The Imbalance of Power

[Akalukz]

I have been a firm believer for a long time and have suggested numerous times. Drop low lvl gear sets

Anni/Merc/Ruin needs to be gone, and replaced with Conq (starting at CR35 RR35) Vanquisher should be available in full at RR50 (start at 45), Invader costs should be significantly reduced and start at 60 and finished by 65, Add a wounds bonus to all sub Vanq sets and replace the +1 mastery

Put in place a Renown point boslter for players CR40 RRx thru RR60 that is defenisive in style, primarily the minus crit.

Get rid of the AP pool advantages and just make everyone have 300.

[Uchoo]

There's a lot that could be done for the benefit of the new player, but I think that the most important is for them to learn the game. Is the gear gap too extreme? Probably but it's so quick and easy to get to Conqueror level gear and RR45 that I never had much issue with it. I was playing my Devastator Sorc yesterday in the lakes; I tend to find that short period of weakness fun, but maybe that's just me.

TTK is very extreme in the game right now, so I personally would like to see things such as.. a large Wounds increase baseline across all classes, but that would have to come alongside a host of other changes so I won't go into detail, but I think that making combat feel a little more approachable for the majority of players would be good, and to shrink the gap in power between a fully optimized 6 man group and 6 people who are not as such. Not to turn this into a 6v6 debate, but 6 people is the size of a group so I'm just using it as an example. Other games such as SWTOR and WoW tend to do this much better through their combat design.

As a sidenote, RR100 players were level 48 whereas RR80 players were level 41 on live. Every 4 or 5 renown ranks being another effective level. That was the most important power gap along with the 160 wounds Tactic. A RR100 player in Sovereign would probably beat a RR90 in Doomflayer pretty easily.

[Fey]

You never know what will attract or repel new players. I had some highly skilled friends from DaoC come play RoR. Their biggest complaint was how collision is handled in game.

They would constantly get stuck on world items and fail to make jumps. I think just moving through the world got frustrating for them. I don't know the answer unfortunately, we do need new blood.

[Detangler]

The gear gap between new players and Sov level gear was pointed out when Sov was first proposed before it went live on RoR. Veterans and newer players that could do math saw the huge stats increase between "annihilator -> conq -> vanq ---> invader -------> Sov" and said new players would get destroyed. Dev response was "this is end game gear and it should be highly sought after."

Big shocker, math prevailed over pride and here we are.

[Flowson]

An an MMORPG, Long-term players need long-term motivation and rewards. If you start to weaken existing armor and weapons on items that which have been earned in Months and Years, you would probably take away the pride of the Vetarans who digged deep into PvP and PVE to get their gear.

Hardworks always has to pay off. Equipment that has been collected with great effort must therefore be worth more than what you can buy from a dealer. The same goes for beginners who need to have goals for where they can go or reach for.

I remember seeing some Full SoV Players at open RvR as a fresh lvl 40 and thought: "that looks so cool, one day you gonna have that too and shine for the empire on the top end".

In my personal opinion, the solution to the “GearGap” is to find an acceptable compromise that doesn't leave the long-term player worse off than the newcomer or leave the newcomer as a meatball for the long-term vet. player in general.

As a suggestion - just sample numbers for reference - , the difference in gear should never exceed more than 25-30% in Total for Stats and Armor compared to fresh lvl 40 gear and high end rr80 gear for the endgame.

If the other sets/Items exceed this gap in terms of Stats or Armor, the weaker sets need be scaled up in +5% steps . In this way we strengthen the weaker sets and introduce a balance of power on the low side without taking power from the top end.

Totally agreed: There must be an increase, but not an exponential increase but a linear one. By raising the values ​​of the weak ones, we reduce the pressure of the big ones.

Equipment is only meant to make the game easier, but not turn you into a one way terrifying killing machine, compared to regular players at the same level with worse equipment.

Don't get me wrong, equipment can never turn a regular player into a strong NPC that requires an entire group to be taken down on the battlefield. This aint Diablo or The Witchter where its only PVE- This is RoR where Open RVR, PVP and PVE is everything this game is based on.

If we want to diversify more, we also have to issue new armor and weapons; for many, permanent cosmetic items are an acceptable solution to get that, as this wont affect Ballance at all but give them their custom look.

Nevertheless,i agree - as this is an mmorpg - there have to be rare items that set you apart from the crowd, but also have disadvantages for their advantages in order to create a fair balance. For Example: More Damage - Less Armor - More Strengh - Less HP etc.

I think the team did a good start by offering craftable items during the Jeweler event, where everyone could build what hes looking for. We should continue to create a "BlackSmith"-Profession as well, which grants acces to Build Custom Armor for each play style... such as the extraction of procs to make them more useable on different items But this requires more feedback from the player base about what specific options they would like to have and how this can be put on a fair basis for everyone.

Please don't just complain, but provide concrete examples that are comprehensible and can be practiced for the majority of players.

We can only make it easier for players to get started if we provide a balanced system that has advantages and disadvantages depending on the style of play, which are understandable and not just one-hit wonder - due to OP gear - otherwise we might end up in 1 click fights, which are no fun at all...

[Szaas]

Yeah it's an MMO, and grinding power is a part of an MMO. I started the game a few months back, I enjoy the grind, and was able to join the most powerful warbands in a couple months.

[bw10]

Game could use more gear customization. One way to achieve this easily would be to introduce talis with -stats. For example: -24 tough +48 ini talis. Or any other stat combo assuming proper stat weighting.

[Farrul]

Without the gear grinding and as a logical consequence, gear-gap between fresh and older characters this server would get stale really fast ( hence why players re-roll alts continuously to keep the experience fresh). This is ultimately what keeps this old mmo flowing.

There is not enough content for any other model to work, also, the gear gap is not as extreme in this game as in other games.

The real issue is the lack of knowledge of the newbie player, they do not know what renown to spend on, or which talismans to use, what lower level sets to mix. or for that matter how to play the game compared to veterans with tons of previous experience. This results in their destruction unfortunately. If one gives up at this point , well what to do?

Indeed if a fresh 40 joins the battle in full merc set it is game over, it is not a set you're supposed to use at 40 but lvl 35-39 in the mid-tier scenarios. Mix conq/redeye etc is standard entry stuff at lvl 40.

One solution to help new players could be to accelerate the renown gains between lvls 30-40 until it reaches rr 45 in order to acquire a lvl 40 set.

[SZ244663]

I feel like I've read this thread before. Are you re-posting this, ignoring previous discussion, and being purposely misleading? What are these set choices? Why can't lower lvl players use Linis?

Full Mercenary is not a real set for a r40 Choppa. You'll want a Conq/Red-eye mix.

Sent/Red-eye is ALSO not a real set. Its Sent/4-piece Vanquisher. You'll have to account the Vanq Proc and the Sent Ring which can use Soulstone that you left out, and used Melee Power in the example cuz its the highest number, very cheeky of you.

Did you give the BiS Set a Tri Ring? Thats an extra 5% Crit for 10k Crests, which again is very suspicious because it makes it look like you understand perfectly what the 2nd obvious argument against your analysis, after nonsensical set choices, would be: "How long does it take to reach these different sets"

You also chose a DPS class which has the biggest power gap between high RR and low RR. Do it for Healers, whose main difference is tankiness and AP sustain.

Then take into account how long you'll stay with each set.

Setting aside the content of your post your attitude is quite rude to the OP

[Aluviya]

There's a lot that could be done for the benefit of the new player, but I think that the most important is for them to learn the game. Is the gear gap too extreme? Probably but it's so quick and easy to get to Conqueror level gear and RR45 that I never had much issue with it. I was playing my Devastator Sorc yesterday in the lakes; I tend to find that short period of weakness fun, but maybe that's just me.

TTK is very extreme in the game right now, so I personally would like to see things such as.. a large Wounds increase baseline across all classes, but that would have to come alongside a host of other changes so I won't go into detail, but I think that making combat feel a little more approachable for the majority of players would be good, and to shrink the gap in power between a fully optimized 6 man group and 6 people who are not as such. Not to turn this into a 6v6 debate, but 6 people is the size of a group so I'm just using it as an example. Other games such as SWTOR and WoW tend to do this much better through their combat design.

As a sidenote, RR100 players were level 48 whereas RR80 players were level 41 on live. Every 4 or 5 renown ranks being another effective level. That was the most important power gap along with the 160 wounds Tactic. A RR100 player in Sovereign would probably beat a RR90 in Doomflayer pretty easily.

I agree with this, but I want to highlight that I would also identify the issue here is, as already mentioned, the experience one has with their own and enemy classes. I think this is something the game needs to address (and yes, it's not an easy thing to do). I know many people will disagree with me, but I have to say that the current leveling process, with abilities being given bit by bit, might contribute to the classic MMO experience. However, it also prevents players from learning the core abilities and strategies of certain classes early on.

I can see the issue that new players would get overwhelmed with too many abilities. But this game has no tutorial for certain classes that, in the end, require a very different approach than they might initially appear to need. There is, from my point of view, _the big gap_. Best example would be, between the starter tank and what is actually expected from a tank in group gameplay.

Aside from the Ironbreaker, all other tanks get certain abilities quite late, hence players learn how to use these abilities late, which is very evident in every discordant scenario where newbie tanks and engineers/maguses are practically CC bots, giving free immunities. Another example is the Bright Wizard/Sorcerer, where both classes receive the abilities needed for a decent single-target spike rotation quite late in the leveling process.

This is finally what I believe is actually the deal breaker of FUN as people barely have any rewarding moments in the beginning of T4 as they are still learning on how to play the class while facing a gear and experience gap.