Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
You mean like switching targets and positioning to do interrupts. You mean like going into cleanse so healers dont have to. You mean like pulling agro to kite something special off the tank and party/raid. You mean like locking down stuff with your banish or root or fear. You mean like getting the fuck out of X/fire so your dps drops and you dont eat up the healers attention. Like not over-dpsing and drawing agro.
Your statement was complete BS. From UO in '97 to today. Unquestionable BS.
Yeah, those things.
Ifyou were bought in to a group or a raid for DPS, don't do them.
There is nothing more frustrating as a tank than being ready to taunt an add the moment it is in range, only for some upstart DPS to CC them out of range. Mobs should never be CC'd in group content unless it is specifically requested.
Expect to be blacklisted from thst tanks future groups I'd you do it - unless you were specifically asked.
The notion that a DPS should ever kite something in a group situation is ludicrous. Doing so of your own volition without any suggestion thst it is what the group wants - that is the fastest way to get yourself booted from a group.
Keeping out of the fire and not pulling aggro are both factors of doing the most DPS you can. Your DPS tends to drop off when you die.
The notion of kiting a mob in a group setting of your own volition, or CC'ing a mob that you have no way of knowing if the tank has it under control or not are actual issues.
In WoW, when people use combat trackers to find the lowest DPS and boot them, it is often because shit like this is going on, and the assumption then becomes that the lowest FPS is probably ly the one doing it (a good tracker will tell them who is doing it, if they know how to use it).
So yeah, these examples you are saying you should do are the exact things you absolutely should never do.
The very point of tanks and healers is to free the DPS up to be able to deal damage uninterrupted, and hold the emcounter still in order to make that DPS'ing easier. Every tank and healer I've ever grouped with has understood this to be their mission.
Generally speaking, they don't want you taking pressure off by fending for yourself in some manner, they want you taking pressure off by killing what ever it is you are killing.
Dead mobs take pressure off, DPS pulling mobs and running all over the place adds pressure.
It makes no sense for you to spend your time as a DPS freeing up tanks and healers, when it is the role of tanks and healers to free up the DPS to kill the mob.
Honestly, most tanks and healers consider it disrespectful for a DPS to do anything other than damaging the mob. They are spending their time enabling the DPS to be able to do this, the least the DPS players can do is take that opportunity.
Some may well consider this boring, many others consider it great gameplay, if you consider it boring then perhaps DPS isnt the role for you.
Edit to clarify: I said "fend for themselves" above. Better phrasing would have been "have a fallback for particularly challenging moments." Obviously the tank + healer's role is to reduce the amount of times those tools are necessary. But they should still be necessary.
Edit to add: And like, there are interesting dynamics you can create with that. One DPS build might rely on short burst windows and be highly mobile in-between windows. That safety of the DPS might enable the party to focus their defensive resources, allowing them to play differently than a party whose DPS can fall under threat during the dangerous moments of the encounter.
Which might lead to two different setups that can both excel at different ways of clearing the encounter. Both might be favoured among different communities, which might lead to requirements for more versatility when players from different groups mix.
Not having a DPS meter to clarify exact advantages would leave ambiguity open that would allow for these different meta groups to form.
The more people you have on hand, the more specific each person's task will be. This is just a fact of scaling up. It applies to everything - sport, manufacturing, business, everything.
A group or raid may indeed designate a player to CC adds - that is absolutely a thing that could happen. However, if you are that person, you haven't been asked to join that group or raid as DPS, you are now DPS/CC, or even just specifically CC.
If the group or raid does have someone designated to perform this role, then it is counter-productive for anyone else to step in unasked. If they do not have someone in this role, it is because they feel the tank and healer(s) can handle what is to come, and don't want anyone CC'ing mobs as this is also counter productive.
In order for there to be content where it is expected that one player may make use of their full spectrum of abilities as you are saying, you would need content designed for 3 or 4 players at the most - once you hit 5 players, you are at the point where everyone has a specific role.
In some games, the impossibility of the hyperspecialisation you are describing even happens by accident.
Do you ever make concessions in discussions btw? All that has been said is that it might be possible for non-hyperspecialisation to be a viable advantage, and you can't even give that much ground?
As I said, content could be probably designed around players having to be more generalists if that content is being limited to 3 or 4 players. Larger group content could split groups off in to 3 or 4 player groups and achieve this - but that is still creating content for 3 or 4 player groups. I've seen content that splits the raid up in to smaller groups before, it isn't a new thing, but that is then creating content for those smaller groups - I've even seen a raid that breaks off one player at a time to kill mobs solo, but that is then designed for a solo player.
As far as I am concerned, that is a concession to your point/question, but while not making any incorrect statements.
You may be thinking you are discussing something specific, something no one had thought of, but specialization and efficiency is a well studied field. The notion that more people result in more specialization is a well understood fact - it isn't me having an opinion on something. Even bees and ants understand this (well, follow the basic principles of it, at least).
The only opinion here that I have shared is in relation to it being possible to have content for more generalized players at a player count of 3 or 4. I've not seen it happen, but I am of the opinion that it would be possible. The raid content I talked about above didnt really ask anything od players that they werent already doing. I'd actually be excited to see content like this if someone made it.
Take note as well, I am not saying a group can't decide they want to go in and be all generalist on some content. Players are free to do that, and may even be successful (there was a situation in EQ2 where 24 Paladins did some raid content, all of them able to tank, heal and deal some damage).
What I am saying is that it will never be even close to the most efficient way to do things - because again, that is a well understood field of study.
Further, what I am actually saying is that if you are bought along on a group or raid as DPS, then thst is your sole task. If they want more from you, they will ask.
I mean, I don't need to push trackers.
I have one that is ready to use, and I don't care if you don't use one.
The main reason I'm posting in this thread is to educate others, specifically on misconceptions about what trackers can and can't do, but also on other things that come up on occasion.
Not sure if it's working.
Funny thing is, the exact thing they don't want to happen IS what will happen. Only the most hardcore elite people who take the time to dissect their combat logs and test out different builds will actually know what is going on in the game.
Everyone else will be clueless and just do what they think is cool at first, and resorting to "meta" builds when they fail. Because analyzing combat logs while tweaking builds, gear, buffs, etc is going to take too long for the average player without a simple tracker.
Most people just want to play the game, not copy paste combat logs into spreadsheets and analyze them for hours on end.
Most people are willing to listen (or read) and understand.
Some people aren't, without a doubt. But people like Laetitian do listen, even if they sometimes get frustrated.
That frustration is something I understand well - especially when it is in relation to people mis-placing toxicity to being from combat trackers. Being told - with evidence - that this is not the case, and the thing you have been hating on for sometimes years isn't actually the source of the issues that you thought it was; yeah, that is hard to take.
One need look no further than Steven. This was pointed out to him, he refused to believe it, then made the completely irrational decision to state that trackers won't be used in Ashes despite knowing full well that he can't stop them - and even cited "toxicity" as his primary reason for not "allowing" them.
Yeah, I've said it a few times - If you can't enforce a rule that gives an advantage to rule breakers, you are only harming the rule followers.
Better to design a system that gives everyone an equal playing footing.
The designers should not provide UI to support the notion of META. Especially not in Ashes.
Because then they will design battles and bosses to support the use of such tools.
I am not saying no one thought about it, I am saying you are thinking about it in too rigorous systems you are used to. Think about games where subsequent healing and shielding from external sources gets reduced. You have no other choice but to rely on a portion of self-protection for moments where DPS are threatened, because if you just add 15 healers to a 40 player party, instead of reserving 15 skill points on the DPS for self-preservation, you're not being efficient.
I am not advocating for skill design like that, I do like a decent amount of specialisation. But there are other ways to achieve the same effect, like adding specific enemies that ignore/disable externally applied heals/shields (another fairly simplistic gimmicky idea, but it's just a hypothetical to prove the point.)
Your insistence on relying on past experience and employing no creativity to envision ways it could be any other way makes it pretty difficult for conversations with you to go anywhere...
1. There will always be people going outside the game to gain an advantage (hack/cheat/code/rmt/etc). And even worse some will make it public. Many which will be against the rules/eula.
2. For someone who doesn't need to -- you full-force do push it. It's obviously you gain emotional fulfillment from them. Bragging about it right here for that needed "stroke".
I would be questioning the ability of the developer.
Perhaps I am not getting the point across properly.
It isn't that a developer couldn't produce some random system that makes what you are saying possible - it is that this game would fail before going live.
The actual point of groups and raids is to be a part of something greater than the sum of its parts. The point isn't for group play to function the same as solo play does - which is what you are asking for whether you realize it or not.
The point of groups is to get yourself in to a situation where you can focus on one thing. To outsource other aspects of combat to group members so that you can do the onenpart your class is best at.
It isn't a design fault that players in groups or raids focus on one task - even aside from it being what is always going to happen, it is literally what developers wanting uou to do.
If group and raid content played as if it were just a whole lot of people soloing next to each other, that game would be doomed.
As I said above, I have seen games thst take larger groups and split them in to smaller - for one off pieces of content this is fine. It isn't a way to form the basis of a game though.
Nope, just here to educate, as I said.
People on these forums have known for probably 3 years now that I will have a tracker ready for beta (now alpha).
I want this game to be as good as it can be. One of the things it needs to do to be as good as it can be, is to have all players on as equal a footing as possible. Since I will have a combat tracker (not up for debate), and others will to, the only way to have all players be on an equal footing is to ensure all players have access to a combat tracker.
It is up to the individual what to do with it from there, but if only some of us have it and others don't, the game will be the worse for it.
That - in a nutshell - is my argument.
People are on equal footing without your out-of-game hacks.
It isn't a hack, it is math. Graphs, specifically.
It not existing isn't an option. There has never been a live MMORPG in which combat trackers were not being used. Ashes isn't going to suddenly change that.
Your out of game actions disrupt that.
It isn't just me though.
As I have been saying for years - combat trackers are just a fact. They exist, they will be used. Developers simply do not get to dictate to me what I do on my computer outside of their game - just as they do not get to dictate to you which internet browser you need to use.
Didn’t know we were playing Ashes of Communism
People who stare at the DPS meter used to get kicked and blacklisted for being DPS whores and not paying attention to important mechanics and just padding numbers.
I really doubt we're going to have that same WoW style brain-dead content in Ashes, and I thought they had already decided that third party programs won't be allowed.
Soon as someone writes something down on paper, in a spreadsheet, a VOD, or any other program its data that is being tracked.
A combat tracker does all of the longhand stuff like gathering, recording, cleaning, data visualization, that data analysts do and wraps it in a nice neat little bow for you.
Though most like people here still wouldn't be able to interpret the data or gain any meaningful insight from it because they demonstrate that they don't understand what it even means on this thread daily.
You guys are getting pissed at people who do not understand how to interpret data insights into anything useful and calling the tracker itself toxic, when its infact a bunch of players who see "BIG NUMBER GO BRRRRRRRRRRRRR" without any context.
That's why MMORPGs have been dumbed down over the years because people struggle with basic visualizations and sonifications let alone the statistical analysis portion of a video game.
And it's exactly why I do not care if trackers are in the game, it doesn't change the fact people don't know what they're looking at.
Players who wish to rely on spreadsheets are fine.
Gamers who wish to cheat with add-ons are fine.
I don't want the devs to design the bosses with the expectation that everyone will be relying on built-in DPS meters the same way they rely on built-in Health bars, rather than on focusing on the physical actions of their group mates.
I want the devs to design the game expecting that most players won't feel a need to rely on DPS meters.
AFAIK... Noaani wants the devs to design the game such that DPS meters are necessary to defeat elite Bosses.