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 fine to me.
I dont get why the other guy doesnt get this.
The point I was only making it that I dont want the trackers to be a unilateral action made by someone with a big head and a power trip. This is where I have a problem.
While I fully admit I dont really want them at all, I'm not going to say no to it altogether since there are a couple merits to it. So long as people have a choice in the matter and there's a heads up to when the tracker is being used that has an aknowledgment.
My thoughts on the guild version though, is that if you are in a guild and you aren't happy for your guild mates to track you in combat, you are probably not in the right guild - as such you give consent by being/remaining in that guild.
This is the crux of why I think the guild version of this is the better option.
Either way DPS meters are casual garbage. Rather people have to make their own builds and weigh the pros and cons themselves. Raids aren't going to require them. People are going to have the knowledge of an idea of a few possible rotations each class can do for maximum DPS. Even so those rotations may not be as good as not focusing on pure DPS. You may not want more DPS over potential buffs you can give to a party.
If they do allow DPS meters you do know that they will probably ban you if you use it to distribute rewards anyway? That's the main reason people want them. People who don't just want to play the damn game as it is with no crutches or handicaps.
Past games appealing to casuals isn't really a valid argument. Since there is more evidence that no DPS works more than DPS meters do. Literally every old MMO worked fine without them. WoW is the game that main streamed them but they are hardly needed in that game. WoW is so easy to min/max that the game practically does it for you. It has so much illusion of choice that it's just common sense what is going to hit the hardest and it has no buffs to compete with.
Basically you need evidence that the games with them cannot be done without DPS meters for this conversation to have any value. Since DPS meters don't have any actual value as a system it's impossible to say it's required. DPS meters don't suddenly make people do less damage for doing the same rotation without them.
This conversation doesn't take into account that the lowest DPS people in a raid are going to be the ones who got the least gear. Which knowing their DPS isn't going to help you if there is no way to improve it before a fight.
U.S. East
I'm not against the idea, but it gets difficult to implement and doesn't solve some of the root problems DPS meters solve. If attunement is group oriented you can be carried through the content, and if it is individualized it can be hard to test individual classes since they have different strengths and weaknesses.
You do not raid.
At the very least, you do not rid at the top end - I could fully believe you have run perhaps 4 or 5 pick up raids in WoW, but no more than that. That counts as not-a-raider.
I mean, you said in another thread that you think the game should have built in build suggestions so that you know how you should build your character - no person that seriously considers themselves a raider would ever want that, let alone suggest it.
Since you are not a raider, you are in no position to tell people what raids will or will not require of their players, as you have no idea yourself.
You are fabricating things (poorly) to try and further your cause. That kind of thing may work on some topics, but on any topic I care about, I will call you out on it every time.
Every. Single. Time.
If you want to debate the topic, debate it from actual experience, not from made up positions. If you are unable to debate it from actual experience, why would you have an opinion on it?
If a raid believes a specific build is required, they will absolutely have that build. Raiders - proper ones - won't even complain about that, because proper raiders are there to do what is best for the raid.
The people that complain about needing to be a specific build are not raiders, they are casual players that want to give raiding a try. First of all, no they won't.
Second of all, no raid leader worth the title would use anything other than participation as a means by which to distribute players with drops. No one wants a combat tracker for anything at all to do with drops, and the suggestion that you think this is the main reason peopel want them just further reinforces my point that you are not a raider.
What you are totally ignoring here is the aspect of a combat tracker that helps you work out what the encounter is doing.
Even in a game as simple as WoW, combat trackers are used to alter both the build of classes and the meta of raids. I mean, the games combat really is simple, but even then combat trackers are being used to find better ways of going about things - and that is what it is about - finding better ways.
However, in a game like WoW (or EQ2) the value of a combat tracker is in using it to see what the target encounter has done, not what you have done. In games where the strategy for the encounter is not already known before it is released (aka, all raid encounters that are not in WoW), either players need a combat tracker to be able see what the encounter is actually doing, or the encounter is so simple that players can see what it is doing without needing a tracker (and simple encounters are less fun in general).
What this translates to in real terms is that in games without combat trackers, encounters are generally more simple - whereas in games with combat trackers, encounters can be made more complex.
This is untrue, all we need to do is cite cases of times where combat trackers were used to benefit the game and that in itself means they are worth having.
I've done this a number of times in this thread, with my most often stated case being that of two different games that had the same issue with the random number generator.
Developers never noticed this, players only noticed it due to using a combat tracker. Players told developers about it, developers fixed it, the game was better for literally every.
Based on that alone, combat trackers are worth having.
Also, your talk about rotations tells me that you have never played a real MMO in any respects - only WoW.
Very few games actually use rotations.
This makes no sense, why would the lowest DPS in a raid get the least gear?
Of course you are free to not better yourself and be stuck. However do not come here and preach that you need to improve and play better only in the way you envision it You know that there is always a provable correlation between players that do the lowest damage and players that are bad? Of course it is blurred with the opportunities and the luck those players had. However on average people that do most damage are usually among the best players for those classes. Unless the damage you do is entirely based on a random proc (yes I look at you infinite stars
― Plato
With DPS meters, you have a culture that emphasizes the number.
DPS meters are also more useful to meh players than to top players, sure they help everyone, but disproportionately so. Everyone is pressured into climbing a mountain that everyone gets help climbing. Not a good thing.
Without dps meters, most normal players will not extend their self improvement beyond what google can reveal, but top players will still put in huge efforts...that's what makes them top.....but even then you still do not have that culture that emphasizes high numbers.
tl;dr
With DPS Meters - everyone is pressured to climb a mountain, it gets crowded fast and people are measured only by their height up the mountain, they get help doing so, and even though ppl are getting higher #'s, the skill gap between the top climbers and the mob is much smaller.
Without DPS meters - not everyone feels pressured to climb the mountain, climbing it is much more fair, and skill gaps are wider and more meaningful but less obvious.
Here's a suggestion for the Devs though - How about making the ability to see DPS a guild perk, or maybe a class perk similar to how clerics get to see actual HP
You say it like this is a bad thing. I don't understand why.
The more players performing at the top end, the more content they will make for the top end.
Building it in to the game is the only real way restrictions can be imposed at all.
They will exist, they have for every MMO.
The question is whether Intrepid want control of them, or want to leave that control up to third parties.
If there is a built in combat tracker, people that don't want to feel bound by one simply need do nothing more than avoiding joining a guild that has one - which should be easy as such a guild and such a player are likely not overly compatible.
If you are a lawmaker on a small town somewhere, and you were making a law to alter something basic like the side of the road that people must drive on in your town, you can expect people to not follow that law.
Ashes is not the MMO market. It is one small town. If it wants to alter the basic rules of the greater community, then the fact that many people simply are not going to follow those rules absolutely is a valid and important point to make.
If we were talking about something that is standard across all MMO's (no gold selling, as an example) then that would be a different story.
No, just no. If you break that law in that small town you are still going to get a ticket. You want to drive through that town or live there? Its your responsibility to follow its laws. If you don't you will get a ticket. Not agreeing with a rule doesn't abolish it. There's a reason individual towns have individual rules, if you don't like them find another town.
Actually, that isn't true.
Almost all nations have some form of system whereby any rules that smaller jurisdictions make that are completely out of sync with other jurisdictions can be either ignored or outright overturned.
Again, major things like stealing (or RMT) are fairly solidly set. Local jurisdictions may be able to designate things on the road like parking spaces, some specifics in regards to signs, intersection signalling and such, but things like what side of the road you drive on is simply not something that people will follow - should some small upstart town decide they want to buck the trend.
Any fine issued under such a law would be overturned before it even made it to any court.
In terms of MMO's, a single game has a say in things like whether they open up their API, and exactly how open they make that (where parking spaces are located). However, they don't really have a say in regards to whether people will or will not use a combat tracker (what side of the road to drive on).
Actually it is.
In terms of mmos they actually do as in this case aoc does not belong to any jurisdiction that can dictate the application of their rules. (Unless you have one you want to make up) And you're assuming said fictional town, lies in a fictional jurisdiction that supports a faulty arguement based on an extreme law you made up in the first place. When there are an extraordinary amount of laws individual cities have that are NOT influenced by a larger jurisdiction. Not to mention states, foreign trade zones, native american reservations, etc. And even if it is unlawful, you still cant willy nilly break it, you have to go to court and PROVE that it is. (Which intrepid is the lawmaker, judge, congress and president of thisvworld) You still must follow that rule until it is no longer a rule.
Hi, welcome to the thread.
I completely disagree with this statement.
Toxic (or cancerous) players exist. They are more prevalent in some games over others, but this is not in relation to combat trtacker use.
This is a point that has come up a number of times in this thread, an in response, I list three games.
Those games are; WoW, Archeage and EQ2.
In WoW, the community is somewhat infamously toxic.
In Archeage, the community is on par with WoW.
In EQ2, the community has always been somewhat lacking in terms of toxicity.
Now, based on this, if I told you that two of these games have heavy combat tracker use, and one has very low combat tracker use, in order for your statement to hold true, the two games that have heavy combat tracker use would need to be WoW and Archeage.
However, it is in fact WoW and EQ2 that have heavy combat tracker use.
This in itself completely undermines the notion that combat trackers (or "DPS meters") cause toxic behavior.
However, I can go even one step further than that.
Of those three games above, two of them have systems built in to the game that allow players to either form or join groups in an automated fashion for around 90% of content that around 90% of players are participating in.
The two games that have this "feature" are WoW and Archeage, the two games that are famously toxic.
While correrlation does not suggest causation, it also doesn't rule it out. On the other hand, a complete lack of correlation does completely rule out causation.
So, I put it to you that it is not combat trackers that cause toxic behavior in MMO's, but rather is the inclusion of features that form groups for players in an automated manner which removes the need for players to maintain inter-personal relationships with people on their server. This lack of need to maintain relationships means there is no specific need to be kind to others in game, which combined with the inherent anonymous nature of MMO's, tends to bring out the worse side of peoples nature. People may make use of data obtained from combat trackers while exercising this toxic behavior that they are free from reprocussions of, but those combat trackers are in no way the cause of this behavior.
As such, any game that requires people to have strong inter-personal relationships will inherently have a lack of that toxic community - a situation that is 100% independent of a combat tracker existing or not.
The playerbase.
The problem with analogies is that they always fall flat if you take them to ofar (and you are the one that made the analogy against breaking laws in the first place).
Fact is, Intrepid is attempting to get population from other MMO's to Ashes. Those players will largely bring with them the basic rules that they want to play the game by. If there is a combat tracker available for Ashes, they will use it.
Players generally do not look at each game and it's rules (less than 1% of people read EULA/ToS for anything) - they assume the general rules they have been playing the genre by for the last several decades will serve them well here, as well.
I doubt you are denying any of that. Your point - as best I can see - is that you don't think this should be a factor.
The issue there is that it is Intrepid that are changing the rules in regards to that general set of rules that all players of all MMO's generally stick to. If they want to alter from that general set of rules, then taking things in to account like this are an absolute must.
I'm not arguing it is right that people do this (even though I do think it is), I am saying that it will happen, and if Intrepid want to change the rules, they need to account for the fact that it will happen.
Ah yes comparing rules to rules is much too far. I can see the distance clearly now. And your right the player baseis who they are beholden to. ( To an extent, it is their product and they have every right to do what they want with it)And that player base,as it stands, has clearly stated they do not want dps meters. Which is why they are against the rules. What your asking is for intrepid to go outside their jurisdiction to appease you based on unfounded speculation. Until the community as whole shifts the other way its a nonstarter.
You have the analogy, you have the counter, any further than that and you have taken it too far from the original point. If you bring in an analogy to a conversation, expect a counter and know that any further counter to that is taking the analogy too far from the roots. That is why analogies are not worth bringing in to discussions - the other party always gets the last say before it becomes pointless.
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The playerbase has not clearly shown anything.
If you go through this thread - all of it - you will see that the majority of posters here that actually participate in the discussion are ok with the notion of a guild based combat tracker. There are only a few repeat posters here that seem to not be ok with it, and most of them refuse to discuss that specific topic - suggesting they have no real opposition to it.
If anything, the playerbase has shown that an in-client guild based combat tracker would be perfectly acceptable.
I've written probably 15% of this thread, I know what has been said here. You, clearly, haven't read enough of it.
Man its almost like i've posted almost every night as well (or maybe you havnt read this entire thing, i have though) mr "i am hardcore raiders" or do i need to go back and pull the posts where you didnt even remember what YOU posted the night before. You discount anyone who doesn't agree with you in some form by qualifying your statements with "that actually participate in discussion". But to you if it isn't some form of saying yes to a metric tracker its not discussion. And recently you are probably right people are tired of it. You're a broken record and it's a battle of attrition. When people do make valid points you either strawman, ignore them, or backtrack. Im stubborn but yeah you're wearing me out too. Players dont need their hand held, if you're skilled and dedicated you'll push to the top. If you need a dps tracker to do the work for you instead of communicating and working it out yourself by all means take the easy road and then take the ban.
And at the end of the day it was a PvP centred game.
GW2 added meters, 99% of the builds were deemed sub optimal, PvE took over and the game became a dead rotting husk.
Instead of this lost cause, focus on making class utility somewhat balanced, cuz even if you are the biggest dps on the planet, if you end up stun locked into death, doesn't mean jack shit. PvE in this game is Open world, if you think half the people won't just roam around ganking farming spots, you haven't played MMOs outside WoW.
Why do you think Blizzard put heroic dungeons in the way they did?
Player behavior (and player perception of player behavior) won't change overnight, but it will change.
You are mis-remembering.
Combat trackers existed in GW2 from about 6 weeks after launch. I was using one about 7 weeks after up until I quit. They were not specifically allowed, but they existed.
PvE in GW2 took a more prominent role in that game because the developers specifically added more PvE content. It was a considered choice by ArenaNet to do so. At the same time as they started adding this additional PvE content, they opted to make an announcement that combat trackers were fine to use - a stance they had long realized was inevitable.
More PvP content was also added. A lot more, but historically PvE is more approachable for group content rather than PvP. It's the pit hole WoW has gotten into and can't exit for a couple of expansions now.
Looking at the majority of this forum and reddit, people seem to be obsessed by only PvE related questions and requests, and will probably end up with a soar throat.
Not having a dps meter will force people to communicate with each other more, that's a good thing.