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
When that clip is put into context with other clips and comments about including high skill-ceiling pve focused content through instancing and corruption protected content, my interpretation is that the "competing" with other games that Steven is referring to is probably more relating to the quantity of that focused content that will be in Ashes, rather than the actual difficulty and quality of the existing content.
Hello everyone!
Zeldoz here, hope you all have the chance to play the A2 and i hope you all have a lovely weekend!
let's take World of Warcraft as an example. First off, it all depends on the content and how it's designed. Back in vanilla when world of warcraft were a BETTER game overall, disagree or agree, It's a FACT, there was not that big of a need of addons if any at all. Now days in world of warcraft there are bunch of addons but not as many as two/three expansions ago, since Blizztard have implemented some stuff into the game that addons were filling up on features before that now are in the game. Ashes are said to not want to have any addons, which i LOVE, i cant forget my times as a young kid playing world of warcraft (2004) without addons and there was NO problem at all.
And it wasn't a problem for 95% of the players until it actually became necessary for tracking logs in raids.
Nowdays after many "dps check" mechanics on many bosses it has ruined alot for raiding. For those who doesn't know what im talking about: "dps check" is a common used sentence among players in wow (dont know about other mmos) when there is a boss with a "timer" for when the boss has a mechanic that will wipe out the whole raid if not enough damage is coming from the raid's dps'. This is what i want to come to. It all depends on what type of way the actual boss' are made like regarding mechanics and whatnot. Tho this are rooted in with other stuff like gear, healers output etc.
So for gear, if it isn't to much of a gap between lvl to lvl items then bosses wont be doing way to much damage if you have it balanced right. Since if you have a lvl 48 chest vs a lvl 50 chest it's only increased in +2 stamina (hitpoints) so it wont make a big difference when fighting a lvl 50 boss (if you can do that at 48). Neither will the heal be to big of a difference if the same case with the +2 stamina (hitpoints) is +2 spirit (mana regeneration). And same thing goes for dps if the case were +2 agility/strength/intellect (more dmg output physical or magical). This means if you're not doing any end game content with way too low gear as a 50 you should be good with tanking, healing and dps'ing AS LONG as you do mechanics right. The tank should be able to take the damage, the healer should be able to have mana throughout the fight to heal the tank back up and dps should be able to have enough dps so it all are synced in a nice cycle between the 3 roles and the fight itself. If the gap is too big, then this would be a problem WITHOUT the wipe mechanics if there are any. Because then people would have to have the "BIS - best in slot" gear pre the raid or end game content to uphold the fights. That's the issue if gear isn't balanced right.
Now for the specific DPS meter stuff. It is as some have said a love/hate thing. It is good to see if you are performing as a player regarding having the right rotation between your kit of spells and whatnot. BUT it is not a good thing in the longer time from what i've seen from old days in wow up until current expansions. First of all it f#cks up the connection between players because it gets easier to blame someone with low dps even if they are doing the mechanics right, even if there aren't a dps check mechanic on that boss. Which is stupid but this is VERY common in World of Warcraft these days. BECAUSE people have been failing from many years back on certain bosses mostly in general because of dps check mechanics. Then it has been stuck with the community ever since. This leads to another problem were dps players are trying SO hard to do more dmg output that they ACTUALLY forget to focus on the long run to victory which is the mechanics right. If everyone stands in dragons fire while watching the dps meter UI then everyone dies
There's more to it but i dont want it to be to long and boring. But all and all, if the boss fights are designed in a way that there arent any dps focused mechanics that are lethal and the gearing isn't to much of a difference between gear from lvl to lvl then dps meter is not necessary and you should be glad if this is the case. If not then dps meter WILL BE needed in the game so people can look on what the problem is, tank takes to much dmg, heal does to little heal, dps does to little dps and it will f#uck everything fun out of raiding. Because raiding is most fun when success comes out of it. We get glory and loot!
I really hope Intrepid have had this in mind and designed it in a older fashion way so the gap isn't to big on gear stats and that the only wipe mechanics are actual mechanics to dodge and deal with. Because I for one knows how the dps meters starts to be a common thing (late The burning crusade / Wrath of the lich king: wow expansions) to become a thing that actually takes fun out of the game, literally.
The point is that this isn't how a combat tracker in Ashes should be used.
If someone is using one like this, then yeah, they are an easy kill.
If someone is using one properly though, they will be a significantly better player for it.
Better at what? Killing bullet sponges 20 seconds faster than another group? You can’t pvp like that, as people are unpredictable. Have you ever played a pvx game? Good luck trying to maximize damage while constantly prioritizing your health so you don’t get insta gibbed WHEN you get jumped.
QFT
Pass
Being able to find the proper rotation and setup so that I can optimally play my preferred weapons or class seems to be nothing but a positive in itself. The problem with dps meters as has been beaten to death in this thread, is the social meta element where people use it for all sorts of toxic behavior.
The solution is an ingame dps meter of some sort, be it from target dummy testing or actively turned on for any combat. And to heavily punish the ridicule and toxic sentiment people throw at each other when someone is not doing the best dps for their class. Crack down on that behavior and it will stop. people have the choice to just leave parties with low dps. You are not held hostage to bad players. Get your guild or find another group. This is the correct way to play.
I agree with you - but to many, metrics and spreadsheets are fun.
Let them have their fun too.
If I have a combat tracker, I can use it to work out the finer details of the games combat system. In days, I can arrive at conclusions as to how things work and interact that would take those without this tool multiple years to arrive at.
It isn't about getting jumped, or about even using it during actual PvP. It is as simple as if I have a tracker and you do not, I know the games combat system better than you know it.
Realistically, if they don't have the quantity, there is no point in having the quality.
IMO, DPS meter ruins immersion. None of it please. Also, arrows on the ground telling us the patch to walk. Or... teleporters allowing movement all over the world. Let us walk, let realism be part of an mmo again like EQ! I miss the more realistic methods!
While I don't disagree with your over all notion of how you want the game to be, I've yet to play an MMORPG that I haven't submitted bug reports about incorrect tooltips - using information I obtained using a combat tracker. I'm also unsure how you could have accurate tooltips with only a description.
As to wanting questions and mystery - these things are only good if there is a means to get the answers. Having questions that no one is ever going to answer isn't enjoyable.
Yeah, I think that is the best people can hope for at this point.
not necessarily
not really. they can also work against you. refer back to my dagger and mage example.
The fact that there are occasionally exceptions doesn't change the fact that the statement is generally true. Obviously people need to apply some basic critical thinking. Keep in mind, it isn't as if people use a tracker and then work out what would be theoretically best based purely on that. They are still playing the game, they still have all the knowledge and understanding you have - they just have more on top of that.
Basically, someone like me with a tracker knows everything about the game that you do, plus more on top of that.
If this wasn't the case, there would be no argument at all against them.
Tooltips should absolutely have specific numbers. There's keeping some mechanics 'pay attention' only which I'm in full favor of, and then there's obnoxious and unhelpful lack of clarity.
You need to know what your own baseline damage is, and floating-text for damage as an option will also be required due to a lack of specific HP indicators, so you can get a gauge of what your opponent's build is like. If your 5000 physical damage tooltip is only hitting for 1000 physical damage, then you can logically assume they have a high amount of armor and you'll have to adjust.
Blindly plinking at enemies in hopes that what you're doing is effective is an exercise in frustration.
DPS meters imo are a very helpful tool for understanding the baseline power of your particular build in a no-threat environment, and watching someone parse actually lets you see where they're struggling with buff utilization, uptimes, etc, but even that can be done without a log displaying it all. I'm sure there will end up being some specific mob that people will parse on to determine dps, same as other games have done. Just set a timer, have them kill it, and get total hp divided by time-to-kill.
That said, outside tools should never be required to understand a fight. The developers should be utilizing visual and audio cues to inform players of what is going on in a fight. It's only in the absence of well-designed encounters that you need a combat log system to tell you what happened.
ESO flops in a lot of ways, but I'll die on the hill that their sound design and visual cues for raids are some of the best designed in the genre. You do not need any kind of combat cue addon to tell you what's happening, and the one time I used one on request of a guild, it was nothing but a distraction to the point I turned every text prompt off while it was installed after one fight.
I have eyes, I have ears, I have a memory better than a goldfish. I don't need the UI feeding me info to parse a fight on my screen when it's designed well
but if you know everything about the game, why do you need a tracker to gain knowledge? you cant go beyond 100%. cant know more than there is.
and if you don't know everything, in which case, you would use a tracker, it can make you make the wrong decision.
I didn't say "knows everythihng about the game", I said "knows everything about the game that you do".
Those last three words completely change the meaning of that statement. Please read properly.
what about allowing it above certain difficulty threshold where people can opt in and choice go be exposed?! but more than a dps meter, a combat tracker that could in fact help with the encounter.
Absolutely not
You guys are now talking about a combat assistant, not a combat tracker.
I agree combat assistants shouldn't be a thing.