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
This is true, though it is worth noting that any fight Intrepid put in to it will cost them time and money, where as the people they would be fighting are doing it basically for fun.
These people are used to taking on much bigger, more organized organizations and coming out on top. They also have access to more tools here than they are used to having access to. One option they are looking at is using a specific version of a specific browser, that has specific issues that can be exploited to read memory in a completely undectable way. If there is anything kept clientside, they will be able to see it, and the only way Intrepid could stop it is to not allow one of the most popular browsers to be run at the same time as the game client.
Then there are the hardware based ideas they have - which could result in Intrepid needing to not allow the game to be played on several generations of Intel processors if they wanted to block it.
My expectation is that Intrepid will outsource this kind of thing to a third party - problem with that is, they may outsource it to a few of the people that are developing these tools.
If Ashes will be a game where the existence of DPS meters allow players to play better and at the same time the use of DPS meters is forbidden then it is by my opinion a design failure. The game should not produce a need in players that is forbidden by the rules.
For example what I mean is that it would be the same mistake to allow node sieges at any time, but banning the players for declaring them outside of the server prime time.
In other words if damage is going to matter, then dps meters will matter as well
― Plato
Completely agreed - except expand it to everything a combat tracker can do.
If damage, healing, mitigation, blocking, dodging, CC'ing, buffing and/or debuffing matter, then combat trackers will matter as well.
This is a part of the reason there will be a combat tracker in every MMO. Players are not in a position to know if a combat tracker matters until we have one to tell us if it matters or not.
But yes, you are exactly right that if the design of the game leaves players wanting a combat tracker, not including it in the games client is a design mistake.
What do you think about this? @noaani
From what i know, most MMOs dont actively hinder and punish the use of those addons though. That could be AoCs different approach and it could result in a different outcome.
Right. The point i was making in that post would allow personal meters to exist. However I am overall against any form of combat-tracking in AoC.
On a more general topic: I keep reading about "needing" a combat-tracker. These tools are never required for playing the game. They just make certain aspects of improvement easier. You could absolutely do any content in any MMO without these tools. It would just take more time and players would need to come up with different ways to assess performance.
The "needing" is not used in exclusivity sense, but more like "do you want to use medieval tools or to pickup modern machinery?"
― Plato
I don't necessarily love the idea of making dps a key determinant, then allowing players no mechanism to understand why they individually or collectively failed on a goal. I genuinely get the downside, but as someone who played a lot more EQ2 than WoW, I have seen firsthand how dps meters can exist and not be toxic.
It didn't work.
The point of a combat tracker to a raid is not to compare DPS. Guilds that consider this the main function of a combat tracker are using it incorrectly.
GW2 refused to allow damage meters until raids were released. Once players needed to do enough dps to beat a timer, meters became necessary to complete raids.
How many times do I have to say I dont care if meters are accessible in the game. I care in HOW and WHO accesses it without consent.
Its not a difficult concept.
That has nothing to do with what I said
Your putting words in my mouth, I've said this over a dozen times already. I dont CARE if meters are available. So long as it requires an aknowledgement that wether within a guilds tool or with a personal tracker notification to the player that someone wants to track what I'm doing within a dungeon or raid. That way I or anyone else can politely leave knowing what you're trying to access.
I'm not against them being in the game in some form but I'm glad steven doesnt want them either. I'm just not going to be a stubborn mule about the point and say its all or nothing like you are.
Just because you want to do whatever you want with other peoples game information doesnt mean you get to. Sorry to inform you of this reality.
Regarding the DPS meter, a lot of people don't even know how to use it. That is when you get your 99% Jerks ratio. They focus purely on DPS and nothing else. It does show that they have no skill many times but that is another discussion.
A lot of players want a DPS meter to feel secure especially when playing with pugs. Because they have a number to hide behind. Often they are so distracted and focused on their meter that they do not focus on the actual fight, what is happening and etc.
People that claim that a Dps meter is a MUST do not know what they are talking about. It is perfectly viable to optimize your char/build on your own. The only thing people do not want to do anymore these days is invest time. Somehow a lot of players want a short cut and a DPS meter is exactly that. I personally do not want a DPS meter because I want to see people actively trying crazy builds again to see a lot of class diversity and to keep it fair for everyone. A meter on the long run puts a barrier between new and veteran players in an MMO were without one you will automatically have more of an open, welcoming and supportive community.
If people need a tool to tell them when to dispel, or when to taunt, etc. I personally find it sad. Dispelling is a team activity, you communicate with each other. Holding or switching Agro with another tank or player is based on "trail and error" --> gaining knowledge on the encounter, keeping your eyes open and again communication. Healing meters ... really??? it is pretty obvious when the healing is lacking or if something is impacting the healer's efforts (debuffs, dots, etc.)
The point is, a lot of people in the MMO community do not know how to communicate anymore, how to collaborate, how to be a team and that is very sad, especially when it is being replaced by a tool.
To improve yourself and your team/guild ... all you need is a pair of eyes, bit of logic, and open communication within your guild.
I was always on the fence whether or not an MMO should allow a DPS meter because it was a valuable tool for understanding your class and rotations, but it causes terrible toxicity in the community. After playing GW2 for years, I can say without any hesitation that same toxicity will always exists and is actually worse without the meter because then it becomes propaganda and guesswork by players. The only thing worse then your class underperforming and being banned from content, is your class actually being great and people thinking it sucks and should be banned from content.
It was amazing the amount of misinformation on strengths of classes and how that was used to alienate players. All proved incorrect when test dummies came in and players could start to see the real numbers.
They refused to allow them, but they existed anyway.
I played GW2 from release for a few months, I had a combat tracker going in that short time.
The only reason given for not having a combat tracker in Ashes is to reduce toxicity, but having very limited use of them (there will always be someone with one) doesn't actually reduce it - as people don't need objective data in order to be toxic.
The reason given is either completely blind to all known facts and the history of MMO's in general, or is a cover for some other (likely purely emotional) reason.
The one thing that is for sure is that the current stance on combat trackers has in no way been made from a logical perspective - and this lack of logical, critical thinking should have every potential player of Ashes worried, whether they personally want to use a combat tracker or not.
Gw2 Raids were added years after launch, people used the introduction of raids to force ArenaNet to allow a meter. Bad move on Anets side ... the claim that they were necessary to complete raids is just funny. Plenty of guilds and even random group of players completed raids without a meter.
Gw2 is one of the worst examples you can give to justify a meter in the first place, it is, in my opinion, one of the easiest games to figure out your build if you invest a little bit of time. Limited gear sets, the majority of runes are useless, etc.
Allowing them into Gw2 had 2 effects, a lot of veteran players just didn't care for it as they already knew how to optimize their builds even after balancing patches or expansions. But for new players, it indirectly put up a barrier. In content such as fractals even, which was already affected due to poor balancing. New players got even less opportunity, they often got kicked faster, etc. a new player had to work 3 times harder sometimes to be able to get in.
Gw2 already had an issue with the achievement point being used to kick people, with a meter they added a second.
ArenaNet had to allow combat trackers because people were using them anyway. As I said, I was using one within the first few months of the games launch. It was against the rules - but if you've read this thread you will know that is not a thing that bothers me too much.
Sure, they made the 'excuse' of players needing them for raiding to justify it to some players, but the fact is they realized that they were always going to lose against people wanting combat trackers, and so gave up the fight.
You also seem to have a diametrically opposed opinion to a number of other people as to the effect combat trackers had in GW2 once they were allowed to be used freely.
Only a few posts above yours is another poster that is saying that there was more toxicity in the game with trackers - which seems to mesh with what I saw in the game in the short time I was there. I saw a lot of exclusion based purely on class, which made no real sense based on what I had seen those classes do using the combat tracker that I was running.
Part of the reason GW2 is indeed a good example of why Ashes should have a built in combat tracker is because you are indeed right that the games combat system was simplistic (to the point of being boring), yet people still found a desire to have a combat tracker - to the point where so many people were using them that ArenaNet had to give in and allow it.
In a game where a combat tracker may actually be significantly more useful, it would be foolish to think anything else would happen.
Dude clearly, you have no idea what meters are and what they are best used for - what you are describing are addon trackers to enhance visibility of partially hidden things in order to provide players an easy way through the encounter - nobody here is advocating for such a thing.
Meters track what happened in a fight for the players so they might figure out where and what were the mistakes they did or even to check the theory behind their build is solid in real environment. Toxic nonfactual exclusion of totally useful classes exists regardless if the game has meters (most focus on just dps meter). This badmouthing of some classes will definitely exist and ironically dps meter is the only hope for good players playing those classes to silence those that just repeat what others said - otherwise without meters they will have to play only with a guild that accepts them, because random groups are mostly going to reject them.
― Plato
Something else I'm curious about in relation to the argument that dps-meters cant be stopped anyways. Are you guys in favor of all addons in general? Because someone will create a boss-mod, an auction-house addon and some ability trackers. Do we have to implement them in the game as well?
it is pretty obvious that I said "There are people asking for a DPS meter and People asking for a whole addon that shows them everything from dispelling to healing, agro and etc."
I clearly referred to both groups and did not say that a DPS meter is telling you when to dispel or when to take aggro. I mentioned that some people would want those tools. (you'll find some of these requests or suggestions through this 55-page thread.
Yes DPS meters track what happens in a fight and yes they validate the theory behind your build. There is one big difference, maybe (not sure) you want a DPS meter and you would be happy with a dummy to see how your build is doing. It is obvious that others want one to see the whole group's performance live and in the corner of their screen.
As I said those that want a DPS meter (not everyone) want it purely because they know they can hide behind a number. Others want it to optimize their build. Some people don't want a meter so they hide their skill or performance others don't want it because they want an even playing field.
If you are convinced that not having a DPS meter and just have the logs* to analyze after the encounter is not enough then it is not the game that is the problem but the player.
*logs were already confirmed by Steven
However, a combat tracker is literally the only tool available to prove to the population at large that a class is indeed capable of performing at that level.
If you are the one exceptional player of that one less than exceptional class, a combat tracker is literally your best friend. Those things are actually quite specific to WoW only, and are only possible due to the way Blizzard have opened up their API to developers of third party addons.
It is worth pointing out that a combat tracker is not necessarily an addon. An addon is something that begins running when you launch the client application - it is literally added on to the host program.
Most combat trackers are descret applications in their own right.
The reason combat trackers will be inevitable is because they are a fact of life in every MMO - not just in some. People that use combat trackers consider them to be as much a part of a game and it's meta eco-system as official forums, Reddit, Discord, and wikis.
Things like auction addons are not a part of that meta eco-system.
That said, this was actually a good question to raise, and it is people occasionally coming up with such questions that keeps me wanting to keep this thread somewhat alive.
My bad about the group discinction - i've forgotten about that when i got to the bottom of the post
Well so far logs are confirmed to be at minimum X last actions done by you, done to you - which is definitely in any way a reasonable tool to analyze a fight, especially when it seems that any export of these logs will not be supported.
― Plato
Of all the ways I have heard that people are looking at building a combat tracker, the use of these logs along with a server for the guild to connect to is the base "this will always work" method.
The game doesn't need to export the data in order for the data to exist outside the game.
To me, it would be absolutely fine if a combat tracker was built in to the game, and any player in any group could turn it on to track the combat of any other person in the group.
Should a player opt to turn it on, all players that are being tracked get a notification (which can be adjusted to be as obvious or descret as a player may want).
This means that if you do not want to be tracked, you then have the option of dropping out of a group if someone attempts to track your combat without your consent.
Having players pre-emtively provide consent for this will see the system fail - assuming the idea of a combat tracker built in to teh game is to prevent players using third party trackers as much as possible - as the need to get this consent in raids will be too inefficient.
Having it so that a player can simply turn the tracker on group/raid wide, and all players get a notification to that effect means this inefficiency simply isn't there, and all players present have knowledge of the trackers use. At this point, staying in the group/raid is tantamount to consent.
This would be the minimum level of efficiency that would be needed in order to see people use this over a third party tracker.
In guild groups and raids, obviously everyone will just run the tracker if they want to. There should be no issue with things like this within a guild.
In pick up groups and raids, chances are, most people still won't care too much. If an individual really does care, they are able to ask the person forming the group if there are plans to use a tracker or not,and they can then make a decision based on that informaiton.
This thing with this over a guild based tracker is - at least to me - that this opens trackers up to more people to use, and to more people being tracked. Most players won't say or do anything at all if someone in the group is using a tracker.
While I would be fine with this, I personally think people that don't want to be tracked would be better off with the guild level tracker.
Please try to take off the rose tinted glasses and look at grouping for dungeons for what it is - finding mostly random players to clear it in the most efficient and fastest way available to get the loot that progresses in you character. This won't come in the start, but yeah after 100 runs of the "endgame" dungeons (places that are just best to get the most important stuff) the novelty will wear off even if the dungeons are going to be dynamic in Path of exile style.
― Plato