Serious Game Problem : Gear Gap

[emellgee]

I'm really glad to hear that. I've always been impressed with Celestrata's intelligence and integrity, and hopefully with her promotion is in a good position to be an advocate for the long-term players who love this game and want to see a bit more fun and balance put into it, esp on the PVP side of things (i.e, gear gap closers and more attainable/affordable crafting costs and regrade costs). Oh it's a great gold sink for those elites who already freefarm the end-game... but... for the average casual player, it's punishing and prohibitive and stops gear advancement cold.

Just think, before 3.5 due to gear disparity and P2W versus the average player, like 90% were in obsidian gear. 3.5 comes along and big whoop. Your regrade chances (w/o charm) at the divine (now mid-rng grade) in obsidian is a whopping 6.5% that means 93.5% chance of complete destruction. Come on devs... give your playerbase a chance to play and at least a hope to catch up to the now god-tiered players who dominate the servers and lock them into freefarm mode getting richer, while the 90% get tired of not enjoying ANY end-game content, or having ANY realistic PVP chances, who can't even imagine being able to afford the wealthier players 50k to 100k crafted AH items... and quit when 3-D farmville grows solo and dull.

nice joke, I lol'd

[Enyo]

Don't you guys realize that XL doesn't care about combat in this game anymore? : O

ArcheAge is pretty much just a Social Farmville MMORPG and it's doing a pretty good job on that. Log in, do your daily chores, tend your animals, crops, trees, run some trade packs, while chatting with friends!

This! It sums up what my guild has been limited to. I really don't mind farming and trade runs and enjoy them, but my heart goes out for those who actually want to pvp without spending countless hours grinding multiple accounts or spending thousands of dollars. A few around 5k GS join in on Aegis and Whalesong, but aren't close to being allowed Red Dragon, Kraken, Nazaar, DGS, and more. To do Mistsong Summit and Serpentis, you need weapons that are equal to what you're trying to craft. GG if you don't run 8+ alts or dual wield credit cards to get top tier gear, no end game content for you. Large scale Balanced Strategy Arenas (Soccer/Capture the flag) would go a long ways to helping retain these people.

[Lucifers Hammer]

One way to take care of the "gear gap" issue is to do what they did in GW2 and make zones force levels on individuals. Whatever level of gear drops in a zone is the max level that gear can be FOR THAT ZONE.
Zones 50 and above would be for actual GS but lower levelled zones would have a debuff percentage applied. It would still give the whales an advantage, but it would come closer to bringing everything inline to give newer players a better chance at engaging in all aspects of the game.
It would detract in no way from players who have the Mondo GS thing going on, other than preventing free farming lowbies. For events, they can establish a GS radius for rifts/etc much like they did for the demon dog, Kirby.
Free farming would still exist in level 50 zones, but it would give newer and returning players a chance to at least have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. It would also allow them to develop their pvp skills on a more even playing field and get their armor up.
Just a thought.

[Savitar]

Its more difficult than most of you realise.
They have to balance the game between being P2W (LOL just oneshot some noob) and new player retention (omg some dude just oneshot me and stole my pack). Like it or not, whales fund this game (throught hundreds of apex and RNG boxes) so not giving them the godlike experience will make them look for another game. The feed (F2P players) are just as important as they also help retain whales, buy apex and keep the economy afloat.

This is the first P2W game I have ever played (Daoc and Eve online being the games before that). So I don't really have a suggestion for a solution. If they ever offered free decent tier gear, I'd generate a hundred extra accounts to profit from them on my main, so counter measures need to be in place to prevent abuse.

without p2w you cannot reach +7k gear score and there are many +8k and even some +9k players at every eu servers, just look at the top 100. Only AA has this fking god like players that you can one shot ppl.

[Savitar]

One way to take care of the "gear gap" issue is to do what they did in GW2 and make zones force levels on individuals. Whatever level of gear drops in a zone is the max level that gear can be FOR THAT ZONE.
Zones 50 and above would be for actual GS but lower levelled zones would have a debuff percentage applied. It would still give the whales an advantage, but it would come closer to bringing everything inline to give newer players a better chance at engaging in all aspects of the game.
It would detract in no way from players who have the Mondo GS thing going on, other than preventing free farming lowbies. For events, they can establish a GS radius for rifts/etc much like they did for the demon dog, Kirby.
Free farming would still exist in level 50 zones, but it would give newer and returning players a chance to at least have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. It would also allow them to develop their pvp skills on a more even playing field and get their armor up.
Just a thought.

Good idea, please type your idea at twitch question side in the forum section too then maybe one of GM bring this idea at live stream this week on trion twitch.

[BeNice]

One way to take care of the "gear gap" issue is to do what they did in GW2 and make zones force levels on individuals. Whatever level of gear drops in a zone is the max level that gear can be FOR THAT ZONE.
Zones 50 and above would be for actual GS but lower levelled zones would have a debuff percentage applied. It would still give the whales an advantage, but it would come closer to bringing everything inline to give newer players a better chance at engaging in all aspects of the game.
It would detract in no way from players who have the Mondo GS thing going on, other than preventing free farming lowbies. For events, they can establish a GS radius for rifts/etc much like they did for the demon dog, Kirby.
Free farming would still exist in level 50 zones, but it would give newer and returning players a chance to at least have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell. It would also allow them to develop their pvp skills on a more even playing field and get their armor up.
Just a thought.

That helps with things like rifts and Halcy. Any further suggestion for Auroria location events?

[Mangogogo]

To close the gear gap, swipe more or know someone on your server' player nation to get a ticket into the free farm. The game provide so much more incentive for the high GS players to group up instead of fighting each other. Either join them or quit.

These games are designed to hold your emotions hostage so you will spend more to 'save' the game you love. Hopefully many don't fall into that trap unless they really have the financial means to waste on a hobby.

[Lucifers Hammer]

That helps with things like rifts and Halcy. Any further suggestion for Auroria location events?

That is actually something I have been mulling over for a long time...

Central to the issue is that GS is not a 100% reflection of player ability or even effectiveness of gear configuration. If I am running with a mix of epic leather, cloth, and plate, I will have the same GS as a person doing it right, but I would be largely ineffective and at a disadvantage. Other things are not as blatant, but just as pertinent.

As an example, I run a lvl 55 alt that has 3.6k GS that can smack down 5k+ with a little effort if I can get the first attack in, and moderately difficult if I don't. Why? Well, he has an Leg T6 2H axe with def. pen. and attack speed gems, underwear and a costume that is epic that has focus, resilience, toughness, crit rate, and melee damage stats. (Yay serendipity stones!) His "big piece" or armor is a t5 divine curaiss, the rest is filled in with a mixture of oby and auroria gear. (Long story short, I yolo'd gear, but popped a success unexpectedly on his axe... grrrr) No, not everyone has this situation, but some do.

The point I am trying to fumble my way to is that if, after lvl 50, you start nerfing gear to compensate for variations of GS based upon zones in Auroria, it could unfairly impact people that have either busted their butts to gear up, or paid a lot of cash to do the same. It has taken me 2.5 years to get to where I am at and it would really chap my butt to get nerfed and have a level 50 with 3 months and a 3k GS hand my butt to me on a platter because my gear was nerfed. People could, and likely would, start min/maxing to figure out the cheapest/lowest GS to hunt for nerfed GS players.

Why would anyone be inspired to invest time, effort, or money into the game if they were able to figure out how to equip a toon at say 3.8k because they know that they could beat a nerfed 8k? I sure a Hades would never go above whatever that lower limit was. Why should I?

I do not think that there is an effective way to deal with the "gear gap" through gear itself.... However, I think there might be a way to modify behavior.

If a mechanic were to be put in place that would alter the awarding of honor for player kills based on gear score differences, it might deter some of the more ridiculous situations people have found themselves in.

Instead of it being the same across the board, honor could be tiered based on that exact difference.

Think about it... Honor. The word makes you think of a positive quality. Honorable. "It is a great honor." etc.

Is there honor in defeating someone who has the same, or similar GS, as you? Absolutely!
Is there honor in defeating someone with a Higher GS than you? Yes! Even more so!
Is there honor in squashing someone with a way lower GS than you? None what-so-ever and in fact, if it is too low, there should be shame for picking on someone unable to defend themselves.

Hmmm.... Why not award honor like this?
1k higher than you - base honor +10%
your GS - Base honor
1k lower - No base honor
2k lower - 50% of base honor lost - not counted as a kill
3k lower - 100% of base honor lost - 1 kill deducted
4k lower - 200% of base honor lost - 2 kills deducted.

That way - no nerfing of GS, but it would also serve as at least a deterrent for those 7k+ that get a kick out of slaughtering the little 4k and 3k players trying to play their way or gear up.

Just another thought....

you can kill anyone you want in Auroria - but you might not gain a thing

[Rekikyo]

There are doing that by making things easier to obtain / gems / upgrade with coming updates. Ayanad is a very good gear goal for new players as they are heavily available. But I absolutely don't want some new player get to the level I am after playing 3 years vs their 1 day. Unless they whale it out, then it's a different story.

Would you rather a game die, and all your development wasted, including your money from whaling, or would you rather people actually be able to pvp?

The pvp gaps have always been a problem with this game. The margin of difference is exponential in gear, which is something successful games address. The vast majority of players don't play PVP MMO's to not be qualified to pvp. They play to pvp. When that becomes impossible, servers die, merge, population quickly scales back, and the game becomes inferior quality.

People who got caught in this fallacy of "I don't have to be relevant in a raid of 30+ people because the raid will carry me in pvp" really don't represent healthy pvp. They just represent a portion of the community who either holds no interest in pvp or have defeated themselves into thinking they don't need any good drops or never will, so "make the best of it." They are a minority of the population this game once had.

I don't expect everyone to have Eternal everything like you probably do at this time. But if you have Eternal, them having mythic should be an accessible goal, which it's still not even close, especially since 4.0 will have T 8 Obsidian which brings back the debate of whether people should flip back to Obsidian, or keep their elemental eternals. You'll be able to afford that switch. Most players won't.

[evilmuke]

Or maybe solve this problem easier and start doing something to get better gear instead of wasting time here on crying about ur being poor and bad geared. It is only you who can change that. I do have good gear because i play alot and i worked for it. I did reroll many times from obsi to crafted gear etc so why cant u ?
To be fair yolo old gear and farm new one like we all did. Im totally against giving anything to lazy people who want to be best by doing nothing to earn it.
Truth is simple if u play and work then u get stuff if u prefer to waste time on chatting or sitting in ds then u dont get gear and it is EXACLY how it should be.
Do u feel bad that i spelled this truth to u ? How about real life would u expect to be bilionare when u sit on a park bench having no job ? Its not how stuff works better learn it sooner and get rid of that demanding irrational logic.