My preference ofc is biased and I'd prefer the 'no damage scaling by level' to go. But analysis indicates that the best way to achieve what you imply as a wish in this thread is actually for the Waterfall Stats to go, and put the other 'half' of player/character power into skills (with a nice base progression on Main Weapon damage for gear reasons to maintain the 50% of character power part).
So that's what I'm expecting, based on what I understand of L2, since I bet Steven and the team will have a goal relative to new players that is more similar to yours.
I'm too dumb with proper gaming mechanics lingo, but from the ashes wiki quote on waterfall stats, that sounds fairly similar to how L2's stats worked (though I'm not fully sure if classes changed growth directions too). Your stats would just grow reaaally slow, but each point would have a fairly noticeable impact (a +4 would be felt greatly). And gear set bonuses would usually give up to +3 (+4 in very rare cases) of a stat and quite often would take away some other stat too.
And so in L2 we had meaningful stat growth, gear that impacted your power (through def values and set bonuses) and pretty slow ttk if the buffs on pvpers were equal (very slow with 0 buffs).
As for the "no scaling" that's not quite what I was talking about. There would be scaling in pve, but it just would be "slow" because the gear acquisition would be slow. And with gear representing 50% of power and, most importantly, your defense values - if you don't have gear that's much higher in "lvls", you gonna get bonked pretty hard even by a lower lvled mob. And the same would obviously apply to pvp.
And yes, a big chunk of the remaining character power would be in abilities, but imo it should be augments and specializations rather than purely the existence of particular abilities. This way your vertical ability progression would be fairly short, but then you'd have a shitton of horizontal progression in all directions and with considerations of all kinds. And mobs would require those augments too, so you'd either need to overpower them somehow or just have a partymember who has a particular school of augments (solos would just be choosing who to fight).
L2 kinda had that too, but on a super basic lvl. Mobs had resistances to different weapons and elements and classes had different weapon specializations and different attack elements on their abilities. Some classes had buffs against particular mob types too. I'm sure FF11 had something similar or, most likely, a much better system (I think we might've even talked about this before?). Due to Ashes allowing us to use any gear - we'd need to find specializations elsewhere, which is where the augments come in imo.
Grati, that lines up with what I found related to L2.
The main 'issue' I see is that the only way to have weak 'waterfall stats' (because these almost by definition affect mobs too) and still 'no scaling on mobs' is to hard clamp some of the Attack and Defense values.
Basically, Ashes wants your 300 damage ability to do 300 damage to a level 20 and a level 30, as I understand it.
Specifically:
There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.[18] If I have a skill that does a thousand damage to a target of equal level I don't want my skill to do zero damage to a target that's five levels above me.[18] – Steven Sharif
Now obviously this is an extreme example (leaving some flexibility as always, Steven is good at this), but basically.
If you do 300 damage to a level 20, you will probably do 300 damage - (influence of CON and DEF stats) to a level 30 as long as you can guarantee the hit.
This would imply that you must do some other stuff to prevent a level 30 mob from being killed just as easily as the level 20. General options are:
"It hits way harder and is probably more accurate"
"That Influence of CON and DEF is large" (unlikely given the goal, even considering that Steven might have meant PvP)
"It has so much more HP that the fight is extended and you have to do the same thing more times."
"It has much more evasion so you can't guarantee the hit."
Spreading these out and doing only a moderate amount of each will generally be easily cheesed. Hits way harder? Dodges more? Bring a bunch of Accuracy Spec Rangers.
Tons of HP? Bring more healers, fight longer (it may be inefficient ofc, but the point is that the solution to dealing with the challenge of it is simplistic).
"It has much more evasion." - Too many solutions to count, and strictly speaking this turns out a lot ilke 'just has tons more HP'.
It doesn't really matter of 'at level', 'above me', or whatever. The point is simply that without level based scaling, it is too mathematically hard to make something that is only 2 levels stronger than 'the average' actually not feel 'very much the same'. That was the real reason, I feel, that I could kill 8+ mobs solo in Alpha-1. It was definitely MORE dangerous, stats alone will do that, but it doesn't require adaptation.
As for how this relates to your topic, therefore, and Strevi's point...
Depending on which of those is true, and the way Gear gives survivability, the gap between high and low level players will either be large, or clamped to be small with no corresponding similarity in PvE. I guess Ashes could be one of those 'you can play solo up until level 30 but will not really survive/manage to level solo after that', though.
It doesn't really matter of 'at level', 'above me', or whatever. The point is simply that without level based scaling, it is too mathematically hard to make something that is only 2 levels stronger than 'the average' actually not feel 'very much the same'. That was the real reason, I feel, that I could kill 8+ mobs solo in Alpha-1. It was definitely MORE dangerous, stats alone will do that, but it doesn't require adaptation.
Depending on which of those is true, and the way Gear gives survivability, the gap between high and low level players will either be large, or clamped to be small with no corresponding similarity in PvE. I guess Ashes could be one of those 'you can play solo up until level 30 but will not really survive/manage to level solo after that', though.
What if the difference came from a "switch" you could turn off with tools? A lvl25 mob has 1k hp and you hit it for 300 with ability A.
A lvl35 mob has 1.5k hp (cause imo high lvls should at least get thicker), but also casts 2 buffs on itself. One buff doubles its hp, the other increases its speed which makes it atk faster, dodge better and defend/parry better too (if it has a shield or can parry). You could remove its buffs with a buff cancelling spell, but then the mob shouts to its comrades and you're now fighting several of these buffed dudes (and buff cancelling has a long cd), or you could use hp% cutting abilities (or augments) and kill it before it can kill you, or pretty much any other debuff that relates to the mob's buffs.
If by lvl25 a player has the basic amount of skill points to get any of their archetype's tools, high lvled players can add points to those tools to specialize them against those kinds of mob/player buffs or augment them in ways that might counter those buffs in some other way.
In other words, scale the mobs' complexity with lvls instead of just their base stats, pretty much in the same way as players would scale up in complexity. I'm like 90% sure that Steven will just tell the devs to scale mob hp with lvls, so at the very least mobs will require a shitton of damage at higher lvls, and your "same" atks will simply do less % dmg to them.
Players will grow in hp and other stats too, but probably a bit slower. And gear will just bump those stats a bit with each tier. But if you're lacking that gear, the lowbie's attacks will still get a good chunk out of you.
I don't remember if this feature was in L2 from the early versions, but at least at some point mages' abilities could "fail" against a high lvl enemy and do half (iirc) dmg. I think this was done mainly to counterbalance the absolute O fucking Pness of mages in L2, but I personally dislike this mechanic and would prefer just better ways of countering that archetype.
If there is one thing they've done extremely well, then it is the way they manage to make all zones relevant.
Make endgame gear require materials from all levels, and level sync high level players to be more zone appropriate. Obviously they shouldn't have to necessarily struggle with regular mobs, but don't let them oneshot everything in the area.
This way you'll encourage higher level players to be around in lower level zones, and the world will feel more populated overall.
If there is one thing they've done extremely well, then it is the way they manage to make all zones relevant.
Make endgame gear require materials from all levels, and level sync high level players to be more zone appropriate. Obviously they shouldn't have to necessarily struggle with regular mobs, but don't let them oneshot everything in the area.
This way you'll encourage higher level players to be around in lower level zones, and the world will feel more populated overall.
How quickly can you get to max lvl in GW2? How quickly can you get a base gear set that would let you kill the majority of mobs in the game?
From what I've heard GW2 is a very horizontal game. You get to a base lvl of power somewhat quickly and then you do any and all the things in the game w/o much problems. Ashes is not going for that kind of design. You'll have to level up for 150++h to reach max lvl. You'll have to kill open world bosses, that will be contested by other people, if you want to get best gear. Ashes is way more vertical in its design, so it'd be really hard to just copy GW2's ideas.
If there is one thing they've done extremely well, then it is the way they manage to make all zones relevant.
Make endgame gear require materials from all levels, and level sync high level players to be more zone appropriate. Obviously they shouldn't have to necessarily struggle with regular mobs, but don't let them oneshot everything in the area.
This way you'll encourage higher level players to be around in lower level zones, and the world will feel more populated overall.
Guild Wars 2 did many things very well. I realized that they even manage player's play style to prevent them to burn out unlike the old mmos. Still I don't like the kind of players who end up playing it.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
@Azherae btw, I'm almost sure you've already seen this, but I just reread my first comment on this page and I think I should've clarified which "stats" I was talking about there. https://lineage.pmfun.com/list/stat
I was talking about the STR/CON/etc stats and not the atk/hp/def ones. So when I said that L2's stat growth was slow, I meant that you'd only get single digits of those STR-like stats which would then influence the direct stats of the character (as shown on that site). And with gear providing p.def AND some big letter stats, a ton of your char power would be coming from gear.
I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on that point, for your data. Too paranoid about miscommunicating
@Azherae btw, I'm almost sure you've already seen this, but I just reread my first comment on this page and I think I should've clarified which "stats" I was talking about there. https://lineage.pmfun.com/list/stat
I was talking about the STR/CON/etc stats and not the atk/hp/def ones. So when I said that L2's stat growth was slow, I meant that you'd only get single digits of those STR-like stats which would then influence the direct stats of the character (as shown on that site). And with gear providing p.def AND some big letter stats, a ton of your char power would be coming from gear.
I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on that point, for your data. Too paranoid about miscommunicating
Got it, thank you.
And yes, those are the ones I was assuming were going to be quite weak. Looking at this matches my information, but I think when I originally found this page a while back I disregarded it due to going over it too fast in the outputs, since it actually doesn't say 'Lineage 2 stats' anywhere, and you have to actually look at it visually to know its an L2 page and not an original Lineage page (if you're not familiar with the games).
And yes, those are the ones I was assuming were going to be quite weak. Looking at this matches my information, but I think when I originally found this page a while back I disregarded it due to going over it too fast in the outputs, since it actually doesn't say 'Lineage 2 stats' anywhere, and you have to actually look at it visually to know its an L2 page and not an original Lineage page (if you're not familiar with the games).
Yeah, L1 was even less popular in the west than L2 was, so pretty much any "Lineage" page usually just means L2, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
That would mean damage and defense to be calculated differently, depending on enemy type.
Would it be ok?
Nope, I don't want to separate pve and pvp. Mobs can require different augments or other specialized tools that a lvl25 player just wouldn't have, so that player wouldn't be able to just go and farm lvl50 mobs. Also, there'd be an upwards lvl difference limit on XP and loot, just as there would be one downwards. Lvl25 player killing a lvl35 mob shouldn't get any XP or loot imo. Likewise for a lvl35 player and lvl25 mob.
So while either of those players can kill the mob, there's no benefit in it so they wouldn't do it (well, most of the time of course).
Still pvp and pve are separated already by game mechanics and progression.
PvE gives experience when killing an enemy, PvP gives 0.
Getting one level helps in PvE but in PvP chances are that you will lose unless you reach max level.
Preventing players killing mobs of different levels is ok by giving them less experience. But I loved when I could pay other players to train and kill many mobs so I can level up faster. Good mechanic when you have already a main and you are leveling up alts.
But so far I see these working without PvP.
If any high level is close, low levels cannot flag themselves.
So, do you support the solution that high level difference to prevent PvP?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
So, do you support the solution that high level difference to prevent PvP?
Nope I support mob distribution design where max lvl people just shouldn't be around truly lowbie farming grounds. But I think that a 20lvl difference should still give a chance for the lowbie to kill a high lvl player, if high's gear isn't of a super high tier.
And if it is of that tier, that player should have enough content on their plate that they don't waste time running around flagged lowbies. BUT! There'll be situations where guildies might be on their lowbie alts or have lowbie friends. And then those lowbies start a fight with other lowbie people and then want to come with the mains (or call their high lvl friends), which then makes their enemies do the same and soon enough you have a hugeass guild war on your hand with dozens (or even hundreds) of people fighting.
That was one of the funnest parts of L2, especially when you already reached a certain lvl of progression and decided to farm something on your alt. If flagged lowbies are fully protected against highbie hits - none of this can happen.
And if there's just random highbies going around and killing flagged lowbies - their reputation will be shit. And the game is kinda built on player reputation within their node/guild/social org. Players can address the problem of this situation themselves.
So, do you support the solution that high level difference to prevent PvP?
And if there's just random highbies going around and killing flagged lowbies - their reputation will be shit. And the game is kinda built on player reputation within their node/guild/social org. Players can address the problem of this situation themselves.
Random highbies from the other continent passing by might not care. If the game allows this, I see it as a design error.
(random does not mean rare)
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
So, do you support the solution that high level difference to prevent PvP?
And if it is of that tier, that player should have enough content on their plate that they don't waste time running around flagged lowbies. BUT! There'll be situations where guildies might be on their lowbie alts or have lowbie friends. And then those lowbies start a fight with other lowbie people and then want to come with the mains (or call their high lvl friends), which then makes their enemies do the same and soon enough you have a hugeass guild war on your hand with dozens (or even hundreds) of people fighting.
That was one of the funnest parts of L2, especially when you already reached a certain lvl of progression and decided to farm something on your alt. If flagged lowbies are fully protected against highbie hits - none of this can happen.
It still could because a lvl 20 would bring a lvl 30 friend, then another a lvl 40 to fight the 30 and so gradually the max levels would be involved.
But I need more arguments why a lvl 50 should be able to attack a flagged lvl 20.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
Because its a pvx game and not a care bear game...
Protecting a lvl 20 vs lvl 50 is not care bear.
Why would it be?
lvl 20 should be able to pvp with another lvl 20 without having to worry about random lvl 50s passing by.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
I'm the sort of level 20 who might flag on a 50 just to see whether my basic skills can match up to augmented skills. I do not take kindly to pvp on rails.
Random highbies from the other continent passing by might not care. If the game allows this, I see it as a design error.
(random does not mean rare)
It's gonna be rare if the highbie sees the lvl (or at least approximation) of the flagged character. Why would you risk getting flagged in foreign lands when there's no reward for it? Obviously some people might do it "just cause", but those would be even rarer.
It still could because a lvl 20 would bring a lvl 30 friend, then another a lvl 40 to fight the 30 and so gradually the max levels would be involved.
But I need more arguments why a lvl 50 should be able to attack a flagged lvl 20.
Except that ladder doesn't really work. One side might not have intermediate lvls in their guild. Or the lowbies friends are all lvl50s already (a quite often occurrence).
The lvl50 should be able to kill a flagged lvl20 character because it's a flagged character in the game. I could agree to a "your flagged state stays longer if it was initiated by hitting a flagged lowbie". Then the risk for the highbie is higher, while the reward is still non-existent.
It still could because a lvl 20 would bring a lvl 30 friend, then another a lvl 40 to fight the 30 and so gradually the max levels would be involved.
But I need more arguments why a lvl 50 should be able to attack a flagged lvl 20.
Except that ladder doesn't really work. One side might not have intermediate lvls in their guild. Or the lowbies friends are all lvl50s already (a quite often occurrence).
They should then start making those intermediate alts!
- to farm resources
- to play with new players who level up
- to be able to involve themselves in fights like you described when needed
Random highbies from the other continent passing by might not care. If the game allows this, I see it as a design error.
(random does not mean rare)
It's gonna be rare if the highbie sees the lvl (or at least approximation) of the flagged character. Why would you risk getting flagged in foreign lands when there's no reward for it? Obviously some people might do it "just cause", but those would be even rarer.
Because above event you mentioned, trying to protect lower level. Or to grief those involved. Maybe he knows them.
Not a big risk being flagged for a lvl 50. What can happen?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
They should then start making those intermediate alts!
- to farm resources
- to play with new players who level up
- to be able to involve themselves in fights like you described when needed
Except I'm against people making a shitton of alts I want the game to limit the validity of that action as much as possible. Mainly because I've played the game with alts and this pvp for years. It's never fun for the newbie to fight against an alt. It's also never fair either.
Because above event you mentioned, trying to protect lower level. Or to grief those involved. Maybe he knows them.
Not a big risk being flagged for a lvl 50. What can happen?
They'll just get killed. And if they return - they'll keep getting killed. If they're wearing their good gear - that's decay that they need to pay for, while they're just wasting their time on useless pvp.
And the event I described usually involves highbies in an almost immediate matter. Ashes would probably take longer to get other highbies to the same location, but still. If one side has friends/main of a higher lvl - they'd call them and kill the other lowbie once. If that other lowbie has their own highbie friends - it's now a high lvl pvp interaction and if lowbies are so weak that they can't contribute - they're not involved.
If the other lowbie doesn't have highbie friends - they either leave to another location of come back and stop flagging up, at which point it's gonna be a risk/reward decision on the side of the dude with highbie friends. Does he PK the other lowbie or not. But, in this case too, it's now a situation that's separated from highbies.
But I made another thread on this topic, cause I do think that there might be a good solution to this.
If AoC's system is good enough it will automatically limit alt use IE crafters and top gatherers will have to go into PvE Spec/Adventuring parties and actually need to perform quests instead of doing easy actions in town or through house/land actions.
So what I'm saying with that is hopefully different levels can combine.
Comments
And so in L2 we had meaningful stat growth, gear that impacted your power (through def values and set bonuses) and pretty slow ttk if the buffs on pvpers were equal (very slow with 0 buffs).
As for the "no scaling" that's not quite what I was talking about. There would be scaling in pve, but it just would be "slow" because the gear acquisition would be slow. And with gear representing 50% of power and, most importantly, your defense values - if you don't have gear that's much higher in "lvls", you gonna get bonked pretty hard even by a lower lvled mob. And the same would obviously apply to pvp.
And yes, a big chunk of the remaining character power would be in abilities, but imo it should be augments and specializations rather than purely the existence of particular abilities. This way your vertical ability progression would be fairly short, but then you'd have a shitton of horizontal progression in all directions and with considerations of all kinds. And mobs would require those augments too, so you'd either need to overpower them somehow or just have a partymember who has a particular school of augments (solos would just be choosing who to fight).
L2 kinda had that too, but on a super basic lvl. Mobs had resistances to different weapons and elements and classes had different weapon specializations and different attack elements on their abilities. Some classes had buffs against particular mob types too. I'm sure FF11 had something similar or, most likely, a much better system (I think we might've even talked about this before?). Due to Ashes allowing us to use any gear - we'd need to find specializations elsewhere, which is where the augments come in imo.
The main 'issue' I see is that the only way to have weak 'waterfall stats' (because these almost by definition affect mobs too) and still 'no scaling on mobs' is to hard clamp some of the Attack and Defense values.
Basically, Ashes wants your 300 damage ability to do 300 damage to a level 20 and a level 30, as I understand it.
Specifically:
There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.[18]
If I have a skill that does a thousand damage to a target of equal level I don't want my skill to do zero damage to a target that's five levels above me.[18] – Steven Sharif
Now obviously this is an extreme example (leaving some flexibility as always, Steven is good at this), but basically.
If you do 300 damage to a level 20, you will probably do 300 damage - (influence of CON and DEF stats) to a level 30 as long as you can guarantee the hit.
This would imply that you must do some other stuff to prevent a level 30 mob from being killed just as easily as the level 20. General options are:
"It hits way harder and is probably more accurate"
"That Influence of CON and DEF is large" (unlikely given the goal, even considering that Steven might have meant PvP)
"It has so much more HP that the fight is extended and you have to do the same thing more times."
"It has much more evasion so you can't guarantee the hit."
Spreading these out and doing only a moderate amount of each will generally be easily cheesed. Hits way harder? Dodges more? Bring a bunch of Accuracy Spec Rangers.
Tons of HP? Bring more healers, fight longer (it may be inefficient ofc, but the point is that the solution to dealing with the challenge of it is simplistic).
"It has much more evasion." - Too many solutions to count, and strictly speaking this turns out a lot ilke 'just has tons more HP'.
It doesn't really matter of 'at level', 'above me', or whatever. The point is simply that without level based scaling, it is too mathematically hard to make something that is only 2 levels stronger than 'the average' actually not feel 'very much the same'. That was the real reason, I feel, that I could kill 8+ mobs solo in Alpha-1. It was definitely MORE dangerous, stats alone will do that, but it doesn't require adaptation.
As for how this relates to your topic, therefore, and Strevi's point...
Depending on which of those is true, and the way Gear gives survivability, the gap between high and low level players will either be large, or clamped to be small with no corresponding similarity in PvE. I guess Ashes could be one of those 'you can play solo up until level 30 but will not really survive/manage to level solo after that', though.
A lvl35 mob has 1.5k hp (cause imo high lvls should at least get thicker), but also casts 2 buffs on itself. One buff doubles its hp, the other increases its speed which makes it atk faster, dodge better and defend/parry better too (if it has a shield or can parry). You could remove its buffs with a buff cancelling spell, but then the mob shouts to its comrades and you're now fighting several of these buffed dudes (and buff cancelling has a long cd), or you could use hp% cutting abilities (or augments) and kill it before it can kill you, or pretty much any other debuff that relates to the mob's buffs.
If by lvl25 a player has the basic amount of skill points to get any of their archetype's tools, high lvled players can add points to those tools to specialize them against those kinds of mob/player buffs or augment them in ways that might counter those buffs in some other way.
In other words, scale the mobs' complexity with lvls instead of just their base stats, pretty much in the same way as players would scale up in complexity. I'm like 90% sure that Steven will just tell the devs to scale mob hp with lvls, so at the very least mobs will require a shitton of damage at higher lvls, and your "same" atks will simply do less % dmg to them.
Players will grow in hp and other stats too, but probably a bit slower. And gear will just bump those stats a bit with each tier. But if you're lacking that gear, the lowbie's attacks will still get a good chunk out of you.
I don't remember if this feature was in L2 from the early versions, but at least at some point mages' abilities could "fail" against a high lvl enemy and do half (iirc) dmg. I think this was done mainly to counterbalance the absolute O fucking Pness of mages in L2, but I personally dislike this mechanic and would prefer just better ways of countering that archetype.
If there is one thing they've done extremely well, then it is the way they manage to make all zones relevant.
Make endgame gear require materials from all levels, and level sync high level players to be more zone appropriate. Obviously they shouldn't have to necessarily struggle with regular mobs, but don't let them oneshot everything in the area.
This way you'll encourage higher level players to be around in lower level zones, and the world will feel more populated overall.
From what I've heard GW2 is a very horizontal game. You get to a base lvl of power somewhat quickly and then you do any and all the things in the game w/o much problems. Ashes is not going for that kind of design. You'll have to level up for 150++h to reach max lvl. You'll have to kill open world bosses, that will be contested by other people, if you want to get best gear. Ashes is way more vertical in its design, so it'd be really hard to just copy GW2's ideas.
Guild Wars 2 did many things very well. I realized that they even manage player's play style to prevent them to burn out unlike the old mmos. Still I don't like the kind of players who end up playing it.
https://lineage.pmfun.com/list/stat
I was talking about the STR/CON/etc stats and not the atk/hp/def ones. So when I said that L2's stat growth was slow, I meant that you'd only get single digits of those STR-like stats which would then influence the direct stats of the character (as shown on that site). And with gear providing p.def AND some big letter stats, a ton of your char power would be coming from gear.
I just wanted to make sure that I was clear on that point, for your data. Too paranoid about miscommunicating
Got it, thank you.
And yes, those are the ones I was assuming were going to be quite weak. Looking at this matches my information, but I think when I originally found this page a while back I disregarded it due to going over it too fast in the outputs, since it actually doesn't say 'Lineage 2 stats' anywhere, and you have to actually look at it visually to know its an L2 page and not an original Lineage page (if you're not familiar with the games).
Still pvp and pve are separated already by game mechanics and progression.
PvE gives experience when killing an enemy, PvP gives 0.
Getting one level helps in PvE but in PvP chances are that you will lose unless you reach max level.
Preventing players killing mobs of different levels is ok by giving them less experience. But I loved when I could pay other players to train and kill many mobs so I can level up faster. Good mechanic when you have already a main and you are leveling up alts.
But so far I see these working without PvP.
If any high level is close, low levels cannot flag themselves.
So, do you support the solution that high level difference to prevent PvP?
And if it is of that tier, that player should have enough content on their plate that they don't waste time running around flagged lowbies. BUT! There'll be situations where guildies might be on their lowbie alts or have lowbie friends. And then those lowbies start a fight with other lowbie people and then want to come with the mains (or call their high lvl friends), which then makes their enemies do the same and soon enough you have a hugeass guild war on your hand with dozens (or even hundreds) of people fighting.
That was one of the funnest parts of L2, especially when you already reached a certain lvl of progression and decided to farm something on your alt. If flagged lowbies are fully protected against highbie hits - none of this can happen.
And if there's just random highbies going around and killing flagged lowbies - their reputation will be shit. And the game is kinda built on player reputation within their node/guild/social org. Players can address the problem of this situation themselves.
The thread title is misleading then
Random highbies from the other continent passing by might not care. If the game allows this, I see it as a design error.
(random does not mean rare)
It still could because a lvl 20 would bring a lvl 30 friend, then another a lvl 40 to fight the 30 and so gradually the max levels would be involved.
But I need more arguments why a lvl 50 should be able to attack a flagged lvl 20.
Protecting a lvl 20 vs lvl 50 is not care bear.
Why would it be?
lvl 20 should be able to pvp with another lvl 20 without having to worry about random lvl 50s passing by.
And when highbie do get content in lowbie locations (as I described in this thread) - it'd be for cooperation rather than fighting flagged lowbies.
It's gonna be rare if the highbie sees the lvl (or at least approximation) of the flagged character. Why would you risk getting flagged in foreign lands when there's no reward for it? Obviously some people might do it "just cause", but those would be even rarer.
Except that ladder doesn't really work. One side might not have intermediate lvls in their guild. Or the lowbies friends are all lvl50s already (a quite often occurrence).
The lvl50 should be able to kill a flagged lvl20 character because it's a flagged character in the game. I could agree to a "your flagged state stays longer if it was initiated by hitting a flagged lowbie". Then the risk for the highbie is higher, while the reward is still non-existent.
- to farm resources
- to play with new players who level up
- to be able to involve themselves in fights like you described when needed
Because above event you mentioned, trying to protect lower level. Or to grief those involved. Maybe he knows them.
Not a big risk being flagged for a lvl 50. What can happen?
They'll just get killed. And if they return - they'll keep getting killed. If they're wearing their good gear - that's decay that they need to pay for, while they're just wasting their time on useless pvp.
And the event I described usually involves highbies in an almost immediate matter. Ashes would probably take longer to get other highbies to the same location, but still. If one side has friends/main of a higher lvl - they'd call them and kill the other lowbie once. If that other lowbie has their own highbie friends - it's now a high lvl pvp interaction and if lowbies are so weak that they can't contribute - they're not involved.
If the other lowbie doesn't have highbie friends - they either leave to another location of come back and stop flagging up, at which point it's gonna be a risk/reward decision on the side of the dude with highbie friends. Does he PK the other lowbie or not. But, in this case too, it's now a situation that's separated from highbies.
But I made another thread on this topic, cause I do think that there might be a good solution to this.
Quite logical, yet, oddly, it's the first time I come upon it. hehe
So what I'm saying with that is hopefully different levels can combine.