Dev Discussion #35 - Character Inspection

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But ashes will have a transmog system. We won't see what armor others wear. I see the gear icon in the nameplate as part of the "inspection", so I want it in the game. Maybe I'm wrong to associate those two, cause I'm not used to transmog games, but whatever the case may be, as long as we can clearly see what gear our target has - I'm a happy camper.

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That would only indicate the estimated class/role of the player, but not his power. Back before transmogging, you could see a dude wearing a strong armor and you knew instantly that he's gonna be a challenge to fight against in pvp. And alternatively, if you saw a dude in weak armor you knew not to hit him, because even with one crit you might've killed him and gotten corruption. With transmog that's gone. Hardcore pvp players don't see good targets to have a fun battle with, while casuals don't know how strong their potential ganker is.

Seeing enemy's gear in pvp was always important because it added to the battle. You'd have to manage your own strength properly and on the fly. Having no visibility of those things would not add to the "risk vs reward" ideology, it would only add random corruption and unneeded death, which can only lead to players getting frustrated with an already niche game.

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I'm not even talking about the big fights. Obviously you won't have time to click on every single person on the other side of the conflict. I'm talking about small-scale pvps, if not even 1v1s in the open world. Yes, I come from L2 where you usually had particular sets for particular classes, but there were still grades to those sets.

A player could be wearing 40-52 lvl gear, while the character was at 60++ lvl. You knew his base power (at least lvl40), but you didn't know the full extent. You then had to make a decision based on your own power. If you yourself were a 40 lvl dude, you could risk it and try to flag on that player, but then you'd instantly lose cause he was lvl 65. Or you could be lvl60 and didn't want to risk getting karma for killing a newbie with one shot.

Yes, all classes will be able to wear whatever gear they want, but there'll still be some type of scaling on that gear. Some would only be worn by a particular set of classes and some would only be worn on a particular set of lvls. By seeing the gear, you'd have a rough estimate of what you're about to encounter. This principle worked just fine in L2, so why can't it work here?

All I'm asking is just that the gear icon (that they said will exist) would be customizable, so that I can see the gear set more clearly. Ideally I'd like to be able to assign different colors to different sets, so when I click on a dude that's wearing "Frosty dragon ULTRA KILLER" set, I'd see the gear icon as super bright blue and I'd know to be careful around that dude.

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I haven't really played EVE, but can't you see what kind of ship it is? Big/small/attack/trade/etc. If I warp into a system and see a huge ship there - I'll bounce. If I have a mid ship and see a few small ones and I have guns that can deal with them, I'll try my chances. That's the risk and reward of EVE, is it not?

And on the topic of competition, Josh Strife Hayes had a good video about mmo pvp "balancing". There's always gonna be someone stronger than you or way weaker than you. There's very rarely any fair competition in mmos. Seeing your opponents gear would make the competition fairer because you'd know your chances from the start. If you've got the skill, you can still punch up and win, and if you've got the better gear you can try and take on more weaker people at once. It won't casualize the game. If anything, it'll bring it even closer to its roots.

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And I personally find "protected builds" quite a casual feature. If you've got the mechanical and strategic skill - your gear shouldn't matter that much. And if the only thing that helps you win is your gear, then you should "git gud". Which is why I want inspection to be a ffa. Everyone will know everyone's base power, but only through battle can we learn its true extent.

Though I'm pretty sure Intrepid will either not have full inspection or have the toggleable version, like suggested in this thread. Way too many people want that, which was kind of surprising to me.

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I believe the gear set icon thing was in the design even before Jeff left ( https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nameplate) .

And I see protected builds as casual exactly because I've been a hardcore pvper for years in Lineage 2, where pretty much everyone knew others' builds and sometimes even their skill build/layout. The thing that separated the greats from the plain pvpers was the skill that utilized those builds, not the gear/build itself. I've fought several people who copied my build and skill layout, but I haven't lost a single time to them because I knew how to use my skills better. Having your stuff hidden from others is casual to me. But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

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And I totally agree with that. I've been defending the corruption system on reddit for months now, so I definitely understand your point of view. And I would definitely prefer for the game to get developed in exactly the way they initially designed it, because I liked and followed the game exactly because of that design.

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After reading lots of things, this post resonates with me the strongest about my feelings on this matter. The 'erosion' here makes it difficult to tell what original quotes have which meanings.

I don't think I have a strong opinion on whether or not examination should be toggleable in itself, but I don't like the idea of anyone being able to just inspect another's gear in detail.

The key word I heard used when Jeff was discussing this was 'type', and this seemed like a really great idea. You can know that I use a spear and medium armor, in fact, I personally don't care if you know 'I have medium armor in head and chest slots and heavy armor gloves and boots' (some colors could deal with that). I don't care if you know the grade of those slots (outline colors for the same whatever).

So if you know I have 'Epic spear', 'legendary medium armor head', 'rare heavy gloves', 'epic medium chest', 'rare light leggings', 'rare heavy boots', just by looking over a little gear icon that blows up when you mouseover it (make it a little challenging while I'm in motion!) then this is fine. Because that's 'type'.

I don't want anything more than that, because there's too much that a serious player can do with bits of knowledge like this to improve their chances, especially as the aggressor. This much allows for intimidation, etc.

To be clear, the reason @Neurath 's post resonated so much is that I unfortunately just automatically thought 'this was already decided entirely'. Not necessarily along the lines I said exactly, but certainly decided enough that there was only a smaller range within which to change it. Could still be so. But then I would have to ask what the point of this specific Dev Discussion is because...

Mu. The question is wrong.