The system recommendations haven't changed. UE5 can be rendered much easier by lower spectrum machines. I wouldn't worry about the requirements until launch period.
That was just a joke
The card I linked is from like 2006 and I don't think anyone has been playing on CRTs since the late 90's. (Unless you're a really dedicated rhythm games player)
As to guilds clearing content with a tracker vs without a tracker, and Intrepid designing content for the guilds that struggle with it, I'm not sure this would ever happen.
With content being open world, I have doubts that guilds not using trackers would ever kill a top end mob.
And either of those statements can only be clarified by Intrepid, which is literally what I want from them at this point. Some details or a clarification on their position, be it updated or not.
Intrepid cant answer those questions.
They can say how they intend to make content, and they can say whether they intend to make content easier or harder based on how easy or hard players have found earlier content, but they cant really answer those questions in relation to trackers that they cant detect.
The question then becomes - if people are getting through content to easily, why wouldn't Intrepid make harder content?
I mean, the only reason they would have is if they just assume everyone at the top end is using a tracker, but then decide to stick to their ideals that the playerbase obviously dont share (at that point this will be an obvious fact).
They can say how they intend to make content, and they can say whether they intend to make content easier or harder based on how easy or hard players have found earlier content, but they cant really answer those questions in relation to trackers that they cant detect.
Well yeah, that's what I meant. They'd show a boss, say "this is the difficulty we're going for" and disregard any complaints from people saying it's too easy for them. And the alternative being them just making their own tracker. I highly doubt the former would ever happen, even if I want it to.
The tracker presents all of that in a concise packaged form that lets you dissect the encounter immediately after it has happened. I personally dislike that, mainly because I'm a stubborn ram who wants to bash his head against the content instead, until the content finally breaks.
If the content is well designed, there is still more banging your head against it than you would likely want.
Just because you can see what an encounter is doing, doesn't mean how to kill it is obvious.
Your argument here is more about what wall you want to bang your head against, not that you want to bang your head against a wall.
They can say how they intend to make content, and they can say whether they intend to make content easier or harder based on how easy or hard players have found earlier content, but they cant really answer those questions in relation to trackers that they cant detect.
Well yeah, that's what I meant. They'd show a boss, say "this is the difficulty we're going for" and disregard any complaints from people saying it's too easy for them. And the alternative being them just making their own tracker. I highly doubt the former would ever happen, even if I want it to.
The problem with this is that they can claim they want to make an encounter a specific difficulty, but the only metric they have for if they have hit that target is how long it takes players to kill it.
If the only metric they have for difficulty is how long it takes players to kill content, and they are ignoring that metric, what is left for the to either target difficulty at, or determine if they have hit their target difficulty?
Remember to take in to account that every kill on these top end mobs will be from a guild using a tracker.
If the content is well designed, there is still more banging your head against it than you would likely want.
Just because you can see what an encounter is doing, doesn't mean how to kill it is obvious.
Your argument here is more about what wall you want to bang your head against, not that you want to bang your head against a wall.
Elden Ring was my first souls game. And the Tree Sentinel (the golden knight on the horse) was my first mob in it (not counting the very first boss, cause you can't attempt it repeatedly). I fought with that boss for 8h straight and then another 2 hours on the next day until I finally beat it. I tried multiple different approaches and in time saw what I needed to do and just needed to get my skills to a point where I could execute my plan correctly. So I don't think that I can find a wall that I wouldn't want to bash my head against for a long period of time. The time required to beat it is only determined by the skill lvl of the player. Well, that is if all the info you need is presented to you during the encounter and not hidden somewhere deep in the combat logs.
Now obviously me playing a solo game is nowhere near the same thing as fighting an mmo boss with 39 other people. But the core principle remains. I want a game that gives you all the info you need right during the fight and it's then on you to see and recognize that info during the fight, be it the very first fight (if you're a pattern-recognizing savant) or your 100th fight (if you're a plain dude who's bad at puzzles and with no mechanical skill).
The problem with this is that they can claim they want to make an encounter a specific difficulty, but the only metric they have for if they have hit that target is how long it takes players to kill it.
If the only metric they have for difficulty is how long it takes players to kill content, and they are ignoring that metric, what is left for the to either target difficulty at, or determine if they have hit their target difficulty?
Remember to take in to account that every kill on these top end mobs will be from a guild using a tracker.
I've addressed this here before, mainly using FF14's devs as an example. Afaik they put out content that they themselves can clear and one that they find difficult. Obviously there'll be players who're better than them at the game. Awesome for those players! They've got great skill at the game. If they're so good that they found the fight super boring - cool, they've beat the game and can now either do other content or move on from the game.
Steven's a gamer and, from what he's said about his hiring practices, most of the team are gamers too. Their skill could be rusty, but they should have a rough vision of what's "difficult" in a fight (especially the EQ devs that you like to reference). They can then release the bosses to players and see how many players can beat the boss. If it so happens that over 50% of the playerbase does in fact use trackers in spite of the rules and can easily beat the boss - well, so be it, Intrepid will have to make a boss that's somewhat harder.
But depending on the overall design of the bosses (the thing that I've been talking about from the start of this particular conversation), not beating the boss might be a skill issue rather than a "do you have a tracker or not" one. At which point it won't even matter who's using illegal trackers, because the majority of players would not have the skill to beat the boss. And I think this is partially what Mag has been talking about with his "action combat" argument. If the super obvious and super easy to understand mechanics of the boss still require a ton of mechanical skill - you'll still have a low % of player beating the boss. A tracker would have no tangible impact on that, at least as far as I understand.
And this is what I'm waiting for from Intrepid. They could show us a mechanically super hard boss and say "we're still against trackers". Or they could have a somewhat easier boss but with hidden patterns and shit, that only tracker people would figure out, and say "we've changed our minds and gonna provide you with an official tracker".
Dark Souls doesn't have DPS meters and that game is pretty challenging.
If Steam achievements are any metric to go by, less than 50% have managed to ring the first bell.
To clarify, I'm not saying AoC needs to get soulsborne level difficulty. I'm just trying to show that even if you are able to grind in Dark Souls and inflate stats to the point that you can 100-0 bosses with insane DPS, there are other aspects you can utilize to make encounters interesting and challenging.
I'm honestly not sure if FromSoft use DPS for measuring challenge in their soulsborne games. But I'm reluctant to believe they're using time taken to kill and solely balancing their future games on that metric.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2022
L2 had several raid bosses that spawned in a wide window about once a month or something and there was a race by multiple clans to mobilize at short notice to take them down. Luck if able to mobilize without a competitor, and all the more sweet / bitter if contested.
Hope the top bosses with great rewards are equally infrequent and challenging to get to, making them highly competitive and a long time to solve by default of the infrequent chance to try. With the bounty highly valuable.
Yeah, I'd definitely like to have a few legendary bosses with long respawns, but you'd need to either have the same semi-instance as in L2 or at least have the bosses in underground rooms or smth, so that the competitor couldn't just look at how the boss fights then interrupt the og farmers and then clear the boss themselves because they figured it out.
L2 had several raid bosses that spawned in a wide window about once a month or something and there was a race by multiple clans to mobilize at short notice to take them down. Luck if able to mobilize without a competitor, and all the more sweet / bitter if contested.
Hope the top bosses with great rewards are equally infrequent and challenging to get to, making them highly competitive and a long time to solve by default of the infrequent chance to try. With the bounty highly valuable.
Thing is people for trackers (ones going hard int his thread not every single person) that it to be instanced as well, else they dont' consider the devs making it hard c:
Now obviously me playing a solo game is nowhere near the same thing as fighting an mmo boss with 39 other people. But the core principle remains. I want a game that gives you all the info you need right during the fight and it's then on you to see and recognize that info during the fight, be it the very first fight (if you're a pattern-recognizing savant) or your 100th fight (if you're a plain dude who's bad at puzzles and with no mechanical skill).
I think this is the thing I want to address that might actually move this conversation meaningfully forward for one of the first times (aside from all the times where people just chat with Noaani until they see).
The very definition of 'gives you the info you need right in the fight' is the 'problem' here. I believe we can now agree that all the information you need to defeat the Tree Sentinel is visible in the battle. I would say the same is possible for the now-famous Malenia.
The difference if any is that Malenia requires one to 'put a bunch of abstract data points together'. Still fine. But here's the thing, Malenia is not necessarily mechanically very difficult if you can sorta 'see exactly her weakpoint' at the 'savant' level.
So my question is technically 'is the skill to know what to look for something they can balance around?'
I end up at the opposite concern. I would be happy if the game's top was maybe 4x as challenging as Malenia is, it would solve almost all the problems, and would change the discussion from 'Combat Trackers' straight to 'HitBox Scanners' instantly.
This post isn't about me challenging your point, I'm really just agreeing, while acknowledging that we as a community will still need some way to deal with the people who are looking for the shortcut, particularly those who don't want to bash their heads for 10 hours because they want to catch up, and we don't have one.
This post isn't about me challenging your point, I'm really just agreeing, while acknowledging that we as a community will still need some way to deal with the people who are looking for the shortcut, particularly those who don't want to bash their heads for 10 hours because they want to catch up, and we don't have one.
Here I'm mainly on the elitist side. If only the tools can help you win - that's bad for you. If the design circumvents the tracker use and pretty much requires you to have the skill to execute the seemingly plain but difficult actions - only the skilled will be at the top, and imo they deserve to be.
Ideally you'd need for that design to account for potential bot use too, but I don't really know if that's even possible, cause any kind of hardcore mechanic could be distilled to pure input sequences and, in theory, those inputs could be synced up for the whole raid, so I don't really know how you'd go around that.
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akabearMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
L2 had several raid bosses that spawned in a wide window about once a month or something and there was a race by multiple clans to mobilize at short notice to take them down. Luck if able to mobilize without a competitor, and all the more sweet / bitter if contested.
Hope the top bosses with great rewards are equally infrequent and challenging to get to, making them highly competitive and a long time to solve by default of the infrequent chance to try. With the bounty highly valuable.
Thing is people for trackers (ones going hard int his thread not every single person) that it to be instanced as well, else they dont' consider the devs making it hard c:
Trying to conduct an even mildly difficult raid in a non-instanced scenario under pvp will and should outdo any difficulty an instanced raid could generate. Way greater complexity.
If the content is well designed, there is still more banging your head against it than you would likely want.
Just because you can see what an encounter is doing, doesn't mean how to kill it is obvious.
Your argument here is more about what wall you want to bang your head against, not that you want to bang your head against a wall.
Elden Ring was my first souls game. And the Tree Sentinel (the golden knight on the horse) was my first mob in it (not counting the very first boss, cause you can't attempt it repeatedly). I fought with that boss for 8h straight and then another 2 hours on the next day until I finally beat it. I tried multiple different approaches and in time saw what I needed to do and just needed to get my skills to a point where I could execute my plan correctly. So I don't think that I can find a wall that I wouldn't want to bash my head against for a long period of time.
Swap "hours" for "months" and we are on the same page in terms of what content can be, even with trackers.
To be clear, I am not saying "you will get sick of content if X happens", I am simply saying that the existance of trackers does not mean players get through all content without that head/wall bashing.
Steven's a gamer and, from what he's said about his hiring practices, most of the team are gamers too.
Steven is a gamer, but he isnt overly good.
If Intrepid only release content that Intrepid staff can kill,then this whole discussion is pointless as the game wont attract a top end PvE scene.
no suggested solution / workaround to offset the additional development time/cost to meet the tracking community`s increased development load. Other than perhaps to go to chaotic rather than scripted. But chaotic still needs to be higher grade
You want solution ?
First ask a real question, give the real problem.
What would be for you a good pace of ennemy release without tracker, and what would it be with tracker.
Because if you say me "One boss every 6 months" ... oh fine it is what i said... if you say "one boss every three months" i stated that it would be far too fast.
So you just try to make a point against tracker without able to define this problem yourself...
And also, define what could be a good fight, with all MMORPG or RPG games there are, you probably have some in mind to allow me what you think a high end difficulty is... Because for me, high end, is for best raids, at least 100 wipe on this single boss.
And with those 100 wipe, it would already take LONGER than wow to kill the boss i think (AoC won't allow you to spam try a boss hours after hours, days after days when it is release)
So while asking more time to be killed... it will make the pace of new content slower than wow... We could totally consider one high end boss per year instead of two as i stated in my previous post...
Then, nooani gave a way : more chaotic, less scripted.
Easier for quite obivous reason i could explain if you are interested.
Noaani says that half the players will use trackers, even if they're forbidden. That might be the case, just as it allegedly is in FF14, but iirc someone (I think it was Aerlana) said that FF14's bosses haven't really increased in their difficulty too much throughout the years, even though top players all apparently use trackers for them. That leads me to believe that the difficulty of the game doesn't necessarily need to increase, even if people with trackers are able to beat it sooner rather than later. Which in turn leads me to believe that Intrepid's position can remain on the "no addons/meters/trackers" point w/o sacrificing anything really.
To understand why the difficulty doesn't seems to increase so much, you have again ... to see exactly what happened, and how the game works.
It is easier to master your class in FFXIV than WoW, and bosses are the most scripted i know in MMORPG, as i said, applying a strategy is like doing music : there is the musicsheet, and you play it, while doing your damages.
The difficulty there is now was reached with Heavensward, 2nd expansion... but hey, for wow we reached it with WOTLK, and this is a similar difficulty still now.
The difficulty in fact can't evolve more. all on both game they can do is... finding new mechanics, to creates new strategy, and so have their players have to learn each fight as being as new as possible.
Because players doing those content are already over 90% of effiency (100% being "playing perfectly")
If you watch on fflogs or warcraftlogs the datas of raiders killing content in the first most, you see their DPS being over than 95% of the population doing tries/kills on those bosses. And not only because of their big stuff, you can filtrate to see only amongst people with similar ilvl (more accurate on FFXIV side, because there are less difference between a "bis" item and a "worst in slot" item than wow for a same ilvl)
There is not "infinite difficulty" even more with scripted fight... A human has a limit to its "time of reaction" if you see that when you ask them 1 second on it, you can reduce but at one point, it will be "humanly impossible" and on DPS side ? same... There is a mathematical limit to the DPS you can ask (which is the "perfect DPS rotation all along the 10minutes+ of fight)
Ultimately I want Intrepid to work hard in their hinting designs rather than their dps checks designs. Have some patterns in the boss' mechanics that indicate why/how/when/where he will do another mechanic that leads to a wipe. If the tracker people see that hint through their trackers and not through the fight - good for them, they had their spreadsheet fun. But imo the tracker must not be required to notice that hint pattern.
If it is shown in tracker, it means it is shown in combat log.
Just an example with FFXIV boss : Nael Deus Darnus, 8th boss of ARR, 4th boss (and last) boss of 2nd raid tier.
On FFXIV boss have all what we call a "tank buster"... A skill that will do easily 150% of your tank life. How to deal with can vary, it can be a good rotation of CD (some def CD being small other big, with various duration of couldown, you will try to spread them efficiently to deal with ALL tankbuster, it could also need to swap tank after each, etc etc).
The tank bust of Nael was exactly an example of what you are saying : a mechanic, that is followed X second later by another mechanic.
First Nael does a big hit on tank which felt like a not so big tankbuster (tank "not ready at all" including no shielding from scholar, took around 110% of its life, shielding + precast of heal could be enough to deal it). THen... few second later, the tank was source of a big explosion. There was not a debuff nothing. Soon enough, being it quite early without lot of mechanic to track, it was easy to do a link between tank bust then this explosion (which was enough to kill the tank if not shielded again, but also the other tank or any DPS too close)
Honestly no more hint were needed, with a game where fight are written on music sheet, seeing this explosion always on the tank that took recently a tank buster was enough. (and was just one of the most basic mechanic of the fight ^^" )
Due to no debuff being applied, a tracker could give only two information : the damages of the strike, and the damages of the explosion. Usefullness of the tracker to understand ? nothing...
Lets now say there is a debuff, so tracker will show a third information : the tanks got X time a debuff, X being also how many time they got hit by the tank buster, and also number of explosion.
There ok, tracker would help us to think "strike put the debuff, which is a countdown to explosion" ... But also, watching on the buff/debuff icons often would allow player to see the debuff appear. which make it obvious.
Aaaaand... if you scroll your combat log, you would read two lines close to each other :
"Nael does XXX dmg on tank1 with [skill]
Tank one got affected by [debuff]"
I could give other examples.
Tracker can help i won't deny it. but well designed fight have information not so much on combat log but with clear visual indicator. And this is even more true with "chaotic" fight... the boss which use one after other, in a total random way his many current skills, each having different imapct on fight : boss movement, form of the area if AOE, etc... The combat log would help you to understand more each of the skills, but... this remains the easy part of the fight learning, knowing that if the hand moves a way, you have to go on left. The real deal is be able to fast identify each to do the most efficient reaction (moving just enough to avoid damages/limit them, but not too much moving ... because the more you move, the less damages you do)
For an example of this last thing, the "tower" in Lost Ark is a good basic example, with 50th floor of 1st tower, and 49th of 2nd tower (same ennemy, but with an addition to make it slightly harder).
The target won't move, he will do 3 then 5 of his skills one after other, a break to allow DPS, then again.
He can do large conic on both side, in front of him (he turns to you each time he does a skill), circle area close to him, or a donut area (so safe spot is close).
you see area on the floor so easy right ? untill the end of fight where the floor is covered of smoke making those area invisible. How to deal ? there is only one thing that vary : how he moves his arms.
Tracker helps if informations are in combat log (and we will have combat log, not because "they can't forbid it" ... but because they said it would be combat log) Because tracker just shows what combat log shows : skill used, damages, debuff received/inflict, heals. it compact, not listing all singular damages of a skill but the top, low, hit rate, crit rate and average.
Yeah, and like I said before, the speed at which the tracker allows you to go through all that information is my main issue with it. W/o a tracker you'd either need to record video pov of all players and then go through each and go through their battle logs and then match them up and probably know all the buff/ability/positioning information on top of that, just to properly reference all that info across each other.
Positionning is never givin by a tracker... and for ability/buff, the tracker gives number of time it appeared in combat log, not "they did this then this"...
When i use tracker to help friends on their rotation, he smash the dummy for 2-3 minutes, and then i watch how many time he used a skill or another. because i know that this skill has to be refreshed every 30 second, if he used it 5 time = one mistake. Because for each use of [skill1] i know there should be 4 use of [skill 2] again, simple math allow to see if problem or not. Sure i could do it without tracker and even without combat log... but being eye strictly focus on screen with a paper where i do a cross on each skill use to count them... not for me.
Tracker allowed player to not spend HOURS filling sheet, because you said "i would prefer people to do it manually" but just doing it for yourself, (so, not taking account of how your group buff impacted the global DPS on the fight...) it will already takes an insane amount of time...
Just try it : go on a dummy on wow/FFXIV
Smash it for 5 minutes, then, stop, open the spread sheet, and add ALL information from combat log in a more easy to read (and so analyse) on the spreadsheet. When done : look how much you spend doing this, and ask yourself if doing it was fun...
This is why we like tracker... because this is what a tracker do.
The tracker presents all of that in a concise packaged form that lets you dissect the encounter immediately after it has happened. I personally dislike that, mainly because I'm a stubborn ram who wants to bash his head against the content instead, until the content finally breaks. But that's just my opinion on it, which seemingly happens to coincide with Steven's. And as I said already, discussing opinions is an endless activity, with this thread being the biggest proof for that.
Not totally true...
It doesnt remove the need to try.
end game bosses on WoW needs around 300 wipe before being killed. People use tracker, and they have some of their members that knows well an addon called "weakaura2" which can be used to create a battle assistant for this unknown fight in game. And with this, a world first needs so much wipe, because it is how hard the fight is...
I'm only against trackers because I feel it gravitates most encounters to gear score number checks instead of skill based gameplay. But I can understand the reason for wanting them in some instances.
This is true is casual tier... where some people aim summits without even understanding what they have to give for it. Lot of people focus more on stuff (easy to blame, and easy to identify) for DPS... But while using tracker sure, i compare myself with other with same class/build this is the role of fflogs/warcraftlogs : see how good/bad you are amongst the whole crowd who did this boss. if the site says "95% it means you did more damages than 95% of people.
Now, there are 2 different informations... you can perfectly be 90%... and when you watch "of same ilvl" you get down to 30% ... yes, you have a big DPS fine... but you suck. This is why hard fights needs big DPS check if you want it to reward the skill, because people could this way compensate their lack of skills with their stuff. Killing bosses not because they are more skilled, but because they have more stuff. "but need kill bosses first to get stuff" ... we are not in top tier (where people are over 90% percentile for their ilvl... so they all have excellent skill) we speak about tier where people can get stuff... against gold ? I mean, while you try and try on the boss, wiping, and losing money to repair stuff, and consumables, he will farm, increasing his money, untill he buys stuff. His 8man team is full stuff, bashing mobs, low skill, but now they have enough DPS to cheese the strategy, because of this stuff, healers needs far less to be mana efficient also. The mistake will be less punitiv for them than for your team, and the simple fact the fight will be shorter (due to more damages) is already making the fight easier.
The real difficult fight needs people skill, because it doesnt need them to do a big DPS, but the most DPS their class can give. while still doing mechanics. Doing mechanics in the most efficient way to go back as fast as possible to damage time, etc.
Other solutions exists to limit the "gear score" :
horizontal stuff, on GW2, you can't hope to cheese bosses due to your big stuff... the awakened stuff never evolved, the stuff is made of lot of differnt stats, each piece having three or four, spread amongs 1 or 2 with "big" value, and 2 others with "low" value. So you aim to what is the most efficient for your build, and... if you have the "bis" you have the same stuff than all other so the only difference on DPS will be skill. Also this awakened stuff is currently 2 months to get withotu rushing it brainlessly.
FFXIV also have a low problem about it, because you would need 2 month out of the 6-8 before the next patch to have the max ilvl stuff outside of weapon without doing any of the "hard raid" (the "non raid" way for weapon comes with a delay if they didnt change their patch treadmill) And you have for the top ilvl choice between 2 pieces, with secundary stats not having so much differences in impact on DPS (so one or another...)
the FFXIV way is just, for me, making stuffs as simple consumable. you take, untill next raid tier is released making your stuff low, rince&repeat
GW2 i like it, really, but it is hard to deal on long term. each expansion of GW2 only added more variety of stats distribution on stuffs. no more strength. And the stuff which need huge investment : legendaries are NOT stronger, those are the SAME stats (but they have cool skins, and effect. but also QoL, even more if you play different characters)
If stuff is meaningfull in players power, there is no way to have a fight hard if you don't push people to have some numbers to reach. The only solution i really see so, would be that the stuff should have really moderate impact on character strength. Making the farming of stuff far less a thing to do also. It reduces the incentiv to do PvE bosses. (some people don't do them for "the challenge of killing him" but ... for loooooots)
If Steam achievements are any metric to go by, less than 50% have managed to ring the first bell.
Steam achievments are... moderately accurate informations.
The two achievment the most done on POE were done by 52,4% and 47,1% ... Those are ennemies you have to fight during the first act...
Steam achievments is more a "X people have the game is their list of games, and 50% did this achievment among them. And there are no way to define how much you have to rise it to have accurate numbers.
I don't even know at what point we can consider this guy has his place in the datas to have accurate datas... I mean, those who wipe 4-5 on the horseman early and did ragequit but still didnt get refund... does they really count ?
In a linear game, if first boss is killed by 90% people, and second by 30% ... does it mean that the second boss is extremly harder... or people left game before even reaching it ?
This is a thing to see to design PvE difficulty on MMORPG, because the game is in constant evolution...
we can have a endgame boss have 10k people killing it, and being easier than next endgame with 20k killing it ... Because the information i missed to say is that on first, 100 000 people tried to get the kill, while for second, 300 000 people tried. and then after again 20k, but people, depressed by the difficulty mostly left, and only 50k tried... clearly the easiest boss of all three... or... those are the exact same 20k that killed second boss so same difficulty but no one wants to do PvE anymore ?
To clarify, I'm not saying AoC needs to get soulsborne level difficulty. I'm just trying to show that even if you are able to grind in Dark Souls and inflate stats to the point that you can 100-0 bosses with insane DPS, there are other aspects you can utilize to make encounters interesting and challenging.
I'm honestly not sure if FromSoft use DPS for measuring challenge in their soulsborne games. But I'm reluctant to believe they're using time taken to kill and solely balancing their future games on that metric.
I already used souls game to speak about DPS inside the difficulty.
Yes, souls game are tough fight... And here is how i killed them all : first tries : i never try to strike, i avoid, again and again, and when on a try i get to 2-3 minutes without a hit, then step 2 : i use the moment it seems to be good window to strike to do damages. But i mostly continue to play safe. Surely my time to kill on DS3 bosses are lower on average... but there is no pressure to go faster after all, who cares right ? i play as safe as possible, i take the strict minimum risk. because i don't care the time spent on boss.
Now, lets say, i kill a boss in 10 minutes of fight, the average time to kill of people (without the "top" players in the average) is 6 minutes. and people manage a lot to reach 5 minutes. Suddenly, a patch, this boss has a hard enrage at 5 minute 55 seconds... Now, for me that take no risk, the fight is far more harder, because i HAVE to take risk, i have to be closer to boss, i have to run more often to strike him . etc etc. And all people that where over the 6 minute average will also have to progress in their gameplay level to still be able to kill it.
The more safe you can play, the easier the fight are. The more risk you are forced to take, the harder the fight are.
NOW DPS check are not only hard enrage, it can be soft enrage (the boss damages increase of X% sometime ?) It can also be DPS check on specific mechanic (like a burst phase often, while rest of fight you are fine... but without) and many OTher. There are many way to push this part of skill of people. BEcause yes... able to give a big DPS is part of the skill... Anyone can walk 10kms, not everyone can do it in less than 1hours
Swap "hours" for "months" and we are on the same page in terms of what content can be, even with trackers.
To be clear, I am not saying "you will get sick of content if X happens", I am simply saying that the existence of trackers does not mean players get through all content without that head/wall bashing.
Yeah, that's why I made the separation between the single player and mmo raid. If the raid required the same amount of understanding of the fight from each member and had the same difficulty of action execution for each member - I'm sure it'd take months to beat the fight.
If Intrepid only release content that Intrepid staff can kill, then this whole discussion is pointless as the game wont attract a top end PvE scene.
And that is exactly what I've been talking about when I said "I need concrete details from Intrepid". What if they change their mind and go back on their promise of hardcore pve battles. The fights would still be difficult for the majority of "normal" players, but the true top lvl ones would not even play.
And I think that either showing a full boss fight or just presenting their current design direction would indicate
if they're still sticking to that promise and in what way they mean to realize it.
If it is shown in tracker, it means it is shown in combat log.
And if it's shown in the log - it should be seen in the fight. That's all I'm asking, but Noaani said that this stuff would be too easy, because some mechanics should only be seen through log/tracker parsing.
It doesnt remove the need to try.
end game bosses on WoW needs around 300 wipe before being killed. People use tracker, and they have some of their members that knows well an addon called "weakaura2" which can be used to create a battle assistant for this unknown fight in game. And with this, a world first needs so much wipe, because it is how hard the fight is...
WoW bosses are at that point because the devs know that everyone will be using those assisting addons. It's one of the problems I have with the "design around trackers" argument (except in the way I understood it as presented by Noaani).
WoW devs know that players will literally have a program telling them where and when to stand/move, so they can make the mechanics so unreasonably difficult that you can beat the encounter only with the help of such programs. One could argue that it's the "true difficulty" of the game, because it's that hard, but I just personally disagree with that kind of thinking. Iirc FF14 tells players where to stand through their own UI, right? So if you wanted to make a boss whose mechanics gotta be dodged like a dance (as you pointed out) - you're free to design it that way and people will have to have the skill to do so. I'm all for those kinds of fights, but against the type of fights where the game tells you literally nothing, yet presents an impossible fight.
And that line mainly refers to the pace of such mechanics rather than the mere fact that they exist. If the pace is "you gotta make 5 very precise moves within 5-6 seconds (as a whole raid), or you wipe" - I think the game should tell you where to stand and just make you react to it.
And if the pace is "you gotta move twice within a 6 second window" - I'd be fine with the game not showing you how to move and letting you wipe on the fight and then remember how you need to move.
And as I see it, the first example would most likely be a stationary scripted place, while the second example could be dependent on where the boss is facing, so the raid could control the mechanic to make it easier for themselves. And if the devs don't want to have that - make the boss have randomized agro and give tank a few tools that would counteract that.
Swap "hours" for "months" and we are on the same page in terms of what content can be, even with trackers.
To be clear, I am not saying "you will get sick of content if X happens", I am simply saying that the existence of trackers does not mean players get through all content without that head/wall bashing.
Yeah, that's why I made the separation between the single player and mmo raid. If the raid required the same amount of understanding of the fight from each member and had the same difficulty of action execution for each member - I'm sure it'd take months to beat the fight.
If Intrepid only release content that Intrepid staff can kill, then this whole discussion is pointless as the game wont attract a top end PvE scene.
And that is exactly what I've been talking about when I said "I need concrete details from Intrepid". What if they change their mind and go back on their promise of hardcore pve battles. The fights would still be difficult for the majority of "normal" players, but the true top lvl ones would not even play.
And I think that either showing a full boss fight or just presenting their current design direction would indicate
if they're still sticking to that promise and in what way they mean to realize it.
Two things with this.
First, we should assume Intrepid are going to stick to what they have said until they say otherwise. They have said they want difficult PvE - even if Steven didnt know what that entailed when he said it, his staff did, and so we should assume that he wants difficult PvE, and his staff will implement that.
I cant think of any actual design intentions Intrepid have stated and gone back on. They have changed some designs of things - but that has generally been because the design didnt meet the intention.
Second, Intrepid should never show a boss fight that they expect to be in the final game. They shouldnt really even show part of such an encounter.
Second, Intrepid should never show a boss fight that they expect to be in the final game. They shouldnt really even show part of such an encounter.
Oh, for sure. But they should at least give a rough example of what they can produce. If they do intend on appealing to the hardcore pvers and don't want to lose them after the first few months of the game, I'd assume showing a cool boss fight in alpha2 would accomplish that.
Not sure of the issues here. The game will have top end raiders either way. The only question will be whether those top end raiders will be ridiculed or respected due to comparative difficulties elsewhere. One doesn't just translate to top end and expect to be worshipped. It's all judged and analysed by the mmo communities.
Not sure of the issues here. The game will have top end raiders either way. The only question will be whether those top end raiders will be ridiculed or respected due to comparative difficulties elsewhere. One doesn't just translate to top end and expect to be worshipped. It's all judged and analysed by the mmo communities.
I think Noaani is talking about top lvl raiders from games that have raiding as their main attractor. So kind of an "elites of the elites" type of deal.
Yeah, I've mentioned before that if the raids are the best versions from all mmos then countless 'elite guilds' will partake so who will become the top 1% would be debatable. However, Noanni doesn't play WoW so I believe the WoW Guilds would be trumped in such a case.
WoW devs know that players will literally have a program telling them where and when to stand/move, so they can make the mechanics so unreasonably difficult that you can beat the encounter only with the help of such programs. One could argue that it's the "true difficulty" of the game, because it's that hard, but I just personally disagree with that kind of thinking. Iirc FF14 tells players where to stand through their own UI, right? So if you wanted to make a boss whose mechanics gotta be dodged like a dance (as you pointed out) - you're free to design it that way and people will have to have the skill to do so. I'm all for those kinds of fights, but against the type of fights where the game tells you literally nothing, yet presents an impossible fight.
For me, the best fight would be chaotic fights, with no call outside of movement of the model of the boss, as BNS, BDO or Lost Ark are doing.
About design : yes, they also include boss mods, but, boss mods are just tools doing call instead of have the RL doing the calls. Not many mechanic makes the boss mods really usefull.
It doesn't change that a boss you kill after 40-50 wipe is a boss quite easy to learn, wow devs don't develop fight with the idea people will use tool, they define fight in a way it is difficult, in a way they will need try after try to discover strategy, learn it, train on it, and finally getting closer and closer to the kill.
If you design your fight at a set difficulty you think "high end difficulty" and players end annihilating this fight... You just have to admit you did easy. You can check if they cheated (but if lot of raid do it... the cheat is quite obvious) or bug exploit (same) or just admit your fight was too easy.
Also, FFXI did PW and AV without minding if people use tracker or not, battle assistant or not, because FFXI devs didnt care about it, they wanted to do bosses with a crazy difficulty. . . Difficulty is just where you want the cursor to be, the tools player have don't impact this.
But now, all i see is mostly around battle assistant, tracker help to build strategy and said example on my post, but it doesn't remove at all the need to use your brain, eyes. And then work on apply strategy perfectly.
For a high difficult fight shown now :
FFXIV : ARR was not when they did their first boss fight. Yoshida became lead of FFXIV far before ARR, and did add content, patch and fights. They still needed 1 expansion to be able to define well how they want their mid tier and high tier fights, and design it a way they avoid the players to cheese most bosses.
So first bosses will remain probably easier that what they aim. (it can also be fine, or harder).
Then, back to the pace of release question... developping fights doesnt need years of work of tons of people... more about few months, with one or a really small team. FFXIV/WoW team for those fight are always few people, one designer per fight. So i don't expect getting an idea of midtier fight (what they could show) before few months before release.
The debate, like many debate on those forum, have to consider what was said and not yet changed, is still their target.
Honest question for you (or also maiwaifu) :
A good PvE is not only about high end, but what i call "midtier". For wow it would be normal/heroic bosses for example, in FFXIV, the extrem primals.
Do you really want to be able, to go on the high tier bosses, no matter what, or you just want a PvE giving you challenges, rewards, and the will to push for more ?
WHen i say "impossible to have a real difficulty on fight without some DPS check" i mean it. But... only for top fights. Normal raid, but also heroic raids (wow), or xtrem primals (FFXIV) can be really interesting fight, with fun, tricky or hard mechanics even if easier than top fights. but what is the most reduced is the DPS check.
Many players don't even know, or others forgot, that Xtrem primals on FFXIV have a hard enrage... because it is rarely reached, boss die before... or wipe happens before.
Honest question for you (or also maiwaifu) :
A good PvE is not only about high end, but what i call "midtier". For wow it would be normal/heroic bosses for example, in FFXIV, the extrem primals.
Do you really want to be able, to go on the high tier bosses, no matter what, or you just want a PvE giving you challenges, rewards, and the will to push for more ?
I have no real preconceived notions about what the content should be, outside of that it should have pvp somewhere around it (before/during/after). I expect to see a wide range of difficulty of bosses, but if there'll be only one super high one - I'd be fine with it.
I have no real preconceived notions about what the content should be, outside of that it should have pvp somewhere around it (before/during/after). I expect to see a wide range of difficulty of bosses, but if there'll be only one super high one - I'd be fine with it.
This was not really my question.
How many time, on wow or FFXIV : ARR i saw people complained for content being too hard, and so reserved to only small part.
Making a content difficult is not really a "there is this way or this way". Sure, there are various tools to create difficulty. But the more difficult you aim, the more of those tools you will use because each has its limit, but also because each player will have preference of what he find to be an interesting challenge.
You messages feels like some kind of way to create difficulty do not fit at all your taste. And, so you fear that the game with tracker would have too much of them. But in reality this is a problem only if you want to have all fight being in what you think fight are good. If you are fine considering that maybe you won't be able to do all PvE content of the game, because some requesting far too much time/energy investment in the game, there is nothing around those kind of way to create PvE fight you dislike, because yes it will exist, but it won't be a rule on all fights...
On both FFXIV and WoW, i can say lot of fight i would define as easy/medium, that was still a good and fun challenge for a large part of the community. Without real DPS check but still mechanics that can be punitiv a lot.
My question is "are you fine with some PvE content with so many difficulty factors that you will probably never be able to clean it ?".
You messages feels like some kind of way to create difficulty do not fit at all your taste. And, so you fear that the game with tracker would have too much of them. But in reality this is a problem only if you want to have all fight being in what you think fight are good. If you are fine considering that maybe you won't be able to do all PvE content of the game, because some requesting far too much time/energy investment in the game, there is nothing around those kind of way to create PvE fight you dislike, because yes it will exist, but it won't be a rule on all fights...
My only problem with the suggested difficulty (mainly by Noaani) is the "invisible" mechanics that can only be figured out by parsing a tracker. Those feel unfair to me.
My question is "are you fine with some PvE content with so many difficulty factors that you will probably never be able to clean it ?".
There's a high chance that I won't consume even mid-lvl difficulty content because I dunno if my planned casual guild will even be doing pve content. I will make a hardcore character later on, once I establish myself as the best crafter around and have enough influence to get myself into a guild that would be clearing hard content. And if the game survives up until that point - I'll be fine with whatever difficulty that content has.
I have literally all the free time a person could possible have, so no content is a problem for me.
143 pages of comments all about dps numbers. That's insane. Personally I dont feel like getting into pissing matches with randoms about weight pulling and not min/maxing dps/tanking/healing. I only see it as useful in a non toxic way is for damage testing and fine tuning your build. For that I'd say if you have test dummies in the world or on your property, let those tell you the damage you can output
143 pages of comments all about dps numbers. That's insane. Personally I dont feel like getting into pissing matches with randoms about weight pulling and not min/maxing dps/tanking/healing. I only see it as useful in a non toxic way is for damage testing and fine tuning your build. For that I'd say if you have test dummies in the world or on your property, let those tell you the damage you can output
It literarily is just the same small handful of people talking 80% of the time trying to tell everyone they should want dps meters.
There will be different servers, so some servers can be marked with a built-in dps meter and others clean and everyone will be happy, from the programming point there is no big problem.
No one will come in the way of anyone or spoil the fun
Comments
That was just a joke
The card I linked is from like 2006 and I don't think anyone has been playing on CRTs since the late 90's. (Unless you're a really dedicated rhythm games player)
Intrepid cant answer those questions.
They can say how they intend to make content, and they can say whether they intend to make content easier or harder based on how easy or hard players have found earlier content, but they cant really answer those questions in relation to trackers that they cant detect.
The question then becomes - if people are getting through content to easily, why wouldn't Intrepid make harder content?
I mean, the only reason they would have is if they just assume everyone at the top end is using a tracker, but then decide to stick to their ideals that the playerbase obviously dont share (at that point this will be an obvious fact).
If the content is well designed, there is still more banging your head against it than you would likely want.
Just because you can see what an encounter is doing, doesn't mean how to kill it is obvious.
Your argument here is more about what wall you want to bang your head against, not that you want to bang your head against a wall.
The problem with this is that they can claim they want to make an encounter a specific difficulty, but the only metric they have for if they have hit that target is how long it takes players to kill it.
If the only metric they have for difficulty is how long it takes players to kill content, and they are ignoring that metric, what is left for the to either target difficulty at, or determine if they have hit their target difficulty?
Remember to take in to account that every kill on these top end mobs will be from a guild using a tracker.
Now obviously me playing a solo game is nowhere near the same thing as fighting an mmo boss with 39 other people. But the core principle remains. I want a game that gives you all the info you need right during the fight and it's then on you to see and recognize that info during the fight, be it the very first fight (if you're a pattern-recognizing savant) or your 100th fight (if you're a plain dude who's bad at puzzles and with no mechanical skill). I've addressed this here before, mainly using FF14's devs as an example. Afaik they put out content that they themselves can clear and one that they find difficult. Obviously there'll be players who're better than them at the game. Awesome for those players! They've got great skill at the game. If they're so good that they found the fight super boring - cool, they've beat the game and can now either do other content or move on from the game.
Steven's a gamer and, from what he's said about his hiring practices, most of the team are gamers too. Their skill could be rusty, but they should have a rough vision of what's "difficult" in a fight (especially the EQ devs that you like to reference). They can then release the bosses to players and see how many players can beat the boss. If it so happens that over 50% of the playerbase does in fact use trackers in spite of the rules and can easily beat the boss - well, so be it, Intrepid will have to make a boss that's somewhat harder.
But depending on the overall design of the bosses (the thing that I've been talking about from the start of this particular conversation), not beating the boss might be a skill issue rather than a "do you have a tracker or not" one. At which point it won't even matter who's using illegal trackers, because the majority of players would not have the skill to beat the boss. And I think this is partially what Mag has been talking about with his "action combat" argument. If the super obvious and super easy to understand mechanics of the boss still require a ton of mechanical skill - you'll still have a low % of player beating the boss. A tracker would have no tangible impact on that, at least as far as I understand.
And this is what I'm waiting for from Intrepid. They could show us a mechanically super hard boss and say "we're still against trackers". Or they could have a somewhat easier boss but with hidden patterns and shit, that only tracker people would figure out, and say "we've changed our minds and gonna provide you with an official tracker".
If Steam achievements are any metric to go by, less than 50% have managed to ring the first bell.
To clarify, I'm not saying AoC needs to get soulsborne level difficulty. I'm just trying to show that even if you are able to grind in Dark Souls and inflate stats to the point that you can 100-0 bosses with insane DPS, there are other aspects you can utilize to make encounters interesting and challenging.
I'm honestly not sure if FromSoft use DPS for measuring challenge in their soulsborne games. But I'm reluctant to believe they're using time taken to kill and solely balancing their future games on that metric.
Hope the top bosses with great rewards are equally infrequent and challenging to get to, making them highly competitive and a long time to solve by default of the infrequent chance to try. With the bounty highly valuable.
Thing is people for trackers (ones going hard int his thread not every single person) that it to be instanced as well, else they dont' consider the devs making it hard c:
I think this is the thing I want to address that might actually move this conversation meaningfully forward for one of the first times (aside from all the times where people just chat with Noaani until they see).
The very definition of 'gives you the info you need right in the fight' is the 'problem' here. I believe we can now agree that all the information you need to defeat the Tree Sentinel is visible in the battle. I would say the same is possible for the now-famous Malenia.
The difference if any is that Malenia requires one to 'put a bunch of abstract data points together'. Still fine. But here's the thing, Malenia is not necessarily mechanically very difficult if you can sorta 'see exactly her weakpoint' at the 'savant' level.
So my question is technically 'is the skill to know what to look for something they can balance around?'
I end up at the opposite concern. I would be happy if the game's top was maybe 4x as challenging as Malenia is, it would solve almost all the problems, and would change the discussion from 'Combat Trackers' straight to 'HitBox Scanners' instantly.
This post isn't about me challenging your point, I'm really just agreeing, while acknowledging that we as a community will still need some way to deal with the people who are looking for the shortcut, particularly those who don't want to bash their heads for 10 hours because they want to catch up, and we don't have one.
Ideally you'd need for that design to account for potential bot use too, but I don't really know if that's even possible, cause any kind of hardcore mechanic could be distilled to pure input sequences and, in theory, those inputs could be synced up for the whole raid, so I don't really know how you'd go around that.
Trying to conduct an even mildly difficult raid in a non-instanced scenario under pvp will and should outdo any difficulty an instanced raid could generate. Way greater complexity.
Swap "hours" for "months" and we are on the same page in terms of what content can be, even with trackers.
To be clear, I am not saying "you will get sick of content if X happens", I am simply saying that the existance of trackers does not mean players get through all content without that head/wall bashing. Steven is a gamer, but he isnt overly good.
If Intrepid only release content that Intrepid staff can kill,then this whole discussion is pointless as the game wont attract a top end PvE scene.
You want solution ?
First ask a real question, give the real problem.
What would be for you a good pace of ennemy release without tracker, and what would it be with tracker.
Because if you say me "One boss every 6 months" ... oh fine it is what i said... if you say "one boss every three months" i stated that it would be far too fast.
So you just try to make a point against tracker without able to define this problem yourself...
And also, define what could be a good fight, with all MMORPG or RPG games there are, you probably have some in mind to allow me what you think a high end difficulty is... Because for me, high end, is for best raids, at least 100 wipe on this single boss.
And with those 100 wipe, it would already take LONGER than wow to kill the boss i think (AoC won't allow you to spam try a boss hours after hours, days after days when it is release)
So while asking more time to be killed... it will make the pace of new content slower than wow... We could totally consider one high end boss per year instead of two as i stated in my previous post...
Then, nooani gave a way : more chaotic, less scripted.
Easier for quite obivous reason i could explain if you are interested.
To understand why the difficulty doesn't seems to increase so much, you have again ... to see exactly what happened, and how the game works.
It is easier to master your class in FFXIV than WoW, and bosses are the most scripted i know in MMORPG, as i said, applying a strategy is like doing music : there is the musicsheet, and you play it, while doing your damages.
The difficulty there is now was reached with Heavensward, 2nd expansion... but hey, for wow we reached it with WOTLK, and this is a similar difficulty still now.
The difficulty in fact can't evolve more. all on both game they can do is... finding new mechanics, to creates new strategy, and so have their players have to learn each fight as being as new as possible.
Because players doing those content are already over 90% of effiency (100% being "playing perfectly")
If you watch on fflogs or warcraftlogs the datas of raiders killing content in the first most, you see their DPS being over than 95% of the population doing tries/kills on those bosses. And not only because of their big stuff, you can filtrate to see only amongst people with similar ilvl (more accurate on FFXIV side, because there are less difference between a "bis" item and a "worst in slot" item than wow for a same ilvl)
There is not "infinite difficulty" even more with scripted fight... A human has a limit to its "time of reaction" if you see that when you ask them 1 second on it, you can reduce but at one point, it will be "humanly impossible" and on DPS side ? same... There is a mathematical limit to the DPS you can ask (which is the "perfect DPS rotation all along the 10minutes+ of fight)
If it is shown in tracker, it means it is shown in combat log.
Just an example with FFXIV boss : Nael Deus Darnus, 8th boss of ARR, 4th boss (and last) boss of 2nd raid tier.
On FFXIV boss have all what we call a "tank buster"... A skill that will do easily 150% of your tank life. How to deal with can vary, it can be a good rotation of CD (some def CD being small other big, with various duration of couldown, you will try to spread them efficiently to deal with ALL tankbuster, it could also need to swap tank after each, etc etc).
The tank bust of Nael was exactly an example of what you are saying : a mechanic, that is followed X second later by another mechanic.
First Nael does a big hit on tank which felt like a not so big tankbuster (tank "not ready at all" including no shielding from scholar, took around 110% of its life, shielding + precast of heal could be enough to deal it). THen... few second later, the tank was source of a big explosion. There was not a debuff nothing. Soon enough, being it quite early without lot of mechanic to track, it was easy to do a link between tank bust then this explosion (which was enough to kill the tank if not shielded again, but also the other tank or any DPS too close)
Honestly no more hint were needed, with a game where fight are written on music sheet, seeing this explosion always on the tank that took recently a tank buster was enough. (and was just one of the most basic mechanic of the fight ^^" )
Due to no debuff being applied, a tracker could give only two information : the damages of the strike, and the damages of the explosion. Usefullness of the tracker to understand ? nothing...
Lets now say there is a debuff, so tracker will show a third information : the tanks got X time a debuff, X being also how many time they got hit by the tank buster, and also number of explosion.
There ok, tracker would help us to think "strike put the debuff, which is a countdown to explosion" ... But also, watching on the buff/debuff icons often would allow player to see the debuff appear. which make it obvious.
Aaaaand... if you scroll your combat log, you would read two lines close to each other :
"Nael does XXX dmg on tank1 with [skill]
Tank one got affected by [debuff]"
I could give other examples.
Tracker can help i won't deny it. but well designed fight have information not so much on combat log but with clear visual indicator. And this is even more true with "chaotic" fight... the boss which use one after other, in a total random way his many current skills, each having different imapct on fight : boss movement, form of the area if AOE, etc... The combat log would help you to understand more each of the skills, but... this remains the easy part of the fight learning, knowing that if the hand moves a way, you have to go on left. The real deal is be able to fast identify each to do the most efficient reaction (moving just enough to avoid damages/limit them, but not too much moving ... because the more you move, the less damages you do)
For an example of this last thing, the "tower" in Lost Ark is a good basic example, with 50th floor of 1st tower, and 49th of 2nd tower (same ennemy, but with an addition to make it slightly harder).
The target won't move, he will do 3 then 5 of his skills one after other, a break to allow DPS, then again.
He can do large conic on both side, in front of him (he turns to you each time he does a skill), circle area close to him, or a donut area (so safe spot is close).
you see area on the floor so easy right ? untill the end of fight where the floor is covered of smoke making those area invisible. How to deal ? there is only one thing that vary : how he moves his arms.
Tracker helps if informations are in combat log (and we will have combat log, not because "they can't forbid it" ... but because they said it would be combat log) Because tracker just shows what combat log shows : skill used, damages, debuff received/inflict, heals. it compact, not listing all singular damages of a skill but the top, low, hit rate, crit rate and average.
Positionning is never givin by a tracker... and for ability/buff, the tracker gives number of time it appeared in combat log, not "they did this then this"...
When i use tracker to help friends on their rotation, he smash the dummy for 2-3 minutes, and then i watch how many time he used a skill or another. because i know that this skill has to be refreshed every 30 second, if he used it 5 time = one mistake. Because for each use of [skill1] i know there should be 4 use of [skill 2] again, simple math allow to see if problem or not. Sure i could do it without tracker and even without combat log... but being eye strictly focus on screen with a paper where i do a cross on each skill use to count them... not for me.
Tracker allowed player to not spend HOURS filling sheet, because you said "i would prefer people to do it manually" but just doing it for yourself, (so, not taking account of how your group buff impacted the global DPS on the fight...) it will already takes an insane amount of time...
Just try it : go on a dummy on wow/FFXIV
Smash it for 5 minutes, then, stop, open the spread sheet, and add ALL information from combat log in a more easy to read (and so analyse) on the spreadsheet. When done : look how much you spend doing this, and ask yourself if doing it was fun...
This is why we like tracker... because this is what a tracker do.
Not totally true...
It doesnt remove the need to try.
end game bosses on WoW needs around 300 wipe before being killed. People use tracker, and they have some of their members that knows well an addon called "weakaura2" which can be used to create a battle assistant for this unknown fight in game. And with this, a world first needs so much wipe, because it is how hard the fight is...
This is true is casual tier... where some people aim summits without even understanding what they have to give for it. Lot of people focus more on stuff (easy to blame, and easy to identify) for DPS... But while using tracker sure, i compare myself with other with same class/build this is the role of fflogs/warcraftlogs : see how good/bad you are amongst the whole crowd who did this boss. if the site says "95% it means you did more damages than 95% of people.
Now, there are 2 different informations... you can perfectly be 90%... and when you watch "of same ilvl" you get down to 30% ... yes, you have a big DPS fine... but you suck. This is why hard fights needs big DPS check if you want it to reward the skill, because people could this way compensate their lack of skills with their stuff. Killing bosses not because they are more skilled, but because they have more stuff. "but need kill bosses first to get stuff" ... we are not in top tier (where people are over 90% percentile for their ilvl... so they all have excellent skill) we speak about tier where people can get stuff... against gold ? I mean, while you try and try on the boss, wiping, and losing money to repair stuff, and consumables, he will farm, increasing his money, untill he buys stuff. His 8man team is full stuff, bashing mobs, low skill, but now they have enough DPS to cheese the strategy, because of this stuff, healers needs far less to be mana efficient also. The mistake will be less punitiv for them than for your team, and the simple fact the fight will be shorter (due to more damages) is already making the fight easier.
The real difficult fight needs people skill, because it doesnt need them to do a big DPS, but the most DPS their class can give. while still doing mechanics. Doing mechanics in the most efficient way to go back as fast as possible to damage time, etc.
Other solutions exists to limit the "gear score" :
horizontal stuff, on GW2, you can't hope to cheese bosses due to your big stuff... the awakened stuff never evolved, the stuff is made of lot of differnt stats, each piece having three or four, spread amongs 1 or 2 with "big" value, and 2 others with "low" value. So you aim to what is the most efficient for your build, and... if you have the "bis" you have the same stuff than all other so the only difference on DPS will be skill. Also this awakened stuff is currently 2 months to get withotu rushing it brainlessly.
FFXIV also have a low problem about it, because you would need 2 month out of the 6-8 before the next patch to have the max ilvl stuff outside of weapon without doing any of the "hard raid" (the "non raid" way for weapon comes with a delay if they didnt change their patch treadmill) And you have for the top ilvl choice between 2 pieces, with secundary stats not having so much differences in impact on DPS (so one or another...)
the FFXIV way is just, for me, making stuffs as simple consumable. you take, untill next raid tier is released making your stuff low, rince&repeat
GW2 i like it, really, but it is hard to deal on long term. each expansion of GW2 only added more variety of stats distribution on stuffs. no more strength. And the stuff which need huge investment : legendaries are NOT stronger, those are the SAME stats (but they have cool skins, and effect. but also QoL, even more if you play different characters)
If stuff is meaningfull in players power, there is no way to have a fight hard if you don't push people to have some numbers to reach. The only solution i really see so, would be that the stuff should have really moderate impact on character strength. Making the farming of stuff far less a thing to do also. It reduces the incentiv to do PvE bosses. (some people don't do them for "the challenge of killing him" but ... for loooooots)
Steam achievments are... moderately accurate informations.
The two achievment the most done on POE were done by 52,4% and 47,1% ... Those are ennemies you have to fight during the first act...
Steam achievments is more a "X people have the game is their list of games, and 50% did this achievment among them. And there are no way to define how much you have to rise it to have accurate numbers.
I don't even know at what point we can consider this guy has his place in the datas to have accurate datas... I mean, those who wipe 4-5 on the horseman early and did ragequit but still didnt get refund... does they really count ?
In a linear game, if first boss is killed by 90% people, and second by 30% ... does it mean that the second boss is extremly harder... or people left game before even reaching it ?
This is a thing to see to design PvE difficulty on MMORPG, because the game is in constant evolution...
we can have a endgame boss have 10k people killing it, and being easier than next endgame with 20k killing it ... Because the information i missed to say is that on first, 100 000 people tried to get the kill, while for second, 300 000 people tried. and then after again 20k, but people, depressed by the difficulty mostly left, and only 50k tried... clearly the easiest boss of all three... or... those are the exact same 20k that killed second boss so same difficulty but no one wants to do PvE anymore ?
I already used souls game to speak about DPS inside the difficulty.
Yes, souls game are tough fight... And here is how i killed them all : first tries : i never try to strike, i avoid, again and again, and when on a try i get to 2-3 minutes without a hit, then step 2 : i use the moment it seems to be good window to strike to do damages. But i mostly continue to play safe. Surely my time to kill on DS3 bosses are lower on average... but there is no pressure to go faster after all, who cares right ? i play as safe as possible, i take the strict minimum risk. because i don't care the time spent on boss.
Now, lets say, i kill a boss in 10 minutes of fight, the average time to kill of people (without the "top" players in the average) is 6 minutes. and people manage a lot to reach 5 minutes. Suddenly, a patch, this boss has a hard enrage at 5 minute 55 seconds... Now, for me that take no risk, the fight is far more harder, because i HAVE to take risk, i have to be closer to boss, i have to run more often to strike him . etc etc. And all people that where over the 6 minute average will also have to progress in their gameplay level to still be able to kill it.
The more safe you can play, the easier the fight are. The more risk you are forced to take, the harder the fight are.
NOW DPS check are not only hard enrage, it can be soft enrage (the boss damages increase of X% sometime ?) It can also be DPS check on specific mechanic (like a burst phase often, while rest of fight you are fine... but without) and many OTher. There are many way to push this part of skill of people. BEcause yes... able to give a big DPS is part of the skill... Anyone can walk 10kms, not everyone can do it in less than 1hours
And I think that either showing a full boss fight or just presenting their current design direction would indicate
if they're still sticking to that promise and in what way they mean to realize it. And if it's shown in the log - it should be seen in the fight. That's all I'm asking, but Noaani said that this stuff would be too easy, because some mechanics should only be seen through log/tracker parsing. WoW bosses are at that point because the devs know that everyone will be using those assisting addons. It's one of the problems I have with the "design around trackers" argument (except in the way I understood it as presented by Noaani).
WoW devs know that players will literally have a program telling them where and when to stand/move, so they can make the mechanics so unreasonably difficult that you can beat the encounter only with the help of such programs. One could argue that it's the "true difficulty" of the game, because it's that hard, but I just personally disagree with that kind of thinking. Iirc FF14 tells players where to stand through their own UI, right? So if you wanted to make a boss whose mechanics gotta be dodged like a dance (as you pointed out) - you're free to design it that way and people will have to have the skill to do so. I'm all for those kinds of fights, but against the type of fights where the game tells you literally nothing, yet presents an impossible fight.
And that line mainly refers to the pace of such mechanics rather than the mere fact that they exist. If the pace is "you gotta make 5 very precise moves within 5-6 seconds (as a whole raid), or you wipe" - I think the game should tell you where to stand and just make you react to it.
And if the pace is "you gotta move twice within a 6 second window" - I'd be fine with the game not showing you how to move and letting you wipe on the fight and then remember how you need to move.
And as I see it, the first example would most likely be a stationary scripted place, while the second example could be dependent on where the boss is facing, so the raid could control the mechanic to make it easier for themselves. And if the devs don't want to have that - make the boss have randomized agro and give tank a few tools that would counteract that.
Two things with this.
First, we should assume Intrepid are going to stick to what they have said until they say otherwise. They have said they want difficult PvE - even if Steven didnt know what that entailed when he said it, his staff did, and so we should assume that he wants difficult PvE, and his staff will implement that.
I cant think of any actual design intentions Intrepid have stated and gone back on. They have changed some designs of things - but that has generally been because the design didnt meet the intention.
Second, Intrepid should never show a boss fight that they expect to be in the final game. They shouldnt really even show part of such an encounter.
For me, the best fight would be chaotic fights, with no call outside of movement of the model of the boss, as BNS, BDO or Lost Ark are doing.
About design : yes, they also include boss mods, but, boss mods are just tools doing call instead of have the RL doing the calls. Not many mechanic makes the boss mods really usefull.
It doesn't change that a boss you kill after 40-50 wipe is a boss quite easy to learn, wow devs don't develop fight with the idea people will use tool, they define fight in a way it is difficult, in a way they will need try after try to discover strategy, learn it, train on it, and finally getting closer and closer to the kill.
If you design your fight at a set difficulty you think "high end difficulty" and players end annihilating this fight... You just have to admit you did easy. You can check if they cheated (but if lot of raid do it... the cheat is quite obvious) or bug exploit (same) or just admit your fight was too easy.
Also, FFXI did PW and AV without minding if people use tracker or not, battle assistant or not, because FFXI devs didnt care about it, they wanted to do bosses with a crazy difficulty. . . Difficulty is just where you want the cursor to be, the tools player have don't impact this.
But now, all i see is mostly around battle assistant, tracker help to build strategy and said example on my post, but it doesn't remove at all the need to use your brain, eyes. And then work on apply strategy perfectly.
For a high difficult fight shown now :
FFXIV : ARR was not when they did their first boss fight. Yoshida became lead of FFXIV far before ARR, and did add content, patch and fights. They still needed 1 expansion to be able to define well how they want their mid tier and high tier fights, and design it a way they avoid the players to cheese most bosses.
So first bosses will remain probably easier that what they aim. (it can also be fine, or harder).
Then, back to the pace of release question... developping fights doesnt need years of work of tons of people... more about few months, with one or a really small team. FFXIV/WoW team for those fight are always few people, one designer per fight. So i don't expect getting an idea of midtier fight (what they could show) before few months before release.
The debate, like many debate on those forum, have to consider what was said and not yet changed, is still their target.
Honest question for you (or also maiwaifu) :
A good PvE is not only about high end, but what i call "midtier". For wow it would be normal/heroic bosses for example, in FFXIV, the extrem primals.
Do you really want to be able, to go on the high tier bosses, no matter what, or you just want a PvE giving you challenges, rewards, and the will to push for more ?
WHen i say "impossible to have a real difficulty on fight without some DPS check" i mean it. But... only for top fights. Normal raid, but also heroic raids (wow), or xtrem primals (FFXIV) can be really interesting fight, with fun, tricky or hard mechanics even if easier than top fights. but what is the most reduced is the DPS check.
Many players don't even know, or others forgot, that Xtrem primals on FFXIV have a hard enrage... because it is rarely reached, boss die before... or wipe happens before.
This was not really my question.
How many time, on wow or FFXIV : ARR i saw people complained for content being too hard, and so reserved to only small part.
Making a content difficult is not really a "there is this way or this way". Sure, there are various tools to create difficulty. But the more difficult you aim, the more of those tools you will use because each has its limit, but also because each player will have preference of what he find to be an interesting challenge.
You messages feels like some kind of way to create difficulty do not fit at all your taste. And, so you fear that the game with tracker would have too much of them. But in reality this is a problem only if you want to have all fight being in what you think fight are good. If you are fine considering that maybe you won't be able to do all PvE content of the game, because some requesting far too much time/energy investment in the game, there is nothing around those kind of way to create PvE fight you dislike, because yes it will exist, but it won't be a rule on all fights...
On both FFXIV and WoW, i can say lot of fight i would define as easy/medium, that was still a good and fun challenge for a large part of the community. Without real DPS check but still mechanics that can be punitiv a lot.
My question is "are you fine with some PvE content with so many difficulty factors that you will probably never be able to clean it ?".
I have literally all the free time a person could possible have, so no content is a problem for me.
It literarily is just the same small handful of people talking 80% of the time trying to tell everyone they should want dps meters.
There will be different servers, so some servers can be marked with a built-in dps meter and others clean and everyone will be happy, from the programming point there is no big problem.
No one will come in the way of anyone or spoil the fun
Regards