Can someone please explain to me...

[Calindor]

How they think the game is going to benefit casual players as much as hardcore, or make them in the same league.

Can you please give examples or something, cause I'm really not undertstanding the logic.

The way I see it, it all depends on the time/effort you put in. Levelling up requires a certain amount of exp, you get get exp based on quests and mobs. Getting new gear depends on pvp points (how many kills you get, based on how much time you spend doing it), or its based on crafting (buying the materials or farming them from a certain mob that drops it. Regardless of what approach you take, its going to take you a certain amount of time.

First off saying you are more skilled is bs, because your level of skill is irrelevant to the time you spend playing, anyone can be skilled whether they play 30 mins or 15 hours a day.

For example: say at lvl 30 you need a new armour set, and you decide to craft it thinking it will be faster than pvp (whatever is the fastest/easiest way, people will exploit it over the other options...why wouldnt they?). It takes you approx 30 hours of playing time to get all the materials you need from different mobs and craft your armour. You play an average of 2 hours a day, so it took you 15 days to complete.

There is another person who is doing the same thing, except they play 10 hours a day, therefore doing the exact same thing will take the same amount of time, but since they play more it only took them 3 days to complete...so they will have the next 12 days to do stuff ahead of you.

Am I wrong on this? I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but I simply don't see how a casual player can advance/progress on the same level as a hardcore player whether its easy as pie to do it, or hard as hell...because the hardcore player is simply going to be doing more of it.




Maybe I'm completely out to lunch on this, but im not seeing both sides of the picture...what do people think is going to be in this game that will give casual players a chance to be equal to hardcore players (whether it be a 1v1 pvp, effeciency of killing mobs or a raidboss....or some way of measuring a characters strength)?

I don't want this to turn into a flame fest like that other thread, I just want to know, cause I'm curious about this game and I'm obviously not understanding what people are thinking of it :<




P.S. dagan, you are so L2 its not even funny.....actually it is, i smile at all your posts lol...Even though what you say is extreme, and how you say it ("casual players should just quit imo"...lol)...but I agree with the principle of what you're saying.

[arkhaal]

Originally Posted by Calindor

First off saying you are more skilled is bs, because your level of skill is irrelevant to the time you spend playing, anyone can be skilled whether they play 30 mins or 15 hours a day.

Skill isn't innate, so it grows while playing.

And examples of what can be done to put casual and hcg to the same level :

• Quest soloable, 10mins to finish it, and gives a nice reward at the end.
• Quest that you can do only 1 time per day, every day, at the end of the month, you get a reward equals to the item you can buy with 5000 kills pvp.
• Upgrade armor available through pvppoint every month, and considerably lower the price of the old armor.

Of course, casual player will always get the same stuff few weeks/month later compared to hcg, but that's better than never get the stuff and it'll be easier for casual.

[Koji]

Make the game based on skill. Simply.

It's the way FPS games work and when your Multiplaying on those it's the best, most pure PVP in any game. An MMO PVP doesn't match it due to it being alot slower.

I know this comment is way out there in an MMO fan site but i think those that play FPS games will agree with me on the most part.

So in conclusion. To make a game for those that play it non stop and those that play it occassionally able to compete together is to make it more skill based and less gear based.

Despite all its flaws Guild Wars did this very well.

Saying that, I think Aion will benefit the hardcore player more as most MMO's do. They can get all the gear quicker but just dismissing all the players working through it slowly to not being able to get some rewards is rather elitist.

[eidos]

As I understand it, by saying that the game will be appealing to casual and hardcore gamers, the devs meant that both will have a chance to get the best items. There will be multiple ways to get items and stuff done.

The hardcore way may be fast and involve raiding, mass pvp and things that basically require partying or strong organization.

On the other hand, there will be multiple quests to get equipment. These quests will be time consuming, but even a casual player by continues effort will be able to acquire the same items. He wont have to participate in large scale raids like L2 and take it easy at his own pace.

Of course, in the end hardcore players will have more and better items, but the casuals wont be powerless to try and get the same things in the long term.

[Fleiva]

Easy. Ill talk in Lineage 2 terms since you're familiarized with them:

Lineage2 prelude, limit was B grade, and level...70? forgot already. Well, if instead of making 10 impossible levels, subclasses you must level to 75, and 900 weapons way better than the B grade ones, they made other chronicles with some mid-game content such as minigames, skills adjustments, great quests, pvp based features, etc, it would have been casual.

Aion, with a softer leveling curve, will eliminate at least one of the gaps, the skills one.

Lineage 2 is done like this: You dont pve, you cant pvp. There must be people exping somewhere so you can get your share of pvp, so adding more grind, they guarantee at least a pair of months with more pvp. Here, in Aion, there will be continous pvp in the abyss, and if they focus future expansions in anything but grind, or if their expansions endgame targets are a softer grind (something that a casual gamer can achieve within the expansion time), there won't be so much of a gap, hardcore gamers will be entertained pvping in the abyss for fortresses, etc, and casual gamers will be there also, even if they take a bit more of time to arrive there.

There's one thing in L2 that totally kills the casual content, and its about rewarding events.

Lets imagine it like this: There is an event, everybody goes with non enhanced weapons, a guy wins, and he gets a +1 weapon, then, on the next event, he will have it easier, getting a +2 weapon. From there on, the same guy will keep winning over and over, while the others wont be able to do the same. That, in L2 is called Epic bosses, and events like that, which create such a huge gap, are the main problem of that game imo.

If aion makes high-end items available for everyone, even if it takes a bit more, instead of giving away unique items in public events, it will benefit casual gamers.

[Celebrity]

Usually the way you benefit the casual player is making the grind to the max lvl easier in some ways, trought quests and not based on the time you need to grind up to it. Let me take Lineage 2 as an example. A casual player will never catch up with the hardcore guys there for many reasons.

First the game is basically based on party grind, and for get decent amounts of xp you need to spend an enourmous amount of time. Example: Solo on lvl 56 takes like 1 hour to you get 4% of xp on white-yellow mobs nonstoping. On party things go a little better, but not much.

Secpond when you get around lvl 60+ you start to pvp, what means you will have the xp loss on death, so you can lose more xp then gain if you start pvp too much, and many of L2 players only play the game for pvp. I actually do know a guy that got stucked on lvl 66 for like 3-4 months, becouse of the pvp fights, you can avoid it, but not allways people search for pvp on this game.

Once the world will not be fully open to pvp and the grind will not be based on time killing mobs, things become easier for the guys that don't have much time to spend with the game. So they casual players wil eventually catch up with the hardcore guys, what means more fun, becouse there will be more people to fight against.

[ThisIsAvalon]

The ONLY way to make casual players equal to hardcore players, is to limit leveling time. I've only seen this happen in one game before. (SRO Japan) After you leveled for 3 hours, you would get 0 exp from monsters. Even this way, it would still be imbalanced, hardcore players can do quests and stuff in the meantime. No matter how you make the game, hardcore players will get ahead.

[Aggelos]

I think they already answered you.
It's impossible that a hardcore player gets more gear/exp than a casual player if the hardcore player already hit the cap. Maybe a hardcore player will get to 50 in 1 month, a casual player will do it in 3 months, but they both will be 50 anyway. A hardcore player will be more efficient, but there's not such a great gap between hardcore and casual as in L2.

It's different in L2, let's say I start playing NOW, it will take me, if i'm casual, like a year or more to get where the endgame fun is. Aion will be different, and even if your casual you can experience endgame pvp and fun in short time.


Although hardcore players will be rewarded (hero system, mining, siege, etc) casual players still will have the change to compete with them, get into endgame raids and sieges once a month if they want to.

Quit the grind fest out of your head, too much L2.

[dagan]

i better stay out of this :P

[Cynthe]

To put it very simply, the only difference between hardcore and casual is that the hardcores get to certain areas first while the casual take their dandy time getting there. It might mean you 'dominate' first but that doesn't mean you will forever, once a casual gets up there I'm pretty sure they can be just as stiff competition as any other player.
Also depends if the game mechanics rewards hardcore vs casual, in L2 it seems to me that they do and maybe that's why you don't see how casuals can ever hope to compete.
But not every game is made this way, and it sounds like Aion will reward both, and also PvE people which is something in a mostly PvP game. It all depends if the game is based on your character's skill system and combos or if it's stat/armor dependent. A mix of both? Maybe If it's stat dependent there's no competition hardcores will own at first because they'll get the gear and items faster, but if the focus is more on how you strategize your character build and how you use combos/skills, that's probably another matter entirely. ^^

[Calindor]

Hmm some interesting ideas, but the only ones i think that will work are the quests that can only be done once a day, or limiting the exp per day. This wont work completely, as people who are on longer will just craft or farm pvp points after they are done...but it will help.


Things like making it more out of skill will never work, because the game would have so little content/levelling/equipping time that it would just die way too fast.








And I just thought of another idea...like CB they could limit the level cap each week/2 weeks/month to something very reasonable that should only take maybe an hour or 2 per day on average, and keep raising it each week. The hardcore people would be crafting/doing quests and farming pvp after they hit the max lvl, but it would keep everyone on somewhat of an even level.

[Infinity]

I think they will implement stuff to balance out Hardcore/Casual players and help casual players be able to get adequate or even rare/nice gear...

However, in the end, as with any mmorpg in my opinion, Hardcore players will have the advantage and prevail (in general) over the casual players, thats just how it works. (in general, in general, in general... don't hate =(

As far as how they will balance them i think Arkhaal above had the best answer for that. Daily quests and such that you can only complete a certain amount of them in a certain timeframe.... if not the hardcore players would just do that as well and again triumph over the casual players.

etc...

[Aggelos]

Originally Posted by Calindor

Hmm some interesting ideas, but the only ones i think that will work are the quests that can only be done once a day, or limiting the exp per day. This wont work completely, as people who are on longer will just craft or farm pvp points after they are done...but it will help.


Things like making it more out of skill will never work, because the game would have so little content/levelling/equipping time that it would just die way too fast.


And I just thought of another idea...like CB they could limit the level cap each week/2 weeks/month to something very reasonable that should only take maybe an hour or 2 per day on average, and keep raising it each week. The hardcore people would be crafting/doing quests and farming pvp after they hit the max lvl, but it would keep everyone on somewhat of an even level.

I just don't get you.

The thing is that both casual and hardcore will be able to hit cap fast. The latter faster than the former. Why putting restrictions? Hardcore player will be 50 in 1 month or less... casual in 3 month or less... both 50... they fight...


I think the point NC is trying to remark is not that both hardcore and casual will get to endgame at the same time, but both being able to get there fast and with not much difference.

[Otomox]

Prelude limit was c grade

[Fayeth]

<--- sitting in corner quietly watching thread

popcorn anyone?