Friendly rivalry and spotting slackers with no dps/hps meters?

Honestly I'm excited to play an MMO that isn't going to be cluttered up with a million addons and just have everything you need built in.

That said something that worries me as a guild leader is friendly competition, for example in wow I have 2 hunters in my guild who play the same class and spec and are constantly competing with each other for top dps/performance and they love to bounce ideas off each other for rotation/talents/stat prio/etc. Without any way to measure yourself in Ashes how can they continue their friendly rivalry?

I'm also worried about how to spot and deal with slackers in my guild in Ashes since people tend to take the path of least resistance, if I have a healer that throws up a hot on the tanks and then alt tabs to watch anime during a boss fight how would I as GM know unless I'm watching everyone casting? (impossible in large group sizes). If we're wiping because of no healing going out how can I identify its the lazy healer and not slap the blame on the entire heal team? (which would suck for everyone who is really trying).

I propose a very simplified "meter" that only the group lead is able to see that just provides a breakdown of either active time casting abilities/hitting the mobs/moving around or the ability to see what spell and how often the person is pressing it just to be able to see everyone is participating or at least trying. That or allow only the group lead to see dps/hps meters. It doesn't help with the friendly competition aspect but idk what would. I'd honestly really love the option to "opt in" for dps/hps meters in specific content like only the gm/group in lead in large scale content, or anyone in small groups of 2-3, or perhaps have some ingame target dummies that display dps/hps and you can only see it there.

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rikardp98

Noaani wrote: »

.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.

Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.

Noaani

rikardp98 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.

Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.

Maybe it would have been more accurate if I said fame that *only* rely on animations.

There is nothing wrong with using animation to communicate what is happening or about to happen. It's when that is the only communication tool that is used, and when every ability boss has to use is given it's own animation.

For a top end encounters, there should be more abilities with absolutely no warning they are about to be used than there should be abilities with telegraphs or animations.

Caeryl

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

Given that this is a digital experience that (currently) isn’t planned to be released in console where you might use the controller vibration as a cue, there actually aren’t other ways to pass information to players besides through sight and sound, unless you mean to have no indication of mechanics at all or you mean to have combat cue information fed to players via text.

rikardp98

Noaani wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

.. encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Isn't everything in every game perceived by animations? Even in real life you rely on movements (animations) to determine what the other person is doing.

Now, telegraphing is something I have mixed feelings about, but animations that show a spell being cast by a boss is just cool and engaging.

Maybe it would have been more accurate if I said fame that *only* rely on animations.

There is nothing wrong with using animation to communicate what is happening or about to happen. It's when that is the only communication tool that is used, and when every ability boss has to use is given it's own animation.

For a top end encounters, there should be more abilities with absolutely no warning they are about to be used than there should be abilities with telegraphs or animations.

I agree, I think that the big damaging/"main" ability of a boss should have an animation, maybe even a cast bar if it's a dragon about to cast "dragon breath", while some abilities should just "happen", like tail swipe or similar abilities that is more action based.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

You're missing the point.

Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.

2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.

Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.

One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.

Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.

This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.

You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.

Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.

Saedu

Interesting how everyone thinks my screen is cluttered with combat trackers. I said I play on a 35" wide-screen. The trackers don't block any of my field of vision. Most the time I'm not looking at them and I don't see them detract at all from the "adventure" at all. Of course when I'm out adventuring I don't really look at the meters often. I could just as easily use a single window thats half the size of a chat box, but I find the multiple windows more convenient and I have more than enough screen space.

I actually streamed for a friend the other night who was sitting out when we were doing the rated BGs. She loved the meters as a observer because they gave her so much more context on what was happening in game... so there's a use case for increased emersion!!

Will this game have competitive pvp? Like instanced battlegrounds? My point of my origional comment was to show there is value for combat trackers in pvp as some were saying its just pve.

I'm on my mobile now, but I'll have to share a screenshot later.

Viktor von Doom

Bouncing between WoW and FFXIV I've come to appreciate not having addons at all (FFXIV).
I think it's because the design behind FFXIV lends itself better for this, there's not really a DPS check as much and there's more of a focus on doing (boss) mechanics right. You'd have to be REALLY bad at DPSing to drag your raid down. (at least in my experiences)

Honestly WoW crowd is hyperfocused on DPS/HPS numbers it's getting out of hand... like some classes do not get invited to raids or arena teams because they are not in the top 5 simmed charts.
Not gonna lie, when I fire up WoW my screen is full of various (in some cases custom made WeakAuras) trackers just because I have to do that to compete.

Caeryl

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

You're missing the point.

Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.

2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.

Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.

One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.

Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.

This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.

You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.

Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.

So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?

That’s an absolutely awful idea. Ambient, identifiable damage is fine. Random ambient damage with little to no way of identifying the source which is also inconsistent from pull to pull is how you frustrate your players for no good reason.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

You're missing the point.

Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.

2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.

Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.

One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.

Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.

This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.

You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.

Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.

So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?

Yes.

The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.

If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.

It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.

Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.

Caeryl

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

You're missing the point.

Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.

2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.

Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.

One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.

Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.

This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.

You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.

Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.

So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?

Yes.

The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.

If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.

It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.

Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.

Randomness is NOT how you add a higher skill demand to a raid.

I feel as though there might been a lapse in communication here. I speak of indicators as everything that players hear and see that indicates if, when, and where theh take damage. A visible ring of fire bursting from the boss that places a DoT on every player within x meters from the boss is an indicator, regardless of if the AoE grew out from under the boss to warn players. A drumbeat in the background music that has an area of damage change every third beat is an indicator. An otherwise plain animation without vfx that leads up to a ones maneuver is an indicator.

Sure, not everything has to be indicated beforehand, but everything that hits the players needs to be visibly or audibly signaled even if it isn’t avoidable.

Players have to know when they’re taking damage. They need to be given the indicators to deduce where that damage is coming from. And they need to have the information to know WHY that damage is occurring. If a mechanic is added any of the above information is missing or unobtainable during the fight, then the fight has only placed more emphasis on luck, not any greater emphasis on skill.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Randomness is NOT how you add a higher skill demand to a raid.

The key aspects of the mechanic are not random.

The only aspect that is random is the timing, and that is only so you can't just set up a timer once and be done with it.

That type of mechanic is *EXACTLY* how you add higher skill to raids. I can not stress this enough, it is *EXACTLY* how you add a demand for higher skill in top end content.

I feel as though there might been a lapse in communication here. I speak of indicators as everything that players hear and see that indicates if, when, and where theh take damage. A visible ring of fire bursting from the boss that places a DoT on every player within x meters from the boss is an indicator, regardless of if the AoE grew out from under the boss to warn players. A drumbeat in the background music that has an area of damage change every third beat is an indicator. An otherwise plain animation without vfx that leads up to a ones maneuver is an indicator.

That is a telegraph, a sound queue and an animation queue, respectively.

These are the things I am saying are fine sometimes, even most of the time, but top end content is essentially defined by these things not existing on some abilities.

Players have to know when they’re taking damage.

Sure, but the encounter doesn't need to tell them, they should be able to work it out for themselves.

If they pull an encounter and it fires an AoE off after 45 seconds, and then it fires it again after another 38 seconds, and then again 38 seconds later, that should be enough information for the raid to know that there is an AoE there that they need to figure out.

If they pull the encounter again on the next pull, and that same AoE fires after 45 seconds again, and then fires 44 seconds later, and then again 44 seconds later, then the raid has enough information to know how to handle that AoE.

Any raid worth a being called a raid will be fine with that without needing the mob to telegraph, animate or emote that the AoE is about to be triggered. This leaves mechanics up to players to actually figure out, rather than leaving it up to the raids developers to tell the players about the mechanics.

On the other hand, if there is an AoE that triggers once after 45 seconds, and then again 50 seconds later, and then again 38 seconds later, that is enough information to tell the raid that they probably need to look for what is triggering that AoE, as it is not timed.

If every dangerous ability is explained to players via telegraphs, animations or sound queues, you don't have top end raiding. There should be an expectation on these encounters that each guild will need 100+ pulls on the encounter before getting their first kill.

Caeryl

Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.

The fact that you took damage is feedback.

The fact that your raid wiped is feedback.

Remember, these are encounters that maybe 5% of the total population will ever succeed on.

Animation, audio and telegraph feedback is for the 95%.

I'm not saying this is how it should be, I'm saying this is how it is. In games with actual top end raids, a good number of the important abilities are not telegraphed or animated, and are left to players to work out.

The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.

Bum4evr

rikardp98 wrote: »

No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does

Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.

I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.

Noaani

Bum4evr wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does

Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.

I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.

Actually, in context, he was absolutely right.

People that are actually killing shit in MMO's don't care about DPS or HPS, they care that shit is being killed.

People that aren't killing shit in MMO's watch videos of others playing MMO's, talk about videos of others playing MMO's and think they know what they are talking about with DPS and HPS.

rikardp98

Bum4evr wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

No one really cares about how much dps or hps a player does

Are you kidding me? That's ALL they care about. What game have you been playing??? Go to youtube and search for "asmongold dps contest"- oh look, one was posted yesterday with 195,209 views.

I actually agree with some of what you say but you just sling around insults like every other 9 year old who's terrible parents left them alone on a PC so there's no point in discussing anything.

It's funny that you mentioned asmongold, a warrior that cares much more about the viewing experience than doing high end content. If I remember correctly he did that dps contests for twitch content (a fun thing to do) and to select people for a raiding pug. A PUG (pick up group) to do the previous expansion raid for fun and the achievement, so nothing special.

Caeryl

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.

The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.

And your obsession with combat trackers makes much more sense knowing that you work under the incorrect assumption that completely uncommunicated mechanics are in any way “end-game” material. Of course you’re dependent on outside sources when they’re required to even know what the hell is hitting you.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Of course the encounter has to tell them, that is the only feedback players will have during the encounter. If it doesn’t give players the information to understand what is damaging them, the designer(s) didn’t do their job.

The fact that some people don't understand this may go some way top explaining the differences we have in regards to what makes top end content, why the content in some games doesn't come close to being top end, and why certain things are needed for top end content to even exist in a game.

And your obsession with combat trackers makes much more sense knowing that you work under the incorrect assumption that completely uncommunicated mechanics are in any way “end-game” material. Of course you’re dependent on outside sources when they’re required to even know what the hell is hitting you.

They aren't un-communicated.

The fact that you are being hit communicates all you need to know. The information is all in the combat chat window of the game client, a combat tracker simply makes that information easier to access (as in, it cuts the time needed to accurately access and assess the information by 99%).

As I've said, the need for encounters to tell players what is happening is for easy content. It is for content that players would expect to clear on their first day of trying, if not their first pull.

That is not suitable content for progression based gaming, as there is no need to spend time on an encounter to learn it, because the encounter is telling you all you need to know.

If you look at "some games" out there that have encounters that tell players what is happening, the hardest content in the game is usually cleared within hours, occasionally days.

In games that use this kind of thing, it is weeks or months.

And yes, this is why I want combat trackers built in to the game. It is the same argument I have been saying all along - top end encounters can not exist without combat trackers, so a combat tracker should be built in to the games client.

I have been fairly consistent on that line for several years now, I am sure you would agree. The difference now is that you know why I believe this to be the case. You may disagree that this is the case, you may be happy to see content that is killed the first day it spawns on any given server - but you know I am not, and you know how designers can avoid this being the case.

Shoelid

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

... encounters that rely on animations to tell you what is happening (or telegraphs) belong in childrens games.

Somehow I’m still surprised by the sheer, utter nonsense that gets thrown around on these forums sometimes.

If I can show my 5 year old nephew how to raid and avoid fire by simply avoiding the big red circles on the ground, then yeah, it is appropriate for childrens games.

There are other methods to pass information on to players. While it is perfectly fine to use animations and telegraphs in some situations, if that is what is relied on, as I said above, then yeah, childrens game.

Your example shows a wild misunderstanding of what audio and animation cues encompass.

You're missing the point.

Let's say there is an encounter with 6 abilities.

2 or 3 of them can be given away with an animation, telegraph or sound. That's great.

Thing is, it also isn't needed. One of those abilities could well just be used at actual random, with no indication that it is about to be cast.

One of them could be on a flat timer, with no information given to players that it is about to go off. This time can even be different each pull, so players need to work it out every time - and there can be a few seconds variation if the ability is suited to that.

Then you can have abilities that are triggered without notification with things like total damage players deal. Make it so that every 60k damage you deal, the mob reacts with a large AoE. No warning, no telegraph, no animation, no sound. Again, this is an amount that could vary slightly between pulls of the encounter.

This same.mechanic could be tied to an individual type of damage rather than all damage, so that every 30k fire damage you do to the mob, it casts a fire AoE. You could also really screw over a raid by giving the encounter multiple damage type AoEs like this. The trigger could also be on literally anything that is able to be counted, not just damage, so it could be on the number of times the tank blocks hits from the encounter, amount of healing on the tank, amount of overhealing on the tank (that would be an interesting one), what ever.

You hit it with the last part of your post, I am not saying there should he other ways of communicating that an ability is about to go off (sound and animation are all we really have for that), I am saying they should not communicate that every time.

Some abilities can go off without warning, some can be left to players to work out, and some can be triggered by player actions. This is how you make raiding not shit, but most of it does require a combat tracker.

So you advocate for unavoidable damage that is randomized and also not communicated to the player in any way until they’ve already eaten the damage?

Yes.

The reason why is simple, that is how you add progression to raiding.

If every ability is made obvious to players,then the encounter as a whole is obvious. If there are abilities that players need to actually find, learn and understand, it means encounters can take weeks to work out rather than days.

It is the lack of this kind of mechanic that makes me laugh when WoW raidera talk about top end content.

Obviously this kind of mechanic shouldnt be on the kind of raid content that people would/could run a pick up raid for. It is very much something that should be exclusive to the realm of actual progression based raiding, which requires largely the same group of people each week.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something... but the things you described basically sound like a healer check. Constant, unavoidable, raidwide damage isn't interesting nor difficult, it's simply something to be healed through. Especially if (like you suggested) this raid-wide damage is linked to how much damage the boss is taking. This means there will be periods of time where the solution is to sit and wait to be topped off by your healer before continuing the fight. That would be boring & uninteractive.

I understand that you're advocating for obscuring boss mechanics so that you cannot simply "get out of the fire", but these examples are awful. I don't think they require a combat tracker either, just trial and error.

To me, an interesting & difficult fight is something that's so finely tuned that every last bit of dps matters. Maybe everybody already knows the mechanics beforehand, but executing on them while maintaining your absolute highest DPS will be incredibly difficult. The kind of fight where, even if everybody knows what to do, it might take a couple hundred attempts to really get it right. Where progression isn't limited by trial and error but by your experience on that encounter. The kind of fight that is impossible to PUG because of how important teamwork and communication is.

You can do these things without trying to obscure the reasons why players are taking damage. For DPS meters, I would prefer that they'd be needed to gauge & improve player performance, rather than used to try and decipher the boss. Deciphering the boss sounds fantastic, but it should be achievable with in-game means.

Noaani

Shoelid wrote: »

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something... but the things you described basically sound like a healer check. Constant, unavoidable, raidwide damage isn't interesting nor difficult, it's simply something to be healed through.

They could be, if that is what the developers decide to make them - but they by no means need to be.

With the AoE mechanic I described above, after the second hit of the AoE, every further time it is cast is completely predictable, down to the exact second it will be cast, but only if the raid know what they are doing.

This means that as a means of delivering a mechanic, as long as players can be expected to live through the first two casts of it, the actual mechanic can be literally anything the developers want it to be. It doesn't even need to be an AoE.

Since the cast of this mechanic is 100% predictable after the second cast, it can even be a mechanic that requires a specific resolution from the raid, and wipes the raid should they fail to meet the requirements.

Again, the effect can be literally anything at all that developers want to put in the encounter - as long as players can survive the first two hits. The difference between this and an animation is completely and totally limited to how players recognize the ability is about to be used - with animations players know because the developers tell them, without animations players know because they spent time to work it out.

Again, that is literally the only difference.

To me, an interesting & difficult fight is something that's so finely tuned that every last bit of dps matters.

I enjoy a good DPS fight as well, since I almost exclusively main as a DPS caster.

Thing is, a tank and spank encounter that requires a very high raidwide DPS isn't exactly enjoyable. The encounter still needs to do *something*. This seems to be a notion you agree with.

Having some of the encounters abilities needing to be worked out by the raid each pull is simply one more thing that the raid needs to do to meet the requirements of the encounter - it is one more thing that requires that higher degree of communication, one more thing that makes the raid un-pug-able.

Deciphering the boss sounds fantastic, but it should be achievable with in-game means.

I agree 100%, which is why I have been arguing for about three years now that Ashes should build a combat tracker in to the games client.

That said, we know we will have combat logs. These logs are all that is needed to be able to work out the mechanics I am talking about above. It is an unwieldly, time consuming and clunky way to work it out, but it is possible. Literally all a combat tracker does is re-organize the information in a combat log in to something easier to digest.

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