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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BlackBrony

VmanGman wrote: »

What you are describing is an issue in theme park MMOs. In sandbox/sandpark MMOs this is not an issue. The content is the players and events they bring forward not the necessarily the gear you chase. People will always have meaningful progress to make in a sandpark MMO as vast as AoC.

Noaani advocates for Combat Trackers, and hardcore raids, so yeah, I would say preference is of a more themepark game

Goalid

I don't know why y'all are continuing the conversation. The thread has looped 2-3 times already.

Noaani

BlackBrony wrote: »

VmanGman wrote: »

What you are describing is an issue in theme park MMOs. In sandbox/sandpark MMOs this is not an issue. The content is the players and events they bring forward not the necessarily the gear you chase. People will always have meaningful progress to make in a sandpark MMO as vast as AoC.

Noaani advocates for Combat Trackers, and hardcore raids, so yeah, I would say preference is of a more themepark game

Not at all.

You should pay more attention to the detail of what I'd like to see, rather than just assuming what I want is aspects of games you have seen.

Ashes will fail if it is a theme park. Ashes will also fail if it doesn't give players content to run - which is why Intrepid are making it a themebox (or sand park) MMO, as opposed to a sandbox or theme park.

Besides all of that, neither raids nor combat trackers dictate a game be a theme park.

Noaani

Goalid wrote: »

I don't know why y'all are continuing the conversation. The thread has looped 2-3 times already.

Has it? Which page was the second time we started debating what the difference between a theme park, sandbox, themebox and sand park MMO was?

I mean, if the thread has looped, we must have talked about this before, right?

Sylvanar

It has looped wrt the topic of discussion. Themepark, sandbox, bla bla is so irrelevant... ewwww it feels like when a fight devolves from proper forms and flow to just hitting each other with shit.

Dygz

True.

VmanGman

Sylvanar wrote: »

It has looped wrt the topic of discussion. Themepark, sandbox, bla bla is so irrelevant... ewwww it feels like when a fight devolves from proper forms and flow to just hitting each other with shit.

That's what happens when Noaani and I are having a perfectly civilized conversation about the OP and I say sandpark which triggers @CROW3, @Dygz, and @Azherae to start an entire argument about how sandpark and themebox are two different things when in fact they are the same exact thing.

Edit: word

Dygz

They are the same just as Primary Archetype and class are the same.

VmanGman

Dygz wrote: »

They are the same just as Primary Archetype and class are the same.

Not even close. If they are so different, please explain the difference.

I can easily explain the difference between primary archetype and class because they are indeed different. Primary archetype is the character/role/job (whatever you want to call it) choice that you make when you first create your character, while class is the combination between your primary and secondary archetype. Please explain the difference between themebox and sandpark.

Noaani

Sylvanar wrote: »

It has looped wrt the topic of discussion. Themepark, sandbox, bla bla is so irrelevant... ewwww it feels like when a fight devolves from proper forms and flow to just hitting each other with shit.

Discussion is discussion.

Sometimes things move a little bit away from the original topic. But that is good - that is what stops threads just looping back on themselves.

RazThemun

I think it should be more talent based and not simply time investment. Take the game of chess... who would want to play chess if told you get pawns... then in a week you get a bishop.... then your knights...etc... all the while, playing against other players with a board full of all their pieces, simply because they started plating months before you or they play 40 hours a week and you play 10. Give the players their abilities and let their minds actually create the advantage in the fight. In something as simple as pvp, just have new higher gear affect pve mobs and not pvp buffs. If you are as good as you state you are you don't have to out gear everyone.

Gandalfthegrape

Gear should have no place in pvp. FF14 does it right.

Caww

Some people do not have great talent but are willing to work hard and spend time grinding out gear to offset their weaknesses. Their strength is their extra time so the more highly talented players will just have to adjust to better equipped players, some of which will still be easily defeated. Highly skilled and highly equipped players will be an elite force to reckon with and that's just the way it is.

bloodprophet

There is supposed to be no separation of gear between PVP and PVE. Gear is just gear. And almost all of it will be crafted.

Noaani

RazThemun wrote: »

I think it should be more talent based and not simply time investment. Take the game of chess... who would want to play chess if told you get pawns... then in a week you get a bishop.... then your knights...etc... all the while, playing against other players with a board full of all their pieces, simply because they started plating months before you or they play 40 hours a week and you play 10. Give the players their abilities and let their minds actually create the advantage in the fight. In something as simple as pvp, just have new higher gear affect pve mobs and not pvp buffs. If you are as good as you state you are you don't have to out gear everyone.

Well that is a fairly poor argument.

Do you know why there are so few chess grandmasters? Because it takes a lot of time and effort to get good enough.

You made an argument that chess would suck if the result were largely a function of how much time you have invested, all while ignoring the fact that chess success is largely dictated by how much time you have invested.

In both chess and MMO's, skill comes in to play in relation to people that have invested a similar amount of time as you. However, there is virtually no competitive activity in which you could expect to do well in the situation you outlined above where you are just starting out and are going up against people that have spent 40 hours a week for months on said activity.

ClintHardwood

OP's post offer's terrible advice because if gear provides so little benefit, players will roam the world in welfare gear, killing people without any risk. Gear should provide ~70% of raw combat stats minimum or else few would aim to craft and buy high level equips.

BodedeBigode

Dont make any sense what u said. Becase u get small amount of bonus along the lvl or u have tiers. The last tiers would have to be hard to get, if dont tha game is s***. But considering AOC would be a good game only the hardcores would have this itens. So u have a casual that have a lower tier iten and a hardcore with a high tier item. IN THE END U HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM THAT U TRY TO SOLVE.

30% of power from gear is ridiculous low, the 70% is what? if only lvl no one will gonna play for 20 strength bonus for a lengendary item.

obs: there's a link to a interview with steven by asmongold they talk about that (is in the wiki about) https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Weapons#cite_note-interview-19-July-2020-53:59-16

superhero6785

Nope. Your power level should reflect your time investment in the game. I despise games with any sort of scaling or power-flattening mechanics for this exact reason. If you can't hang with the big dogs, then go play with the little dogs. There's already a corruption system in place to prevent griefing.

With that said - I do hope they implement a ranked PvP arena so that casuals can still enjoy PvP against similar geared players and hardcore players can flex their top ranks with unique titles/banners/cosmetics, etc.

Amstrong

I think I agree with VmanGman.

My experience with WOW was that causal players really excelled at questing, while raiders excelled at dungeons, and PVPers excelled at PVP combat.

So if I'm understanding correctly, if all three types of gamers are equally vested in their respective interests, there shouldn't be a significant disadvantage when engaging each other in PVP combat.

If however, I'm not understanding, and a highly vested player decides to fight a new player, then I think it's obvious the new player won't have a chance of survival, unless some mechanic is built into the game, and I think that's the corruption system? it doesn't go without consequences for the Ganker, but yes the new player should die, suffer, but karma should be a bitch for the ganker too.

truelyyy

I totally agree with OP. The gear increases should be very incremental to give a fairer pvp experience across the board. Of course in some situation level + gear will just = auto win but I hope for the gap not to be so large as it makes for more fun pvp.

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