Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Simple - turning a charge to a teleport isn't the only thing augments will be doing. It may (or may not) be the only thing an augment for that ability does, but that won't be the only ability you can augment.
That said, a teleport is more powerful than a charge, depending on the specific mechanics. A wall stops a charge, but doesnt necessarily stop a teleport. Same with another player being in the way, or a pet, or a mob.
In fact, as a general principle, this has been known for even longer than we have had the word "teleport". The knight on a chess board is one of the stronger pieces because it is the only piece that can't be blocked. A queen can move in any of the 8 directions - but only as far as the first piece it meets. A knight has its 2-1 movement regardless of what pieces are between it and its destination. Essentially the difference between charge and teleport.
If the range and other effects remain the same, that is absolutely vertical progression - no question.
Primary Archetype continues to seed stats up through Level 50 (max) - so can’t be gimped by the Secondary Archetype because Secondary Archetype is horizontal progression.
the good ole knight discussion. depending who you ask, they will say the knight is more valuable, or the bishop is more valuable. anyways, agree with the teleport thingie.
augments can give you power too even if they don't give you stats. example, mob is weak to fire. you change your lightning skill to fire. it wont give you more damage but you will still do more damage. also, this could apply to pvp too, depending how the element system works.
It can be gimped by secondary choice. If you have a melee physical damage primary and then switch to ranged magic damage secondary how optimal do you think the build will be? You literally can build a bad build on ashes.
It's not vertical progression though. You should have used checkers because your argument falls flat with chess. The range of Knight is so limited it has to have no boundaries to movement. The Queen can move across the board much easier. If the Knight can become a queen it is vertical progression much like a single stack becoming a double stack in checkers.
Down the elder fire dragon, and you get 5% fire resistance permanent on that character and a small bonus to fire-based skill augments.
Kill enough elite scorpions, you get 5% poision resistance or bonus to poison damage or something like that.
Some bonuses can be temporary too, like successfully destroy a Metropolis, and you gain some nice overall bonuses to most of your stats for a week.
All innate bonuses that aren't gear based, can't be bought for gold, but where you actively have to play the game, be good enough to achieve the different things and something that rewards players who put in the time over the years. The character progression isn't completely reset the next time the level cap is increased, which is also generally a bad thing IMO.
It would also further the development of a dynamic server, where people fight to open new content giving new bonuses to their characters. Let's say the elder fire dragon isn't available anymore on the server after a year, because a metropolis was destroyed. New players who didn't get that buff would work towards re-establishing it, upsetting the status quo.
I understand the argument about how losing gear should matter, but this is not really the main focus of this game. It's going to be a fairly rare and niche occurrence I think, and not something worth upsetting the game balance over in such a way.
The reason I used chess is specifically because of the range limit on the knight - it is the only thing they can do to not make it the most powerful piece on the board.
You'll note that I did specifically say that if a charge was augmented to a teleport but all other things remain the same, that would be vertical progression. "All other things remain the same" would include range. This was based off of your comment that a charge being augmented to a teleport is not vertical progression - without any further context given, I assume there is no further context to be given.
Regardless, my point here is that augments 100% will give your character more power, in addition to the outright vertical progression that exists purely via leveling to the level cap.
I assume you need line of sight otherwise what is the point of obstacles on a battlefield. Until I have seen an augmented charge teleport avoid line of sight I'm not convinced you are correct. Also, it is a horizontal progression because the gap is narrowed between hard counters. It is not vertical progression because gaps will not be narrowed between hard counters.
So, can't really be a gimped build due to Secondary Archetype choice.
I suppose an individual might do something weird like choose to gear to maximize their Augment damage rather than their Active Skill damage - but that is easily fixed by changing your gear to optimize your Primary Archetype - as intended by the game design.
Of course, you could also just choose not to wear any gear.
I dunno what "Ranged Magic Damage Secondary" can mean.
Whatever Magic Damage Augments you gain from your Secondary Archetype would be attached to your Primary Archetype Active Skills.
I don't expect you to understand because you've asked what a stat school is before lol. We don't know what stats will be seeded where and you can't build an equal melee physical damage and ranged magic damage toon. The only way to achieve it is through horizontal enchantments which would be late game addition.
To stop charges.
There is a difference between an obsticle and not having line of sight. If you are standing in front of me, you are an obstacle - however, I am still able to see behind you.
This is not what horizontal progression is.
Yes it is horizontal progression. If you move closer to one vertical object other than another it is horizontal manouevres.
You don't.
So, yes, you should not expect me to understand your misconceptions of the Primary Archetype design.
I'm not talking about the primary archetypes. I am talking about the secondary and augments. Sometimes I feel like you have your own conversations in your head without ever gleaming the actual conversation.
Augments are applied to Primary Archetype Active Skills.
I know that. That is why I am saying the augment is horizontal. You will only have vertical progression with a gain in level, not with the application of the augment.
If the argument is that anything getting you closer to being able to kill a hard counter is horizontal, that means vertical progression is also horizontal, because it Gerd you closer to being able to kill them.
As a definition, what you are suggesting is too broad.
Horizontal progression is a change that doesn't add directly to your characters power. Switching from leveling in combat over to leveling in your profession counts as horizontal progression (and is what Steven has talked about in the past in regards to horizontal progression).
Anyway, the whole argument about whether augments are vertical or horizontal progression doesn't really matter in the context of the discussion (happy to keep pointing out how it will be both, but it doesn't matter). What does matter is that progression to the level cap is vertical, meaning there is that 12.5% difference in level (and thus at least that in terms of character power) between a level 35 and 40, meaning the chances of that level 35 being able to win in a 1v1 is incredibly low.
I think the power disparity is not 12.5%. It might be the case for naked toons but armour is 40 to 50% of the power. Thus, a 35 might outclass the 40 in terms of gear tier. Level of item doesn't really compare to tier of item. Thus, the power disparity is actually less because the only advantage the level 40 has would be horizontal augments and 5 minor levels of vertical progression.
And each stage would have tiers of its gear. And I hope that top tier lvl30 gear is a small step below bottom tier lvl35 gear.
And through OE feature you can get top tier lvl30 gear to be at the same power lvl as base top tier lvl35 stuff. And OE acquisition gets harder with each stage, so it would be easier to OE your previous gear in order to get stronger faster. But OEing is also risky, so we've got the risk/reward equation as well.
OEd gear of lower lvls would remain valuable for a long time, because it could match up to higher enemies w/o requirement of a higher lvl. And this way newbies in guilds could participate in pvp faster, because their guild could provide them some OEd stuff.
As for augments - I think majority of them will have non-atk/def stats. Which imo is horizontal, even if it boosts your overall power directly. In other words, instead of augment being "get +20 atk on this weapon type" it'd be "get +10 crit with this weapon type" or "get elemental attribute" or "this type of abilities can now crit for x1.2 with this weapon type". All of those augments provide a power boost, but this boost is not a directly vertical increase in your main stat.
The gap in levels is 12.5%, so if the power gap is less than that, it means there is a less than linear progression. This is a bad thing - being 12.5% higher in terms of level should absolutely translate to 12.5% more power, and the base level gear available to each should support that.
You are talking about possible specific situations, rather than a generic state of balance.
From a mathematical perspective, if you consider the level 40 player to be 100% power (which for our discussion that is the case), as a general point of balance the only real variable that could prevent a level 35 being anything other than at least 12.5% less over all powerful is the power of a newly created character. If a newly created character is half as powerful as a level 40 character, a level 35 is still 12.5% less of that difference.
Its just basic math.
Gear probably shouldn't be able to fill in that much of a gap, unless we are talking extreme situations that are theoretical rather than practical.
I'm a bit curious about your perspective, how much of a "characters power" do believe gear provided in those versions of L2?
Aren't we all sinners?
I don't know.
Mages rogues and archers did not need to get the latest gear. They mostly relied on their tool-kit as well as their defining stats which were casting speed and crit chance/dmg.
It was easy to PK with such a class, even if you had weak gear, as they were front loaded with aggression.
A couple of people have spend a fair few posts debating the numbers and I did not participate because I think the issue at hand is simple:
A weak weapon, not necessarily trash, should not dent the armor of a properly geared let's say lv40 character, at the hands of a lv40 character.
I include armors in the topic, as gear sets provide bonuses, which will affect the atk potential.
Gear must matter on all aspects.
It is a powerful drive in the economy, it is a reason to explore and travel to certain destinations, its acquisition is a reason for people to fight all over the open world. Land and sea, everywhere players will transport mats to craft gear, and all these scenarios are gameplay sessions full of action. Gear should not be skipped, nor should it be used in the tactic I described.
When I play the Assassin's Creed games, or Nioh or whatever singleplayer video game they want to turn into an open world single player mmo these days, seeing gear with levels and stats feels ridiculous. Unless there is a story for unlocking a tool or an armor or a weapon or a skill, suddenly picking it up from every second enemy you come across feels stupid.
We are talking about an mmo here.
Questing, character progression, conflict is what fuels an economy.
Gear is at the center of it all.
One more thing, the more the gear power is weaker, the quicker you will feel like you reached the end game "and now what?"
I haven't played L2 for a few years, but each time I do with my seasoned friends, we skip so much gear it's not even funny. We use gear that's supposed to be for players between 1-20 until 35. We use gear for players between 40-52 all the way to lv 68 or so, with only the tank having a decent armor set. And they while everybody else that doesn't know the game as much as we do, still fucks around with gear for level 52-61, we are crafting endgame gear.
If gear power doesn't matter, on top of the PK abuses and the pvp tactics that skip it, 70 of the gear that the devs will prepare will be skipped by all the Alpha testers, along with all the areas/quests and drama that comes from the zones you are farming it.
People here that post about "skill" and say that I want my gear to do the fighting for me have no idea what actual skill means.
Back in c3-c4 L2, when gladiator had to charge 10hours for a single skill, and daggers were all the craze, I'd beat them two at the time.
I'd see them coming from a distance and I'd had my macros rdy with their character names. No matter how much they'd try to make me lose target I'd always face them, giving them 0 chance for Backstabs.
When they though I'd cast my good moves, I'd just use the crap skills for them to interrupt me, and when they wasted their chance I'd give them a good 2500 dmg in their face.
I'd be with 52lv gear specs for HP, swapping 1h handed axes (before it was the meta for Classic) and twin swords, whilst every other gladiator in the universe would spec for speed and DMG, and I'd take down players with 61lv gear or all classes.
So many here can't put 2 and 2 together and see beyond their assumptions about how great they are, and how everybody else is looking for an ez way out, then some of them admit they they can't even begin to understand what is being discussed, and then submit that *** answer for data, and 10 more follow their school of thought of "I don't even know why I disagree" with likes.
You want gear to account for 50% of a characters strength? Cool. Whilst the rest of the testers parade around with their $5000 backing skins, me and my friends have all chipped in to get as many inrl ppl to join us in testing. We will discover the meta and skip the gears that are not needed. We will rely on our classes tool-kit and whatever else AoC has in store for, as as part of character progression (which many of you confuse with character power).
Our forth group will be just archers and mages with cheap gear; let's see how many hits you can survive from a distance from players that have 0 concern in losing gear due to PK, before the fight has even began.
Take this as a rant (not u James; I'm talking to all takers) if it makes u feel better. I'll just add this discussion to the numerous I've had for the betterment of the game.
We are not there yet, for an mmo to do away with levels and gear, and provide us with unlimited potential and exploration and unique ways to create our playstyle and class. All that would be nice, but we are not there yet, so dont look down on the basics.
And that is exactly how it should be. You invest your time to figure out the game and you win said game. I don't see an issue here.
And it'll be on Intrepid to prevent your group from killing hundreds of people in this way.
I'd assume ~100 should be doable, if you can spread out PKs across the entire party rather than stack them all on one char. But all other players should be the ones trying to stop you from getting up to a 100.
You didnt read all my initial post, nor the correction I made.
Nobody needs to kill hundreds.
They only need to kill until the raid is done, and if they die the cheap gear dropped wont be missed.
I'm sure you would agree that there is a difference between investing your time in a game wisely and investing your time poorly.
and by gear i really mean stats. so buffs + gear + level. classes toolkits mattered in 1v1 yeah but i dont consider 1v1 if you have buffs that arent from your class. true 1v1 is selfbuffs only. also are we using cp potions or not? quick healing potions or not?
of course, some classes had advantage over others. pony in b grade beats every warrior in a or even s grade in a 1v1
also depends on the chronicle. c2? daggers pierce defense so if ur a tank u take the same damage as a mage. c4? necro.
gracia? If you don't have element in your armor anyone with an elemental weapon will beat you, especially if you are still in a grade. doesnt matter who you are, doesnt matter how good you are. all your strategy and tactics and whatever you want loses to f1 spam tactics. you die in 1-2 hits.
if gear matters too much in aoc we might just turn into another tera, where literally (at least when i played) a fresh level 60 with the most basic pvp gear can go afk vs a level 59 and the level 59 will not kill him.
so im a bit confused by your post title. if gear matters too much, other aspects will matter less, such as character toolkits.
character toolkits, player skills and tier skips (or not using the best tier) matter more when gear matters less.
Lower powered gear will always be cheaper than higher powered one. And people who're fighting for higher powered gear will always have enough money to purchase a hefty amount of lowered powered stuff.
So, as I said before, you either make gear 100% of player power or your perceived issues are silly as hell and pretty much non-existent.
I'm never talking about people who drink beer while sitting in town, unless I explicitly point out that I'm doing so.
Majority of my discussions imply a minmaxers pov on the game. And George implies that his group will be minmaxing the fuck of the game in order to get ahead at release. Imo that is exactly how that should be.
But that situation also implies that their "game skill" would be higher even w/o better gear. So if it just so happens that somehow someone outpaces them in term of gearing up - I'd still want George's group of PKers in rags to PK anyone they want. Because, once god damn time again, PKing means that the victim doesn't fight back, so gear has no damn relation to it at all, unless the scaling is so fucking insane that just a few-lvl difference completely negates any damage.
A proper pvp is a completely different question and has waaaay more variables.
AoC doesnt have BG armors, not itemLevels.
It wont become like that.
Personally I dont confuse character development (tool-kits, world affiliations, consumables, class combo) with gear and stats. On that we agree.
It's two different things.
So:
Since we dont have the scenarios of tera and wow which rely on repetitive instanced gameplay to forever farm gear and endgame mentality, in which the gap is like some1 that just finished the npc MQS and some1 that advanced in the arena
and
since I am just saying gear should affect the stats (atk and defence) in order for gear to account for more than 50% of the power output
why are people so against this?
And in L2 gear was all over the place.
Some low C grade were better than top B grade, some top B grade were as good as S grade (with a bit of cheap enchantment at low cost/risk).
As for 1v1 my friend who was playing SK, beat the servers most famous SK in 1v1 again and again, underlevelled and undergeared.
Do you mean the horizontal stats on gear, like +4 str -1 con? Cause pure atk/def stats grew vertically and jumped by a nice margin quite often.
50atk jump within the same lvl of gear, but just at different tiers.