You might as well just continue building your DPS meters. Intrepid isn't going to change their stance.
That is exactly what is happening.
And as I said - this means Ashes will have the exact same situation with combat trackers as every other game. You don't ever get different results by doing the same thing.
Obviously, I am somewhat disappointed. However, that is not due to Intrepid not doing things the way I want - I mean, I'll have a combat tracker. Rather, it is due to Intrepid recognizing an issue, a weak point in MMO's in general, claiming they want Ashes to not have that weakness, but then literally doing exactly the same thing every game out there has done.
Intrepid took a stance.
You say you can't play without meters? Then risk getting banned. On my side, I'll be enjoying the game and finding new strategies to overcome obstacles other than "L33T DPS"
I'll have my DPS meter and not risk getting banned.
It seems obvious to me, with everything I've said on the topic over the years here, that if Intrepid have plans to attempt to ban players if they are proven to be using a meter then my client/PC is probably a good place for them to start looking to try and detect one.
Yeah you probably won't. Though i think the number of people that can easily remember the times these systems have been abused, or caused harm to the community is a bit contrary to your claim that this behavior is rare.
I've been playing MMO's for a long time now.
I don't play WoW.
I do a fair amount of PUG's.
The number of times I have seen a combat tracker abused is in the single digits. Significantly less than once per year. When I do, the best way to deal with the issue is to point out that I have a combat tracker as well - thus making having a combat tracker the best way to solve the potential issues that can arise from players having a combat tracker - effectively, it is it's own solution.
However, the point here is that abuse like this is not because of combat trackers, it is because of lack of consequences of poor reputation. Add back in those consequences, and you get rid of that behavior.
I'm of the option that is the devs don't want them in a game then that's the way it should be played.
Does that mean if Intrepid have no inclusion for undead, you won't RP as such anyway?
I mean, if Intrepid want you to be undead, surely they would make than an option, right?
What if I want to RP as a performance mad mage (which, actually, I usually kind of do, I act much more performance driven in raids than I actually am, it's kind of fun).
if there is no undead in game then I would not play but lucky there are undead in ashes so im golden
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
We know it‘s possible to have all the info be provided by IS so no one would need to go to third party programs.
We also know it’s entirely possible to restrict who has access to combat trackers to keep relevant info going only to relevant people like guild leaders, raid leaders, etc.
I suppose it really just comes down to IS being able to absolve themselves of responsibility when someone gets kicked due to poor performance and cries foul. The thing is, it’s usually is the underperformers that have the biggest outcry against combat trackers.
I played ESO for years, it got combat logs a year or ago. And allll this outcry came about how it would make everything so toxic and people would get kicked over nothing because of them.
And obviously nothing of the sort happened. High end raiders used them to analyze performance. Pugs were just the same.
People in that game still think it’s “elitist” to kick people who blatantly ignore all advice and mechanics and expect to be carried through content by the rest of the group, which no one needed logs to eventually find the weak links anyway. It just made it more of a hassle.
In general, I think people crying “toxic” are simply worried about poor performance becoming something that can no longer be hidden.
You might as well just continue building your DPS meters. Intrepid isn't going to change their stance.
That is exactly what is happening.
And as I said - this means Ashes will have the exact same situation with combat trackers as every other game. You don't ever get different results by doing the same thing.
Obviously, I am somewhat disappointed. However, that is not due to Intrepid not doing things the way I want - I mean, I'll have a combat tracker. Rather, it is due to Intrepid recognizing an issue, a weak point in MMO's in general, claiming they want Ashes to not have that weakness, but then literally doing exactly the same thing every game out there has done.
Intrepid took a stance.
You say you can't play without meters? Then risk getting banned. On my side, I'll be enjoying the game and finding new strategies to overcome obstacles other than "L33T DPS"
I'll have my DPS meter and not risk getting banned.
It seems obvious to me, with everything I've said on the topic over the years here, that if Intrepid have plans to attempt to ban players if they are proven to be using a meter then my client/PC is probably a good place for them to start looking to try and detect one.
Yeah you probably won't. Though i think the number of people that can easily remember the times these systems have been abused, or caused harm to the community is a bit contrary to your claim that this behavior is rare.
I've been playing MMO's for a long time now.
I don't play WoW.
I do a fair amount of PUG's.
The number of times I have seen a combat tracker abused is in the single digits. Significantly less than once per year. When I do, the best way to deal with the issue is to point out that I have a combat tracker as well - thus making having a combat tracker the best way to solve the potential issues that can arise from players having a combat tracker - effectively, it is it's own solution.
However, the point here is that abuse like this is not because of combat trackers, it is because of lack of consequences of poor reputation. Add back in those consequences, and you get rid of that behavior.
I'm of the option that is the devs don't want them in a game then that's the way it should be played.
Does that mean if Intrepid have no inclusion for undead, you won't RP as such anyway?
I mean, if Intrepid want you to be undead, surely they would make than an option, right?
What if I want to RP as a performance mad mage (which, actually, I usually kind of do, I act much more performance driven in raids than I actually am, it's kind of fun).
if there is no undead in game then I would not play but lucky there are undead in ashes so im golden
Not as playable characters though, so your argument then would hold that you are playing the game in a way other than how Intrepid intended.
Ashes will also have stats and figures. If I use them in a way other than what Intrepid intend, it is no different.
I suppose it really just comes down to IS being able to absolve themselves of responsibility when someone gets kicked due to poor performance and cries foul.
This is a possibility.
What I find perhaps the most amusing in all of this is the fact that Steven played (plays?) Archeage.
Due to the nature of content in that game (no PvE to speak of), combat trackers are significantly less used there than in any other game on the market. They exist for it, but are of limited use when it matters.
However, the game is more toxic in general than any other game. Rather than people being kicked from groups for low DPS, they are kicked for low gear score, the wrong class, the wrong build within their class, the wrong guild, or even the wrong appearance items - on top of the understandable people being kicked for not following directions and such.
I am honestly left slightly shocked that someone with his game play background could still make the claim that combat trackers cause toxicity. As a statement, that simply doesn't hold up to actual basic scrutiny.
There absolutely will be cases where a combat tracker has been a factor in a situation where someone was acting toxic, but for every one such case, there will be many hundreds of cases where someone was toxic and no combat tracker was involved.
Even if possible (which it is obviously not), removing combat trackers from the game wouldn't have any actual effect on the total level of toxicity present in said game.
I suppose it really just comes down to IS being able to absolve themselves of responsibility when someone gets kicked due to poor performance and cries foul.
This is a possibility.
What I find perhaps the most amusing in all of this is the fact that Steven played (plays?) Archeage.
Due to the nature of content in that game (no PvE to speak of), combat trackers are significantly less used there than in any other game on the market. They exist for it, but are of limited use when it matters.
However, the game is more toxic in general than any other game. Rather than people being kicked from groups for low DPS, they are kicked for low gear score, the wrong class, the wrong build within their class, the wrong guild, or even the wrong appearance items - on top of the understandable people being kicked for not following directions and such.
I am honestly left slightly shocked that someone with his game play background could still make the claim that combat trackers cause toxicity. As a statement, that simply doesn't hold up to actual basic scrutiny.
There absolutely will be cases where a combat tracker has been a factor in a situation where someone was acting toxic, but for every one such case, there will be many hundreds of cases where someone was toxic and no combat tracker was involved.
Even if possible (which it is obviously not), removing combat trackers from the game wouldn't have any actual effect on the total level of toxicity present in said game.
Combat trackers, as in full combat logs of an encounter, would rarely be the source of "toxicity". They could be evidence of someone repeatedly failing to follow mechanics, or someone frequently using a poor rotation, or a player who just really really likes standing in the red death circles, but it's never the source of anyone's frustration with another player. The source is poor performance.
Honestly, if a PUG flies through an encounter, no one gives a shit if one person was literally afk. It only matters when they inhibit progress.
The groups that want and would use a combat tracker are the groups that want to take on the hardest content, who know they will wipe and will need to see what they did wrong so they last longer the next time. PUGs are more likely to just throw in the towel when they realize someone in the group (no matter who or how many it might be) does not have the ability to complete the content they went into.
If all that was being discussed was a DPS tracker, then yeah you could claim it's a source of toxicity because that alone can and would be some people's source of pride and shame, but we're discussing fully fleshed raid tools, not one metric with so much variance it's hardly useful.
Idk if this was mentioned because quite frankly I didn't read the arguments going back and forth but dps "meters" will happen. Just like what we did on ESO on xbox. We didn't have meters. What we did have was a 2 million health boss and a stop watch. Do some simple math and take his health and the time he died and you have your DPS...done. Not putting a meter in won't stop the "Elitism's" from finding a way to gauge dps.
Idk if this was mentioned because quite frankly I didn't read the arguments going back and forth but dps "meters" will happen. Just like what we did on ESO on xbox. We didn't have meters. What we did have was a 2 million health boss and a stop watch. Do some simple math and take his health and the time he died and you have your DPS...done. Not putting a meter in won't stop the "Elitism's" from finding a way to gauge dps.
That is a very rudimentary DPS meter, yet in terms of just calculating DPS, it works.
However, there are two actual applications that I personally know of (as in, there may be more) that are being developed as combat trackers for Ashes.
So yeah, players wanting a combat tracker will be able to get one. Just like literally every other MMO ever.
I think instead of seeing the same 5 people discussing this over and over again it would be better if Intrepid would just provide some insight on how they plan to combat the introduction of a tracker.
In the last live stream (last 5 min) it was also mentioned again that there won't be one or support for it.
If this makes people incompetent to play their class or the game then the problem is not ashes but that player.
They won't say what they plan to do to prevent it, because that would make it easier for people to work around it.
However, they said they will not support one, they didn't say they would make it against the TOS to use one. this is likely because they know perfectly well that even if they did make it against the TOS, they wouldn't be able to prevent their use. The combat trackers in development right now are not run on the same machine as the game client (or at least - don't need to be run on it), and don't need to interact directly with the client at all in order to function. This makes detection impossible, which means having it against the TOS is meaningless.
The only way to prevent a combat tracker from existing is to give players either literally no combat information at all, or to give us deliberately incorrect information.
If we have any information at all, we will have a combat tracker.
We have had a fair few topics on this over the last few days, yet no one has managed to give a single negative to the suggestion I made over a year ago on this issue, that has been reposted several times over these threads in the last few days.
Maybe you'd like to give it a go.
0
Options
MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
We have had a fair few topics on this over the last few days, yet no one has managed to give a single negative to the suggestion I made over a year ago on this issue, that has been reposted several times over these threads in the last few days.
Maybe you'd like to give it a go.
I think the biggest (but still not very big) downside of your suggestion is just that Intrepid has to spend more time and man-hours making and supporting an in-game combat tracker, including the systems for restricting/unlocking them. Personally, I'm in agreement with you, and I think it's probably worth the effort. But it's possible that Steven/Intrepid wouldn't think it's enough of a priority, even if they agreed with your arguments.
Given their statements so far, I expect they would rather just leave combat trackers in an unsupported/grey-area so they don't have to work on it (or even acknowledge it's existence for the purposes of support). A laissez faire policy is just easiest, while still allowing them to hold an "official" stance against DPS meters, and thus allowing them to ban assholes who abuse them. And when it comes to appeals, it's easier to prove that someone mentioned DPS meters in chat, than it is to prove that some was being an asshole about it ("asshole" being a subjective quality, and all). It gives them a much simpler moral position to uphold.
Thankfully for us, if they don't want to put in the effort of making their own combat tracker, they certainly won't put in much to effort to try and stop people from using third-party ones. (It still sucks that discussing them in-game will be probably be taboo.)
We have had a fair few topics on this over the last few days, yet no one has managed to give a single negative to the suggestion I made over a year ago on this issue, that has been reposted several times over these threads in the last few days.
Maybe you'd like to give it a go.
I think the biggest (but still not very big) downside of your suggestion is just that Intrepid has to spend more time and man-hours making and supporting an in-game combat tracker, including the systems for restricting/unlocking them. Personally, I'm in agreement with you, and I think it's probably worth the effort. But it's possible that Steven/Intrepid wouldn't think it's enough of a priority, even if they agreed with your arguments.
Given their statements so far, I expect they would rather just leave combat trackers in an unsupported/grey-area so they don't have to work on it (or even acknowledge it's existence for the purposes of support). A laissez faire policy is just easiest, while still allowing them to hold an "official" stance against DPS meters, and thus allowing them to ban assholes who abuse them. And when it comes to appeals, it's easier to prove that someone mentioned DPS meters in chat, than it is to prove that some was being an asshole about it ("asshole" being a subjective quality, and all). It gives them a much simpler moral position to uphold.
Thankfully for us, if they don't want to put in the effort of making their own combat tracker, they certainly won't put in much to effort to try and stop people from using third-party ones. (It still sucks that discussing them in-game will be probably be taboo.)
This is a possibility, but is easily overcome. The most time consuming part of making a combat tracker to put in to a game would be in creating the UI elements for it.
If Intrepid do opt for a laissez faire type policy on this kind of thing, that would have me worried. A completely hands off approach like that makes me think this game will end up with something far more akin to DBM than we currently think is possible. Not on that same level, but definitely closer to that than to a basic combat tracker.
If someone creates a combat tracker that enough players trust enough to allow that combat tracker to have everyone sign in to a server, the amount of encounter and class data that could be collected from that would make something like DBMlite possible - even without API hooks.
0
Options
ShazeMember, Phoenix Initiative, Explorer, Alpha One
Well building a positive environment has a huge benifit. personally i like dps meters But only use them in target dummies. But the benefits from the Game Design point of veiw of not having a dps meters are huge especially if the company also does other things to make a positive environment. I have posted in favor of dps meters in past. But if had to choose from toxic community/raiding and no dps meters well no dps meters. How much more toxic a game is with with dps meters vs no dps meters is debatable.
Actually played long time with out dps meters so no biggie on my part. Dps meters are how meta builds are formed and can lock some ones mind into that type of thinking.
Steven said something about trial and error (trying different set ups) that actually works pretty well. Oddly enough best set for pvp and raiding in my expereince is not the meta top dps build. Lot of times CC and Utility are more important. Found out through trial and error as Steven pointed out.
How much more toxic a game is with with dps meters vs no dps meters is debatable.
It isn't though.
If someone went to the game forums and saw a post that said someone thinks X class is less suited to a specific thing than Y class, then the player reading that is just as likely to be toxic towards players of X class as if they had a combat tracker.
It isn't a case of "my DPS meter said this" for people when they are acting toxic like that, it is a case of "I think your class sucks". Nothing more, nothing less.
They don't need objective data to back their position up. Subjective data will work fine. Most of these people don't even understand the difference between the two.
As such, these players will be just as toxic with a combat tracker as without one. The only difference between the two is the absence or presence of objective data, and these toxic people will use either objective or subjective data to fuel that toxicity.
The only way to remove subjective data from the game is to not let players think or communicate, and so the only way to remove that toxicity is to not let players think or communicate.
one could argue that, if you need a dps meter, then you might not be that good of a player. As i have said. I have done raids without it and where i don't think a single person in the raid had it. Some had read the tactics (if not all). Then it was about learning the mecanincs. Remembering when to do what. Not screwing up
one could argue that, if you need a dps meter, then you might not be that good of a player. As i have said. I have done raids without it and where i don't think a single person in the raid had it. Some had read the tactics (if not all). Then it was about learning the mecanincs. Remembering when to do what. Not screwing up
Some might argue exacly that.
As for some saying that they need dps meters to evaluate guild members, well that's stupid.
A guild evaluates it's members through the whole experience of leveling up, crafting, farming, PvPing.
Not just raiding.
So if you need a dps meter to evaluate and judge people that you should know and evaluating by playing with, well you are more than a bad player. You are terrible at grasping anything.
Some people dont want the meters because they are afraid of missing out on groups and the toxicity that comes with it.
Some like me dont like a screen full of UI doing the gaming for me.
Both reasons have made mmorpgs worse.
Nobody ever said "this game is too extreme for me without DPS meters. I cant finish the content".
A guild evaluates it's members through the whole experience of leveling up, crafting, farming, PvPing.
Not just raiding.
So if you need a dps meter to evaluate and judge people that you should know and evaluating by playing with, well you are more than a bad player. You are terrible at grasping anything.
I don't believe that you believe this for even one second.
If I am a raid leader, and I am recruiting a new player in to an existing guild, how am I supposed to have evaluated them while they were leveling up?
If I evaluate the ability of a player in PvP, it tells me nothing of their ability in PvE. If I evaluate a players ability in group content, it tells me nothing of their ability in raids.
Different skills are needed to be successful in PvP and PvE - and you know this perfectly well.
The focus of skills needed in a raid setting gets much finer the more people you add to the situation - so a player becomes much more focused in what they do in a raid setting than in a group or solo setting.
The ability of a player to craft has no bearing on their performance in PvE or PvP.
You would only look at someones ability to craft if you are looking for a crafter. If you are looking for a raider, you look at their ability to raid.
Some like me dont like a screen full of UI doing the gaming for me.
This is also an invalid point. You don't need to use an overlay to use a combat tracker. Combat trackers are at their most useful after an encounter, not during it.
If you have an overlay showing real time information, you are probably just using it in some sort of measuring contest - which is completely optional. My standard UI in EQ2 had four hotbars of 12 abilities each, my target, active buffs, and that is it - even when running a combat tracker for the raid. I didn't even have a group or raid window - because I didn't need it.
If people have UI clutter due to a combat tracker, it is their choice to have it, and as such they are in no position to complain about it.
It isn't a case of "my DPS meter said this" for people when they are acting toxic like that, it is a case of "I think your class sucks". Nothing more, nothing less.
You can't make that assumption. Maybe you are correct, but you are using your personal thoughts on the matter to infer someones motives, as you are being repeatedly told by many people, including the developers themselves, that they have experienced the very thing you say isn't the important thing, using as 'objective' proof the thing you say isn't really used that way. (Elitism, and DPS Meters respectively)
As you yourself have said, no matter what, people will do what they want. If they want to make a meter, or even a dbm style hand hold, they will do it. And some of them will be skilled enough to avoid whatever checks are being put in place to either ban their use, or just not approve of them, and maybe have penalties for considered abuses of them. Even if Intrepid added a controlled meter of their own volition, API hooks and all, people would still make their own systems, suited to how they want to play. Thus this is a moot point.
However, it is also unreasonable to believe that adding hurdles and consequences would not thin the number of those using these systems. Every hurdle, inconvenience, or possible threat to maintaining ones account, is more and more people either not tech savvy, confident enough, or willing enough to use them. You've repeatedly argued from the point of a top tier raider, in reference to the similar category of games in the genre. This is a minute section of the player base. If every guild that considered themselves the very best used such systems, if the majority of more casual, or disinterested in dedicated raiding don't use this system, or at the very least, have the grounds to report jerks who abuse them, this is still a win for Intrepid, and in the best interest of the community at large.
It isn't a case of "my DPS meter said this" for people when they are acting toxic like that, it is a case of "I think your class sucks". Nothing more, nothing less.
You can't make that assumption.
It isn't an assumption.
Archeage - the game with the lowest usage of combat trackers out of any game I have played, was the most excluding and most toxic.
The game had combat trackers available for it, but most players were not aware of this fact.
The game basically had a list of viable builds, and you effectively had to be one of those builds if you were in an active guild. Most of the builds considered to be for DPS were decidedly average when actually objectively tested against other builds. Even in community baed content (CR, GR, MM, Halcy) you would be laughed at and booted if more too many players came along.
This is why I spent most of my time as a pirate in that game. I could be what ever build I wanted, as there was no one to tell me otherwise. The build I opted for was a DPS/CC hybrid that was so poorly understood people on these forums have called it a tank class in the past. I could happily take on any two of the cool kids builds at the same time, even if they had higher gear score.
What I'm saying is that my statement, the one you called an assumption, is not an assumption at all. Any player that has not played Archeage or BDO has not played a game where combat don't have a major influence, but thise that have played thise games know perfectly well that toxicity is not a result of said trackers, as that toxicity still exists when trackers do not, or when their use is marginalized.
People making claims about toxicity in a game without combat trackers that has not played either of those games for a reasonable amount of time are making assumptions, not me.
0
Options
AzryilMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Yeah it's a players choice if they want to remove themselves from the gameplay that much. Though i appreciate the sentiment. Started with Dps meters, and threat meters, cooldown displays, dbm, and actual rotation lightup queues came not far behind.
It isn't a case of "my DPS meter said this" for people when they are acting toxic like that, it is a case of "I think your class sucks". Nothing more, nothing less.
You can't make that assumption.
It isn't an assumption.
Archeage - the game with the lowest usage of combat trackers out of any game I have played, was the most excluding and most toxic.
The game had combat trackers available for it, but most players were not aware of this fact.
The game basically had a list of viable builds, and you effectively had to be one of those builds if you were in an active guild. Most of the builds considered to be for DPS were decidedly average when actually objectively tested against other builds. Even in community baed content (CR, GR, MM, Halcy) you would be laughed at and booted if more too many players came along.
This is why I spent most of my time as a pirate in that game. I could be what ever build I wanted, as there was no one to tell me otherwise. The build I opted for was a DPS/CC hybrid that was so poorly understood people on these forums have called it a tank class in the past. I could happily take on any two of the cool kids builds at the same time, even if they had higher gear score.
What I'm saying is that my statement, the one you called an assumption, is not an assumption at all. Any player that has not played Archeage or BDO has not played a game where combat don't have a major influence, but thise that have played thise games know perfectly well that toxicity is not a result of said trackers, as that toxicity still exists when trackers do not, or when their use is marginalized.
People making claims about toxicity in a game without combat trackers that has not played either of those games for a reasonable amount of time are making assumptions, not me.
Small scale and large group are different.
Was it poorly understood or was it not capable of filling a role in a group?
Sounds like you had a build for an initiator but weren't tanky so you wouldn't be able to fill that role in a group as you would just get bursted down as soon as you went in. You also probably didn't have as many dps skills to be effective in a dps role either.
There were plenty of builds like this in AA that performed well or even better than the meta in small scale but didn't have a good function in group because they weren't as focused in a role. BDO has a similar issue where you have classes that aren't good at serving the roles a group needs.
I agree that trackers aren't the only thing that causes this kind of toxicity but do think they will add more to it as it gives you a precise measuring tool. Yes, in AA, there were builds in were considered meta but in those builds, you had some wiggle room as dps output of the individual builds wasn't 100% clear but if we had those tools, you would see even fewer builds be considered viable.
Archeage - the game with the lowest usage of combat trackers out of any game I have played, was the most excluding and most toxic.
The game had combat trackers available for it, but most players were not aware of this fact.
The game basically had a list of viable builds, and you effectively had to be one of those builds if you were in an active guild. Most of the builds considered to be for DPS were decidedly average when actually objectively tested against other builds. Even in community baed content (CR, GR, MM, Halcy) you would be laughed at and booted if more too many players came along.
This is why I spent most of my time as a pirate in that game. I could be what ever build I wanted, as there was no one to tell me otherwise. The build I opted for was a DPS/CC hybrid that was so poorly understood people on these forums have called it a tank class in the past. I could happily take on any two of the cool kids builds at the same time, even if they had higher gear score.
What I'm saying is that my statement, the one you called an assumption, is not an assumption at all. Any player that has not played Archeage or BDO has not played a game where combat don't have a major influence, but thise that have played thise games know perfectly well that toxicity is not a result of said trackers, as that toxicity still exists when trackers do not, or when their use is marginalized.
People making claims about toxicity in a game without combat trackers that has not played either of those games for a reasonable amount of time are making assumptions, not me.
Again, assumptions. Many of the people in these forums came from archeage, hell, it's one of the things that led Steven to start this whole project. I also got sick of the darkrunner and friends, and purposely made a ridiculously tanky spec that me and my buddy went around with for the sole purpose of slapping those guys down when they tried to jump us to steal packs or just kill. And i don't know from what set of information you assume not many people knew about meters in Archeage, all of my acquaintances knew various ways to use or get there hands on meters, like text readers, though many didn't take the trouble once Trion moved away from them. Since again, more people will utilize systems if they are readily available and easy to setup/use without consequence. The more hurdles you add, the less people will bother.
Archeage just had a poor class system that they let get out of control.
0
Options
NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Was it poorly understood or was it not capable of filling a role in a group?
Poorly understood.
Well, completely not understood.
I wasn't useful as an initiator at all (more due to mobility than survivability, though I absolutely would want more survivability if that was the role I found myself in), but when I did eventually leave being a pirate and had the GS to tell people to piss off about complaining about my class, I proved to be far more useful as a pure ranged DPS than any of the classes that were generally considered the best at that, and also had the CC available to delay 5 or 6 players at the same time should there be a breakthrough or a flank, along with survivability that would be considered somewhere between a DPS and a tank.
The problem with AA's class system is that it was inherently not balanced. People thought they had a good idea of how the system worked, but they only ever looked at the situation as if the game was actually balanced. As soon as you looked at the classes as being a purely random collection of abilities, almost gamebreaking combinations started to jump out at you.
This is why XL added Ancestral levels, things got a lot more balanced after that, though I'd left the game by that stage.
Your last paragraph is interesting. I actually spent a few weeks working through Daggerspell, parsing out various builds. The first thing I noticed was that the class was meddling at best in terms of DPS. I came across 15 different builds that were viable depending on what gear the player was using, and what situations the player found themselves in. I actually spent more time parsing out that class than I did the class I actually played. I do regret not posting what I had found, but I did have a general "F**K YOU" attitude to the community in that game at the time. However, I only ever really saw talk of three or four viable builds of Daggerspell - so in the one class that I actually did look in to, there turned out to be more viable options once all the data had been collected objectively.
But none of that alters the simple fact that toxicity against specific classes and builds existed in that game regardless of if people used a combat tracker or not - which is the point.
Now hear me out before you instantly start replying that i'm a toxic elitist who just wants to call others bad. This is an mmorpg. The dungeons are attuned for 8 players, and raids can go up to 40 players. You're saying that meters are toxic and shouldn't be desired at all. But how are you supposed to find the players that could be better helped to learn their class? Example: You're in a 40 man raid that your guild has been up against for about 3-4 weeks and you cant get any progress done on it. Something is wrong, and you cant figure it out. Lets say suddenly you had meters, and you can now see that a handful of your 40 players needed some guidance with their class. With no meters, this would be impossible to figure out. Without meters we're expected to bash our head against a brick wall for god knows how long until people start leaving or quitting the progression due to frustration. I believe the decision to not include meters because it "promotes a toxic elitist behavior" is unjustified and shouldn't be left to the decision of just a couple people. I find that meters can help improve the game by helping your group improve and grow together, which will in return help people enjoy the game to its fullest. If you don't add meters to the game itself, please consider making addons or plugins for meters a non-bannable offense at the very least.
Haha lol
Literally the first time I've ever heard of someone using a DPS metre to "help a handful of players that need guidance with their class".
I can already see you hovering over the kick button.
Comments
if there is no undead in game then I would not play but lucky there are undead in ashes so im golden
We know it‘s possible to have all the info be provided by IS so no one would need to go to third party programs.
We also know it’s entirely possible to restrict who has access to combat trackers to keep relevant info going only to relevant people like guild leaders, raid leaders, etc.
I suppose it really just comes down to IS being able to absolve themselves of responsibility when someone gets kicked due to poor performance and cries foul. The thing is, it’s usually is the underperformers that have the biggest outcry against combat trackers.
I played ESO for years, it got combat logs a year or ago. And allll this outcry came about how it would make everything so toxic and people would get kicked over nothing because of them.
And obviously nothing of the sort happened. High end raiders used them to analyze performance. Pugs were just the same.
People in that game still think it’s “elitist” to kick people who blatantly ignore all advice and mechanics and expect to be carried through content by the rest of the group, which no one needed logs to eventually find the weak links anyway. It just made it more of a hassle.
In general, I think people crying “toxic” are simply worried about poor performance becoming something that can no longer be hidden.
Not as playable characters though, so your argument then would hold that you are playing the game in a way other than how Intrepid intended.
Ashes will also have stats and figures. If I use them in a way other than what Intrepid intend, it is no different.
What I find perhaps the most amusing in all of this is the fact that Steven played (plays?) Archeage.
Due to the nature of content in that game (no PvE to speak of), combat trackers are significantly less used there than in any other game on the market. They exist for it, but are of limited use when it matters.
However, the game is more toxic in general than any other game. Rather than people being kicked from groups for low DPS, they are kicked for low gear score, the wrong class, the wrong build within their class, the wrong guild, or even the wrong appearance items - on top of the understandable people being kicked for not following directions and such.
I am honestly left slightly shocked that someone with his game play background could still make the claim that combat trackers cause toxicity. As a statement, that simply doesn't hold up to actual basic scrutiny.
There absolutely will be cases where a combat tracker has been a factor in a situation where someone was acting toxic, but for every one such case, there will be many hundreds of cases where someone was toxic and no combat tracker was involved.
Even if possible (which it is obviously not), removing combat trackers from the game wouldn't have any actual effect on the total level of toxicity present in said game.
Combat trackers, as in full combat logs of an encounter, would rarely be the source of "toxicity". They could be evidence of someone repeatedly failing to follow mechanics, or someone frequently using a poor rotation, or a player who just really really likes standing in the red death circles, but it's never the source of anyone's frustration with another player. The source is poor performance.
Honestly, if a PUG flies through an encounter, no one gives a shit if one person was literally afk. It only matters when they inhibit progress.
The groups that want and would use a combat tracker are the groups that want to take on the hardest content, who know they will wipe and will need to see what they did wrong so they last longer the next time. PUGs are more likely to just throw in the towel when they realize someone in the group (no matter who or how many it might be) does not have the ability to complete the content they went into.
If all that was being discussed was a DPS tracker, then yeah you could claim it's a source of toxicity because that alone can and would be some people's source of pride and shame, but we're discussing fully fleshed raid tools, not one metric with so much variance it's hardly useful.
I know this.
The people that inhibit group progress blame combat trackers, but really, I think they know it too.
That is a very rudimentary DPS meter, yet in terms of just calculating DPS, it works.
However, there are two actual applications that I personally know of (as in, there may be more) that are being developed as combat trackers for Ashes.
So yeah, players wanting a combat tracker will be able to get one. Just like literally every other MMO ever.
I think instead of seeing the same 5 people discussing this over and over again it would be better if Intrepid would just provide some insight on how they plan to combat the introduction of a tracker.
In the last live stream (last 5 min) it was also mentioned again that there won't be one or support for it.
If this makes people incompetent to play their class or the game then the problem is not ashes but that player.
They won't say what they plan to do to prevent it, because that would make it easier for people to work around it.
However, they said they will not support one, they didn't say they would make it against the TOS to use one. this is likely because they know perfectly well that even if they did make it against the TOS, they wouldn't be able to prevent their use. The combat trackers in development right now are not run on the same machine as the game client (or at least - don't need to be run on it), and don't need to interact directly with the client at all in order to function. This makes detection impossible, which means having it against the TOS is meaningless.
The only way to prevent a combat tracker from existing is to give players either literally no combat information at all, or to give us deliberately incorrect information.
If we have any information at all, we will have a combat tracker.
We have had a fair few topics on this over the last few days, yet no one has managed to give a single negative to the suggestion I made over a year ago on this issue, that has been reposted several times over these threads in the last few days.
Maybe you'd like to give it a go.
I think the biggest (but still not very big) downside of your suggestion is just that Intrepid has to spend more time and man-hours making and supporting an in-game combat tracker, including the systems for restricting/unlocking them. Personally, I'm in agreement with you, and I think it's probably worth the effort. But it's possible that Steven/Intrepid wouldn't think it's enough of a priority, even if they agreed with your arguments.
Given their statements so far, I expect they would rather just leave combat trackers in an unsupported/grey-area so they don't have to work on it (or even acknowledge it's existence for the purposes of support). A laissez faire policy is just easiest, while still allowing them to hold an "official" stance against DPS meters, and thus allowing them to ban assholes who abuse them. And when it comes to appeals, it's easier to prove that someone mentioned DPS meters in chat, than it is to prove that some was being an asshole about it ("asshole" being a subjective quality, and all). It gives them a much simpler moral position to uphold.
Thankfully for us, if they don't want to put in the effort of making their own combat tracker, they certainly won't put in much to effort to try and stop people from using third-party ones. (It still sucks that discussing them in-game will be probably be taboo.)
This is a possibility, but is easily overcome. The most time consuming part of making a combat tracker to put in to a game would be in creating the UI elements for it.
If Intrepid do opt for a laissez faire type policy on this kind of thing, that would have me worried. A completely hands off approach like that makes me think this game will end up with something far more akin to DBM than we currently think is possible. Not on that same level, but definitely closer to that than to a basic combat tracker.
If someone creates a combat tracker that enough players trust enough to allow that combat tracker to have everyone sign in to a server, the amount of encounter and class data that could be collected from that would make something like DBMlite possible - even without API hooks.
I completely forgot about it mate, thanks for the reminder. Updated thread!
Checkmate Leader | EU | The Ashes Post
Actually played long time with out dps meters so no biggie on my part. Dps meters are how meta builds are formed and can lock some ones mind into that type of thinking.
Steven said something about trial and error (trying different set ups) that actually works pretty well. Oddly enough best set for pvp and raiding in my expereince is not the meta top dps build. Lot of times CC and Utility are more important. Found out through trial and error as Steven pointed out.
It isn't though.
If someone went to the game forums and saw a post that said someone thinks X class is less suited to a specific thing than Y class, then the player reading that is just as likely to be toxic towards players of X class as if they had a combat tracker.
It isn't a case of "my DPS meter said this" for people when they are acting toxic like that, it is a case of "I think your class sucks". Nothing more, nothing less.
They don't need objective data to back their position up. Subjective data will work fine. Most of these people don't even understand the difference between the two.
As such, these players will be just as toxic with a combat tracker as without one. The only difference between the two is the absence or presence of objective data, and these toxic people will use either objective or subjective data to fuel that toxicity.
The only way to remove subjective data from the game is to not let players think or communicate, and so the only way to remove that toxicity is to not let players think or communicate.
Some might argue exacly that.
As for some saying that they need dps meters to evaluate guild members, well that's stupid.
A guild evaluates it's members through the whole experience of leveling up, crafting, farming, PvPing.
Not just raiding.
So if you need a dps meter to evaluate and judge people that you should know and evaluating by playing with, well you are more than a bad player. You are terrible at grasping anything.
Some people dont want the meters because they are afraid of missing out on groups and the toxicity that comes with it.
Some like me dont like a screen full of UI doing the gaming for me.
Both reasons have made mmorpgs worse.
Nobody ever said "this game is too extreme for me without DPS meters. I cant finish the content".
If I am a raid leader, and I am recruiting a new player in to an existing guild, how am I supposed to have evaluated them while they were leveling up?
If I evaluate the ability of a player in PvP, it tells me nothing of their ability in PvE. If I evaluate a players ability in group content, it tells me nothing of their ability in raids.
Different skills are needed to be successful in PvP and PvE - and you know this perfectly well.
The focus of skills needed in a raid setting gets much finer the more people you add to the situation - so a player becomes much more focused in what they do in a raid setting than in a group or solo setting.
The ability of a player to craft has no bearing on their performance in PvE or PvP.
You would only look at someones ability to craft if you are looking for a crafter. If you are looking for a raider, you look at their ability to raid.
This is also an invalid point. You don't need to use an overlay to use a combat tracker. Combat trackers are at their most useful after an encounter, not during it.
If you have an overlay showing real time information, you are probably just using it in some sort of measuring contest - which is completely optional. My standard UI in EQ2 had four hotbars of 12 abilities each, my target, active buffs, and that is it - even when running a combat tracker for the raid. I didn't even have a group or raid window - because I didn't need it.
If people have UI clutter due to a combat tracker, it is their choice to have it, and as such they are in no position to complain about it.
You can't make that assumption. Maybe you are correct, but you are using your personal thoughts on the matter to infer someones motives, as you are being repeatedly told by many people, including the developers themselves, that they have experienced the very thing you say isn't the important thing, using as 'objective' proof the thing you say isn't really used that way. (Elitism, and DPS Meters respectively)
As you yourself have said, no matter what, people will do what they want. If they want to make a meter, or even a dbm style hand hold, they will do it. And some of them will be skilled enough to avoid whatever checks are being put in place to either ban their use, or just not approve of them, and maybe have penalties for considered abuses of them. Even if Intrepid added a controlled meter of their own volition, API hooks and all, people would still make their own systems, suited to how they want to play. Thus this is a moot point.
However, it is also unreasonable to believe that adding hurdles and consequences would not thin the number of those using these systems. Every hurdle, inconvenience, or possible threat to maintaining ones account, is more and more people either not tech savvy, confident enough, or willing enough to use them. You've repeatedly argued from the point of a top tier raider, in reference to the similar category of games in the genre. This is a minute section of the player base. If every guild that considered themselves the very best used such systems, if the majority of more casual, or disinterested in dedicated raiding don't use this system, or at the very least, have the grounds to report jerks who abuse them, this is still a win for Intrepid, and in the best interest of the community at large.
I can't stop thinking about this every time I hear people asking for combat tracker:
There is a stagering amount of redundant information on that screen.
That is a player choice, not a consequence of combat trackers.
I've said it before, but there is no inherent need to have anything display on screen while running a combat tracker.
Archeage - the game with the lowest usage of combat trackers out of any game I have played, was the most excluding and most toxic.
The game had combat trackers available for it, but most players were not aware of this fact.
The game basically had a list of viable builds, and you effectively had to be one of those builds if you were in an active guild. Most of the builds considered to be for DPS were decidedly average when actually objectively tested against other builds. Even in community baed content (CR, GR, MM, Halcy) you would be laughed at and booted if more too many players came along.
This is why I spent most of my time as a pirate in that game. I could be what ever build I wanted, as there was no one to tell me otherwise. The build I opted for was a DPS/CC hybrid that was so poorly understood people on these forums have called it a tank class in the past. I could happily take on any two of the cool kids builds at the same time, even if they had higher gear score.
What I'm saying is that my statement, the one you called an assumption, is not an assumption at all. Any player that has not played Archeage or BDO has not played a game where combat don't have a major influence, but thise that have played thise games know perfectly well that toxicity is not a result of said trackers, as that toxicity still exists when trackers do not, or when their use is marginalized.
People making claims about toxicity in a game without combat trackers that has not played either of those games for a reasonable amount of time are making assumptions, not me.
That's an unnecessarily cluttered UI, but the DPS meter is only a very small part of it off to one side.
This is more fitting for the current times:
Small scale and large group are different.
Was it poorly understood or was it not capable of filling a role in a group?
Sounds like you had a build for an initiator but weren't tanky so you wouldn't be able to fill that role in a group as you would just get bursted down as soon as you went in. You also probably didn't have as many dps skills to be effective in a dps role either.
There were plenty of builds like this in AA that performed well or even better than the meta in small scale but didn't have a good function in group because they weren't as focused in a role. BDO has a similar issue where you have classes that aren't good at serving the roles a group needs.
I agree that trackers aren't the only thing that causes this kind of toxicity but do think they will add more to it as it gives you a precise measuring tool. Yes, in AA, there were builds in were considered meta but in those builds, you had some wiggle room as dps output of the individual builds wasn't 100% clear but if we had those tools, you would see even fewer builds be considered viable.
Again, assumptions. Many of the people in these forums came from archeage, hell, it's one of the things that led Steven to start this whole project. I also got sick of the darkrunner and friends, and purposely made a ridiculously tanky spec that me and my buddy went around with for the sole purpose of slapping those guys down when they tried to jump us to steal packs or just kill. And i don't know from what set of information you assume not many people knew about meters in Archeage, all of my acquaintances knew various ways to use or get there hands on meters, like text readers, though many didn't take the trouble once Trion moved away from them. Since again, more people will utilize systems if they are readily available and easy to setup/use without consequence. The more hurdles you add, the less people will bother.
Archeage just had a poor class system that they let get out of control.
A clean UI is a happy UI
Well, completely not understood.
I wasn't useful as an initiator at all (more due to mobility than survivability, though I absolutely would want more survivability if that was the role I found myself in), but when I did eventually leave being a pirate and had the GS to tell people to piss off about complaining about my class, I proved to be far more useful as a pure ranged DPS than any of the classes that were generally considered the best at that, and also had the CC available to delay 5 or 6 players at the same time should there be a breakthrough or a flank, along with survivability that would be considered somewhere between a DPS and a tank.
The problem with AA's class system is that it was inherently not balanced. People thought they had a good idea of how the system worked, but they only ever looked at the situation as if the game was actually balanced. As soon as you looked at the classes as being a purely random collection of abilities, almost gamebreaking combinations started to jump out at you.
This is why XL added Ancestral levels, things got a lot more balanced after that, though I'd left the game by that stage.
Your last paragraph is interesting. I actually spent a few weeks working through Daggerspell, parsing out various builds. The first thing I noticed was that the class was meddling at best in terms of DPS. I came across 15 different builds that were viable depending on what gear the player was using, and what situations the player found themselves in. I actually spent more time parsing out that class than I did the class I actually played. I do regret not posting what I had found, but I did have a general "F**K YOU" attitude to the community in that game at the time. However, I only ever really saw talk of three or four viable builds of Daggerspell - so in the one class that I actually did look in to, there turned out to be more viable options once all the data had been collected objectively.
But none of that alters the simple fact that toxicity against specific classes and builds existed in that game regardless of if people used a combat tracker or not - which is the point.
Haha lol
Literally the first time I've ever heard of someone using a DPS metre to "help a handful of players that need guidance with their class".
I can already see you hovering over the kick button.