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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
A DPS player would set it up to show DPS, obviously.
A healer could set it up to show HPS if they wanted, they could set it up to show who was taking the most damage over all if they wanted, or they could set it up to show who was taking the most damage from one single ability.
Also, knowing how hard every single attack hits can be useful - depending on the attack. If an attack hits a specific player for either more damage or less damage than would be expected, there is reason to look in to why. There are a number of things it could be.
In games like WoW, this kind of thing is done for players before the content is even released on to the live servers, so these things are far less useful. In games where these things are unknown though, being able to spot oddities like that can be useful.
Either way, all up, what I'm taking from your posts is that you're fine with combat trackers, but you would want to set the one you are using to show things other than DPS - which as a healer is what would be expected.
I care about how much life my tank has, whether he can take another hit without burning a cooldown, who's alive, what cooldowns are still available, where I'm positioned, who's got debuffs, how long until a big hit, and who's running low on mana. Because those are the things I need to be aware of to win a fight.
Now, for a dps, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say your primary concerns should be your your positioning, your tank(s) positioning, whether you need to grab aggro on something, where you are in a potential interrupt/cc rotation, add spawns, and then watching for procs to line up your skills.
Dunno if I missed anything there, and 'positioning' is fairly broad, but meant to encompass any and all movement that you need to be aware of as part of a fight's mechanics.
Anyway! Now, assuming I haven't missed anything, does a damage meter contribute in a meaningful way to achieving any of those goals? If so, how?
You want the information that is important to you.
We get that.
I would add though, it you are trying to say that the information you want is the only information that should be available, I will absolutely take exception to that stance. If you are arguing for the information you want, you should be arguing that all players should have the information they want.
That said, my point is that I want the information that is important to the raid.
In a game where you can download all the information for the newest encounter from DBM and it tells you what to do, then yeah, all anyone needs is the information they want.
This isn't most games though. In fact, this is only one game.
In most games, you have no idea what strategy you will need when you come across a new raid encounter. In most games, your first pull of an encounter is when you find out what type of damage it's primary attack actually hits with, when you find out if it spawns adds, when you find out what kind of AoE's it has.
In most games, you literally know nothing about an encounter until you pull it.
In these games, having a combat tracker may not be vital for an individual player, but it is for the raid.
Wanting to have numbers to analyse isn't a justification in and of itself. The reason I went on to list the things that I imagined are relevant to a dps player (that you missed in your quote btw), is that from what I can see, it isn't relevant there, either.
When faced with a combat system without access to granular numbers, and as far as I can tell, your argument is that you need granular numbers because... that's how it's always been?
I'm still trying to understand if there's any concrete reasons in there.
I mean, I've fought plenty of dragons in plenty of games without looking at hard numbers. Avoid the breath, watch the tail, don't stand in the fire. These are things I don't need damage numbers to describe to me.
Heck, even if it isn't a dragon, it's pretty easy to tell. If the appropriately geared group dies and the boss has more than 30% of its hp left, we're not executing mechanics properly. I don't need to look at a meter to tell me that, because if we'd had the mechanics handled, at worst, we would have wiped at <10% HP.
If it did die with <10% HP, then we've got the fight down. Again, I don't need a meter to tell me that. It's obvious. Another few attempts and it'll die.
Again, in most games, you don't know this going in to the encounter for the first time.
If you go in to that dragon fight, you don't know if you actually need to to avoid the breath, it may well be that it is best to heal through it. Until you look in to the possibility, you don't know. Without hard numbers, you can't look in to it.
As to the raid dying before 30% consistantly, how do you know which of the mechanics you are not executing properly without a combat tracker? Most encounters have more than one thing going on at the same time, most of which will kill the raid outright if done wrong. A combat tracker is really the only way to know what went wrong.
So rather than showing a flat number, it will show the rankings of damage done and have damage received, subtracted from the total value. It could be displayed by some sort of ratio meter compared to other members, rather than show a raw number. You could then observe whatever system they have in place to show item level, to account for any significant discrepancies.
As for healers and tanks, there could be a different approach such as showing damage mitigated, avoidable damage taken, amount of threat caused, amount healed vs the amount of unavoidable damage taken by the group, etc etc etc.
These are all just random ideas by someone that has no idea if this would even be a good idea though. Ultimately I am fine with raw numbers, as I tend to put proper effort into what I am doing to make sure I meet the minimum requirements for whatever task is at hand.
A far, far better solution is to make combat trackers an optional guild perk, and make them only track the combat of members of that guild.
That way, only players that you agree to join a guild with are ever able to track your combat, and the kinds of players that are against having their combat tracked are unlikely to ever consider the kind of guild that would take the combat tracker option.
Problem solved.
*shudder*
I'm so happy that they're removing add-ons and DPS meters, it'll benefit the game for sure.
1) You can recruit people based on their personality and goals in the game.
1.1) I've been in hardcore PvE guilds and we did NOT have a DPS meter we had to work with the good old fashion trial and error way of things. Guess what a lot of MMO's such as Wow seem very easy to many of us because of it (ps: it's not like WoW is difficult)
1.2) If a player does not fit your group or guild then you can always discuss this with them and take action. If a guild is hardcore that means it also has good management. If not ... look for a different guild.
2)DPS meters supported or not have been in every game, note: If a game doesn't officially support it the majority of the player base will also not bother with it. Besides all of that DPS meters go against everything this game aims at ... class diversity, with a DPS meter you would alienate a lot of class combos based on a number. This has happened in countless MMO's and funny enough most are dead or their "raiding scene" is.
2.1) They have already said that there will be dummies for you to work with. (if I am not mistaken - which is technically a person meter)
2.2) If the game would require you to become a Data analyst, they would support an official DPS meter or add the job as a profession
3) DPS meters in no matter what shape or form, no matter how much they share, have been a curse in a lot of MMOs. Ashes of creation is a game that clearly requires teamwork this both in your own party, as a "faction" / server. This means that being toxicity can destroy a servers community, as sadly today a lot of people would rather tag along with it then stand up against it in the game, as all they want is the loot.
3.1) So if your guild requires a DPS meter to be successful it is maybe time to reevaluate what type of guild it is.
If you want a DPS meter I think someone mentioned that some people are working on it, how sad that it might sound and you can use it. But I also think that you should really evaluate what kind of game this is vs. the MMO(s) you are playing currently.
The best solution in my opinion: Dummies that register: heals, DPS, etc. these can be placed only at guild / personal houses. These can only be used by guild members or at the personal house by the owner or family members. This way guilds or players that they are lost without it can still check it out and for those players that are against meters ... they can just not put a dummy in their house. This way DPS meters are left out of raids and dungeons yet you will know your average.
PS: With good old fashion trial and error MMO's have a lower burnout rate as it takes longer for guilds to complete the content = gives Devs more time to create quality encounters.
Due to trial and error based on your progress in that raids (let's see boss 3 out of 6) since you have to do this weekly you will have everyone gearing up and be ready for the last fight.
So, from what I can see, you don't seem to be able to actually articulate an argument for dps meters, instead trying to bundle it in with other things such as event logs, leading me to believe that you don't actually have a real reason for wanting them.
A dps meter is not informative as to what mechanics someone did or did not properly execute, and if even a proponent of them can't come up with a single reasonable argument for them... well, I'm sure you see where this is going.
Just do be clear. An event log is not a dps meter. No matter how much you might wish to convince me otherwise.
Again. dps meters are unnecessary. Your straw man argument fails to move me.
Toxic comments aren't particularly useful.
I'm not sure what it is you're hoping to achieve with your behaviour, but I hope you find something around to actually enjoy. I find spite and vitriol are pretty ugly.
I know, but somewhere there is hope
You are going to get slapped when you are raiding and dps meters arent going to save you. I couldnt even care less if they do add them. But raiders thinking they are going to be efficient/most optimal is laughable in this game, if you complete a dungeon/raid without getting wiped by another group, that will be an achievement all on its own.
Instanced content is not going to be the content that matters, before you try and pull that card either.
I really hope this happens, and that it isn't viewed in a negative light. Its purely informative information that helps improve a single person, or group of people.
There is no DPS meter out there that only measures DPS. Every single one of them is able to measure any aspect of combat you tell it to measure - some of them just require a little more work to be able to do that than others.
My argument is in regards to a combat tracker, which is the correct term for what most people refer to as a DPS meter.
And yes, it absolutely will tell you what mechanic someone did or did not execute properly - but only if you actually know what to look for.
Just to put you at ease though, I'll give you the non-raid reasons there should be a combat tracker in every MMO.
1, it allows players to objectively assess builds. Like it or not, many players out there do not enjoy coming up with their own builds. The more complicated a class system the game in question has, the more people simply can't be bothered. These people would rather go to the forums and find a build that someone else has posted.
If the build that these people post is not particularly good, the players that use it instead of coming up with their own build will think it is the game that is at fault, not the build that was posted. These people are used to builds being posted all being somewhat viable, as that is how it is in almost all other games.
Without a combat tracker, players can't objectively test and compare these builds before posting them, and others in the community can't objectively peer review them objectively.
2, combat trackers allow players to find bugs and errors in the games combat systems. Literally every MMO I have played has had players present bugs to developers that they have found using a combat tracker, and in most cases, the developers have been able to take that information, very quickly either reproduce the bug or find the error, and push out a fix for it.
I have done this myself, submitting a full bug report on a games faulty RNG system (a system that impacts literally everything players do). I submitted this report with tens of thousands of data points in order to show that it was an actual error - an amount that would not have been possible without a combat tracker (even though it wasn't actually even combat that was being tracked in this case - as I said, combat trackers track EVERYTHING).
3, combat trackers allow the games community to discuss class balance with the games developers in a way that is not simple whining.
With a combat tracker, players can present actual balance issues to the developers, and can do so with enough data to back themselves up, which would see any good developer look in to it a bit closer. Without objective data to back up a balance issue like this, even the most well informed post on class balance would be completely indistinguishable from the proverbial 'Rock" telling the deves that they think 'Paper' is overpowered, but 'scissors' is fine.
This doesn't mean the developers listen to one group of players over another, it means the developers should listen to objective data over opionion.
Without a combat tracker, there is no objective data.
That right there is three reasons without even touching groups or raids as to why combat trackers absolutely should be in every MMO.
I'll @ you if i see anything here I think you'll like.
To be fair, this is a valid complaint - people being worried that a combat tracker will see them removed from groups.
To be clear, I am saying people being worried about it is a valid complaint - I am not saying people being removed from groups is a valid complaint. Basically, the perception of an issue is real, even if the issue is not. There are people out there with a crippling fear of zombies, and that is a real thing that needs to be dealt with and taken in to account - even if zombies are obviously not real.
This is the main reason as to why my suggestion has been to limit a combat tracker to a tool that guilds can use, and that only tracks combat of members of that guild.
Without actually impacting on the people that will put a combat tracker to it's best use, this limit will eliminate that fear - which again, is a real fear and should be taken in to account, even if the reality of what that fear is doesn't itself need to be taken in to account.
It's a valid complaint that DPS meters cause people be so worried about their spot on the dps chart that they make mistakes, terrible builds that can't do a damm thing other than dps, and sometimes even pull agro and wipe the group all because they are more worried about their spot on the stupid meter than if the group succeeds.