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
You are reading too much into it and there aren't any sides. ITs as simply as me pointing out before you start with one thing and other people push further for more, ie combat assistance. If one thing is easier to do and can also allow you to do other things that is next step.
I've already made this point before.
I'm not afraid to have stupid opinions and then later change my mind if I am shown to be wrong. I view ACT the way I do because it is the go to program to run combat assistance style plugins, which I think is cheaty. Do I still use ACT? Yes, because it also has the dps parser plugin for that game, and the gamestyle I have is very numbers focused. I don't use the cheater plugins, but that doesnt mean I dont feel any less dirty about needing to use an app that contains cheats.
As Vaknar pointed out, hopefully the in game options for things will be good enough that everything we want is sufficient in the game. I don't think it is possible to reach that goal, however actually having a dev team passionate enough about their game to want to give us all of that goes a long way.
Yeah that's kinda my bad for pulling you into another 'Mag7 fact check'. From my data though, you're an intermediate coder, so I wanted to head off any misconceptions that might happen as a result of your perceptions. Just a habit from my position in life.
I spend at least half my time 'making sure developers from different disciplines listen to each other properly'. I don't think I'm likely to stop having this reaction type on forums soon.
I didn't take offense to anything if you were worried about it. I am a data driven person and I look at things objectively and speak my mind bluntly.
I'm also certainly not a professional developer. I am a researcher by trade, which just so happens to require me to spend about 20-30 hours of my workweek handling things using Python or C code.
In my mind, if I were going to run a combat assistant, i would use a program that just does that, rather than a program designed to do something else but with a plugin that expands its functionaltiy in that direction.
I agree with you that actual combat assistant type functions are "cheating", but i alo kind of dont. In some games (WoW), content at the top end is designed around knowing everyone is running them, so they arent cheating. It is only in situstions where the developer dosent want combat assistant functionality, but ppayers find a way to add it.
The thing is, I've never seen that. I've seen combat trackers where developers didn't want them, but not combat assistants. This may be the case in FDXIV, I dont know as I've not looked in to what the plugin is actually doing - but for any other game I've played, ACT is a combat tracker, not assistant.
Considering your pfp is their logo.
he is the owner but he keeps denying it
No affiliation at all, other than that I always use the application, and have done for around 15 years.
sureeeee, thats what the owner of act would say.
Probably not.
Aditu is quite proud of their work. Rightly so, imo.
* sigh * ... Thanks the Gods and the Others ... ...
I confess the Sin of using "SilverDragon" in WoW since Shadowlands -> because it helped me to effortlessly see "Treasures" on the Map. Stuff you can pick up anywhere in Korthia -> Information over RARE-Mobs and what Loot they drop,
i admit it helped me a great Deal to gain interesting Cosmetic Items for my Character i was enjoyed to collect to kill Time.
But you know what ?
Can you guess what the ONLY REASON is, i did this ?
It is because i lost such an incredibly great, almost insane Amount of Respect for the Game.
WoW was good "the last Time" - from my Point of View - in " Legion " ... ...
- The shattered Isles were AWESOME. Hands down. They were very cool.
- A whole Campaign and "Order-Hall" for every single Class ? AWESOME !!
- Cool legendary Items, Weapons - etc. We could level and strengthen the whole Expansion ? AWESOME.
- The Storyline was cool as well. We tangled with Xavius and the Emerald Nightmare,
- Helped a Landscape of Ghosts (Azsuna),
- Helped a WHOLE NEW RACE of Elves (Nightborne) to free themselves from their Despots (Suramar),
- Visited another Landscape full of "Vrykul" (Stormheim), which peaked in a cool Confrontation between Genn Greymane and the LITERALLY LAST TIME in which Sylvanas Windrunner was written as a cool Character in WoW,
- Visited a "Lair of Neltharion" in a high Mountain Area with a new Subrace of Tauren inside of it,
- Watched as ILLIDAN Stormrage revived - just to steal us the Kill of alternate Dreanor Gul'Dan (lol),
And LITERALLY used a Space-Ship to jump/dash through a Portal -> just to visit Argus, keep on fighting the good Fight against the Legion there - and finally finished off the Burning Legion for good.
But then i lost Respect for the Game.
We " FINALLY " vanquished this annoying, demonic Pests of ever and ever-returning, pompous Bastards of various Races infused with Fel-Fire,
and then when Sargeras' Sword penetrated underaged-Titangirl Azeroth (no kidding lol, it was truly like this in the Lore) and Sargeras went to Jail for it - with Illidan as his Jailer,
suddenly a new, "woke Staff" through the Storyline out of the Window, RUINED Sylvanas Windrunner, made her into a NUCLEAR Karen which burned down Worldtree's as if she is a secret Agent of the Burning Legion,
and ruined the Story. I admit BfA had Lots of cool Content, but i was so goddamn frustrated right at the Start of the Expansion - that i had to quit WoW for about 4 whole Years,
something i never did in my Life before with this Game -> and returned only to the End of Shadowlands, where i farmed cool Maw-Cosmetics and Mounts, Titles, etc.
The sweet, sweet Irony of a Game that played " in the Afterlife " during that Expansion. The Game was so dead to me, that for the first Time ever - i installed Addons and didnt gave a damn about playing normal anymore.
And it helped me.
It helped me a great Deal.
Aside from a nice Person who also helped me raiding and doing Mythic-Plus Dungeons -> the Addons helped me a LOT.
Now this other, cringey Fairytale called " Dragonflight " is about over - and despite the Soul-Saga being announced, my Love and Excitement for WoW hasn't returned.
It is gone. It is like our VideoGame-Jesus from Texas, Asmongold said.
" ~ Your Love for the Game doesn't leave You, but the Game leaves You. ~ "
And now,
i am greatly excited for the coming Alpha II of Ashes of Creation - and Ashes in general. Because i am honest here when i tell You,
my former Love for WoW had reached a Point in the Past, where it became an unhealthy Relationship.
And i know i am not alone with this. Not at all and not by far.
There are SO. MANY. PEOPLE. out there, who actually need to part Ways with WoW.
This has become a Relationship of Abuse for the Customer. For the Player.
Enough of endless, greedy Shop Articles,
enough of WoW-Tokens and then People buy everything inside the Game for Ingame-Gold after putting +40 to +200 Dollars of Realmoney onto the Table,
enough of lazy Storylines, ruined Characters and Content that is only there to keep You playing as long as possible.
Words fail to describe how gone from WoW i will be, once Ashes of Creation finally hits the Stage.
Apologies here for divagating so far from the original Topic at least partially,
but damn.
I am aware how much it can distort and warp the original Game-Experience by using Addons. 😕
Maybe this is just me,
but i think i can use Addons which GREATLY make a Game easier for me to play, when i don't really give a damn anymore about the Game in general. 😕
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Would people really want that? I dunno. But otherwise people WILL have combat trackers. It’s a competitive game and they will use whatever knowledge, tricks or “addons” they can use for an advantage. Especially if it is undetectable and unenforceable.
I know we've been focusing a lot on strictly DPS addons and "combat assistance" cheat apps. But it might be more useful to Intrepid if we as a community started leaving feedback on the kind of addons we have liked and used in other games.
Within reason I mean. There is tons of stuff they won't give us, because it is part of the game for that information to not be available, such as market data across the world. And also keep in mind probably a lot of systems players normally build addons for Intrepid will not look at until much later in alpha2 or post launch even.
Some examples that I know of.
1) The combat log. I hope what they give us is as detailed as possible. With time stamps down to the ms on when abilities happen. When things crit or dodge. When my buffs cause allies to crit or do more damage and also report to me how much I raised their damage by while the buff was on. Let me download the log for offline filtering and sorting and share with friends for inspection if we want to compare notes.
2) The UI. I need to customize every aspect of everything. Placement, size, text size, opacity. Buff/Debuff priority. Let me display as much additional information or as few information as I want. Allow me to have multiple chat windows open for different things (I need them when I RP for example). Short term procs we get I would also like to be able to seperate from my buffbar or hotbar and put somewhere I can see with peripheral vision (wildstar had a good default system for this)
3) Interfaces with various systems. Let me customize them. Such as my character screen, or market, or crafting.
4) For the love of all that is holy in RP and storytelling, I need a good system for taking screenshots. FF14 Gpose system has taken more thousands of hours out of my life to the point I take more screenshots than any other game.
5) .... (I dont actually have more, was just hoping to start a feedback trend so we can turn the thread into something useful rather than a 2nd dps meter megathread)
I assume there will be Lists ticking of what happened during a Battle and who healt good or best - who made good damage and so or the best,
but i personally don't need to check if i am in the Top 5 or so whenever i partake in a Raid-Group against some World Boss or the like.
I get a Headache from thinking alone how i would all the time compare myself to others. It is one thing if they would be my dear fellow Guild-Members, but it gets ridiculous when it's People of the +2000(?)ish other Players i will probably never know.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Now, is information good? Well, that's basically the question regarding many uses of the addon.
This is the best take in this thread.
People should post old or current screenshots of their UIs to illustrate the levels of customization wanted to the UI team. I'd love to see a back and forth as to what is intended to have based on those screenshots and reasons why they aren't adding types of UI customization players have used in the past.
Of course, any addon modifying the gameplay should not be allowed or even possible through this API.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
I give you know DECURSE addon. It will show a large screen telling you when to decurse and who to decurse.
Or who's stunned.
Game already shows this information. If users decide to present it differently, I see no harm in that.
Most people complaining about addons have those altering the gameplay in mind, not informational, harmless ones. Those are in the UI category and should be in the game for convenience because everyone is different and should have the possibility to adapt the game interface to their needs.
On the other hand, we should never have addons indicating what to do next or providing information not already present on the screen. Those are the ones that are controversial, I don’t want them anywhere near this game.