Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
If it affects the game for everyone by making it easily exploited, offering an advantage to one side over another, it's not just about preference.
It's about you getting an advantage.
And it's about lazy design.
We've been over this several times but you don't give a shit about anyone else.
I was also speaking broadly to the calcified posture and response from many veteran MMO players to every suggestion that is outside of their highly limited scope.
No sense of the bigger picture. No room for anything.
Due to the fact that Ashes of Creation won't be and never will be a pay to win game, i think that DPS meters would be redundant. I don't think you will see a high end geared player that does not know how to play their class properly or perform poorly. This is the case in all the pay to win games, where a player would just buy his way to epic gear but he doesn't know how to play his character properly due to lack of experience actually playing the character and going trough the grinding proccess to obtain his gear.
You, as a guild or raid leader should be experienced enough to be able to tell if a certain individuals gear is sufficient enough for a certain raid and should not rely on a number that a DPS meter says.
DPS meters are a good tool for an individual, but they actually hurt the game in a long run and should not exist in any mmorpg. A good leader is observant and relies on his leadership skills and not on a number that a DPS meter says. We live in an erra where all the information is just handed to us and we got spoiled by it, instead of working hard towards our common goal together. Some Leaders NEED the information to be handed to them, but some Leaders work very hard to get the same positive outcome.
DPS meters create unnecessary tensions between players and also creates a room for a guild of pure dominance over another guild/raid/player/siege, etc...
This is not going to be a popular comment, but i really don't care because i am making a valid point here.
If you fail to complete a content, use your own brain to analyse what went wrong, make adjustments and try again.
This is a case of "use what you got and get me some results" type of a thing.
If anyone needs further explanation on why DPS meters shouldn't exist in a MMORPG, there are a few videos about it on YouTube.
If i insulted anyone with this comment, i apologize. It was never my intention to hurt your feelings (or your ego).
EDIT: I would also like to say that i will not reply to any toxic retaliation to my comment. I have made my point loud and clear on why DPS meters should not exist in any mmorpg. Some people just can't perform well without using one, but this shouldn't be a whole communitys problem knowing that there are people that can't think for themselves and can't properly lead without something like a DPS meter.
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
No, you've mentioned the above a few times, but never backed anything up. "Going over" would suggest a discussion on it, not you just baselessly asserting something and not actually providing any reasoning.
First point, there is nothing to exploit. You've said this a few times tried to tie combat trackers in to botters and scripts, but have not given any solid reason as to why this is true.
You've even had people that have run scripts in some MMO's (including but not limited to myself) explain to you outright that using a combat tracker for this is pointless and a waste of time.
Second point, if it is in the game, no one is getting an unfair advantage over anyone else. As a claim, this is literally no different to saying that if I have better gear than you and use it against you, I have an unfair advantage.
On the other hand, NOT having it in the game will give people like myself an unfair advantage - because people like you probably wouldn't be able to even find a working tracker for Ashes.
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
I think you are looking at this discussion from the perspective of a combat tracker only being a DPS measuring tool.
That is not the case, and I am of the opinion that Steven named this thread the way he did on purpose to skew the discussion away from full combat trackers (which is what the discussion has always been about - long before this thread was created). DPS meters do indeed have something of a negative connotation to them due to their one dimensional nature, and I believe Steven purposely used that to manipulate this discussion, at least somewhat.
However, this discussion is about combat trackers.
As probably the biggest proponent for combat trackers on these forums, I actually agree with your post if we were limiting our discussion to just DPS meters. I actually dont see much of a point to them at all.
However, a full combat tracker has uses outside of measuring just DPS, there are essentially four main uses for a combat tracker.
The first is measuring individual performance, as you have talked about above. This isnt necessarily must about whether a player is good enough or not, more often than not (in my experience) it is used for a player to measure their own improvement. A good MMO should have near infinite room for personal improvement for those that want to take that route.
The second use is understanding encounters. If an encounter is actually good, exactly what is going on wont be obvious at all. A good encounter is kind of like the developers creating a puzzle for players. A combat tracker allows you to see the picture on each piece, while not having a tracker essentially means the picture is hidden from you.
While it is possible to complete a puzzle with the picture hidden, if you look at such puzzles they are always smaller, less interesting and less popular than a regular puzzle where participants are able to see the picture as they are assembling.
Third, it allows players to compare. This could be items, it could be character builds, it could be group or raid builds - more likely, it will be combinations of all three.
Again talking about a good MMO, it should not always be immediately obvious which piece of gear out of two is best. A combat tracker will help you with this.
The last major use for a combat tracker is in checking developers work.
You may well look at some of the points above and go "just look at the tooltips on your abilities to see what an item does". For pure DPS, you may well think that is valid.
However, it is only valid if the information on tooltips is accurate. I have yet to play an MMO where tooltip information has always been accurate - and a combat tracker is the only viable way us players have to check that.
This last point is the most important in my opinion. To me, any developer wanting to prevent trackers in their game is doing so in order to hide something. There is something in their combat system they do not want players to find.
This is why actual thousands of potential players stepped away from looking at this game when Steven first mentioned they will not support trackers (along with giving him the message "fuck you", which I was lucky enough to deliver on their behalf). Those players simply assumed that if a developer didn't actively want their players to use trackers (not even talking about actually not wanting it), then that developer is clearly hiding something.
Since top end players do not trust MMO developers at all, that was all they needed to nope right out of the game.
This is something I have gone in to far more detail than I would want to go in.
A software developer can only prevent you from using tools that interact with their software.
Since combat trackers are generally stand alone applications, they cant do anything about it.
Further to this point, a combat tracker doesnt even need to be run while the game client is being run. It is perfectly viable to run a tracker after the fact - it is also viable to run it on a different computer to the one the game client is on. I am sure you would agree that software running on a totally different computer is out of the scope of any terms of service for any software.
Thank you for this great comment and for taking your time writing it.
All i have to say about it is that i am a big supporter of playing a game in a way the game was intended to be played. If the developers want me to explore the content, i will explore the content by reading and observing the information the game is giving us. If developers don't want something to be completely obvious (like what piece of gear is better, etc...) then i am fine with that because i am prepared to experiment with both pieces of gear to see which one performs better, or which one is better for my style of play. I used gear pieces just as an example but it applies to most, if not all of the content.
But this is just my personal view on the matter.
If Intrepid Studios decide to not include a combat tracker, then "yaay" for me and anyone who shares the same opinion.
If they decide to include combat tracker in the game, i will use it because you can't be and stay competitive without using one when other competitive players do.
Again, thank you for the awsome comment!
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
Yep, i completely agree. But as you mentioned before, they are not completely accurate. In some cases they are straight up terrible xD
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
You seem to be familiar with them and at the same time happy to being terrible.
You don't miss them?
I actually don't. I use them only when they are needed to stay competitive due to everyone else using them. And even when i do actually use them, there are times when i don't believe or trust what a tracker is telling me.
EDIT: im talking about a 3rd party trackers here
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
@Aerlana this
It is in game tool tips that are often wrong.
I have yet to see a combat tracker Produce data that is wrong.
A combat tracker generally uses the actual data that the game uses to process combat. A simple explanation of this is that the server has the value of a mobs HP stored, and then when a player attacks, the resulting amount of damage is sent to the appropriate clients at the same time it is removed from that HP pool. As such, trackers use the actual data the game uses.
Tool tips, however, are almost always manually entered. If not a final value, then a formula. Obviously, this is open to human error, and the only way to catch it that I have seen in 20 years playing MMO's is for players to have better data on hand than the tool tips provide.
This essentially places anyone wanting to be competitive in to a position where they have no real choice but to use one.
To me, the best solution then is for Intrepid to provide one, rather than relying on third party tools.
Edit: if there were to be a question here, it would be " if you found that you had to use a tracker, would you rather a third party one, or one Intrepid add to the game then self?"
To me, that really is the only question.
What could they hide?
The only thing I imagine they can hide is that the NPCs will cheat.
The wiki already talks about "new AI technology that hasn't been seen in other MMORPG projects.[3]"
They have no idea how good players are. But they are sure they can make the raid such that "A single digit percentage of the population will be capable of defeating certain content.[9]"
And probably not because they really don't want to let players win. But because once they win, players want drops, not much RNG involved, like having to win 100 times to get one drop.
Look at FFXIV and tanking. That was poor development.
Some developers dont like it when their players point out their mistakes. It doesnt matter how big or small that mistake is, they just dont like it.
Other developers like it when this happens, as it gives them an opportunity to make the game better, and offers them the ability to become better developers by working out how said mistake happened, and endeavouring to prevent it happening again.
They call it "new AI technology". I bet those birds which failed to fly away during the stream yesterday were already bored by the many rehearsals
Ok, i see better.
I don't play lot puzzle game, but not "never". recently redid the old first trilogy monkey island. or the first sam&max (point&click can have the puzzle game feeling i think)
Also, the puzzle is more or less "true" metaphore in my opinion depending on the fight design :
FFXIV, fight are totally extremly puzzles. I am able to know what comes next just based on where i am on my skill rotation... It is also true for wow, but less : the skill rotation is replaced by CDs, but also the fights are slightly more RNG (mainly on who has to do things, and who not.)
While the chaotic fight design, where bosses have a set of skills and use them randomly, you are not really in a puzzle fight, or lot of small puzzles.
And if there was one game where high end bored me, was FFXIV, i stayed because the static was really good friend, and also enjoyed a lot spending time helping all who wanted in FC to kill each bosses and help them to improve on the game itself (not just "here is strategy, yay gg" ) While i hate the global game design of Lost Ark, and the management from Amazon (Free summoner è_é ) because the fight are far more interesting and even the mastered fight can be interesting for training to... master it even more (impossible on FFXIV)
For people who want the skill to prevail, more than fighting trackers (that has nearly no impact on it...) they should mainly ask for fight to be on chaotic design. (with few scripted, for wipe-mechanics which would be really tricky to do)
I don't understand people saying tracker are making fight easier... it makes people stronger (better knowledge of the game and the class) It can help to find out strategy sure (sometime some boss abilities are hard to understand, and the data can add usefull hints) but it is less a problem in chaotic design : after learning to do all mini puzzle, you have to keep your attention all along the fight because you can never predict what happen next (while on FFXIV/WoW..; you have strategy, you just follow the music sheet and is fine)
I don't think games allow infinite room for improvement.
I know speed runners find better ways to defeat records in games and this happens over decades.
But normal players cannot invest that much effort and time. They rather start over on a new mmo.
If trackers speed up the discovery process, that reduces the time players spend in the game, isn't it?
What will keep the players in game when they have top gear?
Node advancement, guild conflict, empire expansion, claiming or holding their Castle. That's the intent for Ashes, anyway.
Players who like that and would pay subscription 2-3 years for this activity, might not need difficult raids and whatever drops from there.
What % of players should do this vs raids?
They'd use it for builds though. Also, not that I'm saying that Ashes will reach this level of gameplay, but I'll give a simple example of how this works in PvP.
So, in a specific situation in Alpha-1 (balance of Alpha-1 was known to be basically not a priority), you could win fights using a specific interaction of Tank's abilities and Cleric's. The problem, is that unless you can see everyone's damage, and I mean quite precisely, you couldn't even tell what the interaction was doing, to execute the thing (or your enemies).
The effect was quite powerful, but relied on a 5 frame window to 'hit confirm' from the Cleric's side, then the Tank activating something else on reaction with another short (I didn't measure this one) frame window. I'm only saying that for PvP players, 'practicing that' can keep them invested for years regardless of their gear because the gear isn't the thing causing it to work, but you still end up 'watching replays' to check it.
Does this require a meter? No, but that's not the derail we're currently on.
tl;dr some games allow for a 'peak human' level of improvement by front-loading the requirements and understanding, which generally means that the player UNDERSTANDS the game quickly, and then practices it for fun for a long time.
In THAT game design type, the faster you can get EVERYONE through the front-loaded part, the better. So the Tracker would be pulling double duty. Helping people hit the ground running for understanding of how to play in the most effective way according to their style, and then 'helping them if they reach the top, where there is too much going on for a normal person to track'.
If anything, I'd say normal players not having so much time to invest is a stronger argument FOR Trackers than against it. Not by much, but it CAN be that way.
So you say players who would use trackers will play the game longer and also take part in the node related activities, crafting, caravan runs, sieges, politics... ?
Obviously there'll be exceptions to that kind of rule on both ends of the spectrum though.
I obviously can't speak for them all, but frankly... yes.
Of course, I again note that this is only true if the bulk of what is needed to 'git gud' is easy enough to understand or figure out early into a build, or early into synergizing with a group. If the game's INTENTION is to 'hide' what is required for strong play, that would lead to the opposite outcomes, and I think in that case a Tracker would be detrimental.
But based on the psychology of most competitive players I understand (and there's actually a lot of overlap between fighting gamers/MOBA players and 'competitive' MMO players now, I know this from personal discussion with some as well as, well... myself I guess?) the more background you give them to enjoy their battles, the more they will engage with those systems and improve.
It's the sort of person who wants to WIN more than they want to COMPETE that 'ditches a game to a new one' easily (assuming the game's design isn't innately frustrating).
That should convince Steven to allow them, isn't it?
From what I understand the leveling progression of ones class will be very slow in Ashes, and it isn't the only source of progression a player could have. Open PVP for instance can happen against players of varying levels, and it isn't like every dungeon/raid instance is going to be the same level, and neither will the open instance dungeons. The only time DPS meters would start to make sense is at endgame but by that point everyone will be at a different level of gear and playstyle.
In addition its hard to measure classes that take on a buff/nontrinity role within the game. How are DPS meters going to treat bards as they buff everyone but themselves? How will summoners be treated when they are mostly specced into buffing pets into trinity roles. These are all minor factors but they can all add up.
Basically, if we get a DPS meter, but the DPS meters are always inaccurate due to level and class differences with the expected numbers of "Good DPS" being widely ranging, is it worth even having one in the game? I would love to have one, but if say my 10k DPS on a lvl 30 summoner seems good but a ranger at lvl 20 can pop 15k DPS, how am I suppose to compare when there are so many differences?
As a Bard, this is the main purpose of a Combat Tracker (mostly nobody in this thread cares about "DPS Meters" that only show one's DPS, that's just malicious naming by Steven). It helps you determine how effective your support actions are, how they affect the states and effectiveness of your group, and where your group might be struggling in somewhat less obvious ways, so you can see whether your group might do better if you went for a buff type instead, as well as helping you identify what went wrong four or five steps back that later resulted in a wipe. The point is "analyze this complex, detailed, fast paced combat experience, and help us understand the subtle interactions and find ways to improve". "Show me my DPS numbers" is not what most people are here for.
It shouldnt convince them if they have a good reason to not allow them, but they dont have a good reason to not allow them.
The reason they initially gave us has been outright debunked as being utterly untrue.
So, if faced with implementing something that will see your more invested players happier, and that you have no valid reason to not include, there isnt really much of a reasonable argument to be made.
Edit to add; in regards to your question as to if people using trackers play the game longer, and participate in all the different aspects of the game, as has been said above, yes.
The notion that top end raiders only participate in top end content is false. Top end content is what attracts us to a game - we literally pick a game solely based on its top end content.
However, once committed to a game, the bulk of top end raiders (some exceptions, obviously) participate in literally every aspect of the game. Most top end raiders I know maintain 2 or 3 accounts in their game of choice - different people have different reasons in different games - but most do it so they can participate in the game as a whole.
If you look over this thread as a single entity, you'll notice that the people that are all for trackers are the ones trying to be inclusive. That is because we want the game as varied as it can be, with as many different people playing it as possible - and we want this because we expect to experience the bulk of the game.
On the other hand, those against trackers are generally being exclusionary. They only want people "like them" playing the game, because they are more likely to only experience portions of the game.
Onviously, as with anything when talking about people and motivation and personality and such, hmthere are the occasional exception.
NiKr is someone against trackers that I expect to experience much of the game. A few people I know are all for trackers, but if they play Ashes they are only likely to see leveling and top end content.
However, the bulk of people fit in to my above descriptions - and this thread is 170+ pages of proof of that.
As far as I am concerned, THAT is a reason Intrepid should implement first party trackers.
Ok not going to spend a lot of time on this but to break it down:
- Whether or not you pay for gear and go to the top that way or grind your way up, I've seen bad players in both regards. Literally has nothing to do with either and certainly nothing to do with a dps meter.
- If you read my post you quoted I said I've been doing this for 15-20 years...that would be before dps meters were really a thing all the way back in Everquest. I've done it the "figure it out" way. I've done it the partial way with some data. I've done it where we have every nugget of information. I prefer the middle one honestly where I have some data to go off but would rather not know the entire fight going in...again has nothing do with a dps meter...and unavoidable as someone somewhere will post the information online that will be read and spread.
- This is almost a political discussion because it isn't the dps meters that are the issue, it's the people that use them with toxic intentions, the tool themselves...or at least w/e reads the combat logs...are overall good regardless. So it's not so much should dps meters be a thing as much as should the use of them in a toxic manner be a reportable offense because why would we want those types in game anyway?
So in reference to your "leader" stabbing, it is silly not to offer more data....This isn't 20+ years ago.