Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
DPS meters are not cheating. At all. They provide no in-game advantage, and only measure your current level of performance. You could do the exact same thing a dps meter does if you wanted to pour through your combat log and calculate it out yourself. This is like saying having a statboard in a basketball game is cheating.
Also games like Darkfall and Mortal Online work on gear being recycled do to loss and being replaced. I can see statistics not mattering as much in those games. Ashes is going to have the traditional gearing system of trying to get the best in slot items to max out your stats and caps, players will be crutching numbers like they do in WoW and most other mmorpgs.
I was responding to @ThexBlackxKnight and making the point that, for the purpose of ranking players in order of ability, there’s more meaningful ways to do that other than through the use of a meter, that are both more accurate, and better for community building within the game.
@Noaani’s argument seems to be, I’m general, and correct me if I’m wrong, that the use of a combat tracker allows an individual to optimize their build with thorough after action analysis. This is a different argument than the one @ThexBlackxKnight has put forward, which seems to be, and again correct me if I’m wrong, that he wants to use a meter to rank players for selection of raids and sieges. @Noaani’s argument holds more water from a technical perspective, but my objection to that argument is that it will reduce 64 classes to 4 much faster than will happen if that information is kept secret, both in meters and tool tips.
Combat Trackers allow you to test rotations, pick the best rotations and then perform at a higher ratio. If you do not have the Combat Tracker, then you would have to test individual rotations and class setups before you settle on what is 'best'. The fact remains, with IS not wanting DPS Meters, the encounters won't require DPS Meters. If you want a DPS Meter in an environment where DPS Meters are stated not to be needed then you are actually a very bad player made better through the use of third party tools.
Not necessarily what I want , its what going to happen because guilds will do anything to maximize their potential to win because you kind of have to win , its not really a choice if you want to be successful in the game, its how its being designed.
So if I sat down, poured through my combat log, and did all the calculations by hand, you'd be fine with that? There is quite literally nothing wrong with trying to improve yourself as a player. You can whine and wax poetic about how "only bad players use tools to improve themselves" (a hilariously awful take by itself) all you want, but it won't change the fact that players want to perform at the highest level they can.
Considering the fact that there will be different difficulty levels in large scale raid encounters determined by speed of completion, I would say that there will absolutely be different levels of play. Different levels of play means that if not enough people are performing at a high enough level, then you won't be able to access the higher levels of content. And for you to suggest that people should lay down and not use objective measures to improve themselves... really speaks measures as to what kind of player you are, and the level of entitlement you have. You clearly have not only played in a game or at a level where people use DPS meters, but also have little to no understanding as to what a DPS meter actually tells you. It's not as simple as you think, and there is tons of theory crafting that goes into it. You are not as good of a player as you think you are.
It doesn't matter in the end, Steven Sharif has already confirmed that players will have access to a text-based combat log that we will be able to export and analyze for our own purposes. I look forward to the creation of asheslogs.com. Cope.
Ashes gearing is based on decay and loss as well in order to continually fuel the economy. It's closer to Darkfall than WoW
Whereas I also would like to have some way of tracking my own stats in game I don't foresee guilds being this bad w/ the gatekeeping b/c even if you don't perform to the absolute highest standard that can be offset by having a high gathering level...also some DPS is better than no DPS and I don't foresee someone getting kicked b/c the other 39 members of the raid are insanely kitted to the teeth, even in Classic you had plenty of warm bodies carried through and there's nothing to indicate Ashes raids are going to be any harder than what people cleared during Wrath.
I have played many games with DPS Meters in fact. I do not like to download third party tools if I can help it though. I've downloaded new UIs, other Add-ons too. In fact, I've raided in the tops raids but I am a PvPer at heart. In PvP the best rotation will not save you, in PvP the Combat Tracker can't save you, in PvP PvE centric skills will not save you. You are critical but you can't wait for a combat translator? We will have Combat Logs but I don't even read the combat logs unless there is a chat panel for the combat logs to flow through. Also, the contestation factor will be the height of the challenges, not an enrage timer or a DPS Meter check. Try running through a DPS Meter check when you face PvP at the same time. The game needs to be playable, not impossible.
You might have 20% where the instanced content could be more difficult than open world bosses but even those will not require a DPS Meter. You would think that a game made by someone who has played the same games as me would have an inbuilt DPS Meter but no, we are in agreement that DPS Meters dictate the content which can be made and cause DPS Checks to become more frequent, Rage Mechanics to become more frequent and eventually LFR to become more frequent.
We will see how long charity will last with some guilds if they keep losing loot to other guilds because they cant output enough damage on a raid boss. In WoW that wasnt much of concern, most raid bosses where in instance dungeons. Again not saying it what I want , but know how players behave when it come getting thier loot.
I still think you're putting to much faith in Intrepid to make raids that are actually that hard. These bosses will largely be out in the world where 80+ people smacking it and everyone else around is just going to turn it into a chaotic mess.
Honestly I'd have serious doubts about Intrepid's ability to make a game if they put a boss harder than Ragnaros in the middle of Alterac Valley
Its not about if the bosses are hard or not , you still have to do out damage any guild trying to steal the kill from you to get the loot.
Where does this idea come from that world bosses should be easy encounters? Why should they be? It's far more epic and engaging to have an extremely difficult dragon hanging out in a cave or something that only the strongest adventurers can handle. Maybe even getting 40 people close enough to the thing is hard enough by itself. World bosses should have varying levels of difficulty imo, especially if the majority of content will be world bosses
If we all have the same access to them, and some people chose to not use them, they cant complain of an unfair advantage.
From there though, assuming Intrepid maintain their current stance, you have the conundrum of trying to work out if it is an unfair advantage for me to use a tool I created myself. If that is the case, does that mean anyone assembling a spreadsheet with data on classes, or crafting, or sales, or what ever else is also cheating?
I mean, is it unfair if you put your own abilities to good use?
Just because death can interfere with my life, that doesn't mean it's a death-centric world.
Whether carebears play the game depends on whether Corruption truly is the deterrent the devs believe it will be.
I will keep those words in mind when I am being spawn camp by a group of players , each taking turns to kill me to reduce the amount of corruption they are taking.
If there is any form of raid progression, loot is the key that that progression.
Anyone that thinks loot is a bonus has no idea of gaming at all, any genre.
Loot is either a reward or a key.
Maybe for you which is fine and I can assure you most players are not going to like another guild swooping in and kill stealing the last boss in a open world dungeon taking the other guilds rewards away from them after they spent a few hours clearing a path there.
In a bubble Ragnaros or Ony is about as easy a raid boss as you can get...Ragnaros or Ony in the heart of multiple raids fighting each other would be nightmarish.
I cannot foresee a scenario where an AoC boss will be as tight as the ones found in Castle Nathria.
It makes sense that the world bosses will be more about continually changing the battlefield through massive AoE attacks b/c much more would mean a single party of 5 could wreck a raid by just beelining the main tank and throwing them off.
But if you kill the opposing raid getting that damage should be fairly easy regardless of your builds. Like, you don't need to min-max your group as tightly as you do in something like WoW...honestly if your teammate's brain has just enough wrinkles to get to max level they can contribute to a fight, even if it's just throwing off opposing players.
That's where the other systems come in...like guild wars and sieges.
Maybe, but if your guild keeps losing the tag to other guilds that need 60% more damage then your guilds 40% (if you started the fight) then obviously something is wrong with how the players in the guild are preforming.
I really do think you're overestimating how tight these raids will be. They're not going to be that tuned and running them over and over a hundred times in a week likely won't be a real thing...the focus for the vast majority of the bosses will likely be to simply out live the other guilds fighting it.
Perhaps , but I wouldn't be surprise if guild wars are started because of how loot tagging works. There going to be plenty of salty fish in the sea.
Then would that not be the system working as intended?
Yes and it be will glorious , at least for those of us that actually like pvp at least.
Further, I would think that the most critical raids may be either for the most unique gear of just a scant few bosses but more possibly the defence of one`s node against a boss that provides little warning and quite possibly a go as you are to defend/attack for which you can only really bring your a-game as little / no planning ability and time to regear/change setup..