I'm sorry, combat trackers are tools that outputs facts. Similar to software that scientist use to evaluate data points.
You also make some bold statements about DPS meter being necessary to kill a boss if they exist, and that toxicity comes from everyone will be except to use the DPS meters. Both of these statements is false, or do not aline with my experience.
If combat trackers is implemented hardcore players will except other hardcore players to use it to some extent. No one will except the use of combat trackers from casual players.
Toxicity comes from clash of two people with different views, such as hardcore and casual player mind set. That doesn't mean that hardcore players and casual player can't play with each other, they very much can, but they need to accept were they stand and what they except from each other.
I'm not sure you accurately reflected what I wrote.
Maybe if you fixed the typos...
People in general will expect everyone to use the DPS meters - because the challenges will be designed for a reliance on the DPS meters and everyone will have easy access to them because the tools will be supplied by the game.
Steven is a hardcore player and that's not the way Steven wants the game to be played.
So, it's not just hardcore v casual. It's people who want to rely on DPS meters v people who don't want to rely on DPS meters.
I've never experienced being asked if I'm a hardcore or casual player in-game.
I've never experienced others being asked whether they are casual players in-game.
I've also never seen a casual player flag.
People typically just play and expect there won't be playstyle conflicts - until the conflicts arise.
I'm sorry, combat trackers are tools that outputs facts. Similar to software that scientist use to evaluate data points.
You also make some bold statements about DPS meter being necessary to kill a boss if they exist, and that toxicity comes from everyone will be except to use the DPS meters. Both of these statements is false, or do not aline with my experience.
If combat trackers is implemented hardcore players will except other hardcore players to use it to some extent. No one will except the use of combat trackers from casual players.
Toxicity comes from clash of two people with different views, such as hardcore and casual player mind set. That doesn't mean that hardcore players and casual player can't play with each other, they very much can, but they need to accept were they stand and what they except from each other.
I'm not sure you accurately reflected what I wrote.
Maybe if you fixed the typos...
People in general will expect everyone to use the DPS meters - because the challenges will be designed for a reliance on the DPS meters and everyone will have easy access to them because the tools will be supplied by the game.
Steven is a hardcore player and that's not the way Steven wants the game to be played.
So, it's not just hardcore v casual. It's people who want to rely on DPS meters v people who don't want to rely on DPS meters.
I've never experienced being asked if I'm a hardcore or casual player in-game.
I've never experienced others being asked whether they are casual players in-game.
I've also never seen a casual player flag.
People typically just play and expect there won't be playstyle conflicts - until the conflicts arise.
Combat trackers are tools; not facts.
Combat trackers are not necessary tools.
Combat trackers also are not tools that the game should provide. YoshiP has this view. Steven has this view.
It's a game design philosophy.
If the game includes DPS meters, we can expect the devs to design the game such that DPS meters will be necessary. As necessary as tools like health and mana bars.
If DPS meters are not included, we can expect that DPS meters will not be necessary. And the data they provide also will not be necessary data.
Numerical values on health bars are a great tool.
Doesn't mean they are intrinsically necessary.
Steven plans for Ashes to not have numerical values on health bars.
Which can be fine - as long as the cues for health status can be understood well enough for players to defeat challenges.
Same is true for DPS meters.
The toxicity comes from expecting everyone to rely on DPS meters.
I didn't know Steven plans on not having numerical values for Ashes' health bars and other stuff. That's quite intrepid(pun intended)! haha
This actually intrigues me to learn more about this. I'll go ahead and put a question concerning this in the thread for questions for next stream.
I'm sorry, combat trackers are tools that outputs facts. Similar to software that scientist use to evaluate data points.
You also make some bold statements about DPS meter being necessary to kill a boss if they exist, and that toxicity comes from everyone will be except to use the DPS meters. Both of these statements is false, or do not aline with my experience.
If combat trackers is implemented hardcore players will except other hardcore players to use it to some extent. No one will except the use of combat trackers from casual players.
Toxicity comes from clash of two people with different views, such as hardcore and casual player mind set. That doesn't mean that hardcore players and casual player can't play with each other, they very much can, but they need to accept were they stand and what they except from each other.
I'm not sure you accurately reflected what I wrote.
Maybe if you fixed the typos...
People in general will expect everyone to use the DPS meters - because the challenges will be designed for a reliance on the DPS meters and everyone will have easy access to them because the tools will be supplied by the game.
Steven is a hardcore player and that's not the way Steven wants the game to be played.
So, it's not just hardcore v casual. It's people who want to rely on DPS meters v people who don't want to rely on DPS meters.
I've never experienced being asked if I'm a hardcore or casual player in-game.
I've never experienced others being asked whether they are casual players in-game.
I've also never seen a casual player flag.
People typically just play and expect there won't be playstyle conflicts - until the conflicts arise.
You again assume that the developers will make encounters with the DPS meter in mind, that's not good encounter design if you ask me.
And it's not up to other people to ask you what you identify as, that's up to you. So no one will ask you, they will assume you know what you are after in the game.
I have a masters in Psychology which you don't need to easily check on the web if what I am about to say is true.
Figures - a discipline which facts aren't a consideration.
The entirety of your post was incorrect. Again.
If what you are saying were true, there would have been an uprising at some point in the last 20 years of people with OCD complaining about trackers.
If there were to be legislation against any aspect of Ashes, it would be against the ability to gamble in game currency with parlor games. PvP is more likely to be harmful to people than combat trackers.
If there were legislation against combat trackers in games for the reason you state, that same legislation would also see rulers and tape measures banned, as these measuring devices are exactly as harmful to people as combat trackers (a measuring device) is.
All of a sudden there would be no scales, no multimeters, no stopwatches, timers or clocks.
Combat trackers are simply measuring facts - you can't say one means of measuring a fact is harmful without saying they all are.
People in general will expect everyone to use the DPS meters - because the challenges will be designed for a reliance on the DPS meters
This has literally never happened in any game ever.
If you are going to make accusations, you should at least have something to point at to say "like that".
Even in WoW - a game with not only high combat tracker use, but also combat assistants which no one is asking for here - it is only actual top end content that is designed to need them.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You again assume that the developers will make encounters with the DPS meter in mind, that's not good encounter design if you ask me.
And it's not up to other people to ask you what you identify as, that's up to you. So no one will ask you, they will assume you know what you are after in the game.
That's like saying it's just an assumption that if the devs implement ground telegraphs, they will design content with the expectation that people will generally attempt to move away from the ground telegraph.
Devs are going to design content with the expectation that people are using the tools they provide to assess that content.
How will people know who is hardcore and who is casual?
Not that it matters because DPS lovers don't care - all they care about is whether you adhere to the meta dictated by the combat tracker analysis.
You again assume that the developers will make encounters with the DPS meter in mind, that's not good encounter design if you ask me.
And it's not up to other people to ask you what you identify as, that's up to you. So no one will ask you, they will assume you know what you are after in the game.
That's like saying it's just an assumption that if the devs implement ground telegraphs, they will design content with the expectation that people will generally attempt to move away from the ground telegraph.
Devs are going to design content with the expectation that people are using the tools they provide to assess that content.
How will people know who is hardcore and who is casual?
Not that it matters because DPS lovers don't care - all they care about is whether you adhere to the meta dictated by the combat tracker analysis.
I find it amusing how you always try and degrade people that are actually good at the game.
I do sometime wonder if you understand how pathetic that makes you look.
if the existance of a score leaderboard is the guiding principle against trackers then why do we have a confirmed leaderboards for dungeon/raid clears?
You will def have ppl that won't bother ever inviting players that are not above certain placement on those leaderboards
Good luck being so selective. Most likely, everyone will raid with their peers and different groups will roam fir different challenges. The likelihood that 100% of the top scorers on a leadership board will all be friends and allies is very slim.
Good luck being so selective. Most likely, everyone will raid with their peers and different groups will roam fir different challenges. The likelihood that 100% of the top scorers on a leadership board will all be friends and allies is very slim.
Depending on how low the leaderboards go, it absolutely could happen.
If all they do is list the top 100 players, then people are unlikely to be all that selective.
On the other hand, if they go to 250 or 500, people will.
Even if it is only the top 100, if it is a leaderboard for a given piece of content you can bet people will be selective.
To be clear, I am not talking about guilds here - I am talking pick up content.
Good luck being so selective. Most likely, everyone will raid with their peers and different groups will roam fir different challenges. The likelihood that 100% of the top scorers on a leadership board will all be friends and allies is very slim.
ppl would ask for their placement(or time cleared) on it, it would most likely be of some often run dungeon/raid that isnt faceroll. And of course this is only concerning pugs, because in guilds the inclusivity is entirely up to the guild rules.
It really depends on the difficulty of the activity you want to pug. If the difficulty is higher and you want to avoid inviting clueless people (there are tons of them that sign up even though they know nothing about the activity and have not even learnt their class yet).
It could very well be just a link/key to a 3rd party leaderboard site if you want to pug something that is considered a harder content.
But hey - the only encounters we've been shown are loot boxes with flashy animations. All of the content might be completely faceroll and then all that you want to filter is some green quality freshly dinged newbie and having enough head count for pull
I have to admit, I understand the concept for arena. I appreciated the addition for arena (leader boards I mean) what I don't understand is the point of leader boards in pve.
If we have better rewards the better we perform (old reference, not sure of current position), then the barriers would have to be wide (more slots in leaderboard, less challenge) or narrow (less slots on leaderboard, more challenge).
Otherwise the whole concept relies on a single (or multiple) time markers to denote the pass grade or not. In effect, you would have a leaderboard with narrow gaps like formula 1 due to the nature of the support classes.
I was under the impression there would not be the same level of record and display like wow, yet, you would have to have some level of detail to differentiate between the 'grades' (phased boss access/ rewards).
To be less evasive and more certain, I do not understand the addition of a pve leaderboard and not a combat tracker. I still think IS should build a combat tracker for fairness and balance.
I have to admit, I understand the concept for arena. I appreciated the addition for arena (leader boards I mean) what I don't understand is the point of leader boards in pve.
I don't get it either.
To me, it is Steven's way of telling us he doesn't understand PvE play, without telling us he doesn't understand PvE play.
I have to admit, I understand the concept for arena. I appreciated the addition for arena (leader boards I mean) what I don't understand is the point of leader boards in pve.
I don't get it either.
To me, it is Steven's way of telling us he doesn't understand PvE play, without telling us he doesn't understand PvE play.
Wait wait, are they planning on adding a dungeon/raid scoreboard? Like showing raid progress and speed (guild)? Or is it a personal score board showing personal performance on a boss/raid?
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I have to admit, I understand the concept for arena. I appreciated the addition for arena (leader boards I mean) what I don't understand is the point of leader boards in pve.
I don't get it either.
To me, it is Steven's way of telling us he doesn't understand PvE play, without telling us he doesn't understand PvE play.
Wait wait, are they planning on adding a dungeon/raid scoreboard? Like showing raid progress and speed (guild)? Or is it a personal score board showing personal performance on a boss/raid?
The scoreboard they are planning on adding (or at least talked about adding in 2017) was like a time to clear thing.
There hasn't been much talk about it since, which has me hoping they realized that PvE leaderboards are not really a good addition.
I wanted to add that there is nothing unusual or negative about posting dps after lets say every boss fight or pull it just when it is combined with trollish comments so dps meters like lets say in a guild would not be so bad. Dps plus negativity is somehing that is prevelent in the world of instant que, which Ashes of Creation.is not
No Dps meters in game was picked to detter negativity, so my question is. Is that like a guidline for the company. Is the company going to evaluate the negativity that can be caused be lets say spamming , have public profiles, Seems like hand holding to me. If you really want more positive severs then no dps meters Has to be coupled with positivey training and expections for it to work.
What about rankings are those going to be kept secrect. In pvp if you do not make the cut then that is just part of life. If you are not good enough at let say dps should that be hidden so you do not get picked on
I mean they are going to find out eventually. I mean in foot ball when someone fumbles a football it is quite the experience depending on who you are rooting for. So should fumbles be censored for people that watch it on tv so they do not pick on the player. I mean if a guy on your team fumble that makes some people turn red so should it be censored to people do not get angry.
If this MMO was fun based were dps was not too important then no dps meters makessense howeverrif the game has a signaficant competative aspect to it or challenging aspect to it then some type of metric is necessary.
It may seem like I am cotradicting my self if you look at my prior posts. I have a very real experience were negativity just snow balls out of control and creates toxic server and played on servers were people are mostly mature and it is a night and day experience. And when i think about that well no dps meters makes sense but as a player that spends quite a bit of time developing skills seems like a hindrance.
So I say conduct on experiment. Turn on a dps meteron one or two servers and see what happens. Seems pretty fair to me.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Or start with no dps meter and see how much of a hindrance it is for developing your skills.
Would 'failing' a dungeon/raid be on the group, similar to "we all could have done better?" Or would it fall on the shoulders of the one or two players that didnt meet the expected DPS of the raid leader?
Players using the DPS outcome to blame failure on one or two players I think would be missing the point of the team activity.
Group leaders should be mature enough to give a "we failed but it's okay" talk to everyone, and then reach out to the individual players and give them all advice or at least ask them what happened.
Teams shouldn't target specific group members and then everyone pitch in and tell that player what they did wrong and how to "correctly" play their character for raid content.
This is my dilemma with the DPS meters. I think a lot of good points are made for why group/raid leaders should have access to one during those events. I also think a lot of good points are made about the type of players that use this information to kick team members from teams when maybe they just had an off go at things.
Since we can't police those that would have access, nor should we, i think Ashes current stance on not having one is better.
Like all points in this forum, these are just opinions.
Even If i can improve by looking at what other people who are doing well are doing?
I said this before so I might as well say this again, unless they change something about how any type of numbers are displayed you will still have third party DPS meters, some people already had basic ones in APOC.
I said this before so I might as well say this again, unless they change something about how any type of numbers are displayed you will still have third party DPS meters, some people already had basic ones in APOC.
I'm honestly working on the assumption that Steven has kind of admitted defeat in regards to trackers.
I know for a fact that Jeff was more than keen on them, and Margret has talked in the past about difficulties CS have in relation to players not having access to them. I also know a number of others at Intrepid are as pro-tracker as I am (more so, in fact).
So basically, if Steven is listening to any reasoned argument from the people he pays to inform him when making decisions (nor from us scrubs), he will see that combat trackers are by far a boon for any MMO.
However, he won't just outright say any of the above.
Instead, what will happen is that he will say something along the lines of "we're giving you the information we think you need, so there is no need for trackers. However, we can't really tell if you are using one or not, wink wink".
So basically, we will have FFXIV style of tracker acceptance in Ashes.
Well...i made it about halfway through the entirety of the thread before I gave up, (and admittedly, grew tired of reading basically the same argument over and over), so I'll jump on the bandwagon and throw my two cents in as well.
As a whole, I am pro dps meters, of any kind. I simply can't understand how they don't improve gameplay, or at least, provide the foundation to improve gameplay. I understand there are casual and hardcore gamers alike, the former of which may have little interest in a min/max type of play, however, having the dps meter available doesn't hurt their experience, whereas for the hardcore gamer, it's a seeming necessity. Sure - you may be judged on your dps for Boss/Trial/Dungeon A/X/Z - but perhaps that requirement of xx dps is somewhat of a static requirement to be able to beat said encounter. Your other party members have their investment of time and frankly, it's really not fair to waste their xx hours of play time because you aren't 'pulling your weight' and somehow feel as though you have a 'right' to be there. While you certainly do have a right to play however you like, you also have a right to respect others time and efforts and pulling half the required dps isn't doing that.
Casual gamers, or those disinterested in knowing their dps, certainly don't have to use the meter, but they also should not participate in activities - WITH A GROUP THAT REQUIRES IT. By all means, if you want to gather a group of friends/guildies and leave the requirements out of it have at it, but joining a group with xyz requirements that you don't fit is just, well, disrespectful.
Omitting dps meters from the game is certainly a possibility, however, I don't believe it encourages growth and improvement generically speaking, and to that point, I guess it really boils down to what the game throws at us. Should the encounters be 'beatable' by generic button mashing then I would agree, the dps meters are irrelevant. Should mechanics, timing, and synergies be a thing, I certainly would cast a strong vote in favor of the meters.
I find this an odd sentiment in relation to a game where rewards are increased based on clearing content well, and combat trackers being the only objective means to understand how well players are doing.
With the systems proposed by Intrepid, no combat tracker would be like having an arena ladder system that rewards the best gear in the game if you are at the top of it, but with no way to see your position on that ladder at all. Or like rewarding players with the highest kill ratio in a match, but not actually showing anyone's kill ratio at all.
With the systems proposed by Intrepid, no combat tracker would be like having an arena ladder system that rewards the best gear in the game if you are at the top of it, but with no way to see your position on that ladder at all.
Wanna hear a funny thing? That's almost exactly how L2's arena worked The most you could do is to just look at your own points or at some other player's points, but you never saw the full ladder. And at the end of the month, the dude with the most points would get the best weapon in the game (in the earlier updates), super strong abilities and the title of a Hero.
Worked just fine. You had to know your opponents, you had to do your own research, and even then you might've not known who'd be at the top because some guild might've ran their own pretender for the title at the very start of the season or on the very last day, and the guild would run him against their own members and pour points into him in hopes of having the most points by the end of the season.
I'd mention not having dps meters in pve (even though we had the damage numbers), but you'd obviously dismiss L2's pve as trash that doesn't require that kind of knowledge.
Most of the "dps" would just be learned through pvp. You managed to kill a dude in 3 crits instead of 4 after you got a new weapon? Your dps has increased! Congrats.
The burden of figuring out best builds and rotations/buff combos was on the players and not on a simple tool that just tells you the info directly. No one complained about not having dps meters and no one brought other people down for not hitting some arbitrary numbers. People just trusted each other to do their best and, you wouldn't believe it, people somehow did in fact do their best.
I'd mention not having dps meters in pve (even though we had the damage numbers), but you'd obviously dismiss L2's pve as trash that doesn't require that kind of knowledge.
L2 had third party combat trackers.
In fact, those people that I played EQ2 with that first informed me that L2 existed, picked EQ2 as their next MMO because the tracker they used was first designed for EQ2 - that is how they heard about the game.
Something else to keep in mind, when L2 launched, even NBL teams weren't using stats effectively - it was that same year (2003) that even they realized how important the right stats were.
Since that time, MMORPG's have moved on. People have realized that having objective data and knowing how to use it is an inherently good thing.
From what I've seen they were mainly hp/skill parsers for pvp. I think I mainly used them for auto-potion use. Definitely never heard of them being used in pve outside of seeing the boss' exact hp values (which I think should be the default option in a game). Though maybe it was just the servers I was playing on, who knows.
Since that time, MMORPG's have moved on. People have realized that having objective data and knowing how to use it is an inherently good thing.
And yet the current biggest pve mmo looks down on them and even had a huge scandal related to the very concept of addons, let alone dps meters. And from what I know FF14's dev team tests their bosses themselves and I'd assume they do it w/o addons, so what people really need to do is to just git gud
Comments
Maybe if you fixed the typos...
People in general will expect everyone to use the DPS meters - because the challenges will be designed for a reliance on the DPS meters and everyone will have easy access to them because the tools will be supplied by the game.
Steven is a hardcore player and that's not the way Steven wants the game to be played.
So, it's not just hardcore v casual. It's people who want to rely on DPS meters v people who don't want to rely on DPS meters.
I've never experienced being asked if I'm a hardcore or casual player in-game.
I've never experienced others being asked whether they are casual players in-game.
I've also never seen a casual player flag.
People typically just play and expect there won't be playstyle conflicts - until the conflicts arise.
Sorry for typos, in the middle of a pug raid xD
I didn't know Steven plans on not having numerical values for Ashes' health bars and other stuff. That's quite intrepid(pun intended)! haha
This actually intrigues me to learn more about this. I'll go ahead and put a question concerning this in the thread for questions for next stream.
You again assume that the developers will make encounters with the DPS meter in mind, that's not good encounter design if you ask me.
And it's not up to other people to ask you what you identify as, that's up to you. So no one will ask you, they will assume you know what you are after in the game.
The entirety of your post was incorrect. Again.
If what you are saying were true, there would have been an uprising at some point in the last 20 years of people with OCD complaining about trackers.
If there were to be legislation against any aspect of Ashes, it would be against the ability to gamble in game currency with parlor games. PvP is more likely to be harmful to people than combat trackers.
If there were legislation against combat trackers in games for the reason you state, that same legislation would also see rulers and tape measures banned, as these measuring devices are exactly as harmful to people as combat trackers (a measuring device) is.
All of a sudden there would be no scales, no multimeters, no stopwatches, timers or clocks.
Combat trackers are simply measuring facts - you can't say one means of measuring a fact is harmful without saying they all are.
If you are going to make accusations, you should at least have something to point at to say "like that".
Even in WoW - a game with not only high combat tracker use, but also combat assistants which no one is asking for here - it is only actual top end content that is designed to need them.
Devs are going to design content with the expectation that people are using the tools they provide to assess that content.
How will people know who is hardcore and who is casual?
Not that it matters because DPS lovers don't care - all they care about is whether you adhere to the meta dictated by the combat tracker analysis.
I find it amusing how you always try and degrade people that are actually good at the game.
I do sometime wonder if you understand how pathetic that makes you look.
You will def have ppl that won't bother ever inviting players that are not above certain placement on those leaderboards
― Plato
Depending on how low the leaderboards go, it absolutely could happen.
If all they do is list the top 100 players, then people are unlikely to be all that selective.
On the other hand, if they go to 250 or 500, people will.
Even if it is only the top 100, if it is a leaderboard for a given piece of content you can bet people will be selective.
To be clear, I am not talking about guilds here - I am talking pick up content.
ppl would ask for their placement(or time cleared) on it, it would most likely be of some often run dungeon/raid that isnt faceroll. And of course this is only concerning pugs, because in guilds the inclusivity is entirely up to the guild rules.
It really depends on the difficulty of the activity you want to pug. If the difficulty is higher and you want to avoid inviting clueless people (there are tons of them that sign up even though they know nothing about the activity and have not even learnt their class yet).
It could very well be just a link/key to a 3rd party leaderboard site if you want to pug something that is considered a harder content.
But hey - the only encounters we've been shown are loot boxes with flashy animations. All of the content might be completely faceroll and then all that you want to filter is some green quality freshly dinged newbie and having enough head count for pull
― Plato
If we have better rewards the better we perform (old reference, not sure of current position), then the barriers would have to be wide (more slots in leaderboard, less challenge) or narrow (less slots on leaderboard, more challenge).
Otherwise the whole concept relies on a single (or multiple) time markers to denote the pass grade or not. In effect, you would have a leaderboard with narrow gaps like formula 1 due to the nature of the support classes.
I was under the impression there would not be the same level of record and display like wow, yet, you would have to have some level of detail to differentiate between the 'grades' (phased boss access/ rewards).
To be less evasive and more certain, I do not understand the addition of a pve leaderboard and not a combat tracker. I still think IS should build a combat tracker for fairness and balance.
To me, it is Steven's way of telling us he doesn't understand PvE play, without telling us he doesn't understand PvE play.
Wait wait, are they planning on adding a dungeon/raid scoreboard? Like showing raid progress and speed (guild)? Or is it a personal score board showing personal performance on a boss/raid?
I said that for my wedding but it turns out I needed witnesses.
The scoreboard they are planning on adding (or at least talked about adding in 2017) was like a time to clear thing.
There hasn't been much talk about it since, which has me hoping they realized that PvE leaderboards are not really a good addition.
No Dps meters in game was picked to detter negativity, so my question is. Is that like a guidline for the company. Is the company going to evaluate the negativity that can be caused be lets say spamming , have public profiles, Seems like hand holding to me. If you really want more positive severs then no dps meters Has to be coupled with positivey training and expections for it to work.
What about rankings are those going to be kept secrect. In pvp if you do not make the cut then that is just part of life. If you are not good enough at let say dps should that be hidden so you do not get picked on
I mean they are going to find out eventually. I mean in foot ball when someone fumbles a football it is quite the experience depending on who you are rooting for. So should fumbles be censored for people that watch it on tv so they do not pick on the player. I mean if a guy on your team fumble that makes some people turn red so should it be censored to people do not get angry.
If this MMO was fun based were dps was not too important then no dps meters makessense howeverrif the game has a signaficant competative aspect to it or challenging aspect to it then some type of metric is necessary.
It may seem like I am cotradicting my self if you look at my prior posts. I have a very real experience were negativity just snow balls out of control and creates toxic server and played on servers were people are mostly mature and it is a night and day experience. And when i think about that well no dps meters makes sense but as a player that spends quite a bit of time developing skills seems like a hindrance.
So I say conduct on experiment. Turn on a dps meteron one or two servers and see what happens. Seems pretty fair to me.
Even If i can improve by looking at what other people who are doing well are doing?
I'm honestly working on the assumption that Steven has kind of admitted defeat in regards to trackers.
I know for a fact that Jeff was more than keen on them, and Margret has talked in the past about difficulties CS have in relation to players not having access to them. I also know a number of others at Intrepid are as pro-tracker as I am (more so, in fact).
So basically, if Steven is listening to any reasoned argument from the people he pays to inform him when making decisions (nor from us scrubs), he will see that combat trackers are by far a boon for any MMO.
However, he won't just outright say any of the above.
Instead, what will happen is that he will say something along the lines of "we're giving you the information we think you need, so there is no need for trackers. However, we can't really tell if you are using one or not, wink wink".
So basically, we will have FFXIV style of tracker acceptance in Ashes.
The same situation Yohsi-P is in... Say you don't support it to shut the dumb mob of anti-trackers up.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
As a whole, I am pro dps meters, of any kind. I simply can't understand how they don't improve gameplay, or at least, provide the foundation to improve gameplay. I understand there are casual and hardcore gamers alike, the former of which may have little interest in a min/max type of play, however, having the dps meter available doesn't hurt their experience, whereas for the hardcore gamer, it's a seeming necessity. Sure - you may be judged on your dps for Boss/Trial/Dungeon A/X/Z - but perhaps that requirement of xx dps is somewhat of a static requirement to be able to beat said encounter. Your other party members have their investment of time and frankly, it's really not fair to waste their xx hours of play time because you aren't 'pulling your weight' and somehow feel as though you have a 'right' to be there. While you certainly do have a right to play however you like, you also have a right to respect others time and efforts and pulling half the required dps isn't doing that.
Casual gamers, or those disinterested in knowing their dps, certainly don't have to use the meter, but they also should not participate in activities - WITH A GROUP THAT REQUIRES IT. By all means, if you want to gather a group of friends/guildies and leave the requirements out of it have at it, but joining a group with xyz requirements that you don't fit is just, well, disrespectful.
Omitting dps meters from the game is certainly a possibility, however, I don't believe it encourages growth and improvement generically speaking, and to that point, I guess it really boils down to what the game throws at us. Should the encounters be 'beatable' by generic button mashing then I would agree, the dps meters are irrelevant. Should mechanics, timing, and synergies be a thing, I certainly would cast a strong vote in favor of the meters.
I find this an odd sentiment in relation to a game where rewards are increased based on clearing content well, and combat trackers being the only objective means to understand how well players are doing.
With the systems proposed by Intrepid, no combat tracker would be like having an arena ladder system that rewards the best gear in the game if you are at the top of it, but with no way to see your position on that ladder at all. Or like rewarding players with the highest kill ratio in a match, but not actually showing anyone's kill ratio at all.
It's honestly just stupid.
Worked just fine. You had to know your opponents, you had to do your own research, and even then you might've not known who'd be at the top because some guild might've ran their own pretender for the title at the very start of the season or on the very last day, and the guild would run him against their own members and pour points into him in hopes of having the most points by the end of the season.
I'd mention not having dps meters in pve (even though we had the damage numbers), but you'd obviously dismiss L2's pve as trash that doesn't require that kind of knowledge.
Most of the "dps" would just be learned through pvp. You managed to kill a dude in 3 crits instead of 4 after you got a new weapon? Your dps has increased! Congrats.
The burden of figuring out best builds and rotations/buff combos was on the players and not on a simple tool that just tells you the info directly. No one complained about not having dps meters and no one brought other people down for not hitting some arbitrary numbers. People just trusted each other to do their best and, you wouldn't believe it, people somehow did in fact do their best.
In fact, those people that I played EQ2 with that first informed me that L2 existed, picked EQ2 as their next MMO because the tracker they used was first designed for EQ2 - that is how they heard about the game.
Something else to keep in mind, when L2 launched, even NBL teams weren't using stats effectively - it was that same year (2003) that even they realized how important the right stats were.
Since that time, MMORPG's have moved on. People have realized that having objective data and knowing how to use it is an inherently good thing.