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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Argument for why the equip level of gear should be lower than the player max level
Lash
Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
In many mmos the gear you acquire during leveling is instantly outclassed by pretty much anything acquired at max level. This encourages players to rush to max level and ignore all crafting because nothing they make is relevant before max level. It also makes concepts such as item level (gear score) required so equipment can scale up in power without respecting the equip level.
My suggestion is to make the max equip level on launch level 40 (player max being 50). This means a player can start crafting earlier and it would increase their leveling speeds without feeling like they are wasting their time making gear that is irrelevant if they level more. This would also allow the devs to tie stat budgets on gear to equip level instead of some kind of item level (gear score). Say they want to make slightly better gear in a patch 6 months into the launch. That gear could have an equip level of 41 with stat profiles that reflect 1 increased level.
Scaling gear stats in a linear way would reduce the chances of massive power swings where a level 49 player could never kill a level 50 regardless of skill. I do not want to see ashes become a game where you start one shotting people with less "gear score" than you.
This would also solve that scaling issue most games have when they increase the level cap. Where all the gear in the game has 500 item levels of power for level 50 so when players reach 51 they need items with 525 item levels of power to feel progression. Meaning gear stats spike very high at old level caps and it gets out of hand instantly. By the time the first expansion rolls out we could have level 45-50 equip requirement gear. Then if the level cap is increased the gear would just naturally flow into the new level ranges.
Even if the equip level is 40 that does not mean players will have nothing to upgrade at 50. It would be hard to get a full set of 40 gear on the launch of the game and there is still the enchanting system to further increase the gear power level. That is along side horizontal power gear sets that you could get to change up your build. It would still probably be more efficient to craft and gather at max level but doing it while leveling would not be a complete waste of time like it is in some games.
My suggestion is to make the max equip level on launch level 40 (player max being 50). This means a player can start crafting earlier and it would increase their leveling speeds without feeling like they are wasting their time making gear that is irrelevant if they level more. This would also allow the devs to tie stat budgets on gear to equip level instead of some kind of item level (gear score). Say they want to make slightly better gear in a patch 6 months into the launch. That gear could have an equip level of 41 with stat profiles that reflect 1 increased level.
Scaling gear stats in a linear way would reduce the chances of massive power swings where a level 49 player could never kill a level 50 regardless of skill. I do not want to see ashes become a game where you start one shotting people with less "gear score" than you.
This would also solve that scaling issue most games have when they increase the level cap. Where all the gear in the game has 500 item levels of power for level 50 so when players reach 51 they need items with 525 item levels of power to feel progression. Meaning gear stats spike very high at old level caps and it gets out of hand instantly. By the time the first expansion rolls out we could have level 45-50 equip requirement gear. Then if the level cap is increased the gear would just naturally flow into the new level ranges.
Even if the equip level is 40 that does not mean players will have nothing to upgrade at 50. It would be hard to get a full set of 40 gear on the launch of the game and there is still the enchanting system to further increase the gear power level. That is along side horizontal power gear sets that you could get to change up your build. It would still probably be more efficient to craft and gather at max level but doing it while leveling would not be a complete waste of time like it is in some games.
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This, in turn, means that people at lower lvls will want to craft a ton of low lvl/tier stuff, because they can OE it more easily (because getting low lvl/tier stuff is cheaper/faster than getting high lvl stuff).
No need for limitations of equip lvls or gear scores or whateverthehell.
I'm also not a fan of this, within reason. I think WoW Classic did ok with itemization while leveling, where there were certain items that could be acquired at earlier levels and were useful well into endgame. These items were ones with non-generic on-hit effects or rare stats. Ex. Equip: 2% chance on melee hit to gain 1 extra attack. (Proc chance: 2%, 2s cooldown)
While certainly a factor, I don't think the fact that items will be replaced is the sole reason early crafting is ignored in some games. A lot of that problem can be mitigated by increasing the difficulty of leveling and making it take longer. If players need to get better gear to avoid dying, and the gear drops are scarce enough, then crafted gear is the answer.
Isn't this just making item level = equip level, not removing item level? I'm not sure progressive gear design is possible without item level in some shape or form. Someone can feel free to point out how I'm wrong.
I am also not a fan of the gear progression treadmill, but isn't this just keeping the treadmill but shifting it down 10 levels?
but...it changes nothing. people will still rush to get the best gear they can get,even if it isn't a level 50 gear. he level 40 gear becomes the new level 50 gear (or just end game gear). why would people waste time with level 10 gear, for example?
It changes a lot, for one you will not have a full set of level 40 gear the second you hit 40. You might have a few pieces increasing as you get closer to 50. In addition it gives you pieces you can slowly enchant as you level starting from level 40. It gives you incentives to level your crafting while leveling with a buffer of -10 levels on the gear requirement so it becomes efficient sooner in the leveling process. You waste time on level 10 gear because it increases your leveling speeds enough to be worth it or because you know it will be worth it in the future. Giving more incentives earlier in the gear progression to level professions makes the game innately less about rushing to the end.
There is really no downsides to having a lower level requirement besides potential twinking on secondary character down the line but that could just be seen as a catch up mechanic across the board anyway. There is also an assumption that the last 10 levels will take the longest as in most games so getting people on the end game gear progression path a bit sooner is not a bad thing.
The largest benefit is if they increased the level cap in the future. The game needs years of pre-planning on the gearing system progression.
My impression was that a lot of endgame loot is crafting materials and crafters will make a lot of endgame gear.
Yeah, the best gear will be crafted gear made from high end mats
Id rather it be your (Node Level x10 +10) that is your equip level, so you can top level equip gear only if your node level is 4/5/6. That would tie players success to their Node success and stop players playing purely destructively.
Except that the only way that we should be 'capped' in terms of the max level of craftable gear should be availability of the materials for it.
If the entire server gets together to pour their exp down the drain to kill the first world boss by zombie zerg and get the drop, someone should be able to craft the level 46-47 special thing if they have the crafting level somehow.
But I don't think Ashes' gear itemization is far enough along to expect that I'll stick to the above, and I'm picky about the 'feeling' of gearing, so I might have a completely opposite opinion later when they show us something else.
This would still see players rush to level 50, and then work on gear progression.
I don't see at all how your suggestion would make it so that someone at level 20 wants to craft gear instead of level.
I've never been a fan of not knowing how to wear a hat because I'm not a high enough level. But I also wouldn't be a fan of my gear being directly tied to my node's progression.
Instead tie the gear to the available materials to craft, and then tie that to node progression. If I wander to an advanced node, I should be able to buy and equip the cool gear the merchant is selling. And merchants should be able to move gear and materials to other nodes to sell them as well. I think this fits well into the player driven economy.
You just had to have the boss timers down and/or keep checking randomly every once in a while to see if the boss was up and hope for the rare drop.
This created cool PVP scenarios as different groups would often be checking on these bosses randomly to see if they were up. So you never knew who you might run into while checking.
you don't get it. the level on the gear is just a number. its irrelevant.
if what you want is that players spend time doing low level crafting to level up, and gear takes time to acquire, then you can do that and the max level of the gear becomes irrelevant.
you can also have non max level gear and people can still rush and skip. those 2 things arent mutually exclusive. there's no rule or law that dictates it. everything exists the way it is because the devs willed it.
This could be implemented on higher level equipment, where crafted gear of the player's appropriate level would technically be more beneficial than wearing the higher level item with reduced stats, thus helping entry level (and slightly higher) crafting more relevant.