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
― Plato
That's exactly the problem though. It benefits a tiny minority of players, while breeding toxicity and resentment in the rest of them. Ultimately hardcore raid guilds will be fine, they're dedicated enough to either push through the limitations, find no limitations to need overcoming, or move on to a different game. If however the rest of the playerbase is now glued to meters, the well is poisoned. Casual players can't deal with the power that these tools provide, and explaining not to use it won't help. Players will use it, misuse it, rely on it, and blame anything but themselves for not having any fun.
This is going to happen no matter what though. With no dps meters, 3rd party will be involved, so there will always be meters. But let's say for the sake of argument there is no meters whatsoever. Then the conversation turns into:
"Hey, why aren't you using this guide posted by the best guild in the game? You're trash get out"
"Sorry, we only accept these 4 classes, because Method is class stacking for this particular raid and we want to do that"
"Lol, why are you playing THAT secondary archetype? Don't you know it's trash? It's been confirmed suboptimal by AshesLegend42069 on youtube dude." (this can be easily disproved with meters btw)
"Hey Intrepid, this boss is mathematically impossible please nerf it! (gets proved later on that it was actually undertuned all along and the players were just shit)"
Toxicity will always be present and people will always find ways to parrot/bandwagon the "high level player" (whether they are doing it effectively or not). At least with DPS meters, it's objective data and not subjective feelings.
If you were on trial, would you rather a judge look at objective facts or would you rather them judge you on your appearance and how they are feeling that day? Maybe you didn't actually do a crime, but the judge woke up hungover, felt like shit, and decided he didn't like your shirt. Now you are facing 10 years in jail. I'd rather face 10 years in jail because there was objective data saying I did wrong, than people subjectively "feeling" that I'm wrong.
It's good that it's subjective. That way, it's never so firm that it can't be nudged out of the spotlight. I don't want an authority to tell me what's "objectively" the best approach, I want to have some discovery for myself. And if people use guides and are dicks about it, so be it, at least they won't have any more authority than any other high level player. It's easier to ignore wackos if they're not using numbers.
I'd rather not argue about 3rd party stuff, since yes, that will happen anyway, but so will cheaters and bots. Doesn't mean anything really, just that people are always desperate for shortcuts.
Except, it doesn't just benefit a tiny minority of players, it benefits a rather large portion of the playerbase, and realistically could benefit the entire playerbase. The problems come from people who have a mindset of "I want to do what I want, and I don't need to improve. Oh, but I want all the absolute best gear in the game, so gimme gimme gimme!"
I respond if I choose to do so. Just like dps meters could be provided on an individual and personal and private basis from a target dummy if players CHOOSE to do so. Something you seem to have completely skipped over that I've mentioned on nearly every post that I've reiterated that at least a dozen times now.
But since your so keen on a response with an icy chip on your shoulder that it seems like I've offended you personally in some way because of my disdain for toxic meters.
1. To my knowledge Steven has already explicitly stated they are not implementing dps trackers. If thats incorrect provide the statement showing otherwise and I'll revise my stance on that information since addons are also not being allowed in AoC.
2. History shows that once ingame measured of trackers are implemented and are used without player consent the pve community becomes a toxic wasteland of centimeter measuring and blatant elitism. Steven himself has already said and explained the same thing. Arguing semantics over what is known and experienced is not an argument its just you being angry that people point out what inevitably happens when you make it easy for elitism to thrive, it stalls out the community from new players because self absorbed groups take meters as the holy grail only acceptable way to do content
3. DPS meters are not a game ranking system.
This isn't a debate. There are no ingame rewards, loots, titles for being in a dps meter for how you performed on a measured encounter with a pve boss. They are a tool that is used.
I dont know if you just read what I typed wrong or you constructed it differently in your head.
It is FACT they are instanced measurments of a pve encounter gauging damage and percentages of each encounter specifically. Thats literally the function of what happens with a meter...
As for your snarky last portion of your post just being plain insulting and making wild accussations because people from multiple years of mmo's commenting and saying similar things that I have as well, I'm just not going to stoop to that level simply because I disagree here. Being insulting because I posted why I disagree is just indicative of a logical and reasonable lacking. You should watch some jordan peterson videos they are helpful in this regard.
(And no that is not me trying to insult, it is a cultural issue in todays society to attack others personally instead of being logical and reasonable)
Target dummies with a meter for individuals to use and guage themselves would be my prefered middle ground.
This isn't true. Games have always had toxicity in them whether these exist or not. This makes an easy target since people choose to express it through that. But as I said in another post, if they don't exist, they'll just express it in other ways instead. They, in no way whatsoever, represent the onset of toxicity in any game I've ever played. I dislike seeing arguments like this being used, since there's such little thought put into it.
It's pretty natural when people start out in a new game to experience a sort of nirvana stage where everyone is happy and working together to figure new systems out. Which is no doubt that state that everyone who disagrees with my comment above will recall. But in every game I've ever played, going all the way back to SWG, as time goes on people get more set and "cranky" and you see that toxicity start to creep in, meters/trackers or not.
Simply because it provides an increased opportunity to learn and improve. If people choose not to utilize it, that's their choice.
It would be the same concept as someone choosing not to go to school. Does going to school always equate to someone being more educated? No, but IN GENERAL it will lead to that. Can someone who doesn't go to school succeed in the same things that other people who do go to school do? Sure, but it generally takes a very motivated person, and realistically it is EXTREMELY RARE. Many people try and use common examples of, say, Einstein, Steve Jobs, or the like to argue against this,t but these situations are literally like the 0.000001% of the population that are highly successful after they dropped out of school or whatnot.
This. Toxicity exists in any multiplayer game, period. It doesn't matter if it's an MMO, if it tracks kills/damage, or anything else. Hell there are toxic players in animal crossing for god's sake.
I disagree, from my experience (apparently stevens as well) Meters ruined the pve community in the majority of my gaming times.
And eventually disuaded any new players from being engaged with to do content to the point the content stagnated to only a few trials guilds doing any of the content.
This is not universally true but it is what I've experienced for the majority of the mmo's I've played. It just incentivizes and makes toxic behaviour easier to implement because of the meters usage to single out folks or blanket blame.
And while you are correct that toxic behaviour will happen regardless in other ways, this one is by and far the biggest offender because of it's easy access and specificity. Removing it makes the toxic behaviour that much more difficult.
People who are poor are more likely to get bullied by people at school. Should we ban poor (or rich people) people from attending school to get rid of bullying?
Again, it just sounds silly to be blaming a tool for what people choose to do with their actions. I've seen your exact argument being used for years, it's always comes across as overstated, i.e.: it killed x game, when it actually did not, in truth. I know people like to be hyperbolic and we're emotional creatures. But that doesn't necessarily add up to good arguments.
It is a poor argument because severe Bullies can get excluded in my country.
I dont know what school you went to but thats not how I've ever seen it.
Really its the poor people bullying the rich for having more money and being "preppy" is the word I guess? I dont know what kids call it these days.
But I'll digress. Your metaphor is trying to make a connection and simplify the issue to should meters be banned?
Please look at my previous posts
I have said this so many times now I'm getting very weary of repeating it.
I do NOT mind personal and private meters that individuals can share to guage themselves and compare with others.
Any form of group forces method without player consent yes I'm absolutely against.
I would prefer target dummies as a middle ground.
That's actually a great analogy, because you just presented the perfect solution. You aren't getting rid of the meters (poor people at school), you are instead banning the toxic shitheads that would abuse the meters to be toxic (excluding severe bullies).
It is not a situation where you can sweet talk your way out of a ban. It is a confirmed Ban. We keep going in circles. The issue for me is whether IS should create a DPS Meter, not whether someone should or shouldn't create a third party DPS Meter. The reason being anyone using a third party DPS Meter will be banned.
I'm just going to copy and paste because no one is reading what I wrote xD
******************
Please look at my previous posts
I have said this so many times now I'm getting very weary of repeating it.
I do NOT mind personal and private meters that individuals can share to guage themselves and compare with others.
Any form of group forces method without player consent yes I'm absolutely against.
I would prefer target dummies as a middle ground
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If we're really going to blame tools like this when toxic behavior happens you should really think about where that might lead to. It could be that some of those games that never had them simply died or fell off for not having the depth and complexity as an added bonus, opposed to other games that do and have largely kept thriving. Just a thought.
It boggles my mind how adamant some are for DPS Meters when we have no knowledge of the High End Raids. We have no knowledge of the depth, no knowledge of the complexity, no knowledge of most of the classes.
We have been told there won't be a DPS Meter. To me it signifies the encounters won't need a DPS Meter. It would be bad Raid design if an encounter requires a DPS Meter and we can be banned for DPS Meters.
This here I agree with 100%
I can be amendable to private meters, or damage dummies to practice on.
But I prefer no dps meters for this whole posts reason. I have never felt that complexity or depth came from meters but reduced it to a percentage graph out of the game. Others may see it differently but I'll just have to agree to disagree with them
This is not an exhaustive list, but I think you really just have to look at the pros and cons and pick whichever is best for the game.
Pros:
Cons:
For me personally I like the pros, but I think the cons can inevitably create an undesirable game experience. I agree with Steven on this one.
This post seems oddly skewed towards someone who dislikes damage meters! First of all, you didn't mention that you could in fact help players understand their class and damage better in the pros. You also didn't mention that it would help massively in raid encounters where there are mechanics unbeknownst to the common player.
Secondly, your second and fourth cons seem very exaggerated. For the second con if someone had actually drastically improved their performance, then they would be able to link their meters and PROVE that they did, so most of the time they would be given a second chance. As someone who has been in social guilds and in top tier guilds, I've never seen someone get ostracized forever. I've seen people get kicked and then invited back the very next week when they have solved their issues. I've also given advice as a 99th percentile player of my class, and I've also received advice when I was a new player and was doing really poorly. So the second con I've never actually seen. Has it happened? Probably, but I'd say the more likely scenario is the guy sucked AND they were being super obnoxious/whiny/generally unlikable and that's why they were never given a second chance.
Thirdly the 4th con is just ludicrous. If the raid leader can't see the value of someone who is using their utility to help the raid and focuses more on dps numbers (remember, trackers track more than just damage/healing, they can track a plethora of things including utility) then they are a bad raid leader and a bad guild that you SHOULD NOT WANT TO BE APART OF. Being kicked by someone like that is a goddamn blessing in my eyes.
I prefaced the list saying that it wasn't exhaustive
I think you're confusing an in-game damage meter with parses that take the entire combat log and export it to look at every detail of things that occurred. An in-game damage meter the only thing you would link would be 1 occurence whereas most parses you can link an entire history of performance to show consistency since you would have the data.
To give context, I've raided in multiple top-world guilds. I've seen it happen in some cases and not others. Just because it's not your experience doesn't mean your experience is the norm and it also doesn't mean it doesn't occur with some degree of frequency.
If that was how the raid leader was acting, then sure. But again, I think you're confusing in-game damage meters and parses and you are assuming the discussion is about parses in your response.
What I do want is trial and error where people play the game, focus on what's happening in front of them rather than staring at numbers and analyzing parses, learn from their mistakes, formulate different strategies with observation and critical thinking, and work as a community to improve and overcome. This is why I really like the approach of there being no add-ons and no damage meters.
What I don't want is one guy mathing everything out, posting a youtube video and then everyone just copy that and never think for themselves. Will this happen? Yeah probably at some point because meta-slaving is real, but I don't really want to promote it.
If you have a different view than me, then that's fine and you can voice that. I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm right. My feedback is directed at Intrepid because they wanted to know how the community felt. I'm part of the community and I fall into the camp of agreeing with Steven on this particular topic.
I play these types of games to immerse myself in a fantasy world with friends and have a good time not get told about numbers and dps counts, it completely changes the mood of the game. Your all talking as if this is a make or break feature but I think players will be happy without them and have better time, early wow before dps meters were a thing functioned fine.
It just seems more of an issue of people perceiving they need them because that's "just how things are done in MMOs" based on a rehashed idea that's been used to death.
I think you missed the point of my analogy, and also the "it's not important" part.
This game has many different aspects of play, and combat is one of the many, different things you can be excited about, and public access to a DPS meter is not needed for this game. The community will help.
I love DPS meters cause I strive to be good at my role. But I would prefer NO DPS meter, I have several reason(s)for this.
As ex guild/raid leader in WoW I was often whispered by raid members "Replace this hunter/replace the healer they s*ck". This often led to either the people being replaced being upset/angry or the people that know there is a guy that is underperforming and is not being replaced.
When in a dungeon party with random players it is very easy to kick a certain player and find a replacement if they notice you underperform, which will bring toxicity no matter how you look at it.
I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content.
I don't need a DPS meter per say to evaluate if im performing well or not. I know exactly how much damage or heals I can dish-out without a meter. Also, it's not only the numbers that count, it's your play-style and knowing your enemy and when to hit or defend that makes a good player.
DPS meters are long term continuous damage or heals without ever stopping on a dummy unlike PVP where you might defend or attack, usually games have their own damage done and healing received information and usually that's enough to evaluate your performance.