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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
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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
This is definitely going to be a large part of deciding whether or not the dps are pulling their weight, though maybe not specifically who.
My question is, and i'm sorry if this is common knowledge: will players be able to adjust their augments on the fly? and by on the fly I mean in between combat scenarios.
I think being able to adjust augments after failing a section of a raid or dungeon, and giving it another go with a slightly different, potentially more effective set up would alleviate a lot of the pressure people may feel to run with the meta. A meta that I see encompassing many possibilities because of the complexity of the archetypes and augments.
For example: I join up with a group as a weapon master using a non meta set up, but with the proper guild rank/ religion rank or whatever that allows me to use the meta set up if absolutely necessary. The group may be more willing to allow me to tag along with the build I find to be more fun if I was capable of swapping some augments if we run into a brick wall.
@VmanGman My thoughts exactly.
If you want to know who is performing in combat then you need to determine some kind of training regime.
- If you can't arrange PvP test battles against a "friendly" guild then you don't have a serious PvP group.
- If you can't arrange PvE dungeon trials against "easy" content then you don't have a serious PvE group.
Players that just turn up and expect to do the fun bit without any preparation shouldn't be part of the equation.
I understand the desirability of DPS meters, but they are only part of the equation and if you rely on them too heavily then you miss out on the "real world" (LOL, Verra) application of team tactics.
you can track your health, you can physically see the damage numbers you're doing, so why shouldn't you be allowed to track the damage you're doing? You can chose to not have a combat tracker on your screen if you only want an adventure.
I want to play a game, I want to be as good at the game as I can. A combat tracker will give a much better idea on what I'm doing well/badly at. Just have faith that the community will matter more than a groups elitism.
Yeah I don't depend on them to be good. Just skillz for me. You'll get their one day too. You will feel free with no training wheels.
There are a few problems with this argument.
The first is that it is simply an argument against a quantity of data, not an argument against access to data. I doubt you would want to argue that floating combat feedback (those numbers you see on screen that tell you how much damage each hit does, and such) should be removed from the game. Since this is also simply information, your argument is that there is some arbitrary point between that and what the poster in question described that is an acceptable limit on how much data should be made available.
You are also arguing that this arbitrary line should be the same for all players.
Is the level that this poster went to above what I would do? Yes, it is. I prefer to run a combat tracker in the background so that I can analyze things at the end of the day (or the following day, usually).
Does this mean that this player shouldn't be able to do things the way they want to do them? Hell no.
The funny thing is, since Ashes will have a combat tracker, if you were absolutely adamant that players shouldn't be able to do what that poster described, the best way to make that happen is to ask Intrepid to implement a combat tracker in to the game, but make it only give feedback at the end of the encounter/event.
Strangely, this is what I have been arguing for Intrepid to add since about 2018.
As someone previously stated, even without the tracker people will find ways to judge a group. Most likely by time it's taking at the beginning.
Combat trackers dont work like that.
what? Of course they do. Combat trackers give you a detailed breakdown of everything that happened during the fight. Number of casts, fight duration, dmg breakdown, the sequence and frequency of the skills used, mana/resources used, to allies healing you and buffing you. In WoW it even shows you players talents.
Would you care to elaborate why is it that it wouldn't work that way in AoC?
Most the the build testing done in wow is done using SimulationCraft to quickly iterate over changes in a build not Advanced Combat logging.
If you can't externally export the data and it only lasts say ~24 hours in game, then you can use it for analysis in the moment of the games you just did with the people you played with, but it can't be used by other people.
This information usually contains the caster, the target(s), the name of the ability, the amount and type of damage the ability does, and the time.
There is no way - using just a combat tracker - to be able to tell what build a player has.
You can tell what abilities the player has - if someone is hitting you with a spell called fireball, it is safe to assume they have spec'd in to fireball.
However, if fireball does 100 damage as standard, and this player is hitting you with fireballs that deal 120 damage, a combat tracker has no inherent way of knowing if that fireball spell has skill points added to it, if the additional damage is from better gear, if the additional damage is from an augment (I am assuming augments won't change the name of abilities), if the additional damage is from a buff the caster may have, or from a debuff the target may have.
Now, if the game literally tells those that want to know what build the player in question is using (as is the case in WoW), then obviously that is additional information that can be added. However, that is not an inherent aspect of a combat tracker, it is literally the games developers telling you what spec the player has - which as far as I know is something only WoW really does.
I hope that clears up a few misconceptions you have about combat trackers.
My initial comment was that it would automate the process of reverse engineering builds, in a game that tries to give the player a large amount of options so that they can make their builds unique, which would be counter intuitive to the purpose of the class progression design.
In a 1v1 I can easily tell that your fireball has the DoT upgrade, in a 40v40 it's just not as easy, but a combat tracker will tell me what you, SPECIFICALLY YOU, were running an upped version of fireball. It will also tell me that you used "enter defensive spell here" with lets say a religious augment, something that I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell just from looking at you cast the spell. As such I have access to more info than what I should, based on a 3rd party program.
SimCraft is a tool that helps you find the maximum theoretical throughput of a build, under preset conditions. That is great, but it doesn't allow me to reverse engineer your build (at least not as fast and efficiently - hence the word automate) the same way looking at a breakdown of your skills used.
Yes but if the 20 dmg is in the form of a DoT, I will know that it is an upgraded version of a fireball and DPS meters do tell me if the damage taken is DoT or not. Then using simple deductive reasoning I can know whether you were running an upgraded version of fireball, based on taking DoT or not. Sure, in a 1v1 I can see that for myself, but in a 40v40 or 100v100 or 250v250 it isn't nearly as easy. Also don't forget that I can see damage taken for my grp/raid as well.
While this is all true, you are forgetting where the information for an actual combat tracker comes from.
All of the information they have access to is information us players have access to. We have chat windows with combat feedback, and all a combat tracker is doing is taking the information contained there, and presenting it in an easier format.
If you want to know if that players fireball had a DoT attached to it, you don't need a combat tracker to do it. It just makes it easier.
As to your last point about being able to see the damage of your group or raid, that is 100% up to what information the developers allow the combat tracker to have access to. It isn't an automatic given that you will have access to that information, even if most games do allow it.
And even without the above, being able to sometimes tell what augment a player is using on a few spells is not the same thing as a combat tracker automating the process of working out someone's build, which was your claim.
As far as the guild aspect of it all goes to see who is actually messing up due to tabbing into some anime on the side honestly I think you should know the people you raid with to some extent and be able to figure out who is most likely doing something wrong and instead of berating them for it just try to encourage them to participate more.
I'm pretty ignorant about combat trackers but I always thought that the less numbers a game gives you the better, if instead of seeing a bosses HP we could have a more viusal cue on the model itself it would make the game much more immersive, well for me just my own health/mana/exp etc would be enough and let players figure out other things through playing the game instead of seeing what gives more efficient outcomes simply by looking at the data seen through combat trackers and other similar things.
I don't use combat trackers to give me real time information on player performance - I don't find that to be overly useful information to have. I use them to analyze fights after the fact. I will sometimes use them to give me specific data on an encounter if needed by that encounter, but this is about it.
The point to more/better data in a game is that the more data players have, the more they know what is going on, the more intricate encounters are able to be made.
With detailed information, the developers are able to add in mechanics that have very small room for error, and very major consequences should those errors occur. If the developers have to rely on more generalized information feedback to players, those mechanics can't be as finely tuned and/or the penalty for them needs to be significantly lessened.
One issue I have is if I get to look at any data after a fight to help me figure out a more efficient way of going about it, it will take away from a more trial and error approach of just feeling things out. Probably a bad example to give but if I play Dark Souls and I look at the pattern of the boss after dying once then this is enough for me to probably beat it within the next 1-3 tries otherwise I would slave over the boss figuring out how exactly he attacks and how much damage each attack deals etc.
No, players don't need access to the data developers have in order to take on encounters, but combat trackers do not provide that information.
Without a combat tracker, you are engaging in trial and error blind.
With a combat tracker, you are trying out a thing, getting data, assessing that data, determining where any issues may be, working out a way to deal with those issues and then trying again.
Both are trial and error - one is just far superior to the other. One is only suitable to try and solve simple problems, the other is suitable to try and solve complex problems.
I mean, if we are talking about incredibly simple encounters like that, sure, a combat tracker isn't needed.
When you are talking about encounters with 30+ different mechanics on the go at a time though, you aren't going to notice if your fireball is doing full damage.
Honestly, I am not saying combat trackers are needed for base population, or even for easy boss content. I am saying they are needed if the game wants to have complex, intricate encounters.
"IF the game wants to have complex, intricate encounters."
Maybe we can all hyjack the Q/A thread like the guild of pirates and ask the DEVs for an examples of fights from other MMOs that will have a similar intricacy to the ones they plan for Ashes?
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
It would be more useful - though I don't expect them to really have an idea yet.
The kind of content I am talking about can't be create by the developers until the combat system is developed, tested, implemented and understood.
This means that this content type won't be in the game at release. It actually can't be developed and ready for release.
If you look at most games with good raid content, the best content is added to the game 2 - 5 years after the game is released.
True enough. Would still be nice to know what encounters from other games Jeff, Steven, or Margret struggled with. I just don't want people to flood the Q and A. I think that is kind of a silly way to do things.
I hope the joking tone of my prior post came across. I noticed some people take the things I say on here way too seriously.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Sad Eve Online player noises
Seems like a rather arbitrary point to draw a line at.
Thinking like that, you might as well start removing every piece of the UI that might distract from the adventure including party and raid health bars, your own/enemy health bar, pop up damage numbers, tooltips, buff and debuff indicators and your Ability Hotbar.
In the end, all those parts of the UI are mere numbers and data. None of those sound like a orc hunting in a fantasy world either.
Right... it's impossible to see the difference between all those meters and the normal game UI. /s