DPS Meter Megathread

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Azherae

Sapiverenus wrote: »

@Azherae
Trying to make up for the lack of features with number interactions that have no presence in the game except as numbers is bad game design.

That's the only context that really matters here. Everything else is fiddling with pennies while the pounds are ignored.
Either there is design or standins for design.

You can ignore me. My goal is to work within what Intrepid gives me.

They gave me Healing that had a CritRate (or something that looked like a CritRate? It was definitely 'random chance of more healing, at least), so I went with that and figured I would need to figure out what that Crit Rate was and determine the formula for the healing spell.

Your call as to if it is a 'standin for design' or not, it's still subject to change. I'll let you know if I still have a CritRate in Alpha-2.

Sapiverenus

The less it is about numbers the less important discussion about numbers is though.
It's a game that might be in development for 5 more years lmao and it is LEAN on design.

If you are simply a person wanting a good game then all of this is rather pertinent to you.

If a good idea is fleshed out and mechanically understood it can be patched into a game within days. DAYS. DAYS.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

If I understand your usual stance correctly, the answer is 'you shouldn't care'?

In most cases yeah, that'd be the response. If the game accounted for that kind of granularity and also wanted to implement rng on that level, I'd hope it would have debuffs like "block/remove target's healing received bonuses". And if you have those kinds of debuffs in the game (both some mobs and some classes) - you'd have to adjust your builds correctly.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

If I understand your usual stance correctly, the answer is 'you shouldn't care'?

In most cases yeah, that'd be the response. If the game accounted for that kind of granularity and also wanted to implement rng on that level, I'd hope it would have debuffs like "block/remove target's healing received bonuses". And if you have those kinds of debuffs in the game (both some mobs and some classes) - you'd have to adjust your builds correctly.

That's an interesting perspective (from where I stand) because I feel like 'Healing Received Bonus' was part of Passives...

So that would mean there was a debuff that would preferentially block an ability that a Tank put skill points into (and potentially not affect a Tank that didn't put any points in it). Either way, thank you for the data.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

That's an interesting perspective (from where I stand) because I feel like 'Healing Received Bonus' was part of Passives...

So that would mean there was a debuff that would preferentially block an ability that a Tank put skill points into (and potentially not affect a Tank that didn't put any points in it). Either way, thank you for the data.

I mainly based it on experience of this thing. Iirc it worked for plain regen passives too, though don't remember for sure.

Ludullu

And just as a base logical thing to do, if you have a bonus to smth I'd expect you to have a debuff against that bonus. Play and counterplay.

Noaani

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Let it be transparent where it should be

See, on this point, we agree.

If a games combat system is transparent enough, a tracker isn't needed.

"Transparent enough" to me means I can look back at an encounter while in game and see how much damage a given ability did and when, how much damage a given damage type did, etc. If a game is to be considered transparent, these things are the minimum threshold, imo. If a game.is indeed this transparent, then a tracker isn't needed, because the game essentially has one built in already.

As an aside, having a tracker built in to Ashes is what my argument here is.

In the past, most MMO's have gotten around adding a tracker to the game simply by allowing third party trackers access to the data in a log file. This allowed those games to have full transparency. These games did unload a small amount of what could be described as "preferences" on to third party developers, with trackers and custom UI's being the main aspects that developers left up to third parties.

In terms of the player base deciding whether or not Ashes is transparent, they will be comparing it to other games in the same genre. I mean, when it comes to something like transparency of a product, all you can do is compare it to similar products.

So, Ashes will be held up to games where third party developers have combat trackers - literally every other MMO ever made.

If Ashes can be held up to those games and be considered to be at least close to comparable in terms of transparency of it's systems, then again, a third party combat tracker isn't needed - because the only real way to achieve that is to have a built in combat tracker.

Sapiverenus

@Noaani

Why are you calling that transparency when it is adding an extra function of logging everything for you. When something is there when it's there, clearly visible, it is transparent.
When it records what has happened and hands you the info it is Tracking; an extra function beyond transparency.

A game only needs enough transparency that you know what is happening when it is relevant for you to know what is happening. Obfuscating numbers is entirely up to the big picture of the game; which you ensure to pretend to control or know for sure at all times because you are a grasping control-freak that has some Plan for Ashes of Creation.

Some classes may have a more accurate view of information than others. Instead of demanding everyone get the same transparency, just play the class that is best at seeing the damage most transparently. If you want to see Health and Healing most transparently, perhaps it is the Cleric you should be playing.

Information is a design choice that determines different power dynamics and thus emergent results. You are simply fixated and have some Plan in Mind for The Game.
This MMO could wind up being nothing like any other MMO and play more like Guitaroo Man for all you know; in which case I would laugh and your Plans would be ruined.

How it is that you treat a video game, the game itself, like a Business is insane. It is for that reason you are in all likelihood a fuckin' Botter.

Sapiverenus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SfsRFf7Vw

Noaani

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Why are you calling that transparency when it is adding an extra function of logging everything for you.

Transparency is being able to see what is happening, and generally also why it is happening.

I don't know if you have ever been involved in a top end raid kill, but if you have, you will know that there is literally no time at all to look around at things. You need to be focusing on what you are doing right at that point in time, and if you stop focusing on what you need to be doing (to, for example, look at what someone else is doing, or what the mob is doing), you will cause your raid to wipe, often instantly.

As such, transparency in the context of an MMO needs to be able to happen after the fact.

Restricting transparency to that one point in time is like having a nice clear, transparent window, and then smothering it in mud on one side. Sure, the window is still transparent, but the mud is stopping you from seeing.

In order for that window to be functionally transparent, it needs to not have that mud on it. In order for a games combat system to be transparent, you need to be able to look at things after the fact.

A game only needs enough transparency that you know what is happening when it is relevant for you to know what is happening.

Agreed.

It is relevant for me to know what is happening when - and only when - it involves myself, or a member of my group or raid.

If none of these three things are involved, it is not relevant to me, and as such I do not need to know.

If any one of these three things is involved, this is when we start comparing Ashes to other games. Other games allow me to see what my group or raid is up to, if Ashes does not allow that, then the combat is not transparent.

Information is a design choice

Incorrect.

Players absolutely will have access to the information we want. Even if Intrepid literally decide that the client is just a streaming terminal and doesn't display any actual combat stats - people like me will have that data.

That said, we know for a fact that it is not Intrepids intention to prevent players from having access to data - again, Steven has outright said there will be a combat log.

This MMO could wind up being nothing like any other MMO and play more like Guitaroo Man for all you know; in which case I would laugh and your Plans would be ruined.

Saying things like this is just silly.

We know a lot about the intention of the game. You may as well be saying that for all we know, the game could end up being a comedy special on Netflix rather than a game. It is as likely a scenario.

When we talk about this game on these forums, we make the assumption that what we have been told about the game is how the game will be. If that changes at a later date, then our assumptions change, and we are able to change how we talk about the game.

However, for now, we assume the game will be as per Intrepids intention. This includes the fact that Ashes will have a combat log.

How it is that you treat a video game, the game itself, like a Business is insane.

I don't, and I am unsure why you think I am.

Aerlana

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Trackers are not important. Logs are not important. They detract from the game. Everyone that likes them or think they're important don't care about creating an immersive and well-designed game; they assume the MMO is dogshit but that means less competition or something.

Global chat and proxy chat are not important, they detract from the game. Everyone that likes them or think they're important don't care about creating an immersive and well designed game, etc...

Backpack system is not important, it detract from the game. Everyone that likes them or think they're important don't care about creating an immersive and well designed game

You know what is fun with people claiming things as truth without any argument ? Their logic can be applied to dismantle their own topic they defend.

Oh, and... as global/proxy chat defenders are saying "just turn of tracker if your guild get this perk"

So, to finish to argument the way you do, i would simply say "stop replying" ... this would be better for yourself v_v

Sapiverenus

Having to focus on your UI instead of the game is bad game design.
I do not think Ashes of Creation will be designed as a UI with a game attached to it. That is a realistic assessment.

I am fine with your entire raid being unable to figure out what is going on because you don't have a tracker. I'm not assuming there will be a 1 week timer on everything or that it needs to get done in as time-efficient a manner as possible. I assume that whatever debuffs will be clear in some way, such as cleric noticing they are not healing enough on Tank over-time and the Tank has been focused; and physical dmg dealers noticing they are doing less damage after the AoE goop hit them.

I assume many debuffs will be more clearly cast on people and whatever buffs in your UI may receive a clear indication that they have been affected, or simply be listed as a debuff with a generic and identifiable Effect Icon.
Hopefully the game doesn't require or create much of any UI at all and you are fine just figuring out that the Necromancer impedes healing LOL

You could try electing an Officer that is good at multi-tasking to assist in looking over what is going on with other people, communicating, and leading them, such as 1 Officer per group of 8.
You could have people practice before a raid by playing the game which, if it were designed more as I suggested, would basically train people to react to what's happening including debuffs. Unlike WoW.

Retail WoW gets goofy and isn't really relevant though.

You generally have no reason to try and figure out whether your team went into a raid viable since you have every way of figuring that out beforehand besides experiencing the raid firsthand; while in the raid the debuffs should make themself pretty clear and you can focus on the mechanical aspect of the game.

1 week timers on raids may not even be in the game and I assume they won't be. You can retry content as much as resources allow in all likelihood. You are playing too much WoW.

Sapiverenus

@Aerlana
But I don't like global chat either, so what's your point?
And I want physical backpacks over inventories. what is it you are trying to say; that all of those suggestions are extreme?
Well you know my position lol. Immersion all the way

Aerlana

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Immersion all the way

your ideas are for YOUR immersion, not mine. Your ideas have nothing to do with "immersion" in what makes me immerse in MMORPG. You should reconsider your opinions from being a universal truth, to being your own tastes

Immersion is personnal feeling, i am totally in favor of a deep immersion in game, and against most your ideas...

But here i just used your rethoric, to take other topics (yours but not only) and show this sentence work also...

Noaani

Sapiverenus wrote: »

I am fine with your entire raid being unable to figure out what is going on because you don't have a tracker. I'm not assuming there will be a 1 week timer on everything or that it needs to get done in as time-efficient a manner as possible. I assume that whatever debuffs will be clear in some way, such as cleric noticing they are not healing enough on Tank over-time and the Tank has been focused; and physical dmg dealers noticing they are doing less damage after the AoE goop hit them.

The problem with this is that in a raid of 40 players, in a game with a combat system worth a damn, there are literally hundreds (as in, many multiple hundreds) of such effects on the go at any one point in time across the raid.

Indeed, if you are trying to look at buffs and debuffs on all players, as well as on all mobs, there are times when there will literally be over a thousand of these on the go. You literally can not keep track of them all.

You may just say something along the lines of "well, maybe Ashes will be different, maybe it won't have as many effects".

All I can say to that is that if it is the case, the games combat system will feel as if it is designed for children.

Sapiverenus

Aerlana wrote: »

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Immersion all the way

your ideas are for YOUR immersion, not mine. Your ideas have nothing to do with "immersion" in what makes me immerse in MMORPG. You should reconsider your opinions from being a universal truth, to being your own tastes

Immersion is personnal feeling, i am totally in favor of a deep immersion in game, and against most your ideas...

But here i just used your rethoric, to take other topics (yours but not only) and show this sentence work also...

I don't know what it is you're disagreeing with.

I liked all the immersive things you suggested 'sarcastically'.

Remove global chat and instead of inventories, have literal backpack space with a backpack on your back that can be removed. Sounds good.

Sapiverenus

@Noaani

It is not your job to notice on average 2.5 - (25???) debuffs across every person, w hich would mostly be copies of the same thing.

Get Officers.

Most of it is common sense (Plauge guy causing debuff to healing or requiring shit like "Cure Disease" in WoW, spreading disease, health lowering and said DoT probably spreading easily due to proximity) and retreats should be part of strategy & tactics anyway.

Noaani

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Get Officers.

Ok. All this tells me is that you have never been involved in an organized top end raid.

Top end raids don't need officers - because literally every player in the raid is good enough to be the raid leader. That is how we get top end - you can't drag along people that are not able to watch out for things them self.

That said, top end raid content is designed to challenge a raid full of people that could be raid leaders.

Most of it is common sense

Not at the top end it isn't.

You know why it isn't? Because raid content at the top end has a content developer that is literally doing everything they can to screw with top end players.

Low end raid content is built in a way where common sense rules. Get out of the fire, cure the disease, that kind of stuff.

This kind of thing is the raiding equivalent of a tutorial. Of course you don't need a tracker for that, and if that is all you think raiding is, of course you won't think a tracker is worth having.

Top end content is designed to turn that on it's head. "Here, two identical diseases for you - cure the wrong one and the raid wipes" (this was an aspect of the design of a mob that saw me boot the only person from a raid that I have ever booted).

Or even better - "get out of the fire now or die - and by the way you are all rooted in place, tripped and stunned - there is no way you can deal with all three of these in time. Have fun working that one out".

Top end raid content is literally designed to not be intuitive, to not make sense. It would be easy if it were designed like that, and thus wouldn't be top end content at all.

Sapiverenus

Top end raiding is based on the base game.

If the base game is more complicated then you don't need 25 random effects in top end raiding; or at least they aren't random.

The mirrored diseases are only obfuscated if the icons are identical. If they're different then it's simpler to recall which was chosen but it sounds like a poor base game trying to pull tricks that would be a lot better if it was just a regular part of the game and had a good reason to exist in the first place.

I don't see how curing one disease would trigger the other but it reminds me of some Host-Parasite shit. Advanced healing mechanics and advanced wounds would be great in general.
"defusing the bomb" is interesting but I'm not sure how one would execute on that idea lol without it being completely random when talking about Diseases. Requires more depth to the whole idea of healing and disease I guess.

Trying to get more mechanics out of Cure Disease should begin early in the leveling process not randomly in a raid.

Why hide such juicy shit in a raid that's 1000 hours away? Why not design that into the base game?

Putting everything in the end of the game is just idiocracy.

Cure Disease bomb is pretty bad though.

Noaani

Sapiverenus wrote: »

The mirrored diseases are only obfuscated if the icons are identical.

Of course they are identical, so is the tooltip.

It would be a trivial mechanic without that.

Trying to get more mechanics out of Cure Disease should begin early in the leveling process not randomly in a raid.

Sure, I agree here.

The thing is, you start to get more out of it earlier on in the game - but that doesn't mean you stop trying to get more out of it at the top end.

Why hide such juicy shit in a raid that's 1000 hours away? Why not design that into the base game?

Ok, so not only have you not played top end raid content, it would seem you haven't played many MMORPG's at all.

New mechanics are introduced at the raid level. While there, us raiders essentially pick them to bits, find bugs, find issues and find limitations.

Then, those mechanics are released to the rest of the game.

This is just how it works. It may not be the only way it could work, but it is the only way any MMO I have ever played has done things. I have no expectation of Intrepid doing any different.

If they introduce everything to group content first, how are raids supposed to provide players with new experiences after they have run that group content?

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