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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
Part of the reason sure, but the primary reason is that the content itself will be difficult. From the info so far it seems most group content will be cycling based of progression and/or seasons, “single clear then shifts to new location”, or semi-permanent dependent on node statuses (dungeons mostly I think). Basically you’ll have multiple chances to take on the content, and unless that 5% meant 5% on each server, rather than overall which I assumed was meant, then that’s a fairly small completion rate.
The quote where Steven said it, he was talking purely about content difficulty.
Damn, I've never recorded and rewatched one of my fights before. Thats... a good idea. We've always held post mission debriefs. More like a round table discussion were everyone notes what went wrong or right. How'd you go about doing that? Did you record and upload to youtube and send out links, or like a guild website?
When I've done this, we've always had the tank, a healer and at least one ranged DPS record the fight, edit them all together in to one video (often with a live feed of relevant information from a combat tracker as well), and used YouTube to host it privately. Then we link that on the guild website.
It isn't something we do for every fight, just for when we want to highlight something.
As well as what’s already been mentioned, OBS is a good free tool to record your own gameplay that can then be uploaded, or you can stream and get clips if that’s how you prefer to do it.
Lineage 2 Veteran
I usually display active buffs/debuffs and some of my hotbars. No minimap, no chat, nothing that isn't needed for the fight.
The idea of running a live combat tracker overlay is probably as odd to me as it seems to be to you.
I use combat trackers either after a given attempt (if we have having issues) or at the end of the night (to monitor individual performance). I'll never run a combat tracker as an overlay.
If Intrepid did add one to the game, I could see the idea of it only providing information at the end of an encounter (regardless of which side wins) as being one of several compromises that would be made. It's one I'm obviously perfectly fine with, and would actually probably prefer from a personal stand point.
That actually sounds like a good option if there must be one. 😁
Lineage 2 Veteran
I've seen the windows record used similarly, and had people on bench watch discord streams. Plus you can post to the chat in discord after about it.
Yeah, it is potential compromises like this that are the main reason why I am suggesting for Intrepid to implement a combat tracker in to the game themselves, rather than that they provide a log file for third party trackers.
They don't like the way trackers have been used in other games, and every other game has had third party trackers. Seems logical to me that if they implement a tracker in to the game, they can compromise on a number of points, and as long as the two basic functions are there (ability to objectively assess builds, and ability to objectively review encounters) players wanting a combat tracker will be happy.
@StevenSharif
I am not really one for @'ing at people, but this is a discussion I'd rather see kept going (obviously). The fact that you posted the above makes me think it is a discussion you are interested in as well.
I think we are all at the point now though, where the only way to keep the discussion going is to hear if you have any more thoughts than what you've shared on live streams.
Specifically for me, I'd like to know what you think of the suggestion of a way to implement combat trackers directly in to the game that has formed over multiple threads, for multiple months.
I'll reiterate the specifics of that again, but the real question is - if there is a way to implement a combat tracker directly in to the game in a way that eliminates most of the issues that you (specifically Steven) have with them, would that be something you would consider?
If the answer to that is a yes, I'd actually really like to hear what issues - if any - the following suggestion doesn't address.
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So, the suggestion as it stands now.
This suggestion is in two parts.
The first part is to implement a training dummy as either a node benefit or freehold item. This dummy would provide players with a specific damage breakdown of all damage the player has done to that dummy, which abilities did what damage, what the hit percentage of each ability was, etc.
These dummies would allow players to set specific resistances or armor ratings on it, and perhaps even have specific defensive buffs applied to it, so that players can use, and also allow players to set either a specific combat duration, or a specific number of hit points that the dummy has.
This dummy then allows players to test out potential builds, and also allows players to analyze the combat system in depth, in a controlled manner (allows us to review your developers work).
The second part of this suggestion is to have an encounter combat tracker implemented in to the game, specifically and exclusively available as an optional guild reward. This reward would be an option where the guild has the choice of this encounter combat tracker, but also some very useful tools or benefits for crafting, PvP, solo and group play - and the guild can only take one of these options.
From there, guilds that take this encounter combat tracker can set which rank within the guild has access to make use of the combat tracker (may only want officers of the guild to have access to it). Additionally, this combat tracker only tracks players that are in that specific guild, and in an encounter with a player that the guild has given permission to use this encounter combat tracker.
If a player is in a group with someone from a guild that has this encounter combat tracker, and has been granted permission to use it, that person still won't have their combat tracked via this tracker due to them not being in the same guild as the player with the encounter combat tracker.
This tracker should track as many things as is possible to track - outgoing damage, incoming damage, outgoing heals, incoming heals, how often specific buffs and debuffs are up - and on which targets, CC targets and duration, basically anything that player characters do, or can have done to them.
Lastly (in terms of the tracker itself), rather than providing live information, this combat tracker only provides information at the end of the encounter - either when the mob is killed, or when it has reset. This means no messy UI clutter in combat, even for people running this encounter combat tracker.
That is, essentially, the proposal as it stands.
There is a potential tie in to if you provide guild recruitment tools in game, as well. Assuming there is a system akin to that in Archeage, the page for a given guild could show which of the options the guild has chosen to take, which in itself will say more about the guild than anything else - and says it in a way that leaves no room for trolling (there is always room for trolling, but not within tools that should be there to perform a function).
---
Now, to me, there are two things missing from the above to make it a complete proposal, and I'd like to hear other players suggestions on these two points. The only thing I ask is that people make the assumption that the suggestions are based on the above - while it may well not happen, I am simply looking for input from others to turn the above in to a fully formed proposal.
The two missing things that I can immediately see are what the encounter tracker will do in a PvP situation, and how the information should be presented to players at the end of a given encounter.
In regards to PvP, there are two options. Either PvP is tracked, or PvP is not tracked. I feel it worth pointing out that if it is tracked, it would only track PvP combat when someone that has been granted permission to use the tracker is attacked, and then will only track members of that players guild, and anyone that attacks them in PvP.
If it does not track PvP combat, presumably all it will show is the stats that the members of the guild output.
The second thing missing is in how this information is to be displayed to players. I'd like to see it displayed in a manner similar to Advanced Combat Tracker. Keep 6 hours worth of encounters for players with access to this encounter combat tracker to be able to pull up, and give them the option to save exactly which parts of the compiled data on the client if they wish (for comparisons week to week or what have you).
Many people are worried that DPS meter will lead to toxic behavior from some players. Which is true but I think lack of DPS meter or more general lack of combat feedback can also lead to toxic behavior as well.
I have played MMOs where there is no DPS meters and when thing goes wrong in a PUG people start to blame each other as in most cases they don't know what went wrong. Person A will say person B did something wrong and person B, will say person A did something wrong! This leads to a case where players start distrust each other. This distrust can eventually lead toxic behavior as well.
Also without DPS meter and related tools how can one know what they are doing is right? How can you improve your character or even yourself as a player?
The game needs to be transparent to players and not hold their hands. You cannot hide information from players as toxic people will be toxic with or without DPS meters. If someone is using DPS meters to abuse and harass other then they should be punished.
as someone who did raiding in vanilla WoW - Wrath, they do in fact lead to toxic behavior. A person can ascertain all they need from a fight by how it's going. This is also true because of FFXIV i've done savage raids both with a static group and pugs and have had no trouble in either....aside from some pugs just derping out.
That is going to happen with people who are super reliant on meters, they stop trying to use their own brains and let the system take care of it. So by the time they screw up if the meter isn't there they don't know what happened because they weren't paying attention. And also, everyone knows that people who tend to screw up the most are dps mains....so..
Why do you not go outside and start murdering people? Because you know what is and isn't right. Same concept here, you will learn what is and isn't right. Hell I haven't used a meter in FFXIV and i'm doing fine, same with the guild, same with the gf. Meters are a crutch.
It's as transparent as it can be...and I would argue that using a dps meter is more hand holding than being told "no, you have to use your own devices." because it is. Meters give you info on a platter that is hand holding at it's finest.
It’s already been shown that meters do not cause toxic behavior, a lack of community focus does due to lack of consequences for being toxic. Random Group Finders are the spawning grounds for toxicity, not info gathering tools.
It simply is not possible for players to watch every part of a fight, and it only takes on mistimed ability to screw a fight. How would anyone be able to pinpoint which ability, nevermind which player cast it, that wiped the group in a sea of dozens of VFX? How do they figure out if it was an ability or something done by a piece of gear? You also are still working off outdated stances that a combat tracker is just a dps meter, which hasn’t been the case in this thread or the other in a long time.
There’s nothing to say here since it so wildly off the mark of anything relevant. Like honestly imagine going to your boss and asking for detailed feedback on your performance and they say “Well, you haven’t been fired.” That’s lauaghable.
What benefit is there to demanding three+ people in the raid be recording their gameplay, having to process and upload it, and still possibly not be able to spot what went wrong in the sea of vfx? Combat logs are an info gathering tool. They don’t play the game for you. It doesn’t instantly boost your epeen by ten inches to be able to have accurate feedback on the performance of your group.
This point is moot anyway, because there absolutely will be basic dps tracking, as well as detailed combat logs made by third parties if IS chooses not to create one themselves that they actually have some control over. Noaani’s suggestion (I believe in the other thread on this topic) covers every major reasonable concern someone could have about a combat logging tool.
Regardless of what you may think in those situations. Soon as IS finds out someone is running 3rd party software it'll more than likely resort in a ban. So i'm not really even worried about it. Like I said it's not my problem or issue and i'm honestly glad they're against them. The whole "toxic people will be toxic" argument though is correct, but not giving them free reign on something to create an even more toxic situation is best.
Though I do wish people would stop asking about them.
Go read the suggestion made by Noaani which effectively eliminates the potential for toxicity caused by poor performance.
A tool awarded as a guild perk, that logs only guild members, that’s presence would mean the two combat tracking tools in development can stop development due to having to tool where they would need it.
Not even mentioning how combat tracking is required to make effective guides, to have objective information to base builds and fight strategies on, to have objective info to test for bugs and if things are working as intended.
At least one tool in development will be completely undetectable as its not even run on the same machine. The other likely will be as well.
There’s no way to leave out a very necessary tool and then try to ban everyone who uses that tool when other places provide it. If you ban all kinds of object info gathering, then you ban objective discussions about classes, you ban objective discussions about gear, you ban objective discussions about the true effects of buffs, debuffs, and damage within a group.
Guesswork is only fun for so long.
Edit: And once again since it seems to have gone over your head. Toxicty stems from lack of community and lack of consequences. It has nothing to do with the presence of objective data
If a guild or group leader behaves in such a horrible way, which you are all afraid of, then avoid such people. You are hardly dependent on them to play this game with fun and joy - if you are, it's your own fault. Not the game is responsible for it and no meter, but only the person behind the computer and we can all decide for ourselves what we do and what not.
I belive this is the best way that will make everyone happy.
1 - There should be option that you could see damage numbers of your party/raid members popping up same way like you see yours. (WoW / Diablo) style.
2 - There should NOT be any real time metter visible durning fight like addons in wow
(I mean graph with names of party members and direct numbers)
3 - After succesfull Raid Boss (or any Boss) monster there should be POP UP window, that would tell finall damage dealth
* Example *
- Player One - Deal 640 000 Damage (25,6%)
- Player Two - Deal 497 500 Damage (19,9%)
- Player Three - Deal 462 500 Damage (18,5%)
etc, etc
5 - Same there should be window with Healing done for healers in party
With this settings, people would be able to see damage numbers popping out in real time whilie fighting, so they compare theyr DPS visualy but still not be fully sure who is lacking and who is not whilie fight is engaged (ofcourse you should be able to sett up how big part of the screen would numbers from other party members would be.. some kind of scale slider). This feature should make DAMAGE people happy. After succesfull kill, whole Raid/party should be able to see final stats of damage done in one summary.
This would protect low dps people to feel bad durning fight and they wont really feel pressure from other players durning fight, becouse sometimes people focus more on DPS than actuall resource managment and mana saving to be able to fight for whole duration, than maxing dmg output for short period of time.
Same, players that are interested in meters, would be shown theyr results everytime, after succesfull Boss fight.
Short summary.
Im strongly againts ANY ADDONS
Im strongly againts ANY GRAPHS WHILIE COMBAT
But im still interestend in OVER ALL DPS, after fight to be able compare with my friends.
The first is that just because WoW has combat trackers and is a toxic game, it doesn't follow that combat trackers cause toxicity.
EQ2 is a game with a good community and combat trackers, and Archeage is a game with very little combat tracker use and a very toxic community (more so than WoW).
There is no common thread between a games toxicity level and it's use of combat trackers. There is, however, a direct link between a games toxicity level and the reliance on community that players are faced with.
Both WoW and Archeage have systems that automatically form groups of most content that most players would want to run - and in both cases it is enough content for any given player to be kept busy with. Contrast that with a game like EQ2 (or EQ, or LotRO, or Conan, or War, or DDO, or Aion) where all of a sudden, if other players don't like you, you find yourself unable to run content.
This is what Ashes is more aiming at - except it seems to be leaning even more towards a community reliance than any other game out there. Since there are very few places in Ashes that are free from PvP, it may well be that you have a very hard time even playing Ashes if you cause enough people to dislike you in game.
As a second point to the above, if a fight is sufficiently complex, it isn't necessarily possible to see which one of the more than a dozen things that could have gone wrong actually did go wrong. This isn't an issue on simpler encounters - but the argument that combat trackers are needed for raid encounters is exclusive to the very toughest encounters in the game, the ones a single digit percentage of the population will kill.
I would agree that Ashes doesn't need combat trackers if it has no intention of having actual difficult top end PvE content, but Steven has said he does want such content in the game.
It may well be true that some people stop thinking when they have a combat tracker running, but my argument here would be that this is an issue with the combat system, not with a combat tracker
If you are playing a game where you have a set rotation of abilities and you are able to achieve near peak performance by simply following that rotation, then you have a game that allows you to play without thinking. A combat tracker has no say on whether this is the case or not.
On the other hand, if you have a system with random and semi-random buffs and effects that break the rotation needed to achieve peak performance, you suddenly have a game that requires thinking and attention regardless of if a combat tracker is running or not.
Basically, a brainless game can be played brainlessly, and a game that requires thinking will require thinking - and a combat teacker has nothing to add in either case.
As to who screws up the most, well, that is a meaningless point. if you are in a guild that allows the DPS to get away with that, it is the fault of the guild leadership, not the combat tracker.
Further, if you know how to set a combat tracker up properly, you can set it to display anything that a healer does as well, meaning the healers suddenly become just as competitive as the DPS. Same for tanks and support - setting up a combat tracker to show who has mitigated and/or blocked the most damage in the raid on an encounter where two or more tanks need to swap aggro is actually a lot of fun for all involved. In you are playing FFXIV, you are making use of other people having put combat trackers to good use.
Most of the class balance fixes in that game were a result of player input on information gained via combat trackers. All of the class guides for that game are based on information obtained from combat trackers. All of the encounters are first killed by use of combat trackers, and most of the first wave of balance patches to such encounters are based off of information gained from combat trackers.
So sure, you, your guild and your girlfriend may not be using a combat tracker (a claim I find dubious in regards to the guild), but you are missing the fact that you are literally standing on the shoulders of giants that did use them. That information is only clear if things are working as intended, and the intent on how things are to work is known.
We are not asking for a combat tracker that tells us who did what DPS against a given mob - that is essentially useless information by itself. We are asking for information that tells us every single ability used by every person in the raid, and every ability used on every person in the raid.
The amount of information that this contains is neither simple nor clear(I've seen single nights worth of raiding produce thousands of pages of text).
However, in the hands of the right people, this information can then be used to assess the work the developers have put in to the combat system. It allows us to find bugs that they may have missed, or things that are not working as they assumed they were (I have never played an MMO where this has not happened).
The transparency statement is not about us being transparent, it is about the game being transparent so that we can see how it works.
It is built in to the game, so players wanting to use it need not download anything on the side.
It need only display information at the end of combat rather than during combat, keeping absolutely no UI elements on screen at all if desired.
And it would show much more than just the DPS players managed to do - it would show incoming damage they received, healing, stats on buff use - and potentially many other things as well.
However, if they do make it against the EULA/ToS, it then becomes behoven on them to make an actual effort to keep it out of the game. You don't make a specific rule against a specific thing and then make no effort to enforce that specific rule.
As has been said, the combat trackers that I am aware of that are in development do not run on the client computer. At most - using Google/Facebook levels of invasive behavior - Intrepid have access to what ever is on the same computer the client is running on. They have no access to anything else at all - and never will.
This means they have no access at all to the combat tracker, and so have no way of detecting who is and who is not using one.
Without knowing that, they have no way of enforcing a potential rule to not use a combat tracker. So if they made that rule, they would be making it with the outright knowledge that they can not enforce it.
Even if they did make a genuine effort to combat this kind of thing, at best it is a kind of arms race. Since computer systems are inherently insecure, the people trying to do the thing will always eventually win over the people trying to stop others from doing the thing.
The only winners in this scenario would be the people that Intrepid hire to attempt to compete in this arms race.
Now, the above taken in to account (as well as the previous post in reply to you), I still agree that you have every right to say that you don't like combat trackers, you don't want to use combat trackers and you don't want others to use combat trackers on you.
That's totally up to you to say that if that is how you feel.
However, at this point, the best thing for you to do is to consider how this could happen. How do you prevent people using combat trackers on you in Ashes. Presumably, this is a question you would like answered.
The answer that you seem to have come to is to make it so combat tracker use is a bannable offense in Ashes. My hope is that this post has pointed out to you why that is not going to be the case. The simple version of it is that raiders will have a combat tracker - and there is nothing anyone can do to stop that.
So, if you take this in to account, you then need to come up with the next way to achieve your goal of not having a combat tracker used on you in Ashes - a goal that I fully agree you should be able to accomplish if that is what you want to do.
The only way to achieve this when the scenario that raiders will have a combat tracker is also true is for that combat tracker that raiders have to be limited - have it so it doesn't work on you.
If that combat tracker is a third party tracker, they will not even consider adding this in as it is unnecessary bloat for an application that by definition needs to be nimble.
So, the only way to fulfill both the fact that raiders will have a combat tracker, and your desire to not have anyone use a combat tracker on you, is for the combat tracker that raiders have to be developed as a first party tool for the game (aka, by Intrepid), and for Intrepid to put the limitations in place to ensure that the combat tracker that raiders will have is not able to be used on you, as per your wishes.
This is exactly what my suggestion to Intrepid is intended to cover. I personally will be satisfied with the third party combat trackers that will be able to be used with Ashes - they will more than cover everything I could want them to do. However, they don't meet the needs and desires of you, and people with the same point of view as you - and I agree that your point of view should be considered just as much as mine should be.
However, as explained above (twice now), the only way to have a situation where you can be sure that you are not having a combat tracker used on you during your normal game play is for the combat tracker that people use in Ashes to not work on you - and the only way for that to happen is for that combat tracker to be implemented in to the game by Intrepid.
If you scroll up to the first post in this thread in June, and read the suggestion for a combat tracker as per what many of us have come to the conclusion works for the most number of people (it is the part of that post between the two sets of '---'), I'd be interested to hear what issues you have with that, and if you have any issues, maybe we could address them. This is how that proposal was formed - and I see no reason to stop now if we have an opportunity to enhance it further.
I don't necessarily need "DPS meters"...
I want the game to give me feedback as to what I am doing and what my group members are doing. When I swing my sword, I want to know how much damage it did. When I block damage, I want to know how much I blocked. When I heal someone I want to know how much I healed them. When I cure a determinant, I want to know if the cure was successful etc. Without the game give me this kind of feedback, can you tell me how I can use my brain to figure it out?
In order to use one's brain there need to be feedback from the game. Once this feedback is there (call it DPS meters or whatever), toxic players will use this info be toxic but decent players will use it help themselves and others.
The idea that people who uses DPS meters don't use their "brain" is also toxic in itself. Some games are extremely complicated and you can't take in all the info during the heat of the battle. I mainly play Everquest 2 and when we wipe, we always have to go back to game logs to see what went wrong. This is normal part of MMO gaming for many players. Maybe you are very smart and keep track of all those numbers in your head but us "simple" folks need combat logs to see what went wrong after the event
I kind of agree - if you expand this for a person perspective to a guild one.
There are times when a guild should be able to track combat of all guild members present, but there is never a need to track others outside of this.
I'm not against it st all, but I agree it isn't needed. Since others are against it, and it isn't needed, I'm more than happy to suggest ways to keep it from the game.
That's why the suggestion that has been made takes this in to account.
If Intrepid don't do something different to other games though, we can all expect the results that other games have.
They can keep track of their information themselves, can they not?
They need to track it know what is going wrong and where things can be improved. That seems fairly obvious.
You have an obligation to your guild. If you don’t want that competitive community, you’re free to not join a guild that’s competitive. What you don’t get to do is demand no one have the tools to be competitive.