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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
Nice vid you got there, but let me ask you - if you took out from cata meters and let the game have those vast amounts of teleports to every forgotten corner with instant port into the entrance (as it did have) - would the game still exclude people?
I defenitely think it would, because they would just not invite any spec that resembles a bad performance regardless of reality and the player's capibility.
I honestly heard from you only the want to keep cross-server play out of the game, limit transportation and no teleports. I have not heard a single argument against meters themselves, but everything against player replacibility and targeted exclusion instead of random/hateful one.
― Plato
You kinda lost me sorry?!
Also take into consideration you can award individuals who do very well during a dungeon/raid encounter with better loot. You might even build a community surrounding getting the perfect encounter rating and gear. "Today in Ashes of Creation we are going to get a S rating in the Dark Necropolis dungeon."
This is a thought that can be well expanded upon.
Ok in few words
The bad exclusion you were talking about (ppl kicking others for low dps) is a result of fast travel and crossrealm replacibility. If the meters were not present then the leader would just randomly kick few people that he didnt like or specs he thought were doing less than others.
Information is power that is true, but it is not the fault of said information if it is used maliciously.
Also I don't understand in what way meters make it easier to create builds other than not making you count all damage by hand from combat log.
― Plato
Do you have any prove of that? Because the exclusion has been around since before wow classic where crossrealm was not a thing.
Have you ever counted your damage or healing via combat log? As explained having user friendly access to information that displays a certain type of information allows people to test and theorycraft way easier hence why meta builds in games with dps meters happen faster than in others.
Meters have always been invaluable towards my raid teams to figure out where we should change some details to finally beat the boss we have not yet killed.
The exclusion factor is not a binary problem, you cant solve it by disabling one thing that has negative (kicking lowest dps in meters) and positive effects at the same time (good players playing off meta specs actually performing among the best in group and diversifying the meta by small amount)
I have no problem with limiting the availibility of meters to people that can use them productively, but straight up removing them is not a solution to any of the listed problems
Btw yeah I did count combat log in wow before I found out about meters and since then I have also created many spreadsheets for personal use with the class I was playing
― Plato
Here is a guide for how it's used: Here
With this there's no need to make a visual on screen in-game to display dps. One person can run the log and share the screenshots on discord.
Don't follow their example.
I don't think a game like this should have fights that require perfect rotations to begin with, i'd much rather have fun challenging mechanics than simply a need for perfection with your rotation.
A dps meter shouldn't be in the game as then it will be (by many people) demanded to utilize it to improve. People will figure out ways to measure dps without a meter anyways but then let those few people do that and let the rest of us imagine like we're gods of our class lmao.
This, I agree 100%
And for PVP, it causes 1/3 of your team to ignore objectives to win matches because they are out in the middle of the map beating away on people. They don't care about "winning" only getting top of the DPS chart at the end of the match.
"Dude, look how much damage I did than other players" Yeah, and we still lost.
Even without a tracker, people will work out what builds they like, and the game will develop a meta just as other games do.
The issue not having a combat tracker is that once that meta is established, the average player has no real way to break out of it.
This can be explained with a simply thought experiment. Imagine you are a leader of a pickup raid you expect to take 3 hours. With 40 people, that means you are responsible for 120 player/hours, and obviously you want it to be as successful as you can make it.
Your last spot to be filled up needs a healer, and you have two people to pick from. You don't know either player or their guild, and they both have the same gear. One of them is running a build you are familiar with and have had much success with, and the other is running a build you have never seen.
Since you are responsible for 120 player/hours, you are obviously going to pick what is familiar and know to be good.
This is how a meta will form, people will have good experiences with a given build, and tell others. These builds will then become what people look for, and so will become what people use. If you think you have a better build, without a combat tracker you have no real way to prove this to be the case, and so are trapped with either using the builds that everyone uses, or not getting invited in to groups.
This is true, if the target dies, all is well.
A combat tracker is only of use in getting to that stage.
It is the stupidity we see on FFXIV, while all those kind are forbidden, but they can't ban most of users so tolerate them (we clearly see ACT and automatised call when we watch world first race streaming on ultimate bosses) But if you kick a guy for "not enough DPS" you risk a ban... and if you kick him with saying nothing you are fine.
Theres is even a website where you can upload parsers stats. So some people got some of their parses uploaded without even knowing such program exists.
For this, get it in game, if you want, limit what it allows. And for many people it will be enough, less use of external program with no limit. Players will always find ways to be able to chose to optimise even groups/raids. If you give them tool for this but limit what the tool does, you can limit bad behaviour.
It would create fewer issues than leaving the creation and deployment of such a tool to the community, which is what Intrepid have decided to do.
Personal combat logs only. That's the in-game restriction.
I've played MMOs with some people that are newer to MMO's and i have experienced multiple times that my friends are getting votekicked because they can't keep up with the dps. ESPECIALLY in WoW! Idk what it is about WoW but man there is something wrong with those players, just overall not nice people to talk to (again, in my experience).
I want to see the MMO genre grow in playerbase aswell as in games, and DPS meter is like an invitation to toxicity which makes the MMO's less new-player friendly. This wouldn't be the games/dps meters fault, but the toxic playerbases fault, but not putting it in is a simple way to prevent a good chunk of toxicity.
If a game is going to treat players as disposable, you can't blame players of that game for treating each other the same.
Play a game where there isn't this same ability to replace players mid-dungeon, and you won't see players being booted mid-dungeon.
Funny how that happens...
You're right about that, if its easy to get a replacement, that player isn't worth a lot.
However, it can and will still be a source of toxicity, perhaps just reduced compared to WoW.
Maybe they wouldn't kick you as fast, but flaming will still occur and it ruins the experience for other players in the same party even if they didn't get kicked. Could argue that they should leave the party and find a better, less toxic party or just ignore them but that's easier said than done and it'd be better if the source of toxicity wasn't there to begin with so that the toxic players have nothing to 'use' against you. DPS meter isn't necessary, i wouldn't wager the chances over something unnecessary.
The problem is... you can't avoid parser to exist. so the "source of toxicity" will always exist, the fact it is not in game built won't change anything.
BUT a personnal parser is fine : for lot of people it will be enough to not watch to other program to do it
I agree that personal DPS meter would be ok and that if the data is available to other players, it creates animosities.
The way Square Enix does it is actually wise: They don't really care as long as you don't start criticizing or flaunting about it. (Roughly)
The source of toxicity isn't the dps meter, but the player. I should've specified it a little better, however dps meter does help these toxic players with giving them a reason to be toxic (a bad reason, but for them it will be a justified one). Not allowing a dps meter doesn't change toxic players, they will be toxic regardless but it makes it so that their toxicity wont flow into the game as easily. Toxic people always find a way to be toxic, to me its more so about the frequency of it. Avoiding toxicity fully is impossible.
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Example NO DPS METER: You're in a dungeon, and the dungeon is going smooth so the toxic person isn't being toxic because he cant see who is performing the best or worst through a dps meter. (Yes theres exceptions to this, some people will still find ways to be toxic)
Example WITH DPS METER: You're in a dungeon, dungeon is going fine but toxic person still flames the bottom dps because they're simply on the bottom or is playing an ''op class'' and they ''should be top dps''.
^^^^^
This last example is exactly what happened to us multiple times, we tend to call those people elitists in the game. Maybe im just biased because of my own experiences though, who knows.
A personal dps meter wouldn't be too bad i guess c: i kinda like that. Feel like i went off track a little bit, sorry lmfao.
Ashes will live or die on the social aspect. And while it can be fun for some players to min/max, those players are not as plentiful as you'd think. So catering to the loud minority is a really bad idea. No one wants to play an MMO through YouTube guides. MMORPG's are so much MORE than how much damage you do per fight. It's actually totally irrelevant in most circumstances. 90% of the player base don't need it and the 10% that do will always find ways to segregate themselves from the masses anyway.
Some of the best experiences I've had in MMO's are when I get to teach new players how to play from in-game. Not only do we get to be social which the MMO's are built for, but I also get to feel helpful while making friends. DPS meters have been, and always will be, killing this aspect of MMO's.
Meta-gaming is poison to MMORPG's. We should fight it any way we can.
2 - As mentioned above, "Support" will be a thing which makes this not a true holy trinity game.
3 - Because of 1 & 2 above, DPS meters cannot accurately represent the value of a party member.
@Jxshuwu
I've made the following comparison earlier in this thread, but I'm happy to make it again.
Look at three games - WoW, EQ2 and Archeage.
WoW and Archeage have very toxic communities. EQ2 has one of the least toxic communities of any MMO I have played.
Yet, WoW and EQ2 have high combat tracker use, while Archeage has exceedingly low - the lowest of any MMO I have played.
So, WoW and Archeage are both games with very toxic communities, yet are at opposite ends in terms of combat tracker use.
What these games do have in common though, that EQ2 doesn't, is that both of those games have systems where players can be easily replaced during specific content pieces.
On the other hand EQ2 is a game where if you have a reputation as being generally disagreeable, you simply wont get invited to do content, and no one will accept your invitation to join you.
Basically, what this demonstrates is that if a game makes it so your reputation matters, people wont be toxic to each other. If you make a fame where your reputation doesnt matter, people will be toxic to each other.
A combat tracker is nothing more than one way people can be toxic towards each other (though even then, not really - all a combat tracker does is tell the truth).
Basically, the amount of toxicity in a game is determined 100% by how important player reputation is, the more important it is, the less toxicity there will be. A combat tracker does not add to this amount of toxicity, though it can be used as a vehicle to deliver toxicity - though that toxicity was going to happen anyway.
A combat tracker measures everything, not just DPS.
I am absolutely on favor of keeping combat trackers out of the hands of anyone that doesnt understand this.