Combat Trackers: proposed compromise

There are lots of very polarizing opinions on combat trackers (aka DPS meters) on this forum.

Would the compromise here be personal combat trackers only?

This way I can see what I'm doing and what's happening to me, but I can't see any other interactions?

Add to this making it against the ToS to request/force others to share what they are seeing in their combat trackers?

With something like this an individual could try out different specs/gear for their class to see what works best for them. The risk they will be judged by others is low.

A raid leader could say something like "everyone check your combat trackers for damage taken. If you see "breath of fire" in there, that is avoidable damage that you are getting hit by so watch out for it next time." But they couldn't say something like "everybody whisper me your dps on that last pull".

Sure people would have ways to get around the ToS (e.g. discord), but it would greatly decrease the risk of being judged by others. Doing so would be virtually non-existent in pugs since most don't use discord.

Personally I'd like to see full combat trackers as I like to use the data to help myself and others, but I get that a lot of people have concerns about the risk of toxicity or the removal of immersion (both I disagree with, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion). In situations like this, a compromise in the middle might be best overall for the game.

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Tragnar

Problem with your proposition is that giving all players an "option" to share their tracker data with others is not solving the issue people have with trackers in the first place. Reason for that is that having tracker sharing enabled will become required for pugs that actually have a decent organization behind them. So the only pugs left will be created by the players that purpusefully play offmeta builds - so automatically not following the meta lowers the average performance of the raid, because you need to make up the build power difference by your player skill. This also creates a knockoff effect, because actually good players tend to play efficiently and that means joining groups that seem to have the fastest clear times with the highest promise of loot. So by this fact alone you get bad players being swept down into pugs that do not require tracker sharing.

And honestly tell me - who wants play with a player that purpusefully hides information that he failed the mechanics.

Maybe a solution would be to just have trackers with NPC damage values (to know how players died - if it was a slow chip death or actually a near or complete oneshot) and all players damage/heal values to be hidden. That way you don't have live dps/hps leaderboard during the raid, but you actually can troubleshoot the problems of your raid without extensive shaming interogations on who fucked up what.

In raids that are not target dummies and players actually need to play well (which Ashes aspires to have with scaling difficulty into scaling rewards) then the lack of information just creates unnecessary frustration for the whole raid.

Noaani

Tragnar wrote: »

Problem with your proposition is that giving all players an "option" to share their tracker data with others is not solving the issue people have with trackers in the first place.

Agreed 100%.

There is no point in restricting data like this, and then adding in the option to share it with everyone.

If a combat tracker is built in to the game (which it should be), there should only be the ability to share it with guild members.

Tragnar

To be fair

I would just love to have the option to see if that dipshit we took just to have all 8 people for the dungeon that is half afk if he is actually standing like a pepega in fire or even wiping us on simplified dungeon mechanics

To create groups only with guildies is just not that realistic for 8 person dungeons unless your guild is much bigger than what is needed for 1 raid team

Recluse74

Wish there was a way just to mark players either next to their name in the party list, or above their head with a colored symbol from Orange which would be Excellent to Red which would mean barely doing anything based on the optimal play of their character. With 64 classes and the number of builds that will be available with those 64 classes, the optimal play of each build is going to vary quite a bit.

Orange = Exellent
Green = Good
Yellow = Suboptimal
Red = Why are you here?

So If I was playing a Ranger Archetype with the bard Archetype making me a Bowsinger, My damage will be less than a Ranger/Ranger (Hawkeye), but my class may provide buffs to ranged DPS or Close combat DPS depending of the augments used. If I am playing my character to it's fullest, I would have an orange symbol (placed in the best place as to not crowed the screen) as opposed to a Red symbol saying I am not doing anything to really help out the party.. That could mean I am not using my skills at the right time, I am not providing buffs when available, or just plain lazy...

This will help teach you to play your class better as you will have visual feedback as to how you are playing, and will also give feedback to a party leader to show them if you are helping or not during a raid or dungeon run.

This would help everyone overall... Removal of just plain lazy players, which you would not see many of as they can see their own symbol as well, and would be embarrassed if they are in the red, and people who are trying, but are not hitting that green or orange level, so you can discuss and theorize what they can do to get their build optimal, whether it is skill timing issue, skill rotation issue, or anything else you could think of.

I dont know.. this was off the top of my head and the more I read it.. not sure it would work lol.

Tyranthraxus

Saedu wrote: »

There are lots of very polarizing opinions on combat trackers (aka DPS meters) on this forum.

Would the compromise here be personal combat trackers only?

This way I can see what I'm doing and what's happening to me, but I can't see any other interactions?

Add to this making it against the ToS to request/force others to share what they are seeing in their combat trackers?

With something like this an individual could try out different specs/gear for their class to see what works best for them. The risk they will be judged by others is low.

A raid leader could say something like "everyone check your combat trackers for damage taken. If you see "breath of fire" in there, that is avoidable damage that you are getting hit by so watch out for it next time." But they couldn't say something like "everybody whisper me your dps on that last pull".

Sure people would have ways to get around the ToS (e.g. discord), but it would greatly decrease the risk of being judged by others. Doing so would be virtually non-existent in pugs since most don't use discord.

Personally I'd like to see full combat trackers as I like to use the data to help myself and others, but I get that a lot of people have concerns about the risk of toxicity or the removal of immersion (both I disagree with, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion). In situations like this, a compromise in the middle might be best overall for the game.

YOU NEED TO SEND ME A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR PERSONAL DPS METER, OR YOU CAN'T JOIN OUR GUILD, NOR OUR SUPER-LEET RAID TEAM!

Asgerr

Tragnar wrote: »

To be fair

I would just love to have the option to see if that dipshit we took just to have all 8 people for the dungeon that is half afk if he is actually standing like a pepega in fire or even wiping us on simplified dungeon mechanics

To create groups only with guildies is just not that realistic for 8 person dungeons unless your guild is much bigger than what is needed for 1 raid team

Bold of you to assume that members of your own team won't be the ones goofing around and that this person -- who agreed to help you knowing full well he'll likely get the least amount of loot -- is automatically a dipshit.

Karthos

An add-on in my opinion is the result of poor game design to begin with. It's the community fixing something that the game failed to flesh out or implement. Such as customizing their UI, or better managing their auctions/bank.

It's also the result of lazy players. Some people use add-ons that literally tell them what skill to use, where exactly to go for quests and to even walk them through how best to level their crafting profession.

Now, I think the first reason is an okay reason to have add-ons, and in the past, game devs have seen these and included them in their actual game, seeing the need for such a system. The second reason it just shitty, and at that point, why even play the game if you're not actually going to play it?

So what does adding Damage Meters fall under? Is it adding something to the game that was overlooked or poorly implemented? OR are do you want them to make the game easier for you, to dumb things down a bit so you can take a more hands off approach to your MMO?

I feel you need to ask yourself this before you advocate or not for Damage Meters in AOC.

Zaxsin

Dygz wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

Toxicity is only enhanced by trackers, not created.

Same difference.

Nah, death coms in CoD are creating toxicity, while the leaderboard enhances it. Big difference

Taleof2Cities

Karthos wrote: »

So what does adding Damage Meters fall under? Is it adding something to the game that was overlooked or poorly implemented? OR are do you want them to make the game easier for you, to dumb things down a bit so you can take a more hands off approach to your MMO?

Those aren't the only two reasons to add (or not add) damage meters, though, @Karthos.

DPS meters do help non-lazy players improve and fine tune their gameplay (which, in turn, gives a boost to their guild and/or node).

We're still in Alpha, but Ashes doesn't strike me as the kind of game that will have a substandard combat system. Even if combat turned out substandard, that would likely still be trumped by Steven's inclination to keep the meters out of the game anyway.

I don't have a horse in this race ... I'd be OK either way with or without damage meters implemented.

Recluse74

One thing I never really thought till the other day was, do DPS meters make the game harder for casual players who do not use them?

If developers make content and content difficulty based on how fast the content is being run through, then it would reason that people who use DPS meters and use them well, will chew up content fast, meaning future content may be based on the speed and or easiness they perceive it to be based on home many times a certain raid boss was killed.

So if they add more HP to a boss, or make the mechanics harder, it directly affects those who do not use DPS meters. Effectively over time, preventing the casual portion of the population to accomplish any raid boss goals without the use of a DPS meter, which they may be against.

Because it always seems the top tier guilds and or content creators get invited to test new content before the casuals do, they would essentially just start making the game unplayable.

Again.. I just thought of this the other day, it may or may not be a thing.

Dygz

Zaxsin wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

Toxicity is only enhanced by trackers, not created.

Same difference.

Nah, death coms in CoD are creating toxicity, while the leaderboard enhances it. Big difference

I only play COD when Activision pays me.
Since I only experience toxicity in groups from combat trackers, enhancing v creating is the same difference.
To me it creates toxicity in groups. If you experience toxicity in groups without combat trackers, I suppose you would perceive that has enhancing toxicity.

Dygz

Recluse74 wrote: »

One thing I never really thought till the other day was, do DPS meters make the game harder for casual players who do not use them?

If developers make content and content difficulty based on how fast the content is being run through, then it would reason that people who use DPS meters and use them well, will chew up content fast, meaning future content may be based on the speed and or easiness they perceive it to be based on home many times a certain raid boss was killed.

Kind of, yeah.
If the game devs implement combat trackers - they will design dungeons and raids for combat trackers to be used.

There is a holistic approach, so...
Raiding is going to be designed differently in Ashes than in some other MMORPGs, like WoW.
Raids are open-world. Even to the extent that we have monster raids coming to our towns and cities.
Combat trackers are kinda meaningless there.

Recluse74

Dygz wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

One thing I never really thought till the other day was, do DPS meters make the game harder for casual players who do not use them?

If developers make content and content difficulty based on how fast the content is being run through, then it would reason that people who use DPS meters and use them well, will chew up content fast, meaning future content may be based on the speed and or easiness they perceive it to be based on home many times a certain raid boss was killed.

Kind of, yeah.
If the game devs implement combat trackers - they will design dungeons and raids for combat trackers to be used.

There is a holistic approach, so...
Raiding is going to be designed differently in Ashes than in some other MMORPGs, like WoW.
Raids are open-world. Even to the extent that we have monster raids coming to our towns and cities.
Combat trackers are kinda meaningless there.

There will be instanced content as well, or so I have seen people say in these forums, just not sure the size of them.. 8, 16 or 40 player.

The open world stuff will have PvP involved 50% of the time I would guess, if not more. So trackers would not help completely, but sometimes it comes down to burning down a boss with DPS and whoever has the most gets the loot... in which case, a tracker using guild will have the upper hand. This alone will probably actually cause more PvP over bosses to ensure your guild does more damage in the end.

Dygz

There will be instanced content, yes.

Groups that don't use trackers can be just as good as groups that do.
You don't have to rely on a tracker to be the group with the highest DPS.
They may not be as quick to come up with winning strategies for a new dungeon or raid, but not everyone is striving to be uber-efficient or super-speedy.

It only comes down to burning down a boss with DPS when the boss is designed for DPS meters.
We'll have to see how dungeons and raids are designed and whether or not there are other objectives besides just killing the mobs - similar to objective-based PvP.

Noaani

Recluse74 wrote: »

One thing I never really thought till the other day was, do DPS meters make the game harder for casual players who do not use them?

This is a good question, and is a good illustration of why topics that have been talked to death are still worth going over.

The answer to this in my experience is a no.

However, this is based on developers knowing that top end players are using combat trackers, and developing all content with that in mind. If they have this in mind, they can develop top end content under the assumption that everyone will use them, low end content under the assumption that no one will use them, and then have an increasing difficulty curve of content going between the two and make the assumption that people will start using them at some point along this curve - if they opt to travel that path.

Keep in mind, most casual players do stick to casual content, very few try to make the transition from casual to top end.

It would be very bad for developers to develop all content with either the assumption that all players are using a combat tracker, or that no players are using a combat tracker.

Saedu

Recluse74 wrote: »

Wish there was a way just to mark players either next to their name in the party list, or above their head with a colored symbol from Orange which would be Excellent to Red which would mean barely doing anything based on the optimal play of their character. With 64 classes and the number of builds that will be available with those 64 classes, the optimal play of each build is going to vary quite a bit.

Orange = Exellent
Green = Good
Yellow = Suboptimal
Red = Why are you here?

So If I was playing a Ranger Archetype with the bard Archetype making me a Bowsinger, My damage will be less than a Ranger/Ranger (Hawkeye), but my class may provide buffs to ranged DPS or Close combat DPS depending of the augments used. If I am playing my character to it's fullest, I would have an orange symbol (placed in the best place as to not crowed the screen) as opposed to a Red symbol saying I am not doing anything to really help out the party.. That could mean I am not using my skills at the right time, I am not providing buffs when available, or just plain lazy...

This will help teach you to play your class better as you will have visual feedback as to how you are playing, and will also give feedback to a party leader to show them if you are helping or not during a raid or dungeon run.

This would help everyone overall... Removal of just plain lazy players, which you would not see many of as they can see their own symbol as well, and would be embarrassed if they are in the red, and people who are trying, but are not hitting that green or orange level, so you can discuss and theorize what they can do to get their build optimal, whether it is skill timing issue, skill rotation issue, or anything else you could think of.

I dont know.. this was off the top of my head and the more I read it.. not sure it would work lol.

Interesting idea. It solves the issue of people intentionally slacking off. It also helps "normalize" people based on their class (kind of like how parses do, but not actual dps meters).

It does not help people who are trying hard, but performing poorly learn what they need to do to get better. This could be VERY frustrating.

I think it introduces a new issue/challenge of the game/developers being responsible for saying what is good/bad performance. This would be very difficult to operationally pull off. Any class balance changes or new tiers of gear would effectively reset your data.. Gimmicks/exploits could mess up comparative data as well.... also you need a certain amount of data for each boss for each of the 64 classes to get good statistical significance... given different servers may have different raids/dungeons open ar different times, this would be VERY difficult to do, if not downright unreliable data.

Given the pros/cons of this I think combat trackers I'm game are still better.

Saedu

Dygz wrote: »

Recluse74 wrote: »

One thing I never really thought till the other day was, do DPS meters make the game harder for casual players who do not use them?

If developers make content and content difficulty based on how fast the content is being run through, then it would reason that people who use DPS meters and use them well, will chew up content fast, meaning future content may be based on the speed and or easiness they perceive it to be based on home many times a certain raid boss was killed.

Kind of, yeah.
If the game devs implement combat trackers - they will design dungeons and raids for combat trackers to be used.

There is a holistic approach, so...
Raiding is going to be designed differently in Ashes than in some other MMORPGs, like WoW.
Raids are open-world. Even to the extent that we have monster raids coming to our towns and cities.
Combat trackers are kinda meaningless there.

Actually I could see them being very valuable in a PvX world boss situation. It can help me see who on the team is focusing on the other team vs the boss... who's interrupting/CCing. Who the enemy is focusing on. How we are doing in.the dps race vs the enemy. It's actually one of the use cases where a leader (probably not the whole group) might actively be watching the meters mid-battle and shift tactics depending on the flow. As a pvp rated battleground leader myself I can tell you this mid-battle analysis is a real thing and a good thing. It's helped my team shift strategy mid game many times. Of course it's not just the data, it's also observing the flow/positioning of the battle, but without combat trackers you really don't know what's going on in the fight just by watching. With them you can get a sense of who's winning/losing even when the fight might look like a stale mate. In PvX I could see this magnified even more as you have not just the teams attacking each other, but also putting dps up on the boss. There will be meaningful choice in how you decide to disrupt the enemy vs dps the boss... without meters your just making guesses and hoping for the best.

Saedu

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Karthos wrote: »

So what does adding Damage Meters fall under? Is it adding something to the game that was overlooked or poorly implemented? OR are do you want them to make the game easier for you, to dumb things down a bit so you can take a more hands off approach to your MMO?

Those aren't the only two reasons to add (or not add) damage meters, though, @Karthos.

DPS meters do help non-lazy players improve and fine tune their gameplay (which, in turn, gives a boost to their guild and/or node).

We're still in Alpha, but Ashes doesn't strike me as the kind of game that will have a substandard combat system. Even if combat turned out substandard, that would likely still be trumped by Steven's inclination to keep the meters out of the game anyway.

I don't have a horse in this race ... I'd be OK either way with or without damage meters implemented.

I think this discussion is more about IS implementing in game combat trackers. Not allowing addons or not. MMOs that don't have addons are missing a key ingredient regardless of if it's built in or a addon.

I don't think it makes the game easier. I think it makes it so IS can make harder content for the high end players, which increases the challenge.. the combat trackers help you see what you need to do to be a better player, but they don't make you a better player. @Noaani is right with scaling the difficulty based on the assumption that casual won't use combat trackers much, but hard core will use them significantly.

Saedu

Here's another potential compromise solution: only the group/raid leader and those he/she delegates as "assistants" can see the combat trackers for the whole group. Everyone else gets a personal combat tracker only.

This way the leaders have the data they need to run the team (and the responsibility to not be toxic, but if course this is their choice and will impact the willingness of others to follow them).

This solution would help stop that random DPS that can't keep his trap shut and likes to make toxic remarks about other players.

If your in a group where the leaders are toxic, the problem isn't the combat trackers, its the group leadership.

Saedu

Tyranthraxus wrote: »

Saedu wrote: »

There are lots of very polarizing opinions on combat trackers (aka DPS meters) on this forum.

Would the compromise here be personal combat trackers only?

This way I can see what I'm doing and what's happening to me, but I can't see any other interactions?

Add to this making it against the ToS to request/force others to share what they are seeing in their combat trackers?

With something like this an individual could try out different specs/gear for their class to see what works best for them. The risk they will be judged by others is low.

A raid leader could say something like "everyone check your combat trackers for damage taken. If you see "breath of fire" in there, that is avoidable damage that you are getting hit by so watch out for it next time." But they couldn't say something like "everybody whisper me your dps on that last pull".

Sure people would have ways to get around the ToS (e.g. discord), but it would greatly decrease the risk of being judged by others. Doing so would be virtually non-existent in pugs since most don't use discord.

Personally I'd like to see full combat trackers as I like to use the data to help myself and others, but I get that a lot of people have concerns about the risk of toxicity or the removal of immersion (both I disagree with, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion). In situations like this, a compromise in the middle might be best overall for the game.

YOU NEED TO SEND ME A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR PERSONAL DPS METER, OR YOU CAN'T JOIN OUR GUILD, NOR OUR SUPER-LEET RAID TEAM!

As the player you could just report this player for breaking the ToS (if IS makes it against the rules to force someone to do this)... I'm not sure I'd advocate for this though. As a player if you are looking to join a guild and you see something like this it's a good indicator you may be joining a toxic group. You might want to find another group instead. Your doing yourself and the guild a favor.

I'm sure stuff like this happens, but in my 18 years of MMOs (including WoW since beta, which people seem to think has the most toxic/disposable player mentality), I've never had to go through something like this when joining a guild.

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