Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
It isnt the meter that is toxic here.
It is the developer that decided to make a staple of the genre frowned upon.
If you are reading this thread and saying its proof trackers are toxic, then you believe the player booting someone out of a group knowing they can easily replace them is also the fault of trackers.
Honest question - if Steven had have said "trackers are fine, we will even build a guild based tracker in to the game client", do you think this thread would have even made it past 10 pages?
Some people mistakenly claim that raiders would complain if the best loot isnt from the hardest encounters, but this isnt true as encounter rarity has been a factor along side difficulty for decades.
You are actually trying to say the developers are toxic because you are bad at their correct choice lol. The only reason this thread has 100+ pages is because you respond and try to fight everyone and try to change the mind of every single poster wanting to force your way on the game that was denied to be supported.
I could jump in any thread and reply to every poster and force it to get up to a insane amount of pages, in fact we both have already done that in other threads. Its not even a valid point to bring up when you were the one that has been fueling this thread so it stays at the top, over it being organic and the voice of unique people with constant discussion.
Would you actually like or want that?
Unique people with constant discussion? Just say the word.
(I'm really just calling you out again on your flawed logic, but there's a chance!)
More accurately, I am pointing out how foolish it is to look at one situation, point to one aspect of it and say that is the thing causing the toxicity.
If any component can be removed or altered from a situation and it ceases to be toxic, then that component can be considered the source of the toxicity.
In this specific case, it can then be said that Steven's position on this matter is the cause of toxicity. In this case, I know that if I were not taking up this specific mantle, someone else would, so taking me out of this situation would probably result in an increase in toxicity (I know a few of the people that may have stepped in).
I mean, are you suggesting a developer CAN'T cause toxicity in their own community?
You are missing the point.
I'm parrying your leap.
You didn't make a point, you did the same thing you always do, so I did the same thing I always do in response.
If you prefer, I can ask someone else to take over 'calling out your nonsense' for me, for a change of pace. I know you can't easily stop doing that thing, so I won't request that.
This take is really bad, its full of I am the victim the developer is the toxic one, even as you say you will ignore TOS and use that garbage anyway.
Developer isn't toxic, you are the one that is being toxic. Its one thing to support meters its another trying to demonize the developer in order to try to get your way even as you sit in the minority. It is there game they are developing as well as the money going into the game to make this, they are the ones that set the rules. If you don't like it, speak with your wallet, as will other people supporting the game.
You are assuming someone will rely every page multiple times for over 100 pages, that isn't fact nor has it been shown to be done by anyone else. Someone saying you are doing this for them, is not indicative of them willing to have done what you do nor go about it in the way you have done. You can't make things up in your mind and think it is true.
If we are being honest though, the most toxic behavior here has been those that label others as cheaters - despite there being absolutely no grounds for that label.
That is pretty damn close to the definition of toxic behavior.
That's your thing, not mine.
So... we will be invested in the story of each server on both the cooperative/competitive PvE sides and the cooperative/competitive PvP sides.
Since we have bosses like the Winter Dragon which can bring a Winter that devestates the Region until it is defeated, bosses will be both cooperative as well as competitive.
Events are Events. They occur in the open world. They aren't something that only top-end players experience first and then no one else gets to experience. Everyone can participate in Monster Coin Events, for sure.
I'm not at all concerned about the sheep who leave because someone else told them content is boring.
I'll let you know what it is, just in case.
That Winter Dragon that you talk about, that is an even encounter. As such, top end players will not have any inherent interest in it. You wouldn't kill that thinking you need to kill it in order to be in the top what ever percent, because honestly, anyone logged on at the time will be able to take part in killing it.
It is an event encounter, not a world boss, nor a raid encounter. If there are no guild assets being affected by the dragon, a top end guild is unlikely to even care about an event like that - we are quite happy leaving it to you guys.
For the most part, event encounters are not at all what we are talking about. They will basically just be big HP bags with little else to them (they are designed to be killed by the 50%, they aren't hard).
FFXIV doesn't support DPS Meters and... they have a top 1%, so... it's not really a problem.
Well, unless by 1% you mean top 50%, the point stands.
If you do mean top 50%, you should probably endeavor to be more accurate.
The point is, people that are killing raid encounters will have no inherent desire to participate in world events unless they are directly impacted (and even then, only if there is a chance the event wont be defeated soon). We won't participate for the fun of the encounter, or to experience something new, or for any potential rewards.
As for FFXIV, literally every player in the top 10% (top 25% would be my guess, as well as many others trying to get better) either is using or has used a combat tracker. Developer support for combat trackers is not really needed.
I mean, if FFXIV is the way you want combat trackers in Ashes to go, good news!
You keep saying "we". It's really just you.
You are the one who keeps saying that you don't want the Ashes position on DPS Meters to be the same as FFXIV's.
Thing is, the boss that needs to be killed to end those events isn't going to be hard. If it is hard, you won't be involved in killing it - nor will most players. There is no need at all for top end players to be present. If people in a top end guild have something planned, you can guarantee that they will not put a world event above it. The only way any top end player will be involved in an event boss kill is if they have nothing else to do.
As to FFXIV - I don't care if that is how trackers end up in Ashes. I will have the same freedom to use a tracker if that is the case as I have in basically any other game.
If you are happy with FFXIV level tracker use, then I have to ask why you are against trackers at all, as you would need to be ambivalent at best towards trackers to be ok with that kind of implied tracker approval.
If we assume Intrepid are good enough developers to have class design that doesn't have one build better than all others at all progression points in the game (most games have different build being better based on available gear, and based on target enemy), then the slower the games meta is uncovered, the more likely it is that players will fall in to the mono-build per class of many other games.
I mean, to me, saying that developing the meta slowly will mean the game doesn't fall in to that mono-build scenario is akin to saying you don't think Intrepid can design classes well enough.
Now sure, this may well end up being the case - but at least for now, lets give them the benefit of the doubt. If they have that benefit of the doubt, then we want the games meta to be uncovered quickly.
They just congratule the top guilds for their ultimate guild... I invite you to look at this video
Sfia was never banned for this.
They just deliberately feint to ignore https://www.fflogs.com/
https://www.fflogs.com/character/na/gilgamesh/sfia pirion ... this is all time sfia or one of his teammate used ACT and then uploaded the data on fflogs... still no ban after all those and some proof
Devs in FFXIV factually don't care about people using ACT. "but yoshida says" Yoshida is a liers... not his first, not his last. "but and people banned" no one on the game was banned for using a parser, literally no one. people were banned for saying "you have a dps far too low, bye" if you kick the dude for low DPS but without saying why you kick him you don't get ban. . . So the problem is saying it, not doing it, or using ACT.
@NiKr
For difficulty increase : i have 2 friends doing them. (i stopped gamecurrent stormblood and reduced rythm current heavensward so can't really speak by myself about ultimates) they don't feel a real increase of difficulty, ultimate are all really hard, in the same "range of difficulty" But are long tough fight, requesting a near perfection in everything, small time to react, close to no spot to fail, etc etc. Same goes for wow, difficulty is not increasing, some mechanics are harder than others, and make fight more or less difficult. But on both, they reach fights where difficulty change form, not level.
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.
"I think the compelling aspect of Ashes raiding will be the difficulty in achieving this content and having that content change from session to session as well."
--- Steven
The meta will be the "1 of each archetype" setup, as you yourself like to say. So they'll need to vary it up with gear and augments. There's a chance they could go veeeeery deep into social org augment requirements on bosses (which imo would be quite interesting), but outside of that I really dunno how they'll design their encounters, considering all the promises/statements they've made.
Truth hurts i see.
He wants to know the most op thing right away so he can use it and keep quiet about it as long as possible to beat content very quickly before other people lol. If you aren't beating all the content in a mmorpg in 1-2 month you aren't doing it right XD
It's all non sequitur.
You have to be in town to change augments.
Changing class requires some questing.
1 of each Primary Archetype for an 8-person group is not META. It's the basic balance of the game.
And, we don't need DPS Meters to know that the game is balanced around that.
In order to vary it up to a point that it's not just "you have 8 archetypes - you have best dps output for your party" you need to design each class' augments in a way that they feel different enough and have different lvls of synergy and dps outputs. And in order to avoid an objective "meta", you'll need to make those augments codependent in some way and give those dependencies different functions/values that would all be roughly equal in power.
For example, tank/rogue can put poison on the agroed target and rogue/ranger could exacerbate that poison with his "nature school" augments (this is a complete theoretical, before you start saying that it's not ranger who has nature as a school). And let's say that poison now provides a value equal to 500dps. Alternatively the tank could've had cleric as his secondary and use the "death" school of augments to cast a debuff that boosts any life-draining abilities, so that the fighter/bard's vampiric self-buff boosted his overall dps by 500 points.
Both examples give equal amounts of value, while coming from different classes. One could call that an anti-meta design. But when we add mob resistances and weaknesses to the equation, such augments can become more valuable. An underworld boss might have a high resistance to poison, but a weakness to death effects, so now, if we take the same example, the tank/rogue wouldn't provide any boost to the party, while tank/cleric gives +1k dps to the party. Now everyone who wants to kill said boss will just bring a "death schooled" player and easily win the encounter.
And this is why I said that the cost for switching classes would have to be really high, if you wanted to avoid people just constantly switching their classes to adjust to the upcoming encounter. I'd imagine any given raid wouldn't have 10 bosses to kill each day, so if they have a "Nature boss" on today's agenda, they'll tell their members "go switch to the fire school augments and we'll go clear that boss real quick". And even if the quest for class-change takes 1-2h - they'll easily do that.
And once people figure out the best approach to each valuable boss - there'll be a set meta of switching to appropriate classes on appropriate days (depending on boss respawn timers). To me this sounds like complete self-sustained farming meta where your raid never needs any changes in their core setup, because everyone can do everything.
But if Intrepid makes the class-change super expensive/long or if they add social org based augments as a requirement for boss fights - you'll have raids needing more/different people in order to maximize their dps output. And in the context of "boss rewards in a dungeon scale off of how fast you cleared the previous boss" - you'll need that dps.
In other words I'd like to make it harder for a set group of people to clear all the content in the game. Obviously you couldn't give fewer shits about any of this, because you don't care about peak dps numbers or anything of that sort. And there's a high chance that no one else would see the things I described as META, simply because there's internal change happening in-between farms so there's no one way to beat everything. And maybe my preference of the design described above goes directly against Steven's vision of "let people change classes every other day, or even daily, if they want". And if that's the case, well, I'll just let it be and play the game in my own way.
META is just the result of what people see of the balance... If parties with 2 ranger 0 summoner have easier time to kill a content than parties with 1/1, this is due to balance problem, and people will prefer to run 2 ranger 0 summoner for this boss, than one of each.
And this example doesnt need combat tracker... just forum... and people expressing their own experience, and seeing that a common point of parties who had smooth run was "2 ranger, 0 summoner" while others had 1 of each.
Combat tracker... will just add datas to see if this is the case, or the balance is good enough for the best party to be 1 of each type...
*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
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.
1 of each Primary Archetype per 8-person group is just basic gameplay.
And it doesn't take a DPS meter to determine that.
No. Because it's the Active Skills that are most important. Augments provide variety.
Which is why there is really no META.
Doesn't really matter whether your Tank/x is a Guardian or a Knight or a Nightshield.
Your group will want to think about how to best synergize their augments to maximize strengths, but that's just for their specific group - and really just for that specific raid session. It's subjective and relative, rather than objective and absolute.
A different group - despite also having 1 of each Primary Archetype - will have a different class composition.
The raid session will also be different. So, what perhaps worked as the META for one group will not be META for another group. Even for the same group, it won't remain META from one session to the next because the details of the raid content change session to session.
Yes. I expect Ranger to have a Nature School. LMAO
But, um...
If a Tank/Rogue uses a Poison augment, I would expect a Rogue/Ranger to stack that with a Poison Active Skill. There might be a Nature augment that stacks with Poison. Sure.
A Tank/Cleric could use a Death School augment. And we would expect the Cleric/x in the group might stack that damage with a Death Active Skill. I don't expect a Fighter/Bard (Bladedancer) will be the one stacking with vampiric anything, but...
Similar to a Ranger stacking their Snares with the Snares from a Mages Ice abilities... sure... the Bladedancer might have some ability that also synergizes with the Death augment and Death Active Skill.
Yes. Different augments work better or worse against specific resistances and weaknesses.
I think what you mean is that the Tank/Rogue's Poisons would not provide any boost to the group.
And the Rogue/Ranger's Poisons would not provide any boost to the group.
So... I would expect both might focus more on synergizing their Bleeds.
That same group might also have a Bard/Cleric...as well as their Cleric/x. So, would be stacking Death abilities in any case.
A group that is obsessed with being META would probably bring an entire group of x/Clerics to fight in a dungeon that is weak to Death abilities. No need for DPS Meters to figure that out.
That still leaves a wide range of x/Clerics. They don't have to be cookie-cutter builds of x/Cleric.
And it's unlikely that having a full group of x/Clerics will be required to defeat the dungeon.
Again...
Switching classes requires some questing. You can't just do that on the fly. The limitation there will be time and effort, more than cost.
You have to go to town and interact with an NPC just to change the augments you've equipped.
I don't think you need to tell people to switch to Fire abilities to fight a Winter Dragon. Just like you don't have to tell people to switch to Ice-resistant Fire damage gear.
I'm pretty sure the questing to change class is intended to be more than just 1-2 hours.
But, changing class won't be necessary.
I doubt that since the raid content can change from session to session.
The abilities of the boss and their minions change session to session.
It's not simply that you figure out how to beat the dungeon/raid and then the exact same tactics work when you return.
So...I don't know what you mean by "switching to appropriate classes on appropriate days". That's not a thing.
It's not really about the class changes or the augment changes.
What's key is that the bosses are dynamic, rather than static.
The boss and minions won't be using the same tactics.
So the tactics that you used to defeat the boss once will not be the same tactics you need to defeat the boss again. In addition, to each group relying on different tactics.
Ashes is a dynamic world, so we can't even experience all the content in the game.
If there's no one way to beat everything, there is no META. That is my point. Yes.
I don't think Steven has the vision of "let people change classes every other day."
Choices matter.