DPS Meter Megathread

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Ludullu

I mean, the whole discussion comes down to this:

Intrepid say: we don't want addons/meters/trackers and want to forbid them
Tracker people say: we don't fucking care about that, ya ain't gonna stop us
Non-tracker people say: the tracker people will be using trackers to clear hard content and will require us to use them too if we want to join them (or require us to adhere to what it says), which we consider toxic

To me this sounds same as entitled pvers demanding pve servers or entitled pvpers demanding no corruption servers. The only difference is that Intrepid can completely limit either of those entitled people through mechanics and be up-front about it. And they have, with their "not for everyone" line.

And the problem mainly comes from Intrepid saying they want to have complex bosses w/o going into any kind of detail as to how they want to achieve that, and the tracker people saying that no boss can be difficult enough if it wasn't designed with tacker people in mind.

In other words, after these 141 pages, Intrepid just need to finally explain their boss design and either tell tracker people "you're included in the "everyone" that we talk about" or say "we realize that in order to have properly difficult bosses we'll need to provide particular tools, so tell us which ones those are".

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

I mean, the whole discussion comes down to this:
Intrepid say: we don't want addons/meters/trackers and want to forbid them

Tracker people say: we don't fucking care about that, ya ain't gonna stop us

Non-tracker people say: the tracker people will be using trackers to clear hard content and will require us to use them too if we want to join them (or require us to adhere to what it says), which we consider toxic

To me this sounds same as entitled pvers demanding pve servers or entitled pvpers demanding no corruption servers. The only difference is that Intrepid can completely limit either of those entitled people through mechanics and be up-front about it. And they have, with their "not for everyone" line.

And the problem mainly comes from Intrepid saying they want to have complex bosses w/o going into any kind of detail as to how they want to achieve that, and the tracker people saying that no boss can be difficult enough if it wasn't designed with tacker people in mind.

In other words, after these 141 pages, Intrepid just need to finally explain their boss design and either tell tracker people "you're included in the "everyone" that we talk about" or say "we realize that in order to have properly difficult bosses we'll need to provide particular tools, so tell us which ones those are".

I do not intend to use a Tracker for Ashes if the desire of the developers is that we do not use them.

I do not intend to compete with other people that I will expect to be using trackers either, though, especially not in an owPvP game (it does not matter if a given thing is instanced or not).

See what I'm getting at here?

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

See what I'm getting at here?

That you won't play the game if Intrepid doesn't allow trackers cause people like Noaani will definitely use trackers no matter what Intrepid say and you'd have to compete with them then which you don't intend to do?

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

See what I'm getting at here?

That you won't play the game if Intrepid doesn't allow trackers cause people like Noaani will definitely use trackers no matter what Intrepid say and you'd have to compete with them then which you don't intend to do?

I'm simply saying that anything that says 'Intrepid won't allow trackers so we don't need to discuss this', leads only to a situation in which everyone who follows the Vision is playing a self-imposed challenge run.

I don't see a reason to take a competitive game seriously in that situation, do you?

EDIT: Why hate on P2W/RMT but not Tracker usage? Oh, wait, y'all don't want Tracker usage, fine. Can you stop it? No, but people can be convinced you can. Yay. At least RMT, you could actually stop.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I don't see a reason to take a competitive game seriously in that situation, do you?

I meaaaaaan, I'm different like that. That's been my permanent state at all times

In L2 I went against the basic meta of my class and still won against people who followed it. And I loved fighting uphill because that's just what's interesting to me. Except my interest doesn't influence everyone else in the game, while using trackers does, because as Noaani likes to say "devs will have to adjust for that in future design", which will influence everyone in the game.

And as I see it, if everyone's under the same "challenge" then it is still a competition. A couple's 3-legged race can be won super easily by a single person running normally, but if you forbid those single people from doing so (because those are the rules) - you have yourself a 3-legged competition.

But we've kinda discussed this before. Everyone has their preferences in gaming, which is why this has been going on for 140+ pages. Noaani and everyone else has just been discussing their opinions and preferences back and forth, which is an endless activity.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I don't see a reason to take a competitive game seriously in that situation, do you?

I meaaaaaan, I'm different like that. That's been my permanent state at all times In L2 I went against the basic meta of my class and still won against people who followed it. And I loved fighting uphill because that's just what's interesting to me. Except my interest doesn't influence everyone else in the game, while using trackers does, because as Noaani likes to say "devs will have to adjust for that in future design", which will influence everyone in the game.

And as I see it, if everyone's under the same "challenge" then it is still a competition. A couple's 3-legged race can be won super easily by a single person running normally, but if you forbid those single people from doing so (because those are the rules) - you have yourself a 3-legged competition.

But we've kinda discussed this before. Everyone has their preferences in gaming, which is why this has been going on for 140+ pages. Noaani and everyone else has just been discussing their opinions and preferences back and forth, which is an endless activity.

Ah, this is sorta sad, I feel like if even you believe this, then Mag's brute force 'tactic' actually worked.

I thought it would take a better turn, for example when Dolyem shifted to the understanding that you can't actually even detect these.

Cause that's the core of it, but I guess if you repeat irrelevance enough times, even someone like you blanks out the actual point?

Or is it that you simply ignore the potential for the tracker even if the tracker is absolutely undetectable? I guess you could also 'believe that there is a way to design a game so that a tracker doesn't help' but then I feel like it's worked twice over.

Would you like a video on the current state of AimBots, or is that a waste too?

EDIT: You can just search Arduino Aimbot Valorant. Enjoy.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Or is it that you simply ignore the potential for the tracker even if the tracker is absolutely undetectable? I guess you could also 'believe that there is a way to design a game so that a tracker doesn't help' but then I feel like it's worked twice over.

Oh, I know perfectly well that they're untraceable. I'm past that point. Which is why I said that I need Intrepid to decide what they want to do. If they're fine with losing the tracker people as a part of their target audience - that would be completely fine with me, but you or Noaani would probably find the game utterly boring because bosses won't be designed in a way that would be satisfying for you.

But again, that decision can only come after they reveal what their boss design is exactly. Just like Dygz fell off the game after the open seas update, I'd assume any hardcore tracker users would say that they are no longer interested in the game if Intrepid explicitly state "we're gonna track how people do the content. If a group of people easily clears it, while every other raid struggles - we will keep designing the game for those who're still struggling".

Songcaller

Hell no. No nerfs please. People can struggle but it's the struggle that makes the reward special. Nerfs to content makes everyone think less of the content and rewards are cheapened.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

Hell no. No nerfs please. People can struggle but it's the struggle that makes the reward special. Nerfs to content makes everyone think less of the content and rewards are cheapened.

It's not about the nerfs though. It's about a small group of people that use an outside of the game tool that lets them to beat the content much easier than they would've otherwise. So instead of appealing purely to this group of people Intrepid could disregard their opinion and just keep making the content that's still difficult for the 99% of players.

But again though, that would only work if Intrepid drop the "<10% clearable" thing they promised, because otherwise they'd need to appeal to exactly that small group of people who use trackers no matter what Intrepid say just because they don't care about what rules the game has.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Or is it that you simply ignore the potential for the tracker even if the tracker is absolutely undetectable? I guess you could also 'believe that there is a way to design a game so that a tracker doesn't help' but then I feel like it's worked twice over.

Oh, I know perfectly well that they're untraceable. I'm past that point. Which is why I said that I need Intrepid to decide what they want to do. If they're fine with losing the tracker people as a part of their target audience - that would be completely fine with me, but you or Noaani would probably find the game utterly boring because bosses won't be designed in a way that would be satisfying for you.

But again, that decision can only come after they reveal what their boss design is exactly. Just like Dygz fell off the game after the open seas update, I'd assume any hardcore tracker users would say that they are no longer interested in the game if Intrepid explicitly state "we're gonna track how people do the content. If a group of people easily clears it, while every other raid struggles - we will keep designing the game for those who're still struggling".

I don't see how it is a decision?

Less interesting bosses are just more reason in a competitive game for the sort of person who does this, to go from 'Parser' to 'bot'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlsBaQWfE58

Parsers are for fun. If you take the fun away from the sort of person who makes this, they find their fun in making it. That's why there's, y'know, a site.

The last thirty pages might as well have been called "Why do you want to lose to bots?"

(The video implies that the webcam method is beyond our capacity now, but I don't know why they have that conclusion as it is obviously not, it just requires a combination of the sort of thing from the link with one specific camera-to-monitor frequency-sync, which is entirely mechanical)

The only time I've written one of these was for precisely the reason given. Just a dumb little FaceBook game that was kind of fun to design your character but boss battles were tedious 'wait for animation, click next button depending on what boss did'.

Fighting the boss the first time was always done without the 'cheat' running because it was FUN. Only when I had it figured out and 'had it on farm' would it be time to go 'ok right, set the correct parameters for beating it and farm it, and if it manages to flag a scenario that my parameters/code don't handle, great! Time for more fun! Otherwise, go do something else and collect rewards in 20m'.

Even if all the hardcore tracker users leave they will be replaced with advanced botters instead due to the design.

How is this possibly better?

(Mag will tell you that it doesn't work in PvP. I write PvP logic all the time, I think I've mentioned it before, it's useful for practice opponents, more useful than people)

Songcaller

I don't remember Intrepid stating 10% clearable. Noanni focuses on 1% because 1% was stated by Intrepid. If 10% manages the content I imagine the content will be made harder.

Azherae

Neurath wrote: »

I don't remember Intrepid stating 10% clearable. Noanni focuses on 1% because 1% was stated by Intrepid. If 10% manages the content I imagine the content will be made harder.

A single digit percentage of the population will be capable of defeating certain content.[9]
There will be some in-depth raiding that has multiple stages that will be extremely difficult and... It would definitely be in the single digits of population that will be capable of defeating certain content... It doesn't mean that there won't be content available for the larger percentages as well... There should be a tiered level of content that players can constantly strive to accomplish. If there is no ladder of progression and everything is flat and all content can be experienced, then there is no drive to excel.[9] – Steven Sharif

EDIT: This isn't so much a counterpoint as 'a reminder of what exactly is being discussed'. No harm in posting it again.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

How is this possibly better?

If undetectable botters can easily beat any boss that Intrepid makes, then how would Intrepid even counter that? Trackers wouldn't change that in any way.

If Intrepid sticks with the open world boss goal and then the botters create bots that can both kill the difficult boss and anyone who comes to pvp them - at that point I'd just say let them, because there's literally nothing you can do.

I guess I'm a defeatist when it comes to that kind of a scenario? Cause I literally see no way where Intrepid could combat an untraceable bot raid that excels at both pve and pvp. Designing with trackers in mind would not change that situation, because the botters would be literally the same as you or Noaani. They'll figure out how to beat the boss, write the bot for it and go do it. And no one will stop them because the bots are literal best players in the game (allegedly).

So if the ultimate result is "botters will win no matter what you do", then I'd rather play w/o trackers in the game and enjoy it as long as I can for what it is. To me, those botters would be ruining the game in the same way the tracker people would if Intrepid stays with the "no addon/meter/tracker" rule, because both would be breaking the rules of the game to have their fun, completely disregarding what other people think about it. But maybe I'm just too big of a stickler for the rules, or just like the currently presented rules and want everyone to follow them and live happily ever after. Though I know that no one will, cause people don't care if their fun ruins someone else's fun.

Songcaller

We diced around comprehensive combat trackers on a very early page some years ago which is why we've requested IS Devs build the tracker. The girls don't want a comprehensive combat tracker (Bot), the girls just want a combat tracker (dps meter).

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

Hell no. No nerfs please. People can struggle but it's the struggle that makes the reward special. Nerfs to content makes everyone think less of the content and rewards are cheapened.

It's not about the nerfs though. It's about a small group of people that use an outside of the game tool that lets them to beat the content much easier than they would've otherwise.

Ir wont be a small group though.

If Ashes is a game people see themselves playing long term, even with the current difficulty of running a tracker, 25%+ of the games population will run one.

If it becomes easier, 50%+ will run one.

The thing is, most people dont give trackers a second thought. It's just a tool that MMO's have. If people get in the game and decide they want to stay for a while, googling to find a tracker is just a think most people will do at some point.

As to guilds clearing content with a tracker vs without a tracker, and Intrepid designing content for the guilds that struggle with it, I'm not sure this would ever happen.

With content being open world, I have doubts that guilds not using trackers would ever kill a top end mob.

Ludullu

Neurath wrote: »

We diced around comprehensive combat trackers on a very early page some years ago which is why we've requested IS Devs build the tracker. The girls don't want a comprehensive combat tracker (Bot), the girls just want a combat tracker (dps meter).

From a very very very rough understanding of the ACT thing, I thought it was just a glorified combat log. My only problem with it is that it's omniscient and gives you information that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And the arguments of "have mechanics that can only be noticed through parcing the tracker" only reinforce that for me.

I personally don't want that kind of design. If that leads to a "boring" encounter that can only be made more interesting through pvp (well, more fun for those who even care about pvp) - so be it. But Intrepid have talked themselves into a corner with their current promises so my current position doesn't mean shit really.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

As to guilds clearing content with a tracker vs without a tracker, and Intrepid designing content for the guilds that struggle with it, I'm not sure this would ever happen.

With content being open world, I have doubts that guilds not using trackers would ever kill a top end mob.

And either of those statements can only be clarified by Intrepid, which is literally what I want from them at this point. Some details or a clarification on their position, be it updated or not.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

How is this possibly better?

If undetectable botters can easily beat any boss that Intrepid makes, then how would Intrepid even counter that? Trackers wouldn't change that in any way.

If Intrepid sticks with the open world boss goal and then the botters create bots that can both kill the difficult boss and anyone who comes to pvp them - at that point I'd just say let them, because there's literally nothing you can do.

I guess I'm a defeatist when it comes to that kind of a scenario? Cause I literally see no way where Intrepid could combat an untraceable bot raid that excels at both pve and pvp. Designing with trackers in mind would not change that situation, because the botters would be literally the same as you or Noaani. They'll figure out how to beat the boss, write the bot for it and go do it. And no one will stop them because the bots are literal best players in the game (allegedly).

So if the ultimate result is "botters will win no matter what you do", then I'd rather play w/o trackers in the game and enjoy it as long as I can for what it is. To me, those botters would be ruining the game in the same way the tracker people would if Intrepid stays with the "no addon/meter/tracker" rule, because both would be breaking the rules of the game to have their fun, completely disregarding what other people think about it. But maybe I'm just too big of a stickler for the rules, or just like the currently presented rules and want everyone to follow them and live happily ever after. Though I know that no one will, cause people don't care if their fun ruins someone else's fun.

You're missing my point again I think?

If the boss is difficult, bots are hard, but Trackers are likely to be used.

If the boss/Mechanic is easy, Trackers are unlikely to be necessary but bots are easy.

If you must make a tradeoff between the supposed 'toxicity of a tracker' and the actual toxicity of 'bots that can win at the game', you'll choose the bots? You probably don't see it as being that binary, and it definitely is not, but as I've said before, this is 'being offered a solution to some of the real part of an otherwise illusory problem' and then 'choosing to perceive the illusion as the bigger problem than the flipside'.

Being defeatist is EXACTLY what you need to not do here, because this ISN'T a matter of 'Intrepid should just give up'. They can design bosses that are hard enough that bots are not worth writing (because the code for ACTING on information gathered is much more complicated), but the 'information gathering' part of the code is going to be written by SOMEONE (which affects content consumption speed, but if the content is fun, the 'problem' can be somewhere between 'elitists complaining that the game is too easy while they keep playing it' and 'harmless').

So I'm trying to convince people to NOT be defeatist. DON'T give in to Botters because some asshole said that someone's DPS wasn't good enough. Don't give in to RMT bot farmers because 'Intrepid will have a strong stance against botting'. There are design solutions to these things. They may not all be painless, but is it really just not worth it? Is it so hard to just believe the EverQuest player who tells you 'it's fine it's not all that toxic if the game is good'.

We are hoping for the game to be good, right?

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

We diced around comprehensive combat trackers on a very early page some years ago which is why we've requested IS Devs build the tracker. The girls don't want a comprehensive combat tracker (Bot), the girls just want a combat tracker (dps meter).

From a very very very rough understanding of the ACT thing, I thought it was just a glorified combat log. My only problem with it is that it's omniscient and gives you information that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And the arguments of "have mechanics that can only be noticed through parcing the tracker" only reinforce that for me.

I personally don't want that kind of design. If that leads to a "boring" encounter that can only be made more interesting through pvp (well, more fun for those who even care about pvp) - so be it. But Intrepid have talked themselves into a corner with their current promises so my current position doesn't mean shit really.

ACT is more like what a spreadsheet is to a bunch of numbers on a page.

We will have those numbers. That is the information. The spreadsheet just makes that information easier to understand and digest. It means we can process it in our brains easier and faster.

The amount of information available to players hasn't changed at all, the only change is the way it is presented.

Edit; at least, this is how it is in most games. In Ashes, the tracker may need to find it's own information rather than rely on developer supplied logs (which is what trackers generally use as their data source).

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Neurath wrote: »

We diced around comprehensive combat trackers on a very early page some years ago which is why we've requested IS Devs build the tracker. The girls don't want a comprehensive combat tracker (Bot), the girls just want a combat tracker (dps meter).

From a very very very rough understanding of the ACT thing, I thought it was just a glorified combat log. My only problem with it is that it's omniscient and gives you information that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And the arguments of "have mechanics that can only be noticed through parcing the tracker" only reinforce that for me.

I personally don't want that kind of design. If that leads to a "boring" encounter that can only be made more interesting through pvp (well, more fun for those who even care about pvp) - so be it. But Intrepid have talked themselves into a corner with their current promises so my current position doesn't mean shit really.

It's not information you wouldn't have had otherwise generally, its information that overloads a normal person's cognition.

And here is my problem with that, precisely. Analogy time? This one's probably good.

You can play Chess online. Chess is a very complicated game and sometimes you are 10 moves PAST the point where you made the losing move when you realize you are losing. On a computer you can probably review by quickly loading up and checking the previous few moves (yes, even while the game is going on). But you're still losing.

The 'information that the Tracker gives you' is equivalent to being able to VISUALIZE THE BOARD instead of 'having to do it all in your mind'. Imagine it. You have no board, you have no pieces, you're effectively 'in a room with the log of the game floating in front of you'.

I'm not saying 'this shouldn't be how games are'. I'm saying that someone who watches a Chessmaster figure out the right thing to do due to their ability to just visualize a chessboard, and can't do it, has more incentive to go 'that's unfair, I'm gonna go get a chess set so I can do it without being some kind of savant/spending 5 hours to do what they did in 10 minutes'.

And I BELIEVE that Noaani is saying the equivalent of 'Why would you bother to do it without a chessboard when there's going to be one within arm's reach of everyone else anyway?'

Harder bosses overwhelm 'normal people'. The 'purity' of the game might be retained if you could somehow make all those people unable to use a tool to help them, but you can't. So now you can probably be sure that some subsection of 'normal people who can't do it without the Tracker' will go get the Tracker. Because this is a competition, and they're losing it.

One of the main reasons developers don't ever know how difficult something is to do, is because the human brain is one of the best pattern matching systems we know to exist. So devs make errors like 'Well, no one can consistently do this 1-frame counter' or 'no one could notice the statistical variance structure of this' or 'no one could figure out that there's one frame on which if you stand right here the hitbox for this attack won't get you', and my favorite 'no one could keep perfect track of exactly how much damage they have done to this mob'.

Until someone does. And then others want to, and if they find tools to let them, they use those tools. But this doesn't mean Devs should give up on designing cool things. It means they should give up on designing what they think are 'hard' things and focus on making those things chaotic and fun so that no one even cares about the fact that using the tracker is part of the game at high levels for non-savants.

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