Make resource numbers visible to all

SirDopey

So once again there's a lot of chatter about cheating and hacking. It's obvious that unfortunately this happens. What is not obvious is just how bad of an issue this is. The biggest reason that it's not obvious to distinguish between bugs, lag, skill and CE is that all "proof" comes as video from other people's perspective, suggesting "no build is capable of doing that". That in itself is rarely proof of people hacking the system and 9 out of 10 times is probably more skill and theory crafting than CE.

Personally, I believe this issue will never go away until we shift the goal posts on the onus of proof. For me, one way of achieving this is to make our resource levels visible to other people. You're fighting someone and notice their stamina never goes down - record it. You're in a group dungeon and notice the PUG you're with never losses resources, record it.

So I guess my question is what are the con's involved on making resources visible like health is. Will this increase server load and lag that badly? Will this affect PVP that severely that people will walk away in mass? What would the negatives of making this change be?

Judas Helviaryn

Like the gear inspect option, people don't like giving out information that can be used against them by the elitist minority, if they don't have to. I'm not certain this is the correct approach, as the onus is indeed on ZOS to refine their own approach to combating cheating, rather than the players.

I'm not at the point where that sounds like a good idea, just yet.

SirDopey

I feel the gap between seeing what gear someone is running and how much stam/magic they currently have in reserve is quite large.

Plus, the idea probably brings more reality to combat as the less stamina one has left the more tired/exhausted they begin to look, an element completely missing from the game at the moment....

BWS2K

I think you'd also have people take one look at a person's numbers and then vote-kick them from a dungeon because they aren't Meta'd or something. It's not a bad idea, it's just that there are a lot of judge-y players in these sorts of games for whom numbers mean everything.

max_only

When I tanked in a different game I used to be able to tell when the healer was OOM, now I gotta rely on communication which is not something our PUG community is known for.

Judas Helviaryn

SirDopey wrote: »

I feel the gap between seeing what gear someone is running and how much stam/magic they currently have in reserve is quite large.

Plus, the idea probably brings more reality to combat as the less stamina one has left the more tired/exhausted they begin to look, an element completely missing from the game at the moment....

I won't get into debates about realism here, suffice it to say that you can judge someone's stamina or magicka reserves on how they fight anyways. You can't see their peak, or their regen, but you can roughly surmise their power bracket in their reactions towards your own attacks and advances.

Most people break and run when their resource management is insufficient in combat. Stamblades generally reserve their magicka for cloak and shade, and tend to use it after panic dodging, which is probably the best example I can come up with at the moment.

This is the reason I hold my hard CC in check, and exclusively use soft CC, including roots, to punish my target's stamina pool. Once they start panicking and making a gap, that's when an experienced player attempts to strike. Bluffing is literally half of my game.

We don't need absolute numbers to judge an opponent. Elitists do need them to judge their allies.

SirDopey

BWS2K wrote: »

I think you'd also have people take one look at a person's numbers and then vote-kick them from a dungeon because they aren't Meta'd or something. It's not a bad idea, it's just that there are a lot of judge-y players in these sorts of games for whom numbers mean everything.

I think this probably goes at the top of my list of potential negative effects. 100% agree with you that this is something that will happen for the reason you gave.

Whether that con out weighs the pros, yeah I'm not sure

starkerealm

BWS2K wrote: »

I think you'd also have people take one look at a person's numbers and then vote-kick them from a dungeon because they aren't Meta'd or something. It's not a bad idea, it's just that there are a lot of judge-y players in these sorts of games for whom numbers mean everything.

Yeah, basically what I was going to say. Though, with scare quotes around, "meta," because the players most likely to engage in that are also the ones least likely to understand the game, and most likely to demand an out of date build, or stuff from the wrong content, like demanding Alkosh in 4man content.

Kel

I think it's on Zos to stop cheating, and not the players.
Yes, we report things. But it's ultimately up to the company to make sure the playing field is level from things outside the game.
If I'm renting a house to someone, and something is broken, it's up to me to fix it.
The same should hold true here.

It's scary to think that they can't...or just won't, for whatever reason, at least talk about what measures they use for discerning when cheating takes place.
My confidence about that level playing field has definitely been shaken.