Protecting Our Casuals: Gear

Post by VmanGman on 2022-06-17 21:44:58

We have not received permission from VmanGman to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-17 22:02:51

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-17 22:10:53

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by VmanGman on 2022-06-17 22:13:56

We have not received permission from VmanGman to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-17 22:46:47

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Noaani on 2022-06-18 02:45:24

We have not received permission from Noaani to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 03:58:15

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Noaani on 2022-06-18 09:40:31

We have not received permission from Noaani to share this post.

Post by SongRune on 2022-06-18 14:59:29

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.


I find that this attitude is quite unfortunate, and yet common in certain ways. "I have chosen to skip the entire discovery phase of this content. Why is it so boring?"

I'm not saying guides are wrong or bad. Only that... if you want to enjoy the puzzle, you can simply choose to not work against your own enjoyment by looking up the solution in advance. The existence of guides isn't an excuse for not enjoying PvE encounters.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 17:15:55

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 17:25:45

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 17:41:32

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

In high stress situations, human brains are very close to simple AI.

It is far more likely (based on your reactions to someone who, as far as I can see, gave you a direct information point from their own experience), that you are the one who has not played things at a high level.

"Now, maybe by top end PvP you actually mean mid-range open world PvP, where people can and do attack you. If this is the case, then all I can say is that you don't know top end PvP, and are mistaking mid-range PvP for top end."

The above is more likely to be true in this case, if it is not true, you are making your arguments quite poorly, giving the impression that it is true. I suggest attempting to address this aspect first, there is no way for this conversation to proceed in a useful way for Intrepid otherwise.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 17:58:29

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 18:07:25

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

Alright, well... I suppose you don't exactly need to have 'credibility' in order to keep talking.

AI in games is made weak because the developers want it to be weak so that players don't get destroyed by the AI's ability to respond. In nearly any game where the AI is explicitly intended to try to defeat the players most of the time, it will often be staggeringly hard to the point where most players give up.

At this point, all you're doing is digging yourself into a hole and waving a flag that says "I don't understand AI or PvE". I'm just surprised at it. Did you know that MOBA developers can make AI bot opponents but have difficulty doing this because tuning the AI down far enough for non-pros to learn anything is really hard?

Is your counterpoint to the above 'That's not true', or is it something else?

Post by Noaani on 2022-06-18 20:29:48

We have not received permission from Noaani to share this post.

Post by Okeydoke on 2022-06-18 20:43:45

We have not received permission from Okeydoke to share this post.

Post by NishUK on 2022-06-18 21:17:31

We have not received permission from NishUK to share this post.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 21:21:15

We have not received permission from Okeydoke to share the quoted post.

This is a really good take on it that I realize I was too shortsighted to see.

My mind never thinks of heavily unbalanced PvP situations as 'hard'. Just 'unbalanced'. But one can't ignore the fact that PvP can be dynamic enough that a person can be capable of winning an unbalanced situation and therefore consider it 'hard'.

And since owPvP games innately have 'being outnumbered' as a completely valid part of the challenge, it's quite shortsighted to ignore this as part of the definition of 'PvP can be more challenging than PvE'.

What I don't understand is the difference between 'I am outnumbered, the enemy can do way more damage than I can in the same amount of time' and 'This boss has attacks that can do way more damage to me than I can handle'. Is there a difference other than dynamism? The boss is 'scripted' to do damage that is controlled, the enemy group, by numbers alone, is not.

I've never thought of 'bosses that hit too hard for the situation to be dealt with' in that way before, but if the argument was 'PvP is dynamic because you could find yourself in a 5v60' then I did in fact misunderstand you @Mag7spy

Post by Ludullu on 2022-06-18 21:48:51

And since owPvP games innately have 'being outnumbered' as a completely valid part of the challenge, it's quite shortsighted to ignore this as part of the definition of 'PvP can be more challenging than PvE'.
And on top of just "outnumbered", it could be "they counter me in RPS" or they have stronger gear. Or it could be a combination of either of those or all at once.

And that kind of variety not only brings dynamism (which I do consider the main difference in the example you gave) to the fight, but also way more paths to potential victory, especially if we consider party vs party pvp.

I think the main problem of Noaani's argument is the fact that he got to the top of pvp in AA, while he was still struggling in pve in EQ (unless I missed a mention of him clearing all the content that was present in the game at the time of him playing it). When you're at the very top of pvp to such a point that no one even fights you (outside of the usual people at the same top), you've "beaten" the game. And if the game's design doesn't allow other people below you to get to your power lvl or at least beat you from time to time - that's a badly designed game imo.

And the same can be said about PvE. Once you've beaten all the pve content in the game - all the content is easy. The execution itself might give you some trouble, but you've solved the puzzle already and the AI ain't changing until the next update, so the encounter itself is not much harder than those pvpers who're at the same top as you. You know moveset and "logic" of both, so your combat might stop being as engaging as it was when you were struggling against either of them.

And this is where the renewed content comes into play. Imo the ideal mmo with pvp in it should change up its balancing with each update/expansion, the same way it updates its pve content. This way you can't always be at the top, because the power placement will shift and you'll have someone new to struggle against. The main and obvious problem with this kind of setup is of course the damned players. Because instead of enjoying a challenging pvp after the new update, they'll just complain that their class got nerfed and will go level up another character of the "now OP" class. And due to previously being at the top, they'll have a much easier way back to the top, because they'll have access to the required gear and they'll have way faster leveling thanks to their guild. And now they'll hit the pvp top yet again and will now go back to complaining about how pvp is boring and super easy.

It's the age-old issue of people being dumb and stubborn against their own good.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 22:00:01

And since owPvP games innately have 'being outnumbered' as a completely valid part of the challenge, it's quite shortsighted to ignore this as part of the definition of 'PvP can be more challenging than PvE'.
And on top of just "outnumbered", it could be "they counter me in RPS" or they have stronger gear. Or it could be a combination of either of those or all at once.

And that kind of variety not only brings dynamism (which I do consider the main difference in the example you gave) to the fight, but also way more paths to potential victory, especially if we consider party vs party pvp.

I think the main problem of Noaani's argument is the fact that he got to the top of pvp in AA, while he was still struggling in pve in EQ (unless I missed a mention of him clearing all the content that was present in the game at the time of him playing it). When you're at the very top of pvp to such a point that no one even fights you (outside of the usual people at the same top), you've "beaten" the game. And if the game's design doesn't allow other people below you to get to your power lvl or at least beat you from time to time - that's a badly designed game imo.

And the same can be said about PvE. Once you've beaten all the pve content in the game - all the content is easy. The execution itself might give you some trouble, but you've solved the puzzle already and the AI ain't changing until the next update, so the encounter itself is not much harder than those pvpers who're at the same top as you. You know moveset and "logic" of both, so your combat might stop being as engaging as it was when you were struggling against either of them.

And this is where the renewed content comes into play. Imo the ideal mmo with pvp in it should change up its balancing with each update/expansion, the same way it updates its pve content. This way you can't always be at the top, because the power placement will shift and you'll have someone new to struggle against. The main and obvious problem with this kind of setup is of course the damned players. Because instead of enjoying a challenging pvp after the new update, they'll just complain that their class got nerfed and will go level up another character of the "now OP" class. And due to previously being at the top, they'll have a much easier way back to the top, because they'll have access to the required gear and they'll have way faster leveling thanks to their guild. And now they'll hit the pvp top yet again and will now go back to complaining about how pvp is boring and super easy.

It's the age-old issue of people being dumb and stubborn against their own good.

Now you're back to points I must 'disagree' with you and support Noaani on.

You've been at the top of PvP on your server though, so I don't know why you'd say these things? Lineage PvP does not look that easy.

But I honestly disagree with SO MANY things in this post from the perspective of 'would I want to play a game like this', that I can skip it all. If Ashes PvP is implemented in the way you're implying, I have no reason to play it. Their game doesn't support that type of PvP as far as I'm concerned, and it would make the experience highly unpleasant for me personally.

More power to everyone who enjoys:
1. Large gear disparity.
2. Hard counters even in groups
3. Consistent meta shakeups involving nerfing classes to provide 'challenge'.

I'm not a person who plays games with weak dynamism in its PvE, either... So I can say that for me PERSONALLY I don't WANT Ashes to be designed with any of the things you or Mag suggests, but I can just keep hoping for a different game to play if it is, whereas I feel like y'all will be stuck if Steven doesn't go all in.

Post by Ludullu on 2022-06-18 22:31:15

You've been at the top of PvP on your server though, so I don't know why you'd say these things? Lineage PvP does not look that easy.
I mean, yeah, it's not easy while you're climbing up and it's not easy against other people at the top, once you get there. But when you've been at the top for a while and nothing gear/class/RPS-wise has changed - it can get pretty close to what Noaani described. You know your opponent so well, that your pvp becomes a pretty casual move through a binary choice tree. "Did they start with this skill? Then I use this. Did they answer in this way? Then I do this. So on and so on".

Obviously it still requires skill to execute that kind of interaction and come out on top, but I'd assume it's no harder than a top lvl pve player doing a top difficulty pve encounter for the hundredth time. The base requirement of skill is really damn high, but you're already used to executing actions perfectly at that lvl, so, in comparison to your lower lvl fights upwards, this is now relatively easy. Though I might be wrong in that assumption, cause I haven't participated in instanced top lvl pve in raiding games.
But I honestly disagree with SO MANY things in this post from the perspective of 'would I want to play a game like this', that I can skip it all. If Ashes PvP is implemented in the way you're implying, I have no reason to play it. Their game doesn't support that type of PvP as far as I'm concerned, and it would make the experience highly unpleasant for me personally.
I'm not a fighting gamer so I don't know if fighting games get balance updates/patches or if it's just "wait until the next installation in the series comes out"-type of thing, but how do top ranks not "solve" each other after weeks/months of playing together at the top? Or do people just start learning more characters once they've hit max rank with one? Or do you just want to differentiate how it is in fighting game from how it is in mmos?
More power to everyone who enjoys:
1. Large gear disparity.
2. Hard counters even in groups
3. Consistent meta shakeups involving nerfing classes to provide 'challenge'.
I mean, L2 had a fairly tight gear scaling and, while there were some counters in party pvp, there was nothing that couldn't be overcome with skill/gear.

The meta shakeups definitely happened though. There was a mage era, an archer era, a dagger era, a fighter era, a particular class being especially strong era - but through all of those, you could still try and fight through gear or personal skill, or counter party setups. The RPS would just shift from one setup to another. You were still stronger against some people, but weaker against others - those people just changed.
I'm not a person who plays games with weak dynamism in its PvE, either... So I can say that for me PERSONALLY I don't WANT Ashes to be designed with any of the things you or Mag suggests, but I can just keep hoping for a different game to play if it is, whereas I feel like y'all will be stuck if Steven doesn't go all in.
Maybe I misunderstand what dynamism means in this context. I was thinking in the lines of "with a pve boss fight you know Boss' AI, you know his moves and you know what to do to avoid them" and to me that seems like a low dynamism setup.

While with the variables I've listed for pvp matchups you don't really know what kind of situation you might be in when you're out and about. You might come across 3 people that are weaker geared so you manage to beat them. You might come across one stronger geared person and they beat you (even if not by a large margin). You might come across a full party and manage to outkite them because of your classes high maneuverability. Or you, as a full party, might come across 200+ people and, while dying at the end, kill a good chunk of them because you're not only outgearing them, but also outskilling and outmicro-managing them (I've posted a vid of party vs a shitton of people from L2 before). To me that seems like a high-dynamism system. Your direct mechanical input might not differ from the pve example, but the result will be drastically different, depending on the matchup.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 22:53:40

You've been at the top of PvP on your server though, so I don't know why you'd say these things? Lineage PvP does not look that easy.
I mean, yeah, it's not easy while you're climbing up and it's not easy against other people at the top, once you get there. But when you've been at the top for a while and nothing gear/class/RPS-wise has changed - it can get pretty close to what Noaani described. You know your opponent so well, that your pvp becomes a pretty casual move through a binary choice tree. "Did they start with this skill? Then I use this. Did they answer in this way? Then I do this. So on and so on".

Obviously it still requires skill to execute that kind of interaction and come out on top, but I'd assume it's no harder than a top lvl pve player doing a top difficulty pve encounter for the hundredth time. The base requirement of skill is really damn high, but you're already used to executing actions perfectly at that lvl, so, in comparison to your lower lvl fights upwards, this is now relatively easy. Though I might be wrong in that assumption, cause I haven't participated in instanced top lvl pve in raiding games.
But I honestly disagree with SO MANY things in this post from the perspective of 'would I want to play a game like this', that I can skip it all. If Ashes PvP is implemented in the way you're implying, I have no reason to play it. Their game doesn't support that type of PvP as far as I'm concerned, and it would make the experience highly unpleasant for me personally.
I'm not a fighting gamer so I don't know if fighting games get balance updates/patches or if it's just "wait until the next installation in the series comes out"-type of thing, but how do top ranks not "solve" each other after weeks/months of playing together at the top? Or do people just start learning more characters once they've hit max rank with one? Or do you just want to differentiate how it is in fighting game from how it is in mmos?
More power to everyone who enjoys:
1. Large gear disparity.
2. Hard counters even in groups
3. Consistent meta shakeups involving nerfing classes to provide 'challenge'.
I mean, L2 had a fairly tight gear scaling and, while there were some counters in party pvp, there was nothing that couldn't be overcome with skill/gear.

The meta shakeups definitely happened though. There was a mage era, an archer era, a dagger era, a fighter era, a particular class being especially strong era - but through all of those, you could still try and fight through gear or personal skill, or counter party setups. The RPS would just shift from one setup to another. You were still stronger against some people, but weaker against others - those people just changed.
I'm not a person who plays games with weak dynamism in its PvE, either... So I can say that for me PERSONALLY I don't WANT Ashes to be designed with any of the things you or Mag suggests, but I can just keep hoping for a different game to play if it is, whereas I feel like y'all will be stuck if Steven doesn't go all in.
Maybe I misunderstand what dynamism means in this context. I was thinking in the lines of "with a pve boss fight you know Boss' AI, you know his moves and you know what to do to avoid them" and to me that seems like a low dynamism setup.

While with the variables I've listed for pvp matchups you don't really know what kind of situation you might be in when you're out and about. You might come across 3 people that are weaker geared so you manage to beat them. You might come across one stronger geared person and they beat you (even if not by a large margin). You might come across a full party and manage to outkite them because of your classes high maneuverability. Or you, as a full party, might come across 200+ people and, while dying at the end, kill a good chunk of them because you're not only outgearing them, but also outskilling and outmicro-managing them (I've posted a vid of party vs a shitton of people from L2 before). To me that seems like a high-dynamism system. Your direct mechanical input might not differ from the pve example, but the result will be drastically different, depending on the matchup.

I'll give an example from FFXI.

I like to solo a specific 'vampire' style enemy. Group combat is a thing I'm willing to explain but don't have time for right this moment.

The enemy casts Silence, Gravity, strong Wind damage effects, and Haste on itself, and uses a move that steals one buff from the player and applies it to themselves. There's other stuff too (mainly it has +100% movement speed relative to most other enemies and therefore is very hard to kite), but let's go with this.

What do you do to just 'easily PvE' this?

If you need to cast, then you need to CC it to stop the Silence. Which means you can't CC it to stop the damage. If you buff yourself to resist the damage, it can just steal the buff. If you buff yourself to hit harder, it may steal that too. The other move it can use is basically a Knockback+Stun that interrupts your casting anyway.

It doesn't make sense to just use CC whenever it's up because you are juggling decisions. Damage vs being debuffed vs it doing less damage but negating your stuff plus 'is it worth putting up this buff on my end for a shorter time and then playing around the fact that it has absorbed the buff' or 'It just used Stun so it can't just insta-steal my buff so I'll buff now to get the maximum benefit but now I have to focus on using that buff so I have to think about which spell to CC', but I can't actually afford to buff right now because I was stunned and I need to cast quickly before I get Silenced.

Throw in random crits and so on.

"You know his moves and how to avoid them."

Do you consider the above to fall into simply 'you know his moves and how to avoid them'? I can agree that this isn't HARDER than PvP, it's very much like fighting a Red Mage in the same game, but then again, to me, Red Mages are also dynamic and can be overwhelming if they're good.

I find the two to be approximately equal, the boss is just stronger and I have to keep it up for a longer time.

This is a standard 'random roaming Elite' in a specific area. There are about... 400 different 'Elites' of this type.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 22:56:43

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Okeydoke on 2022-06-18 22:58:36

We have not received permission from Okeydoke to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 23:01:55

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 23:03:44

As for the reason I don't think it works for Ashes, simply.

If I am playing my class the way I like, and I am doing fine, and Intrepid decides 'Ok let's shake up the meta by weakening this class and strengthening another' (not aiming for balance ENTIRELY, but for a shakeup), then one of two things will happen.

Either my Archetype is weaker, but I'm not leveling another 300 hours to change it...

OR:

My enemy is stronger, for whatever reason, and I can play perfectly and lose in a situation where if I played perfectly I didn't lose before...

Fighting games tend to change things toward improving the experience of players and balancing, these days. Some don't. I don't play those. Some MOBAs don't. I don't play those either. Just not my thing.

Fighting games aren't really binary choice trees, probably because spacing matters. There's optimal, and then there's risky-but-rewarding. So there's no 'need' to shake up in that way. Yet the result is still SOME stagnation. An 'optimal and safe' opponent plays a particular way. If you shake up the Meta so that the 'best' character is now one that beats their optimal and safe style... are they supposed to give it up in order to win more?

What if they're not good enough at playing 'risky-but-rewarding'?

I dunno, I just come from a different space, so I don't get it. But there's no need to try to explain it to me, as noted, I'm the one that most modern games are shifting toward catering to. I DO still think that intentional 'meta shakeups' in a game where your choice is supposed to matter after 50 levels and switching is difficult, isn't really in line with Ashes philosophy, but there's no way to know that for sure, so.

Post by SirChancelot on 2022-06-18 23:03:52

We have not received permission from SirChancelot to share this post.

Post by Mag7spy on 2022-06-18 23:16:36

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share this post.

Post by Azherae on 2022-06-18 23:19:03

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

You don't have to predict all of the scenarios. You only have to predict the effective ones and just overwhelm the ineffective ones with raw skill.

That's what pro gamers do all the time.

"Opponent is using weak or bad strategy, I don't need to understand it, I just need to exploit it."

"Opponent is using one of the strong strategies I know from my knowledge of the game, I must do these things to counter it."

Is this... not how it works for you?

Post by Ludullu on 2022-06-18 23:24:08

Do you consider the above to fall into simply 'you know his moves and how to avoid them'? I can agree that this isn't HARDER than PvP, it's very much like fighting a Red Mage in the same game, but then again, to me, Red Mages are also dynamic and can be overwhelming if they're good.

I find the two to be approximately equal, the boss is just stronger and I have to keep it up for a longer time.

This is a standard 'random roaming Elite' in a specific area. There are about... 400 different 'Elites' of this type.
In a 1v1 match, yeah, both the mob and the Red Mage would be less dynamic than "a party vs party" or "a party vs a ton of people" pvp. If you've killed that Elite Mob several times, you'd know roughly how to tackle its combat abilities/style. I personally wouldn't know how to deal with that exact mob just because I dunno what's my skillset in FF11, but I'd assume a high lvl player could give you a few options how to beat that mob, because they've done so a ton of times. Same applies to pvp against a singular opponent. If you know their moves, you'll know how to respond to them. And if you know that opponent's "logic", you'll have a rough idea of how they'll respond to your actions. I've experienced this in arena pvp in L2 against multiple people at higher lvls of combat ability.

And the same would apply to a Boss, unless he was completely randomized or had completely random triggers (at which point I dunno if PvErs would really enjoy that type of enemy). But in owpvp, it's always randomized. Even with locations that are usually visited by the same people, you never know how many of them might come or whether a new group of people leveled up to a point where they can farm that location so it's a completely new set of "logic and class/gear". To me that owpvp is way more dynamic than fighting mobs with predetermined sets of abilities and responses, even if they are quite varied.