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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Like, yes, in theory you should be able to kill bosses w/o using META, but Intrepid literally wants pve competition (with boss loots being time-dependent), so you'll have to use the most effective way to kill a boss. Dygz will most likely not participate in those raids, because he doesn't like hardcore challenge, but that doesn't mean that others won't do this (mainly because Intrepid wants to design encounters around that).
And just to reiterate it once more. Dygz, we agree on this topic. I don't want meters either and want Intrepid to design bosses for a non-meter gameplay, but due to the overall design goals of competitive pve people will definitely make dps meters and use them to find the closest thing to an objective META, on top of a general meta of the game.
I'm not the one who claimed one objective META.
In Ashes, the top 1% will not be limited to using one objective META.
One objective META will not be necessary, you just have to be effective enough to defeat the challenge.
Whether I participate in such raids is irrelevant.
I've said several times that there will be people trying to pursue a META.
META will still be irrelevant. What will be relevant is being effective enough to defeat the challenges and, even for the top 1%, that will not be restricted to a cookie cutter META as defined by combat trackers.
It is not the 1% that will force a meta on to others, it is the 30 - 70% that will.
The 1% (realistically, the top 30%) will be what ever they consider most effective, and so no one needs to force anything on to them. They are also likely to stick to playing with each other.
It is the next tier down that have a meta (whether it is correct or not), and will insist on others sticking to it.
Doesn't matter. The 1% don't need a dev designed combat tracker to be the 1%.
We all know that person that decides to start a new sport and goes all out to buy all the best gear and turns up to the game kitted out better than the veteran players, but not a lot of good if still not a lot of inherent ability.
To me, a combat tracker is a little like that. Yes, good gear (in this case info/feedback and understanding of what to do with it) will improve your gaming potential, but you still have to put in the time to develop the skills and experience.
Expecting to get high-level status without the effort is akin to the mindset of so many nowadays. I wonder if this also is a reflection of the age of those one each side of the fence on this issue within this discussion.
I would concede that a combat tracker be permitted after X number of hours played and at Y ranking.
For argument's sake, say 1,500hrs+ and in the top ranking for raid or pvp consistently for Z period of time.
Dead against giving away rewards without effort. Or competitive advantage without the earned right.
Nope, but we will have a dev designed combat tracker. Just not one they were paid to develop.
yes... always mid tier players that are meta-slaves... (sadly for me this is where i play now T_T )
There is no need to be a slave to it.
Pro tip for anyone in that 30 - 70% band. If you have a build that you know is viable (which requires objective data), all you need to do to get it accepted is have someone in that top 30% talk about it some.
The people that are in that 30 - 70% band that REQUIRE others to follow the meta all have one thing in common - they really, REALLY want to be in the top 30%.
This is why they look at builds those top players use as if they are the only viable builds. They crave acceptance from those at the top, but dont actually have any idea at all how guilds at the top actually operate.
In my experience, guilds dont actually run anything close to a proper META. It's a theoretical exercise at best.
A proper META would require guilds to maintain too large a roster, imo. It's actually better as a strategy to not focus on tactics to that level.
Guilds do run a meta though. This can best be defined by the convention of a given segment of players within a game. The meta of Ashes (in terms of raid build) is likely to be one tank, 5 bards, 6 - 8 healers and the rest of the raid as DPS. The only way guilds will deviate from this is if the content requires it.
Based on that, the meta wont change based on Intrepids plan.
In Ashes, this isnt neccessary.
Three facts to take.in to account.
Most players play MMO's at roughly the same times each day/week.
In Ashes, most players will generally group with others that have based themself around the same area.
10k concurrent players is not actually that many.
Based on these three facts, it wont take you all that long to get to know players around you. You'll know who runs what you would consider to be a good group, and they will likely know you as well. More importantly, you will know players that run groups that you are not interested in joining.
Honestly, the issue of players being kicked out of a group for poor performance is - in my experience - literally restricted to WoW, and it has essentially nothing to do with combat trackers.
Fully agreed. Let the servers build a community and police themselves rather than mostly unnecessary intervention by the Devs for trivial personal disputes.
Also, its a problem mostly exclusive to WoW, neither WoW nor GW2 nor FFXIV really has that problem despite the availability of Combat trackers. Its not about their existence, but the way the WoW community was fostered/nurtured that's at fault here.
Even if you took combat trackers out of WoW, this wouldn't change as players simply find another way to allocate blame for failures, whether its gear, experiences, class choice or their screwed impression of a certain player.
Which is why it's typical to have separate PvE-Only servers and separate RP servers and why Ashes will have Corruption that is designed to be harsher than Lineage II Karma.
I first ran into people kicking people due to their obsession with META in NWO 9 years ago.
Which is also when I first encountered the deranged notion of "endgame is the real game".
I pretty much stopped playing WoW before Mists of Pandaria due to being disgruntled with the endgame treadmill. The pursuit of META was not an issue I encountered in WoW.
When I've dabbled with WoW more recently, it's to duo with my TheoryForge co-hosts as they check out the latest expansion. Up until Shadowlands, the expansions have all sucked so badly, I only played for a few days.
So, I don't group enough to encounter people getting kicked for any reason in WoW.
But... people love to talk about pursuing the META in forums and...
Naoki Yoshida has spoken about why he is against including combat trackers in FFIV - he hates supporting people pursuing the META.
And Steven has spoken mentioned that he is against including combat trackers in Ashes - he hates the toxicity that stems from people using them to pursue the META.
So... this is not just an issue with WoW.
And it's enough of an issue that at least a few MMORPG producers are against supporting combat trackers in their games in order to minimize the toxicity that arises from including them.
If any dev intervention is required, it is focus on this aspect right here
Goodwill in a community can quickly be poisoned by poor implementation of grouping mechanisms, and artificial difficulty requirements (just give the enemies more HP so they take longer to kill kind of things instead of interesting mechanics or actual dps checks [need to break a bomb within xx seconds or the boss does a special attack])
Not kicked from the guild.
64 classes and a plethora of augments, plus any class can use any weapon and wear any gear.
Most effective tactics won't truly be a thing.
But, of course, there will be guides to help people improve tactics. There wil be guides that share what tactics work well and what augments work well with various Active Skills.
Pretty sure we can not switch out augments instantly. We need to be in town to switch augments, IIRC.
Switching classes requires some questing.
But, I dunno why you would be expecting PvP builds to be significantly different than PvE builds.
Ashes is a PvX game - hence why there's no dev created separate PvP gear or PvE gear - it's jst PvX gear.
But...OK. Especially since I think you did not need a combat tracker to figure that out.
The only way for an official one to exist would just be having very very heavy handed moderation which then becomes "I got banned for X but this person did the same thing in Y situation and didn't get banned how is that fair" and so on. The other side is very little moderation but then you end up with "Z class isnt allowed in our run" just from a numbers standpoint which is not fun either since the numbers arent the whole picture
in the end though, the general community will make one but keeping it lowkey is the safest approach with that being an unofficial thing is the best way for it to exist just for reducing the amount of direct moderation the company would have to do. It can be useful for helping the development know what people consider overpowered and underpowered from a numbers standpoint from how the hardcore part of the community is playing
I personally really like detailed DPS meters since I like to see how I'm doing in general cause if im doing better than most it feels nice and if not i can figure out whats wrong on my own. The issue really is it only takes a few negative people to spoil it.
like for monster hunter i found me a dps meter just to see how i was doing and it was very interesting to see the numbers but there is more to the game than just raw damage. So MH not naturally having a dps meter makes sense since I know for a fact certain people would just dip from hunts if all they saw was the raw damage numbers you can not rely on random people do have an understanding on the same level as you.
Your entire premise here is based around the idea that Intrepid would need to moderate things for some reason.
Why?
If I am running a group and you want to join, if I know that you are not pulling your weight (running a DPS class but with low DPS, not offering anything else the group wants), why should I not be able to say you are not good enough? Why should I have to drag your dead weight through content?
Sure, there is more to the game and to grouping than DPS, but if all I want from you is DPS, if the agreement we have is that you will provide DPS, why would I consider those other factors at all?
Are tour feelings more important than the success of my group? Even if they are, if combat trackers exist, you can shield your feelings by having an understanding of if you are able to fulfill a roll.
If you have a build you really like and only want to run that build, if it is not up to par in terms of DPS, you can join groups where both parties have that understanding. If they know what it is you bring to the table, and they are happy with you bringing that to the table, there is no issue. The issue comes when people claim to bring something that they cant actually bring.
Or, you could have this build you really like, but also have a pure DPS build (or pure healer, or pure tank, what ever), and if you want to join a group that isnt interested in the other things you can bring, you can switch to this pure build.
Then everyone is happy once again. You are in the group you want to be in, doing the content you want to do. The others in that group are also happy with you, becaus you are performing the role that was agreed upon.
Seriously, the issues only ever start when people are in groups with different opinions on what their role in the group is. Make your role clear, and there are no issues - this applies both with and without combat trackers.
that's a nonsensical comparison.
You won't directly interact with said chess masters, so it doesn't matter to you what they do. The youtubers/streamers joining your server with loads of follower can break your experience quiet easily.
This is true, I am having a hard time following your thoughts here right now.
I am unsure why we are talking about YouTubers here. I only mentioned them to point out that the only way Intrepid could ban combat trackers would also require a ban of YouTubers and streamers - which obviously Intrepid wont do - simply because to Intrepid, these people are marketing for the game, nothing to do with anything else.
It isn't really end game content if it is not designed with this in mind.
This is literally why end game players are the ones always looking for a better build, or a build that can do a specific thing better. The current encounter may not need that spec, but the next one will - and better we know it before we get to that encounter.
As I have said many, many times in this thread, this is exactly what a combat tracker does. It is just a matter of what type of player they bring together.
People look at combat trackers as not being a thing that can join people together simply because they can not join together players that are efficiency focused with those that are essentially efficiency adverse. This is clearly not a great way to look at things.
It isnt as if the crafting interdependency system (another system designed to bring people together) is going to bring those that love crafting together with those that hate crafting. The system is designed to bring together like minded people (those that love crafting). This is how any system should be designed - it is not really in the games best interest for people of different mindsets to be forced to play that closely together - but it IS in the games best interest for similar people with similar mindsets to play together.
This is WHY a combat tracker is a good thing. Sure, if I have one and you dont like them, youbmay well avoid grouping with me. This is a good thing though, not a bad thing. It is good because even without a combat tracker, we would be very different players wanting very different things from out group.
A combat tracker doesnt change the fact that I want to play the game efficiently, and expect those I group with to want to play the game efficiently as well. All it does is signal to others that I want and expect that efficiency. As such, others that want and expect that efficiency will gravitate towards me, and we will group together. We will have the same general mindset.
Essentially, the addition of a combat tracker in game (with a system to denote who has it and who doesnt) will see fewer groups form with players of differing mindsets - which are groups that are highly likely to result in players having a bad time. There would be MORE groups forming with players of similar mindset (either efficiency based or not), and so players are likely to have a better time, and have a greater chance at forming friendships in pick up content.
Essentially, the only way you could claim that combat trackers do not bring people together is if you believe that combat trackers are the genesis of people wanting to play the game efficiently, rather than simply a tool they use to that end.
And both are wrong.
Both are looking at friction that already exists between different segments of the MMO community, and pointing at combat trackers as the cause.
The real cause is the differing mindsets of the different communities.
If I want to run content quickly, and you do not, there is friction. This is the core of the issue that people wrongly blame combat trackers for. A combat tracker doesnt even increase that friction, meaning a lack of combat trackers isnt going to reduce it at all.
Are you suggesting we should not share our opinions on what we think game developers are getting wrong?
This is actually another aspect of combat trackers that I have seen people talk about, but I totally forgot until just now.
Many people complain that they dont like a combat tracker cluttering up their screen. My point to this is that a combat tracker doesnt need to take up any screen space at all. Further to this, with a built in combat tracker, you can remove text based combat feedback on screen, without actually losing access to any combat data.
As a result, a combat tracker can actually REDUCE screen clutter, not add to it.
In a game where combat trackers are normalized, you aren't going to be denied entry to a top end guild based on having an off-spec.
As someone that has spent most of my time in MMO's as a recruiter for top end guilds, all I care about is your performance. How you arrive at that performance is none of my concern. In fact, not only is a person's build not something I concern myself with, it is something I dont even ask about. The only time we care about the specific build a player is running is if the content requires us to bring specific abilities - in which case we will ask the appropriate people to have the specific abilities we need, and leave them to work out the rest.
As such, if you are denied entry, it is simply a lack of performance (or an issue of personality - which is actually more common than performance issues).
Your assertion that "gms that have extreme focus on metas will also be the first to use exploits as well" is unfounded. First, I am assuming you are incorrectly using the acronym GM to mean guild master , when literally every other MMO player ever would think of Game Master (generally an employee of the publisher, who is charged with direct in game interaction with players). People would generally refer to people that run guilds as guild leaders, or perhaps GLs, but never GM's.
However, ignoring that, in my experience, the people most likely to resort to exploits (especially known exploits) are those that are trying to catch up.
I hope Intrepid can manage to develop that kind of system, but then, if they can, I'm sure they can make a UI system that tells us enough info about fights w/o any need for meters.