Originally Posted by stivan

This is actually something I discussed with one of my RL friends this morning. It would be nice to see encounters that actually required you to memwipe a mob, or drain its power, or keep it mezzed for a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, SOE's way of thinking out of the box is to add damage shields that stack stuns and stifles on you.

Originally Posted by sadre

I was talking to my dogs tonight and I said, dogs, yo, here is what it is, I am in the mood for a rant. Then I shot myself in the head for verging into Randy Jackson-esque blather. Then I said, yo, actually, yes, I am in the mood for a rant.

So here is Mr. Old School Crank.

Back in eq1, there were no parses. Whether or not you were a solid player had to do with if you could roll with the flow of a given encounter. Could you heal your group? Could you *not* die by pulling aggro? Could you be part of a steady team that killed stuff steady and solidly?

in other words, things were based on, let's call it "feel."

in my opinion, this really has not changed much: each encounter, each time you try it, has a flow, a feel to it. Sometimes the MT gets aggro fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes a healer needs to be rezzed and things slowed down till they recover. Sometimes a mob swipes a mage or two, and you need to get them up and rebuffed. Sometimes even a MT goes down, so you need to go with that flow.

Of course, raid sizes were huge in eq1. I have been on raids on the Planes of Time bosses with 200+ people. It was in fact one of the raids I was on that, due to complaints, prompted SOE to institute the 72 person raid cap into the game then. We had taken down ralos zek the warlord, one of the big bosses you need to get toward Plane of Time, with 2 other guilds, and almost 300 players, in order to destroy a cockblock towards the plane of time by the server's top guild. It was outrageous, but by god, we destroyed that cockblock. Utterly and completely lol.

72 people is still huge, of course, compared to our current little 24 player raid cap.

But even in huge raids, emphasis used to be on the flow of the fight. Was it trending effectively toward a win? Were too many people dying? All we wanted was a consistent win, where the flow of fights seemed to favor our victories.

People played well by being aware of the flow of the fight. You payed attention to the actual flow of the **encounter**.

Now, I may just be old and out of step. But it seems to me, in my opinion, the intrusion of parses makes people less aware of how encounters flow. People are concerned with their parse too much, instead of how their char is fitting into the flow of an encounter.

Let me talk of my particular bailiwick, coercers.

In the coercer worldwide channel, 70% of the chat has to do with parses, how to parse better, etc etc. I can't think of any chats about flows of fights, about how to get into a rhythm with an encounter, etc. EVERYONE is concerned with their sheer "numbers" that ACT will show. But does ACT really tell the whole tale?

I will say, this is raid and guild leaders' faults. All too often, and ESPECIALLY in the top guilds, officers and leaders study those parses as if they were holy writ, and determine who is the "best" raider among a class based on that data. Are parses informative? Of course. Are they the easiest way to measure performance? Of course. Are they healthy for the evolution of gameplay philosophy in mmorpgs? Not so much.

Raiding is complex. It is an ebb and flow. it is based on situational awareness that does not always produce measurable stats. Some of us prefer these unmeasurable aspects of the game. Some of us have killed shit effectively and with cold precision on the basis of these unmeasurable aspects.

But in the era where EQ has become a graphical user interface for a spreadsheet program, those unmeasurables fade away.

I'm just saying that sucks for the game, and for online gaming in general.

Short post: boo ACT!



sadre
enchanter main since 99
quite daft ya know

Originally Posted by Beli

I use ACT for spell timers. I can give two shits about who parses what. If the mob dies then I'm happy; even if it takes a little longer to kill it.

Problem with some people trying to maximize their parse is they take the aggro off the MT, forget how to LOSE said aggro and then proceed to die. THEN start to bitch about dying.

...But they got a good parse!

WTG!

Originally Posted by Arangor

Essentially what you're saying is, without ACT people aren't afraid to do mediocre DPS because who the fuck knows.

Originally Posted by Arangor

I'm not condoning peeling aggro by overDPSing, I'm saying programs like ACT allow you to understand the full potential of your DPS without pulling aggro.

Originally Posted by Arangor

From what I gather, you'd rather people not quantify their DPS and do less DPS than possible so as to not pull aggro because they have no nominal idea of how much damage they're doing/they can do.

Originally Posted by Arangor

And second thing, generally you dont parse well when you're dead :/

Originally Posted by Sqee

People say i suck as a bruiser cause ACT says i only dispense 234 dps.

Personaly i have always tried to be a tank, i can keep agro fairly well, but i suppose if i move my AA's around and do more DPS i'll be an even better tank, but then i'll lose some avoidance and mit and make me more prone to getting beat up.

People dont usually die in my groups when i'm tanking, so thats always been my clue to how good / bad i was.

Originally Posted by gandulfy

Ok first off, if your doing 234 dps as a bruiser, you suck ass. A freaking templar can do 234 dps without even trying. This is EXACTLY why ACT HELPS when it comes to dps parses.