[Gear] State Stabilization

[Noiree]

The gap between the sets is crucial for normal games as you need a reason for players to continue grinding and, of course, paying. This isn't the case for this server. People just want an advantage over others. An advantage they spent real life time for to gain. But the advantage can't get too large because this server probably will not get the amount of players any time soon to provide a separate tier for lvl 40 players. So there has to be done something to make sure old school players can't roflslap the fresh players into the ground with the blink of an eye.
So some form of adjustment for fresh ons and casuals is needed. Nerf gear / introduce bolster.
You could also bypass the need for showing off the level of old-schoolness with having gear that is just for cool looks. Something with bling bling and extra titles. That might satisfy the most players.

Nerfing crit (chances) too much could be horrible for healers. Lots of spells/tactics are based on crits. They're needed to make healing less of a pain in the behind.
Although, having healers being able to kite a warband alone, shouldn't be a thing in the future.

[ToXoS]

Crit % have already be nerfed for a lot of T4 items.
Some classes REALLY need to stack crit if they want to do their job as DPS.
SH for example, hits like wet noodle compared to SW. By stacking % crit bonus, it can be a decent Rdps, except against heavy armored classes.

[Danielle]

I agree with what Milkmilk and Morfee wrote so far. Just slow down vertical progression so much that the maximum difference between annihilator and rr40 and sovereign with rr80 is the abstract maximum 2 tier difference you mention in the OP. There will still be benefits to gaining new gear and renown, they will just be smaller benefits. I prefer this solution to having an invisible stat balancing system that has the same end-result anyways, but gives the players an illusion of making larger gains than they are. My preference comes largely from the fact that changing gear stats and renown stats to so that they eventually reach a defined abstract maximum difference, is due to it being simpler, more understandable for the player and much less prone to error. Yes, I am confident the dev team would get it right eventually, but there are bolster bugs to this day. Why bother when the same end result can be achieved with a simpler more transparent change?

This will not resolve problems between percentage based and flat-based abilities and other abstract balancing concepts mentioned in the OP that are going wrong at the moment, because there's this thing called mathematics. However, it will offer a stable mathematical/theoretical state the game can be balanced at. However, I would still say that
the devs then need to know whether they are balancing the game for rr80 and sovereign or the 2 tier difference below, because that difference will still have an effect.

[navis]

There are too many other factors and gear is not the biggest concern once normal balancing is taken care of. Renown is the larger factor IMO - which suggests tier bracket adjustments as players continue to get more powerful. In the last 2 months alone crit rates have spiked overall and will continue to as players approach RR70 and above.
As mentioned there are some good examples of the stat increase of gear sets - where they roughly should be at.

I think the stabilization effort action is necessary on the lower portion only- t4 and downward so that players entering T4 are most sturdy as can be. (higher renown rank averages in lower tiers). Currently we still got a lot of players wearing T3 gear in T4 bit I see this concern improving as ALL players rank up. I think this is why Mythic started selling Anni for coin, eventually. Perhaps more buff for players weaker than they should be entering Y tier bracket.

I see the main balancing concerns of each tier bracket and what the average renown points spent should at, aiming for much higher RR than current.

Honestly a lot of this reminds me of the 'wards' from before.. But they were for PvE..

[Bozzax]

I really didn't like the "hidden" ORVR balancing coefficient at all and I think many share that feeling.

Why is a "hidden" balancing coefficient preferred in op compared to lets say have a decaying power curve for or sets (higher sets increase at a slower pace then lower sets)?

Problem with WAR gear

Spoiler:

(war had a near linear curve for most and then WHAM!!!! sov and WF, DF was near exp = problem)
- crazy procs
- "free" strong abilities on top of already best in slot gear
- Sov and WF, DF breaking the near linear curve of anni > warlord
- Extra health pools for RR100s (the extra tactic was utterly BS)
- out of control mit (armor / resist) values on all sets
- LOTD was broken and buggy

Everything that increase % (crit, crit damage, damage, strikethrough, avoidance, mit, ...) simply needs to be increaser at a slower pace and tightly controlled (preventing mixing combos). They are the ones causing most problems.

Having a decaying curve for gear progression gives a reason to grind for ever while having easier progression in the beginning for casuals that play less.

[navis]

There already is balancing and it's called Bolstering..

[porkstar]

I don't necessarily disagree with any of this proposal. I am at a slight disadvantage to offer feedback on the original design intent since I didn't start playing Live until after LotD when most of these issues were at full exacerbation. I believe the intent is to bring the game back in-line with the original design intent before attempting further micro (class) balance?

I would add a couple of items that went awry under the heading of Example 5: Broad Design Change.
Cleansing Winds and Resolute Defense
DoK and WP back lines healing

edit: I've seen a few people suggest to greatly reduce the stat increases between gear tiers. A good example I read was that the net effect of the next gear set would be akin to upgrading all of your talismans. This seems quite logical because then the entire "gear" part of the balance equation remains steady and manageable. Thenceforth, balancing the "cool" or meaningful parts of the game such as, trees, tactics, gear procs, RvR lake bonuses, event items, RvR abilities, Tome tactics, etc. becomes much easier. It's almost as if (other than procs) you almost take gear out of the equation. If I am understanding this suggestion by the other players correctly, it seems like a no-brainer.

Regarding this "hidden" +2 gear calculation, I will admit that I don't completely understand how this would work with the existing bolster but I haven't had time to completely digest it.

[Telen]

Crit and crit procs ruined live. It needed a soft and hard cap like everything else. Plenty of tactics with the 25% base proc rate were good until people were pushing 40%+ crit rates then crit proc just became stupid. Soft cap needed to be 25% like the base proc rate. Mythic never put a cap in because crit was never meant to get that high

[blaqwar]

I agree in the game needing a stabilised base which the whole system can be based on. DPS, HPS, movement speed, TTK, etc should all be normalised for each iteration of the system between teirs of gear. If the relative power scaling can be preserved then I believe it would be the best of both worlds.

My only concern is stagnation way down the line when in a perfect scenario the careers are in (mostly) equilibrium with only very minor changes happening. Metagame changes depend on new variables and with the stabilized state in effect the top tier will play exactly the same no matter what gear is introduced. Essentially the state of what people atm call "stale meta" will only grow staler between Anni and Sov after career balancing has been done. It's not an issue I'm terribly concerned with but the competitive community might be.

[normanis]

telen is right about crit cap to 25%, and i agree with those ppl who say nerf armor potions.
about what azarael said in begining about armor diferneces. i agree to him vhere he said about +1 and +2 when u fight with lower gear.
when i started play in old war my enginer have armor buff byt when i take damge its get reduced and after some hits i need refresh it.
also there was some level diference when i fighted in scenario t4 as 36 level my level was bolstered to 42. byt who have even lower level than me they where bolstered to 44level and 40 levels didnt get bolster( i think it was last year of old war) .