"Powercreep", "Endgame levelling", "Bonus stat rolls" and why it may actually be healthy for PvE

[Ardeshir]

Hey all,

I was picking Taz's brain about ideas to make the economy and PvE build diversity/complexity better, and while I won't go into everything he suggested for that just yet, we got talking about why games like Destiny 2, Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, WoW, ESO and the like are seemingly so addictive for progression-minded players.

Right now when you hit 40 and are at near BiS for the build you want to play on a civ, you're effectively finished with that civ, and you are doing legendary quests for the sole point of being able to say you've completed them COOP/Solo/in X time. This is all well and good for those of us wanting to put fancy clear videos on youtube, but it doesn't really incentivize the average player to keep playing on that civ any longer.

Have a look at the "endgame levelling" or post-character-max-level levelling systems of many of the MMORPG and Hack and Slash RPG games out on the market these days. While we may not need the infinite post-level-cap levelling system of Diablo 3's Paragon system, something akin to ESO's champion level cap, or GW2's Mastery system would be a great addition to players. Where you can hit your level cap for a civ, but then there's another 40/80/800 levels worth of tiny bonuses to accrue (and it doesn't even have to be a stat bonus or an item reward at every level, even getting something every 5/10 levels in the overlevelling system would be cool) and to encourage players to do any content that gives XP, not just a mix of the hardest content they can do to prove themselves, and the most reward-efficient clearable content for themselves to get the max-rolled pieces of gear to replace the same pieces they already have but aren't max-roll.

Also, getting to that BiS-piece-but-not-max-roll threshold is honestly not that hard if you are willing to do efficient elite/leg content and PvP for a month or two. What if all, or nearly all gear had a chance to drop with a bonus random stat on it? Yes, I want something like WoW's tertiary-bonus-stat roll system in the game. The actual stats that are in the pool of random-tertiary-stat can be debated, but it would be nice to see older pieces of gear in particular potentially drop with some of the new cool stats that have only been in the game in the past year or three. A Neith's Blessed Javelin for example has the current rolls of Damage: +33.3 — 36.8%, Max range +20.1 — 22.2%, Line-of-sight +20.1 — 22.2%. What if you could also have it drop with a 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 chance with those stats PLUS any one of health regen/ignore armor/snare/attack speed/other stat?

Yes, I understand both of these ideas "make the game easier" and "detract from the original gear and levelling vision of the game", but I don't give a damn. I don't want to see every "good" PvE player quit after 2-3 months of activity because they're as close to BiS in the current system as they care to be, then show up for a fortnight at the most once a new PvE content patch drops.

Plus, this also encourages the less skilled or less confident PvE'ers to stick around and try get the progression needed for them to be able to clear 3-5 star legendary content easier and more enjoyably.

In a similar vein to these suggestions, Taz also brought up the season system that Diablo and Path of Exile in particular use. While I don't think people would want to delete their level 40 civs and start over, what about a second copy of each civ for each player, that does reset to level 1 every x days/months, and the reward for hitting level cap, completing x/y/z quest chains, and/or reaching a certain gearscore value on the civ also translates to another bonus on the main/standard version of the civ? Again, while it would over time lead to powercreep, is this really that bad in a game where even the top PvE'ers say "bugger VoK and Clusium, it's too much of a slog, I'm going back to rebellion and easier content"?

We could also get into gear "socketing" (or stat-infusing), and a revival of the alliance faction currency systems, but that's a whole other kettle of fish that'd be more work to bring in and not quite add as much of a long term sense of progression that these two systems would add, so I think we should start with these.

Does this mean we're making a complete transition to "vertical" gearing over "horizontal" gearing? No, at least not once these changes have been implemented. I'm not about to suggest we have content patches that then bring in a whole new tier of "better" epics and legendaries over the ones (other than the proposed bonus-statted pieces) currently in the game. Now that would be a switch to vertical progression. Like WoW having higher and higher item level drops from every new raid patch.

Big thanks to Taz, and to anyone else I've talked with over similar systems from other MMO/RPG titles that seem to really give them a good shot at being a "lifestyle game" too.

(Acronym cheat sheet for above:
BiS - Best in slot, the most recommended final gear piece for a given build or unit in general
VoK - Valley of the Kings, considered to be the longest of the 5 star quests, and so the "hardest" quest in the game
WoW - World of Warcraft, the most long-lasting market leading title in post 2000's gaming, and the most innovative MMO
ESO - Elder Scrolls Online, Bethesda's competitor title to WoW. Formerly a bin-fire of a game but now that it has endgame levelling it's honestly the 3rd best MMO and 3rd biggest in the western gaming market behind WoW and GW2
GW2 - Guild Wars 2. The perfect casual MMO and the 2nd biggest MMO.
MMO - Massively Multiplayer Online, games where you're more or less expected to interact with a wider community
RPG - Roleplaying Game, basically any game where you're a character or faction that interacts with a wider world around you, and more often than not grow incrementally stronger to complete more difficult and complex challenges)

 

[NeenjaNajudo]

Maybe a few solutions could be implemented regarding tertiary stats and and the maintenance of horizontal gearing over vertical.

One of them could be the implementation of a whole new item category for medals, and rework all the existing medals so that they could be used as a secondary soldiers gear item with unique stats in a smaller ammount, as to make specialized builds more specialized and increase the ammount of variety on other more unorthodox builds. I'd say remove the conversion resistance completely and add other stats like dmg, all armor types, health and even maybe the newer snare, AS and HR stats from event items, just in a smaller ammount so people can have a taste of the higher end items with a new unique option for an item slot. Make those legendary medals which are harder to obtain but are more rewarding than the "lower-tier" uncommon/rare/epic medals which give other stats in higher ammounts at each item tier.

Another solution would be to add sockets and gems like PoE's system, where one could carve an item in exchange of coin (which would also tackle the coin dumping problem to a degree) and have them farm quests in search of a gem-like item to insert in said socket, gems that would give an extra bonus stat that the item does not already have (say like a gem with AS or HR stats to put on a Sword of Tiberius, for example), also giving them the option to re-roll the stat of the gem also in exchange of coin at some city in the game. That would also tackle two birds with one stone, one being the "lack of depth" on the rpg aspect of the game, and the coin dumping to stop the GM inflation of items so that new players can access the new content as fast as it is released, seeing that everyone will be low on currency on their own search for a good stat roll for the sockets.

On the aspect of QOL, maybe add something akin to name tags for the items, maybe make a craftable scroll at the expense of a lot of epic mats that enables a player to rename an item to their liking, but making it unique and untradeable/indestructible (no destroying them like the hero items for pro civs).

Regarding accessibility, maybe make epic versions of leg items that do not exist in the game, say the Zahak set with the regen stats, and tone down the unique stat just so that players get a taste of how powerful these items are, with the intention of making them want to get better at the game so they can hunt mats/hoard coins to keep them engaged until they are able to get their hands on the "min-maxed version" of the item they liked. Could make this by making them a region exclusive item like the unique alliance legs or make them craftable with a low drop rate for their recipes.

This is just an out there idea, since i know that the implementation of those systems in the game would probably be a pain on the devs, but im pretty sure it would make the whole PvE aspect of the game more engaging (and hilarious if the name tag thing was ever implemented). Not a priority change for sure, but maybe something to work on the sidelines after the bigger updates drop and the team has some extra time to work on something else.

 

[Andy P XIII]

I just said this to Ardeshir on discord, but I think it is worth saying here, too.

Raising the roof on the game is certainly an obvious topic that has been raised many times. I agree with the concept of it -- any game that lasts forever needs expansion to maintain players' interest. our major bottlenecks will always be on the amount of available hours we have to design something. for years we have been trying to stretch the game with the very easiest, quickest ways -- adding new gear, new advisors, etc. That stuff does not require vast amounts of new coding, etc. I don't know how feasible it would be to, say, add more levels past level 40, or add a random extra bonus to gear, or add seasons.

But the first order of business would be to determine what kinds of things like these examples we feasibly could add to the game. Once we have that list, we are less than halfway there -- we then need to roll up our sleeves and decide whether we should add those things to the game. Deciding to expand the game in these directions would be irreversible and leave us open to claims that we have broken the game. So the should conversation is no joke.

Finally, if we get through could and should we need to satisfy ourselves that the specific changes we want are the absolute best use of our very limited development resources/time. As volunteers, we really want to get the absolute most out of every hour someone gives us. So we need to decide that we would add such things to the game. So it is complicated, but I am only burdening you with all of these details because I rather like your ideas, so in respect to them, it's definitely best to very early on mention the precarious road ahead of every proposed piece of content.

 

[Ardeshir]

Maybe a few solutions could be implemented regarding tertiary stats and and the maintenance of horizontal gearing over vertical.

One of them could be the implementation of a whole new item category for medals, and rework all the existing medals so that they could be used as a secondary soldiers gear item with unique stats in a smaller ammount, as to make specialized builds more specialized and increase the ammount of variety on other more unorthodox builds. I'd say remove the conversion resistance completely and add other stats like dmg, all armor types, health and even maybe the newer snare, AS and HR stats from event items, just in a smaller ammount so people can have a taste of the higher end items with a new unique option for an item slot. Make those legendary medals which are harder to obtain but are more rewarding than the "lower-tier" uncommon/rare/epic medals which give other stats in higher ammounts at each item tier.

Another solution would be to add sockets and gems like PoE's system, where one could carve an item in exchange of coin (which would also tackle the coin dumping problem to a degree) and have them farm quests in search of a gem-like item to insert in said socket, gems that would give an extra bonus stat that the item does not already have (say like a gem with AS or HR stats to put on a Sword of Tiberius, for example), also giving them the option to re-roll the stat of the gem also in exchange of coin at some city in the game. That would also tackle two birds with one stone, one being the "lack of depth" on the rpg aspect of the game, and the coin dumping to stop the GM inflation of items so that new players can access the new content as fast as it is released, seeing that everyone will be low on currency on their own search for a good stat roll for the sockets.

On the aspect of QOL, maybe add something akin to name tags for the items, maybe make a craftable scroll at the expense of a lot of epic mats that enables a player to rename an item to their liking, but making it unique and untradeable/indestructible (no destroying them like the hero items for pro civs).

Regarding accessibility, maybe make epic versions of leg items that do not exist in the game, say the Zahak set with the regen stats, and tone down the unique stat just so that players get a taste of how powerful these items are, with the intention of making them want to get better at the game so they can hunt mats/hoard coins to keep them engaged until they are able to get their hands on the "min-maxed version" of the item they liked. Could make this by making them a region exclusive item like the unique alliance legs or make them craftable with a low drop rate for their recipes.

This is just an out there idea, since i know that the implementation of those systems in the game would probably be a pain on the devs, but im pretty sure it would make the whole PvE aspect of the game more engaging (and hilarious if the name tag thing was ever implemented). Not a priority change for sure, but maybe something to work on the sidelines after the bigger updates drop and the team has some extra time to work on something else.

I like these ideas and I think they'd be good for the game once there's either or both of the semi-endless-progression elements added to the game. They'd mesh really well, and it'd remove holes in the gear pool and finally make medals more than meme conversion resistance vendor trash

I just said this to Ardeshir on discord, but I think it is worth saying here, too.

Raising the roof on the game is certainly an obvious topic that has been raised many times. I agree with the concept of it -- any game that lasts forever needs expansion to maintain players' interest. our major bottlenecks will always be on the amount of available hours we have to design something. for years we have been trying to stretch the game with the very easiest, quickest ways -- adding new gear, new advisors, etc. That stuff does not require vast amounts of new coding, etc. I don't know how feasible it would be to, say, add more levels past level 40, or add a random extra bonus to gear, or add seasons.

But the first order of business would be to determine what kinds of things like these examples we feasibly could add to the game. Once we have that list, we are less than halfway there -- we then need to roll up our sleeves and decide whether we should add those things to the game. Deciding to expand the game in these directions would be irreversible and leave us open to claims that we have broken the game. So the should conversation is no joke.

Finally, if we get through could and should we need to satisfy ourselves that the specific changes we want are the absolute best use of our very limited development resources/time. As volunteers, we really want to get the absolute most out of every hour someone gives us. So we need to decide that we would add such things to the game. So it is complicated, but I am only burdening you with all of these details because I rather like your ideas, so in respect to them, it's definitely best to very early on mention the precarious road ahead of every proposed piece of content.

Yeah these are very good points. Not only is the dev team pretty constrained in terms of labour power, this would involve much more drastic changes to the game than what are effectively content mods/expansions to bring in, like new items using the existing gear format, or new quests built out of the old ones.

From memory I'd asked about a post 40 levelling system before, around the time things were heating up with Romans development, to a similar answer. And I think you guys have also briefly thought about adding some form of seasonal or prestige/reset system to civs only to come to this conclusion we're at now. It's not that either of these things are in the "too hard" pile yet, but more that they're in the "we need to spend time we don't currently have to find out if they belong in the too hard pile"

Either way, thanks to both of you for the responses.

 

[Exclusive0r]

Some good points Ardy mate. Some good answers Andy

I don't fret about re-doing quests as every time you start one there are different, builds to try , different tactics etc. But I do have loads and loads of top level gear, coins in the millions and 1000's of EP so I can also play around with consumables. To be honest I must be easily pleased.

I would like to see a spring event, I mean we have winter, summer and Halloween (autumn) so a spring event would be nice.

I do want to point out "offline mode" is a great place to try any quest you want. I know Ard makes maps and I started playing around making my own quests. I made Jason and the Argonauts, Hannibal sacking Rome multi-quest adventures, it was great fun. OK you don't win in game gear but you can gear civ's up if you want, bit tricky with advisors and triggers etc but you can still have fun. The hard part is the documentation - lot of trial and error and picking up bits and pieces off the forum. I haven't done it for some time - but I will give it a go again Ardy motivated me LoL

How about competitions to promote 'offline mode' where the community can make their own stuff - I don't know how feasible it would be to set up Mystery island where community quests could be uploaded. This would relieve the volunteer dev's work load (maybe ??)
I just want to say this game is already very versatile and I still cannot solo every leg quest

 

[Ardeshir]

Some good points Ardy mate. Some good answers Andy

I don't fret about re-doing quests as every time you start one there are different, builds to try , different tactics etc. But I do have loads and loads of top level gear, coins in the millions and 1000's of EP so I can also play around with consumables. To be honest I must be easily pleased.

I would like to see a spring event, I mean we have winter, summer and Halloween (autumn) so a spring event would be nice.

I do want to point out "offline mode" is a great place to try any quest you want. I know Ard makes maps and I started playing around making my own quests. I made Jason and the Argonauts, Hannibal sacking Rome multi-quest adventures, it was great fun. OK you don't win in game gear but you can gear civ's up if you want, bit tricky with advisors and triggers etc but you can still have fun. The hard part is the documentation - lot of trial and error and picking up bits and pieces off the forum. I haven't done it for some time - but I will give it a go again Ardy motivated me LoL

How about competitions to promote 'offline mode' where the community can make their own stuff - I don't know how feasible it would be to set up Mystery island where community quests could be uploaded. This would relieve the volunteer dev's work load (maybe ??)
I just want to say this game is already very versatile and I still cannot solo every leg quest

Hey Ex, good to hear you're no longer dealing with the chemo and can enjoy life and the game a bit more. Hope you've been well lately!

No worries, I was encouraged by the guys who had theirs uploaded first (Coward, Khan, Chaos, etc) and got back into it another year later when Coolblade released his too. Been over a year since I last mucked around with offline mode scenarios though so I'd have to go and study some of the existing ones to remember all the trigger work and tricks with terrain and water editing lol

Sounds like a nice idea to have any functional scenario playable in the live game and have some competitions to get more uploaded by the others that are handy with aoe map editor (it's essentially the same across AoE2, AoE3, AoM and AoEO aside from a couple of triggers and AoE3's support for their trading post system). It's just probably in the same basket as these other ideas. I remember you or someone else in the community has suggested a very similar idea to get offline mode content in the live game to ease pressure on the Celeste team regarding extra quest packs. And get more people making offline mode content too lol. Annoyingly, it'd take magnitudes more learning and work by the dev team than just pumping out another quest pack or two.

Generally the more alien and cool an idea sounds for the game, the more new code and the more issues with implementation (due to engine limitations or getting functioning correctly on the live server) occur unfortunately.

I'll have to try get a real job as an associate game developer, learn some things and come back

 

[PF2K]

I agree that some kind of progression beyond level 40 would be a welcome addition for all players -but implementing a "new" leveling system beyond what we have is far above what we can currently allocate development resources for. However, some kind of "pseudo" achievement system or maybe a long grind for exclusive pieces of gear is something we can do.

 

[Ardeshir]

Thanks