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

Dygz wrote: »

I don't really care about loot rights. I'm a communist.

So you care about dps meters but not the toxic environment that can come from Master looting?

In my experience there a much more guild drama around ninja looting and bad loot councils than drama around the dps meters.

rikardp98 wrote: »

In my experience there a much more guild drama around ninja looting and bad loot councils than drama around the dps meters.

And much more pick up group drama and toxicity around it as well.

Selective outrage...

Noaani wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

In my experience there a much more guild drama around ninja looting and bad loot councils than drama around the dps meters.

And much more pick up group drama and toxicity around it as well.

Selective outrage...

Combat tracker tells the truth, and the truth sometimes hurt </3

akabear

I am apposed to combat trackers much for the reasons already expressed.

If addon`s and/or 3rd party apps, in what ever form, for what ever purpose, are not permitted; then quite simply to use contrary to the intention of the game rules/regulation is as plain as cheating in my book.

And anyone known to act as those zones in L2 would be griefed regularly and repeatedly in my l2 days.

If they are permitted, then I hope they have blockers for the below reasoning as I sense the focus has been on pve only and insular pve. So in addition to the reasoning, I propose a number of other scenarios whereby I believe trackers can be counter productive to game status and something you would fight to have blocked.

Explained through example, when I played L2, there were occasions were despite being in a war with another clan, I was invited to join an enemy`s group to

a) attend a raid, where my level and class was instrumental to the required overall multi-party makeup and was in group with the enemy
b) fight along side in group with a clan we were at war with, against a greater enemy temporarily
c) as a ring-in to fill a certain class need for general xp, despite a war tag up...

Now in all 3 scenarios, neither I nor the enemy clan would have been pleased to share any stats to the other despite a temporary selective ceasefire. By providing those stats through a combat tracker would take away would be intel later possibly used the wrong way.

akabear wrote: »

a) attend a raid, where my level and class was instrumental to the required overall multi-party makeup and was in group with the enemy
b) fight along side in group with a clan we were at war with, against a greater enemy temporarily
c) as a ring-in to fill a certain class need for general xp, despite a war tag up...

This is a part of the reason why my suggestion for about 3 years now has been a combat tracker that is a guild perk, and only works on the members of that guild.

This is enough to stop the development of third party trackers, and leaves basically every potential issue with combat trackers (real or imagined) behind.

Noaani wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

a) attend a raid, where my level and class was instrumental to the required overall multi-party makeup and was in group with the enemy
b) fight along side in group with a clan we were at war with, against a greater enemy temporarily
c) as a ring-in to fill a certain class need for general xp, despite a war tag up...

This is a part of the reason why my suggestion for about 3 years now has been a combat tracker that is a guild perk, and only works on the members of that guild.

This is enough to stop the development of third party trackers, and leaves basically every potential issue with combat trackers (real or imagined) behind.

Uuhh that would be cool

Saedu

I could get behind the idea of combat trackers being a guild perk only

Dygz

rikardp98 wrote: »

your generalization for group leaders just do not match my experience in any mmo. For the past (soon) two years I have played wow classic everyday, and my general experience is that group leaders are NOT toxic. And even before that when I played ESO I didn´t find group leaders to be toxic because of the dps meters. Yes, they do exist and I have encountered them, but I do not think much about them since I will never never group with
them again.

I acknowledge that. I am not invalidating your experience. It doesn't really alter my opinion.
Our experiences differ, so we disagree on percentage of occurrence.
My experience leads me to believe that the frequency of the occurrence is high enough that MMORPGs are better off without combat trackers (for all the reasons Steven mentioned; not just due to toxicity.)
Your experience tells you that the frequency of the occurrence is low enough that it's a non-issue.
I accept that. We don't have to agree on that. But, Steven trumps both of us. Steven believes that the frequency with which "it can create a toxic dynamic...excluding players from raids and/or content" is high enough that he doesn't want it in the game - and he's the one making the decision what makes it into the game and what doesn't.

Your claim that casual players won't care is false. Because casual players do care. Also, Steven cares and he's not a casual player, so it's not just casual players who care; non-casual players care.
We don't have exact numbers, so there is no way for us to prove which of us factually have the greater numbers. But that doesn't really matter.
Enough players care and feel negatively about the result, in general, that Steven doesn't want combat trackers in the game.

Sorry but I don´t really follow what you mean with "but I continue to blame reliance on the DPS meter causing the toxic behavior.", maybe I´m reading it wrong xD

I'm a Boomer, so....I apologize in advance...
I went to college in a tiny town in TN, but my credit union was back home/home in DC.
I would occasionally call the credit union to transfer money to my checking account in TN.
One day, I called to make the same kind of transaction I had been making periodically for a couple of years, only to be told, "I'm sorry, but that town does not exist."
"OK. But, I'm standing in the town. How can I prove to you that the town exists?"
"I can only go by what the computer tells me and the computer has no record of that town existing."
"So....what do I do?"
"I don't know, but I can't help you."

What you're saying is that it's not the tool that is making the bank teller unhelpful. Rather, she was an unhelpful person before she got that computer. Even without that computer, she would have been unhelpful. The computer had nothing to do with it because the computer is just a tool. The computer cannot be unhelpful.

And I'm saying that I don't agree that the bank teller was an unhelpful person before she got that computer.
Relying on the information she's getting from the computer is making her unhelpful (in this situation).
And it is definitely a negative experience for me. And I definitely care that it's a negative experience for me.

Part of what I've been saying is that I don't even necessarily agree that the combat tracker is giving truly reliable data - which is why Steven refers to that as mechanical bullshit.
I am a carebear pacifist who tries to avoid killing stuff as much as possible when I play RPGs. Not because I suck at combat, but because I'm a carebear pacifist in real life and that carries over to when I play games.
Back in the day when I would play Warcraft 2 in the office, my Activision buddies would tell me to kill the tiny garter snakes. "Why? Does it give me xp? Is it going to attack me?" "No. Because it's funny!" I'm definitely not killing stuff just because it's funny.
When I participate in PvP, I prefer it to be objective-based PvP. I'm willing to spend some time playing capture-the-flag PvP occasionally. When I did this in NWO, I focused on capturing the flags as many times as possible.
Flags were at least twice the points as kills. So, I would stand at the flags. I would let people kill me while I'm at the flag if they wanted to and then race to the next flag. Lots of times people would waste time duking it out while off of the flags because they were more focused on kills than they were on flags. More often than not, my team would win - I would be at the top of the deaths list but also at the top of the flags list. And those doubled points would be significant. Still, there would be times when people would be screaming at me, why aren't you fighting? It's because it's actually more cost efficient to focus on the flags than it is on the kills.

I play MMORPGs for the RP factor; not for the uber-elitist-Gamer factor. I don't care what the numbers of a combat tracker show. I don't need them to evaluate combat. When a combat tracker reports low numbers, I want to know what other things that player might have been doing that were helpful to the overall battle that wasn't captured numerically. Because just because something helpful the players was doing wasn't captured in the numerical data doesn't mean that something helpful didn't exist.
Since I am primarily around for RP with friends, as long as the "story" of the battle is fun, it's fine to carry people who kinda suck at combat.
I have a game designer friend who is the worst gamer I have ever seen, consistently, across numerous games. Probably because he's always high when he's gaming. But, he is always fun to play with, so we all will compensate for his lack of combat skills. We have never needed to rely on combat trackers to eventually devise winning strategies - which is good because the games we play don't have combat trackers.
And, because we also play D&D together, we prefer to play the old skool way Steven refers to: we organically watch what is happening during battles and use trial and error to tweak our tactics, rather than numerically analyzing and trying to increase numbers.
Steven is also an avid table-top RPG player - Pathfinder for sure - so he wants to put the RP back into MMORPG. And focusing on the numbers in a combat tracker detracts from that.
Especially when people use data from the combat tracker to decide things like, "Hey, Summoner/Summoner gives us the highest array of numbers, so you can't be a Necromancer anymore, you need to switch to Conjurer!"
You may think that casual players won't care about that, but actually many casual players will. And a whole bunch of RPers will as well. And...in this case...Steven wants players to have the freedom to play the class they want, rather than to be told they must switch because the combat trackers numbers indicate that's the most efficient build. Because Ashes is an MMORPG and a player's freedom of class choice and build config is a core value in RPGs.

You can always start your own group/guild were you can make the rules to fit your playstyle

That is true only to the extent that the rest of my group are always playing when I am. Which, frequently is not the case.

Dygz wrote: »

I acknowledge that. I am not invalidating your experience. It doesn't really alter my opinion.
Our experiences differ, so we disagree on percentage of occurrence.
My experience leads me to believe that the frequency of the occurrence is high enough that MMORPGs are better off without combat trackers (for all the reasons Steven mentioned; not just due to toxicity.)
Your experience tells you that the frequency of the occurrence is low enough that it's a non-issue.
I accept that. We don't have to agree on that. But, Steven trumps both of us. Steven believes that the frequency with which "it can create a toxic dynamic...excluding players from raids and/or content" is high enough that he doesn't want it in the game - and he's the one making the decision what makes it into the game and what doesn't.

And I disagree with him. From your comment I see that you do not know how a combat tracker works, and neither does Steven.

check this link: https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/reports/zm2AJFDyGHTCZ6WK#boss=-3&start=0&end=2628160&type=summary&view=events

As you can see, EVERYTHING that happens during a fight is shown. EVERY key press, every ability, every buffs, everything. Not only dps, not only hps, everything.

Part of what I've been saying is that I don't even necessarily agree that the combat tracker is giving truly reliable data

So a combat tracker does give reliable data.

Your claim that casual players won't care is false. Because casual players do care. Also, Steven cares and he's not a casual player, so it's not just casual players who care; non-casual players care.
We don't have exact numbers, so there is no way for us to prove which of us factually have the greater numbers. But that doesn't really matter.
Enough players care and feel negatively about the result, in general, that Steven doesn't want combat trackers in the game.

do you care about what is shown in the combat tracker? My point is that only people that is semi-hardcore or hardcore will look at the combat tracker and care about it. Casual players will play the game and won't care about logging the fight and look at it afterwards.

That is true only to the extent that the rest of my group are always playing when I am. Which, frequently is not the case.

If you find a guild (or create a guild) and actively search for like minded people, you will always have people to play with.

Saedu wrote: »

I could get behind the idea of combat trackers being a guild perk only

Indeed.

It has been my argument for a very long time.

No one has found a single downside to it that holds up (Dygz thinks he has), Steven has read about the idea and said nothing at all about it, even though he was participating in the wider discussion.

That fact is a big part of the reason I believe Steven's comments on combat trackers have been made in bad faith.

Dygz wrote: »

Part of what I've been saying is that I don't even necessarily agree that the combat tracker is giving truly reliable data - which is why Steven refers to that as mechanical bullshit.

The data combat trackers give is the stat the game gives the combat tracker.

Steven simply can't take this perspective, as if it is his game we are talking about, the data the combat tracker gives us is the data he gives the combat tracker.

Thus, if he thinks the data the combat tracker gives us is unreliable, then that is because the data he gave the combat tracker is unreliable. As such, the "bullshit" in this situation comes from the game - comes from Steven - not the combat tracker.

Honestly, this is like saying a spreadsheet gives unreliable data - a combat is remarkably similar to a spreadsheet.

Cataphract

No combat trackers. AoC should focus on immersion and community-oriented gameplay, not data processing and hotkey rotations. For those who really care about how much damage they do, set a timer on your phone and start attacking a mob. Calculate how much health the monster has left after one minute.

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Casual players will not be affected at all because Ashes will not have combat trackers.

They said this with GW2 as well, because they took a similar stance to the one Steven is taking now.

Combat trackers are very common and openly used in that game, as will be the case in Ashes.

How many years after launch were they available, because I played that game at launch, I can tell you they were not used then and for a few years after.

Combat trackers did not make or break GW2 at launch, or for the first few years when it was most popular. They did not come into play well after the game had already made a name for itself. Same as WoW and many other games.

Trackers did not dictate whether those games were successful at launch, they came in after the fact when players had discovered discovered basically all there was to discover, and now Min/Maxing was all that was left to make the game exciting.

Point to one MMO in the history of MMOs that failed at launch due to the lack of trackers and I will submit you are the winner.

Dygz

rikardp98 wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I don't really care about loot rights. I'm a communist.

So you care about dps meters but not the toxic environment that can come from Master looting?

In my experience there a much more guild drama around ninja looting and bad loot councils than drama around the dps meters.

I haven't experienced toxicity from loot rights. As in, no arguments in the groups I've been in.
I have heard of people being upset when someone chooses Need and they don't actually need the gear.
Seems to me that people have fixes for that - as in choosing a different loot option.
If some dev said they weren't going to include Master loot as a loot option because it creates too much toxicity, I would not disagree with that.

I actually prefer loot piñata for all.

Recluse74 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Casual players will not be affected at all because Ashes will not have combat trackers.

They said this with GW2 as well, because they took a similar stance to the one Steven is taking now.

Combat trackers are very common and openly used in that game, as will be the case in Ashes.

How many years after launch were they available, because I played that game at launch, I can tell you they were not used then and for a few years after.

They were used at launch, but since ArenaNet had the same philosophy as Steven had now- banningnpeople they catch using them - people using them weren't overly overt about the fact.

It was a few years in to the game when they diacoverds that more than 50% of the playerbase were running them, and so they realized they had to alter their stance.

While things may go different for Ashes, there is no real reason to assume that will be the case.

Noaani wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Casual players will not be affected at all because Ashes will not have combat trackers.

They said this with GW2 as well, because they took a similar stance to the one Steven is taking now.

Combat trackers are very common and openly used in that game, as will be the case in Ashes.

How many years after launch were they available, because I played that game at launch, I can tell you they were not used then and for a few years after.

They were used at launch, but since ArenaNet had the same philosophy as Steven had now- banningnpeople they catch using them - people using them weren't overly overt about the fact.

It was a few years in to the game when they diacoverds that more than 50% of the playerbase were running them, and so they realized they had to alter their stance.

While things may go different for Ashes, there is no real reason to assume that will be the case.

First of all... There was zero content in GW2 at launch or for the next 2 years that required a tracker, unless you were literally just trying to squeeze the last .01% of damage out of your character. The first content might have been fractals, but they were easy as long as you put in the time to get the damage mitigation needed for the new DoT mechanic they put out.

I truly find it hard to believe that GW2 had a tracker problem that early on in the game. If you needed a tracker in that game... you pretty much just suck at video games and need to find a new hobby.

You still did not answer my last question... What MMO, in MMO history, failed at launch because it did not have trackers?

Cataphract wrote: »

No combat trackers. AoC should focus on immersion and community-oriented gameplay, not data processing and hotkey rotations. For those who really care about how much damage they do, set a timer on your phone and start attacking a mob. Calculate how much health the monster has left after one minute.

How is something that you do not use during combat immersion breaking?

rikardp98 wrote: »

Cataphract wrote: »

No combat trackers. AoC should focus on immersion and community-oriented gameplay, not data processing and hotkey rotations. For those who really care about how much damage they do, set a timer on your phone and start attacking a mob. Calculate how much health the monster has left after one minute.

How is something that you do not use during combat immersion breaking?

Self reflection and what you could have done better is immersion enhancing, someone telling you that their addon did the math and it says you suck, is immersion breaking.. even if it is after the fight.

Recluse74 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Casual players will not be affected at all because Ashes will not have combat trackers.

They said this with GW2 as well, because they took a similar stance to the one Steven is taking now.

Combat trackers are very common and openly used in that game, as will be the case in Ashes.

How many years after launch were they available, because I played that game at launch, I can tell you they were not used then and for a few years after.

They were used at launch, but since ArenaNet had the same philosophy as Steven had now- banningnpeople they catch using them - people using them weren't overly overt about the fact.

It was a few years in to the game when they diacoverds that more than 50% of the playerbase were running them, and so they realized they had to alter their stance.

While things may go different for Ashes, there is no real reason to assume that will be the case.

First of all... There was zero content in GW2 at launch or for the next 2 years that required a tracker

I'm not saying there was.

I am saying people used them regardless.