to gather feedback on, this is a great topic as well! Our recent discussion on content level equalization was to help shape conversation and thought around a similar theme

Yep! I read that. I created this post because I was curious about player-vs-player, specifically. I've been working up ways to "even the playing field" with a system, and was curious how others felt about it. Some folks seem to like becoming so powerful they can insta-kill another player, others want a longer/meaningful fight. This discussion, I think, could help gauge where that percentage sits: 50% for/against, etc.

"even the playing field" is always a matter of huge contention, especially in a game like Ashes that focuses heavily on world pvp. In instanced (arena-based) pvp it's fairly easy to give everyone access to the same gear and even boost low level players up to max level whilst in the instance, making the gameplay entirely skill oriented.

In world pvp you can't easily do this so there will always an imbalance of power. You can't get rid of this imbalance without taking away the character progression that is integral to the rpg genre. What most games do instead is put in penalties to stop high level players from constantly killing low level players.

That's partly why the corruption system exists in Ashes.

I know it's difficult to manage. Thus, why I'm curious if folks have ideas on how to do it.

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