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The case for gear to provide more than 40-50% of a characters power.
George_Black
Member, Intrepid Pack
A couple things before I begin:
1) I like the fact that there are paths for people that want to increase their characters power through affiliations, the variety of consumables that could be crafted/purchased as well as ingame properties like ships FHs etc etc. It makes this mmo have more depth. It's not just "Lv up, get pvp gear, fight in a BG and win"
2) Some of my best pvp moments was when either alone I'd beat higher and better equipped players, or with my friends, or I'd watch my friends beat higher level players with better gear. But it is the nature of the mmo that this should happen rarely.
3) Try not to mix up the meanings of character development/progress, natural skill in conflict, and stats modifying factors (armor, weapon, gear set bonuses)
I want to make the case so that a player with a Lv40 sword should never lose against a player with a Lv35 sword --- Just as higher level players will always beat lower level players, so it should be that people that have managed to get their hands on better gear will (most of the time) beat people equal in all aspects except for gear power---
I want to make the case for gear to affect the stats in such a significant way that PKrs as well as organized groups/guilds dont try to bypass the main PK deterrent which is the loss of gear.
A quick recap on the difference between PK count and corruption points:
PK count is the number of green players you have killed. The higher the PK count the higher the corruption points you accumulate per new kill (which you need to burn off to become green again). And if you PK count goes past a number of kills, which I am not sure if it has been determined yet (in L2 3 PKs were safe) then you will drop hard earned gear upon death.
The amount of corruption points you gain depends on other factors, as well as the rate at which you burn them off.
I return to the scenario of PKrs or organized hit squads that want to avoid the main risk of losing valuable gear for as long as possible before they have to redeem themselves. Such individuals or groups may count on the fact that (not necesseraly trash) gear accounting for only 40-50% of a characters power, may take advantage of it and use items that can be easily replaced. The absence of fear that you could lose the instruments with which you can achieve victory (gear) will make such scenarios more frequent.
It doesn't take much for a player to spec into an aggressive playstyle with cheap gear and eliminate opposition without the chance for a counter attack.
The case is even more serious for organized groups that may create hit squads behind the main pvp group, compromised entirely of aggressive classes, equipped with cheap gear, whose aim is to take out as many enemies as possible, without the fear of losing anything during the conflict if they die as red.
This will lead to a meta of nuking the enemy and moving on with your day without risking your proper gear, especially since there will be gear loadouts in which swapping gear will be made easy (cause we are use to if from mmos with PvE gear, PvP gear, overland questing gear, raiding gear, tanking gear, dpsing gear etc etc etc).
Imagine if all the big guilds were equipped with cheap gear, counted on the fact that their attack power would still be effective, took out the opposition in every encounter with focused nuking and then moved on, cleared the corruption points, returned to non-combatant and swapped back to their proper gear, ready to repel an attack.
Not sure how much the stat reduction penalty can help when the enemy is determined to kill you before you know that a fight will start, having no fear of losing the cheap gear and I am not sure that we need a system to moderate player behaviour. But I can see the meta happening and I wanna bring it up for discussion.
As I have said above, I liked the times when I defeated people, I am not making the case for gear to be the only factor that determines victory. Skilled players will still overcome adversities, as it's proven time and time again.
But this is an mmo and there is more to it than "1v1 me bro, see who's better". There needs to be consideration for the overall health of the game.
For those who played L2 and enjoyed c2, c3, c4, c5 (in other words, the full spectrum of the game and it's character levels) knew how annoying cheap gear was, like karmian, plated leather, eminence bow, dark screamer, homunculus sword at the hands of a player with a class aimed just at PKing.
1) I like the fact that there are paths for people that want to increase their characters power through affiliations, the variety of consumables that could be crafted/purchased as well as ingame properties like ships FHs etc etc. It makes this mmo have more depth. It's not just "Lv up, get pvp gear, fight in a BG and win"
2) Some of my best pvp moments was when either alone I'd beat higher and better equipped players, or with my friends, or I'd watch my friends beat higher level players with better gear. But it is the nature of the mmo that this should happen rarely.
3) Try not to mix up the meanings of character development/progress, natural skill in conflict, and stats modifying factors (armor, weapon, gear set bonuses)
I want to make the case so that a player with a Lv40 sword should never lose against a player with a Lv35 sword --- Just as higher level players will always beat lower level players, so it should be that people that have managed to get their hands on better gear will (most of the time) beat people equal in all aspects except for gear power---
I want to make the case for gear to affect the stats in such a significant way that PKrs as well as organized groups/guilds dont try to bypass the main PK deterrent which is the loss of gear.
A quick recap on the difference between PK count and corruption points:
PK count is the number of green players you have killed. The higher the PK count the higher the corruption points you accumulate per new kill (which you need to burn off to become green again). And if you PK count goes past a number of kills, which I am not sure if it has been determined yet (in L2 3 PKs were safe) then you will drop hard earned gear upon death.
The amount of corruption points you gain depends on other factors, as well as the rate at which you burn them off.
I return to the scenario of PKrs or organized hit squads that want to avoid the main risk of losing valuable gear for as long as possible before they have to redeem themselves. Such individuals or groups may count on the fact that (not necesseraly trash) gear accounting for only 40-50% of a characters power, may take advantage of it and use items that can be easily replaced. The absence of fear that you could lose the instruments with which you can achieve victory (gear) will make such scenarios more frequent.
It doesn't take much for a player to spec into an aggressive playstyle with cheap gear and eliminate opposition without the chance for a counter attack.
The case is even more serious for organized groups that may create hit squads behind the main pvp group, compromised entirely of aggressive classes, equipped with cheap gear, whose aim is to take out as many enemies as possible, without the fear of losing anything during the conflict if they die as red.
This will lead to a meta of nuking the enemy and moving on with your day without risking your proper gear, especially since there will be gear loadouts in which swapping gear will be made easy (cause we are use to if from mmos with PvE gear, PvP gear, overland questing gear, raiding gear, tanking gear, dpsing gear etc etc etc).
Imagine if all the big guilds were equipped with cheap gear, counted on the fact that their attack power would still be effective, took out the opposition in every encounter with focused nuking and then moved on, cleared the corruption points, returned to non-combatant and swapped back to their proper gear, ready to repel an attack.
Not sure how much the stat reduction penalty can help when the enemy is determined to kill you before you know that a fight will start, having no fear of losing the cheap gear and I am not sure that we need a system to moderate player behaviour. But I can see the meta happening and I wanna bring it up for discussion.
As I have said above, I liked the times when I defeated people, I am not making the case for gear to be the only factor that determines victory. Skilled players will still overcome adversities, as it's proven time and time again.
But this is an mmo and there is more to it than "1v1 me bro, see who's better". There needs to be consideration for the overall health of the game.
For those who played L2 and enjoyed c2, c3, c4, c5 (in other words, the full spectrum of the game and it's character levels) knew how annoying cheap gear was, like karmian, plated leather, eminence bow, dark screamer, homunculus sword at the hands of a player with a class aimed just at PKing.
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Your suggestion would just create 1%er world. Top guilds get best gear faster, because of that best gear they literally can't be killed by lower powered players, because of that they can PK anyone in their best gear because they're sure that they'll never lose it due to those lower powered players being unable to kill them.
The "1%er" part of this comes from your potential retort of "people at the same lvl would be able to kill each other". Because if that was true, that would imply that there's enough gear of that lvl on the server that people not in top guilds would be able to fight against top lvl guilds w/o being absolutely demolished.
But if there's enough of such gear on the server, then why wouldn't a PKer just use it?
Though again, this entire argument falls flat against the sheer fact that PKing involves complete passivity from the victim. So unless the PKer is quite literally doing 1dmg/s, while the victim regens 1.1hp/s - there will be PKers who kill people in whatever gear they can get their hands on. And this doesn't even include punching down on lowbies.
There's so much more depth in builds and such to be experienced with even relatively simple systems, I'd consider it a shame if the below was even fairly consistently true.
I did read the rest, but I doubt there would be much point to trying to discuss my opinions on it with the OP.
Hmm.
I forgot this important line
--- Just as higher level players will always beat lower level players, so it should be that people that have managed to get their hands on better gear will (most of the time) beat people equal in all aspects except for gear power ---
I started this topic in the recent youtube video of Voices of Verra
So the "want" to ensure that lvl 40 weapon should always beat lvl 35 weapon (which is fairly tiny granular comparison) means that builds shouldn't really exist and player power should come only from gear
― Plato
My view is that I don't want to see a system where because you have better gear you're going to win the fight. IMO player skill should have the largest determining factor in the success of a PvP encounter.
I remember seeing some dude fly off the handle in NW because he no lifed it to max level and complained that he couldn't just walk round killing all lower level players, I don't want to see that in Ashes.
ashes won't be crap to work like that, gear is just one part of the equation, it's not what defines the matchup
So if that lvl50 gear is accessible - PKers can just get it and go on an absolute killing spree w/o ever bothering that someone lower than them will ever kill them. And if a high lvl dude comes up - the PKer has accessible gear so he doesn't care if he loses it.
And once again (and I'm saying this to other people as well). Gear has no damn value in PKing, unless you literally make it the pinnacle of kill determination. As long as the PKer can outdmg the regen of the victim - the PK will happen.
So many people seem to think that every single person will be fighting back. That is just simply not the case (even if I want it to be). And the PKer's job will be to find those who don't fight back and just repeatedly kill them in the least ToS-breaking way he can find, be that through alts or through creating a situation where that PK could be seen as justifiable.
If gear can prevent weaker people from even killing stronger people - the game will die, because no newbie will ever catch up with the old players. And in a pvp game that's death. The only solution would be to boost all newbies not only in lvl, but in gear too (all the way to the veteran lvl), but then you're destroying the entire game's progression system.
If yall want to "fix" PKing issues - try to change that system's details instead of "fixing" a whole different system.
Is lv50 gear cheap?
...... smh
I am not talking about gear making the difference. I am talking about people using gear that is way bellow what they should be using and still manage to have decent attack power.
So you want the gear to control 100% of player power, got it. Just say so and don't tie PK stuff into it.
What a dismissive comment.
You made the assumption that my concern isnt the implications to PKing. Not much to go from there.
My plan is this:
4 groups of 8 players
First group: PvP with brawlers
Second and third group is PvE composed to get the raid.
Forth group: pretty cosmetic skins, disposable gear, rogues mages archers.
Aim, PK. If the forth group drops an item we wont care a bit, as long as they can dish out dmg sources from the remaining 50% that doesnt rely on gear.
In theory, that same rogue should be doing 66dmg/s with the very first dagger of the game, if gear is 70% of your power, right?
So a question, do you really think that all characters in the game will be able to outregen 66dmg/s w/o running out of mana?
This is why I say that you want gear to control 100% of player power. Because otherwise you are not stopping PKing in any way - you're just fucking over any and all lower powered players who'd be willing to fight upwards.
In your scenario of a full group of PKers they'd just target the victim healer, run him out of mana and then PK the rest of the party because they now have no heals. Gear has no damn impact on PKing, unless gear represents the absolute 100% of your power.
However, keep in mind the power gap. At what point does all of the damage player A does to player B become completely negated to the point of being worthless? If the armor value is so high A can only do minimal damage to B that is zero or below normal health regen values is what I am getting back.
If there is a big level difference involved, sure, thats fine I think.
But, at max level, after some expansion or mid expansion gear comes out, just how big should that power game be?
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Player_corruption#Differences_from_other_games
Effect of gear in combat is already hard enough to balance on its own, there is no need to make it a solution to PK.
This kind of cursor will probably be set during alpha2
I included this. There is still the matter of how severe this punishment is and it it will endure the test. Read fully the topics.
If you ignore gear to the point you are using gear designed for players many levels below you, you shouldn't really have much of a chance against someone of the same level as you, but using level appropriate gear.
As a general principle, I don't even see this as controversial, nor really something that even needs discussion.
I think George did himself a disservice in the OP by stating level 35 and 40 as examples, where as if he had have simply said gear intended for players at the level cap and gear intended for players below the level cap, it would have been perhaps clearer (even if not specifically only talking about the level cap).
Now, while people like to say "but skill matters", a part of the skill in an MMORPG is in gearing your character correctly for your build. In the same way it will be possible in Ashes to create a bad build, it will be possible to poorly gear your character, so gear is as much a part of MMO players skillet as aim, timing or ability recognition.
Hubris, Atis, Nemesis, Tisis.
Nah, we actually agree on quite a lot about the game.
It's only really the importance of PvE on the game that we completely disagree on, and the implications of how we each see PvE importance.
We're all doomed
You forgot i agree as well.
AoC is the elder brain
I think the other issue with this concept is that it would also depend on what kind of damage that Level 50 Dagger is dealing.
Is it Physical damage or Magical damage? What type of Armor is the opponent wearing? What types of Passives has the opponent specced?
The perfect example of a bad MMO, with progress depending exclusively on the time you spend on it. You just asked for AOC to be a bad MMO.
Yes I agree. A level 35 should be able to kill a lvl 40 with skill. The gap is almost negligible unless IS mess up the linear pathway.
A bad MMO design is one in which gear is tied to online time, as opposed to how you use your online time.
If I am online 10 hours a week but make good use of that time gearing my character, I probably will (and should) have better gear than someone that spends 40 hours online talking shit in chat.
Character progression is a key, central aspect of any RPG, MMO based or not. If gear and levels don't matter, then your character progression is inherently broken.
The gap, if we are talking linear power gain, is still 12.5%.
That should be damn near insurmountable.