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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.
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.
Fix Combat Balance through Crafting/Leveling Reform (250+ hours of play)
lancehavenbay
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Objective:
To address character level imbalance in combat by emphasizing crafting, gear and skill over exclusively player level, thereby rewarding players for taking part in the world without compromising the incentives to level up. Remove the focus of facerolling mobs just to get levels. Remove the abysmal system of higher level naked = win vs anything lower than it. Right now scaling is very steep.
A HUGE gripe of mine and many others, is how much imbalance pvp combat has, and the lack of reason to do anything but grind mobs. I’ve made a pretty extensive feedback post on other topics: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/63391/consolidated-feedback-thus-far-250-hours#latest This specific post is an in depth breakdown for crafting/player scaling going forward
I never seek to be all talk with no solutions, so here is my solution on how to address the combat/pvp/crafting economy issues:
Proposed System:
Shift Focus to Gear-Based Combat Effectiveness
- Gearing Over Leveling: Combat effectiveness will be primarily determined by gear rather than player level. Level requirements for gear still exist, but significant stat boosts only come from higher quality gear.(Or consumables such as enchantments or potions/scrolls).
- Soft Caps: Players receive only SLIGHT increases in base stats at each item soft cap (e.g., item level requirements of 10, 20, etc.), unlike the current system's drastic increases. (Currently, a rare lvl9 Greatsword atm is 80 power and Common lvl10 is 88 despite far more effort/time needed to obtain the rare)
Here's the crafting changes:
Crafting and Loot System
1. Common Items:
- NO STAT increases.
- ONE SMALL QoL (Quality of Life) boost such as a small increase to ONE attribute like Armor, Health, Energy, Evasion Bonus, Crit Bonus, or Block Rating.
- Attributes for all gear, common or otherwise are RANDOMIZED and reflective of armor type (Heavy gives block, Medium gives evasion, Light gives crit).
- Crafting is a reliable alternative and removes RNG that drops would have.
2. Uncommon Items:
- Same as Common but,
-**TWO SMALL QoL boosts (e.g., +Armor +Health).
- **CHANCE FOR UNIQUE VARIATIONS such as Heavy armor with evasion or crit, etc.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
3. Rare Items:
- **ONE SMALL STAT increase (e.g., Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom).
- Two Small QoL boosts as with Uncommon gear.
- **ONE SMALL COMBAT-SPECIFIC increase (e.g., penetration or power bonus).
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
4. Heroic Items:
- **One MEDIUM stat increase.
- **ONE MEDIUM QoL boost.
- One Small combat-specific increase as with rare.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
5. Epic Items:
- One MEDIUM stat increase.
- One MEDIUM QoL boost.
- **One LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
6. Legendary Items:
- One Medium stat increase.
- **TWO medium QoL boost.
- **ONE LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
7. Artifact Items:
- **TWO LARGE stat increases.
- **Two LARGE QoL boosts.
- **TWO LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
Enchanting System:
- Enchantments scale stats based on the item quality, allowing crafted items at lower levels which are significantly higher quality to potentially surpass common items from higher level players. Remember that the likelihood of you finding and crafting/enchanting super exotic weapons is not just time consuming but difficult. This is your reward for investing time into crafting.
Player Character Level Scaling:
-Player Level Impact: The impact of your player level on your character's overall health, mana, power, and other attributes will be minimal. While there will be some difference in strength between characters of different levels, it will only become moderately impactful with a large level gap, such as 20 levels. The primary factors influencing battle outcomes will be gear quality and player skill. This change eliminates scenarios where a lower-level character (like a naked level 8-15) can easily defeat a geared level 4 just because of level discrepancy.
-Effectiveness Per Level: As you level up, you will notice a slight improvement in your character's effectiveness. However, these improvements will be marginal until you start equipping better gear and use consumables strategically. This will also emphasize the need for better party composition and not just having high level party members to carry you.
-Team Play Advantage: A group of lower-level players can effectively protect themselves against a solo higher-level player attempting to attack or harass them. This encourages team play and fosters greater cohesion among players.
Economy Impacts:
-With crafting having so much more impact, it will be VITAL to protect caravans or risk your enemy taking your exotic materials and making weapons out of your lost supplies into substantially stronger gear.
-More people gather together to make “Harvesting Parties,” and higher level players will be more likely to offer protection to lower level players involved with crafting in exchange for better gear.
-Gives a reason for Guilds/Nodes to get involved in securing their nodes from invaders who want to steal their precious resources.
Impact of the Proposed System:
- Enhanced Crafting Value: Crafting and looting become essential, with materials and loot constituting valuable resources.
- Balanced PvP: Open World PvP entails risks for all levels, as crafted gear can offset character stat differences, preventing high-level ungeared players from dominating low-level players who have invested significant time into crafting.
- Tactical Node Wars: Craft-focused guilds/nodes can equip members with high-quality gear facilitating participation in node/guild wars, enhancing resource competition despite overall members possibly being lower character level.
- Natural Progression: Encourages organic development in combat and gearing by fostering conflict, community, and collaboration.
- Removes inherent imbalance: High level characters will not have a significant or inherent edge if they do not invest time into crafting, connections with crafters, or seeking exotic loot from mobs. Organized guilds/nodes will have much more high quality equipment than the average person relying on loot RNG from farming mobs.
Conclusion:
The proposed system aims to create a balanced combat environment by reducing the excessive reliance on character level for stat increases, thus enhancing the significance of crafted gear and promoting a more engaging and fair gameplay experience. Players can and will be encouraged to pursue crafting and participate in the world around them. Level will no longer be the exclusive factor that will determine the outcome of a battle. Instead, player skill and involvement in the world/community around them will.
The concept of character stat level scaling involves gradually increasing your character's abilities as you gain levels. The increase in stats per level isn't significant enough to notice immediately, but over time, as you reach a much higher level, the cumulative effect becomes apparent. You may notice slight improvements in damage, critical hit frequency, and durability against certain enemies you’ve geared up to face.
At around 20+ levels above the area's level, you will be stronger, but your power will still be somewhat balanced. If a group of four well-equipped and skilled players at level 5 confronts you, they could potentially challenge you effectively, especially if your gear is not optimal.
However, when the level difference becomes extreme, say 40 levels higher, the disparity becomes more pronounced. You will have a distinct advantage over lower-level players, including those with decent gear. In this scenario, with adequate equipment and competent play, you should be capable of taking on an entire party of eight lower-level players.
To address character level imbalance in combat by emphasizing crafting, gear and skill over exclusively player level, thereby rewarding players for taking part in the world without compromising the incentives to level up. Remove the focus of facerolling mobs just to get levels. Remove the abysmal system of higher level naked = win vs anything lower than it. Right now scaling is very steep.
A HUGE gripe of mine and many others, is how much imbalance pvp combat has, and the lack of reason to do anything but grind mobs. I’ve made a pretty extensive feedback post on other topics: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/63391/consolidated-feedback-thus-far-250-hours#latest This specific post is an in depth breakdown for crafting/player scaling going forward
I never seek to be all talk with no solutions, so here is my solution on how to address the combat/pvp/crafting economy issues:
Proposed System:
Shift Focus to Gear-Based Combat Effectiveness
- Gearing Over Leveling: Combat effectiveness will be primarily determined by gear rather than player level. Level requirements for gear still exist, but significant stat boosts only come from higher quality gear.(Or consumables such as enchantments or potions/scrolls).
- Soft Caps: Players receive only SLIGHT increases in base stats at each item soft cap (e.g., item level requirements of 10, 20, etc.), unlike the current system's drastic increases. (Currently, a rare lvl9 Greatsword atm is 80 power and Common lvl10 is 88 despite far more effort/time needed to obtain the rare)
Here's the crafting changes:
Crafting and Loot System
1. Common Items:
- NO STAT increases.
- ONE SMALL QoL (Quality of Life) boost such as a small increase to ONE attribute like Armor, Health, Energy, Evasion Bonus, Crit Bonus, or Block Rating.
- Attributes for all gear, common or otherwise are RANDOMIZED and reflective of armor type (Heavy gives block, Medium gives evasion, Light gives crit).
- Crafting is a reliable alternative and removes RNG that drops would have.
2. Uncommon Items:
- Same as Common but,
-**TWO SMALL QoL boosts (e.g., +Armor +Health).
- **CHANCE FOR UNIQUE VARIATIONS such as Heavy armor with evasion or crit, etc.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
3. Rare Items:
- **ONE SMALL STAT increase (e.g., Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom).
- Two Small QoL boosts as with Uncommon gear.
- **ONE SMALL COMBAT-SPECIFIC increase (e.g., penetration or power bonus).
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
4. Heroic Items:
- **One MEDIUM stat increase.
- **ONE MEDIUM QoL boost.
- One Small combat-specific increase as with rare.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
5. Epic Items:
- One MEDIUM stat increase.
- One MEDIUM QoL boost.
- **One LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
6. Legendary Items:
- One Medium stat increase.
- **TWO medium QoL boost.
- **ONE LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
7. Artifact Items:
- **TWO LARGE stat increases.
- **Two LARGE QoL boosts.
- **TWO LARGE combat-specific increase.
- Chance for unique variations like with Uncommon.
- Reliable for crafting, just like with common.
Enchanting System:
- Enchantments scale stats based on the item quality, allowing crafted items at lower levels which are significantly higher quality to potentially surpass common items from higher level players. Remember that the likelihood of you finding and crafting/enchanting super exotic weapons is not just time consuming but difficult. This is your reward for investing time into crafting.
Player Character Level Scaling:
-Player Level Impact: The impact of your player level on your character's overall health, mana, power, and other attributes will be minimal. While there will be some difference in strength between characters of different levels, it will only become moderately impactful with a large level gap, such as 20 levels. The primary factors influencing battle outcomes will be gear quality and player skill. This change eliminates scenarios where a lower-level character (like a naked level 8-15) can easily defeat a geared level 4 just because of level discrepancy.
-Effectiveness Per Level: As you level up, you will notice a slight improvement in your character's effectiveness. However, these improvements will be marginal until you start equipping better gear and use consumables strategically. This will also emphasize the need for better party composition and not just having high level party members to carry you.
-Team Play Advantage: A group of lower-level players can effectively protect themselves against a solo higher-level player attempting to attack or harass them. This encourages team play and fosters greater cohesion among players.
Economy Impacts:
-With crafting having so much more impact, it will be VITAL to protect caravans or risk your enemy taking your exotic materials and making weapons out of your lost supplies into substantially stronger gear.
-More people gather together to make “Harvesting Parties,” and higher level players will be more likely to offer protection to lower level players involved with crafting in exchange for better gear.
-Gives a reason for Guilds/Nodes to get involved in securing their nodes from invaders who want to steal their precious resources.
Impact of the Proposed System:
- Enhanced Crafting Value: Crafting and looting become essential, with materials and loot constituting valuable resources.
- Balanced PvP: Open World PvP entails risks for all levels, as crafted gear can offset character stat differences, preventing high-level ungeared players from dominating low-level players who have invested significant time into crafting.
- Tactical Node Wars: Craft-focused guilds/nodes can equip members with high-quality gear facilitating participation in node/guild wars, enhancing resource competition despite overall members possibly being lower character level.
- Natural Progression: Encourages organic development in combat and gearing by fostering conflict, community, and collaboration.
- Removes inherent imbalance: High level characters will not have a significant or inherent edge if they do not invest time into crafting, connections with crafters, or seeking exotic loot from mobs. Organized guilds/nodes will have much more high quality equipment than the average person relying on loot RNG from farming mobs.
Conclusion:
The proposed system aims to create a balanced combat environment by reducing the excessive reliance on character level for stat increases, thus enhancing the significance of crafted gear and promoting a more engaging and fair gameplay experience. Players can and will be encouraged to pursue crafting and participate in the world around them. Level will no longer be the exclusive factor that will determine the outcome of a battle. Instead, player skill and involvement in the world/community around them will.
The concept of character stat level scaling involves gradually increasing your character's abilities as you gain levels. The increase in stats per level isn't significant enough to notice immediately, but over time, as you reach a much higher level, the cumulative effect becomes apparent. You may notice slight improvements in damage, critical hit frequency, and durability against certain enemies you’ve geared up to face.
At around 20+ levels above the area's level, you will be stronger, but your power will still be somewhat balanced. If a group of four well-equipped and skilled players at level 5 confronts you, they could potentially challenge you effectively, especially if your gear is not optimal.
However, when the level difference becomes extreme, say 40 levels higher, the disparity becomes more pronounced. You will have a distinct advantage over lower-level players, including those with decent gear. In this scenario, with adequate equipment and competent play, you should be capable of taking on an entire party of eight lower-level players.
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