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Power differential
Keith
Member
In a interview with a popular twitch personality Steven said that the differential in power at the most extreme ends(I'm assuming this is between two level 50's) will be 50%.
Progression is obviously necessary and more time investment should mean more power. I'm not against this, however if im defending a node and i hit someone and they take 15% damage and then they do their spell and i'm toast. This will not be enjoyable for the casual player base.
Casual players will be the largest audience, games that focused too much on hardcore players went under.
I understand AOC is a unique game and cant really be compared to the failured of other hardcore MMO's but there is no doubt this IS A HARDCORE GAME. I mean anyone that wants to say this is casual is out of their mind. Just the idea of losing ur resources u gathered because you lost a battle is super hardcore for an MMO.
This is a sandbox MMO as far as I can tell and i dont think MMO players necessarily want the reward/risk nature of sandbox survival games.
I'm simply expressing my concerns, I get that steven is a hardcore lineage or Archage player but i think that ship has sailed.
MMO pve players dont like pvp and wont like to be forced to fight a pvp battle to earn the rights to fight a dragon.
I myself prefer the hardcore nature of the game, I want mobs to do random moves I want the game to b difficult, i'm okay with the whole concept of the game. So I'm not speaking out of bias, i'm just really concerned about whether AOC is overestimating the demand for such a hardcore MMO and whether it can placate the casual mmo audience while remaining a risk/reward sandbox survival style MMO.
Progression is obviously necessary and more time investment should mean more power. I'm not against this, however if im defending a node and i hit someone and they take 15% damage and then they do their spell and i'm toast. This will not be enjoyable for the casual player base.
Casual players will be the largest audience, games that focused too much on hardcore players went under.
I understand AOC is a unique game and cant really be compared to the failured of other hardcore MMO's but there is no doubt this IS A HARDCORE GAME. I mean anyone that wants to say this is casual is out of their mind. Just the idea of losing ur resources u gathered because you lost a battle is super hardcore for an MMO.
This is a sandbox MMO as far as I can tell and i dont think MMO players necessarily want the reward/risk nature of sandbox survival games.
I'm simply expressing my concerns, I get that steven is a hardcore lineage or Archage player but i think that ship has sailed.
MMO pve players dont like pvp and wont like to be forced to fight a pvp battle to earn the rights to fight a dragon.
I myself prefer the hardcore nature of the game, I want mobs to do random moves I want the game to b difficult, i'm okay with the whole concept of the game. So I'm not speaking out of bias, i'm just really concerned about whether AOC is overestimating the demand for such a hardcore MMO and whether it can placate the casual mmo audience while remaining a risk/reward sandbox survival style MMO.
2
Comments
50% difference is crazy low. In many MMOs the difference between a max level in greys and blues is over 100% and greys vs best in slot gear is usually more like 500%. Most people are used to being able to 2vs5 no problem in pvp if they are really geared out.
There are several.
PvP focused games do tend to have a shorter life than PvE focused games, bet even then there are exceptions.
A 50% power differential is incredibly low. It almost makes progression at the level cap not worth it.
Hi Keith,
I don't think you should be too alarmed. The best thing about Ashes is that there will really be something for everyone. We can kind of assume that people who are super hardcore PvPers and PvErs will end up being a bit more powerful than most other players, but the games, according to Steven is balanced around groups not 1v1.
He wants it to be similar to early EQ or early WoW when you could look at a player and say wow, they have some good gear they worked hard for it! There will be no "participation" trophies in this game like the WoW of today.
Also, so while some people may be good at PvE and PvP, there will be lots of people who are amazing at life skills, professions, religion and maybe even those super powerful up in their society (like a Thieve's guild). The main focus of the game is going to be the nodes, and it's going to require everyone who is part of a node to contribute, defend, grow and nourish their node, which in turn becomes their community. It should be a very different experience from what you may be used to.
50% difference is not enough to make anyone feel useless. As has been said, most games have this at ten times that amount.
The point of Steven saying that was to appease players that don't want to feel useless - as it would mean Ashes provides players with literally the least amount of post level cap progression of any MMO on the market. Which means there is no scope for peopel to feel useless.
Yeah, I do.
I want an end game progression based raid game, as Steven has said will be developed.
You can't have raid progression without gear progression. Without gear progression, players will just be able to step right in to the end of what should be the raid progression, which means that raid progression was in fact not a progression at all.
My hope is that he means this is the difference between level 50 players that actually try to gear up as best they can, and level 50 players in guilds that are killing top end raid content.
I need to find time to listen to the latest few interviews in order to gain context on a few statements that have been made - as with Steven, sometimes things he says have drastically different meaning when you take them out of context, as he is not exactly a professional PR person (which is a good thing, imo).
Once the packs are taken down - about every month or so - the cosmetics will never be able to be acquired again.
I've never really understood this sentiment.
Skill progression is a real thing too.
I seriously doubt if you gave every WoW player mythic-level gear they'd suddenly all be able to clear mythic-level content. The amount of personal skill, coordination, and dedication required to clear that content is as much a factor if not more than gear treadmill walls, imo.
I've only ever done mythic level raiding in WoW, I didn't even level the character I used myself - it is my brothers account.
While WoW is not an overly good game to use as an example in this context due to it's low skill level over all, it absolutely is possible for a player that hasn't even played the game to take a geared out character and play it successfully in mythic raiding in WoW.
Some players, sure. Some players have skill but don't have the time required to invest in gearing a character.
However, I would say that they are the vast minority of players.
I'm also curious what games you would posit have more difficult raiding environments than mythic-level WoW raids. The raid environment in the MMO market at large has pretty much dried up as far as I'm aware.
EQ2.
Not sure if it still does, but in the past it has had raids that make WoW raids look like childs play.
And yeah, it's true that MMO players without raid experience would have to progress through the content to gain the skills needed that are specific to raiding, but those skills are finite, and able to be learned in any game.
What that means is that if that is the only progression Ashes has in regards to raiding, then it has to be said that Ashes raiding has no progression.
I mean, is it progression in Ashes if you are learning all you need to learn from playing GW2?
Again, 50%, if that's true, is a very small difference in power. You will be able to fight back with significant resistance for sure, if it's only 50% difference.
As for raiding progression, I'm really not here for that. I don't find that kind of gameplay interesting or challenging in the slightest and it makes me physically sleepy. What we find difficult is pretty subjective. I for one do not find raids like in WoW difficult, not in classic and not in retail. To me it's just a matter of having good enough gear and following the instructions/mechanics.
I just don't see 'gear progression' as actual progression. Raiding tends to have very little to do with skill and everything to do with your gear, and then you do that repeatedly to get the gear which makes the content trivial, then soon a new patch comes out so you can delete all your gear. I know this is the popular trend, but I hate it, and am incredibly bored by it. It just makes me not want to invest any time into the game, because there is no sense of progression or accomplishment, for me. Nothing I do matters because it will just be vendor trash soon.
That's just my opinion at least, and I'm supporting this game in the desperate hope that kind of stuff doesn't show up here too. So far it's looking good, I like that raids will offer tradeable materials and that crafters can make the best quality gear in the game with those materials... This means that we can all focus on the parts of the game we want to play, without being left behind. PvX for the win!
Also keep in mind they want the ability for you to lose gear. It can be broken, it can even be looted from your corpse if you're corrupted. The materials to make it can even be taken from you, so if you imagine a rich PvE guild and their storage gets destroyed, they will be losing a lot of mats, PvE raid quality mats that are in the hands of PvPers now who never even did the raid, and that's awesome.
Anyway, just some rambling opinions of mine. I totally understand if some people feel differently, the MMO genre has changed a lot over the years, but PvP/PvE philosophies have always been a pretty contentious area, lol.
Back to the 50% difference, that's only a max of having to fight one and a half people! Compare that to WoW with a fresh 120 vs a geared 120, where you can't even begin to estimate the power difference it may as well be infinity% because the fresh 120 can get deleted by a single proc, while not even being able to overcome the passive hp regen of the geared 120.
EQ2 and Rift are the only games that have had raid content that I have considered worth playing, and even then, Rift only just scrapes by.
This only applies to WoW raiding. WoW requires no skill, raiding in other games (some other games) does.
Same with gear progression, most games don't simply neutralize the progression from the last content cycle as soon as the next one comes in - I have items that I got from EQ2 raids in 2007 that are still sought after in that game now.
Gear progression isn't about making content you have already killed easier, it is about making content you are about to kill possible. Rather than being the reward that many players think gear is, gear is actually a key to the next lot of content.
That's the kind of gear progression I can get behind and enjoy.