SUGGESTION: Add a gear check to Aurics, require fully upgraded gear of at least 300 base. This will also encourage them to get a few games under their belt while acquiring crafting materials.
I’m seeing a lot, and i mean a shockingly high amount of brand new level 30s going in to Aurics, even Maelstroms with whatever random blue gear they had on.
They will inevitably drag the team down, immediately go down etc., It get old fast.
They’re looking for a carry to the boosted end reward while at the same time ensuring the chances of a win and those fat end rewards are severely reduced, most groups can’t do 3 player Aurics.
Lemme save everyone some time with the rationalizations, I’ve heard them all:
“Git GUd and leARrn to carry scrUb”
“GeAr DoeSn’t MatTer”
“SkiLL POIntS Don’t MaTTeR”
“GaME is SO EaSy ANYonE cAn Do MAeELStROm WiTH WhitE geaR”
“You’re a bad player if you can’t carry a shitty team”
“wHy Do yOu cArE AbOuT wInNiNg? i hAvE fUn wHeN a nEw PlAyEr tRiGgErS tHe dEmOnHoSt aNd cAuSeS a wIpE”
Anything short of an actual “game-sense exam” will not work.
I have seen people with 300+ levels on chars that were worse than bots.
I always found the level gaiting as a singular bar to meet very dumb. Someone that’s new will immediately try out whatever content unlocked for them. They did meet the singular criteria after all.
I liked how VT2 did it. You needed a certain amount of gear power. Said power you got both from items and levels. So you either had to be decently leveled for the difficulty or be decently geared.
The thing is: that system only worked because of how the progression was designed and how the numbers worked out.
Trying to implement the same thing for DT won’t work because the parameters are not the same.
Any level 30 can just upgrade their dogsh!t gear to orange and bring a terrible, incoherent build and ruin your game regardless.
Gear gating in a 100% RNG gearing system is also a really bad idea in general.
And how often does that actually happen? 1%? 5? Anecdotal and hardly repre
That’s…gating? VT2 also had a “Kill All Lords on Legend” requirement for Cata IIRC.
I’m all for it. I’d say setting a soft gate like getting that Damnation missions penance or “10 damnation wins” or something easy but valuable. While they’re doing it they got a some actual gameplay experience and crafting mats.
There are a few answers to this question. Once is twice too many, more often than you’d like / think, for a game as easy as this, an embarassingly high amount…
Chose your pick really.
All that being said, none of those answers matter since my point wasn’t that it’s common or a problem but that level =/= skill. Same goes for gear.
I’ve done better in heresy and damnation as a level 1 or 5 than someone freshly getting to those difficulties or just casually playing a few rounds on “easy”.
Why should I, someone clearly capable of contributing even when “underleveled”, not be allowed to play on that difficulty? The problem is that even the people that aren’t ready for the difficulty think that they are and trying to explain to them that someone else is good enough at a lower level than them just doesn’t work.
I don’t mind that there is some form of bar to get over in order to do the highest difficulty challenges but DT has a few problems with that.
The more difficult the content the more currencies you get, aka. there is a proficiency insentive to go to higher difficulties as soon as you can.
Gearing in DT still locks a ton of power from the player and hitting an appropriate level of gear and skill for the highest difficulties does not coincide with hitting level 30 if DT is your first tide game.
VT2 only needs to put up gearscore thresholds for new difficulties because that is a metric influenced by gear and level and the thresholds are perfectly chosen so that you hit them right as you are capable enough to play on them.
This is not the case for DT.
All I’m saying is that level and gear is important to be able to play on a certain difficulty but finding the right balance for the thresholds seems like a nightmare to me in DT.
It’s either way too low so any room temperature IQ randy can join your damnation+ game and make you work 33% harder for the win or it’s too high so that people will be kept from trying even though they’d be ready.
We just got an influx of new and returning players so it’s only natural that we will have more people in difficulties that they aren’t ready for.
As much as I wanna say that the level thresholds are too low for heresy and up, level and average gearscore is not the right metric for DT. Levels don’t go past 30 and the average randy hits the “good enough” point at level 70 in my experience. I just don’t know what the right metric is supposed to be and by the looks of things, the devs don’t know either…