.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.
Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.
.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.
Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.
Maybe it would have been more accurate if I said fame that *only* rely on animations.
There is nothing wrong with using animation to communicate what is happening or about to happen. It's when that is the only communication tool that is used, and when every ability boss has to use is given it's own animation.
For a top end encounters, there should be more abilities with absolutely no warning they are about to be used than there should be abilities with telegraphs or animations.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
Given that this is a digital experience that (currently) isn’t planned to be released in console where you might use the controller vibration as a cue, there actually aren’t other ways to pass information to players besides through sight and sound, unless you mean to have no indication of mechanics at all or you mean to have combat cue information fed to players via text.
.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.
Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.
Maybe it would have been more accurate if I said fame that *only* rely on animations.
There is nothing wrong with using animation to communicate what is happening or about to happen. It's when that is the only communication tool that is used, and when every ability boss has to use is given it's own animation.
For a top end encounters, there should be more abilities with absolutely no warning they are about to be used than there should be abilities with telegraphs or animations.
I agree, I think that the big damaging/"main" ability of a boss should have an animation, maybe even a cast bar if it's a dragon about to cast "dragon breath", while some abilities should just "happen", like tail swipe or similar abilities that is more action based.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
You're missing the point.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
Interesting how everyone thinks my screen is cluttered with combat trackers. I said I play on a 35" wide-screen. The trackers don't block any of my field of vision. Most the time I'm not looking at them and I don't see them detract at all from the "adventure" at all. Of course when I'm out adventuring I don't really look at the meters often. I could just as easily use a single window thats half the size of a chat box, but I find the multiple windows more convenient and I have more than enough screen space.
I actually streamed for a friend the other night who was sitting out when we were doing the rated BGs. She loved the meters as a observer because they gave her so much more context on what was happening in game... so there's a use case for increased emersion!!
Will this game have competitive pvp? Like instanced battlegrounds? My point of my origional comment was to show there is value for combat trackers in pvp as some were saying its just pve.
I'm on my mobile now, but I'll have to share a screenshot later.
Bouncing between WoW and FFXIV I've come to appreciate not having addons at all (FFXIV).
I think it's because the design behind FFXIV lends itself better for this, there's not really a DPS check as much and there's more of a focus on doing (boss) mechanics right. You'd have to be REALLY bad at DPSing to drag your raid down. (at least in my experiences)
Honestly WoW crowd is hyperfocused on DPS/HPS numbers it's getting out of hand... like some classes do not get invited to raids or arena teams because they are not in the top 5 simmed charts.
Not gonna lie, when I fire up WoW my screen is full of various (in some cases custom made WeakAuras) trackers just because I have to do that to compete.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
You're missing the point.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?
That’s an absolutely awful idea. Ambient, identifiable damage is fine. Random ambient damage with little to no way of identifying the source which is also inconsistent from pull to pull is how you frustrate your players for no good reason.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
You're missing the point.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?
Yes.
The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.
If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.
It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.
Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
You're missing the point.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?
Yes.
The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.
If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.
It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.
Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.
Randomness is NOT how you add a higher skill demand to a raid.
I feel as though there might been a lapse in communication here. I speak of indicators as everything that players hear and see that indicates if, when, and where theh take damage. A visible ring of fire bursting from the boss that places a DoT on every player within x meters from the boss is an indicator, regardless of if the AoE grew out from under the boss to warn players. A drumbeat in the background music that has an area of damage change every third beat is an indicator. An otherwise plain animation without vfx that leads up to a ones maneuver is an indicator.
Sure, not everything has to be indicated beforehand, but everything that hits the players needs to be visibly or audibly signaled even if it isn’t avoidable.
Players have to know when they’re taking damage. They need to be given the indicators to deduce where that damage is coming from. And they need to have the information to know WHY that damage is occurring. If a mechanic is added any of the above information is missing or unobtainable during the fight, then the fight has only placed more emphasis on luck, not any greater emphasis on skill.
Randomness is NOT how you add a higher skill demand to a raid.
The key aspects of the mechanic are not random.
The only aspect that is random is the timing, and that is only so you can't just set up a timer once and be done with it.
That type of mechanic is *EXACTLY* how you add higher skill to raids. I can not stress this enough, it is *EXACTLY* how you add a demand for higher skill in top end content.
I feel as though there might been a lapse in communication here. I speak of indicators as everything that players hear and see that indicates if, when, and where theh take damage. A visible ring of fire bursting from the boss that places a DoT on every player within x meters from the boss is an indicator, regardless of if the AoE grew out from under the boss to warn players. A drumbeat in the background music that has an area of damage change every third beat is an indicator. An otherwise plain animation without vfx that leads up to a ones maneuver is an indicator.
That is a telegraph, a sound queue and an animation queue, respectively.
These are the things I am saying are fine sometimes, even most of the time, but top end content is essentially defined by these things not existing on some abilities.
Players have to know when they’re taking damage.
Sure, but the encounter doesn't need to tell them, they should be able to work it out for themselves.
If they pull an encounter and it fires an AoE off after 45 seconds, and then it fires it again after another 38 seconds, and then again 38 seconds later, that should be enough information for the raid to know that there is an AoE there that they need to figure out.
If they pull the encounter again on the next pull, and that same AoE fires after 45 seconds again, and then fires 44 seconds later, and then again 44 seconds later, then the raid has enough information to know how to handle that AoE.
Any raid worth a being called a raid will be fine with that without needing the mob to telegraph, animate or emote that the AoE is about to be triggered. This leaves mechanics up to players to actually figure out, rather than leaving it up to the raids developers to tell the players about the mechanics.
On the other hand, if there is an AoE that triggers once after 45 seconds, and then again 50 seconds later, and then again 38 seconds later, that is enough information to tell the raid that they probably need to look for what is triggering that AoE, as it is not timed.
If every dangerous ability is explained to players via telegraphs, animations or sound queues, you don't have top end raiding. There should be an expectation on these encounters that each guild will need 100+ pulls on the encounter before getting their first kill.
Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.
Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.
The fact that you took damage is feedback.
The fact that your raid wiped is feedback.
Remember, these are encounters that maybe 5% of the total population will ever succeed on.
Animation, audio and telegraph feedback is for the 95%.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, I'm saying this is how it is. In games with actual top end raids, a good number of the important abilities are not telegraphed or animated, and are left to players to work out.
The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.
No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does
Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.
I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.
No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does
Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.
I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.
Actually, in context, he was absolutely right.
People that are actually killing shit in MMO's don't care about DPS or HPS, they care that shit is being killed.
People that aren't killing shit in MMO's watch videos of others playing MMO's, talk about videos of others playing MMO's and think they know what they are talking about with DPS and HPS.
No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does
Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.
I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.
It's funny that you mentioned asmongold, a warrior that cares much more about the viewing experience than doing high end content. If I remember correctly he did that dps contests for twitch content (a fun thing to do) and to select people for a raiding pug. A PUG (pick up group) to do the previous expansion raid for fun and the achievement, so nothing special.
Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.
The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.
And your obsession with combat trackers makes much more sense knowing that you work under the incorrect assumption that completely uncommunicated mechanics are in any way “end-game” material. Of course you’re dependent on outside sources when they’re required to even know what the hell is hitting you.
Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.
The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.
And your obsession with combat trackers makes much more sense knowing that you work under the incorrect assumption that completely uncommunicated mechanics are in any way “end-game” material. Of course you’re dependent on outside sources when they’re required to even know what the hell is hitting you.
They aren't un-communicated.
The fact that you are being hit communicates all you need to know. The information is all in the combat chat window of the game client, a combat tracker simply makes that information easier to access (as in, it cuts the time needed to accurately access and assess the information by 99%).
As I've said, the need for encounters to tell players what is happening is for easy content. It is for content that players would expect to clear on their first day of trying, if not their first pull.
That is not suitable content for progression based gaming, as there is no need to spend time on an encounter to learn it, because the encounter is telling you all you need to know.
If you look at "some games" out there that have encounters that tell players what is happening, the hardest content in the game is usually cleared within hours, occasionally days.
In games that use this kind of thing, it is weeks or months.
And yes, this is why I want combat trackers built in to the game. It is the same argument I have been saying all along - top end encounters can not exist without combat trackers, so a combat tracker should be built in to the games client.
I have been fairly consistent on that line for several years now, I am sure you would agree. The difference now is that you know why I believe this to be the case. You may disagree that this is the case, you may be happy to see content that is killed the first day it spawns on any given server - but you know I am not, and you know how designers can avoid this being the case.
... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.
Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.
If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.
There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
You're missing the point.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?
Yes.
The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.
If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.
It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.
Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something... but the things you described basically sound like a healer check. Constant, unavoidable, raidwide damage isn't interesting nor difficult, it's simply something to be healed through. Especially if (like you suggested) this raid-wide damage is linked to how much damage the boss is taking. This means there will be periods of time where the solution is to sit and wait to be topped off by your healer before continuing the fight. That would be boring & uninteractive.
I understand that you're advocating for obscuring boss mechanics so that you cannot simply "get out of the fire", but these examples are awful. I don't think they require a combat tracker either, just trial and error.
To me, an interesting & difficult fight is something that's so finely tuned that every last bit of dps matters. Maybe everybody already knows the mechanics beforehand, but executing on them while maintaining your absolute highest DPS will be incredibly difficult. The kind of fight where, even if everybody knows what to do, it might take a couple hundred attempts to really get it right. Where progression isn't limited by trial and error but by your experience on that encounter. The kind of fight that is impossible to PUG because of how important teamwork and communication is.
You can do these things without trying to obscure the reasons why players are taking damage. For DPS meters, I would prefer that they'd be needed to gauge & improve player performance, rather than used to try and decipher the boss. Deciphering the boss sounds fantastic, but it should be achievable with in-game means.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something... but the things you described basically sound like a healer check. Constant, unavoidable, raidwide damage isn't interesting nor difficult, it's simply something to be healed through.
They could be, if that is what the developers decide to make them - but they by no means need to be.
With the AoE mechanic I described above, after the second hit of the AoE, every further time it is cast is completely predictable, down to the exact second it will be cast, but only if the raid know what they are doing.
This means that as a means of delivering a mechanic, as long as players can be expected to live through the first two casts of it, the actual mechanic can be literally anything the developers want it to be. It doesn't even need to be an AoE.
Since the cast of this mechanic is 100% predictable after the second cast, it can even be a mechanic that requires a specific resolution from the raid, and wipes the raid should they fail to meet the requirements.
Again, the effect can be literally anything at all that developers want to put in the encounter - as long as players can survive the first two hits. The difference between this and an animation is completely and totally limited to how players recognize the ability is about to be used - with animations players know because the developers tell them, without animations players know because they spent time to work it out.
Again, that is literally the only difference.
To me, an interesting & difficult fight is something that's so finely tuned that every last bit of dps matters.
I enjoy a good DPS fight as well, since I almost exclusively main as a DPS caster.
Thing is, a tank and spank encounter that requires a very high raidwide DPS isn't exactly enjoyable. The encounter still needs to do *something*. This seems to be a notion you agree with.
Having some of the encounters abilities needing to be worked out by the raid each pull is simply one more thing that the raid needs to do to meet the requirements of the encounter - it is one more thing that requires that higher degree of communication, one more thing that makes the raid un-pug-able.
Deciphering the boss sounds fantastic, but it should be achievable with in-game means.
I agree 100%, which is why I have been arguing for about three years now that Ashes should build a combat tracker in to the games client.
That said, we know we will have combat logs. These logs are all that is needed to be able to work out the mechanics I am talking about above. It is an unwieldly, time consuming and clunky way to work it out, but it is possible. Literally all a combat tracker does is re-organize the information in a combat log in to something easier to digest.
I disagree with some of what @Noaani is saying. I don't think a fight where damage is random and with no indicators sounds like a good idea. that basically does turn it into a healing check. Damage you can't avoid or mitigate is 100% on your healers, even though you might try and argue against that..
With no audio or visual cues and just using a combat log to see things, are we seriously expecting people to just stare at the logs and be timing abilities every fight? Now that sounds awful.
Maybe the problem with the "easy" content is just having things on set timers. Random timers are in my opinion a decent idea, it'll test reaction speed and decision making. The argument of course in favour of set timers is that it allows high end competition, randomness allows people to discredit fights because the raid "got lucky" with the timer.
Maybe take the things not communicated away from damage and do more interesting things.
healing would be very boring (with a good raid team) if all damage was telegraphed and avoidable. Or DPS would just be lazy if the damage was ignored and there wasn't non-avoidable damage to stack on top of it.
There should be a mix of avoidable damage that the raid needs to react to (aka mechanics) + unavoidable damage that the healers need to take care of.
I disagree with some of what Noaani is saying. I don't think a fight where damage is random and with no indicators sounds like a good idea.
I agree with that.
However, what I am talking about isn't random. There are no indicators, but the fact that it isn't known does not mean it is random, it means it needs to be understood.
I don't know where the idea that what I am talking about is random in any way. Just because it isn't known at the start, and may take a few pulls (or even a few days) to figure out, that doesn't mean it is random. It just means it is not yet known.
I am a little surprised so many people want fully known encounters with nothing at all to work our or learn.
I don't know where the idea that what I am talking about is random in any way. Just because it isn't known at the start, and may take a few pulls (or even a few days) to figure out, that doesn't mean it is random. It just means it is not yet known..
While it might not be random, it will certainly feel random.
With no audio or visual cues and just using a combat log to see things, are we seriously expecting people to just stare at the logs and be timing abilities every fight? Now that sounds awful..
I don't know where the idea that what I am talking about is random in any way. Just because it isn't known at the start, and may take a few pulls (or even a few days) to figure out, that doesn't mean it is random. It just means it is not yet known..
While it might not be random, it will certainly feel random.
It will feel random until you and your raid figure it out - this is kind of the point. Assuming this isn't your first ever raid (on such content), you will all know this to be the case, you will work on trying to figure it out, and then you will kill the encounter. You are not supposed to just attempt to carry on with the encounter without working this out.
Or we could just have content that holds up giant signs telling us what they are about to do...
With no audio or visual cues and just using a combat log to see things, are we seriously expecting people to just stare at the logs and be timing abilities every fight? Now that sounds awful..
You must have forgot to comment on this one.
I didn't comment on it because it shows an obvious lack of understanding of how to use a combat tracker.
I have said many times on these forums, I run a combat tracker in the background, and only ever look at it after the nights raiding is over. This applies to nights when we are killing, as well as nights when we are gathering information.
Anyone that is looking at a combat tracker during a fight - or that thinks others have to be looking at one during a fight - doesn't know what they are doing.
healing would be very boring (with a good raid team) if all damage was telegraphed and avoidable. Or DPS would just be lazy if the damage was ignored and there wasn't non-avoidable damage to stack on top of it.
There should be a mix of avoidable damage that the raid needs to react to (aka mechanics) + unavoidable damage that the healers need to take care of.
No one has suggested that all damage be avoidable, but every piece of damage needs to have a discernible source (either via visual or audible feedback to the player). So far the only one saying otherwise is Ego-Stroker.
I'd like to take this moment to point out the irony that what @Noaani is advocating for is basically WoWs modern raid design.
Of course the online guides take away some of the "guild figuring it out" part. That's not the fault of the game dewign though. That's the community and it will happen in every game.
Of course there are also add-ons that give in-game timers when important abilities might happen (or when they may come off CD if they have a randomness to their cast). Some may argue for or against these. I'd probably say they are generally good as without them the game would be ridiculously difficult for 99% of the players. Blizzard would probably have to turn down the difficulty of the encounter if they removed these addons.
However even with those guides/addons guilds still need to put in a lot of effort to figure out the bosses on the highest difficulty. Many guilds with good players put hundreds of pulls into some of those bosses before they get them killed. Most pve guilds will not complete the raid tier on the highest difficulty before the next one comes out.
The whole "Guilds figuring it out" then "keeping it a secret" thing @Noaani has talked about a few times on here from EQ2 makes zero sense. It might be part of the reason the game could not stay financially stable with a monthly sub model, and the game had to go F2P.
I mean think about it. If no one in the world knows that their are raids worth doing then why would anyone stay subbed to the game. Personally I am still extremely skeptical that EQ2's raid design was ever worth a damn, but assuming that it was. A system where no one knows if the raids are good or not outside of the raiders. Is not good for the health of any game. People need to know that their is something at the top to strive for in order to stay trying to progress. Otherwise they will just give up on the game. I would bet that is a big part of why EQ2 failed.
Having to figure out raids is still something that can happen. In both FFXIV and WOW, when the new raid tier goes live and their is the race to world first. Raid groups still have the strategize the fights and come up with the most reliable strategy per group. Keeping that information secret really does not do anything for any one. In addition that information needs to be public so that the community can verify top logs are not cheated for WOWlogs and FFlogs.
The whole concept of keeping things secret is just not worth it to me. I also would speculate that if EQ2's raid design was good. There would be videos from players excited to show off kills, but such videos do not exist. I certainly would not want that mentality for Ashes. It would make the game more niche than it is already going to be.
I mean think about it. If no one in the world knows that their are raids worth doing then why would anyone stay subbed to the game.
How did we get from "some of the top end encounters in the game having a number of abilities that are not automatically communicated to players" to the above? I hate to say it, but that is on Dygz level for making connections that dont exist.
And sure, in other games there absolutely is a need to work out a strategy to the encounter. The difference is, in EQ2, you also need to work out what a portion of the encounter is doing, then you work out a strategy. This is why many guilds in EQ2 end up with a different strategy for the same encounter - they followed a different path for working it out.
And for the record, it is the raiding aspect of EQ2 that is keeping it live still. Any MMO that has been live continuously for 16+ years and is still getting full expansions yearly is worthy of every MMO players respect, even if they have not played it themself.
Wildstar failed. Tabula Rasa failed. City of Heroes/Villans failed. Asherons Call failed. The Steam version of Bless failed.
EQ2 may not be as successful as WoW, but to say the game failed when it is still getting yearly expansions (does WoW get expansions every year?) is to ignore actual reality. You are better than that.
Comments
Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.
Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.
Maybe it would have been more accurate if I said fame that *only* rely on animations.
There is nothing wrong with using animation to communicate what is happening or about to happen. It's when that is the only communication tool that is used, and when every ability boss has to use is given it's own animation.
For a top end encounters, there should be more abilities with absolutely no warning they are about to be used than there should be abilities with telegraphs or animations.
Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.
Given that this is a digital experience that (currently) isn’t planned to be released in console where you might use the controller vibration as a cue, there actually aren’t other ways to pass information to players besides through sight and sound, unless you mean to have no indication of mechanics at all or you mean to have combat cue information fed to players via text.
I agree, I think that the big damaging/"main" ability of a boss should have an animation, maybe even a cast bar if it's a dragon about to cast "dragon breath", while some abilities should just "happen", like tail swipe or similar abilities that is more action based.
Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.
2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.
Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.
One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.
Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.
This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.
You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.
Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.
I actually streamed for a friend the other night who was sitting out when we were doing the rated BGs. She loved the meters as a observer because they gave her so much more context on what was happening in game... so there's a use case for increased emersion!!
Will this game have competitive pvp? Like instanced battlegrounds? My point of my origional comment was to show there is value for combat trackers in pvp as some were saying its just pve.
I'm on my mobile now, but I'll have to share a screenshot later.
I think it's because the design behind FFXIV lends itself better for this, there's not really a DPS check as much and there's more of a focus on doing (boss) mechanics right. You'd have to be REALLY bad at DPSing to drag your raid down. (at least in my experiences)
Honestly WoW crowd is hyperfocused on DPS/HPS numbers it's getting out of hand... like some classes do not get invited to raids or arena teams because they are not in the top 5 simmed charts.
Not gonna lie, when I fire up WoW my screen is full of various (in some cases custom made WeakAuras) trackers just because I have to do that to compete.
So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?
That’s an absolutely awful idea. Ambient, identifiable damage is fine. Random ambient damage with little to no way of identifying the source which is also inconsistent from pull to pull is how you frustrate your players for no good reason.
The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.
If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.
It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.
Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.
Randomness is NOT how you add a higher skill demand to a raid.
I feel as though there might been a lapse in communication here. I speak of indicators as everything that players hear and see that indicates if, when, and where theh take damage. A visible ring of fire bursting from the boss that places a DoT on every player within x meters from the boss is an indicator, regardless of if the AoE grew out from under the boss to warn players. A drumbeat in the background music that has an area of damage change every third beat is an indicator. An otherwise plain animation without vfx that leads up to a ones maneuver is an indicator.
Sure, not everything has to be indicated beforehand, but everything that hits the players needs to be visibly or audibly signaled even if it isn’t avoidable.
Players have to know when they’re taking damage. They need to be given the indicators to deduce where that damage is coming from. And they need to have the information to know WHY that damage is occurring. If a mechanic is added any of the above information is missing or unobtainable during the fight, then the fight has only placed more emphasis on luck, not any greater emphasis on skill.
The only aspect that is random is the timing, and that is only so you can't just set up a timer once and be done with it.
That type of mechanic is *EXACTLY* how you add higher skill to raids. I can not stress this enough, it is *EXACTLY* how you add a demand for higher skill in top end content. That is a telegraph, a sound queue and an animation queue, respectively.
These are the things I am saying are fine sometimes, even most of the time, but top end content is essentially defined by these things not existing on some abilities.
Sure, but the encounter doesn't need to tell them, they should be able to work it out for themselves.
If they pull an encounter and it fires an AoE off after 45 seconds, and then it fires it again after another 38 seconds, and then again 38 seconds later, that should be enough information for the raid to know that there is an AoE there that they need to figure out.
If they pull the encounter again on the next pull, and that same AoE fires after 45 seconds again, and then fires 44 seconds later, and then again 44 seconds later, then the raid has enough information to know how to handle that AoE.
Any raid worth a being called a raid will be fine with that without needing the mob to telegraph, animate or emote that the AoE is about to be triggered. This leaves mechanics up to players to actually figure out, rather than leaving it up to the raids developers to tell the players about the mechanics.
On the other hand, if there is an AoE that triggers once after 45 seconds, and then again 50 seconds later, and then again 38 seconds later, that is enough information to tell the raid that they probably need to look for what is triggering that AoE, as it is not timed.
If every dangerous ability is explained to players via telegraphs, animations or sound queues, you don't have top end raiding. There should be an expectation on these encounters that each guild will need 100+ pulls on the encounter before getting their first kill.
The fact that your raid wiped is feedback.
Remember, these are encounters that maybe 5% of the total population will ever succeed on.
Animation, audio and telegraph feedback is for the 95%.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, I'm saying this is how it is. In games with actual top end raids, a good number of the important abilities are not telegraphed or animated, and are left to players to work out.
The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.
Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.
I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.
Actually, in context, he was absolutely right.
People that are actually killing shit in MMO's don't care about DPS or HPS, they care that shit is being killed.
People that aren't killing shit in MMO's watch videos of others playing MMO's, talk about videos of others playing MMO's and think they know what they are talking about with DPS and HPS.
It's funny that you mentioned asmongold, a warrior that cares much more about the viewing experience than doing high end content. If I remember correctly he did that dps contests for twitch content (a fun thing to do) and to select people for a raiding pug. A PUG (pick up group) to do the previous expansion raid for fun and the achievement, so nothing special.
And your obsession with combat trackers makes much more sense knowing that you work under the incorrect assumption that completely uncommunicated mechanics are in any way “end-game” material. Of course you’re dependent on outside sources when they’re required to even know what the hell is hitting you.
They aren't un-communicated.
The fact that you are being hit communicates all you need to know. The information is all in the combat chat window of the game client, a combat tracker simply makes that information easier to access (as in, it cuts the time needed to accurately access and assess the information by 99%).
As I've said, the need for encounters to tell players what is happening is for easy content. It is for content that players would expect to clear on their first day of trying, if not their first pull.
That is not suitable content for progression based gaming, as there is no need to spend time on an encounter to learn it, because the encounter is telling you all you need to know.
If you look at "some games" out there that have encounters that tell players what is happening, the hardest content in the game is usually cleared within hours, occasionally days.
In games that use this kind of thing, it is weeks or months.
And yes, this is why I want combat trackers built in to the game. It is the same argument I have been saying all along - top end encounters can not exist without combat trackers, so a combat tracker should be built in to the games client.
I have been fairly consistent on that line for several years now, I am sure you would agree. The difference now is that you know why I believe this to be the case. You may disagree that this is the case, you may be happy to see content that is killed the first day it spawns on any given server - but you know I am not, and you know how designers can avoid this being the case.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something... but the things you described basically sound like a healer check. Constant, unavoidable, raidwide damage isn't interesting nor difficult, it's simply something to be healed through. Especially if (like you suggested) this raid-wide damage is linked to how much damage the boss is taking. This means there will be periods of time where the solution is to sit and wait to be topped off by your healer before continuing the fight. That would be boring & uninteractive.
I understand that you're advocating for obscuring boss mechanics so that you cannot simply "get out of the fire", but these examples are awful. I don't think they require a combat tracker either, just trial and error.
To me, an interesting & difficult fight is something that's so finely tuned that every last bit of dps matters. Maybe everybody already knows the mechanics beforehand, but executing on them while maintaining your absolute highest DPS will be incredibly difficult. The kind of fight where, even if everybody knows what to do, it might take a couple hundred attempts to really get it right. Where progression isn't limited by trial and error but by your experience on that encounter. The kind of fight that is impossible to PUG because of how important teamwork and communication is.
You can do these things without trying to obscure the reasons why players are taking damage. For DPS meters, I would prefer that they'd be needed to gauge & improve player performance, rather than used to try and decipher the boss. Deciphering the boss sounds fantastic, but it should be achievable with in-game means.
With the AoE mechanic I described above, after the second hit of the AoE, every further time it is cast is completely predictable, down to the exact second it will be cast, but only if the raid know what they are doing.
This means that as a means of delivering a mechanic, as long as players can be expected to live through the first two casts of it, the actual mechanic can be literally anything the developers want it to be. It doesn't even need to be an AoE.
Since the cast of this mechanic is 100% predictable after the second cast, it can even be a mechanic that requires a specific resolution from the raid, and wipes the raid should they fail to meet the requirements.
Again, the effect can be literally anything at all that developers want to put in the encounter - as long as players can survive the first two hits. The difference between this and an animation is completely and totally limited to how players recognize the ability is about to be used - with animations players know because the developers tell them, without animations players know because they spent time to work it out.
Again, that is literally the only difference. I enjoy a good DPS fight as well, since I almost exclusively main as a DPS caster.
Thing is, a tank and spank encounter that requires a very high raidwide DPS isn't exactly enjoyable. The encounter still needs to do *something*. This seems to be a notion you agree with.
Having some of the encounters abilities needing to be worked out by the raid each pull is simply one more thing that the raid needs to do to meet the requirements of the encounter - it is one more thing that requires that higher degree of communication, one more thing that makes the raid un-pug-able.
I agree 100%, which is why I have been arguing for about three years now that Ashes should build a combat tracker in to the games client.
That said, we know we will have combat logs. These logs are all that is needed to be able to work out the mechanics I am talking about above. It is an unwieldly, time consuming and clunky way to work it out, but it is possible. Literally all a combat tracker does is re-organize the information in a combat log in to something easier to digest.
With no audio or visual cues and just using a combat log to see things, are we seriously expecting people to just stare at the logs and be timing abilities every fight? Now that sounds awful.
Maybe the problem with the "easy" content is just having things on set timers. Random timers are in my opinion a decent idea, it'll test reaction speed and decision making. The argument of course in favour of set timers is that it allows high end competition, randomness allows people to discredit fights because the raid "got lucky" with the timer.
Maybe take the things not communicated away from damage and do more interesting things.
There should be a mix of avoidable damage that the raid needs to react to (aka mechanics) + unavoidable damage that the healers need to take care of.
However, what I am talking about isn't random. There are no indicators, but the fact that it isn't known does not mean it is random, it means it needs to be understood.
I don't know where the idea that what I am talking about is random in any way. Just because it isn't known at the start, and may take a few pulls (or even a few days) to figure out, that doesn't mean it is random. It just means it is not yet known.
I am a little surprised so many people want fully known encounters with nothing at all to work our or learn.
While it might not be random, it will certainly feel random.
You must have forgot to comment on this one.
Or we could just have content that holds up giant signs telling us what they are about to do...
I didn't comment on it because it shows an obvious lack of understanding of how to use a combat tracker.
I have said many times on these forums, I run a combat tracker in the background, and only ever look at it after the nights raiding is over. This applies to nights when we are killing, as well as nights when we are gathering information.
Anyone that is looking at a combat tracker during a fight - or that thinks others have to be looking at one during a fight - doesn't know what they are doing.
No one has suggested that all damage be avoidable, but every piece of damage needs to have a discernible source (either via visual or audible feedback to the player). So far the only one saying otherwise is Ego-Stroker.
Of course the online guides take away some of the "guild figuring it out" part. That's not the fault of the game dewign though. That's the community and it will happen in every game.
Of course there are also add-ons that give in-game timers when important abilities might happen (or when they may come off CD if they have a randomness to their cast). Some may argue for or against these. I'd probably say they are generally good as without them the game would be ridiculously difficult for 99% of the players. Blizzard would probably have to turn down the difficulty of the encounter if they removed these addons.
However even with those guides/addons guilds still need to put in a lot of effort to figure out the bosses on the highest difficulty. Many guilds with good players put hundreds of pulls into some of those bosses before they get them killed. Most pve guilds will not complete the raid tier on the highest difficulty before the next one comes out.
I mean think about it. If no one in the world knows that their are raids worth doing then why would anyone stay subbed to the game. Personally I am still extremely skeptical that EQ2's raid design was ever worth a damn, but assuming that it was. A system where no one knows if the raids are good or not outside of the raiders. Is not good for the health of any game. People need to know that their is something at the top to strive for in order to stay trying to progress. Otherwise they will just give up on the game. I would bet that is a big part of why EQ2 failed.
Having to figure out raids is still something that can happen. In both FFXIV and WOW, when the new raid tier goes live and their is the race to world first. Raid groups still have the strategize the fights and come up with the most reliable strategy per group. Keeping that information secret really does not do anything for any one. In addition that information needs to be public so that the community can verify top logs are not cheated for WOWlogs and FFlogs.
The whole concept of keeping things secret is just not worth it to me. I also would speculate that if EQ2's raid design was good. There would be videos from players excited to show off kills, but such videos do not exist. I certainly would not want that mentality for Ashes. It would make the game more niche than it is already going to be.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
And sure, in other games there absolutely is a need to work out a strategy to the encounter. The difference is, in EQ2, you also need to work out what a portion of the encounter is doing, then you work out a strategy. This is why many guilds in EQ2 end up with a different strategy for the same encounter - they followed a different path for working it out.
And for the record, it is the raiding aspect of EQ2 that is keeping it live still. Any MMO that has been live continuously for 16+ years and is still getting full expansions yearly is worthy of every MMO players respect, even if they have not played it themself.
Wildstar failed. Tabula Rasa failed. City of Heroes/Villans failed. Asherons Call failed. The Steam version of Bless failed.
EQ2 may not be as successful as WoW, but to say the game failed when it is still getting yearly expansions (does WoW get expansions every year?) is to ignore actual reality. You are better than that.
If this is the case, I'd like to point out the irony that WoW's modern raid design is based off of the raid design that EQ2 was using 16 years ago.