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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Swifts

As a former hardcore MMO player turned casual (RL does that to people), I do not agree with the viewpoint that people who put in a greater amount of effort should not be rewarded for it.
If you have the time to play more than me and grind out more gold/gear/etc, you should 100% be rewarded for that and be more powerful. This is true in real life as well. If you work more hours than me, you should make more money than me.
Just because I lack the time to play games as much as I did before does not mean that I should be on the same tier as someone who can/does play constantly. Effort = Reward

Azherae

Swifts wrote: »

As a former hardcore MMO player turned casual (RL does that to people), I do not agree with the viewpoint that people who put in a greater amount of effort should not be rewarded for it.
If you have the time to play more than me and grind out more gold/gear/etc, you should 100% be rewarded for that and be more powerful. This is true in real life as well. If you work more hours than me, you should make more money than me.
Just because I lack the time to play games as much as I did before does not mean that I should be on the same tier as someone who can/does play constantly. Effort = Reward

That's great but literally not what the suggestion was.

Steven says 40-50%. Why not 100%? Such games exist where your character's level barely matters and only your gear really affects anything.

Just pointing out that your reaction doesn't have anything to do with the point @VmanGman is making. Either way, it's probably Intrepid or number crunchers who could have input on the 'how much is too much', and we don't know Intrepid's 'idea' of 'how helpless they want people in Green gear to be vs people in Purple gear' or whatever.

As a number cruncher I can agree anecdotally that 40-50% is too much of a gap between 'standard' and 'near best in slot' if you actually want the 'casual' to have a chance. But maybe they don't. Some people design games for everyone, and some people design games to reward those who play the most and 'inspire' others to try to play more to catch up to those people. The real problem is usually that the latter doesn't happen much.

VmanGman

BrianDaddy wrote: »

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.

You can turn off invasions in Elden Ring. It’s been proven over and over again that MMORPGs are a different beast and that casuals don’t stick around if certain criteria aren’t met.

I never said that casuals shouldn’t be behind hardcore players! 20-30% power difference from gear is still significant.

VmanGman

Swifts wrote: »

As a former hardcore MMO player turned casual (RL does that to people), I do not agree with the viewpoint that people who put in a greater amount of effort should not be rewarded for it.
If you have the time to play more than me and grind out more gold/gear/etc, you should 100% be rewarded for that and be more powerful. This is true in real life as well. If you work more hours than me, you should make more money than me.
Just because I lack the time to play games as much as I did before does not mean that I should be on the same tier as someone who can/does play constantly. Effort = Reward

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

bloodprophet

VmanGman wrote: »

Swifts wrote: »

As a former hardcore MMO player turned casual (RL does that to people), I do not agree with the viewpoint that people who put in a greater amount of effort should not be rewarded for it.
If you have the time to play more than me and grind out more gold/gear/etc, you should 100% be rewarded for that and be more powerful. This is true in real life as well. If you work more hours than me, you should make more money than me.
Just because I lack the time to play games as much as I did before does not mean that I should be on the same tier as someone who can/does play constantly. Effort = Reward

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

That guy s the whole point of this thread.
Stopping people that have more time to play by limiting their ability to gain power.

Why should someone playing 4 hours a week be able to compete with someone playing 40?

Happymeal2415

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

so everyone responding to you is misunderstanding your point? cuz this entire thread is essentially you saying gear shouldnt matter... people telling you it should... and then you saying we dont get it

Tulima

Happymeal2415 wrote: »

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

so everyone responding to you is misunderstanding your point? cuz this entire thread is essentially you saying gear shouldnt matter... people telling you it should... and then you saying we dont get it

Shouldn't matter as much.

For instance in a 1vs1 scenario. With 50% power from gear, the higher gear score player may make up to 5 mistakes and still win vs the lower gear score. With 30% power from gear, the higher gear score player may only make 3 mistakes in order to win vs the lower gear score player. Just some random numbers but you get what am trying to say.

OP still wants the higher gear score player to have an advantage but not so much you could play like shit and still win.

In reality, we don't know how much 50% or 30% actually is. How many mistakes can you actually afford to make with these gear-power levels? I can't tell until we actually get to test the combat system.

VmanGman

bloodprophet wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Swifts wrote: »

As a former hardcore MMO player turned casual (RL does that to people), I do not agree with the viewpoint that people who put in a greater amount of effort should not be rewarded for it.
If you have the time to play more than me and grind out more gold/gear/etc, you should 100% be rewarded for that and be more powerful. This is true in real life as well. If you work more hours than me, you should make more money than me.
Just because I lack the time to play games as much as I did before does not mean that I should be on the same tier as someone who can/does play constantly. Effort = Reward

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

That guy s the whole point of this thread.
Stopping people that have more time to play by limiting their ability to gain power.

Why should someone playing 4 hours a week be able to compete with someone playing 40?

I never said that they should stop people who have more time to play by limiting their ability to gain power. I said that they should lower the percentage of power increase that can be gained from gear. It could stay take just as much to reach BiS gear, but instead of making the power difference an insurmountable amount, it only increase it by about 20-30% which is still very significant.

A casual person should be able to compete with a hardcore person because this is a video game (please notice that I said ‘compete’ and not ‘be on equal footing’). Just because you have more free time irl, it shouldn’t mean that you can just wipe the floor with any casual. Video games don’t need to be 100% reflection of your irl status…

If casual players keep losing to hardcore players without even standing a chance in a game like AoC, they will quit. And MMORPGs the size of AoC need bigger populations and therefore casuals.

VmanGman

Happymeal2415 wrote: »

My man. When did I say that hardcore players shouldn’t be rewarded for their time? Please reread the post and come back. @Swifts

so everyone responding to you is misunderstanding your point? cuz this entire thread is essentially you saying gear shouldnt matter... people telling you it should... and then you saying we dont get it

I never said that gear shouldn’t matter. 20-30% difference is still very significant. I just said that gear shouldn’t matter so much that skill becomes meaningless. Please reread the post to understand it.

Happymeal2415

if everyone needs to re read your post maybe its the post not making sense

CROW3

Tulima wrote: »

In reality, we don't know how much 50% or 30% actually is. How many mistakes can you actually afford to make with these gear-power levels? I can't tell until we actually get to test the combat system.

Yep, agree on this. Regardless of how much time and energy went in to acquiring gear, the team still needs to field test their numbers to calibrate the overall % of power gear provides (whether that’s 30-70%).

bloodprophet

Homogenization pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Player skill should be a big part of the game play. And I am sure a lot of us have beaten players with better gear just through skill alone in fights we should have lost.
As Tulima said we won't know how all this will play out till after launch. Is a 40-50% power gap a lot between a fresh 50 and a full BIS 50? Only time will tell. But if you punish the no lifers and by making it so a fresh 50 has a 50/50 chance of beating them or even 40/60 then I see that as bad design. Feels like scaling to me. I didn't spend a 1000 hours working to be a master of the universe just to be challenged by a level 1 rat.

VmanGman

Happymeal2415 wrote: »

if everyone needs to re read your post maybe its the post not making sense

Obviously not everyone needs to reread my post. I’ve had plenty of clear conversations with others.

I never said the things that they were bringing up and arguing against me. Had you read the post you would understand. It’s very clear.

For example, I never said that gear shouldn’t matter. Yet people came here and said that gear should matter.

VmanGman

bloodprophet wrote: »

Homogenization pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Player skill should be a big part of the game play. And I am sure a lot of us have beaten players with better gear just through skill alone in fights we should have lost.
As Tulima said we won't know how all this will play out till after launch. Is a 40-50% power gap a lot between a fresh 50 and a full BIS 50? Only time will tell. But if you punish the no lifers and by making it so a fresh 50 has a 50/50 chance of beating them or even 40/60 then I see that as bad design. Feels like scaling to me. I didn't spend a 1000 hours working to be a master of the universe just to be challenged by a level 1 rat.

It’s not homogenization… if you have better gear than someone and still lose, then you suck. Hardcore good players will still be the masters of the universe. However, if gear is a smaller portion of player power, then we won’t have every no lifer that sucks at the game beat people just because their gear is better.

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

However, if gear is a smaller portion of player power, then we won’t have every no lifer that sucks at the game beat people just because their gear is better.

In my experience, these people are few and far between.

People that have a lot of time to play a game tend to get pretty good at that game.

However, people that lose all the time like to make the claim that those that beat them only do so due to their gear. They love to throw around the notion that those no lifers are shit players that happen to have good gear, it makes them feel better about losing.

The funny thing here is how Archeage was used as an example of a game where gear is everything. It isn't. A Daggerspell or Darkrunner (especially a Darkrunner) with shit gear was able to beat players with twice their gear score, if the player knew what they were doing - and there were other, less common builds that were better.

This is in a game where gear is widely considered to be 90% of your effectiveness.

What really needs to happen is people need to realize that those people that spend all that time getting that good gear probably also got really good at the game along the way.

VmanGman

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

However, if gear is a smaller portion of player power, then we won’t have every no lifer that sucks at the game beat people just because their gear is better.

In my experience, these people are few and far between.

People that have a lot of time to play a game tend to get pretty good at that game.

However, people that lose all the time like to make the claim that those that beat them only do so due to their gear. They love to throw around the notion that those no lifers are shit players that happen to have good gear, it makes them feel better about losing.

The funny thing here is how Archeage was used as an example of a game where gear is everything. It isn't. A Daggerspell or Darkrunner (especially a Darkrunner) with shit gear was able to beat players with twice their gear score, if the player knew what they were doing - and there were other, less common builds that were better.

This is in a game where gear is widely considered to be 90% of your effectiveness.

What really needs to happen is people need to realize that those people that spend all that time getting that good gear probably also got really good at the game along the way.

Possibly. But what you’re saying only strengthens my point, if those people who are good at the game because they play it so much are also getting gear that increases their power by exorbitant amounts, then they will definitely cause many casuals to feel hopeless and quit a game like AoC that requires you to be able to stand and defend your stuff. And if your answer is “just get other hardcore players to help and defend you” then that’s not a satisfying answer. Most people don’t play games to have to beg for help and for babysitting.

Caeryl

VmanGman wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Homogenization pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Player skill should be a big part of the game play. And I am sure a lot of us have beaten players with better gear just through skill alone in fights we should have lost.
As Tulima said we won't know how all this will play out till after launch. Is a 40-50% power gap a lot between a fresh 50 and a full BIS 50? Only time will tell. But if you punish the no lifers and by making it so a fresh 50 has a 50/50 chance of beating them or even 40/60 then I see that as bad design. Feels like scaling to me. I didn't spend a 1000 hours working to be a master of the universe just to be challenged by a level 1 rat.

It’s not homogenization… if you have better gear than someone and still lose, then you suck. Hardcore good players will still be the masters of the universe. However, if gear is a smaller portion of player power, then we won’t have every no lifer that sucks at the game beat people just because their gear is better.

Gear alone will not carry a shit player. A bad player also can’t get the best gear unless they are a filthy stinkin rich trader character. You’re making up problems that simply aren’t going to be problems. You might see one rich kid who RMT’d his way to BiS gear in every 1000 players, and he’d still struggle against a genuinely skilled player in moderately good gear. You’ve got this crazy idea that 40hr/wk no-lifing somehow happens without absorbing thorough game knowledge, and that 4hr/wk casuals are just as knowledgeable somehow as those no-lifers? That’s not what happens on any significant scale in an MMO.

Time invested directly feeds into game knowledge

VmanGman

Caeryl wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

Homogenization pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Player skill should be a big part of the game play. And I am sure a lot of us have beaten players with better gear just through skill alone in fights we should have lost.
As Tulima said we won't know how all this will play out till after launch. Is a 40-50% power gap a lot between a fresh 50 and a full BIS 50? Only time will tell. But if you punish the no lifers and by making it so a fresh 50 has a 50/50 chance of beating them or even 40/60 then I see that as bad design. Feels like scaling to me. I didn't spend a 1000 hours working to be a master of the universe just to be challenged by a level 1 rat.

It’s not homogenization… if you have better gear than someone and still lose, then you suck. Hardcore good players will still be the masters of the universe. However, if gear is a smaller portion of player power, then we won’t have every no lifer that sucks at the game beat people just because their gear is better.

Gear alone will not carry a shit player. A bad player also can’t get the best gear unless they are a filthy stinkin rich trader character. You’re making up problems that simply aren’t going to be problems. You might see one rich kid who RMT’d his way to BiS gear in every 1000 players, and he’d still struggle against a genuinely skilled player in moderately good gear. You’ve got this crazy idea that 40hr/wk no-lifing somehow happens without absorbing thorough game knowledge, and that 4hr/wk casuals are just as knowledgeable somehow as those no-lifers? That’s not what happens on any significant scale in an MMO.

Time invested directly feeds into game knowledge

There are plenty of casuals that have a very good understanding of the game. Anyway, like I said before, if hardcore players have significant advantages from playing the game more such as more skill and more resources, they don’t need another huge advantage through insane gear differences.

JamesSunderland

Noaani wrote: »

The funny thing here is how Archeage was used as an example of a game where gear is everything. It isn't. A Daggerspell or Darkrunner (especially a Darkrunner) with shit gear was able to beat players with twice their gear score, if the player knew what they were doing - and there were other, less common builds that were better.

In Early Archeage gear disparity wasn't as insane as nowadays, and Daggerspell/Darkrunner were literally The best PvP classes, so unless you talking about early archeage or something like 1,5K-2K Gear score VS 3K-4K Gear score on current archeage. Gear Disparity gets completely insane when Lunagems kick in the Gear Score, in current Archeage its unimaginable for a 5K-6K GS player to win against a 10K-12K GS Player even if the 10K-12K GS player has a meme asfk build.

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

And if your answer is “just get other hardcore players to help and defend you” then that’s not a satisfying answer. Most people don’t play games to have to beg for help and for babysitting.

That wouldn't be my answer.

My answer would be - those people need to learn to deal with it.

Players that play the game more are going to get better at playing the game. This should be obvious.

It is also obvious that the game should reward the hunt for better gear - with better gear.

While some may argue that no game can survive without casuals, it is even more true that no game can disable human nature to get better at things, and no persistent MMO would survive without an appropriate reward structure.

There is no helping people that play a game for 5 hours a week and think they are as good as someone that plays the game 30 hours a week. People love to overstate their ability at things- this can be seen in many surveys where people have to self evaluate how good at a thing they are (about 70% of drivers think they are better than average, as an example).

This isn't an issue for Intrepid to solve, or even to consider. it is just the way things are, and people need to deal with it.

People that play the game more will be able to beat you.

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