Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
As I said, if someone else pushes for combat assistants, we can have that debate.
Right now, we are having the debate about combat trackers though.
You dont use the possibility of combat assistants to further your argument about combat trackers, because they are not the same thing.
As a point of interest, the ToS of almost all games prevents the use of combat assistants, as they need to interact directly with the game client.
As such, they are easy to identify without being overly evasive.
Again though, the issue with arguing a slippery slope argument is that it just doesnt work.
You're arguing against combat trackers, and claiming that they could lead to assistants. Why not argue against people using Excel as a manual combat tracker? I mean, a combat tracker is literally a spreadsheet that gets auto filled (some trackers back in the 90s for Meridian 59 and such used to literally just give you something to paste in to Excel, and MUD users back in the day used to just manually populate Excel templates as the games were slow enough to allow this).
If you want to prevent excel use, then why not ask for a ban on calculators while playing? I mean, excel is basically just a fast calculator.
Then you need to ask for a ban on pen and paper, because that is just a slower calculator.
This is why slippery slope arguments are not valid. You draw your line,and you argue up to it, but not past it.
Further to that, if combat trackers meant combat assistants were next, that would necessitate that all games with combat trackers also have combat assistants.
This isnt true, and in fact the only game I know of that has anything I would consider a combat assistant is WoW - and that is only because Blizzard literally doesnt care.
So, even if we ignore the slippery slope argument you are trying here, you cant really argue that combat trackers leads to combat assistants when all evidence says otherwise.
Its a fact, the same way with DPs meters being solo for yourself and then people wanting them extended to everyone and others around them. Its not about what you think its about what people in general will want to do, and any add on or DPS meter should not be included in the game as the company is not supporting it.
Then you don't need a combat tracker and you can put in the work and figure out things on your own so we are on the same page then.
You are simply trying to look at things in a way that benefits your view point trying to dumb it down and say its like pen and paper lmao. You have a program doing all the work and you aren't actually trying to figure things out on your own, and in the worst version you are trying to figure out what everyone else is doing which leads to toxic behavior.
They have stated on the record they aren't supporting dps meters, they gave people to speak up and they did and it has been clear for 100 pages people don't' want it. Go reread all the post and reflect and realize what the community has voiced.
Again the slippery slope is fact, one thing leads to the next, which leads to more types of add on as people try to create a environment where it is normalized. There is no reason to even get to that point, use your combat log in game and figure things out and socialize with people as AoC is suppose to be.
Combat trackers have never been for solo people. If a combat tracker came out that was solo only, or if people started talking about one, obviously people would want it for those around them, because that is what people have always had.
There was never a situation in which solo trackers were a thing and group trackers were not. This wouldn't be a case of people complaining and wanting more, it would be a case if people wanting what they already had.
While you could then say "but people in WoW had combat assistants,so they would just argue for what they had", the easy answer to that (and an answer I would give should anyone seriously ask for combat assistants) is that since they are exclusive to WoW, as opposed to a genre staple, you cant really use the argument that they exist in that one game. I am indeed trying to dumb things down a bit, but only to suit my current audience.
I didnt say combat trackers are like pen and paper, I used it as an example of why a slippery slope argument is not a good thing.
I'll try it again for you. Here is a scale.
Pen and paper
Calculator
Excel
Combat tracker
Combat assistant
Draw a line where you are content, and argue up to that point. There is no need to argue anything outside of what people are asking for.
I'm not talking to Intrepid, I'm talking to you. If Intrepid had confidence that the decision they have made is what the community wants, they would host a poll like they did for multiboxing (which needs to be boosted by Intrepid, and needs to have actual pertinent information such as no actual way to stop people using combat trackers).
They wont do that though, because they know what the result will be.
It's funny, you tell me to go back and read the thread - despite the fact I wrote the plurality of it. Even if I did go back through the thread, that isnt going to show the dozens of discussions that spawned off in to other threads, or in to private messages.
When I saw there are less than a dozen people currently against the combat tracker suggestion that has been presented here, I am being generous.
Not only are there very few people against it, but those that are against it are unable to give an actual reason as to why they are against it. Those people are also stubborn, and would not alter their opinion on something they have argued over regardless of how futile they realize their argument is (even to the point of arguing factitious cases of slippery slopes).
Essentially, the world values facts less now than it used to, and so some people are happy arguing without any facts to back them up. It's so bad now, in fact, that sometimes these people dont even realize they are making an argument from a tactless perspective.
For the record the argument for combat trackers is that most MMO's are able to alow then without any negative consequence, and many players enjoy using them.
The argument against them seems mostly to involve some herps and a few derps. It is incoherent, there are no solid examples that aren't immediately disproven, basically there is no solid foundation to it as an argument. So why do most games not end up with combat assistants?
At this point, until you can either answer this point or claim that all MMO's have combat assistants, I cant see how you can logically maintain this slippery slope argument.
You know exactly what they mean by Trackers. In fact, you know a ton about Trackers.
You understand the intent. That's the point.
You don't respect that intent at all, and you have no intent in following that despite knowing you are going to click "Agree" on that ToS.
Even if it's an Honor System and they just trust you to follow the ToS that you agreed to, if you decided not to that makes you the bad neighbor. Sure, they can't enforce it, but you understand the intent from the developer and you choose to ignore it. That's the issue.
It's the entire "They can't enforce it so I'm going to do what I want" that makes you the Bad Neighbor. Just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD.
There are PLENTY of games that open their arms to Trackers, that want them used. Stick to those games then (that is, IF the ToS comes out against Trackers... it's not in stone until the ToS after all).
That's the issue I have with you. You understand the intent, and you simply choose to not respect it and do your own thing anyways. That's not being a Good Neighbor at all.
Let's say it's just Community Guidelines, and in those Guidelines they say they don't want Trackers used. Well there it is, the intent. You understand it. And you disrespect the Community if you then fail to follow those Guidelines.
It's your steadfast refusal under any circumstance. That's not negotiating. That's demanding. It never mattered what Intrepid said, you were going to do your thing regardless. And somehow, to you, that's Good Neighbor Negotiating.
You openly talk about how you will agree to terms that you will then refuse to follow. I appreciate the honesty, I really do... doesn't make you the Good Neighbor here.
A combat tracker, by definition, IS assisting you.
If it wasn't you wouldn't need it. It's assisting you on gathering all the data.
"Why do most games..."
We generally feel MMOs are in a crap state. We don't WANT most MMOs. That's the point of Ashes.
If you want MOST MMOs, go play them. Stop trying to make Ashes into Most MMOs.
They are literally taking this route to distance themselves from 'Most MMOs', because the MMO Community has pretty much said we've endured a Decade of Suckage.
We don't want that Suckage in Ashes. And maybe it fails because it's trying to buck those trends. I'd rather it fail for that, than fail for trying to be like 'Most MMOs'.
So when you bring up 'Most MMOs', yeah... those are all the MMOs we're leaving or have already left. Why in the world would we want that here?
That's like hating the laws in your state, so you move to a different state ran by the other party... and go right back to voting for the party that ran your old state. Don't bring that crap here, you fled that crap already. Now you want to do that here?
We left those games. We don't want that crap here.
Most games have Fast Travel. We don't want that here. Most games don't require any Social to get a group going, you just click a button and you are in a group and in a Dungeon. We don't want that here. Blizzard stood right there on stage and said "You think you want that, but you don't... now you just click a button and you're in the Dungeon". Turns out, we'd rather have the Social aspect back again.
There are certain principles and ideas about Ashes, that are contrary to the current state of MMOs. That's the ENTIRE POINT of Ashes. We don't want Ashes to be all those other MMOs, we're ACTIVELY HERE for something different.
We feel MMOs were ruined, because of all the crap that developers told us we wanted. Why play the game, when you can just pay money and have a Max Character? Why interact with people, when you can just click a button and you're in a Dungeon with a full group? Why travel the world, when you can just click a button and now you're all the way on the other side of it? Turns out, we don't like those things. We don't want those things.
We're leaving THOSE games, to come to THIS one. And the idea of THIS GAME, is that it's not going to do those things.
Now you're coming here saying "All those games do it, we should do it.". No, we shouldn't... and that's WHY we shouldn't. Because our entire feeling (and you can say it's objectively wrong if you like) is that the current state of MMOs SUCKS. We don't want what is currently offered. That's WHY we're here, waiting on and supporting Ashes.
Again, we could be wrong. Current State of MMOs might be awesome. Ashes might try different things and fail. Cool, fine. We'd rather a new attempt, a different strategy. We don't want 'Most MMOs', we're actively fleeing from them... and here you are trying to go against that.
How about just give this game a chance, the way Steven and the Team envision it? That's a thing, a Good Faith thing you could do.
If we wanted most other MMOs, we wouldn't be HERE. I'm not exactly sure why you are here, you don't seem to be down with their vision. Steven has clearly stated the vision, and you're fighting it tooth and nail.
That's weird, man. You'd rather stick around, accept a ToS or Community Guideline you have zero intent of following. When you could just play a game that accepts those things and encourages them.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are fleeing exactly those things, and here you are saying we should put them in the game. We've had that, we've done that, we don't want that here. That's fine there. We don't want it HERE. If we want Trackers, there are places we can go for that. Many many places. The idea here is different, and that difference is why we're here.
That it is acceptable to speculate on the possible consequences of the presence of DPS meters/Combat trackers in a game, without it constituting a fallacious argument.
The false equivalence you drew there however, does lean more towards a fallacy.
It has been the experience of many that DPS meters/Combat trackers lead to less than ideal social interactions and to some level of exclusion. I can appreciate that you may not be one of the perpetrator of said behaviours, but allowing you the opportunity to have them, opens the door for more nefarious people to abuse them in all the wrong ways.
If you wanna use another false equivalence: it's like banning guns (picturing a US situation here). Because one person is capable of using their gun properly and without causing harm to others, doesn't mean that others won't and haven't already caused harm. The easiest solution then? Ban everyone from having access to guns (except maybe the devs for whatever testing reasons etc).
I don't care about rules like i don't care about my town rules/law if they reduce the harmony in the neighborhood.
I prefer doing things that make the neighborhood happy, and that the neighborhood think is good.
As i said, because you seems to love a lot the neighborhood metaphor, i saw the lawfull side being bad, and the don't care side being good. And gave two obvious example of this. (Mayor and police knows i use firewood for my bbq and not coal... but everyone plays to be blind)
My question i ask myself is always "does my decision is a danger for other people, or does it harm them" . Excessiv application of laws/rules can be harmfull... And here we go on FFXIV... Where combat tracker are openly forbidden as stated by Naoki Yoshida, and we still have a whole website, full of datas of millions fight across the world, including datas of people that DOESN'T WANT to be recorded.
FFXIV is showing what kind of things will happens to AOC : both game are forbidding combat tracker with a ban hammer as sanction. So just lets watch what the old one is doing ?
The simple fact some people that doesn't want to be recorded are recorded and have their stat published is for me a problem. a real one. And the solution is not getting the site down (it won't stop at all this problem). The solution is having a tool usefull enough for people using it, while protecting people who don't want to be recorded...
This is what a good neigborhood is : a place where each neighbor doesn't harm the other comfort, not by following the town's rules, but with decision that makes everyone happy.
To finish a thing i love about @Mag7spy it is how he is full of bias, and decide what community wants, which most people in this topic never pretended (be it on one side or other)...
Let's be honest : you know nothing about what a community is. so before saying "the community says" try to learn what a community is.
It is not a nearly uniform mass, with a global mindset. no, it is lot of different mindset, different hope, different way to play the game that gather the whole community. A community is a patchwork... And sticking about the mindset of only one color of this big patchwork is not how you get a good and harmonious neighborhood...
I'm pretty sure that to use FF Logs you need to explicitly do so yourself. You can't be parsed against your will, if the process requires you to copy paste an URL to your profile and download ACT, for your logs to be uploaded to FF Logs.
If anyone is crying that they're being parsed against their will, they're poorly attempting to deflect blame for their own actions.
Or, if they say "No Trackers" what we COULD do, as a community is go "Hey, they'd rather us not use Trackers. Let's be respectful and honor that."
Why is that not an option? Why can't we just try it their way? FFXIV, some of the community decided to not try it that way, and now they have a mess. Those people collecting that data of people that don't want theirs collected, ARE negatively impacting their neighbors. Those people ARE the Bad Neighbors.
It's clear who the Bad Actors are there. But your suggestion isn't that they should just follow the rule. That's weird.
People in FFXIV are actively having their comfort harmed. The simple solution is to call out those doing the harm. Don't use Trackers. Obey the rule.
You will NEVER get decisions that make everyone happy. It's not possible. Perfection is an ideal, not a reality, it can not be achieved.
So if the game has things you don't like, either suck it up and accept it... or play a different game. Because the game CAN NOT cater to EVERYONE. So decide if you're good with this one or not. There are PLENTY of options out there.
If you don't like the rules of this game, play a game you do like the rules of. That seems super obvious.
This whole "I do not care what the rules are" IS the problem. Because the Developers have a concept, an intent, it's actively part of the design. And when you disregard that, you destroy what it is trying to be. That's exactly how you get people on FFXIV, a game intended to not have Trackers, having their information gathered against their will. Because some people decided to be bad neighbors, decided the rules didn't pertain to them. Now you have a mess, that those Bad Neighbors caused. They could have simply went to a game that DOES encourage and allow Trackers. That was an option. That would be the respectful thing to do. Instead, they disrespect their neighborhood, they do things that other players who are following the rules don't want done. Those players following the rules are having their comfort harmed, literally by those not following the rules.
It's really simply. We have options, choices. Go to the game that gives you the choices you want. If you want Trackers, play a game that accepts and encourages them. Plenty do. Don't be like those toxic people in that FFXIV Community that figure rules don't apply to them and their neighbors don't matter.
Your example is so horrible that it's disgusting. You'd rather empower those that have no regard for their fellow player. You'd rather empower those that have options that fit what they want, but instead would rather impose what they want on games that don't offer it. Why? Why in the world would you do that?
If you demand Trackers, go play a game that accepts Trackers. It's that easy.
Don't come to a game that is saying No Trackers, and disregard that. If you want them, plenty of games offer them. Go there. Why is this so hard to understand?
Ashes is going to be a competitive game. People are going to use what advantages they can. If I am on a server with a guild that is using a combat tracker to optimize builds and such, me and my guild will be at a disadvantage if we do not also do the same.
Since there is literally nothing at all Intrepid can do about it, I cant rely on them stepping in.
As such, what kind of a guild leader would I be if I knowingly left useful tools that we are essentially free to use on the table?
In order to respect intent, they need to have an ability to back that up. Respect is - after all - earned. You're still not getting it.
Their intent doesn't matter.
It would honestly be like some HoA or something in Texas saying "no guns in this neighborhood - that is our rule!". There are laws superseding that "rule", and so that rule simply does not apply to anyone. Obviously, no one is going to take that rule seriously, because of the Second Amendment (I believe that's the right one - not sure, not my laws). You are not going to begrudge someone in that area for owning and possessing a gun, because clearly the law allows them to do so, and the stupid little HoA does not get to remove the Constitutional Rights of the people in that HoA.
That is literally the situation here. Intrepid can ask all they want, but asking is all they can do, and I am free to say no. The fact that I am saying no many years before the game releases gives Intrepid time to come up with other options if they desire, or just live with how things are (which is the most likely outcome).
Not sure what this has to do with combat trackers though.
So, the ancestor of MMO's are MUD's (multi-user dungeons). These were basically text based games that attempted to emulate D&D. The first of them was at the time just called MUD, but has since been referred to commonly as either MUD1 or EssexMUD. It was made by Richard Bartle (of Bartle test fame, follow Dygz enough and you'll here him randomly give his score as if it actually means anything).
It was released to the University of Essex network in 1978.
In 1979, VisiCalc was released - the first spreadsheet. By the end of 1979, people were using VisiCalc to improve at EssexMUD.
By the time we got to Meridian 59 (generally considered the first MMO as we know them now - released in 1996 iirc), there were scripts written so that you could just paste in to the first cell of an Excel spreadsheet to get all the data from recent combat. As far as I can tell, this concept originated with AoL's Neverwinter in 1991, but that game doesn't technically classify as an MMORPG (I assume the first 'M' isn't present, but I am not sure).
Combat trackers are basically just that exact same thing, but with built in spreadsheet functionality.
Basically, what I am saying is that combat trackers as a general concept have been around for almost two decades longer than MMO's have been around, and there hasn't been an actual time in which MMO's existed where combat trackers for them did not exist.
So sure, we are not happy with the current state of MMO's. I think a lot of people agree with that statement.
However, since combat trackers have been a part of MMO's since literally before their beginning, we can't then point to combat trackers as having had any part at all in the current state of them.
There are many other things that we can point fingers at and say this is why MMO's for the last decade have sucked. One is the incessant insistence of almost all MMO's in that time to attempt to implement some form of action combat. The last full tab target game to launch, as far as I am concerned, is Rift, in 2011.
Another thing we can point our finger at and say "this is at least in part to blame" is the notion developers have of trying to have game wide communities, rather than smaller, server based communities. It is no surprise that games with cross server content and/or automatic group formation are the games that tend to have the worst communities. On the other hand, games that break players down in to smaller communities with much less access to crossing in to another community - these games tend to have better communities.
We can also point to the insistence of MMO's to use daily, weekly or monthly quests or rewards of what ever kind in order to get people playing the game longer than they would otherwise play. Having people log in every day because they don't want to miss out on what ever is on offer is not a good way to maintain a good community in an online setting. You want people to log in because they want to log in, and not log in if they would rather not. You also don't want people feeling like they have an hour long chore list when they log in to your game that they need to do before they can go off any do anything fun.
Then we could look at the participation trophies that games give out. Achievements for getting to level 3 and shit like that. If something is not an achievement, don't call it an achievement.
How about we look at getting rid of some of this shit that didn't actually exist in MMO's back when we all agree they were better, rather than looking at things like trackers that absolutely did exist back then?
Well, I'll fill you in on them.
Pen and paper
Calculator
Excel
The next step after Excel is a combat tracker.
Sure, arguing for no combat is perhaps a facetious or flippant argument. However, the argument at it's foundation is sound. Replace the concept of no combat at all with the above list, and you start to see why the notion of a slippery slope in this regard is a foolish argument.
so... a tool that do measures is a tool saying you what to do...
.
In my work i have 2 kind of tools, one that gather metrics, and one that assist me.
The first are tools you are probably using in your own life often, and some few specialised. But one example is... a ruler
The seconds are software where i take informations i gathered and gave me all results... No more work to do. (aside using my own experience to see if results are dubious, due to bugs, or bad inputs)
This is the difference between a combat tracker (gathering data easy to read) and combat assistant (says you all information you want without puting any effort in it)
The first just show me raw numbers i can work on. and from those raw numbers, i can have lot of answers.
The seconds gives me all answers... (And i know some people doing the same work, so accustomed of those assisting tool not able anymore to do the work themselves... which is a problem sometime)
And you are using second as arguments against first.
Combat tracker is just a .xls it doesn't gives any final information, it is still raw numbers you have to work on to get your answers.
If you want your reasonning true, you also have to fight against combat log... because they also assist us about understanding how the game works, how the class work, what are the best skills of the class, etc etc... The combat tracker is just an organised view of all things already written in combat log.
And when you say "we come on ashes to flee other mmorpg" : true
People come here to find back some elements of the old design, back in 2005 and even before
In old good time... when people ALREADY used combat tracker... EQ, my first mmorpg, i went i a guild that used it (not mandatory to have it ourselves but officer used it a lot) WoW was not released yet...
Steven speaks about creating a game with what they were back in those time, in this golden age ? Fine... there was combat tracker.
Oh and a last point about "respecting tos" : on FFXIV tools like reshade are forbidden. while i don't care, all my friends, and nearly all of their various FC are using it. it even made a drama when a player which modded her game and share a little too much about it on twitter was banned... for modding, while it was already done A LOT... people tried to make her unban, while modding is totally against the TOS (so it was totally rightfull for SE to ban her, and unrightfull for people to defend her... ) So all those people (probably large majority of FFXIV) that does those things, against the tos, are all bad neighbors ? ...
This is the problem about the debate around tracker
People put all fault on it, but refuse to see the real problem is how easy it is to exclude people...
Remove combat tracker in any form in wow, this will change nearly nothing, people will remain toxic, will kick people they think are making their dungeon run harder. and will find always new way to discriminate, and mostly... even more dumb way...
I mean, just look at wow or FFXIV party finder... lot of parties just ask insane ilvl, or the proof of kill the second week (wow) or second day (FFXIV) of the content... And then, if a people is a problem, it is kick because will find another dude in less than one minute...
Now get in a game where replacing a dude takes 20 or more minutes (because you have to go back in town, do the call, recruit, then run back to dungeon)... don't worry people will keep with them the bad guy (be it because he takes all AOE, break cc or have bad damages) and try to finish dungeon with him...
In FFXIV i even saw votekick against tank or healer because they refuse to do the door to door pulls... No combat tracker there, just because the tank want to play chill pack after pack, i saw people doing votekick ! More often than votekick against people that try to force the mass pull which is, for me ... a good reason to kick a healer/DPS...
in 15 years of mmorpg, always people were kicked because other thinks it would lead to a faster clean of the content to replace him. But if replacement is long to do, don't worry people will stop kicking for any small problem.
When even with duty finder, there were long time to find a tank... people still played the dungeon with the really bad tank. Because while with tank the dungeon went form a 20 minutes to 30 minutes run, kicking him was easily getting to a 40 minutes run due to the loooong time to get a new one.
This is why dutyfinder is one of the worst thing ever in MMORPG... this is why cross server is another one of the worst thing in mmorpg. This is one of reasons family teleportation will be a problem in AOC if it exist.
Find the real ennemy of what you want. here is not the data, but the easy replacement of people.
If you want to go through the effort of pulling out an Excel sheet or working it out by pen and paper, more power to you.
Just don't add the automated systems and optional assistance that a tracker offers.
We're all saying, if you wanna logic it by yourself during or after combat, cool. Just don't bring in a program to do it for you and give you instant results, with which people might then create toxic situations.
The sheer fact that it would require people any effort to work it out with pen and paper or Excel sheets etc, would be enough of a deterrent for many people to never actually do it. And for those strong willed enough, then at least they're investing time and effort into it. Which then limits their time for dungeon runs or other more productive activities.
The problem isn't even Trackers or No Trackers here. We're beyond that. The actual problem here is just you. Your blatant disregard. You have plenty of Trackers Allowed games to play. But you aren't content with that, for some reason.
You're so conceited, so wrapped up in yourself. There are games for you out there. Instead of accepting that maybe this one isn't, you're going to force what you want through. Because it's all about you. Rules be damned. Others be damned. It's YOU, baby. Nothing else.
This is the hill you choose to die on. That no matter what Intrepid decides, it doesn't matter... you've already decided you are going to do what you want. Period. When you could just choose to play a game that allows Trackers, and choose to not play games that don't.
It's people like you that screw it up for everyone else.
You could simply say "Hey, they don't want us to use Trackers. I'll give it a try, and if I can't abide by that I'll go back to games that allow them." Nope, screw that. It's your world. You can ALSO say "I believe if they don't use Trackers, they will fail.". And you might be right, time will tell.
But we're here, as I stated, as Steven stated, because we feel the MMO Genre has fallen from grace. We don't want 'Most MMOs'. Here you are fighting that spirit. If you want most MMOs, go play them. They're still there. This isn't them.
Kind of takes away the value of earning skill and gaining experience. There`s no journey.
He also stated that he is using a tracker regardless of being acceptable or not.
I got reasonably proficient in pvp in L2 through several thousand fights. Sucked for the first 1,000 fights. but that was ok.. . learning through playing, discussing with clan post and pre-fights, scanning the simple in-game damage logs was enough..
No clan members used combat trackers, just attentive game play, practice, practice, practice and trial and error and lots of discussion.. in fact learning together with the trials and errors was what made a tight guild and a mmo social
A damage log, as I think already planned, is all that is needed.
Cool, that is where your position is.
What you shouldn't then do is argue against people using Excel, for fear that it leads to combat trackers.
Putting aside what we each want in terms of combat trackers, I'm sure you understand this point.
Shift this one step up, and it is the argument that was being presented - you shouldnt have combat trackers because it leads to combat assistants.
From what I have seen of you, you are able to see that this is a poor argument. It being a poor argument does not mean you need to disagree with the position the person making the argument has towards trackers, just that the argument is a poor one to make.
I mean, I put $500 on this game long before their stance on trackers was known.
It wasnt something I even considered looking in to before putting that money down - because literally no game has ever sustained a position against trackers, so why would this one?
After putting that money down, they decided to take up the position they have.
Since I am not obliged to agree with that position, nor to abide by it at all, I will not.
I have at times said that I would gladly take a refund of the money I have put in to the game, should Intrepid offer it.
Combat assistants are an issue, true, but it's not the main reason why I would rather DPS meters/combat trackers don't exist. Those tools lead to gatekeeping, toxicity and overall negative social interactions.
It's not a poor argument, though, when it is rooted in multiply reported empirical causality (annecdotal though you may wish to paint it). Will there be people who manage to have positive interactions despite the existence and usage of those tools? Yes. Will people still behave poorly to each other without them? Yes.
Does the presence of those tools increase the propensity and likelihood of a negative social interaction taking place? Yes. Can people clear the content presented in the game without them? Yes. Will it make the experience more rewarding despite possible initial struggles? Yes (as proven by games like the Elden Soulsborne series, who also include online content).
Furthermore, I would posit that DPS meters/combat trackers + combat assistants, are in great part useful for the top 1% of players trying to optimize and maximise their combat output, in hopes of winning certain content races.
In Ashes, World 1st races won't be a thing. Neither will Regional 1st or Server 1st ones. By virtue of the content being Node development locked, and Raids being either Open World or Open world dungeons, there won't really be races for 1st place in the traditional sense.
That is, in my opinion, one extra reason as to why these types of tools are not required. They go sum themselves up to the ranks of:
I have had far more positive interactions because of trackers (literally hundreds) than I have had negative interactions because of trackers (literally zero).
While I get that some people would have had negative interactions because of them, there are - from what I can see - far more people that are taking other negative experiences and blaming them on trackers.
If you are in a group running content in WoW, and you are obviously slower than the rest of the group, the group is going to replace you. This isnt the fault of trackers, it is the fault of the LFG system (and the fault of the player for not being fast enough - they are as much to blame as anyone here).
Remove trackers and the group can still see you are slower and so will replace you. Remove the LFG system and the group is unlikely to replace you because getting a replacement to them is going to be difficult.
How can we then point to the tracker and say it is at fault?
You may be right about Ashes not having world firsts, but you also may not be. I would suspect that there will be a singular boss that is the apex of the game, and would also expect to see one for each expansion. If not a specific boss, then a specific quest chain or some such.
Server firsts though, they will absolutely be a thing.
I will say, based on the above post, you have decided to drop the argument that was being made about combat trackers being bad because they will lead to combat assistants. This is a good decision.
The question here would be whether those interactions happened in the controlled space of your own Guild or raid groups/raid group adjacent people, and how many happened in an uncontrolled space (such as with pugs).
Unfortunately we don't have a clear means for us to dissect everyone's negative interactions which they're blaming on trackers, to figure out what percentage of blame does in fact lie with those tools. So I personally chose to believe the person saying that the blame lies with said tools.
In WoW? Yes. That does indeed tend to happen. In other games such as FFXIV? Doesn't happen nearly as much if at all.
The difference in my opinion? WoW has had for many years a far more prevalent culture of combat trackers existing in the game. As well has having had the content designed for specific types of players, leading to toxicity from certain groups (thinking of mythic keys for instance).
I do agree that the lack of an LFG system also helps in reducing the instant replacement kind of toxicity. Doesn't however prevent the entire (admittedly harder than necessary) run from being toxic.
Servers firsts may be a thing if the content in question is Instanced, thus allowing multiple groups from racing fairly against the other. If the boss is open world, groups will ultimately screw each other over and fight over a boss, leading to a harder measure of what a first is.
The only other way to do it, would then be: take turns and see who kills it faster. And then you're once again rendering the use of a combat tracker, nearly mandatory to a small subsect of players only, whilst still opening the door for issues for those people whose gaming experience wouldn't otherwise depend on the presence of those tools.
Firsts are, by any measure, a competitive measure employed by mostly themepark mmos and irrelevant in almost everything else.
Which is fair, ad In themeparks it makes sense. In most other games including open world mmos it does not
Neither do the existance of firsts have any relevancy to the existance to DPS meters. They can happen (or not) whether dps meters exist or not. Solely the effort required to be on top is higher without them. Which makes it not relevant as an argument
True
If combat trackers were the difference between the WoW and FFXIV communities - with WoW being more toxic because it has a longer history of their use - how do EQ, EQ2, Rift, LotRO, Vanguard, Age of Conan and a number of other games fit in?
Each of these games had combat trackers right from the start, yet each of them have far less toxic communities than WoW.
What about Archeage? That game is even more toxic tha WoW, yet hardly anyone uses combat trackers.
Fact is, when you gather more samples, there is no correlation between the toxicity of an MMO community and the level of combat tracker usage in that community. It just doesn't line up.
What does line up though, is the reliance on other players in relation to toxicity levels. Games where you need others (to get group invites, as an example) have communities that are far less toxic. Games where you dont need to rely on others (LFG system, or other forms of automated grouping) are more toxic.
Specific to WoW, we cant really use things like mythic raiding as an excuse for the games player base. Mythic raids weren't introduced until 2014, and the game had a reputation for a shit community in 2007. As a point of note, the LFG system was added in 2006.
You cant even use the notion of just top end raids as being a source for WoWs community, as WoW by no means has the most exclusive content (Ive seen encounters that have been killed by less than 100 people in total).
Now, this doesnt mean you need to suddenly be all for combat trackers - it just means that the argument that trackers cause toxicity holds no objective weight.
I disagree.
The way to do it would be to base it on who gets the loot.
Sure, guilds may fight over it, but that's the point.
To me, this depends on if there are lore based figures in the game at all or not, or if there is an apex boss for the game or not (would be odd if there isnt one).
If there is lore in the game about a given entity, and your guild is the first in the game to kill it, you are obviously going to brag. In fact, we can be fairly sure that castles will fit in to this specific scenario.
I do agree with your point on it being interesting to see how Intrepid react to those they know are using combat trackers (such as myself).
I mean, they will have a hard time making them against the ToS, and if they did, they would still need proof that you are using one.
I used a combat tracker mod in ESO, if you can call it one, and all it ever told me was how significantly annihilated I got in pvp with some outrageous one hit deaths of 2-3x my hp. Never bothered in pve.
Any only time ever used..
To me pvp is the hardest content in game.. hard pve content is of negligible interest. People are just so much harder to navigate.. And with AoC having such a range of classes and possible party setup outcomes, coupled with gear that will not distinguish class types so well, I cannot see pvp being something calculatable, just feel until metas are worked out and then a numbers game..
Oh, and I was a pretty hopeless pvp`er in L2 but with a clan that seem to cross paths alot, by default got thrown into the fore and got pk`ed dozens of times before I had a go at fighting back..and with serveral hundred fights was still pretty ordinary, but after several 1000 fights actually really enjoyed it.
But for L2, was painful, a good round of pvp lost 0.5% of a level XP per death. and a good round of pvp some days might have died 3-4s. and at that level 0.5% xp took 2hrs to gain.. so for each death. was 2 hrs to make up.. each pvp round might be 4-8hrs to make up.. so there was plenty of adrenaline and very calculated
Hopefully there pvp encounters do take a number of hits to take someone down so that one does not have to consider fleeing at the sight of more than one combatant.
Combat trackers are more useful the longer a given fight goes on.
This is why they are invaluable in raids, where it is common for a single fight to go on for 20 minutes, and I have seen some individual encounters that take an hour or longer.
In PvP where you can be killed in a second or two, they aren't really able to tell you anything past what you saw on screen.
With the TTK in Ashes being targeted at around 30 seconds though, that leaves a reasonable amount of scope for a tracker to be useful in PvP - much more than a game like ESO. Those that use one (correctly) absolutely will have an advantage over those that do not, but those that do not use one will have an advantage over those that use one incorrectly.
It's hard to say at this point how it would play out in large scale PvP. You will have an advantage if you used one to prep, but I wouldn't want to guess if it would be of use to use it during a siege.
I recall a fight in L2 that went a good 15-20min, until buffs died, as the tank I was trying to kill with a ranger just would not die and the tank could just not deal enough damage nor get close. Even took off my armor just to tease..!
Some of the fights that were most memorable went on a good 5-10min.
I also hope terrain has a play, height, cover, concealment and range.
I hope we have ability to pick up sticks or arrows, and arrange little camp fires on dead bodies, just to rub it in!