Combat Trackers: proposed compromise

There are lots of very polarizing opinions on combat trackers (aka DPS meters) on this forum.

Would the compromise here be personal combat trackers only?

This way I can see what I'm doing and what's happening to me, but I can't see any other interactions?

Add to this making it against the ToS to request/force others to share what they are seeing in their combat trackers?

With something like this an individual could try out different specs/gear for their class to see what works best for them. The risk they will be judged by others is low.

A raid leader could say something like "everyone check your combat trackers for damage taken. If you see "breath of fire" in there, that is avoidable damage that you are getting hit by so watch out for it next time." But they couldn't say something like "everybody whisper me your dps on that last pull".

Sure people would have ways to get around the ToS (e.g. discord), but it would greatly decrease the risk of being judged by others. Doing so would be virtually non-existent in pugs since most don't use discord.

Personally I'd like to see full combat trackers as I like to use the data to help myself and others, but I get that a lot of people have concerns about the risk of toxicity or the removal of immersion (both I disagree with, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion). In situations like this, a compromise in the middle might be best overall for the game.

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Dygz

Inixia wrote: »

Tbh I think my biggest issue with the toxicity argument is that I think its kind of dishonest how people (not you) are framing dps information as the main threat to a peaceful gameplay experience.

I don't understand why you use the word "peaceful". I don't recall anyone making that claim.

Ashes of Creation is a game that is going to have open conflict, there's going to be guilds that you are pressured to join for protection.

I don't agree that will be a thing.

you have the ever present chance to have your home node destroyed or taken over, node leaders can create unjust laws, and opposing guilds can swipe in and take open world kills.

There is not an "ever present chance" to have your home node destroyed.
There is a declaration period when the node cannot be destroyed. The actual siege time is a mere span of hours - IIRC, single-digit hours. Followed by another period of time during which the node - if it survives - cannot be declared upon and therefore cannot be destroyed.
I don't think node leaders can create unjust laws. I think node leaders can hike up taxes to a degree players perceive as unfair. I suppose they could construct buildings and services you don't approve of. I am not aware that a Mayor of a node can kick citizens out of citizenship for not complying.

As far as I can tell, none of the above undermines RP, rather they all enhance the overall narrative of the game world. These days, lots of gamers like to ignore the RP in MMORPG.

Dygz

Saedu wrote: »

question: Would personal only combat trackers increase or decrease toxicity? personally I agree with Noaani's statement here and by having the personal trackers players could get better...

We know Steven's position on combat trackers... he's also stated he's open to feedback. I think this is a legitimate compromise that should be seriously considered.

Ha! I was just coming towards the end of a long rant in my post above and then realized it was about (group?) combat trackers rather than personal ones. I'll save it for a different thread.

I don't think a personal-only combat trackers would increase toxicity. But, as I said earlier, toxicity was only the first reason Steven is against combat trackers.
In addition to that, he wants players to be evaluating combat strategies from the character's story perspective rather than from the player's spreadsheet perspective. He wants combat analysis to be organic rather than mechanical.
And he likes that it provides a kind of mystery effect rather than focusing on the tracker.

Players can get better at combat easily enough without personal combat trackers.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

Losing a caravan is 100% loss, as far as we know. You lose all materials, as well as the caravans components, and a portion of them can be looted as certificates by others.

Quote with 100% or it didn't happen.

Noaani wrote: »

No one gives a shit about losing 20 minutes worth of harvesting time that it takes to fill your inventory. I am literally never talking about single, small scale PvP in Ashes, because it straight up doesn't matter.
People do care about losing 2,000 minutes worth of harvesting time that it takes to fill a caravan.

Which is why losing a caravan is not going to be 100% loss. Just as we don't have full loot from direct PvP combat. I'm also pretty sure a caravan is not going to be a 33hr harvesting investment.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Losing a caravan is 100% loss, as far as we know. You lose all materials, as well as the caravans components, and a portion of them can be looted as certificates by others.

Quote with 100% or it didn't happen.

W eknow that caravans are destroyed when you lose.

We know that a portion of the contents are left as certificates for others to pick up, along with components of your caravan.

We do not know what happens to the rest of the materials. This is why I said as far as we know - we do not know what happens to the rest.

The only two options are that the materials that are not left as certificates from the caravan are destroyed, or that the materials are turned in to certificates and put in the players inventory (which we then have to assume function the same as otehr certificates and are subject to loss in PvP combat).

This is why I specifically did not say that we 100% definately lose all materials on a caravan loss, but rather specifically said as far as we know. Because as far as we know, this is the case. We can not assume it is not the case, though we also can not assume it is 100% the case.

I'm also pretty sure a caravan is not going to be a 33hr investment.

If it takes 20 minutes to go out, fill your inventory with harvests and then return home to deposit them, then fulling a caravan of these materials will be a 2,000 minute task - as a caravan holds 100 times the capacity of a players inventory.

Will that always be the case? Probably not.

Do we know for a fact that the 100 times figure has been stated? Yes.

This makes that figure perfectly acceptable to use, until we are given other information.

Dygz

We do know that caravans are destroyed. That's not the same thing as 100% loss.
Not knowing what happens to the rest of a portion is not the same thing as 100% loss.
You have very poor logic skills.

Has it been stated that certificates for Caravan components count as resources?
You said losing a caravan is 100% loss, as far as we know. That is false. You mean you assume losing a caravan is 100% loss.

The only way your assertion about caravan loss with regard to 2000hrs of investment can be meaningful is if you can only start a caravan run when the caravan is full.
I find it hard to believe that Steven has locked caravan runs to maximum risk.
You want to exaggerate everything to the maximum it could possibly be and then pawn that off as general gameplay.
Just because a caravan can hold 100 times the capacity of a basic backpack does not mean it will be general gameplay that people wait until the caravan is 100% full to run it.

It's a good question to ask, I think.
How is the % filled related to the quests associated with the run?

Noaani

It isn't my logic that is at fault here, it is your reading comprehension.

Dygz wrote: »

We do know that caravans are destroyed. That's not the same thing as 100% loss.
Not knowing what happens to the rest of a portion is not the same thing as 100% loss.

Noaani wrote: »

We do not know what happens to the rest of the materials. This is why I said as far as we know - we do not know what happens to the rest.

Dygz wrote: »

Just because a caravan can hold 100 times the capacity of a basic backpack does not mean it will be general gameplay that people wait until the caravan is 100% full to run it.

Noaani wrote: »

Will that always be the case? Probably not.

Dygz wrote: »

It's a good question to ask, I think.
How is the % filled related to the quests associated with the run?

As to this point - the type of caravan where you are moving materials from one location to another is a personal caravan, not a quest related caravan. There is no reason to assume there is a quest related to running these caravans. However, since there is a caravan type that is specifically for quest, if we were to make an assumption one way or the other, it should be that there are no quests related to personal caravans.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

It isn't my logic that is at fault here, it is your reading comprehension.

No. You are the one with poor reading comprehension.
Your logic is poor:
We do know that caravans are destroyed. That's not the same thing as 100% loss.
Not knowing what happens to the rest of a portion is not the same thing as 100% loss.

As to this point - the type of caravan where you are moving materials from one location to another is a personal caravan, not a quest related caravan. There is no reason to assume there is a quest related to running these caravans. However, since there is a caravan type that is specifically for quest, if we were to make an assumption one way or the other, it should be that there are no quests related to personal caravans.

Um. I'm pretty sure that any caravan run involves moving materials from one location to another.

Q: How will players running caravans know what nodes will need for supplies?
A: When you initiate a caravan, you're going to be able to determine the resources that the caravan has in it, you're going to be able to determine whether or not this caravan is being initiated for a specific quest in a nearby node. You're going to be able to deliver goods for trade or just to warehouse in any region so you have access to that local market.

A player who chooses to initiate the caravan run for a specific quest is still going to be concerned about that caravan being destroyed and losing a portion of its contents. It's dishonest to move the goal-post from "a caravan" to specifically "a personal caravan" while you try to squirm away from your false assertion.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

No. You are the one with poor reading comprehension.

We don't know what will happen to the rest of the resources - I even gave the only two possible things that could happen - one of which is that the resources are lost.

I'm not sure why you are finding this hard to understand.

We do not know which of the two options it will be, but one of the two options is that the resources will be lost completely. As such, if we want to, we can make the assumption that this may well be the case. Not that it will be the case, but that it may well be the case. Since there are only two options here, and neither of them have any specific reason to be taken over the other (from a game design perspective, at least), we can not assume one will be chosen over the other and so should be prepared for both.

Again, I have said that there are other possibilities, but that we have no reason at all to assume that there won't be 100% loss of materials with a caravan loss.

Um. I'm pretty sure that any caravan run involves moving materials from one location to another.

It may well be that this is the case, but it also may well be that Intrepid add in quests that require players to deliver a quest McGuffin via the caravan system. Other games with similar systems (Archeage) do this, and it would be foolish to think that Intrepid would dismiss the idea out of hand.

In all honesty, it doesn't make sense to develop an entire different caravan type to transport player harvested materials for quests. There is no reason they can't use the regular carvan system for it.

The very fact that quest caravans are their own type suggests that they will be different - and so the assumption that they will take player harveted materials should not be automatically made.

You have less of a reason to state the above than I do to state that the loss of a caravan will result in 100% material loss.

It's dishonest to move the goal-post from "a caravan" to specifically "a personal caravan" while you try to squirm away from your false assertion.

I didn't move the goalpost, you just didn't understand (as usual).

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

We do not know which of the two options it will be, but one of the two options is that the resources will be lost completely.

If you do not know, it is dishonest to claim you do know.
If you don't know and there are two options, then the honest thing to do is not assume anything; not write as far as we know.

The very fact that quest caravans are their own type suggests that they will be different - and so the assumption that they will take player harvested materials should not be automatically made.

The materials have to come from somewhere. I am pretty confident the node is not just going to spawn resources from thin air because, if that were the case, there would be no risk vs reward - which a key element of the design goals.
That the resources are coming from players is a safe assumption. It may not necessarily be from the personal resources of the player initiating the quest, but

I specifically talked about component loss. Since component loss is only a factor of personal caravans, it should have been clear to you that we were talking about personal caravans.

No. If you were only talking about personal caravans, it would be up to you to state, "personal caravans".
Otherwise, "a caravan" is a generalization. That is taught in grade school English.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

If you do not know, it is dishonest to claim you do know.

Noaani wrote: »

We do not know what happens to the rest of the materials. This is why I said as far as we know - we do not know what happens to the rest.

Holy shit, call the honesty police.

Right from the start I said as far as we know. This means we do not know for sure, but we also have no reason to assume this won't be the case.

As in, we don't know. I said we don't know. I never said I know. I said we don't know.

Learn to fucking read.

Dygz

Ah! moving the goal post again to squirm away from your inane claims.
Now you want to claim that you meant "As far as I know".
This means you think what you said is true but you haven't double-checked it.
That is significantly different from "As far as we know".
"As far as we know" means WE, the community, have been given this info but it may be subject to change.
I know how to read. You don't know how to think.
But... we've known that for years now.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Ah! moving the goal post again to squirm away from your inane claims.

How is it moving the goalpost when I am simply reiterating what I originally said?

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Ah! moving the goal post again to squirm away from your inane claims.

How is it moving the goalpost when I am simply reiterating what I originally said?

Because so far WE have not been given the info that loss of caravan means 100% loss.
So the claim " loss of caravan means 100% loss, as far as WE know" is false.
The claim "loss of caravan means a portion is lost, as far as we know" is true.
Because so far, all we know is that a portion is lost. We don't know what happens to the rest.
The claim "loss of caravan means 100% loss as far as you know" is true (unless you were lying).

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Ah! moving the goal post again to squirm away from your inane claims.

How is it moving the goalpost when I am simply reiterating what I originally said?

Because so far WE have not been given the info that loss of caravan means 100% loss.

We have not been given the information that it is not the case, so as far as we know, it is the case.

That's the thing with the English language, things are fairly imprecise.

If you didn't learn that in school, ask for a refund.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

We have not been given the information that it is not the case, so as far as we know, it is the case.
That's the thing with the English language, things are fairly imprecise.
If you didn't learn that in school, ask for a refund.

Nope. That is patently false. That is not the way logic actually works.
A doctor says, "She had a stroke that damaged her brain 100%, as far as we know."
"A hundred percent?"
"Well, we know the stroke damaged a portion of her brain, and we don't know if the other portion was damaged, but we don't know it wasn't damaged from the stroke, so...as far as we know, it's 100% damaged from the stroke."

No. That's not how it works.
The truth is - we don't know. And we leave it at that until we get more evidence.
That's the way honest discussion works.
You don't get to make shit up and just run with it as if it's true.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

You don't get to make shit up and just run with it as if it's true.

I didn't.

For all we know, you lose 100% of materials when you lose a caravan.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

For all we know, you lose 100% of materials when you lose a caravan.

Trying to move the goalpost again.
As far as we know, you lose a portion when you lose a caravan.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

As far as we know, you lose a portion when you lose a caravan.

This is an accurate statement.

You are now understanding.

It's like a mini-breakthrough while training a toddler.

rikardp98

The caravan becomes a wreckage upon destruction and that wreckage is an interfaceable item that players can come up to and they can receive certificates for a portion of the goods inside the caravan. Now the idea with that certificate is that it must be taken back to the point of origin, or at least a region within that point of origin. We'll see about that last part because there's a few things I want to test in the Alpha from a gameability standpoint. The reason why for this is because what might happen is you may have some type of collaboration within a guild to kind of game that system. Hey I'm gonna reach this caravan just to the border of the region and then we're all destroy it, collect the goods and take it to you know that region's warehouse; and have to skip out on the last half of the way. So it must successfully reach its destination before the goods can be considered a part of that region.[84] – Steven Sharif

rikardp98

this is just a quote from the caravan wiki page

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