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
In all other games, this kind of behavior is literally less than a percent of how they are used.
I really have a hard time understanding how someone that hasn't been involved in the correct use of combat trackers can have such a strong opinion on them. All you know (or think you know) is how they are misused. This misuse only ever happens to people that are objectively bad at the game they are playing (a combat tracker only gives objective data), and only ever in pick up content, so you are also admitting you are objectively bad at games you play since you see so much negative behavior associated with combat trackers (which may explain your dislike of them).
Much like Steven, you have no idea how guilds work. Steven has no idea because to him, a guild is a collection of players he can manipulate and abuse to achieve his personal goals (see his actions in Archeage for proof of this). You have no idea because no one wants you in their guild, and so are forced to resort to streamer communities in order to have interaction with other people playing the game you play.
When in a guild, most people fairly quickly place that guild as the primary object of their loyalty in the game. They are more concerned with the success of the guild than with their own success.
Likewise, the guild returns that loyalty.
This means that if the class you are playing has been nerfed for the current content cycle, the guild isnt going to boot you. They are loyal to you as a player. However, since you want the guild to succeed, you may decide to spend that cycle on an alt, so that the guild is better off.
People that dont understand what's going on blame combat trackers for this, saying they forced them on to an alt to raid.
Those that do understand though, they carry on raiding with their guild being successful, while raising a middle finger to the developer of the game for making their preferred class ineffective for that cycle, and fist bumping the combat tracker developer for creating the tool that allowed them to see what the developer did and come up with a work around.
But, without a combat tracker, when Intrepid do make changes to classes and things that previously went right all of a sudden dont, players are left to only blame each other. If no one knows what is going on, if there is no clear means of pointing the finger at Intrepid, players will point the finger at each other - eventually.
As such, in guild situations - situations neither you nor Steven are qualified to even discuss - no combat tracker is likely going to lead to more toxicity, not less.
Fortunately, that wont happen in Ashes.
As I have said in the past, I have already parsed combat from the game posted to YouTube, and there is assistance from inside Intrepid to get third party trackers working, because actual MMO developers (as opposed to people that buy their way in to the industry without knowing a damn thing) know that players having information is a good thing.
Still remember in wow playing in lich king with a balance druid and lower alot my dps (in dps meter) to sometimes go bear and do some taunt because tank is dead or dying, or go support healing guys near me, and the majority would ignore even if they wipe just to cause good impression with they Top dps....
What i mean is sometimes there is people doing much more then Dps just spamming the rotation in their safe spot and people didn´t notice because the only thing they cares is DPS meter
In fact, without any parser, the situation will be far more simple :
"You are tank main archetype ? we recruit you as tank. You want to DPS? no your primary role is tank, STFU"
"you are bard main archetype ? ok you are buffer support, not a DPS"
with parser :
"you want to come in the raid to fill a DPS role ? ok, hit this dummy, show me how much you can do"
In first situation, until there is a clear proof that a primary tank can do decent DPS with the good second archetype, all tank primary will be stick with tank role (either main or off).
On the second, all build will have a chance to prove they can be DPS.
Also, in a raid 40, there will be one main tank, and around 4-5 offtank at different degress (2 with a tanky build, and 2-3 with a hybrid build" at least while discovering world, and bosses.) And so, probably your tank + sumoner will fit the "hybrid" way and you will be recruit for this : doing damages, until you have to tank. And because you will prove have enough damages that you will be one of the hybrid off-tank that are last to be in tanking situation (so more DPS) else you will just be "one of the tank"
Also, remember that second archetype only gives augment, so buff on skills. a tank + mage will always do less DPS than a fighter + mage. because the tank skills does less damages than fighter one.
With just this simple fact, without parser, people will just stick to primary archetype to define a meta.
And situation may be even worse : Mage + mage augment = DPS skills boosted with DPS augment. Mage + tank = DPS skills boosted with tank augment. Because mage are probably not really tough, people will hardly think about taking a mage hybrid offtank role (even with mage+tank build). so why not simply take augment to get even more damages (so mage + mage) ?
Now, a parser could show that the DPS difference between both build is not so big. Or also, show that due to tank augment, the mage+tank could perfectly tank some medium/small adds while the mage-mage cannot... (and mage + tank will probably do more damages than tank + mage due to primary skills).
Last example that meta matter without parser : (this will be a fictiv example, dont know what we will have)
elves class got an augment that increase crit chance (without saying how much%). on the other side, dwarf gives augment helping about mitigation.
So, if i want to do as much DPS as possible, probably better take elf and not dwarf, mage dwarf will be taken after the mage elf, and tank elf will be taken only if no more tank dwarf...
Parser will be able to show either "yes, elves DPS are best DPS" or... "this elf augment is as strong as any mage augment". On this second case, the parser will prove mage dwarf can be as strong as mage elf
Parser doesn't create meta. Meta creates by itself, and evolves by itself...
On WoW i often took some unpopular build, and people watched me and began "but your build is shit" mostly because "not the meta build" . . . i just asked for a chance, gone in raid, they saw i didnt die stupidly, i did mechanics, and the parser show that while not being "top DPS" i was clearly over average of the guild. At that point they didnt care about my "meta build" they had the factual proof that my DPS does its job.
And in any decent and serious guild, people with a real teamplay mind will always be more rewarded than the brainless DPS spammer... Most of guild i saw which only care about who was big DPS / who was big healer did struggle on content far more than a similar guild with a larger mind...
For me, dps meter(or heal meter or any meters) is just a tool let the team able to monitor their performance are in good shape, it's just like any thing you can use to make other person hurt, and toxic players are just being toxic no matter those kind of tools exist in game or not they are just being toxic. Shouldn't because toxic players will use dps meter to make trash talks so abandon a tool can help players improve their skill and know better about their characters.
MMO works based on social to each other and dps meter is also a good tool to connect players, yes it also provide a tool for toxic players to ruin others game experience, but this kind of thing is also a part of MMO social thing, I think all we can do is to having a right mind set to use dps meter and educate players to have a right mind set to use dps meter to social with other players in a health way.
All Bard active skills are support skills and that is the way the content is balanced.
Not allowing a Tank to use DPS augments is inherently a false meta. Same for not allowing a Bard to use DPS augments: that is automatically a false meta.
Ramirez spoke about tank + sumoner to do DPS
And one more thing you seems to not realise :
parser don't create meta
it shows the real game situation. parsers only shows thing, don't define anything else than this
aaaand yes, not allowing a tank using DPS augment is a false meta... and it is kind of false meta which would come from... having no parser. With parser we will see how big differences are between tank-tank and tank-sumoner, proving or not that tank-sumoner does a usefull DPS addition for a tank role
Funny to see how people consider parser = toxicity, when, was shown that only some few people are toxic with it, and would be toxic in anyway. with or without parser. stop thinking removing parser will reduce toxicity...
Also as explained, ... not having parser would increase toxicity, due to more subjectiv way to decide who you kick or not, or simply people coming in content where they don't have gameplay level to go in, being a deadweight to the team. and with just capacity to say "stfu and play" when anyone try to help them to play better.
It is situation i saw a lot... far more than abusiv kick from parser
Just, stop with this "toxic tool" which already was prove false on this topic... try to find anything else
Tank primary role is tank.
DPS meters are tools players use to define the meta. It's like saying guns don't kill people; people kill people.
We get it.
False...
Meta can exist even without parser
the simple fact you say :
Tank = tank
mage, rogue, ranger, fighter = DPS
Clerc, bard, sumoner = support
This simple list is already a meta
And yourself want to stick exactly to this meta like people you complain they follow with obedience the meta that was revealed (and not created) by parser
Most Effective Tactics Avaible
This is what META means... and you can block any tool you want, this will exist... The simple fact when you played doom you prefer use shotgun on some monster instead of gun was a meta.
parsers only reveal meta on subject they can reveal.
And it is not "tactic" (so only one thing to all follow) but tactics, so more than only one tactic
But i dislike meta, i love to play what i want, and for this, tools like parser are usefull... because it allows to find the best way to play what each of us want... it allow us to have better understanding of our place in the raid (which is far more than just "tank/support/DPS")
I'm not sure if Dygz recognizes that he just defined a portion of the games meta (tank/summoner can do some DPS but will primarily be a tank - inferring that a tank/tank won't be able to do that level of DPS but will be more of a tank), and then he went on to say that players use combat trackers to define the meta.
It would seem he doesn't even understand what a meta is. All a meta is, is essentially defining what a class is good at in relation to other classes, and then people decide which classes they like and will accept, and which classes they do not like and will reject.
This is why the notion that a combat tracker dictates a meta is absurd - Dygz is already dictating the games meta to us all.
This is an inappropriate argument to bring in to this debate, as the consequences of a game having a meta and of killing some one with a gun are obviously vastly different.
In my experience and opinion dps meter meter data can be a thing let players realize there are better players easily and able to make connections between players, but toxic players are not the case that ban meter tools can prevent or make them less excuse/reason/material to being toxic they don't need any those thing, if they really need tools or reasons to talk trash about dps things or they better than anyone they will just take a timer and calculate numbers so in this case should we not show any battle log or not even show dmg number?
According my past experience, I really don't think having dps meter or not will change anything, won't be any better or any worse, eventually we just won't play with people we don't like this is nothing to do with dps meter.
BUT, yes, I also agree with your opinion.
Whilst the last item on the list isn't multiplicative in nature to the above it - it plays a crucial role as an increase of a throttling mechanism for dps output
So the rest of them are variables that have multiplicative relations between one another - Flat base damage, crit damage amplifier and crit damage rate increase have sharing relationships between one another - which means that if you stack all 3 of them proportionally then you get way more damage than if you'd just stack only 1 of them
Ability cooldown reduction - deceptively strong powerhouse in builds, because it works on the exact opposite principle as flat base damage - which is that spending 1st point has less value than spending 2nd point - which is why for example in league of legends they reworked their flat % cooldown reduction bonuses to "ability haste" which has a formula with diminishing returns for stacking it
Going deeper currently has no purpose since you need to know all stats - like overall crit rate, overall crit modifier, overall base damage etc, but this should illustrate the rules that decide how much power lies behind each and every skill point spent in the game
― Plato
Current game just doesn't warrant it, how much the current game develops up to launch is anybody`s guess.
As stated previously, my own opinion which is purely speculative, I don`t see the complexity that players from other developed games have come to accept as the norm available at launch, as the game will need time to mature and refine.
Bit of a chicken and egg thing though.. but perhaps, just perhaps, for those that want the game to have a dps meter with such passion, wouldn`t the first step be to give feedback and input to develop the game so it developed the required sophistication that then warranted their usage?
And if not direct feedback related to raids, ai, and everything associated or alternatively provide solid, consistent and constructing feedback so other areas can be resolved and then design attention can be doubled down on raiding and the like.
Thing is, if you take a hard stance against combat trackers in the beginning, it is harder to reverse that stance when the combat systems and content do indeed warrant it. It is far better to have them at the start, even if not strictly necessary - as that way their use is ingrained in players as people see that necessity.
If we were talking about first party trackers as opposed to third party trackers, that time after release but before the combat and content necessitate trackers is also a perfect time to educate the player base in how to properly use a tracker.
I never stated it will reduce toxicity, however i do state that it will remove one way of delivering toxicity.
If the game does a good job you'll know whether you're ready for that content or not. But i am not sure what you are referring to..? The toughest of the toughest raids / challenges in the game? In that case of course people will be kicked for not performing well enough. I don't believe there are many people who expect anything else either going in to such difficult content.
There's so many other factors at play here and it usually isn't just helping. But yet again it depends what content you're referring too.
― Plato
If you see things in black/white then yes. ufortunately there's way more "color" to things.
it isnt about black/white - i said it is a matter of degree of something that I fundamentally disagree with - which is to limit player tools in order to "remove toxicity"
if we hypothetically remove the possibility of any tracker in order to remove a way of "delivering" toxicity then we can by that logic go after anything that can be used to "deliver" toxicity - including creating pugs (by lfg tools) - removing loose conditions (like loosing items on death, death penalty, difficulty and many others)
― Plato
― Plato
The original idea by @Galux was that by removing trackers you remove one way of
"delivering" toxicity - and I fundamentally disagree with that, because "meter toxicity" can only be of one nature - "that player played differently than I wanted him to play" and it doesn't matter if he is mad that he doesnt know how to press buttons or that he played better in the grand scheme of things and sacrificed his personal dps for doing the mechanics or it can be anything that the toxic person dislikes about that guy's performance
― Plato
You aren't telling me anything I don't already know.
This post you made is completely irrelevant to the discussion i've had with galux, because the fact they are not removing the possibility of any tracker doesnt support my claim - you can change the fact to its polar opposite and my claim is still the same and free of any influence from that fact
Just because you think that my point is "moot" it doesnt mean you speak truth and not only your personal opinion
― Plato
― Plato
― Plato