Oh you mean like how it leads to player toxicity. Lessens the games social ability by a pretty large margin. Unfairly forces people to participate in it whether they want to or not. Will be used to force how loot is distributed. Is objectively useless to the design of the game. Assumes the majority of the playerbase is stupid and can't think for themselves. Assumes that the playerbase are more casual for some reason.
Will force a meta that may not even be the most effective way to play. Will force a meta that will not be enjoyable by the majority of the playerbase. Will lead to class denial despite player skill (even in cases where they out perform you in every possible way). Will cause elitist pricks to be even more intolerable than they already are despite their statistics being inherently flawed by the design of the game when determining player and build viability.
Is a crutch that may limit player growth. May ignore mechanical skill methods in the game. Absolutely guaranteed to lead to a second layer of toxicity ingrained in the game due to all of above coming true.
@Sangramoire
I'm not wanting to get too involved in teh conversation you and Linstead have been having, I just wantto throw in a few specific points that I had while reading.
if you have anything specific you would like me to try and answer, by all means @ me and I'll do my best.
In which specific situation would a combat tracker be more beneficial than harmful?
When peer reviewing other players builds that they have posted as a guide for new players. It is, in my opinion, the veteran players resposibility and obligation to make sure that information is as accurate as possible - which can only be done with a combat tracker.
When checking to make sure tool tip descriptions of abilities match the effect they have. If an ability has a range of 150 - 300, and you want to make sure it is working as it should, you need at least 15,000 data points of that spell against a single, un-debuffed target. Doing that without a combat tracker is - let's just say tiresome.
When in an encounter designed with combat trackers in mind, combat trackers are obviously needed to keep track of the multitude of mechanics that are in play at the same time.
My personal main concern is it will make content easier and also it gets rid of the possibility for other social interactions which is part of an MMO imo.
Two points here.
The first one is simple - it does, but then developers take combat trackers in to consideration when developing content. I would then agree that this means that there is content that people can't do without combat trackers - which I am sure would be the next point of debate.
What I would say to that though is that I think this is fine. To me, as long as players that want to raid without a combat tracker have content on which to do that, it is not an issue if players that do have a combat tracker also have content on which to raid.
Should the guild without a combat tracker then decide to make their content easier by using a combat tracker, they then have the content that was designed with their use in mind that will pose a challenge to them.
Thus, basically, everyone has content to meet their own level of challenge, base on the tools they want to make use of.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
I still can't think of a situation in which a DPS meter would actually help me help someone else that I couldn't have done without the DPS meter to begin with. Can you elaborate on a specific example in which a DPS meter is absolutely necessary to do something that otherwise it is just not possible?
I believe I answered this above, again, @ me if not.
This is the same thing as having a tracker for everyone anyways because guilds that focus on pve will require themselves to get that perk for the guild so that doesn't really accomplish much and the people tracking others aren't really best served by helping those that they are tracking rather than disposing of them.
This is still not an example of a tracker being necessary for anything as you can do all of that without the tracker so my question still stands, why do we need a tracker and how exactly does it help because as far as I know a tracker still only helps to decide that there's a problem but you can find that out without a tracker so I don't see a reason to have trackers. If you're looking for competition than honestly you're looking in the wrong place. Even if you had the most DPS in a raid that doesn't mean you're better than anyone. If you want to compete against other players, go do some pvp. It's my nice way of saying stop sucking your thumb while trying to constantly pat yourself in the back for being marginally and subjectively better than someone else that doesn't really care to compete with you. It's the exact mindset you shouldn't have with trackers, that elitism that everyone seems to be talking about.
I disagree with this point because if I'm in a guild and I want to still misuse the trackers, I can. I can still kick people for doing marginally worse and because I'm that type of person I will not care if I have to wait 30 mins for another person to come join our raid if they will perform better. I'd rather kick that other person that wasn't performing instead of spending 15 minutes to teach them just to have them mess it up again and wasting an hour of everyone's time.
I personally don't think that way but people that already do, will think that way and tracker or no tracker they will find a way to get away with things like that but the only diference is that having a tracker just gives those people another tool to abuse. That's a negative right there. I still see no positives that cannot be accomplished without the tracker.
I am of the opinion that when you join a guild - especially a guild that is aiming high in what ever content it excels at - you are signing up to play the game in the manner that the guild plays the game.
This is why guild choice matters - it shapes the way you play the game.
If you are joining a guild that requires you to use a combat tracker, then that is what you are signing up for when you join that guild. As such, I don't see how this could be considered an issue.
As to your example of a person in a guild misusing it, I have two points to make.
The first is - should we simply remove everything from the game that people could misuse in this manner? I don't think we would have much of a game left if we did.
Second, people have the option to leave guilds. If you leave the guild with that player in it, that player is never able to track your combat ever again.
And as you said, that player will find somethign to abuse - why take useful tools out of the game just for the sake of those few people?
While I would agree with this point but the reality is that not everyone thinks that way. It's bascally impossbile to control how everyone will handle their guild and new recruits, you can't really dictate that or make it against the rules without causing an uproar from certain people. You seem to have the right mindset on how to handle a guild and new recruits but that doen't mean that others do as well. They do not think like you. So like I've said before, tracker still seem to bring no positives that cannot be accomplished without them, in fact I personally believe that they could not only give certain people another tool to abuse but also it takes away from some player interaction within guild as well as the need to be more organized in a raid. So essentially you cut a part of the game out while adding a possible negative to the game while not necessarily adding any positives.
This is true, not everyone will behave this way. However, if combat trackers were set up in this manner, guilds that don't take this mindset will eventually find it hard to get new members.
The design of the game will have a far greater impact on the behavior of people in game than any other factor. If the game is designed in a way where it is in a guilds best interest to put some time and effort in to new recruits, then that is what guilds will do.
While this is something I often do in games anyway (especially if I come across a player that is actually enthusiastic for top end content), I am not at all suggesting that systems should be put in place in the hope of this happening. I'm also not a fan of making it a rule or anything. However, there is a middle ground where you make it so that it is in the guilds best interests to assit new recruits, and all of a sudden that is what guilds will gladly do.
Which as you can see is not the case. Combat trackers are a way to optimize the fun out of any game. The coombat trackers will tell you everything and it makes the game so much easier for people to learn. I like a challenge and like someone else said in a previous post, the trackers make the game easier and the devs will have to make encounters arbitrarily harder.
See, I am all for having both.
Have content that is designed around not having combat trackers. Maybe even make it so that guilds killing it without the combat tracker perk get better loot.
Honestly, I'm all for that.
However, I am also all for guilds that want and enjoy the added dimension that comes from having a combat tracker and encounters designed around the use of a combat tracker.
The thing is, having both of these things in one game in a way where they both make sense to be in that game can only be possible if the game has a built in combat tracker.
Oh you mean like how it leads to player toxicity. Lessens the games social ability by a pretty large margin. Unfairly forces people to participate in it whether they want to or not. Will be used to force how loot is distributed. Is objectively useless to the design of the game. Assumes the majority of the playerbase is stupid and can't think for themselves. Assumes that the playerbase are more casual for some reason.
Will force a meta that may not even be the most effective way to play. Will force a meta that will not be enjoyable by the majority of the playerbase. Will lead to class denial despite player skill (even in cases where they out perform you in every possible way). Will cause elitist pricks to be even more intolerable than they already are despite their statistics being inherently flawed by the design of the game when determining player and build viability.
Is a crutch that may limit player growth. May ignore mechanical skill methods in the game. Absolutely guaranteed to lead to a second layer of toxicity ingrained in the game due to all of above coming true.
I'm confused.
This post starts off like you are talking about an automated grouping system, as the things you are complaining of there are literally all a result of that.
Then the second paragraph goes on to complain about things that will happen if a combat tracker isn't freely available.
I was under the impression that you were against combat trackers, not that you were against automated grouping systems and all for combat trackers.
Assuming you are indeed still against combat trackers, I would be interested to hear how you think their inclusion would cause all of the above, as much of it is completely unrelated.
Have content that is designed around not having combat trackers. Maybe even make it so that guilds killing it without the combat tracker perk get better loot.
The first one is simple - it does, but then developers take combat trackers in to consideration when developing content. I would then agree that this means that there is content that people can't do without combat trackers - which I am sure would be the next point of debate.
What I would say to that though is that I think this is fine. To me, as long as players that want to raid without a combat tracker have content on which to do that, it is not an issue if players that do have a combat tracker also have content on which to raid.
Should the guild without a combat tracker then decide to make their content easier by using a combat tracker, they then have the content that was designed with their use in mind that will pose a challenge to them.
Thus, basically, everyone has content to meet their own level of challenge, base on the tools they want to make use of.
first off, then why not just balance content with trackers not in mind since they are not available? That way the developers still end up with a challenging game that doesn't need trackers and doesn't have to deal with the negatives of having trackers.
Second, I think it would be a good idea to give better loot to guilds killing content without the tracker though there's some problems that can come with that but you also have to keep in mind that AoC is being designed fundamentally different than other MMOs.
The Developers cannot guarantee that there will be content in your server that's balanced for trackers and non trackers because that's not up to the developers in this game. AoC is ever changing and it would be easier to just balance content for no tracker use, that way people that advocate for a tracker really have no need for it because the game would already be balanced for no tracker and the people that don't want a tracker will not be forced to use one.
For testing other people's builds and such a tracker is absolutely not needed. Take Path of Exile as an example, people including myself play that game just to theory craft and create new builds all the time. The game changes every couple of months and there's a lot of changes with completely new items and new game mechanics. Yet we still don't have a tracker in that game to test builds.
And in this case a combat dummy could be added instead that would actually be better than a tracker for testing builds because fundamentally each server will be different. a good build on one server may not be as good on another because certain builds will be made for specific things that another server may not have.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
Combat trackers in no way get rid of the need to be more organized as a group, nor is impacting the amount of communication that goes between the players. That's just plain silly.
It's really simple. Beyond simple.
Imagine yourself in an 8p group, learning the fight for a new savage boss. The mechanics, and when to put out buffs as a group etc etc. A day passes, you made some progress, a week passes, now you're able to bring down the boss to 50%, a month passes, now you're able to bring it down to 5%. Then you're hit with the enrage, and realize that you've seen all the mechanics. Now you just lack the DPS.
Are you in all honesty going to play forever until the player in your group that's doing the lowest damage figures out how to increase his damage?
Well here's news flash for you. He can't figure out how to increase his damage, because he doesn't EVEN KNOW that his damage can be increased by doing certain rotations.
Everybody in that group will think they're all doing fine, and that the boss is simply hard to beat. But no amount of re-tries are going to help you. 1 or 2 of your party members ARE HOLDING YOU BACK!
You need the means to find out who's pulling the least weight in your party.
A player who plays MMOs to clear the hardest content there is, doing it without a damage meter is the best way to waste time.
I don't care about "people's feelings"
Sometimes I'll be the one getting kicked from parties, and Im perfectly fine with that.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
Combat trackers in no way get rid of the need to be more organized as a group, nor is impacting the amount of communication that goes between the players. That's just plain silly.
It's really simple. Beyond simple.
Imagine yourself in an 8p group, learning the fight for a new savage boss. The mechanics, and when to put out buffs as a group etc etc. A day passes, you made some progress, a week passes, now you're able to bring down the boss to 50%, a month passes, now you're able to bring it down to 5%. Then you're hit with the enrage, and realize that you've seen all the mechanics. Now you just lack the DPS.
Are you in all honesty going to play forever until the player in your group that's doing the lowest damage figures out how to increase his damage?
Well here's news flash for you. He can't figure out how to increase his damage, because he doesn't EVEN KNOW that his damage can be increased by doing certain rotations.
Everybody in that group will think they're all doing fine, and that the boss is simply hard to beat. But no amount of re-tries are going to help you. 1 or 2 of your party members ARE HOLDING YOU BACK!
You need the means to find out who's pulling the least weight in your party.
A player who plays MMOs to clear the hardest content there is, doing it without a damage meter is the best way to waste time.
I don't care about "people's feelings"
Sometimes I'll be the one getting kicked from parties, and Im perfectly fine with that.
well your reply is really silly since i've already answered that sort of situation in past examples I won't bother to do so again as I tend to write a lot.
I'll give you a short example instead. About a week ago I downloaded TERA and created a new character. I had not played the game in years so many things have changed since then. Due to the lack of new players sometimes queue times could take a very long time so I decided to go through a dungeon that's actually balanced for 3 players all by myself. I could have queued up for the same dungeon (solo) and it would have been balanced for solo but I didn't.
When I got tot he first major encounter I died. I took the boss down to maybe 90% before I died. I tried it again and again and after dying another 3 times I finally decided I would really try to kill it and stop screwing around. I needed to focus.
I've said so before and I'll say it again. DPS will NEVER be the reason you fail a raid UNLESS the encounter spawns a mechanic where you have to DPS something down like a structure before it blows up and automatically wipes the raid, and in that situation a tracker is not needed to know that you didn't do enough DPS to destroy whatever the mechanic was.
Anyways once I decided to focus I dodged certain attacks from the boss and saved certain abilities I have for escapes instead of damage to deal with some of the mechanics and though I killed the boss slowly, I still managed to kill it on my very first try after deciding I needed to be focused.
DPS was not my issue and most of the time will not be the issue. I don't know how far back in the thread you've read but I've said so before that most things that will wipe a raid or cause it to fail will be obvious things that have to do with the mechanics of the raid such as maybe healers used a certain ability that they should have saved for a specific boss mechanic or the tank didn't stand in the right place and died or stuff like that and as long as people are paying attention then it's easy to figure out where something went wrong. Trackers are not needed to figure out where something went wrong you just need common sense.
The trackers are also not needed to pin point who in your raid is pulling the least of their weight. Guilds just have to actually put in effort and make sure they are paying attention during the raid.
Trackers are also not needed to help that one person that you've figured out now that is not doing enough damage or is over healing too much. You merely need common sense once again. Read the tooltips of your abilities and figure out how to use them. If someone is not doing so well there's enough people that will play the game that they can find someone else that's playing the same class and they can copy what that person does if they don't want to put in effort to actually get better but the raid will still be limited by people like that simply because that person may not want to put in that effort.
Even with a tracker that person would not put in any effort so the situation would be the same. Eventually with or without tracker if that raid group wants to advance they will need to replace that person that's not willing to learn. If a person is willing to learn, with or without tracker they will get better. Essentially what I'm saying is there really is no use for a tracker even though some people may enjoy watching the numbers like myself I do like seeing the numbers but the drawbacks far outweigh positives. The only thing that I would say a tracker is useful in that cannot be done without it would be to make sure abilities work as intended. To make sure the tooltips of each ability is correct. I think having a dummy or area in your house where you can test that out would be sufficient as opposed to a tracker though.
I still really see no need for a tracker as any situation you throw at me in a raid can be dealt with without it.
first off, then why not just balance content with trackers not in mind since they are not available? That way the developers still end up with a challenging game that doesn't need trackers and doesn't have to deal with the negatives of having trackers.
The main reason here is that they offer up a completely different type of challenge.
In order for the following to make sense, you first need to understand and agree that developers are able - should they want to - of creating an encounter so complex that even though it is theoretically able to be killed, players simply would not be able to manage all of the mechanics involved in it, combat tracker or not.
From there, you need to understand that developers are able to set a target difficulty for an encounter, and this is often the first actual thing that is known about an encounter during development (they will often know how hard they want to make an encounter before they know where in the world the encounter will go, what rave it will be, what it's name is, etc). The way to provide this difficulty is in how much mental capacity you ask the guild to offer up, and how exact you want their execution to be (which includes, but is not limited to, DPS output).
So, if a developer is making an encounter for a game that doesn't have combat trackers, they have to take in to account that if there is an important AoE in an encounter, the simple act of timing that AoE takes up some of the raids mental capacity - a surprising amount, as you always need at least one backup timing each mechanic that needs to be timed, and many encounters will have 4 or 5 of such.
This puts a limit on how many mechanics a developer can apply to an encounter based on the difficulty of the encounter.
Take that same developer, same encounter and same difficulty target, but make the assumption that players will have a combat tracker.
Now, the raid can time the combat tracker, and then input that in to that combat tracker. This means that the players in the raid do not need to time the mechanic any longer, freeing up some mental capacity. This allows the developer to then fill that mental capacity back up with more mechanics.
This means that the players in the raid with the combat tracker have their time taken up more with actual mechanics, and less with stopwatches.
There is an argument to be made for having the encounters signify in some way that they are about to cast a specific ability, but without fail it is easier to time these encounters (they are almost always cast after a set number of seconds, +/-4). Since this is easier and more reliable, it generally becomes what most guilds default to over time.
The Developers cannot guarantee that there will be content in your server that's balanced for trackers and non trackers because that's not up to the developers in this game. AoC is ever changing and it would be easier to just balance content for no tracker use, that way people that advocate for a tracker really have no need for it because the game would already be balanced for no tracker and the people that don't want a tracker will not be forced to use one.
If the developers are able to make the statement that there will be 10 - 12 world bosses up at any given point in time, I would assume they are able to make more assumptions about content than that.
I don't expect as much granularity to content as many people seem to think - the actual developing of that amount of content would be prohibitive.
For testing other people's builds and such a tracker is absolutely not needed. Take Path of Exile as an example, people including myself play that game just to theory craft and create new builds all the time. The game changes every couple of months and there's a lot of changes with completely new items and new game mechanics. Yet we still don't have a tracker in that game to test builds.
There are combat trackers for PoE.
Not sure if GGG know about them (I would assume so, I'm fairly sure they are pulling data from the servers), but I am fairly sure Chris is too laid back to care, and Tencent too distant even think about it.
And in this case a combat dummy could be added instead that would actually be better than a tracker for testing builds because fundamentally each server will be different. a good build on one server may not be as good on another because certain builds will be made for specific things that another server may not have.
I totally agree that each server is likely to be different, at least to a degree. This is a part of the reason why I can't quite understand the people that say combat trackers will lead to cookie cutter builds or a static meta.
The only way a game like Ashes will have a static meta is if people are too afraid to try somethign new.
In my mind, the best way to make sure people are happy to try something new is to give them the tools to objectivly assess that new thing.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
In my experience, combat trackers don't detract from the need to communicate.
While it "may" make it less common for raids to break up the leadership in to smaller units, I would think this would be rare enough outside of PvP that it isn't an issue.
Come PvP time though, assuming the suggestion I want to happen did happen, the combat tracker is of no real use, and so guilds need to rely on their ability, communication and teamwork - just as they need to on actual hard content in PvE raids when using a combat tracker.
This discussion has been had in almost all mmorpgs, and there's always a need for Dps meters, hence why third party software is always widely used if the developers don't directly support it.
Without dps meters, you are basically reducing the experience considerably for a lot of players. If there's neither in-game meter or third-party that is.
It's not just dps though, it's about a lot data that can be used to improve yourself and/or your party.
I can however see the disadvantages with it too, but I just think that's inevitable anyways. Also, you can at least limit it to seeing just your own performance or something, and maybe allow for a group to activate full coverage of dps meter when doing harder fights.
I think a lot of people just see it as a means to judge people though, but I've never called someone out for their dps. I use it improve myself, and to challenge myself to get better.
EDIT: To make myself clear though, I hate add-ons etc that help you with the fights or give you information that can make things easier or more convenient. I'm strictly talking about getting performance data that can be used for analysis after a fight.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
Combat trackers in no way get rid of the need to be more organized as a group, nor is impacting the amount of communication that goes between the players. That's just plain silly.
It's really simple. Beyond simple.
Imagine yourself in an 8p group, learning the fight for a new savage boss. The mechanics, and when to put out buffs as a group etc etc. A day passes, you made some progress, a week passes, now you're able to bring down the boss to 50%, a month passes, now you're able to bring it down to 5%. Then you're hit with the enrage, and realize that you've seen all the mechanics. Now you just lack the DPS.
Are you in all honesty going to play forever until the player in your group that's doing the lowest damage figures out how to increase his damage?
Well here's news flash for you. He can't figure out how to increase his damage, because he doesn't EVEN KNOW that his damage can be increased by doing certain rotations.
Everybody in that group will think they're all doing fine, and that the boss is simply hard to beat. But no amount of re-tries are going to help you. 1 or 2 of your party members ARE HOLDING YOU BACK!
You need the means to find out who's pulling the least weight in your party.
A player who plays MMOs to clear the hardest content there is, doing it without a damage meter is the best way to waste time.
I don't care about "people's feelings"
Sometimes I'll be the one getting kicked from parties, and Im perfectly fine with that.
well your reply is really silly since i've already answered that sort of situation in past examples I won't bother to do so again as I tend to write a lot.
I'll give you a short example instead. About a week ago I downloaded TERA and created a new character. I had not played the game in years so many things have changed since then. Due to the lack of new players sometimes queue times could take a very long time so I decided to go through a dungeon that's actually balanced for 3 players all by myself. I could have queued up for the same dungeon (solo) and it would have been balanced for solo but I didn't.
When I got tot he first major encounter I died. I took the boss down to maybe 90% before I died. I tried it again and again and after dying another 3 times I finally decided I would really try to kill it and stop screwing around. I needed to focus.
I've said so before and I'll say it again. DPS will NEVER be the reason you fail a raid UNLESS the encounter spawns a mechanic where you have to DPS something down like a structure before it blows up and automatically wipes the raid, and in that situation a tracker is not needed to know that you didn't do enough DPS to destroy whatever the mechanic was.
Anyways once I decided to focus I dodged certain attacks from the boss and saved certain abilities I have for escapes instead of damage to deal with some of the mechanics and though I killed the boss slowly, I still managed to kill it on my very first try after deciding I needed to be focused.
DPS was not my issue and most of the time will not be the issue. I don't know how far back in the thread you've read but I've said so before that most things that will wipe a raid or cause it to fail will be obvious things that have to do with the mechanics of the raid such as maybe healers used a certain ability that they should have saved for a specific boss mechanic or the tank didn't stand in the right place and died or stuff like that and as long as people are paying attention then it's easy to figure out where something went wrong. Trackers are not needed to figure out where something went wrong you just need common sense.
The trackers are also not needed to pin point who in your raid is pulling the least of their weight. Guilds just have to actually put in effort and make sure they are paying attention during the raid.
Trackers are also not needed to help that one person that you've figured out now that is not doing enough damage or is over healing too much. You merely need common sense once again. Read the tooltips of your abilities and figure out how to use them. If someone is not doing so well there's enough people that will play the game that they can find someone else that's playing the same class and they can copy what that person does if they don't want to put in effort to actually get better but the raid will still be limited by people like that simply because that person may not want to put in that effort.
Even with a tracker that person would not put in any effort so the situation would be the same. Eventually with or without tracker if that raid group wants to advance they will need to replace that person that's not willing to learn. If a person is willing to learn, with or without tracker they will get better. Essentially what I'm saying is there really is no use for a tracker even though some people may enjoy watching the numbers like myself I do like seeing the numbers but the drawbacks far outweigh positives. The only thing that I would say a tracker is useful in that cannot be done without it would be to make sure abilities work as intended. To make sure the tooltips of each ability is correct. I think having a dummy or area in your house where you can test that out would be sufficient as opposed to a tracker though.
I still really see no need for a tracker as any situation you throw at me in a raid can be dealt with without it.
That's because you're talking about normal content where nobody is using damage meters.
Even if the game had built-in damage meter I wouldn't be using it to clear the normal content.
I'm talking about savage and ultimate raids, call them however the fuck you want, they have hard enrage meaning, if you don't kill the boss on time, they make 1 final move, and kill everyone instantly.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Ultimately this whole argument boils down to what steven envisions in AoC
He wants to bring more social interaction in the game world, something that dungeon finders, easy fast travel, dps meters, all discourage. (In one way or another)
I specifically detest meters (no secret) but I also have no issue with a private meter on dps dummies as long as they are out of raid/dungeon environments.
I'll just have to agree to disagree here (I'm on Stevens side of the Fence on this issue) as I dont think the benifit of a DPS meter outweighs the negatives of what inevitably follows in a community. I mean thats partly why he isnt allowing addons. I know people will figure out their own ways, but at least the barrier to entry will be less and get real interactions going within the game world.
I think this is how it's going to play out in Ashes, somehow 3rd party DPS meters might creep it's way to the game. And it will end up in the hands of hardcore raid guilds which probably won't be the majority of guilds or players in Ashes.
Now hardcore players might enjoy this and they might of used it in other games like say WoW or whatever. And even within hardcore players they might of have a few players who rage quit simply because it created some kind of hierarchy within their members.
The only scenario I can think of is that even hardcore players specifically for Ashes would create disarray among their members is the lack of time and availability for players to work towards improving their build (tank,dps,healz) so that they can make the cut to join a raid guild (assuming dps meter is good enough) if that's the only measure the leaders will make their decision to invite you.
Now, depending on the leader, he might try you out and see if you know the boss mechanics as a minimum requirement until you get better gear and increase your performance by relying on the DPS meter. So if this happens, then at least the leader is helping you to get better gear. And I know that in ashes you can get gear by other means rather then just grinding dungeons. But I would assume that there will be valuable drops within dungeons that might help you gear out towards a specific build by selling or crafting.
Now if the master loot is on just for the sake of argument, and assuming that hardcore raid leader is using a DPS meter for evaluations then he will use the master loot to distribute loot drops among members. Again, I come back to time and availability. You are trying to get better by increasing your performance, how many trials are you going to get invited for raiding so you can achieve your goal for a specific loot drop? What if that specific dungeon disappears due to node destruction by siege or atrophy?
Now, if that specific player wants to increase performance and joins a casual guild that doesn't use a DPS meter, his/her chances might be better to acquire a specific loot drop vs a hardcore guild. Now you might argue that a casual player is just cheating himself by thinking he can do the most hardcore raids. Maybe so, but why not? That's a decision every player has to make, what's your objective and what's the best way in achieving it? If he's going to be cast out from a hardcore raid group, why not take his chances on a casual raid group, it doesn't mean they will fail a 100% of the time.
I'm not really against DPS meters as long as hardcore minded people have fun with it. But we are in an age of MMORPG's that casuals are a thing and you can achieve the same results given time to get good at some things. So I suspect lots of people aren't going to use DPS meters in this game simply cause Intrepid decided not to have it in-game but maybe a 3rd party meter will make it in the game. Personally, I like to be flexible and not too restrictive.
im very torn, i can see the bad and the good, main reason for them is, how can i know im playing good for myself and using a good build if i dont have any way of measuring my dps, bad is ofc people being left out. ideal would be a way to see only your personal dps somehow.
one of my concerns is, pve content and raid content, has to be fundamentally very easy, if theres no dps meter, and thus no way to know if theres a bunch of people in your group underperforming. either content will be tuned to a decent percentile of performance, therefore when you have some unavoidable underperformers you wont know who it is and feel like your banging your head against a wall, or content will be tuned so underperformers can complete it, meaning a higher performer will sleep through the fight as its so easy and thus boring.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think this is how it's going to play out in Ashes, somehow 3rd party DPS meters might creep it's way to the game. And it will end up in the hands of hardcore raid guilds which probably won't be the majority of guilds or players in Ashes.
Now hardcore players might enjoy this and they might of used it in other games like say WoW or whatever. And even within hardcore players they might of have a few players who rage quit simply because it created some kind of hierarchy within their members.
But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC?
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
im very torn, i can see the bad and the good, main reason for them is, how can i know im playing good for myself and using a good build if i dont have any way of measuring my dps, bad is ofc people being left out. ideal would be a way to see only your personal dps somehow.
one of my concerns is, pve content and raid content, has to be fundamentally very easy, if theres no dps meter, and thus no way to know if theres a bunch of people in your group underperforming. either content will be tuned to a decent percentile of performance, therefore when you have some unavoidable underperformers you wont know who it is and feel like your banging your head against a wall, or content will be tuned so underperformers can complete it, meaning a higher performer will sleep through the fight as its so easy and thus boring.
Thats the fun part of discovery to me. The mechanics are #1, communication is #2, group composition is #3
Damage is (and should) be dependent on how well 1-3 is done.
People like to measure how fast they can burn things via that meter. I say people can use a ballpark estimate based off of a instanced or open world monster without the specifics in the dungeon.
Mastering damage (in my opinion) is more fun when its through group effort and interaction. Not just by how much the dps meter tells you on the raid. Opinions differ here I suppose. But I like no meters and I'm glad this is where AoC is standing on it
I don't know, I would imagine it's 3rd party and not an addon. You run the 3rd party dps meter software separately from Ashes but at the same time? I'm just guessing here, i'm not an expert on creating or programming stuff like that.
But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC?
There are plenty of games, particularly MMOs, that do not have any kind of addon API, and yet they have DPS meters/combat trackers of various sorts. There are a number of methods that can be used outside of direct API access to get the data needed to create one.
And that becomes one of the main problems, to me: If Intrepid doesn't build their own official meter into the game, there WILL be third-party programs created to track combat metrics. By building one into the game themselves, as long as they make it robust enough, they can basically control what data everyone has access to. If they make a simple, basic one that only gives a dps number, without any other combat metrics, third-party trackers will still be created.
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC?
There are plenty of games, particularly MMOs, that do not have any kind of addon API, and yet they have DPS meters/combat trackers of various sorts. There are a number of methods that can be used outside of direct API access to get the data needed to create one.
And that becomes one of the main problems, to me: If Intrepid doesn't build their own official meter into the game, there WILL be third-party programs created to track combat metrics. By building one into the game themselves, as long as they make it robust enough, they can basically control what data everyone has access to. If they make a simple, basic one that only gives a dps number, without any other combat metrics, third-party trackers will still be created.
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
If some athletes use doping, I don't think that really affects the sport in general, so it's definitely their personal choice. Doping is super useful when trying to really push for the best possible result, so it should be allowed and endorsed.
Sounds more like a flood of WoW players just mad there won't be DPS meters than anything else really. Got a lot of points against it but they advocate for it against those points without addressing the possible negatives.
That's what happens in all games. The wow players comes and wants the same things they have in wow.
Can they not just stay in wow and have all the addons they want, and let the addons do the fights for them?
Such fun!
I don't get why all games have to turn into an e-sport, just enjoy the game, explore, kill stuff, and if you can't kill it, just try again.
Many might think, ok i slacked, i need to put in more effort. If that doesn't work, check your rotation, check other specs. There's absolutely no point in finding bis and meta the first week of the game, just enjoy it and have fun.
IMHO!
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
That's the thing, though, it WON'T be "their own personal metric." In today's gaming world, higher end guilds WILL require their use.
And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to
go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time.
The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
If some athletes use doping, I don't think that really affects the sport in general, so it's definitely their personal choice. Doping is super useful when trying to really push for the best possible result, so it should be allowed and endorsed.
/s
Shitty comparison.
A real analogy would be like saying an MMO without a combat tracker is like playing in the NFL without knowing the rules, mechanics, and plays of football. You know how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball, and how to run, but other than that you don't know what the fuck you are doing.
By the way, the "challenge" comes from actually playing the game. Sure "figuring out optimal dps" is challenging for some people, but it's more tedium than challenge. The challenge is applying your knowledge and actually playing the game and doing better than people and killing the bosses. That's why an MMO like WoW, where the bosses are figured out on the PTR, is still way more challenging than EQ. EQ's challenge lied in the fact that no one knows what the fuck is going on, which isn't real challenge. WoW throws everything in your face and gives you all the information and still takes hundreds or thousands of attempts and bosses still are only killed by 0.5-1% of the entire playerbase (the biggest mmo playerbase). That's what challenging is.
If some athletes use doping, I don't think that really affects the sport in general, so it's definitely their personal choice. Doping is super useful when trying to really push for the best possible result, so it should be allowed and endorsed.
/s
Shitty comparison.
A real analogy would be like saying an MMO without a combat tracker is like playing in the NFL without knowing the rules, mechanics, and plays of football. You know how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball, and how to run, but other than that you don't know what the fuck you are doing.
It makes perfect sense though. Your comparison is the one that doesn't make sense.
You are going to know everything about your abilities so your weird analogy just sounds like it's trying to misrepresent his point.
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
That's the thing, though, it WON'T be "their own personal metric." In today's gaming world, higher end guilds WILL require their use.
And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to
go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time.
The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
Except the fact where casual players are going to be following these competitive guilds, use their guides, watch their streams, parrot their views, bandwagon their opinions, etc. If there is a 3rd party combat tracker, it will be used by everyone, it will be imposed on new players/casuals, and it will be everywhere. The difference is, if Ashes devs makes their own tracker it can be much better and be controlled a lot better than 3rd party. Also allowing guilds to completely opt out of it will allow a much better experience.
Let's say there are 3rd party trackers. You join a guild that "doesn't allow combat trackers," but secretly your guild leader has been using them this entire time and is quietly judging your entire guild and possibly making decisions based on these numbers that you yourself aren't even aware of. At least if it's an in game system, then guilds that have it turned off will ALWAYS have it turned off, there will be no secret logs, no judgment, etc. And if you join a guild with it on, it will only display what Ashes wants it to display, up to the discretion of the devs with what information they want to allow.
Really, advocating for trackers as a guild perk (or a completely personal perk) ensures a better player experience overall, rather than denying them and then allowing 3rd party trackers to take over and develop a meta within the game.
Casual players aren't going to parrot better players until they feel their own build is lacking in some way. Considering the casual players who don't quit will probably be WoW raiders I don't think they will be as incompetent as you think.
DPS Dummies is all we are going to need. They accomplish everything you ever said you wanted outside of gameplay. If what you said you wanted them for isn't a lie to abuse systems in the game then a DPS Dummy should be enough.
Can all be done on a dummy and the few that may not be able to in the way you want will be easily testable in combat. Also the game will probably do a better job of showing debuffs and buffs on stuff than WoW did.
U.S. East
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NelsonRebelMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
That's the thing, though, it WON'T be "their own personal metric." In today's gaming world, higher end guilds WILL require their use.
And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to
go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time.
The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
Except the fact where casual players are going to be following these competitive guilds, use their guides, watch their streams, parrot their views, bandwagon their opinions, etc. If there is a 3rd party combat tracker, it will be used by everyone, it will be imposed on new players/casuals, and it will be everywhere. The difference is, if Ashes devs makes their own tracker it can be much better and be controlled a lot better than 3rd party. Also allowing guilds to completely opt out of it will allow a much better experience.
Let's say there are 3rd party trackers. You join a guild that "doesn't allow combat trackers," but secretly your guild leader has been using them this entire time and is quietly judging your entire guild and possibly making decisions based on these numbers that you yourself aren't even aware of. At least if it's an in game system, then guilds that have it turned off will ALWAYS have it turned off, there will be no secret logs, no judgment, etc. And if you join a guild with it on, it will only display what Ashes wants it to display, up to the discretion of the devs with what information they want to allow.
Really, advocating for trackers as a guild perk (or a completely personal perk) ensures a better player experience overall, rather than denying them and then allowing 3rd party trackers to take over and develop a meta within the game.
Thats only going to be for the people actively seaking the meters and actively willingly going to download the software and trust that its correct all to appease the one person/group wanting it.
The majority of players wont do that. Because of the legwork required and the more fun interactions between players.
What you're saying is mostly vague assumptions and disregard how many people are not in favor of the meters.
Personally I wouldnt and 100% interaction and doing the steps 1-3 I mentioned in a previous post.
The theme here is making sure there are no easy in-game methods to exclude and build a heirarchy of exclusion. If players seek outside sources they have to install on their own time/dime to achieve non-secure results thats their choice. I prefer it that way because I know the majority wont bother, and stick with ingame player to player interactions
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
That's the thing, though, it WON'T be "their own personal metric." In today's gaming world, higher end guilds WILL require their use.
And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to
go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time.
The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
Except the fact where casual players are going to be following these competitive guilds, use their guides, watch their streams, parrot their views, bandwagon their opinions, etc. If there is a 3rd party combat tracker, it will be used by everyone, it will be imposed on new players/casuals, and it will be everywhere. The difference is, if Ashes devs makes their own tracker it can be much better and be controlled a lot better than 3rd party. Also allowing guilds to completely opt out of it will allow a much better experience.
Let's say there are 3rd party trackers. You join a guild that "doesn't allow combat trackers," but secretly your guild leader has been using them this entire time and is quietly judging your entire guild and possibly making decisions based on these numbers that you yourself aren't even aware of. At least if it's an in game system, then guilds that have it turned off will ALWAYS have it turned off, there will be no secret logs, no judgment, etc. And if you join a guild with it on, it will only display what Ashes wants it to display, up to the discretion of the devs with what information they want to allow.
Really, advocating for trackers as a guild perk (or a completely personal perk) ensures a better player experience overall, rather than denying them and then allowing 3rd party trackers to take over and develop a meta within the game.
The theme here is making sure there are no easy in-game methods to exclude and build a heirarchy of exclusion. If players seek outside sources they have to install on their own time/dime to achieve non-secure results thats their choice. I prefer it that way because I know the majority wont bother, and stick with ingame player to player interactions
No MMO has ever had in game trackers before, yet you and others in this thread claim that those games are ran into the dirt by the playerbase using them at every corner. So which is it? Will trackers turn the game into some fearmongered meta slave dystopia or will they "not affect the game at all because majority won't use them duh!" (that's just being silly)
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Will force a meta that may not even be the most effective way to play. Will force a meta that will not be enjoyable by the majority of the playerbase. Will lead to class denial despite player skill (even in cases where they out perform you in every possible way). Will cause elitist pricks to be even more intolerable than they already are despite their statistics being inherently flawed by the design of the game when determining player and build viability.
Is a crutch that may limit player growth. May ignore mechanical skill methods in the game. Absolutely guaranteed to lead to a second layer of toxicity ingrained in the game due to all of above coming true.
U.S. East
I'm not wanting to get too involved in teh conversation you and Linstead have been having, I just wantto throw in a few specific points that I had while reading.
if you have anything specific you would like me to try and answer, by all means @ me and I'll do my best. When peer reviewing other players builds that they have posted as a guide for new players. It is, in my opinion, the veteran players resposibility and obligation to make sure that information is as accurate as possible - which can only be done with a combat tracker.
When checking to make sure tool tip descriptions of abilities match the effect they have. If an ability has a range of 150 - 300, and you want to make sure it is working as it should, you need at least 15,000 data points of that spell against a single, un-debuffed target. Doing that without a combat tracker is - let's just say tiresome.
When in an encounter designed with combat trackers in mind, combat trackers are obviously needed to keep track of the multitude of mechanics that are in play at the same time. Two points here.
The first one is simple - it does, but then developers take combat trackers in to consideration when developing content. I would then agree that this means that there is content that people can't do without combat trackers - which I am sure would be the next point of debate.
What I would say to that though is that I think this is fine. To me, as long as players that want to raid without a combat tracker have content on which to do that, it is not an issue if players that do have a combat tracker also have content on which to raid.
Should the guild without a combat tracker then decide to make their content easier by using a combat tracker, they then have the content that was designed with their use in mind that will pose a challenge to them.
Thus, basically, everyone has content to meet their own level of challenge, base on the tools they want to make use of.
The second point - the social aspects of an MMO - I am unsure as to why a combat tracker would have an impact on this.
To me, things like a dungeon finder have an impact on social aspects like this, but not a combat tracker. I kind of need more of an idea of what you are thinking to form any real opinion of this.
Reply to your earlier post to me is following.
This is why guild choice matters - it shapes the way you play the game.
If you are joining a guild that requires you to use a combat tracker, then that is what you are signing up for when you join that guild. As such, I don't see how this could be considered an issue.
As to your example of a person in a guild misusing it, I have two points to make.
The first is - should we simply remove everything from the game that people could misuse in this manner? I don't think we would have much of a game left if we did.
Second, people have the option to leave guilds. If you leave the guild with that player in it, that player is never able to track your combat ever again.
And as you said, that player will find somethign to abuse - why take useful tools out of the game just for the sake of those few people? This is true, not everyone will behave this way. However, if combat trackers were set up in this manner, guilds that don't take this mindset will eventually find it hard to get new members.
The design of the game will have a far greater impact on the behavior of people in game than any other factor. If the game is designed in a way where it is in a guilds best interest to put some time and effort in to new recruits, then that is what guilds will do.
While this is something I often do in games anyway (especially if I come across a player that is actually enthusiastic for top end content), I am not at all suggesting that systems should be put in place in the hope of this happening. I'm also not a fan of making it a rule or anything. However, there is a middle ground where you make it so that it is in the guilds best interests to assit new recruits, and all of a sudden that is what guilds will gladly do. See, I am all for having both.
Have content that is designed around not having combat trackers. Maybe even make it so that guilds killing it without the combat tracker perk get better loot.
Honestly, I'm all for that.
However, I am also all for guilds that want and enjoy the added dimension that comes from having a combat tracker and encounters designed around the use of a combat tracker.
The thing is, having both of these things in one game in a way where they both make sense to be in that game can only be possible if the game has a built in combat tracker.
I'm confused.
This post starts off like you are talking about an automated grouping system, as the things you are complaining of there are literally all a result of that.
Then the second paragraph goes on to complain about things that will happen if a combat tracker isn't freely available.
I was under the impression that you were against combat trackers, not that you were against automated grouping systems and all for combat trackers.
Assuming you are indeed still against combat trackers, I would be interested to hear how you think their inclusion would cause all of the above, as much of it is completely unrelated.
first off, then why not just balance content with trackers not in mind since they are not available? That way the developers still end up with a challenging game that doesn't need trackers and doesn't have to deal with the negatives of having trackers.
Second, I think it would be a good idea to give better loot to guilds killing content without the tracker though there's some problems that can come with that but you also have to keep in mind that AoC is being designed fundamentally different than other MMOs.
The Developers cannot guarantee that there will be content in your server that's balanced for trackers and non trackers because that's not up to the developers in this game. AoC is ever changing and it would be easier to just balance content for no tracker use, that way people that advocate for a tracker really have no need for it because the game would already be balanced for no tracker and the people that don't want a tracker will not be forced to use one.
For testing other people's builds and such a tracker is absolutely not needed. Take Path of Exile as an example, people including myself play that game just to theory craft and create new builds all the time. The game changes every couple of months and there's a lot of changes with completely new items and new game mechanics. Yet we still don't have a tracker in that game to test builds.
And in this case a combat dummy could be added instead that would actually be better than a tracker for testing builds because fundamentally each server will be different. a good build on one server may not be as good on another because certain builds will be made for specific things that another server may not have.
Having combat trackers would get rid of the need to be more well organized as a group when raiding and having to communicate as much. Groups in AoC are capped at 8 and you can have up to 5 groups in a raid which means 40 people total but there doesn't necessarily need to be just one raid leader. You can have a raid leader and you can also have group leaders that are in charge of that smaller group of people. The argument for trackers I keep seeing is that it's difficult to keep track of 25 or 40 people as a raid leader but AoC is not being designed like WoW or other MMOs. Having those trackers would get rid of even the possibility of that dynamic being added into the mix of raiding.
Combat trackers in no way get rid of the need to be more organized as a group, nor is impacting the amount of communication that goes between the players. That's just plain silly.
It's really simple. Beyond simple.
Imagine yourself in an 8p group, learning the fight for a new savage boss. The mechanics, and when to put out buffs as a group etc etc. A day passes, you made some progress, a week passes, now you're able to bring down the boss to 50%, a month passes, now you're able to bring it down to 5%. Then you're hit with the enrage, and realize that you've seen all the mechanics. Now you just lack the DPS.
Are you in all honesty going to play forever until the player in your group that's doing the lowest damage figures out how to increase his damage?
Well here's news flash for you.
He can't figure out how to increase his damage, because he doesn't EVEN KNOW that his damage can be increased by doing certain rotations.
Everybody in that group will think they're all doing fine, and that the boss is simply hard to beat. But no amount of re-tries are going to help you. 1 or 2 of your party members ARE HOLDING YOU BACK!
You need the means to find out who's pulling the least weight in your party.
A player who plays MMOs to clear the hardest content there is, doing it without a damage meter is the best way to waste time.
I don't care about "people's feelings"
Sometimes I'll be the one getting kicked from parties, and Im perfectly fine with that.
well your reply is really silly since i've already answered that sort of situation in past examples I won't bother to do so again as I tend to write a lot.
I'll give you a short example instead. About a week ago I downloaded TERA and created a new character. I had not played the game in years so many things have changed since then. Due to the lack of new players sometimes queue times could take a very long time so I decided to go through a dungeon that's actually balanced for 3 players all by myself. I could have queued up for the same dungeon (solo) and it would have been balanced for solo but I didn't.
When I got tot he first major encounter I died. I took the boss down to maybe 90% before I died. I tried it again and again and after dying another 3 times I finally decided I would really try to kill it and stop screwing around. I needed to focus.
I've said so before and I'll say it again. DPS will NEVER be the reason you fail a raid UNLESS the encounter spawns a mechanic where you have to DPS something down like a structure before it blows up and automatically wipes the raid, and in that situation a tracker is not needed to know that you didn't do enough DPS to destroy whatever the mechanic was.
Anyways once I decided to focus I dodged certain attacks from the boss and saved certain abilities I have for escapes instead of damage to deal with some of the mechanics and though I killed the boss slowly, I still managed to kill it on my very first try after deciding I needed to be focused.
DPS was not my issue and most of the time will not be the issue. I don't know how far back in the thread you've read but I've said so before that most things that will wipe a raid or cause it to fail will be obvious things that have to do with the mechanics of the raid such as maybe healers used a certain ability that they should have saved for a specific boss mechanic or the tank didn't stand in the right place and died or stuff like that and as long as people are paying attention then it's easy to figure out where something went wrong. Trackers are not needed to figure out where something went wrong you just need common sense.
The trackers are also not needed to pin point who in your raid is pulling the least of their weight. Guilds just have to actually put in effort and make sure they are paying attention during the raid.
Trackers are also not needed to help that one person that you've figured out now that is not doing enough damage or is over healing too much. You merely need common sense once again. Read the tooltips of your abilities and figure out how to use them. If someone is not doing so well there's enough people that will play the game that they can find someone else that's playing the same class and they can copy what that person does if they don't want to put in effort to actually get better but the raid will still be limited by people like that simply because that person may not want to put in that effort.
Even with a tracker that person would not put in any effort so the situation would be the same. Eventually with or without tracker if that raid group wants to advance they will need to replace that person that's not willing to learn. If a person is willing to learn, with or without tracker they will get better. Essentially what I'm saying is there really is no use for a tracker even though some people may enjoy watching the numbers like myself I do like seeing the numbers but the drawbacks far outweigh positives. The only thing that I would say a tracker is useful in that cannot be done without it would be to make sure abilities work as intended. To make sure the tooltips of each ability is correct. I think having a dummy or area in your house where you can test that out would be sufficient as opposed to a tracker though.
I still really see no need for a tracker as any situation you throw at me in a raid can be dealt with without it.
In order for the following to make sense, you first need to understand and agree that developers are able - should they want to - of creating an encounter so complex that even though it is theoretically able to be killed, players simply would not be able to manage all of the mechanics involved in it, combat tracker or not.
From there, you need to understand that developers are able to set a target difficulty for an encounter, and this is often the first actual thing that is known about an encounter during development (they will often know how hard they want to make an encounter before they know where in the world the encounter will go, what rave it will be, what it's name is, etc). The way to provide this difficulty is in how much mental capacity you ask the guild to offer up, and how exact you want their execution to be (which includes, but is not limited to, DPS output).
So, if a developer is making an encounter for a game that doesn't have combat trackers, they have to take in to account that if there is an important AoE in an encounter, the simple act of timing that AoE takes up some of the raids mental capacity - a surprising amount, as you always need at least one backup timing each mechanic that needs to be timed, and many encounters will have 4 or 5 of such.
This puts a limit on how many mechanics a developer can apply to an encounter based on the difficulty of the encounter.
Take that same developer, same encounter and same difficulty target, but make the assumption that players will have a combat tracker.
Now, the raid can time the combat tracker, and then input that in to that combat tracker. This means that the players in the raid do not need to time the mechanic any longer, freeing up some mental capacity. This allows the developer to then fill that mental capacity back up with more mechanics.
This means that the players in the raid with the combat tracker have their time taken up more with actual mechanics, and less with stopwatches.
There is an argument to be made for having the encounters signify in some way that they are about to cast a specific ability, but without fail it is easier to time these encounters (they are almost always cast after a set number of seconds, +/-4). Since this is easier and more reliable, it generally becomes what most guilds default to over time.
If the developers are able to make the statement that there will be 10 - 12 world bosses up at any given point in time, I would assume they are able to make more assumptions about content than that.
I don't expect as much granularity to content as many people seem to think - the actual developing of that amount of content would be prohibitive. There are combat trackers for PoE.
Not sure if GGG know about them (I would assume so, I'm fairly sure they are pulling data from the servers), but I am fairly sure Chris is too laid back to care, and Tencent too distant even think about it. I totally agree that each server is likely to be different, at least to a degree. This is a part of the reason why I can't quite understand the people that say combat trackers will lead to cookie cutter builds or a static meta.
The only way a game like Ashes will have a static meta is if people are too afraid to try somethign new.
In my mind, the best way to make sure people are happy to try something new is to give them the tools to objectivly assess that new thing. In my experience, combat trackers don't detract from the need to communicate.
While it "may" make it less common for raids to break up the leadership in to smaller units, I would think this would be rare enough outside of PvP that it isn't an issue.
Come PvP time though, assuming the suggestion I want to happen did happen, the combat tracker is of no real use, and so guilds need to rely on their ability, communication and teamwork - just as they need to on actual hard content in PvE raids when using a combat tracker.
Without dps meters, you are basically reducing the experience considerably for a lot of players. If there's neither in-game meter or third-party that is.
It's not just dps though, it's about a lot data that can be used to improve yourself and/or your party.
I can however see the disadvantages with it too, but I just think that's inevitable anyways. Also, you can at least limit it to seeing just your own performance or something, and maybe allow for a group to activate full coverage of dps meter when doing harder fights.
I think a lot of people just see it as a means to judge people though, but I've never called someone out for their dps. I use it improve myself, and to challenge myself to get better.
EDIT: To make myself clear though, I hate add-ons etc that help you with the fights or give you information that can make things easier or more convenient. I'm strictly talking about getting performance data that can be used for analysis after a fight.
That's because you're talking about normal content where nobody is using damage meters.
Even if the game had built-in damage meter I wouldn't be using it to clear the normal content.
I'm talking about savage and ultimate raids, call them however the fuck you want, they have hard enrage meaning, if you don't kill the boss on time, they make 1 final move, and kill everyone instantly.
He wants to bring more social interaction in the game world, something that dungeon finders, easy fast travel, dps meters, all discourage. (In one way or another)
I specifically detest meters (no secret) but I also have no issue with a private meter on dps dummies as long as they are out of raid/dungeon environments.
I'll just have to agree to disagree here (I'm on Stevens side of the Fence on this issue) as I dont think the benifit of a DPS meter outweighs the negatives of what inevitably follows in a community. I mean thats partly why he isnt allowing addons. I know people will figure out their own ways, but at least the barrier to entry will be less and get real interactions going within the game world.
Now hardcore players might enjoy this and they might of used it in other games like say WoW or whatever. And even within hardcore players they might of have a few players who rage quit simply because it created some kind of hierarchy within their members.
The only scenario I can think of is that even hardcore players specifically for Ashes would create disarray among their members is the lack of time and availability for players to work towards improving their build (tank,dps,healz) so that they can make the cut to join a raid guild (assuming dps meter is good enough) if that's the only measure the leaders will make their decision to invite you.
Now, depending on the leader, he might try you out and see if you know the boss mechanics as a minimum requirement until you get better gear and increase your performance by relying on the DPS meter. So if this happens, then at least the leader is helping you to get better gear. And I know that in ashes you can get gear by other means rather then just grinding dungeons. But I would assume that there will be valuable drops within dungeons that might help you gear out towards a specific build by selling or crafting.
Now if the master loot is on just for the sake of argument, and assuming that hardcore raid leader is using a DPS meter for evaluations then he will use the master loot to distribute loot drops among members. Again, I come back to time and availability. You are trying to get better by increasing your performance, how many trials are you going to get invited for raiding so you can achieve your goal for a specific loot drop? What if that specific dungeon disappears due to node destruction by siege or atrophy?
Now, if that specific player wants to increase performance and joins a casual guild that doesn't use a DPS meter, his/her chances might be better to acquire a specific loot drop vs a hardcore guild. Now you might argue that a casual player is just cheating himself by thinking he can do the most hardcore raids. Maybe so, but why not? That's a decision every player has to make, what's your objective and what's the best way in achieving it? If he's going to be cast out from a hardcore raid group, why not take his chances on a casual raid group, it doesn't mean they will fail a 100% of the time.
I'm not really against DPS meters as long as hardcore minded people have fun with it. But we are in an age of MMORPG's that casuals are a thing and you can achieve the same results given time to get good at some things. So I suspect lots of people aren't going to use DPS meters in this game simply cause Intrepid decided not to have it in-game but maybe a 3rd party meter will make it in the game. Personally, I like to be flexible and not too restrictive.
one of my concerns is, pve content and raid content, has to be fundamentally very easy, if theres no dps meter, and thus no way to know if theres a bunch of people in your group underperforming. either content will be tuned to a decent percentile of performance, therefore when you have some unavoidable underperformers you wont know who it is and feel like your banging your head against a wall, or content will be tuned so underperformers can complete it, meaning a higher performer will sleep through the fight as its so easy and thus boring.
But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC?
Thats the fun part of discovery to me. The mechanics are #1, communication is #2, group composition is #3
Damage is (and should) be dependent on how well 1-3 is done.
People like to measure how fast they can burn things via that meter. I say people can use a ballpark estimate based off of a instanced or open world monster without the specifics in the dungeon.
Mastering damage (in my opinion) is more fun when its through group effort and interaction. Not just by how much the dps meter tells you on the raid. Opinions differ here I suppose. But I like no meters and I'm glad this is where AoC is standing on it
There are plenty of games, particularly MMOs, that do not have any kind of addon API, and yet they have DPS meters/combat trackers of various sorts. There are a number of methods that can be used outside of direct API access to get the data needed to create one.
And that becomes one of the main problems, to me: If Intrepid doesn't build their own official meter into the game, there WILL be third-party programs created to track combat metrics. By building one into the game themselves, as long as they make it robust enough, they can basically control what data everyone has access to. If they make a simple, basic one that only gives a dps number, without any other combat metrics, third-party trackers will still be created.
If thats their choice I suppose 🤷🏻♂️ It will be their own personal metric though.
That's the thing, though, it WON'T be "their own personal metric." In today's gaming world, higher end guilds WILL require their use.
/s
That's what happens in all games. The wow players comes and wants the same things they have in wow.
Can they not just stay in wow and have all the addons they want, and let the addons do the fights for them?
Such fun!
I don't get why all games have to turn into an e-sport, just enjoy the game, explore, kill stuff, and if you can't kill it, just try again.
Many might think, ok i slacked, i need to put in more effort. If that doesn't work, check your rotation, check other specs. There's absolutely no point in finding bis and meta the first week of the game, just enjoy it and have fun.
IMHO!
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And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to
go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time.
The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
Shitty comparison.
A real analogy would be like saying an MMO without a combat tracker is like playing in the NFL without knowing the rules, mechanics, and plays of football. You know how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball, and how to run, but other than that you don't know what the fuck you are doing.
By the way, the "challenge" comes from actually playing the game. Sure "figuring out optimal dps" is challenging for some people, but it's more tedium than challenge. The challenge is applying your knowledge and actually playing the game and doing better than people and killing the bosses. That's why an MMO like WoW, where the bosses are figured out on the PTR, is still way more challenging than EQ. EQ's challenge lied in the fact that no one knows what the fuck is going on, which isn't real challenge. WoW throws everything in your face and gives you all the information and still takes hundreds or thousands of attempts and bosses still are only killed by 0.5-1% of the entire playerbase (the biggest mmo playerbase). That's what challenging is.
It makes perfect sense though. Your comparison is the one that doesn't make sense.
You are going to know everything about your abilities so your weird analogy just sounds like it's trying to misrepresent his point.
U.S. East
Except the fact where casual players are going to be following these competitive guilds, use their guides, watch their streams, parrot their views, bandwagon their opinions, etc. If there is a 3rd party combat tracker, it will be used by everyone, it will be imposed on new players/casuals, and it will be everywhere. The difference is, if Ashes devs makes their own tracker it can be much better and be controlled a lot better than 3rd party. Also allowing guilds to completely opt out of it will allow a much better experience.
Let's say there are 3rd party trackers. You join a guild that "doesn't allow combat trackers," but secretly your guild leader has been using them this entire time and is quietly judging your entire guild and possibly making decisions based on these numbers that you yourself aren't even aware of. At least if it's an in game system, then guilds that have it turned off will ALWAYS have it turned off, there will be no secret logs, no judgment, etc. And if you join a guild with it on, it will only display what Ashes wants it to display, up to the discretion of the devs with what information they want to allow.
Really, advocating for trackers as a guild perk (or a completely personal perk) ensures a better player experience overall, rather than denying them and then allowing 3rd party trackers to take over and develop a meta within the game.
DPS Dummies is all we are going to need. They accomplish everything you ever said you wanted outside of gameplay. If what you said you wanted them for isn't a lie to abuse systems in the game then a DPS Dummy should be enough.
U.S. East
U.S. East
Thats only going to be for the people actively seaking the meters and actively willingly going to download the software and trust that its correct all to appease the one person/group wanting it.
The majority of players wont do that. Because of the legwork required and the more fun interactions between players.
What you're saying is mostly vague assumptions and disregard how many people are not in favor of the meters.
Personally I wouldnt and 100% interaction and doing the steps 1-3 I mentioned in a previous post.
The theme here is making sure there are no easy in-game methods to exclude and build a heirarchy of exclusion. If players seek outside sources they have to install on their own time/dime to achieve non-secure results thats their choice. I prefer it that way because I know the majority wont bother, and stick with ingame player to player interactions
No MMO has ever had in game trackers before, yet you and others in this thread claim that those games are ran into the dirt by the playerbase using them at every corner. So which is it? Will trackers turn the game into some fearmongered meta slave dystopia or will they "not affect the game at all because majority won't use them duh!" (that's just being silly)