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

Lostforever wrote: »

AntVictus wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Lostforever wrote: »

The thing here is gent..gals...>.> people, is that you have your words and your experiences and I have mine I've been that guy that has had to turn away members from raids, or under the one that has had to do it. I've been raiding since I was 12 or 13. I've seen how bad it can get, i've seen what happens, and i've seen some really good raid leads become the most toxic clowns ever. My point here is that no matter what your argument is for dps meters, I can never agree to them. They can in fact create toxicity, and while it isn't widely spread in some instances, it is bad in all of them. I'm not saying I won't play the game or whatever if they decide to change that, I just think that keeping Toxicity as low as possible is better than adding in a system that helps it develop.

This being said I hold no ill will against someone who wants them. I just can't agree with you because of my own experiences.

Also, to whoever asked about 3rd party stuff, I suggest you read the terms. XD Everything is already in place there.

This is fair enough and we are not going to change each others mind on the internet. We have different experiences which leads us to different conclusions but thank you for discussion your ideas

However I hope that the dev listens to my ideas

We do all have different experiences.

However, many people seem to want to misplace the blame for their experiences, and combat trackers are an easy target on which to misplace that blame.

That is basically what very nearly every argument against them that I have seen boils down to - I saw toxicity and a combat tracker was involved, therefore it was the combat trackers fault!

Lostforever

noaani wrote: »

Lostforever wrote: »

AntVictus wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Lostforever wrote: »

The thing here is gent..gals...>.> people, is that you have your words and your experiences and I have mine I've been that guy that has had to turn away members from raids, or under the one that has had to do it. I've been raiding since I was 12 or 13. I've seen how bad it can get, i've seen what happens, and i've seen some really good raid leads become the most toxic clowns ever. My point here is that no matter what your argument is for dps meters, I can never agree to them. They can in fact create toxicity, and while it isn't widely spread in some instances, it is bad in all of them. I'm not saying I won't play the game or whatever if they decide to change that, I just think that keeping Toxicity as low as possible is better than adding in a system that helps it develop.

This being said I hold no ill will against someone who wants them. I just can't agree with you because of my own experiences.

Also, to whoever asked about 3rd party stuff, I suggest you read the terms. XD Everything is already in place there.

This is fair enough and we are not going to change each others mind on the internet. We have different experiences which leads us to different conclusions but thank you for discussion your ideas

However I hope that the dev listens to my ideas

We do all have different experiences.

However, many people seem to want to misplace the blame for their experiences, and combat trackers are an easy target on which to misplace that blame.

That is basically what very nearly every argument against them that I have seen boils down to - I saw toxicity and a combat tracker was involved, therefore it was the combat trackers fault!

I completely agree with you there. Blaming DPS meters or combat analyzers as I like to call them, since they are far more than just DPS numbers, is very counter productive.

Blackhearted

The way I see combat trackers contributing to toxic environments is by encouraging others to tolerate toxic people that are performing well.
A player dealing high dps and bullying others is less likely to be dealt with than a player only bullying others.

I personally feel that lack of combat trackers also leads to more meaningful player relations.
When Im lacking numbers I feel like Im more inclined to find out what kind of person I am dealing with.

Caeryl

Blackhearted wrote: »

The way I see combat trackers contributing to toxic environments is by encouraging others to tolerate toxic people that are performing well.
A player dealing high dps and bullying others is less likely to be dealt with than a player only bullying others.

I personally feel that lack of combat trackers also leads to more meaningful player relations.
When Im lacking numbers I feel like Im more inclined to find out what kind of person I am dealing with.

This here is the only real concern I would have, but Ashes is going to be a community driven game.

Someone being a dick about their dps might be able to keep up the act for a while with no consequence. But once they piss off enough players, other guilds are free to hunt them down. Players can raid their node, stalk their caravans, attack them whenever they like, have a player spy on their guild and leak info. If the community as a whole decides to excuse that behavior without consequence, treating raiders as elites even if they’re rude Karens, then that is a community problem.

Noaani

Blackhearted wrote: »

The way I see combat trackers contributing to toxic environments is by encouraging others to tolerate toxic people that are performing well.
A player dealing high dps and bullying others is less likely to be dealt with than a player only bullying others.

I personally feel that lack of combat trackers also leads to more meaningful player relations.
When Im lacking numbers I feel like Im more inclined to find out what kind of person I am dealing with.

This is why I want to keep this topic (regardless of which thread) going. Every now and then, there is a new point to be made.

I have two main points to make here. The first is that a toxic player is also likely to be assertive. This assertive toxic player may well tell their guild/group/raid that they are the best player ever, and without a combat tracker it is not necessarily that easy to disprove. Thus they may be inclined to keep that assertive toxic player around on the assumption that they are that good - without evidence.

Second, if the prevailing suggestion were adopted (Intrepid implementing a combat tracker for guilds, that only works on guild members), this means you will only ever know how that toxic player parses after inviting them to your guild. If a guild is concerned about toxic players in their ranks (for reasons outlined in the above post), then the guild has the opportunity to assess the player as a person before they have the opportunity to assess the player in a combat tracker.

Basically, it would mean guilds can decide what level of toxicity they will accept in their ranks, and they can decide that before a combat tracker enters the discussion.

Blackhearted

@Caeryl but mean people that are performing well with objective data backing them up are likely to also climb ranks. Thus they gain more ways to bully others and also get some backing from the guild.
Even if/when at some point people get their fill of them, theyll have added to toxicity among the community.

@Noaani A mean person saying hes the best is a lot less credible than one with numbers to back it up.

The point still remains that trackers offering objective data encourage competitive guilds to recruit players more for their dps than personality.

If you in all honesty ask yourself if the point in making is true. Then you will know that tracker indeed is increasing toxicity in the game.
The way I see Steven visioning his game is with minimum toxicity and more earthly approach to gaming.
When youre in a real fight you have to trust your wit and instincts and thats what I think Steven wants us to do with raid bosses.
Besides, were going to have owpvp so every other factor that can create toxicity has to go

This is of course just speculation but Steven is the only person who knows his vision and what it includes.
We have to believe he can pull it off.

Caeryl

Blackhearted wrote: »

@/Caeryl but mean people that are performing well with objective data backing them up are likely to also climb ranks. Thus they gain more ways to bully others and also get some backing from the guild.
Even if/when at some point people get their fill of them, theyll have added to toxicity among the community.

I’m gonna be brutally honest here; What people tend to call “bullying” is often a matter of some players having high standards and not settling for less from their group mates.

A small amount of toxicity that’s inherent to a particular personality type when mixed with the anonymity of the internet, is completely worth dealing with to have all the benefits that comes from detailed combat logs. Recommended class builds, dungeon guides, group composition efficiency, effective ability rotations, most potent mitigation tools. All of these things require players have objective data.

And they will, whether Intrepid integrates it into their game in a way they can have control over, or if they leave it entirely up to third parties, players will have that information.

Noaani

Blackhearted wrote: »

A mean person saying hes the best is a lot less credible than one with numbers to back it up.

I only bought up one of my initial four thoughts on your suggesting in my previous post (didn't want to bombard you with four points to argue all at once).

So the first is, as above, is the fact that it will happen with or without those hard numbers numbers.

The second is basically as Caeryl said at the end of the above post - players will have a combat tracker anyway, the argument here is about getting Intrepid to implement one so that they can have some form of control over it.

The third is that I believe that individual guilds should be able to decide what level of toxicity they chose to accept (or indeed require) of their members, and this is what guilds will do regardless of any attempts others may make to the contrary.

If a given guild decided they didn't want toxic players - regardless of what numbers the player may parse, or if those numbers are available or not - that player won't leave the guild, they will simply go to a guild that allows (or requires) for more toxicity from it's members. The notion that there won't be toxic/troll guilds in Ashes is fanciful.

The fourth is probably best expressed as a reply to this...

The way I see Steven visioning his game is with minimum toxicity

Ashes is a game where players can kill each other for the raw material harvests that others may be carrying - or just kill them for no reason.

Ashes is a game where players can perform actual highway robbery to take a large portion of wealth away from one player - or a group of players.

Ashes is a game where players can literally chose a path to hunt down and kill other players.

Ashes is a game where players can attack and destroy the in game homes and economic devices of other players via node sieges.

Ashes is a game where guilds can declare war on other guilds for what ever reason they see fit.

With all of these potential points for toxicity to originate, there will be a solid level of it in the game regardless - the only way to lower the toxicity levels to anything that could be considered "minimal" would be to remove several of these above facts.

So really, when weighing all four of the above points, I'm not really sure what more to say.

So, what we are talking about here is a case where a guild somehow has a player in it's ranks that is more toxic than they would like. This scenario in itself would be rare, as there is no reason to not screen player personality when recruiting for a guild.

In order for your scenario to play out correctly, that guild needs to be one that would keep the player on if that player parses well on a combat tracker - so that toxic player needs to be in the top 10 - 15% of players.

That guild also needs to be one that would opt to not make use of third party combat trackers, which if they are the type of guild that would keep a toxic player that performs well, they are probably the type of guild that will use third party combat trackers.

Already we are talking about an edge case of an edge case of an edge case after the first three of my above points.

The fourth point simply puts that edge case of an edge case of an edge case in to perspective in terms of the amount of toxicity that it would add to the game.

EpicNerd

Meters being abused by toxic players is a very strange argument. If you find your self playing with someone that is toxic, find someone else to play with? If anything it's a tool you can use to filter out toxic people.

Hartwell

They probably won't allow addons, such as damage meters. Combat log API can be used to gauge health pools to get the total HP of enemies. I remember Steven saying that he wasn't even planning to have health meters on enemies, but rather a sort of other vague health indicator. If this goes how I think it could go, a client wouldn't even need to receive much combat information, except for floating combat text. If they wanted to, they would only need to send the exact damage value of an attack to the player who had dealt the damage. This would fit in line with Steven's wants for the game.

Could the information a player receives from floating combat text lead to 3rd party software creating overlays for the game, such as an overlay containing health bars? Maybe. There have been games that have done this with things like the client side combat log. Guild Wars 2 for example has 3rd party DPS meters sharing data between users to form a whole picture. Once the total health is formed after the death of the enemy, a health bar could be produced if users of such 3rd party software have their damage dealt synced up through a server that hosts such data.

The interesting thing about the 3rd party DPS meter approach is that a person could probably spoof data to send to a server that's running the 3rd party damage meters. A person could bump their numbers up to make it appear as though they are doing better than they actually were. If there were to be no API to prove that you are authentically a specific player, a person might even be able to spoof others and send wrong data on the behalf of another to make them look weaker, if somebody really wanted to be a pooper.

Edit: Here's an example from GW2 of how 3rd party stuff can change a game.

Noaani

hartwell wrote: »

They probably won't allow addons, such as damage meters. Combat log API can be used to gauge health pools to get the total HP of enemies. I remember Steven saying that he wasn't even planning to have health meters on enemies, but rather a sort of other vague health indicator. If this goes how I think it could go, a client wouldn't even need to receive much combat information, except for floating combat text. If they wanted to, they would only need to send the exact damage value of an attack to the player who had dealt the damage. This would fit in line with Steven's wants for the game.

Could the information a player receives from floating combat text lead to 3rd party software creating overlays for the game, such as an overlay containing health bars? Maybe. There have been games that have done this with things like the client side combat log. Guild Wars 2 for example has 3rd party DPS meters sharing data between users to form a whole picture. Once the total health is formed after the death of the enemy, a health bar could be produced if users of such 3rd party software have their damage dealt synced up through a server that hosts such data.

The interesting thing about the 3rd party DPS meter approach is that a person could probably spoof data to send to a server that's running the 3rd party damage meters. A person could bump their numbers up to make it appear as though they are doing better than they actually were. If there were to be no API to prove that you are authentically a specific player, a person might even be able to spoof others and send wrong data on the behalf of another to make them look weaker, if somebody really wanted to be a pooper.

Edit: Here's an example from GW2 of how 3rd party stuff can change a game.

This is all basically true, and what I have been saying for a while.

All it takes is floating combat feedback - or even chat window feedback - and players will have a combat tracker.

Basically, the only way to not have a combat tracker is to not give players any kind of accurate combat feedback. If you do that, you are all of a sudden playing a a game with a totally different feel to it.

Having players all connect to a server has been a thing that some combat trackers have done since at least 2008. Even in games with combat log access, it is the best way to get the most accurate figures possible. I saw a few back then that even combined voice communications on the same server.

You could look at it as there being four possible scenarios for Ashes when it goes live.

The worst is that players have absolutely no combat feedback at all. Literally nothing. This would need to be taken to the point where the only way we will know how well we are doing on an encounter is when that encounter dies.

The next worst of these is that the game has either floating combat feedback or chat window feedback. This will see players have access to fairly accurate combat trackers.

The second best is to have either log files or an API for combat trackers. This is the option I consider to be least likely.

The best option is for Intrepid to implement a combat tracker right in to the game, and place what ever restrictions they see fit on to it.

In terms of what impact each of these would have on the game... that worst option would basically require the population to retrain how to play MMO's.

In most games, if you attack a character (player or NPC) and the attack does significantly less damage than normal, then you know you are in for a hard time. Take away that feedback to players and, well you are taking away that feedback. This leaves players having no idea what is going on - and if there is a way in which players can see what is going on, that can be used as a means of introducing data in to a combat tracker.

This would be a really odd situation to be in. Ashes is a game where Intrepid want player decisions to be meaningful and important, yet without combat feedback, decisions in regards to combat, class and build are literally meaningless, as you have no way of knowing if your decision was a good one or not.

While it is technically possible to have a game with literally no combat feedback, I don't think many people would enjoy playing it.

The next option would basically result in a GW2 situation. There would be combat trackers, they would start off behind the scenes and become more and more obvious as the game ages. Chances are, eventually Intrepid would have to acknowledge them and design with them in mind - as GW2 did.

The next option is basically WoW, EQ2, FFXIV, Aion and Rift. This is a fairly wide variety of possibilities, and if this option were taken by Intrepid (which again, I consider the least likely), they would be able to chose exactly where on this spectrum they want the game to fall.

The last option, the one I want to see, is a combat tracker as a part of the game itself - with restrictions. It kills off all of the issues that have been presented so far.

Jignutz

If people being kicked from raid guilds due to dps meters is an issue, why don't you scrubs discerning gentlemen of skill start a new guild of all those other discerning gentlemen of skill that will be made guildless? Or is it that you know there are only a few people that suck that bad, and you know you are one of them?

Noaani

Jignutz wrote: »

If people being kicked from raid guilds due to dps meters is an issue, why don't you scrubs discerning gentlemen of skill start a new guild of all those other discerning gentlemen of skill that will be made guildless? Or is it that you know there are only a few people that suck that bad, and you know you are one of them?

@Jignutz

This is hardly a valid argument in either direction, nor overly helpful to the general discussion.

The issue around combat trackers is one of perception. Combat trackers do not cause things that many people want to blame on them. People see very real and very major issues in MMO's, and sometimes blame combat trackers as being the root cause of it, even though that isn't the case. This has taken such a hold in some peoples mind, that even the founder and CEO of a specific MMO development studio perceives combat trackers as being the root cause of an issue that they are clearly and obviously not the root cause of - an issue that has a more specific, more logical, more definite and far more accurate root cause.

However, this perception of combat trackers is not something to be taken lightly. Just because it is obvious to most of us that these issues are not caused by combat trackers, doesn't mean that their perception in the eyes of some people is not an issue that needs to be taken seriously.

However, this is an issue of perception, not an issue of function. As such, the remedy to the issue is to alter the perception of combat trackers, nothing more.

Being toxic on the forums in defense of combat trackers doesn't really go a long way to pointing out that combat trackers are not a root cause of toxicity in MMO's in general.

Jamation

So I keep seeing this thread pop up but never really read into it seems like a touchy spot for a lot of people and I'm fairly neutral about it. I read over some of the points, but not the whole thread as there is a lot, but I just wanted to add in my own experience cause why not.

So I never used trackers or logs until last year because I was always pretty casual, or at least not concerned about being the best, when it comes to MMOs. However, last year I decided I wanted to try and join some of the high end content for FFXIV with a static group.

I knew meters and such weren't allowed in game and I'm always super scared about doing anything that could get me banned, but I started to realize that it was less of a "don't use this" situation and more of a "don't ask, don't tell" kind of deal. FFLogs is super popular for tracking DPS, Healing, Skill usage and timing, and a bunch of other things. When I first was introduced to it I came to find out that when I thought I was doing amazing at my rotation, I was actually about 4-5K DPS off of where I should've been in order to do the content I wanted to (which is a looooot).

My raid leader was experienced with this level of content and intentionally recruited newer raiders in order to teach and train them. He used these logs and meters not to belittle or berate how bad we were, but to show us where we could improve and how to do it. I never once felt bad about my DPS with my group or my guild when I told them how I was doing. Instead I actually only ever felt elated when I saw my numbers improving because I realized I was actually starting to get the hang of things. If my numbers ever dipped or dropped it didn't make me feel bad, but made me curious or attentive as to what changed or what I could change.

If I hadn't had those logs I think I would've been missing out on not only higher DPS, but a better general understanding of how my class worked. In a lot of the raids they have DPS checks where if you can't kill something quick enough you're insta-wiped. If no one was using meters I can guarantee I would have rage quit long before seeing the finish line because I wouldn't have known what was going wrong or where to improve.

I was actually pretty good at reading them on the fly/during the fight too and figured out different tricks we could do friggen mid-combat and when that started to help the entire group I felt like a genius. Not to mention when you start experimenting with cooldowns vs boss transitions to see how it plays out with the rest of the party and you finally find that sweet spot it's *chef's kiss* oh so perfect.

However, I've also seen the dark side of knowing other people's DPS when someone was absent and we needed a stranger to fill in. They were truly toxic a****oles and one raid day I even quit for the weekend because I hated how nasty this random stranger on the internet was making me feel about how insecure I was about how much DPS I was doing. But that's the thing about the "don't ask, don't tell" situation. They were a random stranger that we didn't invite to our voice chat so we had written evidence that they were using a meter. My leader told me later they reported the person and it made me a little happy because I'm usually not one to take action or by the time I think of it the moments passed.

Basically, I'd love to see how I'll perform in AoC, even amount of healing, as I'll most likely be going support as usual. I'd love to be able to see the nitty gritty about how I'm doing and adjust myself to be the best I can be. I think I would've probably been content not having one ever as well if I hadn't gone into the hardcore FF raids using a meter, but now that I've tasted that knowledge I think it'll be a little less sweet. Of course this won't be a problem to me for a long time at least because I'll be so busy leveling, exploring, and gathering. But come the day when I want to go hardcore into raids, dungeons or whatever I think I'd miss not being able to track myself. I'm afraid I'll be stuck using the "meta" version of a class and rotation because some youtube video somewhere says it's the right way to do things and there's not a good way to verify it one way or another. A few of the times I managed to pull off more DPS than the FF guides was because I experimented and tried different things and although the increases might not have shown up during a fight itself, they were obvious when I was looking over the actual data.

Do I understand why meters aren't allowed in this game? Of course. Completely.
Do I hope that if meters are ever invented/produced by outside sources that this turns into a don't ask, don't tell situation? That'd be nice.

Noaani

Jamation wrote: »

So I keep seeing this thread pop up but never really read into it seems like a touchy spot for a lot of people and I'm fairly neutral about it.

This seems to me to be exactly what many of us have been saying for a few years now, over several threads.

Combat trackers in the right hands make the game far, far better. The benefits from them go well beyond people just being able to see how well they are performing.

I'd also like to point out that under the suggestion being made in this thread, that negative situation you encountered wouldn't happen, but the positive ones still would. With the suggestion being made, since that player was not from your guild, he wouldn't be able to use a combat tracker on you, and none of you would be able to use one on him either.

sunfrog

Because no that's why.

Noaani

sunfrog wrote: »

Because no that's why.

But what about because yes?

unknown

This content has been removed.

slanderman

I do feel dps meters are beneficial to most ppl and id like to see them myself, but if there is a way to completely hide and encrypt the damage data so that it would be impossible to make one.. i kinda feel that would neat. Just because that would limit the meta gaming, it would take long time for ppl to figure out the best options.

And isnt that the point of this game, experience whole new world with everything being discovered?

Then on the other hand player feedback like damage numbers or what was that skill that killed me or did so much damage is important too.

DBM or similiar addons are big no for me tho, ruins the whole experience if you can just have everything you need to know pop in text into your face when fighting a boss

Noaani

slanderman wrote: »

And isnt that the point of this game, experience whole new world with everything being discovered?

I'm not sure I agree with your premise, but this part here I have an immediate comment on.

The vast majority of players are not willing to "explore" when it comes to their class build. They want something that they know will function, and that they know will be competitive. Combat trackers only assist in that.

If somehow Intrepid managed to make it impossible for combat trackers to exist for Ashes (which would be a first), that wouldn't suddenly mean all of those players would suddenly go out and explore their class more - they would still go to the forums and find a build, then use it exactly as it was written.

The difference in this situation between combat trackers existing or not is in how often that build would need 5o be changed. The more accurate it can be, the less often it would need to be changed. Since players not interested in exploring class builds are not usually that keen on having to respec in to another build, the more accurate their original build is, the happier they will be.

Now, for the players that do enjoy exploring class builds and such, a game like Ashss will have a constantly evolving PvP meta. People that enjoy this kind of thing will always have a given build of a specific class that they want to counter using one of the other specific classes, so attempting to extend the initial meta for them seems pointless.

Further, those people that do enjoy working on builds, it is always much more fun doing so when you have actual accurate information to work with - information that can only come from a combat tracker (either first or third party).

So really, I'm unsure who it would benefit to attempt to stretch out any initial meta game any longer than is necessary.

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