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[Discussion] Should the levels be revealed to outsiders?
deadmansprice
Moderator, Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I heard recently that Intrepid is letting people outside of guilds and friend groups see the the following below as stated by Jahlon on Discord and has specified these:
Level, Class Combination, Armor Type, Armor Tier
There was a bit of discussion, some support this and others do not and that has me curious. What do you think about this? Should the above be public information to outsiders? Or should they be hidden as to make it risky for everyone involved?
Please discuss your thoughts!
https://strawpoll.com/swjucvr44 - Here's the poll. Would like to see how many would support this argument and who would not support this.
Level, Class Combination, Armor Type, Armor Tier
There was a bit of discussion, some support this and others do not and that has me curious. What do you think about this? Should the above be public information to outsiders? Or should they be hidden as to make it risky for everyone involved?
Please discuss your thoughts!
https://strawpoll.com/swjucvr44 - Here's the poll. Would like to see how many would support this argument and who would not support this.
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Comments
You can't make a solid choice if its not an informed choice.
Showing gear and such is one thing, but literally throwing your level out there on a silver platter? Screw that. What's next? Secondary tanks being able to tank? P2W in the shop? Consistency is what we need.
There is no risk in this, just reward. For a company so blatant about the game being like this, this decision is completely out of left field and feels like some WoW player just complained until they got what they want. Idk, I just think it's shit.
Level, Class Combination, Armor Type, Armor Tier , allows players to make a more reliable plan of action that is more dependent on strategy and skill.
This is so important in terms of balance and in terms of how pvp in the open world will feel overall as a whole. There is already a lot of variables within open world pvp as it is.
edit: guess I should throw my opinion in too. I personally don't care either way, I voted for showing those things because if I get ganked I want to know it was an intentional ganking so I can get revenge once I'm higher level, otherwise it might just be someone thinking I was a higher level and not actually trying to gank. But I've never played a game where all that stuff was totally hidden, so I'd be happy to try it out and add the unkown variable to PvP for more excitement.
With transmog capability, someone with god's own armor can show up in rags. So it would be helpful to gauge basic risk. Armor type, tier, gear score, SSN, FICO, blah, blah, blah - are all metas that barely refine the 2 factors above.
One of the reasons I like peoples HP numbers not being viewable is a lot of the time you can tell how strong someone is by looking at their health, but making it so that health number is no longer visible removes that possibility.
oof I need to get to learning all the class names. I think maybe just the primary archetype would be a good option as well so that you get a good idea of the strategy you'll need to take against the enemy, but still leave a little room for surprise and on-the-fly adaptation based on what augments they have. If they do end up showing the full on class name (sentinel, guardian, etc.), I would like a UI option that lets me just show the primary archetype instead for when you're still learning class names or if I want a little more surpsie in pvp.
I do think that excluding a basic armor type/tier indicator would be a little p2w with all the purchased cosmetics available, but nothing that would turn me off from the game.
Seriously. I thought about that, but I figured we can keep all the classes and specs in our head for several mmos at a time, so we can learn quickly. If it's just archetype, I think it will get too generic quickly. Unless for that awkward period before I choose a subclass, then it makes sense to just show Archetype.
Plus, I figure if I'm a Sentinel - I'm a Sentinel - no mere Ranger.
Having indicators, make it easy to see relevant info at a glance, but also doesnt tell if that guy has a whole set or not, etc. Unless they also gonna make set bonuses visable...then maybe show all buffs...?
My reasoning: It's the biggest coefficient for offensive/defensive power which translates to risk. You can be perfectly skilled, and totally confused as to why you got face-rolled by some dude in rags that's 30 levels above you.
Without knowing that someone is statistically orders of magnitude above you, you'll have no feedback as to whether it's basic algebra, your skill, or both you need to overcome before beating the other player.
lol so true. the amount of knowledge we have about games is astounding, learning 64 classes is nothing really. Imagine if we had spent all our game time learning something that society deems productive
Class ID, I always saw how we use them; TNK/TNK, CLR/SUM, etc. 64 class names might get a little long, especially at a distance.
Suggestions and/or indicators of level range, for sure.. (handled by what gear looked like in some other games..)
To make it more realistic, the only thing that party/guild members should see is health and mana...and really that could be yelled out in a voice chat and not displayed..."hey, I'm about 10% health...send me a heal" and if you're not using voice chat, then the visual health/mana info would need to be displayed.
I really really don't like it when an enemy player's health/mana is shown...sure it's nice to know but it takes some of the fun out of knowing if they only have one more hit left before they die or if you seen them drink a pot (healing/mana/other) and now they're... hmmm, who knows what that pot did, was it healing, mana,...insert "mystery jazz hands" and if you can see all their info, then you'd know what that pot did.
A possible solution is to make it an option for a player to share the information that they want. Allow a checkbox next to each possible displayed item. Want only your class to be shown...check that one and leave the rest for anyone attacking you to figure out.
As far as knowing if your higher/lower level than someone else...well, when you run into someone you don't know, you both take the risk of fighting someone who's higher level than you.
I don't want to be able to run close to someone, see all their info (class, armor, blood type, mother's maiden name,...) and run away if they're scary then do it again for the next person I see.
Just to keep a higher level person from unintentionally griefing someone who's lower level, I think whatever info is displayed (name?) could be a certain color to indicate they are lower than you are... but I guess this could be abused and put a target on all low level players and allow higher level players an easy way to hunt down the lower level players based off they're color....
I think it would be cool if your character automatically 'learned' from your fight and displayed relevant information above the other player as the fight progressed or create an ability that you can learn/train to 'know' the information of the other player and this could be opposed by the other player's 'know' skill.
Say you got hit with a certain spell and only a few classes know that spell...then your hit with another attack, your character would be able to narrow down what class(s) the player is based off those attacks or if your hit with an attack and it really really hurt the hell out of you, their (name?) color would show red to indicate they are higher level than you.
The next time you see that player any information you learned from before would be displayed and if you fought again, you'd get updated information. The last time you fought they were red...but you take the chance and fight again and notice that they don't hit that hard anymore and their color would change accordingly.
Guess there would need to be a way to store all that info for each player you fought against, not sure how much of an impact that would have on the game/server.
wow...sorry for the long post
If you kill a lower level non-combatant, you gain significantly more corruption than if you killed an equal level non-combatant.
All up though, I really don't understand any position players can have that thinks it is a good idea to purposfully obfuscate information from players. Give players more information than they need, and let us sort out what information we care about.
In the good olden days, we would judge players lvl by their equipment and skills they use. This would also allow, to change eq to pretend to be a lower lvl than you actually are to bait some people from other guild you're at war. I would compromise on showing if player is higher or lower lvl, as this could mean +1lvl or -1lvl as +10lvl or -10. But giving too much information is ridiculous, next thing you will want win chance persentage, so u run up to a guy, it shows 45% chance of winning, u turn around and run back. Information about players skills, stats, lvl, health, mana, etc should be private.
As for level ... may be don't show the actual number, but use color or icons to indicate the other player's level relative to yours? e.g. within -2 ~ +2 = yellow, +2 ~ +5 levels above = red, > +5 levels above = dark red ... etc.
But i personally would enjoy strolling around in the node and having a look at my fellow citizen´s stuff and progress. This could be helpfull to give out tips or simply mutually exchange infos on gear and character related topics. Also when visiting other nodes this could be interesting to know which kind of path they are going with gear, like realizing "Oh gawd those guys from the north seem to be tanky as hell"
So maybe display the level in safer zones?
Yeah, but thats where good old talking to people and interacting with people comes in, if info is dislayed, you just will look at it and run away on ur business, if not, to know this info, you would actually need to ask and talk to people, and some would tell you, some would not and its their choice..
You would be able to do the same in real life.
You may never ask people about why they have armor x and helmet y, when you dont have the info initially.
People probably mostly having cosmetics on them is another treshhold.
Also you rely on people responding back and it might be a huge time investment to ask many people, so you might never get to know how certain people in your node progress their chars and get to help them in some way. Maybe you know weapon x will be a good fit and suggest them grinding them at a certain spot or get to know a new approach.
I know, for a lot of people that are worried about pvp and getting ganked etc etc, this seems like a good idea, as you can hover over other guy and immediately know if you can kill him or not.
I think with lvl's its a bit overextending, i get the armor grades and tiers, but damn, next thing you know, they will reveal all the augments, skill builds and everything...
Yeah, but you can see if he has protctive gear or not (Equipment). You can gouge his stance and overall musculature (LvL).
Yes, but IRL there is no coefficient to the magnitude of effects. A 10yr old can shoot a 50 year old 4th Dan BJJ guy in the head and that encounter is over. In Ashes a lvl10 will try to attack a lvl50 and have ZERO chance to win.
I'm all for not showing level, as long as level is disconnected from core stats, as in Insurgency.
You would have a potential point here if it weren't for the fact that a level 1 can equip the best looking cosmetics in the game, and those wanting to attack them have no way of looking at their actual gear.
I'm not interested in the game working out a percentage win chance for me - but I should have the information needed to be able to work that out myself.
That would be really cool if different regions of a server developed their own playstyles/builds, but I'm afraid with today's access to information and the amount of content we as gamers consume on YouTube and other platforms, it will most likely be content creators and other online info that shape trends in builds much more than word of mouth in game.
Class:
Armor type:
Lvl difference: Grey, Green, Yellow, Red.
Life pool: Life pool at the distance shows porcentage. Melee range gear inspection reveals life pool in numbers
Skills, stats and build should be private or have check-boxes.
Also, death recap:
That would be great interaction.
well it has been confirmed, that gear grade and rarity will be shown, so you will be able to roughly see what gear they have