People that do not have much time to play will *always* have less than people who play more - other things being close to equal. If there are no AAs they will be behind other players because they will be lower level or if they do reach maximum level before the level cap goes up they will have much worse gear because they got there so far behind others.
Guilds that view themselves as "elite" and care more for server-firsts than fun with friends will never want them - that is the way of it. An AA system won't hurt these players at all.
I am not sure I agree when you say it isn't fair. If I work twice as much at a job than you do would you say it isn't fair that I am paid more? Most of us would disagree if you did. If I put twice as much time as you do into a game shouldn't I have more and better thnings - and be a better player since I practice twice as much - other things being equal?
One common player-driven rather than game-driven solution is to have set groups or guilds. People that stay around the same level and try to do content together at regular times. Those who want to move up faster have alts outside of the set group/guild.
If a guild was forced into AA sharing it would have a strong incentive to not accept, or to boot, people that didn't play much and were viewed as leeches. This might make the problems you describe worse rather than better.
I have no problem at all with a system that allowed a set group or a guild to all agree to share xp or AA equally so that everyone could stay equal. But this should never be an automatic part of being in a guild.
Yeah I see what you are saying and I agree maybe the guild idea would lead to a lot of people being bitter for many selfish reasons. I was just looking at it from the view of I rather have more people to play with if content is blocked behind needing a certain amount of AAs. I just know that there is a lot of people who on average only have 2-3 hours of gameplay a day. I don't think they should be barred from content because they have a normal life haha, so if there is an AA system it has to have some way to keep those people somewhat in the game. That doesn't mean they should be handed everything but as I said above that is the one fair excuse to not wanting an AA system. So since I really want an AA system it was probably the best idea Everquest had, I would be willing to sacrifice a bit of my pride that someone who plays half the time as me still has the same amount of AAs haha. If they sucked I wouldn't want them to have the same gear as me but I sure wouldn't care if they had the tools needed to play the game.
Porygon said:AAs can be good. But they are the same as just raising the level cap in a way. After a point certain AAs will be "required" just like certain levels.
The system has to be designed in a way that provides a minor boost to character power but does not drastically change the character or the class.
And also there "shouldnt" be a reason to include them at launch, there should be enough content to allow the game to thrive.
Although I understand what you mean by this, I would argue that having a lateral advancement is a lot different than raising the level cap. With level raising you start to run into orders of magnitude in PvE difficulty. The alternate (lateral/linear) advancement you only increase utility or minor increases to PvE content without having to increase the difficulty of encounters (preventing players that aren't high enough level from engaging/experiencing them).
And if they are included at launch a player can designate a small amount of their exp to continuously go toward their AA, or maybe all of the experience toward AAs if they play a lot more than their friend(s) that they don't want to out level, or if they find a really cool place that they don't want to out level... OR a better example (using EQ as a reference) is if a player wants to be able to "Bash" while wielding a 2h weapon and they aren't an Oger or Barbarian without having to wait until they are lvl 50+
There could easily be level requirements for certain AAs to prevent a lvl 10 player from having something innapropriate if needed.
With all of that said, I'm indifferent as to if there are AAs or not... I don't have much time to grind these days and that would definitely make me want to grind :)
I initially liked AA's but thought they came out too late. Partly because I thought AA's would allow me to slow or stopn leveling so things would not become trivial due to Trivial loot code. Things or queststhat I had wanted but was too old to get but still had uses. AA's also had the benefit of providing usefull character improvements.
However, as far as friends getting farther ahead than me, I think that will be solved with the matchmaking idea. I imagine selections like 9-5 job with weekends and all major holidays off. Or, Service job with variable schedules non-standard says off. or EMT/Police, or Fireman- three days 24hrs, oops gotta go, sorry *LD*. So for whatever group- most will level about the same considering schedules and relative playtime possibly making AA decisions more of a consensus or discussion about goals. Like, I am putting 90% into AA's because I want the suchandso boost so I may become a level or two behind y'all. but still a level or two or six is not a hnderence to a group if I have to re-learn to get away from max level thinking.
I'd rather see skill trees than AAs again. They're very similar but with one important difference: By the time you reach level cap you have all the "points" you're going to get to invest in your skill tree. I like the idea of having some way to differentiate yourself, to customize your character to fit your playstyle. But having to save up AAs to spend on buffs/abilities in a never-ending grind felt more like punishment than the grind getting to level cap in EQ. "Ding!" was way more fun than "Oh hey, ping". And once at the cap there are many, many other things to worry about more than micromanaging your AAs.
On the other hand, I'm also a fan of level-less systems with skills you improve through use rather than earn 1/50th at a time by dinging.
Maybe I just have a sour taste for EQ's AAs.
Akilae said:I'd rather see skill trees than AAs again. They're very similar but with one important difference: By the time you reach level cap you have all the "points" you're going to get to invest in your skill tree. I like the idea of having some way to differentiate yourself, to customize your character to fit your playstyle. But having to save up AAs to spend on buffs/abilities in a never-ending grind felt more like punishment than the grind getting to level cap in EQ. "Ding!" was way more fun than "Oh hey, ping". And once at the cap there are many, many other things to worry about more than micromanaging your AAs.
On the other hand, I'm also a fan of level-less systems with skills you improve through use rather than earn 1/50th at a time by dinging.
Maybe I just have a sour taste for EQ's AAs.
I think the reason why AA's felt so rough for some people in EQ is because they were in EQ, when they first came out when you wern't raiding you were just farming AAs. I still loved that but I can see exactly where you are coming from. I think in more modern games they would actually fit 10 times better, where you are constantly going into dungeons and fightings bosses why not be getting AAs while you are farming gear. I am not going to lie but I think the EQ AA point system was needed in games like WoW or FF14 even more then they might be needed in Pantheon. If I had something to gain while I was doing my stupid dailies other then 5 tokens or whatever for a piece of gear I probably would of stuck with the games a lot longer.
It is interesting to read others experience with the AA system in EQ. It seems a lot of people had a very different experience then I did. I think a lot of it is I knew I was never going to be top of the pack and was happy as long as I could play with my friends.
What I liked about the AA system in EQ was no pressure by my friends or guild to have any. I spent a long time in EQ playing catch up. It seemed as soon as I got close to catching up with my friends the max level would change. But once the max level stopped going up and AA were put in place I was able to stay at my friend’s level. (I quit playing before max level went beyond 65) Sure they had a lot more AA’s then I did but that never mattered as much as levels. Even 4 levels behind could make a huge difference in your ability to do damage, agro was worse, etc. I think a good example of this is I could have had 1000 AA’s but that would not have made up being 5 levels lower, making ever mob red to me.
I had friend that joined a guild that required a 1000+ AA’s but they also required you to be on call 24/7 and get no loot for the first 3 months… Joining that guild was the end of the game for them. They knew it too, they just wanted to see more of the game before they quit.
I also liked it when I hit max level I loved that I had a reason to get EXP still. I never got that many, under 500 for sure but over time it started to make a real difference.
As I stated previously im all for a AA system , its when it turns into a endless grind ie 1000 + AA available.
After a certain point , you are grinding for the sake of 10 aa per hr to get them "all".
That is one aspect I personally , do not like. The ability to get them all (there needs to be a limiting factor, sorta like end line AA eq2 style) without the ability to cap everything. Because with the ability to get them all you become another cloan.
This is why , even being pro AA i believe after a certain point another option must be thought out and presented as well, in the form of a entirely different advancement system including AA.
Example expac 1 has 100 available AA and 200 points worth AA (can only spend 100) so you can't cap all the skills , and now you might have 2 bards with entirely different AA build options. xpac two has 500 aa avail with 250 spendable but never allowing you to spend more then the cap.
At this point expac 3 introduces something else exp can be converted into that are not AA's.
This not only enhances replayability , but allows for a truely unique character.
Just how I see , where the faults fell in eq1 &2's system and how to improve on it.
I don't know I see where you are coming from but my big problem with skill trees and various systems that try to make you unique. They usually end up being a false choice unless they completely turn you class into a different archtype which I have never been the biggest fan of that. In the end there is the best AAs to get and you might be able to pick like 1 or 2 things different compared to someone else. It might work with Pantheon since they are already slighty splitting the classes by making it so certain abilities get better with different stats. But I have a strong feeling that for most classes its a false choice and if you try to go that other route your going to end up breaking your class.
Being unique in an MMO is really a rare thing and I believe the only way you can truly do something like that is if you make it so only one person can aquire something. Which I wouldn't mind seeing something like that but it probably just piss a lot of people off haha. Another crazy Idea I always had that I thought would be cool is if you awnsered some questions when you made your character and got like a random skill or passive skill out of 1000 per class. But even that would turn into people rerolling until they got the ones they wanted unless you made it so people could not reroll unless they went through some huge ordeal.
Yep I completely agree kreed, raising levels is all fine and dandy but at some point it is going to break the game or just make it way more complicated then it needs to be. Everquest worked because it was extremely simple so 10 expansions down the road and you had about as much skills as a normal MMO out of the gate nowadays haha. With more modern MMO's it just starts to become a fricken hassle when they keep adding new skills with that whole whack a mole feeling of pressing skills that all feel kind of similar. So at some point they have to completely rehaul the classes which can work but it would probably be smarter to avoid getting to that point as long as possible.
If it was me I would let people level fricken everything before I would just raise the level cap and I am not talking enhancing bullcrap god I hate that idea. But why not give people the ability to level gear like it has its own exp bar and gain special abilities that they can socket into other gear like they do in some RPGs. It might solve some of the problem of gear becoming outdated if you can make all gear better through levels and add things to them within reason of course. Speaking of being unique I think something I hate more then oh my character plays like everyone else playing my class is when everyone is wearing the exact same gear and any reason to give people a chance to use different gear is a plus in my opinion.
It would probably work something like every piece of gear has 2 unique skills being either a passive or proc one you get at level 5 and the other at level 10 of that piece of gear. I said sockets but that is kind of overused and does not make much sense so lets say a piece of gear has a gear point system dependant on the piece of gear. So a low level piece of gear might have 5 points and the best piece of gear might have something like 50.
Lets takes the FBSS as a simple not to well thought out example it would look something like this
FBSS Level 1 FBSS level 10
gear points 15/15 gear points 15/35
1 AC 2 str 2 agi 2 cha 20% haste 10 AC 20 str 30 agi 20 cha 25% haste
unique skill 10 agi (master at level 5 costs 5 gear points) unique skill 10 agi mastered
unique skill 5% haste (master at level 10 costs 10 gear points) unique skill 5 % haste mastered
So as you level a piece of gear it gains stats, more gear points so you can add things to it, and you master the skills in the piece of gear which you can place into a different piece of gear. Once you master a skill in a piece of gear it goes into your mastery tab which you can only have one of each type of mastered skill. Thats just a rough example but with this system it would make all gear valuable, help people customize themselves, and give people a reason to visit previous content either to level older pieces of gear or obtain ones they might of missed. There is some other ways to go about it like I dunno if you would want to keep certain skills that can't be removed on gear so the gear doesn't just become shells for you to put things in. Also you would probably want to make it so certain skills you master can only go into specific slots of gear like obviosly a weapon proc could only go in a weapon that sort of thing. But this could be a fun interesting way to keep people in the game longer without completely destroying the balance of the game and I am just filled with these kind of ideas having played like 1000 RPGs in my lifetime with similar mechanics haha.
Never been a big fan of this type upgrading outside the final pieces or pieces my character was going to use a long time. I lacked the desire to put the effort into an item I was going likely replace soon, so this form of upgrading was disregarded most of the time. Whereas, if I improved my character itself, that improvement carried with the character through the entirety of the game.
Not saying I am opposed to something like this on select items though.
Roxxers said:Never been a big fan of this type upgrading outside the final pieces or pieces my character was going to use a long time. I lacked the desire to put the effort into an item I was going likely replace soon, so this form of upgrading was disregarded most of the time. Whereas, if I improved my character itself, that improvement carried with the character through the entirety of the game.
Not saying I am opposed to something like this on select items though.
Yep I agree anything that permanently goes into the character is a lot more appealing and I much rather have a traditional AA system. But I wouldn't mind something like this also to go with it because it adds a little more flavor to getting gear and you do get to permanently master the skills in the gear so you can build your gear how you like it always. I hate enhancing gear with the random bull crap and having to socket your gear with one time things that cost a ton of money. That stuff is just tedious unfun nonsense, something more like my idea would feel more like a collectable system that there would be value in collecting them all with effects you could add to all of your future gear forever. I think you were confusing what I was talking about with the enhancing,enchanting, and socket systems from most MMOs. But I was talking about a system more like Final Fantasy IX that is much more simple you level the gear and permanently get the skills from the gear which you can place into other pieces of gear no money needed.
If I am not confusing my games on planned functionality, I believe it has been stated by Devs there will be set items, as you get get more items of a set, bonuses appear. I can see this being of good additional upgrade process for set items. If you are putting in the effort to get the set, then you are already invested in the set and doing the upgrade process would seem to complement nthe process.
Roxxers said:If I am not confusing my games on planned functionality, I believe it has been stated by Devs there will be set items, as you get get more items of a set, bonuses appear. I can see this being of good additional upgrade process for set items. If you are putting in the effort to get the set, then you are already invested in the set and doing the upgrade process would seem to complement nthe process.
I don't remember if they are planning set items its a pretty staple thing in MMO's now so I wouldn't doubt if it made its way into the game. I agree something like that system would make having that set even more valuable but it would also come at the expense of making everything else useless if its only on the set gear. One of the things I have always disliked about set gear is it makes everyone exactly the same cause it is the only gear worth wearing. I was trying to make a system where you kind of create your own set by adding stats and procs to it thus making all gear more valuable. There is probably still going to be best in slot items for characters but a system like I was talking about might make it so there can be more than one best in slot depending on what stats you value.
The more I thought about it the system I am talking about would really solve a lot of problems they might have in the future.
1. Making iconic gear always iconic because getting the skill from it will always be worthwhile even in future expansions. Plus they could raise the level cap on certain items in the future making them level to the level or close to the level of expansion items.
2. Giving a system to further progress your character even after your max level and adding some personal customization to your character.
3. Having a reason to revist old zones and dungeons trying to aquire gear with special skills that you might want for a build in the future. The only problem is you would probably want to add in a system that prevents high level people from farming your gear and turning the game into a gold farmer paradise. What I would do is make it so low level gear will not drop for you unless you are mentored down to approriate level so you actually have to group with people that level.
4. Make crafted gear more valuable because it would also have special skills you might only find on them thus also removing the need for it to be as good as raid gear in the process.
Not a fan of AA/specs/etc.
Personally don't understand the near obsession some have with there being a neverending mountain to climb, as if the 400-500+ hours put into a character (not counting expansions/future content) to reach max level and get well geared isn't enough.
You reach the top of the mountain and can find no further goals with a character then play an alt for a new experience while you wait for new content/expansions, try out progeny (if it happens), or take a break from the game for a while *gasp* to play some other stuff while you wait.
Iksar said:Not a fan of AA/specs/etc.
Personally don't understand the near obsession some have with there being a neverending mountain to climb, as if the 400-500+ hours put into a character (not counting expansions/future content) to reach max level and get well geared isn't enough.
You reach the top of the mountain and can find no further goals with a character then play an alt for a new experience while you wait for new content/expansions, try out progeny (if it happens), or take a break from the game for a while *gasp* to play some other stuff while you wait.
Well for me if I just wanted those things that you want I would just play any other MMO, they are all fast paced games with nothing really going for them other than farming gear.
I personally want a game and character I can be invested in for a long time maybe even forever if its that good haha. For me leveling alts is just like playing the same game over again its not playing an on going game that is keeping me engaged. I don't think there is anything wrong with people playing alts but its just not enough to keep engaged in a game and leads to me quiting a lot faster if I feel I have to.
I love the feeling of getting more powerful making my numbers bigger that is one of the main concepts of an RPG game and once its stops that game is over. You can keep throwing gear at people but that makes gear worthless because its just a place holder for that next piece of gear you will get. Which is ok in moderation but if you over do it like the recent MMO's it makes more sense to just not play the game because all your work has no meaning. Oh you spent 3 months farming a whole set of gear for your entire raid? Here is a new set of gear with 5 more stats per piece do it all over again! Thats the whole point behind these other systems so that the time we spent actually means something in the end unlike gear. unless they decide to use my gear system then it would actually be worth something as well haha.
Coming from someone who prefers skill tree games over class level games I am for AA's if done right.
I also don't give two craps about classes maintaining their unique identity. There should always be multiple paths to success and that should include which classes you bring to any specific encounter. I am much more interested in finding the Players that can use the right tools at the right time rather than X class with Y level of gear.
Stacking a relatively short class leveling system intended to be played in between the starting cities and the major capitals under a web skill tree similar to Path of Exile Unified tree would be super cool. Anyone at maximum class level would be able to group up and go out and explore the untamed wilds.
As you go out and explore you gain experience which unlocks more points to use in the trees but each node itself could require a quest to unlock the right to put points in it. The nodes you move to will fine tune your character in a specific way or open up new abilities that either transform your base class abilities or give you new core abilities. A cleric could make their way over to the 1 hand blunt tree to become a better melee fighter and the rogue could move into the curse area of nercos to become a melee debuffer.
The nodes would only increase a characters power by a very small amount but the primary ability in each cluster would change how the character is played and focused. The magnitude of a characters power would not increase by much but the versatility would. Certain areas would be considered redundant with the base class and there for would not effect the magnitude of that class but might give other options in order to make no node mandatory.
Each new point would require an ever increasing amount of experience to gain and the only way to respec would be to sacrifice those points which you would need to regrind but the amount you needed would be decreased to the be appropriate for the total number of nodes you currently had. All the quest completions would stay though.
Damacon said:
If it was me I would let people level fricken everything before I would just raise the level cap and I am not talking enhancing bullcrap god I hate that idea. But why not give people the ability to level gear like it has its own exp bar and gain special abilities that they can socket into other gear like they do in some RPGs. It might solve some of the problem of gear becoming outdated if you can make all gear better through levels and add things to them within reason of course. Speaking of being unique I think something I hate more then oh my character plays like everyone else playing my class is when everyone is wearing the exact same gear and any reason to give people a chance to use different gear is a plus in my opinion.
I tried to work this idea into one of my crafting and itemization posts a while back. Basically all items drop with 0 xp and when you equip an item for the first time it also drops back to 0 xp. Where it gets interesting is in salvaging the items. A level 1 item could be picked up and leveled up to a level 5 item. Once maxed it could be salvaged and used as the core to make a level 5 item that in turn could level up to a level 10 item. You can never make a magical item without the appropriately leveled magical core.
This ends up making a system where all the crafted items are effectively level 1 if you do not use a magical core of a higher level. Part of the crafting game becomes funneling crafted and dropped cores into new crafted items to in turn make more powerful items. I was even thinking of how to do something like you need to sacrifice 5 level 5 (1-5) cores to make one level 6 (6-10) core and so on. The cores could be generic or they could be effected by the items they came from or the class that leveled it. The sky is really the limit.
Damacon, I agree to what you state.
"I don't remember if they are planning set items its a pretty staple thing in MMO's now so I wouldn't doubt if it made its way into the game. I agree something like that system would make having that set even more valuable but it would also come at the expense of making everything else useless if its only on the set gear. One of the things I have always disliked about set gear is it makes everyone exactly the same cause it is the only gear worth wearing. I was trying to make a system where you kind of create your own set by adding stats and procs to it thus making all gear more valuable. There is probably still going to be best in slot items for characters but a system like I was talking about might make it so there can be more than one best in slot depending on what stats you value."
Clever and smart itemization is really important. Set items can become BiS and can be the only items that matter if wise planning and smart development is not done properly. Honestly, I think in a loot centric game, itemization is just as important as class balance or world design and should have dedicated personnel keeping it organized and managed. Set items should have great benefits for collecting a full set, but there should also be quite powerful items that have unique attributes that could replace set items and should be enticing enough to, in certain situations or for certain people, encourage them to want to break up a set. This is why I think a dedicated team for this development is important, as understanding the intricacies of how all these items interact and affect a class and spell selection can have little to no effect or have overpowered and profound effects and everything in between. Understanding and managing this delicate balance would be a full time job.
Developing a new item that could potentially replace a set item should be tempting enough to replace the BP for top tier set, but not so powerful that there would never be reason to use the set BP after you get it. Situations should dictate the value. I think a simple example would be, let say a warrior set, when all five pieces are worn, the warrior get a substantial damage mitigation boost. They simply tank better in a full set. Now, a new BP has come into the mix and when worn, increases all hate generation with attacks by 15%. So, does the warrior want to keep mitigating damage better but occasionally losing aggro and dealing with potential ping pong effect, or does he break up the set to hold hate better, but finds he will take more damage?
I am a strong believer that everything should be designed with a pro/con approach. There should always be pros and cons for anything. Just like in life. What is more important to me here and now?
Roxxers said:
I really hope sets are quite rarely used in this game and are done more in the classic EQ way where a full set tended to give a balanced distribution of stats across all the pieces instead of specifically stacking each classes "top" stats. Also because I am tired of set tier chasing AND the heavily exclusive armor itemization where each class is in their own (mostly) segregated gearing path (especially at higher levels), more shared class loot please.
Trasak said:Stacking a relatively short class leveling system intended to be played in between the starting cities and the major capitals under a web skill tree similar to Path of Exile Unified tree would be super cool. Anyone at maximum class level would be able to group up and go out and explore the untamed wilds.
As you go out and explore you gain experience which unlocks more points to use in the trees but each node itself could require a quest to unlock the right to put points in it. The nodes you move to will fine tune your character in a specific way or open up new abilities that either transform your base class abilities or give you new core abilities. A cleric could make their way over to the 1 hand blunt tree to become a better melee fighter and the rogue could move into the curse area of nercos to become a melee debuffer.
The nodes would only increase a characters power by a very small amount but the primary ability in each cluster would change how the character is played and focused. The magnitude of a characters power would not increase by much but the versatility would. Certain areas would be considered redundant with the base class and there for would not effect the magnitude of that class but might give other options in order to make no node mandatory.
Each new point would require an ever increasing amount of experience to gain and the only way to respec would be to sacrifice those points which you would need to regrind but the amount you needed would be decreased to the be appropriate for the total number of nodes you currently had. All the quest completions would stay though.
I have not played Path of Exiled so I am not 100% sure of how it would work, but I get the idea and I don't have a problem with skill trees if they actually give real choice without breaking class boundaries too much. I don't mind if a cleric can DPS but I don't want it to be a DPS cleric if you get my drift, yeah it adds a lot more variety in classes but it also kind of does the exact opposite by turning classes into a empty shell that they can be anything. BUt if they stayed within their roles and had like a sub role they could specialize in that would be fine with me. Problem is with the limited skill space they want in Pantheon it would not work if there was to many non passive skills. But that is also the problem with a normal AA system so its not much different in that aspect, just if you want customization or just further enhancement of what you currently have.
Trasak said:
I tried to work this idea into one of my crafting and itemization posts a while back. Basically all items drop with 0 xp and when you equip an item for the first time it also drops back to 0 xp. Where it gets interesting is in salvaging the items. A level 1 item could be picked up and leveled up to a level 5 item. Once maxed it could be salvaged and used as the core to make a level 5 item that in turn could level up to a level 10 item. You can never make a magical item without the appropriately leveled magical core.
This ends up making a system where all the crafted items are effectively level 1 if you do not use a magical core of a higher level. Part of the crafting game becomes funneling crafted and dropped cores into new crafted items to in turn make more powerful items. I was even thinking of how to do something like you need to sacrifice 5 level 5 (1-5) cores to make one level 6 (6-10) core and so on. The cores could be generic or they could be effected by the items they came from or the class that leveled it. The sky is really the limit.
I really like this idea and I think there could be many cool ways to expand on it to make crafting extremely unique like throwing in elements instead of just magical. If you threw in elements like fire,water,wind,earth,light and dark with each one of them having certain effects/stats it could lead to a single piece of gear having tons of different outcomes. Add the ability to specialize in certain elements combining them into enhanced elements like specializing in fire and water creates steam. You got yourself a extremely complex system that might create some super unique items that also fit well with the acclimation system. Now the question is would you start off being able to combine elements or would that be the end result after processing cores a whole bunch. Another thing that would be kind of cool would be to add the cores thing as kind of like an anceint power system that you can use your cores throughout the world to power ruins and various things from like a lost civilization. I wouldn't want the elements to turn weapons and gear into super gaudy looking things maybe some light particle effects or the sword has a crimson hue but not my weapon is made of lava type crap you see in some games haha.
I still really like my idea though as its not just for crafters but there might be a way to combine the two ideas so its cool for everyone and not just crafters. Otherwise it can just be two seperate ideas that can work together to make some gear that actually matters and evolves not just the constantly replace one piece of gear with another.