DPS Meter Megathread

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Mag7spy

Downloads isn't a metric for the amount of players that have and use it, you are making up things about information as you don't know how the stats work as per download. That is pointless information.

Final fantasy was created to be akin to WoW and have similar gameplay so it makes senses trackers are effective for it based on how the combat works. AoC is not designed like wow and has a completely different combat system which has different possibilities of reducing the amount of information you can gain from a tracker and its effectiveness.

Using Azherae information when they are purpose manipulative is not good to rely on...... But I guess you say anything that fits your point while ignoring the large majority on this forum do not want trackers, do not support trackers, prefer without trackers, or definitely do not want players tracking them.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

MrPockets They will argue with you for 100 pages, trust me when i say you won't change their mind. Their goal is only to get you to agree to give them trackers or guild ones so they can push for for information given tot hem so they know everything bosses do and can beat it easier, and/or push for thirds party trackers.

See, this is your problem.

You are ore focused on "winning" than on discussing.

You actually don't care about the discussion - which is why you often cut out a little part of it that may be totally irrelevant to the larger picture, just because you think you can get a "win" out of it.

MrPockets is - it seems to me - more interested in discussion.

You are only concerned with getting trackers in the game, you do not care that people continue tot ell you they don't want trackers.

My point has nothing to do with winning my points have to do what does the community want and that isn't trackers. It is why you will ignore the people that have been telling you within these thousands of post.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Downloads isn't a metric for the amount of players that have and use it, you are making up things about information as you don't know how the stats work as per download. That is pointless information.

It is indeed a metric.

It isn't a 1 for 1 metric, but it is a metric. Similar downloads, from similar years, that also show unique downloads as well as total downloads usually have a 3/5 ratio. This means for every 5 total downloads, there are 3 unique downloads. Now, we could be generous that even a third of those total downloads are people downloading it a second time and being flagged as a unique download - but that still means 2/5 are unique.

This means that 7,200,000 people have used that one tracker in FFXIV - and there are other trackers with higher downloads.

You keep underestimating the penetration that combat trackers have made in to the MMO player population.

Mag7spy wrote: »

You are only concerned with getting trackers in the game, you do not care that people continue tot ell you they don't want trackers.

You are right, I am not concerned with people that say they do not want trackers in the game - because that point is not up for debate.

Trackers will be in Ashes. There is nothing you nor Steven can do about it.

Saying you don't want trackers in the game is about as pointless as saying you don't want PvP. Both will exist. Deal with it.

Aerlana

Mag7spy wrote: »

Still with this BS trying to assume people won't take any other guild perk when they seek trackers are normalized for guilds. Manipulation tactics as usual.

I get on simple basis : there will be lot of guild perks, far more than what a guild could take all.
What i think it ? The max member on a guild is 50, and guild perk can rise it to 300. And it was clearly said that rising to 300 will be at cost of other guild perks that can be usefull. So, the guild will have to do choices.

And another point : for ashes of creation, i will mainly go on RP side of activities... so probably join a RP guild, and try to get enough contact to do some casual PvE content. I will probably be in favor, in my guild to NOT have it, in favor of other guild perk that will be more beneficial (don't know what we will have so can't really predict) because, our efficiency in high end PvE won't be a thing. Yourself would fight against this guild perk in your guild. And i think dygz too, and some people totally against it (or ok with guild perk tracker but still dislike trackers)

In fact, i love it being a guild perk for another reason : it will make people do choices. and force them to have a better view on their objectivs... And so, each guild will have the members have a close mindset, because the different perks will be defined by what the guild want to do, and will also fix their way on this choice they did...
Many guilds crashed because they began a friendly group, began PvE funny, and then some people came in conflict because some wanted just to have fun, and others wanted results... And not any part of this problem considered they were out of place in this guild now.

MrPockets wrote: »

Are there players that treat encounters as competitions? sure. Is that the average player? I don't think so. I find it much more likely they view it as a challenge to overcome --

If we read wiki, they didnt define a challenge, but a competition.
They did spoke about content that only a single digit percent can kill. so top 10% only can do it.

Devs also have NO WAY to figure out the difficulty out of how many players who tried it killed it, and how fast.
So just saying "no need to make more difficulty, because they used tracker" is just dumb. So goes for guides. A fight can still be hard to win even with guides... for others, the difficulty is only to figure out the strategy then applying it is easy. If you want really tough fight, it has to be really tough even when people know strategy.

MrPockets wrote: »

If there is a smaller subset of players that wants to speed run content and optimize it, fine...but why do the devs need to go against their design principles to make content specifically for that subset of players? Are they not allowed to make their own design decisions? (for better or worse).

There you are totally true. BUT you forget one point : it doesn't change anything.
Nooani spoke about
1) chose difficulty
2) see how previous content with theorical similar difficulty were done...

If they want a single digit to kill it, they have to aim to have a single digit able to clean the first high end contents. Without watching how player did it...

Some MMORPG claimed to have engaging, hard PvE and all... players went in, destroyed content, got bored because was not difficult FOR THEM, left.
Because in the end, the problem is not what YOU think about how the content has to be done, but how players do it...
If you want to seduce PvE people, you have to give them strong enough bosses, and not "strong only if you do it the way we want you to do it" but... strong... people kill it as they want, but it have to be a really tough fight.

And for player rentention, it is easier to begin with really tough fight AND if you think it was maybe too hard for what you wanted as difficulty, get a little more brutal for next contents. than begining too easy and lowering it.
Hard fight creates myths, which is good for the game's reknown (except if "stupidly hard" for sure) and in PvE no difficulty is eternal. Easy fight will juste bore people doing it. you will fast lose the PvE part of community, and will be hard to make it comeback after. With a problem : you have no more hardcore PvE, so if you manage to do content as hard as you wanted, not enough people will be able to do it. this content being "far too hard" for your current community... Frustration, people saying it would need nerf, but if you nerf it, your game still has no difficulty, and you also show that "if too hard, we will nerf it" so people think there will be never high end difficulty...

On FFXIV : First endgame boss Asclepios, at one point, divide itself as 2 part, you have to spread (one per tank) and each part gain damage buff every X seconds. there is a mechanic, not so easy to lower this buff. How player killed it ? doing this tricky mechanic ? nope... burst DPS one then another brainlessly to kill them before they are too strong, ignore the mechanic. Players ignored strategy thought
Second boss : players literraly waited the enrage to begin to pull bosses again because the enrage was not so strong, and removed a tricky mechanic.
5th boss (1st of second raid) Rafflesia, players litterally used the in game latency to avoid a mechanic ! (frontal conic, if at the good timing you pass thru the boss, you avoid it)
4th boss Twintania, had dive... you could close to ignore with some safe spot.
SE learned, they didnt blame players to use those easy way. in fact... they said "oh, nice, players are smart, congratulation" fixed nothing, but made sure people couldnt use those trick in later fights.
Also, people uses a lot combat tracker and are close to "perfect DPS" ? no problem, lets set up enrage timer with this in mind. (remember, the stance about tracker is the same as here... but enrages timers are, imo, harder to deal with than wow's one)

And still with strategies to find out, hard to apply even if you read guides, etc etc.
Those fight remained quite decently hard (even more for a just released game) and the last boss of second raid (8th boss of ARR, Nael Deus Darnus) Was a really tough fight. enough to open lot of hope about a real good PvE.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Downloads isn't a metric for the amount of players that have and use it, you are making up things about information as you don't know how the stats work as per download. That is pointless information.

It is indeed a metric.

It isn't a 1 for 1 metric, but it is a metric. Similar downloads, from similar years, that also show unique downloads as well as total downloads usually have a 3/5 ratio. This means for every 5 total downloads, there are 3 unique downloads. Now, we could be generous that even a third of those total downloads are people downloading it a second time and being flagged as a unique download - but that still means 2/5 are unique.

This means that 7,200,000 people have used that one tracker in FFXIV - and there are other trackers with higher downloads.

You keep underestimating the penetration that combat trackers have made in to the MMO player population.

Mag7spy wrote: »

You are only concerned with getting trackers in the game, you do not care that people continue tot ell you they don't want trackers.

You are right, I am not concerned with people that say they do not want trackers in the game - because that point is not up for debate.

Trackers will be in Ashes. There is nothing you nor Steven can do about it.

Saying you don't want trackers in the game is about as pointless as saying you don't want PvP. Both will exist. Deal with it.

Sorry but that information can't be guessed on in either way and not reliable, as first I'd want to see the actual source of the number before I even go further on the topic. Someone saying a number online isn't trust worthy to me.

You are missing the point as well people make because you can't understand their view point and don't want to. People have a view on trackers because they have used them, the fourm again is the place where you will find more hardcore types and clearly people that will have been the one to use trackers. Simply using a tracker doesn't mean you support a tracker but content being made around trackers or the view of everyone using it leads to more people using it over time.

AoC has a hybrid combat system, action combat alone will not make trackers work akin to how effective they were in the past do to different types of gameplay. Mobs missing attacks, and players dodging attacks makes it more difficult for a tracker to read that within the game without the information of the boss missing as it is more a visual thing on the screen.

Not support trackers and not having in within ashes won't allow people to attempt to further gain more information from mobs and have to rely on their eyes, skill and brain to deal with challenges.

Though trackers may exist in some form it won't be as effective and the people found out using it if its against the TOS will be banned. You can say the devs can't stop you but I'm sure drama will leak information over time of people that cheat and eventually rather than more people using trackers there will be less. This depends how strong a stance they decide to take to slow down the chance of trackers being picked up as well as the game paly making them less effective.

Mag7spy

Imagine you used your knowledge and supported the devs instead of trying to convince people to use trackers and get them in the game. But tried to figure out gameplay and ways to reduce the effective use of trackers.

But again you don't care what people want, its not about they can't stop people. Its about you want trackers int he game and in turn game play revolving around it so you can know every detail through logs and use that to your advantage.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Sorry but that information can't be guessed on in either way and not reliable

It isn't supposed to be reliable, it is supposed to show people that have a brain that combat tracker use in a game many thought was very low is in fact quite high.

Again, the tracker we looked at is one of many. The people it represents are a fraction of the people that have used trackers in FFXIV.

We aren't even necessarily trying to transpose those numbers to Ashes, nor that ratio.

The point was - and is - simply that tracker use in FFXIV is quite high.

This is what I mean by you trying to "win". You are so focused on winning you aren't even actually paying attention to the conversation, you are just trying to find that path to the win.

Mag7spy

Aerlana wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Still with this BS trying to assume people won't take any other guild perk when they seek trackers are normalized for guilds. Manipulation tactics as usual.

I get on simple basis : there will be lot of guild perks, far more than what a guild could take all.
What i think it ? The max member on a guild is 50, and guild perk can rise it to 300. And it was clearly said that rising to 300 will be at cost of other guild perks that can be usefull. So, the guild will have to do choices.

And another point : for ashes of creation, i will mainly go on RP side of activities... so probably join a RP guild, and try to get enough contact to do some casual PvE content. I will probably be in favor, in my guild to NOT have it, in favor of other guild perk that will be more beneficial (don't know what we will have so can't really predict) because, our efficiency in high end PvE won't be a thing. Yourself would fight against this guild perk in your guild. And i think dygz too, and some people totally against it (or ok with guild perk tracker but still dislike trackers)

In fact, i love it being a guild perk for another reason : it will make people do choices. and force them to have a better view on their objectivs... And so, each guild will have the members have a close mindset, because the different perks will be defined by what the guild want to do, and will also fix their way on this choice they did...
Many guilds crashed because they began a friendly group, began PvE funny, and then some people came in conflict because some wanted just to have fun, and others wanted results... And not any part of this problem considered they were out of place in this guild now.

MrPockets wrote: »

Are there players that treat encounters as competitions? sure. Is that the average player? I don't think so. I find it much more likely they view it as a challenge to overcome --

If we read wiki, they didnt define a challenge, but a competition.
They did spoke about content that only a single digit percent can kill. so top 10% only can do it.

Devs also have NO WAY to figure out the difficulty out of how many players who tried it killed it, and how fast.
So just saying "no need to make more difficulty, because they used tracker" is just dumb. So goes for guides. A fight can still be hard to win even with guides... for others, the difficulty is only to figure out the strategy then applying it is easy. If you want really tough fight, it has to be really tough even when people know strategy.

MrPockets wrote: »

If there is a smaller subset of players that wants to speed run content and optimize it, fine...but why do the devs need to go against their design principles to make content specifically for that subset of players? Are they not allowed to make their own design decisions? (for better or worse).

There you are totally true. BUT you forget one point : it doesn't change anything.
Nooani spoke about
1) chose difficulty
2) see how previous content with theorical similar difficulty were done...

There are various way to judge the difficulty and also how your community is reaching it.
After all, there is an easy way to have only 9% people killing a boss... having 9% people trying it. Do some requirement insanely hard or long farm, and the boss insanely easy : 100% killrate, but only few can do it.

Personally, i think that they will go on a more logic way : single digit out of people really engaged in PvE content... So yes, it would be a competition, and the only thing that will say if a fight was difficult or not is the global progress of those PvE players in the content.

Some MMORPG claimed to have engaging, hard PvE and all... players went in, destroyed content, got bored because was not difficult FOR THEM, left.
Because in the end, the problem is not what YOU think about how the content has to be done, but how players do it...
If you want to seduce PvE people, you have to give them strong enough bosses, and not "strong only if you do it the way we want you to do it" but... strong... people kill it as they want, but it have to be a really tough fight.

And for player rentention, it is easier to begin with really tough fight AND if you think it was maybe too hard for what you wanted as difficulty, get a little more brutal for next contents. than begining too easy and lowering it.
Hard fight creates myths, which is good for the game's reknown (except if "stupidly hard" for sure) and in PvE no difficulty is eternal. Easy fight will juste bore people doing it. you will fast lose the PvE part of community, and will be hard to make it comeback after. With a problem : you have no more hardcore PvE, so if you manage to do content as hard as you wanted, not enough people will be able to do it. this content being "far too hard" for your current community... Frustration, people saying it would need nerf, but if you nerf it, your game still has no difficulty, and you also show that "if too hard, we will nerf it" so people think there will be never high end difficulty...

On FFXIV : First endgame boss Asclepios, at one point, divide itself as 2 part, you have to spread (one per tank) and each part gain damage buff every X seconds. there is a mechanic, not so easy to lower this buff. How player killed it ? doing this tricky mechanic ? nope... burst DPS one then another brainlessly to kill them before they are too strong, ignore the mechanic. Players ignored strategy thought
Second boss : players literraly waited the enrage to begin to pull bosses again because the enrage was not so strong, and removed a tricky mechanic.
5th boss (1st of second raid) Rafflesia, players litterally used the in game latency to avoid a mechanic ! (frontal conic, if at the good timing you pass thru the boss, you avoid it)
4th boss Twintania, had dive... you could close to ignore with some safe spot.
SE learned, they didnt blame players to use those easy way. in fact... they said "oh, nice, players are smart, congratulation" fixed nothing, but made sure people couldnt use those trick in later fights.
Also, people uses a lot combat tracker and are close to "perfect DPS" ? no problem, lets set up enrage timer with this in mind. (remember, the stance about tracker is the same as here... but enrages timers are, imo, harder to deal with than wow's one)

And still with strategies to find out, hard to apply even if you read guides, etc etc.

It isn't a choice, that is a cop out to get trackers into the game to allow people to use their own third party trackers and attempt to make them standard.

Any competitive guild will simply ignore the perk get something else and use a third party tracker since the game allows for trackers.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Sorry but that information can't be guessed on in either way and not reliable

It isn't supposed to be reliable, it is supposed to show people that have a brain that combat tracker use in a game many thought was very low is in fact quite high.

Again, the tracker we looked at is one of many. The people it represents are a fraction of the people that have used trackers in FFXIV.

We aren't even necessarily trying to transpose those numbers to Ashes, nor that ratio.

The point was - and is - simply that tracker use in FFXIV is quite high.

This is what I mean by you trying to "win". You are so focused on winning you aren't even actually paying attention to the conversation, you are just trying to find that path to the win.

It isn't high its a download number not a player number that isn't' reliable information. It doesn't matter if that number is high either that has nothing to do with AoC.

The community in AoC does not want trackers you are in the minority like i have been saying. People having trackers does not equal people wanting trackers. Again you are trying to win, that is thy you have been posting most likely a thousand times in this thread.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

It isn't high its a download number not a player number that isn't' reliable information.

It is incredibly reliable - as a number for total downloads of that plug in.

Find me a more reliable number for downloads of that plugin - if you are so convinced that it is not a reliable number.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

It isn't high its a download number not a player number that isn't' reliable information.

It is incredibly reliable - as a number for total downloads of that plug in.

Find me a more reliable number for downloads of that plugin - if you are so convinced that it is not a reliable number.

Link to exact source first with number as I'm not believing word of mouth from some bias person with a dislike towards me lol.

Second like i said it doesn't matter if people downloads it, it doesn't relate to what people want nor game design. This isn't WoW or FF nor does AoC play like those games as it is hybrid.

Noaani

Mag7spy wrote: »

Second like i said it doesn't matter if people downloads it, it doesn't relate to what people want nor game design.

Yeah, but it also isn't being used as if it were.

It was used to show that there are many people in FFXIV that use trackers, when someone said there were very few to none.

As a number, all it is able to do is illustrate that there are indeed many people that use trackers, even in games where people there there are few. It performs that function well.

Fiia

Personally, I love trackers because I really love min-maxxing and trying to get the most out of my class and gear. Imo not having any kind of dps estimation options limits the design of boss encounter mechanics, e.g. if players do not have the option of estimating their dps then you cannot include hard boss enrage phases that require the raid group to do x amount of total dps. Furthermore, for me (and this is just my feeling) not doing high dps is like failing my group, I want to be sure to contribute as best as I can towards completing the task, e.g. killing raidbosses.

I'd be content with having a built-in tracker that just tells you whether you're doing good damage or not, e.g. it has 5 indicators that tell you how good your current dps is: low dps, low-mid dps, mid-dps, mid-high dps, high-dps. (I know this would come with lots of implementation "baggage", but I don't want to do a deep dive, it's just an idea)

And to those of you who are of the belief that trackers are unnecessary, I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just that time and time again it has been shown that you cannot get rid of them, FFXIV is probably the most prominent example of that. I think the only way to circumvent that is to approach this by offering players a compromise.

That said, I think the tracker should absolutely not show any kind of incoming damage and other types of statistics, e.g. number of interrupts, otherwise it really is, as others have stated, a kind of cheat that makes encounters too easy.

Aerlana

Mag7spy wrote: »

It isn't a choice, that is a cop out to get trackers into the game to allow people to use their own third party trackers and attempt to make them standard.

Any competitive guild will simply ignore the perk get something else and use a third party tracker since the game allows for trackers.

An ingame tracker for reasons will be better than any third party.
tracker in FFXIV are called parsers because... they parse. they literally read the combat log, and convert it into datas easy to read. But it has flaws. When i was still playing, DOT/HOT were not clear information even in the log, (if i remember well it was just [Character] does XXX damages to [target]) And was quite a problem to do a well analysis for summoner/scholar by itself. Also, due to this system two people of the same party on same fight had slightly different results. not big deal, it was other players character that were not totally accurate (and still close to reality).

With ingame built tracker, you don't parse, you can do it far more accurate, and even gives some minor informations that you won't put in combat log (that are already heavy).
A good ingame combat tracker will be more efficient than third party one.

Also : on FFXIV, they can't ban tracker users, (as they can't mod users, also totally against TOS)
They can't have proof, and their ban of anyone kicking other people explaining "my parser says you are bad DPS" made a simple reaction : silent kick, no one speak about it. . .
fflogs is not even a proof of parser use : one player in any team will parse the 8 man of the party, and upload it. It is impossible for SE to know who out of those 8 did use the parser...
And i claimed using parser on forum, never banned... because this claim could be fake, and so, they would ban me without good reason that can be a problem. so yes on topic using parser, people claimed using it or not using it and... nothing happened.

Now lets get in AoC with guild perk tracker. We will have an official tracker, people can use to theorycraft, speak with other, share their experimentation, results, and discuss. In such situation sharing data from tracker are a common thing right ? If anyone come, and share information that can be verified (so not just "my tracker said i was doing 23789 DPS" ) but that is clearly not the official tracker (because the screenshot is obviously another one for example) it will for sure be anyone using a third party tool... And probably, in AoC tos as in FFXIV, WoW or any mmorpg i know TOS : third party tools are forbidden. there you can kick him.
And in theorycraft discussions, people have to share informations, and have to be able to be sure the information are not fake.
If you want to discuss on forum about datas, and sharing yours, you will have to share it from the official tracker.

you will say "BS people will use a third party not the official, and not share information on forum" lets admit this case... ... What is the difference with the current situation you are defending ? I highly doubt it after being one of those guild, but even if you are true, this idea will just have the same result as if it didnt exist... loss = 0

Maybe i would use this one even if risky, due to my will to push myself higher to help friends better... but people with bad behaviour almost want to show how big their D...PS is they want to prove it, to flex ! not my case of player in casual group that want to minmax his gameplay for the simple fun to... minmax it...

This guild perk is a way to have a limited and regulated use of tracker on the game. If it fails, it will change nothing in the current situation. The question it is not "will people be able to use tracker or not" but "how people will use it ?"

MaiWaifu

Just out of curiosity, do you guys use DPS meters in all games?

If you're not using meters and stats in single player games and only using them in online team games. You have to admit that the biggest reason is to inflate e-Peen and not really to just min-max and improve yourself; and I don't just mean picking items with higher stats.

I think the vast majority of people play solo games without meters because their focus is on entertainment instead of spreadsheeting. I don't see anyone making a DPS meter for Skyrim to figure out the perfect rotation for shout, spell and weapon meta.

But like I said before, DPS meters should either be available for everyone as an inbuilt function or make all meters/3rd party tools a hard ban on usage.

Allowing them as a 3rd party optional tool, just means running into the same balance issue other MMO's suffer from. The people using them will outperform the average player to the extreme. This makes encounters either far too easy or far too difficult and the focus shifts from playing for fun.

Guildwars 2 is an example of this, even the developers claim that certain people deal 3-5x more damage than the average player.

You could claim that they should instead rebalance the game so that it increases difficulty to a relevant level but then take a look at Path of Exile's current ongoing issues with loot and game balance for end game. They are currently trying to balance around their top end players that use external tools and this is causing issues for everyone else.

Some content is literally impossible without a guide or extensive theorycrafting outside of the game beforehand.

Noaani

MaiWaifu wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, do you guys use DPS meters in all games?

I use what ever data and tools I have available in what ever game I play.

But like I said before, DPS meters should either be available for everyone as an inbuilt function or make all meters/3rd party tools a hard ban on usage.

The problem is - there is literally no way to ban them.

This means making them available to all - which is what I have been saying for a few years now (via a guild perk).

take a look at Path of Exile's current ongoing issues with loot and game balance for end game. They are currently trying to balance around their top end players that use external tools and this is causing issues for everyone else.

This isn't a problem.

The developers develop the top end content to match top end players. This is just how it works.

The issue arises when people that are not top end players think they should be able to take on top end content just like top end players do.

Obviously, this is not how it should be. If non-top end players can take on top end content, then actual top end players have no content.

MaiWaifu

Noaani wrote: »

The developers develop the top end content to match top end players. This is just how it works.

The issue arises when people that are not top end players think they should be able to take on top end content just like top end players do.

Obviously, this is not how it should be. If non-top end players can take on top end content, then actual top end players have no content.

I should correct myself, this isn't something limited to endgame. Being able to use trackers or external tools at any stage of the game will have detrimental effect and create cookie-cutter builds which the developers have to somehow skirt around.

Using PoE as an example again; a new player in PoE dies multiple times in Act 1 and 2 - during the tutorial stages of the game.

The average player in PoE dies multiple times in Act 3. Probably even more when they encounter both Kitava fights.

A top end player can finish all 10 Acts within a day with barely any difficulty. The average player can take 3 days to finish and even then, they will still not be ready for endgame content.

The balance creep isn't limited to just endgame. It means early content can be trivialised and cannot be balanced appropriately for the same reasons endgame cannot.

Noaani wrote: »

This means making them available to all - which is what I have been saying for a few years now (via a guild perk).

I only disagree with making a guild perk. If it's in, just make it for everyone so it's clear what the game is being balanced around.

If it's not in the game by default at all stages of play, the game is just going to run into the same issues of some people finding the content either too easy or too hard.

Noaani

MaiWaifu wrote: »

The balance creep isn't limited to just endgame. It means early content can be trivialised and cannot be balanced appropriately for the same reasons endgame cannot.

Top end players should be able to trivialize all content that isn't top end content.

If all content was made to be a challenge for top end players (note; top end players, not top end characters), then the average player will have no chance at all at it.

I mean, imagine if in PoE an encounter with Uber Elders mechanics was in The Crossroads - even if scaled for level, almost no one but top end players would get past. I mean, the fight doesn't have any unfair mechanics, or any scaling or things like that - it is just a fairly hard fight. There is a reason it is end game(ish), not mid game.

I only disagree with making a guild perk. If it's in, just make it for everyone so it's clear what the game is being balanced around.

This fits in to what I said above.

If only top end guilds have the tracker (because other guilds picked a perk that they consider more useful to them), then it is only top end content where the tracker is really in effect.

Developers don't develop low or mid tier content to top end player skill and sensibilities, they develop it to low and mid tier players. As such, if those low and mid tier players do not use a tracker, then the content will not be designed around them using a tracker.

The potential issue that I am sure you will bring up about top end players trivializing content designed for low end players due to having a tracker is a non-issue - that content is already trivial to us, which is precisely why it is low end content.

MrPockets

@Noaani Do you mind humoring me for a sec? I'm hoping to better understand where you are coming from.

A quick thought experiment. Let's say we have an MMO that managed to hide all their combat information to the point where trackers couldn't provide any information. Let's also assume that the game's top end is just as difficult as any other MMO we are used to. Could you see yourself having fun in that game?

MaiWaifu

Noaani wrote: »

The potential issue that I am sure you will bring up about top end players trivializing content designed for low end players due to having a tracker is a non-issue - that content is already trivial to us, which is precisely why it is low end content.

Yeah this is the part that I have issue with.

If the idea is that the same resources such as iron or leather is meant to be relevant at all levels. It means content which provide them will just be brain dead and boring once you hit max level, this is without even min-maxing using a tracker to make it more efficient.

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