I decided to check out the forums, why is there a 176 page discussion on a dps meter? lol.
Why would there be a discussion on having more info? Don't want to use one, then don't. Don't want to be held to one, don't group with people that will. Pretty simple lol.
I guess I should add to this, as a raid/guild leader of 15-20 years now....we NEED information...the more information the better. You don't have to join a guild, group, etc with people who are going to hold you to it. But a game without information, especially at the top end and harder difficult things...will be a mess. Best example these days being warcraft logs in combination with something like wow analyzer so I can see how people are performing, what is being missed mechanics wise, and what we can do to improve each attempt to actually complete the content.
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.
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.
That should convince Steven to allow them, isn't it?
Correlation doesn't exactly mean causation. People can still be super invested even w/o trackers. And those who care enough about trackers to never play a game w/o them might've not even gotten interested in the game in the first place, if the content didn't match their standard for what it should be to warrant a deep tracker use.
So you are the exception to the two rules you mentioned?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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... ?
As I see it, if you're using a tracker in any capacity - you're invested enough in the game to do everything else too. And if you're super casual who barely does anything in the game, you'd probably not be using any trackers.
Obviously there'll be exceptions to that kind of rule on both ends of the spectrum though.
That should convince Steven to allow them, isn't it?
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.
Yes, unless as you said before, they have something they want to hide. Like not being able to make the content good/interesting enough, if trackers are used (poor development).
Or something else. My assumption is that NPCs will cheat. Could be the same thing.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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.
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... ?
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 means the raids will be very hard and let a very small % to defeat those bosses to push away fast "the sort of person who wants to WIN more than they want to COMPETE"
What is your assumption, why the game has the intention to hide what is required for strong play, hence ruling trackers not allowed?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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... ?
As I see it, if you're using a tracker in any capacity - you're invested enough in the game to do everything else too. And if you're super casual who barely does anything in the game, you'd probably not be using any trackers.
Obviously there'll be exceptions to that kind of rule on both ends of the spectrum though.
That should convince Steven to allow them, isn't it?
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.
Yes, unless as you said before, they have something they want to hide. Like not being able to make the content good/interesting enough, if trackers are used (poor development).
Or something else. My assumption is that NPCs will cheat. Could be the same thing.
NPC's generally have their own rules anyway. They cant really cheat.
However, Intrepid trying to hide something is the only thing left that makes sense to me.
As far as I am concerned, THAT is a reason Intrepid should implement first party trackers.
Did any game implemented first party trackers or would AoC be the first one to do that?
In terms of an MMORPG, I can't think of any (I am not intimately familiar with every MMO ever launched).
However, it is not at all uncommon for developers to work with people that make trackers to ensure third party tools work well.
One of the main reasons I actually want Intrepid to implement a tracker in to the game is because it is the only thing that MMO developers have not yet done - to my knowledge. All we need to do to see how things will go in Ashes (in regards to trackers) is to look at games that took a similar stance to what Intrepid are taking.
Conversely, we can look at tracker policy in other games, and determine what Intrepid need to do to achieve that same end result. If we want a different result to what has happened in other games, we need to start off with a different policy.
So you are the exception to the two rules you mentioned?
I'm already mega invested and gonna be a time-hardcore player that's gonna go for gameplay-hardcore stuff soon enough, but I'm against trackers because I think they speed up content consumption while also making said content so difficult that any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it. Or at least that's how it seems to me after discussing this topic in this thread.
So considering that, I think I'm an exception to some part of the things I said, but that's just cause "I'm not like other girls "
"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). "
"fuck you" too
All you do is pay lip service to shit that's important then gloss over everything that actually confronts your position and what you're saying.
Words are easy to ignore I guess!
Remove Logs. Remove Numbers. Remove Tooltips. Remove the Arbitrary Mechanics.
So you are the exception to the two rules you mentioned?
I'm already mega invested and gonna be a time-hardcore player that's gonna go for gameplay-hardcore stuff soon enough, but I'm against trackers because I think they speed up content consumption while also making said content so difficult that any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it. Or at least that's how it seems to me after discussing this topic in this thread.
So considering that, I think I'm an exception to some part of the things I said, but that's just cause "I'm not like other girls "
Why "any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it"?
If those who beat it first share the information, would that not be enough to help the others too?
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
Why "any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it"?
If those who beat it first share the information, would that not be enough to help the others too?
In time yeah, maybe. But as Noaani said about some EQ2 content, people didn't share any info about it until they had their fill with it.
And some people might be like me and would want to clear that content w/o a tracker, but, due to devs developing content around tracker use, it'd be almost impossible to do so.
Why "any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it"?
If those who beat it first share the information, would that not be enough to help the others too?
In time yeah, maybe. But as Noaani said about some EQ2 content, people didn't share any info about it until they had their fill with it.
And some people might be like me and would want to clear that content w/o a tracker, but, due to devs developing content around tracker use, it'd be almost impossible to do so.
To be almost impossible to do so, first they have to notice that the content is too easy for some players.
Maybe they'll manipulate the RNG of dropped materials instead. This would be needed if there is a fixed max difficulty.
But wiki states:
The difficulty of PvE content, such as raids and dungeons will adapt based on the performance of the raid or group against previous bosses in that encounter.[17]
So it might be possible that you will defeat the raid too, even if you do more mistakes.
And you will never know that you had a lower performance than Noaani.
The mental/skill effort might be the same if the auto-scaling works well.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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.
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... ?
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 means the raids will be very hard and let a very small % to defeat those bosses to push away fast "the sort of person who wants to WIN more than they want to COMPETE"
What is your assumption, why the game has the intention to hide what is required for strong play, hence ruling trackers not allowed?
I don't have any assumption. That whole thing was said so long ago that it's quite possible that they didn't know exactly what it meant, or didn't know what the game would be like.
Making claims about how many people you plan to have winning against your content very early into development is not necessarily meaningful.
I think that if Intrepid's stance on Meters/Trackers has changed, then their 'best' option is to take the FFXIV route. I do not LIKE this because I consider it manipulative, but for the health of the game and happiness of the most players, I think focusing on the actual gameplay and balance will resolve any problems with Trackers and toxicity much more than 'trying to stop Trackers and Parsers'.
I don't think they were 'hiding' anything because I feel that at the time that statement was made, there wasn't enough of anything designed to 'hide' yet'.
I've also said that if they make 'not very hard' content, it will still achieve their goal. If they make a lot of open world content, the same thing will happen. There are lots of ways to design the game so that their comments about raids are true, the only difference will be that it has nothing to do with the complexity of the raid content itself relative to what 'top end raiders' expect. I've heard multiple times that most people don't care about that, so I am interested to see if a game like this that has no top-end raiding scene actually succeeds (if that's the path they take).
So it might be possible that you will defeat the raid too, even if you do more mistakes.
And you will never know that you had a lower performance than Noaani.
The mental/skill effort might be the same if the auto-scaling works well.
Information gets around so if someone sees a new piece of gear, they'll try learning where it came from. And if they learn that it comes from a boss that a lot of people have beaten but never gotten - people will assume that it came from the "top lvl clear" drop table. So I think that the result of clearing a boss at top speeds will be known, but not the way to do it. Though I might be wrong, especially depending on how Intrepid design loot tables.
So it might be possible that you will defeat the raid too, even if you do more mistakes.
And you will never know that you had a lower performance than Noaani.
The mental/skill effort might be the same if the auto-scaling works well.
Information gets around so if someone sees a new piece of gear, they'll try learning where it came from. And if they learn that it comes from a boss that a lot of people have beaten but never gotten - people will assume that it came from the "top lvl clear" drop table. So I think that the result of clearing a boss at top speeds will be known, but not the way to do it. Though I might be wrong, especially depending on how Intrepid design loot tables.
Ah but then you're back to the Top Guild behaviour type.
"If they learn that it comes from a boss--"
If.
The Internet age is powerful, but only as powerful as the strife between top guild members. If they are united, you'll be at the 2b2t scale of 'information flow'.
So it might be possible that you will defeat the raid too, even if you do more mistakes.
And you will never know that you had a lower performance than Noaani.
The mental/skill effort might be the same if the auto-scaling works well.
Information gets around so if someone sees a new piece of gear, they'll try learning where it came from. And if they learn that it comes from a boss that a lot of people have beaten but never gotten - people will assume that it came from the "top lvl clear" drop table. So I think that the result of clearing a boss at top speeds will be known, but not the way to do it. Though I might be wrong, especially depending on how Intrepid design loot tables.
Wiki said that certain legendary items will be unique and only after the owner leaves the server (stops playing), that item will be introduced into the game. So players when they see that item, might also assume that they will never get a similar one and they'll get only materials.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
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.
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... ?
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 means the raids will be very hard and let a very small % to defeat those bosses to push away fast "the sort of person who wants to WIN more than they want to COMPETE"
What is your assumption, why the game has the intention to hide what is required for strong play, hence ruling trackers not allowed?
I don't have any assumption. That whole thing was said so long ago that it's quite possible that they didn't know exactly what it meant, or didn't know what the game would be like.
Making claims about how many people you plan to have winning against your content very early into development is not necessarily meaningful.
I think that if Intrepid's stance on Meters/Trackers has changed, then their 'best' option is to take the FFXIV route. I do not LIKE this because I consider it manipulative, but for the health of the game and happiness of the most players, I think focusing on the actual gameplay and balance will resolve any problems with Trackers and toxicity much more than 'trying to stop Trackers and Parsers'.
I don't think they were 'hiding' anything because I feel that at the time that statement was made, there wasn't enough of anything designed to 'hide' yet'.
Why is the FFXIV route manipulative? I know about it only what people said here on the forum which is possibly a distorted view.
I've also said that if they make 'not very hard' content, it will still achieve their goal. If they make a lot of open world content, the same thing will happen. There are lots of ways to design the game so that their comments about raids are true, the only difference will be that it has nothing to do with the complexity of the raid content itself relative to what 'top end raiders' expect. I've heard multiple times that most people don't care about that, so I am interested to see if a game like this that has no top-end raiding scene actually succeeds (if that's the path they take).
I think the complexity of the raid is what brings the fun for those who use trackers and see the raid as a puzzle. Those who don't use trackers maybe they do not have an as refined feeling about this aspect.
Is that what you mean when you say that you "heard multiple times that most people don't care about that"?
I think that the game has to retain the players based on the other activities which SongRune mentioned:
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.
And those activities are the same even if everybody has one tier lower gear, crafted by artisans.
This can happen anyway if resources will be scarce and repairing the top gear will not be possible at the rate players fight.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
1. I don't care about Trackers in Ashes and I don't intend to use one.
(Combat log availability is important to me, and I don't want to have no option to download it, but I'm a programmer who is on a Linux distro most of the time, the things that people consider 'Parsers' or 'scripts' are single-line commands to me, which is why I'm so concerned about what exactly their policy is)
2. I hope to play Ashes for all those reasons more than I care about the Raid content at all, personally.
But that leads into two additional conclusions.
I lose some of my desire to play Ashes if good gear and good builds are 'locked' behind stuff that the players who DO still use Trackers will definitely get first. And in my opinion, this WILL happen.
Secondly, if the combat/'puzzle-challenge' isn't great, then gathering up 6-8 players to go out into the world and fight mobs won't be interesting or challenging and then my interest in the game would fade and I'd wish I was using a Tracker just so I could find something interesting to do or learn. Skirmishing with other players is fine, right up to the point where you're losing because their gear or builds are much better... because they're using Trackers.
If somehow Intrepid avoids all those things, great.
My point is that, the situation as we currently predict it would have a considerably lower potential for retention of ME as a player. The prediction is based on a lot of priors and understanding of 'how trackers/bots/parsers work' and 'How often you can catch someone using them'. If Intrepid really does figure out a way to 'prevent the three basic steps I know would lead to parsers', then the prediction would not mean anything.
1. I don't care about Trackers in Ashes and I don't intend to use one.
(Combat log availability is important to me, and I don't want to have no option to download it, but I'm a programmer who is on a Linux distro most of the time, the things that people consider 'Parsers' or 'scripts' are single-line commands to me, which is why I'm so concerned about what exactly their policy is)
2. I hope to play Ashes for all those reasons more than I care about the Raid content at all, personally.
But that leads into two additional conclusions.
I lose some of my desire to play Ashes if good gear and good builds are 'locked' behind stuff that the players who DO still use Trackers will definitely get first. And in my opinion, this WILL happen.
Secondly, if the combat/'puzzle-challenge' isn't great, then gathering up 6-8 players to go out into the world and fight mobs won't be interesting or challenging and then my interest in the game would fade and I'd wish I was using a Tracker just so I could find something interesting to do or learn. Skirmishing with other players is fine, right up to the point where you're losing because their gear or builds are much better... because they're using Trackers.
If somehow Intrepid avoids all those things, great.
My point is that, the situation as we currently predict it would have a considerably lower potential for retention of ME as a player. The prediction is based on a lot of priors and understanding of 'how trackers/bots/parsers work' and 'How often you can catch someone using them'. If Intrepid really does figure out a way to 'prevent the three basic steps I know would lead to parsers', then the prediction would not mean anything.
Being a programmer and having all that knowledge about how trackers work can you not make an algorithm to distinguish between those who use trackers and those who don't?
Assume you are the one who creates the raid content.
September 12. 2022: Being naked can also be used to bring a skilled artisan to different freeholds... Don't summon family!
1. I don't care about Trackers in Ashes and I don't intend to use one.
(Combat log availability is important to me, and I don't want to have no option to download it, but I'm a programmer who is on a Linux distro most of the time, the things that people consider 'Parsers' or 'scripts' are single-line commands to me, which is why I'm so concerned about what exactly their policy is)
2. I hope to play Ashes for all those reasons more than I care about the Raid content at all, personally.
But that leads into two additional conclusions.
I lose some of my desire to play Ashes if good gear and good builds are 'locked' behind stuff that the players who DO still use Trackers will definitely get first. And in my opinion, this WILL happen.
Secondly, if the combat/'puzzle-challenge' isn't great, then gathering up 6-8 players to go out into the world and fight mobs won't be interesting or challenging and then my interest in the game would fade and I'd wish I was using a Tracker just so I could find something interesting to do or learn. Skirmishing with other players is fine, right up to the point where you're losing because their gear or builds are much better... because they're using Trackers.
If somehow Intrepid avoids all those things, great.
My point is that, the situation as we currently predict it would have a considerably lower potential for retention of ME as a player. The prediction is based on a lot of priors and understanding of 'how trackers/bots/parsers work' and 'How often you can catch someone using them'. If Intrepid really does figure out a way to 'prevent the three basic steps I know would lead to parsers', then the prediction would not mean anything.
Being a programmer and having all that knowledge about how trackers work can you not make an algorithm to distinguish between those who use trackers and those who don't?
Assume you are the one who creates the raid content.
No, you cannot.
I don't know if you're going to ask me 'why', and I don't mind explaining it if you do (this thread is basically almost the Off-Topic forum sometimes), but understand that it would take a LONG time to explain it, and you'd have to spend most of your time 'accepting things I say as true even if they go against your intuition'. Because it's a complex subject.
If you mean from the side of 'can you check if a person is consistently better than others', sure. But unfortunately, ESPECIALLY in a mostly Tab-Target game, that does not tell you anything about how they got there, so you'd just be 'targeting people who are naturally too good'.
If that happens, I won't have to worry about it because there's a good chance that Ashes would take action against me anyway even if I never use a Tracker.
"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). "
"fuck you" too
All you do is pay lip service to shit that's important then gloss over everything that actually confronts your position and what you're saying.
Words are easy to ignore I guess!
Remove Logs. Remove Numbers. Remove Tooltips. Remove the Arbitrary Mechanics.
Make the Game Grounded.
The reason I "gloss over" your suggestions such as the above is because they aren't viable. There is no point in discussing what essentially amounts to your own personal fantasy.
All of those values that you are suggesting to have removed still need to exist. The game itself needs them to function. If those values are not to be found on the client at all, then we will get them from the server. This would be against the ToS (probably), but would still happen
In the process of removing those numbers though, you are making the game literally unplayable for the bulk of the potential playerbase. Players no longer have any means at all to tell if they are getting better or worse, no means at all of determining if one item is better or worse than another, no way of telling if one mob is easier or harder than another - even after killing them.
Basically, the game becomes a roll of the dice, but where you dont even know what you are rolling for, and dont see the result of said roll.
Basically, the top end segment of the game would be able to continue to play (via pulling data from the server), a small portion of people that are totally uninvested in the game and are just happy running around bashing things mindlessly would stay, but everyone between those two groups would leave within a matter of weeks (days, really).
This is why I didnt bother discussing this with you. It isnt worth discussing.
I see people moaning about not having a combat tracker included in the game and i know why that is. Most people would suck at the game.
"OHH there is no way of telling if im making any improvements without it" How about investing the actual time to figure out what you want to know about your progress?
This discussion is getting ridiculous because there will always be someone who will defend DPS meter or combat tracker in general, because they know they can't function without it. Snowflakes...
Im tired of this discussion so im not even going to bother participating in it anymore. Because i know what is coming... More snowflakes
I hope Intrepid Studios will not include a combat tracker or any form of DPS meter so i will get to read all the QQing in a form of "ohh im not going to play this game"
I see people moaning about not having a combat tracker included in the game
Right from that introduction, you are incorrect.
We are arguing that Intrepid should be bold and include one, but not moaning.
The argument is basically that players that want a tracker will have one, and that may create an uneven playing field. The only way for Intrepid to balance it out is to give everyone access to a tracker - and the only way to do that is to implement one in to the game.
You wont see all that "QQing" that you are looking forward to, because those of us that actually want a tracker will have one. This fact isnt really up for debate at this point, as we are already tracking combat from developer update videos.
---
I dont really consider it all that important to defend combat trackers. While they are misused in some situations in some games, all it means to me if someone thinks that misuse is the bulk of situations is that this player only played those few games, and was mostly in those situations.
This is basically LFG/LFR in WoW.
From there, if a poster can not see that the issue was actually the fact that the game treated players as disposable, and so players treated each other as disposable, then there is no way I can use logic to convince this person of anything. The fact that there are many games out there that allow trackers and where many player use them - yet that dont see those same issues at all - that is completely over the heads of these people, and so I see no value in trying to convince them.
I see people moaning about not having a combat tracker included in the game
Right from that introduction, you are incorrect.
We are arguing that Intrepid should be bold and include one, but not moaning.
The argument is basically that players that want a tracker will have one, and that may create an uneven playing field. The only way for Intrepid to balance it out is to give everyone access to a tracker - and the only way to do that is to implement one in to the game.
You wont see all that "QQing" that you are looking forward to, because those of us that actually want a tracker will have one. This fact isnt really up for debate at this point, as we are already tracking combat from developer update videos.
---
I dont really consider it all that important to defend combat trackers. While they are misused in some situations in some games, all it means to me if someone thinks that misuse is the bulk of situations is that this player only played those few games, and was mostly in those situations.
This is basically LFG/LFR in WoW.
From there, if a poster can not see that the issue was actually the fact that the game treated players as disposable, and so players treated each other as disposable, then there is no way I can use logic to convince this person of anything. The fact that there are many games out there that allow trackers and where many player use them - yet that dont see those same issues at all - that is completely over the heads of these people, and so I see no value in trying to convince them.
Well this is a comment that i can agree on. There is no need to discuss about it further because there will be a combat tracker for people that want it, if intrepid includes it or not.
I see people moaning about not having a combat tracker included in the game
Right from that introduction, you are incorrect.
We are arguing that Intrepid should be bold and include one, but not moaning.
The argument is basically that players that want a tracker will have one, and that may create an uneven playing field. The only way for Intrepid to balance it out is to give everyone access to a tracker - and the only way to do that is to implement one in to the game.
You wont see all that "QQing" that you are looking forward to, because those of us that actually want a tracker will have one. This fact isnt really up for debate at this point, as we are already tracking combat from developer update videos.
---
I dont really consider it all that important to defend combat trackers. While they are misused in some situations in some games, all it means to me if someone thinks that misuse is the bulk of situations is that this player only played those few games, and was mostly in those situations.
This is basically LFG/LFR in WoW.
From there, if a poster can not see that the issue was actually the fact that the game treated players as disposable, and so players treated each other as disposable, then there is no way I can use logic to convince this person of anything. The fact that there are many games out there that allow trackers and where many player use them - yet that dont see those same issues at all - that is completely over the heads of these people, and so I see no value in trying to convince them.
Well this is a comment that i can agree on. There is no need to discuss about it further because there will be a combat tracker for people that want it, if intrepid includes it or not.
If you feel no need to discuss it further, that's great. Some of the rest of us still do, however.
I do have two questions for you though, feel free to not bother answering if you like.
If trackers are going to exist in Ashes for anyone that wants to use them, would you consider it an unfair advantage if you lost to someone that uses one? I mean, it IS an advantage, the question is whether or not it is unfair.
Second, if you do consider it an unfair advantage, can you think of any better way for Intrepid to even that advantage out other than adding a combat tracker to the game? Keep in mind, trackers for Ashes are a given - we are looking for a solution that keeps this in mind.
I see people moaning about not having a combat tracker included in the game and i know why that is. Most people would suck at the game.
"OHH there is no way of telling if im making any improvements without it" How about investing the actual time to figure out what you want to know about your progress?
This discussion is getting ridiculous because there will always be someone who will defend DPS meter or combat tracker in general, because they know they can't function without it. Snowflakes...
Im tired of this discussion so im not even going to bother participating in it anymore. Because i know what is coming... More snowflakes
I hope Intrepid Studios will not include a combat tracker or any form of DPS meter so i will get to read all the QQing in a form of "ohh im not going to play this game"
I said this but they don't want to spend time, or use group communication. Noaani want tracker to do everything for them. Tell other [peoples skill use, how they are affected, their damage, healing, etc.
He says he isn't capable of communicating as a group to clear content in cells.
He says he isn't capable of communicating as a group to clear content in cells.
Show anyone where I said that.
A combat tracker isn't a substitute for communication within a group or raid. Your suggestion that it may be simply tells everyone that you don't know anything about how groups or raids actually function - my assumption is that you have never actually played an MMO, based on your apparent knowledge of them.
Worse than that, your assertion that I am saying that I don't or won't communicate with others in my group or raid tells everyone that you are more than willing to outright lie if you think it may further your cause. Our discussion has gone far past any point where you could make the honest mistake to think that I am saying this.
Honestly, that is what you are doing here - outright lying in order to try and further your position in an argument on the Internet.
Since they are your actions here, and since actions define the person, that is the kind of person you are.
If you wish to refute this point that the above is the kind of person you are, literally all you need to do is quote me where I said I would use a combat tracker in place of communication with players in my group or raid.
Comments
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.
So you are the exception to the two rules you mentioned?
Yes, unless as you said before, they have something they want to hide. Like not being able to make the content good/interesting enough, if trackers are used (poor development).
Or something else. My assumption is that NPCs will cheat. Could be the same thing.
That means the raids will be very hard and let a very small % to defeat those bosses to push away fast "the sort of person who wants to WIN more than they want to COMPETE"
What is your assumption, why the game has the intention to hide what is required for strong play, hence ruling trackers not allowed?
NPC's generally have their own rules anyway. They cant really cheat.
However, Intrepid trying to hide something is the only thing left that makes sense to me.
In terms of an MMORPG, I can't think of any (I am not intimately familiar with every MMO ever launched).
However, it is not at all uncommon for developers to work with people that make trackers to ensure third party tools work well.
One of the main reasons I actually want Intrepid to implement a tracker in to the game is because it is the only thing that MMO developers have not yet done - to my knowledge. All we need to do to see how things will go in Ashes (in regards to trackers) is to look at games that took a similar stance to what Intrepid are taking.
Conversely, we can look at tracker policy in other games, and determine what Intrepid need to do to achieve that same end result. If we want a different result to what has happened in other games, we need to start off with a different policy.
What would you want as a result of hiding some things?
Is your idea here to make it so trackers cant function at all?
So considering that, I think I'm an exception to some part of the things I said, but that's just cause "I'm not like other girls
"fuck you" too
All you do is pay lip service to shit that's important then gloss over everything that actually confronts your position and what you're saying.
Words are easy to ignore I guess!
Remove Logs. Remove Numbers. Remove Tooltips. Remove the Arbitrary Mechanics.
Make the Game Grounded.
Why "any non-tracker player would then have to use it to know how to beat it"?
If those who beat it first share the information, would that not be enough to help the others too?
And some people might be like me and would want to clear that content w/o a tracker, but, due to devs developing content around tracker use, it'd be almost impossible to do so.
To be almost impossible to do so, first they have to notice that the content is too easy for some players.
Maybe they'll manipulate the RNG of dropped materials instead. This would be needed if there is a fixed max difficulty.
But wiki states:
So it might be possible that you will defeat the raid too, even if you do more mistakes.
And you will never know that you had a lower performance than Noaani.
The mental/skill effort might be the same if the auto-scaling works well.
I don't have any assumption. That whole thing was said so long ago that it's quite possible that they didn't know exactly what it meant, or didn't know what the game would be like.
Making claims about how many people you plan to have winning against your content very early into development is not necessarily meaningful.
I think that if Intrepid's stance on Meters/Trackers has changed, then their 'best' option is to take the FFXIV route. I do not LIKE this because I consider it manipulative, but for the health of the game and happiness of the most players, I think focusing on the actual gameplay and balance will resolve any problems with Trackers and toxicity much more than 'trying to stop Trackers and Parsers'.
I don't think they were 'hiding' anything because I feel that at the time that statement was made, there wasn't enough of anything designed to 'hide' yet'.
I've also said that if they make 'not very hard' content, it will still achieve their goal. If they make a lot of open world content, the same thing will happen. There are lots of ways to design the game so that their comments about raids are true, the only difference will be that it has nothing to do with the complexity of the raid content itself relative to what 'top end raiders' expect. I've heard multiple times that most people don't care about that, so I am interested to see if a game like this that has no top-end raiding scene actually succeeds (if that's the path they take).
Ah but then you're back to the Top Guild behaviour type.
"If they learn that it comes from a boss--"
If.
The Internet age is powerful, but only as powerful as the strife between top guild members. If they are united, you'll be at the 2b2t scale of 'information flow'.
Wiki said that certain legendary items will be unique and only after the owner leaves the server (stops playing), that item will be introduced into the game. So players when they see that item, might also assume that they will never get a similar one and they'll get only materials.
I think the complexity of the raid is what brings the fun for those who use trackers and see the raid as a puzzle. Those who don't use trackers maybe they do not have an as refined feeling about this aspect.
Is that what you mean when you say that you "heard multiple times that most people don't care about that"?
I think that the game has to retain the players based on the other activities which SongRune mentioned:
And those activities are the same even if everybody has one tier lower gear, crafted by artisans.
This can happen anyway if resources will be scarce and repairing the top gear will not be possible at the rate players fight.
1. I don't care about Trackers in Ashes and I don't intend to use one.
(Combat log availability is important to me, and I don't want to have no option to download it, but I'm a programmer who is on a Linux distro most of the time, the things that people consider 'Parsers' or 'scripts' are single-line commands to me, which is why I'm so concerned about what exactly their policy is)
2. I hope to play Ashes for all those reasons more than I care about the Raid content at all, personally.
But that leads into two additional conclusions.
I lose some of my desire to play Ashes if good gear and good builds are 'locked' behind stuff that the players who DO still use Trackers will definitely get first. And in my opinion, this WILL happen.
Secondly, if the combat/'puzzle-challenge' isn't great, then gathering up 6-8 players to go out into the world and fight mobs won't be interesting or challenging and then my interest in the game would fade and I'd wish I was using a Tracker just so I could find something interesting to do or learn. Skirmishing with other players is fine, right up to the point where you're losing because their gear or builds are much better... because they're using Trackers.
If somehow Intrepid avoids all those things, great.
My point is that, the situation as we currently predict it would have a considerably lower potential for retention of ME as a player. The prediction is based on a lot of priors and understanding of 'how trackers/bots/parsers work' and 'How often you can catch someone using them'. If Intrepid really does figure out a way to 'prevent the three basic steps I know would lead to parsers', then the prediction would not mean anything.
Being a programmer and having all that knowledge about how trackers work can you not make an algorithm to distinguish between those who use trackers and those who don't?
Assume you are the one who creates the raid content.
No, you cannot.
I don't know if you're going to ask me 'why', and I don't mind explaining it if you do (this thread is basically almost the Off-Topic forum sometimes), but understand that it would take a LONG time to explain it, and you'd have to spend most of your time 'accepting things I say as true even if they go against your intuition'. Because it's a complex subject.
If you mean from the side of 'can you check if a person is consistently better than others', sure. But unfortunately, ESPECIALLY in a mostly Tab-Target game, that does not tell you anything about how they got there, so you'd just be 'targeting people who are naturally too good'.
If that happens, I won't have to worry about it because there's a good chance that Ashes would take action against me anyway even if I never use a Tracker.
The reason I "gloss over" your suggestions such as the above is because they aren't viable. There is no point in discussing what essentially amounts to your own personal fantasy.
All of those values that you are suggesting to have removed still need to exist. The game itself needs them to function. If those values are not to be found on the client at all, then we will get them from the server. This would be against the ToS (probably), but would still happen
In the process of removing those numbers though, you are making the game literally unplayable for the bulk of the potential playerbase. Players no longer have any means at all to tell if they are getting better or worse, no means at all of determining if one item is better or worse than another, no way of telling if one mob is easier or harder than another - even after killing them.
Basically, the game becomes a roll of the dice, but where you dont even know what you are rolling for, and dont see the result of said roll.
Basically, the top end segment of the game would be able to continue to play (via pulling data from the server), a small portion of people that are totally uninvested in the game and are just happy running around bashing things mindlessly would stay, but everyone between those two groups would leave within a matter of weeks (days, really).
This is why I didnt bother discussing this with you. It isnt worth discussing.
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
"OHH there is no way of telling if im making any improvements without it" How about investing the actual time to figure out what you want to know about your progress?
This discussion is getting ridiculous because there will always be someone who will defend DPS meter or combat tracker in general, because they know they can't function without it. Snowflakes...
Im tired of this discussion so im not even going to bother participating in it anymore. Because i know what is coming... More snowflakes
I hope Intrepid Studios will not include a combat tracker or any form of DPS meter so i will get to read all the QQing in a form of "ohh im not going to play this game"
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
Right from that introduction, you are incorrect.
We are arguing that Intrepid should be bold and include one, but not moaning.
The argument is basically that players that want a tracker will have one, and that may create an uneven playing field. The only way for Intrepid to balance it out is to give everyone access to a tracker - and the only way to do that is to implement one in to the game.
You wont see all that "QQing" that you are looking forward to, because those of us that actually want a tracker will have one. This fact isnt really up for debate at this point, as we are already tracking combat from developer update videos.
---
I dont really consider it all that important to defend combat trackers. While they are misused in some situations in some games, all it means to me if someone thinks that misuse is the bulk of situations is that this player only played those few games, and was mostly in those situations.
This is basically LFG/LFR in WoW.
From there, if a poster can not see that the issue was actually the fact that the game treated players as disposable, and so players treated each other as disposable, then there is no way I can use logic to convince this person of anything. The fact that there are many games out there that allow trackers and where many player use them - yet that dont see those same issues at all - that is completely over the heads of these people, and so I see no value in trying to convince them.
Well this is a comment that i can agree on. There is no need to discuss about it further because there will be a combat tracker for people that want it, if intrepid includes it or not.
Drinking refreshing snowflakes tears
If you feel no need to discuss it further, that's great. Some of the rest of us still do, however.
I do have two questions for you though, feel free to not bother answering if you like.
If trackers are going to exist in Ashes for anyone that wants to use them, would you consider it an unfair advantage if you lost to someone that uses one? I mean, it IS an advantage, the question is whether or not it is unfair.
Second, if you do consider it an unfair advantage, can you think of any better way for Intrepid to even that advantage out other than adding a combat tracker to the game? Keep in mind, trackers for Ashes are a given - we are looking for a solution that keeps this in mind.
I said this but they don't want to spend time, or use group communication. Noaani want tracker to do everything for them. Tell other [peoples skill use, how they are affected, their damage, healing, etc.
He says he isn't capable of communicating as a group to clear content in cells.
A combat tracker isn't a substitute for communication within a group or raid. Your suggestion that it may be simply tells everyone that you don't know anything about how groups or raids actually function - my assumption is that you have never actually played an MMO, based on your apparent knowledge of them.
Worse than that, your assertion that I am saying that I don't or won't communicate with others in my group or raid tells everyone that you are more than willing to outright lie if you think it may further your cause. Our discussion has gone far past any point where you could make the honest mistake to think that I am saying this.
Honestly, that is what you are doing here - outright lying in order to try and further your position in an argument on the Internet.
Since they are your actions here, and since actions define the person, that is the kind of person you are.
If you wish to refute this point that the above is the kind of person you are, literally all you need to do is quote me where I said I would use a combat tracker in place of communication with players in my group or raid.