Pre-purchase question: Addons

bit of a strange question:

But does this still stand today? [url=" https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Template:Addons "] https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Template:Addons [/url]

I personally dislike addons as they often ruin the fun in games especially DPS meters.
Me and my girlfriend would like to buy the game (with the nice extra's

) but are concerned to end up having a bad experience again in an MMO because of the community being focused on addons such as a DPS meter and etc.

For us the fun in a MMO is the exploring (not only the area's but your class, the combo's and etc) and create builds that are unique but fun for us to play and work well in a group. Being a sandbox game we hope this no-addon stance remains

Edit: since there will be many class combo's we feel like this could make it so that certain combo's would be seen as useless and with that not wanted in groups.

Thank you in advance for your response.
Best regards,
Halbarz

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Comments

Caeryl

No-addon policies work if the base UI is flexible enough and has enough detail to stand alone.

However, players don’t need addons to know when someone is underperforming by a significant margin. There should be some kind of tools to determine who needs guidance within a group.

Undead Canuck

Well, you are in luck. They have said that he doesn't want DPS meters as it leads to issues. Also, there is no purchase cost for this game. Only a subscription (assumption of $15 per month) when it launches.

Lalli

I agree. I dislike addons for the most part.

unknownsystemerror

The stated plan is to have a very flexible UI that can be moved, sized, and all the bells and whistles. If there is something missing that is needed, they have said that they will add it themselves after looking at the data, rather than catering to the loudest minority that likes to "REEEE mah meters!" or those that want to healbot from the back.

Damokles

I personally like addons, but dont need them.
I would also preferr a build in damage meter for raid leaders though.
As long as a game has a flexible ui design, then most people wont even need addons.

Balrog21

Yeah, not a fan of add ons either. I've seen so many videos where it's nothing but a crowded screen, and I'm going dang where is their character at....and all sense of immersion is lost.

Lalli

I feel like if someone uses addons that give an advantage (even knowledge) then if you don't use them your "behind".

Ventharien

I think players on average are just too laser focused to use add ons, dps meters in particular, correctly. Too many times have i been part of a raid in multiple games where the leader or whoever is watching the dps calls people out for not meeting what they see as acceptable in terms of dps numbers, and as the tank i spoke up because they managed to get lower numbers because they were actually doing mechanics, while other dps were sitting around maxing dps and putting a big strain on healer resources.

Damokles

Ventharien wrote: »

I think players on average are just too laser focused to use add ons, dps meters in particular, correctly. Too many times have i been part of a raid in multiple games where the leader or whoever is watching the dps calls people out for not meeting what they see as acceptable in terms of dps numbers, and as the tank i spoke up because they managed to get lower numbers because they were actually doing mechanics, while other dps were sitting around maxing dps and putting a big strain on healer resources.

The problem is that there are people, like you said... but then there are also people who dont do mechanics and dont do dps. You can only find them out if you have a dps/damage done meter.

Ventharien

It's the find them out that's the problem. Before we had things like damage meters and even aggro meters, if something was going wrong, you took a step back and tried to figure out what was going on. Sometimes people started explaining parts of the encounter, and maybe that dps that was unsure of what was going on, and was either new to the group, or in a pug would hear and now get it. If not you actually watched the field as the Raid Lead. Nowadays it allows too many to just go oh look, i'm top dps, nothing i could do (standing in fire, over dpsing, pulling incorrect mobs, etc.) can be wrong. And oh, that guys low dps, kick him. It's honestly been poison to the community in nearly every game i've seen impliment them.

Damokles

@Ventharien
Yes, but that also lead to 40-man raids where 20 people had to carry the other 20.
I played WoW since end of classic, raided since end of BC. Thats why i say that only raid leads get a dps function. A raid lead needs to know that stuff, so that he can sort it out with those people. (Depending on where the problem lies, do they not understand the mechanics, or is it their gear?)

The thing is that people have to trust each other to do the right thing. I had people that said straight out that they had shitty gear. We still took them to the easy bosses and they left on their own when we got to the harder ones.
But the problem is that most people dont think that way. People are selfish. They dont say that they do minimal damage and want to get carried. Maybe they dont even realize it because they dont have a dps meter to check it.

Pugs should not be a valid reason why dps meters should not be a thing, because people could be thrown out because they didnt pull their own damn weight.

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

It's honestly been poison to the community in nearly every game i've seen impliment them.

It seems to me like your argument here is"this is a tool that is obviously useful, but since some people use it wrong, it shouldn't exist".

I'm happy for Intrepid to not allow addons. However, I know the end game raiding community (assuming the game has such a community) will have one. This can be seen in GW2 - they didn't have one or make allowences for one, but the community built one anyway. I personally know of the existence of two that are ready to be adapted to Ashes already.

To me, the question is not "should Ashes have a combat tracker or not", but rather "should Intrepid be in control of the combat tracker in Ashes or not".

IMO, the best answer - the one that should please the most people - is actually for Intrepid to implement two combat trackers in to the game.

The first is a training dummy that could be a part of a military node. It allows people to select specific parameters on a training dummy that the player (or group) can then attack. This gives individual players the opportunity to test out a new build in a variety of situations, or to test out class combos and such, but doesn't allow for in combat tracking - it only tracks attacks on the dummy. (edit to add: while this could be located in a military node, it should be available - for a fee - to anyone)

The second is added in to the game as a guild perk. It should be an option that guilds can take, but one where only guilds that are raiding PvE content would take it. There should be a better/more useful option for PvP, crafting, and group or solo PvE so that guilds that spend more time doing any other activity would rather take something different.

On top of that, this tracker that members of the guild can use (or even only people of X rank or higher in the guild) only tracks combat of guild members that are present in a raid setting. This means every player in the game effectively opts in to having their combat tracked by their guild by joining a guild with this option selected.

With all of this, you will still get the occasional idiot in a pickup group that claims he knows that X class is crap and you can't join his group if you are that class. To that, I have two responses. The first is that you just found a player that you don't want running any group you are in, and you found that out before investing time in getting to the hard part of a dungeon where that player would obviously have issues.

The second is that players like this would exclude classes anyway - not due to merit, but because it makes them feel good. They will exclude people for the sake of excluding people, tracker or no. If there is an in game tracker though, at least you have the means to see if their claims are accurate or not.

Ventharien

noaani wrote: »

It seems to me like your argument here is"this is a tool that is obviously useful, but since some people use it wrong, it shouldn't exist".

That's pretty much the argument lol. No doubt it's useful, but i would say it has done alot to foster and expand a feeling of elitism in various games. Pretty much for the reasons IS has said they're leaning against them. As for the dummy in town, i think that's a-okay. Not only are those mostly private, (as in you see the numbers, and noone is sitting watching your dummy slapping) but they aren't in the middle of the action in the field. As for it also being a guild option, I think it becomes a moot point if you go down that route. Either you think they are negative for your community, in which case you say they aren't allowed, and if someone puts their own together and gets caught, they get whatever is deemed a fit consequence. Or you think they are an overall benefit, and just have it available for all. I suppose there's also just not caring enough either way, and eventually someone makes and distributes one.

Ventharien

Damokles wrote: »

@Ventharien
Yes, but that also lead to 40-man raids where 20 people had to carry the other 20.
I played WoW since end of classic, raided since end of BC. Thats why i say that only raid leads get a dps function. A raid lead needs to know that stuff, so that he can sort it out with those people. (Depending on where the problem lies, do they not understand the mechanics, or is it their gear?)

The thing is that people have to trust each other to do the right thing. I had people that said straight out that they had shitty gear. We still took them to the easy bosses and they left on their own when we got to the harder ones.
But the problem is that most people dont think that way. People are selfish. They dont say that they do minimal damage and want to get carried. Maybe they dont even realize it because they dont have a dps meter to check it.

Pugs should not be a valid reason why dps meters should not be a thing, because people could be thrown out because they didnt pull their own damn weight.

Nice, seems we had the same wow timeline. What server? As to it being a raid leader only mechanic, I'd feel better about that at least, since it's already a raid leads job to manage his raids... I don't know. Morale? That seems silly to say but you know what i mean. When you have those two guys who get snippy when tension goes up, and piss everyone else off if you don't control the comms. But i know that'd be a give an inch situation, And there would probably then be either an official one, or just acceptance of a third party one. Also i trust people to do the right thing about as much as i trust myself not to down that entire 2 liter in my fridge in one sitting. (I have zero self control in said situation)

halbarz

There are a few things I do wonder:

- I see a lot of people comparing this game to World of Warcraft - why? This is a sandbox , the classes are waaaaay more diverse. With roles that are pretty much non existing in that game.

- The game is advertised as a sandbox which are (if you played them before (not archeage or bdo) are community focused. How would a dps meter benefit the game ? It would only divide people no?

General:

- the Pro addon people in this thread seem very reasonable and nice. Sadly in over 15 years of gaming I only had bad luck in mmo's that had dps meter (got kicked in Wow for not having leveling gear but quest gear in low lvl dungeons --> lower dps (happened several times) --> just left the game and yes this kind of behavior gives people quickly the impression that a community in a game is toxic and just bad.

- I have done many many raids in different mmo's. Raiding was often if not always more of a guild thing which resulted in teamwork, if something went wrong we communicated and went back a step.

The reason I asked the addon question in the first place (OP here) was because we had bad experiences and yes also because having a dps meter in a sandbox seems very ... strange. Maybe reading so many different posts on several forums and websites, watching several video's on the topic has just gotten me confused lol on what this game actually is now

(there seems to be a lot of misinformation on youtube and etc. for what I have noticed)

Noaani

halbarz wrote: »

(got kicked in Wow for not having leveling gear but quest gear in low lvl dungeons --> lower dps (happened several times)

See, the thing is, combat tracker or not, this will still happen.

If people can see your gear, they can decide to kick you if they think it is not good enough. People don't need a DPS readout to make this decision, they just need to be dicks.

Being a dick is not reliant on access to a combat tracker.

---

What I think would be worse than this though, is if you spend many years in a guild of 50 players, raiding end game content often as a pure DPS class. The guild doesn't have access to a DPS meter, and things seem to be going ok. Not great, you're months behind the best guilds, but you and your guild have fun.

Then one day, someone finds out that there is a combat tracker for the game, and they use it. They put up a readout of the raids DPS, and you are behind some of the utility classes and even behind a few surplus healers.

All of a sudden, you realize that you have been dragging the chain, letting your friends down for literally years.

That is what not having a combat tracker does.

I can see people that are in a situation where they play with different people every night not wanting one. I even agree with that.

However, when you are in a situation where you play with the same people every night, week after week, for several years, these arguments tend to fall flat.

This is why my suggestion is to keep them away from the former, but allow them to be used in the latter.

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

It seems to me like your argument here is"this is a tool that is obviously useful, but since some people use it wrong, it shouldn't exist".

That's pretty much the argument lol. No doubt it's useful, but i would say it has done alot to foster and expand a feeling of elitism in various games. Pretty much for the reasons IS has said they're leaning against them. As for the dummy in town, i think that's a-okay. Not only are those mostly private, (as in you see the numbers, and noone is sitting watching your dummy slapping) but they aren't in the middle of the action in the field. As for it also being a guild option, I think it becomes a moot point if you go down that route. Either you think they are negative for your community, in which case you say they aren't allowed, and if someone puts their own together and gets caught, they get whatever is deemed a fit consequence. Or you think they are an overall benefit, and just have it available for all. I suppose there's also just not caring enough either way, and eventually someone makes and distributes one.

Not having a tracker isn't going to stop the issues people attribute to them. The only way to stop that is to get rid of all dicks from the Internet. (edit to add; I'm in favor of this proposal, if anyone can work out the details)

---

If Intrepid want to have no third party DPS meters, the only way for this to happen is to give players a means to test out new builds (with actual, hard data provided), AND to give raid leaders an overview of encounters so as to determine what has happened. To not implement that in to the game, and still expect players to not develop such tools, it is going beyond wishful thinking and edging on to the realm of delusion.

Of course players will have combat trackers.

However, if these two things from above are both catered for, it wouldn't be worth anyone's time to finish off a third party meter, as the desired functionality is already there. Doing this allows Intrepid to be in control, and I personally think that is better than the alternative.

Everything else a combat tracker has is just feature creep from that one basic principle of allowing players to access builds and giving raid leaders information on encounter attempts.

As to the notion of players getting caught, I can tell you now that one of these trackers can be run on a separate computer to the one running the client that is being tracked - one that doesn't even need to be connected to the internet. It can also be run on the same computer, but it would be able to be detected there if Intrepid were invasive enough.

The other one though, it is being designed to work on Android (I'm likely going to need to upgrade from my Note 8 to run it though - so I've been told).

Needless to say, the two that I know of are both being designed in a manner where Intrepid would simply be unable to detect them - that is kind of a key tenant of their design, just in case Intrepid do put something to prevent their use in the TOS/EULA.

So, it kind of is a case of either Intrepid putting their head in the sand and ignoring the fact that these exist (or ignoring the fact that of course players will have a combat tracker), or the only other option is to take control of the situation and implement the bare minimum needed to keep people that want a tracker happy.

Basically, there is no plausible version of events that ends in players in Ashes not having access to a combat tracker.

halbarz

I am curious how they are making these already without any kind of data or so but eh.

I would much rather have an official stands that it is not allowed. IF people use it no matter how that is then up to them if they get caught --> perma ban in my opinion. Like you said some they can never track or find fine by me ... if I meet someone like that and acts out it will be easy then to add them to my blocklist

Besides that most content is open world, having a dps meter is rather pointless. I do agree that a dummy where people can test it for themselves and only that would be ok.

Noaani

halbarz wrote: »

I am curious how they are making these already without any kind of data or so but eh.

I would much rather have an official stands that it is not allowed. IF people use it no matter how that is then up to them if they get caught --> perma ban in my opinion. Like you said some they can never track or find fine by me ... if I meet someone like that and acts out it will be easy then to add them to my blocklist

Besides that most content is open world, having a dps meter is rather pointless. I do agree that a dummy where people can test it for themselves and only that would be ok.

That is why they won't be ready until beta. The coding for one is complete, the other is on hold until they know the format the information they will be able to get is in.

The one that runs on PC would be able to perform part of it's function if all it is able to do is read floating combat figures (and so could probably also track streams or YouTube videos of combat, if high enough quality).

Your point about simply blocking people is spot on though - thing is, it isn't people with DPS meters that you do that to, it is people that act like dicks.

Ashes is going to be far more about your own reputation within your node and greater server community. Players that act like dicks to multiple players on multiple occasions will get reputations as such, and reputations stick.

Unlike WoW, where players were just put in groups for the content they want to run, players in Ashes will be forming their own groups. Thus, players with those reputations from above will find it hard to find groups. The more people that block them, the sooner they will realize that their behavior won't be accepted in Ashes.

Again though, the DPS meter isn't the issue. The player is the issue. Even in your example, you were kicked out of a group for the gear you were wearing - that is information players will have access to in Ashes.

And if Intrepid do make it so that using a combat tracker is a ban-able offense (they would need to word it carefully, or they risk making streaming and YouTube videos also ban-able offenses as well). Thing is, to be, this is an idiot tax. If a player is stupid enough to use a tool without hiding it when that tool can be hidden easily, banning them is a good thing for the game.

halbarz

This could go on for a while of course hihi.

You are right , reputation will be very important in this game. This also means that communication is key.
For what I understood Intrepid has made their stance on dps meters rather clear ( a no no)I do support the dummy idea for those that really badly want this.

Would not having a dps meter (official supported or allowed) be a roadblock or not make you play the game?

In my personal opinion any experienced raider should be able to see the weak points of the group during an encounter and communicate about this in a respectful manner without the need of some numbers.

Don't take me wrong, I do respect your view on things and you make some good points. You seem like a really reasonable person sadly I cannot picture the other 99% people using such a tool to be the same

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