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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mcstackerson

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

mcstackerson wrote: »

[If you believe casuals should be able to experience the full game........

Having the option to do something and having the ability to do something is not the same thing. I believe everyone should be able to try and do great things in ashes. Someone has to lose. Its more a matter to making something to do that is fun, for each type of player. And thats what i believe ashes is trying to do aswell.

Have the pvp there for the pvp players. Have the pve for the pve players. Have the stay at home managment of your freehold for those who want that. Have the animal breeding for those who want that. Have crafting for those who want that.

Hypothetical- Someone with literally no skill and no time to spend on the game, should not be rewarded.... thats life.

Yes, option and ability are not the same but if scaling is too high, the option does not exist. I'm not saying the game should be designed so casuals can win fights, i just want them to be able to contribute without being 2 shot.

Not all pvp players are hardcore players. There are people who play casually and still enjoy pvp. I want them to be able to participate.

The games that end up handing out free rewards are the ones that have extreme vertical progression. They need to give out these free rewards because the power is necessary for players to play with the rest of the playerbase. By controlling vertical progression, they hopefully won't have to create catchup mechanics and give out these free rewards since players don't need the power to play with the rest of the playerbase.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Partially determined by gear tier.

Everything else is skill (both mechanical and build-related), and those things require time or being hardcore about game knowledge (which kinda takes time too).

Someone mentioned something recently about how MMO players are on average the least skilled (even within their own Genre) of competitive gamers. I will assume they are talking about physical skills and analysis skills, since that's the only metric you could use across all genres.

This is an easy reasoning to both 'prove' and 'define as irrelevant'. MMOs take less skill of those types, so more people with less skills play them, so the average comes down.

But maybe MMO players that stick around have more of a specific 'skill' that comes up a lot in my circles. "The Will To Keep Winning" as the book goes. Getting better at games may be a function of time and the game's design, but the WILL to keep trying when losing is seemingly independent.

Poor gear balance pushes down more strongly, requiring a higher 'Will To Keep Winning' 'stat' for success, simply because you win/see the chance to win, less often.

Just rambling since 'being hardcore about game knowledge' seems to correlate to this.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

But maybe MMO players that stick around have more of a specific 'skill' that comes up a lot in my circles. "The Will To Keep Winning" as the book goes. Getting better at games may be a function of time and the game's design, but the WILL to keep trying when losing is seemingly independent.

Poor gear balance pushes down more strongly, requiring a higher 'Will To Keep Winning' 'stat' for success, simply because you win/see the chance to win, less often.

Just rambling since 'being hardcore about game knowledge' seems to correlate to this.

Most definitely. And I think this is why pvp games don't live too long. Cause there's only a limited amount of people with that kind of "skill". And exactly why all the current L2 players still play on older versions of the game, because their "skill" is maxxed out and they can endlessly pvp against others, winning and losing yet always persevering.

And I personally dunno what kind of game design could help players hone that skill w/o just having pvp in it and saying "go git good". I hope Intrepid can figure that out and make the most successful pvp mmorpg out there, but only the time will tell.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

But maybe MMO players that stick around have more of a specific 'skill' that comes up a lot in my circles. "The Will To Keep Winning" as the book goes. Getting better at games may be a function of time and the game's design, but the WILL to keep trying when losing is seemingly independent.

Poor gear balance pushes down more strongly, requiring a higher 'Will To Keep Winning' 'stat' for success, simply because you win/see the chance to win, less often.

Just rambling since 'being hardcore about game knowledge' seems to correlate to this.

Most definitely. And I think this is why pvp games don't live too long. Cause there's only a limited amount of people with that kind of "skill". And exactly why all the current L2 players still play on older versions of the game, because their "skill" is maxxed out and they can endlessly pvp against others, winning and losing yet always persevering.

And I personally dunno what kind of game design could help players hone that skill w/o just having pvp in it and saying "go git good". I hope Intrepid can figure that out and make the most successful pvp mmorpg out there, but only the time will tell.

The most important part of PvP game design these days, I think, is making sure that by some means, the loser absolutely understands why they lost and what they need to do about it.

At least then, 'I can't do this, I quit' is an informed decision and not just 'idk what bullshit just happened but I'm tired of it'.

PenguinPaladin

NiKr wrote: »

falls prey to meta builds faster.

Meta is going to happen, its going to form. Any system with values, someone will work that system and try to make something optimal. I would rather have individual peices over sets regardless of how this could impact the rate at which meta forms. And i think it is beter from a designing standpoint. It allows things to be more discoverable. Players to feel more inventive.

PenguinPaladin

Nikr brought up a good point. In pointing out the pvp incentives of a larger gap system.

With 10% or so gap in gear teirs. You kind of know who is worth messing with for the things that you want. You know who might beat your team in dps taking the boss loot, you know who might be dangerous. It gives you parameters for who do i not bother with, who do i be wary of, and who do i look at preying on. Having easily defined teirs lets players know who is in their weight class and can allows weaker players to fly under the radar in a way. And with over enchanting letting teir 2 weapons approach teir 3 weapons and so on it allows players to look like bait, while being competitivly stat'd.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Partially determined by gear tier.

Everything else is skill (both mechanical and build-related), and those things require time or being hardcore about game knowledge (which kinda takes time too).

They don't necessarily require time.
People don't have to figure everything out for themselves.
You don't have to be hardcore to acquire hardcore knowledge.
Hardcore players can share both gear and knowledge with casual players - and that is very easily done when the casual players are veteran MMORPG players.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

Hardcore players can share both gear and knowledge with casual players - and that is very easily done when the casual players are veteran MMORPG players.

And as the video I posted says, and I agree, if you decide to learn that knowledge to gain benefit from it - you're hardcore about the game. Also, just having knowledge doesn't always = ability to utilize it to its fullest potential. And that takes time. Yes, it'll take less time because you've got super hardcore friends, but how many people have those kinds of friends? And I'd bet that even fewer people have hardcore friends that would give them hardcore-lvl gear. At which point we're going into discussion of "how many people are we considering in our suggestions, a few hundred special ones or thousands and thousands of people who don't have easy access to high lvl resources?"

Dygz

LMAO
No.
I can also find a flat Earth video on YouTube.

Ludullu

Guess we have different views on who's casual and who's hardcore. But we have differing opinions on pretty much every single topic so there's nothing new there.

PenguinPaladin

You two will get over your lovers quarrel, i belive in you.

NishUK

@NiKr answer to something : the korean gamers are the most hardcore, we're stupidly proud Vegeta's!

To win at PvP in Archeage, L2 or even Ultima Online you have to win at making money and being good at getting close allies and the game itself doesn't give you many avenues to earn money differently in your own fun way, it's usually boring and you require a sickly mentality to go through this pain.

It's hardcore in every sense of the word, these games priority isn't fun (well UO is a cool slice of life game...), this is an OW game where relationships (or politics) and economy + sprinkles of p2w/RMT/Cheating mean fucking everything, "awww look at that guy over there saying he's having fun killing mobs, isn't that cute!".

AND
this is where we are today, hoping that Steven makes the real Archeage without corporate greed + western pleasures like "can this be a bit more fun please, this is my 2nd life, not my 2nd job!".

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Hardcore players can share both gear and knowledge with casual players - and that is very easily done when the casual players are veteran MMORPG players.

Actually, it is very hard to share knowledge like this.

You can share with people how things work, but very, very few people are instantly able to take a theoretical understanding of how a system works, and apply it instantly to something that is unfolding in front of them.

It takes more time for people to fully grasp a system from just being told about it than if they experience it first hand. Further, people that have been told a thing or two about a system may actually be at a disadvantage because of it, as they may think that they know more than they do. This is a fairly common thing in most fields

Thus, acquiring an actual working and functional knowledge of a game actually does take time.

Tragnar

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

Nikr brought up a good point. In pointing out the pvp incentives of a larger gap system.

With 10% or so gap in gear teirs. You kind of know who is worth messing with for the things that you want. You know who might beat your team in dps taking the boss loot, you know who might be dangerous. It gives you parameters for who do i not bother with, who do i be wary of, and who do i look at preying on. Having easily defined teirs lets players know who is in their weight class and can allows weaker players to fly under the radar in a way. And with over enchanting letting teir 2 weapons approach teir 3 weapons and so on it allows players to look like bait, while being competitivly stat'd.

I would love to share your optimism that 10% power difference gap in gear tiers is going to be enough for player to decisively estimate the power level of the opponent

I do not see a way where the power difference is lower than 30% from the average for the builds.

Tier power jumps do not help anything in my opinion and only increase the game power creep

NishUK

@Tragnar @PenguinPaladin

With UE5 and animations and effects you can show a distinction for augmented and more powerful abilities + weapon effects. Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player and if the game is good with many heights and accolades to achieve you really don't need to make dedicated players lives even better.

Vinusole

I think casuals can obtain gear with the help of hard core players through crafting and what not. If I do not put significant time in I would expect to not have the power.

PenguinPaladin

NishUK wrote: »

Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player

I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural

Kind of like how in the real world you could go out and become a millionaire, but here we are sitting on aoc forums. Because its what we want to do with our time.

Mag7spy

Hardcore players will smack average players that is really all there is to it at the end of the day. This isn't limited to mmorpgs, its every single game out there works like this. I can understand the concern I'm a average player and lvl 30 and can't beat a lvl 50, where in a shooter i can kill them at least. But that is just how gear progression works, eventually they will get gear and be able to kill them at the same level.

At the end of the day regardless if you have the same gear a hardcore player will still win almost everytime compared to a casual. Though not everyone is a hardcore players what matters is the interactions of people that aren't trying to no life the game are very fun between each other as well. The role of a casual player will have much more of a impact then one might think just not directly in combat. The most important thing is to be social, most mmos people are anti socials since they have no reason to talk to people, jump in discord etc. But the most successful people and guilds will be the ones that are social and can pull an influence.

mcstackerson

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

NishUK wrote: »

Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player

I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural

Power in a game is an illusion. It's impact is only relative to other entities power in the game. It has no impact on your gameplay when you are against someone who is your same power level. It only impacts your interactions against people who have more or less power than you. The more scaling there is, the more you will be smashed by people above you and smash people below you. If you enjoy this cool but this limits that amounts of times a player can properly engage with the combat in the game which i don't think is a good thing.

In a shared world focused around community and people playing together, i'm not sure how you can claim artificially separating them is a good thing. Yes, content needs to be rewarding and i'm not against vertical progression as a whole but think it should be reigned in the best it can. I also find horizontal progression more engaging as it can be used to create more build options through the combination of rewards from different content.

NishUK

PenguinPaladin wrote: »

NishUK wrote: »

Increasing "power creep" is just ugly and it forces a seperation between the hardcore and average player

I think ashes is already "forcing seperation" between average and hardcore players. I think ashes is more focused on making sure there is something to achieve, than making sure everyone has the same experience. They are trying to make the game deep enough in enough areas, that this "forced separation" is just something natural

Your rhetoric is so incredibly frustrating on this topic...

People want a game a bit simple, I know, I have a best friend who's gone in hard on Lineage 2 and Archeage and he loves his gear being fuking beastly, he doesn't give a crap about how much ridiculously stronger he is than 75%+ of the hardcore playerbase, he cares about no.1, that's healthy and natural but caring solely about no.1 doesn't lead down the road to good sportsmanship and ideas toward it.

I would try to convince you but I've believe I can't, I've been let down before, you're too selfish in this department.

Edit - All I can say briefly is that calling something that involves PvP when your happy throwing spanners against someone with a gun until you have a license for a gun is a joke, it's not a PvP game, it's just a game system with bosses that you're not ready for yet and in some cases you will never be ready for them depending on how much stat increasing content they provide them and they don't stop playing (until ofc, the game dries up of newcomers and rightfully so!).

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