We have not received permission from Noaani to share the quoted post.
But during the fight, are you not watching both the fight and your ongoing log? Or did EQ completely forgo visuals in favor of text?
I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).
The reason I bring this up, NiKr, is because DoTs,
almost
by definition, are poor candidates for visual or auditory feedback.
To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on you at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.
Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.
Those who still have problems even with such a mechanic would have problems with parsing logs on the fly as well. Also, was that class' info not anywhere online? Could no one just, like, play that character to the point where you get this ability and literally just see how it works? I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like it applies to dumb people. "Educate yourself" and all that.
I played every class in L2 at least to the extent of understanding what their abilities do, so that I could know not only how to play against them, but potentially help others understand them as well (and have done so on multiple occasions).
Note I'm not saying 'you can't play the game this way', I'm only appealing to 'the fact that you already understand why people want 'Ricochet' level logs, and therefore I'm assuming you suggested the log filters.
Nah, I was just trying to visualize in my mind how I'd prefer my combat log to look. Just several thin windows of incoming dmg (singular hits), incoming debuffs, incoming dot dmg.
Incoming magical dmg would be blue in that first window, phys would be red. Debuffs would be painted rainbow by type, so a glance would give me at least the type of stat reduction I received (and I'd be able to check the icon visually if needed). Dots would just be there, and with time I'd underline names with dangerous dots, so their dots would be more visually apparent in the log.
I know this doesn't cover all the things, but I'd only know which things it needs to cover when we have the final game in our hands.
They're nice, but they'd cover your whole screen. And at that point, you still need to be very visual to read them all. Personally I'm not. Regardless of the fact that I read very fast, it's way easier to just remember every effect. That's how 'cluttered and distracting' a complex system ends up being.
I mean, as I see it, knowing literally all icons and their effects is literally the base level of knowledge required to be even semi-competent at the game.
People who can't keep up with the pve/p pace or the log or the icons or whatever else will simply not be competent. And I don't think anything can help them, not trackers, not meters not anything. I don't really watch Asmon's WoW streams, but I sure as hell constantly hear his complaining of people not doing mechanics or not "walking out of the red". And that WITH wow's insane addons that yell at you what to do. How would one expect those kinds of people to track anything in a fight that might involve pvp on top of pve.
I realize this is probably cruel to them, but I simply don't see how they can be helped in this particular context. If anything, my suggestions of having good visuals is an attempt at that, but both you and Noaani say that visuals can't really do shit in a properly complex game, so then how in the hell would those people even clear content like that?
And if we're not talking about such people, then we're simply back to Noaani's classic argument of "there's literally nothing you can do because I've already ACTed all over your game"
There's one other problem that I don't know if you're familiar with, which applies to this as well. When an opponent's DPS is based on their attack speed, the only visual indicator of their attack speed build's power is how
fast
your log is scrolling or how quickly the numbers are flashing. I'm not saying it's impossible to keep track of that, but it's sometimes very hard to judge effectiveness.
There's a reason why 'building for huge attack' is considered a noob trap in many games. "Bigger number better!" is difficult to dispel when the 'actually bigger number' is 'a smaller number, but more often'.
I know this quite well cause L2's 2 biggest and highest value dpsers were Orc classes, one with a HUGEASS double-hander and the other with knuckles. I'm sure you know what the differences were.
They were somewhat interchangeable, though particular gear pieces made the double-hander just too stronk, so he was usually preferred. But until those pieces, knuckle boy was accepted in most raids.
