Protecting Our Casuals: Gear

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Hm, so are you saying that a casual player will not win 1v1s, but a group of casual players might be able to win an 8v8 vs a group of 'time-advantaged' players?

I'm seriously asking because I know of design methods that would lead to this possibility, but have seen no signs of them in Ashes.

If you just meant 'casual players can beat more hardcore players by outnumbering them', then feel free to ignore this one.

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This is why I ask. With the game's current design, I would expect the best chance you could give a 'casual' against a 'more hardcore' would be in 1v1.

But there are design changes that could be made so that it was reversed, and those changes would explicitly reduce the casual player's chances in a 1v1, but that might be the intention, as Intrepid has often indicated that they want higher 'group' and 'community' activity.

If the answer was 'if you get jumped when solo, count it as a loss and don't bother fighting back, then gather your friends' (even if you could only get to even numbers) and your chances of winning went up because of the design, in a 4v4, then that would be in line with their design goals, but not what we've previously seen of Combat.

However, they are definitely overhauling combat, so it could have been hinting at that.

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If the gear design leans into the game's other design elements, it would resolve it without any issues, too. This is 'solved' and 'easy', having been done in multiple PvE games before now, it's just not often applied to PvP games.

@VmanGman in short, this just 'isn't how this works' with people who have design experience. I'll give an example and you can tell me what you think the problem with it would be.

Sword A of Green Tier has 4 Enhancement slots. Sword B of Purple Tier has 8.

The crafter can put Attack into all slots, but the more Attack in each slot, the harder it is to get the next one in. This is based on total number, not 'number relative to the weapon'.

So it's equally easy to get an Attack +20 Green Tier sword as it is to get an Attack+20 Accuracy +20 Purple Tier sword, but it's really really hard to get an Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword.

But 'casuals' don't have enough Evasion, let's say, for the Accuracy to be necessary. It's nice, but it helps more in PvE or against other 'hardcore' players. The Accuracy 'doesn't affect the fight much'.

Now you have 'Green sword people' fighting 'Purple sword people' and the overall damage done is similar. This sort of design can't be described simply by things like 'gear power in tiers', so even attempting to paraphrase it, leads to concerns like yours.

But if you ask someone 'how much stronger is Sword B than Sword A', in most games, the answer will be 35% stronger (assuming the semi-standard range of 200-600 accuracy and opposed stat calculations). It's 35% more effective than Sword A in fights against strong or equal enemies, but not when facing 'Casuals'. An Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword would be a 'casual slayer', but would involve a massive investment for a sword that might not hold up in 'even' PvP as well.

tl;dr hardcore players already have time, tend to be number-crunchers, and collect tons of gear. Make them HAVE to do all that to be versatile without giving them as much advantage over 'casuals' unless they're specifically aiming to go out there and kill said casuals as a 'preferred enemy'.