Make Levels Great Again!

Please no.

90% of design for MMOs is figuring out how to stroke the egos of different players. Building a game in the style where Levels mean a considerable amount yet you can be suppressed in almost every way is just going to foster (I honestly should say fester) unnecessary complaining.

Source: Throne and Liberty, where Levels really can be 40-50% of your character's power if you build correctly.

Let Ashes be WoW if that's what they want, the type of player that this makes happy in a PvP game is... generally not going to gel with the rest of the game.

It has always been the intention of Ashes for players to be able to freely give powerful items to weaker characters with the goal of boosting their effectiveness. That '50% of a character's power' line was never defined as anything other than what we're already seeing.

Azherae wrote: »

Source: Throne and Liberty, where Levels really can be 40-50% of your character's power if you build correctly.

Let Ashes be WoW if that's what they want, the type of player that this makes happy in a PvP game is... generally not going to gel with the rest of the game.

What is wrong with Throne and Liberty levels being 40-50% of max power? Thats the number I was throwing around in my head. That way a naked max level guy is still 50% of the complete decked out guy. Seems much better for PVP imo.

Nolifers will still grind hard over a .5% increase, but a semi casual with a day job can still compete in PVP. Makes complete sense to me.

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Source: Throne and Liberty, where Levels really can be 40-50% of your character's power if you build correctly.

Let Ashes be WoW if that's what they want, the type of player that this makes happy in a PvP game is... generally not going to gel with the rest of the game.

What is wrong with Throne and Liberty levels being 40-50% of max power? Thats the number I was throwing around in my head. That way a naked max level guy is still 50% of the complete decked out guy. Seems much better for PVP imo.

Nolifers will still grind hard over a .5% increase, but a semi casual with a day job can still compete in PVP. Makes complete sense to me.

My bad, truly.

In Throne and Liberty this design is great. Top tier fabulous, no notes, no sarc. I hope they can keep it up.

But TL is building for an entirely different culture, has an entirely different basis for engagement, economy, ability to trade, and even developer incentives. Ashes doesn't even come close (I am not saying this is good or bad, they're just different).

TL PvP (excluding Ravagers) is about understanding your formation and counterplays, so if one of your team is undergeared the goal is to play around this. In Ashes of Creation, if one of your team is undergeared, your job is to give them gear.

Unless we're assuming that the entire gear design of Ashes up until now has been a 'haha, we just wanted to see how you guys would react lol', the goal is closer to what Steven is used to/enjoys.

Yes, it's ironic as hell that TL has 'given' what Ashes has 'promised' in cases like this, but it's moreso that none of us can really figure out why Ashes doesn't give us the basic obvious things it promises. I can only think of two other reasons.

1) The Devs or Director like it better this way
2) They're trying to make moreso ArcheAge but with long leveling for some reason, and therefore somehow can't seem to get their test phase in order and we'll know in the TTK/Stats pass

Either way, my prediction is that it still won't fit with what you want because game different.

Vyllz

Xeeg wrote: »

I remember in phase 1 where they spent so much time on mob drops and experience tables to try and stop people from boosting other characters with higher levels.

Nowadays you dont even need the higher levels, just dump some crazy jacked up twink gear.

Levels are only worth about 10% of max player power, the rest is items anyways. Levels aint shit.

I get where you're coming from, and I do think that in many modern MMOs, levels have become almost meaningless compared to gear progression. But in Ashes of Creation, I believe the devs are trying to strike a different balance.

Levels in Ashes aren't just about raw stats. They tie directly into skill points, augment systems, node citizenship, access to content, and even how the world reacts to you. The idea isn’t to make levels the only source of power, but rather one piece of a broader progression puzzle that includes gear, social systems, economic standing, and political influence.

That said, I do agree that levels should feel impactful. If leveling doesn't feel meaningful, it hurts the sense of progression. Hopefully during Alpha Two we'll see more adjustments to ensure that leveling, gearing, and player skill all matter equally in the long term, without falling into the "gear is everything" trap.

Ashes has the chance to make levels matter again, but in a way that's integrated into the dynamic world they're building, not just a number next to your name.

Ok, having re-read my response I realize that I massively failed to convey what I actually mean to you @Xeeg. The consequence of trying to keep things short when I shouldn't.

Throne and Liberty makes Level matter because it doesn't have:
Social Organization Power
Node Loyalty Power
Economic Knowledge/Control/Specialization Power (only kicking in now sorta)
Unrestricted Player-to-Player Trading.

I will at least skip the essay about how, if those things are coming, they will integrate well because the current benefits offered by Levels are diminished as Levels go higher, as is the case in most older MMOs (each new stat point is, percentage wise, less meaningful than any stat point before it). Mainly because Ashes will be the same.

But since Ashes intends for all those things to be available as meaningful power sources fairly early (unless this too has changed in which case ugh), and has less specialization until considerably further into the Leveling curve, there is no equivalent Level Based way to satisfy the ego of the average player.

If Intrepid says 'Gear will be 40-50% of a player's power', then it's not like the other 50% will be 'level'. Each of the other things mentioned will matter too.

But in AoC, half of those will be expressed through Gear. The difference is that in TL, your gear caps out in its ability to gain more power or suppress your enemies much faster. The salt-mine only opens basically on Castle Siege day when people are reminded just how much more powerful the winners are. The rest of the time, it's not as important that the gear is suppressing you because your growth can't be disrupted and forced into the player-social space.

The entire point of the design of Ashes is to force character growth into the player-social space. You can't just 'oppose your enemies for the sake of it' if Levels are too important because losing will setback your leveling. But you can do it by being socially adept enough to be chosen by the elite to receive power.

Unfortunately for any player who can't play constantly, who needs to devote time to being powerful, the elite will not take the same action. Tossing some leftover gear to a random who makes you smile is easy. Making 2 hours to take them to a good Exp spot is not.

Azherae wrote: »

The entire point of the design of Ashes is to force character growth into the player-social space. You can't just 'oppose your enemies for the sake of it' if Levels are too important because losing will setback your leveling. But you can do it by being socially adept enough to be chosen by the elite to receive power.

How bad would hard ceilings on waterfall stats be for Ashes?

Let's say that at max lvl a char can have 50 value of each stat, 25 of them coming from pure lvls and 25 coming from any other source, but you can never go above 50. So before you reach lvl50 you could still get your stats to 50 value, but you'd be sacrificing a gear-based direct stat (like CW or evasion or whatever) increase by doing that.

Minmaxers will still have room to grow, because they can increase stats directly (or attempt full 50 stats, if Intrepid are willing to allow that), but the overall ceiling of waterfall stats would be equalized for all.

Feels like balancing both pve and pvp would be easier that way. And gear variety would matter more too, cause now crafting dials could go from "all waterfall stats" to "none waterfall, just direct stat" and you could mix and match all kinds of shit in the search of "optimal" power.

Azherae wrote: »

Unless we're assuming that the entire gear design of Ashes up until now has been a 'haha, we just wanted to see how you guys would react lol', the goal is closer to what Steven is used to/enjoys.

To be fair, I'm happy if alot of the reasons for half the design choices are just that. A good laugh trolling the player base. Respectable. Fine tuning comes later, I get it. They need to give something for the people pushing the limits, and for these phases it actually makes alot of sense.

But at the same rate, they need to fine tune the time it takes to get to like 50% player power, 75% player power, 85%, 95%, 100%. It shouldn't just be a linear progression of time spent, because the PVP aspect will just crush people who dont have as much time to spend progressing, and suppress the active player base.

One cure for lack of progression content is to just make the node system something people WANT to keep engaging in after they get blow up. Thats the key ingredient to this game, they need to nail that and u don't need to have continuous gear chasing.

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

The entire point of the design of Ashes is to force character growth into the player-social space. You can't just 'oppose your enemies for the sake of it' if Levels are too important because losing will setback your leveling. But you can do it by being socially adept enough to be chosen by the elite to receive power.

How bad would hard ceilings on waterfall stats be for Ashes?

Let's say that at max lvl a char can have 50 value of each stat, 25 of them coming from pure lvls and 25 coming from any other source, but you can never go above 50. So before you reach lvl50 you could still get your stats to 50 value, but you'd be sacrificing a gear-based direct stat (like CW or evasion or whatever) increase by doing that.

Minmaxers will still have room to grow, because they can increase stats directly (or attempt full 50 stats, if Intrepid are willing to allow that), but the overall ceiling of waterfall stats would be equalized for all.

Feels like balancing both pve and pvp would be easier that way. And gear variety would matter more too, cause now crafting dials could go from "all waterfall stats" to "none waterfall, just direct stat" and you could mix and match all kinds of shit in the search of "optimal" power.

Not a thing I could even have a real personal opinion on given what we have now.

But as usual, you are roughly describing the outcome that TL achieves with the way their waterfall stats work. Currently, Throne and Liberty has a more robust foundation for things like Social Orgs and stat blocks than Ashes does, and some of it is already implemented.

E.g. 'if your Guild holds this Boonstone, you get +2 DEX, which might allow you to hit a stat tier for DEX'.

If that doesn't make sense just ignore it, treat it as just another situation where the two games are night and day and once again your instinctive solution is to go toward the Dark Side.

They have cookies.

But I don't think I understand Intrepid's goals enough to say, I can only give my data from watching players and their psychology, and the thing about TL is that, well... people don't really 'complain' about base systems as much. I see that as a good sign, but I can see how people might see it as a bad one.

In TL you distribute your own stats though, and the Devs don't 'tell you how to do that' other than the 'after putting 20 points into STR it cost 2 Level-Points to get another point of STR'. You pick your own style and make it work with your gear choices. Since Ashes doesn't let you do this, it would come down to numbers and formulae again.

Plus, we already have issues with Ashes' waterfall stat choices. Anything I imagine is just gonna be 'but TL's is good, use something like that'. I literally won't be able to imagine 'which specific worse version they could use' (in terms of equations).

Azherae wrote: »

But as usual, you are roughly describing the outcome that TL achieves with the way their waterfall stats work.

There's not a single day when I don't curse Amazon for their stupidity. TL would've been my second daily grinder after the Mihoyo bunch...

Azherae wrote: »

E.g. 'if your Guild holds this Boonstone, you get +2 DEX, which might allow you to hit a stat tier for DEX'.

If that doesn't make sense just ignore it, treat it as just another situation where the two games are night and day and once again your instinctive solution is to go toward the Dark Side.

Ohhh, I understand this PERFECTLY, because you know where they kiiinda got this system? YOU GUESSED IT! L2!

https://legacy-lineage2.com/news/graciafinal_01.html

Secondary "sieges" where you gotta grab a flag, bring it to your castle (that your guild gotta have) and keep it there for the duration of the war to get the bonus.

I'm definitely starting to think that TL is in fact closer to being proper L2's successor than what Ashes is becoming. But obviously we're far from being done with Ashes development, so it's too early to say.

edit: I now realize that you might've been talking about the "stat tier" part

Was just rereading that page to member the good ol' days and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAAAT

Stupidiest fucking change... I tell you.

Xeeg wrote: »

One cure for lack of progression content is to just make the node system something people WANT to keep engaging in after they get blow up. Thats the key ingredient to this game, they need to nail that and u don't need to have continuous gear chasing.

I'm reasonably confident this will be 'more or less fine' for the Node System itself (Castles and Caravan-gains are a different story) based on the three equivalent games I play.

Psychologically, people in Elite Dangerous and TL seem to react to setbacks by doubling down on whatever their personality type was, because both of those games still let you do almost all your stuff. And in FF11, where you could argue that people actually could get 'locked out' of content, they would use the other levers (Economy and Social) to push ahead in other ways.

There will always be the whining wannabes whose groups collapse, and I expect that those people will at least take breaks when their Nodes fall, but that part comes from 'having an identity that is built on the idea that they can hang with the strong' (mentally).

A balanced game moreso 'perpetuates this illusion' for a while, but a fun game pulls more people long term because they 'find their level', which gives them more time to learn to use the Econ and Social levers.

As long as Intrepid keeps their design-promise of low-level defenders or attackers still having a place in Nodes (sieges or otherwise), it should be fine. I don't know how they're going to get there from where they are now, especially given the latest Node Siege information, but as the man says, this is the worst the game will ever be.

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

But as usual, you are roughly describing the outcome that TL achieves with the way their waterfall stats work.

There's not a single day when I don't curse Amazon for their stupidity. TL would've been my second daily grinder after the Mihoyo bunch...

Azherae wrote: »

E.g. 'if your Guild holds this Boonstone, you get +2 DEX, which might allow you to hit a stat tier for DEX'.

If that doesn't make sense just ignore it, treat it as just another situation where the two games are night and day and once again your instinctive solution is to go toward the Dark Side.

Ohhh, I understand this PERFECTLY, because you know where they kiiinda got this system? YOU GUESSED IT! L2!

https://legacy-lineage2.com/news/graciafinal_01.html

Secondary "sieges" where you gotta grab a flag, bring it to your castle (that your guild gotta have) and keep it there for the duration of the war to get the bonus.

I'm definitely starting to think that TL is in fact closer to being proper L2's successor than what Ashes is becoming. But obviously we're far from being done with Ashes development, so it's too early to say.

edit: I now realize that you might've been talking about the "stat tier" part

Well, since this part is relevant to the thread and you have the data because blessed be L2, no sarc...

Idk if L2 was the same in this way but...

Right now I have 50 Wisdom because it gives me a Cooldown Speed reduction but I don't push for 60 Wisdom.

I don't push for 60 Wisdom because I don't need the extra Mana bonus (doesn't fit my build much) and I would have to give up something else.

Base WIS is 10. Levels->WIS for me is exactly 20 (the point where it costs 2 Levels to raise 1 WIS), and Gear->WIS is, you guessed it, also 20.

So while it's not 'capped', there is 'drag', and the equations/formulae are built around that. That part isn't hard, most designers I feel could take the directive 'make this 50-50' and come up with this. But I'll remind that the entire reason why any of this has gone in the direction it has was that quote from the Desert Night showcase where we learned that at-level(?) PvE TTK was going to drop to around 8s for basic combat.

And again, not because it turned out that way, but because Steven directed the team to make it so. So @Xeeg always remember that's where I'm coming from in these discussions.

"This is no accident."

Azherae wrote: »

Idk if L2 was the same in this way but...

I was too little of a numbers nerd in L2, so I don't know the proper details, especially concerning the waterfall stats. I just know that their general movement was limited enough that it mattered a fair bit if you managed to get some (i.e. those war rewards). And it was even worse in earlier versions of the game, where iirc they even had a bigger impact on other stats.

And this was one of the reasons why I had troubles understanding our discussion of stat sticks as weapons and all that. Because to me, weapons only ever had pure atk numbers and an additional attribute (+15% cast speed or smth), so when I was trying to understand what a weapon that only gives you waterfall stats would do, I got real damn confused

And I guess AA had something closer to AoC's gear stats and their growth? Cause the fact that enchantments increase the waterfall stat on items was a fairly big surprise to me. And so far it kinda seems to be the biggest problem with the powerscaling, because you just get a ton of those stats on your gear and then you enchant it all a ton and now you're op as fuck. While in L2 enchantments would only give you literally the direct phys/mage atk on weapons and phys/mage def on gear and jewelry.

In a later update we got augments that COULD give you a singular waterfall stat on a single piece of jewelry, so people would try going for a full +5 increase, though even then getting smth like "+20 crit" or even just "+30 m.def" were still considered to be quite valuable.

This is partially why I've previously suggested separating the vertical enchantment and the horizontal one, but where waterfall stats fall under the horizontal part (even though they're kinda vertical by default).

But yeah, as you point out, the source of it all is ultimately one man, so all we can do is give feedback and see where that leads.

edit: I tried asking chatgpt when did jewelry augments get added, but it says that until 2023 it was never in the official version

@JamesSunderland uhm, did official servers never have jewelry augments? Was it just a private server kinda thing?

Ludullu wrote: »

Was just rereading that page to member the good ol' days and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAAAT

Stupidiest fucking change... I tell you.

LOL u are more salty than i am about this shit haha!

Ludullu wrote: »

Was just rereading that page to member the good ol' days and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAAAT

Stupidiest fucking change... I tell you.

Hey actually, u know what could make sense?

Call this the "Defender's Advantage";
When node war is declared, the defenders no longer drop gatherables/incur xp debt when killed by guards or players.

Xeeg wrote: »

Call this the "Defender's Advantage";
When node war is declared, the defenders no longer drop gatherables/incur xp debt when killed by guards or players.

Defenders shouldn't be hit by guards in the first place

But I'd prefer if both sides only got their gear decayed. Mostly because I still want people to join the attacker side. Just as corruption lessens the amount of attacks on greens, these kinds of penalties would reduce the amount of attackers in events.

And the main argument against this would be smth along the lines of "well, just don't take items with you to the fight", but then why da fuck would we even have the item drop during the event if the optimal (and relatively easy) way is to literally remove the ability to even lose anything. Makes no god damn sense.

Well, it makes the "lazy patchwork" sense, but I really hope that it's not the case here.

JustVine

Ludullu wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Idk if L2 was the same in this way but...

I was too little of a numbers nerd in L2, so I don't know the proper details, especially concerning the waterfall stats. I just know that their general movement was limited enough that it mattered a fair bit if you managed to get some (i.e. those war rewards). And it was even worse in earlier versions of the game, where iirc they even had a bigger impact on other stats.

And this was one of the reasons why I had troubles understanding our discussion of stat sticks as weapons and all that. Because to me, weapons only ever had pure atk numbers and an additional attribute (+15% cast speed or smth), so when I was trying to understand what a weapon that only gives you waterfall stats would do, I got real damn confused

And I guess AA had something closer to AoC's gear stats and their growth? Cause the fact that enchantments increase the waterfall stat on items was a fairly big surprise to me. And so far it kinda seems to be the biggest problem with the powerscaling, because you just get a ton of those stats on your gear and then you enchant it all a ton and now you're op as fuck. While in L2 enchantments would only give you literally the direct phys/mage atk on weapons and phys/mage def on gear and jewelry.

In a later update we got augments that COULD give you a singular waterfall stat on a single piece of jewelry, so people would try going for a full +5 increase, though even then getting smth like "+20 crit" or even just "+30 m.def" were still considered to be quite valuable.

This is partially why I've previously suggested separating the vertical enchantment and the horizontal one, but where waterfall stats fall under the horizontal part (even though they're kinda vertical by default).

But yeah, as you point out, the source of it all is ultimately one man, so all we can do is give feedback and see where that leads.

edit: I tried asking chatgpt when did jewelry augments get added, but it says that until 2023 it was never in the official version @JamesSunderland uhm, did official servers never have jewelry augments? Was it just a private server kinda thing?

Wait is this L2 stuff why we have this annoying mind melting tedious noob trap hellscape of a rune system in TL?

I love chase in mmo's, everyone wants a good chase system. But chase and grind are NOT THE SAME THING. I think this is a reason why many mmo's fail and systems designed to 'force people into grind' are implemented and lead to decline in any game it touches. Grind makes you spend time to get advantage. Good. Grind is inherently repetitive, dry, and the disproportionate time sink forces people to choose meta instead of self expression which causes that dry repetition to desiccate the play loop. This eventually makes games only enjoyable to people who like dry games and that runs counter to the bulk of your player base who come here for spectacle and engaging game play. This then leads to the people here for reasons other than 'dry' game play to demand it be easier/less time investment/less failure which MISLEADINGLY causes the game to lower the barrier to entry/difficulty/complexity forcing EVERYONE to lose. Which is why, viscerally, I will get annoyed at dry systems that aren't inherently bad. They CAN lead to bad problems.

TL is a good game but TL has many bad practices that look super similar to this L2 stuff posted here.

JustVine wrote: »

Wait is this L2 stuff why we have this annoying mind melting tedious noob trap hellscape of a rune system in TL?

TL is a good game but TL has many bad practices that look super similar to this L2 stuff posted here.

It does seem quite likely that the original roots of L2ness are still alive and well within TL

And I don't really know who to blame it on here. Older L2 is not like the newer L2 (let alone newest). And all those updates went pretty much as you've described here. Hell, even these Territory Wars were a fairly late addition that literally addressed the solo and mroe casual players of L2 at the time

And L2 were the first ones to attempt a classic version of the game (fairly successfully btw). Though even that attempt came mostly with some "modern" changes. And now TL seems to want to combine the older versions of L2 with some of the modern preferences (auto-fighting was one of those btw).

One could blame devs for where the design ended up, but I'd imagine that all their actions were, at least in part, led on by the player behavior. And maybe some market competition. I still think that the shift from a diablo-like game to what we got in TL happened mostly because throughout the development time they got POE and Lost Ark, while a game like the current TL wasn't anywhere near popularity in the market, so there was a place for NCsoft to fit in.

And I dunno if you were following the og TL thread on these forums, but there were posts of weapons that were taken directly from L2's 3d models

So I do really think that its overall design is pretty much a nostalgia hit for the director/devs, jsut as Ashes is for Steven. And nostalgia comes with its own peculiarities.