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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
I agree with you so much.
What kind of excuse is "people will watch dps meter during an encounter"? Those people should quit. In WoW mediocre people just spam 2-4 abilities of any class in a rotation, get average dps and consider themselves good enough cuz addons do all the thinking for them, meanwhile they are staring at the dps meter. So should players who want to improve stunt themselves because of in general mediocrity?
I quit WoW because of addons, but not giving something necessary like a combat meter just encourages people who want to go extra mile to go and somehow build a 3rd party combat tracker for themselves.
I personally dont mind the absence of combat tracker...much because I have faith that I will do well regardless. But I have yet to read a valid reason for not implementing combat tracker other then:
1. People are dumb.
2. People are toxic. So, lets blame the gun.
But that is the case either way.
Now, lets say combat tracker is not provided by Intrepid. Somehow, someone will build one though because combat logs will be available to players. BUT this way Intrepid cannot navigate the do's and dont's of how and what a combat tracker should do.
Combat tracker does not introduce negative aspects. No combat tracker definitely will.
Either way, there is still 2+ years till the game releases and even then, combat tracker wont be needed for at least the first couple of months at least.
And again this is under the assumption that raids are not going to have uncapped amount of raiders in them. Because it doesnt matter that the maximum raid size is 40 if you can bring any number of raid groups in there.
Not the smartest solution is to have enrage mechanics for every boss to deal massive aoe damage to everyone if the number of players is above 40. Which in turn creates a bad dynamic for griefers to hold bosses hostage, because every attempt is ruined by the (rogue archetype is best for this) griefers. The solution would be to have ingame barriers raised up on the boss pull, but still I think there is not much info on how the raiding will look like and how much room they will leave for exploitation.
― Plato
Although I have no idea what "hold bosses hostage" is referring to. Are you referring to 'tricks of the trade'?
Tbh I was part of pretty awesome guilds in WoW and quit because life happened. Ironically my favourite class/archetype is rogue.
We had a friendly guild of family people enjoying a game. Everybody had fun and we laughed, when we wiped at some group content. At one point one player discovered a dps meter and started to crossread forums and fanpages to get a better score. He wrote and talked about it to other players and devided the guild fast. Half the players got more interested in numbers than in enjoyable company. The guilds whole demeanor changed in a small amount of time. The friendly guild of family people was no more. Some got bored, the rest looked for raid guilds.
It all started with counting the dps. The value of the company shifted from funny/reliable to 'who has the biggest' That was negative.
So these are valid excuses, but concern for the negative impact on the meta and viable player choices is not?
I dont think Ive seen anybody say those things implicitly, but rather a crutch like dps meters emables people to be lazy, stupid, and the inappropriately over-encompassing "toxic".
A lot of MMO players are us boomers with jobs. 3 hours is actually a long play session for a dad.
And I have a hard time believing you want no adversity from end game PvE, or that youd achieve just from having some numbers validating your class selection.
Why are you blaming meters when that guy started to look for meta and introduced meta gaming to your guild? If meters didnt exist that same guy would have done the same and instead of showing you numbers he would start meta gaming blaming people for not playing meta builds.
I beg you to stop blaming objective information for people actions. That guy literally was somehow inspired to play better builds and introduced the same concept to your whole guild. It is not the fault of the meters, this is the fault of people changing their minds if they want to play for fun regardless of the outcome or trying their best to play better.
This is life, people change opinions and their goals. And this can destroy guilds as it did yours.
― Plato
How can objective information have negative impact on the meta? Without objective information the meta is more susceptible to favor builds that are bad and thus the people that will follow the meta will play much worse.
And what you describe as toxic here will happen regardless, because lazy stupid people will most likely blindly follow the meta regardless and the toxic people bragging about dps numbers will use anything that comes to their mind to shove their "elitism" to your face so they can declare they are superior human beings
― Plato
There are going to be people playing the game at various levels regardless of combat trackers, and as soon as some people in a group of friends decide they want to go up a level, this scenario is exactly what will play out.
You may as well blame the content or class build options as much as the combat tracker.
It's not about wanting to win an argument and refusing to compromise, it's just that people assume the general population's experience is similar to their's or their small group of friends/guilds etc. We just have different perceptions of what the average player experiences and the magnitude of the positive vs the negative consequences.
The rest of the post isn't directed at you personally btw :P I just wanted to address that point you made.
Ok so I really freaking hate this stupid "don't blame the tool" argument. You don't provide rocket launchers to people if you don't want to risk them using it. If WoW did not have the ability to view other people's achievements or for them to link it in chat you wouldn't have people asking for achievement links for invites. You don't blame the existence of achievements but if you're a game developer that saw this you can very well decide fuck giving people the ability to view or link them because I don't want that outcome. There are a number of ways tools can be used, if you deem some to be too dangerous you fucking ban the tool, that's why all of the civilized world has banned civilians from owning automatic weapons (I wish I could say semi-automatic too haha). So stop with this dumb argument, yes people will still be toxic but you can curb their ability to impact the community with toxicity by controlling how the toxicity can manifest via what tools they have at their disposal. I bet most people would prefer if there wasn't in-game voice chat outside of parties especially after the NW experience where people just blast loud noises and are hard to mute, you don't blame tools but if you gave them the fucking tool, you expect that outcome... so to avoid it, you can not give them the tool.
In terms of cutting down raid time by giving people a tool to make it more efficient/easier to track what went wrong and improve chances of downing bosses... well that's a fancy way of asking for content to be easier. If you don't want to spend 8 hours doing raid content then don't do that raid. Some raids will be harder and require more effort to get right, with or without a tracker. If you have a restricted schedule, you can't really demand the game be built for you in mind (well you can, but only to a certain extent). If people also complain that they want to achieve flying mounts with 8 hour a week schedule it would also not really make sense. It's not like content will be unbeatable without combat trackers, it is a luxury that makes things more efficient, and we already know content will get more difficult if you perform better so even if you don't perform combat tracker optimized level of good, you can still down bosses but with less loot and prestige perhaps (until you get good and don't need the tracker to optimize your performance). People just have to learn to get good without them, I repeat: it is a luxury not a necessity. There was also some suggestion in an older post that if we have combat trackers they can justifiably implement harder bosses/raids... equally dumb argument because well without the tracker you can still make stuff harder and complicated, it would just be even harder to beat, so in actuality the lack of a tracker is in fact a way to increase difficulty so it's a nonsensical argument.
In terms of the "it helps find bugs" argument. Yeah I mean this one is valid but I think it is grossly over-emphasized. You are not going to be catching 10 bugs a month as a community with combat trackers. Path of exile has no combat tracker and no real way to measure DPS/double check certain things with buffs/resistances etc and I think in the past 3 years I recall maybe 4 instances where they caught bugs where tooltip numbers were wrong/not correctly applied. You just have to trust the developers and QA who have access to this data. PoE is actually a great example of a game where people can get super hardcore and pull out the big spreadsheets or just play and make decisions based on what feels good/efficient intuitively (via trial and error). Again, this is valid argument, I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm saying it's not that big of a freaking deal, you won't find bugs that break the game because if it did, it wouldn't need a combat tracker to find... only subtle bugs will be obscured this way.
Some people propose making combat trackers a guild perk or w.e, but if it is available people will feel obligated to use it as a heuristic. Similar to the achievement linking system in WoW, nobody forced anyone to use achievements to be a basis of party/guild invites but the official sanctioning of linking achievements made it an easy method to adopt. If we don't have an official combat tracker sanctioned by Intrepid, then you can't reasonably ask people for DPS numbers even if a third party tool exists. In all honesty, the more I read, the more I think some third party app for all those who think they can't clear content without it would be best. Just don't officially allow it in game because it will become widely adopted as an easy to use heuristic.
I think you folks need to trust in your own skills and abilities a bit more (you will do just fine without a combat tracker) and accept that this game has some more "hardcore" components and maybe think of the lack of combat tracker as one of them to help accept its absence. Yeah it would also save time for a gamer dad if the game had teleportation to anywhere you want, but it doesn't, why don't you complain about that? Yeah the game could be easier to kill bosses if they published all boss behaviors and made an in-game guide for that, so why don't you complain about that? It would surely make raiding more efficient. It is a design decision. Both teleportation and an in game boss guide have positives too, but I don't see many people championing them. I understand this is a slippery slop and design decisions should be based on what is fun, but just saying thinking about it this way may make it easier to accept its absence.
We have exactly one example of a game with PvP content and low combat tracker use.
Archeage.
That games meta is static - it is the same meta in that game now as it was in 2013.
Now, there is some room for an argument that factors other than low combat tracker use have contributed to this - but there is absolutely no doubt that the low use of combat trackers is the single major cause of this.
So, we have an actual example case of what could happen without a combat tracker in Ashes - and it is not good.
Anything else that I have seen people say could happen is just a baseless assumption - it is people saying what they hope the meta will be, and then saying it needs to not have a combat tracker to happen.
So, the question I have for you @Chunks is - what is it that makes you think no combat tracker in Ashes will not only avoid this situation from the *only* example we have, but will actually make the games meta better than it would be with a combat tracker?
From my position, without an answer to this question, people are literally ignoring the only example we have and are just stating what they want to be true. That is not good debate or discussion, which is why Ihave been trying to get an answer to this question for quite a while now.
If you think it will lower player choice, that is again just an assumption. We have no idea how many builds people will decide are viable without a combat tracker, it may well only be one build for each of the 8 classes - there is literally no reason to assume this will not be the case without a combat tracker. If this happens, there is literally no one to take this to in order to get it fixed.
If you are a player that choses to stick with the games meta, only having one acceptable build for your entire archetype would suck.
On the other hand, if the game has a combat tracker, players will find all viable builds - and if there is only 1 viable build per archetype, players have every reason to go to Intrepid and complain about a complete lack of balance.
You have a one dimensional view of what makes a meta "good". Your idea of a "good" meta is a meta that downs end game content with the least amount of effort. My idea of a "good" meta is one that is not incredibly exclusive in the pursuit of epeen damage meter numbers. It can still be a meta, even if the concept of it being more inclusive contradicts our use of the vocabulary. We want to see the meta impact the game in different ways, neither of us is wrong for what we desire.
You have been receiving answers. You are choosing to not necessarily debate but instead defer that any opposing view is just objectively implausible, or delusion, or extremely limited context that in no way would ever happen to Ashes or its' community. This is the reason I stopped answering your replies before. It just felt moot, bro.
I think this sums it up perfectly. You're not right or wrong. I'm not right or wrong. We both have the capacity to be correct here, and I think we both would/will be correct. What we disagree on is if the juice is worth the squeeze (assuming you can agree there is squeeze).
In my eyes, the point can be reduced to very simple gamble. We can !risk! (nothing is certain, so it feels like we need to assume these are equal opportunity) either sacrificing an unknown degree min/maxing or the health of the community, which I'd expect to correlate to the health of the game as a whole.
You're getting answers, homie. And most people on the opposite side of the fence understand and hear what you're asking for and why. We simply don't think there is enough benefit relative to the expectation of the trade-offs that we are concerned with.
I would like a buttery smooth run despite the adversity from raids, I am referring to heroic or mythic kind of raids. But that does not mean that if the raid wipes I would leave my group high and dry.
I dont need numbers to validate my class selection. I will only ever play what I like no matter what any meter says.
Do you realize that instead to answer his question you break it down in order to criticize his motivation behind it and just making a conclusion the debate is pointless and to think the only thing we can do is just blindly not have meters. Because not having information has historically helped so many people.
Also I hate the comparison of meters to a toxicity weapons, yes you can choose to use information as a weapon, but it is not its purpose. I doubt that you will call all educational institutions weapon dealers.
― Plato
What I can say, without any hesitation, is that I don't care if the meta can down end game content - because I and my guild don't follow the meta.
If anything, we help create it.
We will run the builds we want, based on either what players want to be running, or what the content we are taking on requires us to run.
The meta of a game isn't for the top end players - it is for the people that do not want to think of a build for themselves.
That said, I still have an idea of what I consider to be a good meta for a game like Ashes. My idea of a good meta is one that provides players with a wide variety of viable build options - that is all. This is like saying "I don't like mushrooms because I don't like mushrooms". It is restating the point, rather than offering an explanation as to why that is the point being made.
As far as mushrooms go, most people that don't like then actually dislike the texture, not the flavor. If you give most people something made with mushrooms that doesn't have the texture, they enjoy it. When this happens, these people are then able to say they enjoy mushrooms for flavor, but not the texture - actual useful information.
This is what I am trying to get from you.
You think a combat tracker will lead to a rush to max damage - but why do you assume this won't be the case without a combat tracker?
If the encounters people are taking on require nothing more than max damage to take on, the meta will reflect this. The builds that people suggest (which is what a meta is) will all be about max damage. If the content requires something other than max damage, the builds that people suggest will reflect that need.
As such, your desire to have a meta that isn't just about max DPS (one that I agree with - I'd like more variety than that) is more tied to the content the game has than it is to the presence or absence of a combat tracker. The only difference a combat tracker will make to this is that with one, viable builds will be found faster, increasing the number of viable builds for players to pick from.
I've said all of this before, and the responses I have had back were to essentially disregard all if this, as well as disregard the fact that we have an actual example of all of this in Archeage.
What you are saying you want in terms of a meta is all good - everyone wants that (despite your misunderstanding of people like myself). Thing is, getting that is a result of content, not combat trackers. A meta is a reflection of what people want from a build, and what people want from a build is a reflection of what the content asks of players.
Now, let's just completely ignore all of the above, and assume that somehow the presence of a combat tracker magically means people only care about max damage (which honestly sounds like a cool cartoon hero name). This is a complete hypothetical, but we are making the assumption here that you are right, so let's go with it.
In this scenario, where players just want max damage, how exactly would the presence of a combat tracker as per the suggestion I have been making in this thread turn everything in to an epeen contest for that elusive max damage? If it were implemented, the vast majority of people (90%+) simply wouldn't be able to compare their damage output with anyone else, and the few that can are only able to do so within the same guild as themselves. And ion all honesty, a little bit of dick measuring between friends in a guild is perfectly acceptable - and if someone doesn't like that and their guild is doing it, it is a sure sign that they are in the wrong guild.
So even if you are right, and that a combat tracker would lead to this epeening that you so fear (that again, no one wants in regards to pick up content), the suggestion made in this thread still makes that kind of behavior totally impossible.
This is why I am still asking for the reasons as to why you think a combat tracker will negatively impact a games meta - it's like you are neglecting to tell me about some middle step in the process that would completely change everything from the only example of this that we have.
Again, all of this has been gone over, and there has been no response to any of it. All that has been said from people saying they think that a combat tracker will negatively impact the meta is to simply repeat that one statement without actually engaging in any further discussion.
So, as a TL;DR, the basic questions left are;
1, What makes you think not haivng a combat tracker would stop people wanting max damage.
2, Why do you think the meta will be initially shaped by anything other than the requirements of PvE content, followed by counters to the builds that are common in PvE content.
3, Even if this were all true, how would a combat tracker that can only be used within a small number of guilds (and only on members of those guilds) really be considered to be that bad to people outside of those guilds? I agree with this - and I am not saying you don't have a point.
What I am saying is;
Since every game has a combat tracker, the assumption should be made that the balance of good vs bad for having a combat tracker is at least even.
If we can then take some of the negative aspects - or indeed most of the negative aspects - of combat trackers existing in a game and eliminate them based on designing around them, then we can undoubtidly tip that balance well and truely in favor of combat trackers being an overwhelmingly overall good thing for the game as a whole. There *may* still be the occasional negative aspect to them existing, but the balance will be well and truely tipped to them being good.
To further that point, I am saying that literally the only way this can happen is if combat trackers are developed in to the game client directly - and that if this is not done before the game goes to live (or to beta 2, realistically) it will be too late and the option of adding a combat tracker with restrictions will be lost until the next game.
Raid team needs players with brain to understand what the leader wants them to do and what role they are supposed to have and understandably what build should then they be running.
Being rejected into a guild that is not planning to play the game same way you want to is not a bad thing @Rhadek
― Plato
As @Tragnar said above, if you do not want to share your DPS ability with others, don't group with people that would want you to. If someone is that kind of player, chances are there are other things about them that would also cause you to not enjoy grouping with them.
Better off knowing before you are 30 minutes in to a dungeon.
That said, the prevailing suggestion in this thread wouldn't allow for that - as the combat tracker that is being suggested wouldn't be available to the type of player that would be in a pick up group.
You can't realistically ask players to produce numbers for you that they have no way of producing.
That principle is applicable here. Trying to hide performance data by not having an explicit meter for it is destined to be futile. The people who want that data will have it. Unless steps are taken to make the damage data entirely inaccessible to the players, logs will be used to analyse player performance. If needed, there will be enterprising developers willing to screen-scrape data to get what they want. I'm passing no judgement on that activity, merely stating that in a community as focused and dedicated as an MMO community can be, this will happen.
So therefore assuming that there is any means to gather damage data, theorycrafters will discover min-max builds, and some guild leaders will use that information to assess the performance of their members and of prospective candidates. Evaluating members this way is short-sighted and foolish, but short-sighted and foolish is a good description for a significant percentage of the human race.
Alternatively, you can completely foreclose the ability of players to gather information about their performance. No logs at all. Maybe not even floating combat text. That makes it very hard to optimize for your own benefit, and means that ultimately PvE boss tuning can't really take place because the developers are working from compete information while the players are groping in the dark. The boss killed us.. why? *shrug* What can we do to improve our performance on the next pull? *shrug*. Such an environment might be fun for some portion of the playerbase, but is more likely to lead to either frustration with the difficulty of the encounters or alternatively disinterest because the encounters are insufficiently challenging to the most informed.
Damage meters can be abused. Many players in fact use them inappropriately. But in my opinion a high-information environment is almost always superior to a low-information one. If the level of information available exposes shortcomings in the game itself in the form of imbalance, then that's not a problem with providing the information, that's a problem with the underlying systems that need to be addressed.
Ultimately if the argument against a damage meter is that toxic and/or stupid people will abuse it then the solution is to simply not associate with those people. A good guild leader will stamp hard on the abusers in their ranks and those people will either educate themselves or leave, and a bad guild leader... well, perhaps you should consider finding another guild?
The first two questions have already been addressed by Neuroguy and I, repeatedly.
And youre back to asking about combat trackers in the third question in a damage meter thread.
We discussed it with you in the few previous pages. Enjoy, my friend!
Why are many pug leaders reserving loot? Because they have put time into organising it, into getting people together and as such they reserve the right to take bigger cut.
The notion for the game to be all inviting and inclusive is in direct contradiction to risk/reward philosophy.
― Plato
To your first point - can you quote the posts in which you go over *specifically* why you think people will stop wanting to do the most damage they are able to do if combat trackers do not exist. This is a stance I have never heard anyone talk about ever, in regards to any game of any genre, let alone in regard to this game, or even in this thread. If I had read it, I would find the very notion of that stance so intriguing that I wouldn't be able to help myself asking questions about it.
As such, I have to assume I have simply missed where you discussed *specifically* saying you think that people won't care about doing as much damage as they can in a game without a combat tracker, and *why* you think that will be the case.
To your second point - combat tracker is simply a.more appropriate term for "DPS meter". Since any piece of software that functions as a DPS meter can also track literally anything at all that you tell it to, calling it a DPS meter is inaccurate and misleading - the fact that so many people from WoW only know of combat trackers as DPS meters is why so many people assume all they can do is measure DPS.
All a combat tracker does is read a set of data, look for specific text (such as the word "damage"), works out from that line of text the person that made the attack, that was attacked, the type of attack used and the amount of damage done. It then adds that data to what is essentially a spreadsheet.
Alter the initial search to the word "heals" and you completely change what is being looked for, and what is being calculated.
Most combat trackers do all of this, it's just that most people do not realise it. People run them with the default setting - which is obviously DPS, and don't even look to see what else they can do.
So, combat trackers are the proper term for what you call DPS meters, but combat assistants are things like WoWs DBM. I say "like" DBM, but I honestly don't think there are any other combat assistants - I know there are no other games with them.
Now, I can fully understand if you are getting confused between combat tracker and combat assistant, especially of these terms are new to you. That's all good. Just be aware, I am as against a combat assistant as much as anyone you will ever meet in your life - but I am for combat trackers to that exact same degree.
Well written, I can agree with most of the things on this post but the conclusions I draw are a bit different with a slight shift in perspective. If you stop thinking about the "goal" of not having a combat tracker in the game as "keeping the information from people" and start thinking about it as a matter of ease of access/barrier to entry it makes a lot more sense. The toxic behaviors that occur around combat trackers are only possible with low barrier to entry versions of it. Using a single number like a gear score or DPS to summarize a player's skill/ability/performance is lazy but easy. In fact, it is so easy people will use it as a heuristic even if they know it's bad and lazy. I made pugs in WoW where at some points I was like fuck it, I don't want to have to decide between a few people to invite for the last slot, just throw me a number. Not having this information readily available in game, and not being officially sanctioned by Intrepid will make it unreasonable to request it. If I ask for a dps number in such an environment most people would respond not be able to provide me that information, which then in turn forces me to make hard decisions but based on more informed metrics (or still be lazy and roll a dice but in that case the loser of the dice roll doesn't potentially feel personally criticized or w.e because of their character build choices etc).
Most arguments for the combat tracker are provided for raid guilds and optimization/performance arguments (there are meta arguments but frankly I find those to be too fortune-telly and subjective opinion to argue against... AoC will be a very different game with a lot of new mechanics/combinations of mechanics, I think it's premature to predict how metas form). And I think in that respect people need to remember one critical thing: hardcore players who are in raiding guilds that need optimization etc are the minority. Perhaps the same minority that argue on forums months to years before game release.
The main point you make that I just disagree with is the shrugging of why you died. You can always figure out how/why you died with a little bit of effort. Usually it's obvious like you stood in the fire or near the tail of the dragon. Other times it's correlated to the buff you've never seen before popping up on that boss... hmm I wonder what it does! Again, combat trackers are a luxury and the game, raids/dungeons, and bosses will all still be doable without it. I literally can't think of a single boss encounter I've ever done that would not be possible without a combat tracker and I have a lot more fun figuring it out than being told by some tracker. If you think the game may be more frustrating/harder for many without it, yeah that's kind of a design decision. The game is harder without mass teleportation and with a % loss of raw materials on death too, but again, it's a design decision. And quite frankly those who want to make it easier through the use a tracker chasing that world first or w.e are the super super minority and can do w.e they want (which as you point you will likely include making a 3rd party combat tracker) and I say cool w.e to that since it doesn't fuck with the social structure of the game much. I think once you accept how much of the player base is the optimization crazy, first world kill chasing sort of player then you should instead ask those people to find like-minded folks to play with instead of telling the vast majority of players to find like minded people when you provide an easy to use tool to badly misrepresent someone's skill/performance/ability that will inevitably be widely adopted because it is easy and time saving, even if people know it's bad, plus everyone else is doing it so why should I feel bad for doing it too? The point here being that you don't need to be toxic or stupid to end up using a super easy to use system when it is provided, once you give in once to use the easy heuristic, it becomes more and more normal for you and everyone else to use it too (I know tons of cool people who resort to achievements and gear score for pugs because they just don't want to be bothered, I've been guilty of it too and I'm arguing against it).
Don't take this the wrong way, but this behavior right here would see me never group with you, because you are quite clearly and obviously the cause of the toxicity in this situation.
You blame it on the tracker, but it is you.
That is actually probably why you are so against combat trackers - you think they are to blame for the toxicity you cause. I've been playing MMO's for 20 years and literally never seen anyone ask for a DPS number before allowing another player to join a group. If I saw that happen, I would blacklist that player immediately and without question, and that is such a rediculous notion.
Maybe this is the WoW mentality in you, but that kind of thing literally doesn't happen in other games.
To someone that would ask that question though, in Ashes, you will still make that same decision as to who to leave out, but rather than asking for a DPS number, you will ask what class combination they are playing.
You will then make that decision based on a subjective opinion of each class available to you - which is no less toxic a metric to make that decision on.
This is what I have been saying for a year - in regards to toxicity, it is the people, not the tool. Without the tool there will always be another easy/lazy way to make the decision, and lazy/toxic people will always take it.
In this regard, a combat tracker existing or not existing will have no impact on the amount of toxicity in the game. All of this is only true if you know the mechanics of the encounter.
A combat tracker is used to understand the mechanics of the encounter.
I can think of a few dozen.
Games with combat tracker use have encounters designed to be taken on with them. There are aspects to them that are simply not possible without them - such as maintaining raidwide DPS to within a very specific and narrow range - too high or too low and it wipes the raid.
Now, if you were just saying DPS meters (like some people in this thread mistakenly think they are), then I would agree with you. I actually consider a tool that only measures DPS to be completely useless outside of specific cases like encounters with the above mechanic.
A combat tracker though? Indespensible in competitive top end PvE play.
I asked for achievements/gear score not DPS numbers, and no offense but I don't care what you think of me
I've already addressed the "don't blame the tool" argument in my last post, you can reply to that one if you'd like, it should address most of your points... I even tagged you in it I believe.
In terms of a few dozen bosses that are literally impossible without a combat tracker, well I'm inclined to think that is more a reflection of your personal skill level but if that is in fact true that's bad game design that I'd definitely want to avoid in AoC therefore even more reason to leave out combat trackers.
Edit: such a silly argument for you to make btw, if you preach combat trackers being a guild specific perk then how would designing bosses around its use be viable? It's forcing every guild to use it if they want to do certain content removing player agency.
No I meant combat trackers. And exactly. In competitive top end PvE aka a super super minority of the population. You should find like minded players and make a 3rd party combat tracker if it's that crucial, leave the rest of the community free of the heuristic please.
Gear score is stupidly easy to manipulate (equip the item with the highest score, even if it isn't overly suited to you), and achievements are as much about the company a player keeps as they are about that player themself. I'd rather help someone get a new achievement than ask them what they have. I am perfectly happy leaving "the rest of the community free of the heuristic". In fact, that is what I am here arguing for.
That is exactly why I am suggesting putting a combat tracker in to teh game, in a way where only top end players would use it. If this happens, everyone outside of those few guilds would not even need to think about combat trackers - indeed they wouldn't even to be aware that they exist in the game.
If we make one as a third party option - which we will if there isn't one built in - it will be freely available to anyone that wants it. If it is freely available to all, then this game will have the exact same situation as every other MMO's in regards to combat trackers.
This seems to be what you don't want - and is what I am trying to argue to prevent from happening.
I mean, you see perfectly well that top end players will have a combat tracker - and I have to assume you are aware that it is the top end of every game that introduces combat trackers to every game, which then trickles down to the rest of the population.
How is it that you think this will lead to the situation you are after?
I did miss this post (my notifications tray gets quite full sometimes)
I agree, if you give rocket launchers to the general public, you should expect the worst.
On the other hand, if you only allow trained people to have rocket launchers, people that are in a situation where their use may be worthwhile, then yeah, that should be all good. Those people with rocket launchers can then use those rocket launchers resposibly to keep the people without them safe.
However, this isn't a super great analogy for combat trackers, because all combat trackers do is provide information. A better example of this would be the electoral roll. It is information that is freely available to all, even though it is perfectly possible for people to misuse it.
But that is not at all how it will pan out. As you've explicitly mentioned, the use of combat trackers makes content easier and more efficient. So it is no longer a tool for top end guilds, it is an illusory "option" that is almost mandatory to compete at any level because everyone benefits from it. Again, when you provide people an easy option, it becomes a very deliberate choice not to take it and eventually, you will want to take that efficient way out and then it becomes normal, you've opened pandoras box. This is why flying mounts or group finders are hard to walk back. The convenience is now normalized and there will be outrage upon removing it.
A third party option that is officially not allowed (or is not sanctioned at least) will see limited use. I don't have a problem with people using it, again I think it just makes the game easier which I'm not about, but if you want to sure w.e. The issue is the misuse which is the social application of the tool. So a third party combat tracker cannot be openly talked about or advertised, keeping it out of the social part of the game for those not in the top end playerbase.
Also you are fooling yourself if you think that if Interpid puts out a limited or throttled version of a combat tracker then that means suddenly nobody will make a third party one which accomplishes what they want. For example if Intrepid puts one out that only displays party DPS instead of individual, they would go make one that shows individual DPS. The desire to make it is for specific types of information, if that information is not provided, they will make it.
If the use of a third party app is ultimately not allowed or unsanctioned, in a game with no addons, many players will not put in the effort to go seek it out and figure out how to operate it. They will just make do. If someone asked me to use a third party app and paste some picture in discord for an invite, I'm not gonna do it (most people won't and asking for it will be met with general refusal and it won't be picked up by the general population as a normal behavior) but if it's just a click of a button on an already integrated tool, then I mean it's not that big a deal. So no, I don't think it will trickle down even if it exists as a third party app.
Edit: this conversation is taking up too much of my time so I'm gonna bow out. I think ultimately it comes down to providing players with a tool that makes the game easier and more efficient by quantifying in numbers performance in its various forms VS forcing players to make do without it and figure out how to optimize their performance in their own ways. I'm leaving out all the social aspects since we've discussed that to death. But if you want a tool to make the game easier for you because your experience is in other games it was "necessary" to compete then we just disagree. Metas will be ok, so will bug reports, ultimately your argument boils down to making content easier in my eyes.
General group content or low end raid content? Nope.
I'm on record in this thrad as say that I expect there to only ever be one or two encounters at a time where combat trackers will be required, and I stand by that.
EQ2, GW2, FFXIV and Rift (as well as probably many others, but these four I am 100% sure on) all started out either not officially allowing combat trackers or actually officially not allowing them.
All four games have fairly high use of them now.
GW2, specifically, were surprised how many people were using combat trackers when they allowed them to be used. They knew there was some amount of usage among the population, but couldn't track it at all. Turned out, it was a little over 25% of all players were using them while they were a bannable offense.
While not WoW high, that is a very high rate of use for a game where they were actually against the rules.
The two groups I am currently following now that are working on combat trackers for Ashes would stop immediately.
It will be a non-trivial amount of wotk to get the information out of the game. It is an amount of work people are willing to do if the other option is no tracker, but if Intrepid provide a combat tracker that offers basic functionality (which is what my suggestion is allowing - literally the lowest level of functionality acceptable), then they would have no reason to carry on.
Others absolutely may come along in the future and have a go at it, but they will still have that same hurdle of getting the information. I'm absolutely not saying this isn't a possibility.
What I am saying is that it is the only real option to not have a combat tracker that is free to all by release - and if someone does release a third party one eventually, the game will at that point be in the same position it would be on day one if one is not built in to the game client.
This argument is almost like saying "no point even trying to put that fire out, it may well rain tomorrow".
I mean, we are very much talking about a thing that absolutely is going to happen, so there is no harm at all in attempting to make it happen in the best way possible. In fact, it would be irresponsible to not attempt to make it happen in the best way possible.
A guild named: DPS MEGATHREAD needs to exist. They would be a PVP guild that war dec's other guilds as they try to kill internet dragons, and only seige nodes that host dungeons. Everybody would love these guys.
All kidding aside DPS meters should absolutely be in the game but only function when you're purple flagged.
Type /PVP to enable meters.
A few times in this thread I have asked people for suggestions of things guild types that are not too end game PvE focused would want as an option instead of a combat tracker as per the suggestion that has been made - I don't consider myself qualified to answer that question on behalf of guild types I do not generally belong to.
However, a combat tracker that only functions while a combatant could well be a viable PvP option