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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
It has nothing to do with fighting back.
If there is no fear of losing cheap gear that could work nearly as well as proper gear (as everybody wants to for some reason with that 50% number) forget about the flagging systems' gurantees.
In a 50 v 50 in which one side relies on quick ranged dmg despite the cheap gear, it becomes 50 vs 40 without a healer and supports just like that.
If gear power matters people wouldnt be so reckless in PKing, because they would consider dropping their items upon death.
I just can't understand what precise super small probability situation you're talking about here.
Also, in case this gets lost cause you responded before reading it
The armor sets of L2 had their bonuses all over the place, atk and magic atk did not matter for rogues and mages.
High end daggers and staves were replaced with lowgrade dark screamers and humunculus swords.
Low grade items would not weaken the atk potential of the aggressive classes because they rellied... drum roll... on other strengths besides good items.
It was ez for a karmian boy mage to PK it was ez for a thecaboy and dark screamer to pk.
You can min/max how you get to max level, but not during the launch period. You either min/max that during beta, or (if there is a reason to have multiple characters at the cap) after you have at least one level capped character.
If we are only talking min/maxers, there isn't even a discussion to be had here.
I am not talking about min/maxing. If the difference between gear is negligible, people won't bother acquiring it. They will skip content since the 50% 'other' power can carry them through the game.
One more thing Nikr since you linked swords. Do you know how ez was for a +7 damascus and how ez it was to get it, to go against an S grade forgotten blade, which took way more effort?
Why should gear be so weak as to account only for 50% of a players potential? So much content will be skipped and so much abuse can happen.
ok bdo then. open world farming and gear matters too much hehee. tera was just an example T_T
im not saying it was impossible to beat players who were better geared or higher leveled in l2, but it wasnt likely. it also depends on the class.
sk vs sk, evasion alone should be enough so that ur friend didnt stand a chance, but evasion never works in p servers.
open world has too many variables, buffs, etc. in olys ur friend could beat him, maybe ur friend was better, or got lucky with paralysis. maybe he used drains and the other dude didnt have good jewels? lucky crits etc i dont know. also the chronicle matters. also famous doesnt mean super good.
let me ask you this. if your friend and the other dude swapped characters, do you think the other dude would win consistently ith the weaker character?
im just saying if gear gives you too much power, then your strategies matter less. using an l2 example, when element was added. it didnt matter how good you were. you could both have the same gear but if the other dude had 300 element in his weapon and u had 0 in ur armor (plus no elemental buffs) you just die. doesnt matter what u do. they target u, hit f1 and u die.
there was a famous video of a gladi called gicobbe in office who got a +16 duals with 300 element, 10k cp, 20k hp. u could see him beating everybody in a siege just spamming one button, the gladi long range aoe (forgot the name). ive tried to find that video with no luck ugh but f uve ever seen it, theres no skill or strategy or ability involved. he is literally just pressing one button and obliterating and entire guild. just the same button over and over and over. the only time he uses another skill is when a dagger got close to him and he hit him for a 16k or so TSS (yes i remember it was 16k because it was ridiculous). no skill involved, nothing, just press f2 and win, i think the dagger even had UE so he kinda got lucky he landed the skill.
i dont want AOC to be like that. 30%-50% power form gear seems ok. 50 probs too high.
So you're now talking about a group PKing a solo player?
This falls under the "other players should deal with it" situation for me. I remember countless times when people would shout "PKer near kruma entrance" in chat, because some high lvl dick in cheap stuff was just having fun PKing everyone he saw.
First of all, Ashes will already have stat dampening for this, so you wouldn't be able to do this for all too long (again, unless you spread the kills among the party).
Secondly, if you're a group of people doing this - I expect other groups to have problems with that (for a multitude of reasons) and come kick your ass, or at least try to. This is simply good pvx design imo (cause I'd imagine that you're protecting pve).
So once again, I see no issues here.
This is a process, not a binary state. At some point you'll be at lvl30, while some theoretical better minmaxer could be at lvl40. And I'd want your lvl30 char to still be able to stand up against the lvl40 one, even if it's quite hard to beat him. I just don't want complete negation of your damage against him.
What stage of the game's life are we talking about here? What stage of the player in question are we talking about here?
I'd expect that at the start of the game both a +7 Dam and a basic Forgotten would be quite hard to acquire or simply super expensive. Mainly because Dams would be required by a shitton of people, so it's not assured that you'd have enough of them to +7 one (unless you're super lucky) and I'd expect for there to not be too many Enchant scrolls as well.
And this is in case you've gotten to lvl76 w/o a +3 A grade weapon. Which, btw would still have more atk stat than a +7 Dam (unless wiki is lying to me about OE scaling).
And if we're talking later stage of the game's life, that +7 Dam would just help the newbie lvl faster, which I wholeheartedly support and want.
This will wildly depend on how Intrepid design gear acquisition in the game. And, once again, the context of the game's life stage.
No one will be skipping stuff on release if lvl20 gear can't survive all that well against lvl40 mobs, while you need to kill several lvl40 bosses and a shitton of mobs to get the mats for just a single craft of lvl40 gear.
plated is terrible. its only good in pve if ur not getting hit or if you are an archer. for pvp, drake and theca are better. maybe you can use pl vs mages.
leveling with an homun to 3rd class only works in p. servers that arn the old chronicles, they are 5x rates, you have buffs, dual box, etc
try a mage in a x1, old chronicles where you cant turn on ss or u lose money every time you kill something, no dual boxes, no buffs, no herbs. u gonna have to sit a lot and level really slowly if you skip gear, because for a mage, killing a mob in 2 hits makes a huge difference than killing it in 3-4 or 6-7 hits. warrior dont care too much, just make a party turn off ur ss and go cata 24-7. summoners also dont care, get to 76 in no grade.
yes, if you are going to pk, you arent going to wear ur dark crystal. u put on ur karmian and go pk, but guess what? you arent going ot pvp, you are going to pk. you are gonna hit the other dude 2-3 times before they realize whats going on (unless they are experienced players) if you pvp in karmian at level 70 u get 1-2 shotted. its the same as pvping in devotion at level 50-60.
you also gonna wear ur best weapon since you cant drop it from using a life stone, so u can pk all you want. mages and archers are different than melee
u even said it in another thread. if someone tries to pk you with bad gear, u just turn around and kill them. so why does it work if you are the one doing the pk, but not the other way around? people arent gonna turn on ur group and kill you when u flag and ur wearing bad gear?
Do you understand why those classes in particular(Mainly Dagger and Archer) had such power(in their toolkits) with low gear?
Because their base skills power scaled way better with levels than other classes and their skills could crit when many others couldn't.
While for them gear power represented less than 40% of character power for the rest of the classes it represented over 60%.
In later versions the other classes skills power were increased and many got crit chances, gear became more of a characters power for the outlier classes lessening the pk potential issue you presented.
As long as Ashes classes are properly balanced, 40-50% will be just fine for gear characters power,
Gear power balance is a very delicate thing to deal with too low and gear becomes meaningless, too high and gear completely disregards skill.
Have you ever played a game with a very high gear character power %?
I had, Archeage, Gear disparity there was really insane(i would say gear there represented over 90-95% of a characters power) the abyss between 4K Gear Score and 12K gear score was enough to almost skillessly 1v50+. something unthinkable in L2 for characters of the same level but a difference in gear like C to S(C4).
Aren't we all sinners?
If you are a min/maxer in a new game at level 30, you should probably be somewhat scared of someone that is level 40, as they are better at the thing you are trying to do (min/max) than you.
They will beat you, potentially without even realizing you are there. This is how it should be - this is a sign of a good game.
come on man... bdo is p2w. What are we talking about? I doubt bdo would have tri tet pen etc etc if it wasn't for p2w. I'd would end at cap and then expansions.
I guess people dont read, they just skim over.
In every post here on this topic I said "cheap gear (not necessarily trash gear). There is a distinction.
btw what evasion are you talking about? SK is shillien Knight
nikr I dont know what do you mean by a group killing a player. Nuking a target (focus fire) isn't a group vs 1 player. It's a group vs a group.
How or why would another group of players (seemingly in normal gear, considering the context) not fight back against a group of flagged dudes in shitty gear?
Also, if this group of newcomers have their healer at the front - they're dumb. And if your PKers in rags attack the newcomers in normal gear - the newcomers would just kill you in the same way you expect to kill them. They'll just assist kill your dudes in a few hits and that's that.
I once again ask you to write out the full situation in which you expect gear to somehow matter in a PKing situation.
Or just finally admit that you simply want 100% gear control over player power, cause your comments sure come off that way.
if you want a gear based power there are plenty of other games out there....
Unfair nerfs to classes in this or many other games happen because the Devs have't considered that this or that (or gear in this case) may affect things in different proportions. I think it's a better idea to consider the effects that negligible gear power difference may have on the game, before people start complaining about how a rogue with cheap gear fairs the same as them, perhaps a tank or a fighter or a bard, but they had to spend effort to get properly equipped.
both elves had higher evasion than other races. have u ever missed auto attacks vs an sps? i have as an archer and it sucks lmao.
anyways, in l2 when you are higher level, lower levels have a penalty. they miss more (auto attacks), they can also miss magic attacks and do 1 damage or do half damage more often. on top of that, you suffer damage penalties, your skills will do less damage to higher level characters or mobs. tanks main damage source is auto attacks (although sk has some magic), thats why i mentioned evasion
but none of this is ever properly implemented in private servers. you also have anchor landing with 90% chance lmao. debuffs landing left and right, etc. so yes its possible that ur friend was lets say in b grade, lvl 60, and beat the other dude who was lvl 61 in common a grade, or maybe even 62-64 in private servers.
in retail, if your friend was level 52 in b grade, he would never win sk vs sk if the other dude was 61 with full a grade. all the other dude has to do is auto attack and go afk, unless he had 0 buffs and ur friend was fully buffed with dances and songs and prophecy.
Cause I feel like you're arguing against this exact situation, yet you present this as something good?
retail or private server?
what i said about penalties is 100% accurate, except in private servers.
also what buffs?
exactly T_T
Oh i remember this video but was able to find just a piece of it:
at 12:24
That +16 {PvP}300 element with +30 Duelist Spirit and other skills with Full buff, Final Secret + Heroic Berserk is no joke. Truly at the high end of Gear disparity of Gracia Final/Epilogue
Aren't we all sinners?
I wont repeat myself anymore.
Go back and read the op.
We are not talking about that. You have skewed the situation. George mentioned weapons and armour making an outcome 100% guaranteed. I am saying an outcome should never be guaranteed. Really there are 50 levels which equates to 2% power gap between each level. So, a naked 35 to 40 match up would only be 10%. Easily overcome with skill.
Yes you have some base stats advantage on you but i dont think it should really be a critical thing on a PvP.
Also comparing L2 PK system with AOC it just doesnt work , L2 was unbalanced on many aspects epsecially on lower chronicles.
What comprises of a level 40 exactly? 5 levels more than lvl 35 and a few more augments? Great. Seems like a misnomer when compared to a level 20 vs 25 fight.