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How strong are endgame gear upgrades?
Jacobin
Member RarePosts: 1,009
It is my understanding that like most Korean MMOs, the endgame gear grind consists of upgrading items through an RNG crafting system where the item can potentially be destroyed after a certain tier. This seems problematic to me because I don't believe that PVP can truly be considered balanced and competitive until all combatants are at the gear cap.
In Western MMOs players generally have to farm daily/weekly/monthly capped tokens to buy the best gear which allows everyone to get to the cap and be competitive in a reasonable amount of time. This gear is also BOP which means it cannot be sold on the auction house. Games like GW2 further reduce the gear gap by making the best gear only 5% stronger than the easily obtainable exotic gear.
Since Korean games make the best gear extremely rare and risky to obtain due to the RNG / casino nature of the crafting, then go a step further by making those items not BOP and sellable on the auction house which is influenced by real world cash, I have strong concerns that endgame pvp will be completely unbalanced like ArcheAge.
Do the RNG gear upgrades have massive stat bonuses like AA? or is it like GW2 where the vertical stat progression is extremely limited?
In Western MMOs players generally have to farm daily/weekly/monthly capped tokens to buy the best gear which allows everyone to get to the cap and be competitive in a reasonable amount of time. This gear is also BOP which means it cannot be sold on the auction house. Games like GW2 further reduce the gear gap by making the best gear only 5% stronger than the easily obtainable exotic gear.
Since Korean games make the best gear extremely rare and risky to obtain due to the RNG / casino nature of the crafting, then go a step further by making those items not BOP and sellable on the auction house which is influenced by real world cash, I have strong concerns that endgame pvp will be completely unbalanced like ArcheAge.
Do the RNG gear upgrades have massive stat bonuses like AA? or is it like GW2 where the vertical stat progression is extremely limited?
Comments
Other players will just grind as they go and save up and buy the Higher tier item in the AH.
Higher tier items do drop from world bosses.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
It sounds exactly like AA to be honest. Make PVP the endgame, but then turn the actual process of obtaining competitive gear into a never ending RNG rabbit hole.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
The Gear progression is 0-7 for weapons and 0-5 on armor have zero % chance to fail and require just one black spirit weapon/armor stone to upgrade. as you get past those numbers you run into the chance to fail which lowers the durability of the item by 5 or 10 depending on the item (out of 100). Each enchant level adds about 6-8 main dmg stat to the weapon depending on the weapon you are enchanting a Riberto weapon being the best because it starts as blue with the highest initial damage stat plus +3 crit as the base roll with two sockets. Other weapons are close but a +14 Riberto will normally be equal to a +15 of all the green equivalent weapons (both pve and pvp). The green (pve or pvp) weapon can be upgraded to blue/yellow easily but the increase is very small and even the yellow version is about the same as a riberto's base stats just without as much attack damage.
Final bit of info is after +15 you can actually go back down in enhances to +15 and need a second tiered black spirit stone that run for a lot more then tier 1. Also the game turns into Horse simulator 2015 where people sit afk running on their horses 24/7 to level and breed them (using both in game and out of game macro, Legally).
IMO the game will be another Archeage and be heavy pay2win. I mean that a player can open their wallet and get +15 on all their gear in the first week and then has easy time to PK/Owning his/her way to a farming spot. Granted grind time will allow for more skill points for stronger skill ranks and higher lvl the gear in BDO is going to be controlled by the whales.
Screw leveling games, give me something with "End game" at the beginning of the game.
Also there is no level cap, so I believe it's possible to level significantly past a guy that never plays but spends tons on the cash shop and still kick his ass, so that's different from Archeage too.
People have been harping on the possible P2W aspect of the game for awhile (that's why the upgrade thing got removed). There's still possibility for more changes as they said they are continuing to review the cash shop, but it is likely that there will be some p2w aspect to the game, unfortunately.
I honestly don't think it will be near as bad as Archeage, plus I haven't heard much about hacking and exploiting which is what really doomed Archeage in my opinion.
The entire business model of these games is to make the best gear extremely hard to get due to grinding and RNG crafting, but allow those rare/OP items to be sold in the AH. The Whales swoop in and claim pvp dominance.
Sure you can spend cash for in-game gold in most games. The difference is that it cannot be converted into an instantaneous, massive stat advantage compared to the average player in the honest ones.
The reality is that the pretty graphics and flashy action combat are just a lure to get people hooked into the cash shop.
there are several people with +15 in most slots and the best jewelry on the russian server, they spend about $500 to get to that point
they are unkillable in PVP, even if 20 or more people attack them
to get +20 you would need to spend far more, it is far more expensive
Go ahead and grind for a year+ or whatever it takes to get +15, just remember that the entire time the non-cash players (suckers) will be fighting unkillable credit card warriors. And by the time a player actually gets there, +20 will be the new whale meta.
It's not a themepark so you can't just have it all end and the player "win" by earning everything. What then would they do in game? There are no battlegrounds or instanced PvP. Are you going to run around the massive world on your horse (since it has no fast travel) looking for people to kill? No you'll get bored.
You have guild vs guild wars as your primary form of PvP and this is open world PvP and the wars don't end unless the guild cancels it. This is the PvPvE nature of the game - you're out grinding, or maybe on your horse running back to town and encounter a few guys from the enemy guild - you go and attack them with your buddy, etc. Outside of that you have PK of course, but the Siege and Node battles are scheduled and timed events.
You can't just siege all day everyday. It's once a week siege battles and twice a week node battles. Even those you need to prepare for ahead of time and you'll be out in the game grinding things for it.
For an open world PvP game to work you need to encourage players to get out there and do things, which means nobody will ever be equal because no matter what you're out grinding, some will have more time to do it, or some will be better at it, etc. That's the nature of the game.
Sure with softcaps on skill points, levels, and gear (gear has a hardcap too but the softcap is +15), if you grind enough you'll be relatively equal to most players at some point. But there will always be imbalances and it will never be perfect.
Point being, it's very easy to earn gear and enchant said gear. It just requires your grinding method of choice, but the RNG is minimal and easily overcome. One of the things I like about this game is that it's easy to gear up and you can choose how you grind in this game, doing activities you enjoy (i.e. grind mobs and certain quests for drops to either earn cash or directly gear up, participate in one of the many, many, many non-combat activities to earn cash and purchase your items, or craft everything directly which is likely slower but still your choice, etc.), unlike ArcheAge where I had to sit on a donkey all day inbetween literal farming. Two activities I hated. Gearing in this game is frankly quite easy, it's just a grind. And I find it a lot of fun actually to just go out grinding in this game so it's actually an enjoyable process. But you'll get there and it won't be hard.
The only reason to try to P2W in BDO is if you're impatient. But this is a game where progression is literally neverending, so paying is completely stupid and won't get you any long term benefits. Not to mention, even if you have good gear, aside from the fact that everyone else will catch up, you still need to grind out levels, skill points, contribution points, energy, level and use your workers for crafting and gathering, etc. Those are all other very important methods of progression in BDO that you can't just pay your way through. They need to be grinded the old fashioned way and they all contribute to the game in important ways. This isn't a game where gear wins all. Sure you'll be temporarily powerful until people catch up, but you're still lacking in so many other ways.
In BDO can be a problem if gear the main factor that can throw things off something like Allods Online one can grind forever. But if somone pays in money they can out gear other players in faster rate even there are guilds in Allods Online is all base around cash shop user so guild vs guild become not balance in power on the top just become cash shop user guild. Not sure how it went with arche age I'm sure something like that was the same.
Still time for BDO to lock that down with out letting people sell cash shop items in game if gear very big factor in the game.
The game is pretty much PvP focused. I'm surprised at one post saying anyone wouldbe disappointed if anyone was playing BDO for the PvP. Unless he's unhappy that ganking results in Karma loss.
If you're not looking for end game raiding and are happy to level chars up, buy a house, decorate it, breed horses, craft etc then sure, ignore the PvP. You don't have to PvP but it is open world so there's always a chance that PvP might find you.
There looks to be a lot of sandboxy pve activities which might be the game's saving grace though.