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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
So here we get into the issue of player mastery vs character mastery. Let's take your gun example. You're right that there is a learning curve when switching to a different weapon because they are physically different. Even if the 2 guns are similar they behave differently and have nuances to them that set them apart.
But that's not how things work in WoW. For the most part there is no physical difference between a 1-handed sword and a 1-handed axe. In fact, assuming both weapons have the same stats, they act exactly the same. Sure your character might not have the skill of the axe, but you, the player do.
Imagine if the .45 felt and fired identical to the 9mm, but for some unknown reason you were less accurate with the .45 just because you hadn't fired that gun as much. Would that feel right to you?
I agree that more games should make you work at things more, but you do this through player mastery, NOT character mastery. If I'm playing Dark Souls and my character has a greatsword, then I pick up a set of twin-blades, I will not be as good at using the twin-blades purely because they are very different to use compared to the greatsword. It will take me time to learn the range and attack speed of these weapons, which is all down to player mastery.
TLDR: WoW's weapon mastery system was all about character mastery (which is very artificial) when it should instead be about player mastery.
The devs could add aging to our characters, but it's highly unlikely. We would have heard about that already.
There could be a game like that, but that's not Ashes.
What you describe in this post sounds closer to Chronicles of Elyria.
People will get max lvl 80, and then buy 80 lvl items and send/trade to their alt lvl 1? and what will happen? 1000-5000 damage sword on lvl 1 warrior instead of 3-7? No. This is garbage idea. It would make sense in RGP or solo lore game idk.
We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there. – Jeffrey Bard
It could be Ashes, but you can't say it isn't Ashes.
You agree we want restrictions on items, but you claim I don't?
I understand what you are saying. But item's should 100% have level requirements, in my opinion. What make's it not feel immersive because you don't have the level required to wear a helmet/armor? It's a cool idea about items being restricted to "stats" but stats come with levels. I get what you're saying about how it would be cool if you needed the agility to wield a rapier or the strength to wield a sword but at the end of the day - those are still "levels" in their own sense. We are just changing the terminology if we are moving it to stat requirements. Example - this rapier can only be wielded if you have 80 in your agility stat. You can only get your agility stat to 80 once you hit 70 Strength and 70 Stamina. You can't technically wield the rapier until you "level" your character up.
My other thought, where is the prestige in high lvl PVE item's and drops if there aren't any level requirements for people that have leveled their characters up?
Onto your last question - "Like what is a level". Here is the link to the wiki on it: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Leveling. There are many links on this page that go into more detail on how leveling works and it's many characteristics. I hope this helped
Side thought came to my mind when reading this. I'm not suggesting at all that this should be the way AoC should be designed, but you could have systems other than leveling that award stat points.
Completing certain quests or conditions (kill X number of rabbits to get a title which gives more dexterity, one-shot a certain boss, ect.), eating different foods (either one time award, deteriorates over time, or diminishing return for eating the same food), gaining more strength points as you use melee attacks or chop down trees, ect. Just a random thought on alternative ways a game could let you gain stats without a leveling system. Tie the stat gains to actions and achievements instead of a experience system (which is really just a "middle man" system to doing actions to get progress anyways, mostly just serves as a way to decouple actions & progress so progress is not linked to a specific action and a control dial for player progression speed).
Benefits of such a system is that progress is based on engaging with the worlds different systems, gives good incentives to engage with gathering/crafting systems, and creates a nice flow of discovery and progress through performing common actions. Down side is this would be terribly hard to balance if stat's are heavily influential on combat performance (could be mitigated some by having performance more from gear than stats) and easily grindy/exploitable without time deterrents/caps on certain actions (like having a satiety system to limit the amount of food you could eat over a period of time).
Q: Will you go for bikini plate armor for females?
A: We're going for kind of a more realistic look; not necessarily realistic setting, but we want our characters to have weight and kind of feel like they're there.
That is not the same thing as "We want the game to be realistic."
The devil is in the details. Context is king.
I can say it isn't Ashes. I did say it isn't Ashes.
It's technically not impossible it could be Ashes, but the likelihood is less than 5%.
I claimed you don't want level restrictions.
And I claimed the skill restrictions you suggested aren't worth the time and effort it would take the devs to code.
I'm not even sure you want levels, since you stated, "What even is a level? It doesn't make sense."
Level restrictions do not conflict with Ashes lore.
I totally for about certain quests called class quests which are linked to levels, they could include class levels that teaches you how to use armor and weapons, then proficiency in using them, as well as something similar like tuning to items which would be more lore friendly, of course not to tune to every single weapon/armor, but learning how to tun to certain level weapons and I'd say have them within a range. Not for every single level.
Oh no I read it, which is exactly why i responded the way I did. Damn near everything you post in here or in the discord is just some opinionated bullshit half of the time, with no real statistics or facts placed behind it. And every time someone hits you with a truth statement FROM THE WIKI, you slink off and hide or try and twist the wording. Fact of the matter is, you don't have near the info needed or even a basic understanding of anything entailed in the game. You just keep spouting nonsense that some 14 year old yob would say. You just don't like leveling, your "immersion" is a scapegoat.
So again, no.
Edit: Also, read the wiki. Lex and the others work hard to make sure it's uptodate. So do yourself a favor and read it.
The issue isn't with levels, it isn't with game design, it is with the OP not having an internal explination for why this kind of thing may happen.
Basically, the issue here is inside the OP's head.
So, @ViBunja
My suggestion to you is to look at every single item in every single game that has a level restriction as bing kind of like Infinity Stones in the MCU. While characters of higher power can wield them just fine, if you are not of sufficient power and attempt to do so, you are not in for a good time.
Assume this is a piece of information our characters innately have, and the game is communicating it to us players via the minimum level on the item.
Problem solved.
To which VIbungja will reply... Why can I only hold one infinity stone, but Thanos gets to hold all of them? Thanos being purple ruins my immersion... ect...
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Kek, sounds like you're in the wrong hobby
Do we need a bathroom time too? A "im gonna piss my pants" debuff?
I don't think it's possible to make a system not level reliant in an MMO that will accomplish the same things. Level requirements enforce proper gear progression. They prevent power leveling. They prevent Tweaking that completely ruins PvP systems in MMO's.
I personally hate how elder scrolls handles armor efficiency to the skill. The grinding for it is ungodly long and it involves being hit by a rat for hours until it's maxed so you don't ever have to worry about it again.
So level restricted gear also enforces healthy grind gameplay compared to other systems that require huge time sinks into grinding stupid things that make even less sense. I'd rather the game be good rather than Immersive. xD
I did like WoW's original weapon skill system though. It added depth to an otherwise basic as hell system. It didn't only apply to weapons either. Spells also used this system, but they didn't have to level it. It leveled to a certain point each time they leveled. So maybe if defense worked like that too it might be a little better. Weapons using the system made sense and it didn't take that long to max it. The problem was more that you had to do it with defense and offense for every single weapon and armor type. xD Intelligence made you learn faster back then. So having a learning gear set helped a lot. Another problem is if you unlearned the ability to use a weapon. You had to start over. However, ashes does not need a system like this because it will have depth in other areas. WoW was made with the intent to innovate a lot of ideas from other MMO's. Not all of their ideas stuck that well.
U.S. East
I am personally fine with not having PARTICULARLY level requirement, as long as it works in video game space in terms of balancing and common sense I think people could accept it. However it is a system that has been proven to work time and time again, relatively easy to implement and people versed in any RPG game won't be alienated by a new gearing system they are not familiar with lowering a bar for entry.