Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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
So, combat tracker numbers are irrelevant.
You should be able to tell what active skills people are using without a combat tracker.
Hmmmn mmmmn. And lots of PvEers would prefer to have a separate PvE-Only server.
It's not really about players not paying attention or being negligent.
It's about people getting kicked because someone looks at a bunch of numbers and decides someone should have higher numbers. And it's about deciding that the sub-class with the highest numbers must be the most efficient and therefore the only viable build.
The only reason why it seems like one person isn't fulfilling their role is because the person who is kicked is the one with the lowest numbers.
"Leroy has the lowest numbers, so it's all Leroy's fault!"
Steven: "Back in the day, when MMOs were great, you had to win your encounters through trial and error. You didn't have a DPS meter telling you, 'Oh! We need to get up to 67.7% damage in order to achieve the whatever!' It wasn't some mechanical bullshit experience where you got to look at a graph or chart and say, 'Oh! We need to do exactly this.' Instead, you actually had to be present, you had to watch what was happening, you had to help your fellow guild members learn how to play the game and you had to excel as a group."
In order to automate something, there needs to be interaction both ways between the game client and the combat tracker. Since this isnt the case (combat trackers take information from the game client, but do not send anything back to it), it is literally impossible for a combat tracker to automate things.
When Stwven said this, all it did was point out to those that actually use combat trackers that he in fact doesn't know what he is talking about.
All you repeating it is doing is reinforcing the notion that Inteepids stance on combat trackers is in fact built on a near total lack of understanding about what they do, and what they dont do.
It's like someone saying they dont want to work in a QA department of a large fame developer/publisher, because they dont like dealing with the public. All that statement does is show that the person in question doesnt know the difference between QA and CS.
In this case, Steven is simply showing us all that he doesn't know the difference between a combat tracker and a combat assistant - yet is making decisions about combat trackers anyway.
In more than 15 years mmorpg, i did see a lot... the parser was probably the less stupid of all.
The meta exists without parser, and without parser you can't prove that you are worth joining the party if you have not one of the sacred build. (because having the op build but being unable to play is far worse than a underperforming build but you play perfectly... )
it will be "leroy" fault for many reasons if they want to kick one guy judging him underperforming, and being a dead weight for the team. Some time it is for good reason, sometimes...
And you speak about "help people to learn the game"
When i was in end game either wow or FFXIV, we had to test people. Sometime we saw really bad people, was not even needed a parser to see it... just fact. i will take an example from now :
Was for the first raid in FFXIV : Heavensward (alexander gordias) The first instance of this begins with a pure DPS check, then the boss. our team had no problem to do this, but one member had to left the game. So... let's find people in the Free company.
There were 2 candidate, so we took them both in alexander gordias. the DPS check was really close (and we failed it 2 times) and then, we were clearly far from killing boss.
When you see this, it was clear that at least one of them was totally not at the play level of the boss (and because we used a parser we had proof it was not one but both who totally underperformed ^^')
They were so low that was not only matter of using CD at the good timing... their skill rotation was bad
Parser is rarelly needed to kick anyone for being a deadweight. I rarely had to kick "because parser said so" there is so many things around such people...
BUT each time, the parsers were helpful to... HELP those people in mastering their class.
In the same example, i didn't just say "here, its how i play my class, do like me, you will be better" ... would be the worst way to do.
Nope, was on dummy, with parser turned on, and showing, with parser by doing different thing, how my DPS can vary. "see if i do this, there is clearly more damages than doing this". The only way i had to explain him how to play was what i did to find how to play my BLM : math... calculation... And a lot of people hate when you come with too much calculation. The last way was just "trust me, do this and it will be good"... it is the worst way to do ever.
Parser is not the problem around toxicity, kicking, etc.
Also, parser is not what did change what boss fight are .People will always do theorycraft, and try it in game, to find the best way to do as much DPS as possible, not giving a parser will never change anything about it.
The tool is not the monster. the monster is the one using the tool in a toxic way... Mostly they are people just focusing on "DPS" during a fight and nothing else...
I understand what steven said, but he watched the wrong ennemy. His speech speak about parser but for a problem that is not from parser. the "we need 6,7% more damages" is not from the parser... it is because the boss enrage when he is 6,7% life left. Even without parser we can see it. But the parser becomes the tool with which people will try to find how to improve their personnal DPS by 7%
the problem is more the "boss mods" saying litterally "warning, boss prepare its big AE, move from where you are to safe spot" and YES this is a problem about learning fight, learning the game.
Parser are tool to see how effectiv you were, and how effectiv you are now. how each member was and is now.
Now, just imagine a situation : the boss is hard, and it is clear that one of the problem to kill him is "need more DPS" (easy to see). You want to do more damages because it is what all 40 people needs : more global DPS (so from you and the others). you have 1 idea. One thing to change in rotation. this change is suboptimal in most situation but you feel it can be better for the current situation.
How can you be sure after trying it it was more or less efficient ?
i played all along vanilla trying to be better, give as much damages as i could without using any parser. i was always "not sure if good idea" and finally, today, i think that some of change i did on some boss did lowered my dps. From BC i used parser, and ... there i had the tool to try, to learn, to improve. because i could see try after try how my DPS was rising or not.
If you looked world first run in WoW or FFXIV, you see that the "try, die, and retry to learn more and more" you see that the top players does this. they "win the encounter through trial and error" Some world first was after 300 wipe from the same guild on the boss... 300 try before the one that allowed to kill boss. and for doing a lot of endgame PvE until end of heavensward, i can confirm, even with parser, we needed to try, do error, try to understand mechanics of the boss before killing it. the parser just helped to see if the little change we did was worth to get more DPS in fight. Was clearly not the only things (the one shot mechanics in FFXIV are not a rare thing), but was needed.
And i had the same joyce, the same happiness when i did my first kill in my guild on some bosses like Ragnaros, Nefarian (without parser), than when i killed Nael Deus Darnus or Alexander (with parser to check between try how i (d)evolved)) Because i learned a hard fight, and managed to go from a wipe in the first minute, to a kill some few second before enrage. I learned mechanic, i learned the best way to do mechanics without losing too much DPS. with or without parser, if the fight is hard, it will always be needed, with or without Parser...
Parser does most of the learning work in fight like the infamous "patchwerk" where it is "tank, heal, and dps" and nothing else than this... what we call "gear check" or "DPS check" but never was interesting fights...
You don't need meters to figure out how to defeat encounters if the encounters are not designed for relying on DPS meters.
You will have a personal combat tracker. You've already conceded that's all you need.
no design are built around "having DPS meter" but just "doing as much DPS as possible while... avoiding AE, doing specific mechanics, doing cc on adds, kiting the other add, interrupt the boss, etc etc etc"
The most common thing to force a raid to get as much DPS as possible is simply "the enrage" but Enrage did exist even in game where boss don't have
The less DPS you have => the longer the fight is => lower mana of healers is => closer to wipe you are.
Healers mana was the first enrage timer. (and i prefer "soft enrage" allowing team with powerfull healer to get more time than strict enrage in which you wipe when you reach the timer)
Yes i did concede that a personnal parser to read is all WE need
But i see you using a lot what Steven said about parsers aaaand... had to defend the parser again...
For all : don't think that not having ingame parser will avoid stupid kick from a stupid raidleader considering XXX is clearly a deadweight. And don't think there won't be meta without parser. this is the only two argument people here gives again and again (just dygz say anything else ^^')
People will always find ways to discriminate the others. I think it is better to have an objectiv one than subjectiv one.
Parser is a good tool to prove the meta wrong, or at least, showing that while meta is good, your non-meta build does also a decent work. As raid lead i prefered people with a non meta build but able to speak about their class, than people obeying the meta ... but without understanding it. (the first ended being far better during raid than second one)
I know for a fact this doesnt pertain to the developers on EQ2
Going all the way back to LU#13,when it was SOE, the developers were actively ASKING players to use combat trackers and report anything they found odd.
Aerelik was an avid user of combat trackers himself, and he was the developer responsible for combat for close to a decade.
Moorgard was more than happy to have them in the game
Illucide used to comment on parses of the encounter Villucide that he outdps'd people.
So yeah, I dont think you can say "Daybreak" agree with Steven. That said, I can say that developers at Intrepid disagree with Steven
You want to know if you are "doing your job"? You will know when the mobs, and players are dead at your feet, and you are still standing. It's time to put the RPG back in MMORPG.
Legends in Exile
In other words, not wanting a combat tracker is the same as not wanting content that needs a combat tracker.
Since content that needs a combat tracker is by definition more complex, not wanting a combat tracker is the same as wanting less complex content.
You are lumping a whole lot of things together, taking a look at then from the perspective of a game that fosters toxicity, and then saying that collaboration of unconmected things is causing toxicity.
WoWs toxic nature is caused 100% by that games lack of respect for players. Since the game allows you to boot players from groups mid content and replace them almost automatically, and also allows groups to be formed across servers so you wont ever run in to the same people again, the game literally gives players tools to treat each other like ahit without consequence.
You simply cant look any further than WoWs LFG system to explain all of the toxicity in that game.
As I have sated many times, Addons can not automate, can not make it easier, can not create less failures by making less experience or less optimized players follow an addon. This is something combat trackers CAN NOT DO. It can help provide information about the encounter after the fight. Steven is against addons like Weakauras and Deadly boss mods. If you don't now the different then that's your fault
I hope intrepid hires a developer that have experience with combat trackers and help Steven understand what it exactly is.
They have a number of them. At least one developer at Intrepid has provided input in to at least one of the combat trackers in development for Ashes that I know of (not willing to give any more info than that, obviously).
Also, Jeff was (and probably still is) pro combat tracker.
If you go back and watch the streams where Steven talks about them, you can see Jeff uncomfortably shuffling every time Steven says anything factually incorrect.
It's almost amusing.
There will be leader boards, so PvE content will be completive as well XD
As much DPS as possible is players attempting to be as quick and uber efficient as possible.
It's just one tactic.
Sure. Enrage means you have might need to figure out how to generate enough DPS to beat the Enrage.
That's not the same thing as "as much DPS as possible" - and - you can figure out how to do that without DPS meters.
The less DPS you have, the longer the fight. Sure.
Long fights are fine.
There is nothing for you to defend against Steven's comments. DPS meters are unnecessary to beat dungeons and raids. A personal combat tracker will be provided in-game for individuals how want to track their own combat.
That is not the way life works.
People don't just say "well, we aren't going to ban or restrict anything because people will always find bad stuff out there. No reason to reduce toxicity because some toxicity will always exist."
If you restrict access to dangerous stuff, the dangerous stuff will be reduced - typically.
You keep dangerous chemicals out of the reach of kids to reduce the chances of kids harming themselves and others with toxic stuff. Doesn't mean it will completely keep the kids safe from toxicity.
DPS meters are more commonly used to fabricate false metas and brow beat others into adhering with the false meta.
Which is different than what we're discussing here.
Jeff says party parsing utilities will not be supported - that's what Steven means by DPS meters.
Leaderboards are not the same thing as DPS meters. Just as a personal combat tracker is not the same thing as DPS meters.
That's a 2017 answer to a dubious question.
Whereas Steven has been ver clear about his stance on DPS meters in 2020 and 2021.
He's against DPS meters that can be used as a reason to kick people while trying to complete a dungeon/raid.
So it would be of a huge benifit to the game if lets say every one did decent dps (but lets just say more people not every one). If every one in the game had decent skill it would be a more positive enironment. We just recently had a Dev discussion about mentoring tools also.
One really good thing that a player can do is spend some time on improving their dps to decent levels but would need dps meter for that.
So while in theory hiding dps reduces toxicity (no dps meters). People underperforming shich includes dps will still be an issue and solution for that is for toon to fix that not sure how they are suppose to do that with out dps meter. Actually I do, dps is eqaul to hit points divided by seconds it takes to kill so....just makes it more difficult.
However i have played in toxic environments before not so cool. But as already posted previously think dps meter in a test area would be acceptable and needed just a place for toons to hone in skills Plus if you are going to have Game Modes like Guild vs Guild DPS shoot outs then dps meter should be in game in some fashion because you are creating the need for one in the first place.
People with Elemental damage try to stack other people's elemental damage. People with Shadow damage try to stack other people's Shadow damage.
So, the Spellsword checks to see how they can support the Sorcerer and the Shadow Disciple checks to see how they can support the Assassin.
Shadow Disciple might add a Bleed augment to their Hallowed Ground and place that where the Assassin is fighting. So that it's not really about the DPS of the individual but rather the DPS of the group.
And you don't need DPS meters to figure that stuff out.
he's said that they are not sure about that.
Leaderboards are exactly the same as dps meters (or parsing) xD Shows you who did it the fastest, best execution, who got it down first. And you are right, combat trackers is not the same thing as dps meters
"He's against DPS meters that can be used as a reason to kick people while trying to complete a dungeon/raid." This will never happen because of the use of combat trackers in a guild run or similar, or PUGs, since there are no group finder in the game. I have never been in a raid or dungeon group, PUG or guild, where people have been kicked out (wow classic = no group finder). If you have a example of being kicked in a game that does not have a group finder the please tell me about it because I have never seen it
I also want to say that I have seen people being kicked because they were acting like jackasses, not because they did low DPS or missed a mechanic.
You may need a combat tracker to see the difference between two buffs. Like comparing armor penetration vs a raw attack power increase buff. Some buffs and debufffs can get very very complicated and if you want to min/max you need to find what is the absolute best, every little number matters. Doing that stuff without a combat tracker and trying to figure it out manually with inaccurate data with large errors and margins is not good enough.
Ashes has leaderboards but does not have DPS meters.
OK.
Two see a 2% difference without a combat tracker is basically impossible.
Leaderboard is very very similar to parses and uploading logs to a website, it's just in-game instead.
The leaderboard will probably show which guild took down the boss first, which guild did the boss the fastest, which guild did the boss with less deaths, which person in the encounter got the highest score (which will probably be based on DPS).
Or what do you think the leaderboard will show?
Mmmm hmmmn.
We shall see.
Still, Ashes will have a personal combat tracker and not DPS meters.
People that want to top the leaderboard will WANT, or they NEED to know if there is a 2% difference so they can be the best. You may not, but others will.
Where did i say that i wanted short fight ? i love long fight. This is one thing i prefer FFXIV PvE over WoW, FFXIV fight are 33% to 50% longer. and if i had opinion to give, i would make FFXIV fight double time ! With 2 or 3 more phases!
but here, i never spoke about 10 min, 20min or 1h fight.
In any game with a well design healing class, the best players are not those able to do the highest Heal Per Second, but the highest Heal Per Mana (without letting anyone die for sure). in such system, healers don't have infinite mana, far from it. And so, there is 2 thing where a team will wipe without an enrage mechanic :
1) people taking too much damages (not needing a parser to see it, but sometime funny when you think "but how much i had to heal him" and you see the numbers are 2 times what you thought because he is really bad at avoiding AE/mechanics)
2) people without enough DPS, making the fight so long that, even if they play perfectly avoiding aoe/mechanics, you end up out of mana.
You all say "what does matter is when the boss die" and yes. but, when you reach this point... it is totally OBVIOUS that or healers are not HpM efficient (so they have to improve) or people don't avoid enough AoE (again... move your asses) or the team does not have enough damages. Most of time, it is the 3 at the same time. So yes, killing boss if it is a really tough fight, you end up to discover that you need to improve different thing including your HpM and your DPS. Both HPM/DPS can be read on a parser. and so, from one fight to another, you can see how things evolves. you see if you get better.
Where did i say there was no reason to reduce toxicity ? I always fought it in any MMORPG i was in, and any kind of toxicity, the trashtalking arrogant dude, the stupidly low Damage dealer, the under average guy who refuses to take advice, the big DPS that consider him as god and harass others, etc.
What i says is parser is not what creates toxicity. it is a tool used by some kind of toxic people. But, if you want to ban all tools used to be toxic, just remove the "need/greed loot system" because ninja is also a really big toxicity matter... Sorry i prefer having ninja in the game i play than not having the need/greed system. Exactly same thing with Master loot.
No one on this topic proved parser creates toxicity, you just said that people used parser information as reason to ban people with low damages. I answered to this that if they don't have this tool to do this, they will find other. and most (all) other way to discriminate people in group/raid were far worse than parser... but most also does not exist when there is parser because numbers never lies.
later i will give you an example of factual situation i saw far more than one time where parser allowed to avoid the kick from people (healers)
False meta ? Did you ever try to read some theorycraft topics?
We use at first mathematic, then we test in game.
Then, we return to mathematic, we try many many things. "lets play this build with this stuff, then change stuff, then rinse and repeat with another build" it is a really iterative process. made by passionante people. I did begin theorycraft in vanilla, i remember well the formula to calculate any spell/skill DPS. I did this like all other theorycrafter in my guild : to help the whole guild to get even deeper in content...
And yes, we want to know if this does 2% more than this. because we love to test, and push farther our character. People find FFXIV slow due to its 2,5 sec GCD, and it is, BUT as black mage or scholar, i had fun to time perfectly when i can move, before the cast end to move as soon as possible and letting cast end (thank to FFXIV 0,5 sec latency...). I did it because i make my DPS far better that helps my team, either the static when we do progress, or the Free Company people when i did lead them on some fight to allow all to get at least one kill.
But you seems to not even know what is theorycraft...
You said "long fight are good" and i am totally ok with it. it is my mind. BUT comes the time where your healers don't have mana, funny how you didnt answer to it... What do you do if healers don't have mana? So much time i saw people saying wipe is because healer are bad... and, when watched the parses, it was not the top DPS who said this, more the average/low one. If those guys had a better DPS (and they could because they had the stuff) the fight would be shorter => less Healing problem. The only gamedesign solution is having a healing system where mana is not an issue... Doing it you ruin most of the healers gameplay which relate about mana management, focusing far more on "Heal per Mana" than "Heal per Second". Any healer knows to do a heavy HPS, but the best one avoid anyone to die with the most efficient HpM gameplay.
RPG comes from pen and paper, and... i have 20 years of pen and paper RPG behind me
And i always played RPG with a great care how about i built my character. RPG is not only "i play my character you see lol, he saw his parents died from a bad man when he was 6, now he wants revenge" it is, for me, have a good care of it. Most recently, i did a Sune healing priestress in 3.5 system, i did take all thing i could to boost her healing potential at most. And DM were happy to see her evolve, doing her things even if they always were surprised by her healing potency...
I don't care boss die personally, i am happy killing it with my team, with my guild. i take loot not to say "hey did you see my big long strong sword ? " but because it improves my character allowing me to be even better on the next encounter i will do with my guild. What i like in MMORPG is the teamplay, when each of us gives more than he think he could to win fight all time harder. Teamplay is not only "coordination" ... so basic, it is also being all as efficient as possible in our solo-part (so our DPS, the well timed interrupt, the cc, kiting ennemies that need to be. etc etc) And it can be stupid, but when you are in this mindset to "be always better for the sake of the guild". YES knowing if this new skill rotation gives me 2% more damages is important ! If this new way to do my things help the other to get better DPS themselves feels really important for me. And while getting to 80% of our potentiel DPS is really easy, reaching 90% ask to do some math on a paper, going over 90% ask lot of training, and data comparison.
And don't worry, people really wanting to perform to learn their class and push it far beyond what i thought was our limit are also people who love to teach new player the game, not teach "to win, press this button" which is bad way but "this is the class, this is how it works, with this information you will find out to play it well"
And personally, when we kill a boss, but i see i nearly didnt improved my own efficiency, i feel a big shame because i didn't do my part in the process of learning the fight...
But if you want, continue to spit on the tool, prefer to have no care about improving yourself go like so much MMORPG players considering "the problem is not me, it is the other". . . Because you speak about toxicity from people focusing on having big DPS parse, but i can speak a lot about people with really low gameplay, and trashing all the other for the wipes... while doing more mistakes than the other. While underperforming at their role.
Why don't you speak about this kind of toxicity ? As said, i hate either this one, than the arrogant big DPS guy who only get disdain and don't care about helping people to improve themselves. In my mind, both are as disgusting as the other. but it seems you focus only one of those...
Competition makes people want to go over their limit... The world first run in WoW or FFXIV was not born because blizzard or Square enix made some advertising around it... there is not even any in game reward except "being the first" ... no, but some people love competition, and then comes the time when just playing is not enough, they want to reach a perfect gameplay... WoW and FFXIV didnt have any leader board, wow got it quite lately to follow what the community already did.
It is also how the esport appeared.
At first people gathered in the same room, playing games like SF2, goldeneye on N64, smash bros. duelling on pokemon red. for the fun of challenging a friend, and see "who is better on this game"
then came the LAN, because it is also fun to play lot of people. And people did some informal competition, "ok so we are 32 lover of PvP in Starcraft ? lets fight each other until we see who is the best". Because of the competition spirit, players always tried to get better to remain the top1 on the next LAN, or become the top 1. even when they was nothing to win, there was just a little glory.
If the game itself include leaderboard, don't worry, guilds will focus on leaderboard. and they will not limit themselves to have a "perfect coordination" but also each member will focus on having "best DPS possible".
If they don't have in game parser, they will create their own parser as third party program. they will find solution but they will find out.
And... here will appear "false meta" ... a lot people dreaming about glory and greatness are just able to mimic what top player does... I did play a lot SC1 and SC2, how many time after some major competition, i saw an ennemy trying to reproduce what the winner of the final did but without any knowledge to understand why he did it.
Another great example was the sunwell boss first killed without any rogue and the community turned "omg rogue are shit, rogue out of raids" ... before the guild said "in fact, we did the raid in the afternoon and none of our rogue were logged in" ...
So where false meta comes from ?
Players
- They can help someone understand a class/rotation a little better, and help one improve or optimize a build/rotation
- Provide feedback on performance in a given situation.
Developers
- Provides players with a tool to verify if abilities are indeed doing what they state they do (bug finding).
- Possible calibration tool for class balancing.
The problem with trackers is when people use them as either a crutch (timer callouts) or as a toxic tool to exclude people based on performance. The fallacy with that argument though is that timers can be done with other tools and excluding people doesn't require a combat tracker (I can find a mob/training dummy and ask someone what their kill time is and go from that standpoint). Toxic, elitist, or whatever other moniker you want to assign to a category of players, will always find a way to be exclusionary regardless of the tools you provide them.
Different buffs that all have a 2% difference over other buffs will make a difference.
Remember, this game is supposed to have content that is difficult. If players have no tools for working out that 2% difference on a number of buffs, the raid that just lucks in to the correct buffs (and without any way to tell, it IS luck) will have an easier time than the raid that doesnt.
If we assume that each class in the game has one buff or ability that adds 2% over another buff or ability, that starts to get very significant over a 40 person raid - and there is still no way to tell.