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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NishUK

Noaani wrote: »

Completely disregarding player skill because your gear is higher is called being gear carried, in PvE and PvP.

Gear is literally an indicator of what you have accomplished in a game.

If a game puts in some big boss mob, and I am able to kill it and you are not, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

If a game has a strong economic side and I am able to earn more money than you, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

If a game has a community focus, and I have friends that hand me gear, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

In each of the above three cases, it is someone playing the game better than you. You can tell they are playing the game better than you because they have better gear than you.

If they are playing the game as a whole (as in, all aspects of the game combined) better than you, why do you think you should be able to beat them?

Noaani wrote: »

FROM ANOTHER THREAD....
Now, on to the issue with your last paragraph. If those things all happen, the game has a worthwhile life of 6 - 9 months. You may well enjoy it for that 6 - 9 months, but Steven will be out millions of dollars.

Overlook the entire playerbase.

Your proposals, ensure YOU have a great time, for however long the server stays afloat.

Now put yourself in the position of a new player and someone has 9 months ahead of him and continues playing.

Your experiences on EQ, WoW, FF14 whatever, do not cover at all the experiences of the people who have lived inside open world "dog eat dog world" mmo's that are player driven.
That is literally why Steven cannot shutup about promoting a healthy economy for everyone to take part in because he's one of us, not someone who's only played mmo's that focus on story and raiding alone where you simply get all you want for completing the yellow brick road infront of you!

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Completely disregarding player skill because your gear is higher is called being gear carried, in PvE and PvP.

Gear is literally an indicator of what you have accomplished in a game.

If a game puts in some big boss mob, and I am able to kill it and you are not, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

If a game has a strong economic side and I am able to earn more money than you, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

If a game has a community focus, and I have friends that hand me gear, I should have an edge over you just because of that fact.

In each of the above three cases, it is someone playing the game better than you. You can tell they are playing the game better than you because they have better gear than you.

If they are playing the game as a whole (as in, all aspects of the game combined) better than you, why do you think you should be able to beat them?

Noaani wrote: »

FROM ANOTHER THREAD....
Now, on to the issue with your last paragraph. If those things all happen, the game has a worthwhile life of 6 - 9 months. You may well enjoy it for that 6 - 9 months, but Steven will be out millions of dollars.

Overlook the entire playerbase.

Your proposals, ensure you have a great time, for however long the server stays afloat.

Now put yourself in the position of a new player and someone has 9 months ahead of him and continues playing.

Your experiences on EQ, WoW, FF14 whatever, do not cover at all the experiences of the people who have lived inside open world "dog eat dog world" mmo's that are player driven.
That is literally why Steven cannot shutup about promoting a healthy economy for everyone to take part in because he's one of us, not someone who's only played mmo's that focus on story and raiding alone where you simply get all you want for completing the yellow brick road infront of you!

Hey, now you are starting to see why an action based PvP game where player skill is king, and a tab based PvE MMO where successful completion of content in the game is king are different genres.

As soon as you try and mix them, you have issues.

NishUK

Noaani wrote: »

Hey, now you are starting to see why an action based PvP game where player skill is king, and a tab based PvE MMO where successful completion of content in the game is king are different genres.

As soon as you try and mix them, you have issues.

The issue is you devolving an mmo experience to being completed or not completed.

You enjoy being over rewarded, with as little interaction with the playerbase as possible, that is literally light years away from a competitive mindset.

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

The issue is you devolving an mmo experience to being completed or not completed.

I have literally no idea what you mean by this. When it comes to actual MMO content (encounters, quests etc), you have either completed them or not completed them.

This isn't a distinction I make, it is one most game developers make.

You enjoy being over rewarded, with as little interaction with the playerbase as possible, that is literally light years away from a competitive mindset.

The thing is, the MMO genre was designed to be a cooperative genre more than a competitive one.

NishUK

Noaani wrote: »

The thing is, the MMO genre was designed to be a cooperative genre more than a competitive one.

Yep I know, a "single player co-op game that keeps on getting sequels/expansions", I read you like a book a long time ago...

I don't even want to destroy people like you, you're only after destroying people like me, you can have quests, lore about the world, we can have cgi's and events unlocked on node level ups or whatever and hopefully there will be enough challenging "encounters" to make your brain gasm but there are plenty of avenues where you can co-incide with people who aren't here specifically for it!
I'll be happy to do an encounter, as long as I get the possiblity to complete my transmog or whatever, george farthrite the second who gained immortality (that has mountains of lore) shouting to the Lich Dragon about how he's upset with him about not having a dance with him in his human form 1000 years ago isn't my cup of tea but I'll certainly play along!

The Asian market has millions of people who are into competitive mmo's, hell one of the first mmo's Ultima Online was a competitive one.

Many millions of people want to engage on as many levels as possible with their fellow players, whether that is "my house/shop looks/is more successful than yours" "xxx caravan got to the city before us and they got a higher market value! twats!" "x guild is controlling xxx, we're deciding to go x today, let's go! (" hey but we killed them yesterday!....luckily!)".

This isn't up for debate, you're flat out denying it "go and play a different genre, you're not suited for my game!".

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

The thing is, the MMO genre was designed to be a cooperative genre more than a competitive one.

Yep I know, a "single player co-op game that keeps on getting sequels/expansions", I read you like a book a long time ago...

No, the original EQ needed actual hundreds of players working together to take on some encounters the game had.

Just because you aren't fighting other players, doesn't make it a single player game.

I don't even want to destroy people like you, you're only after destroying people like me

You just aren't getting it.

Ok, so, you're saying I have what I want. Great.

That means end game content with multiple tiers of difficulty. Since there are tiers, the only way to get players to need to run all tiers is to have gear from each tier be needed for the next. this necessitates a fairly large degree of gear progression - more than I would ever want to see in a PvP game.

So, since I am getting what I want, rather than me forcing that gear progression on to you, I am saying that the game you want simply can not be the same game as the game I want.

I am not trying to stop you from having that game, I am simply saying they literally can not be the same game.

Lets say that the game have 6 tiers of raid content before a level cap increase (this is low, it should be 10 - 12). In order for those tiers to matter (as in, prevent players skipping tiers), there needs to be about a 20% increase in performance per tier. This means we are talking a 120% increase in performance from gear just from raids. There should be a similar structure for group content.

So how would you feel in your PvP game is the gear you get from raiding was almost 250% better than the gear you have access to if you don't PvE at all?

That straight up isn't the game you want to play. We both know this.

Tragnar

Noaani wrote: »

If someone has better gear than you, they are better at the game than you.

If some has better gear it is only LIKELY that they are better at the game than you. All mmos in essence are just cookie clickers that reward you for time investment

So it is reasonable to expect that if someone puts 10 000 hours into the game that they dont outright delete players that have put only 1000 hours, but they have only slight edge over them in terms of gear

NishUK

@Noaani

You're making gear explosive for the sake of it!

Asmongold is willing do do raids 50-100 times just to get mount bragging rights, which he will definetly enjoy, his character is literally more complete because of it.

Your selfish progression is of your own making, it's ridiculous.

What merit does your opinion have in this thread? Casuals MUST enjoy the yellow brick road of gearscore else be destroyed? I've been in the most serious PvP contests on Lineage 2 and Archeage, I'm a Tekken veteran, I've been high plat/low diamond on LoL for years on multiple roles, yet you, a PvE co-operative player has way more hunger to straight out flatten people than I do!

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

Asmongold is willing do do raids 50-100 times just to get mount bragging rights, which he will definetly enjoy, his character is literally more complete because of it.

No, he is willing to do a raid 50 - 100 times because content.

Anyone making money off of playing a game is not someone you should point to and say "see? look!"

Also, I gave you my reasoning as to why gear needs to have that much of an increase per tier.

NishUK

Noaani wrote: »

Also, I gave you my reasoning as to why gear needs to have that much of an increase per tier.

If you need that then why haven't you suggested Raid % PvE equipment? "from doing x raid, I have the mirror of Zel'ganus or whatever and I attach it to my chest piece so that the lasers of the gate of doorak dor will not incinerate me!" among other things and you carry on progressing through the raid tiers and getting those sweet collection/unique transmogs.

You want to STOMP people because you've played a PvE co-op mode? bloody hell dude...

Noaani

NishUK wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Also, I gave you my reasoning as to why gear needs to have that much of an increase per tier.

If you need that then why haven't you suggested Raid % PvE equipment? "from doing x raid, I have the mirror of Zel'ganus or whatever and I attach it to my chest piece so that the lasers of the gate of doorak dor will not incinerate me!" among other things and you carry on progressing through the raid tiers and getting those sweet collection/unique transmogs.

You want to STOMP people because you've played a PvE co-op mode? bloody hell dude...

The mechanic you are talking about here is keying.

Players rejected keying in this manner about 15 years ago. It is acceptable in some circumstances, but not as a means to progress to each new tier.

Gear is the key to new content.

Liniker

Noaani wrote: »

If someone has better gear than you, they are better at the game than you.

It really is that simple.

lol... I'm glad they said the highest tier armor will only have a 6-12% stats increase over the previous tier.

This is the kind of people that will get destroyed by a smaller group running around with worse gear and will open forum threads to complain about game not being balanced.

Dygz

Sol Raven wrote: »

Completely disregarding player skill because your gear is higher is called being gear carried, in PvE and PvP.

"Completely" is a concept you are adding to the discussion as far as I can tell.

Sol Raven wrote: »

Now, specifically regarding PvP from now on: You cannot ever put gear above good skill as a meta unless it's an extremely casual MMO that requires little to no player skill, like Runescape. Ashes of Creation will definitely not be that casual, nor should it be with how much of a PvP crowd that it is garnering attention from. Casuals and mindless endless progression fans should stick to clicker games and the MMOs that are meant to support that mentality, not invade or impose their lack of skill based enjoyment onto others.

In an RPG, META should not be a thing.
META is something than non-RPG gamers obsess about.
In an RPG, character build should trump player twitch skills.
And, character build is not just good gear; it's gear choice + ability choice + stat choice.

Sol Raven wrote: »

The idea that gear should trump player skill no matter what honestly baffles me and I hope there is none of that implemented into AoC. The only time someones gear should take priority over someones innate ability and knowledge to play the game should be a vast difference in level or quality of gear, for example a max level player vs a player still halfway or just finishing the story.

"No matter what" is a concept you have added to the discussion as far as I can tell.
I don't think anyone said that gear should trump player skill, so I'm not surprised you are baffled.

What I said is "Gear plus character build should trump player twitch skills."
Player knowledge is not synonymus with player skill. It's especially not synonymous with player twitch skills.
Player knowledge is part of strategic character builds. Yes.

We know some of that will certainly be implemented in Ashes because there is a rock/paper/scissors design for class balance.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Lets say that the game have 6 tiers of raid content before a level cap increase (this is low, it should be 10 - 12). In order for those tiers to matter (as in, prevent players skipping tiers), there needs to be about a 20% increase in performance per tier. This means we are talking a 120% increase in performance from gear just from raids. There should be a similar structure for group content.

So how would you feel in your PvP game is the gear you get from raiding was almost 250% better than the gear you have access to if you don't PvE at all?

It's good then that Ashes is a pvx game, where each of those tiers of pve will be fought over for in pvp, and whoever was better in pvp can claim the better gear and now be marginally better in the next fight.

And if Intrepid manage to make a balanced pve world, instead of "farm this one boss to literally always be better and stronger", then we'll have situations where several groups of people can ascend through gear tiers through pvp with each other, while also catching up to other people who went up, because there's several ways up. And the way itself is not too long, because the gear power difference between tiers is not that big, so the pvp skill will still matter.

And in the end we'll have a pvx game where you can go through several tiers of pvx gear (be that through farming or through friendship or through moneymaking means) and have yourself a fun pvx time. This was how L2 worked until fucking NCsoft added personal instances and it all went to shit.

Sol Raven

Dygz wrote: »

Sol Raven wrote: »

Completely disregarding player skill because your gear is higher is called being gear carried, in PvE and PvP.

"Completely" is a concept you are adding to the discussion as far as I can tell.

Sol Raven wrote: »

Now, specifically regarding PvP from now on: You cannot ever put gear above good skill as a meta unless it's an extremely casual MMO that requires little to no player skill, like Runescape. Ashes of Creation will definitely not be that casual, nor should it be with how much of a PvP crowd that it is garnering attention from. Casuals and mindless endless progression fans should stick to clicker games and the MMOs that are meant to support that mentality, not invade or impose their lack of skill based enjoyment onto others.

In an RPG, META should not be a thing.
META is something than non-RPG gamers obsess about.
And, it's not just good gear, it's gear + ability choice + stat choice.
In an RPG, character build should trump player skill.

Sol Raven wrote: »

The idea that gear should trump player skill no matter what honestly baffles me and I hope there is none of that implemented into AoC. The only time someones gear should take priority over someones innate ability and knowledge to play the game should be a vast difference in level or quality of gear, for example a max level player vs a player still halfway or just finishing the story.

"No matter what" is a concept you have added to the discussion as far as I can tell.
I don't think anyone said that gear should trump player skill, so I'm not surprised you are baffled.

Funny you say this when the person I replied to said this in response.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

Typically, I do not play MMORPGs to have avatars of myself. I play MMORPGs to play different characters and each character has their own unique roles.
Since becoming a co-host of the TheoryForge podcast, beginning with Landmark Game, I do now always have one alt that is basically an avatar who is recognizably myself.

I don't even know what "encouraged to stick with one character" means.
And, no, Archeage is not a game that interested me at all.
Encouraged to stick with just one character does not sound like an RPG to me.

I think you two just have difference views on RPing. I like having one character that is playing the role that I want to play. And I stick to that character and his role for a long time. You seem to like trying out different roles. Both playstyles are RPing in a Game, and both styles are valid. And some games encourage your style (FF14), while other games encourage one character style (L2).

PenguinPaladin

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.

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.

I would argue the opposite. Making gear less rewarding, as a casual player. Makes me feel like i could never catch up, as even a lucky item drop wont make up for my lack of skill in pvp. Hope is a strange thing, no matter how small possibilities are, to have them is always better than to lack them.

Also casuals can look to hard core players and think, i could get that powerful. They can see there is something to achieve. Which i think is a driving force in games like this. Why nerf the high end destination of playing for the people not willing to commit and get to that destination? Id be more likly to stop playing knowing there is nowhere to go as gear doesnt get that much better, than i would be from being intimidated by other players power lvl

NishUK

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

Id be more likly to stop playing knowing there is nowhere to go as gear doesnt get that much better, than i would be from being intimidated by other players power lvl

And that is ultimately a sad game because it didn't have barely any substance or strategy to it, where you are accumilating game knowledge and enjoying the journey, it only had gear progression as obsession and a band aid.

And ofc, a real mmo is more than just combat excellent in PvE or PvP on damage dealer classes, usually in pvp centric mmo's if you don't have the hunger for polishing your skills people will welcome you with open arms on a supportive class.

If everyone had your mindset there wouldn't be millions of people pvp'ing for gold rank on league of legends...how can I appetise all them strong minded casuals to an mmo, I like that spirit!

PenguinPaladin

NishUK wrote: »

And that is ultimately a sad game because it didn't have barely any substance or strategy

This would be what i would think would turn off a casual... if everything ends up taking strategy, and forethought, and effort, it stops being a game.

Hard core players will always always always bring strategy into things no matter what level of difficulty it is.

The casuals who are just here to play a game and enjoy themselves.... probably want something worthwhile to obtain. And probably dont care about the further depth of the combat and so on.

NishUK

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

The casuals who are just here to play a game and enjoy themselves.... probably want something worthwhile to obtain. And probably dont care about the further depth of the combat and so on.

Then I highly encourage easy and recommended classes for those people to select, otherwise it's just tarnishing the potential depth of the multiplayer experience.

If there is a frustration from a casual, from tid bits of combat that happen rarely, as PvP or very difficult PvE does, then they can relax for a while on another game or chill out with life like they usually do, I cannot fathom why the complete experience almost, if not all, has to be a walk in the park!

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