Aeri wrote: » noaani wrote: » Indeed it is. However, it is also an endless round of new posters. This is why I am still happy to participate in this discussion, after over a year. I finally figured out yesterday how to skip to the developer posts on these forums, and read the few made by Steven earlier on. Made me pretty sad to see, honestly. Especially when he specifically confirmed that there will be combat logs. That alone is enough to guarantee a third-party tool of some sort will be created, even excluding any other methods of obtaining the data. It kind of boggles my mind for the stance he takes towards trackers.
noaani wrote: » Indeed it is. However, it is also an endless round of new posters. This is why I am still happy to participate in this discussion, after over a year.
Grimfaldra wrote: » I was not in my right mind when I chose a 47 page megathread as the place for my first post. While I did not read the 47 pages (yet), I have to say, I skimmed some points and as a player who has raided a fair number of times, I agree that it is a good measurement for a raid leader to decide who to take along. In all other instances, I dislike dps meters. They turn into decision makers even in PUGs for content which is not end-game, but a bit harder. Seen it in quite a few games and did not like it. But the solution is simple. Introduce a target-dummy (configurable to have boss-level resists or even finely grained immunities, damage reflection etc.), buff up and if you do not trust a person to be able to target a mob, you should not be taking them along on a raid. Same with buff/heal groups. Basic competence is required and the target-dummy will tell the raid-leader how that person is faring numbers-wise, since skill cycles will reflect even on a dummy. Of course, that is worlds apart from measuring the performance in-raid, but it would allow to get a foot in the door and a picture of a wannabe raid participant. And if a group leader suddenly drops a dummy and wants measurements for group-level content, I would simply walk away, laughing.
noaani wrote: » While a training dummy is an option, my personal preference would be for a combat tracker built in to the game client as an optional guild perk. Make it so that guilds can pick that, or pick other things that guilds that are not taking on top end content would find more useful to them (guild size increase, harvesting buff, etc). Then make it so that guilds with access to this tracker are only able to track people within their guild.
The reason I would like to see combat trackers usable in actual content is because in most games, especially games with an actual competitive PvE scene, you don't know what a mob is going to throw at you before you pull it for the first time. The information you are able to look up in games without that competitive aspect simply isn't there. Guilds place a very high value on keeping their strategy on specific encounters within the guild - this is why in games like EQ2 (which had a fairly highly competitive raid scene), you can't look up complete information on any raid mob in that games 16 year history, as it is simply not out there. This means combat trackers are actually more useful during the encounter than they are in figuring out who to take.
Grimfaldra wrote: » If it is guild-only, it is too restrictive, imho. What if there are outdoor bosses like in the aforementioned EQ/EQ2? Those were sometimes actually tackled by a combine of smaller guilds that were not raid-ready for the real stuff. Even with pickups. In "old" EQ2 you even took pickups along to the party.
I partially disagree. In all games I played that sported in-combat dps counters, in the end you would be told "Ok, you are not parsing too good, you are out." That leads to a very lopsided view on the use of a person in a raid, especially when it comes to hybrid classes that can do damage (and are geared for it) but can also save others in a pinch. The dps meter is woefully unfit to measure raid performance. And it sometimes causes bad vibes.
A good raid leader/raid officer will do simple runs with applicants that parse ok (with a dummy, for instance ) and see if they find their arse without having to hire skilled, native trackers. I know, this is no longer the case in most games (for reasons..), but in the end it will be beneficial imho. Until the whiners come and want a "dps-meter" tattooed on their guild mates. In the end, both approaches work, but maybe something new should be tried, since one approach has been done to death.
Samson wrote: » Lukian wrote: » I think a DPS meter would be great. It's usually the first thing I look to grab in any MMO I can. Not a lot support it, but if you look at WoW, almost anyone that plays now uses a DPS meter. AoC is it's own game... AoC is not trying to be WoW.
Lukian wrote: » I think a DPS meter would be great. It's usually the first thing I look to grab in any MMO I can. Not a lot support it, but if you look at WoW, almost anyone that plays now uses a DPS meter.
noaani wrote: » The thought there is that if a group of people are not serious about top end content enough to join in to a single guild, then the combat tracker is likely not the best option for them to take in terms of guild perks. The idea behind this perk is that the only guilds that would pick it are guilds that are making taking on top end PvE content the focus of their time online. As such, these guilds are likely to either form in to larger guilds (if they are too small), or take on that content by themselves (if they are big enough). Top end guids don't tend to work in alliances in regards to killing top end content. While such alliances may still kill some hard content, chances are, those alliances are also not going to be killing the hardest of encounters. In old EQ2, guilds would take pickups along to kill Acrimoniad, but not Kra'thuk. Achrimoniad was contested raid content, but was not top end content. Kra'thuk was.
A combat tracker (a good one) is able to tell you how well a support class did at their job (not hybrids, there is generally no place on a raid for a hybrid unless you also bring along an invaluable buff - raids are about specalization, not generalization). If you have a support that has a specific buff or debuff, you can see how long that player had that buff or debuff on an enemy or ally. You can't do that with a training dummy. It is actually the support players that are best positioned to gain by having a full combat tracker.
I've never seen this outside of WoW. I've seen guilds say "you are not parsing as high as we would like, would you like some assistance?", and maybe after a while of no improvement they may pull that player from regular raids - but I have never seen it happen in any way that could be considered toxic or unfair to the player involved. Even top end guilds while I was playing EQ2 (2004 - 2014ish) were happy to assist players with things if the player themself was solid, but needed a little help with specific things. I could imagine a situation where a player finds themself in a top end guild and is in no way capable of performing at that level (combat tracker notwithstanding), then they may well be booted out of the guild with no attempt at training - but that is a result of the player being shit.
Basically, I have never seen a guild kick a player that can stay out of the floor fire because of a combat tracker saying they are a little low - if you get someone that is actually good at staying out of the fire, you build them up to where you want them to be.
Grimfaldra wrote: » noaani wrote: » While a training dummy is an option, my personal preference would be for a combat tracker built in to the game client as an optional guild perk. Make it so that guilds can pick that, or pick other things that guilds that are not taking on top end content would find more useful to them (guild size increase, harvesting buff, etc). Then make it so that guilds with access to this tracker are only able to track people within their guild. If it is guild-only, it is too restrictive, imho. What if there are outdoor bosses like in the aforementioned EQ/EQ2? Those were sometimes actually tackled by a combine of smaller guilds that were not raid-ready for the real stuff. Even with pickups. In "old" EQ2 you even took pickups along to the party. The reason I would like to see combat trackers usable in actual content is because in most games, especially games with an actual competitive PvE scene, you don't know what a mob is going to throw at you before you pull it for the first time. The information you are able to look up in games without that competitive aspect simply isn't there. Guilds place a very high value on keeping their strategy on specific encounters within the guild - this is why in games like EQ2 (which had a fairly highly competitive raid scene), you can't look up complete information on any raid mob in that games 16 year history, as it is simply not out there. This means combat trackers are actually more useful during the encounter than they are in figuring out who to take. I partially disagree. In all games I played that sported in-combat dps counters, in the end you would be told "Ok, you are not parsing too good, you are out." That leads to a very lopsided view on the use of a person in a raid, especially when it comes to hybrid classes that can do damage (and are geared for it) but can also save others in a pinch. The dps meter is woefully unfit to measure raid performance. And it sometimes causes bad vibes. A good raid leader/raid officer will do simple runs with applicants that parse ok (with a dummy, for instance ) and see if they find their arse without having to hire skilled, native trackers. I know, this is no longer the case in most games (for reasons..), but in the end it will be beneficial imho. Until the whiners come and want a "dps-meter" tattooed on their guild mates. In the end, both approaches work, but maybe something new should be tried, since one approach has been done to death.
noaani wrote: » I've seen guilds say "you are not parsing as high as we would like, would you like some assistance?", and maybe after a while of no improvement they may pull that player from regular raids - but I have never seen it happen in any way that could be considered toxic or unfair to the player involved. Even top end guilds while I was playing EQ2 (2004 - 2014ish) were happy to assist players with things if the player themself was solid, but needed a little help with specific things. I could imagine a situation where a player finds themself in a top end guild and is in no way capable of performing at that level (combat tracker notwithstanding), then they may well be booted out of the guild with no attempt at training - but that is a result of the player being shit. Basically, I have never seen a guild kick a player that can stay out of the floor fire because of a combat tracker saying they are a little low - if you get someone that is actually good at staying out of the fire, you build them up to where you want them to be.
A lot of people who complain about DPS meters/combat trackers cause toxicity are typically the casual players that are interacting with other casual players. In particular, a vast portion of it comes from more casual guilds/players trying to mimic what they think hardcore guilds/players are like.
Aeri wrote: » In particular, a vast portion of it comes from more casual guilds/players trying to mimic what they think hardcore guilds/players are like.
Linstead wrote: » [...]it's objective data and not subjective feelings.
Beekeeper wrote: » That's exactly the problem though. It benefits a tiny minority of players, while breeding toxicity and resentment in the rest of them. Ultimately hardcore raid guilds will be fine, they're dedicated enough to either push through the limitations, find no limitations to need overcoming, or move on to a different game. If however the rest of the playerbase is now glued to meters, the well is poisoned. Casual players can't deal with the power that these tools provide, and explaining not to use it won't help. Players will use it, misuse it, rely on it, and blame anything but themselves for not having any fun.
noaani wrote: » @nelsonrebel Not that I expect a reply, you seem more interested in throwing your pre-concieved and ill-informed opinion on combat trackers around without actually engaging in proper discussion, but I'll continue to attempt as much. nelsonrebel wrote: » But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC? There are already three combat trackers in development for Ashes, two of which I am personally following (the third I am not, due to not agreeing with the methodolgy used). nelsonrebel wrote: » And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time. The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers. This is the exact result that my suggestion of putting combat trackers in as a guild perk would result in. Higher end guilds would use them, other guilds wouldn't. I'm not sure why you consider this to be ok but not my suggestion. nelsonrebel wrote: » Thats only going to be for the people actively seaking the meters and actively willingly going to download the software and trust that its correct all to appease the one person/group wanting it. The majority of players wont do that. Because of the legwork required and the more fun interactions between players. History would suggest that over time, more and more people will make use of a combat tracker if it is available for the game. Since there is a damn good chance that all that is needed for a combat tracker in Ashes is some freely available commercial software, and an existing and well known combat tracker with a plug in, the barrier to entry isn't that high when considering people will be playing Ashes for multiple years. nelsonrebel wrote: » Dps meters are not a game rank system, its an instanced measure of a specifc encounter in a pve area against one of many bosses to create standards of dps to exclude others regardless of everything else and have a forced measuring with or without player consent Once again, this is blatantly false. In order to say this is what a combat tracker is, you are saying these things are inherent to combat trackers. If these things were inherent to combat trackers, they would happen in any game that has combat trackers. Literally any player that has played a game with combat trackers that is not WoW, knows without even thinking about it that the issues in WoW are not present in other games. As such, you simply can not make blanket statements like the above in regards to combat trackers in all games. This is simply a case of your complete and obvious inexperience in MMO's coming through and coloring your opinion on the topic.
nelsonrebel wrote: » But how will 3rd party play into it with no addons for AoC?
nelsonrebel wrote: » And higher end gaming guilds can go do that in their small circles without imposing in game demands on everyone. They want to go the extra mile in damage, they can do that on their time. The barrier of entry in the game world wont exist for the vast majority of players and get the enjoyment of being interactive with the majority with no barriers.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Thats only going to be for the people actively seaking the meters and actively willingly going to download the software and trust that its correct all to appease the one person/group wanting it. The majority of players wont do that. Because of the legwork required and the more fun interactions between players.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Dps meters are not a game rank system, its an instanced measure of a specifc encounter in a pve area against one of many bosses to create standards of dps to exclude others regardless of everything else and have a forced measuring with or without player consent
nelsonrebel wrote: » 2. History shows that once ingame measured of trackers are implemented and are used without player consent the pve community becomes a toxic wasteland of centimeter measuring and blatant elitism. Steven himself has already said and explained the same thing. Arguing semantics over what is known and experienced is not an argument its just you being angry that people point out what inevitably happens when you make it easy for elitism to thrive, it stalls out the community from new players because self absorbed groups take meters as the holy grail only acceptable way to do content
Beekeeper wrote: » How would it benefit the rest of the playerbase, besides providing what are essentially speedrunning guides?
