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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Do you have any experience with guilds and combat trackers? Because you just said that you find toxic groups from pugs and Twitch pugs.
I also just have you an example were a guild (my guild, and many other guild) uses combat trackers and are NOT toxic, meaning that the toxicity you are talking about do not come from the Combat tracker but rather toxic people.
He is talking from a completely theoretical perspective of how he thinks things are - he has no real idea of how things actually are.
That is why he believes it when Steven says things like "combat trackers lead to toxicity". He has no experience telling him otherwise, unlike almost every single person that has been involved in MMO's at a guild level.
Casual players won't really care about the combat tracker, and if you do then you have a mind set of a more hardcore player rather than a casual player.
My guild is a living example of a guild that is casual and uses combat trackers for fun, we do not care about how much you parse or how good you are. We know we are casual player and that is why we do not have any special requirements when it comes to dps or hps.
So no, casual players will still be casual players. But yes, some casual players may find them self wanting more, wanting more dps, wanting to do better, and they will maybe some day be the best doser in a hardcore guild. But who knows?
Someone does not do enough damage -people wont give them a chance to join raids-they are unable to get better gear-unable to do enough dmg-people wont give them a chance to join raids. and so on, it just goes in a circle
Yeah, this would suck, but it also isn't an issue.
Streamers are not exactly a great source of accurate information or good opinions in regards to MMO's. The point of their existence is profit, views, not accuracy of information.
The only way the above could ever be considered an issue is in the realm of pick up raids, and the only game that has ever existed where pick up raids are a thing people expect is WoW - which has automated systems to form them for players at the bottom end.
In every other game, if you want to raid, you raid with your guild. If you are raiding with your guild and you are not up to standard, your guild assists you in getting there, and a combat tracker is the singular key tool in allowing that to happen.
This game is kinda being designed for them to be kinda useless anyway. DPS meters will be useless because most of the classes will have some form of versatility applied to them. So it will be very common for classes to do lower damage in return for other forms of support, healing, or abilities similar to that. Like there might be a class that does the most DPS in the game and how he does it is by giving everyone in an entire raid a 10% dps buff. The DPS meters will see him as doing absolutely nothing though.
Also just flat out doesn't keep track of healing or support which I said above, but that's very important for a game designed in the older MMO style. Classes in Everquest aren't actual classes like they are in other MMO's. You pick them similar to how ashes is going to, but a lot of the combinations have the ability to add a lot of ridiculous utility to your party. So when you spec into damage in everquest you are often doing 2 classes worth of direct damage. If you spec into 2 healing classes you will be doing 2 classes worth of healing.
That kind of distinction does not exist for DPS meters. So they won't be possible to use effectively in a game like this.
U.S. East
combat trackers can show you much more than just dps meters. Buff uptimes, CC/interrupts done, dispells, healing, overhealing, damage taken, etc.
A bunch of us stopped grouping with the guild leader and I was able to devise strategies for us to beat the end-game dungeons without the guild leader and without combat trackers.
Steven is typically a guild leader in the MMORPGs he's played and he's not supporting combat trackers in Ashes because he feels there's to much danger of them causing toxicity.
You giving me some examples has not convinced me those are not exceptions to the general circumstances.
Steven sharing my philosophy (as do many others) convinces me that my perspective is valid.
If the game is designed to implement and support combat trackers, the game devs will design content that allow combat trackers to be more useful and meaningful. Which can be great group combat design in general but is is poor RPG design specifically.
Again, I think that is precisely my point.
We should be able to gift other players gear that can do sufficient damage.
So you just admitted that you succeeded to find a group to do and complete dungeons with, even though the game has a combat tracker. Meaning, that the casual players will not be affected by the combat tracker.
And my argument gave you an example that invalidated your perception that guilds, groups or raids are toxic because of the dps meters. They can be toxic because of toxic people, not because of combat trackers.
If you want to stay way from toxic groups, you should probably stay a way from twitch guilds xD
I've yet to see a game with group content that needs strategy rather than just good players. And never once seen group content that needs a combat tracker.
You may as well be saying that you are successfully able to participate in crafting content without a combat tracker here, as you are literally talking about parts of the game where they are not needed.
Btw, do you prefer master loot or personal loot in PvE?
I've seen criticism about Steven's personal past in mmos in a parser thread and if you don't think that is toxic you're brainwashed by combat trackers and are too far gone.
Stevens past has been criticized on a combat tracker thread - but that was in relation to his toxic behavior in other games despite not using a combat tracker and thus how he knows for a fact that combat trackers are not needed for massive amounts of toxicity to exist.
How are you blaming discussion on combat trackers for that, rather than blaming Steven for his toxic behavior in the past?
I mean, one of those two things is clearly to blame, but you have your finger pointed at the wrong one.
And, no, what I stated is that casual players were negatively affected by the combat tracker. That's why we stopped grouping with the twitch host/guild leader.
I wonder what you think being affected means.
No. You didn't invalidate anything.
Also, I don't agree that the leaders are toxic. It's relying on the combat trackers that make the leaders toxic.
It's like barring cell phones and TVs from the dining area during family dinner if what you want is to foster dialogue. What you're saying is well, that family won't talk to each other anyway even if they don't have cell phones or TV - they are just non-communicative people.
That is some really absurd logic that has you jumping from... one twitch guild that has a guild leader who uses combat trackers in a toxic manner to... you should probably stay away from twitch guilds in general.
I said that my experience is that groups and PUGs that rely on combat trackers are toxic.
You asked if I had any experience with guilds using combat trackers and I said I've had one experience with a guild that used combat trackers...and it followed the same behavior that I experienced in groups and PUGs that use combat trackers.
I didn't say anything like, "In my experience, twitch guilds tend to use combat trackers." I also didn't say that in my experience twitch guilds tend to be toxic.
I don't think I've made much commentary on guilds using combat trackers. When asked about guilds I said Steven tends to be in guilds and he agrees with my philosophy about combat trackers and toxicity.
Regarding guilds, Steven says:
"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."
If you want to debate about guilds who use combat trackers in general - you need to do that with Steven.
Prior to 2013, I refused to join guilds because guilds because most guilds have rules and regulations and mandatory time, etc - and I'm not interested in that bullshit. The twitch guild I joined for NWO had no rules or regulations.
The only soft rule was that you watched the twitch stream and so were able ask the host to let you into the guild. And the only toxicity in that guild was specifically when the host/guild leader relied on the combat tracker during dungeon runs. We did have one guy wipe out our shared bank at one point, but then we just assigned some officers to the manage the bank so it was a little less free-for-all than it was when we started, but it didn't change much.
After I burnt out on NWO, I was planning to be done with MMOs, but then I noticed that SOE had just announced EQNext a few weeks earlier and saw that my former boss at Activision was now Director Of Development and had given the pitch at PAX East.
From that, I'm now in a loose network of twitch groups and discord groups derived from EQNext/Landmark, Revival and CoE. The games I've played with those people, while we wait for an MMORPG we want to play to be released, don't have guilds, nor do they have combat trackers.
You say guilds in general use combat trackers with no toxicity.
I say if Steven agreed with that, he would probably not be opposed to combat trackers.
The issue there wasn't the combat tracker, the issue was the fact that this guild had no vetting of members. That is what most guilds rules are there to achieve - they set rules that they find easy to follow, and if you are unable to follow those rules you are probably not the kind of person that would fit in with the guild.
No rules or vetting means all types of gamers are in the guild, which is going to cause friction at some point, over some issue.
Interestingly, EQN was going to have combat trackers - they had the same attitude to them that EQ and EQ2 did.
This means anything you are saying is inherent to combat trackers would have been inherent to EQN in your mind.
You finding a group that didn't rely on combat trackers, even though they exist, shows that casual people will not care about it and there for won't affect them.
Casual players will only be affected my combat trackers when they are playing with the wrong group of people, like semi hardcore or even hardcore people. Since those types of players uses combat trackers there will be a higher chance that the casual player will be affected by it. However, it's a 100% chance that every player will be affected by the combat tracker if they are grouped up with a toxic player -> never group with that person again -> no problem.
And my logic with the twitch guild is that I do watch twitch and can only image the toxicity from curtain twitch communities.
I ask you this random question again, do you prefer master loot or personal loot?
Yeah it's weird... play with people you like to play with and stop complaining about how other players play the game, it shouldn't be that difficult xD
Players actually do care when they are bullied due to a perceived under-performance based on combat tracker stats, which happens way to often.
In that interview with Steven, when Steven says that he's opposed to DPS meters because "it can create a toxic dynamic between essentially excluding players from raids and/or content"... TimThe Tatman yells, "True!"
He goes on to say, "I was bottom of my DPS meter in Classic WoW all the time and all they did was yell at me, so...thank you for that."
So, your unfounded assertions that people will not care are utterly ludicrous and demonstrably false.
Not that it matters anyway because Steven is convinced they cause too much toxicity to be included in the game.
Casual players will not be affected at all because Ashes will not have combat trackers.
Combat trackers are very common and openly used in that game, as will be the case in Ashes.
Is it the combat tracker that bullies people or is it toxic players?
A combat tracker IS NOT toxic and do not have any emotions, it's people that is the problem. If you find yourself in a toxic group that may "bully" you because you are at the bottom of the dps meter, then leave the freaking group! Do not blame the dps meter, blame the toxic players.
A combat tracker is just simply a tool for raiders (hardcore or not), not a weapon to "exclude" people from raids or end game content so stop acting like it does.
And I ask you again, do you prefer master loot or personal loot?
I've been booted from a group in the past for not RP'ing. It was my fault for not understanding the type of player that was in the group.
To me, these two situations are the same. Someone joined a group of players that were not the same as them, and were then removed from the group for not being the type of player the group wanted.
I suppose I could have used imprecise wording in a previous post but, I don't see in a search on this page where I stated that combat trackers are toxic.
Combat trackers cause group leaders to behave in a toxic manner. That claim is a generalization; not an absolute. I do not agree with you that the group leaders were toxic players before relying on combat trackers.
You keep asserting that I should blame the players; not the DPS meter; but I continue to blame reliance on the DPS meter causing the toxic behavior.
Steven doesn't agree with you. Nor do I. Nor do many other people. But... the person who counts is Steven.
Combat trackers are just tools. There are times when certain tools get banned due to the negative manner in which people behave when they rely on the tools.
I don't really care about loot rights. I'm a communist.
The people that count are the community.
What Steven thinks about combat trackers means nothing if the community disagrees with him. I am a perfect case in point for that - I will have one, and I will use it.
Even with Steven saying they will take action on accounts that are seen to be using them, I am still confident enough to state outright that I will have one and that I will use it.
the reply was my first sentence, then I made a general reply to your philosophy that dps meters are bad (toxic) for the general community.
your generalization for group leaders just do not match my experience in any mmo. For the past (soon) two years I have played wow classic everyday, and my general experience is that group leaders are NOT toxic. And even before that when I played ESO I didn´t find group leaders to be toxic because of the dps meters. Yes, they do exist and I have encountered them, but I do not think much about them since I will never never group with them again. And you can always start your own group/guild were you can make the rules to fit your playstyle
Sorry but I don´t really follow what you mean with "but I continue to blame reliance on the DPS meter causing the toxic behavior.", maybe I´m reading it wrong xD