Posted by Shymon 2 years ago

Dear SBI,

So i am going to assume one of the design goals is to encourage new players who have never hellgated in Albion online to go ahead and make the leap into competitive 2s 5s and 10s. With this in mind i think that a lot of the feedback towards the new HG system is missing the obvious and glaring error of its current state, simply that in its current form there is little to no incentive for newer players to try out this content.

So, a preface first; there will always be people who dislike the PvE aspect or the map design or the infamy system. Any changes to years old content will have some discontent, this post is not about disliking any design change. This post is about the removal of a motivation for an inexperienced hellgater to engage in your new content.

So look at it from a new player's perspective, the new Hellgates roll out, they provide less PvE fame then any other content, the only way to get loot is to beat a team that is likely far more experienced than you. Eventually you may get good enough to cross the 50% win rate but you will throw away millions in sets to get to that point. From starting a team to actually seeing any rewards will be a long long road and there are many many other better options in terms of profit and fame. Competitive 5s and soon to be 10s are some of the hardest content to get into in albion and removing the incentives for newer players is simply raising this bar even higher.

A counter to this argument is the soon to be non-lethal gates, and while i do believe that they are a good first step, the gap between lethal and non-lethal will be incredibly high; similar to the gap between arena and lvl 2 crystals for example. Also non-lethal content has always been seen as less desirable content in general. I.E. hunter level CDs, where you might try out a build once or twice to get mechanics down but even beginner players quickly move to the stalker level CDs, the incentive to move to that content is simply too great.

With this in mind it seems as if the fix is so simple to implement. It does not require overhauling the design, or reworking maps or PvE side of the content. It can be achieved with a minimum of resources and very few lines of code to modify and change.

1. Rework the fame of each mob to make it in line with other content, it should be at least on the level of CDs or maybe slightly higher due to the nature of getting a team together (group content has historically been better in terms of fame in albion vrs solo content). this will make it so that newer players can also advance their character while playing competitive group content as opposed to feeling like they are wasting their time when they could be making gains with other content far easier.

2. Make every Hellgate level clear have a chest at the end. This will mean that there is a greater loot incentive for players, particularly newer players who can "cash out" without having to win a fight. This does not have to be the same chest that spawns after defeating a group (i would say it should probably be about 50% of a fight chest) but taking this out is dramatically increasing the cost to start a team. You have already dealt with the rat problem by forcing fights and a stricter IP cap, removing loot from "free" gates is not going to significantly decrease rats anymore then it already does.

3. Make an IP cap system similar to the CD system. I am happy to see the 80% cap replacing the 50% cap if only to reduce the benefits of overcharging (nothing is worse than losing an artifact to OC because you didn't want to be too out IPed in a HG) as well as reducing the influence of high IP groups vrs newer teams (this is probably the best thing you have done to get newer players into HGs with the rework). But it would be nice if there was a higher tier then what will be a 5.1 meta for gear, which is a bit low for a lot of experienced teams. Thankfully i think this is a super simple fix and just make a three tier system for HGs with two levels of lethal gates much like CDs. If you are worried about too small a player base then may i suggest 1200 ip cap with 80% redux a good alternative for lethal gates.

Too often i think that the discussion has been based around "i don't like the new maps, mobs, i hate PvE in my PvP etc." and this is the wrong approach to take. The new gates look better, and people will ALWAYS complain about changes to content, but in my mind these changes are largely good. The graphics are better, the mobs more interesting, and the map system solves a lot of problems with gates currently. But you seem to have taken all incentives to play gates other then the guarantee of a fair 5v5 fight (which is very important don't get me wrong) but a sandbox game is about being able to make choices and right now there is very little reason to choose hellgates other then wanting to fight. This content will obviously be very popular at the start, new content always is, but if you remove the incentive for newer players (and quite a bit of the incentive even for experienced 2s and 5s players) then you will slowly see HGs being used less and less and gate kept by a very few high level teams.

I, and i think i speak for the majority of 5s players, want to see even more people dive into competitive small group pvp with this next patch. We love the game and want to see this aspect of it grow and we are excited for a new HG system. But i really think that you may have undervalued the need to have HGs have the potential be a rewarding experience for all players both new and experienced alike. And i do believe that these problems change be fixed by adjusting a few simple number changes. No reworking the rework, no dramatic changes to the dramatic changes. Just simply making the rewards of HGs in line with other group activities in Albion.


Thank you for your time.