No, to DPS meters. They would also be useless in a real MMO that isn't World of Warcraft, and arguably are pretty useless in a lot of content in World of Warcraft.
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.
HazardNumberSeven
A few points.
Every MMO ever has had combat trackers be used, most of them from day one of the game being live.
I agree people shouldn't be looking at a combat tracker during combat, that is a misuse of them.
Combat trackers are used for more than just combat, despite the name.
He primary use of a combat tracker - in terms of hours spent - is on character builds, not on content.
Combat trackers are the only tool we have for checking developer work. I have personally used them in many games in the past to show developers where they got things wrong, and in most cases these things have been fixed.
Despite all of this, combat trackers dk not give players access to any information we don't already have access to.
I dunno who you've been playing with or what MMOs you've played, but "every mmo ever" is definitely not true.
It is true.
They were being used for Meridian59 during its first week of being live, and we're used on MUD's before that.
You perhaps need to understand - a combat tracker is not just a tool to measure DPS - even though some people mistakenly call them DPS meters. You seem to be assuming this is all they do.
What they are doing is basically recording everything. You can use them to record how many pieces of ore you harvest in an hour, if you like.
This is why they exist in every MMO. it isn't just about DPS, it is about getting any objective data at all that any given player may want to know for any possible reason.
It's pseudo science to make certain ppl (that havent gotten their inrl priorities straight) feel like they are a fountain of knowledge and uncontestent powah. Hardly necessary, even for competitive players, whose self image and value isnt dependend on a 0.00001% advantage, therefore (still only in their own internal dialogues) making them better than others.
The point is, competitive players will have it, because it does give you (at the very least) an edge.
I would argue that it doesn't make one a fountain of knowledge, but it does provide benefits.
It is the fact that it provides these benefits, in combination with the fact that many people will run them regardless, that is the reason why I believe the best thing Intrepid could do is build one in to the game.
The point is, competitive players will have it, because it does give you (at the very least) an edge.
I would argue that it doesn't make one a fountain of knowledge, but it does provide benefits.
It is the fact that it provides these benefits, in combination with the fact that many people will run them regardless, that is the reason why I believe the best thing Intrepid could do is build one in to the game.
The only people that will use it to that extent have received my description already.
Know why?
Because it's an owpvp mmo. But go for 300 pages.
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
Class balancing for what?
1v1 duel
Small scale random pvp
Large scale siege pvp
Raiding
Grinding xp/loot
Gathering
Class balancing for what? This isnt ESO.
As long as each class can offer players a unique playstyle that they identify with and can fill succussfuly one or a few of the above, players will be happy with their characters even if they arent good at the majority of the above.
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
Can I kill ~2 other archetypes? If yes - there's your balance. If no - I gotta do better.
Can my party kill another party with me in it? If yes - there's your balance. If no - we gotta do better.
Don't need any meters to do better, because absolute majority of parties will misplay more than will simply be missing some dps values or something. So as long as we misplay less - we'll win. And there's your balance.
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
Class balancing for what?
1v1 duel
Small scale random pvp
Large scale siege pvp
Raiding
Grinding xp/loot
Gathering
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
Can I kill ~2 other archetypes? If yes - there's your balance. If no - I gotta do better.
Cool, and a combat tracker can assist in working out where that specific class is failing.
Maybe it's your build. Maybe it's that an aspect of combat mechanics doesn't work how you thought it worked. Maybe it's that an aspect of combat mechanics doesn't work how Intrepid thought.
An experienced player can probably tell a class isn't balanced without needing to use a combat tracker. If all you are interested in if you find yourself playing an underpowered class is knowing this to be true and then changing to a different class, then a tracker may well be of no use to you.
On the other hand, if you are interested in finding out why that class is underpowered, in trying to find a way to make it not underpowered, or in trying to get the developer to fix the class, a combat tracker is essential.
I fall in to this second catagory. If something is broken, I won't just move on, I will try and get it fixed.
How do you expect class balancing without seeing dps meters? Can tell we got some real fresh mmo’ers here that might not be able to handle the criticism 😂
Internally.
I have yet to see an MMORPG where the top end players didn't know more about the games combat system than the people that made said combat system.
Can’t wait for bottom feeders to AFK a Raid and still get the same rewards as players who put in 110% effort.
This just promotes laziness and people to get away with minimal effort.
A DPS meter will filter these weasels out.
Can tell people haven’t done high level raids before and it shows
^ this
The DPS meter will show the blokes doing less damage than the tank/healers but still getting the same rewards 😂
Communicate. Talk to people about their builds and how they use them. If you've done an encounter twice and it was twice as fast and easy with the first group, find out what made that group more effective and ask future party members about how they intend on recreating that effect.
If you refuse to do that, your alternate options are to stick to a fixed group, or insist on some variation of a meta build. Both come at the disadvantage of restricting your pool of potentially skilled allies.
That's what a socially interactive game loop looks like. Something that is foreign to WoW players, as your anxiety about being left without add-ons is betraying painfully obviously.
An experienced player can probably tell a class isn't balanced without needing to use a combat tracker. If all you are interested in if you find yourself playing an underpowered class is knowing this to be true and then changing to a different class, then a tracker may well be of no use to you.
Or you just do the math yourself and test in the field in practice. If you don't care enough to do that, you don't care enough to play better. Which is fine, too.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
Can’t wait for bottom feeders to AFK a Raid and still get the same rewards as players who put in 110% effort.
This just promotes laziness and people to get away with minimal effort.
A DPS meter will filter these weasels out.
Can tell people haven’t done high level raids before and it shows
Out of touch.
Not every player gets to loot. The drops are numbered. The leader decides who gets what.
Out of touch.
Top end guilds (basically all top end guilds, though not some that think they are top end) award guild members for participation - that is what DKP is. That DKP is then used to bid on items that drop.
I have never seen any top end guild run with "leader decides" loot. I've seen some people try to run a guild like this, but any player that is worth having in an actual top end guild would have no interest at all in a guild with this kind of loot system.
Or you just do the math yourself and test in the field in practice. If you don't care enough to do that, you don't care enough to play better. Which is fine, too.
The kind of math we are talking about here would take months after each play session.
It would take weeks just to collate the inputs after a reasonable length raid, let alone any actual math happening.
We are literally talking tens or hundreds of thousands of events, each event having at least 6 different inputs.
Communicate. Talk to people about their builds and how they use them. If you've done an encounter twice and it was twice as fast and easy with the first group, find out what made that group more effective and ask future party members about how they intend on recreating that effect.
In my experience, a good number of players consider any questions in relation to their performance to be "toxic".
People aren't willing to share this information most of the time.
This is why meta's propogate. It's easier to just not take people along that have builds you don't have experience with, than dealing with people claiming you are being toxic when all you are doing is trying to post-mortem the run.
Edit to add; the group of players that I personally consider most toxic in MMORPG's are those that refuse to put any effort in to being involved in groups or raids. Games would be inherently better expirences if these people simply stuck to offline games - not that I am pointing to any specific posters or anything.
"Top end guilds (basically all top end guilds, though not some that think they are top end) award guild members for participation - that is what DKP is. That DKP is then used to bid on items that drop.
I have never seen any top end guild run with "leader decides" loot. I've seen some people try to run a guild like this, but any player that is worth having in an actual top end guild would have no interest at all in a guild with this kind of loot system."
couldn't have said this better myself, spot on.
"Out of touch.
Not every player gets to loot. The drops are numbered. The leader decides who gets what."
Honestly sounds like you are out of touch tbh, how you dont see having a damage meter (plus other meters Healing meter / CC meter / Dispell meter etc, baffles me how you cant see this being a good thing for this kind of large scale game. What i see is someone so blinded with hateful rage against WoW that anything even remotely close to WoW's successful methods will be instantly rejected. Just FYI WoW itself posts its own Damage meter every season patch to show which DPS class is at the top and which is at the bottom, and has been doing this for many expacs now, so the whole "wow addon" excuse is basically fake news lmao
Or you just do the math yourself and test in the field in practice. If you don't care enough to do that, you don't care enough to play better. Which is fine, too.
The kind of math we are talking about here would take months after each play session.
It would take weeks just to collate the inputs after a reasonable length raid, let alone any actual math happening.
We are literally talking tens or hundreds of thousands of events, each event having at least 6 different inputs.
That's great. So analyse the potential performance increase of reaching optimal setups by doing spot tests and comparing the differences. If the max projected difference beyond the best setup you've found so far is like 10%, probably don't bother investing months. If it's 30%, put in some work.
You've just discovered that your time is valuable.
If other people are coming up with metas you disagree with (including the possibility that they might have used software to track the game data contrary to game policy), you're free to copy them, but if you think you might have an untested secret weapon that they didn't account for, but it's not worth your time to test and confirm manually, you have all the power to stick to your secret weapon anyway, and just hope it pays off for you. Same for everyone else around you.
That's a luxury you can only get in a game that doesn't make information access and analysis easy.
People who do write software to try and circumvent server-only information and read hidden client information value their own time too btw. Which is why third-party tools tend to be scuffed and a pain to calculate worthwhile data from in the early years of development. You can deny that reality and just pretend technology autosolves everything, but in my experience, there's a ton of stuff that flies under the radar even when people datamine the shit out of everything.
EDIT: It's just easy to be in denial about that reality when 90% of MMOs cave and make all data for analysis readily available anyway.
Edit to add; the group of players that I personally consider most toxic in MMORPG's are those that refuse to put any effort in to being involved in groups or raids. Games would be inherently better expirences if these people simply stuck to offline games - not that I am pointing to any specific posters or anything.
"Play the way I've determined to be optimal in order to earn the right to exist in my presence, or don't play at all; your lack of effort to impress me is toxic."
What a fucking princess.
How about I put effort into the groups that bother to communicate and theorycraft the way I like and you fuck right off if all you can do is compare epeens and circlejerk about how little fun and variety you have left in your hyperoptimised game, and exclude everyone who doesn't conform to your implicit standards?
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
"Play the way I've determined to be optimal in order to earn the right to exist in my presence, or don't play at all; your lack of effort to impress me is toxic."
Not sure if you realize it, but that is exactly what you are saying to me here;
That's great. So analyse the potential performance increase of reaching optimal setups by doing spot tests and comparing the differences.
You are telling me that I have to play the way you want me to play, not the way I want to play.
You are suggesting I am a "fucking princess" for what you think I am saying (not what I am saying, by the way), yet you are literally saying the same thing to me.
That's a luxury you can only get in a game that doesn't make information access and analysis easy.
WoW is the most analyzed MMO that has ever been - and yet people still find out new things about the game years later.
Having access to the information quickly does not mean you have all the data instantly - you still need to check each individual build. As an individual build takes weeks to check properly, and as we are talking about how builds interact with each other in a raid setting, even in WoW, less than 10% of everything has ever been actually checked.
"Play the way I've determined to be optimal in order to earn the right to exist in my presence, or don't play at all; your lack of effort to impress me is toxic."
What a fucking princess.
How about I put effort into the groups that bother to communicate and theorycraft the way I like and you fuck right off if all you can do is compare epeens and circlejerk about how little fun and variety you have left in your hyperoptimised game, and exclude everyone who doesn't conform to your implicit standards?
As an actual response to this point;
I've never met anyone that is even remotely close to what you are talking about here.
When it comes to pickup groups in EQ2, everyone I know only cared if they thought their group was capable of running the content they had in mind. If they thought they were fine, no one at all cared about the class or build of people - other than in regards to what alterations it meant people needed to make to how they play (some tank builds required different types of heals, some tanks built threat faster but ended up with an unshakeable hold on mobs, things like that).
In Archeage, people just stuck to the meta, because you wouldn't be invited to groups if you weren't one of the classes.
You can have your opinion on how you would like things to be, but I live in the real world, and talk about how things are in that real world. In the real world, people don't want to have that discussion you are talking about every time they run group content. If they had to have it, they would be able to run significantly less content.
That is what is holding your ideal back. You are saying people should spend time talking instead of running content - most people would rather run more content. That is both why in a game like Archeage people only invite people with a meta build, and also why in a game like Archeage people only run with a meta build.
It just means more content, which means more fun for most people.
"Play the way I've determined to be optimal in order to earn the right to exist in my presence, or don't play at all; your lack of effort to impress me is toxic."
What a fucking princess.
How about I put effort into the groups that bother to communicate and theorycraft the way I like and you fuck right off if all you can do is compare epeens and circlejerk about how little fun and variety you have left in your hyperoptimised game, and exclude everyone who doesn't conform to your implicit standards?
I've never met anyone that is even remotely close to what you are talking about here.
When it comes to pickup groups in EQ2, everyone I know only cared if they thought their group was capable of running the content they had in mind. If they thought they were fine, no one at all cared about the class or build of people - other than in regards to what alterations it meant people needed to make to how they play.
I don't understand what you're correcting here. Talking about other people's playstyle and experience level is how you find out whether players are "capable of running the content they had in mind."
How else would you do it in a game without DPS meters?
In the real world, people don't want to have that discussion you are talking about every time they run group content. If they had to have it, they would be able to run significantly less content.
You don't have to. But then you don't really get to be disappointed if the person you end up with isn't capable of doing what you expected them to do. That's on you for being too careless to have that conversation when you don't have an Add-On to do the talking for you.
That's the risk you take by making all your expectations implicit. It's up to you whether you invest the time at the start to confirm that you're on the same page (or ignore everyone who doesn't confirm to implicit meta standards), or if you spend those few extra sentences before allowing a new player into your group (e.g. because you're missing a member from your standard party) Investing that time into communication to make expectations explicit is like investing into damage compensation insurance.
It just means more content, which means more fun for most people.
Is it? Is it fun for you to be quietly disappointed every time a no-name player you're accepting into your party is not performing the way you were expecting? Is it worth not having to talk to people? Cause that's what constantly ends up happening in games where implicit expectations are encouraged.
Players have deeper expectations than just performance. They care about playing at different speeds, using different playstyles. If none of that ever gets expressed, the vast majority of gameplay time is spent frustrated about not being on the same page with the people you're playing with. I can tell, because what always happens 1-2 hours after those awkward mismatched parties is that either one person blows up with insults, or they just quiety split up disappointed with the events of the last 1-2 hours, and repeat the process until they run into a guild or party they connect with by coincidence. Then repeat that whole loop several times over until they have enough people when their primary parties are offline. It's so much unnecessary disappointment when you could just be talking about what you want from the start.
More =/= better. Players just take the path of least resistance and don't stop to reconsider whether there might be ways to achieve better results, because the meta game loop is "backed by the numbers" and it's the default solution with the fastest way to "do more." That doesn't make it the better choice.
Less effortless access to metagame data would be a great start to disrupt those bad default habits.
Proof: Have you noticed that literally only the people here defending automation and effortless accurate metagame data access are the ones also defending antisocial cog-in-the-machine gameplay? Does that not give you pause?
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
I don't understand what you're correcting here. Talking about other people's playstyle and experience level is how you find out whether players are "capable of running the content they had in mind."
How else would you do it in a game without DPS meters?
Looking at their build and gearscore is how it is done in Archeage.
I prefer to ascertain peoples capability by their actual output, rather than their build and gearscore. I'd also rather ascertain peoples capability by their actual output than by what they have to say about themselves.
You don't have to. But then you don't really get to be disappointed if the person you end up with isn't capable of doing what you expected them to do. That's on you for being too careless to have that conversation when you don't have an Add-On to do the talking for you.
You keep talking about this conversation - in over two decades of playing MMORPG's, I've never seen that conversation actually happen. It isn't needed - people want an easier method, one that gives them more assurance. That is why actual data is what most players use in most MMORPG's, and when that isn't available, build/gearscore is what is used.
Is it? Is it fun for you to be quietly disappointed every time a no-name player you're accepting into your party is not performing the way you were expecting?
You think talking to them is going to tell you that would have been the case?
This is why objective data is good. If we are planning on running some content and have questions about our group, we run some "pre-content". On the very rare occasion when that player isn't looking up to it, we don't continue to the planned content.
In Archeage, we look at the players build and gearscore - that tells us if they are capable of running the content or not. There are no more questions to be had.
Players just take the path of least resistance
Yes, this is my point.
You wanting things to change will not mean things will change. Things are the way they are - we need to work within that. Trying to go in opposition to how things are simply will not be successful.
Using a meta is always going to be least resistance. Using a combat tracker is going to be more effective. If we are talking about reality, I do not see scope for a third.
You keep talking about this conversation - in over two decades of playing MMORPG's, I've never seen that conversation actually happen.
If by "this conversation" you mean the conversation where players coordinate whether they have the same expected gameplay style/speed/strategy for the encounter they're about to engage in with the person they're inviting into their party, then you've been handicapping your enjoyment of social interactions for decades.
Saying: "In over two decades of massively multiplayer games I have never come across conversations about aligning players' goals in forming a party, let alone had the idea occur to myself," and not even beginning to self-reflect about that is perplexingly absurd to me. I know you'll clarify and backtrack about different situations than dungeon-grouping now, but you're effectively telling me that you're treating the game's community as numbers, and think that's the way to play an MMO that should be encouraged and enabled by the game's design.
You wanting things to change will not mean things will change. Things are the way they are - we need to work within that. Trying to go in opposition to how things are simply will not be successful.
Yes, but you can shape what the options for the path of least resistance are, and make them more conducive to engaging, satisfactory player interaction.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
I don’t see how an mmo of this size won’t have such vital information that’s helpful, why not just turn it off if you don’t want to see it? Im yet to play an mmo that doesn’t have some sort of dps /hps tracker, scoreboard or meter
Stop looking at the negatives and look at how it can be a huge positive, you can practice and see what builds work, what skill rotations work, testing out augs and different talents
People worried about people being “toxic” is a piss poor argument, toxic people will be toxic even without trackers or addons
I don’t see how an mmo of this size won’t have such vital information that’s helpful, why not just turn it off if you don’t want to see it? Im yet to play an mmo that doesn’t have some sort of dps /hps tracker, scoreboard or meter
Stop looking at the negatives and look at how it can be a huge positive, you can practice and see what builds work, what skill rotations work, testing out augs and different talents
You can do all of that by looking at the actual game while playing it. And take notes and write out spreadsheets, if you need more detailed analysis. None of that requires the game to summarise all of its data for you into a neat result. You're essentially circumventing everything about theorycrafting and experimenting with your class & build that's fun, and letting the devs hand you the solution.
The only one who can validate you for all the posts you didn't write is you.
havent read all this malarky thats in the 214 pages , but just make it simple. add the dps meter so people can test out builds and dps and shiz, but make it so you only see your own dps and not other players that way no one can be toxic by kicking people with low dps and no one will know your dps without you telling em
that way if a raid is failing due to dps its upto the raid leader to actually find out why not just boot said lowest person or berate them
You keep talking about this conversation - in over two decades of playing MMORPG's, I've never seen that conversation actually happen.
If by "this conversation" you mean the conversation where you talk about whether you have the same expected gameplay style/speed/strategy for the encounter you're about to engage in with the person you're inviting into your party, then you've been handicapping your enjoyment of social interactions for decades.
So has literally everyone I have ever seen play MMO's.
It isn't that I have never seen it happen, it is that I have never heard of it happening.
None of this is to say I am treating the games population as numbers. If I am looking for someone and don't have someone that can fill that gap in my guild or friends list, I simply state what role I am looking for, and what content.
There is no more discussion that needs to happen - there is barely any more conversation that *could* happen.
If I am looking for someone for a guild, there is obviously a lot more conversation that happens. That is when we talk about what that player expects, what the guild expects etc. But for a pickup group - we just want to get in to the content.
Build/gearscores also don't exist in all MMOs.
Yes, but an equivlent does.
I've yet to see a game that doesn't have some form of character builds, but if a game doesn't have gearscore, you can probably see what gear a player has in general via some other method. I'd be interested to see an MMORPG in which you have no ability at all to see what kind of gear another player has.
I mean, look at Ashes - it won't have gearscore (as far as I can see). But you will have buffs on your character that are based on the gear you have, so players can very easily use that.
This isn't a "planetary mindset", this is understanding the core concepts behind MMORPG design. Not understanding the design itself - understanding why the design is the way it is.
Without going in to any detail - any MMORPG that wants even a modest amount of success will give players some manner of showing how good their gear is - to many players this is their version of cosmetics. They don't care about what their character looks like, they aren't showing off their fashion sense - they are showing off their in game accomplishments.
Many players wish to do this, and so MMORPG's will always allow them a means to do so - even if it is only a general means of showing it off.
It is to the detriment of any given MMORPG to not have a means to do this, and so they will always have it in some form.
If it isn't an outright ability to inspect, it could be a gearscore. If it isn't a gearscore, it could be an icon with the general quality of gear the character is using. If it isn't that, it will be something else - but it will always be something.
Yes, but you can shape what the options for the path of least resistance are, and make them more conducive to engaging, satisfactory player interaction.
Cool.
Explain to me what that path of least resistance is. In Ashes, what will be easier than targeting the potential groupmate, looking at their build (I would expect there to be other means to get more information on a build than this - such as class buffs), and looking at their armor buff?
Because that is what the path of least resistance in Ashes will be if combat trackers don't exist.
Again, I am talking about the actual real world. You agree that players will take the path of least resistance - explain to me what an easier path looks like in the real world.
Comments
It's pseudo science to make certain ppl (that havent gotten their inrl priorities straight) feel like they are a fountain of knowledge and uncontestent powah. Hardly necessary, even for competitive players, whose self image and value isnt dependend on a 0.00001% advantage, therefore (still only in their own internal dialogues) making them better than others.
Necessary isn't the point.
The point is, competitive players will have it, because it does give you (at the very least) an edge.
I would argue that it doesn't make one a fountain of knowledge, but it does provide benefits.
It is the fact that it provides these benefits, in combination with the fact that many people will run them regardless, that is the reason why I believe the best thing Intrepid could do is build one in to the game.
The only people that will use it to that extent have received my description already.
Know why?
Because it's an owpvp mmo. But go for 300 pages.
Class balancing for what?
1v1 duel
Small scale random pvp
Large scale siege pvp
Raiding
Grinding xp/loot
Gathering
Class balancing for what? This isnt ESO.
As long as each class can offer players a unique playstyle that they identify with and can fill succussfuly one or a few of the above, players will be happy with their characters even if they arent good at the majority of the above.
Can my party kill another party with me in it? If yes - there's your balance. If no - we gotta do better.
Don't need any meters to do better, because absolute majority of parties will misplay more than will simply be missing some dps values or something. So as long as we misplay less - we'll win. And there's your balance.
This just promotes laziness and people to get away with minimal effort.
A DPS meter will filter these weasels out.
Can tell people haven’t done high level raids before and it shows
^ this
The DPS meter will show the blokes doing less damage than the tank/healers but still getting the same rewards 😂
Maybe it's your build. Maybe it's that an aspect of combat mechanics doesn't work how you thought it worked. Maybe it's that an aspect of combat mechanics doesn't work how Intrepid thought.
An experienced player can probably tell a class isn't balanced without needing to use a combat tracker. If all you are interested in if you find yourself playing an underpowered class is knowing this to be true and then changing to a different class, then a tracker may well be of no use to you.
On the other hand, if you are interested in finding out why that class is underpowered, in trying to find a way to make it not underpowered, or in trying to get the developer to fix the class, a combat tracker is essential.
I fall in to this second catagory. If something is broken, I won't just move on, I will try and get it fixed.
I have yet to see an MMORPG where the top end players didn't know more about the games combat system than the people that made said combat system.
Out of touch.
Not every player gets to loot. The drops are numbered. The leader decides who gets what.
"This"
Out of touch as well.
If you refuse to do that, your alternate options are to stick to a fixed group, or insist on some variation of a meta build. Both come at the disadvantage of restricting your pool of potentially skilled allies.
That's what a socially interactive game loop looks like. Something that is foreign to WoW players, as your anxiety about being left without add-ons is betraying painfully obviously.
Or you just do the math yourself and test in the field in practice. If you don't care enough to do that, you don't care enough to play better. Which is fine, too.
Out of touch.
Top end guilds (basically all top end guilds, though not some that think they are top end) award guild members for participation - that is what DKP is. That DKP is then used to bid on items that drop.
I have never seen any top end guild run with "leader decides" loot. I've seen some people try to run a guild like this, but any player that is worth having in an actual top end guild would have no interest at all in a guild with this kind of loot system.
It would take weeks just to collate the inputs after a reasonable length raid, let alone any actual math happening.
We are literally talking tens or hundreds of thousands of events, each event having at least 6 different inputs.
People aren't willing to share this information most of the time.
This is why meta's propogate. It's easier to just not take people along that have builds you don't have experience with, than dealing with people claiming you are being toxic when all you are doing is trying to post-mortem the run.
Edit to add; the group of players that I personally consider most toxic in MMORPG's are those that refuse to put any effort in to being involved in groups or raids. Games would be inherently better expirences if these people simply stuck to offline games - not that I am pointing to any specific posters or anything.
I have never seen any top end guild run with "leader decides" loot. I've seen some people try to run a guild like this, but any player that is worth having in an actual top end guild would have no interest at all in a guild with this kind of loot system."
couldn't have said this better myself, spot on.
"Out of touch.
Not every player gets to loot. The drops are numbered. The leader decides who gets what."
Honestly sounds like you are out of touch tbh, how you dont see having a damage meter (plus other meters Healing meter / CC meter / Dispell meter etc, baffles me how you cant see this being a good thing for this kind of large scale game. What i see is someone so blinded with hateful rage against WoW that anything even remotely close to WoW's successful methods will be instantly rejected. Just FYI WoW itself posts its own Damage meter every season patch to show which DPS class is at the top and which is at the bottom, and has been doing this for many expacs now, so the whole "wow addon" excuse is basically fake news lmao
You've just discovered that your time is valuable.
If other people are coming up with metas you disagree with (including the possibility that they might have used software to track the game data contrary to game policy), you're free to copy them, but if you think you might have an untested secret weapon that they didn't account for, but it's not worth your time to test and confirm manually, you have all the power to stick to your secret weapon anyway, and just hope it pays off for you. Same for everyone else around you.
That's a luxury you can only get in a game that doesn't make information access and analysis easy.
People who do write software to try and circumvent server-only information and read hidden client information value their own time too btw. Which is why third-party tools tend to be scuffed and a pain to calculate worthwhile data from in the early years of development. You can deny that reality and just pretend technology autosolves everything, but in my experience, there's a ton of stuff that flies under the radar even when people datamine the shit out of everything.
EDIT: It's just easy to be in denial about that reality when 90% of MMOs cave and make all data for analysis readily available anyway.
"Play the way I've determined to be optimal in order to earn the right to exist in my presence, or don't play at all; your lack of effort to impress me is toxic."
What a fucking princess.
How about I put effort into the groups that bother to communicate and theorycraft the way I like and you fuck right off if all you can do is compare epeens and circlejerk about how little fun and variety you have left in your hyperoptimised game, and exclude everyone who doesn't conform to your implicit standards?
Your posting here has taken a sharp turn towards toxic.
Not sure if you realize it, but that is exactly what you are saying to me here; You are telling me that I have to play the way you want me to play, not the way I want to play.
You are suggesting I am a "fucking princess" for what you think I am saying (not what I am saying, by the way), yet you are literally saying the same thing to me.
As a point to make, in regards to this comment; WoW is the most analyzed MMO that has ever been - and yet people still find out new things about the game years later.
Having access to the information quickly does not mean you have all the data instantly - you still need to check each individual build. As an individual build takes weeks to check properly, and as we are talking about how builds interact with each other in a raid setting, even in WoW, less than 10% of everything has ever been actually checked.
As an actual response to this point;
I've never met anyone that is even remotely close to what you are talking about here.
When it comes to pickup groups in EQ2, everyone I know only cared if they thought their group was capable of running the content they had in mind. If they thought they were fine, no one at all cared about the class or build of people - other than in regards to what alterations it meant people needed to make to how they play (some tank builds required different types of heals, some tanks built threat faster but ended up with an unshakeable hold on mobs, things like that).
In Archeage, people just stuck to the meta, because you wouldn't be invited to groups if you weren't one of the classes.
You can have your opinion on how you would like things to be, but I live in the real world, and talk about how things are in that real world. In the real world, people don't want to have that discussion you are talking about every time they run group content. If they had to have it, they would be able to run significantly less content.
That is what is holding your ideal back. You are saying people should spend time talking instead of running content - most people would rather run more content. That is both why in a game like Archeage people only invite people with a meta build, and also why in a game like Archeage people only run with a meta build.
It just means more content, which means more fun for most people.
I don't understand what you're correcting here. Talking about other people's playstyle and experience level is how you find out whether players are "capable of running the content they had in mind."
How else would you do it in a game without DPS meters?
You don't have to. But then you don't really get to be disappointed if the person you end up with isn't capable of doing what you expected them to do. That's on you for being too careless to have that conversation when you don't have an Add-On to do the talking for you.
That's the risk you take by making all your expectations implicit. It's up to you whether you invest the time at the start to confirm that you're on the same page (or ignore everyone who doesn't confirm to implicit meta standards), or if you spend those few extra sentences before allowing a new player into your group (e.g. because you're missing a member from your standard party) Investing that time into communication to make expectations explicit is like investing into damage compensation insurance.
Is it? Is it fun for you to be quietly disappointed every time a no-name player you're accepting into your party is not performing the way you were expecting? Is it worth not having to talk to people? Cause that's what constantly ends up happening in games where implicit expectations are encouraged.
Players have deeper expectations than just performance. They care about playing at different speeds, using different playstyles. If none of that ever gets expressed, the vast majority of gameplay time is spent frustrated about not being on the same page with the people you're playing with. I can tell, because what always happens 1-2 hours after those awkward mismatched parties is that either one person blows up with insults, or they just quiety split up disappointed with the events of the last 1-2 hours, and repeat the process until they run into a guild or party they connect with by coincidence. Then repeat that whole loop several times over until they have enough people when their primary parties are offline. It's so much unnecessary disappointment when you could just be talking about what you want from the start.
More =/= better. Players just take the path of least resistance and don't stop to reconsider whether there might be ways to achieve better results, because the meta game loop is "backed by the numbers" and it's the default solution with the fastest way to "do more." That doesn't make it the better choice.
Less effortless access to metagame data would be a great start to disrupt those bad default habits.
Proof: Have you noticed that literally only the people here defending automation and effortless accurate metagame data access are the ones also defending antisocial cog-in-the-machine gameplay? Does that not give you pause?
I prefer to ascertain peoples capability by their actual output, rather than their build and gearscore. I'd also rather ascertain peoples capability by their actual output than by what they have to say about themselves.
You keep talking about this conversation - in over two decades of playing MMORPG's, I've never seen that conversation actually happen. It isn't needed - people want an easier method, one that gives them more assurance. That is why actual data is what most players use in most MMORPG's, and when that isn't available, build/gearscore is what is used.
You think talking to them is going to tell you that would have been the case?
This is why objective data is good. If we are planning on running some content and have questions about our group, we run some "pre-content". On the very rare occasion when that player isn't looking up to it, we don't continue to the planned content.
In Archeage, we look at the players build and gearscore - that tells us if they are capable of running the content or not. There are no more questions to be had.
Yes, this is my point.
You wanting things to change will not mean things will change. Things are the way they are - we need to work within that. Trying to go in opposition to how things are simply will not be successful.
Using a meta is always going to be least resistance. Using a combat tracker is going to be more effective. If we are talking about reality, I do not see scope for a third.
Saying: "In over two decades of massively multiplayer games I have never come across conversations about aligning players' goals in forming a party, let alone had the idea occur to myself," and not even beginning to self-reflect about that is perplexingly absurd to me. I know you'll clarify and backtrack about different situations than dungeon-grouping now, but you're effectively telling me that you're treating the game's community as numbers, and think that's the way to play an MMO that should be encouraged and enabled by the game's design.
Build/gearscores also don't exist in all MMOs. You've got what the intergalactic call "a very planetary mindset", Noaani.
Yes, but you can shape what the options for the path of least resistance are, and make them more conducive to engaging, satisfactory player interaction.
Stop looking at the negatives and look at how it can be a huge positive, you can practice and see what builds work, what skill rotations work, testing out augs and different talents
People worried about people being “toxic” is a piss poor argument, toxic people will be toxic even without trackers or addons
You can do all of that by looking at the actual game while playing it. And take notes and write out spreadsheets, if you need more detailed analysis. None of that requires the game to summarise all of its data for you into a neat result. You're essentially circumventing everything about theorycrafting and experimenting with your class & build that's fun, and letting the devs hand you the solution.
that way if a raid is failing due to dps its upto the raid leader to actually find out why not just boot said lowest person or berate them
It isn't that I have never seen it happen, it is that I have never heard of it happening.
None of this is to say I am treating the games population as numbers. If I am looking for someone and don't have someone that can fill that gap in my guild or friends list, I simply state what role I am looking for, and what content.
There is no more discussion that needs to happen - there is barely any more conversation that *could* happen.
If I am looking for someone for a guild, there is obviously a lot more conversation that happens. That is when we talk about what that player expects, what the guild expects etc. But for a pickup group - we just want to get in to the content. Yes, but an equivlent does.
I've yet to see a game that doesn't have some form of character builds, but if a game doesn't have gearscore, you can probably see what gear a player has in general via some other method. I'd be interested to see an MMORPG in which you have no ability at all to see what kind of gear another player has.
I mean, look at Ashes - it won't have gearscore (as far as I can see). But you will have buffs on your character that are based on the gear you have, so players can very easily use that.
This isn't a "planetary mindset", this is understanding the core concepts behind MMORPG design. Not understanding the design itself - understanding why the design is the way it is.
Without going in to any detail - any MMORPG that wants even a modest amount of success will give players some manner of showing how good their gear is - to many players this is their version of cosmetics. They don't care about what their character looks like, they aren't showing off their fashion sense - they are showing off their in game accomplishments.
Many players wish to do this, and so MMORPG's will always allow them a means to do so - even if it is only a general means of showing it off.
It is to the detriment of any given MMORPG to not have a means to do this, and so they will always have it in some form.
If it isn't an outright ability to inspect, it could be a gearscore. If it isn't a gearscore, it could be an icon with the general quality of gear the character is using. If it isn't that, it will be something else - but it will always be something. Cool.
Explain to me what that path of least resistance is. In Ashes, what will be easier than targeting the potential groupmate, looking at their build (I would expect there to be other means to get more information on a build than this - such as class buffs), and looking at their armor buff?
Because that is what the path of least resistance in Ashes will be if combat trackers don't exist.
Again, I am talking about the actual real world. You agree that players will take the path of least resistance - explain to me what an easier path looks like in the real world.