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
You are saying that you disagree with Steven's view. That's fine.
We know you disagree. And we know why you disagree.
Then you said that doesn't mean your point is moot. And I conceded that the only reason your point is moot is because Steven's opinion is the one that counts because he's the one who decides what will be in his game.
You are free to create your own game with the tools and features you prefer.
Your problem (and is also mine) is toxicity in MMORPG in any kind, be it from top end player, from lower end player, from people unable to live in community in general.
You fight against parser as a way to fight toxicity, admitting you are not sure it will sove any part of the problem...
So why not directly fight toxicity,
Many of people with really low efficiency in raid (not all) dislike when it is pointed out.
When i whisp such people to give advice, explain more the fight, sometime i find people eager to learn. Sometime people who don't care, not reading what i say, doing the same shit during the fight, with the same low DPS (or healing, etc). So yes, this second kind of people is totally toxic and deserve only one thing : the kick from the raid. When all try their best to kill the fight, the least you have to do if you underperform is... listening to people who wants to help you. it is just what we call "respect"
What kind of content i speak about ? for me, "hard content" is at least the difficulty of FFXIV savage bosses. the very least. And would be happy to see some encounter as tough as ultimate fights. In WoW it would be like mythic raids fight.
and in such content, you have to be as close as you can of the 100% efficiency of your build and stuff.
Yes, he is the one who makes decision in the end, no one here said anything else.
but not because he thought and maybe still think this that is opinion is made from the reality. All human have bias, and their own experience. I am totally able to consider people considering parser is a bad thing had, by themselves, really bad experience with it. and more than one time. I did saw lot of different guild and PU group, from the best mind to the worst. I know this totally exist, and i spit on those not able to do the minimum decent intellectual work while using parser.
What Steven says is his reality, what he lived what he saw, and it is far different from what i saw and lived. and what i promote around the use of parsers.
If "because steven said this, no more debate needed, no more to speak about it" then, just, we can block people from creating discussion around the game design, and just wait for the devs questions. But i know devs like to know what their playerbase think, even if they disagree, and even if in the end, they change nothing, it is always good to hear what your player base says.
I alluded to the attempted use of reductio ad absurdum actually being a strawman fallacy.
Holy shit are you proposing that Steven absolutely ignores player feedback like the current wow devs do?
Why are you requesting for discussion to end when it is being enriched by details of the viewpoints especially between people that did not talk about it previously?
― Plato
"your point of vue is moot because steven disagree"
So... what's the point about any discussion if Steven already have a clear opinion ?
Blizzard is in this state from years now, they do what they thing is good without hearing... They end up listening to community because at some point, it is so obvious that they failed than even a blind could see it. but at this time, it is already too late.
And today, people just became bored of speaking to a wall, and... they leave.
WoW killed itself by a simple way : thinking they don't have to speak with and listen the community
but, we are finally out of topic...
i really think Steven should reconsider how he sees parsers, because there is clearly some false statement in it.
Tragnar wrote: "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"
I replied: "But, they aren't removing the possibility of any tracker. So, that point is moot."
What Tragnar wrote is a strawman fallacy.
Tragnar then wrote: "Just because you think that my point is 'moot' it doesn't mean you speak truth and not only your personal opinion".
And my reply to that is that it's all personal opinion and the only opinion that counts is Steven's because he decides what is and is not in the game.
I haven't said anything about no more debate. That is something you are adding to the discussion.
WoW has killed itself by trying to drag a dead horse for almost 10 years instead of breeding a new horse.
They should have been working on a WoW 2.0 rather than doing a bunch of expansions post-Cataclysm.
Opinions are built on a persons understanding of facts. If they have those facts wrong, then their opinion is invalid.
Stevens opinion - as you yourself have reminded us all in this thread - is that he doesn't want combat trackers in the game because he doesn't want them to tell players what they need to do in order to win.
The problem is, combat trackers can't do that.
This means any opinion built on the idea that they can do this is wrong.
It may well be true that Stevens opinion is the opinion that matters, but that doesn't mean his opinion is correct. If it is built on a factually incorrect idea of what a combat tracker can do, then his opinion is wrong.
Even players that do not want a combat tracker should be extremely worried about this - the fact that one person at Intrepid can have such a misconception about something, make a decision about it, and no one else there has the balls to tell him that he has his facts wrong.
It is concerning stuff.
FFXI 2003 = no problem of mass exodus. (2005 in western)... Exist while FFXIV was 2nd biggest MMORPG (and now 1st)
EQ = 20 expansions
FFXIV goes to its 4th xpansion in the end of year, and the next Final Fantasy SE is working on is FFXVI a solo one. Will have probably its spike subscription during this 4th xpac while wow had it during Wotlk, its second xpac.
Runescape 2001, and continue to have a nice living.
And there are other. I hate WoW and FFXIV for many things, and i hate either Yoshida and Ion Hazzikostas. but the incarnated-god Yoshida-san (if i hear some FFXIV fans) while being hypocrit on some subjects and avoid to speak about other subjects (even when they are the top-liked question on live letters), he remains a far more listening dev director than Ion.
Nowadays, any big mistakes from blizzard needs 1 or 2 major patch to be changed. Housing aside, the big mistakes from SE were changed in some few weeks if it was deep in the game life cycle. (like during SB, they tried to change the looting system for raid24... to cancel it in like 3 weeks due to the burning forums)
Because blizzard consider "they know how to do" and never listen community, they do really big mistake... most of them were already spotted and pointed out during beta... and most of those found in beta are not fix until the X.2 or X.3... this is what killed wow. People got bored. they leave
And here comes the problem if "Steven said this, so this will be like this in game, if you dislike, go make your own game" ...
Like said Yoshida about players feedback "if they complain, they still care"
Maybe, about combat tracker, Steven mainly evolved in group of player using a lot boss mods. Which, in many game is a "plugin" in the parser programs. It is the case of ACT in FFXIV for example. (So ingame parser : no plugin => no problem).
Steven is not omniscient, and here his statement is false, the whole message you already copy paste here numerous time is all around anything totally false... far from any reality. in this discussion, this message has 0 value...
Toxicity coming from parsers or "parser creates meta" is already far more valuable argument because YES some kind of toxic players uses parser to be toxic, and the theorycrafters uses parser to discover what could be the game meta the devs did code. what steven said about combat tracker is totally... false.
yes, steven opinion is the one who matter. BUT i think he is an educated man, able to listen to its team and community, to admit where he didnt see all, or had false vision (because of bad experience probably) and change his statement, and so his opinion.
there are other things i disagree with him. but i wont complain, because while i disagree, he says truth, jsut find his way to deal with it is not the best... But at least it is logic. Coherent.
Not including DPS meters will reduce toxicity and promote more focus away from numbers and onto actual tactics and combat behaviors.
Steven's already seen what he's need to see. And if his team didn't agree with him, he would have listened to them already and included DPS meters in the design.
You won't complain because you've already conceded that personal combat trackers are good enough and Ashes design already includes personal combat trackers.
If his team agreed with him, they wouldn't be assisting in making combat trackers.
As to the rest of your post - tactics can't exist without data, so not allowing access to data can not increase players reliance on tactics.
Steven hasn't seen what he needs to see, as he has almost no experience of games with combat trackers.
So naiv, such innocence...
Good to see you believing it. but i am sad to learn you that this is false... While people uses parser to justify their toxicity... Parsers also avoid a lot of toxic behaviour. Having parser or not just change the kind of toxicity we see... On one side, the false-elite considering that while it does better than 75% of the other player, it can decide who is good enough. On the other side, there is fest of people that don't care doing a decent work, and just come in raid to be carry. . .
but the false-elite, we can use parser to learn them their place and strike their ego... The other one (the "carry me and shut your mouth") i didn't find a way to get rid of them... instead finding a good guild, and avoiding as much as possible pickup, avoid doing stuff outside of your own guild/alliance.
It doesnt change what he says is totally, factually false
I vote this post *hardest to read on the whole forums*.
Anyone else have any other contenders?
Ty for taking the tame to share your opinion and explain what is your own experience around it...
But... when you do a forum post, remember to spread more you text, making paragrpahs even for 2-3 sentences only.
Just do this and your texts will be far more easy to read.
Your assertions are not at all convincing.
You can believe the world is flat if you want to.
No he doesnt.
He has no proof.
You and he are the ones believing the world is flat, the rest of us have solid proof that combat trackers do not inherently introduce toxicity, and that toxicity can exist in large amounts without combat trackers.
Tou are just reducing to even look at the evidence - much like a flat earther.
Hum... wait just little
This is in the FAQ of ACT,
ACT is a third party program that collect data from the fights. then it show them in form of statistics, of graphics, and many other things. ACT was born on everquest 2... older game than wow.
Now there is act for many different game, it is the main used parser for FFXIV
ACT was created in 2005. So i think that when steven says it implies he speaks about MMORPG before 2004? (And i didnt do any search, maybe everquest or DAoC already had their own parser...
Also, ACT in the LONG list can do some sound warning at time you preset yes... a feature many don't use. But now, let's looking for a parser without such feature. . . Oh maybe ... oh yes, XIVapp for FFXIV !
let's move to another game with lot of people... WoW
Recount, Details, Skada, TinyDPS = the 4 most used parsers in wow. It is totally impossible to use any of them for anything else collecting data.
So yes, what Steven says is false. Steven says that with such tools will show us what to do instead of playing the game he thinks he speak about DPS meter, and i really trust he thinks this, but it remains false, because he speaks about "boss mods"
ACT can do this, but you have to configurate this yourself. so while it says you what to do during fight, you have to find yourself at first what to do in the fight, say to ACT "at this timing/at this attack, do a sound" and then, yes... ACT will do what you ask.
The real bossmods, those that says players what to do without doing anything for this i have 2 main examples in WoW :
Deadly Boss Mods and BigWigs
THOSE two addons fit perfectly to what i did quote from steven.
Here are my factual proofs.
DPSmeter/Parser =/= boss mods, steven speaks about program/addon saying what to do during fight ? he speaks about boss mods, while parser will says "you did 3000 DPS on this try, and 2500 on previous try"
i did list the 2 most used third party program that does parser in FFXIV, neither has an automated "do this" in fight. One you can do some configuration to have sound signals, the other, you can't.
I did list the 4 DPS meter i know in wow, the 4 that are mostly used (maybe there is others but... never heard about them in 16 years) No one of those do what steven says...
I finally did list the 2 addon in wow people use to have announcement during the fight about what to do.
And i don't ask you to trust me about what they can do or not. Just google their name, you will see directly information about them.
Now, i did show proofs. What are yours ? What are Steven's proof he showed you to prove he is right ?
Or maybe... did you see any of those proof ?
Oh and while doing this post, i finally searched about this "personnal combat tracker" you speak about, didnt find it on the wiki. was even stated that ... would not exist, nor be allowed as third party program. . .
There were trackers for EQ in the 1990's, and I do not believe EQ was the first game to have them.
The whole "back before DPS meters" argument really is just an argument from a point of ignorance. It is really just an argument about how that person thought things were happening in a game before that person knew about combat trackers. If they were taking on top end content, they would have known about them, but rather, they saw others doing it, didn't know about combat trackers, and made assumptions on how things were being done.
This is all true.
The thing is, since we are asking for a combat tracker built in to the game, Steven could just build one that doesn't have even have the functionality that ACT has - as limited as it is in this regard.
That makes this whole argument completely detached from the actual proposal made, and thus pointless to even bring up.
That is not really proof.
You are giving examples of your perspective about the info the tools provide and sharing your mistaken impression of the info Steven thinks the tools provide.
Which has really nothing to do with proving whether restricting DPS meters will significantly reduce toxicity.
You have an opinion. Steven and the devs have their opinions.
If you can convince Steven and the devs to change their opinions, great! But it's highly unlikely that you will be able to do so.
Steven doesn't mean that DPS meters have an automated "do this in the fight".
Steven is saying that people look at the DPS meters to figure out what they think is the quickest, most uber-efficient method to win - that people analyze the data provided by a tool and then tell other players, "Oh, you have to do exactly that..." rather than paying attention to the physical fight.
And Steven wants people to be paying attention and making decisions based on observing the pysical fight rather than by analyzing data with a tool.
perfectly
A tool that collect datas, shows DPS, HPS, DPM and other usefull statistics
maybe way to see how damages are spread between the different skills (but even this, i would be ok to not have it) No need about graphics.
And i clearly want nothing more...
And didnt say to stay in the "here are my proofs" but, boss mods are a really bad thing. My opinion for sure.
source? i am honest i searched it, and didnt find in wiki.
Only found this
Which is in... every mmorpg, and is not a personnal combat tracker.
it is the traditionnal combat log, shown in the chat window in its own tab, this is just a succession of
You will never be able to defeat a raid encounter by looking at a combat tracker alone.
You need to look and observe the encounter first, and know what it is doing, and then you use a combat tracker to back that up.
Both you and Steven should go out and play a game that uses combat trackers (and not combat assistants), then come back to this thread and apologize for just how inaccurate you have been with what combat trackers actually do - as it is very clear neither of you have any idea.
ok... again, it is false.
the most passionate boss fight i had, like Nael Deus darnus, Bahamut, alexander in FFXIV
like Arthas 25 HM, Yogg 0... oh yes lets see yogg 0
(here comes an fast explanation about why watching data from parser doesnt help to kill yogg 0, quite long so in spoiler)
the DPS check is quite low on the first part, and heavy on last part. most fight time DPS is not really a matter, but about all i said, you did too much mistakes, you could consider it was a wipe for the raid. Not from a "one shot mechanic"
The fight begins giving all player a "sanity" bar, many things during the fight lower this sanity from 100 to 0. you can avoid to lose sanity by watching were are other, watching debuffs they have (better to have this on vocal). or avoiding watching skulls in the alternate place. And not watching boss when he laughs in the end. If you comes to 0, your character get a boost of statistic, but becomes mind controlled by the boss.
And some kind of boss, there is on each raid in wow.
Lets speak about Vaelastrasz "the guild killer" ... you had to spend as much DPS as you can (and games helped you with infinite mana). but again, one mistake from 1 player in this 40-man boss fight => wipe.
Many guild disbands because people were not focused enough when they had bomb and had to run far from raid, or focused on their own threat take aggro over the tank, boss turns, do a swipe, and all melees die. This was the first "hard" boss fight of wow. the same raid he appeared revealed 2 boss far more difficult in all point than him. and while expansion continued, really hard boss fight asking to react fast and being focus on the whole fight are a lot. Twin emperor, heigan, kael thas, twin eredar, Yogg 0, Arthas 25HM, Sinestra, Al'akir, Lei shen, garosh. . . and could continue
All the boss i did list, and also could do a list on FFXIV, even reading during hours your parsers was not enough to know what to do on the fight...
It was (and it remains) far more efficient to return back to the fight, again and again.
It is far more efficient on wow, where it is easy to have a parser, to learn the fight by playing it than analysing datas
Another proof that even with parser, we have to focus on fight, train it again and again. wipe again and again : Limit is top 1 wow guild in NA, for the last raid of BFA expansion,
99 wipe before killing Il'gynoth
73 wipe before killing Raden
68 wipe before killing Carapace of N'zoth
273 wipe before killing N'zoth
They all spend hours and hours in wow, they all play together a lot and so have really good coordination.
They all had parser, and this what they have at each raid... 50 to 100 wipe to the "hard boss" of the raid, 200 to 300 (sometime more) for the last boss. So it is not a "they were too accustomed to just read data" the last boss of legion asked around 320 wipe before the world first killed him.
Again it is really good player, that masters their class perfectly, and they just want to kill the raid before the other guilds. they need to learn it, wipe after wipe, "through error and trial"
It is the same thing with FFXIV ultimate fights
Here is the proof that even DPS meter, people have to pay attention and make decisions based on observing the pysical fight rather than by analyzing data with a tool. Because the data they see says nothing... nothing at all.
here are all my proofs to say "what steven says on this subject is false"
Yeah ok, i figured you were talking about such difficult content, just wanted to make sure. When it comes to such difficulty i do agree that it's toxic if somebody is using every bit of ounze in their body to do the opposite of what people is telling them and refusing to improve. I'm gonna refer to this content as extreme. I would not think it's toxic at all to replace such a person for this difficulty.
Now if we take a few steps back to only hard content and someone would start whispering me about how i should choose ability X over Z because <reasons>, or perhaps they spoil the boss fight mechanic before i ever experienced it my self. Then it's the other way around, i would consider it toxic and not respectful to just say it in the group chat or whisper it without a example "Would you like any tips?"
I understand such tips comes from a good place but for content where it does not matter (easy/medium/hard/very hard) it's rather annoying.
So you would rather wipe the raid over and over so you don't get "spoil the boss fight mechanic"? Isn't that kind of ignorant and selfish?
I never asked. because i never did before second wipe on LFR/raid24 content (because... useless if we do only 1 wipe)
On more serious content (normal/heroic raid, xtrem/sadic) i generally begin to give DPS advice when i see we struggle, and find that some are really under what is expected for such content. Again i don't ask because their global performance is under what we can expect from anyone for this fight.
Some people trained, learned to play. I can understand people to "take their time" but you can force people to quietly go your rythm when you group with them. If they want to help, in hope it will get faster it is not toxicity, it is their right. what is toxic is considering that he has to spend time for you.
You want to learn slowly ?
Build your team
Do this with your guild/FC. when i helped my FC doing Xtrem primals it was the slow time, but was not random unknown people. In PickUp the rule is the one from the raidleader. if you dislike, you leave.
for "story content" i really rarely saw people spoiling it. it is so brainless that most of time it can be killed as 5 player and 3 who understands nothing and try to do anything.
(btw we are out of topic
To be honest i really thing to do a topic after alpha 1 test, to speak about toxicity : what kind of toxicity, how to treat with toxic people, etc. i know from one to another, "toxicity" can totally change. would be an interesting topic i think)
If you have a friend that has seen content you have not seen, then they will likely have tips for you on it - combat trackers do not factor in to that at all.
Side-tracking in a DPS thread. It happens
Well then, stick to playing the game with people that play the same way and for the same reasons you do.
If you enjoy going in to content completely blind, then only play with people that also enjoy that. If you don't care about being as good as you can be, then don't group with people that want to be as good as they can be.
This way, no one is going to spoil anything for you.
Almost all player interaction issues can be resolved if people either only play with people that play the same way they do, or accept that things will not be 100% perfect for them should they step out of that group of people.
Now back to combat tracker discussion.