Btw, have there been mmos with 0 combat info? Did they have complex pve and did it require or at least result in tracker use? I'm not sure if I've ever heard about or seen such an mmo, so I wouldn't even know how people would react if Intrepid went so hard on their anti-addon spiel that they removed any hp/dmg indicators. Like, to a point where you don't even know your own HP values, so that you couldn't just extrapolate damages from pvp fights.
I'd assume quite a lot of people would dislike that huge of an info absence, but I dunno if there's a precedent for it either way.
edit: I guess you'd need to have somewhat randomized mob/boss hp on top of unknown values, because people could still just get their ttks and then compare them. In other words, it's literally impossible to stop people from deconstructing a game and then using that deconstruction to their benefit.
Even if they did remove it if the game is really good and fun it doesn't matter people will still play it. People will still do test to try to figure out their dps using mobs and it will take a longer period of time and be much more onth e social side of things to figure how effective things can be.
Even if they did remove it if the game is really good and fun it doesn't matter people will still play it. People will still do test to try to figure out their dps using mobs and it will take a longer period of time and be much more onth e social side of things to figure how effective things can be.
I mean, that's a given in any fun game, but I was mainly talking about the tracker people. They'll always find a way to have their way, so these past 120 pages of discussion were pretty much useless But what else is new.
that encourages players to work together to figure stuff out.
*look at theorycrafting communities* ...
How to say it... but... theorycrafters, even with combat tracker works together A LOT ... sharing all information...
Thinking that people creating guides does it from their own personnal knowledge and nothing else is a proof you don't understand how all those people are working... and there are really activ theorycrafting communities...
But you speak about people READING those guide, applying it, and syaing "L2P go check guides" ... Yes, guides are the ennemy of social in MMORPG
I am directly referring to those communities. I am simply saying that making it take longer for them to find a meta (because eventually one will be found) will benefit a games longevity and allow for the community to be more actively working together.
Btw, have there been mmos with 0 combat info? Did they have complex pve and did it require or at least result in tracker use? I'm not sure if I've ever heard about or seen such an mmo, so I wouldn't even know how people would react if Intrepid went so hard on their anti-addon spiel that they removed any hp/dmg indicators. Like, to a point where you don't even know your own HP values, so that you couldn't just extrapolate damages from pvp fights.
I'd assume quite a lot of people would dislike that huge of an info absence, but I dunno if there's a precedent for it either way.
edit: I guess you'd need to have somewhat randomized mob/boss hp on top of unknown values, because people could still just get their ttks and then compare them. In other words, it's literally impossible to stop people from deconstructing a game and then using that deconstruction to their benefit.
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
Yeah, I agree, cause I've been doing this for 12 years in L2. But as have been stated multiple times here, trackers/meters will still be made if there's a combat log. And I'm fairly sure it'd be made if there even wasn't a log. And Intrepid can't do anything about it. And as specifically Noaani's comments point out, there can't even be an assumption of "good faith" when it comes to the tracker ban, because someone somewhere will use them. Someone else will see (or at least assume) that the other person is using them and will use one themselves. And it'll just snowball from there.
And then there's people like Azherae who can just extrapolate way more stuff from simply the combat log itself, to the point where some people might accuse her of using a tracker. And this would start the same snowball effect as someone really using one.
I wish people didn't want to use them, but this is one of the rare things in mmos where the dev studio can't just prevent people from doing it through any in-game means.
I mean, that's a given in any fun game, but I was mainly talking about the tracker people. They'll always find a way to have their way, so these past 120 pages of discussion were pretty much useless But what else is new.
The problem is there will be combat tracker, used a lot or no no one can predict it. the design of the game is a huge impact for it (cf what i said about my use of combat tracker on LA or FFXIV, while using it more actively on GW2). Maybe, because of how the fight and game will be designed and how i will want to play the game probably i will use it as i did in FFXIV (really low use)...
The real problem, and why i am glad to nooani to still defend his point :
FFXIV is the worst situation and this is the way we are going.
FFXIV is not a game without combat tracker, roaming https://www.fflogs.com allows anyone to realise the insane amount of daily record done and uploaded (and some people don't upload all they have... )
When i did defend parsers on FFXIV forums, i realised a REALLY BIG problem with the FFXIV situation : some of the "non parser" team were recorded, and their data uploaded on this site.
When you swant to join my farm party, i can just type the name of your character on the site, see your datas, see you are a grey parser and ... refuse/kick you. I won't get ban for it, if i don't says "i kick you because you have bad DPS" ... i just stay silent, and is fine.
I have a BIG problem with people getting their datas recorded without knowing about it.
Dygz or Mag7spy both who dislike and want combat tracker far from them could be recorded in any of their pick up activity. And nothing can be done against it sadly...
Why i prefer to have an official ingame combat tracker : why having a third party if you have one included in game, with all benefits it gives to have it directly in the game ?
A tool directly in game allows developers to controll it, limit its use, and so... avoid some of the problem it can generates.
Limiting tracker to guild perk (idea Nooani defend) will force guild to spend some of their evolution on it (not free) making it a real choice, while guilds without it can take anything else they find more usefull...
This remove totally this big problem that exist in FFXIV. (and is for me a real issue)
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
You're just asking me to do useless busywork. I need to decide whether my buffs are what my team needs or not. I have DECISIONS to make. When I know how much my team is missing the enemy, and how much damage my Tank is taking, I can START to play the game. I'm here to make decisions, not do arithmetic.
Limiting tracker to guild perk (idea Nooani defend) will force guild to spend some of their evolution on it (not free) making it a real choice, while guilds without it can take anything else they find more usefull...
This remove totally this big problem that exist in FFXIV. (and is for me a real issue)
How sure are you that this will be the case though?
Cause to me this just seems like the middle ground I tried to find from my pov, except from Noaani's pov. Yes, some guilds will just use that perk. But what are the chances that there won't be some other perk that gives you better parsing in raids, that you can't get purely because you spent a point on the tracker. At which point, the guild that is at Noaani's lvl of hardcoreness and not caring about the rules will just go "fuck the guild perk, we're making our own tracker". And then they'll be better than other guilds because that one perk gave them a better parse. And now other guilds do the same, because there's already precedent. And now that 3rd party tracker is also tracking other people, cause why da hell would it not. And now you have the exact problem that you see in FF14.
Again, it's all about people who will not act in good faith under the rules presented by the developer. And there'll always be someone who takes it to the extreme. Except in this case Intrepid literally can't do anything about those extremes. And if they implement their own tracker, they'd just give those bad actors the tools to make an amazing 3rd party tracker, cause they'd have all the information they need to properly calculate anything they want already in the game.
Not we. And also. Why? Why does the meta need to be known quickly? What does that accomplish besides just enabling everyone to fall into one build and just burn through all of the content as fast as possible? Most of the fun from new MMO experiences is figuring stuff out with everyone since everyone is starting at baseline. All you want it seems is "Here, go ahead and take this tool so you can figure out the game as quickly as possible so you can maximize efficiency while blowing through any and all content we made but you can ignore it all for the sake of convenience and speed." No time to think so just make an addon to do it for ya right?
Also, IS's ability to create good class designs doesnt have anything to do with what I am saying. It isn't hard to tell that the first month of most MMO's is usually an awesome experience due to everyone not knowing what to expect. Making that last longer creates a great experience, and it actually helps communities because everyone is helping each other figure stuff out as they go. Figuring out class builds is also a part of that experience, and having people figure it out without easymode addons can be just another fun dynamic that encourages players to work together to figure stuff out.
To answer this, we need to look at how a meta is misused, and more importantly, by who.
Top end players actually dont care about the meta. They are the most likely group of players to not use it (WoW is the exception here) because they are always looking for better than meta. The group of people that will require all to stick to the meta are a step or two down.
These players dont really have their finger on the pulse of the game. They aren't exactly keeping up with things on a monthly basis, let alone a daily basis. They also have a pre-existing bias towards assuming a mono-build meta, because that is the assumption most people make.
As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta.
To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game.
This will literally be impossible without combat trackers.
And if they implement their own tracker, they'd just give those bad actors the tools to make an amazing 3rd party tracker, cause they'd have all the information they need to properly calculate anything they want already in the game.
No, this information always ALWAYS already exists.
There just needs to be a UI and even the most rudimentary combat log.
The code for literally 'finding damage numbers on a screen, figuring out what those numbers are, and putting them into the data parser' is well known. If a player can see it, and has any control at all over the display of those numbers, the parser can see it. This is why you can parse just from the screen.
A packet sniffing tracker would be easy to find.
The way to make people not care about trackers as often is to make designs where bothering to run the tracker is more work than doing it yourself, as you noted. That's not a matter of 'ok so now we can punish people for running them'. It would stop being NECESSARY.
"Being worried about trackers" in a game like Ashes is telegraphing to me that understanding (or confidence in) class design and encounter design is low, given what Ashes is supposed to be. You keep making the same very correct point, but the outcome 'should' be different. If Ashes has a specific design type, it won't be 'no one needs trackers', it would be 'no one cares about them enough to worry about if someone else is using one or not'.
Implementing inhouse trackers as a Guild Perk isn't remotely about 'making people pay for the use of one', it's about separating players who don't like them from players who do at the mid levels quickly enough to avoid the clashes.
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
You're just asking me to do useless busywork. I need to decide whether my buffs are what my team needs or not. I have DECISIONS to make. When I know how much my team is missing the enemy, and how much damage my Tank is taking, I can START to play the game. I'm here to make decisions, not do arithmetic.
You can still figure that all out on your own. Just not instantly
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
Yeah, I agree, cause I've been doing this for 12 years in L2. But as have been stated multiple times here, trackers/meters will still be made if there's a combat log. And I'm fairly sure it'd be made if there even wasn't a log. And Intrepid can't do anything about it. And as specifically Noaani's comments point out, there can't even be an assumption of "good faith" when it comes to the tracker ban, because someone somewhere will use them. Someone else will see (or at least assume) that the other person is using them and will use one themselves. And it'll just snowball from there.
And then there's people like Azherae who can just extrapolate way more stuff from simply the combat log itself, to the point where some people might accuse her of using a tracker. And this would start the same snowball effect as someone really using one.
I wish people didn't want to use them, but this is one of the rare things in mmos where the dev studio can't just prevent people from doing it through any in-game means.
I get that I guess. But are there no ways to detect these things in game? I am not a code guy so I have no idea how realistic it would be to be able to have a system that alerts when addons/plugins are being used.
Not we. And also. Why? Why does the meta need to be known quickly? What does that accomplish besides just enabling everyone to fall into one build and just burn through all of the content as fast as possible? Most of the fun from new MMO experiences is figuring stuff out with everyone since everyone is starting at baseline. All you want it seems is "Here, go ahead and take this tool so you can figure out the game as quickly as possible so you can maximize efficiency while blowing through any and all content we made but you can ignore it all for the sake of convenience and speed." No time to think so just make an addon to do it for ya right?
Also, IS's ability to create good class designs doesnt have anything to do with what I am saying. It isn't hard to tell that the first month of most MMO's is usually an awesome experience due to everyone not knowing what to expect. Making that last longer creates a great experience, and it actually helps communities because everyone is helping each other figure stuff out as they go. Figuring out class builds is also a part of that experience, and having people figure it out without easymode addons can be just another fun dynamic that encourages players to work together to figure stuff out.
To answer this, we need to look at how a meta is misused, and more importantly, by who.
Top end players actually dont care about the meta. They are the most likely group of players to not use it (WoW is the exception here) because they are always looking for better than meta. The group of people that will require all to stick to the meta are a step or two down.
These players dont really have their finger on the pulse of the game. They aren't exactly keeping up with things on a monthly basis, let alone a daily basis. They also have a pre-existing bias towards assuming a mono-build meta, because that is the assumption most people make.
As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta.
To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game.
This will literally be impossible without combat trackers.
How wouldn't it be possible though? All the trackers do is speed things up as far as I can tell. Not having them doesn't prevent anyone from figuring out the same answer, it just takes more time and testing.
I do absolutely agree that we want an abundance of viable builds per class. So much so that it blurs the meta line by negligible differences, while giving noticeably unique playstyles between each other.
Sure, they could... in fact just one thing to remember : we don't know what will offer perks... but we already know that having a guild that can reach 300 members would be a high cost for the guild. big guild means some perk less, and the guild activity is a big things for bigger node (to have some bonuses)
We don't even know how many perk we can take.
I consider that all kind of balance (classes, nodes, guild perks, etc etc) wil lget a decent work (else i wouldnt have hope for Ashes of Creation to be a great game)
if the cost is not so high, the benefits to have it directly ingame for a small cost will be enough to take it. Also because it is bound with guild progression/evolution, it will be easier for a guild hardcore to take it (if you can take 50 perk or only 10... it changes a lot how you can see the need or no of a perk).
Last point is not relevant but from my personnal experience in gaming : people can obey easier to a rule that limit what they want (but still gives it) that a rule that forbid them what they want... even more with a stupid or fallacious explanation.
To answer this, we need to look at how a meta is misused, and more importantly, by who.
While the explanation given by nooani is good
A good way to see it is also... League of Legend :
top (master + ) plays what they want. And we can see, during world championship always some pick feeling "off meta" or even totally out of meta... A good example was some years ago, Mumu was a "top lane" character, moscow5 took it as support ... great success and all metaslave took mumu as support, and suddenly, picking him top lane was judge "trollpick" (lawl)
Gold/platinum people ... are total meta-slaves, they don't even understand it, they saw the top players doing it and winning with it, not all sure... And there people follow meta, don't even try to understand why, in the current balance, those character to pick were meta / had a higher winrate. they follow meta, and expect people to follow it, because else "it reduce chance to win because not meta"
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
Yeah, I agree, cause I've been doing this for 12 years in L2. But as have been stated multiple times here, trackers/meters will still be made if there's a combat log. And I'm fairly sure it'd be made if there even wasn't a log. And Intrepid can't do anything about it. And as specifically Noaani's comments point out, there can't even be an assumption of "good faith" when it comes to the tracker ban, because someone somewhere will use them. Someone else will see (or at least assume) that the other person is using them and will use one themselves. And it'll just snowball from there.
And then there's people like Azherae who can just extrapolate way more stuff from simply the combat log itself, to the point where some people might accuse her of using a tracker. And this would start the same snowball effect as someone really using one.
I wish people didn't want to use them, but this is one of the rare things in mmos where the dev studio can't just prevent people from doing it through any in-game means.
I get that I guess. But are there no ways to detect these things in game? I am not a code guy so I have no idea how realistic it would be to be able to have a system that alerts when addons/plugins are being used.
Nope.
Literally no way at all.
One very simple way to illustrate this is that we can capture the data from what is displayed on screen.
Now, you could say that Intrepid thenlooks for programs that capture what is on screen - and they probably could. However, that would include streamers and YouTubers (cant really make videos on a game without video from that game).
But then, even if Intrepid did do this, and ban all streaming and YouTube along the way, we could just use a Display Port splitter and send a feed in to a second computer with an input and use that to parse.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if - in the next few years - we were able to just point our phone camera at the screen and have it parse everything for us (we are not at this point yet).
Not we. And also. Why? Why does the meta need to be known quickly? What does that accomplish besides just enabling everyone to fall into one build and just burn through all of the content as fast as possible? Most of the fun from new MMO experiences is figuring stuff out with everyone since everyone is starting at baseline. All you want it seems is "Here, go ahead and take this tool so you can figure out the game as quickly as possible so you can maximize efficiency while blowing through any and all content we made but you can ignore it all for the sake of convenience and speed." No time to think so just make an addon to do it for ya right?
Also, IS's ability to create good class designs doesnt have anything to do with what I am saying. It isn't hard to tell that the first month of most MMO's is usually an awesome experience due to everyone not knowing what to expect. Making that last longer creates a great experience, and it actually helps communities because everyone is helping each other figure stuff out as they go. Figuring out class builds is also a part of that experience, and having people figure it out without easymode addons can be just another fun dynamic that encourages players to work together to figure stuff out.
To answer this, we need to look at how a meta is misused, and more importantly, by who.
Top end players actually dont care about the meta. They are the most likely group of players to not use it (WoW is the exception here) because they are always looking for better than meta. The group of people that will require all to stick to the meta are a step or two down.
These players dont really have their finger on the pulse of the game. They aren't exactly keeping up with things on a monthly basis, let alone a daily basis. They also have a pre-existing bias towards assuming a mono-build meta, because that is the assumption most people make.
As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta.
To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game.
This will literally be impossible without combat trackers.
How wouldn't it be possible though? All the trackers do is speed things up as far as I can tell. Not having them doesn't prevent anyone from figuring out the same answer, it just takes more time and testing.
The speed at which it does it is the point.
We want all of those builds analyzed, tests and proven to be the best viable build for a given situation BEFORE people come along looking for the meta. Ideally, all of this needs to be done while beta testing the game.
If people look for the games meta and see single viable builds (even if just because the remaining builds are not yet tested), they have that confirmation of their mono-build bias.
That bias confirmation is - to me - the main thing that needs to be avoided in order for the game to have a varied meta. People need to see dozens of viable builds the first time they look in to the games meta, and the only way to have those dozens of viable builds tested and proven is to use a combat tracker.
Edit to add; it also requires Intrepid to develop the classes in a way where multiple builds of a given class are viable in different situations, but as I said earlier, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt here.
"Being worried about trackers" in a game like Ashes is telegraphing to me that understanding (or confidence in) class design and encounter design is low, given what Ashes is supposed to be. You keep making the same very correct point, but the outcome 'should' be different. If Ashes has a specific design type, it won't be 'no one needs trackers', it would be 'no one cares about them enough to worry about if someone else is using one or not'.
I'm trying to stay as cautiously neutral as possible, with a tint of negativity to stop myself from falling into hype too much. There have been countless games (let alone mmos) with countless promises. And veeeeery rarely have those promises become reality. Even rarer in mmos. And then we consider the sheer scale of what Intrepid is trying to do and the scale of promises they've made, and I become full with doubt of whether they can truly achieve their goal. As I keep saying, I dearly hope they do, but I'd rather complain about the negative possibilities now and then be super happy that I was wrong, than try and believe each and every Steven's word (as Dygz quite often does) and then be disappointed when those plans fall through.
As I've stated before, Ashes is the only mmo for me that has even the slightest potential of really being my "final" mmo. It has the exact design choices I like, it doesn't have the corporate greed that ruined my favorite mmo and it has a fairly headstrong leader that doesn't seem to budge under the general pressure (at least so far and from what I've seen). This whole game is almost exactly what I would've done if I had the millions to fund it. And all of that would only make it that much more painful if the game completely dies for one reason or the other. Which is why I doubt Intrepid's convictions, I doubt their promises and I doubt its success. It's a defensive mechanism
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
You're just asking me to do useless busywork. I need to decide whether my buffs are what my team needs or not. I have DECISIONS to make. When I know how much my team is missing the enemy, and how much damage my Tank is taking, I can START to play the game. I'm here to make decisions, not do arithmetic.
You can still figure that all out on your own. Just not instantly
A point to note, testing a build out properly takes weeks with a combat tracker.
It isnt instant by any means. Not if you want to do it well.
"Being worried about trackers" in a game like Ashes is telegraphing to me that understanding (or confidence in) class design and encounter design is low, given what Ashes is supposed to be. You keep making the same very correct point, but the outcome 'should' be different. If Ashes has a specific design type, it won't be 'no one needs trackers', it would be 'no one cares about them enough to worry about if someone else is using one or not'.
I'm trying to stay as cautiously neutral as possible, with a tint of negativity to stop myself from falling into hype too much. There have been countless games (let alone mmos) with countless promises. And veeeeery rarely have those promises become reality. Even rarer in mmos. And then we consider the sheer scale of what Intrepid is trying to do and the scale of promises they've made, and I become full with doubt of whether they can truly achieve their goal. As I keep saying, I dearly hope they do, but I'd rather complain about the negative possibilities now and then be super happy that I was wrong, than try and believe each and every Steven's word (as Dygz quite often does) and then be disappointed when those plans fall through.
As I've stated before, Ashes is the only mmo for me that has even the slightest potential of really being my "final" mmo. It has the exact design choices I like, it doesn't have the corporate greed that ruined my favorite mmo and it has a fairly headstrong leader that doesn't seem to budge under the general pressure (at least so far and from what I've seen). This whole game is almost exactly what I would've done if I had the millions to fund it. And all of that would only make it that much more painful if the game completely dies for one reason or the other. Which is why I doubt Intrepid's convictions, I doubt their promises and I doubt its success. It's a defensive mechanism
Ah yes but then you have the "Option Select" as we like to call it. Let's take a random player that says:
"I don't want trackers because I think it will make people figure out the Meta much faster!"
And I respond "What meta? This is Ashes of Creation."
The fact that this person believes that Ashes COULD have a Meta that could be damaged by a tracker existing, means that Ashes didn't achieve the level intended. Why are they/you playing?
If the argument for the tracker is just 'I just really want another average MMO to play and trackers ruin average MMOs, don't ruin this for me with your fast-tracked Meta bullshit', then that person is completely fine. I will never even want to use a tracker for Ashes, I will not be playing.
So for me, it's easy. Either trackers might as well be allowed because the game will be so good (and the better it is, the more GOOD they do), or the game is average and I have no opinion on their existence, and from what I gather, after a few months, neither would you.
Um. META = Most Efficient Tactics Available.
That's when people tell you that you have to use a specific cookie-cutter class, a specific cookie-cutter build and specific class abilities in order to defeat the boss.
While this is accurate of in terms of what a META is, most of us are talking about a meta.
A meta is probably best described as a more relaxed META (hence not needing to be formal with the capital letters). It is a selection of builds that the general population have all agreed are viable options to take along on content.
A true META actually does include the number of each build you take along on content (the META of a raid in EQ2 would see you take a Guardian as your only tank, for example). In Ashes, one could say that taking one of each class is a part of the META, but not the meta. It is undoubtedly technically the best option, but it probably isnt necessary.
Ah yes but then you have the "Option Select" as we like to call it. Let's take a random player that says:
"I don't want trackers because I think it will make people figure out the Meta much faster!"
And I respond "What meta? This is Ashes of Creation."
The fact that this person believes that Ashes COULD have a Meta that could be damaged by a tracker existing, means that Ashes didn't achieve the level intended. Why are they/you playing?
If the argument for the tracker is just 'I just really want another average MMO to play and trackers ruin average MMOs, don't ruin this for me with your fast-tracked Meta bullshit', then that person is completely fine. I will never even want to use a tracker for Ashes, I will not be playing.
So for me, it's easy. Either trackers might as well be allowed because the game will be so good (and the better it is, the more GOOD they do), or the game is average and I have no opinion on their existence, and from what I gather, after a few months, neither would you.
While thinking of an answer I came upon a small realization. Noaani says that AA barely used any trackers. In my experience L2 barely used them either (Noaani has a few people who used them, so I dunno whether my experience is special or theirs is). Steven is taking most of his inspiration from those 2 games. Neither of them required trackers to complete their content.
So what are the chances that Steven is somewhat like me in thinking "why would you need trackers? All I've heard from a lot of other people is that they've had bad experiences with them and that FF14 is against them. And all content I've cleared in my past never needed you to parse out your dps to clear it".
And with Steven's word being the final one when it comes to design paths, what are the chances that, even if someone on the team (mainly people from the EQ team) said that trackers are fine and maybe even great for the kind of pve Steven has promised, Steven just says "no, I see no point in them and they allegedly only bring negativity".
This would explain why there hasn't been a concrete reason for forbidding their use and the overall negative stance on them from him. And considering that Steven is the main face we see when we ask our questions, we wouldn't really know whether there's anyone in Intrepid that would wholeheartedly support trackers (iirc Margaret mentioned them in the past in a somewhat positive light?).
I think I've asked you this before @Noaani but I forget, what was the shape of meta in AA? Was it smth concrete or was there a fair bit of variety in approaches to party setups, both in pvp and in pve?
I get that I guess. But are there no ways to detect these things in game? I am not a code guy so I have no idea how realistic it would be to be able to have a system that alerts when addons/plugins are being used.
There aren't. But 'non code guys' can be told there are. That's what happens in FFXIV.
I want you to have access to trackers, not just me and Noaani.
So what are the chances that Steven is somewhat like me in thinking "why would you need trackers? All I've heard from a lot of other people is that they've had bad experiences with them and that FF14 is against them. And all content I've cleared in my past never needed you to parse out your dps to clear it".
And with Steven's word being the final one when it comes to design paths, what are the chances that, even if someone on the team (mainly people from the EQ team) said that trackers are fine and maybe even great for the kind of pve Steven has promised, Steven just says "no, I see no point in them and they allegedly only bring negativity".
This would explain why there hasn't been a concrete reason for forbidding their use and the overall negative stance on them from him. And considering that Steven is the main face we see when we ask our questions, we wouldn't really know whether there's anyone in Intrepid that would wholeheartedly support trackers (iirc Margaret mentioned them in the past in a somewhat positive light?).
I figure the chances are high, or this thread wouldn't even be allowed to go on in the way it does (I'm assuming a roundabout 'good-faith' situation, as there IS another reason why this thread might be allowed to go on and was consolidated the way it was)
But there's also some indications it's a little more than that, Dygz quoted something awhile back about it.
The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
I think I've asked you this before Noaani but I forget, what was the shape of meta in AA? Was it smth concrete or was there a fair bit of variety in approaches to party setups, both in pvp and in pve?
Stagnant for at least 4 years.
Archeages lack of meta shift is one of my main concerns around not having a tracker. The meta the game had never actually involved the best classes, it just involved the classes people thought were best, and hardly any one had the tools to prove otherwise. Even if we did post what we saw using a tracker, because they were non-standard in that game, people wouldn't have understood what was being shown to them.
I have literally no doubt the same happened in L2 - but 99.9% of players wouldn't have known.
The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
Yeah, I feel like they'll just have a soft stance on it and have a very similar rule to ff14's. Cause the push for them definitely comes from the minority, so there's no real pressure on Steven to implement them, and if he can stand his ground against all the "remove pvp or make it opt-in" people then there's no reason why he wouldn't stand that same ground against the people telling him to allow trackers.
I get that I guess. But are there no ways to detect these things in game? I am not a code guy so I have no idea how realistic it would be to be able to have a system that alerts when addons/plugins are being used.
There aren't. But 'non code guys' can be told there are. That's what happens in FFXIV.
I want you to have access to trackers, not just me and Noaani.
Indeed.
Steven has already blatantly said they think they can detect most common forms of trackers.
This is blatant bullshit designed to placate people that dont know better. Cant detect something on a computer that has a damn air gap between you and it.
Archeages lack of meta shift is one of my main concerns around not having a tracker. The meta the game had never actually involved the best classes, it just involved the classes people thought were best, and hardly any one had the tools to prove otherwise. Even if we did post what we saw using a tracker, because they were non-standard in that game, people wouldn't have understood what was being shown to them.
So yeah, now I'm almost sure the thing I said is the case. Both Steven's biggest inspirations didn't require you to have a tracker to clear content so he doesn't see a point in allowing them. The issue comes from the juxtaposition of that stance and his promises for pve, but considering we've yet to see their top end content, there might not even be an issue in the first place. So yet again it comes down to "wait for alpha2 and see".
The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
Yeah, I feel like they'll just have a soft stance on it and have a very similar rule to ff14's. Cause the push for them definitely comes from the minority, so there's no real pressure on Steven to implement them, and if he can stand his ground against all the "remove pvp or make it opt-in" people then there's no reason why he wouldn't stand that same ground against the people telling him to allow trackers.
The main difference is - removing PvP 2I'll ruin the game. Allowing trackers stands to make the game better. Not by their direct use, but by the results of people like me and Azherae using them and sharing what we find.
Archeages lack of meta shift is one of my main concerns around not having a tracker. The meta the game had never actually involved the best classes, it just involved the classes people thought were best, and hardly any one had the tools to prove otherwise. Even if we did post what we saw using a tracker, because they were non-standard in that game, people wouldn't have understood what was being shown to them.
So yeah, now I'm almost sure the thing I said is the case. Both Steven's biggest inspirations didn't require you to have a tracker to clear content so he doesn't see a point in allowing them. The issue comes from the juxtaposition of that stance and his promises for pve, but considering we've yet to see their top end content, there might not even be an issue in the first place. So yet again it comes down to "wait for alpha2 and see".
Sort of, but then you'll still get the uninitiated THINKING 'Well, we don't need them' even if the benefit of them would be HIGH and the problems that might arise from NOT having them could be negative for the game. Which then leads to all sorts of situations I don't even want to think about.
You've already seen from just this thread how relatively easy it is to convince someone 'these are bad, you don't need them' without even actually finding out what those people care about.
Meta-followers don't need trackers, Meta BREAKERS need trackers. And if neither matters, then trackers don't matter, but I do accept that in that case, the 'I don't believe in Trackers' while knowing that nothing can be done about them, would placate more people.
Only one issue there. Guild Based Trackers in a game where trackers are not needed, placates the MAXIMUM number of people.
Comments
Even if they did remove it if the game is really good and fun it doesn't matter people will still play it. People will still do test to try to figure out their dps using mobs and it will take a longer period of time and be much more onth e social side of things to figure how effective things can be.
I am directly referring to those communities. I am simply saying that making it take longer for them to find a meta (because eventually one will be found) will benefit a games longevity and allow for the community to be more actively working together.
I think there should be a combat log. But I don't think there should be parsers/meters calculating everything for you. If people want to focus entirely on efficiency/METAs, let them think it out and spend time on it. And that includes myself.
And then there's people like Azherae who can just extrapolate way more stuff from simply the combat log itself, to the point where some people might accuse her of using a tracker. And this would start the same snowball effect as someone really using one.
I wish people didn't want to use them, but this is one of the rare things in mmos where the dev studio can't just prevent people from doing it through any in-game means.
The problem is there will be combat tracker, used a lot or no no one can predict it. the design of the game is a huge impact for it (cf what i said about my use of combat tracker on LA or FFXIV, while using it more actively on GW2). Maybe, because of how the fight and game will be designed and how i will want to play the game probably i will use it as i did in FFXIV (really low use)...
The real problem, and why i am glad to nooani to still defend his point :
FFXIV is the worst situation and this is the way we are going.
FFXIV is not a game without combat tracker, roaming https://www.fflogs.com allows anyone to realise the insane amount of daily record done and uploaded (and some people don't upload all they have... )
When i did defend parsers on FFXIV forums, i realised a REALLY BIG problem with the FFXIV situation : some of the "non parser" team were recorded, and their data uploaded on this site.
When you swant to join my farm party, i can just type the name of your character on the site, see your datas, see you are a grey parser and ... refuse/kick you. I won't get ban for it, if i don't says "i kick you because you have bad DPS" ... i just stay silent, and is fine.
I have a BIG problem with people getting their datas recorded without knowing about it.
Dygz or Mag7spy both who dislike and want combat tracker far from them could be recorded in any of their pick up activity. And nothing can be done against it sadly...
Why i prefer to have an official ingame combat tracker : why having a third party if you have one included in game, with all benefits it gives to have it directly in the game ?
A tool directly in game allows developers to controll it, limit its use, and so... avoid some of the problem it can generates.
Limiting tracker to guild perk (idea Nooani defend) will force guild to spend some of their evolution on it (not free) making it a real choice, while guilds without it can take anything else they find more usefull...
This remove totally this big problem that exist in FFXIV. (and is for me a real issue)
You're just asking me to do useless busywork. I need to decide whether my buffs are what my team needs or not. I have DECISIONS to make. When I know how much my team is missing the enemy, and how much damage my Tank is taking, I can START to play the game. I'm here to make decisions, not do arithmetic.
Cause to me this just seems like the middle ground I tried to find from my pov, except from Noaani's pov. Yes, some guilds will just use that perk. But what are the chances that there won't be some other perk that gives you better parsing in raids, that you can't get purely because you spent a point on the tracker. At which point, the guild that is at Noaani's lvl of hardcoreness and not caring about the rules will just go "fuck the guild perk, we're making our own tracker". And then they'll be better than other guilds because that one perk gave them a better parse. And now other guilds do the same, because there's already precedent. And now that 3rd party tracker is also tracking other people, cause why da hell would it not. And now you have the exact problem that you see in FF14.
Again, it's all about people who will not act in good faith under the rules presented by the developer. And there'll always be someone who takes it to the extreme. Except in this case Intrepid literally can't do anything about those extremes. And if they implement their own tracker, they'd just give those bad actors the tools to make an amazing 3rd party tracker, cause they'd have all the information they need to properly calculate anything they want already in the game.
To answer this, we need to look at how a meta is misused, and more importantly, by who.
Top end players actually dont care about the meta. They are the most likely group of players to not use it (WoW is the exception here) because they are always looking for better than meta. The group of people that will require all to stick to the meta are a step or two down.
These players dont really have their finger on the pulse of the game. They aren't exactly keeping up with things on a monthly basis, let alone a daily basis. They also have a pre-existing bias towards assuming a mono-build meta, because that is the assumption most people make.
As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta.
To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game.
This will literally be impossible without combat trackers.
No, this information always ALWAYS already exists.
There just needs to be a UI and even the most rudimentary combat log.
The code for literally 'finding damage numbers on a screen, figuring out what those numbers are, and putting them into the data parser' is well known. If a player can see it, and has any control at all over the display of those numbers, the parser can see it. This is why you can parse just from the screen.
A packet sniffing tracker would be easy to find.
The way to make people not care about trackers as often is to make designs where bothering to run the tracker is more work than doing it yourself, as you noted. That's not a matter of 'ok so now we can punish people for running them'. It would stop being NECESSARY.
"Being worried about trackers" in a game like Ashes is telegraphing to me that understanding (or confidence in) class design and encounter design is low, given what Ashes is supposed to be. You keep making the same very correct point, but the outcome 'should' be different. If Ashes has a specific design type, it won't be 'no one needs trackers', it would be 'no one cares about them enough to worry about if someone else is using one or not'.
Implementing inhouse trackers as a Guild Perk isn't remotely about 'making people pay for the use of one', it's about separating players who don't like them from players who do at the mid levels quickly enough to avoid the clashes.
You can still figure that all out on your own. Just not instantly
I get that I guess. But are there no ways to detect these things in game? I am not a code guy so I have no idea how realistic it would be to be able to have a system that alerts when addons/plugins are being used.
How wouldn't it be possible though? All the trackers do is speed things up as far as I can tell. Not having them doesn't prevent anyone from figuring out the same answer, it just takes more time and testing.
I do absolutely agree that we want an abundance of viable builds per class. So much so that it blurs the meta line by negligible differences, while giving noticeably unique playstyles between each other.
Sure, they could... in fact just one thing to remember : we don't know what will offer perks... but we already know that having a guild that can reach 300 members would be a high cost for the guild. big guild means some perk less, and the guild activity is a big things for bigger node (to have some bonuses)
We don't even know how many perk we can take.
I consider that all kind of balance (classes, nodes, guild perks, etc etc) wil lget a decent work (else i wouldnt have hope for Ashes of Creation to be a great game)
if the cost is not so high, the benefits to have it directly ingame for a small cost will be enough to take it. Also because it is bound with guild progression/evolution, it will be easier for a guild hardcore to take it (if you can take 50 perk or only 10... it changes a lot how you can see the need or no of a perk).
Last point is not relevant but from my personnal experience in gaming : people can obey easier to a rule that limit what they want (but still gives it) that a rule that forbid them what they want... even more with a stupid or fallacious explanation.
While the explanation given by nooani is good
A good way to see it is also... League of Legend :
top (master + ) plays what they want. And we can see, during world championship always some pick feeling "off meta" or even totally out of meta... A good example was some years ago, Mumu was a "top lane" character, moscow5 took it as support ... great success and all metaslave took mumu as support, and suddenly, picking him top lane was judge "trollpick" (lawl)
Gold/platinum people ... are total meta-slaves, they don't even understand it, they saw the top players doing it and winning with it, not all sure... And there people follow meta, don't even try to understand why, in the current balance, those character to pick were meta / had a higher winrate. they follow meta, and expect people to follow it, because else "it reduce chance to win because not meta"
Nope.
Literally no way at all.
One very simple way to illustrate this is that we can capture the data from what is displayed on screen.
Now, you could say that Intrepid thenlooks for programs that capture what is on screen - and they probably could. However, that would include streamers and YouTubers (cant really make videos on a game without video from that game).
But then, even if Intrepid did do this, and ban all streaming and YouTube along the way, we could just use a Display Port splitter and send a feed in to a second computer with an input and use that to parse.
I wouldn't be all that surprised if - in the next few years - we were able to just point our phone camera at the screen and have it parse everything for us (we are not at this point yet).
The speed at which it does it is the point.
We want all of those builds analyzed, tests and proven to be the best viable build for a given situation BEFORE people come along looking for the meta. Ideally, all of this needs to be done while beta testing the game.
If people look for the games meta and see single viable builds (even if just because the remaining builds are not yet tested), they have that confirmation of their mono-build bias.
That bias confirmation is - to me - the main thing that needs to be avoided in order for the game to have a varied meta. People need to see dozens of viable builds the first time they look in to the games meta, and the only way to have those dozens of viable builds tested and proven is to use a combat tracker.
Edit to add; it also requires Intrepid to develop the classes in a way where multiple builds of a given class are viable in different situations, but as I said earlier, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt here.
As I've stated before, Ashes is the only mmo for me that has even the slightest potential of really being my "final" mmo. It has the exact design choices I like, it doesn't have the corporate greed that ruined my favorite mmo and it has a fairly headstrong leader that doesn't seem to budge under the general pressure (at least so far and from what I've seen). This whole game is almost exactly what I would've done if I had the millions to fund it. And all of that would only make it that much more painful if the game completely dies for one reason or the other. Which is why I doubt Intrepid's convictions, I doubt their promises and I doubt its success. It's a defensive mechanism
A point to note, testing a build out properly takes weeks with a combat tracker.
It isnt instant by any means. Not if you want to do it well.
Ah yes but then you have the "Option Select" as we like to call it. Let's take a random player that says:
"I don't want trackers because I think it will make people figure out the Meta much faster!"
And I respond "What meta? This is Ashes of Creation."
The fact that this person believes that Ashes COULD have a Meta that could be damaged by a tracker existing, means that Ashes didn't achieve the level intended. Why are they/you playing?
If the argument for the tracker is just 'I just really want another average MMO to play and trackers ruin average MMOs, don't ruin this for me with your fast-tracked Meta bullshit', then that person is completely fine. I will never even want to use a tracker for Ashes, I will not be playing.
So for me, it's easy. Either trackers might as well be allowed because the game will be so good (and the better it is, the more GOOD they do), or the game is average and I have no opinion on their existence, and from what I gather, after a few months, neither would you.
While this is accurate of in terms of what a META is, most of us are talking about a meta.
A meta is probably best described as a more relaxed META (hence not needing to be formal with the capital letters). It is a selection of builds that the general population have all agreed are viable options to take along on content.
A true META actually does include the number of each build you take along on content (the META of a raid in EQ2 would see you take a Guardian as your only tank, for example). In Ashes, one could say that taking one of each class is a part of the META, but not the meta. It is undoubtedly technically the best option, but it probably isnt necessary.
So what are the chances that Steven is somewhat like me in thinking "why would you need trackers? All I've heard from a lot of other people is that they've had bad experiences with them and that FF14 is against them. And all content I've cleared in my past never needed you to parse out your dps to clear it".
And with Steven's word being the final one when it comes to design paths, what are the chances that, even if someone on the team (mainly people from the EQ team) said that trackers are fine and maybe even great for the kind of pve Steven has promised, Steven just says "no, I see no point in them and they allegedly only bring negativity".
This would explain why there hasn't been a concrete reason for forbidding their use and the overall negative stance on them from him. And considering that Steven is the main face we see when we ask our questions, we wouldn't really know whether there's anyone in Intrepid that would wholeheartedly support trackers (iirc Margaret mentioned them in the past in a somewhat positive light?).
There aren't. But 'non code guys' can be told there are. That's what happens in FFXIV.
I want you to have access to trackers, not just me and Noaani.
I figure the chances are high, or this thread wouldn't even be allowed to go on in the way it does (I'm assuming a roundabout 'good-faith' situation, as there IS another reason why this thread might be allowed to go on and was consolidated the way it was)
But there's also some indications it's a little more than that, Dygz quoted something awhile back about it.
The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
Stagnant for at least 4 years.
Archeages lack of meta shift is one of my main concerns around not having a tracker. The meta the game had never actually involved the best classes, it just involved the classes people thought were best, and hardly any one had the tools to prove otherwise. Even if we did post what we saw using a tracker, because they were non-standard in that game, people wouldn't have understood what was being shown to them.
I have literally no doubt the same happened in L2 - but 99.9% of players wouldn't have known.
Indeed.
Steven has already blatantly said they think they can detect most common forms of trackers.
This is blatant bullshit designed to placate people that dont know better. Cant detect something on a computer that has a damn air gap between you and it.
The main difference is - removing PvP 2I'll ruin the game. Allowing trackers stands to make the game better. Not by their direct use, but by the results of people like me and Azherae using them and sharing what we find.
Sort of, but then you'll still get the uninitiated THINKING 'Well, we don't need them' even if the benefit of them would be HIGH and the problems that might arise from NOT having them could be negative for the game. Which then leads to all sorts of situations I don't even want to think about.
You've already seen from just this thread how relatively easy it is to convince someone 'these are bad, you don't need them' without even actually finding out what those people care about.
Meta-followers don't need trackers, Meta BREAKERS need trackers. And if neither matters, then trackers don't matter, but I do accept that in that case, the 'I don't believe in Trackers' while knowing that nothing can be done about them, would placate more people.
Only one issue there. Guild Based Trackers in a game where trackers are not needed, placates the MAXIMUM number of people.