Protecting Our Casuals: Gear

One big concern I have for AoC is that gear will end up providing too much power. AoC is already a game that will greatly reward those who play a lot which is why I believe that it is imperative for gear to only account for at most 20-30% of a character's power.

People will enjoy grinding out their gear even if each piece gives small increments of power increase. These small increments of power increase will allow the bulk of the population to not feel like they are so out geared that they cannot even come close to competing. This is very important because when those casual players will die over and over to a hardcore player that severely outgears them without any chance of fighting back, they will be very likely to just quit. Hardcore players will have other advantages (gold, skill, etc.) anyway because they play a lot more and there is no reason to further widen the gap between casual and hardcore players.

Please understand that I am not against rewarding those who invest more time into the game. I am just suggesting that their reward should not create such a great disparity between them and casual players. I truly believe that this can greatly help the health of the game and its population.

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Sylvanar

VmanGman wrote: »

So your game design philosophy is to force casual players to not participate in PvP? You're saying that because casual players know that they WILL lose, they need to just sit there and take a beating. That sounds like awful game design.

It's very clear that AoC is a game where time investment will result in better gear. Everything from the open world dungeons to most items being purchasable with gold and not soulbound leads to more time investment resulting in better gear.

1. Why are you so sure that casual players will always die to hardcore players? Who gets the jump matter in PvP, not to mention people would likely be travelling in groups.

2. Ratio of hardcore to casual player would be ridiculously highly skewed. So casual players can play amongst themselves for the most part.

3. Tell me one worthwhile game where time invested in the game doesnt matter.

4. Lets take your assumption and make gear irrelevant. Now lets say there are hundred fights between a player A who plays 40 hr/week and player B who plays 4 hr/week. How many matches do you think B will win? It would definitely be low enough that player B would want to quit. So, I dont see your point in making differences in gear minimalistic.

Sure a low gearscore item of an epic tier should be capable of overcoming a higher gearscore item of epic tier, but I dont see why different tier gears have to mean so little.

If ANY GAME makes my time investment in it irrelevant than what is even the point of playing the game? Just make a character, level up and done. You are "almost" as good as hardcore players now...yeah, no.

Azherae

Sylvanar wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

So your game design philosophy is to force casual players to not participate in PvP? You're saying that because casual players know that they WILL lose, they need to just sit there and take a beating. That sounds like awful game design.

It's very clear that AoC is a game where time investment will result in better gear. Everything from the open world dungeons to most items being purchasable with gold and not soulbound leads to more time investment resulting in better gear.

1. Why are you so sure that casual players will always die to hardcore players? Who gets the jump matter in PvP, not to mention people would likely be travelling in groups.

2. Ratio of hardcore to casual player would be ridiculously highly skewed. So casual players can play amongst themselves for the most part.

3. Tell me one worthwhile game where time invested in the game doesnt matter.

4. Lets take your assumption and make gear irrelevant. Now lets say there are hundred fights between a player A who plays 40 hr/week and player B who plays 4 hr/week. How many matches do you think B will win? It would definitely be low enough that player B would want to quit. So, I dont see your point in making differences in gear minimalistic.

Sure a low gearscore item of an epic tier should be capable of overcoming a higher gearscore item of epic tier, but I dont see why different tier gears have to mean so little.

If ANY GAME makes my time investment in it irrelevant than what is even the point of playing the game? Just make a character, level up and done. You are "almost" as good as hardcore players now...yeah, no.

1. Both sides would travel in groups.

2. That's never how that works.

3. Do you auto-define games where time invested isn't as important, as 'worthwhile'?

4. Irrelevant wasn't said, also, skill can absolutely mitigate that, my training partners in certain games play 3-6x as much as me and it's even or in my favor.

Some people expect their time investment to translate into gains in personal skill and then use that.

JamesSunderland

VmanGman wrote: »

the only downside to gear not contributing to more than 20-30% of a player's power (which is still significant) is that hardcore players can't just steam roll casual players.

The main downside is actually a less meaningful gear progression, with way less impactful gear upgrades to strive for which a lot of times can disencourage people from grinding the content required for that, and that's a big flaw for a MMORPGs.

The important thing is to reach a nice balance where Gear disparity isn't simple the ultimate character power source completely disregarding player skill and even numbers like in Archeage and not making gear pretty much meaningless like in Guild Wars 2.

I really don't think it would be acceptable for a player that just reached lv 50 equipped with the most basic lv50 gear to stand in equal footing against a lv 50 player with Epic World Boss Gear fully enchanted and maxxed out.

Azherae

VmanGman wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

At the same time, casual players should not expect instant gratification when it comes to the time commitment to get there. That's an absolute in most MMOs.

Completely agree and I never asked for this. I am not asking for easy ways out or for 'carebear' design. I'm just asking that casuals aren't completely demoralized when they get clobbered without standing a chance by people whose gear makes the odds insurmountable. When that happens casuals will quit and the game will suffer greatly.

Well, honestly, I don't think you'll need to be very concerned. Given what I've seen of their design, both from Alpha-1 and from certain stat things, I'll be really surprised if the gap is that large most of the time.

It could just have meant that 'a naked character is 40-50% weaker than a top geared one', rather than 'Average geared character is.

But if you're in 'the sort of gear a Casual player can get by investment', and facing 'someone below the absolute top gear for their build in all slots', I wouldn't expect a 40% difference between the two players at that point.

And as others point out, if you started at 20% difference between Naked and Epic, then 'Average' vs Epic won't feel like a real difference to most people.

Sylvanar

Azherae wrote: »

1. Both sides would travel in groups.

2. That's never how that works.

3. Do you auto-define games where time invested isn't as important, as 'worthwhile'?

4. Irrelevant wasn't said, also, skill can absolutely mitigate that, my training partners in certain games play 3-6x as much as me and it's even or in my favor.

Some people expect their time investment to translate into gains in personal skill and then use that.

1. My point was who gets the initiative matters in PvP. Casual will always lose isnt the case. Hardcore players arent always playing at 100% anyway.

2. I did say for the most part. For challenging aspects of the game they have to team up with hardcore players anyway afterall PvP is a major aspect of AoC.

3. If there is a game where a person playing 1 hr/week and another person playing 40 hr/week stand on equal footing then yeah, I would question the design of such game and would 100% avoid it. That measure can be in-game skills for PvP type games, amount of resources gathered for those type of games, etc etc.

4. OP has mentioned that gear should have 20-30% of characters power so that SKILLS matter. So I was going all-in on Skills to make my point. As far as you being better than players who spend more time, I dont see why that cant be the case. There is a different skill ceiling for different people BUT at the same time a skilled player with rare tier gear should be able to defeat an unskilled player with epic tier gear to prove that as well. Will it be hard? Yes. But would it be an issue? No. Hence, skilled player. As AoC is more focused on balancing group fights than classes, this would have to be tested between two players of same primary archetype.

By hardcore I mean -- skilled, higher level of understanding of the game mechanics and at least moderate time investment (Say ~20 hr/week)
By casual I am referring to -- lower level of PvP skill, relatively less understanding of the game as AoC is not gonna be straight forward, casual approach to the game and more interested in aspects of game other than PvP like gathering, profession, social, etc. Time investment is a non-factor.

At the end of the day, Steven has already mentioned gear will contribute upto 40-50% of characters power.

Edit: Why am I putting such heavy emphasis on PvP? Because in-game progression is heavily reliant on it.

Dygz

mcstackerson wrote: »

He is talking about people who want to pvp but don't have the gear for it to be enjoyable. In some games, you need to grind for months to be able to stand a chance in a fight, which sucks for people who want to fight.

1: I think, in general, casual-time players are not really going to be much interested in trying to be directly competitive in PvP combat against hardcore-time players.

2: Even so... that's what friends are for. Befriend some hardcore-time folk who are willing to help you raise your gearscore.
Should be an aspect of the Mentoring system.

3: Casual-time players have several avenues to PvP in large groups: Attack/Defend Caravans, Castle Sieges, Node Sieges, etc. Those will be mixed groups of varying gearscores and various types of playstyles. Individual casual-time players who have a comparatively low gearscore compared to some individual hardcore-time will not inexorably be losing over and over again.

VmanGman

Sylvanar wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

So your game design philosophy is to force casual players to not participate in PvP? You're saying that because casual players know that they WILL lose, they need to just sit there and take a beating. That sounds like awful game design.

It's very clear that AoC is a game where time investment will result in better gear. Everything from the open world dungeons to most items being purchasable with gold and not soulbound leads to more time investment resulting in better gear.

1. Why are you so sure that casual players will always die to hardcore players? Who gets the jump matter in PvP, not to mention people would likely be travelling in groups.

2. Ratio of hardcore to casual player would be ridiculously highly skewed. So casual players can play amongst themselves for the most part.

3. Tell me one worthwhile game where time invested in the game doesnt matter.

4. Lets take your assumption and make gear irrelevant. Now lets say there are hundred fights between a player A who plays 40 hr/week and player B who plays 4 hr/week. How many matches do you think B will win? It would definitely be low enough that player B would want to quit. So, I dont see your point in making differences in gear minimalistic.

Sure a low gearscore item of an epic tier should be capable of overcoming a higher gearscore item of epic tier, but I dont see why different tier gears have to mean so little.

If ANY GAME makes my time investment in it irrelevant than what is even the point of playing the game? Just make a character, level up and done. You are "almost" as good as hardcore players now...yeah, no.

You should reread my post. I never said that your time investment needs to be irrelevant. Please read and understand what I’m saying. Don’t argue against something that I didn’t say.

VmanGman

JamesSunderland wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

the only downside to gear not contributing to more than 20-30% of a player's power (which is still significant) is that hardcore players can't just steam roll casual players.

The main downside is actually a less meaningful gear progression, with way less impactful gear upgrades to strive for which a lot of times can disencourage people from grinding the content required for that, and that's a big flaw for a MMORPGs.

The important thing is to reach a nice balance where Gear disparity isn't simple the ultimate character power source completely disregarding player skill and even numbers like in Archeage and not making gear pretty much meaningless like in Guild Wars 2.

I really don't think it would be acceptable for a player that just reached lv 50 equipped with the most basic lv50 gear to stand in equal footing against a lv 50 player with Epic World Boss Gear fully enchanted and maxxed out.

I never said that a player who just reached level 50 should stand on equal footing with a max gear player. Please read what I said. Don’t argue against something that I didn’t say.

JamesSunderland

VmanGman wrote: »

JamesSunderland wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

the only downside to gear not contributing to more than 20-30% of a player's power (which is still significant) is that hardcore players can't just steam roll casual players.

The main downside is actually a less meaningful gear progression, with way less impactful gear upgrades to strive for which a lot of times can disencourage people from grinding the content required for that, and that's a big flaw for a MMORPGs.

The important thing is to reach a nice balance where Gear disparity isn't simple the ultimate character power source completely disregarding player skill and even numbers like in Archeage and not making gear pretty much meaningless like in Guild Wars 2.

I really don't think it would be acceptable for a player that just reached lv 50 equipped with the most basic lv50 gear to stand in equal footing against a lv 50 player with Epic World Boss Gear fully enchanted and maxxed out.

I never said that a player who just reached level 50 should stand on equal footing with a max gear player. Please read what I said. Don’t argue against something that I didn’t say.

Sure, but the premise of your post is: "I believe that it is imperative for gear to only account for AT MOST 20-30% of a character's power."

A theorical ~20% power difference between a player with the most basic lv50 gear and a player with end-game gear isn't that far apart, meaning the difference between mid-gear player and end game gear player would be ~10% and we expect Ashes to be quite a grind heavy game this would make gear progression a lot less meaningful which is a point that still stands.

But fortunately, Ashes will be going for a far more meaning full gear progression with 40-50% influence on a player's overall power.

CROW3

My guess is that we’ll see adjustments to the power equation in the beta phases.

In general, I lean toward greater investment reaping greater rewards. Keep in mind that it’s entirely feasible for casuals to receive gear via other means: crafting, guildies, & purchasing.

If someone has 40 hours to put in the game and I have 5, I kind of expect my ass to be handed to me in a pvp match up. Though, I don’t see folks putting that kind of time in the game finding it worthwhile to kill me without a high enough reward to offset the corruption.

That said, my eyes are wide open as to what the social contract is in a pvx environment.

Dygz

Exactly!

DougBug27

Vman, I share you pain in a way. I don't like the notion that because someone has no social life, that they can suddenly be better than me at the game. I have a wife and 3 kids, so I can't "No Life" the game. Because someone else will literally play the game endlessly , they are automatically going to win a pvp battle against me because they have better gear? I'm curious on some things.

1. Can a low armor character even hurt a high armor character? In WoW attacks would "resist" or "miss" if you were fighting someone higher level or better geared than you. This is trash. No one can convince me otherwise. I know MMORPGs and FPS games are different, but if someone has a rocket launcher in Halo, and I have a BR, I can still conceivable win that fight with the BR with skill. Ashes should be "somewhat" similar.
2. New World seemed to have a decent system of scaling where the higher armor still mattered, but lower characters could at least hurt the other player. In a 3v1 for instance my group of 3 level 25s were able to go toe to toe with someone in the 40s. We lost, but at least we could fight back. Everquest had a player level range of 5 levels where characters could only attack characters in the same range. I think the corruption system will hopefully keep hardcore players in check from being jerks.
3. You seem to think that the vast majority of the world is going to be hardcore players. I don't know if that is going to be the case. Hopefully there will be plenty of other casual characters for you to fight. the entire server won't be made of hardcore no life people hopefully. I've seen plenty of casual guilds popping up, so the goal should be to have some fun pve and pvp experiences with them. That's my plan.
4. I think the size of the world should help too. If you join a decent casual guild, perhaps players like you and me could start a smaller node that is a vassal of a hardcore node? We could then still experience a ton of fun content with the occasional pvp fight.
5. While it is important to keep casual players happy, you also have to keep the "carrot on a stick" feeling going for players too. If gear doesn't feel meaniful, players will be dissapointed as was noted in this thread.

Dygz

Um. No. An RPG is fundamentally designed differently than an FPS.
The RPG portion means that you should be able to build your character's skills to be insanely better than your own physical twitch skills. A character with max Dex and max Stealth should be able to Hide very easily from a character with low Wisdom and low Perception/Spot, regardless of the skills of the players.
Especially if it's an FPS where the characters all have fairly standard stats and what matters is the gear you've picked up, they are two vastly different paradigms.

But, that really has no bearing on everything else you wrote.
I think VmanGman's focus on gear is exaggerated. Of course, we will have to play to know for sure.

DougBug27

Dygz wrote: »

Um. No. An RPG is fundamentally designed differently than an FPS.
The RPG portion means that you should be able to build your character's skills to be insanely better than your own physical twitch skills. A character with max Dex and max Stealth should be able to Hide very easily from a character with low Wisdom and low Perception/Spot, regardless of the skills of the players.
Especially if it's an FPS where the characters all have fairly standard stats and what matters is the gear you've picked up, they are two vastly different paradigms.

But, that really has no bearing on everything else you wrote.
I think VmanGman's focus on gear is exaggerated. Of course, we will have to play to know for sure.

Agree with you here. Was merely pointing out that there should be some means for a low level character to affect higher level/better geared ones. I think my 3v1 fight is a better example. We should be able to win those fights if we play our skills correctly rather than having no chance at all.

Dygz

It was a fantastic post overall.
So, extra thanks for sharing.

Sylvanar

VmanGman wrote: »

You should reread my post. I never said that your time investment needs to be irrelevant. Please read and understand what I’m saying. Don’t argue against something that I didn’t say.

You are saying that time invested in upgrading gear should be CLOSE to irrelevant cuz you want casual players to stand on CLOSE footing after spending paltry amount of time compared to hardcore players.

Hardcore player doesnt need to no-life the game to own a casual player anyway. By definition they can do the same with even worst gear.

OriginalSoultaker

I just hope that the PVP is fun, not like all the other MMO where the fights last for like 2.3 seconds. I want to have to actually work to kill someone. Nothing is more underwhelming than 1 shotting someone your level and similarly geared like in BDO.

VmanGman

Sylvanar wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

You should reread my post. I never said that your time investment needs to be irrelevant. Please read and understand what I’m saying. Don’t argue against something that I didn’t say.

You are saying that time invested in upgrading gear should be CLOSE to irrelevant cuz you want casual players to stand on CLOSE footing after spending paltry amount of time compared to hardcore players.

Hardcore player doesnt need to no-life the game to own a casual player anyway. By definition they can do the same with even worst gear.

Exactly! The hardcore player will already be better than the casual… they don’t need gear to allow them to automatically win a fight by just stat checking the opponent.

And no, 20-30% power increase is not irrelevant… that’s still a significant power difference.

Also @JamesSunderland.

Edit: word

Voxtrium

hmm

Ryoshin25

You understand that the game will not survive or have very few funds for more content without casuals, right?
@VmanGman

I wouldn't see this as true. I mean their are millions of people playing Elden Ring right now, and its not a game meant for casuals at all but its thriving and I'm sure their are thousands casuals playing it, dying to getting invaded by some PVP dude who put 60 hours in and one shots them.

The vision that IS and Steven have I believe in. And yes casual players should be behind those that invest more time.

Child Item