So my question, and please forgive me if this info is known, how will gear choice be handled.
Now this all comes from the very limited nature of gear in games of late. Coming from eq that had chain/plate/leather/linen and certain occasions where you could mix types within certain classes. It wasn't perfect but I preferred that over the more recently, and commonly used 3 main types that you're stuck with, and the stats they provide. It makes for dull options when min maxing your character to your style.
So what is your preference, and how do you want to see gear selection playing out in PFO?
Open: You are free to choose any armor type as any class but will suffer the penalty for doing so. A wizard that dons plate armor for added protection will suffer a penalty to mobility and cast time. (my preferred method as it offers the most player choice and consequence for choice)
Pigeon Holed: X amount of skill in a particular line before you can don that armor type. Or in most cases your class can only use a certain type, no exceptions, no deviations. (my least liked)
Stat regulated: Certain amount of strength to wear plate. Intelligence and wisdom to wear magical silk/linen garb and so forth.
Secondary question. What will the selections be? I suspect the usual plate/leather/linen. But, will there be varying degrees of each such as heavy/medium plate etc. Will chain be used as its own type or lumped into the light plate category and limited to fighters as is often the case lately.
Goblin Squad Member
|
So my question, and please forgive me if this info is known, how will gear choice be handled.
Now this all comes from the very limited nature of gear in games of late. Coming from eq that had chain/plate/leather/linen and certain occasions where you could mix types within certain classes. It wasn't perfect but I preferred that over the more recently, and commonly used 3 main types that you're stuck with, and the stats they provide. It makes for dull options when min maxing your character to your style.
So what is your preference, and how do you want to see gear selection playing out in PFO?
Open: You are free to choose any armor type as any class but will suffer the penalty for doing so. A wizard that dons plate armor for added protection will suffer a penalty to mobility and cast time. (my preferred method as it offers the most player choice and consequence for choice)
Pigeon Holed: X amount of skill in a particular line before you can don that armor type. Or in most cases your class can only use a certain type, no exceptions, no deviations. (my least liked)
Stat regulated: Certain amount of strength to wear plate. Intelligence and wisdom to wear magical silk/linen garb and so forth.
Secondary question. What will the selections be? I suspect the usual plate/leather/linen. But, will there be varying degrees of each such as heavy/medium plate etc. Will chain be used as its own type or lumped into the light plate category and limited to fighters as is often the case lately.
Well considering the game is going to be skills based and not class based pidgeon holed won't be an issue since regardless of your class you can train to use any abilities. Per the description of attributes, they will not be stat based, as str does not directly effect it.
From the descriptions by goblinworks, the system intends to have multiple types of gears, and several that have drawbacks and pro's to different classes, IE you will backstab poorly, or possibly be unable to backstab with a greataxe, unless you happen to have a rare custom made greataxe of backstabbing (which may or may not have penalties to things other than backstabbing to compensate).
Goblinworks has said they don't intend for most of them to be direct "You cannot backstab" but more rather severe penalties, in a similar vein to arcane spell failure in P&P.
As well I believe they did intend for most gear to require you to train certain skills to be able to use (but no limitations based on your class/archtype/role)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I want everything to be a tradeoff, there should be a basic 'neutral armor' then there are heavier harder armors, that block more and slow you down, and lighter armors that block less and don't hinder your movement.
I want the entire game to reflect this logic, I don't want to see one weapon being 'better' than another, everything should have trade-offs, if a weapon has a positive benefit, there should be a paired detriment.
This game needs to bring people up to the competitive level quickly, the open PvP nature and long term advancement of the game would put veteran players at a huge advantage if it didn't. And new players shouldn't serve the role of cannon fodder, or zerglings. If someone is smart they shouldn't have to put 2 years into a character to be a driving force in a battle. I would say 1 month max before characters are competitive, and during that one month there should not be much reason to venture out into unlawful territory. 20 new players with good strategy should always beat 20 10 year vets with worse strategy. A huge kingdom that has been around for 6 years should always have the looming threat of a new group of players with perfect tactics joining the game and coming after their territory.
Spell failure while wearing armor was confirmed in the last blog.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
New players with new stats should be cannon fodder / zerglings.
Experienced players with new stats shouldn't. I just figured I would make that distinction since some will attack you saying "BUT I SHOULD GET TEH UBER REWARDS FOR PLAYING TEH GAME!" The gap in power should be primarily be based off the skills one has acquired as a player and not the stats the character has acquired.
That said Ryan has indicated there will be rewards for having an older character, but those rewards shouldn't be overly pronounced between players of equal skill. It seems to me like he is indicating a system where older players will have more things to help them benefit from their player skills but not much of a jump in raw power.
One thing to consider with items though is the economy of war. There needs to be investments involved with war, and there needs to be higher losses associated with dying a lot. One way to do this is to make it so you have to spend huge amounts of money repairing gear if you die a lot, and if there is little difference in power between bronze chainmail and masterwork mithril plate armor... well... it is not going to work out so well.
So as far as I am concerned. There should be a low gap in power based of skills, and a moderate-high gap in power based off gear. However the gap in power based off gear should be offset by a gap in prices and repair fees that is being continually paid. That guy in the mithril plate with the high grade consumables is going to be going back to an armorsmith who can work with mithril to get expensive armor repairs, and replacing the expensive consumables on a regular basis. Especially if he is dying a lot.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One thing to consider with items though is the economy of war. There needs to be investments involved with war, and there needs to be higher losses associated with dying a lot.
I was under the impression that the "cost" was potentially loosing all of your gear when you died, minus your currently equipped weapons and armor. Things like rings, belts, etc. have the capacity to get taken from you when another player loots your body, so you don't have to worry about loosing your best suit of armor and best weapons, but you are risking your best bracers or amulets.
I was against it at first, but in a way, I kinda like it, at least in the contest of a "cost". You can either wear weak, cheap gear that you hardly care if it's stolen as it can be easily replaced or you can wear your powerful, expensive stuff that will be a serious financial impact to you if it's lost.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One thing to consider with items though is the economy of war. There needs to be investments involved with war, and there needs to be higher losses associated with dying a lot.I was under the impression that the "cost" was potentially loosing all of your gear when you died, minus your currently equipped weapons and armor. Things like rings, belts, etc. have the capacity to get taken from you when another player loots your body, so you don't have to worry about loosing your best suit of armor and best weapons, but you are risking your best bracers or amulets.
I was against it at first, but in a way, I kinda like it, at least in the contest of a "cost". You can either wear weak, cheap gear that you hardly care if it's stolen as it can be easily replaced or you can wear your powerful, expensive stuff that will be a serious financial impact to you if it's lost.
Well I'm assuming some loss in durability of gear and associated repair costs. Without those kind of costs, the cost of dying will be... practically nothing unless you have a lot of expensive stuff in your inventory. It would make it far too easy to throw yourself at the enemy and die over and over and over without taking any real penalties.
There needs to be real penalties or else your enemies can harass you ALL DAY LONG even if you beat them back every time they show up. You want it to be like in EVE or Darkfall, where they come through and leave, then don't come back for awhile ESPECIALLY if they are defeated because if they give you time to muster and then get defeated, or just keep throwing themselves and your defenses and losing, the losses aren't just something they can laugh off for a prolonged period of time.
If there is armor repair costs then you don't want them to be too heavy for newbs or else they won't be able to afford it, but you don't want them to be too light for vets or else they can afford to keep coming all day long. The only good way to balance it out is to make a wide gap in price between newb gear and vet gear, and the only way to make vets pay that high price/not make zerging in newb gear the primary tactic of every army is to make a gap in power of newb and vet gear similar to the gap in price.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The only good way to balance it out is to make a wide gap in price between newb gear and vet gear, and the only way to make vets pay that high price/not make zerging in newb gear the primary tactic of every army is to make a gap in power of newb and vet gear similar to the gap in price.
What's the difference between newbie gear in PFO and veteran gear? At the moment, it's impossible to tell because the tech demo still hasn't even come out yet, much less any actual work to hammer this stuff out. Still, since PFO is going to be taking a lot of things from the tabletop game, at least in spirit, I'd be willing to make some assumptions.
There really isn't a whole lot of difference between newbie gear and better "veteran" gear. It's all the same base equipment, but people who've been playing for a long time more than likely have the resources to get magical gear (which, ironically, is harder to damage than base gear).
I'm not saying armor repair shouldn't be an issue, it most definitely should. Armor can break in Pathfinder, so I don't see why it shouldn't in PFO. But since magic items are stronger and harder to break, I don't think repair costs should be the "cost" of dying, especially since we're to be expected to wear our best armor and weapons on us all the time, it's apparently supposed to be what we really depend on always having after a death. Magic accessories, on the other hand, are apparently things we can't always depend on. So instead of paying for armor repairs, we're paying either frequently for lots of cheap magic items that get stolen or destroyed or not as frequently (because you don't want to randomly lose it to someone that loots your corpse) paying to replace expensive magic accessories.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
What I'm saying holds true to really... any Open World PVP MMO. There needs to be loss associated with death, the loss needs to be less for newbs than vets and because of this, a similar gap in power is required.
My ideal gap in power is 100% gear based, and player stats play no part in it. Though, that will not be the case in PFO, we can at least hope that stat based power gaps will be low.
But the gear based power gap is high, as is the gap in prices. I think a perfect example if you have ever played it is Darkfall Online minus it's gap in player stats. In Darkfall there are several tiers of armor, but I'll stick purely with melee armor to make it simple. It goes chainmail, banded, scale, plate-scale, full-plate, infernal, and dragon.
Here is the stats and requirements to make all those armors:
Darkfall Armorsmithing Spreadsheet
Now in Darkfall death means 100% loss of all gear you are carrying which can then be looted by whoever gets to your grave first but the idea holds true. Loss associated with dying based on the gear you are using.
Now lets compare chest piece bludgeoning protection vs. material costs to make (Price estimates are pretty rough but they make the point ok):
Chain: 1.36 Blud defence ~84 gold
Banded: 1.60 Blud defence ~138 gold
Scale: 1.84 Blud defence ~223 gold
Plate: 2.05 Blud defence ~491 gold
Full-Plate: 2.85 Blud defence ~2346 gold
Infernal: 3.30 Blud defence ~10,000 gold
Dragon: 3.60 Blud defence ~20,000 gold
So you can see there is a pretty wide gap in power between chain and dragon and a VERY wide gap in price. That system actually worked out pretty well. Chain and banded were mainly mass produced for usage by low level players who couldn't afford better and needed something for every day use. Scale and plate were commonly used by moderate-fairly high end players for farming and random PVP or small scale raids. Full plate was every day gear for many vets, and siege worthy gear (AKA the gear they pull out when the outcome of a battle really matters) for moderate players, Infernal and Dragon were only every day gear for highly successful (As in they had very high skills as well as stats) or very rich PVPers. It mainly was used for siege gear by moderate to veteran players. There was also the costs of enchanting those items which also slightly widened the power gap and vastly widened the pricing gap further.
It's a good system. It helps drive the economy, and provides a reasonable form of loss for dying in PVP... or just dying in general that isn't overly harsh. I would ideally like to see a system like this for PFO that when you die you take a 25% durability hit in armor, with some durability loss over time for regular usage, and the armor providing no benefits at 0% durability. I would make the repairs require an armorsmith who can make the original, and cost a good portion of what the original armor itself costs.