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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.
Concept for Gear vs Skill
ArchivedUser
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Hey, just found out about the game and im incredibly hyped. Got a little question as its a deal breaker for me. Did you guys think about effectiveness of gear vs skill? Would stuff like 1v5 be possible by outgearing/outplaying the opponets. How hard would it be to actualy obtain the top tier gear? Im kind of bored of that special treatment most of modern mmos give to casual players. Im a fan of hardwork = results. (masochistic love for grind and power advantage)
TL:DR: Is it planned to be a casual or more hardcore mmo?
Sorry if the question was asked before I just found out about the game and didnt have much time to go through all the info out there.
TL:DR: Is it planned to be a casual or more hardcore mmo?
Sorry if the question was asked before I just found out about the game and didnt have much time to go through all the info out there.
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The game is currently in pre-alpha, so they probably havent tested 1v5 people yet and gear rating ect, so its something that if Intrepid see, then they can take not of. I think they are trying to make it casual friendly, but I also hope that wont men even if you casual then you get everything like players that try hard.
Take the dragon mount for example. It is the only flying mount in the game and will only be given to a handful of players per server. If they are doing this for mounts, then there is no reason why they can't do this similarly for gear in the future. WE'll have to wait to find out more.
Super long-term progression and endless gear grinds are... well, they aren't bad on their own. But if there's no content that a newbie can participate in because they are a year behind everyone else in terms of gear score, then that is a big problem. And that goes for both PvE and PvP.
If I can't join a large-scale PvP sieges, because everyone else is part of a hardcore PvP guild and they'll all one-shot me, then I have a problem it. If there is a separate zone for low-level PvP, or certain sieges that normalize the gear of participants, then I'm back to not having a problem with it.
Likewise, if all the newest, most fun PvE content is reserved for people who have the best gear, and it takes a year or more to catch up to that gear level, then a newbie player would be stuck with outdated content that has already been abandoned by the community. Again though, that problem can be alleviated if there is enough consideration given to low-level content, or scaling difficulty for dungeons and such.
My point though is there is a fine line between "Dedicated players get rewarded with extra power/impact in the game" and "New players/casual players are screwed because they can't compete with dedicated veterans, and they can't catch up either".
Although there's also a fine line between "Casual players can enjoy all or most of the same content that dedicated players can, while being noticably weaker" and "Any difference between casual players and dedicated ones is entirely hidden by difficulty scaling and gear-normalizing systems".
So uh, I don't know. It's hard to make long-term gear-progression impactful without leaving casual/new players in the dust. I think a good middle ground is to include that long-term progression, but only have it pay off in certain PvP activities, like castle sieges, guild wars, and open-world PvP/PvE in high-level regions. Meanwhile, gear/difficulty could be normalized in dungeons and low-level regions (characters that are higher level (or ilvl) than the region are scaled down). So for things like world bosses, caravans, and node sieges, top-tier characters would be scaled down depending on the level of the node, but anything goes in Metropolis (and maybe City) level regions.
Super long-term progression and endless gear grinds are… well, they aren’t bad on their own. But if there’s no content that a newbie can participate in because they are a year behind everyone else in terms of gear score, then that is a big problem. And that goes for both PvE and PvP.
True but gearing up is also a content and its not like only 1 player is casual majority of players are casuals which means they wont be alone/ allienated
If I can’t join a large-scale PvP sieges, because everyone else is part of a hardcore PvP guild and they’ll all one-shot me, then I have a problem it. If there is a separate zone for low-level PvP, or certain sieges that normalize the gear of participants, then I’m back to not having a problem with it.
Well hardcore players will probably be 5% of total and in sandbox games hardcore guild usualy create agreements that they all leave some space for casual pvp. Im playing black desert online right now and the top 5-10 guilds simply dont contest 2/5 region sieges to create space for weaker guilds.
Likewise, if all the newest, most fun PvE content is reserved for people who have the best gear, and it takes a year or more to catch up to that gear level, then a newbie player would be stuck with outdated content that has already been abandoned by the community. Again though, that problem can be alleviated if there is enough consideration given to low-level content, or scaling difficulty for dungeons and such.
That's an exaggeration I dont know a game that would have you play for 1 year to reach current content gear wise. Also community wont abandon the connetent since majority of players will be the one behind. Eventually you catch up whats the rush for the newest content ? enjoy the game at your own pace but dont adjust the game to your pace.
My point though is there is a fine line between “Dedicated players get rewarded with extra power/impact in the game” and “New players/casual players are screwed because they can’t compete with dedicated veterans, and they can’t catch up either”.
Thats 100% true but if you think about it why would newplayer/casual be able to compete with someone who put 1k hours into a game? Its like being entitled to participate in olympic games 5000m run on a bike. And also there is the fact that games are made to have fun in and hardwork doesn't go well with that ^^
Although there’s also a fine line between “Casual players can enjoy all or most of the same content that dedicated players can, while being noticably weaker” and “Any difference between casual players and dedicated ones is entirely hidden by difficulty scaling and gear-normalizing systems”.
Hah basicaly rewarding casuals piss off the hardcore players and rewarding hardcore players piss off casuals oh the mmo paradox :)
So uh, I don’t know. It’s hard to make long-term gear-progression impactful without leaving casual/new players in the dust. I think a good middle ground is to include that long-term progression, but only have it pay off in certain PvP activities, like castle sieges, guild wars, and open-world PvP/PvE in high-level regions. Meanwhile, gear/difficulty could be normalized in dungeons and low-level regions (characters that are higher level (or ilvl) than the region are scaled down). So for things like world bosses, caravans, and node sieges, top-tier characters would be scaled down depending on the level of the node, but anything goes in Metropolis (and maybe City) level regions.
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Well mmos always were about the long journey and just recently they started to implement all this casual friendly style. Personally I just hate it, When I tried to go back to WoW while last time I played WoTLK I was disgusted but how easy it is to reach the end game I got 2k rating in 3's did some raiding and it all happened in 1 month. Afterall whats the point of playing if you get everything in 1 month idk maybe Im biased since I always play hardcore but for me mmo that gives you content for 1month of game time is just a fail. Tho from bussiness point of view investing into casuals is more beneficial since there is much more of them. It's better to have 1million players playing for 1-3 months than 150k players playing for 2 years.
But there are those who always want to be 'special' and 'privileged' I guess.
That's the way modern society has been conditioned to be.
Only the best succeed. The rest don't matter.
Leaving most of the world on the scrapheap is neither productive nor healthy.
Personally, I think being unique and different to everyone else should be enough.
If I am a better player, I will win regardless.
I wont need superior stat buffs to win.
It is as stated by @Leonerdo ...
Exclusivity = Exclusion.
Exclusion = Isolation.
Forced isolation is not what MMOs are about.
It also makes content obsolete, meaning devs can never produce content fatser than it becomes useless.
It is much more logical, realistic and rational to ensure that 100% of all content is playable 100% of the time by 100% of the players.
ie Inclusive ..and more importantly....the content is eternally expanding.
But it wontbe any fun if your new and are not able to do anything because you're to far behind and catching up is almost impossible.
So a good balance is the best option but it's just not always that simple :p
But it won't be fun if you are new and aren't able to do anything because you're to far behind and it's almost impossible to catch up.
So a good balance is the best bbut it just isn't always that easy :p
If there is enough content for new players so you won't get bored i do think it should be fine :p
But it won't be fun if you are new and aren't able to do anything because you're to far behind and it's almost impossible to catch up.
So a good balance is the best bbut it just isn't always that easy :p
If there is enough content for new players so you won't get bored i do think it should be fine :p
in all perspective for me if one of those teams have a good strategy they would win. :3
See bdo for a perfect example. Siege events where it takes a.minimum of 3 months of no lifing to not get one shot. Ya. No thanks.
Lets take the comparison to another angle. Pure pve player. Make one dungeon randomly discconnect one party member of 5 who is not allowed to rejoin on entrance and let them feel what its like to fight in a game where one side cannot win against upwards of 40% of the population. Because that is what gear treadmills create. If a player no lifes the game to obtain a bettter understanding of his class fine. But loosing in a game because one guy played 1000 hours straight to obtain the sword of one shot makes a game get old fast
Any game that wants to retain players has to think very hard about what type of gear treadmill they are trying to make. An upwards scale gear treadmill that requires constant release of new tiers to accommodate new addons and different content is a horrible failure.
WOW has already learned from this mistake. Gear treadmills are replacing content with time consumption. They will help you maintain subscriptions until pvp minded players find out just how difficult it is and then those subscriptions are gone. Games that have succeeded in the past did not require giant gear treadmills to keep players interested.... Guild drama, anti pk/bounty hunter vs pk, crafting trading player intereaction. These things keep players interested in a game and subscription numbers constant. Adding multiple loopholes that players have to navigate to get to endgame content only artificially pads numbers. they dont retain customers.
Now this all boils down to one very important question. If gear matters in pvp, how much does it? How difficult is it to obtain? Make the numbers universal save for minor differences across item types (IE greatswords have 10-15% more damage than smaller weapons, and top tier GS has 5% more damage than weapons of the same type) this wont lead to the problem of impossible odds.
You build a system to incentive skill in pvp, always incentivize skill. A player who learns the ins and outs of their class who enjoys fighting outnumbered who takes part in multiple avenues of pvp (face it will also have to take part in PVE/trading etc to fund such activities) and guilds will be a long term player. Those that incentivize gear will lead to a majority of players who have other things in their lives other than games to leave extremely quickly.
Think of it another way, for one high end dungeon in ashes. You work hard to raise your node to obtain said dungeon. this dungoen drops the Best in slot item for your class. Now when entering this dungeon 1 out of 5 players in the party is forcefully disconnected by the server and cannot rejoin the dungeon for that run. Make this occur 100% everytime a party enters the dungeon. Ask players how they feel about such a system and wait for the hatred. This system is gear disparity in combat. Literally the top 20% of players in most gear related treadmills are so far ahead of the power curve whether through massive time/money/or luck and this reduces any ability to combat them. that last person that got force-ably disconnected. He would do the same after trying to fight any of the other 4 once they had the best gear and consistently destroyed him, not through skill but because the server decided they should obtain loot.
Look at BDO, look at archeage. Learn from their mistakes. Look at UO, look at the massive changes WOW had to do in combat to fix their problem with constant gear tiers.
People that try to do their best in becoming the best, do so much more effort than someone who outsmarts him.
I mean they will get frustrated after a while, that all his efforts are for nothing.
What ur saying is a level 1 swordman with a wooden sword would be able to kill a lvl 100 berseker with a gigantic axe.
Or even if everyone gets the same standard equipment in pvp arena's, what's the point in leveling up and trying to become better than the enemy next time.
Skills and strategy is one thing, equipment is another aspect. If someone is much stronger try to take him down with 2 or 3 people.
Maybe more people if he's really strong.
If you like pvp purely based on skill, guild wars 2 is your place to be.
But it gets bored really fast, you join a huge scale pvp , you do it one or 2 times and ur bored.
You litterally did no effort in leveling up, saving for your equipment.
The effort in building your charracter, your reward afterwars of all those efforts that's what pvp should be and is.
I work and i play MMORPG, it will take for me much longer in getting better, but so what, it is how it is.
There will always be someone that is stronger than you in a game, unless you play it non stop
There should ofcourse be a balance because it won't be fun if it's impossible to catch up if you join later. But it's also really not fun if you can do everything and are just as strong as someone who is already max lvl. You would not get a feeling of progression and get bored really quick i think.
There should ofcourse be a balance because it won’t be fun if it’s impossible to catch up if you join later. But it’s also really not fun if you can do everything and are just as strong as someone who is already max lvl. You would not get a feeling of progression and get bored really quick i think.
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i think levels should make a difference but i believe gear should not be the do all end all. i believe that skills should be the prevailing factor in who wins and tactics. personally i am hopeless at PVP, i play MMO for the the experience and journey of leveling up i have no desire to be better then anyone else..
Disclaimer: I watched this video last night so the content isn't fresh in my mind buuuuuut -
They mention that they do not want the power ceiling to be too far from the floor... so as to avoid this feeling of powerlessness in their casual players. Yet, they still want there to be a reward for hard work. So they will be trying to find a balance between these two concepts. I believe they also mention that one thing they definitely want to avoid is making this a numbers game where whoever has the higher numbers wins, because they want skill to also be an aspect in their game. It is worth the watch!
Personally, I think both of these goals could be achieved by providing both separate and integrated environments for casual players and hardcore players to stand apart and work together, respectively. For example, ranked arenas for pvp would set apart people looking to take advantage of their hard earned gear or content where gear level is weighted so that powerful players can collaborate with weaker players and both parties can have a challenge. Just my two cents.
I guess before you get really angry and rage at me I should disclaim that I'm married with children and a full time job. I'm never going to be the guy who has all the best gear. I do not make these arguments so sometime down the line I'll be that guy you can't kill because I have all the gear you wish you had. I'll be the guy cussing at the avatar of a college student getting all Ds because he'd rather play AoC than do his homework. College boy will be the one who decides, instead of planning for the future and doing good in school, he'd rather grind resources for consumables 4 hours a day so he can raid 4 hours a night, then he can pvp against you and me and rip us a new one. And I'll admire his gear. I hope there's an inspect feature so I can drool over his acquisitions.
Just because I can't be that guy at this stage of my life doesn't mean nobody should. I'd have to be as arrogant as some of you to think that's the way it should be. Ooh! Let's make a new game called Socialism! KS anyone?
I digress. Back on point. You're right about the game being a business venture with the intent of profit. And in order for that to happen and a lasting world to exist that we can all enjoy for a decade or more we'll need some options. I'd much rather Intrepid Studios develop some really good competitive scenarios where skill reigns over gear. Like a martial arts tournament, everyone is wearing cloth and may the best gender undefined person win. That would be a good atmosphere the devs could use to evaluate balance among the classes pre-gear grind. They could have ladder competitions with occasional resets and special rewards for competing and better rewards for winning.
If you want a lore reason to make these things possible the devs could create a node or nodes in which enchantment magic is null and anyone who enters the borders has all magical enchantments removed from their gear. Bam! Gear no longer defines anything.
They could add some interesting bonuses to entice players to venture into that area, and stay there. Maybe it's even prettier with better housing options, there's a unique material in high demand for the null magic property, which could help in high magic battles in the non-null world. Maybe include an increase in the coin acquired by killing NPCs (because there are more gold and silver mines there than anywhere else, obviously). And because people like to quantify, add a ranking system so we all know who is the best.
This is a partially developed game. Right now ideas are more valuable than critiques of other failed games. Let's try and provide suggestions the devs may use to create a world where people who like different aspects of the MMORPG genre can gather and flourish each in their own way instead of limiting the development to exclude a group.
You simply add equal and opposite penalties to go with the bonuses.
That way you can specialise as much as you want...
BUT....you never leave everyone else behind.
Because tour weaknesses vs a new player counteracts your strengths vs a new player.
The neutral starting players is thus always competitive.
[Well as soon as the have a full toolbar and set of gear]
Variety and originality becomes the target of progression
Dualistic development rather than only positive development.
What you get then is rock/paper/scissors.
Two competing play-styles trying to impose their strengths over each others weaknesses.
It requires tactical nuance......and 'know your enemy'
Sooo...learn how to build your character well.
An idea with the stuff is to design it with a life duration. It cannot be indefinitly repaired and crafters will have an interest in long term. It's good for ecnomy's health and trade to ensure that there is a constant need of weapon/armor (both high and lower quality, because you don't want to use a very expensive stuff in some dangerous situations).
To some players, "skill" is defined as the ability to react more quickly than the other person.
To others, "skill" is defined as the deep understanding of your avatar and it's abilities to enable creative solutions to any situation.
Others still define "skill" as the quality, quantity and diversity of abilities possessed by their avatar.
I don't think any of those is right, but that every one of those is right. Overall skill is some combination of all those, and I think that gear also should be considered a skill. Everything should be considered.
The problem is that a "new" player feels very suppressed by this system. Consider from their perspective. Sheer reaction time isn't something you can learn in the game, it's something you bring with you. This new player with high twitch reaction speed may consider themselves skilled. What they don't have is a deep understanding of the game that will allow them to creatively innovate a solution. They probably don't have the extensive set of abilities that the avatar of another player might have. They won't have the equipment that other players have worked to acquire. They feel, and rightly so, that the system is stacked against them.
This isn't to say the system shouldn't be stacked against them. I think it probably should. If it weren't, the players who are already in the game would, rightly, feel that "Hey, why am I paying ____ dollars per month?!?!?".
It's a very fine line that every MMO has to face. What is the correct and fair barrier of entry for a new player. At what point should their time and effort be equitable to someone who has played for months or years. I look forward to seeing where Intrepid places that line.
Theorycraft is not skill. If you are quick and your actions and strategy during a fight allow you to exploit the true potential of your character, this is skill. If your character has more potential than another (gear, optimized build, etc.), this is an advantage.
I understand that when you have improved your character you're happy to see this during fight. But if someone is simply better than you, this advantage should not change your defeat. You will learn from defeat much more because you can thing "Oh, I've made that mistake during the fight" and not "Oh, I need to upgrade my gear".
For a game that hate P2W, reward skilled combat is the better way to avoid it.
Fine to include both, though...
As Ashes is doing.
See, I would disagree. It's the difference between tactics and strategy. If someone can theorycraft up a better way, they've invested time and critical thinking into that. To me, that is playing the game. You may or may not enjoy that particular aspect of gaming, but if they do, who is to say it's not valid? I won't say it.
Likewise, the value of what a person has acquired in the game (gear, abilities, etc) should matter as well. If it didn't, why would anyone play? An MMO needs to create a "stickiness" in order to keep people logging in, lest they become just another 3 month fad of an FPS.
Those that play harder and longer will be better than most other players, even with the same gear.
I'm hoping there's more than just 1 ... " Top-Tier " gear-set. otherwise it'll ruin the economy