I ask you in particular to keep it in mind going forward, that when someone 'says that they can't track everything', this may be a large aspect of what they're referring to.
I'm curious how hard would it be for Intrepid to give us a log filter, where we can assign feedback from our certain skills to only go towards certain log windows (I assume we can have multiple log windows btw).
This would only be helpful if you had any way to determine what was important or not important information at any given time.'
The games we're talking about, have logs, they have log filters, you can be pretty precise with them. It's just that there is so much going on, you'd need nine different windows (yes, I'm serious, and I'm not even talking about an MMO, I'm just talking about Predecessor) if you somehow wanted to filter everything to the point where it could all be 'sorted' in a teamfight.
Even in BDO you'd need 4 or 5 if they offered this. Note I'm not saying 'you can't play the game this way', I'm only appealing to 'the fact that you already understand why people want 'Ricochet' level logs, and therefore I'm assuming you suggested the log filters.
They're nice, but they'd cover your whole screen. And at that point, you still need to be very visual to read them all. Personally I'm not. Regardless of the fact that I read very fast, it's way easier to just remember every effect. That's how 'cluttered and distracting' a complex system ends up being.
There's one other problem that I don't know if you're familiar with, which applies to this as well. When an opponent's DPS is based on their attack speed, the only visual indicator of their attack speed build's power is how fast your log is scrolling or how quickly the numbers are flashing. I'm not saying it's impossible to keep track of that, but it's sometimes very hard to judge effectiveness.
There's a reason why 'building for huge attack' is considered a noob trap in many games. "Bigger number better!" is difficult to dispel when the 'actually bigger number' is 'a smaller number, but more often'.
From a PvP perspective, I don't see the need for DPS meters. However, there should be battlefield stats such as kills, damage dealt and taken, healing done, shields provided, buff time, and debuff time. These metrics can provide valuable insights into player performance and contributions during battles.
In PvE, I've heard that DPS meters are often used to exclude people from parties, but they can also be beneficial for optimizing builds and rotations. A more engaging approach might involve testing DPS on lower-level bosses or mobs, requiring players to invest time in figuring out the most effective strategies rather than simply standing before a training dummy and observing a bar.
The notion of "watching" to see what is going on is a joke in games with a good (complex) combat system.
But during the fight, are you not watching both the fight and your ongoing log? Or did EQ completely forgo visuals in favor of text?
I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).
The reason I bring this up, NiKr, is because DoTs, almost by definition, are poor candidates for visual or auditory feedback.
To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on you at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.
Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.
Those who still have problems even with such a mechanic would have problems with parsing logs on the fly as well. Also, was that class' info not anywhere online? Could no one just, like, play that character to the point where you get this ability and literally just see how it works? I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like it applies to dumb people. "Educate yourself" and all that.
I played every class in L2 at least to the extent of understanding what their abilities do, so that I could know not only how to play against them, but potentially help others understand them as well (and have done so on multiple occasions).
Note I'm not saying 'you can't play the game this way', I'm only appealing to 'the fact that you already understand why people want 'Ricochet' level logs, and therefore I'm assuming you suggested the log filters.
Nah, I was just trying to visualize in my mind how I'd prefer my combat log to look. Just several thin windows of incoming dmg (singular hits), incoming debuffs, incoming dot dmg.
Incoming magical dmg would be blue in that first window, phys would be red. Debuffs would be painted rainbow by type, so a glance would give me at least the type of stat reduction I received (and I'd be able to check the icon visually if needed). Dots would just be there, and with time I'd underline names with dangerous dots, so their dots would be more visually apparent in the log.
I know this doesn't cover all the things, but I'd only know which things it needs to cover when we have the final game in our hands.
They're nice, but they'd cover your whole screen. And at that point, you still need to be very visual to read them all. Personally I'm not. Regardless of the fact that I read very fast, it's way easier to just remember every effect. That's how 'cluttered and distracting' a complex system ends up being.
I mean, as I see it, knowing literally all icons and their effects is literally the base level of knowledge required to be even semi-competent at the game.
People who can't keep up with the pve/p pace or the log or the icons or whatever else will simply not be competent. And I don't think anything can help them, not trackers, not meters not anything. I don't really watch Asmon's WoW streams, but I sure as hell constantly hear his complaining of people not doing mechanics or not "walking out of the red". And that WITH wow's insane addons that yell at you what to do. How would one expect those kinds of people to track anything in a fight that might involve pvp on top of pve.
I realize this is probably cruel to them, but I simply don't see how they can be helped in this particular context. If anything, my suggestions of having good visuals is an attempt at that, but both you and Noaani say that visuals can't really do shit in a properly complex game, so then how in the hell would those people even clear content like that?
And if we're not talking about such people, then we're simply back to Noaani's classic argument of "there's literally nothing you can do because I've already ACTed all over your game"
There's one other problem that I don't know if you're familiar with, which applies to this as well. When an opponent's DPS is based on their attack speed, the only visual indicator of their attack speed build's power is how fast your log is scrolling or how quickly the numbers are flashing. I'm not saying it's impossible to keep track of that, but it's sometimes very hard to judge effectiveness.
There's a reason why 'building for huge attack' is considered a noob trap in many games. "Bigger number better!" is difficult to dispel when the 'actually bigger number' is 'a smaller number, but more often'.
I know this quite well cause L2's 2 biggest and highest value dpsers were Orc classes, one with a HUGEASS double-hander and the other with knuckles. I'm sure you know what the differences were.
They were somewhat interchangeable, though particular gear pieces made the double-hander just too stronk, so he was usually preferred. But until those pieces, knuckle boy was accepted in most raids.
The reason I bring this up, NiKr, is because DoTs, almost by definition, are poor candidates for visual or auditory feedback.
To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on your at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.
Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.
The problem is not the icon. The icon works fine. The problem is 'recognizing which players you need to move away from and which you don't need to move away from', because you need to also see the precise damage that each tick of the DoT is doing.
That is the 'issue' with audiovisual feedback for DoT in games with a higher amount of it. Once you are in range of both Steel and Sevarog and they both built Fire Blossom, in Predecessor, you have no immediate way to know which one is doing 72 damage per second and which is doing 23 (these numbers aren't real exactly).
Then, you get stunned, and suddenly it's doing 104 and 46 (Fire Blossom DoT doubles when you are immobilized). But also just taking magical damage, in combination with a different item, increased your opponent's Magic Damage Bonus, or reduced your Magical Armor, or something, so actually, the number doesn't even stay the same from moment to moment.
I could get close to someone, and the damage tics look like '40, 42, 84, 88, 55, 121, 140' (these numbers DO appear on the screen). And then someone else nearby with a similar effect does '34, 37, 80, etc'.
Also remember that unless they removed anything similar to Hallowed Ground (the Alpha-1 Cleric ability) and Chains doesn't do DoT, Ashes already has this concern.
Anyways, the involved person has requested that I discontinue attempting to explain it. Your perspectives tend to be unyielding, so, thanks for answering, on their behalf.
The notion of "watching" to see what is going on is a joke in games with a good (complex) combat system.
But during the fight, are you not watching both the fight and your ongoing log? Or did EQ completely forgo visuals in favor of text?
I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).
Just talking outgoing damage, if you were playing a DoT heavy class, you would have potentially 20+ log entries per second.
Even as one of the slower casting classes, I still averaged 5 entries a second. If we were to add incoming damage, healing in and out (I could heal a small amount of mana) etc, it would be double that. No one is reading even 5 lines a second and still playing their class well enough to meet the requirements of the encounter.
As a result, no one looked at the in game logs in EQ2 - there was just no point. Most people didn't even have a text window for combat - it went to the log file and you would look at it via ACT. It was just not viable to look at it in game.
As to trying to get an idea of what is happening via in game visuals - nope, again things were moving too fast, there was too much happening. When 24 people each have 4 or 5 status effects on the boss, you can't tell which 100 are on it by looking - obviously. As a result of this, most people turned as much of the visual clutter of combat down on raids in order to increase performance, and to be able to get a better idea of the one thing you could keep an eye on in raids - p[ayer positioning.
When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.
When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.
Ok, so again, how did people play then? If there's so much stuff happening every second, what did ACT do to let people process this? If there's dozens effects at the same time, how exactly did ACT make it NOT dozens of effects at the same time?
Positioning is the simplest part of a raid, so I'd assume people were just looking at ACT instead of the game, cause, as you say, looking at the game was pointless. Is there a video recording of how ACT looks like during an EQ2 raid? Cause I find it hard to imagine how can a program, that supposedly simply reads and parses the log, help a human process that amount of info on second-to-second basis.
When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.
Ok, so again, how did people play then? If there's so much stuff happening every second, what did ACT do to let people process this? If there's dozens effects at the same time, how exactly did ACT make it NOT dozens of effects at the same time?
It did - but as I have said many times, you don't look at ACT during the fight, you look at it after.
Anyone watching a log or a tracker during a fight was not going to be able to perform their role in that fight. Again, this is why the notion of not having one in a game with a good combat system just doesn't compute - you need a combat tracker to go back after the fight and see what happened, there is no potential way to see what happened during the fight because the human brain can't process information that quickly.
This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.
This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.
I think I finally understand why it needed so many attempts. Cause no one new what they were doing, because the game literally doesn't tell you (at least in a viable way).
So ok, then how exactly do you apply ACT's info in the next fight, if you got no way to even know what's going on, cause there's too much info input?
This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.
I think I finally understand why it needed so many attempts. Cause no one new what they were doing, because the game literally doesn't tell you (at least in a viable way).
I'm not sure why this is the takeaway you have from this.
I mean, yeah, EQ2 didn't tell you how to kill its top end encounters - it was up to players to work out. Before you could work out how to kill an encounter, you needed to work out what it was doing.
Working this out was a major part of the raiding scene.
So ok, then how exactly do you apply ACT's info in the next fight, if you got no way to even know what's going on, cause there's too much info input?
Depends.
If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.
On the other hand, if you are wanting to look at something specific that went wrong - after you have worked out what needs to be done - it would take seconds to pull up in ACT.
If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.
Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?
Cause if they have any kind of randomness, I simply cannot imagine how exactly were people playing the game if they can't physically react to all the info input, the logs don't help because you can't read that fast, ACT doesn't help during the fight because it's functionally the logs and the visuals are literally non-existent because the game is all about telling you mechanics through text.
I can obviously watch a recording of a fight, but that tells me nothing about how people were playing the game. Like, the first point of view of gameplay. I cannot comprehend its flow. Or, to be precise, your description of the game does not allow me to even comprehend it (not necessarily your fault, just the overall design seems to come off that way, from your words).
If I was trying to fight a boss in EQ2, what would I be paying attention to during the fight? Simply positioning and my rotations (in sequence with my party's/raid's)? But if bosses have mechanics with 0 visuals and I can't react to them in text - how am I supposed to play around them during the fight?
Which is why I'm asking whether the fight is literally a carbon copy of itself on every single pull, cause at that point it'd at least be simple memorization, and I can totally understand that.
If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.
Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?
Cause if they have any kind of randomness, I simply cannot imagine how exactly were people playing the game if they can't physically react to all the info input, the logs don't help because you can't read that fast, ACT doesn't help during the fight because it's functionally the logs and the visuals are literally non-existent because the game is all about telling you mechanics through text.
I can obviously watch a recording of a fight, but that tells me nothing about how people were playing the game. Like, the first point of view of gameplay. I cannot comprehend its flow. Or, to be precise, your description of the game does not allow me to even comprehend it (not necessarily your fault, just the overall design seems to come off that way, from your words).
If I was trying to fight a boss in EQ2, what would I be paying attention to during the fight? Simply positioning and my rotations (in sequence with my party's/raid's)? But if bosses have mechanics with 0 visuals and I can't react to them in text - how am I supposed to play around them during the fight?
Which is why I'm asking whether the fight is literally a carbon copy of itself on every single pull, cause at that point it'd at least be simple memorization, and I can totally understand that.
I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.
But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.
I feel we're in a weird situation here, because you're asking for an explanation of something that by definition of 'being complex to be interesting' is so complex that it can't be explained to you in that way.
It's like how comprehending high level StarCraft play isn't a thing you can do without years of playing StarCraft. Not even the flow will make sense.
But yes, it's that random, it has hidden parts, it has many complexities. FFXI Campaign is sometimes literally the equivalent of undertaking a small military operation (of the Greco-Roman Imperial era).
It's not that the boss has no visual data, it's that it has 'tiers'. I can use Briareus to explain this to you if you care a lot, but the short version, if you remember from the check, is that you can visually see Briareus use Mercurial Strike, and the visual cue of Mercurial Strike tells you to look at your log for a moment to see how much damage it did.
From there it's a mental priority stack like any other high difficulty game.
I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.
But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.
My memory must be decaying due to my zoomerization (ADDzation?).
@Noaani is EQ2 also simply about post factum reactive gameplay?
Cause I can totally understand that. I don't like it, but if that is how it is - I understand that.
edit: All I was asking is what players pay attention to. If it is simply "smth happened - do a mental tree on how to react" - that's super easy to understand. And I guess the log parsing just helps build that tree at the raid's scale, so that everyone is on the same page.
If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.
Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?
Nope, there was randomness.
As to how people played - as I've said to you before, it was hard (I just scrolled up and saw Azherae saying the same thing).
The comparison to top end Starcraft play is apt (I look at it and have no idea what's going on). It takes years to gain an understanding - and as I have said the best raid content in a game comes several years after release.
Perhaps you may be starting to understand why I have said a few times that PvP focused players simply aren't up to the task of top end PvE. If nothing else, it takes longer than most PvP players spend in a given game to get truly proficient at high end PvE.
I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.
But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.
My memory must be decaying due to my zoomerization (ADDzation?).
Noaani is EQ2 also simply about post factum reactive gameplay?
Cause I can totally understand that. I don't like it, but if that is how it is - I understand that.
Again, this is actually slightly oversimplification.
So backing up a step.
There's the information you need to see, to defend against, or heal directly after, an enemy attack, or to coordinate your synergy/Skillchain. This is not a thing you look at logs for.
There is information you need to know about basic DPS, DoT values, and fluctuations in those values. This information is in your logs, but it's hard to track it all consistently unless you're the player 'assigned to tracking it'.
Then there's the statistics, which are an integral part of Tab-Target and Hybrid MMOs with evasion and accuracy. In order to have a reasonable idea of the statistics, you must have all the log data. We're back to 'what happens when you fight Baltheus with short range weapons' if you remember that part.
Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).
Trackers become 'necessary' when all of the following are true:
1) The game contains accuracy and evasion, and has enough activity that you might need the statistics
2) The complexity of decision making is heavily influenced by data from up to 7 or more seconds ago
3) There are a large number of mechanics, changing status, DoT, or players interacting at the same time
So Pred doesn't need a tracker really because it doesn't have #1, and BDO doesn't need it because it doesn't have #2, and L2 (apparently) doesn't need it as much because it doesn't have #3.
As to how people played - as I've said to you before, it was hard (I just scrolled up and saw Azherae saying the same thing).
Again, I don't think I've ever said it was easy.
All I was asking is what were people doing during the encounter. SC can be broken down to attention to management of resources, food, production, units (macro and micro), scouting and the decision tree that includes all of those factors. Obviously executing all of that is beyond difficult, but at the very base of second-to-second actions it's simply shift of attention from a thing to a thing.
I was asking what were players shifting their attention to in EQ2 raids. If it was just "my positioning, what did the boss just do to me/others, what should others do in response and what should my response be to support them (all in the context of a preestablished tree of decisions, that's based on log parsing)" - all of that is easy as fuck to understand, but obviously hard as fuck to execute.
Now, either/both of you tell me - is that what you pay attention to or not.
Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).
So yeah, sounds like my explanation in the comment above is correct. Gameplay is about complex reactive raid-wide decision trees.
Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).
So yeah, sounds like my explanation in the comment above is correct. Gameplay is about complex reactive raid-wide decision trees.
Also, before we go in any weird directions, remember two things.
1) You're the one that mentioned that you can't imagine how people were playing the game with randomness on top of all that.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.
This is the 'danger' of not including them if you want a complex game.
In Pred, my group uses replays. I can see everything, they watch replays and ask me to confirm what I saw vs the replay, or 'they get upset', then 'I remember what actually happened' (sometimes I go check the replay myself to be absolutely sure but I'm about 90% of the time correct), and then I tell them which part of the replay to watch.
Without the replays, what happens is different. One might even call it 'more toxic'. (this has nothing to do with Trackers, because Intrepid says we're getting a combat log, and if we have a full combat log, we have 'a Tracker' relative to this part).
So my team doesn't need to be able to adapt to everything mid-match, when they can't, we just lose (or win because either the enemy team can't either, or I can manipulate their behaviour because I'm Jungler).
1) You're the one that mentioned that you can't imagine how people were playing the game with randomness on top of all that.
You saw my AC6 gameplay and heard how I approach the difficulty in games like that. My default approach is "why would you get hit when you can avoid getting hit, and if you can't avoid - git good". This is why I couldn't even comprehend what Noaani was saying.
But your comment there made me finally realize that yall are completely fine with being hit (apparently because the game's complexity doesn't physically allow to avoid things). Which is why I switched so fast.
Do you have any friends who're super good at SC(2)? Cause we're a bit in too deep in our own bubble, so it's be interesting in hearing from that person whether my generalization of player actions during a match is anywhere near correct. I've pretty much never played either SC, but I followed the pro scene in early 10s, which is where I base my generalization on.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.
Again though, trackers help with the tree, right? They have no mechanical influence on the player's actions during the encounter itself. So, realistically, only those genetic lottery winners can clear the pve Noaani and you are talking about. Because clearing that lvl of difficulty still requires the player to hold a ton of info in their head, even if their job is simply watching where they stand and remember the tree when they cast abilities.
And as I said before, I'm all for deep and extensive logs. And I've come to terms with inevitability of trackers a long time ago.
Again though, trackers help with the tree, right? The have no mechanical influence on the player's actions during the encounter itself. So, realistically, only those genetic lottery winners can clear the pve Noaani and you are talking about. Because clearing that lvl of difficulty still requires the player to hold a ton of info in their head, even if their job is simply watching where they stand and remember the tree when they cast abilities.
And as I said before, I'm all for deep and extensive logs. And I've come to terms with inevitability of trackers a long time ago.
Not exactly, this is the structure that leads to what PvE Raiders consider to be a large part of the content.
On Pull #1 you don't have enough data to strategize (this is true in all games that go beyond 'dodge when attacked, you'll notice it in a specific part of AC6 later). Everyone must watch everything, because you don't know what's important vs not. The enemy can 'feint' with less important things to overload you, or sometimes a specific random sequence is something your party/raid in particular just shrugs off.
On Pulls #2-5 you are gathering data, if you don't win, it's probably because people don't yet know which thing exactly they're supposed to be focused on, out of the massive amount of stuff happening. PvP is similar, for you, I hope (I only play games where it is similar for me).
On Pulls #6-15 you're tweaking builds, learning reactions, and in a complex game, you're still doing what you were doing on pulls #2-5, because there are still things about the boss, random combinations and situations, that didn't come up before that. You might get lucky during this time, and 'your preparations from #2-5 were enough'. This is 'just about average PvE' to the players generally who care about this. PvP players who face weaker opponents who are easy to manipulate or don't adapt, have the equivalent. Think 'strong guild who hasn't learned tactics and is carried by gear'.
If you didn't get lucky, or the boss is really complex or has different 'phases' (this isn't a good example, it's moreso a condition where they do something differently for a short period in response to something else), then Pulls #16-25 are more of the same. People are really working out 'what they need to pay attention to', and the logs/tracker is there to give you the statistics to make those decisions (again, ENTIRELY because it's a Tab-Target or Hybrid MMORPG, Action ones still have the statistics based on your own personal skill, but your build doesn't matter as much unless it's Predecessor tier of complexity in builds, which none are).
Pulls #25 and on are tweaking builds, making sure to do all mechanics perfectly, synchronizing in weird situations where, for example, the enemy needs to be CCed, but it's not absolutely clear whose job it is in any precise moment, so sometimes two people CC at once, both go on cooldown, now no more CC, things go bad...
Somewhere in there, depending on the type of game and the mechanical complexity, you probably win. And that was the fun.
"Oh damn we both stunned it, can we still win?"
or
"No don't stand behind me now DAMMIT, someone rez... too late... fine..."
Stuff like that.
The part relevant to this discussion is, the 'Savant' or the 'Tracker' is what gets you 'through' Pulls #6-15. Together, players discuss how to tweak their builds, approaches, teamwork, positioning, and so on, to respond to the many random situations the boss presents. The number of pulls is related to 'how much information you need to gather, to know which parts of the information you can ignore'. Games with 'weak' PvE that doesn't provide the sequence above, and games with weak PvP opponents, are the same. If you can, in one encounter, grasp everything the boss can do, and spend time watching the statistics, follow the scripted mechanics if any, and know what to ignore, then it dies somewhere in Pull #2-5 stage.
This is why there are no true top-end guides, too. Because 'which things you tweak' depend on what the strengths and weaknesses of your group are. Eventually there will usually be a guide of 'here's the simplest combination of classes to take to this boss to negate the maximum number of things so that you don't have to track it all'.
It's the equivalent of finding out the OP meta-build for PvP. Except that in FFXI at least, that 'simplest combination', which is 'the best combination' to the masses, can still get royally fucked over by one of the rarer random ability combinations. The odds are just less, and the sort of person who 'just wants to clear' (whether because they don't enjoy the complexity, or it's just a guild that has something 'on farm') will just shrug it off and go again.
Because 'someone said this is the best, there are videos of people beating it like this, so I know it's possible so I'll just do it too'.
Now I need Noaani to weigh in on this comment, because what you described would be a roughly mid-high lvl of pve encounters as how I imagine good ones to be.
But going off of Noaani's explanations about EQ2, this would be smth like a low tier boss.
This is why I had bigger troubles comprehending his explanations of his points, rather than yours. I could watch those ff11 raid videos and superimpose them onto the things you've explained about the game and I'd have a super rough picture of how I'd "look like" if I was playing it.
But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described, but then this doesn't help me comprehend the difference between the 25th+ pulls from your example and the "hundreds and hundreds of pulls" from Noaani's usual ones.
If it's simply about the "stat values of bosses (both basic and ability ones) are at such a high limit that you need a near-perfect raid build to succeed, and even then you probably got lucky" - I can understand that. But iirc Noaani has also said that different guilds managed to kill bosses with different builds. So is it ultimately just luck (based on super high skill of course) or are those bosses not, in fact, at the max limit of what's even probably to kill.
Extrapolating my AC6 experience to a raid one is somewhat easy, even if I add the lens of higher lvls of complexity. But that's still just under the difficulty from your example. Noaani's somewhere above the skies with his numbers.
Now I need Noaani to weigh in on this comment, because what you described would be a roughly mid-high lvl of pve encounters as how I imagine good ones to be.
But going off of Noaani's explanations about EQ2, this would be smth like a low tier boss.
This is why I had bigger troubles comprehending his explanations of his points, rather than yours. I could watch those ff11 raid videos and superimpose them onto the things you've explained about the game and I'd have a super rough picture of how I'd "look like" if I was playing it.
But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described, but then this doesn't help me comprehend the difference between the 25th+ pulls from your example and the "hundreds and hundreds of pulls" from Noaani's usual ones.
If it's simply about the "stat values of bosses (both basic and ability ones) are at such a high limit that you need a near-perfect raid build to succeed, and even then you probably got lucky" - I can understand that. But iirc Noaani has also said that different guilds managed to kill bosses with different builds. So is it ultimately just luck (based on super high skill of course) or are those bosses not, in fact, at the max limit of what's even probably to kill.
Extrapolating my AC6 experience to a raid one is somewhat easy, even if I add the lens of higher lvls of complexity. But that's still just under the difficulty from your example. Noaani's somewhere above the skies with his numbers.
If it helps, I was actually describing mid-level content as well.
But as for the different guilds with different builds concept, remember one specific thing I said.
"My guild shrugs off different things than your guild does."
This is a thing I expect in Ashes, or rather, I deeply hope for. You can parallel to AC6 once again. "My build shrugs off different things than yours does." My challenge to you actually, based on that, would be that when you return to AC6, you should consider this a bit. Maybe even 'try not to change your build too much unless you're hard stuck'.
Baltheus is easiER (not easy) with your build, than with mine. Two later bosses, I just cut through trivially, and I know that your build will have much more issues with. That's the complexity.
For harder bosses, add more mechanics that aren't related to your class which you must also learn (and therefore get disrupted from all your muscle memory and related skills), or take the FFXI approach and 'combine abilities that, if put on players, would be explicitly unbalanced'. 'You can't counter both of these things at once without massive effort and perfect execution'. Then increase those and the randomness. As I understand it, EQ2 is harder than FFXI because it has a lot more of the 'this boss mechanic is specific and goes against your standard ability and muscle memory'.
Briareus, as an example, only has one such thing (the Zombie status making it impossible to heal) and otherwise relies on the idea that a Samurai Gigas with magic damage is meaningfully 'less balanced' to have to fight. Toublek has more of the 'standard' approach that I understand, with the Geysers and the Rat Transformation and whatnot.
The problem with explaining high level content is that it's not 'describable'. If 24 people need to talk about a single encounter for 20+ hours and their conclusions are specific to them the only way I could give you an example would be to give you logs from our discussions.
If you want a 2 hour log, though, lmk (it covers a single teamfight situation in Pred)
If you want a 2 hour log, though, lmk (it covers a single teamfight situation in Pred)
For now no, but if this convo comes up again in the future (hope it doesn't at least until A2) - then I'll probably try to learn more/better once again.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
Also, before we go in any weird directions, remember two things.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.
This is the 'danger' of not including them if you want a complex game.
Yes. And...
I don't want MMORPGs to be so complex that players feel compelled to rely on combat trackers...
Making them focused on Rollplay rather than Roleplay.
Different builds should be able to defeat the same challenge.
It should not require just one META to defeat even the toughest challenge.
And it should be fine for different groups to defeat the same challenge at different speeds - might take some several tries and others just one attempt.
And there should also be an expectation that strategies and tactics will need to be adjusted when a new person with a different build joins (or replaces someone in) the group.
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
Also, before we go in any weird directions, remember two things.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.
This is the 'danger' of not including them if you want a complex game.
Yes. And...
I don't want MMORPGs to be so complex that players feel compelled to rely on combat trackers...
Making them focused on Rollplay rather than Roleplay.
Different builds should be able to defeat the same challenge.
It should not require just one META to defeat even the toughest challenge.
And it should be fine for different groups to defeat the same challenge at different speeds - might take some several tries and others just one attempt.
And there should also be an expectation that strategies and tactics will need to be adjusted when a new person with a different build joins (or replaces someone in) the group.
Right, and I totally understand that. Different games should appeal to different levels of complexity and styles of content. The problem with Steven's initial approaches to both of these things is only that the goals of Ashes are unclear.
Btw NiKr, this is why FFXI is designed the way it is, Dygz would be happy there, because there are mechanics meant to help a LOT with being able to take things on at different paces, as described, without tearing apart all the underlying structures.
But relative to this specific tangent of this eternal thread, there's a difference between 'complexity' and 'data overload'. A game can have a high amount of 'incoming data', and the difference would not 'force you to use a tracker'. It would cause you to take 10x as long as someone like me, or someone with a Tracker, but it would not become impossible by any means.
And the fun part of MMOs (in terms of overcoming challenges) would be LARGER for you than for me. You would 'discuss with your teammates how to beat the challenge and what you observed when you didn't beat it', same as me, I just would do it faster.
The problematic people are 'the people trying to keep up with me, who then decide that using a Tracker is the best option'.
Making the game less complex OVERALL (not the data heavy type) would just decrease synergies and fun, making individual players irrelevant and replaceable. This is a huge danger, in my opinion. When challenges are too easy (because of low data density), many people don't have a reason to care who they group with, because there's no real adaptation to do.
In my experience, this leads to toxicity. It's worse when it's not actually too easy but a lot of people think it is because it's easy for someone else. It really sucks to be a player like yourself in games like that.
People who have 'static groups' or longstanding comrades who already know their quirks, don't have this problem, they just tear through the content either way and just ignore other players. Because it's literally better for them, with their limited time, to entirely skip a boss battle if one person is missing, than to try to get through it with a different person, sometimes even within their own guild. It's really sad.
At least with data-complex stuff, people can enjoy just chatting about the data and how it relates to their groups. As it degrades, you get the other situation where people go 'well every Warrior should do the same thing in this fight, so I don't need to talk to you, go watch the YouTube guide on what you're supposed to do, then show up and try not to screw it up'.
But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described
This may or may not help, but it is worth a try.
If you can give me the names of some of the encounters you have watched (or just links to them), if they were encounters that were in the game when I played, I could point out to you whether they were low, mid or top tier. I could also potentially point out other things such as if the video in question was taken while the encounter was current content or not.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
And the fun part of MMOs (in terms of overcoming challenges) would be LARGER for you than for me. You would 'discuss with your teammates how to beat the challenge and what you observed when you didn't beat it', same as me, I just would do it faster.
The problematic people are 'the people trying to keep up with me, who then decide that using a Tracker is the best option'....
The toxic gamers relying on DPS Meters to kick the weak link are typically striving to META/speed run bosses in order to disseminate BiS gear as quickly as possible.
I suppose they might also be striving to maintain top spots on the "Top-End Raider" Leaderboards.
Which, again, is better suited to other genres, like E-Sports and Shooters than RPGs.
I'd prefer to have players killing bosses because that's what's best for the narrative of the server, rather than because that's what rewards players with BiS gear or rewards top player trophies.
Now that I think about - it's probably why Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward (which seems to have kicked into high gear after Jeffrey Bard left) is also negative hype for me.
With the Ashes Class and Augments system - synergizing Active Skills and Augments with pary members should not be Rocket Science - and should not require a Combat Tracker.
Also, shouldn't require all Warriors to have the exact same Augments on their Active Skills.
A Ranger/Ranger's Barrage (Arrows) should be as effective as a Ranger/Rogue's Barrage (Throwing Knives) or a Ranger/Mage's Barrage (Hail) - that could be without Augments. Even without Augments, those versions of Barrage might have different Damage Types (Nature/Poison/Frost) and dictate who else in the Party the Ranger typically tries to synergize with.
Shouldn't take a Combat Tracker to realize that it might be a great tactic to have the Scout enhance the Poison Damage of the Assassin.
I'd prefer to have players killing bosses because that's what's best for the narrative of the server, rather than because that's what rewards players with BiS gear or rewards top player trophies.
Now that I think about - it's probably why Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward (which seems to have kicked into high gear after Jeffrey Bard left) is also negative hype for me.
Again, you seem to be missing the point of diversity in an MMO.
Even from an RP perspective, if you take a world of ten thousand or more players, there SHOULD be some out there that are going off doing what is most benefitial for them - not what is best for the story of that world.
What is best for the game, and for each individual server, and for any given players personal RP, is for each player on the server to have their own motivation - not to share some common motivation.
If me and my friends decide that we don't really care about the thing you want us to care about, and instead we want to go off and better ourselves so that we are better prepared the next time our node is under siege or attacked by a dragon or we want to kill the guy picking *OUR* flowers, that makes the world more real.
Shouldn't take a Combat Tracker to realize that it might be a great tactic to have the Scout enhance the Poison Damage of the Assassin.
In isolation, probably not.
However, what is the made has taken Rogue as secondary, and so has many of their spells able to be augmented to deal poison damage? How much of an effect will that scouts enhance poison damage have on those spells? WIll it be more benefitial on that Shadowcaster, or on the Assassin?
What if the Shadowcater then gets a buff from a bard that increases their cast speed? This makes it more worthwhile to put that poison damage on the Shadowcaster. On the other hand, if the Assassin gets a buff that adds additional ticks to their poison damage DoT's, perhaps it is worth putting it back on the Assassin. But then what if the Shadow Caster has joined the Thieves guild and that gives them access to an augment that increases the rate at which poison DoT's tick, meaning they deal their damage faster and so can be reapplied faster, but means the character has to spend more of their time in combat refreshing that ability? What if one of the other player has a slightly slower connection to the server that causes a few issues with reapplying DoT's?
At what point does it become worth putting that enhance poison on the Assassin or the Shadow Mage?
If you ask really simple questions, then the answers are obvious. It is when those questions get more complex - get more real world - that you need more data if you want a proper answer.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Again, you seem to be missing the point of diversity in an MMO.
Even from an RP perspective, if you take a world of ten thousand or more players, there SHOULD be some out there that are going off doing what is most benefitial for them - not what is best for the story of that world.
Again, you are paraphrasing what I actually wrote and then arguing a strawman of what I did not write.
From a Roleplaying perspective, some player characters will likely be doing what is best for themselves rather than what is best for the world - and can do so while focused on the narrative rather than the numerical, (OOC) META.
It cannot be that from a Roleplaying perspective some characters are striving to focus on the data from Combat Trackers.
Sure, part of the narrative of a server will be that some player characters are working toward the destruction of Verra. Some player characters will be intent on causing strife for the world, rather than benefitting the health of the world.
Which is still being focused on the narrative of the server, rather than the OOC META of gameplay.
More importantly, I'm talking about how the game is designed.
An RPG should be designed to have players focused on the Roleplay more than the Rollplay.
Of course, there will be some players trying to play their own way, sometimes playing against the design of the game.
Even I am no longer planning to play according to Steven's vision of the game -I'm just going to explore rather than pursue any progression paths- that doesn't mean I'm advocating for the design to be changed to accommodate my playstyle preferences.
Just, in the case of DPS Meters, I happen to agree with Steven's vision.
...what is the made has taken Rogue as secondary, and so has many of their spells able to be augmented to deal poison damage? How much of an effect will that scouts enhance poison damage have on those spells? WIll it be more benefitial on that Shadowcaster, or on the Assassin?
Your grammar is too garbled for me to understand what you are asking: What if the Mage has Rogue as Secondary and many of their Active Skills are Augmented with Poison?
If the Scout has Augmented their Active Skills with Poison, their Damage Types will stack if the Scout and Shadowcaster work with each other to stack Poison Damage.
How beneficial it might be with a Shadowcaster or Assassin depends on how frequently they choose to synergize their effects.
Doesn't really matter if it's "more effective" on the Shadowcaster or the Assassin. What matters is that it can be significantly effective to synergize with either or both. If both are in the same Party as a Scout.
And we shouldn't have to rely on a Combat Tracker to realize that those synergies will be effective.
(Or non-effective if the opponents are resistant to Poison.)
Sure. There will be other variables where one might choose to synergize with different x/Rogues in the group - if the group has multiple x/Rogues.
And still should not need a Combat Tracker to determine that. Most likely, that group's focus on Poison Damage will make relying on a Combat Tracker moot.
Of course, it could also be that the Scout synergizes Shadow Damage with the Shadowcaster and Poison Damage with the Assassin. And still, one should not need to rely on a Combat Tracker to determine that.
You've done a poor job of explaining how I've failed to factor in the diversity available in a well-designed (MMO)RPG.
Again, you seem to be missing the point of diversity in an MMO.
Even from an RP perspective, if you take a world of ten thousand or more players, there SHOULD be some out there that are going off doing what is most benefitial for them - not what is best for the story of that world.
Again, you are paraphrasing what I actually wrote and then arguing a strawman of what I did not write.
From a Roleplaying perspective, some player characters will likely be doing what is best for themselves rather than what is best for the world - and can do so while focused on the narrative rather than the numerical, (OOC) META.
It cannot be that from a Roleplaying perspective some characters are striving to focus on the data from Combat Trackers.
Sure it can.
If I lived in a world where I was fighting for my life many times a day (even if I was bring brought back), and where gear increased my success rate in these many fights, you had better believe I would put all the time and effort in to trying to learn as much about all of this as I could. I would want to know what any enemy would likely do, what any item I could get would allow me to do, what any of my friends could do, etc. I would strive for knowledge and understanding at as deep a level as I can for all of this.
What doesn't make sense - as an example - is someone being in the position where they are in these fights many times a day, and when it comes to the weapon and armor and such they have, just deciding that some random thing will do because they like how it looks. That is a tool that you are using to fight for you life, and you are picking it based on aesthetics, and you want to make out that this is good roleplay? That this is the decision your character would make?
A combat tracker is how players recieve information that our characters would have - or our collective characters would have in the case of a group or a raid. It is the metaphhorical having a drink after the fight to discuss how things went (in some cases, it is the literal having a drink after the fight to discuss how things went).
Now, you could well make an argument that we shouldn't need it, that this should all be in the game itself - and I agree and have been making that argument in this thread for years. If it isn't though, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have that information.
Doesn't really matter if it's "more effective" on the Shadowcaster or the Assassin. What matters is that it can be significantly effective to synergize with either or both. If both are in the same Party as a Scout.
And we shouldn't have to rely on a Combat Tracker to realize that those synergies will be effective.
Dude, your fighting for your life (or your character is).
If you are roleplaying, it should matter to you. It sure as hell would matter to your character. Just being effective isn't enough when there is the option to be more effecting and potentially not die. This should actually matter more to someone that is trying to play as their character than someone that is just playing.
Again, the notion that a person in the situation that our characters are in would just bumble their way through things the way RP'ers seem to want to RP is just so far off that it is amusing.
I fully understand where Dygz is coming from a rp perspective, meanwhile noaani is trying to make a statement if your character had god powers they would use it RP wise .A statement that is missing the actual soul of rp.
No soul = no fun. Looking at tracking numbers to figure out what you need to do to beat an encounter is not engaging.
Having more information obviously will make things easier, but trying to make a point about the game design needs to be people using trackers to figure things out to make "hard" content is gross.
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This would only be helpful if you had any way to determine what was important or not important information at any given time.'
The games we're talking about, have logs, they have log filters, you can be pretty precise with them. It's just that there is so much going on, you'd need nine different windows (yes, I'm serious, and I'm not even talking about an MMO, I'm just talking about Predecessor) if you somehow wanted to filter everything to the point where it could all be 'sorted' in a teamfight.
Even in BDO you'd need 4 or 5 if they offered this. Note I'm not saying 'you can't play the game this way', I'm only appealing to 'the fact that you already understand why people want 'Ricochet' level logs, and therefore I'm assuming you suggested the log filters.
They're nice, but they'd cover your whole screen. And at that point, you still need to be very visual to read them all. Personally I'm not. Regardless of the fact that I read very fast, it's way easier to just remember every effect. That's how 'cluttered and distracting' a complex system ends up being.
There's one other problem that I don't know if you're familiar with, which applies to this as well. When an opponent's DPS is based on their attack speed, the only visual indicator of their attack speed build's power is how fast your log is scrolling or how quickly the numbers are flashing. I'm not saying it's impossible to keep track of that, but it's sometimes very hard to judge effectiveness.
There's a reason why 'building for huge attack' is considered a noob trap in many games. "Bigger number better!" is difficult to dispel when the 'actually bigger number' is 'a smaller number, but more often'.
In PvE, I've heard that DPS meters are often used to exclude people from parties, but they can also be beneficial for optimizing builds and rotations. A more engaging approach might involve testing DPS on lower-level bosses or mobs, requiring players to invest time in figuring out the most effective strategies rather than simply standing before a training dummy and observing a bar.
This way, the game encourages experimentation.
I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).
To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on you at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.
Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.
Those who still have problems even with such a mechanic would have problems with parsing logs on the fly as well. Also, was that class' info not anywhere online? Could no one just, like, play that character to the point where you get this ability and literally just see how it works? I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like it applies to dumb people. "Educate yourself" and all that.
I played every class in L2 at least to the extent of understanding what their abilities do, so that I could know not only how to play against them, but potentially help others understand them as well (and have done so on multiple occasions).
Nah, I was just trying to visualize in my mind how I'd prefer my combat log to look. Just several thin windows of incoming dmg (singular hits), incoming debuffs, incoming dot dmg.
Incoming magical dmg would be blue in that first window, phys would be red. Debuffs would be painted rainbow by type, so a glance would give me at least the type of stat reduction I received (and I'd be able to check the icon visually if needed). Dots would just be there, and with time I'd underline names with dangerous dots, so their dots would be more visually apparent in the log.
I know this doesn't cover all the things, but I'd only know which things it needs to cover when we have the final game in our hands.
I mean, as I see it, knowing literally all icons and their effects is literally the base level of knowledge required to be even semi-competent at the game.
People who can't keep up with the pve/p pace or the log or the icons or whatever else will simply not be competent. And I don't think anything can help them, not trackers, not meters not anything. I don't really watch Asmon's WoW streams, but I sure as hell constantly hear his complaining of people not doing mechanics or not "walking out of the red". And that WITH wow's insane addons that yell at you what to do. How would one expect those kinds of people to track anything in a fight that might involve pvp on top of pve.
I realize this is probably cruel to them, but I simply don't see how they can be helped in this particular context. If anything, my suggestions of having good visuals is an attempt at that, but both you and Noaani say that visuals can't really do shit in a properly complex game, so then how in the hell would those people even clear content like that?
And if we're not talking about such people, then we're simply back to Noaani's classic argument of "there's literally nothing you can do because I've already ACTed all over your game"
I know this quite well cause L2's 2 biggest and highest value dpsers were Orc classes, one with a HUGEASS double-hander and the other with knuckles. I'm sure you know what the differences were.
They were somewhat interchangeable, though particular gear pieces made the double-hander just too stronk, so he was usually preferred. But until those pieces, knuckle boy was accepted in most raids.
The problem is not the icon. The icon works fine. The problem is 'recognizing which players you need to move away from and which you don't need to move away from', because you need to also see the precise damage that each tick of the DoT is doing.
That is the 'issue' with audiovisual feedback for DoT in games with a higher amount of it. Once you are in range of both Steel and Sevarog and they both built Fire Blossom, in Predecessor, you have no immediate way to know which one is doing 72 damage per second and which is doing 23 (these numbers aren't real exactly).
Then, you get stunned, and suddenly it's doing 104 and 46 (Fire Blossom DoT doubles when you are immobilized). But also just taking magical damage, in combination with a different item, increased your opponent's Magic Damage Bonus, or reduced your Magical Armor, or something, so actually, the number doesn't even stay the same from moment to moment.
I could get close to someone, and the damage tics look like '40, 42, 84, 88, 55, 121, 140' (these numbers DO appear on the screen). And then someone else nearby with a similar effect does '34, 37, 80, etc'.
Also remember that unless they removed anything similar to Hallowed Ground (the Alpha-1 Cleric ability) and Chains doesn't do DoT, Ashes already has this concern.
Anyways, the involved person has requested that I discontinue attempting to explain it. Your perspectives tend to be unyielding, so, thanks for answering, on their behalf.
Just talking outgoing damage, if you were playing a DoT heavy class, you would have potentially 20+ log entries per second.
Even as one of the slower casting classes, I still averaged 5 entries a second. If we were to add incoming damage, healing in and out (I could heal a small amount of mana) etc, it would be double that. No one is reading even 5 lines a second and still playing their class well enough to meet the requirements of the encounter.
As a result, no one looked at the in game logs in EQ2 - there was just no point. Most people didn't even have a text window for combat - it went to the log file and you would look at it via ACT. It was just not viable to look at it in game.
As to trying to get an idea of what is happening via in game visuals - nope, again things were moving too fast, there was too much happening. When 24 people each have 4 or 5 status effects on the boss, you can't tell which 100 are on it by looking - obviously. As a result of this, most people turned as much of the visual clutter of combat down on raids in order to increase performance, and to be able to get a better idea of the one thing you could keep an eye on in raids - p[ayer positioning.
When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.
Positioning is the simplest part of a raid, so I'd assume people were just looking at ACT instead of the game, cause, as you say, looking at the game was pointless. Is there a video recording of how ACT looks like during an EQ2 raid? Cause I find it hard to imagine how can a program, that supposedly simply reads and parses the log, help a human process that amount of info on second-to-second basis.
Anyone watching a log or a tracker during a fight was not going to be able to perform their role in that fight. Again, this is why the notion of not having one in a game with a good combat system just doesn't compute - you need a combat tracker to go back after the fight and see what happened, there is no potential way to see what happened during the fight because the human brain can't process information that quickly.
This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.
So ok, then how exactly do you apply ACT's info in the next fight, if you got no way to even know what's going on, cause there's too much info input?
I mean, yeah, EQ2 didn't tell you how to kill its top end encounters - it was up to players to work out. Before you could work out how to kill an encounter, you needed to work out what it was doing.
Working this out was a major part of the raiding scene. Depends.
If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.
On the other hand, if you are wanting to look at something specific that went wrong - after you have worked out what needs to be done - it would take seconds to pull up in ACT.
Cause if they have any kind of randomness, I simply cannot imagine how exactly were people playing the game if they can't physically react to all the info input, the logs don't help because you can't read that fast, ACT doesn't help during the fight because it's functionally the logs and the visuals are literally non-existent because the game is all about telling you mechanics through text.
I can obviously watch a recording of a fight, but that tells me nothing about how people were playing the game. Like, the first point of view of gameplay. I cannot comprehend its flow. Or, to be precise, your description of the game does not allow me to even comprehend it (not necessarily your fault, just the overall design seems to come off that way, from your words).
If I was trying to fight a boss in EQ2, what would I be paying attention to during the fight? Simply positioning and my rotations (in sequence with my party's/raid's)? But if bosses have mechanics with 0 visuals and I can't react to them in text - how am I supposed to play around them during the fight?
Which is why I'm asking whether the fight is literally a carbon copy of itself on every single pull, cause at that point it'd at least be simple memorization, and I can totally understand that.
I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.
But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.
I feel we're in a weird situation here, because you're asking for an explanation of something that by definition of 'being complex to be interesting' is so complex that it can't be explained to you in that way.
It's like how comprehending high level StarCraft play isn't a thing you can do without years of playing StarCraft. Not even the flow will make sense.
But yes, it's that random, it has hidden parts, it has many complexities. FFXI Campaign is sometimes literally the equivalent of undertaking a small military operation (of the Greco-Roman Imperial era).
It's not that the boss has no visual data, it's that it has 'tiers'. I can use Briareus to explain this to you if you care a lot, but the short version, if you remember from the check, is that you can visually see Briareus use Mercurial Strike, and the visual cue of Mercurial Strike tells you to look at your log for a moment to see how much damage it did.
From there it's a mental priority stack like any other high difficulty game.
@Noaani is EQ2 also simply about post factum reactive gameplay?
Cause I can totally understand that. I don't like it, but if that is how it is - I understand that.
edit: All I was asking is what players pay attention to. If it is simply "smth happened - do a mental tree on how to react" - that's super easy to understand. And I guess the log parsing just helps build that tree at the raid's scale, so that everyone is on the same page.
As to how people played - as I've said to you before, it was hard (I just scrolled up and saw Azherae saying the same thing).
The comparison to top end Starcraft play is apt (I look at it and have no idea what's going on). It takes years to gain an understanding - and as I have said the best raid content in a game comes several years after release.
Perhaps you may be starting to understand why I have said a few times that PvP focused players simply aren't up to the task of top end PvE. If nothing else, it takes longer than most PvP players spend in a given game to get truly proficient at high end PvE.
Again, this is actually slightly oversimplification.
So backing up a step.
There's the information you need to see, to defend against, or heal directly after, an enemy attack, or to coordinate your synergy/Skillchain. This is not a thing you look at logs for.
There is information you need to know about basic DPS, DoT values, and fluctuations in those values. This information is in your logs, but it's hard to track it all consistently unless you're the player 'assigned to tracking it'.
Then there's the statistics, which are an integral part of Tab-Target and Hybrid MMOs with evasion and accuracy. In order to have a reasonable idea of the statistics, you must have all the log data. We're back to 'what happens when you fight Baltheus with short range weapons' if you remember that part.
Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?
If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.
DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).
Trackers become 'necessary' when all of the following are true:
1) The game contains accuracy and evasion, and has enough activity that you might need the statistics
2) The complexity of decision making is heavily influenced by data from up to 7 or more seconds ago
3) There are a large number of mechanics, changing status, DoT, or players interacting at the same time
So Pred doesn't need a tracker really because it doesn't have #1, and BDO doesn't need it because it doesn't have #2, and L2 (apparently) doesn't need it as much because it doesn't have #3.
All I was asking is what were people doing during the encounter. SC can be broken down to attention to management of resources, food, production, units (macro and micro), scouting and the decision tree that includes all of those factors. Obviously executing all of that is beyond difficult, but at the very base of second-to-second actions it's simply shift of attention from a thing to a thing.
I was asking what were players shifting their attention to in EQ2 raids. If it was just "my positioning, what did the boss just do to me/others, what should others do in response and what should my response be to support them (all in the context of a preestablished tree of decisions, that's based on log parsing)" - all of that is easy as fuck to understand, but obviously hard as fuck to execute.
Now, either/both of you tell me - is that what you pay attention to or not.
So yeah, sounds like my explanation in the comment above is correct. Gameplay is about complex reactive raid-wide decision trees.
Also, before we go in any weird directions, remember two things.
1) You're the one that mentioned that you can't imagine how people were playing the game with randomness on top of all that.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.
This is the 'danger' of not including them if you want a complex game.
In Pred, my group uses replays. I can see everything, they watch replays and ask me to confirm what I saw vs the replay, or 'they get upset', then 'I remember what actually happened' (sometimes I go check the replay myself to be absolutely sure but I'm about 90% of the time correct), and then I tell them which part of the replay to watch.
Without the replays, what happens is different. One might even call it 'more toxic'. (this has nothing to do with Trackers, because Intrepid says we're getting a combat log, and if we have a full combat log, we have 'a Tracker' relative to this part).
So my team doesn't need to be able to adapt to everything mid-match, when they can't, we just lose (or win because either the enemy team can't either, or I can manipulate their behaviour because I'm Jungler).
But your comment there made me finally realize that yall are completely fine with being hit (apparently because the game's complexity doesn't physically allow to avoid things). Which is why I switched so fast.
Do you have any friends who're super good at SC(2)? Cause we're a bit in too deep in our own bubble, so it's be interesting in hearing from that person whether my generalization of player actions during a match is anywhere near correct. I've pretty much never played either SC, but I followed the pro scene in early 10s, which is where I base my generalization on.
Again though, trackers help with the tree, right? They have no mechanical influence on the player's actions during the encounter itself. So, realistically, only those genetic lottery winners can clear the pve Noaani and you are talking about. Because clearing that lvl of difficulty still requires the player to hold a ton of info in their head, even if their job is simply watching where they stand and remember the tree when they cast abilities.
And as I said before, I'm all for deep and extensive logs. And I've come to terms with inevitability of trackers a long time ago.
Not exactly, this is the structure that leads to what PvE Raiders consider to be a large part of the content.
On Pull #1 you don't have enough data to strategize (this is true in all games that go beyond 'dodge when attacked, you'll notice it in a specific part of AC6 later). Everyone must watch everything, because you don't know what's important vs not. The enemy can 'feint' with less important things to overload you, or sometimes a specific random sequence is something your party/raid in particular just shrugs off.
On Pulls #2-5 you are gathering data, if you don't win, it's probably because people don't yet know which thing exactly they're supposed to be focused on, out of the massive amount of stuff happening. PvP is similar, for you, I hope (I only play games where it is similar for me).
On Pulls #6-15 you're tweaking builds, learning reactions, and in a complex game, you're still doing what you were doing on pulls #2-5, because there are still things about the boss, random combinations and situations, that didn't come up before that. You might get lucky during this time, and 'your preparations from #2-5 were enough'. This is 'just about average PvE' to the players generally who care about this. PvP players who face weaker opponents who are easy to manipulate or don't adapt, have the equivalent. Think 'strong guild who hasn't learned tactics and is carried by gear'.
If you didn't get lucky, or the boss is really complex or has different 'phases' (this isn't a good example, it's moreso a condition where they do something differently for a short period in response to something else), then Pulls #16-25 are more of the same. People are really working out 'what they need to pay attention to', and the logs/tracker is there to give you the statistics to make those decisions (again, ENTIRELY because it's a Tab-Target or Hybrid MMORPG, Action ones still have the statistics based on your own personal skill, but your build doesn't matter as much unless it's Predecessor tier of complexity in builds, which none are).
Pulls #25 and on are tweaking builds, making sure to do all mechanics perfectly, synchronizing in weird situations where, for example, the enemy needs to be CCed, but it's not absolutely clear whose job it is in any precise moment, so sometimes two people CC at once, both go on cooldown, now no more CC, things go bad...
Somewhere in there, depending on the type of game and the mechanical complexity, you probably win. And that was the fun.
"Oh damn we both stunned it, can we still win?"
or
"No don't stand behind me now DAMMIT, someone rez... too late... fine..."
Stuff like that.
The part relevant to this discussion is, the 'Savant' or the 'Tracker' is what gets you 'through' Pulls #6-15. Together, players discuss how to tweak their builds, approaches, teamwork, positioning, and so on, to respond to the many random situations the boss presents. The number of pulls is related to 'how much information you need to gather, to know which parts of the information you can ignore'. Games with 'weak' PvE that doesn't provide the sequence above, and games with weak PvP opponents, are the same. If you can, in one encounter, grasp everything the boss can do, and spend time watching the statistics, follow the scripted mechanics if any, and know what to ignore, then it dies somewhere in Pull #2-5 stage.
This is why there are no true top-end guides, too. Because 'which things you tweak' depend on what the strengths and weaknesses of your group are. Eventually there will usually be a guide of 'here's the simplest combination of classes to take to this boss to negate the maximum number of things so that you don't have to track it all'.
It's the equivalent of finding out the OP meta-build for PvP. Except that in FFXI at least, that 'simplest combination', which is 'the best combination' to the masses, can still get royally fucked over by one of the rarer random ability combinations. The odds are just less, and the sort of person who 'just wants to clear' (whether because they don't enjoy the complexity, or it's just a guild that has something 'on farm') will just shrug it off and go again.
Because 'someone said this is the best, there are videos of people beating it like this, so I know it's possible so I'll just do it too'.
That's why AC6 has build guides like that.
But going off of Noaani's explanations about EQ2, this would be smth like a low tier boss.
This is why I had bigger troubles comprehending his explanations of his points, rather than yours. I could watch those ff11 raid videos and superimpose them onto the things you've explained about the game and I'd have a super rough picture of how I'd "look like" if I was playing it.
But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described, but then this doesn't help me comprehend the difference between the 25th+ pulls from your example and the "hundreds and hundreds of pulls" from Noaani's usual ones.
If it's simply about the "stat values of bosses (both basic and ability ones) are at such a high limit that you need a near-perfect raid build to succeed, and even then you probably got lucky" - I can understand that. But iirc Noaani has also said that different guilds managed to kill bosses with different builds. So is it ultimately just luck (based on super high skill of course) or are those bosses not, in fact, at the max limit of what's even probably to kill.
Extrapolating my AC6 experience to a raid one is somewhat easy, even if I add the lens of higher lvls of complexity. But that's still just under the difficulty from your example. Noaani's somewhere above the skies with his numbers.
If it helps, I was actually describing mid-level content as well.
But as for the different guilds with different builds concept, remember one specific thing I said.
"My guild shrugs off different things than your guild does."
This is a thing I expect in Ashes, or rather, I deeply hope for. You can parallel to AC6 once again. "My build shrugs off different things than yours does." My challenge to you actually, based on that, would be that when you return to AC6, you should consider this a bit. Maybe even 'try not to change your build too much unless you're hard stuck'.
Baltheus is easiER (not easy) with your build, than with mine. Two later bosses, I just cut through trivially, and I know that your build will have much more issues with. That's the complexity.
For harder bosses, add more mechanics that aren't related to your class which you must also learn (and therefore get disrupted from all your muscle memory and related skills), or take the FFXI approach and 'combine abilities that, if put on players, would be explicitly unbalanced'. 'You can't counter both of these things at once without massive effort and perfect execution'. Then increase those and the randomness. As I understand it, EQ2 is harder than FFXI because it has a lot more of the 'this boss mechanic is specific and goes against your standard ability and muscle memory'.
Briareus, as an example, only has one such thing (the Zombie status making it impossible to heal) and otherwise relies on the idea that a Samurai Gigas with magic damage is meaningfully 'less balanced' to have to fight. Toublek has more of the 'standard' approach that I understand, with the Geysers and the Rat Transformation and whatnot.
The problem with explaining high level content is that it's not 'describable'. If 24 people need to talk about a single encounter for 20+ hours and their conclusions are specific to them the only way I could give you an example would be to give you logs from our discussions.
If you want a 2 hour log, though, lmk (it covers a single teamfight situation in Pred)
For now no, but if this convo comes up again in the future (hope it doesn't at least until A2) - then I'll probably try to learn more/better once again.
I don't want MMORPGs to be so complex that players feel compelled to rely on combat trackers...
Making them focused on Rollplay rather than Roleplay.
Different builds should be able to defeat the same challenge.
It should not require just one META to defeat even the toughest challenge.
And it should be fine for different groups to defeat the same challenge at different speeds - might take some several tries and others just one attempt.
And there should also be an expectation that strategies and tactics will need to be adjusted when a new person with a different build joins (or replaces someone in) the group.
Right, and I totally understand that. Different games should appeal to different levels of complexity and styles of content. The problem with Steven's initial approaches to both of these things is only that the goals of Ashes are unclear.
Btw NiKr, this is why FFXI is designed the way it is, Dygz would be happy there, because there are mechanics meant to help a LOT with being able to take things on at different paces, as described, without tearing apart all the underlying structures.
But relative to this specific tangent of this eternal thread, there's a difference between 'complexity' and 'data overload'. A game can have a high amount of 'incoming data', and the difference would not 'force you to use a tracker'. It would cause you to take 10x as long as someone like me, or someone with a Tracker, but it would not become impossible by any means.
And the fun part of MMOs (in terms of overcoming challenges) would be LARGER for you than for me. You would 'discuss with your teammates how to beat the challenge and what you observed when you didn't beat it', same as me, I just would do it faster.
The problematic people are 'the people trying to keep up with me, who then decide that using a Tracker is the best option'.
Making the game less complex OVERALL (not the data heavy type) would just decrease synergies and fun, making individual players irrelevant and replaceable. This is a huge danger, in my opinion. When challenges are too easy (because of low data density), many people don't have a reason to care who they group with, because there's no real adaptation to do.
In my experience, this leads to toxicity. It's worse when it's not actually too easy but a lot of people think it is because it's easy for someone else. It really sucks to be a player like yourself in games like that.
People who have 'static groups' or longstanding comrades who already know their quirks, don't have this problem, they just tear through the content either way and just ignore other players. Because it's literally better for them, with their limited time, to entirely skip a boss battle if one person is missing, than to try to get through it with a different person, sometimes even within their own guild. It's really sad.
At least with data-complex stuff, people can enjoy just chatting about the data and how it relates to their groups. As it degrades, you get the other situation where people go 'well every Warrior should do the same thing in this fight, so I don't need to talk to you, go watch the YouTube guide on what you're supposed to do, then show up and try not to screw it up'.
If you can give me the names of some of the encounters you have watched (or just links to them), if they were encounters that were in the game when I played, I could point out to you whether they were low, mid or top tier. I could also potentially point out other things such as if the video in question was taken while the encounter was current content or not.
I suppose they might also be striving to maintain top spots on the "Top-End Raider" Leaderboards.
Which, again, is better suited to other genres, like E-Sports and Shooters than RPGs.
I'd prefer to have players killing bosses because that's what's best for the narrative of the server, rather than because that's what rewards players with BiS gear or rewards top player trophies.
Now that I think about - it's probably why Steven's obsession with Risk v Reward (which seems to have kicked into high gear after Jeffrey Bard left) is also negative hype for me.
With the Ashes Class and Augments system - synergizing Active Skills and Augments with pary members should not be Rocket Science - and should not require a Combat Tracker.
Also, shouldn't require all Warriors to have the exact same Augments on their Active Skills.
A Ranger/Ranger's Barrage (Arrows) should be as effective as a Ranger/Rogue's Barrage (Throwing Knives) or a Ranger/Mage's Barrage (Hail) - that could be without Augments. Even without Augments, those versions of Barrage might have different Damage Types (Nature/Poison/Frost) and dictate who else in the Party the Ranger typically tries to synergize with.
Shouldn't take a Combat Tracker to realize that it might be a great tactic to have the Scout enhance the Poison Damage of the Assassin.
Again, you seem to be missing the point of diversity in an MMO.
Even from an RP perspective, if you take a world of ten thousand or more players, there SHOULD be some out there that are going off doing what is most benefitial for them - not what is best for the story of that world.
What is best for the game, and for each individual server, and for any given players personal RP, is for each player on the server to have their own motivation - not to share some common motivation.
If me and my friends decide that we don't really care about the thing you want us to care about, and instead we want to go off and better ourselves so that we are better prepared the next time our node is under siege or attacked by a dragon or we want to kill the guy picking *OUR* flowers, that makes the world more real.
In isolation, probably not.
However, what is the made has taken Rogue as secondary, and so has many of their spells able to be augmented to deal poison damage? How much of an effect will that scouts enhance poison damage have on those spells? WIll it be more benefitial on that Shadowcaster, or on the Assassin?
What if the Shadowcater then gets a buff from a bard that increases their cast speed? This makes it more worthwhile to put that poison damage on the Shadowcaster. On the other hand, if the Assassin gets a buff that adds additional ticks to their poison damage DoT's, perhaps it is worth putting it back on the Assassin. But then what if the Shadow Caster has joined the Thieves guild and that gives them access to an augment that increases the rate at which poison DoT's tick, meaning they deal their damage faster and so can be reapplied faster, but means the character has to spend more of their time in combat refreshing that ability? What if one of the other player has a slightly slower connection to the server that causes a few issues with reapplying DoT's?
At what point does it become worth putting that enhance poison on the Assassin or the Shadow Mage?
If you ask really simple questions, then the answers are obvious. It is when those questions get more complex - get more real world - that you need more data if you want a proper answer.
From a Roleplaying perspective, some player characters will likely be doing what is best for themselves rather than what is best for the world - and can do so while focused on the narrative rather than the numerical, (OOC) META.
It cannot be that from a Roleplaying perspective some characters are striving to focus on the data from Combat Trackers.
Sure, part of the narrative of a server will be that some player characters are working toward the destruction of Verra. Some player characters will be intent on causing strife for the world, rather than benefitting the health of the world.
Which is still being focused on the narrative of the server, rather than the OOC META of gameplay.
More importantly, I'm talking about how the game is designed.
An RPG should be designed to have players focused on the Roleplay more than the Rollplay.
Of course, there will be some players trying to play their own way, sometimes playing against the design of the game.
Even I am no longer planning to play according to Steven's vision of the game -I'm just going to explore rather than pursue any progression paths- that doesn't mean I'm advocating for the design to be changed to accommodate my playstyle preferences.
Just, in the case of DPS Meters, I happen to agree with Steven's vision.
Your grammar is too garbled for me to understand what you are asking:
What if the Mage has Rogue as Secondary and many of their Active Skills are Augmented with Poison?
If the Scout has Augmented their Active Skills with Poison, their Damage Types will stack if the Scout and Shadowcaster work with each other to stack Poison Damage.
How beneficial it might be with a Shadowcaster or Assassin depends on how frequently they choose to synergize their effects.
Doesn't really matter if it's "more effective" on the Shadowcaster or the Assassin. What matters is that it can be significantly effective to synergize with either or both. If both are in the same Party as a Scout.
And we shouldn't have to rely on a Combat Tracker to realize that those synergies will be effective.
(Or non-effective if the opponents are resistant to Poison.)
Sure. There will be other variables where one might choose to synergize with different x/Rogues in the group - if the group has multiple x/Rogues.
And still should not need a Combat Tracker to determine that. Most likely, that group's focus on Poison Damage will make relying on a Combat Tracker moot.
Of course, it could also be that the Scout synergizes Shadow Damage with the Shadowcaster and Poison Damage with the Assassin. And still, one should not need to rely on a Combat Tracker to determine that.
You've done a poor job of explaining how I've failed to factor in the diversity available in a well-designed (MMO)RPG.
Sure it can.
If I lived in a world where I was fighting for my life many times a day (even if I was bring brought back), and where gear increased my success rate in these many fights, you had better believe I would put all the time and effort in to trying to learn as much about all of this as I could. I would want to know what any enemy would likely do, what any item I could get would allow me to do, what any of my friends could do, etc. I would strive for knowledge and understanding at as deep a level as I can for all of this.
What doesn't make sense - as an example - is someone being in the position where they are in these fights many times a day, and when it comes to the weapon and armor and such they have, just deciding that some random thing will do because they like how it looks. That is a tool that you are using to fight for you life, and you are picking it based on aesthetics, and you want to make out that this is good roleplay? That this is the decision your character would make?
A combat tracker is how players recieve information that our characters would have - or our collective characters would have in the case of a group or a raid. It is the metaphhorical having a drink after the fight to discuss how things went (in some cases, it is the literal having a drink after the fight to discuss how things went).
Now, you could well make an argument that we shouldn't need it, that this should all be in the game itself - and I agree and have been making that argument in this thread for years. If it isn't though, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have that information. Dude, your fighting for your life (or your character is).
If you are roleplaying, it should matter to you. It sure as hell would matter to your character. Just being effective isn't enough when there is the option to be more effecting and potentially not die. This should actually matter more to someone that is trying to play as their character than someone that is just playing.
Again, the notion that a person in the situation that our characters are in would just bumble their way through things the way RP'ers seem to want to RP is just so far off that it is amusing.
No soul = no fun. Looking at tracking numbers to figure out what you need to do to beat an encounter is not engaging.
Having more information obviously will make things easier, but trying to make a point about the game design needs to be people using trackers to figure things out to make "hard" content is gross.