Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
what about the player who spent years leveling and gearing up???
the issue isn't gear mattering. the issue is how much it matters.
regarding new players, there's always ways to get them up to speed and help them catch up with veterans without making gear not matter.
every now and then a thread pop ups offering a suggestion on how to make low level players relevant (or players who arent maxed out). if we keep giving incentives to lower levels, then whats the reason to level up or gear up? at some point no one gonna bother
Oh that guy? He's had years of conquest, being a reliable skilled/knowledgable party/guild member and could of potentially used his gold for years INSTEAD of going through the rng rollercoaster of getting every single piece of gear to "+ godlike", the player instead uses their gold to raise the stats on his gear/augments by a fraction via crafting to amplify the utility/effectiveness of his playstyle (rng positive and negative effects always applied), upkeep of guild taxes, repair costs (especially of activated gear), cosmetically making his gear better looking outside of the "pay to cosmetic" store, many hard upgrades to mount and cart etc etc etc.
MANY ways to stop enchanting passively winning the game for you, it's just a matter of making it fun BUT it's very important to consider the first suggestion I said, positive AND negative bonuses because people naturally believe that the only way they can have fun is if they work towards something that is a direct improvement but that is an untested mentality for many.
edit - You know league players keep on playing because they're addicted only to a badge that showcases their merit right? There's millions of them!
I'm for it, if a players a trashcan they get to die.
This could work fine if everybody would start at lvl 50 and level down to 30
fun is subjective. engaging is probably a better word.
people complain about skips or paying to skip, or expansions that let you skip old content. this is a skip, except it's free and it's not even an expansion, yet people want it? XDD
look at it this way. there are a lot of things to do in the game, as you just mentioned. so while you get to do all those things, and I don't, because I'm busy leveling and gearing up, you also get to be as impactful as me on pvp? so you get to spend all your gaming time making money, trading, leveling artisan skills, getting skins, etc and I can't do any of that because I want to be strong in PVP first and do those other things later. that's a slap to the face to me.
how about I spend all my time leveling and becoming stronger for PVP but the game gives me the option to get (or craft) the best gear without leveling my artisan skills? you wouldn't like that, do you? I could just focus on leveling and doing dungeons and PVP and still be able to compete with you in the market, who spent all his time working on his artisan skills. It doesn't seem fair.
remember that everybody will start at level 1 when the game goes live. lots of level 20-30 fighting in the first few sieges. everybody will be more or less equal.
If also for instance you're not upgrading your horse and cart then you plan to hijack other peoples on resource takes? perhaps the game will have that but just incase you need to come up with a plan B or have an ally who does. If you make less money you are less comfortable in the game but it can be way more complex and different than just by power means.
You could set off in a dungeon without your healer for 30 minutes because they have a r/l emergency "I have good quality potions and the bard can spam weak heals and use my collection of high quality mp potions I have, hopefully our healer comes soon xD" would be a basic example of ingame comforts.
If you're ONLY looking to PvP and steal from players, literally the only thing you're prioritizing and still allowed by the system to win in your own category then that means the game is not advanced and there's just simply avenues of enjoyment that don't really on a combination of systems. We are long past the long and worn out game practices of WoW where only your raid gear OR pvp gear makes substanial differences and NPC's flood you with tokens for merely pacticapting and you're simply progressing in a simple manner, something like League of Legends has literally x100 times more needed player engagment than this in terms of progression where you need not only skill but discipline to progress through the ranks.
You also need to think about the "state of the game" after 3 months or so have settled and most of the players are properly acquianted to the server, the 3 months before hand of lvl disparities and the imbalancing that causes when certain classes gain certain skills is almost inconsequential.
Yep, I just tend to be terrible at 1v1 PvP. I've acknowledged my weakness, and when it comes up, I'll do my best! But I don't expect my level to save me! hahahaha
A lot of people thought this was the case, but the thing many of these people just didnt realize (didnt want to realize) is that most of those players that had really top end gear (even those that bought it) were actually really good at the game as well.
I knew a fair few people right at the top of the pile while I was playing Archeage, and most of them (note, not all) were able to easily beat me in a normalized setting - I was above average at PvP, making them significantly above average.
So many people would see these people with their gear score that was two or three times the average, watch them obliterate 3 or 4 players at the same time, and say it was only the gear. It wasnt, it was as much their ability as anything.
Most people dont want to hear that though. They dont want to believe that players can both be good AND have good gear. I fully expect you to argue this point, because you wont want to believe it.
Now, to be clear, if you are running around in celestial quality illustrious or tier 2 or 3 obsidian gear (basically someone that chases the 10%, or doesn't really give a shit about gear), and you come up against someone in tier 5 or 6 obsidian or ayanad gear that is epic or legendary (someone that chases the 0.1%), yeah, no amount of skill is likely to bridge that gap.
However, that is literally putting the best geared player against someone that put no effort at all in to gearing. That shouldnt be an even match - you should expect to at least put some effort in to gear.
At the same point in the game where the above would be the best geared player and someone that had not put any actual effort in to gearing, a player that put some effort in would have tier 4 or 5 obsidian at divine or epic (epic weapon, at the very least - someone chasing the 1%). With this gear, the winner in 1v1 vs that best geared player would indeed come down to player skill.
The original point I replied to was in regard with this point about gear was in relation to the hypothetical player and why they should keep playing the game when others have a two year head start. The basic and fact of diminishing returns is that reason - not just diminishing returns on gear upgrades, but diminishing returns on how many upgrades you can actually expect to get out of a given amount of wealth.
In leading up to my gear plateau (epic and divine obsidian), I was getting an upgrade of sorts every two or three days. Players at the top were getting much smaller upgrades once every two to three weeks - sometimes they would be months apart.
That is why your hypothetical new player joining the game after two years can keep playing - the very design of this kind of gearing system dictates that if they put in the same effort as me, they will eventually catch up to me (sooner, rather than later). The only reason they have for giving up is if they want to catch up to me, but don't have the desire to put in the same amount of effort that I did.
The question now becomes - should someone that puts literally no effort at all in to acquiring gear be able to beat someone that puts a whole lot of effort, or should it be expected that you need to put some effort in to gear in order to compete?
You realize, I assume, that a big part of the argument here is that players not wanting things like gear and progression to matter is that they have other game genres to play.
Character progression is central to MMORPG's, it is all but a requirement of a game with a persistent world (I cant name one persistent world game without character progression). Players not wanting that,and all that come with it, can play other genres such as MOBA's.
That is kind of our point.
An exquisite highlight to why gear shouldn't make up anymore than 30% of the player power, even less if I had my way.
ArcheAge had a lot of design flaws, and this was one of them.
A weapons purpose gives someone increased effectiveness, but it never that much unless the operator is of actual talent. It only matters to the best, not the average.
AA failed in this, because it gave entirely too much power.
Players should develop combat prowess before they worry about stats.
It is only a design flaw if you dont want to play an MMORPG.
If you are after fair fight after fair fight, where everything is equal within the confines of each fight, then yeah, the above would be a flaw.
However, that isnt an MMORPG, it is the description of a lobby game.
If you want an MMORPG, where there is a game world,a community, and an economy, and crafting, and property management, then it is only right that everything be tied in together.
It is only right that you are able to perform better in the economy if you are better at property management, more engaged in the community, better at PvP and better at crafting.
Likewise, it is only right that you are able to better perform property management if you are better at PvP, more engaged in the community and better at crafting.
Thus, if someone is better at crafting, better at the economy, more engaged in the community and better at land management, then all of those should feed in to their PvP prowess.
In a lobby game, none if the above is true. In an MMORPG, all of the above is a description of the genre.
If a game provides players with all of these activities, why should they not feed in to each other? If a player only wants to play one of them, they have many games that only offer that one aspect - MMORPG's are there to provide players with all of the above, in an inter-connected manner.
Yeah dude. The OP wants to partake in PvP. Reducing gear effectiveness and mechanical aptitude reliance achieves that.
ArcheAge is a great example of gear being too powerful.
It doesn’t change anything for the top end players, they’ll still be the best.
For people that played Archeage as an MMORPG, the power of gear was just fine. Not perfect, just fine.
If you only want to play one aspect of an MMORPG and not the whole thing, you should EXPECT to be behind everyone else.
If that MMO has several aspects to it that you are ignoring (economy, crafting, PvE etc), then you shouldnt expect to do much at all in PvP in that MMO.
Again, if a player just wants PvP, play a game that only offers PvP. Dont expect to be able to get a full experience if you are ignoring 75% of the game.
I'm not concerned about Castle sieges though. That is a guild effort, and while important to player development it doesn't put player assets at risk. It is up to the guild to decide how to let guildmembers participate in a castle siege.
However, as stated earlier, both castle and node sieges will have in build systems for lower level players.
If developers went by that logic there wouldn’t be any MMORPGs Farmers should go play a farm simulator, PvE only players should go play co op RPGs and PvPers should stick to PvP only games.
Doesn’t work, people are going to play to their preferences/role.
People that only want to farm have farming games to play - and many of them do play those games. However, some people that only want to farm also play MMO's and only play the farming content.
You know what these people (generally) don't do? They don't expect to be able to protect their farm or their produce from PvP. These people generally know and understand that if they are going to only play one aspect of the game, they will have issues with other aspects, and this will at times impact on the part of the game they are playing.
Absolutely. That is totally what people should do.
However, if you are only playing 25% of a game, you shouldn't be complaining if someone that is playing 50%, 75% or 100% of that game has some advantage that you do not have.
Keep in mind, you have full access to literally everything that any other player has access to. Your only reason for not getting better gear is you specifically making the choice to not get it.
Part of being a good player is having good gear. If you don't have good gear, you can't claim to be a good player. Not in an over all sense - you may be good at PvP, but if your gear is shit, you can't claim to be a good player.
Developers should not lessen their game as a whole just in order to allow you to ignore the parts of the game you want without consequence.
Instead of complaining that someone else has better gear than you, just shut up and get good. it *LITERALLY* is that simple.
Partake yes, and feel usefull, i never expect, a low level or lower geared to be on (close to) equal footing, thats just bad game design, what i do expect, and that is something that eve online accomplishes really well, is that newer players can be usefull.
I see it like this: an old player has had more time to aquicre gear and augments, and thus is able to play eg Fighter/Rogue as well as Fighter/Tank, and Fighter/Mage, due to having aquired the appropiate augments and gears to support that. He (or she) can choose wich build to play in what content to maximize efficiency, and thus increase the chance of "winning" a new player (who might also be max level) has not had time to aquire appropiate gear or augments, and is restricted to only one build. This will be less efficient in some content.
Lower level players however suffer from both not having build / gear / augment options, as well as less skill points available for the best skills, a lower health pool, and less damage or healing output. In order for them to feel usefull in some of the content, there will need to be objectives for them to do.
However in my opinion, some content should be restricted by level, eg taking a lvl 20 to a max level worldboss, should be a deprimend not an asset, since the boss will determine it as a player if not the rewards will be disporportionate.
Node sieges (and node sieges only in my opinion) should facilitate low level play because the assets of that low level player are also on the line. (all other systems are opt in) they don't need to be as efficient, or effective, but they do need to feel usefull.
In function, it will be basically the same as how Archeage siege engines (and ship weapons) work. The damage is a factor of the weapon (and perhaps ammo), not the weapons user. If you as a player can aim the weapon and shoot it, you are as good at it as any other player that can also aim and shoot said weapon.
I understand your reasoning it’s just not going to work, you’re not grasping the large picture.
Players are not going to care why the guy who spends all day at the auction house just killed them.
They’re going to wonder why the guy who doesn’t have any mechanical acumen has killed them.
They’re going to dip, why? Because the guy who puts no time into their preference can kill them off of gear alone.
No one cares about the guy who plays 50% of the game, or 75% of the game. It’s a preference they chose, may they get all their entertainment value out of it.
Good gear will give an edge, but you'll only capitalize on that edge if you already have a good base of gameplay skill.
Yeah, basically just this.
To add to this a little though, the better a player you are, the more of an edge you will get out of any given piece of gear. As you gear up, the way you play your class should alter ever so slightly (at least if you are playing a game with either complex gear, or complex combat - I've yet to seriously play a game without at least one of these). It takes real knowledge of your class to know what these minor changes are, and what each piece of gear actually means in this regard. I'm curious, how do you know that player has put no time in to their performance?
Don't say "because you always see them in town", because it is fairly normal for someone playing a games economy to have two accounts due to often needing to maintain a character at the auction house. When I am playing a games economy, I will often leave my main doing this, while out killing what ever on an alt account that is somewhat lesser geared (as in, average equipment).
Don't say "because I beat them in normalized PvP", because players like me love to maintain the illusion that it is gear carrying us. Mostly because of how much it pisses off people that simply don't know better. Case in point - this thread. If normalized PvP doesn't matter to us, we are happy to join up, throw a few matches and then watch the bitching and moaning when we demolish those same players in open world PvP.
So yeah, how is it you know they have put no time in to their performance?
This "effort" takes many many many months, if lucky of playing everyday for a good amount of time and this is inaccessible to many and also sad. We've gone past a "game" and moved onto literally a 2nd life that is lucky to have 500 out of the 10k players (that WILL dwindle over time) on a server capable of some form of balanced PvP and where skill actually has some role to play.
Don't you understand how competition works?
I play a pretty high level of Tekken, it takes a person months of discplined training to be in the same picture as me in terms of execution and knowledge but once it's acquired that it's, the player expression and skill takes the forefront and regardless of if you take months of years of break you're still almost indentical to where you left of.
Somehow you thinking the ultimate fantasy is purely about this constant personal gearing progression is your own bag, all you're doing is having your cake and taking away all the other cakes for anyone else to have, there is WAY more you can do with personal progression than making yourself infititevly stronger.
Diminishing returns...now this is a laugh, this demonstrates MASSIVELY how ignorant you are to the combat itself.
Any minor weapon improvement through enchantment usually is major because these old mmo's have massive % buffs, personal and from buffers and then additionally when opponents defenses get ripped apart by debuffers then these things stand out as nothing but ridiculous.
"I'd like to get 250 more physical defense but it will cost me too much, I'm happy with my gear", ye how does that work out...after physical damage dealers have penetrated your armor could be "0" stat and the true damage is bogus but literally if you had only 250 physical defense you'd resist like 10% or more of physical damage, all the time, passively AND with no skill, is gear not carrying? Reeeealllly.
It's just an addictive system to milk the poor whales addicted to the game, nothing more, the old open world mmo's tried deperately to keep the players they had with every single update, they knew they couldn't compete with simple and effective genre's as it would of required a clever rework of their base game + additionally upset the "DESERVED" time spent by players who've played from the start.
I've been on Lineage 2 and Archeage with heroes in the guild, do not pretend like you've lived a hard life on these games, I've actually been through them and happy that I've quit them in a respectable time as they do not respect your time. If you believe gear progression++++ all day everyday for 10% or less of that time for quality PvP+PvE time is a healthy mentality, god help you, you're just addicted to being somebody of worth in life, a "2nd life".
I'm not even playing anymore, this is the first time I've used this sentence to anyone before in my life and hopefully won't have to use it again...
stop
spreading
misinformation xD.
MMORPG's are known to take time to play. If you want to excel at an MMORPG, askany gamer and they will tell you it takes time.
Games like Tekken exist for people that do not want to spend that amount of time, as do BR's, FPS games, MOBA's etc. These genres can each be looked at as taking a part of MMORPG's and making that the entire game.
This leaves MMORPG's only selling point as being where you go to play all of those aspects - since individual games will always do each individual aspect better than an MMORPG that is doing all of those aspects. Yeah, shit MMO's have shit mechanics.
You should know by now, while L2 had a few good points, it wasn't a well designed game. The more you talk about it, the more it's bad design (and lack of serious post launch upkeep) is obvious. I don't pretend like I had a hard life in Archeage.
Never have.
As I have said many times, I spent over a year in Archeage as the only player in my faction (pirate). This meant me and my alts were all de facto heroes. Not that hero in Archeage was anything to brag about - it was fairly easy to have a hero in your guild, even in a crowded faction on a crowded server - since hero in Archeage was basically just a popularity thing.
What I will say about Archeage, it's pay to win nature necessitated it take longer to get things done if you were not paying for advantage. That isn't a result of teh core design the game was going for - it's time requirement was purely just a means to support it's income.
However, if you had respect for your own time, you could do fairly well in Archeage. With several accounts (most paid for in game, 1 paid for via subscription - faster than just using tax certs), and spending no more than 3 hours a day, maintaining gear that was good enough to be in the top 100 world wide was absolutely possible - but only if you were smart.
Many people would spend much more time than that, and end up with much worse gear. These are people that didn't respect their own time.
Where Archeage didn't respect player time though, was in it's events. If this was your issue with Archeage not respecting player time, I'd agree with you 100%, rather than saying "yes, but" as I essentially did above.
That said, if you prioritized participating in events over gearing up, then yeah, you weren't respecting your own time - or you were, but you are secretly more concerned with appearance than function.
Nikr, the large picture are the consumers of product and the business.
First thing a designer needs to learn is that people aren't going to use their product the way they intended and they're going to want people to continue consuming.
If a company hemorrhages a large enough consumer--base because the designer/engineer/fabricator and company even insist their consumers will use their product as they intend, they're going to be out of business very quickly.
In the case of an MMORPG, players are going to play how they want and if they are not entertained they're leaving.
More specific to the topic, if Intrepid decides to gatekeep certain events, in this case sieges because of level and gear power, they risk hemorrhaging casuals.
Top tier players maximize the effective use of things like gear and racials, so reducing the power of them wont affect them much. They'll still be on top, but it also allows more people to partake in sieges.
And it really doesn't actually matter what the activity is. That's just the actual reality of people.
Yes, people at the level cap and with better gear will be more effective at directly fighting other players (as it should be), but that is why siege engines will function as they will function - to allow those not at the level cap and/or not well geared to have a solid, meaningful impact on a siege.
But that still doesn't mean they will be as good as a level capped, well geared player at directly fighting other players.
MMOs are not meant to have perfectly balanced pvp where everyone is equal no matter the time investment. We have several pvp-centered genres for that. All Intrepid need to do is give people the opportunity to get the gear that would allow them to have a chance against those who've gotten even better gear.
The topic was the OP wanting to be partake in sieges, I don't want them reduced to cannon fodder. If they can handle business in the front lines, good.
Ultimately Steven calls the shots, I'll accept it either way.
Then it became about how a few of you PvP players can't accept gear having any actual combat effectiveness because you aren't good enough players to get decent gear for yourselves.
Breaking this mindset is difficult because the majority of players are so accustomed to it, they don't even realize it could be different. Realisticly i'm expecting most people to focus on getting to max level, with a few exceptions focussing on crafting. The amount of holistic players that want to do all types of content at every level is going to be few.
This does not mean however that the developers should neglect this minority of players, and they should implement systems for all players regardless of level (and hopefully keep it reasonably balanced at certain intervals)