Hardest content in game shouldn't mean looking at combat logs so you can understand it and have an advantage. It simply means its too hard and you can't do it on your own.
You are doing it on your own. You have to take the time to do research and practice. It's just tools it's not telling you how to do it or doing it for you.
If it doesn't require that then the content would be too easy to keep hardcore players engaged. There is content that my friends and I can wing. New dungeons come out and we blind run them. We do generic strats, figure out some mechanics and one shot them. Those are now done. One day and the content is over. That's too easy for us.
The combat logs are a tool. Tools that many hardcore players enjoy to see their progress and learn what to improve on. If you don't need them, that suggests to me that the content is too easy. If it takes weeks or months of engagement then a lack of combat logs will be frustrating. I know this isn't just my unique opinion. There is a large community of endgame raiders that do this and enjoy the process. Raid, research, grind, practice, progress. The progress after all that work is rewarding.
That progress - after months of effort, research, practice, trial and error and discussion - is by far the most rewarding thing I've ever had in gaming.
I cant really imagine how empty the feeling would be based on what Steven seems to want players to do, which is essentially guess what is going on.
This is again why we are able to say PvE players wanting good PvE wont (indeed *AREN'T*, for the most part) even looking at Ashes.
The games systems dont allow for rewarding content like other games allow for.
Parsing is cancer, people will do anything just to look good in score
It is the same shitty system EVE Online has, EVE has the zkillboard, so people do 0.1% damage on a target, then they shoot the next target... then the next... so people end up killing no one but they share thousands of kills as if they were some kind of PvP god. Dudes are just F1 monkeys and kill whores repeatdly scoring 0.1% damage on every target
I would rather people measure their build in a tranning room and then leave it behind, with no parsing... no real time dps meters... otherwise people play for scoring and not for doing their jobs in the raids and in the fights
Should be trying to synergize abilities with others in the group to maximize strengths and shore up weaknesses - as well as "doing their job".
(And, we shouldn't need to rely on dps meters or trackers to figure that out.)
In order for people to maximize strengths and shore up weaknesses and not rely on a combat tracker to do so, those strengths and weaknesses need to be blatantly obvious.
The problem with blatantly obvious strengths and weaknesses is that it pigeonholes classes.
The absolute best case scenario with the kind of class setup is that groups will be forced to look for specific classes to finish off their group, so as to plug in the obvious weaknesses the group has.
Keep in mind with this as well, an aspect of a class that matters to content needs to be multiplied by four in order for players to notice it at all. What may look like a small issue to players is in fact a gaping hole to content.
The above does of course assume difficult content that challenges players.
So I'm guessing your argument is a lot of smaller details will be something players don't realize and add up, and only way for it to be clear so they know is to make it obvious and a lot easier.
I'd simply say you don't need a tracker for that you do the work and figure it out yourself overtime. Using a tool makes it easier and takes difficulty away since you have the answer instead of having to work though it, socialize and have experience to find the best answer over time.
Even though there is nothing about it in the wiki or in the streams that I watched I wonder if this will never happen. Maybe it will
Ashes is a dynamic game, with the mechanics of raids and dungeons changing from session to session.
There will always be people who believe they have discovered the meta, but... there are also people who believe the Earth is flat.
I'd simply say you don't need a tracker for that you do the work and figure it out yourself overtime. Using a tool makes it easier and takes difficulty away since you have the answer instead of having to work though it, socialize and have experience to find the best answer over time.
These things can be done manually. It's just so incredibly tedious it's ridiculous when the game already does it anyway. It's like having a secretary record every death, the time and what caused it. Record all your outgoing and incoming damage numbers. How much damage did that cause when you had this skill up, what about that skill?
You can record your raid and watch the video to find all these things. It's just a ridiculous amount of work when the game should just give you a combat log that can be parsed through instead. After 3 hours of raiding it's too much information to keep track of while playing. The game has that information anyway, just let us see it.
I'd simply say you don't need a tracker for that you do the work and figure it out yourself overtime. Using a tool makes it easier and takes difficulty away since you have the answer instead of having to work though it, socialize and have experience to find the best answer over time.
These things can be done manually. It's just so incredibly tedious it's ridiculous when the game already does it anyway. It's like having a secretary record every death, the time and what caused it. Record all your outgoing and incoming damage numbers. How much damage did that cause when you had this skill up, what about that skill?
You can record your raid and watch the video to find all these things. It's just a ridiculous amount of work when the game should just give you a combat log that can be parsed through instead. After 3 hours of raiding it's too much information. The game has that information anyway, just let us see it.
All things should take work, there should not be a quick way to answer anything even more so for end game content.
All things should take work, there should not be a quick way to answer anything even more so for end game content.
The work is problem-solving, communicating and working with teammates. The work of creating a log from a video recording is just ridiculous tedious work when it should be standard to just have a combat log. It's a simple tool every game should have. It doesn't give you answers, it isn't a cheat, it's just the information already available to you.
All things should take work, there should not be a quick way to answer anything even more so for end game content.
So, we should manually hammer in every shingle when building a roof instead of using a nail gun because it should take more work for 0 reason whatsoever. O.o
All things should take work, there should not be a quick way to answer anything even more so for end game content.
So, we should manually hammer in every shingle when building a roof instead of using a nail gun because it should take more work for 0 reason whatsoever. O.o
You've grown complacent with games wanting things to be done for you then understanding figuring things on your own and doing all the work required. AoC also has a combat log and I'm sure you will know damage done to you and damage you do and you can use that information to figure out what you need personally.. There there shouldn't be point where you start viewing other players around you just because they are in your party so you can create a dps meter out of it.
You've grown complacent with games wanting things to be done for you then understanding figuring things on your own and doing all the work required. AoC also has a combat log and I'm sure you will know damage done to you and damage you do and you can use that information to figure out what you need personally.. There there shouldn't be point where you start viewing other players around you just because they are in your party so you can create a dps meter out of it.
There is a huge point. In endgame team based combat it's about team synergy, not just you. Timing everyone's abilities has a huge impact on each person's performance. It's not a group of individuals it's a team. If you see a drop in your incoming healing, damage out, damage in it could be a million factors that you would have no clue about.
I've seen games without resources available to end game raiders. Those raiders will figure out a way around it and if you want to be an endgame raider you will be expected to work with the team. It's just extra leg work and annoyance for everyone when it should just be provided.
In ashes, based on similar cases, I would expect end game raiders to upload their personal combat logs and provide videos of their runs. More work for the raider and a ton more work for the raid leader. Something that shouldn't need to be done in (insert release year here).
I'm also skeptical about how much a strictly personal log can actually provide if it's deprived of any outer sources.
You've grown complacent with games wanting things to be done for you then understanding figuring things on your own and doing all the work required. AoC also has a combat log and I'm sure you will know damage done to you and damage you do and you can use that information to figure out what you need personally.. There there shouldn't be point where you start viewing other players around you just because they are in your party so you can create a dps meter out of it.
There is a huge point. In endgame team based combat it's about team synergy, not just you. Timing everyone's abilities has a huge impact on each person's performance. It's not a group of individuals it's a team. If you see a drop in your incoming healing, damage out, damage in it could be a million factors that you would have no clue about.
I've seen games without resources available to end game raiders. Those raiders will figure out a way around it and if you want to be an endgame raider you will be expected to work with the team. It's just extra leg work and annoyance for everyone when it should just be provided.
In ashes, based on similar cases, I would expect end game raiders to upload their personal combat logs and provide videos of their runs. More work for the raider and a ton more work for the raid leader. Something that shouldn't need to be done in (insert release year here).
I'm also skeptical about how much a strictly personal log can actually provide if it's deprived of any outer sources.
Everyone knows its about the group, still don't need to be viewing the people in the group and trying to dps meter them will never agree with that. All that mean nothing half the time since people do what is best to look good, if there is a issue in the group its up to you to figure that out and help your members without needing to watch numbers on every single member every second. Its goal is just to min max through logs than figure stuff out in game and during gameplay.
Everyone knows its about the group, still don't need to be viewing the people in the group and trying to dps meter them will never agree with that. All that mean nothing half the time since people do what is best to look good, if there is a issue in the group its up to you to figure that out and help your members without needing to watch numbers on every single member every second. Its goal is just to min max through logs than figure stuff out in game and during gameplay.
The dirty truth is that if there is a combat log, there is a dps meter. If you want to get into endgame groups you will upload your log. That will be your dps meter. Even if they didn't have that it would be something else. How long to kill a standard mob that the community agrees on. Used to have that in games I played before they had resources to help track.
I don't care about live readouts personally. They are nice, but after the fact, logs tell all. We can see who lies to look better, who just cares about only their own performance and who are real team players. People we want to go through the grinding progression of the hardest content with. It will happen one way or another, it's just a matter of how hard AoC makes it on us to retain hardcore PvEers.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I want to go through the hardest content with people I enjoy playing with - couldn't care less about combat logs. Nor would I want to play with people who do.
So, I'm all for making the reliance on combat trackers as tedious as possible.
Parsing is cancer, people will do anything just to look good in score
It is the same shitty system EVE Online has, EVE has the zkillboard, so people do 0.1% damage on a target, then they shoot the next target... then the next... so people end up killing no one but they share thousands of kills as if they were some kind of PvP god. Dudes are just F1 monkeys and kill whores repeatdly scoring 0.1% damage on every target
I would rather people measure their build in a tranning room and then leave it behind, with no parsing... no real time dps meters... otherwise people play for scoring and not for doing their jobs in the raids and in the fights
Should be trying to synergize abilities with others in the group to maximize strengths and shore up weaknesses - as well as "doing their job".
(And, we shouldn't need to rely on dps meters or trackers to figure that out.)
In order for people to maximize strengths and shore up weaknesses and not rely on a combat tracker to do so, those strengths and weaknesses need to be blatantly obvious.
The problem with blatantly obvious strengths and weaknesses is that it pigeonholes classes.
The absolute best case scenario with the kind of class setup is that groups will be forced to look for specific classes to finish off their group, so as to plug in the obvious weaknesses the group has.
Keep in mind with this as well, an aspect of a class that matters to content needs to be multiplied by four in order for players to notice it at all. What may look like a small issue to players is in fact a gaping hole to content.
The above does of course assume difficult content that challenges players.
So I'm guessing your argument is a lot of smaller details will be something players don't realize and add up, and only way for it to be clear so they know is to make it obvious and a lot easier.
I'd simply say you don't need a tracker for that you do the work and figure it out yourself overtime. Using a tool makes it easier and takes difficulty away since you have the answer instead of having to work though it, socialize and have experience to find the best answer over time.
Having a tracker doesn't prevent the need for social interaction with others. If anything, it increases the willingness of people to participate in that discussion - as many people are happy to discuss objective observations where they wouldnt be comfortable talking about subjective feelings they have on what should be an objective topic.
The social aspect of combat trackers is really weird for people to use to argue against trackers. I have spent literally entire nights - from 8pm theough until 6am when I needed to start getting ready for work - just talking to friends about raid encounters we were working on. The presence of a combat tracker can not be said to have any negative impact on the social aspects of running top end content.
I want to go through the hardest content with people I enjoy playing with - couldn't care less about combat logs. Nor would I want to play with people who do.
As do I.
Here's the thing though - you and i both know we wouldnt enjoy running content with each other.
Anyone that has your outlook on MMO's is simply not someone that i would enjoy running content with. Likewise, i assume you wouldnt enjoy running content with anyone that has my outlook on MMO's
As such, the presence or absence of a combat tracker can simply be viewed by people such as ourselves as an indication as to whether or not we would enjoy running content with a given group of players.
This is the basic concept of the proposal to have a tracker as a guild perk option. If there are other valid options a guild could take, you would look at any guild that picks the tracker option as not being a guild suited to you, and I would look at a guild that passes it by as a guild not suited to me.
It isnt the presence of the tracker that is causing this to happen, it is simply a case of the guilds in question showing everyone their priorities with the perks they pick, and us looking for guilds with the same priorities as our own.
Without a tracker, we would likely both come to the same conclusions. A guild that would opt to take a tracker if one were available is probably still a guild you wouldnt want to be in, even without a tracker being an option. Likewise, a guild that wouldnt take a tracker if one were available isnt a guild i would ever be happy joining
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
By playing a lot maybe?
Tools like that are a way of speeding up something that is tedious and for some, not fun at all. Or to manage something without depending on that one friend who can do it easily without the meter, or the drama of 'two friends with similar ability but different base assumptions who just argue about it for days'.
Also there's 'improve' and then 'improve to max/near max level'.
Other than that, depends on the game type. You'd know best yourself what types of games you played and what their difficulty levels were. For some games my friends would do much better if they had them, for others they don't care at all. It'd be good if Ashes was the second type, but it's harder for a fantasy MMO to be that type.
I feel like nobody took the time to watch/understand this video @Mag7spy posted. I think it does a good job expressing why people are against accessible dps meters in game. Of course they will exist, and of course people will still do it. But the amount of players involved in "parsing culture" can (in theory) be mitigated.
a small quote from that video:
"Nobody is going to stop using parses. This is just the way WoW players are programmed. Do big Number; anything that gets in the way of that, won't happen. So if they have to move, they won't move. If they have to hit an add, they won't hit the add. If they have to stop to cast a spell, it's not going to happen. You just have to play around it, because you can't untrain people to not parse in WoW, especially classic WoW. They will parse, and that's it, they're like bots." - Asmongold
This is ultimately why people claim things of this nature are bad for the game, it can fundamentally shift the player culture to playing "like bots" (others might call it "ruining the social experience").
I feel like nobody took the time to watch/understand this video @Mag7spy posted. I think it does a good job expressing why people are against accessible dps meters in game. Of course they will exist, and of course people will still do it. But the amount of players involved in "parsing culture" can (in theory) be mitigated.
a small quote from that video:
"Nobody is going to stop using parses. This is just the way WoW players are programmed. Do big Number; anything that gets in the way of that, won't happen. So if they have to move, they won't move. If they have to hit an add, they won't hit the add. If they have to stop to cast a spell, it's not going to happen. You just have to play around it, because you can't untrain people to not parse in WoW, especially classic WoW. They will parse, and that's it, they're like bots." - Asmongold
This is ultimately why people claim things of this nature are bad for the game, it can fundamentally shift the player culture to playing "like bots" (others might call it "ruining the social experience").
This is a combination of WoW being the suckfest/lowest common denominator for this genre (regardless of how good it is, a similarly great game would also by nature become this) and the fact that people like the big numbers either way.
A game where 1 person can tank without the DPS basically ever having to control their DPS and look for alternate utility + mechanics that just require basic dodging + bosses that are made difficult by the application of the DPS check + the Shiny Red Floor will lead to this.
The thing is, it leads to this in all similar games, people just look to 'how fast can I kill X' or 'what is the biggest individual number I can do'. Lack of parsers mostly just 'excludes people who have other less visible metrics.
From that perspective, having no Combat Log to parse would just make the community worse, the difference would be that they wouldn't notice because they'd segregate harder.
Do we really want the Sustained DPS player with the 'elitist' attitude shoved into the 'casual' guilds because they can't prove their build to the players with a similar mindset?
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
Objectively speaking, how do you know you improved?
If you were measuring yourself against other players, people are inconsistent and can get worse as easily as they can get better.
If you are measuring yourself against PvE content, developers make unannounced changes to this all the time and so your "improvements" could just as easily be alterations to content.
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
Objectively speaking, how do you know you improved?
If you were measuring yourself against other players, people are inconsistent and can get worse as easily as they can get better.
If you are measuring yourself against PvE content, developers make unannounced changes to this all the time and so your "improvements" could just as easily be alterations to content.
well, by going something like... i can farm 500 mobs per, hour but if I do it this other way, I can farm 700, and then if I add this other thing I can do 800, etc etc.
or, I can kill this boss in 5 minutes, but if I change this thing on my build or use this other combo instead, I can kill it in 4
and when it comes to pvp, well at first id die a lot then id die less and get more kills. people who could beat me, now cant.
i wonder how players improved before there were any dps meters or in games that didn't have them
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
Objectively speaking, how do you know you improved?
If you were measuring yourself against other players, people are inconsistent and can get worse as easily as they can get better.
If you are measuring yourself against PvE content, developers make unannounced changes to this all the time and so your "improvements" could just as easily be alterations to content.
well, by going something like... i can farm 500 mobs per, hour but if I do it this other way, I can farm 700, and then if I add this other thing I can do 800, etc etc.
or, I can kill this boss in 5 minutes, but if I change this thing on my build or use this other combo instead, I can kill it in 4
and when it comes to pvp, well at first id die a lot then id die less and get more kills. people who could beat me, now cant.
What are you using to count mobs?
Also, how do you know the mobs aren't being altered between tests? I've seen developers alter mobs on a weekly basis in a surprisingly high percentage of games. Not massive changes, just two or three percent HP or damage output, small things like that.
They often tend to alter mobs to make them slightly easier over time, because developers are really smart and they know people like to feel a sense of progression. Making mobs (especially - but not exclusively - boss mobs) ever so slightly easier over time means players just "going by feel" will always feel a sense of progression - literally exactly as you are talking about here.
And let's not forget about games that have an amount of randomization in mob stats as they spawn. The differences you are talking about could easily be attributed to a run in the games RNG, and you would have literally no idea.
So, I'm not saying you did or did not progress as a player, but I am saying that you cant say that either - because you really dont know.
Parsing ruins the social experience, it ruins the games balance, it prevents the game from evolving and having corrected UI, it introduces toxicity of every kind that exists, it makes players lazy, it makes them unable to adapt, it eliminates their ability to insinuate things about the game, it stagnates build options, and it introduces incentive to not play as a team.
As long as boss mechanics are visually expressed players will eventually learn how to react to it. The reason mechanics in WoW never got an upgrade to how they were expressed is because of parsing. If the program tells you that you have a debuff then the company will assume that their systems are why you were able to identify it. Without parsing people will eventually complain about not being able to know certain information and it would naturally be fixed.
The only real annoying thing about MMO's is how important debuffs can be and how to counter them. No game ever fixed this. They all suck at it. Like no progress was ever made to it ever. Stuck at square 1. Parsing is the sole reason for this. Hopefully the developers have the foresight to see this issue and fix it ahead of time. Otherwise it will eventually be fixed for not having parsing. Debuffs need icons to show what type of debuff it is and an idea for what it does. So at a glance you can choose to deal with it or not.
The damage parsing does to a game is permanent, but never introducing it or never allowing it will prevent it's problems.
Parsing ruins the social experience, it ruins the games balance, it prevents the game from evolving and having corrected UI, it introduces toxicity of every kind that exists, it makes players lazy, it makes them unable to adapt, it eliminates their ability to insinuate things about the game, it stagnates build options, and it introduces incentive to not play as a team.
Every single point here is factually incorrect.
Some of these are just incorrect, however, with some of them, the literal opposite is true.
Combat trackers increase social interactions and the social experience.
Combat trackers prove or disprove game balance - whether that balance exists or not is 100% on developers.
I have no idea at all what you mean by preventing the game having a corrected UI.
Combat trackers do not cause toxicity, toxic players do.
Combat trackers do not make players lazy, they give players a reason to keep improving even if there is currently no need to improve. However, lazy people will continue to be lazy people.
Combat trackers are literally all about assisting players in adapting.
Combat trackers do not prevent players from insinuating things about the game. All they do is give players a means by which to prove or disprove that insinuation.
Combat trackers speed up the rate at which new builds are developed. If a game with high combat tracker use has a stagnant meta around builds, it is 100% on the developers again.
Combat trackers either prove or disprove the need to work as a team. So once again if people are using a combat tracker and find the best thing to do is to not work as a team, that is 100% on the developers.
Its funny people will defend the use of these tools and say people are the issue and not the tools ignoring the effects they cause on players. Which is pretty much just being dishonest. Its like akin to saying guns aren't the issue people are so there should be no reason allowing easier to use and more powerful weapons out there since they don't cause issues.
Both sides will never agree with people for it wanting to take the soul out and look at things as 101 rather than being honest with the reality of cause and effect.
Its funny people will defend the use of these tools and say people are the issue and not the tools ignoring the effects they cause on players. Which is pretty much just being dishonest. Its like akin to saying guns aren't the issue people are so there should be no reason allowing easier to use and more powerful weapons out there since they don't cause issues.
Both sides will never agree with people for it wanting to take the soul out and look at things as 101 rather than being honest with the reality of cause and effect.
See, here's the thing.
Guns are tools. Many people literally need guns. People living in more rugged parts of the world need them for protection from things like bears. Farmers need them for dealing with a number of pests. Hunters need them for hunting.
The problem with guns comes when people that dont need them, have them.
Same with combat trackers. I have never said or suggested that all players should use them. Most dont care, and of those that do care, half still dont know how to use them properly.
This is literally the reason the suggestion I have always made has been based around dangling other options in front of players - something people that cant make proper use out of a combat tracker would find significantly more appealing.
Its funny people will defend the use of these tools and say people are the issue and not the tools ignoring the effects they cause on players. Which is pretty much just being dishonest. Its like akin to saying guns aren't the issue people are so there should be no reason allowing easier to use and more powerful weapons out there since they don't cause issues.
Both sides will never agree with people for it wanting to take the soul out and look at things as 101 rather than being honest with the reality of cause and effect.
See, here's the thing.
Guns are tools. Many people literally need guns. People living in more rugged parts of the world need them for protection from things like bears. Farmers need them for dealing with a number of pests. Hunters need them for hunting.
The problem with guns comes when people that dont need them, have them.
Same with combat trackers. I have never said or suggested that all players should use them. Most dont care, and of those that do care, half still dont know how to use them properly.
This is literally the reason the suggestion I have always made has been based around dangling other options in front of players - something people that cant make proper use out of a combat tracker would find significantly more appealing.
Comments
You are doing it on your own. You have to take the time to do research and practice. It's just tools it's not telling you how to do it or doing it for you.
If it doesn't require that then the content would be too easy to keep hardcore players engaged. There is content that my friends and I can wing. New dungeons come out and we blind run them. We do generic strats, figure out some mechanics and one shot them. Those are now done. One day and the content is over. That's too easy for us.
The combat logs are a tool. Tools that many hardcore players enjoy to see their progress and learn what to improve on. If you don't need them, that suggests to me that the content is too easy. If it takes weeks or months of engagement then a lack of combat logs will be frustrating. I know this isn't just my unique opinion. There is a large community of endgame raiders that do this and enjoy the process. Raid, research, grind, practice, progress. The progress after all that work is rewarding.
Indeed.
That progress - after months of effort, research, practice, trial and error and discussion - is by far the most rewarding thing I've ever had in gaming.
I cant really imagine how empty the feeling would be based on what Steven seems to want players to do, which is essentially guess what is going on.
This is again why we are able to say PvE players wanting good PvE wont (indeed *AREN'T*, for the most part) even looking at Ashes.
The games systems dont allow for rewarding content like other games allow for.
So I'm guessing your argument is a lot of smaller details will be something players don't realize and add up, and only way for it to be clear so they know is to make it obvious and a lot easier.
I'd simply say you don't need a tracker for that you do the work and figure it out yourself overtime. Using a tool makes it easier and takes difficulty away since you have the answer instead of having to work though it, socialize and have experience to find the best answer over time.
There will always be people who believe they have discovered the meta, but... there are also people who believe the Earth is flat.
These things can be done manually. It's just so incredibly tedious it's ridiculous when the game already does it anyway. It's like having a secretary record every death, the time and what caused it. Record all your outgoing and incoming damage numbers. How much damage did that cause when you had this skill up, what about that skill?
You can record your raid and watch the video to find all these things. It's just a ridiculous amount of work when the game should just give you a combat log that can be parsed through instead. After 3 hours of raiding it's too much information to keep track of while playing. The game has that information anyway, just let us see it.
All things should take work, there should not be a quick way to answer anything even more so for end game content.
I agree 100%.
The work is problem-solving, communicating and working with teammates. The work of creating a log from a video recording is just ridiculous tedious work when it should be standard to just have a combat log. It's a simple tool every game should have. It doesn't give you answers, it isn't a cheat, it's just the information already available to you.
So, we should manually hammer in every shingle when building a roof instead of using a nail gun because it should take more work for 0 reason whatsoever. O.o
You've grown complacent with games wanting things to be done for you then understanding figuring things on your own and doing all the work required. AoC also has a combat log and I'm sure you will know damage done to you and damage you do and you can use that information to figure out what you need personally.. There there shouldn't be point where you start viewing other players around you just because they are in your party so you can create a dps meter out of it.
There is a huge point. In endgame team based combat it's about team synergy, not just you. Timing everyone's abilities has a huge impact on each person's performance. It's not a group of individuals it's a team. If you see a drop in your incoming healing, damage out, damage in it could be a million factors that you would have no clue about.
I've seen games without resources available to end game raiders. Those raiders will figure out a way around it and if you want to be an endgame raider you will be expected to work with the team. It's just extra leg work and annoyance for everyone when it should just be provided.
In ashes, based on similar cases, I would expect end game raiders to upload their personal combat logs and provide videos of their runs. More work for the raider and a ton more work for the raid leader. Something that shouldn't need to be done in (insert release year here).
I'm also skeptical about how much a strictly personal log can actually provide if it's deprived of any outer sources.
Everyone knows its about the group, still don't need to be viewing the people in the group and trying to dps meter them will never agree with that. All that mean nothing half the time since people do what is best to look good, if there is a issue in the group its up to you to figure that out and help your members without needing to watch numbers on every single member every second. Its goal is just to min max through logs than figure stuff out in game and during gameplay.
The dirty truth is that if there is a combat log, there is a dps meter. If you want to get into endgame groups you will upload your log. That will be your dps meter. Even if they didn't have that it would be something else. How long to kill a standard mob that the community agrees on. Used to have that in games I played before they had resources to help track.
I don't care about live readouts personally. They are nice, but after the fact, logs tell all. We can see who lies to look better, who just cares about only their own performance and who are real team players. People we want to go through the grinding progression of the hardest content with. It will happen one way or another, it's just a matter of how hard AoC makes it on us to retain hardcore PvEers.
So, I'm all for making the reliance on combat trackers as tedious as possible.
Having a tracker doesn't prevent the need for social interaction with others. If anything, it increases the willingness of people to participate in that discussion - as many people are happy to discuss objective observations where they wouldnt be comfortable talking about subjective feelings they have on what should be an objective topic.
The social aspect of combat trackers is really weird for people to use to argue against trackers. I have spent literally entire nights - from 8pm theough until 6am when I needed to start getting ready for work - just talking to friends about raid encounters we were working on. The presence of a combat tracker can not be said to have any negative impact on the social aspects of running top end content.
As do I.
Here's the thing though - you and i both know we wouldnt enjoy running content with each other.
Anyone that has your outlook on MMO's is simply not someone that i would enjoy running content with. Likewise, i assume you wouldnt enjoy running content with anyone that has my outlook on MMO's
As such, the presence or absence of a combat tracker can simply be viewed by people such as ourselves as an indication as to whether or not we would enjoy running content with a given group of players.
This is the basic concept of the proposal to have a tracker as a guild perk option. If there are other valid options a guild could take, you would look at any guild that picks the tracker option as not being a guild suited to you, and I would look at a guild that passes it by as a guild not suited to me.
It isnt the presence of the tracker that is causing this to happen, it is simply a case of the guilds in question showing everyone their priorities with the perks they pick, and us looking for guilds with the same priorities as our own.
Without a tracker, we would likely both come to the same conclusions. A guild that would opt to take a tracker if one were available is probably still a guild you wouldnt want to be in, even without a tracker being an option. Likewise, a guild that wouldnt take a tracker if one were available isnt a guild i would ever be happy joining
'DPS Meters' technically came before the games that use them, so this has never been a situation that mattered.
But for the games that don't have them but could theoretically benefit from them, they probably relied on either 'a programmer that didn't reveal they were using one' (there wouldn't really be a reason to tell your play partners about your detailed hours of writing a parser since most people don't care), or one of those people with the 'talent' to do the same thing without the tool.
Or the last way which was popular for a bit. Tons of people assume something is impossible, then one group figures it out basically by luck since there's less competition, less interference, etc.
Some people like it this way.
I have played games without dps meters o-o and people (and me) improve in those games. so how did we do it?
By playing a lot maybe?
Tools like that are a way of speeding up something that is tedious and for some, not fun at all. Or to manage something without depending on that one friend who can do it easily without the meter, or the drama of 'two friends with similar ability but different base assumptions who just argue about it for days'.
Also there's 'improve' and then 'improve to max/near max level'.
Other than that, depends on the game type. You'd know best yourself what types of games you played and what their difficulty levels were. For some games my friends would do much better if they had them, for others they don't care at all. It'd be good if Ashes was the second type, but it's harder for a fantasy MMO to be that type.
I feel like nobody took the time to watch/understand this video @Mag7spy posted. I think it does a good job expressing why people are against accessible dps meters in game. Of course they will exist, and of course people will still do it. But the amount of players involved in "parsing culture" can (in theory) be mitigated.
a small quote from that video:
"Nobody is going to stop using parses. This is just the way WoW players are programmed. Do big Number; anything that gets in the way of that, won't happen. So if they have to move, they won't move. If they have to hit an add, they won't hit the add. If they have to stop to cast a spell, it's not going to happen. You just have to play around it, because you can't untrain people to not parse in WoW, especially classic WoW. They will parse, and that's it, they're like bots." - Asmongold
This is ultimately why people claim things of this nature are bad for the game, it can fundamentally shift the player culture to playing "like bots" (others might call it "ruining the social experience").
This is a combination of WoW being the suckfest/lowest common denominator for this genre (regardless of how good it is, a similarly great game would also by nature become this) and the fact that people like the big numbers either way.
A game where 1 person can tank without the DPS basically ever having to control their DPS and look for alternate utility + mechanics that just require basic dodging + bosses that are made difficult by the application of the DPS check + the Shiny Red Floor will lead to this.
The thing is, it leads to this in all similar games, people just look to 'how fast can I kill X' or 'what is the biggest individual number I can do'. Lack of parsers mostly just 'excludes people who have other less visible metrics.
From that perspective, having no Combat Log to parse would just make the community worse, the difference would be that they wouldn't notice because they'd segregate harder.
Do we really want the Sustained DPS player with the 'elitist' attitude shoved into the 'casual' guilds because they can't prove their build to the players with a similar mindset?
Asmon is good at simplifying things.
Sometimes that's not helpful.
Kinda like having no parser.
Objectively speaking, how do you know you improved?
If you were measuring yourself against other players, people are inconsistent and can get worse as easily as they can get better.
If you are measuring yourself against PvE content, developers make unannounced changes to this all the time and so your "improvements" could just as easily be alterations to content.
well, by going something like... i can farm 500 mobs per, hour but if I do it this other way, I can farm 700, and then if I add this other thing I can do 800, etc etc.
or, I can kill this boss in 5 minutes, but if I change this thing on my build or use this other combo instead, I can kill it in 4
and when it comes to pvp, well at first id die a lot then id die less and get more kills. people who could beat me, now cant.
Also, how do you know the mobs aren't being altered between tests? I've seen developers alter mobs on a weekly basis in a surprisingly high percentage of games. Not massive changes, just two or three percent HP or damage output, small things like that.
They often tend to alter mobs to make them slightly easier over time, because developers are really smart and they know people like to feel a sense of progression. Making mobs (especially - but not exclusively - boss mobs) ever so slightly easier over time means players just "going by feel" will always feel a sense of progression - literally exactly as you are talking about here.
And let's not forget about games that have an amount of randomization in mob stats as they spawn. The differences you are talking about could easily be attributed to a run in the games RNG, and you would have literally no idea.
So, I'm not saying you did or did not progress as a player, but I am saying that you cant say that either - because you really dont know.
As long as boss mechanics are visually expressed players will eventually learn how to react to it. The reason mechanics in WoW never got an upgrade to how they were expressed is because of parsing. If the program tells you that you have a debuff then the company will assume that their systems are why you were able to identify it. Without parsing people will eventually complain about not being able to know certain information and it would naturally be fixed.
The only real annoying thing about MMO's is how important debuffs can be and how to counter them. No game ever fixed this. They all suck at it. Like no progress was ever made to it ever. Stuck at square 1. Parsing is the sole reason for this. Hopefully the developers have the foresight to see this issue and fix it ahead of time. Otherwise it will eventually be fixed for not having parsing. Debuffs need icons to show what type of debuff it is and an idea for what it does. So at a glance you can choose to deal with it or not.
The damage parsing does to a game is permanent, but never introducing it or never allowing it will prevent it's problems.
U.S. East
Some of these are just incorrect, however, with some of them, the literal opposite is true.
Combat trackers increase social interactions and the social experience.
Combat trackers prove or disprove game balance - whether that balance exists or not is 100% on developers.
I have no idea at all what you mean by preventing the game having a corrected UI.
Combat trackers do not cause toxicity, toxic players do.
Combat trackers do not make players lazy, they give players a reason to keep improving even if there is currently no need to improve. However, lazy people will continue to be lazy people.
Combat trackers are literally all about assisting players in adapting.
Combat trackers do not prevent players from insinuating things about the game. All they do is give players a means by which to prove or disprove that insinuation.
Combat trackers speed up the rate at which new builds are developed. If a game with high combat tracker use has a stagnant meta around builds, it is 100% on the developers again.
Combat trackers either prove or disprove the need to work as a team. So once again if people are using a combat tracker and find the best thing to do is to not work as a team, that is 100% on the developers.
Both sides will never agree with people for it wanting to take the soul out and look at things as 101 rather than being honest with the reality of cause and effect.
See, here's the thing.
Guns are tools. Many people literally need guns. People living in more rugged parts of the world need them for protection from things like bears. Farmers need them for dealing with a number of pests. Hunters need them for hunting.
The problem with guns comes when people that dont need them, have them.
Same with combat trackers. I have never said or suggested that all players should use them. Most dont care, and of those that do care, half still dont know how to use them properly.
This is literally the reason the suggestion I have always made has been based around dangling other options in front of players - something people that cant make proper use out of a combat tracker would find significantly more appealing.
You are completely missing the point.