Combat power from level should be Incremental NOT Exponential
heliowolf
Member
I really hope that leveling your adventurer class and acquiring the corresponding gear and skill upgrades incrementally increases your strength in a linear-ish fashion. I really dislike it in MMOs and RPGs when each level doubles you strength. I think it massively cheapens the experience when going from level 9 to level 10 allows you to take on level 10s for the first time and makes you one shot level 9s. Levels should reflect content difficulty and reward not content gating.
From a Risk-Reward game design perspective a you should be able to contest a much higher level monster or player through superior numbers and skill, and taking on multiple lower level opponents simultaneously should still provide challenge. I love almost every aspect of the design of AoC and can appreciate a super long leveling process and no scaling so longs as combat with/against higher level players is still viable. If power gain from level, gear, skills, buffs, etc is incremental and doesn't excessively compound, players can play with different level friends, control difficulty of PVE content both solo and with groups, use off meta builds and play styles, defend themselves in groups from high level PK characters, pull off incredible feats of skill against stronger opponents and participate to some effect in node and world events.
Doing .1% damage to a high level player or getting one-shot 10x over-killed isn't fun. When I grind for a level or upgrade I want it to feel stronger, not be put in a whole new tier and bracket of players and content. I doubt this will be the case but if it was up to me I would want the time it takes to progress level to level, gear to gear, to be exponential but the power increase provided each level to be constant with a mild compounding effect across level, gear, ability, buffs, etc. The new player should fairly quickly get to the point they aren't being one shot by top tier stuff but reaching that top tier yourself and becoming the apex predator would take a majority of the time. With a small group of friends, some time investment and knowledge of how to play effectively few monsters (obviously high level raids are another story) and no players should be untouchable. Almost all MMO's fail at this design by making power gain both across levels/gear tiers and content expansions wildly out of control and if it were up to me I think I may look for a one level and corresponding upgrades increase to provide as little as 10% total power increase, maybe 15% with the compounding effect of builds. Edit: I mean 10% of the original level such that a level 20 is 100%, twice as powerful, as a level 10 which would in practice make him stronger than two level 10s due to concentration of power but weaker than three.
From a Risk-Reward game design perspective a you should be able to contest a much higher level monster or player through superior numbers and skill, and taking on multiple lower level opponents simultaneously should still provide challenge. I love almost every aspect of the design of AoC and can appreciate a super long leveling process and no scaling so longs as combat with/against higher level players is still viable. If power gain from level, gear, skills, buffs, etc is incremental and doesn't excessively compound, players can play with different level friends, control difficulty of PVE content both solo and with groups, use off meta builds and play styles, defend themselves in groups from high level PK characters, pull off incredible feats of skill against stronger opponents and participate to some effect in node and world events.
Doing .1% damage to a high level player or getting one-shot 10x over-killed isn't fun. When I grind for a level or upgrade I want it to feel stronger, not be put in a whole new tier and bracket of players and content. I doubt this will be the case but if it was up to me I would want the time it takes to progress level to level, gear to gear, to be exponential but the power increase provided each level to be constant with a mild compounding effect across level, gear, ability, buffs, etc. The new player should fairly quickly get to the point they aren't being one shot by top tier stuff but reaching that top tier yourself and becoming the apex predator would take a majority of the time. With a small group of friends, some time investment and knowledge of how to play effectively few monsters (obviously high level raids are another story) and no players should be untouchable. Almost all MMO's fail at this design by making power gain both across levels/gear tiers and content expansions wildly out of control and if it were up to me I think I may look for a one level and corresponding upgrades increase to provide as little as 10% total power increase, maybe 15% with the compounding effect of builds. Edit: I mean 10% of the original level such that a level 20 is 100%, twice as powerful, as a level 10 which would in practice make him stronger than two level 10s due to concentration of power but weaker than three.
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If players have a "power" of 10 at level 1, and gain 1 "power" per level, at level to they have a power of 11. Going from 10 to 11 is noticable.
On the other hand, when they get to level 49, they are at 59 "power" and going to level 50 brings them to 60. The change from 59 to 60 is the same as the change from 10 to 11, but is not really noticable.
This is why progression is often done as a percentage - though doubling in strength seems a bit off to me (more like a 5 - 10% gain per level).
I've never played a game that hands players that much power that quickly.
Most games a fresh capped vs geared capped player is about 500%. If the difference between max with worst gear and max with best gear is less than 50% you can flush the whole pve part down the toilet as there will be no need to get great gear, you can just get good gear and not worry about it or any of the crafting systems.
This isn't supposed to be a gearless arena where everyone has the exact same gear and stats
We do not know the stats of any armour in Ashes right now, I can't even give you a base stat so to magically whip up +500% when expansions are planned is something I find incredulous. You must believe after three expansions we'll be at +1500% then, or do you only believe in ridiculous stat boosts for base games?
Edit: When I said +50% I meant from base max level to maximum gear. Not from level 0 to maximum gear.
Fresh capped players don't have tier 1 epic/legendary gear lol. Well now epics are candy but not when I played
I am comparing a fresh capped player in all greys vs one in full max tier legendarys. Back when the cap was 60 you usually were still wearing some level 55 green/blues the min you hit 60.
Example
atiesh-greatstaff-of-the-guardian
vs
level 60 grey lol
the difference there is insane
I have to agree, it is much more than 500% in WoW. A fresh max level can't even get through a geared max levels natural HP regen.
50% is tiny, and means I am only ever, at WORST, fighting 1.5 people in a 1v1 if we're both max level. I like those odds very, very much compared to most other games where it is no where near that fair. It also gives room for gear to actually be impactful without being down-right unbalanced. If someone with the best gear in the game is still only 50% better than someone with the cheapest gear? That's sick. I am happy to be on either side of that 50% without complaint.
Maybe.
We'll see how it feels once we're playing, I guess. When I heard it I was pretty happy though.