Gear Scaling does not feel good

Seeing the dup items shows the scaling between common, Uncommon and Legendary items.

Common Bow - 99-134 damage
Uncommon Bow - 140-187 Damage
Legendary Bow - 481-634 Damage
(these are all level 10 bows)

From Common to Legendary thats 4.7 x more powerful on a level 10 bow. That is way outside realm of skill mattering in a PvP fight. Gear should never be an advantage of more then 50%. IMO from common to Legendary you should not have more then a 30% boost. PvP feels best when you can still kill a top gear char still with skill. With a 4.7 x gear jump. Thats just not going to happen. In game now Carphin geared players are 1 and 2 shooting people of the same level even vs the the same class of the same level.

What are your thoughts?

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SmileGurney

I really dislike the power scaling atm, gear and level wise.

This will translate to pvp really poorly, basically rewarding players for insane time investments and luck with RNG, instead of their understanding of the game and personal ability.

The passive power creep related to levelling also feels too much. Just look at HP values between different levels.

For me the pvp competitiveness should be decided by gameplay depth, skill synergies, proper builds, player "skill", ability to adapt to a situation, taking advantage of terrain, mobility, spacing, timing, and understanding of other classes strengths and weaknesses. Basically player skill, game knowledge, tactical thinking should be king, NOT grind and RNG.

Mhyth

That's one of things I've always HATED about EQ format MMORPGs. It's typically is one of the root causes of extreme drama in groups and guilds, fighting over who 'deserves' the overly-good gear when it drops.

That gets compounded by several orders of magnitude when end game raiding gets piled on whether instanced or open world bosses. In addition to PvP being exceedingly biased toward having best in slot gear all other non-raid open world content gets trivialized by overly powerful raid gear. Further what content you can participate in frequently gets gated by having that uber gear - again ramping up playerbase drama created by the poor gameplay design mechanics of including an insane gear power curve in the first place.

SnowElf

I'm gonna digress a little, but I do think and agree that the scaling is a bit obtuse. I struggled on my Mage to find a Green wand to even replace my standard lv10 wand for 3 weeks of the Alpha testing. I often had to win rolls for either a greatsword, longsword or a bow to boost my magic offense. Once I did find a green main hand and a green spellbook, my power increase significantly.

With that being said though, what we're experiencing now from the servers is the "growing pains" stage, as crafting is -very- daunting to undertake, having to go through several hoops to even craft a piece of gear. Instead, it seems everyone is routinely farming certain areas of the nodes such as Highway, Carphin, Seph, Halls, etc.

You also have to stay within 1-3 levels of the group so that the chance of getting a drop doesn't plummet substantially. I tested it out with a group in Steelbloom Citadel last weekend. I was 21, and the lowest was 17. Once I joined the group, the loot came in very slowly, but once I left, it made a major difference.

Outside of that, yeah, I think adjusting the weapon scaling may not be a bad idea, so long as it doesn't incur a nerf. Perhaps give a little boost to grey/standard, take a little bit from green/blue/purple, but keep legendary as it is? I'm not entirely sure.

All in all, players who group up together and stay within the 1-3 level range are going to benefit the most with loot for now, until crafting actually takes off and the economy gains some footing where players have more readily available access to stronger weaponry.

I thought that adding PVP gear though to add some sort of resilience stat to incoming player damage... Things may start to get very wonky. WoW has struggled with PVP gear throughout various expansions over the years. Players often just wore full sets of PVE gear and still outperformed those with strict PVP gear on.

I do know one thing though, we are flooding Intrepid with TONS of data during our weekend playtests, which may help the team see a bigger picture on what may be the best route to go.

nanfoodle

SnowElf wrote: »

I'm gonna digress a little, but I do think and agree that the scaling is a bit obtuse. I struggled on my Mage to find a Green wand to even replace my standard lv10 wand for 3 weeks of the Alpha testing. I often had to win rolls for either a greatsword, longsword or a bow to boost my magic offense. Once I did find a green main hand and a green spellbook, my power increase significantly.

With that being said though, what we're experiencing now from the servers is the "growing pains" stage, as crafting is -very- daunting to undertake, having to go through several hoops to even craft a piece of gear. Instead, it seems everyone is routinely farming certain areas of the nodes such as Highway, Carphin, Seph, Halls, etc.

You also have to stay within 1-3 levels of the group so that the chance of getting a drop doesn't plummet substantially. I tested it out with a group in Steelbloom Citadel last weekend. I was 21, and the lowest was 17. Once I joined the group, the loot came in very slowly, but once I left, it made a major difference.

Outside of that, yeah, I think adjusting the weapon scaling may not be a bad idea, so long as it doesn't incur a nerf. Perhaps give a little boost to grey/standard, take a little bit from green/blue/purple, but keep legendary as it is? I'm not entirely sure.

All in all, players who group up together and stay within the 1-3 level range are going to benefit the most with loot for now, until crafting actually takes off and the economy gains some footing where players have more readily available access to stronger weaponry.

I thought that adding PVP gear though to add some sort of resilience stat to incoming player damage... Things may start to get very wonky. WoW has struggled with PVP gear throughout various expansions over the years. Players often just wore full sets of PVE gear and still outperformed those with strict PVP gear on.

I do know one thing though, we are flooding Intrepid with TONS of data during our weekend playtests, which may help the team see a bigger picture on what may be the best route to go.

Does not matter how they balance the gear is fine. Make commons to uncommon be a 10% damage jump and again to Legendary a jump to another 10% and doing so buy jumping the common and uncommon items a boost and leaving the Legendary where it sets currently in damage, do so by raising the damage of the common and uncommon. At this point, the game is based on gear not skill.

Mordune

I agree, the scaling with gear it too steep. More emphasis should be placed on player progression with gear being on a softer curve.

kadimir

So riddle me this, if the gear really was 30% better, how many of you would go out and gather all the legendary mats to make one over just trying to level up?

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

Cintra

I respect your opinion, and for the purpose of balancing PvP, it does make sense. However, as someone who has played countless hours with numerous players, I can say that I have very rarely seen high-tier items drop. The happiness and satisfaction from acquiring those drops are immense for the players who obtain them. It’s incredibly rewarding to get these items, and their power aligns with their respective difficulty to obtain.

Balancing this is a challenge because it risks diminishing the value of higher-tier drops. Furthermore, just because a player has all the best items doesn’t mean they are invincible. It only means that the group facing them will need more strategy to handle the fight.

When we eventually have the Leaderboard system with rankings and scores, perhaps we should consider having two separate systems: one where all your gear counts, and another where everyone is evaluated purely on skill and reflexes. This way, we can have two ways to measure players: by the quality of their equipment and by their skill and ability.

nanfoodle

kadimir wrote: »

So riddle me this, if the gear really was 30% better, how many of you would go out and gather all the legendary mats to make one over just trying to level up?

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

Many PvP games try and keep gear progression under 50% as this gives skill the main reason to win a PvP fight. In these games it never stopped people from chasing better gear. Matter of fact it normally increased it because ever % better was harder to get. Its up to IS in the end to decide what % each tier gets. 4.7 times better then a common, that just not fun. Also makes it a ha ha. My gear is better I always win.

nanfoodle

Cintra wrote: »

I respect your opinion, and for the purpose of balancing PvP, it does make sense. However, as someone who has played countless hours with numerous players, I can say that I have very rarely seen high-tier items drop. The happiness and satisfaction from acquiring those drops are immense for the players who obtain them. It’s incredibly rewarding to get these items, and their power aligns with their respective difficulty to obtain.

Balancing this is a challenge because it risks diminishing the value of higher-tier drops. Furthermore, just because a player has all the best items doesn’t mean they are invincible. It only means that the group facing them will need more strategy to handle the fight.

When we eventually have the Leaderboard system with rankings and scores, perhaps we should consider having two separate systems: one where all your gear counts, and another where everyone is evaluated purely on skill and reflexes. This way, we can have two ways to measure players: by the quality of their equipment and by their skill and ability.

Its open world, not Arena game. What do you want in PvP, gear be the deciding factor every time you engage in PvP, or would you like your skill to account for 50%, 60%, 70% of what decides the battle you face? As it stand, low end gear vs top end gear at the same level. Your skill stands for about 20% of the battle if you are using commons. And about 30% if uncommon.

kadimir

nanfoodle wrote: »

kadimir wrote: »

So riddle me this, if the gear really was 30% better, how many of you would go out and gather all the legendary mats to make one over just trying to level up?

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

Many PvP games try and keep gear progression under 50% as this gives skill the main reason to win a PvP fight. In these games it never stopped people from chasing better gear. Matter of fact it normally increased it because ever % better was harder to get. Its up to IS in the end to decide what % each tier gets. 4.7 times better then a common, that just not fun. Also makes it a ha ha. My gear is better I always win.

What games?

I used to want equalized pvp but really next to nobody does, took a long time to realize that seeing what worked and what didn't in games. Outside of reddit, I don't know a single real life person who plays GW2 for instance. Try joining any wow pvp without pvp gear. They added an equalized battleground in tera and nobody at cap played it.

And aside from all that, which game listed by Steven makes you think gear won't actually be a massive decider in combat? Doesnt matter anyways you'll just end up dying to the bigger zerg equalized gear or current gear.

Mhyth

kadimir wrote: »

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

The best I ever saw was epic droppings!

Cintra wrote: »

It’s incredibly rewarding to get these items, and their power aligns with their respective difficulty to obtain.

No, it's just incredibly lucky. Very slim chances is a rather skewed definition of 'difficulty'. It's more similar to a random lottery. Making a few players deliriously happy when making everyone else less happy and worse the frequent victim of the lucky players(or worse still those that have used RMT to gain those items from gold farmers) is not a winning business strategy.

Cintra wrote: »

just because a player has all the best items doesn’t mean they are invincible.

Frequently that is exactly what it means, especially vs players that are not equivalently equipped regardless if they have greater skill or strategy. No strategy will overcome a one or two hit kill or the massive advantage gained by removing more than half your opponents heath in the opening attacks.

RedLeader1

I think the gear scaling is to try and add risk to PvP and tie PvPers to their node artisans. It may be a little strong right now, until the repair system is introduced, but you need the hardcore PvP crew, to realize this is a PvX Team game not an Individual PvP game. They need to be bound to their node "Team" somehow.

I get that PvPers want to increase their self-reliance, reduce their risk, and increase their reward at every turn, but that isn't building a widely enjoyable good game, or being realistic.

The minute PvPers stop caring about their artisans, the game fails. People have to realize that. They are like your villagers in Age of Empires. It is a PITA protecting them, but they are essential to success, and you need them for your upgrades.

Shabooey

nanfoodle wrote: »

Seeing the dup items shows the scaling between common, Uncommon and Legendary items.

Common Bow - 99-134 damage
Uncommon Bow - 140-187 Damage
Legendary Bow - 481-634 Damage
(these are all level 10 bows)

From Common to Legendary thats 4.7 x more powerful on a level 10 bow. That is way outside realm of skill mattering in a PvP fight. Gear should never be an advantage of more then 50%. IMO from common to Legendary you should not have more then a 30% boost. PvP feels best when you can still kill a top gear char still with skill. With a 4.7 x gear jump. Thats just not going to happen. In game now Carphin geared players are 1 and 2 shooting people of the same level even vs the the same class of the same level.

What are your thoughts?

Completely agree with you, glad you made a post about it. Leaving the gear scaling how it is will damage the game and has moved it away from player skill/gear being somewhat even to determine the outcome of a PvP encounter. As it stands is, my gear is best I'll face roll you, that's not fun and not engaging.

Uncommon Sense

I agree gear scaling is way to steep.

SmileGurney

kadimir wrote: »

So riddle me this, if the gear really was 30% better, how many of you would go out and gather all the legendary mats to make one over just trying to level up?

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

Even if that was only 15%...everyone who considers themselves a try hard would join you on that farm. That percentile gap can still mean a difference between standing or being a pile of ashes. Also no one is saying you should have to farm bazillion of mats to get legendary gear. I haven't tried crafting, but from I have gathered the current state of Ashes grind goes AGAINST the anti-grind philosophy they voiced back in 2017?

I spent some silly amount of time in a coop pve game, where people would lose it, because the RNG wouldn't give them that "perfect item" with a "perfect stat" distribution and they would continue farming for hundreds of hours to get that. I would like to stress that is a COOP game with no pvp.

SmileGurney

RedLeader1 wrote: »

I think the gear scaling is to try and add risk to PvP and tie PvPers to their node artisans. It may be a little strong right now, until the repair system is introduced, but you need the hardcore PvP crew, to realize this is a PvX Team game not an Individual PvP game. They need to be bound to their node "Team" somehow.

I get that PvPers want to increase their self-reliance, reduce their risk, and increase their reward at every turn, but that isn't building a widely enjoyable good game, or being realistic.

The minute PvPers stop caring about their artisans, the game fails. People have to realize that. They are like your villagers in Age of Empires. It is a PITA protecting them, but they are essential to success, and you need them for your upgrades.

Smaller power gap hardly makes artisan skills useless, whatever comes to crafting or repairing gear. Smaller power gain from gear won't mean people won't chase that gear edge over their opponents. On other hand a smaller gap would make the game more approachable for newcomers and people who sleep at night.

Sooner or later people will crunch the numbers, for classes and gear alike. Then the Intrepid's excuse of balancing the game around group pvp is going to be exposed for what it is. Sooner those issues are discussed with hard data, better for the game.

kadimir

ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »

kadimir wrote: »

So riddle me this, if the gear really was 30% better, how many of you would go out and gather all the legendary mats to make one over just trying to level up?

Have any of you actually gathered legendary copper or zinc?

Even if that was only 15%...everyone who considers themselves a try hard would join you on that farm. That percentile gap can still mean a difference between standing or being a pile of ashes. Also no one is saying you should have to farm bazillion of mats to get legendary gear. I haven't tried crafting, but from I have gathered the current state of Ashes grind goes AGAINST the anti-grind philosophy they voiced back in 2017?

I spent some silly amount of time in a coop pve game, where people would lose it, because the RNG wouldn't give them that "perfect item" with a "perfect stat" distribution and they would continue farming for hundreds of hours to get that. I would like to stress that is a COOP game with no pvp.

Exactly, you haven't grinded out the thing you have an opinion on. Basically you would never have that gear and you want it to be not worth farming for people who do. Calm down and go pick some rocks. I have actually gathered legendary copper, legendary zinc, and legendary basalt - I have not gotten above a green grem skin or anything beyond blue lumber.

Uncommon Sense

more than 400% power scaling is obscene though. and were only talking lvl 10 items at a lvl 25 player cap.

kadimir

Uncommon Sense wrote: »

more than 400% power scaling is obscene though. and were only talking lvl 10 items at a lvl 25 player cap.

Depends really, what is the scaling between legendary lvl 10 and legendary lvl 20?

In AION I pvp'd at lvl 31 until I had the full elite lvl 30 pvp set - at which point I regularly killed lvl 50s that were geared. Leveling up to lvl 50 made things even easier, but it was very common to see people running around in lvl 40 elite gear at cap as well. In games like lineage II, having some decent enchanted D or C grade could last you quite far - and if the legendary lvl 10 gear holds you over until you need to work on a new set at lvl 30, I'm happy with that. Means time/energy into gear actually means something, and won't just get turned into garbage at lvl 20.

Brasides

tl;dr - pvp will not be fair among differently geared players. This is good. It means the power of collaboration is rewarded such that PvP/PvE/Artisans all have to work together to reach the highest levels of power. Also dupes rn.

It sounds like the OP wants more fairness in PvP with a reasonable chance of being able to take down someone who is better geared than they are. In a lot of games I would be right alongside them in the hopes of having more fun and challenging PvP. In this game I strongly disagree - you should absolutely be able to out-gear your opponent. If you read on though, remember that right now the gear drops are inflated, people are still figuring out crafting, and we are dealing with a duping problem where people have probably abused a bug to mass produce legendaries.

Should PvP be fair in AOC, despite gear differences?
One of the design principles at play in a lot of the game systems is the need for collaboration of players with different styles (PvE, PvP, artisanry, politics, etc) working toward a goal for the betterment of all involved parties. The way this principle comes into play for PvP is that a group that is strongly organized enough to get even a few of its members legendary gear should be rewarded so strongly that a similarly leveled group with uncommon gear should have an extremely difficult to impossible challenge in a straight fight. This is because when you fight a group that wears legendaries, you are also fighting their entire support team and the effort that went into crafting those items.

Legendaries being so overpoweringly strong makes sense given just how difficult it is to manufacture them. Even at apprentice level the materials are extremely difficult to gather in enough quantity to craft a single piece of gear, let alone whole sets of armor. Just getting to apprentice weaponsmith is so difficult that I'm not sure we have more than a couple of them in any server (requiring 2000 copper before xp bonuses, maybe 1400 after). And not only do the crafters and gatherers have to come together, but the node mayors have to work together so the buildings are set up appropriately to allow for each of the apprentice-tier mats to be made... it goes on and on.

You aren't just fighting a player with a legendary, you are fighting their entire organization.
The choice to place so much weight on the collaboration of an organized groups of players working towards a common goal means that PvP is not going to be fair, at least among people with vast gear disparities. It should probably be easier for a lvl 15 to pk a lvl 25 than for a lvl 25 with all uncommon to pk a lvl 25 with all legendaries. This makes sense given how difficult it is to attain lvl 25 vs how difficult it is to attain even one lvl 10 legendary weapon. You don't bring a knife to a gun fight, and you don't mess with someone with the backing to carry legendaries unless you can bring that same kind of support to bear.

At the highest levels of conflict and PvP, like node conflicts and guild wars, having a strong crafting corps (or a strong relationship with an artisan guild) is going to be one of the minimum requirements to sit at the table with the big kids. It is a testament to the strength of your group's cohesion, planning, and logistics. This factor also opens up avenues of attack that will really hit your opponents where it hurts - if you go after their gatherers while gearing your team up over an extended period, you come into the big fight with a huge advantage.

That being said, legendaries are almost certainly not going to be so common that every guild member gets a legendary weapon in even a mid-sized guild, even a few months into the game. Each group will have to decide where they want to put their best gear to be most effective as a group, so I doubt most people will be running into the gear disparity in most open world PvP. If you are running into this problem right now it is probably due to the dupe that has been passed around, which I'd agree is lame.

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