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 still remember Jeff practically cringing when Steven went on a rant about combat trackers and toxicity
Information is never the root toxicity. A game in which players are disposal is the root of toxicity.
Edit:
I found it and I had to laugh
However I understand the Iron man style trial and error, but I disagree that you need to hide information from players for them to enjoy raiding. For me raiding was always a group of people working together to overcome a challenge. Not to waste time in figuring out what doesnt work and guesswork what might be killing people
Edit2:
Plus there is difference if you Iron man solo or Iron man as 40+ people on raidnights
― Plato
Servers will not be the same everywhere to my understanding, so finding the trick to one will be less advantageous to other servers. AI will hopefully change, therefore your meta should change, yea? I hope for a changing set of scenarios for bosses, so finding the perfect meta for one boss will or could be the opposite hard counter to the next boss. This will express a need for players to be versatile based on circumstances happening atm rather then what happened before.
or not~ wouldn't surprise me. At work i start doing something one way just to get it done, just to find out the plan has changed. life goes on either way
I am at the conclusion that the pro DPS meter people just don't know what they are talking about. They don't want to provide an actual viable feedback they just trying to force the game into a bad direction. It's pretty obvious they don't have any actual points when they attack other members on the forums instead of bringing up actual points. When your argument becomes something other than the issue at hand then you have lost the argument.
DPS meters being in the game in any possible way at all is the method that forces others to play in that way. The entire basis of the anti dps meter crowd is they don't want to deal with the negatives of them being in the game. Having a choice on the issue does not matter because it is not an issue where having the option to turn it off or on can be a fix. The neutral state a game is in is without the dps meters that is fair to everyone. That is why they want it that way.
I also don't think a basis on what other games do is fair or valid criticism because the game's not out yet. You can't use Lineage 2, WoW, Archeage or any other mmo as a comparison because they are not the same type of game. The only thing those games have in common with what this game is going to be is they are MMO's. Which tells you nothing about how the game is going to play.
Most MMO's fail so I don't see how you could even make an argument about it being the norm either. Just as many successful MMO's don't use them as use them.
If you can't see the toxicity behind it as an issue then you are the one who is toxic.
You might as well treat this as the summary because neither side is going to back down. It's a deadlock.
U.S. East
You claim objective information inherently causes toxicity. Explain how. How does knowing who needs help inherently mean the primary way people will respond is to get rid of them? The only reason communities lean toward removal over assistance is how easy it is to replace someone, and how few consequences come from kicking them, like in WoW.
In games where community is important, where players can attack your guild just because they don’t like you, who’s really going to be willing to present themselves as toxic?
It’s absolutely baffling that Steven would think information is going to suddenly make players toxic when the basic game systems are built on destroying and stealing other people’s stuff to grow your own.
Edit: The “I don’t wanna have to play a certain way” argument is bunk anyway, as those people shouldn’t be trying to get into groups that have very high standards. No one is required to play a certain way, but they are most definitely not entitled to complete all content, nor are they entitled to waste other players time.
There is not much to add to your post, you summarized everything a lot of people have been saying.
I mentioned this as well in the past that having one indirectly forces it on people. What many forget is that ... if you introduce a meter at launch it is difficult to remove it as people will take it for granted. By not adding this, the only thing you got to take care of as a community or studio is saying NO thx, but feel free to play the game and have fun.
Hardcore players will search and find hardcore guilds.
Casual players will find casuals guilds.
No need for sorting out no one!
DPS meters information should only be available for developers so they can decide if a class is to buff or to nerf. But you hardcore player probably don't like that, don't you? You just want to take the world first clear for yourself and probably you're also a wow player but the wow forums and the game itself feels dead and you also watched the "10'000 hour mage" video from pint and felt disgusted but at the same time sexually excited.
Ah i lost track where was I?
The most things I read are: Can't pull their weight, mediocre dmg, sorting out.
Are you all playing classic wow or what? Like standing in the same spot for the entire boss fight and pressing 1 to cast frostbolt aren't gonna be the mechanics of this game. (I hope so)
Position changing, dodging, dynamic surroundings, spawns, luck.. this things matter much more!
Just imagine your necromancer is unlucky and always attacked by random spawns and then he also has to move because the floor changed. He will never do the dmg he "should".
With so many people how can the raid leader really see that. He will just read the dps meter and sort him out and search for another necromancer that can "pUlL hIs WeIgHt"
Another example: A player build his class for high mobility and it helps him dodge some spawning traps on the floor faster. He gets faster to do his dps. Now another class or another build did more dps because he could cast freely out of luck but has low mobility. So you will find situations where some classes are more stable for raiding, not because of the dps, but because they die less. But thats another statistic. Nothing to do with dps. Take a Mage fighter and you will clear in average 10 minutes faster, but has 30 % chance of failing to do that dmg because of his lack of mobility.
Now with a ranger the clear is slower but the success rate is much higher. Now make the math.
Really that kind of server cross data can only the developers get so they should be the one tasked with "sorting out" but i mean like buffing or nerfing.
Having said that... I also accept that my examples may not be perfect, for some of you even totally out of context, maybe, maybe not, my english is also limited like my braincells.
But now imagine this:
If you're a guild leader and you set a time in a week to raid, and the player always show up, is in a good mood, is not toxic, just a chill person, he even sends sometimes photos of his son that had his 5 birthday in the discord guild chat, socializes.. I mean that person is a real treasure and I don't give a quack if he can "pUlL hIs WeIgHt" or not, i will carry his ass and get him better gear if it has to be, but this dude is gonna stay.
You're all traumatized from wow dudes... really. Relax. Im really sorry if someone found this offensive i really didn't meant to, but at the same time i did. Mixed feelings about this topic. The gains are too small for the losses it carries with it. Karfunkel Out. (mic drop)
If the game does not have combat trackers, players are not going to want to deviate from the established meta - one that will be established during beta.
The absolute most that could happen is that raids may insist that some players of some classes have some specific abilities - which would then make those abilities a part of that class' meta.
In order for guilds to be willing to run different class builds on different encounters, and in order for there to be a different meta on different servers, players need to have information to know that what they are doing is actually the best thing for their situation. Without that information, players and guilds will not want to risk the potential of running a build that is actually worse than what everyone else is running - they will simply stick to the meta.
That data - data that is absolutely required in order for the game to have a varied meta - will only ever be available to players if combat trackers are available to players.
With combat trackers, there will be peopel that post builds that are generally good, but then others will come along with alterations to that build based on specific cirsumstance that your server, node or guild may find themselves in, with numbers backing them up.
Without combat trackers, people will post builds they think are generally good, and that is about all that will happen.
You are the person that came in to this thread with a pre-formed opinion, and then blatantly lied in order to try and back that opinion up.
That is not good "feedback", nor is it a place discussion or debate can be furthered on from. I'd like to reference this specific quote; and suggest to you that if you feel there is not good debate and discussion around your posts, that is likely due to the inherent dishonest nature of your previous posts in this thread. It is not a reflection on the thread in general. If a given player does not have access to combat trackers, and no player has the ability to use a combat tracker on that player, then that player experiences zero impact from combat trackers.
The only potential argument is "but people will say what the best builds are and people will be expected to follow them".
This is actually a very true argument, the problem is, it is a fact that will hold true with or without combat trackers.
Both GW2 and Archeage had no combat trackers when each game launched. Both had them before long, but the use of them was slow to pick up.
This meant that the meta of both games was formed without combat trackers - and in both games that meta was formed during beta.
Once the game went live, players that felt the need to do what others thought was best had that meta to follow, and players that didn't feel the need to do what others thought was best did what ever they wanted. When GW2 got combat trackers, people realized the meta was wrong, it was altered, and then the players that felt the need to do what others thought was best had that new meta to follow, and players that didn't feel the need to do what others thought was best did what ever they wanted.
The only thing that a combat tracker would do is make it so that initial meta is slightly better. Players will still either follow the existing meta because they want to, or not follow the existing meta because they don't want to.
Again, a combat tracker has no bearing on this.
If this is not what you are talking about when you say that the existance of a combat tracker that only some people have access to and that only allows tracking of their guild mates will still force all players to play "in that way", then by all means, correct me as to what it is you are saying.
Alterantively, you could cower and run off for a week or two again, like last time, then come back and make completely baseless conjecture that some people don't know what they are talking about, when really all that is going on is you are too scared to actually discuss the topic for fear of being proven both wrong, and lacking in knowledge on the topic. I agree that you can't compare it to any one game.
You can, however, look at all games (more than what you have listed), look at a number of systems, look at the effects those systems had on the game and on the player based, and come to some fairly obvious conclusions in regards to how Ashes will fare.
WoW and Archeage both have very toxic communities. They are also both games in which players are able to treat others like dirt and get away with it. There is a clear connection here (one that has been studied at length for over a hundred years as a general principle - though obviously not all related to computer games).
This is a connection that absolutely can and should be drawn. Not making that connection is asinine in regards to discussing an MMO, let alone developing one.
As a final point - I don't want Steven to listen to me, nor do I want him to listen to you.
I want Steven to listen to the years of experience he has hired to help him make the game. Right now, he is clearly either ignoring that experience, or has created a work environment similar to that of Ellen DeGenerous - where people are afraid to speak up unless they know it is what the boss wants to hear.
It would be amazingly ironic attempting to make a toxicity free game in such a workplace.
Many, many people have said this as if it is a fact, but no one has yet to be able to tell me exactly how players that have no access to a combat tracker, and in a situation where no other player can use a combat tracker on them, will be indirectly forced to use a combat tracker against their will.
You are one of the few people in this thread that are against combat trackers that I believe would be willing to attempt to answer this very basic question.
So honestly, I hope you will attempt it.
I think that the dps meter is necessary in many cases ... it's important to know your effects and the results of your hard work
So the dps meter it's just for the single character ... then you can share it with your team if you like to.
I would like to implement a feature that allows a player to see the dps meter of another character by just selecting him or using a skill that checks the dps output of the player. But in raid you cannot do that while fighting xD i think this will add much more dept in the game.
If you recruit a player you must first play with him .. to ensure his skills ... and then you can carry him into the raid , with the best of the best. This will help making good groups a lot , and have fun ... without any bad surprise.
While it is a good idea in general, the issue with it is that if there is a way to share your combat tracker with others, groups and pick up raids will require this to be the case - meaning it is no longer an option to share - the only option is to do content or not do content.
That is why the suggestion I have been promoting for all but one page of this thread is to have a combat tracker that is an optional guild perk (that only top end PvE guilds would take) and that is automatically shared within your guild - but can not ever be shared outside of your guild.
This would mean that only guilds running top end content would have access to a tracker, and people not in such a guild would never be able to track anyone else, be tracked by anyone else, or ask others to share that data, as most players simply wouldn't have it, and those that do are unlikely to raid outside of their guild anyway.
This also means that when guilds are recruiting a player, they are unable to use a combat tracker on him. They can run content with potential new recruits to make sure they are not just generally idiots, but until the person is invited in to the guild, they can't use a combat tracker on them. Additionally, since that new recruit has never had a change to use a combat tracker themselves until joining that guild, this new recruit will obviously have some fine tuning to do in order to be at their highest level of performance.
This will mean that guilds will have to take on at least a partial role in providing training to these new recruits - which I personally think is a fantastic way for a game to be.
No, they're not necessary. In my experience you can finish a hardcore raid just fine when you're a good player. When I say good player I mean be calculating, be observant, be attentive. If you have that you can easily figure your class out and how you best play it. If not... Then maybe raiding is not for you.
I also think figuring out your class and how to play it perfectly is part of the fun. And if you played the game long enough you should know how much dmg you SHOULD be doing.
But despite all that, we don't even know how hard raids are gonna be. If they're really too hard you can always cry for a dps meter later on. I feel like all the people crying for it NOW just want to be lazy with their class so they can focus on other stuff
My experience with dps meters is also a decent amount of "look at that bard doing no dmg, let's kick him"
But maybe I just haven't really played that many mmos long enough to know what I'm talking about. I'm just speaking from my personal raid experience but raids are different in difficulty for every game ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌
I really don't want to beat a dead horse.
Why is there an invisible wall suddenly stopping players from altering a base build if they don't have access to a damage meter?
Sure, i usually run a spec for my caster type universally across the board, for longevity, cc and sustainability; but when and if that doesn't work(say to burst damage), i slowly alter my skills accordingly to how i have failed. Yes, this does take trial and error but i eventually usually find a niche to play in.
I look forward to your reply; after, i take my son back to his mama tomorrow.
The reason this thread is still going for 15 months is because I am always going to be willing to engage people in conversation on it if they are actually willing to discuss the topic - which you clearly are Once a meta is created, people will stick to it because it works.
Even you are saying that if a thing is working, you won't change it.
Once that meta is in place, Intrepid will find that people are simply not willing to diverge at all from that meta - because they know it works. This also means that most people will not be willing to diverge from that meta even if the content is suggesting to them that they should.
The most people will be willing to do in terms of diverging from an established meta in a game with solid PvP that contains real consequence is alter one or two abilities in order to deal with very specific situations. People will tell Intrepid their content is broken and needs to be fixed before they will be willing to deviate from that established meta - unless there is a way that people can objectively assess new builds before taking them out in to the world where that PvP with those consequences will find them.
Naturally, I am not going to say this is the case without having and example of it. That example is Archeage - a game that still has the same meta it had when the Korean version went live over seven years ago. The meta was formed in beta, and is exactly the same today as it was then, and the developers are now in a position where they are unable to alter the builds that people run because people will leave the game if their build is suddenly not viable.
Now, it is easy to argue that some of this is based on gear - and in part that is true. Thing is, people are not willing to alter a build in that game, let alone change class. Altering a build doesn't alter the gear you want to be running, generally speaking.
Now, I want Ashes to have a PvP meta that is cycling and morphing all the time, and is different on all servers. That will only ever happen if players are able to quickly come up with and then assess builds - which can only be done with a combat tracker.
Hi Noaani, I was referring to an earlier discussion I had with someone who wanted trackers to be available to the public and reflect all information. This wasn't clear in my reply, was late hihi.
While you know my stance, I do think that coming halfway is not a bad thing aka the guild perk.
No matter the outcome the majority of people that are part of discussion seem really nice no matter their opinion. I hope all will play the game
The thing is, such a tool is absolutely inevitable in the absence of a first party tool. Even Steven didn't say that they will try and keep one out - only that they think they have cut off most avenues by which one could exist. When you look at that statement, that is a fairly clear indication that they know full well there will still be ways in which a combat tracker can be enabled.
In all honesty, I wouldn't be that surprised if someone actually working at Intrepid made one at some point - as there is literally no doubt that at least one senior person working there disagrees with Steven in this regard, and I have little doubt there will be many more.
This is why I am still fighting for a first party tracker. It is literally the only means available to us to get a tracker with any limitations at all - and so is exactly what every player that doesn't want to be forced to play a specific way should be arguing for as hard or harder than I am.
This is the frustrating thing. I am personally fine with one that is freely available to all - which is what will happen if there is no first party tracker. I am arguing my point because it is fairly obvious that a first party tracker is absolutely the best option for the game as a whole, even if not what *I* specifically want - yet literally all of the people I am debating with are the people that are actually going to be best served if what I am arguing for is what is eventually implemented.
Basically, I am arguing with the people I am trying to help.
I would love it if Steven opened up a poll similar to the multiboxing poll he did (a poll by anyone other than him is meaningless).
However, the poll needs to only contain the two possible outcomes.
Either Intrepid implement a first party combat tracker with restrictions;
Or
Intrepid leave combat trackers to third parties with no restrictions at all - whether permitted in the rules or not.
Let's see the results of that poll.
― Plato
So in order for a serious group of people or anyone that is interested in improving any aspect of their play in terms of raw output you need data and in order for you to get that data you need meters. Without meters, you dont have any hard data and without hard data you can't implement new strategies and changes that may improve your play.
These are tools that competitive players need in order to improve and for those that don't want to be engaged in that ordeal I understand its annoying to deal with one or two toxic players, but in the case you have to pug something and that happens I'm sure its rare. A well designed game should have all styles of play viable, but there are people that strive to be not only viable but optimal and players like those need tools to accomplish that.
Unfortunately, without meters or some kind of data it'll be really hard to convince my GM to play the game. He needs data to determine how to do more damage to a world boss as that determines who gets the loot. Or how efficiently we can clear a node/raid etc. Theorycrafting is a really fun part of the game and in order to theorycraft you need numbers.
I mean overwatch doesnt really have proper kda and its the most toxic game that I still play. Instead of people calling each other out based on factual information, you have people calling each other out on false preconceptions. Its fucking awful because its just a terrible yelling match.
You absolutely need meters and I dont think its fair to remove such an essential tool in any competitive rpg especially so when the main driving force against meters is that abrasive players ill-perceive statistics and use them against others. That's the responsibility of that individual player being a jerk and reducing the quality of the game because jerks exist is a futile effort. All this is going to do is make it more difficult for data to be culled for the game, it'll be just slower and inconvenient. Whats worse is that it'll reflect poorly on the game's values as people that want to measure their performance dont see the game meeting those needs.
When you condemn meters, but still advocate for competitive gameplay you're obfuscating information that can be used to improve performance. Data is a powerful tool and how people misappropriate data isnt data's fault.
Like I am genuinely confused for arguments like these. People do not work like this. No one is going to have an open debate on who to blame without factual information. When you start making decisions without data you are making decisions based on false pretenses. When you argue on false pretenses you'll have a myriad of heated arguments because no one agrees with the premise of anyone's argument. You can't make deductive or reductive claims because the basis of those claims do not exist to reference any sort oof objectively.
― Plato
― Plato
Are you questioning someone's background? How long you been around? Chances are, you haven't experienced half the games he has. It's mentality like this, and why your not getting your way.
As quoted, previously, Steven does not want add ons or dps meters. His game and money. Don't like it, doors right there. You have many choices, of games, that have meters, go play them.
I hate add ons. Nothing like being required to download an add-on to kill some boss, and find out it's obsolete because of the latest patch, and hasn't been updated.
I hate DPS meters. If I spill my drink on my keyboard, or go into some sneezing fit while we are raid, my DPS might collapse and I get kicked. This happens.
Go check the "parse logs", fine. If my damage was so relevant, do some research, take the time. You don't need an online calculator telling me when to push a button and how. Especially one that says "boot", because i was under par. Maybe I was busy doing crowd control, while you were pew pewing. How does that compute?
Give it up, man. The creator gods have spoken. Here is some Provolone to go with your Chardonnay.
I personally like DPS-meters, for self-improvement, not to find out the weak link in a party or something.
That being said, I really don't give a f*ck in the end if get it or not. It's not THAT important, and especially 2-3 years before launch.
Why not focus on aspects of the game that actually makes or breaks it, like combat etc. and leave this for later...
It's also a very different type of MMORPG compared to what most are used to in WoW, FFXIV etc. etc. so it might not even be that useful in the end, and we can't compare our experiences in the games like that always. That's a mistake I make myself sometimes, but we all have to take that into consideration.
Am I wrong or you raid purely with random pugs - and please dont say you raid LFR in wow. If your guild kicks you for literally this reason then you should look for better people to play with. This game should NEVER be focused on protecting solo players not getting butthurt when grouping with random players.
When you don't like the group you are in, find another. MMO's have always been about finding likeminded people to have fun with.
― Plato
I agree with the love hate thing when it comes to some type of DPS meter. I believe the solution is to let the fan base create a DPS meter as an overlay to the game. Something that does not interfere with the coding.
I'm a Hardcore Raiding PvPer. Do I really need to post my resume?
It’s nothing like the gun debate. Guns have one use: injuring other people.
Combat trackers are more like the census. Yes some politicians use the information in corrupt ways, but the data is not the reason they behave that way.
If you have DPS meter you will make BIS gear/talents tree etc. People who want to play the spec they want, because spells look cool, et they wont be able because they will be forced to play one specific spec which has MAX DPS MAX Tanking MAX healing.
So no. I'm totally against DPS addons or anything simillar to that.