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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
People familiar with the game design concepts explain how the game design already has solutions for the concern.
If the conspiracy theorist is not swayed by the game design, the only thing left to do is wait to see what actually gets implemented. That's the nature of game forums while the game is in development.
Something cannot be "already fixed" before it's created. But the concern can be covered in the design - as in the designers are already aware of the concern and have plans to deal with it.
Solo really just means not in an adventuring party.
You don't need tons of time to participate in a Monster Coin event. And you don't have to formally join an adventuring party to participate. Same thing for Caravans. Same thing for Sieges. There are plenty of ways to not formally be in a group - but also jump into a battle with a bunch of people and stop whenever your time is up.
You can also have friends who will help you acquire competitive gear whenever you play. Even casual solo players can make friends with helpful Gatherers and Crafters who have shops and taverns. Even casual solo players can get a variety of help from guildies.
Again - regardless of gear disparity - if Corruption does not deter ganking as promised, the game is doomed in any case, but...
When you die as a non-combatant, you lose a portion of your resources. It's the same portion as when you die from being killed by a mob. If people lose 50% of resources gathered in focused 90 minute farming for just one death from a mob, casuals will not be playing this game in any case.
Regardless of gear disparity.
Now, hold a moment here, Dygz, even though it's not inherent in the claims made by OP, this makes too many assumptions.
The 'casuals demoralized' problem doesn't require being solo.
If my 'gang' of four has better gear than your 'gang' of four the effect is multiplied, not reduced.
If you were out with your gang of four, even 3 of you dying to the mob doesn't result in resource losses overall, my group experienced this multiple times in Alpha-1 while trying to see how high an enemy we could kill. The last one standing just picks up everyone else's drops. You don't even have to kill the mob if everyone runs and the last survivor gets out of mob leash range.
In a group PvP, this isn't the outcome, the enemy takes all the drops. I say this to illustrate the difference between what a casual group experiences when they take on a mob that's a bit too strong. I get your point, but your concepts presented don't support it.
The post I responded to focuses on being solo, so my response focused on being solo.
I have no clue what you mean by your gang of four having better gear than mine multiplies the demoralization.
The demoralization, however much that may be, is neither multiplied nor reduced. It is neutral.
And gear is irrelevant.
Your gang of four could be higher level than my gang of four - with basically the same outcome of 3 in my gang dying. 3 of my gang could also die from being attacked by a horde of mobs or a gang of NPCs.
I also don't know why you bring up "resource losses overall".
Non-combatants who die drop a portion of their resources. It's the same portion of resources whether it's death from a mob, death from an NPC or death from a PC.
What you seem to be saying is that if you're in a group, there is some possibility of recovering dropped resources if the death is due to mobs and it's not a full wipe.
That just means that non-combatant death doesn't always have to end in the worst case scenario of losing the max amount of dropped resources.
A partial wipe for a group is less demoralizing than a full wipe. True.
Which is fine, but....irrelevant to the discussion.
Gear acquisition is one of the most important things in any game, let alone MMO. My issue with your proposal of 20-30% of a characters power coming from gear makes it so that getting that best in slot piece of gear won't be as satisfying as it otherwise would've been. In New World the power difference you obtain from fresh level 60 gear, and the literal BiS that takes hundreds of thousands of gold to get per piece, and is about 15-20% of player power, and it feels really bad taking tons of time to obtain something and feeling almost no change in damage. That being said I agree with you needing to make it so casual players don't feel like they are losing exclusively to a gear difference but I think 20-30% is simply too low, I think if they did 30-40% of player powering coming from gear, it would feel a lot better overall, while also not over or under tuning gear off the rip.
More often than not though the player who puts more hours into the game is also just going to be better in PvP scenarios, gear often will not be the big deciding factor except in scenarios of equal skill. The purpose of the corruption system is to deter people from randomly killing people for no reason, as they incur more corruption, they become weaker in combat through damage reduction and healing dampening, and finally death penalties are 4x harsher when you are corrupted meaning you lose more resources and XP per death. There are systems and safeguards in place to help out the casual players, reducing the effectiveness of gear will not make it so hardcore players don't bully casual players.
If I'm in an instance where someone is trying to kill me and I know I'll get killed and can't beat them, I'll just not hit back and let them get corrupted. That's part of the system, or I could fight and just know that I'll be at a loss.
Every MMO has casuals, even if it's not designed for them. I've also seen games thrive better when there is a good RP community compared to those that don't. Not everyone has to be end tier or meta.
I guess I’m back.
I never asked for equal gear, instant gratification, or for hardcore players to not be rewarded.
Sitting there and accepting defeat because the other person simply outgears you would be absolutely horrible game design.
MMOs, especially, when they are the size of AoC, need to be designed for casuals because they make the bulk of the population and if the game isn’t p2w also the bulk of the income.
I’m totally for testing and seeing how things pan out, but your comment makes assumptions about the OP that were never stated as well as some other severe design misconception which I addressed above.
This discussion revolves around the notion that a casual player has the worst equipment possible at the level cap - and I see very few players with such gear in any MMO.
If we are talking about people with average gear at the level cap, then the entire premise is pointless.
Totally hear you on that. I wasn’t referring to the OP specifically when I said that AoC needs to be designed for casuals. I was just responding to the other person saying “every MMO has casuals, even if it’s not designed for them”. AoC with its 10,000 server population expectations and it’s sub based business model needs to be designed for casuals or it will not do well.
I really like the idea of stating the things we know as premisses even tho some are more like 'assumptions' as guessing the number of attack skills and their cooldowns through the number of hotbar slots is kinda iffy taking in consideration that items, mounts, pets and etc might take slots. i see something more along the lines of 12-16 attack skills, especially taking in considering the "75% action or tab skills + 25% tab or action skills" numbers fit better.
"1. Expects a player to take a bit over 3% of their health in damage per second as an average in a fair fight."
I understand the logic behind this one(3% per sec and 90% in 30 sec) but it assumes a certain homogenization of skills damage/animation length/cooldowns ignoring outliers or things like critical hits so it kinda throws a wrench in the engines of the crunshing spoiler section, even taking averages in consideration messing up alot of the equations in the amount of mistakes allowed.
If the game goes for a very homogenized damage/animation length/cooldowns across the skills and for way less RNG factors(which i don't really expect), i would be pretty conviced of 40% gear gap being on the higher end of gear disparity and 20% being a way more reasonable number, your post certainly made me realize that there are circunstances where VmanGman's "20-30% being significant" can make way more sense even if some conditions are required to be met.
Aren't we all sinners?
Actually, I agree with this, but I didn't want to start there because making the assumptions you are willing to make brings the game closer to most fighting games and further from most MMOs that also have a design that can consistently or reasonably lead to a 30s TTK while still fitting the situation most players seem to have liked.
So if we're continuing the discussion, I would have to ask if I can reference the outcomes from my other game genre, as I've often got meaningful pushback on that, though according to my data, never from you.
As I noted, I also am on the side of not actually believing that the problem is real, and in fact think that 50% gear power (leading to 25% damage gap) may not be enough. If you pull up the old 'whiteboard' from the big combat discussion thread, it wouldn't work, but I have to make a lot more assumptions. I'd prefer to, because they are what I consider the 'correct' assumptions and expectations.
Disparate skill damage bursts using a standard bell curve spread across 16 skills would make certain Fighter builds very hard to counter. The 30s side of TTK 'belongs to them'.
Part of the issue when you don't homogenize is simply 'where do forced errors come from'?
If we don't want BDO, then the amount of 'proper evasion or reactive escapes' can't be too high, which implies they're on cooldowns, but that could mean that the player can be placed in a situation where they don't have enough defensive skills to even meet the thresholds for the 'required forced errors'. That makes the game very much 'both swing at each other in a brawl and hope you can make your opponent miss something big with one of your defensive skills every so often'. Alternately, it's very 'aha you happened to dodge my big attack and now a big chunk of my chance of winning this fight is gone', which brings us back to the 'fighting game' thing most people dislike (but seemed to be the case in Alpha-1, which is what these are based on)
Fighters would generally have rapid, reactive counters to other people using escape based defensive skills (that's where the design doc ends up, with Fighters just 'ignoring' things like defenses or kiting by using gap closers, stance breaks, and occasionally CC) and this means that for Fighters to be 'good' (not against other classes per se, basically 'at their job'), they need to have a decent number of these, probably 'more than or equal to most mobility builds.
This can be built around, but not while Summoners are part of the game, which is another huge explanation. Summoners and the presence of their pets are one of the things that have to be taken into account the most with the 'possibility of homogeneity', because they practically 'must' do this sort of '3% per second' damage.
Any specific thoughts, or shall we call it 'done' here? I'm always happy to do these, they're never wasted effort/time for me, but idk for others.
We can certainly call it done at least until we get quite alot of more of information, otherwise speculation would have no bounds, and we would definitely be guided towards homogenizations/generalizations for consistency sake, but nonetheless a lot of that might be proven right, we wouldn't know.
Aren't we all sinners?
Being designed for casuals is a concept that I think can be easily misinterpreted. Giving casuals what they "want" is not the same as it being designed for them.
I think dying a few times savagely to someone who is better geared is not really cause for despair and for me, would ultimately push me to think more strategically, try harder, or potentially invest more.
If I look through the history books of games I feel like its the overcompensation to indulge in the casual player base's plight of wanting 'more for less' that has damaged and destroyed games. Which is essentially what the net result of reducing the value of gear would do.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I think that the PvP experience will be diverse enough (more casual than hardcore players) that casuals would only experience getting dominated by a hardcore player on the rare occasion, which if I think about it, might actually be a good thing that adds a real feeling of danger to the world, which in turn makes the player more strategic, invested and thoughtful.
Intrepid could lean into developing/tweaking systems to encourage a diverse experience so that even if something like what you have mentioned does happen, it happens to a limited degree.
This could solve your ultimate problem; casuals having such a poor experience, to the point where they quit; without using gear as the mechanism of achieving it, which in turn doesn't hurt the hardcore.
In my opinion, this is a better approach than tweaking percentages.
The doesn't really actually change anything that you two are talking about, it is just worth keeping in mind with the discussion you two are having.
To me, those numbers aren't bad and has the result the OP is looking for. Still allows low gear score players to compete at some level. If most people are at the 20-30% then even if people are fresh at the 10%, they stand a good chance against most.
To get that many tiers, you would need to divide the content among them when content is already being divided among nodes. That would mean that there are less content for people to do.
Content wouldn't just be based off skill. It's gated behind node level and being in the open world, there will be competition over it.
Players skipping tiers isn't an issue if there aren't that many tiers, which is another reason there shouldn't be many. Instead of tiering up content, different content can focus on horizontal progression. Some content might have the ring that is good for physical dps while another has a weapon that is good for a hybrid build. There could other, none gear related reasons to run content as well like achievements, mounts, and/or boats.
If you have a tier that is easy to get once you hit max, a tier that you get from raiding, and a tier you get from the biggest, baddest world bosses, you wouldn't have to worry too much about skipping. People may be able to skip to the raid tier but that is not uncommon in games. Even then, there would be reasons to go back and farm tier 1 to fill out your set. You could maybe have tiers between those too. A tier between the first and the second that comes from small group content would make since. Could maybe have a tier of gear that comes from the final bosses in he raid tier that is above raid tier but below the top.
Once again, i don't see skipping the early tiers as bad and the competition for the later tiers will mean that it's not that easy.
Tell me if you had a different idea but to accomplish this, you are proposing that the system needs to encourage the playerbase to be divided by their gear "level" so players aren't likely to encounter others who outgear them. Encouraging players to limit who they are coming into contact with doesn't sound like a diverse system to me, it's the opposite. A diverse system would be one that allowed players with a diverse level of gear and skill to play together, something like what the OP is asking for.
I don't think this has to "hurt" the hardcore. I don't think they need out of control scaling to feel validated and believe their are other, more compelling ways to reward achievements with horizontal progression wither it's with unique item effects, skill augments, etc.
Just like in every other game, you will travel to other areas to participate in the content there.
If skipping tiers isn't a bad thing, why should Intrepid even bother developing those tiers? This is like saying skipping the level range between 20 and 30 isn't a bad thing - why do they exist if they can be skipped?
Yes, I'm saying they shouldn't develop that many tiers and focus on more horizontal rewards.
The thing is, horizontal progression like you describe are still tiers.
If there is a ring that has physical protections, that ring is an upgrade rather than a side grade if you are taking on a mob that deals mostly physical damage.
This is actually one of the key ways tiers in games are introduced without excessive power creep. You run a base piece of content and all the rewards have strong fire resistance - not necessarily upgrades to gear you have, but useful if you need fire resistance. Then the next piece of content requires strong fire resistance. You can't take on that second piece of content until you and your raid have enough loot from the first. That fire content rewards you with high cold magical resistance, and the next zone requires that cold resistance.
All of a sudden, without actually increasing the power of characters over all, you have three distinct tiers where one needs to be completed before the next can be completed.
The question then that you need to ask is - if there is a zone with that physical ring and there are no mobs that deal physical damage, is it actually even a side-grade in terms of PvE?
If there is no content on which it is needed, it is unnecessary. If there is content on which it is needed, it is an upgrade and thus you have tiers starting to form.
If there is no reason for an item then it or content should be changed so their is a reason for it. An item can also find it's use in other forms of content like pvp.
While it is true that an item can be used in PvP, if we are talking about PvE - if the item has a use, as in you can't realistically do some content without the item in question (does it have a PvE use if this is not true?), then you do indeed have tiers.
You say you don't want to segregate players based on tiers, yet if an encounter is heavy physical, people won't be taken along on it without that physical ring.
Is that not segregating players?
If the content was designed that way then for the content, yes but since it's horizontal and you are trading other stats for those resistances, in a pvp scenario, you aren't outscaling others because of that gear.
Also, while I like that kind of thing, it's not the only way to provide horizontal rewards from content if that is what you are trying to imply.
Indeed it isn't.
However, the same applies to any benefit you can gain. Since raiding is supposed to be pushing the limits of what players can do (it either pushes the limit, or is trivial to those that do), then any horizontal benefit that can be gained will be required for some content.
It doesn't need to be an item, it could be anything (even titles in some games have benefits to them that are required or desired for specific content). The point is, if there is something you can do to better kill a piece of content, some people will segregate players based on whether they have done that thing or not. In most cases, it will be the content itself that demands this from players, as top end content by definition needs to ask for the most from players participating.
I'm a little confused point since that pve outcome seems to be what you want. With horizontal progression, you can gate pve content for players like you without it significantly effecting player power in pvp which is what OP wants. It sounds like a win win. I'm not sure if it's because we are communicating through text but i'm getting the impression you have issue with that and i'm not sure why.
If you and I are both mages, both using elemental spells, you are in generic equipment and I am in specific equipment of equal quality, I will win. I have selected equipment to increase my ability to survive against elemental damage, and my ability to deal elemental damage. You, on the other hand, are stuck with generic equipment that increases your defenses against elemental damage as well as poison, physical and what ever else is available, and you also have equipment that increases multiple damage types rather than a focused one. Basically, I have only stats that are of use right now, you have some stats that are of use right now, and some that are not.
But that wasn't the point I was making with you. You were saying you want horizontal progression, I just pointed out that even that is vertical progression.
But if i'm a warrior in generic equipment and you are in your counter elemental damage equipment then i'm at a huge advantage because of what you gave up for all that elemental resist.
These items don't have to use existing stats in the game to create this interaction either. In A1, we had a talisman that allowed you to fight the fire dragon by negating its damage aura. It was a good talisman but it didn't make everyone who used it immune to mage's fire magic.
There can be some element of vertical scaling to it but it doesn't need to be that extreme, which is the point.
While it may well be that after taking each other on, there may be someone else to take on that deals a completely different damage type. However, since I also have gear for that - as well as having that same generic gear that you have - you don't have any advantage there.
Yes, if you can completely control the scenario then it's easy for things to work in your favor but in reality, you can't.
As i said, doesn't need to be done in such an extreme way with stats that effect pvp. Can have items that negate boss effects like A1 pendent or dragon cloak from runescape.
Also as i said, yes, you have an advantage, which you should for completing that content. The point is to make it so it's not so extreme others can't compete with you. Even if things are designed the way they are in your scenario, your advantage would be almost negated in a group fight. It may be a detriment if you gave yourself a weakness by focusing so much on one defensive type.
It's not like a game can give you an item that allows you to take on a boss, and when you kill that boss you get an item that allows you to take on another boss, and when you kill that boss you get an item that allows you to kill another boss...
That isn't a gameplay loop that people will keep coming back for. See, this isn't something I have an issue with - I have an issue with the way everyone is suggesting.
Everyone seems to think that the best way to keep top end and lower end players closer together is to cut off the top end players head.
I am saying the best way to do it is to occasionally give the lower end player a boost.
If you are arguing against me, that is what you are arguing against.
There are more creative ways of doing it.
If here is 5 raids, maybe one raid needs a pendent that is easy to craft. Next one needs you to craft a usable item that you use to counter a raid wipe mechanic, maybe mats or recipe comes from first raid. Maybe next raid is doable early on but the final boss can only be damaged by weapons you crafted from materials you gathered in the raid prior. Maybe one raid is only accessible after a hard to make item is created. Maybe there is a sea boss that you can only attempt after your guild has made and upgraded a bunch of boats.
If you think about it, i think there is a lot you can come up with. These are basic ideas but you can apply them in different ways that fits the world to keep them interesting. It also creates less scaling and power creep issues.
Yep, i want to avoid this and the other reason i want less scaling.
You say this other way cuts off the head of top end players but your way trivializes their progress by handing it out. To me, that makes it meaningless since the rewards will be given out for free.
If i earn something good from a raid, i'd rather it always keep it's relative power. Even if the meta shifts away from that item as time goes on, it will always be as powerful as it was.
From my understanding of Ashes, i also see this working out better because of how the nodes impact the world and change the available content. If content is constantly being scaled up then either node content will become obsolete or it will be scaled up too and needs to be re-farmed. You will already need to refarm content for repair mats. I think it would be a little odd to also have to update your gear score from the same areas and question the point.
I also see a lot of possibilities with horizontal progression and find it more interesting if the expand the game by add more forms of it to further allow players to customize their character. I see the current number of progression paths combine with the augment system giving them a lot of room to expand without introducing excessive power creep. The way gear works can allow a simple update to these system to shake up the meta and have people re-gearing towards the new meta. I find regearing towards a new build to be more compelling then having to update my current gear to stay relevant.