NiKr wrote: » I think one of the reasons why I'm against trackers, while completely supporting the supremacy that comes with people figuring out stuff on their own, is that I love the struggle of figuring out smth through your own abilities rather than with a tool, but I'm also completely fine with trusting people when they say that they've figured something new out and that thing is as good (if not better) than the currently accepted one.
NiKr wrote: » Trackers/meters will still be made if there's a combat log. And I'm fairly sure it'd be made if there even wasn't a log. And Intrepid can't do anything about it. And as specifically Noaani's comments point out, there can't even be an assumption of "good faith" when it comes to the tracker ban, because someone somewhere will use them. Someone else will see (or at least assume) that the other person is using them and will use one themselves. And it'll just snowball from there. And then there's people like Azherae who can just extrapolate way more stuff from simply the combat log itself, to the point where some people might accuse her of using a tracker. And this would start the same snowball effect as someone really using one.
Dolyem wrote: » As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta. To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game. This will literally be impossible without combat trackers.
Dygz wrote: » Dolyem wrote: » As such, if they see after a month or two that x build is the meta build for a given primary class (because it is the best one found so far), to them, that is the meta. They will think that is the only acceptable build for that primary class for months, perhaps even years. The worst part of all of this, and the hardest part to fix (indeed, this may never be able to be fixed if we get to this point) is that their bias towards a mono-build meta in the game has been confirmed, and so to them, the game has a mono-build meta. To me, we never want to be at a point where there are only one or two builds for a class (let alone for a primary class) that are considered meta. We want to come out of the gate with no less than 24 viable builds for each primary class, so that there is never any reinforcing of a mono-meta in the game. This will literally be impossible without combat trackers. Um. It won't be a thing in Ashes, due to the class design and due to the dynamic raid content design.
NiKr wrote: » So what are the chances that Steven is somewhat like me in thinking "why would you need trackers? All I've heard from a lot of other people is that they've had bad experiences with them and that FF14 is against them. And all content I've cleared in my past never needed you to parse out your dps to clear it". This would explain why there hasn't been a concrete reason for forbidding their use and the overall negative stance on them from him. And considering that Steven is the main face we see when we ask our questions, we wouldn't really know whether there's anyone in Intrepid that would wholeheartedly support trackers (iirc Margaret mentioned them in the past in a somewhat positive light?).
Dygz wrote: » I dunno who the "a lot of other people" are supposed to be.
StevenSharif wrote: » The desire to obfuscate (or make less prevalent by not offering this feature) so that groups are encouraged to grow together and help one another become better by more old school/organic methods of trial and error, efforts in watching other people during the raid, by failing repeatedly until success is possible. Now, could people use meters to aid in this task? Yes, but in my experience it isn’t used in this way..more often it is an exclusionary tool designed to separate players.
NiKr wrote: » Azherae wrote: » Nope. It sucked. Exclusionary behaviour, no way to prove certain tank builds worked so you had to literally get people to take it on faith that you could do the same thing as someone else, and lots and lots of frustrating battles where the 'obvious correct' decision would fail because of the PRECISE way Provoke works. I think one of the reasons why I'm against trackers, while completely supporting the supremacy that comes with people figuring out stuff on their own, is that I love the struggle of figuring out smth through your own abilities rather than with a tool, but I'm also completely fine with trusting people when they say that they've figured something new out and that thing is as good (if not better) than the currently accepted one. I guess that's just projection fueled by naivete and gullibility. If I see someone with a completely new build, the first thing I think "oh damn he probably spent a ton of time figuring it out". I then respect the time he spent and believe that the build could work out. But because I'm a stubborn (and probably too stupid) person, I always try to rely on my own abilities first before I turn to any outside tool. And so if I see someone who says "I ran my build through a dps meter and it's much better than anything else out there", I'd value that accomplishment way less than the potential lie of someone going "just trust me bro" And Steven's quote here StevenSharif wrote: » The desire to obfuscate (or make less prevalent by not offering this feature) so that groups are encouraged to grow together and help one another become better by more old school/organic methods of trial and error, efforts in watching other people during the raid, by failing repeatedly until success is possible. Now, could people use meters to aid in this task? Yes, but in my experience it isn’t used in this way..more often it is an exclusionary tool designed to separate players. seems to indicate that he values the same kind of "do it yourself through sweat and tears" attitude. At this point I'm starting to feel like L2/AA players had a completely different mentality when compared to most other mmo players.
Azherae wrote: » Nope. It sucked. Exclusionary behaviour, no way to prove certain tank builds worked so you had to literally get people to take it on faith that you could do the same thing as someone else, and lots and lots of frustrating battles where the 'obvious correct' decision would fail because of the PRECISE way Provoke works.
Mag7spy wrote: » Anyone saying you need trackers to break the meta is lying to you, you can break the meta without trackers and do your own test and show people. They will say anything to try to convince you trackers are a good thing lol.
akabear wrote: » Yes, in L2 it was quite easy to see if DPS was lower than it should be. Simplistically, when a raid could not complete a boss or content was unusually harder or party wipes.
Noaani wrote: » This may work in a game where new encounters are few and far between, but not so much in a game where new encounters are added an average of every second week (26 encounters a year is on the low end).
Azherae wrote: » The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome?
NiKr wrote: » Mag7spy wrote: » Anyone saying you need trackers to break the meta is lying to you, you can break the meta without trackers and do your own test and show people. They will say anything to try to convince you trackers are a good thing lol. Yes, you can, but you'll need way more time and effort to convince others that your build really works, while tracker would show that objectively. I've seen countless L2 parties deny other people just because their class didn't put out enough dps or they didn't have good enough gear. And as I said before, there were quite a few cases where those things didn't really matter, but you'd only know that they didn't matter if you were open enough to change. And a ton of people aren't. I totally get the desire to have an objective tool to prove to others that your build works. I disagree with having that tool in the game for my own stubborn reasons, but I can definitely see its benefit.
NiKr wrote: » "The desire to obfuscate (or make less prevalent by not offering this feature) so that groups are encouraged to grow together and help one another become better by more old school/organic methods of trial and error, efforts in watching other people during the raid, by failing repeatedly until success is possible. Now, could people use meters to aid in this task? Yes, but in my experience it isn’t used in this way..more often it is an exclusionary tool designed to separate players." ---Steven Considering that his biggest experience was in L2 and AA (iirc), and those games don't really use trackers, I'd assume that quite a lot of "his experience" here is through hearing other people say it.
Dygz wrote: » Most likely, it will not be a build problem, rather it will be a tactics problem. People just need to figure out to synergize the abilities they've brought with the abilities of the rest of the group. And that should be fairly straight forward in a manner that does not require DPS Meters. It's not about the deficiency of the chosen class.
Dygz wrote: » Azherae wrote: » The only confusing thing about it is that by now, Steven must know that trackers are functionally undetectable, so what's the point of implying they 'won't be allowed' outside of aiming at an FFXIV outcome? Add-Ons are not allowed in Ashes. It's pretty much the same stance as FFXIV.
akabear wrote: » What is the driving desire for a tracker?If there is an open market then you can obtain wealth without leaving town. If gear is not bound, then you do not probably need to raid to get gear, just buy it when the guilds get saturated with gear and start selling If there is a cap on xp, you do not need to raid for level Only thing that you would need to build to focus on is pvp skill?
NiKr wrote: » How did gear/loot distribution work with EQ2's pace of boss release?
Noaani wrote: » You couldn't just farm mobs for gear, as itemization was based primarily on mob difficulty. Aa difficult mob could drop good gear, a dead easy mob would drop vendor trash (or coin). Even if you killed 10,000 dead easy mob, the best you could hope for was 10,000 pieces of vendor trash.
