Protecting Our Casuals: Gear

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That is in no way at all the counterargument you were facing here.

It's definitely a thing you could project, but as someone who I hope can see both your side and theirs, you heavily misinterpreted what people were telling you.

"This isn't the way to solve the problem."

"This isn't the actual problem to begin with."

Two possible better summaries of the majority of responses.

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I could (arrogantly) argue that the premise is sound but the argument isn't being made correctly/strongly enough, and I don't care enough to jump in on the OP's side again, any more than anyone else seems inclined to.

There is definitely a potential for an 'aggrieved party' here, if you run some basic numbers (not the ones I did before, separate ones based on the time investment thing), someone would just need to properly define what that is, and THEN show that such a situation would exist in Ashes, even hypothetically.

Themepark games DO have this sort of problem. The player who can walk through the story faster gets a large gear advantage, because it's intended to bring them up to the bottom of 'raiding tier' or the 'lowest rung of endgame PvP', depending on the game.

So a casual player wandering around in an Open World game who doesn't have time to play through the 20-30 hours of story quests and such and still do what they logged into the game to actually enjoy, will get stomped by any relatively skill-less but 'time endowed' player who just 'had more time to go through the storyline and get handed a pile of gear'.

Guilds don't solve this, friends don't solve this.

But it's just another symptom of the Themepark Virus (I don't hate these as much as this might sound), and has nothing to do with Ashes, still.

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I was referring to the Themepark problem. In Themepark games, the crafting system for low level gear is entirely there FOR casual players to waste their time on. I hate it, it's literally degrading (both the game and the game's players).

It's just another symptom of something. I don't think Themeparks are bad, I think Themeparks are EASY and therefore below-average designers will target them first when trying to build games, which results in a proliferation of poor Themeparks.

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~sighs~
Casuals are fed gear by hardcore players if the hardcore player levels into the next tier of gear. What would I hold onto my Shiny Dagger Of Flashiness for when I now have a Glorious Dagger of Execution? I sell it or I give it to a friend. In a game where not everyone is playing every class, they have no reason to hoard these. They will, at WORST, get sold, probably for cheap-ish.

I can't say it's not a problem, but the problem isn't solved by the gear, it's solved by Corruption and accessibility of the combat system. I cannot find a situation in which this happens, and I'm starting to think you just fudged your own numbers somewhere.

If I am the Scourge of the Riverlands with Optimal Gear for my build in all slots because I play 8h a day, and that still only makes me '10-15% stronger' in combat (gear wise) than the player playing 2h a day, a probably large part of the population of the game, I'm not going to just be going around stomping every player and living up to my Scourge name. I would need 24% bonus aggregate or a TERRIBLE combat system for this to be true. You have my numbers on why THAT is already.

You're throwing emotion at a logic problem and you're now almost inspiring me to start throwing logic back, but you haven't convinced me that you care about it yet, so...

Go reread the numbers.

Have the equalized power in arenas, but definitely not in the open world. What's the point of building up your character in an rpg if it's not stronger than other characters that have not been built up as much.

Let hardcore players be stronger than casuals because they're hardcore.

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Yeah that's the answer type I was expecting.

But I posit to you a quandary.

On page 13 of this thread at the top you ask me about Enchanting, wondering why I believe Intrepid would do something a specific way that would fix the problem.

Then a little later you outright ask 'do we know that they have the skills to design like this'?

But technically they wouldn't need the skill, right? In all arrogance, if they were not skilled, all they would need to do is listen to me . To do otherwise would be to explicitly choose to do it less skilfully because they thought it would be better.

But then, if they won't even listen to me when I'm giving 'ways to solve it within their own systems that I figure they are already going to leverage'... what's the point of the thread? Why would they care what you have to say?

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This is a little complicated in some people's perspectives for a related reason so, I'll ask a point for my own edification actually, both to you and @SirChancelot .

In a game with no sub, with the capacity to spend $20 (and no more) across 4 different $5 premium 'buffs' to your character (let's assume nothing that feeds DIRECTLY into combat for simplicity), is spending the $5-10-15-20 Pay To Win?

I have a problem with games where Bob can spend $800 a month to Sue's $8 and get 100x the chances or rewards, but no problem with games where Bob can spend $20 and Sue can choose to spend $0 and Bob be generally superior to Sue.

Playtime is the same, to me.

Actually nvm.

You're not going to reread the numbers, you're not going to demonstrate any faith in Intrepid, you're not going to accept that not all hardcore players are the same, and you haven't even defined what that is even after I for some reason went to actually get you the numbers you needed to do it with.

But you WILL repeat multiple times about the equalized gear thing. My model for this type of engagement indicates that I should avoid it, for my own sake, so, my options are to finally ignore you, or attempt a 'hostile takeover' of this thread while arguing your point for you just so that it's at least halfway productive, but then it would end because I can't drum up enough bad-faith situations to justify it.

So, sure. Casual Guild running a Caravan will lose to a Hardcore Guild.

In my model, a Casual Guild of Intermittent Players will DEFINITELY get stomped by players who play this game as their fulltime job. The question changes, then.

When did this Casual Guild of Intermittent Players find time to pack up a whole CARAVAN?