Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Ofc devs should have time and dedication to test builds, that is why we usually have balance teams. Having combat tracker changes nothing in this regards.
In Dota2 Icefeog does all the balance changes himself, he has internal playtesters who give him feedback but all the changes are solely on his whim.
Giving more ppl access to the data doesnt make the balance any better. As i see it, it can do just as much harm as it can benefit the game.
That bolded part right there proves my point. That dev is not testing everything. He is having players do it for him, people with the hours to spend purely on testing. They do the same thing for League of Legends with their PTS players who will test and test and test and then all that feedback is accounted for and adjustments are made based on that player feedback.
It is faulty reasoning to equate reacting to player feedback as being dev-testing. It’s not. That’s the whole reason they ask for playtesters. That’s why the have iterative cycles on any test servers. It’s because devs know they can’t possibly test everything to the degree their players can, and so they account for that with internal playtesters, test servers, and forums where player feedback can be given.
Objective data is never bad. Ever. Players are entitled to objective data. And they’ll have it in Ashes one way or another, and everyone is going to benefit from the players using it. Every player guide is built on the back of these players parsing for hours, testing strategies for hours, testing group comps for hours.
You don’t say speedometers are bad just because a few people honked at you for going slower than they wanted.
There is always internal testing done before giving any build to playtesters and even so more when giving to public testing. I dont see having combat tracker help the players giving feedback if the gameplay balance feels good when testing. Op or weak builds will be noticed.
Having objective data as a player is not needed, we can play the games just fine without having every bit of information. We just want combat trackers cause we are used to them and having all the luxury of them.
Sure manpower helps figuring things out but only to some extend
Using your speedometer example: Different cars would have slightly differet topspeed, but we dont see their speed, we can see how they perform in grander scale but not the exact speed. We can enjoy the ride without making it a race.
Like i said im fine with having dps meter but it would be interesting to see how the gameplay, game and community developes without having one. Imo it could be beneficial to players and not as weird and horrible as is suggested here. Impossible? maybe im not coder so idk what kind of magic it would need.
Developers balance things in terms of equations - an ability does x damage at y range, takes z time to cast, has a reuse timer and uses b mana. Using this, you cam balance abilities against each other fairly easily using some basic formulae.
You can also apply rudimentary balance to an over all class using similar thinking.
However, as you yourself saw with that build in GW2, things don't always work out the way they look like they should. It is very much a case of "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; but in practice, there is" - which is a saying anyone in computer science will tell you is the only thing set in stone in terms of computer science.
Developers simply don't have the time to actually test each of the builds they create in an in depth manner - and even if they did test them as per how they intended, almost every class will end up being played more effectively due to players realizing something that developers do not.
I mean, you have to remember, when a game goes live there are thousands of players willing to dedicate dozens of hours in to this kind of thing, there absolutely always will be things that this many people putting this much time in to something will be able to turn up that a person (or group of people) with a deadline and 63 other classes to also implement and balance simply wouldn't be able to find. I tend to agree here.
But then you need to look one step further - how happy do you think forumla 1 teams would be if they weren't allowed to monitor the speed of their cars in any way?
Sure, for a casual drive, it's probably fine (assuming you aren't going over the speed limit). However, people that take these things seriously need that information in order to be able to take these things seriously.
That, by all accounts, is not you. That's fine - great in fact. You are and should be free to play the game in the way you want. If you want to casually work your way through the games content, more power to you.
However, you have not pointed out how having a combat tracker implemented in the manner that his thread is suggesting actually stops you from being able to do that.
I can answer this for you.
First of all, there is the obvious about not actually having any combat information on the client PC.
Then the game would have to completely remove all traces of floating damage numbers and chat window combat feedback. If these exist at all, it is dead easy to use image capture to simply turn that data in to a log file and run that through an existing combat tracker (you could patch together a program to do this using modules on github in an afternoon).
Next, players and mobs in the game would have to completely eschrew any form of health indicator. Numbers are completely out of the quesiton, but so is a very basic health bar.
Actual health on all encounters (that players are unable to see) would need to be somewhat random, +/-10% would possibly be enough, but I would suggest +/-25% to be safe.
Next, you would need to design the game in a way where there are no unique combat animations for any ability.
Lastly, your ability tooltip would need to offer absolutely no information at all on what the ability does in terms of damage or healing.
If a game has any one of those things, then a combat tracker will exist. To make things even better, all of those things need to apply to PvE and to PvP.
If a game has none of those things, it won't be an overly fun game. Your attacks that look the same as the attacks the person next to you is using do a completely indeterminate amount of damage, and at no point at all will any player ever know how well they or their group/raid are doing, and they won't even be able to compare how well a given fight againt a known enemy is because that enemy could have an additional 2/3 of the health that it had the last time you killed it.
This means that every time you come up against an opponent in PvP, you won't have any idea what class they are, what abilities they are using, what gear they have equipped, or even whether their current health are + or - some amount within that 25%.
Basically, every time you opt to fight another player, the winner would have been pre-determined via RNG and there is virtually nothing anyone can do about it.
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All of this is why the suggestion for a while has been for Intrepid to implement a combat tracker in to the game as a potential guild based choice, but in a way where most guilds will pick something that is of more use to them - leaving only guilds that are serious about the games combat to take it as an option. Further, the suggestion is also for the guilds that do select this option to then have a combat tracker that only works on members of that guild - so that if you group up with someone from that guild, they still can't see any information about your combat.
This then means the people that are likely to help the developers with the class balance are able to do so, the people that want a combat tracker to assist with top end raids can have one, and the people that just want to go for a casual sunday drive without needing to worry about others tracking their combat statistics are also able to do that.
There are three possible scenarios in terms of combat trackers in Ashes. There is the removal of everything outlined above - which doesn't sound like a game many people would play. Then there is third party combat trackers - though not to the point of DBM in WoW. Lastly, there is Intrepid doing it in house.
Since there is no fourth option, I know which of the above I would want to see.
While I completely agree with the sentiment that players can enjoy the game without trackers that wasn't the purpose of my post. My experience before vs after using a tracker remained the same in terms of enjoying the game for the game itself. However, my enjoyment of the game with how I personally interacted with it GREATLY increased after seeing how I was performing and how my actions actually affected my fights. Before I saw raw data I thought I could've sworn up and down that I knew how my class performed based on the numbers that popped up or how quickly an enemies HP bar drained. However, after seeing the actual data, I realized I was sorely mistaken and actually needed a great deal of improvement. It didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game, but it merely enhanced my own personal journey within it.
However, I think that was also in part due to the fact it was not a tracker within the game itself and so it was considered an optional experience.
I won't try to convince anyone that there should or shouldn't be trackers, I just hope the developers aren't harsh in the sense that they understand how and when to turn a blind eye.
With this, the way I would think it would go is that guilds that do take a combat tracker over a crafting, harvesting, PvP or solo perk would have no choice but to understand that players they recruit in to their guild would not have had the chance to use a combat tracker, and so would actually expect to have to work with new members.
To me - as someone that recruits in to such a guild - this would mean the only thing I look at in a new prospective guild member is their personality and playstyle. Their actual ability to play their class can't be judged until after that player has had some time to work on their build with a combat tracker - which can't start until they are invited to the guild.
To me, it means that the whole journey is still an optional one - however, it is one that goes hand in hand with joining a guild that wants to utmost from it's members.
Yeah, I would have no qualms with this method either, as it would be not only something you could choose to take on, but also something that if you did choose to take it you come in with the knowledge and understanding that it's going to be used.
I'd have no issues with an in game tracker that was optional, but if it wasn't an in your face kind of optional. There is a difference between having a tracker at your disposal if you choose to use it versus having a tracker at your disposal and feeling as if you have to use it. But I think what you're describing sounds pleasant enough and I doubt I'd have any complaints if that was ever implemented.
You've probably covered this, but for the sake of conversation as I haven't read the entire thread, if they did go with trackers being tied to guilds wouldn't that limit the abilities of players who didn't want to be in a guild? I suppose it could be considered an additional "knowledge buff" but it seems almost a stretch to consider it that way.
Off topic, but I would like to commend you for this. I've been in many guilds that did not follow this principal and they were worse off for it.
This actually hasn't been covered, and is a good point to bring up.
In terms of an actual combat tracker, the only time it is actually needed in combat is against the very high end raid encounters that a games developer should throw against us. This is when you need a breakdown of what is actually happening in combat with several dozen entities involved.
This is why it is appropriate to make this a guild reward. When you are taking on the top two or three encounters in a game, it is reasonable to expect players to have to join the same guild.
However, my suggestion for all players has always been to also add a training dummy as either a node or freehold mechanic. This would allow any player to be able to assess the raw potential of any build they want - but it only gives players information on their own performance. In theory, this should be enough to cover anything that a non-guilded player could have a reasonable need for - but still leaves the actual combat tracker as a valuable tool to be taken at the raid level.
If this training dummy were to be implemented, I could even see it's functionality being tied to character progression of some form - with higher levels of progression allowing players to adjust settings of the dummy (adding specific resists as an example).
Right now I play WoW classic, I raids with my guild every week and we clear the content with out any problems. So even though we may not need it, we logg every raid. Meaning that after the raid we can go and look what every single person did during the raid. What spell they used, what buffs they applied, what debuffs they removed and how many potions they used. We can also see where people was standing during the fight and what mob they attack. With all this information we can help players that may use a non-optimal rotation, help them understand the where to stand and not to stand for the next raid, and with that we can improve our raids.
We are not a "hardcore" guild and we play because we like the game. And if we see a person that is struggling with their class we try and help them if they want that help.
I personally feel that logs can be very helpful for improving your knowledge of the game, if you want to.
Meters are optional, and if you do not care about the "dps" meters you can just skip it. And if you find your way into a pug where the leader is all about the meters, just leave. You have the option in a mmo to play with the players you want to play with, and if that is without meters that is fine. However, some players like to go the extra mile and improve and mid max all the way, and for that meters and logs are very very useful.
I read that some people say that meters is not always representative of the action in the fight, and that is true. A healer that helps with the buffs and debuffs may not top the healing meters. However, that person will top the debuff meter. So everything isn't about the dps meters or the hps meters, you can see so much more with logs and meters.
People that say they don't like combat trackers because they encourage people to just focus on DPS are actually saying that they - and the people they play MMO's with on a regular basis - don't know how to use a combat tracker properly.
When used properly, a combat tracker tells you everything. This means that if someone does something they shouldn't in order to increase their DPS, then the combat tracker will tell you that the person did this. If you and the people you play with can't spot this in the information the combat tracker gives you, then you probably shouldn't be using a combat tracker - or at the very least you should be asking someone that does know how to use them to show you these things.
This is a part of the reason why I think adding it to guild progression is a good idea. If all you know how to do with a combat tracker is measure DPS or HPS, then a combat tracker won't appear to be of much value to you. If you have a choice between that and almost anything else, you would probably choose that almost anything else.
On the other hand, if you know how to use it properly, then you would jump at the chance to use one.
This means that to me, making it an option for guilds to select if they wish to have access to a combat tracker means that - at least in part - people that don't know how to use a combat tracker probably wouldn't have access to one, and that would be their own choice.
Any player playing at the top end would take a bonus that applies in combat over almost anything else. This is doubly true in raiding, where any bonus like this is multiplied 40 times for the raid.
The kind of things I'd want to see offered at the same time as a combat tracker are all things that offer information, rather than a functional bonus.
Being able to see the class and equipment (regardless of cosmetics) of enemies in PvP may be an example. Being able to see the other players on your map when running a caravan, being able to see the location of resources nodes, that kind of thing.
While not necessarily using the above as exact specifics, with them you can see exactly what type of guild would want each type of additional information that is offered.
If Intrepid made it so I had a choice of a combat tracker or an in combat benefit, the first thing I would do is look to see what other trackers are out there - which defeats the whole purpose.