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.
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.
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
Your reply implies you believe combat logging to be a dps meter tool, which it isn’t and which makes attempting to discuss combat logs rather difficult.
An oven can make cookies but it’s not a cookie machine and you wouldn’t throw it out if you go on a diet.
The same goes for a combat tracker. Sure it can measure you dps, but narrowing its use to one specific thing, and trying to say that one specific thing means you can’t use one, is shortsighted at best.
Raid leads use combat trackers to examine a fight. They use it to see buff/debuff uptimes. They use it to see if people are focusing priority adds. They use it to see who’s trying to push their dps instead of doing mechanics. They use it to see who’s dying and why. They use it to see which damage type is the most effective. They use it to see what damage type the boss is dealing. They use it to see at what times the group triggered a new boss phase. They use it to see why boss aggro shifted. They use it to yes, see if a group member is pulling numbers lower than is acceptable.
In the hands of someone ill equipped to handle that knowledge, their oven is a cookie machine.
In the hands of someone equipped to make the most of that knowledge, their oven is a source of 5 course meals.
Noaani’s suggestion to make combat tracking a guild perk means that there will be next to no idiots being handed combat trackers that they’ll only be able to see as dps meters.
Edit: WoW logs and ESO logs track all information from a fight, those are the two I know of best. From gear and skills, to what skills were used when, to where exactly someone was standing. That’s what I talk about when I refer to combat logs.
Whoa... so they basically show everything with the exception of environmental mechanics? If thats the case, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Seems like it would cheapen the encounter.
No, they show environmental mechanics.
If you are standing in the lava, a combat tracker will tell the whole raid how much damage that lava did to you.
Essentially, combat trackers completely remove the ability to hide from what has just occurred - but offer nothing at all to assist you in what is about to come, other than that knowledge of what has occurred.
There is a small part of me that can't help but think people dead set against them in all occasions want nothing more than to be able to lie to their group as to what happened and what they did, as essentially all a combat tracker does is remove the ability to lie to your group/raid/guild.
I don't personally enjoy what is tied with meters. By this I mean:
- all classes running the same build
- add on that play the game for you. "Danger, X mechanic is coming, move" messages on your screen
I understand the want to know the combat and the reliance on numbers, but I also feel people are not open about other ways to play the game and experience/evaluate performance.
It would seem that the only way we know on how to play PvE encounters is having a tool that is telling us everything that happened.
And the thing is, you only need to figure it out once. If you have such tremendous aid, no developer can make the content last enough time.
It takes 1 raid, then all the others get the info, and it's done.
Barring the fact that this game doesn't have purely PvE encounters.
People get kicked out of a group or guild due to low DPS and blame the combat tracker - which is absolutely ridiculous.
If you are not someone that is that concerned about min/maxing your character, you simply shouldn't be grouping with players that are, or joining guilds that are. This is absolutely no different to someone that is not interested in PvP'ing joining a guild that is all about PvP, and then complaining because they got booted from the guild for not PvP'ing.
The issue here isn't the combat trackers. It has never been the combat trackers. It can't be the combat trackers because these same issues existed before combat trackers, and exist even when no players in a given situation are using them.
Rather, the issue is people not realizing that they are attempting to group or guild with players of a vastly different playstyle, and so not making the adjustments in expectations that would be needed for that to be successful.
You don't need a combat tracker to tell you that a min/max player won't fit in well to a casual group or guild, nor do you need one to tell you that a casual guild won't fit in well to a group or guild full of players that know how to use a combat tracker properly.
To me, this is little more than another reason to implement a combat tracker in to the game itself rather than leaving it up to third party developers.
Work with the idea that I have put forward a number of times where at a specific guild level the leadership is given a choice of several options. One of these is a combat tracker (that only works on members of your guild), but there is also one that assists PvP players more, one that crafters would die for, and one for solo players. Assuming the game has a built in guild recruitment tool (something similar to Archeage is what I am thinking right now), the choice they make between these options could be put right in the middle of their recruitment page, telling everyone that looks exactly what this guild prioritizes.
If you are not an analytical player, and don't want to become one, you will know immediately to avoid and guilds that have taken that option.
I can see some people saying "but that would segment the playerbase in to different type of guilds and that is bad!". My simply response to that would be "no, that is segmenting players in to playstyle, which is what you want players to do if you want them to stay in the game longer".
Meters take options away. If the DPS mega fan writes a post about X build being the best, eventually everyone is running that, it doesn't matter if they're min maxers or not.
It only takes 1 guide. You can't discuss numbers, numbers are definitive. If X build performs 3% better, it doesn't matter what you like, the options that you have, you must build X build then.
If that's the case, I'd just rather have 1 skill that deals 1 damage, and be done with it. Why give me diversity if all I'm going to hear is "not the most optimal build".
And it's not the players, it's the meters! The meters give definitive conclusion on which build is the best
Neither of the things you listed are tied to the presence of combat trackers. The first stems from really bad game design, if one gearset could possibly be the best for every class, or that any one gearset would ever be best for every type of content.
The second is not a combat tracker. Trackers show data after the fight has already occurred. Combat assistants are entirely different, and rightly shouldn’t be allowed. Callouts for mechanics should be done by raid leads, and having an automated system isn’t necessary to succeed.
Combat trackers do not provide detailed failsafe strategies. They only show the results of the strategy your group used. Unless your group cleared on the first try, it won’t tell you what works, only what didn’t. And if your raid group is actually overgeared for the raid, that “it worked” feedback might not be remotely useable for a group at lower levels.
The blame is with the guide, not the combat tracker. The guide will exist with or without the combat tracker - and indeed in games where combat trackers are hardly used (Archeage is a good example here), class guides are more adhered to than they are in games where combat trackers are more common.
If the game is well designed, the "best" build for a given class should change drastically based on whether the player has specific class defining items or not, whether the player has specific support classes in their group or not, what type of content the player is taking on, and any number of other things. Even the specific tank class should be a factor in determining what the best build is for a given class.
Thus, with all of these variables, players would need to look at their specific situation to determine what the best build for them is.
Any good class guide that is obtained via combat tracker should have these points in it. If these points don't exist - if there is one build that is always the best - then this is an issue with the design of the class.
If the design of the class is that poor, and a combat tracker was used to shine a light on this fact, why are you blaming the combat tracker rather than the people that developed that class?
Please tell me a game where this happens, I don't know any honestly.
I'm not really trying to blame people or things, I'm just expressing a feeling that I have towards things that can happen.
Guides backed by numbers are much more hard to falsify, which means either you need more fine-tuning on those numbers, meaning finding even more ways to increase DPS. And please, all of those guides are about max DPS, well most of them, except healers/tanks, which are proportionally and historically a much less number of the population.
Numbers don't leave much options for interpretation. Yes, there are corner cases, where for certain fights you need a different build that might be more movement oriented, but overall, everyone will know that X build does most DPS and should always be the go to build for your class. The same way ranged is most of the time better for combat, since it's not penalized that much by distance.
On the other hand, you can't change builds so easily, at least in AoC. If you can't change builds easily, it means now you're even more restricted. If you don't go the way you're supposed to go, you will be scorned, if you're not doing your job. This doesn't mean pulling 100% DPS, just doing your class job.
But with guides backed by numbers? Well, can't really discuss that, you're just right, as right as 2+2 being 4.
I know people like numbers, but I don't really see what is the problem in learning by experience, by seeing things and trial and error.
I mean, if you want numbers just to beat the content as fast as possible, what is really what you're achieving? You won at math.
EQ2.
Age of Conan.
Rift (though to a much lesser degree).
My understanding of FFXIV is that this is the case, though I have not played it myself to confirm.
It really is only games that have attempted to copy WoW's combat - or attempt to be a game where players from WoW would feel immediately at home - that don't do this.
If you want to expand this to MMO* games rather than MMORPG's, you could happily add in Path of Exile, a game where the best build for you is almost entirely dependent on what items you have.
To be clear, I am not suggesting you should feel any different to these things that can happen - nor am I suggesting they don't happen.
What I am suggesting is that these things do not happen because of combat trackers. They happen, and combat trackers are involved, but there is no causation here in either direction. Attempting to falsify a well constructed guide is not the way to go. What you should be doing is attempting to point out exceptions to what the guide says.
But that goes back to what I have already said. If you are not the kind of player that wants to get the absolute best out of your class - you shouldn't be grouping up with people who make that their main focus. If you are more casual in how you approach combat, group up with people that are more casual.
As I said in an above post, this is no different to someone that doesn't enjoy PvP attempting to join a PvP group and then refuse to PvP. When looking for a group or a guild, you should look for one that fits you and your play style - and maximum efficiency is a play style.
If someone is advertising they want one more for a PvP group, you put your hand up to join but are then kicked when you refuse to PvP, you would no doubt blame yourself.
Why is it any different then to if someone is looking to fill a spot in an efficient group, and you put your hand up to fill that spot but are then kicked for not being efficient. if that happens to you, you blame the people, or you blame the combat tracker, but you never blame yourself for joining the wrong group (note, not you specifically, just people in general).
My argument here is as much about making efficiency in combat recognized as the valid play style that is has been among the population for two decades actually recognized by developers as that - a valid play style.
This doesn't mean that everyone needs to participate in the game like that - just as not everyone needs to be a full on PvP player, or a full on crafter.
There are plenty of players that are happy playing in a more casual manner in every game, so finding a group shouldn't be an issue. On the other hand, if you want to participate in harder content, you need to be willing to be the character that your guild needs you to be. If that leaves you with only one build, then complain to the game developers.
There is no point in this where anything would be different if combat trackers are not present.
Edit; Then there is also the question that you have to ask of a developer that is attempting to prevent combat trackers in their game; what are you trying to hide?
I don't really care if there is a DPS meter in the game or not, i'm not going to use one either way. I realize some people like writing their character entirely in spreadsheets and getting every single number down to the 0.001 accuracy.
I am not one of those people. Most people don't like that as well - they just want to look cool, have cool abilities and kill the bad guy in raids/dungeon content. They don't care if they kill it in 10 or 20 minutes. It's the experience itself rather than the end result.
At the end of the day, It's their decision and i think we should respect it. If you want to use a 3rd party program to go around their design decision that's fine by me as well.
1- Give DPS meters so we can beat content faster
2- Beat content
3- Why aren't you making enough content, this game sucks.
It doesn't matter how much you like numbers, I can only see this in my head. You want DPS meter to beat content faster, achieving the most efficient way to do it, there is no other explanation.
Putting aside the smarmy tone, you aren’t technically wrong. There are players whose enjoyment comes from pushing their dps, their clear speed, and their overall effectiveness. There’s nothing wrong with players enjoying that type of playstyle.
Combat logs mean instead of having to video record every person’s POV and going over each recording second by second to understand exactly what happened, it would be condensed to a single file in an easily read format so feedback could be obtained quicker, and therefore new strategies could be developed quicker.
So yes, it would save performance-focused players a lot of time to not have to wade through all the noise and obscured information while attempting to take on raids. That isn’t a bad thing.
And I can promise you, you’re gonna see “where new stuff? game sucks??” no matter how fast they pump out content. That’s how the internet is. The presence of combat logging wouldn’t change that at all.
Replace #3 with "now you can make content more complex" and you are spot on.
I'm happy spending weeks trying to figure out an encounter, but only if we can all see what is happening. I'm not so keen on spending weeks trying to guess how to take on an encounter.
You can't even know this in real life. Nothing should be completely known in games, that is part of the magic. Even in real life you're never certain while doing experiments. You might expect the outcome, but not 100% sure of the data.
This builds mysticism and allows for exotic solutions.
Also I refuse to more complex content. Because developers should not waste half of their resources on satisfying 5% of the population because they use trackers.
Without trackers that same content would be as complex as any.
In real life you film and observe and make notes when you do an experiment. You make a log so you can know what happened when you did a specific action. Yknow...like a combat log tracks what happened when your group used a specific strategy.
The developers should make content for every type of player. High tier, dedicated players included.
A meter is not content.
A combat log is not a meter. Conveniently you fail to address how combat logs aren’t like getting perfect information of a fight before you “experiment”. They are however, exactly like recording and reviewing information of your experiment so you know what to change going forward.
Yes, but that does not apply irl, it's impossible to have such accurate information, that's what I mean
It’s entirely possible to get such accurate information irl. How do you think any scientific field works? They write down everything. Everything is logged and recorded for future reference and repeated multiple times to determine causation. Combat logging is that process done by a program to save time, but it will not play the game for you. It won’t give you answers, just the information to determine those answers on your own.
First you need to develop such tools to record that information, and those tools have limits on how precise they can be.
Therefore, a perfectly accurate combat tracker is an impossibility in real life.
If combat trackers gave median information, you'll never know exactly for sure, but still get an idea.
This is getting off topic. The point remains that you can absolutely get near perfect information in reality and within the game, and both serve the same purpose of providing information that allows the viewer to understand what changes need to be made to get the results they want.
Getting the information from game play is what is intended, and that should come from communication which promotes social behavior. If you feel like you're being lied to then I guess you're not really playing with the high tier, analytical group you thought you were playing with? And if you're that high tier and analytical you should be able to easily spot that person.
What I was getting at about no point in Intrepid making an in-house tracker is that even if they made one for the purpose of "controlling" what kind of tracker people can use, what's stopping people from still just making one that isn't in the scope of what Intrepid wants if that's what they're gonna do anyway? If Intrepid doesn't want people using third party add-ons then they shouldn't have to give in and spend more time creating more systems for people who think in such ways as "well we're just gonna do it anyway".
Should Intrepid make a tool so I can see the fastest gold per hour I can make from skilling? Should they also make tools for finding the most efficient questing path for the most xp per hour? We could think of lots of different tools that they "should be developing for every type of player". Instead, Intrepid could better spend time creating systems to catch those people using third party tools because if those people have that mentality of "I do whatever I want" then they are probably doing other things they shouldn't be doing as well.
I am no game programmer and I haven't researched how difficult it is to catch people using third party software. However, AI is becoming pretty popular nowadays and, to me, it seems like it would be pretty simple to have random screen grabs that would be sent to a server. From there, the AI can analyze it and if one is flagged, sent to a human to investigate and ban if needed. There are already lots of these instances being used in non-gaming platforms.
The data from a combat tracker is significany less complete than the data I use every day for product development. It also doesn't offer up projections, which is something we do have in teal life.
Any time people take things seriously, there is data to support, assist and inform them in that endeavor.
Basically, attempting to argue an in game concept based on real life is fruitless, and is usually a sign that the person has no other points left to debate. I'm sure that isn't the case here with you though, so feel free to make use of the other arguments you have in this situation.
More than 5% of a games population use trackers if the developer has ok'd them - most games I've played are closer to 40%, some are higher. Intrepid have also said they are expecting to have content that a single digit percentage of players will complete in regards to raiding.
These two things taken together make your comment about pleasing 5% of the populatuon somewhat misplaced.
Maybe we leave out comparisons to a tool that's whole purpose is to injure.
First off there seems to be a disparity between our information. As you're more familiar with WoW and ESO trackers, I'm more familiar with SWTOR trackers. I quit WoW in 07...08, and never got to ESO endgame. The combat trackers you're talking about are far more advanced than what I'm used to. Thanks for making me aware of that.
Now that I know how much info the combat trackers you're talking about gather, I'm not sure how I feel about them. When Destiny 2 came out, our clan beat the raid the second or third day it was open. We beat it by going in there and observing while we fought. Inch by inch we figured out all the mechanics with no advice or guidance from outside sources. We did have a few different teams though. My primary guild in SWTOR did the same for the raids there, but not as quickly as my D2 clan, but we still did it for EV, KP, EC, some of TB, and some of SV. Using your version of a combat tracker seems like it would've made all that a lot easier, and it feels like it would've cheapened the whole thing for me. I don't think i would feel the same sense of accomplishment, almost like it was given to me. I don't really mind smashing face on puzzles.
Oh man, if there was a procedurally generated dungeon that changed biweekly or monthly, I would love it. Like a labyrinth with moving rooms, changing bosses, new puzzles... I would attempt it every week even if the rewards were nothing more than a simple title.
I'm not saying one design principle is better than the other, just that they are different and require different ways of looking at things.
I'd possibly be all good with Intrepid not having or supporting a combat tracker if they were designing raid content around the idea that everyone should be able to kill it - but they have said they expect some raid content to only be killed by single digit percentage of players.
I mean, if everyone is supposed to kill it, it is obviously not going to be that hard. If it is not that hard, why would we need a combat tracker?
On the other hand, if only a few people are supposed to kill it, it will be hard. If it is so hard that only a few people will be able to kill it, it will have to be complex. If it is complex, a combat tracker can help you make sense of what is going on.
The info given so far about Ashes raids did imply they’ll change from time to time. The frequency or reason for the changes aren’t clear yet, but I expect we’ll see a few fights that have a few significantly different engagement strategies.
I don’t see combat logging as a tool that cheapens anything. It cuts out the time you’d otherwise have to spend recording and rewatching fights to pick out the details, letting you get back to throwing yourself at the wall quicker. I find it more enjoyable to know where we’re fucking up instead of trying to guess it out for multiple fights. I don’t mind failure when it’s clear what went wrong, and I expect for most fights, a combat log won’t be necessary to clear it.
But we also know there’s going to be content that IS expect to have less than 5% completion on, and that sort of content would benefit greatly from detailed feedback.