Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
How can you even justify that statement as an only option (i.e. min/max or die/retire early)?
I have played many characters in many high fantasy settings that had harsh systems or game masters. I have never made effort to min/max a character, and my characters seem to last most if not the whole game (no more or less than any other). Versatility is very important, and the min/max character is usually not as versatile. Any claim that a versatile character 'has' to be a min/max character by default is unfounded (just a preliminary proclamation).
Again with these absolutes. It makes me think you don't have a point, but instead just want to be able to min/max. Although that is a valid play style, as valid as any other, that doesn't make it the only viable option.
The more you use these types of statements the harder it is to see your point as reasonable, and the more reason I have to support IS in not adding a tool. A good min/max type, as you have said plenty before, will do this themselves anyways.
There is no way to actually assess your performance without some form of tool (in game or third party) to give you objective data. Without actual objective data, it is impossible to accurately assess anything other than peoples feelings and opinions on a topic.
The big issue with the Bartle system is that people change based on the design of the game they are playing. I've played games where the content I enjoyed most was top and raiding, and I've played games where the content I enjoyed the most was exploration - yet I've never played a game where I enjoy both.
On top of exploration and high end raiding, I've played games where I enjoyed the crafting system the most, games where I enjoyed the resource production system the most, games where I enjoyed the lore the most and games where I enjoyed just socializing with others the most.
The system works well enough if the player answering has a single game in mind, but the scores I get when I have ESO, EQ2 or Archeage in mind are totally different from each other.
The problem with it as a system is actually not that dissimilar to the problem with a combat tracker. People take the test once, and assume that is them. That is incorrect use of the system, just as looking at DPS alone is misuse of a combat tracker.
Nothing that I have talked about in the last few posts in regards to D&D has any real relation to a combat tracker in Ashes. It was just an aside in reply to the comment made that maybe Steven hates min/maxers in D&D.
The actual objective data should be available in a combat log. A combat tracker just displays that same data in a different way
Invincible Tank
Unrivalled Dps
Queen of Growlgate
Kraken Tamer
Super Cutie
H8 me cuz u ain't me
Yeah I stopped replying to this thread awhile ago, as the argument just keeps going in circles.
.......Dammit Nagash, you made me reply to this thread again, you fiend!!!!
Indeed, it is that data that the debate in this thread is about. The tool specifically is unnecessary in the context here - if the data is there, the tool already exists.
For some reason though, some people think there could be bad situations arise from the access to objective data.
mic drop
What wanderingmist said above is a reason for a well designed combat tracker as much as it is an argument against one at all.
Every third party combat tracker I've seen has been made by and for people that know how to make use of them. They are not designed for people that don't know what they are doing.
Have an actual company - rather than just some guy who has few hours free once a week - actually put some effort behind a good design for a combat tracker, a design that helps players find the information they need, rather than the information they think they want, and it at least partially solves the issue.
Sadly, if Intrepid don't implement one in to the game, there will be a third party one, and players that don't know what they are doing will misuse it.
Think some kind of little combat tacker would be pretty cool. In some of the better guilds people that do less dps and have worst gear might be prefered cause they know the fight better do interupts do offhealing cc mobs.
Thing is not all about dps interupts and cc and buffs and debuffs and not standing in the fire is really important actually in some cases more important than just dps. So if there was a very simple combat tracker
that kept tracke if interupts and stuns and avoiding damage. Which is in fact really important and would make better players cause players would be inclined to do more since they have performance report.
So if a class had the ability to cure poison and they were in a dungeoun that had monsters that poisoned then the amount of times that they used that ability would show up.
I'm hoping what players will be learning is how to synergize with each other's weapon abilities, adventurer abilities and augments. And I'm hoping every primary archetype has a group ability similar to the Summoner group summons.
I don't think we need to see the raw data for number of times cure poison was used. We will know if people need to be cured more often in any case - and then work out strategies to either avoid being poisoned or methods of curing poison more often. Even without a tool that calculates ability usage.
EQ2 is the only MMORPG I have played with real synchronization needed between classes in order to be most effective, and it made the game far better than it would have been otherwise. This is totally dependent on content.
Intrepid could make a mob (or many mobs) that have several poison effects that they use, but where one of them needs to be left on the player, while the other one needs to be cured quickly or the player dies.
Such content simply couldn't exist unless players have access to combat analysis, because players need to be able to understand anything out of the ordinary that may be thrown up against them. This again is my point - a combat tracker allows the developers options that wouldn't be viable without one, leading to them being able to make more varied - thus more engaging - content.
I mean, sure, Ashes could have simple, ordinary, boring content where a cure is a cure and everything is black and white - or it could try to have actual interesting content where players need to sometimes do something other than what they are normally required to do.
Just like we won't need to see the raw data from DPS meters/combat trackers to know the different types of effects of poison abilities from Adventurer archetypes.
We won't need a "combat tracker" to tell whether something is resistant to poison or resistant to a cure.
Players will figure that stuff out without a combat tracker. It's just not going to be instant, detailed analysis and assessment. And, yes, there will be more guesswork as assessments are made.
Without a combat tracker, developers can develop X.
With a combat tracker, developers can develop X, Y and Z.
If Y and Z are to be put in to the game, a combat tracker WILL be needed to defeat them, as they will be designed to be hard to defeat WITH a combat tracker.
On the other hand, if a combat tracker does not exist, Y and Z can not exist either as they would be impossible.
X could exist just fine with or without a combat tracker.
To some players, X is enough. They will see content X, see no combat tracker and wonder why anyone would want one.
To other players though, players like me, we will look at content X, and wonder where content Y and Z are.
An argument against a combat tracker is an argument against content Y and Z.
I don't think I can make it any more plain than this.
Edited to add; content X without a tracker and content Y and Z with one is slightly off scale. It should probably content making use of mechanics in the group x without a tracker, and literally group x! with one.
Lack of knowledge causes adds just as much to the toxic environment as not having one so just better to have one.
Some content is meant to be hard and perhaps even impossible if u are not willing to practise.
@noaani can u provide some practical examples of Y and Z where theyre not possible without ACT?
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
That is akin to saying that no one should need a tool for anything, that people should be able to do every thing without the aide of any thing.
Thing is, there are some thing people can do without tools, and some things people can ONLY do with the right tool.
I want you to try and post to this forum without the aide of a computational device.
You won't be able to do it. It is literally impossible. It's a stupid thing to even ask.
The fact that you can't do that doesn't make you stupid, all it means is that posting to this forum is not within the scope of what any human is able to do without the aide of a microchip. In this case, a computational device is what makes it possible for you to perform that simple task.
Now, when we consider that a combat tracker can simply be considered a computer to aide MMO players in a fight, it is easy (to me) to see how developers can create content that is out of the scope of a human to be able to manage without the aide of a combat tracker.
It isn't that the human is stupid, it is that the content is designed to be taken on with that aide. Indeed, and EQ2 (the MMO that ACT itself was first developed for) is a prime example of this.
EQ2 had encounters that weren't beaten until the last few weeks of an expansion - several times. It is the pinnacle of raid content that needs practice, patience and perfect execution - and yet it had ACT developed specifically for it.
The reason EQ2 had encounters that were truly hard is because the developers knew exactly what tools the players had access to, and devloped content that was difficult WITH THOSE TOOLS.
Sure.
An encounter that has a base balance to where it should last 25 minutes, with any one of 10 different varieties of adds spawning every 30 seconds, each of which needs to be dealt with in different ways - some CC'd, some only killed by healers, some only killed at range, some needing to be kept alive for 20 seconds but killed within 25 seconds, etc. Also, between the boss and adds, there are 15 different AE's to contend with, with different damage types, different shapes (cones, donuts etc), some with stuns, some with DoT's. Also, during this fight, there are various doodads (technical term) that need to be activated in various ways, occupying no less than 5 raid members at any given point of the encounter, and sometimes as many as 15. Additionally, the encounter will randomly teleport raid members to a different location - totally at random both in terms of which player and how often. Also, the DPS on the main encounter needs to be fairly steady - any fluctuation up or down and he will enter beast mode. Also, if any player gets below 30% mana it is an instant wipe for the raid - and one type of adds in the encounter has a mana drain that will drain 20% of the targets mana.
Thing is, any single mechanic you can think of can be dealt with by players without a combat tracker. However, developers can put more than one mechanic in an encounter, and all the good encounters have multiple mechanics to them. It is not that hard to create an encounter that literally has too much going on for people to be able to keep track of it all, but when players have a combat tracker, encounters that would otherwise be impossible really are the most fun.
A lot of what I am getting out of this debate is:
1) Group does content
2) Group checks ACT and determines the exact method for defeating encounter
3) Group tries encounter again and a) Wins, or b) starts over at (2).
To me that is not fun, nor does it prove the encounter would have been impossible.
To me that is a cheap way of playing
-"What type of damage did the raid boss do at 27 seconds?" Acid, check and prepare for that
-"What shape was the effect at 13 seconds?" Cone, check and prepare for that
-"Out of all the damage types, what was most effective?" Lightning, check and prepare for that
I don't see the point in planning out how to defeat this content and I don't think I need this to do it.
But, as a gamer, I am willing to try and fail multiple times and learn as I go.
I am not against ACT's, nor do I think my statements reflect any particular posters point of view on the matter. It just seems to me, imo, that the main purpose of the tracker is to not have to try harder, but plan better.
I am a try again and get better type. Others are a plan it out and do it right the first time types.
Even in a game where combat trackers are a thing, they aren't needed for the vast majority of content. It is usually only a half dozen or so encounters per content cycle that a competent raid would actually need to look at it to figure out what is going on.
I've yet to see any single group content in any game where a combat tracker is needed (though this is possible to create, should a developer wish to do so). It is this lack of *need* for a combat tracker for anything but the highest end content in games where developers know players have access to a tracker that makes me think that it is perfectly viable adding a combat tracker in to the game on the guild level - I've never seen a non-guild raid reach content where a combat tracker is actually needed.
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A well designed high end encounter in a game where combat trackers are a thing is like you are trying to decipher a code, and do a puzzle at the same time. You are trying to figure out what the developer wants you to do, but also trying to figure out a better way to do the encounter than what the developer had in mind - I've yet to see a complex raid encounter where I haven't seen at least three vastly different viable strategies to use on it.
This kind of thing isn't for everybody, which is why most raids only really rely on a small handful of people to actually do all of this groundwork on any specific encounter. When getting up to a complex encounter - one the raid is unable to kill on our first night against it - I usually task two or three people (which I try to rotate between those with an interest and aptitude in problem solving) with working out a few different things to try before next weeks attempt at the same thing.
In regards to your final statement, that's probably as true as anything could be. Some people are all about just trying and trying again - and within reason, I fit in to that category as well.
When I am in a raid that comes up to a new encounter, I'm happy to spend a few hours just pounding against it to see if we can kill it.
My thing is, if I am leading a raid of 40 people, and we come back to that encounter and spend another 3 hours trying and then trying again, that is 120 people/hours I have used up when I could have instead simply planned a bit better. We should have gathered enough info from the encounter the first night we went up against it to be able to come up with a finesse approach rather than a brute force approach.
To me, if there is planning that can be done before hand to make things go better on the night, it should be done.
However, that isn't really my argument for a combat tracker - my main argument for it is the fact that it opens up more content possibilities.
ACT is a QoL tool designed to make things easier, you even point that out urself when ure talking about raid preparation.
Leaving ACT out of the game does not limit what developers can create, it only means players need to outsmart the developers instead of reaching a certain dps.
Once again I can see a clear nudge in ur posts towards making the game easier through ACT.
Even the example u gave, claiming impossible without ACT seems very simple only requiring a little organizing.
The whole point of not having ACT is to shift the goal from quickly reaching the end into enjoying the journey.
If there is will, there is a way.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
There seem to be some basic concepts you fail or refuse to grasp here, the first and most important being that developers develop to the ability of players and player characters.
A combat tracker adds to player ability, and so developers develop with that in mind.
Your insistence that they don't is puzzling. It's like you think the developers of a game sit in a locked room and just pump out content without giving a thought to who is to take it on, and what they have at their disposal. If these developers don't look at what tools are available, what else do they not look at? Number of people expected to take on the content? level of content? Expected gear of characters taking it one? Expected class mix?
Hell, good developers even take in to account what type of wiki the community may have developed for the game when designing quests and such.
If you think the developers of a product that cost tens of millions of dollars to make don't think about these things, and take them all (including available tools) in to account when designing content for the game, then I'm really not sure how to respond to that without insult - but I will say that such a notion is a direct insult to those developers.
If you try and raid in any game that has a combat tracker developed for it, but don't use that combat tracker, you will not get far. This is because the content in that game (at least at the top end) is designed to need it. It isn't a QoL tool, it is a requirement. Developers saw that players have them, and so in order to still challenge players, they develop content with it in mind.
Now, to be fair, I don't think you actually believe developers don't develop based on what players and payer characters can do. I think you are far too smart to actually believe that. What I think is that you just don't want to see a combat tracker in Ashes, and are trying really hard to make it seem like they are just for lazy players, rather than being an integral part of the higher end raiding scene.
Your last sentence is really interesting. If there is will, there is way. There is already a combat tracker in development for Ashes because there is the will for it. It will be GW2 all over again if Intrepid aren't careful.
Clear and obvious buffs debuffs enrages and game mechanics does not mean less fun just less complicated and more people would be apt to raid.
But another option is somethig telling you why died. League of Legends has that and expresses it in bars graphs not numbers do not think something like that would have any toxic effect that I can see.
Almost all games have them, usually as entry level encounters to a specific type of content (entry level group content, entry level raid content etc).
Thing is, games move on from there really quickly, because it doesn't take players long to master those encounters. If a developer didn't move on past those base encounters, it would leave the game with almost no variety in encounters.
while those individual encounters may be fun the first dozen or so times, when you are up against 10 encounters a week that use the same base mechanic simply because there are only a half dozen base mechanics, then the whole game is boring, not just the encounter.
I hope you know - as I know - that repeating yourself is not going to be any more convincing.
I understand what you're saying. We disagree on what we want in the game.
Nothing I post here is intended to bring clarity to you or to try to convince you to change your mind.
Where we do agree is that players will make mods for DPS meters and combat trackers in any case.
Apparently, the Ashes devs have thought about this, consider DPS meters and combat trackers to be a type of QoL that they don't want Ashes players to have and have chosen not to include them in their game.
I actaully got trolled more for not having the cookie cutter set up more than anything else in the game. Not while doing pve content cause dps was acceptable just anyone that clcked on my toon and checked out my gear and set up.
More important to know how to -and be able to- support and synergize with your teammates' combat tactics and abilties.
Both of these mechanics in their core lead players to reach the end as soon as possible and are designed for saving time.
I see developers having a choice regarding their content. They have to choose between having content that has a gear cap and when that is overcome the dungeon is basically finished
Then there is the second method, they create content that could take months to solve as players would struggle finding optimal dps builds and mechanics to help them bypass that dps cap.
Ashes team seems to be going for the latter.
That way they enable the possibility for more meaningful content, which seems to be one of the foundation pillars of this game.. When was the last time u had to ask how someone got an cool item in a game? When was the last time u fought a boss that u didnt hold self-evident to beat?
Even if someone created a 3rd party ACT for Ashes, it would never have reliable data.
You could maybe test ur dps on a dummy, but then it wouldnt be valid in raiding situations. They could have it read dmg numbers, ashes could force the screen to show everyones damage numbers or hide them completely and the program wouldnt work or it would be too unreliable to be used as a guideline.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther