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
I've been closely following two different groups that are making trackers for Ashes for over a year now - not that there has been any real developmental changes in most of that time, mostly just discussions on different ways of acquiring the data needed, most of the coding for which can just be pulled from Github when needed. One of those groups developed the actual parser portion of the tool well over a year ago (it runs on Android!), and the other is just planning on using ACT.
Now it is just a waiting game to see the games client in action.
I've even mentioned a few of the ideas that have been thrown around with these groups - you'll be able to find them in this thread too, if you look for them.
I mean, it's not like this is news to anyone - of course people are going to make a combat tracker for Ashes. That has happened in every other MMO, why wouldn't it happen here?
I mean... why not just go ahead and use those third party trackers then? You seem to know a lot about them and probably will grant you all of the information you are looking for plus more! You also don't seem to be worried about getting banned for using them so why not go for it.
I just find it a little amusing.. and quite tiring to see you keep using the same type of threat in your posts: "IS needs to do what I want them to do... or else."
I am not arguing for the notion of guild based combat trackers because it is what *I* want. I am perfectly fine using the third party combat tracker I know I will have and that I know Intrepid will have to accept.
I am arguing for a guild based combat tracker because it is the best option over all that I can see for the entire population of the game.
I agree that people should have the right to not have some stranger tracking their combat. While this doesn't bother me, I can accept that it bothers others.
There is no way a third party tracker would not allow this to happen, and so the only way to ensure that it will not happen is to have a combat tracker built in to the game itself.
Also if you have competition on leaderboards with playing better then from the pure design standpoint any roleplaying is out of the window in this part of the game. Does it mean you need to participate in every part of the game? No, just play the parts that you like and make you happy - why do you need to tell others what they enjoy and how they should play?
Good embarrassment, why to argue with words and ideas when you can sperg out like 12yo.
I understand your disgust with competition, but then the devs should not create the game with risk/reward philosophy, but just to give participation free award for anyone that tries raiding - and definitely no leaderboards.
These designs are encouraging players to use meters and minmax their gameplay - so from my point of view, if the game doesn't want to have meters it needs to drastically change their reward structure and not use any kind of leaderboards
― Plato
There is no middle-ground to this feature either. It's a black and white issue. You have them in the game or you don't. If its a guild perk, content will be balanced around using them, so people will have to use them. If 3rd-party trackers become mainstream, they will be expected from you and people will have to use them.
As it stands I'm not too worried though. In the last like 30 pages of this thread theres pretty much only 3 people arguing for damage-meters and shutting down everyone that comes in to say how they're glad combat-trackers dont exist.
There is no reason to assume Ashes will be different in this respect.
This is the basic principle of my stance - would you rather Intrepid have control of combat trackers in a way where they can put limitations on them, or would you rather people use third party trackers?
There isn't a third option that I can see.
Attempting to engage people in discussion and debate is not "shutting down". Proof of this can be found in how often I ask people questions - if you are shutting people down, you don't ask them direct questions.
It is not my fault if people are unwilling or unable to actually defend their stance on the topic.
There is literally no possibility that meters will not exist in the game. All of the conversation is to create controlled version by the devs themselves to protect those players that do not want to be exposed to them.
Even then all of you that are against meters are actually just advocating for hands on "feel" and combat log reading which is one type of measurement.
Meters create meta yes, but if meters will not create meta then something disjointed from reality will and you will be excluded the same, because players that exclude players will always find a reason to exclude others.
In the end I definitely don't think the game should give rewards based on things that can be measured and ban the measurement action - this is a flawed design
― Plato
And this is also the reason why people will go to even more extreme measures in this game than in others to ensure they have those measurements.
@Noaani I've seen multiple people argue that gw2 had no combat-trackers early on, whereas you've been saying that you used one pretty much since the beginning. I feel like this shows the difference between the general community perception and the more hardcore players like urself. It seems like a lot of players werent really affected by these third-party tools before they went mainstream.
The argument often takes place under the premise that trackers are unavoidable. As i mentioned earlier, i believe (and many others alongside me) that the general playerbase will not be using those combat-trackers if Intrepid speaks out against them.
Your assumption changes the whole the discussion from "do we want combat-trackers" to "how do we want to implement them". I think that kind of shuts down any counter-arguments against damage-meters in general.
Now... let the adults have a civil discussion without you blurting out random accusations, which seems to be your only "contribution" to this thread.
THIS IS A NEW GAME. DAY 1 ITS NOT GOOD TO HAVE ADDONS.
PERIOD.
Using third party software should get you banned. Be it DPS meter, aimbot or whatever. Boasting how you and your clan will use it is childish or that one is already in development. I guarantee cheats have always been in development before game launches doesn't mean it's acceptable.
Thats exactly whats going to happen.
People will use DPS meter add ons and the same people will cry in the forum for beeing banned without reasons.
When i first saw the DPS Thread i tought it would die down as even the most dense pro DPS people have to know by now that there will be no DPS meters.
I belive Steven said that there will be no DPS Meters.
Changing that would be going back on his word.
It would mean that we would never be able to trust a singel word of him again.
Steven knows that and thats why among the reasons he himself has allready listed.
There will be no DPS meter.
You can argue about it, cry about it, complain about it. Its not going to change the outcome.
Edit: I wonder why i even botherd posting this.
Yeah, all coments are gonna get lost in this ocean
This is more of a "rage-room" so people can get his frustration out and devs can contain it here.
I have a feeling there won't be anything that difficult for the end-game since they'll have to balance around 64 class variations.
I've read it alright. Seems like you didn't read what I posted, though. Still talking about a tracker, broken wheel.
No, if I know about the trackers existence, sooner or later, I will be forced to use it, by the community using it. That is not a good solution. Not a solution at all. The only solution is for it not to exist.
And I am not wrong in any point. The will be no dps meters or add-ons allowed, so any top tier guild using them, won't stay top tier for long. Or in the game, even.
Stop comparing AoC, my only last hope for MMO's to all those cookie cutter MMO's, please. It's insulting the title. The whole game mechanic is going to be so much more different, that it's not a fair comparison, anyway. I don't want another cookie cutter experience of shitty combat with shitty conditions. ESPECIALLY WoW is the greatest example of that.
No, the first party combat tracker is not "literally the only way to get what I want". What I want is no DPS meters in game. Which means, the only solution is to... surprisingly... Not have any DPS meters in the game. I bet you couldn't guess that, even if you tried. And I don't mean to say this in irony, I'm dead serious. You are so freaking focused on the DPS meter, that you are disregarding any other possibility, like... for example... not having one. That is why I said that this post is sad.
You will not need them IN THIS GAME. Because it won't have any, period. And you won't need any of them. The better a player (with no meter, just skill, common sense, trial/error), the quicker you can focus on your own mistakes.
No, why would leaderboards throw roleplay out of the window? Every swordsman wants to be better than the others. Every mage wants to master the spells better than the other. Of course they'd get ranked somehow. Am I missing a point here, or...?
Do I need to participate in every part of the game? No, not exactly. But will I be able to? Hell yes. I'll play the parts that will make me happy at that given time, be it raiding, dueling or scheming to take over a node. Anything will go for everyone, in one way or another.
I am not telling anyone how he or she should play. All I am saying is, that it has been said already. "No DPS, no ADD ons". I'm just backing up this statement with my personal feeling about it, which goes in it's favor. You asked me a lot of questions on... "topics" you said I brought up, basically, yet I didn't, whatsoever. You make me a bit confused here.
And, if it wasn't damn obvious, I was making fun of every DPS phony, regarding their obsession with numbers, to be the best. Because that's how ALL OF YOU sound. If that sounds like a 12 year old to you, well I've got bad news for you, fella.
And you don't understand a thing, as it seems. I've never said anything about disliking competition. Reward structure has absolutely nothing to do with DPS meters being present or not and I have no idea how you concluded that as a "fact"...? Would love an explanation for that one. I don't see anything in the game designs that would encourage meters and minmaxing...? Not if I don't want to...?
These designs, thanks to the 64 possible builds, with EVERY WEAPON PLAYABLE BY ALL, and 2 different combat systems, is actually trying to do the exact opposite. Giving out so many possibilities, that the meters will become somewhat useless, even if present (for a while, before being banned anyway).
There is absolutely 0 reason, point, sense, anything in trying to implement something that doesn't belong in game, when it is not needed.
Prove me wrong and we can continue this pointless debate with no conclusion anyway.
This should be aimed at a few people on both sides of the discussion.
I completely agree.
However, those players that will continue to use trackers are the players that my suggestion is aimed at. They are people in top end PvE guilds - the kind of people that would value the knowledge they can glean from a combat tracker over actual in game advantage. To be clear, I played GW2 for around 6 months, beginning at launch.
I was not there when they changed their mind on combat trackers, nor do I have first hand knowledge of the effects they had on the game before and after that change of mind.
It was bought up first in this thread by another poster, and so I looked in to it for a good many hours - reading both their official forums, and Reddit, as well as a few other things.
The general community had no real reason to know that about 20% of the playerbase were using combat trackers, and ArenaNet had no real way of knowing who was using one either.
What did happen though, is that essentially two metas formed. People that had no connection to combat trackers had one meta based on assumptions, and people with combat tracker connections had a meta based on facts.
Both groups had a meta, and both groups felt compelled to stick to that meta (well, other than the people that specifically don't stick to a games meta), but one was objectively right, and one was objectively wrong. People using the non-tracker method often couldn't understand why they would come up against "off builds" according to the meta that they assume is the only one, and get completely dominated.
The reason these two metas didn't mix is because "combat trackers were against the rules", and so people using them only talked about it with people they trusted. I never told anyone that I had used a combat tracker in GW2 until this thread - as it was against the rules the entire time I played the game.
When trackers were indeed allowed in that game, there was no sudden increase in toxicity like everyone assumes has to be the case. All that happened is the fact based meta supplanted the assumption based meta, and people that defended that assumption based meta looked a little bit foolish.
There are other things that people wrongly blame on combat traackers that happened in GW2 about the same time (such as an increased focus on top end PvE content), but it is not hard to find places where ArenaNet said they wanted to increase their focus on top end PvE content well before all of that happened, so I am not sure what these people are smoking. Yeah, the idea that combat trackers will not exist is not a possibility.
Even Steven has only said they think they have prevented most avenues for combat trackers to work. He has also not said that they will be against the rules, by the way - even if that does change and it is against the rules, it is still worth noting that right now, that has not been stated nor even suggested.
As to why they will exist - all you need to do is look at the plans for Ashes in regards to PvE, and you will see that top end PvE guilds will be more determined to have a combat tracker in Ashes than in any other game.
A game like WoW (or EQ, EQ2, GW, GW2, FFXI, FFXIV, Rift, DDO, WAR, etc) provides you with an encounter. You kill the encounter, you get the loot. You don't kill the encounter, you don't get the loot.
In Ashes, the loot you get is not only based on if you kill the encounter or not, but on how well you kill the encounter, or how well you do on the encounters previously.
There is an actual material (in game material, but still) reason to want to know how your raid is performing in what ever metric Intrepid decide to place importance on - something other games do not have.
This means that the argument that many have put forward of "if the target dies, you know you did things well" simply doesn't hold true in Ashes - even *if* it held true in other games. Here, it isn't a case of if you kill it or not, it is a case of how well you kill it.
So yes, there will be combat trackers in Ashes. I see no reason to pretend otherwise, nor to entertain discussion as to that effect. To me, such discussion is akin to discussion as to why the water doesn't fall off the side of the earth if we made the assumption that the earth is flat - the discussion is equally pointless.
They may exist in the same way as they did in GW2 - outlined above - but in my view that would be to the detriment to the average player, not to their benefit.
If combat trackers not allowed to be discussed, the meta that will form will be based on assumptions. If they are allowed to be discussed, the meta that will form can then form from facts.
In both cases, the average player will see that meta and either follow it or not follow it as they see fit. They will not have any idea where that meta came from, nor do they need to know - they just need to either follow it if that is what they want to do, or not follow it if that is what they want to do.
@Xenotor You realize this thread is a merge of threads that have been alive for 14 months longer than you have been on these forums, right?
I don't recall a time where this thread or one of it's constituent parts was not on the first page.
You are completely right here, though not in the way you think you are.
Combat trackers will exist for Ashes. You may not see them, you may not hear about them, you may even think they do not exist - but they will.
If you are in a guild that has opted to take an actual in game advantage instead of picking the combat tracker as the guild perk, then people can pressure you all they like - you simply won't have access to a combat tracker. In fact, neither will most of those other players.
The only people that will have a combat tracker are the people that are dedicated to killing the hardest content in the game.
On the other hand, if third party combat trackers are the defacto, then people can and will pressure you in to using one, and you won't beable to say that you don't have access. It may turn out that they are against the rules - though that is not the case yet and so suggesting that is an assumption right now.
With the most likely outcome being that they are not supported but not specifically actionable against, then if you are one of the people that could be pressured in to using one, you will be.
As I said earlier, this would put you as one of the main people I am in this fight for, ironically.
I believe that you should not be forced in to using a combat tracker if you do not wish to use one, and I also believe people should not have others track their combat at will.
There is only one way to achieve these things. You are right in that it is not a fair comparison.
All of those other games reward guilds for killing encounters, Ashes will reward them based on how well they kill them. As such, there is more of a reason for a combat tracker to be used in Ashes than there is in those other games - even though all of those other games have large portions of the population using combat trackers.
Again, combat trackers will exist, probably before you even get access to the game.
Top end guilds have more of a reason to have them in this game than they do in any other game - and top end guilds are the force that drives these things.
Other than saying "I don't want it because I don't want it", you have not said why it is that you do not want a combat tracker as a guild perk based on the outline I directed you to previously. I am unsure as to how that existing in a game could negatively impact on your experience in game.
It is people that have provided reasons as to why this would be the case that shaped that suggestion in the first place - and so maybe if you can say why that would negatively impact on you playing the game, we could alter it so that it does not - but in order to do that, we would need to know why it is that you think it would impact negatively on you - not just taht you don't want it because you don't want it.
So if the best way to master this game is to actually look through numbers to figure out what combination of the ingame customization is best for each situation. If you don't want numbers then the game should not show you any numbers, but it does and then we should not be able to measure those numbers? Here: Based on how well you do, meaning how fast you can deal the required amount of damage while keeping the benchmark mechanics and coordination you get more or less rewards. With this reward structure will everyone that knows how to correctly use meters tell you that they are a tremendous help especially because you do not have to try things blindly. Boasting for being 1st on the meter and showing superiority over this is totally degenerate. From experience I can tell you that being top dps just makes me eager to help others that are lower in any way - you know how raid teams should work - lifting themselves up More customization always means that there are more ways to customize in bad way. I am excited about this, but at the same time worry for the sanity of the balance team. There will always be the best setup for single situations - no getting around that. We will see what we will be working with in the coming alpha versions. This is absolutely NOT TRUE! When the whole reward structure is based with loose factor and even scaling factor with how "well" you played then there is automatically a big drive for doing things that help you play better - meters being one of them. I am mostly gameplay focused player. Not that I do not appreciate these topics, but I do not bring much to these topics, because they simply do not interest me. I can of course talk about mount balance and the overall travel system in the game, but honestly I do not care on the way you can breed mounts. I gladly read through such topics if I have time, but I do not think that my opinion has a valid input, because these parts are just not for me in the game
― Plato
My inner nerd loves them ... in use it can suck the fun out of a game fast
Even if you were the only one to see it ... it’s irrelevant... the damage is still done that harms the game ... that’s the meta is created practically overnight ... then distributed around websites ... then if you are not specced into the meta build becuase of the 1 percent extra dps on a build you hate you are excluded raid or dungeon or guild even because the 1 percent less dps build you love playing even though the encounter is finished with both builds. Is not the meta and considered “dumb to play “ and “not pulling your weight” etc etc ... ad nauseam .. meta gaming is so bad and sucks the life out of games quickly ... to the point they are not fun for more paying customers than the meta gaming crowds cognitive dissonance will never allow them to see
Meta is created by 2 factors - does the game have loose factor, does the game reward better play by faster completion and/or better rewards? - meters never create meta, they just aim the meta in better.
Meters are just a scope on a weapon, weapons are fired even without them
― Plato
My thoughts on this are that I can't see how it matters.
A meta is going to exist. I don't think you doubt that. It will exist in beta, which I also don't think you will doubt. I'm not sure a combat tracker will speed this up.
To people that just follow the meta, there is no real need to think of if that meta was made using a combat tracker or not.
Where a combat tracker will be useful is in the continued meta - when there are a handful of popular builds, and people want to create builds to take on more of those builds - or specific builds that they are weak to - then combat trackers become an unvaluable tool.
In this regard, at this point, it absolutely will speed things up - but isn't that a good thing?