Why Cosmetics aren't P2W in Ashes.
I had a discussion about P2W and the markers for target acquisition. I wish to highlight why Armour Choice doesn't really matter in the current game design. I will use the points below:
1. The "type" of armor (cloth, leather, plate) a character is predominantly wearing is visible in their nameplate.[31][51]
2. There will be strengths and weaknesses for armor sets that opponents can exploit with gear enhancements, for example.[31]
3. Players will be able to counter resistances with resistance penetration stats.[47]
4. Gear enhancements (power stones/runes) can be applied to weapons to add elemental or energy types of damage.[72][73]
5. Different classes of weapons may deal different types of physical damage: Bludgeoning damage, Slashing damage, Piercing damage.[7][8]
6. 1v1 matchups will have a rock-paper-scissors dynamic, where one class will be superior to another.[16]
7. Certain archetypes are capable of moving the gap between their counterpart per-se. If I am a Tank archetype and a Mage is my counter, I can take a Mage secondary and bridge the divide slightly; and then move my identity that direction ever so slightly.[23] – Steven Sharif
Thus, You can build a Tank for example and add Mage to reduce the Hard Counter effect, however, you will acquire the hard counter for Mage too because to reduce the hard counter of Mage you'd have to spec in Magic Defence or Light Armour rather than Physical Defence or Heavy Armour. You could focus on both Magic Defence and Physical Defence but one would be lower than the other dependant on armour choice unless you choose Medium Armour. If you choose medium armour you would have lower Physical and Magical Defence at the same time than a tank who is purely Magic Defence or Physical Defence. The only saving grace would be a tank with high evasion who would evade both magic attacks and physical attacks. However, there is also accuracy stat on some crafted weapons in some videos which would counter evasion stat.
Gear enhancements can also make your hard counter hard counter you even further. It is not clear how strong the gear enhancements are but each armour type has strengths and weakness which gear enhancements will exploit. Thus, no armour set is immune to these effects. The potential means that counters to the hard counters will be less effective and lowered counters against other forms of damage will be even worse. If someone has a particular grudge against a class then they could become a second Hard Counter to a class just through second archetype choice, weapon selection, horizontal enchantments and gear enhancements. Only evasion would assist against the gear enhancements unless the enhanced gear has high accuracy stats to boot.
There will be no 1vs1 Balance - a rock, paper, scissor dynamic. Thus, no matter how strong you build your defences or min-max your toon, a group of players will still annihilate you on the battlefield. Not good for duels, arena, bounty hunters and anyone looking to survive in the ranks of battles. Of course, some classes will have more cc than others, some classes will have debuffs and some won't, some classes will have buffs and some classes won't and some classes will have heals and some classes won't. This means that some classes will be a rock to more than 1 class, scissors to more than 1 class and paper to more than one class. When I mention classes I mean the base Archetypes because Secondary Archetypes don't seed stats. Therefore, the minimal changes applied by the secondary archetype will only mitigate the original Hard Counter ever so slightly and not the rest.
Therefore, I conclude that the most effective armour is actually Medium Armour because Medium Armour right now gives more critical rating and a balanced Defensive Position which can be further boosted by Magical Resistances and Physical Resistances. The rest have massive weakness on one side or the other despite efforts to bolster either side. Hence, cosmetics and transmogs don't really matter in terms of target selection. Only the active abilities and the performances.
Thank you for your time.
Neurath.
