Meters, why say no?

Now hear me out before you instantly start replying that i'm a toxic elitist who just wants to call others bad. This is an mmorpg. The dungeons are attuned for 8 players, and raids can go up to 40 players. You're saying that meters are toxic and shouldn't be desired at all. But how are you supposed to find the players that could be better helped to learn their class? Example: You're in a 40 man raid that your guild has been up against for about 3-4 weeks and you cant get any progress done on it. Something is wrong, and you cant figure it out. Lets say suddenly you had meters, and you can now see that a handful of your 40 players needed some guidance with their class. With no meters, this would be impossible to figure out. Without meters we're expected to bash our head against a brick wall for god knows how long until people start leaving or quitting the progression due to frustration. I believe the decision to not include meters because it "promotes a toxic elitist behavior" is unjustified and shouldn't be left to the decision of just a couple people. I find that meters can help improve the game by helping your group improve and grow together, which will in return help people enjoy the game to its fullest. If you don't add meters to the game itself, please consider making addons or plugins for meters a non-bannable offense at the very least.

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Noaani

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Just responding to the question asked. Because the developers said no.

Have you got a quote for that?

The following is the only quote I have found direct from Intrepid

Question; For your interface, have you guys discussed how much freedom the player will have in configuration options, like, are you designing it for players to be able to install mods?

Steven; That's a good question, and it's something that we are definitely addressing in our discussions. I think we're maybe leaning towards not allowing the mods.

Jeff; Yeah it just depends what we're talking about when it comes to mods, because they can provide boons and they can provide banes. We're just not sure where we are on that. They'll definitely be some option for customization, especially on the UI side of things, but as far as true mods, I'm not sure how far we are going to support that.

Steven; I think that the issue with mods becomes that certain players have access to certain mods, now the mods become necessary to play the game from a competitive aspect. And if players don't have that mod, then their experiencing the game on a different level, and I just don't want that meta to appear where mods are required in order to perform.

That is all I can find. This was three years ago, and so it safe to say that it would not be fair to hold them to that, in either direction.

Nothing in that says anything about a built in combat tracker. If anything, it would support it, as that is the best way to ensure there is no situation where a player has a mod that allows them to play the game on a different level.

Now, if you can find a specific quote that says anything else, I am absolutely more than keen to be pointed towards it. I mean, I may have managed to not find it, and I am all about having as accurate info as is possible.

However, in all the discussions on this topic on these forums, the above is the only discussion I can find from Intrepid.

Ventharien

DaddySaucy wrote: »

And only looking at what the majority thinks, well.. You saw how that worked out for WoW. It's mythic raiding scene is all but dead because they set focus on the casuals

So you're using the game that incorporated DBM, and Threat Meters, and dps meters in response to calls that the raiding scene needed them, as an example of a failed raiding scene? Also how well did it work out for wow? Because last i checked even as the shadow of it's former self, it's still the largest mmorpg currently in existence.

Ventharien

DaddySaucy wrote: »

but to go as far as banning any kind of use of it will lose my subscription. Kinda shows that they dont care what the minority wants, only caring about the majority.

Then you will have plenty of other games to play as we keep playing Ashes.

Jahlon

noaani wrote: »

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Just responding to the question asked. Because the developers said no.

Have you got a quote for that?

The following is the only quote I have found direct from Intrepid

Question; For your interface, have you guys discussed how much freedom the player will have in configuration options, like, are you designing it for players to be able to install mods?

Steven; That's a good question, and it's something that we are definitely addressing in our discussions. I think we're maybe leaning towards not allowing the mods.

Jeff; Yeah it just depends what we're talking about when it comes to mods, because they can provide boons and they can provide banes. We're just not sure where we are on that. They'll definitely be some option for customization, especially on the UI side of things, but as far as true mods, I'm not sure how far we are going to support that.

Steven; I think that the issue with mods becomes that certain players have access to certain mods, now the mods become necessary to play the game from a competitive aspect. And if players don't have that mod, then their experiencing the game on a different level, and I just don't want that meta to appear where mods are required in order to perform.

That is all I can find. This was three years ago, and so it safe to say that it would not be fair to hold them to that, in either direction.

Nothing in that says anything about a built in combat tracker. If anything, it would support it, as that is the best way to ensure there is no situation where a player has a mod that allows them to play the game on a different level.

Now, if you can find a specific quote that says anything else, I am absolutely more than keen to be pointed towards it. I mean, I may have managed to not find it, and I am all about having as accurate info as is possible.

However, in all the discussions on this topic on these forums, the above is the only discussion I can find from Intrepid.

Steven today pretty much said no DPS meters
They've said it a number of times on a number of occasions
They've specifically said they won't be including the API hooks for DPS meters

Noaani

Jahlon wrote: »

Steven today pretty much said no DPS meters

Where?

Ventharien

@noaani During today's live stream. The chat kept asking the question, and berating each other lol. They used it as an extra question.

Lalli

Ventharien wrote: »

@noaani During today's live stream. The chat kept asking the question, and berating each other lol. They used it as an extra question.

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42183/library-livestream-discord-qna-transcriptions It's not on there yet but I'm sure @Shaze will update it very soon.

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

@noaani During today's live stream. The chat kept asking the question, and berating each other lol. They used it as an extra question.

So, I just went and watched it.

Basically, this is what I got from the whole thing.

Steven doesn't like combat trackers, and so the game won't have them. Cool, I've said many times that I want them to develop the game that they want to develop. It isn't how I would personally want them to do it, but I would rather they do it how they want than how I want.

Next, Steven sees constant repetition of the same single encounter in an attempt to get a kill as being valid end game content, and that players wanting to play end game content in Ashes should be ok with that. I think he will find that end game players disagree with him here. End game players will have a limit on how much time they are willing to put in to a single encounter. I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

We are likely to never know though, due to the next part.

When he said that he would prefer players learning curve be based on experience rather than a data table, but then says you can take that experience and convert it to a data table, well, that is what third party combat trackers do.

It may not have been intentional, but to me, this is tantamount to admitting that third party combat trackers are likely to exist in some form. Since a number of his statements are referencing things I have directly bought up on these forums (even if he disagrees with me), that would suggest he is also aware that there are indeed combat trackers being developed for the game already.

Now, others may well have taken something different to that away from what was said, but that is what I got.

Edit; so what this means is that we will end up with the same situation as every other game - where third party tools become essential for competitive play. Those tools may not be on par with the likes to DBM - due purely to not having API support - but they will exist, and players with them will have an absolute edge over players without them in both PvE and PvP content.

I'm fairly sure this is the eventuality that literally no one wanted.

Ventharien

He says they can data table it, and Margaret suggests that Steven inform every one of the third party policy, though i don't think he heard her and finishes his statement. And people have been fighting the same single encounter ad naseum across multiple game genres, especially mmo's. Not only will they do so dozens of times in an attempt to world first, or server first, they will then farm that content repeatedly for months and even years. I don't think player attention is that pressing a concern especially at that level.

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

He says they can data table it, and Margaret suggests that Steven inform every one of the third party policy, though i don't think he heard her and finishes his statement. And people have been fighting the same single encounter ad naseum across multiple game genres, especially mmo's. Not only will they do so dozens of times in an attempt to world first, or server first, they will then farm that content repeatedly for months and even years. I don't think player attention is that pressing a concern especially at that level.

A third party program policy is only as good as the detection put in place.

Detection can only work on the PC that the client is running on, and both of the combat trackers I know of work on other devices. Thus, policy is completely irrelevant. One could argue that is why Margret was interrupted - no point bringing up an irrelevant point, and Steven would know for sure that it is indeed irrelevant.

Players will happily fight the same encounter once a week for several months, for sure. Even spending several nights worth of attempts figuring out an encounter is enjoyable, if the difficulty of the encounter is designed in a good way.

What they won't do is bang their head against an encounter dozens of times in a pure trial and error situation.

If a change is made to what the raid does, there should be a way to quantify the effects of that change. Without a combat tracker, a raid could make a change to how they do things, but some other aspect of the encounter may then cause a situation that the players in the raid attribute to being caused by what they did differently. This could well be compounded by the fact that some aspects of encounters in Ashes will change from session to session - not only are you now unaware of if a new aspect of an encounter is in response to what you did differently or not, but you are unsure of if that aspect of the encounter will even be there still next week.

The combination of things turns raiding in to a roll of the dice as much as a case of efficient problem solving.

Raiders are all for puzzles and trying to solve them, and trial and error is indeed a part of that. However, Intrepid seem content with offering that up as the only available option should players wish to follow the TOS.

That won't fly.

Hypnotistu

The only compromise would be to have some sort of 'personal' meter. The devs mentioned they might add some target dummies for players to test in their "hideouts" (I don't know the nomenclature yet).

This would only serve for personal skill improvements, and would not burden the player with the stigma of having crappy dps when it matters.

Also, if there's no separation between leveling dungeons and endgame dungeons, then having a dps meter for any encounter is moot, because everyone can blame it on lack of items or high server latency.

Coming from other MMOs where damage numbers are active, I dislike the attitude of calling people toxic for asking similar features.

If the UI customization is not flexible enough, players will still ask for a damage meter...

Ventharien

noaani wrote: »

Raiders are all for puzzles and trying to solve them, and trial and error is indeed a part of that. However, Intrepid seem content with offering that up as the only available option should players wish to follow the TOS.

That won't fly.

That's literally all there should be. You walk into a new boss, why should you know anything about it? It's mechanics? Other than what you yourself have gleaned from the earlier fights of the raid, or mechanics you have seen before. Or at least similar ones. Team work and trial and error should be all that's necessary (outside of obvious things like gear and potions/ goodies)

Noaani

Ventharien wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Raiders are all for puzzles and trying to solve them, and trial and error is indeed a part of that. However, Intrepid seem content with offering that up as the only available option should players wish to follow the TOS.

That won't fly.

That's literally all there should be. You walk into a new boss, why should you know anything about it? It's mechanics? Other than what you yourself have gleaned from the earlier fights of the raid, or mechanics you have seen before. Or at least similar ones. Team work and trial and error should be all that's necessary (outside of obvious things like gear and potions/ goodies)

You shouldn't.

You should pull it a few times and then be able to collect data from those pulls.

That is what combat trackers do.

Once you have that data, you then begin to plan a strategy. There will likely still be questions your raid has on the encounter (are two specific abilities connected, can we delay this specific AoE, things of that nature), and your raid goes in to the encounter with a plan to test out the theories that you have formed from the data you have collected.

You then take that data and are able to determine if the things you tested for are in fact true or not, and from that, you are able to form a plan to actually attempt to kill the encounter - or at least get it to the next phase, should it have phases.

Without the data from trackers, all you are doing is guessing, feeling and assuming. The tracker turns those assumptions in to facts, which means you know you and your guild are on the right track, or alternatively you know you are not on the right track and so need to come up with another plan. Without that data, it would take many times longer to figure out if you and your guild are on the right path or not - this could result in weeks worth of attempts being in vain due to several wrong paths taken, with no data to point out that the chosen path was indeed wrong.

This is the part that won't fly. The whole raid may think they are on the right path, but with no objective data, no one can know for sure.

If you have information on an encounter before pulling it, that is from things other than combat trackers - as combat trackers can not predict the future.

Ventharien

Hypnotistu wrote: »

The only compromise would be to have some sort of 'personal' meter. The devs mentioned they might add some target dummies for players to test in their "hideouts" (I don't know the nomenclature yet).

This would only serve for personal skill improvements, and would not burden the player with the stigma of having crappy dps when it matters.

Also, if there's no separation between leveling dungeons and endgame dungeons, then having a dps meter for any encounter is moot, because everyone can blame it on lack of items or high server latency.

Coming from other MMOs where damage numbers are active, I dislike the attitude of calling people toxic for asking similar features.

If the UI customization is not flexible enough, players will still ask for a damage meter...

I wouldn't call a dummy, or even better moving sparring partner as a damage meter for the purpose of these discussions. Freehold is the word you're looking for. Though i'd love a larger fancier one to be a building option for nodes as well. Like an Arena.

Dungeons aren't locked to character level to my knowledge but to node progression in most places. So you could go to a village and find a lower level one in the area, as opposed to one near a metropolis ZOI

I don't think anyone should be called toxic for requesting a feature like dps meters, unless they sail right on to the carebear, trash, and other insults. At the moment they aren't in favor of them, but if they decide later that it would be better for the game, then that'd be ok too, regardless of my personal views on them.

George_Black

Why no meters?
For the same reason that there is open world pvp.
For the same reason that crafted gear matters.
For the sane reason that you cant reach lv50 in a week.
For the same reason that there isnt teleport points every 2 steps.
For the same reason that groups are made out of 8 and not tankheal2dps.
For the same reason that there isnt p2w.

Because people are tired of your typical boring mmorpgs we had for the last decade, a screen full of UI indicators and boring static rotation gameplay.

Ventharien

noaani wrote: »

This is the part that won't fly. The whole raid may think they are on the right path, but with no objective data, no one can know for sure.

If you have information on an encounter before pulling it, that is from things other than combat trackers - as combat trackers can not predict the future.

Did we lower it's health further, were there adds running around, did we last longer, did a new fight phase begin, all of these are objective points of progress or not, and none of them require meters. People were crushing through raids long before meters rolled around. They are not necessary in the least, only another possible useful tool. So if it is felt that their other, negative aspects are not worth it, i think that's an entirely valid road to take.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

Why no meters?
For the same reason that there is open world pvp.
For the same reason that crafted gear matters.
For the sane reason that you cant reach lv50 in a week.
For the same reason that there isnt teleport points every 2 steps.
For the same reason that groups are made out of 8 and not tankheal2dps.
For the same reason that there isnt p2w.

Because people are tired of your typical boring mmorpgs we had for the last decade, a screen full of UI indicators and boring static rotation gameplay.

If you have UI indicators, then you have something that is not a pure combat tracker. You have a combat tracker that is integrated with a UI modification.

This kind of thing is more likely to happen if trackers are left to third parties than if they were done by the developer.

George_Black

I played eso for 5 years, a game based on animation cancelling dps race, without any combat metrics addons with Australian delay connected to the EU server (a mess of a performance game btw).

Guess what? I'd pull the same dps as the other people playing my class, clearing ALL content.

Are you rly afraid that you wont beat the game without dps meters?
Are you afraid that you wont be able to teach dpsing to your guild members without the meters?

Even if you stubornly stock to that notion (which is false because mmorpgs used to be without dps meters forever), well guess what. Nobody will have dps meters. Even playing field.

Jahlon

noaani wrote: »

Jahlon wrote: »

Steven today pretty much said no DPS meters

Where?

As far as Mods
UI - Mods, sure they are a possibility but not a probability. You'll want to check
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Talk:2017-05-15_Livestream

"And I think that the statement of if we designed the UI well which we are going to do you know there's not really a need for the add-ons"

On the topic of parsers

Parsers - They have no plans for putting in the hooks for parsers, nor do they plan on doing anything specific that will help with the construction of DPS meters.

Specific Link on parser hooks https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Talk:2017-05-10_Livestream

The developers feelings towards parsers:

"Right and they stratify they stratify the population in a bad way parsers can do some really nasty things to communities and you know when you're talking about a 1% difference determines whether or not somebody can join a party like it's you know it's it sucks yeah you know I understand the reason it's there and I love my parsers I don't think I you know it's but it's It's like a toxicity involved at some point"

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Talk:2017-05-15_Livestream

DPS meter quotes can be found
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Talk:2018-05-11_Ashes_of_Creation_Community_Podcast_with_Steven_Sharif

and

"DPS meter oh god I'm sorry I just said that out loud but we don't want we don't want things that divide and sometimes when you give some communities the agency to make those things it facilitates the division"

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Talk:2018-04-05_Video_-_PAX_East_Panel

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

I played eso for 5 years, a game based on animation cancelling dps race, without any combat metrics addons with Australian delay connected to the EU server (a mess of a performance game btw).

Guess what? I'd pull the same dps as the other people playing my class, clearing ALL content.

Are you rly afraid that you wont beat the game without dps meters?
Are you afraid that you wont be able to teach dpsing to your guild members without the meters?

Even if you stubornly stock to that notion (which is false because mmorpgs used to be without dps meters forever), well guess what. Nobody will have dps meters. Even playing field.

ESO has the simplest combat and encounters of all MMO's out there.

It is one step above Wizard 101 in terms of being a children's game, in terms of mechanics.

You not using a combat tracker yourself does not mean you have not made use of one - every build that has been posted in that game has been assessed via Combat Metrics, and been improved based on those results. Every discussion on combat about that game has been based off of objective data - something that is only possible in the presence of an above board combat tracker.

And that is the thing, a combat tracker doesn't just give an advantage to those that use it. What they do is they put accurate information out to all who look for it.

---

Your assertion that MMO's have been without DPS meters forever - that's well, not true. The original EQ had a combat tracker in mid 2000 - so MMO's have had combat trackers for 20 years now, and that is just what i know of.

---

As to the game having an even playing field, again that is untrue. The game will have DPS meters designed for it, they will just be third party.

I just talked with one of the guys running development of one of the two that I know of, and when he saw the comments in the livestream today he decided that he was going to alter his tracker to be run as a server, so guilds could have one player host the program, and everyone else connect to that server. This will make it more accurate, so even if the only data that individual players get is the data on their own incoming and outgoing abilities, the server will still have all data for the raid.

The situation absolutely will be that those with access to one of these combat trackers have an advantage over those that don't have access to one. The only way this wont be the case - in any MMO - is if the game has these tools built in to it.

I mean, I'd like Ashes to break from what other games have done in the past in many situations. What other games have done in the past is to not have a built in combat tracker, thus forcing third party ones in to existence. This situation leads to the uneven playing field that we all want to avoid, as not everyone will have the additional tool for the game.

The way to get rid of that is not to do what every other MMO does, it is to do what they do not do. If you do what other games have done, you get the same result as other games. On the other hand, if you put those tools in to the hands of every player, every player is on the same, even playing field.

Other games have not implemented combat trackers in to the game. If Ashes also does not implement combat trackers in to the game, the result will be the same as all of those other games that also did not introduce them in to their game.

I'm not sure how you can claim that Ashes not having a built in combat tracker will result in a different situation than all other games that have not had a built in combat tracker.

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