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
@NiKr This is where the topic leads of them trying to force trackers regardless of TOS (granted based on gameplay they may not be as effective).
So if devs are making "hard content" for the 1% with people using trackers they have to take in account trackers and up the difficulty to extreme measures based on the tracker information players use. And then it gets in a loop cycle of content around trackers. This is the end game kind of content where they are arguing you need trackers else you are at a disadvantage for this kind of content.
That honestly just sounds like a bad direction of content to me rather than people dealing with difficulty and solving puzzles without having the power of a tracker to tell them everything. The same people want hard pve content yet are actually ruining the content for themselves to begin with by removing difficulty yet asking for difficulty at the same time.
Though AoC isn't like a 15+ year old mmorpg and Steven knows what he wants with no trackers so it is up to them to design the game in a effective way that doesn't rely on people using trackers even if people will break ToS. I'm curious how they will approach it, and imo if people ruin content for themselves along the way that is up to them if worst case scenario trackers are still effective enough.
If you refuse to meet the requirements of the content, that means that I as group leader have no option other than to not take you on that content - but that was your decision, not mine. I have my group to think about, not your feelings.
So, this is all a bad take on things.
In any game, it is less than 0.1% of players that analyze things. Most players just play the game, get pointers from those of us that do analyze the game and then just carry on about their day.
The notion that combat trackers means everyone will need to start analyzing is just a flat out bad read. Even as one of those people that analyzed EQ2 more than all but maybe 4 or 5 players, I still spent less than 5% of my time involved with the game actually analyzing - the other 95% was playing. A competition to be on top of the meter isn't inherently bad. If it were, we would all be saying the same thing about arena leaderboards.
I mean, Ashes intends to have PvE leaderboards anyway, so if things like this are the cause of toxicity, then we can't really point to trackers and say they will increase the toxicity in Ashes.
I agree, there is a middle ground.
That middle ground is Intrepid implementing a tracker in to the game client itself, setting it up as a guild perk that is optional, and limiting it to only track players within your guild.
This is the resolution to the tracker situation that I have been arguing for since 2019.
If by "reasonable design" you mean that having trackers in the game would mean that someone in the guild would need to know how to use them in order to take on the top 2 or 3 encounters in the game, then yeah.
If you mean anything else, then I disagree. If anything, a combat tracker would be more akin to a spec sheet, or a circuit diagram for an electronic device. It isn't a manual, because it doesn't tell you how to do anything at all. All it tells you is how things are - and you need to figure out what to do from there. Something as minor as that isn't something that people are going to use a tracker to find. It really doesn't matter in the context of the fight as a whole.
While I know you were using it as an example, I am pointing out to you that it doesn't matter as an example as well.
The only way a raid guild would concern themselves with that attack is if it had an effect that wiped the raid if it connected. If that were the case, and if the developers were developing with an assumption of no trackers, they would add in narration around the attack.
Your comment that the developers can make content as complex as they want is actually false - they can only make content as complex as players can cope with - just as IKEA can only create furniture as complex as people can assemble.
If they are causing toxicity, it is because the game is designed wrong.
That's my whole point. I understand that you're so used to having trackers for your pve, but I'm giving you a directly opposite pov. To me, that kind of mechanic would be fair. The hint is still there, but you gotta notice it to use it. The fight didn't suddenly become easier because the hint was there.
In other words, I want developers to do better. Which, afaik, is your wish as well. It's just that you want them to make encounters that would push the tracker-based difficulty, while I want them to design fights that would be as difficult as tracker-based content, but with subtle hints that require players to pay attention to different things during the encounter and learn to recognize patterns within the fight.
That small example was just the most basic one I could come up with. I'm sure there's countless ways to design a fight that's still really difficult, but has several hints to what you need to do to beat it.
Which is the problem.
Take that fight, but make it so that players don't see that feint. Now, after a days raiding, they need to go back through the logs, look at what happened, try and work out WHY the thing they know happened actually happened, come up with a plan for it, and then attempt to execute it the following day. Realistically though, by the time they have worked out what actually happened, and come up with a theory as to why it happened, it is probably a week or two later, not just the next day.
Whereas with your suggestion - you kill the mob on the second pull.
It's funny, people say trackers make it so players breeze through content faster - that is only if developers develop easy content. If developers develop content that requires trackers, it slows down the pace at which players get through content massively.
Perhaps what you are not realizing is that exactly this happens in games with trackers.
If you attempt to look at a combat tracker after a days raiding and you have no clue at all what happened in the encounter, you will spend a few hours staring at numbers and graphs, and still have no idea. You need to recognize patterns in combat, you need to have an eye out to see what - if anything - is going on around you, you need to pay attention. And then you confirm what you think you saw in a tracker.
If the developers are good, they will find a way where you need to recognize that pattern or what ever, but then they subvert your expectation in some manner. This way, the encounter requires you to first see the thing that is going on, but then require you to look in to it more closely, and only then - after both observing and analyzing - can you get a true picture of what is happening.
Me seeing what I need to do during the fight is the same as you reading the tracker that shows you the same thing, except your does so in unreasonable detail, while I can only infer whether what I saw is actually the hint for what I need to do.
Again, that example was the very basic one. You could have misdirections, double or tripple triggered mechanics, ability pattern based mechanics (that would only show up if a particular string of abilities happened within the rng use of boss abilities), class combo mechanics (at which point every single raid would have their own mechanics and might never see different ones, if they don't change their raid setup). And of course you could have the combination of all of the above and more.
Again, what I'm asking for is "make the game that anyone could solve by just playing it, rather than looking at an external tool that gives you all the info about the fight. Make it still very hard and complex, but not to a point where you literally don't see mechanics that you're meant to solve".
That Azherae example of how agro worked in ff11 is great example of this. Devs made a completely hidden design mechanic, yet expected people to figure out how it worked w/o external tools. And if I'm recalling the explanation correctly, people could only figure it out after pretty much doing a hardcore parse of the whole system. In other words, they used a "tracker" to solve the problem.
To me that's just bad design from devs. Now I don't know which methods the players used before that hardcore parsing, nor am I saying that I could've somehow magically understood how the mechanic worked, but I'm assuming they've tried all kinds of stuff, so if there was ever any kind of hint as to how the system might've worked - they would've found it. But they didn't, so I'm assuming there was no hint and it was just a hidden mechanic for the sake of making the game more difficult. Which in turn pushed people to use trackers.
I want the game to just present us with our classes/gear/party combinations and say "you've got everything you need to beat anything in the game - go do it". And then base the difficulty off of those "tools", instead of giving us god powers and expecting us not to beat everything within a few months.
Either way, we're back to running in circles w/o really changing anyone's mind. We comes from too different of a backgrounds to truly see each other's points. So I might as well just let Mag call trackers cheating and all the hardcore pvers toxic, even if I only semi-agree with one of those points
Since this is describing literally every game with even half decent PvE content, I don't see it as an issue.
I will say that I think some people misjudge just how deeply combat tracker usage has penetrated the PvE population.
The FFXIV example given was actually a situation where the developers didn't want players to understand the system, not one where they expected players to work it out.
Indeed you could.
And you could also have all of that be required observation, in conjunction with needing a tracker.
Then when you have a raid, they need someone like you keeping an eye out for things, and someone like me that goes through the logs to make sense of it all, and everyone's a winner.
What you're saying is that you want your part to be the only part - I am saying that both parts can and should exist. You would have understood how mechanics worked before parsing in it's current state came to be - because encounters back then were designed so that people could understand them without parsing as it is now.
It reminds me of a quote from Batman Begins; As trackers become more effective, content is raised to match. As content is raised, trackers are made more effective.
Now, your first thought with this is probably something along the lines of "why even bother starting then?", and I can understand that sentiment.
However, this is why the best option here is to have the developer of the game also be the developer of the combat tracker. If the developer develops both, they can control both. If the developer only develops one, the developer only controls one - yet both will exist.
In raids created without trackers, players can only deal with what they can observe. In raids created with trackers in mind, the raid has that omniscient tracker that sees everything, and thus the raid is able to deal with more.
The raid being able to deal with more obviously means the developers can add more to the encounter - more than a raid without a tracker would ever hope to be able to observe.
This is how you end up with actual frantic, chaotic fights - the more you have to deal with, the more chaotic it is able to get.
But if you assume trackers will exist, and as such future content will have to be created with them in mind - is this not the best option?
Even if Intrepid don't inherently design with trackers in mind, they will design top end content based on how easily people got through the existing top end content. If it was blown through faster than expected, the next cycle will be made harder.
As such, the only way top end content in Ashes won't eventually be designed based on trackers is if people like me leave the game and those left don't have a specific drive to be the best they can be - which is obviously possible. They aren't invisible, they just require being looked at from a different angle.
Essentially, you are saying you only want content served to you in one specific way. I am saying there are many different ways content can be served if trackers are implemented - including that one specific way you want.
Do what I say with my exact rotation or be booted is all I see with this post. Fairly certain this goes beyond just recommending a few skills to use if I'm thinking in a elitists way. It means use these weapons, this build, this set up and rotations or be booted. He will see this with the tracker and remove you if needed pretty much that is the mind set.
Leads us right back to being toxic and this is the guy that says he has never seen anything toxic. That is because he views things different with his own bias and nothing is toxic to him cause he is the one doing it lmfao.
Honestly if you are playing EQ2 and relying on trackers (older games have less memory for things so less things to read meaning people needed to use other tools for the lack of technology at that point) I can't really say you are a good players or really a top end raiding by skill alone.
@NiKr What we need is not giving trackers to everyone, dev's can simply just give a log of everything the boss does and timing and there everyone can understand what the boss is doing easily rather than gate keeping to people that want to stomach using trackers in its strongest form. Sarcasm obviously but pretty much what I take it as with a tracker, you meet the dps check and you gain more data as you do it more and understand it as you go over it.
If he is actually going a week over data, that is most likely because devs had trackers as a part of the combat and tried to make it convoluted so it wasn't easy for them to read.
I expect a lot more modern mmo mechanics in AoC with the use of movement and interesting design but I won't know till I see it. Though as a PvPer I'm fine with good pve which i agree is needed but my focus will still be PvP. PvE doesn't need to be designed around trackers and in a arms battle to make things more convoluted since people are using trackers.
I want to try and explain to you that "toxic" behavior is a very broad subject and is different for each player. You seem to be stuck on this example of kicking players from parties, but I would argue that is the least of my worries. I will try to provide examples of what I mean, and what makes me personally not enjoy PvE content as much when meters are heavily involved.
* Note: the term "toxic" is very much subjective and it not the same for every individual *
When meters become part of the average player's UI, it tends to be something they end up fixating on. Examples of how the average player can feel "toxic":
- They look more at the meters more than the fight's mechanics, leading to wipes
- They only talk to others about how much damage they did, compared to others. leading to repetitive and stale conversations. It becomes not enjoyable to do content with that player.
- They view meters as required to do ALL content, and not just the hardest. Leading to flaming others for not using it, or gatekeeping.
Now the obvious rebuttal to this type of behavior is "just don't play with those people"....but the problem is that this behavior is MUCH more likely to show up in the average player when meters are easily accessible and/or accepted. And now it becomes more difficult for me to find a solid group of players to play with, that isn't tainted by one of these "toxic" players.
I hope this helps you understand where the other side is coming from. We are prioritizing the health of the masses, instead of the top 1%. And if this means the highest end PvE content needs to be slightly easier because of this...then so be it. I would rather have an enjoyable time with the people around me than an extreme challenge with people I don't particularly enjoy.
"all mechanics/abilities are clearly visible and no combination of those compromise their recognizability"
― Plato
I was thinking of limiting the damage the boss the takes so it's capped at x damage a second.
Spamming tanks could be a safer option but you are still dividing loot amongst everyone. The fewer people you need to bring, the more profitable the run will be so taking tanks could be a group trading profit for safety.
If spamming tanks is seen as a problem, similar to what i said about healers, you could have mechanics/attacks that trigger based off archetypes in the area. The more tanks in the area, the frequency of powerful attacks goes up.
Combat trackers are all about focusing on rollplay.
look at every popular game that is thriving - every single one puts gameplay above roleplay
that doesn't mean you cant have roleplay, just not at the expense of gameplay
if some important game mechanics or abilities are only readable in certain situations only from a combat log then not having an approachable way to filter combat log (in other words a "combat tracker") is hurting gameplay
― Plato
Alright.
That is not hurting gameplay, the game isn't being designed designed for a combat tracker. Gameplay is not about looking at a screen of data and knowing what you need to do from it. Gameplay is game play in the game, reacting, learning and improving.
If gameplay is outside of the game and that is how you need to know what to do. Then devs need to just make it fair and give everyone a page of what the boss does, timing, damage, etc so everyone has the same cheat sheet. And slowly gameplay can regress back into pen and paper.
Popular doesn't mean good. There's a reason why so many people are waiting on Ashes to release.
And it's not because people want MMORPGs to have combat trackers.
An RPG that puts "gameplay" above roleplay cannot be a good RPG.
(I'm not referring to voice acting.)
This is assuming the game is being designed with these random, cryptic, "invisible" mechanics in the first place. I don't think anyone is advocating for these types of mechanics to exist without a way to understand them. Rather, they want the game designed in a way that doesn't require tools to parse combat logs; those "invisible" mechanics should be visible some way outside of the combat logs.
I'm not trying to say which design is right/wrong, but this is the design being advocated for by people against the trackers. It it totally fine to disagree, or prefer a different design choice, but don't try and paint the other side as something it isn't.
Devs - add content Giving a invisible debuff based on player placement they need to debuff in order else everyone wipes. Then you have to remember the amounts and make it even as mobs spawn that can only be hit with people with that previous debuff and if anyone else attacks them they die instantly. Then boss uses a wave ability instantly as soon as last mob die that kills everyone unless they were standing in their original position.
Devs : Ok maybe the trackers won't beat this content in the first day.
I understand where you guys are coming from (other than wanting to limit game features based on whether players will talk about them or not - that is just stupid).
That is why I have put forward the proposal for combat trackers that only work within your guild.
I've even addressed the notion of people looking at their tracker in game before - such people are using it wrong, there is literally nothing at all to be gained from looking at a tracker during a fight. I've even previously added to the suggestion of the guild tracker that any data not be made available to players using it until after the encounter has finished (whether win or lose) - just to appease those who think this is an issue
As such, if you join a guild of like minded players, you will have a tracker if that is what you wish, and you will not have a tracker if that is what you wish.
Likewise, since this tracker would only work on those players that are in your guild, it will not become a standard assumed requirement to use during any content that is able to be run in a pick up group - I mean, it literally can't be used in such a group.
If you put some thought in to how this would work, most of the guilds that would pick a tracker as a guild perk would likely mostly group within their guild (I can't remember the last time I ran a pick up group on my main, probably within the first three months of me playing MMO's).
As such, the people that are running pick up groups are people that do not have access to a tracker, because their guild either isn't high enough level, or they picked something that they thought was more useful to the guild than a tracker that was of no use during pick up content.
With this, trackers don't become conversation pieces, they don't become thought of as required.
Here is a direct challenge to you @MrPockets
Find the issue with a tracker that is built by Intrepid, added to the game as a guild perk (where guilds have other valuable options and can only pick the one they think is most useful to the guild), the tracker only works on players in the guild, that are in the same group or raid, doesn't show any data until after combat has finished, and is able to be accessed on the games companion app or website, should a player wish to look over it later on.
Before answering this, you need to consider who is going to pick this tracker, and how likely they are to join pick up groups in a game like Ashes. What reasonable objections are left with this suggestion?
Now, keep in mind, the only other option that is available to us is for people like me to just have a tracker anyway, as they already exist for this game.
In my way, we sit there pulling the encounter several times (perhaps several dozen times), until we think we have an understanding of what is going on. We change things up a bit based on what we are seeing, and perhaps that sees us progress further, perhaps not. Then at the end of the day we pull out the tracker and look over things and work out what is actually happening, based on the observations we saw.
With hints in the content, we pull the mob, read the text that is giving us a "hint" as to what is happening, and probably kill the encounter on the second pull.
Hints in content make content easy, and allow guilds to push through content at a much faster rate than using a tracker.
I know this is the opposite of what many think - that using a tracker allows guilds to get through content much faster. The thing is, this is only true if the content is made to be too easy. If the content is made under the assumption that a tracker will be used, those hints can just be done away with, forcing players to work it all out for ourselves, and thus take much longer - yet be more rewarding when you have finished.