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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Goalid

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

It just sounds like you want minimal progression to cater to casuals at this point.

bloodprophet

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

If you think that what I’m saying is a punishment to the rest of the population, you must have completely misunderstood me.

I don't think I have.

If we assume gear is 20% of what ever we are talking about, and we know we have 16 gear slots, that means each slot is responsible for 1.25% of a characters over all power.

Now, since I expect AT LEAST 6 item upgrades at the level cap (realistically, twice that many), that means the average item upgrade sees a character gain about 0.2%.

This means a full upgrade of every item would only see a 3.2% increase in over all power. This is not enough of a difference to notice.

What this then means is that the developers can't develop content around specific levels of gear, because there isn't enough distinction between each level. this puts an end to the notion of tiered content - as you can't create tiered content without having noticeable gaps in gear at each tier.

So, while you may not consider the complete and total absence of tiered PvE content due to this to be a punishment, many others would.

No idea why you’re expecting at least 6 tiers…

Because that is an incredibly low number.

Lets assume there is a base level of total crap gear. Then there is a tier of solo obtainable gear on top of that. Then there are two tiers of group obtainable gear, and two tiers of raid obtainable gear.

That is already 6 tiers of gear.

I would have to question basically every single thing you have to say if you think that few gear tiers is adequate. Realistically, there should be 6 tiers of group obtainable gear - let alone solo or raid.

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

For you maybe. Definitely not for most.

VmanGman

Goalid wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

It just sounds like you want minimal progression to cater to casuals at this point.

Progression is a whole other conversation that is obviously very important. There is much more to a game like AoC than gear progression. Three tiers like I described can provided lots of progression and content in a PvX MMORPG like AoC.

VmanGman

bloodprophet wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

If you think that what I’m saying is a punishment to the rest of the population, you must have completely misunderstood me.

I don't think I have.

If we assume gear is 20% of what ever we are talking about, and we know we have 16 gear slots, that means each slot is responsible for 1.25% of a characters over all power.

Now, since I expect AT LEAST 6 item upgrades at the level cap (realistically, twice that many), that means the average item upgrade sees a character gain about 0.2%.

This means a full upgrade of every item would only see a 3.2% increase in over all power. This is not enough of a difference to notice.

What this then means is that the developers can't develop content around specific levels of gear, because there isn't enough distinction between each level. this puts an end to the notion of tiered content - as you can't create tiered content without having noticeable gaps in gear at each tier.

So, while you may not consider the complete and total absence of tiered PvE content due to this to be a punishment, many others would.

No idea why you’re expecting at least 6 tiers…

Because that is an incredibly low number.

Lets assume there is a base level of total crap gear. Then there is a tier of solo obtainable gear on top of that. Then there are two tiers of group obtainable gear, and two tiers of raid obtainable gear.

That is already 6 tiers of gear.

I would have to question basically every single thing you have to say if you think that few gear tiers is adequate. Realistically, there should be 6 tiers of group obtainable gear - let alone solo or raid.

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

For you maybe. Definitely not for most.

Really? You know for a fact that most people want more than three tiers?

bloodprophet

You know for a fact they don't?

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

Honest question; have you actually played an MMORPG before?

VmanGman

bloodprophet wrote: »

You know for a fact they don't?

I never made such a claim. You did.

VmanGman

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

Honest question; have you actually played an MMORPG before?

Yes, I have. Multiple. MMOs do not need 2 tiers per game mode.

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

Honest question; have you actually played an MMORPG before?

Yes, I have. Multiple. MMOs do not need 2 tiers per game mode.

Which MMO's?

Because yes, they do.

VmanGman

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

Honest question; have you actually played an MMORPG before?

Yes, I have. Multiple. MMOs do not need 2 tiers per game mode.

Which MMO's?

Because yes, they do.

This is cute. I've played Ragnarok Online, WoW (all iterations of it), Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Black Desert Online, and Albion Online. I've dabbled in some other ones, but not enough to warrant mentioning them.

According to who do MMOs need multiple tiers per game mode?

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

This is cute. I've played Ragnarok Online, WoW (all iterations of it), Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Black Desert Online, and Albion Online. I've dabbled in some other ones, but not enough to warrant mentioning them.

According to who do MMOs need multiple tiers per game mode?

According to literally every MMO ever made. Every game in your list had multiple tiers of gear (well, I can't speak for Albion, the game is shit and I don't care what happens there).

Archeage is the most similar of your list to Ashes.

Imagine what would happen in Archeage if most players got to a point where there were no more item upgrades to be had. There would be no need to run trade routes, no need to farm land, no need to do Mistmerrow or Halcyona. Basically, people would have no real need to log in, because the entire game (as is the case of all MMO's) is based around the idea of there always being an upgrade to be had to your gear.

Take away the ability to upgrade gear in a reasonable manner, and you take away the point of playing. Even having 6 tiers of gear in an MMO is an unreasonably low number (Archeage had around 20 at the level cap, as did WoW).

Then we need to talk about Archeages regrading, which will be basically what Ashes enchanting is based on. There will be RNG based around it, and it will cost a lot of money. The regrading system in Archeage was able to double the power of an item if taken from crude to mythical, and there was still one more step past that with eternal.

This system in itself allowed for five times more power through gear than your entire suggestion allows for, and your suggestion needs to not only encompass Ashes version of this system, but also all gear upgrades as well.

If your system went ahead (it won't), it would kill Ashes by killing the economy and giving players nothing personal in game to work towards. Look no further than New World to see how happy MMO players are when there are no viable gear upgrade paths available to them - and it would take players a matter of weeks to get to the point where it is only raid items that are left as upgrades.

---

So, just to recap, you want to make gear less of a thing in combat so that skill matters more in order to assist the group of players with the lowest over all skill. In doing this, you also want to cut off the bulk of potential item upgrade paths in the game for all players, which would kill off any chance those casual players have of ever getting any item upgrades, would damage the enchanting path, and also remove any practical crafting progression where the crafter can make better items (there is simply no room left for it). Since players are upgrading items far less frequently, the economy will be slower, meaning less of a need to harvest, fewer caravans, and thus less open world PvP.

The above is what you are asking for here - what you are fighting for.

Good luck with that.

Okeydoke

The bigger issue isn't whether there's a 20-30% difference in power from gear or a 40-50% difference. The bigger issue to me is how long does it take for the average casual player to progress through the gear tiers and how do the gear tiers scale?

Assuming 5 tiers of gear, for simplicity. Does each individual tier, 1-5, give roughly equal amounts of 10% more power? Or does going from tier 1 gear to tier 2 give a massive 25% (of the total potential 50%), and then the remaining 25% is gotten from tiers 3-5? Or vice versa, is the first tier change small and then the power differences get proportionally bigger as you get into the later tiers?

And how long does it take. For the average casual player, does going from tier 1 to tier 2 take a few days? Tier 2 to tier 3, a couple weeks. Tier 3 to tier 4 a couple months. Or does it take a couple months just to go from tier 1 to tier 2, and then it scales based on that higher starting point?

We don't know the answer to any of that as far as I know. Even if Intrepid's estimated power from gear was 100%, if going from tier 1 to tier 2 takes 3 days and instantly gives 50% of that 100%, then 100% isn't nearly as big as it seems. Extreme example just to illustrate the point. This is where Intrepid can fine tune the system.

I personally don't want to see casuals and new players have to spend months before they can even get in a somewhat competitive range, not in a game like this. But there should be gear gaps and things for people to work on as well. There are many variables to the system overall that Intrepid will test in alphas and betas.

Kovrm

VmanGman wrote: »

bloodprophet wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

If you think that what I’m saying is a punishment to the rest of the population, you must have completely misunderstood me.

I don't think I have.

If we assume gear is 20% of what ever we are talking about, and we know we have 16 gear slots, that means each slot is responsible for 1.25% of a characters over all power.

Now, since I expect AT LEAST 6 item upgrades at the level cap (realistically, twice that many), that means the average item upgrade sees a character gain about 0.2%.

This means a full upgrade of every item would only see a 3.2% increase in over all power. This is not enough of a difference to notice.

What this then means is that the developers can't develop content around specific levels of gear, because there isn't enough distinction between each level. this puts an end to the notion of tiered content - as you can't create tiered content without having noticeable gaps in gear at each tier.

So, while you may not consider the complete and total absence of tiered PvE content due to this to be a punishment, many others would.

No idea why you’re expecting at least 6 tiers…

Because that is an incredibly low number.

Lets assume there is a base level of total crap gear. Then there is a tier of solo obtainable gear on top of that. Then there are two tiers of group obtainable gear, and two tiers of raid obtainable gear.

That is already 6 tiers of gear.

I would have to question basically every single thing you have to say if you think that few gear tiers is adequate. Realistically, there should be 6 tiers of group obtainable gear - let alone solo or raid.

That still doesn’t explain why there need to be 6 tiers. Here’s another one… solo/quest tier, group tier, raid tier. That is plenty of progression.

For you maybe. Definitely not for most.

Really? You know for a fact that most people want more than three tiers?

Yeah. I want more than 3 tiers.

I'd like more than 6.. like 10 or 12 tiers. That way if there's a 4+ tier difference in gear, you don't get to compete at all. No contest. Not sorry. Can't put more time in to get better gear? Too bad. You lose. I don't care about you having a level playing field, or the ability to "stand a chance" in a fight.

There should always be a disparity in gear. Period. If some asshole that puts in 6 hours a week can compete with someone that puts twice that, that's poor design. If you want a casual game, go play WoW.

BlackBrony

So, since RMT won't be a thing in Ashes, we hope, casual players are screwed. Well, not really. Casuals farming becaus they don't have time to run a dungeon means that hardcore player will have to protect them. They need to repair the gear, so they need those low level mats from the casuals.
What I believe will happen? Probable hardcore players will demand gold/mats for protection during farming, or caravans. Hardcore players will sell their services.
You forget casuals farming it's in the interest of the node, and if you both belong to the same node, just randomly killing a casual might not be the best interested.
On the other hand, casuals not being able to fight back because of gear, well, that will mean that casuals need to adapt. How? Instead of being efficient and farming 1000 mats, you would farm 100 and go back to town. Why? If you get ganked, not fight back, you lose 50%, so well, it's not that much. You could also fight back, lose less mats, but open to be ganked again.

Personally I believe the world being so large might help casuals, also no fast travel helps as well. If we consider time = better gear, then Hardcore players will also have an advantage. The will have access to faster mounts, so again will have the upper hand on casuals.
This is also what I keep wondering. Why would a hardcore player need a casual. Farming mats? They can do it themselves. Farming special mats only certain classes can do? Can level alt, or other hardcore will do it.
I still find no place where they would need a casual.

Caeryl

^ The answer to all your questions is simple ^

“Ashes is not a game for everyone”

Not all games should cater to the hour-a-day type of player. Someone who can’t put in time to learn the game will also not have time to:
- take part in node seiges or defenses
- participate in mayor elections/contests
- arrange caravan attacks or defenses
- hone a trade craft on pace with other players

These are genuinely time-impacted areas of core gameplay aspects that casuals simply cannot interact with reliably because they cannot or will not invest time into Ashes. Which is entirely fair, it’s a game, but that doesn’t mean all of those aspects should be rebalanced around those causal players at the detriment of players who do invest their time and effort.

Asraiel

VmanGman wrote: »

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.

i understand the concern but i also have to say Casual means a gametime of around 8 hours a week
and the game is playerdriven so in the end i must say the game aint designed for casuals with all the mechanics in place shure they will reach max level at some point in time but by then hardcore players may be allredy top geared. but that opens oportunitys because items continue to drop and crafters wont stop crafting and the later arriveing casuals do not need to switching gear in the same way than the first arivals had to to get better geared and switching around everytime they drop soemthing. the market will support them the good stuff for a price so they can save their money and directly buy the best instead of going thru the steps like the others had to and dont need to endure the frustration that you may get the wanted drop from a monster after beating the dungeon for the 100th time just to be the one to finaly get the item.

limitation in the gear is the wrong way shure it needs to be balanced but the game has a subscription and the player want to get something for their money.

but to lower your concern you also have to think about where players getting skills from gear and weapon is only one side. level guild level church level and many more are also important and those things wont be high at the start so late comers have the opportunity to enter a allredy high leveled guild and nodes are leveled up so they have access to more content and stuff then the first commers.

Dygz wrote: »

Again, hardcore-challenge players tend only play with hardcore-challenge players. True.
It's not particularly true for hardcore-time players.

Primaly i would say yes Hardcore players play with those that are mostly online when they are online and since they follow a goal and invest time to achive that goal they group up with those that share that goal and so often tend to play with other hardcore players rather than casuals.

in open world pvp is it diffrent there it matter where in the world you life cuase asians tend to only pvp those that are interested in pvp, in eu however pvp players love to attack pve players or players that are in mobgrind or questing and dont have the focus on other players. these pvp players enjoy simply to cause harm to inocent players or love to do pvp if they know they have the gear advantage or have a bigger groupe. cant tell how many times i died while doing some ressgrind or questing solo just to get keilled by a groupe or a assassing that was sneaking upon me. so in pvp its realy diffrent eu hardcores pvps prefer to attack casual pve the most. sad but true

AidanKD

The entirety of this thread is zero compromise on @VmanGman. I don't expect you to agree with everything that is said here not at all. But going through I pretty much see you disagree with just about everything on here.

If you don't have the ability to be open minded and impartial then you limit yourself to just trying to push a point indiscriminately.

I've seen plenty of evidence given in this thread of existing games with a practically horizontal gear progression (GW2 for example) - and examples of a strong vertical progression in gear (Archeage). The fact that Ashes will be pretty snug in the middle should be reassurance for you but it doesn't seem to be enough. Unless this magic number of 20-30% can be achieved which I am sure you have determined that it is the mathematically perfect solution to all gearing in MMORPGs - you won't be happy.

Sometimes if you can't agree with someone on something, then you have to just agree to disagree at that point. It's perfectly fine to have a difference of opinion (this applies to some of the commenters as well) - but can't you see the sheer volume of people that just don't agree?

For my personal take on this, I am a casual player. I am also pretty crap at PvP though I do enjoy it but it stresses me out because I suck at it. The general concensus says that I am not really going to be the strongest demograph in this game, however I accept that I will just be lower down in the food chain, same as any other MMOs I play/have played. And that's fine. This is an RPG isn't it? Isn't the whole appeal of these games to level up and get stronger in the game and have something to show for it?

And what time frame and commitment are you expecting to be required from a player upon hitting "max level" and achieving essentially their Best gear available which will result in 30% additional power? Is it going to take weeks, months, a few months, half a year? Longer? Gear is going to be a fundamental part of keeping the economy booming and it's been said in this thread but who is going to bother doing content towards getting better gear if it's negligible? We as humans are simple we like bigger numbers it sets off endorphins and you can't program or quantify that with maths. Fun is fun and satisfaction is satisfying.

Let the corruption system balance the griefing, we will have bounty hunters to help here these systems will be iteratively balanced (hopefully) so that we can keep the fun parts of the game without too many minorities ruining it for the mass.

Sylvanar

VmanGman wrote: »

For some reason this basic concept is difficult to understand for some. So we faithfully press on.

So far, in this 6 pages worth of thread, literally not a single person has agreed with you. I dunno which "some" you are taking about cuz this feels more like everyone.

One more simple fact for these "casual players" you are talking about. Play genres other then MMO cuz if you don't have time this genre isn't for them. Never mind AoC, MMO itself isn't for everyone.

Not to mention you have contradicted yourself so many times. You say make it skill based for casuals to have a chance and then keep on saying that casuals don't have skill as well. I really don't understand the point of this thread anymore.

You have made zero logically sound argument about why it should be how you want it other than "10% is a lot".
How do you know that? The game hasnt even been released yet.
Where are you getting these numbers and conclusion from? All the archtypes arent even fleshed out yet.

I even showed you using gear power based percentages that the difference between someone who put in some time into the game and an hardcore wont be much gear-wise and then you moved on to how "1% is a lot". NO IT IS NOT.

I can only conclude that you are more intent on arguing than debating at this point and would request others to not comment on this thread anymore.

Dygz

Asraiel wrote: »

Primaly i would say yes Hardcore players play with those that are mostly online when they are online and since they follow a goal and invest time to achieve that goal they group up with those that share that goal and so often tend to play with other hardcore players rather than casuals.

Again - that is true specifically for elitist hardcore-challenge/hardcore-time players.
It is not particularly true for casual-challenge/hardcore-time players.
It is also not true for hardcore-challenge/casual-time players.
Most MMORPG players are some form of casual.

I have hardcore-time, but I am a casual challenge player and I am not elitist.
Which means I have plenty of time to help players with casual time and still achieve my other goals.
This is typical of casual players because even hardcore-challenge/casual-time players appreciate the help from others to be as hardcore-challenge as their short time allows and will reciprocate that type of help. Especially when it comes to gear acquisition.

There will be plenty of guilds that are some form of casual who will help their casual-time members acquire competitive gear. And, there will be plenty of citizens of a Node who have hardcore-time but casual goals, like helping and/or mentoring other players.
Remember that Ashes has a Mentoring system. And that is not going to primarily be limited to elitist hardcore-challenge/hardcore-time players.

When it comes to the PvP battles that Ashes is designed for - caravans and sieges - all types of players will be playing together. Who plays with whom will have little, if anything, to do with who is casual and who hardcore.
Also, who you help acquire armor really has nothing to do with playstyle - other than, perhaps, the very niche playstyle of elitist hardcore-challenge/hardcore-time players.

Asraiel wrote: »

in open world pvp is it diffrent there it matter where in the world you life cuase asians tend to only pvp those that are interested in pvp, in eu however pvp players love to attack pve players or players that are in mobgrind or questing and dont have the focus on other players. these pvp players enjoy simply to cause harm to inocent players or love to do pvp if they know they have the gear advantage or have a bigger groupe. cant tell how many times i died while doing some ressgrind or questing solo just to get keilled by a groupe or a assassing that was sneaking upon me. so in pvp its realy diffrent eu hardcores pvps prefer to attack casual pve the most. sad but true

I have no clue what game(s) you're referring to but it sounds like they didn't have a Karma/Corruption mechanic to deter ganking. People who have played games with Karma report that it works very well to minimize occurrences of ganking. Corruption is designed to be even harsher than Karma.
If Corruption does not work as promised to deter ganking, gear is not going to matter for "casuals" who want quit.
When I'm not in the mood for PvP combat, I don't care whether I win or lose the battle. I care that I've been forced to PvP when I want to be doing something else in the game. If that happens too many times, I'm going to quit in any case. Gear is irrelevant. And that is true for tons of people who don't love PvP combat.

So...again... the devs are going to balance gear during Alpha 2 and the Betas.
And what kind of gear casuals have will not be a factor for winning and losing caravan battles and sieges because those will be a mix of players - hardcore v casual will be irrelevant when it comes to who wins and loses.
What causes someone to quit from being killed over and over again by stronger players will have little to do with gear disparities and everything to do with Corruption not working as promised. And if Corruption does not work as promised, Ashes is doomed in any case.

Caww

So many people have excess time to apply themselves to gaming it's not fair to restrict their advancement. Teenagers, young adults, unemployed, retired people are all going to be able to spend much more time on AoC than people with jobs and families, that's just the reality; most casuals already understand this.

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