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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.
Gear Rarities!
poisonz
Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
hear me out O_O!
Poor < Common < Uncommon < Rare < Epic < Ancient/Mythic < Legendary
Steven put out how he wants legendary to mean something in-game but since only SOME may be limited to one server it leads to staining the word Legendary and this is why. Basically it means once you reach max level with a full set of epic you'll most likely work your way up in a massive guild for your next Legendary Set as not all are limited to one server. Over time you'll see people with either full set or some pieces of legendary making it the new requirement that leads tarnishing of the word legendary. It wouldn't feel Legendary if most have it, Even if it's extremely slow prosses to gather the material it's still a legendary that anyone can obtain that requires nothing but time.
What I considered is making all Legendary items to be ALL limited to one per server even craft-able ones, making all Legendary items to actually feel legendary while the new Ancient/Mythic rarity (orange/ color probably) the next step for near legendary for guilds and the dedicated solo player to achieve.
we all know Legendary items from the wiki said Legendary equipment will have a roughly 6-12% improvement in base stats, subject to testing and balancing. in my opinion the way I can make Ancient/Mythic item work is to be improve roughly 2-6% in base stats, nearly competing with legendary users but still bellow legendary threshold. making this the new rarity to strive for after endgame as epic rarity seems to be the basic standard to reach in the beginning of max level.
reason for this discussion is the way steven set up legendary for it's own downfall in my view but that's just my opinion and I want to know how would you fix it or would you even change it?
Poor < Common < Uncommon < Rare < Epic < Ancient/Mythic < Legendary
Steven put out how he wants legendary to mean something in-game but since only SOME may be limited to one server it leads to staining the word Legendary and this is why. Basically it means once you reach max level with a full set of epic you'll most likely work your way up in a massive guild for your next Legendary Set as not all are limited to one server. Over time you'll see people with either full set or some pieces of legendary making it the new requirement that leads tarnishing of the word legendary. It wouldn't feel Legendary if most have it, Even if it's extremely slow prosses to gather the material it's still a legendary that anyone can obtain that requires nothing but time.
What I considered is making all Legendary items to be ALL limited to one per server even craft-able ones, making all Legendary items to actually feel legendary while the new Ancient/Mythic rarity (orange/ color probably) the next step for near legendary for guilds and the dedicated solo player to achieve.
we all know Legendary items from the wiki said Legendary equipment will have a roughly 6-12% improvement in base stats, subject to testing and balancing. in my opinion the way I can make Ancient/Mythic item work is to be improve roughly 2-6% in base stats, nearly competing with legendary users but still bellow legendary threshold. making this the new rarity to strive for after endgame as epic rarity seems to be the basic standard to reach in the beginning of max level.
reason for this discussion is the way steven set up legendary for it's own downfall in my view but that's just my opinion and I want to know how would you fix it or would you even change it?
1
Comments
Common
Legendary
All items are common except for the legendary. The legendary items have some unique features and make players stand out. They are very rare.
See? None of that time-wasting green-blue-purple-gold crap. Skip the middleman and have cool legendary items and satisfying, yes satisfying, common items.
An excelent way to throw gear progression out of the window.....
Aren't we all sinners?
Based on what we have been told thus far I don't see any reason to change the system or be worried about its implementation until we see the Alpha 2 product. At which point it will be productive to provide player feedback.
Maybe Ashes don’t need real vertical gear progression, because back in the day we have epic epic legendary weapons like Thunderfury, Sulfuras, and Warglaive of Azzinoth etc in WOW but after expansions old legendary gears become shit item and skins or items only lay in bank and I hate about it, why after expansions old legendary gears don’t shine anymore and lost the glory forever?
I more like to see that intrepid make a more horizontal gear progression in end game so if intrepid once make epic legendary weapons they can long live in the game like a legendary weapon in ashes more like Master sword in Zelda0 BOTW, and the rest gear progression are like from tree branch to Royal Guard's Sword/Ancient Short Sword etc and maybe gears above rare level can be synergies with repair and enchant system, like you repair a rare gear to 100% will give the gear a enchant effect base on its rarity for X% durability.
And maybe that legendary gears are situational, like you have to choose when you should use legendary gears because gears have CDs to repair itself or the materials require to repair those gears are gated somehow.
Archeage gear tiers are;
Crude
Basic
Grand
Rare
Arcane
Heroic
Unique
Celestial
Divine
Epic
Legendary
Mythic
Eternal
I’ll take this over consulting a prisma wheel to decide whether my sword with a periwinkle title is higher value than a puce axe. Gear progression is a little absurd these days. 🙄
I want to be stronger on day 30 then I was on day 1, I then want to be much stronger on day 60, then I was on day 30...
What I do not want, is "oh well here comes a new expac or chapter, so we need a catch up system for little benny who is on his 5th day, so that he can run all the content you currently run and built up to for 400 hours"!
Let gear just be gear, with higher stats that you earned through harder content. or from higher levels of crafting. No need for names, labels, etc... Just raw numbers of stats and weapon abilities. "Oh how did you get a level 300 axe? Well Benny you do these 15 things and kill 600 people in pvp and eventually you can earn a 300 axe. Now put that level 10 axe to work!
Legendary in Ashes is closer to an item that is one of a kind on a server.
I'm not sure it's even possible to have a Legendary Set of armor. Especially, not in a manner that multiple characters on the server could own the same Legendary Set.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Armor
Item rarities
Item rarities in Ashes of Creation.
Poor.[120]
Common.[121]
Uncommon.[122]
Rare.[123]
Epic.[124]
Legendary.[125]
Certain legendary items may be limited to one per server at any given time.[132][133]
If the player character leaves the server then the item will become available for acquisition through whatever means it was acquired previously.[132]
There are absolutely legendary items and they're not items that are attained easily nor are they granted out in a volume. There might even be items that are single items that will exist on the server at any given time.[133]
A legendary weapon is easily distinguished by its visual appearance.[129]
It will be a very ornate and detailed weapon, more so than any other weapon or piece of equipment in the game. It will also include some awesome looking effects that won't too gaudy, you know they won't be too bright and shiny so that it doesn't look good, but they will be subtle and people will notice it and know wow that guy has this weapon.[129] – Steven Sharif
Legendary items are not intended to be temporary.[134]
A notable exception to this is Royal mounts.[135]
The fact there is only one of them... or very very few of them depending on what it is. I think that in and of itself is a balance component right and you need to make sure that the players who are striving for those legendary things and who are devoting the time energy, resources in order to achieve them are accurately rewarded... We do not intend on having legendary items that are temporary.[134] – Steven Sharif
Legendary is closer to one-of-a-kind per server.
Steven says if someone with a unique Legendary item quits the game, "that item will be available again for aquisition through whatever means it was acquired previously."
Items can be hard-to-obtain while simultaneously non-unique.
Seems like that will be handled programatically rather than via a Community Manager or GM.
Every stage a node develops it's unlocking narratives, storylines, it's changing the spawn population of the area around it, changing what bosses exist, it's triggering events where you may have legendary dragons attack the city. It's basically writing the story of the server based on the actions and determination of the players. So, you may experience a dungeon one month earlier and have a completely different story that relates to this location the next month, because something has changed either geopolitically or from the node standpoint.[49] – Steven Sharif
If we break everything down, let's say our server is full and assume the upper end of their estimated server cap at 10,000 players.
Let's then assume that there are 5 Legendaries obtainable in each node through Narrative quests at varying Node stages.
There will be 103 Nodes on launch.
There will be 103 Node locations at launch, each with its own impact on the narrative and development of the world.[7] – Margaret Krohn
So let's do a little bit of math assuming 5 legendaries per Node and round down to 100 nodes for the sake of this example to make things easier on ourselves without damaging the point.
10,000 players divided evenly into 100 nodes would give us an average of 100 players per node. I recognize that player density is most certainly not going to be this even, but let's assume it is for the sake of best case scenario here.
This means for every Node and thus 100 players, there could be 5 Legendaries. In other words, 5% of players will have a single legendary item.
This amount will be significantly lower though as a result of the fact that not all of the legendaries one may be able to acquire from a Node may be available to acquire.
An example of this could be that at a City stage, you may only have access to 2 of the 5 quests that reward with legendaries. And at a Village stage none of the Legendary quest lines are available.
All of this estimation assumes 5 legendaries per Node may be available. With that said and the way I understand things will work, I don't believe legendary items will be common, even after years or a decade of playing.
Of course I could be wrong, or have miscalculated or misunderstood. But that's the way I see it as of right now.
What I don't want is people punished for needing to take time off from the game. Picture it - you grind out your legendary excalibur-type sword, and are feeling great about yourself and the game. Then you get a promotion, and your desire to play slips away. You log in less and less. Months go by; a new expansion brings you back, only to find out that your excalibur-type sword was removed because you "weren't committed enough to the game."
Do you take this lying down? No, you make an online petition, gathering thousands of signatures on reddit. Josh Strife Hayes makes a video about how punitive and exclusionary AoC's systems are, and Asmongold reacts to it. It gets 3 million views.
Excalibur-type sword is restored, and steven says the system will be "addressed."
When you return, you may have lost your Node and Node citizenship. You may have lost your status in your Religion and Social Org. You may have lost your position in Government. You may have to rebuild and relocate your Freehold.
And, yeah, people will know before launch that they will lose their Legendary item if they quit playing for long enough. If that's a deal-breaker - don't play the game.
Can't please all of the people all of the time.
But getting something TAKEN AWAY from you by the devs to enforce arbitrary scarcity just seems like a bad system, or at least one that will be left on the cutting room floor.
At the end of the day you'll be discouraging people from returning to the game, or reactivating their account. Seems like a myopic choice in this day and age.
As long as they are very clear with it then I feel that petition has no grounds. If someone got a promotion and doesn’t have time to play the game anymore then they should probably focus on their new job and let someone else play with the shiny thing.
Either they are time/durability limited and hence logging out for a couple of months will result in them expiring or otherwise becoming available to other players again.
Or
They have no time or durability limit and do not leave your inventory once you earn them. Eventually resulting in some servers having zero unclaimed, and available legendary item.
Unless you have a way to implement it where this doesn't happen and Intrepid can maintain the rarity of Legendary items?
I think I'd be okay with legendary items having a time/durability limit, even if you're playing the game. Lore-wise you can make it work for whatever reason - the divine blade can only be attuned to our reality for a certain amount of time, for example - and then someone else needs to go through the steps to get the favor of the gods again.
Honestly, I'd prefer to find a way to destroy legendary items, akin to capital ships in EVE. A nice, player-driven cycle of creation and destruction.
The avatar could use the players exact build and armor. Could make for some interesting experiences where peoples most memorable boss fight was fighting the avatar of “insert player name here”. “Idk what build that guy was using when they went inactive but I wiped on them 5 times trying to unlock the Excalibur quest line”
Kind of would like that feeling to be replicated once in a while.
Aren't we all sinners?