@Depraved We can all play T&L and jump on the same server and take out our anger there on each other
Confidentially, of course. If we all had Test keys and lived in the appropriate regions.
Which, to be clear, I am not saying that we do or do not.
whats ur discord name?
my discord is "Mag7spy" lol
edit It might be mag7spyy
oh nvm, ur not in that discord i may or may not be talking about. come play l2 tho
I am also definitely not in whatever discord you are not necessarily referring to, and I will definitely not update you nor anyone else if that changes.
@Depraved We can all play T&L and jump on the same server and take out our anger there on each other
Confidentially, of course. If we all had Test keys and lived in the appropriate regions.
Which, to be clear, I am not saying that we do or do not.
whats ur discord name?
my discord is "Mag7spy" lol
edit It might be mag7spyy
oh nvm, ur not in that discord i may or may not be talking about. come play l2 tho
I am also definitely not in whatever discord you are not necessarily referring to, and I will definitely not update you nor anyone else if that changes.
well updates are irrelevant because im also not there, so i wouldnt be able to do anything with that info 8D
@Depraved We can all play T&L and jump on the same server and take out our anger there on each other
Confidentially, of course. If we all had Test keys and lived in the appropriate regions.
Which, to be clear, I am not saying that we do or do not.
whats ur discord name?
my discord is "Mag7spy" lol
edit It might be mag7spyy
oh nvm, ur not in that discord i may or may not be talking about. come play l2 tho
I am also definitely not in whatever discord you are not necessarily referring to, and I will definitely not update you nor anyone else if that changes.
well updates are irrelevant because im also not there, so i wouldnt be able to do anything with that info 8D
edit, im talking about the l2 discord lol
i thought you were talking about the T&L tech alpha discord lol
There have been a number of posters here that have changed the opinion of the game I had from 2004 or so onwards. However, I still know enough about it to know it isn't a game I would enjoy at all.
I am fully aware that Ashes may fall in to that same catagory as well - that is why I keep posting as I do. The core concept of the game (PvE to create, PvP to redistribute) is one of those things that could potentially be great, but in order to actually be what it is claiming to be, it needs PvP to compete with pure PvP MMO's, and PvE to compete with pure PvE MMO's. If it doesn't meet that, the game will just be some middle ground game that just isn't as appealing to anyone as other games that exist.
you should. its a great experience, especially if you can start with 8 more people all coordinated ;3
I'm sure for the people it is designed for, it is a great experience.
I just happen to know that I am not in that group of people.
@JamesSunderland@Depraved were either of you in any top guilds on the official servers? Did they use any types of 3rd party tools to understand encounters better? Cause I've never heard of those, outside the basic bot cause everyone and their mother wanted to bot the game.
Yes, the clans/sides i played in the official servers were always on the top, and yes there was eventually "3rd party tools" that were not only bot programs but also helped alot to understand encounters better, Mainly ZRanger and then Adrenaline.
Through Zrange it was possible to track all the Bosses Stats including its mana to properly maintain certain bosses below their main skills mana threshold, Aggro/hate points list(kinda worked as dps meter but not really), check their skill cooldowns, track applied debuffs and many other things. The most ludicrous use of the tool was against Beleth, By finding it's main body ID among its dozens of clones mechanic. DPS meters just weren't relevant as other informations.
Bosses in L2 aren't very hard when you outgear/zerg brute force them(making most tools unnecessary), but back when people didn't had busted gear and lots of knowledge to face them some encounters were quite the puzzle, mainly the end game Grand Bosses.
Yes, the clans/sides i played in the official servers were always on the top, and yes there was eventually "3rd party tools" that were not only bot programs but also helped alot to understand encounters better, Mainly ZRanger and then Adrenaline.
Thx.
My whole existence in this thread is rendered meaningless and my experience is completely made up. Though this does make Steven's opinion even sillier than it already was.
p.s. glad to see 50 new messages here after waking up
With these tools in place, the bulk of the work for a raid mob is in a unique character model. If you follow the EQ2 model, you use these unique models for end mobs of raid zones and content cycles, for open world encounters, but then you don't shy away from using regular existing models (increased in size perhaps) for lesser named mobs, or if there is a need for "emergency" content where players beat encounters signolificantly faster than expected (will happen on occasion).
Taking later comments here into context, I'd say I just disagree with EQ2's whole approach and your preference of it.
I'm a visual learner, so I want to see what the boss/mob does. I'm not talking about ground indicators or whatever, but the effects/animations should be visible imo.
Intrepid have the opportunity to build their models with the feature you're talking about in mind. Give those models the ability to perform a super wide variety of animations. And those animations should be comprised of steps that could weave other abilities into them with proper visual representation of that new ability.
In other words, once again, do better. And my attitude towards this is also why I say that I don't want devs to try and keep pace with trackered top pve players, because I want a much better quality of content instead of a lot of it (while not overworking devs to death). Invisible skills and non-existent animations are not quality imo.
But there will still be times where you are solo playing, won't there? I should be able to log my char in and go grind some mobs/farm some nodes without having to wait for a team before leaving town.
And...?
You, for some reason, believe that the build that works for a group will suddenly suck when you solo?
And you won't be able to adjust without going to a practice dummy?
How do you plan to change the practice dummy so that it has the combat stats of whatever it is you're fighting solo?
You keep saying that Ashes is "dynamic, not static", but by this do you mean that it is going to be like a diablo style randomized selection of resistances/abilities for every monster/boss? Like you go into a forest and the first "Grey Spider" is frost resistance with a web attack and the second "Grey Spider" is fire resistance with a ranged poison spit? How dynamic are you talking about here? During the fight itself they start switching modifiers around? Are all the monsters picking from a randomized table of modifiers every time they spawn? Or just the bosses? The devil is in the details here.
We don't know the specifics of how dynamic it will be.
My expectation from what Steven has said, so far, is that the minions of the boss will not be exactly the same.
The behaviors of the boss will not be exactly the same - and the "Active Skills" the boss chooses will not be exactly the same.
For all we know, a boss could have 8 Archetype kits that change with each encounter.
Could also be that a boss will have a variety of "Augments" that change with each encounter.
Dynamic does not seem to mean that mobs switch modifiers mid fight. Just as players cannot switch modifiers mid fight.
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No one has said completely different, so we agree.
Expect it to be significantly different.
But, sure... the devs could fail to meet their design goals.
With these tools in place, the bulk of the work for a raid mob is in a unique character model. If you follow the EQ2 model, you use these unique models for end mobs of raid zones and content cycles, for open world encounters, but then you don't shy away from using regular existing models (increased in size perhaps) for lesser named mobs, or if there is a need for "emergency" content where players beat encounters signolificantly faster than expected (will happen on occasion).
Taking later comments here into context, I'd say I just disagree with EQ2's whole approach and your preference of it.
I'm a visual learner, so I want to see what the boss/mob does. I'm not talking about ground indicators or whatever, but the effects/animations should be visible imo.
Intrepid have the opportunity to build their models with the feature you're talking about in mind. Give those models the ability to perform a super wide variety of animations. And those animations should be comprised of steps that could weave other abilities into them with proper visual representation of that new ability.
In other words, once again, do better. And my attitude towards this is also why I say that I don't want devs to try and keep pace with trackered top pve players, because I want a much better quality of content instead of a lot of it (while not overworking devs to death). Invisible skills and non-existent animations are not quality imo.
This would require a much slower pace of content addition, as every boss would require its own model.
This is the mistake WoW fell in to, and is why players in that game had no new content to run more often than not.
It would also mean casting animations would need to be longer, kind of defeating the point of weaving two abilities together (EQ2 usually gave about 2 seconds notice of an ability, not long enough to communicate said ability to players via animation).
I am also somewhat doubtful a visual only cue would work without telegraphing - but since it seems that Ashes is already going the telegraph route, this seems a moot point.
That should be the next version of WoW. No addons allowed, now let's see who can actually play.
I agree, players shouldn't need them - these tools should be built in to the game.
No gameplay should make it so these tools are not important, and more about skill than looking at a dps meter / tracker. And being given all the information from an encounter.
Growth needs to be about the fight and gaining experience through actual gameplay.
The game needs to move as far away from tracks as they want and even more so add on and not normalize them. There should be no argument the game has some add on type stuff so its ok for people to do other 3rd party stuff if they want. The stance on no on any level ensures it does not try to push the goal post.
Your whole point is trying to push the goal post so there is a crack in the door so everything else can come through.
Sadly magspy, that approach doesnt work in my experience.
DPS checks exist for a reason, to make dps players do dps. While I am a person advocating for dps meters, I do agree the game should be designed such that no one should need them.
Back to the gameplay not requiring looking at dps::
If the game didnt require dps to be done, then boss fights end up completely trivial to do. You only have to survive by any means necessary (I could come up with an entire mega list of cheese mechanisms to talk about here, but it would derail the topic).
If all I have to do is perform mechanics, then I can stop whatever I am doing while the mechanics are happening to do the dance.
I mean, everyone could play tanks and healers to make it realllllll easy here. See where I am going with this>
I dont agree with you. Doing DPS matters. Its far to easy otherwise. Encounters should require players to both do the mechanic and do their dps stuff at the same time, and bonus for us, pvp should happen also.
(Off topic, Inspired by another four threads on this forum I am actually writing up something of what my perfect vision is for good challenging boss fights that take advantage of the pvp happening, to keep the challenge up, and to keep the risk/reward factor in place, look forward to telling me I want too much difficulty for MMO games)
Sadly magspy, that approach doesnt work in my experience.
DPS checks exist for a reason, to make dps players do dps. While I am a person advocating for dps meters, I do agree the game should be designed such that no one should need them.
Back to the gameplay not requiring looking at dps::
If the game didnt require dps to be done, then boss fights end up completely trivial to do. You only have to survive by any means necessary (I could come up with an entire mega list of cheese mechanisms to talk about here, but it would derail the topic).
If all I have to do is perform mechanics, then I can stop whatever I am doing while the mechanics are happening to do the dance.
I mean, everyone could play tanks and healers to make it realllllll easy here. See where I am going with this>
I dont agree with you. Doing DPS matters. Its far to easy otherwise. Encounters should require players to both do the mechanic and do their dps stuff at the same time, and bonus for us, pvp should happen also.
(Off topic, Inspired by another four threads on this forum I am actually writing up something of what my perfect vision is for good challenging boss fights that take advantage of the pvp happening, to keep the challenge up, and to keep the risk/reward factor in place, look forward to telling me I want too much difficulty for MMO games)
What I'm saying it that with content challenges between the mechanics and dps, their should be a skill curve as well. Since this is going hybrid and not just tab, it allows for more interesting gameplay for that to be a factor. Someone dealing less dmg but doing mechanics right and able to get dmg in while dodging other factors and such being a thing. On the DPs they do less dmg but they also can use their own skill element to stay int he fight, where some people might do high dmg but fail skill checks not dealing as much dmg or dying.
Having other factors makes people care about that less, and want people that can survive these kinds of challenges.
Over the basic tab gameplay where you tank dmg, boss attacks one way towards tank, you heal the random aoe stuff and no one has much threat to worry about besides the mechanics. This kind of old style basic tab gameplay has far more limits on things you can do compared to more modern design.
Anyway point is increase danger to everyone, have all the good old stuff but also include more skill elements and things you need to do and dodge as well. Make dps meters less important and people desiring skill and survival. To take all these elements (not just ones i mentioned) and create a case where people don't care as much about trackers, and less people wanting to use them or worried.
With these tools in place, the bulk of the work for a raid mob is in a unique character model. If you follow the EQ2 model, you use these unique models for end mobs of raid zones and content cycles, for open world encounters, but then you don't shy away from using regular existing models (increased in size perhaps) for lesser named mobs, or if there is a need for "emergency" content where players beat encounters signolificantly faster than expected (will happen on occasion).
Taking later comments here into context, I'd say I just disagree with EQ2's whole approach and your preference of it.
I'm a visual learner, so I want to see what the boss/mob does. I'm not talking about ground indicators or whatever, but the effects/animations should be visible imo.
Intrepid have the opportunity to build their models with the feature you're talking about in mind. Give those models the ability to perform a super wide variety of animations. And those animations should be comprised of steps that could weave other abilities into them with proper visual representation of that new ability.
In other words, once again, do better. And my attitude towards this is also why I say that I don't want devs to try and keep pace with trackered top pve players, because I want a much better quality of content instead of a lot of it (while not overworking devs to death). Invisible skills and non-existent animations are not quality imo.
Eh, chances are we'd still get the text either way though.
You, for some reason, believe that the build that works for a group will suddenly suck when you solo?
And you won't be able to adjust without going to a practice dummy?
How do you plan to change the practice dummy so that it has the combat stats of whatever it is you're fighting solo?
Well i don't know how complicated they are planning on making builds, how many systems will be interacting with your abilities, or how easy it will be to change. In other games I have practiced against dummies while adjusting builds to see how they respond and hold up. Or change out a +crit item for a +agil item and see how the dps responds, etc.
I mean you were the one that was arguing that none of this information matters because we will be in team and synergy is all that matters. It isn't really fair to then turn around and say that whatever builds we tweak for team synergy perform the same for solo play.
Is it really that game breaking to ask for something like practice dummies in military nodes where people can test out builds/items to see how their dps responds? Or a group goes and practices their synergy and tweaks their builds to see how the dps responds?.
I mean how are we going to know that our synergy is even working as intended? I guess we won't, and that's the point? Lack of knowledge of performance is a "good thing" here? No feedback system other than you win or lose fights and have absolutely no way to know where to improve?
More than one poster here has commented about how people parse on combat dummies.
For those of us that work to improve our performance in game, we dont actually use combat dummy very much after we figure out how the skills work and what basic skill chains are. It turns out, that to get better at playing the game, you have to.... yup, play the game.
Measurement against a combat dummy is pointless, thats why DPs meters exist, so you can look at real combat data.
Practice on combat dummy is pointless beyond day1 figure out how the basic rotation works. Because it doesnt do mechanics. Dead DPS players are worthless dps players, so what if you can do well on a dummy if you cant perform in a fight.
The goal is to do big damages in a fight, and also execute the mechanics at the same time.
Eh, chances are we'd still get the text either way though.
Was this something I missed or forgot about from A1? Or in what way would the text be the only way to show that there's a skill/mechanic being used by the boss?
Or do you mean smth along the lines of "the boss is about to/doing a mechanic" written across the screen? Cause L2 had those, but I assumed that this shit was like the bottom tier of pve complexity, so I doubt you're talking about that.
Eh, chances are we'd still get the text either way though.
Was this something I missed or forgot about from A1? Or in what way would the text be the only way to show that there's a skill/mechanic being used by the boss?
Or do you mean smth along the lines of "the boss is about to/doing a mechanic" written across the screen? Cause L2 had those, but I assumed that this shit was like the bottom tier of pve complexity, so I doubt you're talking about that.
It's complicated, but remember that I'm not usually talking about what I want or enjoy, moreso 'what I expect and have been told other people enjoy'.
I personally believe you can make it with the text in a specific way, but the other thread I just made is the better place to discuss that. Though we're trying to reach 200 pages, like Ashes, we cannot rush it, we must strive for quality.
Eh, chances are we'd still get the text either way though.
Was this something I missed or forgot about from A1? Or in what way would the text be the only way to show that there's a skill/mechanic being used by the boss?
Or do you mean smth along the lines of "the boss is about to/doing a mechanic" written across the screen? Cause L2 had those, but I assumed that this shit was like the bottom tier of pve complexity, so I doubt you're talking about that.
Yeah, text across the screen like that (for most boss abilities) isnt something I'm a fan of.
The only time I recall it being used in EQ2 was with a boss that had about 18 different abilities going on, and this one ability would trigger kn one person in the raid. Anyone near that person after a few seconds would be killed, so text across the whole screen like this was used so that everyone in the raid knew who to get away from, while not interfering with dealing with the other 17 or so abilities.
Like anything, text across the screen is one of those things that needs more context. If the text is the only ability players need to be watching out for in that 5 second period, it drops encounter complexity down to near zero. If it is something players need to be aware of on top of several other things at the same time, it is fine.
In thinking on that for a minute or two before posting, it occurs to me that the above probably applies to all communication channels. If the only thing players need to be aware of at a given point in time on an encounter is an ability communicated via animation, that is equally low complexity - same if that communication is text in a combat log that requires a tracker, or if it is telegraph based communication.
To me, any time it is only one thing needing to be communicated at a time, it is low complexity. High complexity comes when you need to communicate many things at once, and using different methods is probably a good thing in such cases.
For those of us that work to improve our performance in game, we dont actually use combat dummy very much after we figure out how the skills work and what basic skill chains are. It turns out, that to get better at playing the game, you have to.... yup, play the game.
So I guess those of us that don't work to improve performance in a game, use combat dummies?
Way to come off like a pretentious jerk, buddy. Normally I prefer to be polite to strangers, but I'll make an exception for you. Sounds like you are used to playing basic games with basic skill chains and no complexity. Some of us play complex games with complex rotations and builds that if you aren't spending time refining and tweaking on dummies, you are probably not finding the best builds.
Measurement against a combat dummy is pointless, thats why DPs meters exist, so you can look at real combat data.
Yeah cause the time to find out whether or not your build is better than other options you can choose is during a raid fight with a boss. Sounds like a great time to tweak your build.
Its not like you get to practice rotations for minutes during regular monster fights in most games. In complex games rotation vs regular monsters and the rotation vs bosses are way different. But you wouldn't know about that because you play simple games with basic rotations.
Practice on combat dummy is pointless beyond day1 figure out how the basic rotation works. Because it doesnt do mechanics. Dead DPS players are worthless dps players, so what if you can do well on a dummy if you cant perform in a fight.
The goal is to do big damages in a fight, and also execute the mechanics at the same time.
Obviously in a boss fight you need to worry about mechanics. The point about dummies is to tweak builds and see how they respond. See when your damage spikes are, how your sustain looks, where your tradeoffs are, etc. Again, it sounds like you play games that are dead simple and have only a few options for rotations and builds, and so dummies aren't useful. Either that or you just look up other people's builds/rotations and never make your own anyways. Not sure what kind of game Ashes will be.
Comments
I'm not in it atm, maybe in the future we will see.
I am also definitely not in whatever discord you are not necessarily referring to, and I will definitely not update you nor anyone else if that changes.
well updates are irrelevant because im also not there, so i wouldnt be able to do anything with that info 8D
edit, im talking about the l2 discord wink wink
i thought you were talking about the T&L tech alpha discord lol
I'm sure for the people it is designed for, it is a great experience.
I just happen to know that I am not in that group of people.
what is the current state for dps meter in the game or still discussed?
Intrepid say no.
I say yes.
I will win.
no state because no dps meter. we are just trying to get to 200 pages for some reason
the meltdowns on forums would be legendary XD
― Plato
Yes, the clans/sides i played in the official servers were always on the top, and yes there was eventually "3rd party tools" that were not only bot programs but also helped alot to understand encounters better, Mainly ZRanger and then Adrenaline.
Through Zrange it was possible to track all the Bosses Stats including its mana to properly maintain certain bosses below their main skills mana threshold, Aggro/hate points list(kinda worked as dps meter but not really), check their skill cooldowns, track applied debuffs and many other things. The most ludicrous use of the tool was against Beleth, By finding it's main body ID among its dozens of clones mechanic. DPS meters just weren't relevant as other informations.
Bosses in L2 aren't very hard when you outgear/zerg brute force them(making most tools unnecessary), but back when people didn't had busted gear and lots of knowledge to face them some encounters were quite the puzzle, mainly the end game Grand Bosses.
Aren't we all sinners?
My whole existence in this thread is rendered meaningless and my experience is completely made up. Though this does make Steven's opinion even sillier than it already was.
p.s. glad to see 50 new messages here after waking up
I'm a visual learner, so I want to see what the boss/mob does. I'm not talking about ground indicators or whatever, but the effects/animations should be visible imo.
Intrepid have the opportunity to build their models with the feature you're talking about in mind. Give those models the ability to perform a super wide variety of animations. And those animations should be comprised of steps that could weave other abilities into them with proper visual representation of that new ability.
In other words, once again, do better. And my attitude towards this is also why I say that I don't want devs to try and keep pace with trackered top pve players, because I want a much better quality of content instead of a lot of it (while not overworking devs to death). Invisible skills and non-existent animations are not quality imo.
Nearly there boys and girls!
That should be the next version of WoW. No addons allowed, now let's see who can actually play.
You, for some reason, believe that the build that works for a group will suddenly suck when you solo?
And you won't be able to adjust without going to a practice dummy?
How do you plan to change the practice dummy so that it has the combat stats of whatever it is you're fighting solo?
We don't know the specifics of how dynamic it will be.
My expectation from what Steven has said, so far, is that the minions of the boss will not be exactly the same.
The behaviors of the boss will not be exactly the same - and the "Active Skills" the boss chooses will not be exactly the same.
For all we know, a boss could have 8 Archetype kits that change with each encounter.
Could also be that a boss will have a variety of "Augments" that change with each encounter.
Dynamic does not seem to mean that mobs switch modifiers mid fight. Just as players cannot switch modifiers mid fight.
Expect it to be significantly different.
But, sure... the devs could fail to meet their design goals.
This would require a much slower pace of content addition, as every boss would require its own model.
This is the mistake WoW fell in to, and is why players in that game had no new content to run more often than not.
It would also mean casting animations would need to be longer, kind of defeating the point of weaving two abilities together (EQ2 usually gave about 2 seconds notice of an ability, not long enough to communicate said ability to players via animation).
I am also somewhat doubtful a visual only cue would work without telegraphing - but since it seems that Ashes is already going the telegraph route, this seems a moot point.
I agree, players shouldn't need them - these tools should be built in to the game.
No gameplay should make it so these tools are not important, and more about skill than looking at a dps meter / tracker. And being given all the information from an encounter.
Growth needs to be about the fight and gaining experience through actual gameplay.
The game needs to move as far away from tracks as they want and even more so add on and not normalize them. There should be no argument the game has some add on type stuff so its ok for people to do other 3rd party stuff if they want. The stance on no on any level ensures it does not try to push the goal post.
Your whole point is trying to push the goal post so there is a crack in the door so everything else can come through.
DPS checks exist for a reason, to make dps players do dps. While I am a person advocating for dps meters, I do agree the game should be designed such that no one should need them.
Back to the gameplay not requiring looking at dps::
If the game didnt require dps to be done, then boss fights end up completely trivial to do. You only have to survive by any means necessary (I could come up with an entire mega list of cheese mechanisms to talk about here, but it would derail the topic).
If all I have to do is perform mechanics, then I can stop whatever I am doing while the mechanics are happening to do the dance.
I mean, everyone could play tanks and healers to make it realllllll easy here. See where I am going with this>
I dont agree with you. Doing DPS matters. Its far to easy otherwise. Encounters should require players to both do the mechanic and do their dps stuff at the same time, and bonus for us, pvp should happen also.
(Off topic, Inspired by another four threads on this forum I am actually writing up something of what my perfect vision is for good challenging boss fights that take advantage of the pvp happening, to keep the challenge up, and to keep the risk/reward factor in place, look forward to telling me I want too much difficulty for MMO games)
What I'm saying it that with content challenges between the mechanics and dps, their should be a skill curve as well. Since this is going hybrid and not just tab, it allows for more interesting gameplay for that to be a factor. Someone dealing less dmg but doing mechanics right and able to get dmg in while dodging other factors and such being a thing. On the DPs they do less dmg but they also can use their own skill element to stay int he fight, where some people might do high dmg but fail skill checks not dealing as much dmg or dying.
Having other factors makes people care about that less, and want people that can survive these kinds of challenges.
Over the basic tab gameplay where you tank dmg, boss attacks one way towards tank, you heal the random aoe stuff and no one has much threat to worry about besides the mechanics. This kind of old style basic tab gameplay has far more limits on things you can do compared to more modern design.
Anyway point is increase danger to everyone, have all the good old stuff but also include more skill elements and things you need to do and dodge as well. Make dps meters less important and people desiring skill and survival. To take all these elements (not just ones i mentioned) and create a case where people don't care as much about trackers, and less people wanting to use them or worried.
Eh, chances are we'd still get the text either way though.
Well i don't know how complicated they are planning on making builds, how many systems will be interacting with your abilities, or how easy it will be to change. In other games I have practiced against dummies while adjusting builds to see how they respond and hold up. Or change out a +crit item for a +agil item and see how the dps responds, etc.
I mean you were the one that was arguing that none of this information matters because we will be in team and synergy is all that matters. It isn't really fair to then turn around and say that whatever builds we tweak for team synergy perform the same for solo play.
Is it really that game breaking to ask for something like practice dummies in military nodes where people can test out builds/items to see how their dps responds? Or a group goes and practices their synergy and tweaks their builds to see how the dps responds?.
I mean how are we going to know that our synergy is even working as intended? I guess we won't, and that's the point? Lack of knowledge of performance is a "good thing" here? No feedback system other than you win or lose fights and have absolutely no way to know where to improve?
For those of us that work to improve our performance in game, we dont actually use combat dummy very much after we figure out how the skills work and what basic skill chains are. It turns out, that to get better at playing the game, you have to.... yup, play the game.
Measurement against a combat dummy is pointless, thats why DPs meters exist, so you can look at real combat data.
Practice on combat dummy is pointless beyond day1 figure out how the basic rotation works. Because it doesnt do mechanics. Dead DPS players are worthless dps players, so what if you can do well on a dummy if you cant perform in a fight.
The goal is to do big damages in a fight, and also execute the mechanics at the same time.
Or do you mean smth along the lines of "the boss is about to/doing a mechanic" written across the screen? Cause L2 had those, but I assumed that this shit was like the bottom tier of pve complexity, so I doubt you're talking about that.
It's complicated, but remember that I'm not usually talking about what I want or enjoy, moreso 'what I expect and have been told other people enjoy'.
I personally believe you can make it with the text in a specific way, but the other thread I just made is the better place to discuss that. Though we're trying to reach 200 pages, like Ashes, we cannot rush it, we must strive for quality.
Yeah, text across the screen like that (for most boss abilities) isnt something I'm a fan of.
The only time I recall it being used in EQ2 was with a boss that had about 18 different abilities going on, and this one ability would trigger kn one person in the raid. Anyone near that person after a few seconds would be killed, so text across the whole screen like this was used so that everyone in the raid knew who to get away from, while not interfering with dealing with the other 17 or so abilities.
Like anything, text across the screen is one of those things that needs more context. If the text is the only ability players need to be watching out for in that 5 second period, it drops encounter complexity down to near zero. If it is something players need to be aware of on top of several other things at the same time, it is fine.
In thinking on that for a minute or two before posting, it occurs to me that the above probably applies to all communication channels. If the only thing players need to be aware of at a given point in time on an encounter is an ability communicated via animation, that is equally low complexity - same if that communication is text in a combat log that requires a tracker, or if it is telegraph based communication.
To me, any time it is only one thing needing to be communicated at a time, it is low complexity. High complexity comes when you need to communicate many things at once, and using different methods is probably a good thing in such cases.
So I guess those of us that don't work to improve performance in a game, use combat dummies?
Way to come off like a pretentious jerk, buddy. Normally I prefer to be polite to strangers, but I'll make an exception for you. Sounds like you are used to playing basic games with basic skill chains and no complexity. Some of us play complex games with complex rotations and builds that if you aren't spending time refining and tweaking on dummies, you are probably not finding the best builds.
Yeah cause the time to find out whether or not your build is better than other options you can choose is during a raid fight with a boss. Sounds like a great time to tweak your build.
Its not like you get to practice rotations for minutes during regular monster fights in most games. In complex games rotation vs regular monsters and the rotation vs bosses are way different. But you wouldn't know about that because you play simple games with basic rotations.
Obviously in a boss fight you need to worry about mechanics. The point about dummies is to tweak builds and see how they respond. See when your damage spikes are, how your sustain looks, where your tradeoffs are, etc. Again, it sounds like you play games that are dead simple and have only a few options for rotations and builds, and so dummies aren't useful. Either that or you just look up other people's builds/rotations and never make your own anyways. Not sure what kind of game Ashes will be.