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
Weaker could mean weaker in combat strength. Weaker could mean weaker in tactics. Likely they will have other strengths besides just combat prowess.
There are times when Superman literally carries Batman. Because Batman in the JLA is not just about how much damage he can do in battle.
Raistlin frequently got carried.
The concept of "expected minimum" is warped and elitist. It's what happens when you're trying to be meta.
But, teams don't have to be meta. They just need to be able to find a strategy to defeat the challenge.
I don't ever recall a story of heroes where the team says - "Oh! You are not performing at the expected minimum, so we are kicking you out of this adventure and replacing you!"
That is something that elitist gamers do.
Steven comes from pen and paper Pathfinder.
In pen and paper RPGs, you don't kick people from your group. You figure out the strategies that will allow the your group to succeed. Even if you have to carry someone.
It's elitist gamers in MMORPGs, striving for the meta, who kick people.
You want to look at MMO's as if they are comics.
Cool, have at it.
To many, they are more akin to a sport.
You should opt to keep out of discussions that are about the more serious side of MMPO's, as it is inevitable that you will be shown to have no idea what you are talking about.
― Plato
I was thinking the same thing. Comparing mmo's and their players to sports teams makes much more sense than to super heroes. Plus, if we WERE to go the super hero route, the community would be 90% Lobo's haha.
I have a problem with players using the term "elitist" as an all bad form of play. When I played wow there was a guild who considered themselves elitist. They were pieces of shit human beings who would opt to be rude to you in game because they knew they had a good raid group and would clear any/all content. Then there was my guild. We helped the server, we created fun side events to the regular game, we were REALLY good but not the best and we considered ourselves elitist because we wanting to be led by "elite" players (as most players do....that's called being elitist). We did kick people for causing wipes or for not meeting dps/healing expectations but only if they couldn't pull through at that time. I/officers would be on after the raid or the next day to help them figure it out. Now, obviously this isn't how most guilds do it but most guilds are trash.
on FFXIV forum, most of people on "anti parser" side when there is a topic about it, are Grey/white-stats in FFXIVlogs. (and they are the "You don't pay my sub" people)
It means that most people defending the "no parser" (and mostly wanting yoshida to ban ACT/FFXIV app users) on the forum are people that are just carried all along... (being on fflogs mean they did content and their data was uploaded with the other 7 data by at least 1 guy of the team... it is not a 100% chance it happens, far from it)
People "who don't care meta" and just want to enjoy the game are on "neutral" side. and mostly are on green/blue stats in FFXIV logs. So they are totally good level enough for story mode content (and i think, able to train harder)...
And... NO "carrying people" is not a thing everyone have to do. carrying the "weak" is a favor the team does to this guy.
I did end game, i spent hours playing the game to be top level for it. i waited for my 39 then 24 teammate (or 7 for sadic content on FFXIV) to also train, and be ready for the content. And yes, we kicked out the deadweight (and not only because "combat tracker said bad DPS" ... many of kicks were from things outside of combat tracker... like people doing tunnel DPS on boss, and not switching to add. avoiding rarely AOE, etc etc... They were top DPS but remained deadweight... )
With this game level, i was able to sell run on FFXIV, mostly because to break boredom while nothing else interesting to do. So in this situation, i got millions of gils to literally validate the kill for people who prefered pay for it. we asked them to die asap in the begining of the fight (because FFXIV got some mechanic were a guy can generate a wipe by itself...) and so, we did the boss with a team of 7 people instead of the 8 intended.
in 15 years of guild officer on WoW then FFXIV, and even in dungeons in Aion (Dark poeta/beshmundir mainly) I was totally ok (and happy) to carry some people in the guild thru content. but not only i did carry them, i also learned them how to do the fight.
I have no problem helping "the weaks" to do content. but none have to force me to do it when i don't want .
the weak is useless in the team. Never Superman Carried Batman... Not in the way we speak about "carry" here : doing the work while batman can AFK. Batman always did his part in any fight he was part. The "weak" people are carrying is a deadweight. Call me elitist if you want. I never had shame the way i played online game. Was proud to sometime not avoiding some people to join my party because "too weak". I was also proud to sometime spend time to help guildies with far lower level gameplay. And proud to do it when i wanted, never when anyone forced me to.
My FFXIV guild was RP, i was officially "bad". i was not the smiling officer saying "it is ok, we will kill the boss" i was the one saying "Move your fucking ass to avoid AOE, else the boss won't die." I know most of the guild knew i wouldn't do any gift, and would never shut my mouth about their mistakes. They also Knew they would never be invited to join the party of the top of the guild, the one that discovers content when it is released, killing the bosses far before them... I was always honest to them about their game level. They knew even on those "low level team" if they were not able to improve enough, they would be on the bench in favor of really invested people.
They never complained, even more, they thanked me... I was just doing what i thought i had to do.
And this risk to finish on bench, never anyone complained... For a simple reason : they didnt want to be on bench, but also didnt want to play with people who had no care about playing well ! And neither of them were "top player" they were good... or even average. But they were all on the global same mindset about how much effort they invested in the content !
"You don't pay my sub" complained people on FFXIV as a "you don't have to kick me because i am bad" but i could answer the same "you don't pay my sub" meaning "i don't have to carry you". Pay me, and i will carry you
MMORPG is not about hundreds and thousands of friendly people... it is about GROUP of people
A group with a same mindset. you don't join a roleplay guild if you don't care roleplay right ? so Don't join a group with far more commitment in the game that what your own commitment is. Or accept to be kicked.
Join people with the same mindset.
And so, combat tracker ? You don't like it? join Guild who doesn't care about it. You want to be with people with high comitment ? yes, they will use combat tracker.
Funny to see people against combat tracker are mostly those considering the carry is a due, not a favor...
The weak wanting to be carry is as toxic as the dumb top end player full of disdain...
And with your message claiming people have to carry the others, you prove to be toxic.
Did so much pen&paper...
We are so far from what mmorpg is...
And yes... even in pen & paper situation, you can kick people outside of your table. Never had to do it in table i were. But i know it exist, i have many story about it. and i never blamed people doing it. Because all time there was one common thing : The kicked player did not fit the mindset of the table.
Pen&paper table can be "full immersiv" with a little cosplay. speaking while modifying our voice to fit more how our character speak. Some table can be about minmaxing characters (and god... pathfinder is one RPG when you can minmax a lot). Some table can be in a totally funny mindset "you come, you play, just it" with no care about minmaxing or immersion. etc etc.
If you join a table with a total different mindset, you don't have fun, and you nerf the fun the table get. You deserve to be kicked.
It is rare thing because we do roleplay mostly with friends... and with friends, you are mostly in the same mindset... (it helps a little for "friendship")
If you have a guild or a team where you all have agreed to all perform at 90%+ of your classes ability then what is wrong with that?
Same if you have a guild where your limit is 50%+. Or maybe you even have a guild that doesnt care because its not what's important to that collection of people.
This entire issue of hiding meters just has selfish uncaring taste to it. i cant quite put my finger on it.
The only place DPS meters actually becomes an issue are in world of warcrafts LFR scenarios where you are forced into playing with random people that you didnt really agree to. Every single one of these issues will be resolved by guilds on their own and toxicity will be self regulated out of it. If you want a high likelyhood of finding a non-toxic environment look for a guild who is average age 30 who by schedule gets together atleast once or twice a week for whatever, dont join that 16-18 year old world first wannabe hardcore guild nor the actual world first contenders who will actually hold you to it.
The only people who are opposed to DPS/buff/Debuff/cc/heal/threat/damage taken meters are the people who are either stuck in world of warcrafts LFR singleplayer mentality and doesnt want to join a guild with likeminded people OR they want to be in that 90%+ guild but they dont want to carry themselves.
Meters tracking things will never be an issue if the social side of it is taken care of before meters even becomes relevant.
Edit: This
Edit2:
Really this entire issue isnt even about wether to show meters or not, it boils down to wether you want to play singleplayer or multiplayer and why. if you dont want to interact with other players, make friends, having your actions affect other players then maybe its the wrong place to try turn a multiplayer game into a singleplayer game.
Guilds and social agreements between players, social tools and incentives are the solution. not a inhibited singleplayer experience, if someone offends you in the chat the solution isnt to remove the chat from the game.
Group / Raid DPS Meters = good. A raid group can quantify & baseline it's performance. Also helpful to understand mechanics on the group output.
These are both just tools. WoW created it's own culture around these metrics. That doesn't mean every MMO culture is going to be that dysfunctional (on the whole). My guild & raid team used these tools appropriately.
A hammer is just a hammer. I can build a house or murder a stranger. Doesn't mean hammers get banned by the ... banhammer.
We just can't talk about that on these forums because then people will scream about becoming political.
That third type of person is a person that has never played a game that uses combat trackers, has heard anecdotal stories about them from WoW, has a history of mistreating his own guild members (basically treating them like pawns to do his bidding), thinks the two perspectives he has are actually common, can see how if these were the prevailing attitudes people have in MMO's that it would be a bad time for most, and also this person happens to be making an MMO right now.
Looking at Stevens gaming history, I can understand his aversion to combat trackers. He is a notoriously toxic MMO player himself, and has never actually played a game where combat trackers are put to good use.
When you consider it from that perspective, his opinion of them do make sense.
The problem is, that perspective is not even close to seeing the whole picture. It is an incredibly narrow perspective.
I don't know how my once sentence got so much out of you, but it was a very entertaining read.
I am confused as to what opinion you think I have?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I do agree with all of this. Anyone who has not been in a high-end raid encounter that is well tuned while it is current content cannot appreciate the value of DPS meters. Having not experienced this type of gameplay results in an incredibly narrow prospective.
A creative director who has not had an experience with or an appreciation for high-end PvE content would also in my opinion not be someone I would expect to include such content in a game they are working on. Especially when they are putting 40million-ish of their own pocket money into realizing their MMO dream.
This is why, as someone who is very pro dps meter in general, I am skeptical we will need one. I still maintain after a year of being on this forum that I don't think we will see raids interesting enough to need DPS meters. I just have not seen any strong evidence that Steven wants anything more than open world prize, piñatas to be fought over in zergs.
As always, I would love to be proven wrong. Me being wrong in this case means I get good, interesting raid encounters.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I am absolutely convinced that Steven doesn't actually understand what any of that is, as he has not seen any of it before.
I had been confident that Jeff would steer the ship in regards to that content, as it is a content type he understands in it's entirety.
With Jeff gone, I have no confidence that Stevens comments in this regard are still valid. I do not see any way that Ashes will get a content type that Steven is unfamiliar with.
― Plato
This is my biggest fear of the game. I love PvP content and organization and cannot wait to experience what AoC will offer (I believe we will get fun and engaging top tier pvp) but the most fun I have had in an MMO has been progression raiding difficult content. That said, I feel the PvE aspect of AoC will be bottom of the barrel garbage. 20% of the dungeons being instanced and primarily for lore is a joke and we will lose PvE players rapidly after launch.
PvE guilds in AoC (right now) are just a waste of time.
PvP "only" guilds will be ok because they are able to experience that 80% and it will flow with their guild focus.
PvX guilds will have a tough time keeping players together because the PvE players will be inconsistent. There won't be anything for them to do other than play farmer or RP in a tavern.
The game needs instanced content to absorb MANY players from other games and keep them here. This will allow guilds to have two directional leadership instead of just PvP. PvP raid leaders and PvE raid leaders can work together to do so much more in the game if instanced content is also bringing in loot and bringing groups together. I'm truly worried for the longevity of AoC if raid night is ONLY "ok guys where are we roaming to" with easy boss fights if there is no competition. What I find hilarious is that no matter what content is released, pvp players can either counter an open world raid or camp the exit/travel (or ideally both if we have a plethora of instanced/open world raids and dungeons). Maybe this is the next big hot button topic to bring up?
I feeled you disliked this sentence like i dislike it
But the answer was not specificly for you.
The games' big boss can have a big lack in some kind of content as personnal experience, and allow the game having this content good. The problem as said... The one who could create such real PvE good fight left. (Maybe there is another guy. i don't say "it is loss")
Steven is a lot about "the game will have this" or "The game will not have this" : It is nice to claim, harder to have it well done. Because you have to find the good guy, who is able to developp this well. And you have to hear him well, to be able to accept thing that he needs to do so...
"We will have really hard PvE content" + "no combat tracker, and we will ban any third party combat tracker" are totally 2 opposite statement. And as i already said... Its whole message explaining why he doesn't want combat tracker shows he has no knowledge about what a real boss fight is, and how the players doing such content play any mmorpg...
There is reason that only WoW and FFXIV are considered having real interesting PvE. Because other MMORPG failed to do interesting strategies, too easy fights, or dumbfully hard and bad designed (so People will find any bug/flaw in design and abuse it, whithout "really" doing fight)
And WoW/FFXIV didnt born with "perfect raids" ...
The firsts in wow were quite easy (but we were discovering) had to wait Chromaggus for a real first tough fight. And when they wanted to be more "all public" about PvE content, it made BC where most boss was not so hard at first.
FFXIV... T2 with the 0click strategy : pulled boss some short second before enrage, enrage was not so hard to heal, and the specific fight mechanic disappeared with enrage. My guild always aimed to kill the boss in "real" strat. (and we learned our lower member this way)
There was also the T6 fight, where you could totally skip a mecanique by... abusing the high game latency.
Both game learned to become what they are now...
Let's hope Steven, seeing what happens in its game, will also learn, understand, and adapt.
The PvE in Ashes of Creation promises to be really poor quality (i hope i am wrong...)
DPS Meters is a tool which has as every tools, a good and bad side:
good :
-very helpfull to midmax and theorycraft.
- can help you anderstand your mistakes , and others mistakes so you can help them improove and seeing it thrue that tool.( for exemple a boss fight that someone struggle against, and seeing him improove his dps/hps beceause he dies less or something)
- for hardcore PVE players it can help having stats to improove their roster ( it can be seen as something bad as you can see it like : we only want this and this dps beceause they do better on this fight , but some people are fine with this .... if you enter a guild for hardcore purpose you expect this beceause all you want is your guild to success )
BAD:
- you always have bad people , having a dps meter will give them one more tool to be toxic
- you can feel bad beeing behind on the dps meter ( for that reason beeing able to enable the dps meter or not and not making it default would saulve this problem )
MY conclusion : you will always have toxic players, having a dps meter or not won't make them vanish ... but this tool is still a tool so it all depend how you use it. Is the tool the one to blame for what is done with it or the people using it ? If you end up beeing in a toxic guild, all you need is to change it and find a good guild that is ready to help you with this tool and not the opposit.
So you guessed it i'd like a dps meter beceause as an ex raid leader i loved having that type of tool to improove and help people improove too. This is a great tool and there is a reason why nearly all MMOs have it. (Stop blaming the tool, focus on the bad people
PS: Sorry for my english, hi from France
Git gud without it
Why get good without it, when instead you can get even better with it?
Like it or not, a tool like a combat tracker will always make any person using it correctly better than that same person would ever be able to be if they were not using it.
That is just a plain fact of access to objective information.
It is ruining gameplay designs, with devs cutting corners around natural telegraphs or attacking enemies, in favour of signals, indicators and colours, in an attemp to complement the clutch reactions players are used to, since all they do is look at the UI and not the game.
It is ruining player interraction, where before, people would spend time getting familiar with somebody elses ability to lv up, kill a boss, fight in PvP. Now people ask for meter results or achievement proofs.
You dont get better with it. You rely on it.
I am glad that AoC seems to move away from them and I hope they do ban people for using 3rd party meters in order to protect the oldschool attributes I mentioned above.
Git gud l2p ggQQbb
/Chad out
Don't go talking shit about hammers just because you don't like the way they cut holes.
Git gud.
Neither does Steven.
L2p
I'm sure everyone (anyone?) reading this would fully understand the depth and nuance of the point you are making here.
Yet, they will exist...
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.