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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Dygz

That's not a pickle.

VmanGman

Dygz wrote: »

That's not a pickle.

You love to disagree, but whether we’re in a pickle or not is the pettiest thing I’ve seen you disagree on so far.

Being in a pickle literally means being in a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. You accusing me of one thing before the game is launched and me accusing you of the same thing before the game is launched, is a text book definition of a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. It is by definition being in a pickle.

Azherae

VmanGman wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

That's not a pickle.

You love to disagree, but whether we’re in a pickle or not is the pettiest thing I’ve seen you disagree on so far.

Being in a pickle literally means being in a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. You accusing me of one thing before the game is launched and me accusing you of the same thing before the game is launched, is a text book definition of a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. It is by definition being in a pickle.

Except that the easy solution would be 'waiting longer' and could be undertaken by both sides with no meaningful cost to them.

VmanGman

Azherae wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

That's not a pickle.

You love to disagree, but whether we’re in a pickle or not is the pettiest thing I’ve seen you disagree on so far.

Being in a pickle literally means being in a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. You accusing me of one thing before the game is launched and me accusing you of the same thing before the game is launched, is a text book definition of a situation to which you can’t find an easy solution. It is by definition being in a pickle.

Except that the easy solution would be 'waiting longer' and could be undertaken by both sides with no meaningful cost to them.

Of course… which is why I made the statement that we are in pickle to show that neither of us has any more basis to their claims than the other because the game is not finished. I am willing to admit that. However, Dygz will bang his head on the wall and disagree to the bitter end no matter how ridiculous it is.

Dygz

LMFAO
You are the one banging your head on the wall disagreeing.
I'm the one who's been saying we have to wait to see what gets implemented.
That's not a pickle, that's the fundamental nature of game Forums.

VmanGman

Dygz wrote: »

LMFAO
You are the one banging your head on the wall disagreeing.
I'm the one who's been saying we have to wait to see what gets implemented.

And I agree with that. However, while the game is in development I can bring up concerns. That’s what development is for.

You on the other hand disagree that we are in a pickle when we are clearly in a pickle. You accuse me of having poor assumptions of Ashes before the game is finished and I accuse you of the same thing. That’s by definition being in a pickle.

CROW3

VmanGman wrote: »

You on the other hand disagree that we are in a pickle when we are clearly in a pickle. You accuse me of having poor assumptions of Ashes before the game is finished and I accuse you of the same thing. That’s by definition being in a pickle.

I think you need to watch more baseball. To extend the analogy here, you're just throwing the ball to yourself in an empty field muttering 'You're going to be out. You're going to be out!'

VmanGman

CROW3 wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

You on the other hand disagree that we are in a pickle when we are clearly in a pickle. You accuse me of having poor assumptions of Ashes before the game is finished and I accuse you of the same thing. That’s by definition being in a pickle.

I think you need to watch more baseball. To extend the analogy here, you're just throwing the ball to yourself in an empty field muttering 'You're going to be out. You're going to be out!'

lol?

Caeryl

This is two carebears against the world in here, more annoying by the minute

VmanGman

Caeryl wrote: »

This is two carebears against the world in here, more annoying by the minute

That’s because it’s mostly “hardcore” gamers who come to fight a very simple idea. It’s something that Intrepid clearly needs to be mindful of since they talked about it. I’m just also talking about it… which is normal for a game that’s in development.

I have good news for your annoyance though! Don’t open the thread.

VmanGman

I’ve said all I had to say. This thread has been at the top for long enough for Intrepid to see it which is all that matters. I’ll see you all on the next thread. Take care!

bloodprophet

Interesting the thread was quite for a few hours.I sleep and get up to 60+ new comments.

Azherae is right many people quit for many reasons. A lot of them because as soon as they meet any kind of minor challenge the lack the mental fortitude to overcome and push through.
Many analogies can be made here.
When I go the the gym for BJJ I don't want to grapple with people weaker then me(casuals) I want tor roll with people that will push me and make me better(Hardcore). I find no joy if there is no challenge and that is often the reason I leave games.
GW2 was brought up earlier, that in their expansions there is no power upgrade. I can only speak for me but I will not be running raids for cosmetics and lol's. Rather punch my self in the face.

Also interesting is the new article going around today and many videos being made in regards to Elden Ring being "to hard".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm2OBDHIy3s

All that said I don't think 20-30% between the weakest of the weak and the strongest of the strong gear is anywhere near enough. As most people will end up in the 40-60% range of overall gear power if not slightly higher long term of that curve. Leaving 5-10% difference from the average player and the top tier players and there by making any kind of "hard mode" PvE meaningless and boring. The 40-50% difference between the weakest gear and the best gear I think will be the sweet spot as it allows enough room for growth with out limiting those us us that like to
be challenged.

Also most gear will be crafted not found like most games and not be bound. So acquiring gear for casuals could actually be easier. Either getting hand me down gear as the hardcore get better gear and clear out their inventory or just getting gear from friends , guildies and the local markets.

Noaani

VmanGman wrote: »

If you come across a casual that is carrying goods, you have every reason to attack.

No, I do not. I have better, more rewarding things to do. Attacking you will slow me and my guild down with what ever it is that we are doing

Caravans and wars are different. However, since there is (or should be) organization in these activities, that gear disparity should be able to be worked through.

Caeryl

VmanGman wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

This is two carebears against the world in here, more annoying by the minute

That’s because it’s mostly “hardcore” gamers who come to fight a very simple idea. It’s something that Intrepid clearly needs to be mindful of since they talked about it. I’m just also talking about it… which is normal for a game that’s in development.

I have good news for your annoyance though! Don’t open the thread.

“Simple idea”… You’ve spent 10 pages complaining about a non issue and have stuck your head in the sand when people rightly point out that the vast majority will have average gear which turns that 50% disparity into the magical 25% you’ve been crying for.

0% at lvl1 in 1/5 tier to 50% in lvl5 in 5/5 tier. There’s a whole entire range in there that you have insisted players cannot ever hope to obtain if they don’t no-life for 40hr/wk

Goalid

BlackBrony wrote: »

Goalid wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I dunno why people insist on using the word cater.
Casuals will be well-supported in Ashes.

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Ashes_of_Creation#Casual_vs._hardcore_players
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP-lOFzYkCM&t=1115s
mark: 18:05

Watching the video, the most important quotes from Steven were:
That casuals would eventually be able to get the same accomplishments as hardcore players, just at a later date. Nobody here disagrees with that, and that's how it should be.
That hardcore players would need large casual player populations to help develop their nodes. And I think that's a wonderful way to have hardcore players interact friendly with casual players, but this still isn't saying that casuals will be able to compete in PvP with hardcore players or that there will be a short gear grind to help casuals, which is what this post is about.

Why? Why would the hardcore players need casuals if they have so much more time to play? Also, is farming fun? Is getting ganked while farming fun?
As casual you won't be able to join dungeons, except maybe on the weekends. That means that your knowledge of the dungeon itself is lower, your gear is lower. Why would hardcore players take you with when they can take another Hardcore?
That leaves you with farming. So, what exactly are you offering that hardcore players can't do themselves? We could say that leveling an alt takes a lot of time, and maybe professions will reflect this, so maybe a casual will bring what a hardcore player needs.
Does that mean that casuals will only farm close to the node? What about ganks?
I think the game is greatly designed for people with 6+hours a day, but I struggle to find what casuals will do, that is actually fun.

Node experience is needed to prevent node atrophy, and once a vassal node reaches it's max capacity, that extra experience will go to the parent node. A guild with 150 hardcore players gets a HUGE benefit by having their node be a popular part of the server with a lot of casuals. If they just go around ganking people all day long the casuals will just go to a different node and build their own metropolis, or to a metropolis that let's them do all the content they want such as caravans, PvE, and crafting. And then the hardcore players lose out on all the node experience and guild castle taxes.

Casuals can have fun as well as hardcore players. You don't have to be going for a guild castle in order to do PvE content, arenas, caravans, exploration, etc. And again, the corruption system deters ganks as well.

Asraiel

I use to play hardcore when i start playing a game that interests me up to the point of reching max level beeing geared and leveled my proffesiions. at the start i look for mates that share a simular effort in playing and have simular goals but after a while into the game specialy in long time or forever games you start to raise lowies to join you at the maxed levels and geared table to have companions to do endcontent. but by the raising its always important that the casual or whoever plays learn to play 1 char first and beeing there to aid if needed but not to fastlevel. learing to play a character is important learning how mechanics work is important.

i know it well everytime i made a break for several month and returned to the game i had to relearn the game tecnicly.

but on forevergames there is allways a huge population of gamers that are frendly and willing to help new players so casuals always has it easy and getting encuraged to keep on playing the game.

and for the topic itself the faster player may have the gear befor you but once you get there you also would want that gear and then the both of you are equal again. and also the casuals haveing a advantage that isnt in the game directly. dungeon runs, raids and else had to be organized by players and that organization takes a lot of time a lot of work in spreadsheets and stuff like that managing the discord or TS the guild site and so on. specialy raids are primarly planed by hardcore players and guilds. so casuals can profit from the work of the hardcores, honor them by letting them have a bit faster higher gear wy not.

JamesSunderland

Azherae wrote: »

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Not gonna lie, i would be extremely interested in those numbers.

Sure, but bear in mind that these things are huge. Like, 40 page design document huge. I couldn't possibly give you an airtight data struct without revealing a ton of stuff about the development of my own project, which I'm not at liberty to do.

And as multiple people pointed out in previous posts, the entire premise is broken, it only makes sense if 40% is the distance between 'slightly better than stock gear' and 'Slightly less than best in slot gear'. Which isn't what Intrepid's aim is even given as. It's literally 'your character gets half their power from their gear'. That could easily mean:

Your base Constitution stat at level 50 is 75, and your additional Constitution stat from your gear is also 75.

Or it could mean 'In order to get past the average part of the calculation for damage, your character's naked strength would cause them to deal only half damage, so you will need gear to reach what we designed as full damage' (this is the way I know how to design things, you do it backward from 'intended full damage')

I mean there is no need to go that advanced when we still don't have all the necessary information.
We can still play around with the statements and some concepts.

Even tho not set in stone we have a statement of Steven talking about a ~6% to ~12% increase on base stats value on gear from a grade to the following at 1:02:58

https://youtu.be/HD5WKztW0S4?t=3778

Currently there is have 6 grades: Poor, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary, not taking gear tier in consideration, this alone would be a ~34% to ~76% increase in power from the poor grade gear to the same legendary grade gear.

With that in mind i would like to make something clear as a lot of people seems to not fully comprehend how "Gear influence on a player's overall power"actually works and it's direct correlation to how skills work so i will give a brief explanation about it.

Player's overall power refers almost directly to players overall damage output.
What is the source of players overall damage output(other than basic attacks)? Skills
With The statement "Gear has approximately a 40-50% influence on a player's overall power in the game."
It most likely means 40-50% of the damage caused though skills is influenced by gear.

To better illustrate this concept i will give some examples, let's say the fighter class has 3 main skills in its dps rotation and the fighter in question has 100 phys attack stat because of a 100 Phys Attack Poor Sword equipped (Ignoring power base stats additive of multiplier to Phys Attack)
(Negecting Defense formula or using 0% phys damage mitigation while naked or 50% phys damage mitigation provided by gear/stats as base.)

Strike: Deals 125 + 75% Phys Attack = 200 dmg
Slash: Deals 100 + 100% Phys Attack = 200 dmg
Thrust: Deals 75 + 125% Phys Attack = 200 dmg

This would mean that ~50% of this character overall power is influenced by gear and ~50% of this character overall power is the skills base power.

If we take the same 100 Phys Attack Poor Sword to Legendary Grade Tier(~34% to ~76% increase in power) from the poor grade to Legendary Grade(~134 to ~176 Phys Attack)

Strike: Deals 125 + 75% Phys Attack = ~225 dmg to ~257 dmg 12,5% to 28,5% dmg increase(from gear)
Slash: Deals 100 + 100% Phys Attack = ~234 dmg to ~276 dmg 17% to 38% dmg increase(from gear)
Thrust: Deals 75 + 125% Phys Attack = ~242 dmg to ~295 dmg 21% to 47,5% dmg increase(from gear)

The main tool to control "Gear influence on a player's overall power" is definitely the numbers on Skill base damage and the attack stat multiplier. Some games simple use Skills base damage(phys attack for example) + 100% of the attack stats as multiplier but Archeage for example has skills that go up to 990% of the attack stats + Low Skill Base Damage which certainly is insane and certainly is one of the sources for the crazy gear disparity in the game

Azherae

I really should put my own posts into the analytics when I run them, but I'm not about to write a new script for the other tab, so I can't quickly find the last time I explained it.

Therefore short version, with crunching in the spoiler tag. Things we 'know' as of Alpha-1 indicators and other claims. I'm treating 'a page worth' as 'not going very advanced'.

1. Weapon Procs are enough of a system that they can probably be considered to matter and weapon attacks will be an option.
2. TTK is intended to be 30-60s or so
3. 20-30 hotbar slots, let's guess 15-18 attack skills
4. 15-18s cooldown on many skills
5. Tab Targeting is a thing.

So logically Intrepid:

1. Expects a player to take a bit over 3% of their health in damage per second as an average in a fair fight.
2. Doesn't expect most fights to contain more than 2x uses of most of the skills
3. Intends for players to strike with their weapon sometimes, enough so that it's worth putting points into that, so I'd guess at WORST 25% damage from weapon attacks (but I'll actually sorta-ignore it from here on)

We don't know what the cooldown of Dodge will actually be, but players have given lots of feedback that they don't want high mobility, and similarly we are at 'Split Body' with huge hitboxes/attack cones, making actually missing in a way that we can force, less likely.

Even assuming evasion, that gives us some number of uses of skills at the lowest, if 20 hit, at 4% damage each, and melee works decently, opponent dies. If we ignore melee, then 25 skills total. Let's be 'generous' and assume that skills take 45 frames maximum, to animate, so 0.75 seconds, around the point where the 'windup half' is reactable.

At a 40% or higher gear gap, even if we take it down to '40% gear gap only results in 25% extra damage', then the higher level person goes from 4% per skill on average, to 5%, and only needs to land 20 skills.

A player whose personal skill and accuracy rate is 90% but with lesser gear could land 25 of 28 skills for 100% damage. The player with the 5% damage per skill only needs to land 20 of the 28 skills, still requires almost 75%, though.

But we don't give endurance rewards, so, if we assume TopTierGear player has equal skill and lands 90% of attacks, they only need to do 22 attacks. NormalTierDude would have to force 5 mistakes beyond the 10% 'miss rate' for this to even be close.

Can players manage to force opponents to make a mistake every 6 seconds in a low mobility game? I think so.

Unfortunately all of this was based on offense stats only, and as soon as TopTierGear has better defensive gear too, this is a blowup, requiring someone to force their opponent to make a meaningful targeting or judgement mistake every four seconds or less.

Extending the factors by lowering the accuracy rate below 90% doesn't actually help NormalTierDude, it makes it worse, especially if Intrepid's plan is anywhere based on 'improving the damage of skills because people miss' (because it will almost certainly increase the multipliers for other reasons, if it doesn't, skill actually will trump gear by a LOT). It would explicitly rely on the opponent being inexperienced and not knowing what they're doing, or the execution difficulty of the game being enough that stress points actually affect this.

But Tab Targeting is a thing.

A gear gap of 20%, then resulting in a 12% difference in damage, makes TopTierGear need to land 22 attacks, and have to do at least 24, extending the survivability of NormalTier for roughly 3-4 seconds on average, or, if you look at it the other way, giving them 24 chances to force an error instead of 22. They could win here by forcing 3 total errors, within '24 seconds'. Add in the defensive gear again and they probably have to force 5 errors still in order to win, but TopTierGear still had to make 3 additional meaningful attacks, which still takes 3-4 seconds. 5 forced errors in 27-28 seconds is cutting it close, as it should.

To do the 'calculation' the other way, just assume TopTierGear isn't that good at the game yet and makes these errors on their own unforced, and NormalTier is a 'casual' who can't exactly tell when they caused it and when it was just their opponent's skill lacking (but they at least have the skill to hit with their own attacks). In case A, TopTierGear has to make 5 mistakes in order to fail to kill in the time it takes NormalTier (high skill) to kill them, in case B, they only have to make 3 mistakes for it to be even.

From there you can add an easy multiplier scale. If both players are at 80% accuracy rate, STK (starting from all previous premises) goes up to 32 vs 25 in case A, and 32 vs 28 in case B. If you started from 'make sure the TTK is 30s even at an 80% accuracy rate, then you're now at '7 mistakes in 30s' vs '4 mistakes in 30s'

If instead you went '30s is the fastest TTK for a perfect high (90%) accuracy fight' then simply extend by 'the time it takes to do the 5 additional attacks, which we will set at 6 seconds for simplicity:
'7 Mistakes in 36s' vs '4 mistakes in 36s'. But this is, again, before counting for TopTierGear's better defensive stats, which will always raise the number of errors one must force (let's say 9 vs 6). The ratios actually stay the same here, for the most part, until you get to the point where you need to start saying 'this game's accuracy is so volatile that distinguishing forced errors from unforced is difficult'. I have no opinion on if that's something to consider here.

Human error rate in competitive games of this type depends on a lot of things, but the distance between '1 mistake every 10 seconds' and '1 mistake every 6 seconds' is pretty large.

This WOULD have been my 'proof' if the premise itself wasn't off.

BlackBrony

I keep seeing this. A player brings a concern and it's told "this is fixed by this, and they way they're implementing it". Said player pushes and now it's told "lol you need to test it first, we don't know all things".
Like, get your facts straight.
You can't criticize something because it's already fixed by how the game works but it's not tested so my implementation might or might not work.
You bring the concern and everyone tells you you're a moron basically.

I'm not sure what will happen, but in a game where resources are scarce, I think casuals might become a loot pinata, free loot for the hardcore players.
If I have farmed 100 herbs, NOT fighting back means I lose a lot more then fighting back, even if I have no chance of winning. If you remember, not fighting back gives the other player corruption, but if out of my 2 hours of game-play, I spent one and a half farming, then I won't feel like losing half my farming when I can opt to lose 25% of it.
So, do I really have a choice? Yes, if I have not farmed a single item, but if I did, there's not really a choice. Given the hardcore player corruption won't make me able to kill it because the fear disparity is still there, and if 1 innocent kills negates 50% of my power, everyone will say that corruption is too hard.
My point comes from
- Casual players don't have much time therefore will engage in solo activities

Noaani

BlackBrony wrote: »

I keep seeing this. A player brings a concern and it's told "this is fixed by this, and they way they're implementing it". Said player pushes and now it's told "lol you need to test it first, we don't know all things".
Like, get your facts straight.
You can't criticize something because it's already fixed by how the game works but it's not tested so my implementation might or might not work.
You bring the concern and everyone tells you you're a moron basically.

What it usually is, rather than what you are saying, is someone comes in and says "I have this issue that I think may have been overlooked"

Then some of us here say "that has been taken care of via this specific system or mechanic, so your concern that it hasn't been thought of need not be a worry".

The first person then often (not always) starts arguing that they don't think the thing will work. This stage is far more likely to happen if the initial post stating the concern was accompanied with a "plan" to circumvent the issue the person was talking about.

A person that gets to this stage has either forgotten that their issue was that something may have been overlooked, or that was never their intention at all, and they just had an idea for a system or some such that they think is cool, and want to tell us all about it.

So really, we aren't saying that the issue that the person bought up is fixed, we are saying that it has been considered, and there is no point in being concerned about it until it is tested. If it is tested and turns out to not be effective, then sure, a discussion about other options may well be an idea.

I'm not sure what will happen, but in a game where resources are scarce, I think casuals might become a loot pinata, free loot for the hardcore players.

This is the part that all arguments here hinge on.

If it turns out that me - a top end player - has no reservation in attacking you - a casual player - to take some plants that you pulled out of the ground, then both of us should be complaining to Intrepid that the game needs more top end content.

If I have any content at all to run (I mean any - dungeons, open world content, a caravan, a guild or node war, a siege, probably even an arena match), then I am not going to want to risk getting corruption or experience debt. Your plants that you pulled out of the ground are significantly lower value than what I could stand to lose, so why on earth would I?

The only time I would is if I have nothing to do - which is why if you are being attacked, both you and I should be telling Intrepid they need to add more top end content to the game.

As a casual, it may well be in your best interest to fight back. However, you should consider it from the other perspective as well. If you fight back, you are letting me take your stuff with absolutely no punishment to myself. This encourages me to attack you next time I see you, as the actual thing I want to avoid (corruption and/or experience debt) is not something you are going to inflict on me, based on history.

On the other hand, if you do not fight back, and make it clear that me taking those meager little plants you have on you will result in me gaining corruption, then I may not even continue the attack this time, let alone next time. Remember, I only gain corruption if I kill you - and with a ttk of around 30 seconds, I have all the time in the world to stop attacking you if you make it clear that you are not going to fight back.

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