@NiKr answer to something : the korean gamers are the most hardcore, we're stupidly proud Vegeta's!
To win at PvP in Archeage, L2 or even Ultima Online you have to win at making money and being good at getting close allies and the game itself doesn't give you many avenues to earn money differently in your own fun way, it's usually boring and you require a sickly mentality to go through this pain.
It's hardcore in every sense of the word, these games priority isn't fun (well UO is a cool slice of life game...), this is an OW game where relationships (or politics) and economy + sprinkles of p2w/RMT/Cheating mean fucking everything, "awww look at that guy over there saying he's having fun killing mobs, isn't that cute!".
AND
this is where we are today, hoping that Steven makes the real Archeage without corporate greed + western pleasures like "can this be a bit more fun please, this is my 2nd life, not my 2nd job!".
Hardcore players can share both gear and knowledge with casual players - and that is very easily done when the casual players are veteran MMORPG players.
Actually, it is very hard to share knowledge like this.
You can share with people how things work, but very, very few people are instantly able to take a theoretical understanding of how a system works, and apply it instantly to something that is unfolding in front of them.
It takes more time for people to fully grasp a system from just being told about it than if they experience it first hand. Further, people that have been told a thing or two about a system may actually be at a disadvantage because of it, as they may think that they know more than they do. This is a fairly common thing in most fields
Thus, acquiring an actual working and functional knowledge of a game actually does take time.
Nikr brought up a good point. In pointing out the pvp incentives of a larger gap system.
With 10% or so gap in gear teirs. You kind of know who is worth messing with for the things that you want. You know who might beat your team in dps taking the boss loot, you know who might be dangerous. It gives you parameters for who do i not bother with, who do i be wary of, and who do i look at preying on. Having easily defined teirs lets players know who is in their weight class and can allows weaker players to fly under the radar in a way. And with over enchanting letting teir 2 weapons approach teir 3 weapons and so on it allows players to look like bait, while being competitivly stat'd.
I would love to share your optimism that 10% power difference gap in gear tiers is going to be enough for player to decisively estimate the power level of the opponent
I do not see a way where the power difference is lower than 30% from the average for the builds.
Tier power jumps do not help anything in my opinion and only increase the game power creep
With UE5 and animations and effects you can show a distinction for augmented and more powerful abilities + weapon effects. Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player and if the game is good with many heights and accolades to achieve you really don't need to make dedicated players lives even better.
I think casuals can obtain gear with the help of hard core players through crafting and what not. If I do not put significant time in I would expect to not have the power.
Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player
I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural
Kind of like how in the real world you could go out and become a millionaire, but here we are sitting on aoc forums. Because its what we want to do with our time.
Hardcore players will smack average players that is really all there is to it at the end of the day. This isn't limited to mmorpgs, its every single game out there works like this. I can understand the concern I'm a average player and lvl 30 and can't beat a lvl 50, where in a shooter i can kill them at least. But that is just how gear progression works, eventually they will get gear and be able to kill them at the same level.
At the end of the day regardless if you have the same gear a hardcore player will still win almost everytime compared to a casual. Though not everyone is a hardcore players what matters is the interactions of people that aren't trying to no life the game are very fun between each other as well. The role of a casual player will have much more of a impact then one might think just not directly in combat. The most important thing is to be social, most mmos people are anti socials since they have no reason to talk to people, jump in discord etc. But the most successful people and guilds will be the ones that are social and can pull an influence.
Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player
I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural
Power in a game is an illusion. It's impact is only relative to other entities power in the game. It has no impact on your gameplay when you are against someone who is your same power level. It only impacts your interactions against people who have more or less power than you. The more scaling there is, the more you will be smashed by people above you and smash people below you. If you enjoy this cool but this limits that amounts of times a player can properly engage with the combat in the game which i don't think is a good thing.
In a shared world focused around community and people playing together, i'm not sure how you can claim artificially separating them is a good thing. Yes, content needs to be rewarding and i'm not against vertical progression as a whole but think it should be reigned in the best it can. I also find horizontal progression more engaging as it can be used to create more build options through the combination of rewards from different content.
Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player
I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural
Your rhetoric is so incredibly frustrating on this topic...
People want a game a bit simple, I know, I have a best friend who's gone in hard on Lineage 2 and Archeage and he loves his gear being fuking beastly, he doesn't give a crap about how much ridiculously stronger he is than 75%+ of the hardcore playerbase, he cares about no.1, that's healthy and natural but caring solely about no.1 doesn't lead down the road to good sportsmanship and ideas toward it.
I would try to convince you but I've believe I can't, I've been let down before, you're too selfish in this department.
Edit - All I can say briefly is that calling something that involves PvP when your happy throwing spanners against someone with a gun until you have a license for a gun is a joke, it's not a PvP game, it's just a game system with bosses that you're not ready for yet and in some cases you will never be ready for them depending on how much stat increasing content they provide them and they don't stop playing (until ofc, the game dries up of newcomers and rightfully so!).
Most definitely. And I think this is why pvp games don't live too long. Cause there's only a limited amount of people with that kind of "skill". And exactly why all the current L2 players still play on older versions of the game, because their "skill" is maxxed out and they can endlessly pvp against others, winning and losing yet always persevering.
And I personally dunno what kind of game design could help players hone that skill w/o just having pvp in it and saying "go git good". I hope Intrepid can figure that out and make the most successful pvp mmorpg out there, but only the time will tell.
Most of l2 players who still play the game usually play older versions just because the more recent an update is the more shit or carebear/pve/autofarm/p2w friendly it is.
pvp focused games just don't appeal to the masses but there are still many people who can keep on playing them w/o the need to change the game. Update yes but not change its focus entirely.
the essence of the pvp mmo experience that players are after is to have a unique character that you "own" and that you can kill other players with - and that requires somewhat balanced state of gear+build that the game gets to
a game with pvp should be looked at from 2 gear points
- entry gear at max lvl that is strong and relatively fast to obtain
- bis gear at max lvl that is just the best you can get
and how big is the power difference between those two
nobody likes to engage in fights where you literally have no chance to win
I think the best way to "protect casuals" (gearing wise) is to NOT implement RNG based endgame gearing systems.
If you cannot afford to grind 40 hours a week for your BiS, it feels much better to get crafting materials/currency and to be able to craft/buy the gear you want/need (or let someone else craft it for you in exchange for the mats and some gold/silver whatever currency the game has).
I've been there, and knowing FOR A FACT that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and I can even predict to some degree how long will it take to get there) is such a good feeling.
The last couple years I've been more on the hardcore side of the way I play, but I still clearly remember the old days, when I was farming battlegrounds in WoW, and I could predict how long will it take to get my next PvP set piece. It gave the grind a sense of purpose, and I was genuinely looking forward to it.
I think the best way to "protect casuals" (gearing wise) is to NOT implement RNG based endgame gearing systems.
If you cannot afford to grind 40 hours a week for your BiS, it feels much better to get crafting materials/currency and to be able to craft/buy the gear you want/need (or let someone else craft it for you in exchange for the mats and some gold/silver whatever currency the game has).
I've been there, and knowing FOR A FACT that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and I can even predict to some degree how long will it take to get there) is such a good feeling.
The last couple years I've been more on the hardcore side of the way I play, but I still clearly remember the old days, when I was farming battlegrounds in WoW, and I could predict how long will it take to get my next PvP set piece. It gave the grind a sense of purpose, and I was genuinely looking forward to it.
I disagree with this somewhat. While I don't like RNG based gearing systems, I do believe in marginal end-game gains as an item sink. Having that higher peak to aim for gives veterans something to shoot for and noobs something to one day aspire to. They also keep the economies of gatherers and processors afloat.
I think the best way to "protect casuals" (gearing wise) is to NOT implement RNG based endgame gearing systems.
If you cannot afford to grind 40 hours a week for your BiS, it feels much better to get crafting materials/currency and to be able to craft/buy the gear you want/need (or let someone else craft it for you in exchange for the mats and some gold/silver whatever currency the game has).
I've been there, and knowing FOR A FACT that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and I can even predict to some degree how long will it take to get there) is such a good feeling.
The last couple years I've been more on the hardcore side of the way I play, but I still clearly remember the old days, when I was farming battlegrounds in WoW, and I could predict how long will it take to get my next PvP set piece. It gave the grind a sense of purpose, and I was genuinely looking forward to it.
I disagree with this somewhat. While I don't like RNG based gearing systems, I do believe in marginal end-game gains as an item sink. Having that higher peak to aim for gives veterans something to shoot for and noobs something to one day aspire to. They also keep the economies of gatherers and processors afloat.
You can still aim for higher peak without having RNG significantly effecting your gearing process. I'm not against random end game gear drops, I just don't think it's beneficial to make BiS gear RNG dependent (let's say for multiple BiS gear pieces you have to farm the same 3 dungeons and raids over and over and over again until you get lucky, when instead you could do multiple different types of content, salvage gear, collect currency and buy/craft what you actually want).
I think the best way to "protect casuals" (gearing wise) is to NOT implement RNG based endgame gearing systems.
If you cannot afford to grind 40 hours a week for your BiS, it feels much better to get crafting materials/currency and to be able to craft/buy the gear you want/need (or let someone else craft it for you in exchange for the mats and some gold/silver whatever currency the game has).
I've been there, and knowing FOR A FACT that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and I can even predict to some degree how long will it take to get there) is such a good feeling.
The last couple years I've been more on the hardcore side of the way I play, but I still clearly remember the old days, when I was farming battlegrounds in WoW, and I could predict how long will it take to get my next PvP set piece. It gave the grind a sense of purpose, and I was genuinely looking forward to it.
There are really only 4 options as far as I see
1. Enhancing
2. Long term grind / time investment
3. Mobile style time gates
4. No enhancing rng and only item drops
Best option imo is doing a fair version of enhancing (on page 10 in enhancing I wrote up a method to do it i believe is the most fair for all types of players)
Option 2 can work though either people get end gave very fast and people complain they beat the game within a month from the point they hit max level. Or it takes so long that it becomes impossible for casual players to ever reach since there is no cap and its simply who has the most time. (proper enhancement system can counter this in a way that it sets back hardcore players, while still giving casual players a boost. Though they won't get the best boost it keeps power more in check. The reason why it keeps it in check as they can be starting from 20-40% rather then having to start at 0 and do a very long grind.)
Option 3 can work as well but honestly i hate this kind of system that limits how much you cna play and the content you can do with your friends. It becoems you log on do you stuff and log off (completely casual mind set). Honestly I think option 3 would break the game by turning it fully casual when it shouldn't be a casual game imo (just because its not a casual game does not mean it isn't fun for a casual to play)
Option 4 Pretty much like 100% enhancement but have everything be extremely rare, it be highly unlikely any casuals will get these drops though.
IMO the best gear should be a reward for the most mechanically and logistically challenging content - ignoring pvp (meaning that pvp could be possible, but the content was designed without pvp happening -> thus unkillable if any pvp happens)
and that content in itself will be in limited supply, because there will be world buildup for opening it with only 1 instance (most likely always in the open world with the current philosophy) of the encounters
@Tragnar mechanically and logistically?? Can people stop pretending that an mmorpg is a difficult genre WITHOUT PvP/Human Competition, it's disgusting.
did you even read that? when did I write that the challenging content must be on some external level comparable to games focusing on difficulty?
all I wrote is that the most challenging that will EXIST in ashes should be the most rewarding - the ceiling of that difficulty can be easy compared to games focusing on difficulty, but relatively it would be the most difficult content that can be found inside the game
and I very much doubt that you want encounters that reward best loot to be loot boxes with a health bars
please don't get your panties in a bunch over a wrong assumption that I want ashes to have encounters way harder than what is the industry standard
and btw mechanically means to able to press your buttons in a way that makes your class work best and being able to dodge flying at you - and logistically to be able to organize a raid and make sure they are prepared for it - like duh
The "very best" gear and super challenging encounters (which don't need to exist, leave it to 14/WoW) is a LOW priority to what makes an OW mmorpg functions. How MOST gear behaves and what does that mean for PvP and PvE Team encounters is a far better priority, especially when keeping in essence with this thread.
"like duh"
organizing a raid, pressing buttons to play great, what an original idea that isn't currently on the market at all...
The Raid obsession exists, why are you changing an open world world game with this recycled crap when AoC's game direction is inspired from the likes of Lineage 2 and Archeage.
then i'd suggest you would do more research what the game is going to be around
a direct quote from Steven that's on wiki on the "Raids" page
There will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content...
please don't insult your own intelligence by focusing on something I never wrote and that what exists only in your head. I never wrote that hard encounters should be a priority now or in the future - I just know that they will exist in some form and I made a comment on the quality of rewards players should get from those
@NishUK I would heavily advise you to take a deep breath and after reading a post to not create an assumption of the beliefs of the author and criticizing your own assumptions about the author
then i'd suggest you would do more research what the game is going to be around
a direct quote from Steven that's on wiki on the "Raids" page
There will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content...
key word 'some', not a focus. I'm extremely disappointed that Steven mentioned it but there we go...
I didn't create an assumption, I made a real version of you in my head based off of what you said and that's enough, ignoring PvP and challenging PvE. You barely added context to it because you're clearly obsessed with the "industry standard" of what an mmorpg which is hilarious because the mmorpg genre is one of the worst competitively.
Can people stop pretending that an mmorpg is a difficult genre WITHOUT PvP/Human Competition, it's disgusting.
Just because you have never played a game with good enough content to prove this statement blatantly false, doesn't mean the rest of us have not.
Case in point, in early EQ2, the games website used to list the mobs with the most player kills, along with how many kills they had.
There were some individual mobs in the game that were getting hundreds of thousands of kills a week.
It took all players in Archeage several months to reach what one mob in EQ2 got in a week.
Good PvP is great. However, it isn't a even shit stain on good PvE. Good PvE takes more time, more dedication, more focus, more knowledge, more adaptation, and more resilience than PvP ever could.
You just don't know this, because you are too scared of it - you know you'll fail.
organizing a raid, pressing buttons to play great, what an original idea that isn't currently on the market at all...
This is rich coming from someone that just wants Ashes to be Lineage.
What an original idea that isn't currently on the market at all.
What you seem to have continually failed to grasp (despite my best efforts to educate you) is that Ashes is attempting to fall between games like Archeage, L2 et al, and games like EQ2, WoW and all it's friends.
As such, the PvE side of the game is EVERY BIT as important as the PvP side.
Not understanding that is to not understand what Ashes is.
If Ashes PvE is not comparable to WoW or FFXIV, the game will fail. It doesn't have to be quite as good, just in the same ballpark (ie, comparable).
The same can be said of the games PvP. If it is not as good as Archeage (the only game of the last decade I consider to have had somewhat good PvP), then the game will also fail.
You want the game to succeed. I want the game to succeed. As such, we should both want Ashes to have the best PvP and PvE that is possible for it to have.
How do you not understand this by now?
Edit to add; for context, L2 PvE was simply there to service the PvP game. It was not PvE as any other game would call it. If you think it was, all that is doing is reinforcing my point from the above post about how you simply do not know good PvE.
2
Options
DeliaszMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
One big concern I have for AoC is that gear will end up providing too much power. AoC is already a game that will greatly reward those who play a lot which is why I believe that it is imperative for gear to only account for at most 20-30% of a character's power.
People will enjoy grinding out their gear even if each piece gives small increments of power increase. These small increments of power increase will allow the bulk of the population to not feel like they are so out geared that they cannot even come close to competing. This is very important because when those casual players will die over and over to a hardcore player that severely outgears them without any chance of fighting back, they will be very likely to just quit. Hardcore players will have other advantages (gold, skill, etc.) anyway because they play a lot more and there is no reason to further widen the gap between casual and hardcore players.
Please understand that I am not against rewarding those who invest more time into the game. I am just suggesting that their reward should not create such a great disparity between them and casual players. I truly believe that this can greatly help the health of the game and its population.
I'm super casual and I think your cry to the gods is broken and insulting to common sense.
You just want to be protected from people who can afford more time to play this game.
Just play the game (when released) and find your own happy spot.
I want to be the same hardcore Joe but I don't want to put an effort.
You can't expect to get the same reward or power for putting in a fraction of the effort or time
It might benefit you or people who play less by reducing the power level disparity, but it diminishes the rewards given to people who play the game more, making their time and effort that they invested less rewarding.
Playing the game more and putting in more effort or time into getting better gear SHOULD make you more powerful than someone who doesn't, otherwise what is the point of gear in the first place?
Yes, it shouldn't be TOO much of a difference, but it shouldn't be made redundant. It should be noticeable, it should be rewarding, and it should absolutely make people who put in that time and effort feel rewarded not like they got some gimmick of a new item or power increase. A good middle ground is best
5
Options
VmanGmanMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
One big concern I have for AoC is that gear will end up providing too much power. AoC is already a game that will greatly reward those who play a lot which is why I believe that it is imperative for gear to only account for at most 20-30% of a character's power.
People will enjoy grinding out their gear even if each piece gives small increments of power increase. These small increments of power increase will allow the bulk of the population to not feel like they are so out geared that they cannot even come close to competing. This is very important because when those casual players will die over and over to a hardcore player that severely outgears them without any chance of fighting back, they will be very likely to just quit. Hardcore players will have other advantages (gold, skill, etc.) anyway because they play a lot more and there is no reason to further widen the gap between casual and hardcore players.
Please understand that I am not against rewarding those who invest more time into the game. I am just suggesting that their reward should not create such a great disparity between them and casual players. I truly believe that this can greatly help the health of the game and its population.
I'm super casual and I think your cry to the gods is broken and insulting to common sense.
You just want to be protected from people who can afford more time to play this game.
Just play the game (when released) and find your own happy spot.
I want to be the same hardcore Joe but I don't want to put an effort.
You can't expect to get the same reward or power for putting in a fraction of the effort or time
It might benefit you or people who play less by reducing the power level disparity, but it diminishes the rewards given to people who play the game more, making their time and effort that they invested less rewarding.
Playing the game more and putting in more effort or time into getting better gear SHOULD make you more powerful than someone who doesn't, otherwise what is the point of gear in the first place?
Yes, it shouldn't be TOO much of a difference, but it shouldn't be made redundant. It should be noticeable, it should be rewarding, and it should absolutely make people who put in that time and effort feel rewarded not like they got some gimmick of a new item or power increase. A good middle ground is best
@Mons@Deliasz I never said that I want casuals to be on equal footing with hardcore players. Please read the post before you comment. I just said that hardcore players shouldn't be able to automatically win against a casual player by stat checking them. Hardcore players will already most likely have the advantage of being better at the game. They don't need to also stat check the opponent into a defeat. In a game like AoC where everything can be contested through PvP it is very important to not make casuals feel like they have no chance simply because the other guy has bigger numbers.
Comments
To win at PvP in Archeage, L2 or even Ultima Online you have to win at making money and being good at getting close allies and the game itself doesn't give you many avenues to earn money differently in your own fun way, it's usually boring and you require a sickly mentality to go through this pain.
It's hardcore in every sense of the word, these games priority isn't fun (well UO is a cool slice of life game...), this is an OW game where relationships (or politics) and economy + sprinkles of p2w/RMT/Cheating mean fucking everything, "awww look at that guy over there saying he's having fun killing mobs, isn't that cute!".
AND
this is where we are today, hoping that Steven makes the real Archeage without corporate greed + western pleasures like "can this be a bit more fun please, this is my 2nd life, not my 2nd job!".
Actually, it is very hard to share knowledge like this.
You can share with people how things work, but very, very few people are instantly able to take a theoretical understanding of how a system works, and apply it instantly to something that is unfolding in front of them.
It takes more time for people to fully grasp a system from just being told about it than if they experience it first hand. Further, people that have been told a thing or two about a system may actually be at a disadvantage because of it, as they may think that they know more than they do. This is a fairly common thing in most fields
Thus, acquiring an actual working and functional knowledge of a game actually does take time.
I would love to share your optimism that 10% power difference gap in gear tiers is going to be enough for player to decisively estimate the power level of the opponent
I do not see a way where the power difference is lower than 30% from the average for the builds.
Tier power jumps do not help anything in my opinion and only increase the game power creep
― Plato
With UE5 and animations and effects you can show a distinction for augmented and more powerful abilities + weapon effects. Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player and if the game is good with many heights and accolades to achieve you really don't need to make dedicated players lives even better.
I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural
Kind of like how in the real world you could go out and become a millionaire, but here we are sitting on aoc forums. Because its what we want to do with our time.
At the end of the day regardless if you have the same gear a hardcore player will still win almost everytime compared to a casual. Though not everyone is a hardcore players what matters is the interactions of people that aren't trying to no life the game are very fun between each other as well. The role of a casual player will have much more of a impact then one might think just not directly in combat. The most important thing is to be social, most mmos people are anti socials since they have no reason to talk to people, jump in discord etc. But the most successful people and guilds will be the ones that are social and can pull an influence.
Power in a game is an illusion. It's impact is only relative to other entities power in the game. It has no impact on your gameplay when you are against someone who is your same power level. It only impacts your interactions against people who have more or less power than you. The more scaling there is, the more you will be smashed by people above you and smash people below you. If you enjoy this cool but this limits that amounts of times a player can properly engage with the combat in the game which i don't think is a good thing.
In a shared world focused around community and people playing together, i'm not sure how you can claim artificially separating them is a good thing. Yes, content needs to be rewarding and i'm not against vertical progression as a whole but think it should be reigned in the best it can. I also find horizontal progression more engaging as it can be used to create more build options through the combination of rewards from different content.
Your rhetoric is so incredibly frustrating on this topic...
People want a game a bit simple, I know, I have a best friend who's gone in hard on Lineage 2 and Archeage and he loves his gear being fuking beastly, he doesn't give a crap about how much ridiculously stronger he is than 75%+ of the hardcore playerbase, he cares about no.1, that's healthy and natural but caring solely about no.1 doesn't lead down the road to good sportsmanship and ideas toward it.
I would try to convince you but I've believe I can't, I've been let down before, you're too selfish in this department.
Edit - All I can say briefly is that calling something that involves PvP when your happy throwing spanners against someone with a gun until you have a license for a gun is a joke, it's not a PvP game, it's just a game system with bosses that you're not ready for yet and in some cases you will never be ready for them depending on how much stat increasing content they provide them and they don't stop playing (until ofc, the game dries up of newcomers and rightfully so!).
Most of l2 players who still play the game usually play older versions just because the more recent an update is the more shit or carebear/pve/autofarm/p2w friendly it is.
pvp focused games just don't appeal to the masses but there are still many people who can keep on playing them w/o the need to change the game. Update yes but not change its focus entirely.
a game with pvp should be looked at from 2 gear points
- entry gear at max lvl that is strong and relatively fast to obtain
- bis gear at max lvl that is just the best you can get
and how big is the power difference between those two
nobody likes to engage in fights where you literally have no chance to win
― Plato
If you cannot afford to grind 40 hours a week for your BiS, it feels much better to get crafting materials/currency and to be able to craft/buy the gear you want/need (or let someone else craft it for you in exchange for the mats and some gold/silver whatever currency the game has).
I've been there, and knowing FOR A FACT that there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and I can even predict to some degree how long will it take to get there) is such a good feeling.
The last couple years I've been more on the hardcore side of the way I play, but I still clearly remember the old days, when I was farming battlegrounds in WoW, and I could predict how long will it take to get my next PvP set piece. It gave the grind a sense of purpose, and I was genuinely looking forward to it.
I disagree with this somewhat. While I don't like RNG based gearing systems, I do believe in marginal end-game gains as an item sink. Having that higher peak to aim for gives veterans something to shoot for and noobs something to one day aspire to. They also keep the economies of gatherers and processors afloat.
You can still aim for higher peak without having RNG significantly effecting your gearing process. I'm not against random end game gear drops, I just don't think it's beneficial to make BiS gear RNG dependent (let's say for multiple BiS gear pieces you have to farm the same 3 dungeons and raids over and over and over again until you get lucky, when instead you could do multiple different types of content, salvage gear, collect currency and buy/craft what you actually want).
There are really only 4 options as far as I see
1. Enhancing
2. Long term grind / time investment
3. Mobile style time gates
4. No enhancing rng and only item drops
Best option imo is doing a fair version of enhancing (on page 10 in enhancing I wrote up a method to do it i believe is the most fair for all types of players)
Option 2 can work though either people get end gave very fast and people complain they beat the game within a month from the point they hit max level. Or it takes so long that it becomes impossible for casual players to ever reach since there is no cap and its simply who has the most time. (proper enhancement system can counter this in a way that it sets back hardcore players, while still giving casual players a boost. Though they won't get the best boost it keeps power more in check. The reason why it keeps it in check as they can be starting from 20-40% rather then having to start at 0 and do a very long grind.)
Option 3 can work as well but honestly i hate this kind of system that limits how much you cna play and the content you can do with your friends. It becoems you log on do you stuff and log off (completely casual mind set). Honestly I think option 3 would break the game by turning it fully casual when it shouldn't be a casual game imo (just because its not a casual game does not mean it isn't fun for a casual to play)
Option 4 Pretty much like 100% enhancement but have everything be extremely rare, it be highly unlikely any casuals will get these drops though.
and that content in itself will be in limited supply, because there will be world buildup for opening it with only 1 instance (most likely always in the open world with the current philosophy) of the encounters
― Plato
all I wrote is that the most challenging that will EXIST in ashes should be the most rewarding - the ceiling of that difficulty can be easy compared to games focusing on difficulty, but relatively it would be the most difficult content that can be found inside the game
and I very much doubt that you want encounters that reward best loot to be loot boxes with a health bars
please don't get your panties in a bunch over a wrong assumption that I want ashes to have encounters way harder than what is the industry standard
and btw mechanically means to able to press your buttons in a way that makes your class work best and being able to dodge flying at you - and logistically to be able to organize a raid and make sure they are prepared for it - like duh
― Plato
"like duh"
organizing a raid, pressing buttons to play great, what an original idea that isn't currently on the market at all...
The Raid obsession exists, why are you changing an open world world game with this recycled crap when AoC's game direction is inspired from the likes of Lineage 2 and Archeage.
a direct quote from Steven that's on wiki on the "Raids" page
please don't insult your own intelligence by focusing on something I never wrote and that what exists only in your head. I never wrote that hard encounters should be a priority now or in the future - I just know that they will exist in some form and I made a comment on the quality of rewards players should get from those
@NishUK
I would heavily advise you to take a deep breath and after reading a post to not create an assumption of the beliefs of the author and criticizing your own assumptions about the author
― Plato
I didn't create an assumption, I made a real version of you in my head based off of what you said and that's enough, ignoring PvP and challenging PvE. You barely added context to it because you're clearly obsessed with the "industry standard" of what an mmorpg which is hilarious because the mmorpg genre is one of the worst competitively.
Case in point, in early EQ2, the games website used to list the mobs with the most player kills, along with how many kills they had.
There were some individual mobs in the game that were getting hundreds of thousands of kills a week.
It took all players in Archeage several months to reach what one mob in EQ2 got in a week.
Good PvP is great. However, it isn't a even shit stain on good PvE. Good PvE takes more time, more dedication, more focus, more knowledge, more adaptation, and more resilience than PvP ever could.
You just don't know this, because you are too scared of it - you know you'll fail.
What an original idea that isn't currently on the market at all.
What you seem to have continually failed to grasp (despite my best efforts to educate you) is that Ashes is attempting to fall between games like Archeage, L2 et al, and games like EQ2, WoW and all it's friends.
As such, the PvE side of the game is EVERY BIT as important as the PvP side.
Not understanding that is to not understand what Ashes is.
If Ashes PvE is not comparable to WoW or FFXIV, the game will fail. It doesn't have to be quite as good, just in the same ballpark (ie, comparable).
The same can be said of the games PvP. If it is not as good as Archeage (the only game of the last decade I consider to have had somewhat good PvP), then the game will also fail.
You want the game to succeed. I want the game to succeed. As such, we should both want Ashes to have the best PvP and PvE that is possible for it to have.
How do you not understand this by now?
Edit to add; for context, L2 PvE was simply there to service the PvP game. It was not PvE as any other game would call it. If you think it was, all that is doing is reinforcing my point from the above post about how you simply do not know good PvE.
I'm super casual and I think your cry to the gods is broken and insulting to common sense.
You just want to be protected from people who can afford more time to play this game.
Just play the game (when released) and find your own happy spot.
I want to be the same hardcore Joe but I don't want to put an effort.
Good Luck with that
It might benefit you or people who play less by reducing the power level disparity, but it diminishes the rewards given to people who play the game more, making their time and effort that they invested less rewarding.
Playing the game more and putting in more effort or time into getting better gear SHOULD make you more powerful than someone who doesn't, otherwise what is the point of gear in the first place?
Yes, it shouldn't be TOO much of a difference, but it shouldn't be made redundant. It should be noticeable, it should be rewarding, and it should absolutely make people who put in that time and effort feel rewarded not like they got some gimmick of a new item or power increase. A good middle ground is best
@Mons @Deliasz I never said that I want casuals to be on equal footing with hardcore players. Please read the post before you comment. I just said that hardcore players shouldn't be able to automatically win against a casual player by stat checking them. Hardcore players will already most likely have the advantage of being better at the game. They don't need to also stat check the opponent into a defeat. In a game like AoC where everything can be contested through PvP it is very important to not make casuals feel like they have no chance simply because the other guy has bigger numbers.
You ok?