DPS Meter Megathread

rikardp98 wrote: »

So you would rather wipe the raid over and over so you don't get "spoil the boss fight mechanic"? Isn't that kind of ignorant and selfish?

Both ways are ignorant and selfish

If the boss is designed in such a way that the player will die because of perhaps a reversed logic mechanic (9/10 fights kill the adds but this one the adds explode and oneshots you) then hell yeah! Let the player die since it's the intended experience for the fight.

I am of course not talking about a 100-man raid on supremeOverLordOfDoom difficulty

Noaani wrote: »

Almost all player interaction issues can be resolved if people either only play with people that play the same way they do, or accept that things will not be 100% perfect for them should they step out of that group of people.

Now back to combat tracker discussion.

"Would you like the boss explained?" "Would you like tips for your class?"
"Can somebody explain this for me?" "Can somebody give me tips for my class?"

Would also resolve things, but yes in the perfect world you would be able to stick with likeminded people all of the time.

Yes let's return to the DPS thread

Galux wrote: »

"Would you like the boss explained?" "Would you like tips for your class?"
"Can somebody explain this for me?" "Can somebody give me tips for my class?"

Galux wrote: »

Both ways are ignorant and selfish

This comes back to playing with people that have the same goals in the game as you.

If you are joining a raid that has the purpose of killing content, then expect the boss to be explained to you. If you do not wish the boss to be explained to you, do not join a raid that has the express goal of killing that boss as quickly as they can.

Likewise, with your class/build, if you group up with people that want to be as efficient as they can be, expect them to give you some 'suggestions'. If you do not want those suggestions, stick to playing with people that are not concerned with being as fast as possible.

That is how these things are resolved.

Dygz

What's the difference between a tracker and a log?

Dygz wrote: »

What's the difference between a tracker and a log?

Not that you can read this, but hey, someone may quote this for you.

A log is literally just a text file of data.

A tracker takes the information from that log and displays it better for players to understand - in a way where all of it can be seen at once, as opposed to being literal tens of thousands of lines of text.

Quite honestly though, not knowing the difference between these two things should disqualify you from taking part in the discussion.

Logs are strings of data in any formatting containing what happened in a fight that can vary from a few lines (solo fight with a weak mob) to several thousand lines in a raid fight up to hundreds of thousands if it is a log of the whole raid night

tracker is a tool that reads the data to give them to you in a more understandable format

Noaani wrote: »

If you are joining a raid that has the purpose of killing content, then expect the boss to be explained to you. If you do not wish the boss to be explained to you, do not join a raid that has the express goal of killing that boss as quickly as they can.

Yes and as i've said previously, i agree!

Noaani wrote: »

Quite honestly though, not knowing the difference between these two things should disqualify you from taking part in the discussion.

Yikes, get out of here with that mindset

Galux wrote: »

Yikes, get out of here with that mindset

IF you do not have knowledge on a specific topic, then you should not participate in a debate on it with those that do.

Sure, throw in an opinion, but be prepared to be told why your opinion is invalid - and yes, opinions can be wrong. If I said my opinion on electric cars is that they shouldn't exist because it is so much more dangerous for people to fly around in the air than it is on the ground, then clearly my assumption of what an electric car is off, and thus my opinion on them is completely invalid.

Not knowing the difference between a log and a tracker means the person in question simply doesn't have the base level understanding of combat trackers to properly take part in a debate on them - and as has been proven, that persons opinion on trackers is built on a similar false assumption to the above example about electric cars - as is Stevens.

Galux wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Quite honestly though, not knowing the difference between these two things should disqualify you from taking part in the discussion.

Yikes, get out of here with that mindset

He has a point though - endlessly repeating parts of Steven's opinion as gospel not adding to it his own perspective except "I agree with Steven" and at the same time not even knowing what we are even talking about, because all he thinks about is elitism of a dps placing on a leaderboard (tbf quite funny since we know for sure there are going to be leaderboards for raids/dungeons)

Aerlana

this is a really small part of a combat log :
(yes in french, just screen it : "Your [spellname] inflicts damages to training dummy [value and type of damages]")

and this is what a combat tracker (or parser) shows (took random screenshot on google)

The DPS of each people in the party/raid (numbers are total damages, DPS, part of the whole raid DPS)

or what each of your spells did as damages during the whole fight (total amount of damage of the spell, part it does of my total damages) :

Parser mostly just "read" what combat log says, and transform this in statistic, graphs, etc.

This is why parser can't says how to kill a boss, they just says "you are dead from this attack, and before it you took damage from this" and they say it because the combat log already say it.
What trigger this attack, this add spawn, this phase-change, the parser will always be unable to say it. it is not its work, its work is just to transform a log with hundreds or evne thousands of line into statistics, and graphs. far easier to read

@Tragnar "not even knowing what we are even talking about"

Then what are we talking about? I take it we're primarily discussing DPS Meter which the thread is about.

Aerlana

Galux wrote: »

@Tragnar "not even knowing what we are even talking about"

Then what are we talking about? I take it we're primarily discussing DPS Meter which the thread is about.

this night, the discussion was full of proof that Dygz don't know anything about the subject. and this message from him is another one.

Saying that parser/combat tracker allow to do things they can't do. . . (and anyone who used parser knows they can't do such thing like "saying how to kill the boss")

So while it is quite harsh and a bad mentality. i can't blame nooani. . .

Also DPSmeter is used to refer to "combat tracker" DPSmeter is one part of "combat tracker" there is also "healtracker" (giving Heal per Second, and Heal per Mana) interrupt tracker (count of interrupt), cc, damage taken, etc.
Parser is also another word to speak about it

Aerlana wrote: »

Also DPSmeter is used to refer to "combat tracker" DPSmeter is one part of "combat tracker" there is also "healtracker" (giving Heal per Second, and Heal per Mana) interrupt tracker (count of interrupt), cc, damage taken, etc.
Parser is also another word to speak about it

But then we're moving into the territory of a complete combat tracker. I'm aware there's loads of things to track for a fight besides damage but to be on-topic for the thread let's primarily discuss the DPS meter part of the combat tracker.

I've seen what a complete combat tracker is capable of tracking when i played WoW, it would require a whole thread of it's own to discuss the complete tool.

Dygz

LMAO.
We have some people here claiming that DPS meter is the same thing as a combat tracker.
But combat tracker can't be the same thing as a combat log?
ACT is an Advanced Combat Tracker. What was the basic combat tracker? How does a combat log not track combat data?
And people complain about me arguing semantics.

The wiki states: "We will be providing combat data for individual players in their chat window, that players can filter and analyze for themselves. The goal is to mitigate and make the practice less prevalent through the ease that DPS meters provide. Also to place actionable enforcement for players who attempt to circumvent the decision by use of 3rd party programs, for which we will be monitoring."
From the standpoint of the wiki - expect combat tracker v combat log to be a matter of semantics.
The wiki states: "The developers believe that parsers (DPS meters) can have negative effects."
So... parsers = DPS meters.
But, just because the wiki lists the combat data quote under combat logs does not necessarily mean that there won't be any parsing available at all.
The quote says that players will be able to filter - which seems different than the most rudimentary combat log.

But, yeah, Steven is fine with a personal combat log and will be against parsers if they provide advanced features that are in ACT, like time alerts.
Steven really doesn't even want us to have numbers in health bars. Rather, he wants us to pay attention to the decay of the nameplates. So expect the level of detailed info in the combat data to be basic rather than advanced.

In Ashes, expect fewer people to defeat a boss like Vaelastrasz with just a 40-person raid.
Steven believes, "things should be hard, people should fail, the bitter taste of defeat is what makes success that much more rewarding."

It might take more than a 40-person raid to defeat such a dragon.
Hardcore raids in Ashes may not be as hardcore as they are in other MMORPGs, just as casual in Ashes may not be as casual as it is in other MMORPGs.
How we go about defeating world bosses in Ashes, as an in-game community, may be very different than in previous MMORPGs.

Steven wrote: "Hello friends! I love reading all of the comments and opinions here. There was also a very large thread on dps meters, a little while back, where I felt Noaani articulated the position in favor of DPS meters very well.

My decision is not to allow DPS meters nor add-ons. I feel we have adequate measures in place to prevent a majority of potential third party trackers. I know this subject has passionate voices on both sides and I respect the various opinions and positions many of you have expressed."

So, again... Steven is aware of the opposing arguments. He just doesn't agree.

Galux wrote: »

Tragnar "not even knowing what we are even talking about"

Then what are we talking about? I take it we're primarily discussing DPS Meter which the thread is about.

Primarily, yes. Or more specifically, combat trackers

However, the poster in question doesn't understand the difference between a combat tracker (like ACT) and a combat assistant (like DBM), and thinks they are one and the same.

This is why my analogy about someone thinking electric cars were flying cars is somewhat appropriate (as far as analogies go). A combat assistant can also be a combat tracker, just as a flying car could also be electric. However, a combat tracker can only ever be a combat assistant if the person that made the combat tracker specifically made it to be one - just as an electric car could only be a flying car if the person that made the electric car specifically made it to also be a flying car.

Since the major suggestion in this thread (it's a long thread, I don't expect you to have read it - but the poster in question has) is for Intrepid to build in a combat tracker in to the games client.

As such, since Intrepid would be making the combat tracker, they can simply make it not function as a combat assistant at all - just as Teslas don't fly.

However, since the poster in question simply can not (or perhaps refuses to) get his head around that simple concept, imo he has no place in this discussion.

That is the entire point - dps meter is a byproduct of trackers that analyse combat logs that the game gives to players and the only possible way to truly not have a dps meter is to have trackers built in the game and have control over what it shows to whom

For example it can be a guild perk for guild raids or any other solution that was proposed here earlier.

Thing is that completely making trackers impossible to create is just not possible if the game will show you actions that you do (that you casted something etc) and actions that were done to you (like you're stunned, you've been hit etc)

The funniest thing is that even if tooltips dont show damage values and the popups say "you did unknown damage" then you still have methods to extract damage values through various methods

like:

find a respawnable mob and kill it with only one ability at a time - this way you get comparable values on which abilities hit harder
then use the weakest ability to extract possible variation for the damage values and possible health variations of the mob
repeat this a ton of times so you can then use the data to create the possible effective health (which is both armor and hp in one value) and damage range values
from there change the type of mob you're testing to get more data sets
the more data sets you get the more precise values you can get to
given enough time and manpower for testing you eventually extract true game values and mob stats
unless of course the devs secretly rebalance the values often to throw the testers off

Dygz wrote: »

LMAO.
We have some people here claiming that DPS meter is the same thing as a combat tracker.
But combat tracker can't be the same thing as a combat log?
ACT is an Advanced Combat Tracker. What was the basic combat tracker? How does a combat log not track a combat data?
And people complain about me arguing semantics.

It isn't semantics.

Logs are the raw data used by combat trackers, combat assistants and DPS meters.
DPS meters are meters for measuring DPS, using information from the log.
Combat tracker is a tool that tracks all combat, using information from the log.
Combat assistants are tools that take information from the log and use it to assist players in encounters in more specific ways than just providing information.

Again, all a combat tracker and DPS meter can do is display information from the log in an easier to read format.

Tragnar wrote: »

The funniest thing is that even if tooltips dont show damage values and the popups say "you did unknown damage" then you still have methods to extract damage values through various methods

As I am sure you know, I have been spending a bit of time in the "underground combat tracker scene" lately.

One of the methods I heard about being used was a developer working on the game basically put the tracker on the server, rather than relying on client computers to do it.

Anyone that knew how to get it was then able to get all data from all combat around them straight to a log file, that could then be parsed using ACT. Since there was no unusual interaction with the game client, there was no way for it to be noticed. No one ever even thought to look at the data going from the server to the client.

This was a fairly major game, as well.

This is not a method that anyone I am aware of is attempting with Ashes, but honestly only because it isn't deemed necessary.

I said it last year, and the year before, people that want to track combat will have that data, and no game developer or publish will stop us.