Understanding Equipment Expertise

by Shayalyn

QUESTION

What's equipment expertise? What does it mean to my character?

ANSWER

Equipment expertise (or EE) is Sigil's answer to the age-old conundrum--how do we, the developers, keep players from outfitting low level characters in godly gear, making them more powerful (or indestructible) for their level than intended? 

The practice of getting a low level character set up with uber armor and weapons is called "twinking." Many high level players will outfit newbie alts in twink gear to make them more powerful and harder to kill. It's an age old and time-honored practice, and while game developers don't usually seek to destroy it completely, they do tend to put limitations in place. Some games use item scaling, where items scale appropriately to the level of the player. Others games allow players to wear equipment that's  higher in level than they are, but make the equipment less effective until the character meets a certain level requirement.

Equipment expertise in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes uses a mathematical formula. The result is a simple solution to the problem of twinking. It allows a character to wear armor that's significantly above his level, but not so high above as to make give him an unfair advantage against monsters or other players within his level range. Here's how it works:

• Each player may use up to 100% of his EE
• Items equal or lower level than the character will not use EE
• Items higher level than the character will use a percentage of EE. The percentage used depends on how far beyond the character's level the item happens to be. A level 20 item on a level 15 character will use more EE than a level 16 item. (This is where the aforementioned mathematical formula comes in.)
• No single item may use more than 20% EE

Once you understand how EE works, you'll want to use it to its maximum potential. It's important to balance things so that your most critical items (weapons or items with stats that are essential to your class) use more EE than your less crucial items. For instance, it's silly to dedicate 20% of your EE to that nifty Pearlescent Ring of Punting (just because if increases your gnome punting skill) if you're not going to have enough remaining EE to wield a great weapon (or two). Watch your EE carefully and spend it wisely. Look at it this way: you could have up to 5 items that use a full 20% EE each, but then all your remaining items would have to be equal to or lower than your character's level. Choose your items wisely.

In Vanguard, if your character is using 100% of his equipment expertise, he's still going to be wearing some pretty uber gear. (Assuming you spent your EE wisely.) In fact, you could still consider such a character a twink. Sigil hasn't taken all the fun out of twinking, they've simply come up with a way for players to outfit their characters in great gear while keeping them reasonably balanced against their enemies.

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