Not playing L2 ever again. I don't like what they have done with the class skills, the cooldowns, the random critical skills and the content they locked out.
Plus the terrain feels so flat now.
Forgot to answer previous question. Won't be playing L2 unless someone from the forum wants to try it to see what it's about.
I'm actively replacing my knowledge about L2 with AoC's stuff. I've given L2 12 years of my life, so I think that'll be enough for now. And there's a shitton of other games and things I wanna play/watch and playing on an x1 IL server is LONG AND HARD.
The more people talking about things the more comes to light, I've said before he is out of touch but literally noaani is advocating for bad games dismissing all these points. All these points he has been say for ages all have the same vibe and lack of understanding. He is out of touch with modern games because he does not play them.
Other people have gone into these points so i don't need to be the 3rd or 4th, but it is actually wild.
Personally all I want are combat logs with POTENTIALLY the ability to export a file.
I understand that an abundance of information can kill the magic of a game but at the same time having combat logs allow for players to understand WTF just happened to them. Without that data it can be extremely frustrating.
Having combat logs also allows for unintended exploits to be discovered more easily as the victims of them can comb through their logs and see what happened.
Personally all I want are combat logs with POTENTIALLY the ability to export a file.
I understand that an abundance of information can kill the magic of a game but at the same time having combat logs allow for players to understand WTF just happened to them. Without that data it can be extremely frustrating.
Having combat logs also allows for unintended exploits to be discovered more easily as the victims of them can comb through their logs and see what happened.
You learn from experience in the game and paying attention, it is part of the challenge. Simple just wanting to get a answer from a log is just a cheat. It should be an experience with people working together to figure things out as a team.
Log export if something I'll never support. It all leans to more ways for people to use add on, etc to reduce difficulty on the long run and make a worse experience.
Regardless of people trying to use other tools to try to pull information if the goal is to reduce that not allowing players, and having the game done in a way that does not incentive is is the best course. Difficulty should be about skill not reading a log.
If you don't calculate the outcome of your actions in advance, you'll probably be missing some multipliers.
The best results come from data analysis.
Thus, if the player wants to be as efficient as possible, he is obliged to use the parsing result.
I don't understand why some people want data parsers to repeat, record and process something 100000 times instead of doing a little log parsing in free time.
You will still use the results of data parsers if you want to win.
So why force them to do this stupid job of counting frames for days and nights?
A combat log wouldnt be an addon, its available to everyone.
As players we use it to figure out the damage formula (you know, one of the single most important things the folks making builds rely on)
I understand how you want the magic of just feeling your way through the game by paying attention, which is great for a first playthrough really.
But ashes is a MMO, rpg games always have a huuuuuge population of people looking to push the limits of their class, and for that, we need numbers and data.
As Noaani has pointed out numerous times. For us to get these numbers, we dont need any form of support from the developers, by methods of screen watching, reading incomming network traffic, or any other means the numbers will be made available to theorycrafters to figure out whatever it is they are interested in.
And more importantly unlike a program that is doing automated callouts, none of these methods interact with the game in any way, so Intrepid can do absolutely nothing about it as they never violated terms of service. These folks are going to get their numbers and have a advantage over folks that dont.
The difference is, if there is a combat log (preferably as myself as others have stated with ability to download to txt file), then everyone has access to data if they want it. No programs needed to collect the data. There is no exclusive club of data people vs everyone else, and totally fair.
Also mag7spy, your comment about people working together as a team. Most theorycrafters dont work independently, ever. Just having access to a damage log doesnt suddenly reveal all the answers. Folks usually talk together over a discord as they go over the numbers.
It takes a lot of different ideas and point of views to determine what is really important in evaluating a build in a particular fight, no one person has the full answer. For example.
Would you want to evaluate someone by raw damage done? (termed usually as personal dps) Maybe depending on encounter, but what about when there are buffs and debuffs involved. Then we must quantify just how big the impact was each of those buffs did. (Usually termed as adjusted dps).
What about when a raid team focusing on speedclears, long after initial prog is done and the raid was cleared a long time ago (thats me btw) wants to look for how players can individually work together better. In this case we look for how efficiently players dump thier burst damage in short window team buffs or enemy debuffs, and how things can be adjusted.
You might not see the point of the log or the fun involved in it, but a lot of gamers just like me do enjoy the numbers game, and truly it doesnt impact the difficulty of the game when encounters are still new and fresh as you believe.
I do concede that after encounters have been around for awhile and mechanics are figured out and the fight is "solved", then any data based approach after that will lower the difficulty for players that follow, because they can just look up what someone else did on google. Still, we dont need numbers to make the game easier for the people after us, its inevitable as time goes on that the folks that come after have it easier than the folks that went before.
TLDR version:
I cant see a good reason from not telling players what the numbers are, from a fairness to everyone point of view. It really isnt about making it easier for me to do some math I can already do anyway.
I just disagree that the quality of those encounters should lack because of their "copyness". And absent animations are an example of such a lack.
I think perhaps you missed my larger point. It wasn't in the post you quoted, so I can't blame you for that.
The difficulty in an encounter shouldn't come from being able to tell what abilities the mob is about to use - that is a never going to be challenging to players that want efficiency.
The challenge with encounters should come from dealing with those abilities.
Take cast bars for example, above I said I don't like them because it is a game mechanic, not an encounter mechanic. I could have gone to greater lengths to explain that adding a game mechanic like cast bars to mobs prevents things like them using multiple abilities, or having instant cast abilities that require attention, but the post was long enough without going in to that detail.
Basically, my point is that the difficulty should come from dealing with encounters, not in knowing what they will do, and that any mechanic that limits what they can do (ie, requiring cast bars) goes against that.
My bad then, when you wrote, 'then do that then, but dont do this', I took that as telling me how to play my games and live my life.
All good. Was simply demonstrating that what you want is available. More so for the benefit of others reading as I assume you probably know full well it was an option (I always assume there are 10+ people reading any post I write for every person that comments, and sometimes my comments are for their benefit as opposed to the person I'm directly replying to).
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If you don't calculate the outcome of your actions in advance, you'll probably be missing some multipliers.
The best results come from data analysis.
Thus, if the player wants to be as efficient as possible, he is obliged to use the parsing result.
I don't understand why some people want data parsers to repeat, record and process something 100000 times instead of doing a little log parsing in free time.
You will still use the results of data parsers if you want to win.
So why force them to do this stupid job of counting frames for days and nights?
Don't need to be as efficient as possible.
At best, just need to be successful, but...
Failure is sometimes part of the narrative, so... failing can be OK, too.
0
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If you don't calculate the outcome of your actions in advance, you'll probably be missing some multipliers.
The best results come from data analysis.
Thus, if the player wants to be as efficient as possible, he is obliged to use the parsing result.
I don't understand why some people want data parsers to repeat, record and process something 100000 times instead of doing a little log parsing in free time.
You will still use the results of data parsers if you want to win.
So why force them to do this stupid job of counting frames for days and nights?
Don't need to be as efficient as possible.
At best, just need to be successful, but...
Failure is sometimes part of the narrative, so... failing can be OK, too.
I actually agree with your two statements here.
There is no need to be as efficient as possible. Absolutely none at all.
Also, it absolutely is ok to fail sometimes. In fact, occasional failure should be expected.
However, in the same way it is ok to sometimes fail, it is also ok to want to be as efficient as possible.
Trying for 200...hope for the win.
Nope, no joy at 200. Oh well, need to reiterate the need for all or none to have a dps meter lol.
(Need about 20 more posts to hit 200 pages.)
Getting there!!
Its totally fine to play to be good enough to succeed. Just having a combat log available doesnt mean everyone will be using it the same way nerds like me will.
Such as, when the big fireball spells in game that normally hit for 60,000 suddenly the stars align with buffs and crits and debuffs on enemy and you got that 200,000 crit, fun to take a screenshot of the log.
Trying for 200...hope for the win.
Nope, no joy at 200. Oh well, need to reiterate the need for all or none to have a dps meter lol.
(Need about 20 more posts to hit 200 pages.)
Getting there!!
Its totally fine to play to be good enough to succeed. Just having a combat log available doesnt mean everyone will be using it the same way nerds like me will.
Such as, when the big fireball spells in game that normally hit for 60,000 suddenly the stars align with buffs and crits and debuffs on enemy and you got that 200,000 crit, fun to take a screenshot of the log.
Indeed.
I've said on these forums (and in this thread) that EQ2's community wasn't really about sharing encounter information.
However, there was a lot of sharing of class builds, a lot of optimization - basically the entire top end community was built around this.
This is why I find it at odds with my experiences when people call combat trackers toxic. Combat trackers build communities as much as break them down - it all depends on the rest of the environment they are used in.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Its totally fine to play to be good enough to succeed. Just having a combat log available doesnt mean everyone will be using it the same way nerds like me will.
Ashes will have a personal combat log - but not a combat tracker.
Ashes will have a personal combat log - but not a combat tracker.
Thats almost what I need. I need more than just my own numbers. RPGs have lots of interactions. Players buffs (bards and others) debuffs (necromancers and others) all interact with each person and enemy.
I need a full log, not just myself. To see when these skills and such are lining up with my skills.
SWTOR groups, back when I still played that game, also had ability to have personal only logs. It was a pain but everyone just sending me their logs was good enough.
For basic needs, the personal log is sufficient to design my own builds, but for full maths I need the full logs.
200 soon.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited September 2023
You don't need that.
Some people want that.
Can't Always Get What You Want
The challenge with encounters should come from dealing with those abilities.
But my point is - how can you deal with an ability that you don't even know about? If a 3rd party tool has to parse the game for you and tell you when the boss is doing a thing - that's not "dealing with the ability", it's "dealing with a 3rd party tool outside of the game".
Take cast bars for example, above I said I don't like them because it is a game mechanic, not an encounter mechanic. I could have gone to greater lengths to explain that adding a game mechanic like cast bars to mobs prevents things like them using multiple abilities, or having instant cast abilities that require attention, but the post was long enough without going in to that detail.
Basically, my point is that the difficulty should come from dealing with encounters, not in knowing what they will do, and that any mechanic that limits what they can do (ie, requiring cast bars) goes against that.
The visual representation of cast bars that I suggested would allow bosses to cast other stuff while the bar is progressing. If anything, it feels like my suggestion is exactly what you're talking about. And it could also be very encounter-specific because it could be linked to surroundings or mob designs, or whatever else.
In other words, I simply want WoW's addon features, but cooked into the game itself. Proper audio feedback, proper visual feedback, proper base UI settings, holistic difficult encounter design that requires each player in the raid to pay attention to their own game window that gives them all the information they'll need w/o any outside tool.
I support battle logs, because that was always what I used to see what ultimately killed me in a big fight. And that very support is the reason why I say that trackers will be inevitable.
The challenge with encounters should come from dealing with those abilities.
But my point is - how can you deal with an ability that you don't even know about? If a 3rd party tool has to parse the game for you and tell you when the boss is doing a thing - that's not "dealing with the ability", it's "dealing with a 3rd party tool outside of the game".
Take cast bars for example, above I said I don't like them because it is a game mechanic, not an encounter mechanic. I could have gone to greater lengths to explain that adding a game mechanic like cast bars to mobs prevents things like them using multiple abilities, or having instant cast abilities that require attention, but the post was long enough without going in to that detail.
Basically, my point is that the difficulty should come from dealing with encounters, not in knowing what they will do, and that any mechanic that limits what they can do (ie, requiring cast bars) goes against that.
The visual representation of cast bars that I suggested would allow bosses to cast other stuff while the bar is progressing. If anything, it feels like my suggestion is exactly what you're talking about. And it could also be very encounter-specific because it could be linked to surroundings or mob designs, or whatever else.
In other words, I simply want WoW's addon features, but cooked into the game itself. Proper audio feedback, proper visual feedback, proper base UI settings, holistic difficult encounter design that requires each player in the raid to pay attention to their own game window that gives them all the information they'll need w/o any outside tool.
I support battle logs, because that was always what I used to see what ultimately killed me in a big fight. And that very support is the reason why I say that trackers will be inevitable.
It's SLIGHTLY complicated to explain why this works out.
In a multiplayer setting, you can approach this in one of three ways.
1) A player is in charge of 'seeing' everything
This is the most common method, and is my role in things like Elite Dangerous Conflict Zones. Shot-caller, who may or may not also be tactical commander depending on the game.
2) Everyone is in charge of seeing what they are supposed to be the one dealing with
MOBAs and mid level PvE, most games fall in here, you benefit from comms but as you get more in tune with a group you can theoretically train to synchro well enough to not need much comms.
3) Take as many people immune to the mechanics or able to shut them down without being able to see everything, as possible.
This is often the response that mid level players have, and because guides from top players post-analysis tend to be efficiency related, what happens is that someone tells the mid level players 'if you want to just win, get X class, 3 Y, a healer, and a Z, and that should make it easy.
The idea being that for mid level groups that have some number of Dumbass Casuals, many don't want to have to understand mechanics or coordinate. They want to just clear the thing.
The issue here for high difficulty stuff is simply that 2 only works in the absolute tightest of groups, where 'everyone is at the skill level/type where they could be the shot caller that day if needed'. And even then, it's well known that you'd STILL be better off having a single shot-caller who ISN'T EVEN PLAYING, if possible.
As for why you still 'need' the trackers beyond that, it's related to it. Figuring out 'who isn't seeing what they need to be seeing' in games that are not binary, can be hard. I believe that given this, you would still want the game to be so hard that 'you have to get that group of Shot-caller tier high level players' together in one place to win.
But at the end of the day, someone has to 'work out that we're failing the encounter because you don't know your Ricochet range'. How exactly that happens, is up to the group, but without the tracker or the 'savant', it's possible that it doesn't happen.
The game will either be built for 'the savants' (which, I should warn, tends to happen because the DESIGNERS are in this category, hence the nerfs in AC6) or 'so that you don't need them' in which case they blow others out of the water, which is fine in single player games but not MMOs (for me).
The challenge with encounters should come from dealing with those abilities.
But my point is - how can you deal with an ability that you don't even know about? If a 3rd party tool has to parse the game for you and tell you when the boss is doing a thing - that's not "dealing with the ability", it's "dealing with a 3rd party tool outside of the game".
You seem to be confusing "dealing with the ability" and "knowing what ability is happening".
Dealing with the ability is the thing that needs to be done so the fight continues past that abilities effect. It is the thing that stops people dying, or the raid as a whole wiping.
This could be as simple as some healing or an AoE avoid ability, but could be as complex as a 12+ step process that needs to be followed by multiple people.
It is THIS process that is what encounters should be about - not about watching an animation to know what ability is coming.
Or if you care we can discuss Karkinos which is super easy as noted whenever I talked about it.
Karkinos isn't about dodging the abilities. It's not about 'seeing'. It's about 'this has happened, choose what to do about it, you have 2 seconds to commit to a single course of action as a group, failure to synchronize will lose this fight'.
But the problem is that your list of 'single courses of action' is like 16 'choices' long and depends on 20+ datapoints, most of which you should not all (sanely) have been tracking. So you lose.
Then comes the combat tracker part.
"Given the datapoints that we now have to go back and check, why did we lose? Who wasn't on board with the chosen option, or whose datapoint did the shot-caller(s) drop?"
You can do it by reading a log or watching the fight if you recorded it and can see everyone else's damage and buffs status. It just takes long. Doesn't matter to me. If you can prevent the trackers and I knew this was definitely true...
Then I'd just feel sorry for all the people who don't have time to rewatch a 15 minute fight from 5 different perspectives. Not really my concern at all.
EDIT: This is also why I don't care whether the mechanics are 'you must do these things to prevent dying to the big HP damage' or 'you have been affected by statuses that prevent you from being able to clear this enemy in some other way', except in PvPvE games.
I care a little bit because I somewhat like the second more, and Action players tend to complain a bit more about 'unavoidable damage' which does 'unavoidable damage' to the game's reputation. but overall, the experience is similar.
The visual representation of cast bars that I suggested would allow bosses to cast other stuff while the bar is progressing. If anything, it feels like my suggestion is exactly what you're talking about. And it could also be very encounter-specific because it could be linked to surroundings or mob designs, or whatever else.
If cast bars are the thing that is used by a game to tell players, well, what a mob is casting, it would be inadvisable to then put in abilities on boss encounters that players need to be aware of before hand that don't use cast bars.
Mechanics like this condition players - the idea of having them is so that players know where to look to see what is happening.
While subverting that is a real option, it is one that needs to be done VERY infrequently - as is the case with all subversion of basic game systems.
This is why I have a dislike to having too much like this built in to the game, and prefer things built in to each encounter.
Comments
interlude server T_T
I'm actively replacing my knowledge about L2 with AoC's stuff. I've given L2 12 years of my life, so I think that'll be enough for now. And there's a shitton of other games and things I wanna play/watch and playing on an x1 IL server is LONG AND HARD.
Other people have gone into these points so i don't need to be the 3rd or 4th, but it is actually wild.
My bad then, when you wrote, 'then do that then, but dont do this', I took that as telling me how to play my games and live my life.
I understand that an abundance of information can kill the magic of a game but at the same time having combat logs allow for players to understand WTF just happened to them. Without that data it can be extremely frustrating.
Having combat logs also allows for unintended exploits to be discovered more easily as the victims of them can comb through their logs and see what happened.
You learn from experience in the game and paying attention, it is part of the challenge. Simple just wanting to get a answer from a log is just a cheat. It should be an experience with people working together to figure things out as a team.
Log export if something I'll never support. It all leans to more ways for people to use add on, etc to reduce difficulty on the long run and make a worse experience.
Regardless of people trying to use other tools to try to pull information if the goal is to reduce that not allowing players, and having the game done in a way that does not incentive is is the best course. Difficulty should be about skill not reading a log.
The best results come from data analysis.
Thus, if the player wants to be as efficient as possible, he is obliged to use the parsing result.
I don't understand why some people want data parsers to repeat, record and process something 100000 times instead of doing a little log parsing in free time.
You will still use the results of data parsers if you want to win.
So why force them to do this stupid job of counting frames for days and nights?
As players we use it to figure out the damage formula (you know, one of the single most important things the folks making builds rely on)
I understand how you want the magic of just feeling your way through the game by paying attention, which is great for a first playthrough really.
But ashes is a MMO, rpg games always have a huuuuuge population of people looking to push the limits of their class, and for that, we need numbers and data.
As Noaani has pointed out numerous times. For us to get these numbers, we dont need any form of support from the developers, by methods of screen watching, reading incomming network traffic, or any other means the numbers will be made available to theorycrafters to figure out whatever it is they are interested in.
And more importantly unlike a program that is doing automated callouts, none of these methods interact with the game in any way, so Intrepid can do absolutely nothing about it as they never violated terms of service. These folks are going to get their numbers and have a advantage over folks that dont.
The difference is, if there is a combat log (preferably as myself as others have stated with ability to download to txt file), then everyone has access to data if they want it. No programs needed to collect the data. There is no exclusive club of data people vs everyone else, and totally fair.
Also mag7spy, your comment about people working together as a team. Most theorycrafters dont work independently, ever. Just having access to a damage log doesnt suddenly reveal all the answers. Folks usually talk together over a discord as they go over the numbers.
It takes a lot of different ideas and point of views to determine what is really important in evaluating a build in a particular fight, no one person has the full answer. For example.
Would you want to evaluate someone by raw damage done? (termed usually as personal dps) Maybe depending on encounter, but what about when there are buffs and debuffs involved. Then we must quantify just how big the impact was each of those buffs did. (Usually termed as adjusted dps).
What about when a raid team focusing on speedclears, long after initial prog is done and the raid was cleared a long time ago (thats me btw) wants to look for how players can individually work together better. In this case we look for how efficiently players dump thier burst damage in short window team buffs or enemy debuffs, and how things can be adjusted.
You might not see the point of the log or the fun involved in it, but a lot of gamers just like me do enjoy the numbers game, and truly it doesnt impact the difficulty of the game when encounters are still new and fresh as you believe.
I do concede that after encounters have been around for awhile and mechanics are figured out and the fight is "solved", then any data based approach after that will lower the difficulty for players that follow, because they can just look up what someone else did on google. Still, we dont need numbers to make the game easier for the people after us, its inevitable as time goes on that the folks that come after have it easier than the folks that went before.
TLDR version:
I cant see a good reason from not telling players what the numbers are, from a fairness to everyone point of view. It really isnt about making it easier for me to do some math I can already do anyway.
Nope, no joy at 200. Oh well, need to reiterate the need for all or none to have a dps meter lol.
The difficulty in an encounter shouldn't come from being able to tell what abilities the mob is about to use - that is a never going to be challenging to players that want efficiency.
The challenge with encounters should come from dealing with those abilities.
Take cast bars for example, above I said I don't like them because it is a game mechanic, not an encounter mechanic. I could have gone to greater lengths to explain that adding a game mechanic like cast bars to mobs prevents things like them using multiple abilities, or having instant cast abilities that require attention, but the post was long enough without going in to that detail.
Basically, my point is that the difficulty should come from dealing with encounters, not in knowing what they will do, and that any mechanic that limits what they can do (ie, requiring cast bars) goes against that.
All good. Was simply demonstrating that what you want is available. More so for the benefit of others reading as I assume you probably know full well it was an option (I always assume there are 10+ people reading any post I write for every person that comments, and sometimes my comments are for their benefit as opposed to the person I'm directly replying to).
At best, just need to be successful, but...
Failure is sometimes part of the narrative, so... failing can be OK, too.
I actually agree with your two statements here.
There is no need to be as efficient as possible. Absolutely none at all.
Also, it absolutely is ok to fail sometimes. In fact, occasional failure should be expected.
However, in the same way it is ok to sometimes fail, it is also ok to want to be as efficient as possible.
Getting there!!
Its totally fine to play to be good enough to succeed. Just having a combat log available doesnt mean everyone will be using it the same way nerds like me will.
Such as, when the big fireball spells in game that normally hit for 60,000 suddenly the stars align with buffs and crits and debuffs on enemy and you got that 200,000 crit, fun to take a screenshot of the log.
Indeed.
I've said on these forums (and in this thread) that EQ2's community wasn't really about sharing encounter information.
However, there was a lot of sharing of class builds, a lot of optimization - basically the entire top end community was built around this.
This is why I find it at odds with my experiences when people call combat trackers toxic. Combat trackers build communities as much as break them down - it all depends on the rest of the environment they are used in.
Thats almost what I need. I need more than just my own numbers. RPGs have lots of interactions. Players buffs (bards and others) debuffs (necromancers and others) all interact with each person and enemy.
I need a full log, not just myself. To see when these skills and such are lining up with my skills.
SWTOR groups, back when I still played that game, also had ability to have personal only logs. It was a pain but everyone just sending me their logs was good enough.
For basic needs, the personal log is sufficient to design my own builds, but for full maths I need the full logs.
200 soon.
Some people want that.
Can't Always Get What You Want
I heard the music when I read this
You dont need that, but some people want that. Cant always get what you want.
How many more until we complete the 200 thread ending push?
Agreed. Anyone who says this to someone who has even a chance of saying no, it shows a lack of social skills.
And ofc there's those who say it to people who aren't in a position to say no, which is a different set of social 'skills' but not the good kind...
I've never asked anyone if I could "track" them.
As it isn't invasive, and as it isn't as if I can just track some people and not others, I just don't see the point.
The visual representation of cast bars that I suggested would allow bosses to cast other stuff while the bar is progressing. If anything, it feels like my suggestion is exactly what you're talking about. And it could also be very encounter-specific because it could be linked to surroundings or mob designs, or whatever else.
In other words, I simply want WoW's addon features, but cooked into the game itself. Proper audio feedback, proper visual feedback, proper base UI settings, holistic difficult encounter design that requires each player in the raid to pay attention to their own game window that gives them all the information they'll need w/o any outside tool.
I support battle logs, because that was always what I used to see what ultimately killed me in a big fight. And that very support is the reason why I say that trackers will be inevitable.
It's SLIGHTLY complicated to explain why this works out.
In a multiplayer setting, you can approach this in one of three ways.
1) A player is in charge of 'seeing' everything
This is the most common method, and is my role in things like Elite Dangerous Conflict Zones. Shot-caller, who may or may not also be tactical commander depending on the game.
2) Everyone is in charge of seeing what they are supposed to be the one dealing with
MOBAs and mid level PvE, most games fall in here, you benefit from comms but as you get more in tune with a group you can theoretically train to synchro well enough to not need much comms.
3) Take as many people immune to the mechanics or able to shut them down without being able to see everything, as possible.
This is often the response that mid level players have, and because guides from top players post-analysis tend to be efficiency related, what happens is that someone tells the mid level players 'if you want to just win, get X class, 3 Y, a healer, and a Z, and that should make it easy.
The idea being that for mid level groups that have some number of Dumbass Casuals, many don't want to have to understand mechanics or coordinate. They want to just clear the thing.
The issue here for high difficulty stuff is simply that 2 only works in the absolute tightest of groups, where 'everyone is at the skill level/type where they could be the shot caller that day if needed'. And even then, it's well known that you'd STILL be better off having a single shot-caller who ISN'T EVEN PLAYING, if possible.
As for why you still 'need' the trackers beyond that, it's related to it. Figuring out 'who isn't seeing what they need to be seeing' in games that are not binary, can be hard. I believe that given this, you would still want the game to be so hard that 'you have to get that group of Shot-caller tier high level players' together in one place to win.
But at the end of the day, someone has to 'work out that we're failing the encounter because you don't know your Ricochet range'. How exactly that happens, is up to the group, but without the tracker or the 'savant', it's possible that it doesn't happen.
The game will either be built for 'the savants' (which, I should warn, tends to happen because the DESIGNERS are in this category, hence the nerfs in AC6) or 'so that you don't need them' in which case they blow others out of the water, which is fine in single player games but not MMOs (for me).
Dealing with the ability is the thing that needs to be done so the fight continues past that abilities effect. It is the thing that stops people dying, or the raid as a whole wiping.
This could be as simple as some healing or an AoE avoid ability, but could be as complex as a 12+ step process that needs to be followed by multiple people.
It is THIS process that is what encounters should be about - not about watching an animation to know what ability is coming.
Karkinos isn't about dodging the abilities. It's not about 'seeing'. It's about 'this has happened, choose what to do about it, you have 2 seconds to commit to a single course of action as a group, failure to synchronize will lose this fight'.
But the problem is that your list of 'single courses of action' is like 16 'choices' long and depends on 20+ datapoints, most of which you should not all (sanely) have been tracking. So you lose.
Then comes the combat tracker part.
"Given the datapoints that we now have to go back and check, why did we lose? Who wasn't on board with the chosen option, or whose datapoint did the shot-caller(s) drop?"
You can do it by reading a log or watching the fight if you recorded it and can see everyone else's damage and buffs status. It just takes long. Doesn't matter to me. If you can prevent the trackers and I knew this was definitely true...
Then I'd just feel sorry for all the people who don't have time to rewatch a 15 minute fight from 5 different perspectives. Not really my concern at all.
EDIT: This is also why I don't care whether the mechanics are 'you must do these things to prevent dying to the big HP damage' or 'you have been affected by statuses that prevent you from being able to clear this enemy in some other way', except in PvPvE games.
I care a little bit because I somewhat like the second more, and Action players tend to complain a bit more about 'unavoidable damage' which does 'unavoidable damage' to the game's reputation. but overall, the experience is similar.
If cast bars are the thing that is used by a game to tell players, well, what a mob is casting, it would be inadvisable to then put in abilities on boss encounters that players need to be aware of before hand that don't use cast bars.
Mechanics like this condition players - the idea of having them is so that players know where to look to see what is happening.
While subverting that is a real option, it is one that needs to be done VERY infrequently - as is the case with all subversion of basic game systems.
This is why I have a dislike to having too much like this built in to the game, and prefer things built in to each encounter.