|Gear : Skill ratio to combat effectiveness| A combat system and gear system discussion

tautau

@Birthday said, "Ah Sylvanar and Noaani are a troll team combo. Figures as much. Seems like this forums is plagued with more trolls than actual players interested in discussing the game because I see lots of Noaani and Sylvanar posts on lots of discussions."

Troll reply.

Noaani

Birthday wrote: »

On top of all Noaani in his last few replies has started to shift the discussion from the main thread's topic towards the topic of trolling and arguing that one should always quote in a forum.

There are more posts in this thread talking about trolling than about what ever it was that you wanted to talk about.

Ergo, trolling is the main topic of this thread now, and I would thank you to keep this discussion on that topic.

JamesSunderland

Quite a convoluted original post so i will be adressing the main points i see relevant.

Birthday wrote: »

I am talking about the combat system. I haven't experienced alpha 1 and I can't tell just from videos how much of the combat is skill based and how much is gear-based.
By gear-based I mean: How much does the game allow you to win a duel purely according to the gear difference between you and your target. On the high-end of gear-based combat systems, they allow you to win your duel purely by auto-attacking your opponent - World of Warcraft and other of the same type MMOs. On the low-end of gear based combat systems, gear mostly determines your playstyle options but if the gear difference is too big then your chances are pretty low but still aren't null - Remnants from the Ashes, Counter-Strike Global Offensive. Middle ground games I would say might are: League of Legends etc.

It's interesting that the examples used for the "middle ground" "low-end" weren't MMORPGs,
I will address this further down.

Birthday wrote: »

So what would you like Ashes to be?
Low-end gear based? Let gear give us certain abilities, certain perks, certain options, access to certain playstyles with their according advantages and disadvantages but let most of the outcome be determined by how the player utilizes it and the level of his raw skill.
Middle ground? Let gear determine 50% of every outcome but allow for skill difference or situation good outplays to tip the balance.
High-end gear based? Let gear determine most of the outcome.

Middle Ground for sure, luckly this is the ideal Steven is aiming for.

Birthday wrote: »

I personally think that aiming for a High-end gear-based model would be a mistake. This turns the game into a kind of a speedrun collectable contest (Who puts the most hours to grind out his gear or gets lucky for it to drop by chance fast). Blizzard tried balancing this out exclusively for the PvP content by the stat "Resilience" and creating arena-specific gear. Players then started combining the arena gear with certain PvE items (trinkets, rings, etc) which give interesting and useful utility abilities or buffs on proc or on activation or just give a very big increase on a particular stat in which case the player trades defense(resilience) in favor of better damage or healing.
This helped but it still didn't make PvP feel really skilled based, interesting and visually appealing. That's why a pro scene never really took off in WoW like it did in LoL and CSGO despite WoW having a similar size player base. Some may remember that iconic moment in WoW's pro scene when at the finals the victory of one pro player was taken away by a very unlucky miss on a very important damage ability. Missing in WoW is chance based for those who don't know and in PvP its generally low percent chance. The miss being on a very important damage ability is what makes it even more unlucky because it might as well have procced on a auto attack and the victory would have been his. It could have not missed at all as well. The point is his victory was taken away purely by chance and there was nothing he could have done to avoid this or do better. This event killed a lot of the pro scene in WoW from what I remember because people felt that the game didn't offer truly skill-based PvP. Rather they felt it was too influenced by luck.

Ashes of Creation is trying to take the MMO genre towards the player-driven content direction and it's making PvP and incentives to PvP the basis of this direction of player-driven content. This is great and that's why I think Ashes should steer towards either a low-end or middle ground gear-based system and focus on making PvP outcomes feel for the most part in player's control and make gear important only in the sense of it affecting playstyle and giving access to abilities and utilities etc. rather than making gear mainly just a boring threshold which you need to spend countless hours to grind out in order to get access to dungeons or be on par to fight someone. I fully support the sentiment that it should matter how much game time you've spent in the game on your gear. A middle ground or low-end system still allows for hours spent in game to matter. It's going to matter (A) because the game will be more based around player-skill progression, so if your hours are spent on improving your skill, trying different playstyles, trying different tactics etc then your playtime will matter (B) because low end gear systems actually allows gear to keep enough of it's relevance but it puts the emphasis on how the player decides to utilize it rather than it just being just flat stats. It makes gear more meaningful. For example in Ashes from the Remnants after defeating a boss it would drop a boss specific weapon/trinket/crafting material. This weapon/trinket/crafting material(after crafted) would give you access to one of the boss' abilities or something identical to the boss. This allowed players to combine different armors and different boss weapons and trinkets to create their own very unique playstyles around their own very unique builds. Middle ground gear systems compromise between the two extremes. It allows gear to be both a flat stat and something that can influence playstyle and give abilities. Its done by making gear very one-stat orientated. By buying a certain item you are basically buying it either for it's very high stat increase on only one specific stat or for it's passive or active effect. This allows for players to modify their playstyle and champion abilities and that's what makes it meaningful. It's changing the playstyle or champion abilities. It's not just flat overall stats increase like in High-end gear-based combat systems acting like a threshold a player must reach to be able to complete certain content. No! The gear, even when acting as just a stat increase, gives enough control to the player for him to be able to do something creative and skillful with it.

Also imagine these two scenarios:
|High-end gear-based system| Player running at you from a distance in the battlefield. You recognize his gear. You are familiar about it's stats and which dungeon its from. You do a quick comparison with your own gear and realize you don't stand a chance. You run.
|Low-end/mid-ground gear-based system| Player running at you from a distance in the battlefield. You recognize his gear. You are familiar about it's active and passive effects. This gives you time to think about what this player's possible playstyle is and what you could expect in terms of race + class + gear combination and what you could do to counter him.
This is so much more vitalizing and intriguing. Even if I recognize that he has like some very rare gear pieces I still probably wouldn't run from this player because I will be too interested in seeing what playstyle he has constructed for himself with his choice of gear combination. Maybe its good but he is still new to handling it and I'll beat him? Maybe my gear is inferior but it's abilities combined with my skill + race + class versus his race + class + skill counters him or is viable enough for a interesting fight.

I also believe aiming for a very high gear disparity system is a bad idea, as it almost completely neglects the skill aspect in a combat between foes even with a reasonably small gear disparity. Directly experimented this in Archeage.

As for Low gear disparity system, here is were we might find disagreements. I definitely don't think low gear disparity system works for the overall balance of a MMORPG as it directly conflicts with the essencial Gear progression RPG/MMORPG concept, as i was personally able to experienced in Guild Wars 2.
Low/minimum or non-existent gear disparity would only work for a MMORPG in a isoleted, limited and controlled setting/sideshow such as arenas, which would also work as a pvp competitive medium.

I would also like to add that "luck" isn't necessarily a detractor from a games pro competitive scenario which can dictate its viability, even a moba game like LoL with a big pro scene and considered a skill-based game, Still has RNG in the form of critical strike chance which comes from gear (other than a single champion) and dragon buff RNG which can influence a lot in a game's outcome.

If you're interested in a more in-depth RNG vs No-RNG discussions as a matter of skill you can check those threads: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50899/crowd-control-should-not-be-based-on-rng
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/50984/tab-vs-action-combat-philosphy/

Birthday wrote: »

Gear should give creative choice, rather than it just being threshold for content, because this gives the game more depth and because it gives a more meaningful feeling of the gear itself.

Yes, and gear should also provide meaningfull gear progression and reasonable gear disparity in the context of the MMORPG genre.

meedx

JamesSunderland wrote: »

I also believe aiming for a very high gear disparity system is a bad idea, as it almost completely neglects the skill aspect in a combat between foes even with a reasonably small gear disparity. Directly experimented this in Archeage.

The main problem in archeage wasn't gear disparity, it was secondary stats.
Having the ability to not only utilize a crit damage/armor pen stat on top of the combo system, but how far you could stack those stats went far into the ridiculous end of the scale.

An arc lightning with an already 100%+ damage modifier from it's combo with lightning debuff, with a multiplicative 50-100% on top from crit damage secondary stat, 16% from songcraft bloody chanty, and a staff proc to ignore the users magic def.

Same applies to a precision strike with bleed combo, crit damage/def pen, old battle focus giving 30% crit damage BASE free for just using the ability, shortspear proc. etc

It's the whole reason aa turned into a game of one shots and building anything defensive unless you were FULL tank was absolutely pointless because it made no impact, and even a fully geared tank could still be one shot if they got songcraft debuffed.

Imagine on the old patch 2.0 or 2.5, a divine geared player vs an epic geared player, without the ramped up secondary stats would be a pretty even fight, the damage from the epic player wouldn't be so much that the fight was unwinnable but they would still be at an advantage, and so they should be.

The combo system and gear system in themselves were enough to create a gear/skill disparity between players, and secondary stats should of been hard capped at the lower percentages, maybe 25%, so you could refine your build to different damage types/play styles without the game ending up how it has, ever progressing damage ramp up rendering the combo system ultimately a side thought in general play, you'd have more than enough damage without properly "combo'ing".

WOTLK's ttk is a good example of a decent balance, ttk was low and all classes could burst but healing was also high, you couldnt stack enough resilience to be unkillable and proper cd utilization and positioning were factors in winning.
Instead of more current expansions where there is no kill potential outside of cd's and if the enemy trade's defensive cd's properly for your offensive, the game becomes a stalemate and very scripted in high level play.

AA 2.0/2.5 and mid-WOTLK would be my suggestions for a great starting point of gear disparity/ttk, especially considering we're going to have archeage-style mounts with skill's, if any of them have defensive abilities those are essentially used to avoid damage or reset a fight, same as they were in AA.
If TTK is too high people will be un killable if they utilize mechanics properly, alongside pots, kiting, cc etc.

JamesSunderland

meedx wrote: »

JamesSunderland wrote: »

I also believe aiming for a very high gear disparity system is a bad idea, as it almost completely neglects the skill aspect in a combat between foes even with a reasonably small gear disparity. Directly experimented this in Archeage.

The main problem in archeage wasn't gear disparity, it was secondary stats.
Having the ability to not only utilize a crit damage/armor pen stat on top of the combo system, but how far you could stack those stats went far into the ridiculous end of the scale.

An arc lightning with an already 100%+ damage modifier from it's combo with lightning debuff, with a multiplicative 50-100% on top from crit damage secondary stat, 16% from songcraft bloody chanty, and a staff proc to ignore the users magic def.

Same applies to a precision strike with bleed combo, crit damage/def pen, old battle focus giving 30% crit damage BASE free for just using the ability, shortspear proc. etc

It's the whole reason aa turned into a game of one shots and building anything defensive unless you were FULL tank was absolutely pointless because it made no impact, and even a fully geared tank could still be one shot if they got songcraft debuffed.

Imagine on the old patch 2.0 or 2.5, a divine geared player vs an epic geared player, without the ramped up secondary stats would be a pretty even fight, the damage from the epic player wouldn't be so much that the fight was unwinnable but they would still be at an advantage, and so they should be.

The combo system and gear system in themselves were enough to create a gear/skill disparity between players, and secondary stats should of been hard capped at the lower percentages, maybe 25%, so you could refine your build to different damage types/play styles without the game ending up how it has, ever progressing damage ramp up rendering the combo system ultimately a side thought in general play, you'd have more than enough damage without properly "combo'ing".

WOTLK's ttk is a good example of a decent balance, ttk was low and all classes could burst but healing was also high, you couldnt stack enough resilience to be unkillable and proper cd utilization and positioning were factors in winning.
Instead of more current expansions where there is no kill potential outside of cd's and if the enemy trade's defensive cd's properly for your offensive, the game becomes a stalemate and very scripted in high level play.

AA 2.0/2.5 and mid-WOTLK would be my suggestions for a great starting point of gear disparity/ttk, especially considering we're going to have archeage-style mounts with skill's, if any of them have defensive abilities those are essentially used to avoid damage or reset a fight, same as they were in AA.
If TTK is too high people will be un killable if they utilize mechanics properly, alongside pots, kiting, cc etc.

But Secondary stats are directly correlated to the gear disparity, As higher tier gear provided more of the secondary stats and Gear Grade provided more lunagem slots which provide even more secondary stats.

Even on older patchs Lunagens were still a thing, Divine to epic wasn't a huge leap because gear would be of similar close tier and Gear score wasn't so far apart.

AA became a true one shot fiesta with the inclusion of hiram gear especially on fresh starts servers, as people would rush their weapons and neglect their armour to a certain extent, AA Alreary has a very low base TTK, combined with this on how powerful gear in AA is One-Shot fiesta was fated to happen.

AA Skills have insanely high Stats multipliers Arc lightning for example 1200 + 661% of Magic Attack + a 30% damage multiplier if the character is under burning. The higher the Stats multipliers of a skill is, the more powerful gear disparity becomes.

meedx

JamesSunderland wrote: »

But Secondary stats are directly correlated to the gear disparity, As higher tier gear provided more of the secondary stats and Gear Grade provided more lunagem slots which provide even more secondary stats.

Even on older patchs Lunagens were still a thing, Divine to epic wasn't a huge leap because gear would be of similar close tier and Gear score wasn't so far apart.

AA became a true one shot fiesta with the inclusion of hiram gear especially on fresh starts servers, as people would rush their weapons and neglect their armour to a certain extent, AA Alreary has a very low base TTK, combined with this on how powerful gear in AA is One-Shot fiesta was fated to happen.

AA Skills have insanely high Stats multipliers Arc lightning for example 1200 + 661% of Magic Attack + a 30% damage multiplier if the character is under burning. The higher the Stats multipliers of a skill is, the more powerful gear disparity becomes.

Not really sure how to reply because it seems like you're agreeing with what I said but also trying to prove me wrong?

I guess we agree on what was said, was just putting my 2c in anyway.

JamesSunderland

meedx wrote: »

Not really sure how to reply because it seems like you're agreeing with what I said but also trying to prove me wrong?

I guess we agree on what was said, was just putting my 2c in anyway.

"The main problem in archeage wasn't gear disparity, it was secondary stats."
Here is where we disagree, as secondary stats were only a small part of AA Insane Gear Disparity, the main culprits actually being big gear disparity, small HP and insane Skills Damage multipliers making TTK ultra low.
Other than that your comment was pretty on point