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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Do you believe this should not be the case? And what % of gear would be the proper amount? George wants 80%. I keep telling him that 20dmg per attacker is still enough to PK people, but he doesn't listen. Do you think there's a way to prevent this w/o making gear the full 100%?
@NiKr
As the forum resident numbers guy (I think I am probably one of the few that cares the most about what the numbers are here at least)
I will point out that it wont necessarily be doing 60 damage. Gear serves two functions in most RPGs, there is damage which lots of folks here are talking about, and also mitigation
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Gear
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Stats
Can see from the chart on the wiki that gear will impact how much damage REDUCTION a player will get as well.
In your example:
So, that player that has lower 'stuff' will be doing a base 60 damage instead of 100 damage
And THEN, the player he is attacking, will look at that 60 damage, and apply mitigation to it from their stats as well, which will further reduce that 60 damage to some even lower number.
Yes, the PKer is doing more damage than 0, and could in theory EVENTUALLY kill the better geared player. But at some point, the damage is so low and mitigated so much from stats that, the target will just ignore the PKer and heal off the damage as they continue about their day, until the PKer decides, well damn, I need to wear better gear than this trash tier stuff if I want to be able to PK.
Say that 100 dmg is after all mitigation. Changing weapon to the very first one would still bring that dmg to 60, because in Imoxator's example gear is 37%.
And if you're talking about horizontal mitigation, then I agree that it should be a thing, but then George's issue won't go away in cases of people that simply don't have the exact def gear that completely mitigates the attacks of the PKer.
And the PKer could just have 5 weapons of each type on them and go around any horizontal mitigation too, so it would still go back to George trying to make gear have 100% influence on player power.
Yea but its not much of a risk at all when the PKer has unstoppable gear and can guarentee a victory. At least the other player can fight back with non-OP gear.
I will break down the differences between OP gear and non-OP gear and how I think things will play out for each scenario.
Possible outcomes/implications of gear power:
1. "PKers will have a field day because they don't have to risk their good gear to be effective in PvP"- But that could be a good thing so that way casuals can actually have a chance of fighting back against lower geared PKers, vs encouraging PKers to have unstoppable gear causing casuals to have absolutely no chance at fighting back
2. PKers could end up using bad gear regardless to avoid the risk of a fair fight, but with non-op gear they can actually have a chance against highly geared casuals
3. since PKers generally only want an unfair fight (When there is material risk), then you want a casual to have a chance at winning in an uneven gear fight (such as non-OP gear) otherwise there is no risk of PKers using high level gear due to guarenteed victory
Lets look at which of these possible outcomes are most likely:
2 pathways for deterring PK
1. fair fight (does not require material risk to be effective, but works better as a deterent of there is material risk)
2. material risk/corruption (requires fair fight to be effective)
Do pkers want maximum combat advantage to minimize risk by guarenteeing victory, or do they instead want to simply have minimal risk of material loss regardless of combat outcome?
- pkers generally dont want to risk fair/even fight (even if they are probably more skilled) unless there is basically no material risk for losing (such as low level gear), they always want advantage (such as fighting against lower levels)
This means the material risk pathway will be effective when it is a fair fight and high level gear is on the line (such as both players being at an equal high level). If it is unfair (such as PKer having better gear) then their material risk is less relevant. At this point you would have to rely on the "fair fight" pathway of deterence to deal with the PKer.
OP gear scenario:
This means that OP gear would allow PKers to gear up with high level gear, and minimize risk by only taking unfair fights. This means that either
A) casuals cannot deter PKers when at a disadvantage, but are encourage to gear up to deter them by fighting back (but are still at disadvantage due to lower skilled tendencies).
B- casuals will accept they stand no chance and just not use higher quality gear, thus always making PKers have advantage based on skill disparity and gear advantage, making all fights unfair, resulting in absolutely no material risk
Non-OP gear:
The second implication, is that
A) non-OP gear would allow for more-fair fights between high geared PKers and low geared casuals. Still an advantage for PKers but better than an unstoppable gear disparity. This balance approach could potentially be enough to make PKers drop down to lower level gear for less material risk, making the fights even more fair, but the PKers would have no material risk. This means casuals could actually rely on the "fair fight" pathway of deterence, even without the material risk for PKers.
-Yes, this would also allow for low geared PKers to now stand up to high geared casuals, but think about this more of 'giving casuals another way of challenging PKers through their gear progression, allowing them another way of utilizing the "fighting back" pathway of deterence, where material risk is less necessary'
B- The other way this could go is PKers will seek out advantageous fights and will stick to the higher quality gear to have the gear and skill disparity in order to mimimize material risk, meaning they will still use higher level gear, but that is basically the same issue as having OP gear because there is still a skill disparity making that material risk less relevant, even though it is less of an issue by giving casuals more of a fighting chance with non-OP gear.
Conclusion:
Basically with OP gear the material risk is basically non-existent for PKers due to the tendencies in the skill gap between these players, so encouraging weaker gear usage by PKers and more fair fights between casuals and pkers will better deter pkers than relying solely on a more skill-based material risk. These more fair fights will act as their own more reliable form of deterence that actually makes the material risk relevant when applicable.
The only way OP gear benefits casuals is if they have better gear, but they would already have that advantage anyway with non-OP gear, and PKers will likely not take those more "fair" fights regardless, while having all of the other negatives that come with OP gear that I explained.
My one specific hope, and prayer for horizontal gear progression, which would allow one to SPECIFICALLY design gear to suit their own playstyle. And the quote I need is again, on that same wiki page.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Stats
My hope and dream and prayer and whatever you want to call it for gear, is that say there is a L40 sword (keeping the OP in mind for this)
The same L40 sword, no matter who crafts it, will have the same base stats. And by that I mean it has the same (based on my understanding of what melee stats will be focused on, these two)
Power
Constitution
Which those two things will feed a little into the secondary stats a bit, HOWEVER, I want the crafter to be able to customize additonal stats. The "waterfall" stats we should get to customize.
Let the crafter select, within a reasonable stat budget for that crafters skill, workbench based on what node its in, etc etc.
Physical Damage Bonus
Physical Critical Damge Bonus
and so on and so forth
Basically the crafter can cherry pick whatever he wants from that list of secondary stats. Having total control over secondary stats lets us customize builds in a unique way that we havent been able to play in MMOs in a very long time.
So in the end, that L40 sword will have, something like
40 Power
20 Constitution
+5% Physical Damage Bonus
+3%Physical Critical Damage Bonus
Those last 2 things, can be cherry picked by different crafters for different things.
(A numbers man can dream cant he?)
What does "skipping content to rush to max level" even mean in Ashes??
I am unsure what the 43% skill is you are talking about here.
It can't be player skill, as that can't be a factor in comparisons like this (for such comparisons, you need to be using either a specific ability or ability sequence).
With this in mind, a level 1 character in level 1 gear should be doing no more than 10% of the damage of a level capped player in level 1 gear.
In many games (all that I have ever played, quite honestly) this number is closer to 1 or 2%, and in most I have played it can be measured in fractions of a percent.
I would actually be interested if people logged in to games in which they have high level characters, created a new character of the same class, attacked a mob, then took their high level character, unequipped everything and attacked the same mob. I would wager we will see factorial growth in most cases, rather than double digit percentage growth. Re-equipping their gear and attacking again would also be an interesting point of comparison.
To me the "lvl, skill, gear" means "base stats that you get through lvls; skill dmg that you also need to land; direct vertical stats on gear". I'd assume when people say "player skill matters" they mean that you gotta land your abilities/hits, while also dodging them from your opponent. With hybrid combat I guess ~30% of overall power seems just about right for this.
Character Power
lvl 30 character using a skill called Smash!
Level 30 Smash! has 30 points of attack.
Level 30 gear has 30 points of attack.
Smash! will do 60 damage.
in this case, gear is providing 50% of the character power and the character itself is providing the other 50%
we can also add other stats, such as evasion and accuracy. lets say smash gives you 30 accuracy and gear gives you 30 accuracy. level 30 enemies have 60 evasion, so now you have 60 accuracy against 60 evasion, then you are hitting the enemy 100% of the time. maybe some enemies can have 70 evasion, so now you are hitting them only 90% of the time.
lvl 50 character using Smash!
Level 50 Smash! has 50 points of attack.
Level 50 gear has 50 points of attack.
Smash! will do 100 damage.
lets say each gives you 50 points of accuracy, so now you wont miss against the level 30 enemy with 70 evasion, and you wont miss against level 50 enmies with 100 evasion. you will still miss against enemies with 110 evasion though, adding a bit of an rng factor. but the gear is still providing 50% of your power
in this example, the split is still equal. 50% from gear and 50% from the character. so how does player skill affect character power in this case? if i press my buttons faster i will do more damage? O_O that doesnt sound right.
Level 30 gear on a level 50 character will do 80 damage with Smash! and will only have 80 accuracy, so you can sometimes miss on level 50 mobs with 100 evasion. in this case, the difference isnt that big. you can still beat the enemy, but you will need a few extra attacks, plus you will need to dodge or block a couple more times. if we fought each other, who would win?
Fight Outcome
there isnt a right or wrong answer here. this depends on how you want the game to be.
lets use this example
level 30 remains the same:
Level 30 Smash! has 30 points of attack.
Level 30 gear has 30 points of attack.
Smash! will do 60 damage.
level 50:
Level 50 Smash! has 500 points of attack.
Level 50 gear has 500 points of attack.
Smash! will do 1000 damage.
level 30 gear on level 50 character, Smash! will do 530 damage
gear is still providing 50% and character is providing 50%
the ratios are still the same, but a level 50 character will stomp a level 30, and most likely will beat a level 50 wearing level 30 gear
we can see that the % of power coming from gear doesn't matter. what matters is the difference between gear tiers. who should win the fight here?
lets say gear provides 80% of power, so other sources only provide 20%. for other sources, we will only use skill level.
Level 30 Smash! has 12 points of attack.
Level 30 gear has 48 points of attack.
Smash! will do 60 damage.
Level 50 Smash! has 20 points of attack.
Level 50 gear has 80 points of attack.
Smash! will do 100 damage.
Level 30 gear on level 50 character, Smash! will do 68 damage
as you can see, there is still not a big difference in damage, because the gap between tiers isnt that big. with some effort, the level 30 player, or the level 50 player wearing low level gear, can still beat a higher level player, even though gear provides 80% of your power. the question is, how much better do you have to be? 2 times better? 3 times better? 10 times better?
lets say gear is only 30% of your power, as others suggested
Level 30 Smash! has 42 points of attack.
Level 30 gear has 18 points of attack.
Smash! will do 60 damage.
Level 50 Smash! has 700 points of attack.
Level 50 gear has 300 points of attack.
Smash! will do 1000 damage.
Level 30 gear on level 50 character, Smash! will do 718 damage.
the ratios are still the same, but a level 50 character will stomp a level 30, and most likely will beat a level 50 wearing level 30 gear.
so in this case, is it fair that the less geared character wins through skills? how much better do they need to be.
if we adjust things so the gear gap is lower and assuming there isnt a class advantage (there always is) and skills matter more and we fought and im the lower level (or geared) is it fair i beat you because i dodged 10 of your attacks and you only dodged 9 of mine?
how much better than you do i need to be to beat you? twice as good? 10 times better? maybe i only need to be 10% better than you? if all it takes is one extra dodge or block, whats the point of gear?
whats the difference between the best player and the worst player? maybe the best player is 10 times better than the worst player. but the top 30% player is only 10% better than the top 70% players. it could be that the top 70% player beats the top 30% player just by a 1 mistake difference. is this really fair when it comes to skill? should you lose because you made one mistake? maybe you fat fingered a key? the more skill maters, mistakes are more punishing.
a lot of people think there is a big difference between most players. there isnt. there is only a big difference between top players (1%-10% and you probably arent one) and everyone else. you can say that most duels will be won based on luck. luck as in who makes the mistake first. is this fair?
if im 10% better than you, should i win 11 times and you ill only win 10? is this fair?
what about class advantage? maybe my class does 120 damage and has 500 hp, and yours only does 90 and has 450 hp. ill beat you in 4 hits and you will need 6. is this fair? maybe you are a bit better than me but ill still win.
to summarize. how much better does someone need to be to beat the higher level or better geared player?
anyways, game wont be balanced around 1v1, so all of these probably wont matter too much.
i hope this clear things.
https://youtu.be/H0LQSMT83L0?t=3340
Doesn't that mean that gear would add 12...15 points over the Level 30 Smash?
~x8 increase in terms of pure stat/passive difference between lvl20 and lvl79 (penultimate or this version).
And here's what top weapon does. ~x4 difference between top tier lowest grade and top grade weapon (look at buffed dmg). Crit dmg is higher for the top weapon cause it has additional enhancement for that.
it was just a simple example to illustrate the differences between character power and fight outcome. sure you can add what steven said, more stats, etc. i wanted to keep it simple
It is a shame this isn't from level 1, as those first few levels in themselves are a major factor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if the level 20 has reasonable gear (which I would expect for a level 20 start), which itself adds quite a lot to the damage.
Either way, it seems fairly obvious that we are talking many hundreds of percent (perhaps even as much as 1000% by the time actual level 1 is factored in) increase in power just from leveling alone - with top end gear only accounting for 400% increase (assuming I am reading the above properly).
This is why I have always been saying (even if not directly what George was talking about) that a few levels on your opponent really is going to be a near insurmountable disadvantage.
And here's a comparison between lvl1 and lvl77 on the very first mob in the game. x4 difference.
p.s. while I was leveling the high lvl character I once again saw why I love this fucking game. This server is quite old, by the private server standards. I was leveling in a relatively unpopular location as a tank in shitty gear. A mage came to the same location and started killing me from range. He took off ~40% of my overall hp before I came up to him. I killed him in a few powerful hits (cause this version has some powerful attacks on tanks) and won the pvp. The mage later came back but did not aggro onto me again
This is the kind of fighting for locations I'm talking about. People fighting back in, seemingly, unfair situations, and also people respecting each other's strength if it's been proven through a fight. I dearly hope Ashes can have the same attitude in its players.
The difference in dmg is much higher when both chars have the weakest sword in the shop (also, funny that lvl1 char has less atk than the sword supposedly gives
I guess it's a gear quality scaling thing? These two swords are in the same grade, but one is top tier/quality, while the other is the cheapest possible one (there's one even worse, but this server doesn't give it to you on start). But then this mainly influences the lvl1 char way more than the higher lvl one.
its not a gear scaling. in l2, you double your damage by doubling your attack (and double your magic damage by quadrupling your magic attack).
you are doing much more damage in the 2nd pic because your natural stats growth (even if you have the same sword, you have much more attack) plus you get a hidden bonus from the level difference.
edit: when i meant natural stat growth i really meant your p. attack passive.
i see what u mean now, but still, you are getting "less" at 77 because you arent getting enough attack to x2 or x4 your damage ;3
What is more telling to me than the damage you dealt to the mob - is the damage the mob dealt to you.
Well my post was more about balance. I wasn't advocating for trash gear to be almost as good as top end gear. That would be bad. You'd have near equalized pvp, as far as gear at least, which is good in a way. But it'd screw up everything I listed out - progression, economy, competition over resources, the entire mmorpg element etc.
Incentivize humans to better themselves, and they better themselves. With no incentive, (such as meaningfully better gear) then who really cares who wins the boss kill and gets the loot. It's just a relatively meaningless lobby pvp game at that point.
So I'm with you on all of that. What you quoted from me, I don't see what I said equating to trash gear being almost as good as top end gear. So just to clarify, no that's not what I mean.
We have the 40-50% gear power quote on the wiki. And even that, I don't know exactly what that means. More importantly, I don't know how it feels in game, in Ashes. And I don't know how that percentage is weighted, or spread across the different tiers of gear. Are the gear power gaps larger in the early tiers but then tighten in later tiers? Or vice versa? Or uniform throughout.
As far as pkers having a field day in meme gear, like level 20 gear or whatever, I'm not terribly worried about it. We'll have to see how it works out in game. I think people who try to do that are going to realize that this isn't Palia, it's Ashes of Creation. And AoC is filled with seasoned pvpers who make quick work of goofballs in level 20 armor trying to kill people in level 50 armor.
maybein that case. but s grade will give u massive power, especially if u put element on ;3
then r grade will give u even more xD
Because that, to0, will determine how much Damage is dealt. And how much Damage is mitigated.
Which is why players just focusing on what a Sword is doing compared to another Sword is mostly pointless.
Especially expecting a player with a Sword to "never lose" against a player with a different Sword.
Yes.
This is also partially because old games (and specific new ones, and MOBAs), don't need to scale your attack or defense much early.
This is because you can empower a low level character by giving them the standard amount of HP, as the HP gain is a diminishing curve over time that converts directly into 'damage' at the lower-complexity stages of the game. 30 more HP means you get to take 2 more hits, which means you probably have time to DEAL two more hits, and when your enemies die in 16 hits total, it's simple to tweak this number.
The difference between level 1 and 8 in terms of output, therefore, is usually borderline irrelevant in such games. Just adding one more skill that you can use (it doesn't even have to be meaningfully stronger than a basic attack, provided the basic attack rhythm isn't entirely interrupted) is a huge empowerment for that reason, that falls off.
It's easily possible to make it so that the early game 'basically doesn't matter' for the comparison, you can balance it separately up until the third gear tier (or in Predecessor as example, you can balance it differently 'up until level 7/completed first item).
Also, gear is only 30% of player power in L2 on average depending on the era. You can find the damage formulae pretty easily.
Note that Ashes' damage formulae were not very similar in Alpha-1. This is because Steven doesn't like lvlMod (or any equivalent) in the calculations, I think, so they probably have to come up with something that doesn't use them. Expect to see a delay in the implementation of DoT abilities while they hash that out.
Level 20 has no Secondary Archetype. I would expect a naked Level 50 player to beat a fully geared Level 20 player most of the time. Maybe still not even 100% of the time. But probably most of the time.
i tried to keep it simple in my example. but yes, there are physical and magical gear. my point was to show the difference between character power and fight outcome and how people throwing random numbers out there are confused...
What George is concerned about is that at lvl 50, pkers will use rare/epic weapons & armor with min requirement of level 45 and be better than having uncommon/rare weapons & armor with min requirement of level 50.
And that those lvl 45 gear can be obtained easily, making them also cheap.
If the scaling is so then also at lvl 40 players will use (for PvE too), higher tier lvl 35 gear because is better and easier to obtain.
The final concern is that players might get eventually epic lvl 50 gear but that will also not be much weaker than the rare/epic lvl 45.
That's the entire problem with the original post.
The devs are going to balance the game.
Programmers will develop tools to help the devs crunch the numbers and run simulations to test the balance.
No matter what, there will be some gamers complaining that someone's Sword is too over-powered.
We're talking about players who equip lower level gear than their normal gear and then go pvp. So I was talking about a level 50 player wearing level 20 gear, not a level 20 wearing level 20 gear. At least I think that's what we're talking about. Can never be too sure around here lol