@NiKr I'm not sure why you're on here discussing, you're only after improvements to an already dead horse of a system, it's baffling to me.
I'm here because Ashes has dead horse systems. And so far I haven't seen indicators of Steven wanting to change them. What I do see though is a ton of people trying to change his mind with every single post and dissuading anyone, who might agree with Steven's pov, from ever voicing their opinions.
Like I said, the game might change completely, but at least I'll know that I tried to stop it from doing so. And I was doing it because I believed in the original vision.
Even though my background in mmo's since they emerged is 90% from the Asian market and I've been in numerous hardcore situations without that much of a complaint I strongly feel we, nor game development like Ashe's won't get to great heights or evolve the genre if it doesn't incorperate gamer's from a wide spectrum as opposed to a closed spectrum of hard graft inviduals who make an mmo and winning inside of it massive priority.
From the get go, from listening to Steven I know he will definetly make an improved version of the Asian formula that has been sullied by P2W and simple questing/themepark practices. Ultimately through using old fundamentals I can only see failure down the line, whether that will be from hardcore guilds ruining the markets/PvE spot control or there being too much of a power gap between those who don't stop playing vs young or new players, ultimately leading to server merges or fresh starts.
I'd much rather an evolution than to grind a game that shows promise and down the line, 6 months or a year the playerbase hasn't increased and youtube critics or guides showcase the flaws with the game, with the end game basically boiling down to something along the lines of using a tier max city node, to elevate drop chance of x, farm x, compete for spot x and hold castle for riches.
Everything you've said is only to appease a hardcore playerbase with one narrative, own territory and dominate your enemies, is this the fantasy setting you always want and truly desire? I don't believe that.
This game can be in a good light, talked about for over 5+ years, the likes of Asmongold speaking fondly of it, new players excited about contributing to the economy and world building to the point of even hardcore players can't ignore them and must socialize with them for means of acquiring or certain players who know they're not skilled but have a huge passion for crafting or becoming "one of the best blacksmiths of the server" that not one hardcore player can ignore.
If you're after a simple affair, I'm dissapointed, especially as you've probably taken the same gaming course I have.
Everything you've said is only to appease a hardcore playerbase with one narrative, own territory and dominate your enemies, is this the fantasy setting you always want and truly desire? I don't believe that.
Everything I've stated can still be a part of the game w/o alienating other people. Corruption will prevent hardcore players from touching lowbies, while allowing them to still PK a dude who's holding a grind spot (if there even are any). I believe Steven has accounted for the casual playerbase in his current design, and I'm completely fine with all of those changes. What I'm personally against is the casual players pushing those changes even further, usually because they're either afraid of a system they don't know (that mainly being Corruption) or because they've seen it done in some other mmos in a horrible manner (all the faction-based pvp mmos where you can freely genocide the other faction).
This game can be in a good light, talked about for over 5+ years, the likes of Asmongold speaking fondly of it, new players excited about contributing to the economy and world building to the point of even hardcore players can't ignore them and must socialize with them for means of acquiring or certain players who know they're not skilled but have a huge passion for crafting or becoming "one of the best blacksmiths of the server" that not one hardcore player can ignore.
Here's a reddit post I made about hardcore players having to not only interact with time-casual players, but even paying them, in order to support their node. I'm all for casuals enjoying the game to the fullest in their own way. But I'm against making this game only for casuals.
Also, Asmon hate ~80% of AoC's features. He hasn't stated that directly while talking about Ashes (outside of a few specific things), but, when watching vids about other games, he has described highly disliking features that are core to the Ashes experience (at least currently). And a ton of his viewers agree with him. So I'm pretty sure that Ashes will either change completely or will die if it can't garner enough hardcore players to sustain the development. I personally don't want it to change it's current design, but if Steven decides to save his money and the only way to do that is to appeal to the predominant masses - I'll be fine with it cause I'll just stop playing and move on.
If you're after a simple affair, I'm dissapointed, especially as you've probably taken the same gaming course I have.
I'm after that simplicity exactly because of where the genre is at right now. Any pvp mmo is ridden with p2w or just bad designs, while a lot of pve mmos are flourishing. I'm glad that people enjoy the genre in their own way and that the studios manage to pay their employees good money because of that, but none of the pve mmos appeal to me in any way. Ashes did. If Ashes fails or completely changes, I'll just know that it's time for me to move on from mmos (as I've kinda already done).
I'm after that simplicity exactly because of where the genre is at right now. Any pvp mmo is ridden with p2w or just bad designs, while a lot of pve mmos are flourishing.
I honestly wouldn't dawn on it, anyone with a decent head on their shoulder's knows that the likes of ff14 is at its foundations a story console co-op game first and an online game 2nd. You frankly can't class something as an mmo just based off of some generic practices like "this game has the typical classes, they lvl up and they encounter other players".
I'm all for casuals enjoying the game to the fullest in their own way. But I'm against making this game only for casuals.
I'm not at all suggesting that this game's focused be designed just for casual players but I would certainly suggest that dedicated players are never the first to be priortized because that is almost natural to focus through development. It's simple a case of designing a game in such a way that owning or building a castle isn't the only avenue a player feels about winning, for example they can feel like they've won in their own right having a rare cosmetic + other gear choices and having an attractive and decently successful shop plot in a city node with a bunch of friends.
Also your idea for sands of time to maintain nodes etc just suggests that casual players are the 3rd class citizens to a bigger picture, quickly as hell summarized.
In terms of Asmongold or his viewers not liking certain features, most notebly for me is open PvP, it's to be generally ignored as they swift through content like no 2moro. They have been brought up with WoW and raiding, they have fond memories of it and they have quite distasteful memories from Asian mmo's, there opinions can change drastically based off of how well something is designed, regardless of their perhaps stubbornly quick reflections, which brings me to...
Corruption System.
Any Lineage player is no stranger to this, there is still a lot of work to be finalized I bet with the bounty hunting system but open PvP in general MUST be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for casual players to be even on board with the idea of their limited time being disrupted by "player drama/nonsense".
So all I'm going to say in regards to that system is there is much more than that system alone that needs to be done to allow a much broader array of players to be enjoying, potentially the "next big MMO".
Unlike L2 though I was very surprised at stat lowering for PK'ers, I'm kind of imagining that there will be circumstances set in place where people are allowed by "the laws/religious powers of the node" to do the work they've been instructed/want to do and then possibly through some activation or event will see less harsh penalties so players can have a bit of a fiesta.
...and with that fiesta, getting back on your original topic a bit, I hope to see interesting enchants that will broaden gameplay (Archeage ancestral skills?? changing or adding to skills possibly) as opposed to finalizing it, IE "big boy" enchanted sword touches average player and they go BOOM.
If I was a dev, the dedicated playerbase for a project that I'm passionate about, would be a no brain concern...because I am one, and so is Steve, this isn't the big hurdle to tackle, what needs to happen is to focus on the success of the game and the good atomsphere of the world, in its entirety with players "big" and "small".
I honestly wouldn't dawn on it, anyone with a decent head on their shoulder's knows that the likes of ff14 is at its foundations a story console co-op game first and an online game 2nd. You frankly can't class something as an mmo just based off of some generic practices like "this game has the typical classes, they lvl up and they encounter other players".
The pve/pvp side of FF14 is definitely more of a semi-singleplayer game, but the community potential is very big. It's just that this potential is only realized for those who're ready to go out there and connect with other people, while older games made you find people because you wouldn't be able to progress w/o them.
But that kind of hardcoreness is frowned upon these days, because it's "inconvenient". And we get all the auto-partyfinders and easy pve content and no owpvp, so there's no push to talk to other people. Imo that's bad, but obviously that's where the genre has been moving towards for the past decade or so.
It's simple a case of designing a game in such a way that owning or building a castle isn't the only avenue a player feels about winning, for example they can feel like they've won in their own right having a rare cosmetic + other gear choices and having an attractive and decently successful shop plot in a city node with a bunch of friends.
I mean, that kind of thing is always subjective. Obviously the game should give the option to progress towards those goals (and Ashes claims to have those), but every person decides their winstate for themselves.
Also your idea for sands of time to maintain nodes etc just suggests that casual players are the 3rd class citizens to a bigger picture, quickly as hell summarized.
Yeah, I need to explain it in a better way, but we've got too little info about the nodes. Though I doubt we'll get too much of innerworkings of that system either way, so that suggestion might not apply at all.
But assumption was that hardcore players would be playing for way longer which would lead to uselessness of casuals (at least that's been the case in L2 for me), so I wanted to come up with a system where casuals would not only have the same amount of impact on the world (be it through their own actions or by selling the time that they couldn't play out) but would also earn some money while doing whatever they like in the game.
I used analogy of trickle down economics in that post, but afterwards I realized that this system would be closer to universal basic income. People would be doing things they enjoy w/o worrying that they won't have enough resources for survival.
I hope that Intrepid comes up with a system where casuals manage to enjoy their time in the game and have enough resources to progress towards whatever goal the set for themselves, but, from what I understand of the node system, that might be a difficult thing to balance.
In terms of Asmongold or his viewers not liking certain features, most notebly for me is open PvP, it's to be generally ignored as they swift through content like no 2moro. They have been brought up with WoW and raiding, they have fond memories of it and they have quite distasteful memories from Asian mmo's, there opinions can change drastically based off of how well something is designed, regardless of their perhaps stubbornly quick reflections
Yeah, pvp is definitely one of the bigger issues, but there's also the no fast travel, no party finder, open world bosses, open world dungeons, the whole "selling fomo cosmetics before release" and the overall "player friction" design doesn't lend itself to convenient gameplay which has been one of the main desires of Asmon and his chat's.
which brings me to Corruption System. Any Lineage player is no stranger to this, there is still a lot of work to be finalized I bet with the bounty hunting system but open PvP in general MUST be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for casual players to be even on board with the idea of their limited time being disrupted by "player drama/nonsense".
So all I'm going to say in regards to that system is there is much more than that system alone that needs to be done to allow a much broader array of players to be enjoying, potentially the "next big MMO".
True, but the sheer mention of "open world pvp" sends people into all-out panic. And all the dozens (not even) of L2 players across all social media can't say enough to calm down those screaming people. Obviously the values of corruption gain and removal and all of that will have to be tested, but I can already imagine that any person that gets attacked even once (not even killed) would complain that they can't play the game like that. Which would most likely lead to owpvp removal or the game dying due to all the complaints snowballing out of control. I hope I'm wrong in that assumption though, but only the time will tell.
Unlike L2 though I was very surprised at stat lowering for PK'ers, I'm kind of imagining that there will be circumstances set in place where people are allowed by "the laws/religious powers of the node" to do the work they've been instructed/want to do and then possibly through some activation or event will see less harsh penalties so players can have a bit of a fiesta.
Those fiestas can be done in the form of an event, like caravans or sieges or guild wars. And I see the stat dampening as the main deterrent to all those people who loved using a dagger/archer class in L2 and just went around genociding lowbies for no fucking reason.
...and with that fiesta, getting back on your original topic a bit, I hope to see interesting enchants that will broaden gameplay (Archeage ancestral skills?? changing or adding to skills possibly) as opposed to finalizing it, IE "big boy" enchanted sword touches average player and they go BOOM.
I assume augments will be closer to real broadening of gameplay, while enchantments will prop those augments up and maybe give some additional effects/powers, but nothing too substantial. Though we obviously know nothing outside of "horizontal ench might give you some elements and vertical will give you some power", which tells us nothing. So we'll have to see what Intrepid has planned later on.
Game systems shouldn't be designed to force hardcore players into doing the things you want them to do, because they will get around it and the casual players will suffer the downsides
This is why I was criticizing your systems - because for a casual/new player that is just getting into those systems is not only overwhelmed by the convoluted system that doesnt even have that big of a depth, but he is also punished, because those systems tax recurring gametime in order to participate with them.
This is also why I don't have any understanding for open world spontanious pvp - total vast majority of open world pvp is by outnumbering someone only to create a negative experience on the victim and fleeting malicious satisfaction on the ganker/s that they ruined someone elses game session
Imo the current version of wow has the best iteration of open world pvp setting - you OPT INTO open world pvp and you have bonus rewards from doing anything in the world, but you are susceptible to pvp
Game systems shouldn't be designed to force hardcore players into doing the things you want them to do, because they will get around it and the casual players will suffer the downsides
Casuals would suffer from any non-casual system though. As they will with a lot of currently planned system in Ashes. So unless Steven has accounted for that and has made most of the systems in the game friendly and appealing to someone who plays 1-2h a day (if that) - those people will suffer.
This is why I was criticizing your systems - because for a casual/new player that is just getting into those systems is not only overwhelmed by the convoluted system that doesnt even have that big of a depth, but he is also punished, because those systems tax recurring gametime in order to participate with them.
Any form of gear decay does that and if AoC's system is basing their decay on activities, then casuals will be directly punished for any activity they do in the game and the potential attacks they receive from other players. The system in this post would give them not only ample time to learn about the system, but also have the time to get prepared for the repairs.
And if the system that I suggest on reddit would've been implemented - they'd even have the in-game money to do those repairs so they wouldn't have to worry about anything at all. But most likely neither of these will happen and we'll just have to hope that Intrepid manages to make a game that appeals to casuals.
This is also why I don't have any understanding for open world spontanious pvp - total vast majority of open world pvp is by outnumbering someone only to create a negative experience on the victim and fleeting malicious satisfaction on the ganker/s that they ruined someone elses game session
And in my experience it's either party vs party, because farming locations are hard so you're always farming in a party, or it's 1v1 or at worse 1v2 in those locations where solo farm is available. Yes, there might be a few times where you get attacked by a much bigger group, but out of 12 years of playing with this pvp system, I could maybe recall a few dozen situations like that.
Imo the current version of wow has the best iteration of open world pvp setting - you OPT INTO open world pvp and you have bonus rewards from doing anything in the world, but you are susceptible to pvp
Faction-based owpvp is never good. Exactly because you're never punished for genociding the other side. You might get smaller rewards for it or might even get none, but I haven't heard about a faction-based pvp game where you'd get punished for killing your enemies.
In the system that Ashes wants to have, there's a very strong punishment for those who kill random people. And if you just harass people w/o killing them, you'll have a bad reputation. And that reputation will matter only because Steven's trying to bring back the feeling of community in an mmo. Now whether he'll succeed in his attempt is a whole different story, but he's at least trying, while all the other mmos have just completely abandoned that notion.
I'm all for giving casuals and the slightly annoying PvE only crowd a slice of the pie for warming into AoC but open world PvP is not a toxic environment. The only thing "toxic" is the lack of options and punishments systems for and against dedicated and/or blood thirsty players.
I strongly believe you won't be able to evolve the genre like this, every popular game genre has competition and struggle.
Casuals won't suffer in any way. Firstly, not even hardcore players can do everything in Ashes. Casuals will have smooth progress to level cap because the world grows with them and Casuals are free to explore because unlike hardcore players social standing for a casual is less dependant on the support of others.
At the end of the day, if you make the game easy fir Casuals, no one will be a hardcore player. No one will be unique and all classes will be merged like wow with group finder.
Every system should aim to be easy to understand, intuitive and fast to pickup, but also have significant depth to allow for mastery of it
That is the only reason why I don't think it is a good idea to consider a durability system that at its core needs you to track states over 60 parts per gearset in order to keep it repaired.
The same I can say about the over enchantment you talked about - it is extremely convoluted by dividing the enchantments onto each part when in effect there is no depth, because it boils down to enchanting the biggest number for your build
That is the only reason why I don't think it is a good idea to consider a durability system that at its core needs you to track states over 60 parts per gearset in order to keep it repaired.
You'd only need to look at the color indicator on the gear you're wearing. That's it. There's no need to keep track of anything else. The gear pieces being comprised of 4 parts only comes to play at the end of the decay timer and even then, before enchantment, you'd only need one of the part's materials to fix your gear piece. And you'd be able to see that at a crafter stall.
Again, from what I understand, the current design is already complex when it comes to repairs, and according to the currently presented state of the system it's even more punishing than what I'm suggesting, where you constantly need to monitor your gear for repairs because if you let it get to 0 durability - you'll have to pay way more to repair it. While my system only makes you do that once you've enchanted the gear to its maximum.
The same I can say about the over enchantment you talked about - it is extremely convoluted by dividing the enchantments onto each part when in effect there is no depth, because it boils down to enchanting the biggest number for your build
But the depth could be added. I just gave a basic example of my concept. The verticality could come in the way of empowering the horizontal enchantments.
Say you added fire element as one of the enchantments on your weapon. When you overenchant that part of the weapon, the elemental effect could get an additional proc function. Maybe it's an aoe on hit, maybe it's a dot, maybe it's a resistance decrease, maybe it's a ice buff prevention, etc. You could have those function come in the form of rng, with an ability to remove the OE with a fraction of the mats returning to you, or you could have it as just an option when OEing the gear. It'd depend on how much "risk v reward" Intrepid wants.
Oh, and the elemental attribute itself would increase in power no matter the option you get. This way the "verticality" of the enchantment could be preserved.
Comments
Like I said, the game might change completely, but at least I'll know that I tried to stop it from doing so. And I was doing it because I believed in the original vision.
Even though my background in mmo's since they emerged is 90% from the Asian market and I've been in numerous hardcore situations without that much of a complaint I strongly feel we, nor game development like Ashe's won't get to great heights or evolve the genre if it doesn't incorperate gamer's from a wide spectrum as opposed to a closed spectrum of hard graft inviduals who make an mmo and winning inside of it massive priority.
From the get go, from listening to Steven I know he will definetly make an improved version of the Asian formula that has been sullied by P2W and simple questing/themepark practices. Ultimately through using old fundamentals I can only see failure down the line, whether that will be from hardcore guilds ruining the markets/PvE spot control or there being too much of a power gap between those who don't stop playing vs young or new players, ultimately leading to server merges or fresh starts.
I'd much rather an evolution than to grind a game that shows promise and down the line, 6 months or a year the playerbase hasn't increased and youtube critics or guides showcase the flaws with the game, with the end game basically boiling down to something along the lines of using a tier max city node, to elevate drop chance of x, farm x, compete for spot x and hold castle for riches.
Everything you've said is only to appease a hardcore playerbase with one narrative, own territory and dominate your enemies, is this the fantasy setting you always want and truly desire? I don't believe that.
This game can be in a good light, talked about for over 5+ years, the likes of Asmongold speaking fondly of it, new players excited about contributing to the economy and world building to the point of even hardcore players can't ignore them and must socialize with them for means of acquiring or certain players who know they're not skilled but have a huge passion for crafting or becoming "one of the best blacksmiths of the server" that not one hardcore player can ignore.
If you're after a simple affair, I'm dissapointed, especially as you've probably taken the same gaming course I have.
Also, Asmon hate ~80% of AoC's features. He hasn't stated that directly while talking about Ashes (outside of a few specific things), but, when watching vids about other games, he has described highly disliking features that are core to the Ashes experience (at least currently). And a ton of his viewers agree with him. So I'm pretty sure that Ashes will either change completely or will die if it can't garner enough hardcore players to sustain the development. I personally don't want it to change it's current design, but if Steven decides to save his money and the only way to do that is to appeal to the predominant masses - I'll be fine with it cause I'll just stop playing and move on. I'm after that simplicity exactly because of where the genre is at right now. Any pvp mmo is ridden with p2w or just bad designs, while a lot of pve mmos are flourishing. I'm glad that people enjoy the genre in their own way and that the studios manage to pay their employees good money because of that, but none of the pve mmos appeal to me in any way. Ashes did. If Ashes fails or completely changes, I'll just know that it's time for me to move on from mmos (as I've kinda already done).
I honestly wouldn't dawn on it, anyone with a decent head on their shoulder's knows that the likes of ff14 is at its foundations a story console co-op game first and an online game 2nd. You frankly can't class something as an mmo just based off of some generic practices like "this game has the typical classes, they lvl up and they encounter other players".
I'm not at all suggesting that this game's focused be designed just for casual players but I would certainly suggest that dedicated players are never the first to be priortized because that is almost natural to focus through development. It's simple a case of designing a game in such a way that owning or building a castle isn't the only avenue a player feels about winning, for example they can feel like they've won in their own right having a rare cosmetic + other gear choices and having an attractive and decently successful shop plot in a city node with a bunch of friends.
Also your idea for sands of time to maintain nodes etc just suggests that casual players are the 3rd class citizens to a bigger picture, quickly as hell summarized.
In terms of Asmongold or his viewers not liking certain features, most notebly for me is open PvP, it's to be generally ignored as they swift through content like no 2moro. They have been brought up with WoW and raiding, they have fond memories of it and they have quite distasteful memories from Asian mmo's, there opinions can change drastically based off of how well something is designed, regardless of their perhaps stubbornly quick reflections, which brings me to...
Corruption System.
Any Lineage player is no stranger to this, there is still a lot of work to be finalized I bet with the bounty hunting system but open PvP in general MUST be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for casual players to be even on board with the idea of their limited time being disrupted by "player drama/nonsense".
So all I'm going to say in regards to that system is there is much more than that system alone that needs to be done to allow a much broader array of players to be enjoying, potentially the "next big MMO".
Unlike L2 though I was very surprised at stat lowering for PK'ers, I'm kind of imagining that there will be circumstances set in place where people are allowed by "the laws/religious powers of the node" to do the work they've been instructed/want to do and then possibly through some activation or event will see less harsh penalties so players can have a bit of a fiesta.
...and with that fiesta, getting back on your original topic a bit, I hope to see interesting enchants that will broaden gameplay (Archeage ancestral skills?? changing or adding to skills possibly) as opposed to finalizing it, IE "big boy" enchanted sword touches average player and they go BOOM.
If I was a dev, the dedicated playerbase for a project that I'm passionate about, would be a no brain concern...because I am one, and so is Steve, this isn't the big hurdle to tackle, what needs to happen is to focus on the success of the game and the good atomsphere of the world, in its entirety with players "big" and "small".
But that kind of hardcoreness is frowned upon these days, because it's "inconvenient". And we get all the auto-partyfinders and easy pve content and no owpvp, so there's no push to talk to other people. Imo that's bad, but obviously that's where the genre has been moving towards for the past decade or so. I mean, that kind of thing is always subjective. Obviously the game should give the option to progress towards those goals (and Ashes claims to have those), but every person decides their winstate for themselves. Yeah, I need to explain it in a better way, but we've got too little info about the nodes. Though I doubt we'll get too much of innerworkings of that system either way, so that suggestion might not apply at all.
But assumption was that hardcore players would be playing for way longer which would lead to uselessness of casuals (at least that's been the case in L2 for me), so I wanted to come up with a system where casuals would not only have the same amount of impact on the world (be it through their own actions or by selling the time that they couldn't play out) but would also earn some money while doing whatever they like in the game.
I used analogy of trickle down economics in that post, but afterwards I realized that this system would be closer to universal basic income. People would be doing things they enjoy w/o worrying that they won't have enough resources for survival.
I hope that Intrepid comes up with a system where casuals manage to enjoy their time in the game and have enough resources to progress towards whatever goal the set for themselves, but, from what I understand of the node system, that might be a difficult thing to balance. Yeah, pvp is definitely one of the bigger issues, but there's also the no fast travel, no party finder, open world bosses, open world dungeons, the whole "selling fomo cosmetics before release" and the overall "player friction" design doesn't lend itself to convenient gameplay which has been one of the main desires of Asmon and his chat's. True, but the sheer mention of "open world pvp" sends people into all-out panic. And all the dozens (not even) of L2 players across all social media can't say enough to calm down those screaming people. Obviously the values of corruption gain and removal and all of that will have to be tested, but I can already imagine that any person that gets attacked even once (not even killed) would complain that they can't play the game like that. Which would most likely lead to owpvp removal or the game dying due to all the complaints snowballing out of control. I hope I'm wrong in that assumption though, but only the time will tell. Those fiestas can be done in the form of an event, like caravans or sieges or guild wars. And I see the stat dampening as the main deterrent to all those people who loved using a dagger/archer class in L2 and just went around genociding lowbies for no fucking reason. I assume augments will be closer to real broadening of gameplay, while enchantments will prop those augments up and maybe give some additional effects/powers, but nothing too substantial. Though we obviously know nothing outside of "horizontal ench might give you some elements and vertical will give you some power", which tells us nothing. So we'll have to see what Intrepid has planned later on.
This is why I was criticizing your systems - because for a casual/new player that is just getting into those systems is not only overwhelmed by the convoluted system that doesnt even have that big of a depth, but he is also punished, because those systems tax recurring gametime in order to participate with them.
This is also why I don't have any understanding for open world spontanious pvp - total vast majority of open world pvp is by outnumbering someone only to create a negative experience on the victim and fleeting malicious satisfaction on the ganker/s that they ruined someone elses game session
Imo the current version of wow has the best iteration of open world pvp setting - you OPT INTO open world pvp and you have bonus rewards from doing anything in the world, but you are susceptible to pvp
― Plato
And if the system that I suggest on reddit would've been implemented - they'd even have the in-game money to do those repairs so they wouldn't have to worry about anything at all. But most likely neither of these will happen and we'll just have to hope that Intrepid manages to make a game that appeals to casuals. And in my experience it's either party vs party, because farming locations are hard so you're always farming in a party, or it's 1v1 or at worse 1v2 in those locations where solo farm is available. Yes, there might be a few times where you get attacked by a much bigger group, but out of 12 years of playing with this pvp system, I could maybe recall a few dozen situations like that. Faction-based owpvp is never good. Exactly because you're never punished for genociding the other side. You might get smaller rewards for it or might even get none, but I haven't heard about a faction-based pvp game where you'd get punished for killing your enemies.
In the system that Ashes wants to have, there's a very strong punishment for those who kill random people. And if you just harass people w/o killing them, you'll have a bad reputation. And that reputation will matter only because Steven's trying to bring back the feeling of community in an mmo. Now whether he'll succeed in his attempt is a whole different story, but he's at least trying, while all the other mmos have just completely abandoned that notion.
I strongly believe you won't be able to evolve the genre like this, every popular game genre has competition and struggle.
At the end of the day, if you make the game easy fir Casuals, no one will be a hardcore player. No one will be unique and all classes will be merged like wow with group finder.
That is the only reason why I don't think it is a good idea to consider a durability system that at its core needs you to track states over 60 parts per gearset in order to keep it repaired.
The same I can say about the over enchantment you talked about - it is extremely convoluted by dividing the enchantments onto each part when in effect there is no depth, because it boils down to enchanting the biggest number for your build
― Plato
Again, from what I understand, the current design is already complex when it comes to repairs, and according to the currently presented state of the system it's even more punishing than what I'm suggesting, where you constantly need to monitor your gear for repairs because if you let it get to 0 durability - you'll have to pay way more to repair it. While my system only makes you do that once you've enchanted the gear to its maximum. But the depth could be added. I just gave a basic example of my concept. The verticality could come in the way of empowering the horizontal enchantments.
Say you added fire element as one of the enchantments on your weapon. When you overenchant that part of the weapon, the elemental effect could get an additional proc function. Maybe it's an aoe on hit, maybe it's a dot, maybe it's a resistance decrease, maybe it's a ice buff prevention, etc. You could have those function come in the form of rng, with an ability to remove the OE with a fraction of the mats returning to you, or you could have it as just an option when OEing the gear. It'd depend on how much "risk v reward" Intrepid wants.
Oh, and the elemental attribute itself would increase in power no matter the option you get. This way the "verticality" of the enchantment could be preserved.