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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Why geardrops are bad, counter arguments and recommendations on fixing it.
Highborn
Member, Alpha Two
tl;dr; stop watcing tik-tok and read once in your life. Some things take time.
I love the vision for the game, want it to succeed, and succeed long term, not just for flash in the pan, for 3 months.
Legend
Why this section exists: This secion exists so that when i use crertian terms, it is assured that what i say, and what readers understand are one and the same.
When i say 1:100 it means on average. If you're not familier with statistics, it means, some may get it 2x in a row, some only on the 200th attempt, however, if we sample the entire playerbase it averages out to 1:100
Uncommon drop: 1:10-50 example: animal manure
Rare drop: 1:50-100 kills
very rare drop: 1:100-250
exceedingly few: 1:250-500
every once in a while 1:1000+ (yes big jump)
This is ONLY when I reffer to the frequency of geardrops, not their quality, or the mobs themselves.
normal mobs are mobs that have no name, and are either 0-3 star.
4 star mobs, are usually named like "Forgelord Zammer" or Bosses like "Tumok" are not subject to this writ, they're fine as is regarding loot tables.
Why this section exists: so that you can better understand where I come from with my arguments better.
I consider myself as a multi-ganre gamer, not an MMO afficionado, despite playing a lot of WoW. I grew up playing UT2003/4, WoW and League. I also played about 2 years of dnd and half a year of pf2. These are TTRPGS and the best kind of make belive game. I'm also a bookworm, and average 1-2 books a week. Sometimes less, sometimes more.
In WoW I played a lot of 3.3.5 (wotlk) private servers and when I played retail, i was a HC raider, and have the curve for Gahoon. I'm a tank player, and basically only played Blood DK, in the mentioned patches. I'm most certainly not an altaholic, however, i do enjoy playing alts here and there, but I twink more, than actually do something good with them.
While in WoW I very much enjoyed pvp with my DK, in ashes, tanks feel.... very limiting in pvp, and therefore I only dabbled a bit. I look forward to test my theorycrafts in PVP tho. I very much consider myself a bit above average PVE player, and do enjoy the artisan loop.
In ashes, i've been following since A1 (tho didn't buy A1, didn't have the 500$$$).
In p1: i ding 23 as a tank as pugs
In p2: I joined fools garden and dinged 25
in p2.5: i didin't ding 25, but i was 23 in 3 days, had a lvl 20 rouge, and a lvl19 fighter.
Overall i easily have 1k hours in the game, probably more. Steven /played pls... wtf man
Lemme start with this. Not ALL geardrops are bad. green/blue geardrops from NAMED MOBS are completely fine. They are a rare resource, that can, and should breathe "player friction" as Steven likes to call it.
In my opinion however, the current drop ratios are a bit off. Later I'll explain how I'd mod them. Feel free to disagree.
However, gear drops from normal mobs should only happen every once in a while (in my opinion 1-2 strictly white gear every 8h of grinding is fine. That seems too low, but remember this is an MMO, not a looter shooter or ARPG. MMOs are played for years not 2 weeks. Actually i've farmed gears for weeks in ARPGs.........). Now, you may say wtf why? Well....
Let's talk about what it takes to craft a gear. A commonly crafted early game gear is the Ashen Haunt breastplate, let's take that as an example.
The matereial requirements currently are the following:
To make this item, you need
As you can see, a single piece of gear engages 6 kinds of artisans, 7 if we count the smith itself. This is especially egregious early game when money is very tight, and aritsans struggle to buy even a stack of vendor mats for 6 silvers, trying to race to make gear. With drops everythign went fubar as suddenly nobody gave the sligthest amount of regard for handmade gear. Thus, giving an involuntary ice bucket challange to all artisans.... maybe besides dudes that make mounts.
So... What happens when a gear drops: 7 kinds of people have been made a bit less relevant. 10s of hours of workhours gone. reduced to atoms. That's not all. It's virtuous cycle (or vicious). More gear means faster farm. Faster farm mean even more gear etc etc.... you see where this is going.
Who are the people who get the most gear?
The no lifers, who grind 12h+ a day, with good efficiency. People like me, i was lvl 23 in P2.5 in 3 days.
The result was, there was almost nobody to play with, i was waaay ahead of the curve, and had basically no content left that I wanted. I had all the gear i wanted from SB/Forge, in 2 weeks and there was nothing left. Eventually ofc, I quit for the remainder. (with many others mind you)
Why was this bad:
Because there was no gear there to be me made for me outside of a few high-end, high-rarity accesories, like earrings and such, making Artisans completely irrelevant bessides a few peieces and a better mount.
This, ofc has a massice cooler effect on the economy, which should be the beating heart of the game, and should have been tested as p2 was supposed to be the "economy test" (we know it was fucking bullshit, due to not even enough node space for all benches), but it was born dead. P2.5 speedhackers caused massive inflation and Intrepid had a limp-dick approach to it.( sidebar: Glad to see they'll permabann them now. I think they should also permabann buyers. It's a buyer side issue, as long as there's demand supply will happen, we know the kind of cartels that run these cheats big money).
There are sink and providers.
Sinks example: corruption. You die, you loose your gear. Enchanting: you push it too far and the gear breaks (get's deleted). Tampering: the fuel for tempereing is similar gear.
This loop should/would provide a constant but low need for gear
But that's mid game/tier economy. To be fair the was majority of the games life cycle.
However earlygame is even more important in my opinon as EVERYTHIGN wants a pice of that lumber or metal.
Players: check, nodes: check, quests: check, comissions: check.
This is the best opportunity for artisans to make something that's worthvile and doesn't get dissasmbled instnatly or vendored.
At this point i have made bout 1.5k 2nd company boots since P1 and I have never ever sold a single one to a player. I have sold stuff to people. I made videos about it. Now, admittedly lvl0 crafted gear is kinda shit, and has to purple to be better than the basic adventurer gear than you spawn with.
Currently what happens is that zergs / pvp oriented people get to lvl20 fast, get gear then punch down.
I don't mind pvp, however I do mind maidenless behaviour, such is bullying low levels let that be caravans or levelling.
This partially happens because the early bird gets the worm, and then it has fuck all to do.
ca: You're trying to introduce endgame gearing loop to levelling
a: yes
ca: I don't want to buy overpriced levelling gear from artisans
a: and i don't want to make levelling gear with 0 payoff. Also why would i overprice it?
ca: not getting drops is boring
a: that might be true, however idgaf. If you level outside of settlement progression, you shouldn't expect help. As there is none. The settlement system is a core underpinning of the game.
1: named mob loot
on average, I'd make it so that it's rare that useful that you're there for, and in exchange i'd boost glint drop, by 2-3x.
Something useful ration is about ~ 50x glint, 35x mats, 15x recipe, 5x actual item, but guaranteed blue and not bottom roll. Bottom roll is just nasty.
2: workbenches like in briarmore farms and souch should allow the crafting of lvl 10 gear. In the grand scheme of things it'd massively help artisans early game, providing value. Also by the time lvl50 happens it doesn't matter.
3: mob power scaling overhaul
There is no reason that with lvl 0, adventurer gear, that you spawn with you should be able to kill lvl18 elites even as an 8 man group. Thing should just 1 shot people. Basic expections should be that on top of the teen range, you'd bare minimum be required to have white lvl 10 gear. This would put a massive damper on levelling, yes and that's the goal. Without the settlements we have nothing, and you should not be able to progress. FULL STOP. Tho nodes are the beating heart of the game. If the level if the nodes gets bypassed by geardrops the entire node system collapses and makes 0 sense to have early game. Which is about 2-3 months by the way.
Furthermore: There is 0 reason to have 17 kinds of lvl 10 gear in the game if nobody wants it. Spending time, money effort to make, balance, texture, test it is meaningless today.
4: significanty faster node progression through until node hits village state.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
ps: sorry for my fubar formatting
assoiciated reddit post (when mod approves)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/1n5gqdo/why_geardrops_are_bad_counter_arguments_and/
Table of contents:
- legend
- about me
- why i think geardrops are bad \ my vision for the game
- counter arguments i've seen
- fix recommendation
I love the vision for the game, want it to succeed, and succeed long term, not just for flash in the pan, for 3 months.
Legend
Why this section exists: This secion exists so that when i use crertian terms, it is assured that what i say, and what readers understand are one and the same.
When i say 1:100 it means on average. If you're not familier with statistics, it means, some may get it 2x in a row, some only on the 200th attempt, however, if we sample the entire playerbase it averages out to 1:100
Uncommon drop: 1:10-50 example: animal manure
Rare drop: 1:50-100 kills
very rare drop: 1:100-250
exceedingly few: 1:250-500
every once in a while 1:1000+ (yes big jump)
This is ONLY when I reffer to the frequency of geardrops, not their quality, or the mobs themselves.
normal mobs are mobs that have no name, and are either 0-3 star.
4 star mobs, are usually named like "Forgelord Zammer" or Bosses like "Tumok" are not subject to this writ, they're fine as is regarding loot tables.
About me:
Why this section exists: so that you can better understand where I come from with my arguments better.
I consider myself as a multi-ganre gamer, not an MMO afficionado, despite playing a lot of WoW. I grew up playing UT2003/4, WoW and League. I also played about 2 years of dnd and half a year of pf2. These are TTRPGS and the best kind of make belive game. I'm also a bookworm, and average 1-2 books a week. Sometimes less, sometimes more.
In WoW I played a lot of 3.3.5 (wotlk) private servers and when I played retail, i was a HC raider, and have the curve for Gahoon. I'm a tank player, and basically only played Blood DK, in the mentioned patches. I'm most certainly not an altaholic, however, i do enjoy playing alts here and there, but I twink more, than actually do something good with them.
While in WoW I very much enjoyed pvp with my DK, in ashes, tanks feel.... very limiting in pvp, and therefore I only dabbled a bit. I look forward to test my theorycrafts in PVP tho. I very much consider myself a bit above average PVE player, and do enjoy the artisan loop.
In ashes, i've been following since A1 (tho didn't buy A1, didn't have the 500$$$).
In p1: i ding 23 as a tank as pugs
In p2: I joined fools garden and dinged 25
in p2.5: i didin't ding 25, but i was 23 in 3 days, had a lvl 20 rouge, and a lvl19 fighter.
Overall i easily have 1k hours in the game, probably more. Steven /played pls... wtf man
Why (gear) drops Are bad:
Lemme start with this. Not ALL geardrops are bad. green/blue geardrops from NAMED MOBS are completely fine. They are a rare resource, that can, and should breathe "player friction" as Steven likes to call it.
In my opinion however, the current drop ratios are a bit off. Later I'll explain how I'd mod them. Feel free to disagree.
However, gear drops from normal mobs should only happen every once in a while (in my opinion 1-2 strictly white gear every 8h of grinding is fine. That seems too low, but remember this is an MMO, not a looter shooter or ARPG. MMOs are played for years not 2 weeks. Actually i've farmed gears for weeks in ARPGs.........). Now, you may say wtf why? Well....
Let's talk about what it takes to craft a gear. A commonly crafted early game gear is the Ashen Haunt breastplate, let's take that as an example.
The matereial requirements currently are the following:
- Metal gauges chest (irrelecant, vendor sold, gold sink)
- Riverlands essence (drops from mobs)
- Ashen essence (drops from ashen haunt mobs)
- Zinc Ingot
- Tin ingot
- Tanned Otter hide
- Basalt Armour mold
To make this item, you need
- buy items from wendor
- Get 2 kinds of drops from mobs (it's a bit excessive imho)
- Zinc & Tin & basalt from mining
- Zinc & Tin ingot from metalworkers
- Otter skin from hunters
- Tanned otter leather from Tanners.
- Oak from lumberjacks
- processed wood from woodworkers
- an armoursmith
As you can see, a single piece of gear engages 6 kinds of artisans, 7 if we count the smith itself. This is especially egregious early game when money is very tight, and aritsans struggle to buy even a stack of vendor mats for 6 silvers, trying to race to make gear. With drops everythign went fubar as suddenly nobody gave the sligthest amount of regard for handmade gear. Thus, giving an involuntary ice bucket challange to all artisans.... maybe besides dudes that make mounts.
So... What happens when a gear drops: 7 kinds of people have been made a bit less relevant. 10s of hours of workhours gone. reduced to atoms. That's not all. It's virtuous cycle (or vicious). More gear means faster farm. Faster farm mean even more gear etc etc.... you see where this is going.
Who are the people who get the most gear?
The no lifers, who grind 12h+ a day, with good efficiency. People like me, i was lvl 23 in P2.5 in 3 days.
The result was, there was almost nobody to play with, i was waaay ahead of the curve, and had basically no content left that I wanted. I had all the gear i wanted from SB/Forge, in 2 weeks and there was nothing left. Eventually ofc, I quit for the remainder. (with many others mind you)
Why was this bad:
Because there was no gear there to be me made for me outside of a few high-end, high-rarity accesories, like earrings and such, making Artisans completely irrelevant bessides a few peieces and a better mount.
This, ofc has a massice cooler effect on the economy, which should be the beating heart of the game, and should have been tested as p2 was supposed to be the "economy test" (we know it was fucking bullshit, due to not even enough node space for all benches), but it was born dead. P2.5 speedhackers caused massive inflation and Intrepid had a limp-dick approach to it.( sidebar: Glad to see they'll permabann them now. I think they should also permabann buyers. It's a buyer side issue, as long as there's demand supply will happen, we know the kind of cartels that run these cheats big money).
My understanding on how the economy should work:
There are sink and providers.
Sinks example: corruption. You die, you loose your gear. Enchanting: you push it too far and the gear breaks (get's deleted). Tampering: the fuel for tempereing is similar gear.
This loop should/would provide a constant but low need for gear
But that's mid game/tier economy. To be fair the was majority of the games life cycle.
However earlygame is even more important in my opinon as EVERYTHIGN wants a pice of that lumber or metal.
Players: check, nodes: check, quests: check, comissions: check.
This is the best opportunity for artisans to make something that's worthvile and doesn't get dissasmbled instnatly or vendored.
At this point i have made bout 1.5k 2nd company boots since P1 and I have never ever sold a single one to a player. I have sold stuff to people. I made videos about it. Now, admittedly lvl0 crafted gear is kinda shit, and has to purple to be better than the basic adventurer gear than you spawn with.
Currently what happens is that zergs / pvp oriented people get to lvl20 fast, get gear then punch down.
I don't mind pvp, however I do mind maidenless behaviour, such is bullying low levels let that be caravans or levelling.
This partially happens because the early bird gets the worm, and then it has fuck all to do.
Common counter arguments( that've heard)
ca: You're trying to introduce endgame gearing loop to levelling
a: yes
ca: I don't want to buy overpriced levelling gear from artisans
a: and i don't want to make levelling gear with 0 payoff. Also why would i overprice it?
ca: not getting drops is boring
a: that might be true, however idgaf. If you level outside of settlement progression, you shouldn't expect help. As there is none. The settlement system is a core underpinning of the game.
How I'd attempt to fix it
1: named mob loot
on average, I'd make it so that it's rare that useful that you're there for, and in exchange i'd boost glint drop, by 2-3x.
Something useful ration is about ~ 50x glint, 35x mats, 15x recipe, 5x actual item, but guaranteed blue and not bottom roll. Bottom roll is just nasty.
2: workbenches like in briarmore farms and souch should allow the crafting of lvl 10 gear. In the grand scheme of things it'd massively help artisans early game, providing value. Also by the time lvl50 happens it doesn't matter.
3: mob power scaling overhaul
There is no reason that with lvl 0, adventurer gear, that you spawn with you should be able to kill lvl18 elites even as an 8 man group. Thing should just 1 shot people. Basic expections should be that on top of the teen range, you'd bare minimum be required to have white lvl 10 gear. This would put a massive damper on levelling, yes and that's the goal. Without the settlements we have nothing, and you should not be able to progress. FULL STOP. Tho nodes are the beating heart of the game. If the level if the nodes gets bypassed by geardrops the entire node system collapses and makes 0 sense to have early game. Which is about 2-3 months by the way.
Furthermore: There is 0 reason to have 17 kinds of lvl 10 gear in the game if nobody wants it. Spending time, money effort to make, balance, texture, test it is meaningless today.
4: significanty faster node progression through until node hits village state.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
ps: sorry for my fubar formatting
assoiciated reddit post (when mod approves)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/1n5gqdo/why_geardrops_are_bad_counter_arguments_and/
Glory to all Tanks
Glory to Arioch
Glory to Winsted
For my mana addicted brothers:
For the Glory of Quel'Thalas
Glory to Arioch
Glory to Winsted
For my mana addicted brothers:
For the Glory of Quel'Thalas
2
Comments
This is an insane premise and potentially one of the worst money sinks I've seen so far tbh.
the issue isnt that gear drops are bad, the issue is that we are still in alpha and there isnt a lot to do in the game. im pointing this out because you mentiioned quitting after 23. also, crafting at low levels should be made easier and cheaper instead of nerfing gear drops. gear drops are random and you can get the same piece multiple times instead of what you want. when you craft, you can control exactly what you will get.
you are also forgetting that this is a group game. people can easily funnel mats and money to guild crafters and get geared. you cant do that from mob drops. gear can also be given to someone else when you get an upgrade.
i dont think they should nerf gear from mobs, if anything, they should make low level crafting easier.
I think that's a completely fair argument. While it'd not be my choice on how I'd go around the current issue, I can see why it would work. Just not my preference.
Glory to Arioch
Glory to Winsted
For my mana addicted brothers:
For the Glory of Quel'Thalas
Early game you can have 4-5 different fully-leveled Artisan professions and do 4/7 of that work yourself. (Assuming, of course, that you want to spend all your time leveling 5 Artisan professions.)
At end game you can only have TWO.
I think it's okay to have a crafting system that's one thing at low levels and something else entirely at high levels. They've already baked some of that into the Grandmaster ascension.
2) 8 hours for 1 white item?
I can agree with much of what you are saying in principle, that crafting should be important.
But white items are essentially trash items. Sure, not when the server just launched, you're 5th level and have no gear. But for the other 45 levels and post-launch they mostly will be.
I'd say take it easy on telling others how they should play or how much time they should expect to sink into the game in order for you to be happy. This game needs a lot of players to succeed, not just a fractional group of hardcore players. The game shouldn't be curved heavily toward the now-now-now crowd, but neither should it skew so heavily to the hardcore-or-nothing crowd.
You say that these games are meant to be played for 2 years. That's true, and in 2 years everyone will have top gear stashed for all their new characters and new guild members--no one is going to want white gear 6 months after launch...
Except NEW PLAYERS who are extremely important to an MMORPG's survival. You've got to have systems that encourage new players to play and have fun and not have to already know 25 people--let alone read sites and watch videos for hours about how to craft--just so they can try out the game. And all that in order to please the players who have been playing 30 hours a week for 3 years.
Instead, let's worry about protecting the crafters at, say, 30+, not at 1-19.
Let's think of a staged system where the playerbase becomes more crafter-dependent as they level: the closer they get to end-game, the closer they get to your ideal. Likewise, the closer they are to level 1, the closer they are to the new player ideal.
Otherwise, this is just pushing for a certain death for AOC: death by attrition.