Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
First of all, all players should be aware of the encounter mechanics, their role in the encounter and what is expected of them. If this is not clear to every member of the raid, again, bad leadership.
From there, if a player isn't doing as they should, the raid leader should be telling that player that they are not meeting the expectations that were set for them, and link them the parse numbers in private. From there, the leadership is able to link the next pull in guild or raid chat if it is still an issue.
I didn't think it was necessary to point out that all of this should go on before just bluntly posting how shit someone is doing, but hey.
The point I was making was that a good guild leader is able to use a combat tracker as a tool to ensure that the raid members are doing as they should, and no raid leader worth the title would ever let any member of his or her raid put DPS over executing the encounter mechanics. Oh, I can argue that easily.
Three games. WoW, EQ2, Archeage.
WoW and EQ2 have heavy combat tracker use, Archeage has virtually none.
WoW and Archeage have tools for automatically forming groups for content that matters, EQ2 does not.
WoW and Archeage have famously toxic communities, EQ2 does not.
Don't try and tell me combat trackers cause toxicity, it simply doesn't hold to basic scrutiny.
It would be nice to know if third party use of DPS meters will be punishable.
And if there will be an active effort to shutter any such programs.
I'm not sure you know what you are talking about, to be honest.
I'm actually very sure though, that you have not read much of the thread nor taken on board the arguments of either side.
I literally didn't say they caused toxicity, I said they gave toxic players a platform to be toxic. We clearly play very differently and I would rather do a 1000 other things than have to interact with you in a team based environment solely as a result of what you've said.
You shouldn't do that shit at all, but thanks for clarifying you did something else before being an asshole to the people you are playing with lol.
If you want to suck the fun out of a game then do it, if you want to treat your guild like a job then do it but this isn't how I'd enjoy myself and I couldn't care less about how your guild was ran.
By the way, you're the problem if that's really how you go about your business in a video-game. Again, something about treating people like people just appeals to me a little more
If there is a member that is holding the raid up, a good raid leaders priority is not that player, nor that players feelings. It is to the other 39 people that are present, and the collective that they all represent.
If you want to be in a more casual raid, that is actually great. You and your 39 friends can get yourself all stuck on that one encounter, spending combined hundreds of hours of your time on it (remember, 1 hour spent, is actually 40 hours with 40 people), all because no one wanted to hurt the feelings of that one guy that didn't realize he was holding all his friends up.
You're the kind of person that wouldn't tell someone they have green stuff stuck in their teeth, even if they were heading in to a job interview. I'm the kind of person that would tell them as soon as I see it.
Sure, it may be embarassing now, but in the long run the person would rather know.
Edit; if that person in my raid would rather have not known, and would rather have held up the whole raid, then he is not a player that is suitable for my raids.
Hardcore used to mean progress by any means necessary within the games ruleset. This games ruleset is to not have dps meters. Adapt, overcome, conquer. If you can't do these things you can't really say that "you" are the hardcore raiders.
And as for the punishment, I'm asking because Steven stated they don't want those third party applications. I would like to know if it's like a soft ban on them or an actual ban on them.
I would consider myself a successful raider, not a "hardcore" raider. I can't even bring myself to call anyone "hardcore" without a strong sense of sarcasm, as it is not a word I can take seriously.
If you've lead raids in WoW, you are "hardcore"! My reason for not caring about this is because there will be nothing at all running on my computer that Intrepid would be able to identify as a combat tracker - and without being able to identify it on my computer, the only way they will know I am using one is it I say I am.
Basically, if they attempt to do this, all it will achieve is putting a rootkit on every players computer in order to spy on what applications they are running concurrantly to Ashes - without actually finding anything.
Because I wouldn't publicly shame someone I think of as a friend means that I wouldn't tell them something important that they should know? Despite me saying earlier that they should be dealt with privately? What you're saying isn't 'Letting someone know they have green stuff stuck in their teeth' it's walking into a room and telling everyone in that room to laugh at them for having green stuff in their teeth.
I never once said players shouldn't be called out and told when they're doing something wrong, I said your approach was unnecessary, because it is. Obviously players should be expected to take their own share of the load in the group and do it correctly.
but you did say it though...
or did you not read the whole thread including your own words?
Anyway, maybe you should look at it as a greater challenge! Instead of a great negative.
and maybe cheating isn't the best way to be considered one of the hardcore guilds.
The point is that I said you could use a combat tracker to tell who is getting hit by the fiery shit. I also highlighted what would be a last resort as it was the most visual means of illustrating the point that the tool that you are saying is causing an issue is actually the tool that is the remedy to that issue. That is the point.
In terms of linking in guild chat, as I said, it would be after telling that player in private, several times. Again, I didn't think this would need to have been clarified as it should go without saying.
If I am linking a players poor performance to the guild as a one off, it means I am one pull away from booting the player from the raid, and thus the guild (something I have had to do only once, in almost 20 years).
However, I will make a point on some encounters that warrant it to have a parse that shows either the most or least damage that a specific attack does (content depending). Players can and do use this kind of thing to compete in the same way they use DPS to compete.
Sometimes the filth from WoW trash, such as their terms, rubs off on to others.
As for cheating, using a tool that is standard in the genre is not really cheating. Just because Intrepid want to play by their own rules, doesn't mean I have to.
Well at least your big enough to admit you said it first. Though i don't understand why you're attacking arguably the two most competitive raiding games in the genre. What "hardcore" raiding are you doing? Maybe I'm missing an important part of your personal experience I.E while playing silk road online a lot of people would bot, because it literally took months on top of months to get anywhere. (still wasn't right though)
As for cheating, no actually playing outside a games rule set is cheating. In every definition. And yes you do as it is their game. But hey if you want to be the "best" illegitimately" go for it mate. not my job to stop you!
This isn't really going anywhere and i feel we aren't creating good dialogue so I'll head out past this. I do hope you have fun in the game as it has a lot to offer! (even if it doesn't offer a dps meter or its use)
So, you're backtracking and filling in your gaps and talking nonsense about me missing the point despite going off on a tangent yourself. This is why I just plainly dislike reading anything you have to say because you're so bullheaded. What a pointless conversation, I'm not even the person you're trying to convince that combat logs are important because as I said, I'm completely impartial.
This is boring and I'm not going to continue this and respond again, It's also just making me cringe a little bit every single time you say something about a game you dislike because you think that you're on a pedestal above the rest for not playing it.
I'm not one for shying away from a conversation going off topic, I'm always going to defend my position.
It's not my fault you focused on an unimportant detail - just don't claim people are backtracking when they attempt to clarify something after you take a point off topic.
An example of this may be that I will happily multibox if *I* want to, but I will never play a game in a manner where one keypress results in more than one action.
If I were ever to play WoW (which - other than assisting my brothers guild on raids, I won't and haven't), and decided to multibox, I wouldn't run so many accounts that I needed to use scripts to keep things going - even though WoW allows this as long as you are present at the computer.
I also will not play GW2, as every class' main ability is essentially a toggle, rather than a single cast ability. As such, just playing that game naturally means one keypress gives more than one action - which is against my rules even if not against GW2's.
The fact that Intrepid *may* make rules that are not perfectly compatible with mine is not really an issue for me. I will stick to mine in literally every situation.
That's fair, and I wish you the best! But if you get the ban hammer take it with stride. Hopefully it won't come to that and we'll see each other in game. I'll even act as a training dummy for you to parse your DPS off of, legitimately of course
Well, I don't see many options for healers at least. You need those bars close to you to monitor HP.
About the best AoC can do is not allow it as a 3rd party addon but even then there will be versions that can run independently of the game and analyze the DPS data.
The only up side to this however is that not everyone under the sun will have it readily available. Probably only those people/ guilds concerned with mini/maxing will still use them.
I'm just gonna jump in for a sec... I never ever got the impression that there was going to be structured tier-driven progression raiding in this game. Why would they assume it would?
And honestly for every player who thinks they can't play the game without them, there are 10 more who pick it up because it's refreshing that it's not catering to the same old mentality.
I'd said it several times. If there's a DPS meter, I'm forced to use it because the population will demand that DPS threshold for content.
On the other side, I'm always thinking that DPS meters make the game easier and trivializes a lot of encounters.
Having damage meters to improve your own play: With the damage meter min/maxers have a tool to measure how well there build performs. Change this one skill in a rotation and you get 100 more DPS.. BAM!! This, used purely as tool for ones self betterment is fully acceptable.
Having damage meters to "qualify" players: Here is where the argument gets, deeper. As someone had already pointed out above, a guild could be advertising for DPS saying "40k DPS required". Gear score is also another "measurement" used as everyone wells knows. Here is where the exclusivity comes in. At this point you are telling people that if your not "gud" then you need not apply. To me this is not the purpose of an MMO. MMOs are fundamentally different than something like DOTA or LoL. These games are built around being multiplayer, but dont really focus on lore or cooperative game play outside a small group of people and actually promote competitive gameplay. This perspective can be toxic and can destroy a game from within.
Am I against damage meters in a game? Thats a tough question. My short answer is no but my longer answer is maybe. I have been playing MMOs for probably longer than some of you have been alive. Started back in the BBB days with dial-up MUDs. Circa 1992. I have seen the good and the bad of damage meters as well as many other "tools". Has it ever impacted me personally? No. But then I am a tank. I dont play anything other than a tank so DPS is not a concern for me. As long as I can take it to the face and still keep standing and keep my party from dying.. I am good. ;P But I have seen it impact friends of mine that were actually really good players but were "past" over cause there DPS wasn't quite high enough.. And yes, I have seen, on more than one occasion a group pass up someone who did 35.5k DPS and not 40k. So it does happen in contrast to what someone posted above.
So in closing, I support Stevens decision to not allow meters. I think he is thinking about the community as a whole and not a small sub-set of players that ultimately will drop playing a game over something a petty as "this content is to easy" vs those who continue playing cause the community is one where it allows for friendships to grow and people to escape the daily @%!tstorm that is life.
At first I was nervous lol, but bc I played my class for so long and mastered my rotation from leveling and doing dungeons for gear my nerves calmed after the first pull. I started to notice certain mechanics in fights I didn’t before small things that would give away the next step in the fight, certain movements etc. instead of constantly staring at the meter making sure I was at the right numbers, I was able to just play the game and enjoy myself.
Ironically my Gm whispered me and said “ wow this is the best you have parsed in any raid”
It was In this moment I realized what Steve was talking about and I’ve decided I’ll never use one ever again. I will trust my ability and put In the extra work to master my class! Freedom ladies and gentlemen, having no meter gave me FREEDOM.
It can be daunting, but, the risk and reward are great lol
Virtue is the only good.
But remember, you master you class using it first.