DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Due to the variation in content that is possible in tab target games, I have never come across this issue. After several hundred encounters in EQ2, I can't think of any that are so similar that players would get tired of them.

I treat it the same way I do with Intrepid's intention to somehow be the best pvp mmo out there. If they wanna hit 1 in a howevermany previous attempts chances of succeeding, then why couldn't they fail with boss design so much that they hit 1 in a 100s of games that have done good pve before. As Shia said "Nothing is impossible!"

I'm not sure what it is you are saying here.

To my knowledge, Intrepid have never said they are trying to make the best PvP game. They have, however, said they are trying to make the best PvX game.

To me, they can't make the best PvX game if they fail at either PvP or PvE.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not sure what it is you are saying here.

To my knowledge, Intrepid have never said they are trying to make the best PvP game. They have, however, said they are trying to make the best PvX game.

To me, they can't make the best PvX game if they fail at either PvP or PvE.

Ok, I should've said "mmo with ow pvp in it". I see their chances at succeeding the same as their chances at completely fucking up the pve part. But I believe that they can succeed at making a good mmo with owpvp, so I have to believe that there's a chance that they fuck up pve. Especially if we consider how high the standards for pve are for people like you.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

I'm not sure what it is you are saying here.

To my knowledge, Intrepid have never said they are trying to make the best PvP game. They have, however, said they are trying to make the best PvX game.

To me, they can't make the best PvX game if they fail at either PvP or PvE.

Ok, I should've said "mmo with ow pvp in it". I see their chances at succeeding the same as their chances at completely fucking up the pve part. But I believe that they can succeed at making a good mmo with owpvp, so I have to believe that there's a chance that they fuck up pve. Especially if we consider how high the standards for pve are for people like you.

It's true they can fuck anything up.

However, keep in mind that even after a number of people left, there is still a large number of ex-EQ2 staff working at Intrepid.

In fact, based on what I can see, there are more ex-EQ2 developers there than there are developers that have worked on any primarily PvP game.

They have the ability to get PvE right more than they have the ability to get PvP right - it is just a matter of where they direct their efforts.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

It's true they can fuck anything up.
However, keep in mind that even after a number of people left, there is still a large number of ex-EQ2 staff working at Intrepid.

In fact, based on what I can see, there are more ex-EQ2 developers there than there are developers that have worked on any primarily PvP game.

They have the ability to get PvE right more than they have the ability to get PvP right - it is just a matter of where they direct their efforts.

True. And I hope they manage to do that, because imo the pvp system is already as good as it can be and will just have to adjust some details to be its best self. So if they make the pve part of the game on the same lvl as the one you gush over, I'll be better off for it because that part of the game will keep more people playing which is good for my part of the game.

Craiken

My $0.02... I'm split on whether in-game DPS meters are good. It's fun to have data, but watching a meter is an unwelcome reminder that I'm manipulating variables in a computer program rather than inhabiting another world.

I definitely shouldn't need to install a third party add-on to play. I dislike being told that I need a bunch of add-ons to participate in raids. It was nice to read in the wiki that Steven is against such things.

Noaani

Craiken wrote: »

My $0.02... I'm split on whether in-game DPS meters are good. It's fun to have data, but watching a meter is an unwelcome reminder that I'm manipulating variables in a computer program rather than inhabiting another world.

I definitely shouldn't need to install a third party add-on to play. I dislike being told that I need a bunch of add-ons to participate in raids. It was nice to read in the wiki that Steven is against such things.

The easy way around this is to not show the meter during combat - have it as a UI element that players can pull up after the fact if they wish, to go over the days (or weeks, or months) content. If they added in my suggestion from about 80 pages back, this could just be a tab in the guild window.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

It's true they can fuck anything up.
However, keep in mind that even after a number of people left, there is still a large number of ex-EQ2 staff working at Intrepid.

In fact, based on what I can see, there are more ex-EQ2 developers there than there are developers that have worked on any primarily PvP game.

They have the ability to get PvE right more than they have the ability to get PvP right - it is just a matter of where they direct their efforts.

True. And I hope they manage to do that, because imo the pvp system is already as good as it can be and will just have to adjust some details to be its best self. So if they make the pve part of the game on the same lvl as the one you gush over, I'll be better off for it because that part of the game will keep more people playing which is good for my part of the game.

This is a point I have been trying to get across to many PvP focused players over the years.

In order for Ashes to have the best PvP game it can have, it needs to have the best PvE it can have. This gives PvP players both more people to PvP with, and in the context of Ashes, more and better loot to fight over.

The thing some people don't get is that in order for this to work, that PvE content needs aspects that in isolation may seem anti-PvP.

An example of this is instanced content. You can't PvP people in an instance, therefore the point of instances must be to prevent PvP.

The thing is, that isn't the point. The point of instanced content is so that everyone has some content. No one wants to stay in a game, attempting to raid, if all the content is open world and other guilds are killing it all. Instanced content keeps the people that are missing out on open world bosses interested in the game - meaning they are more targets for PvP players than if they were playing a different game. It also allows that guild to remain somewhat competitive with the guild that IS killing that open world content, even if they are still a bit behind.

This keeps players in the game, it keeps opportunities for PvP live, it adds more gear that PvP'ers will want to fight over. It is an all round good thing for PvP'ers - yet literally all of them turn their nose up at the prospect of the game having some instanced raid content.

All they seem to think about is how they want to interrupt the raid during a fight, they are more interested in that one fun time (and it will only happen once) than in the game being healthy and long lived.

mcstackerson

rikardp98 wrote: »

All they seem to think about is how they want to interrupt the raid during a fight, they are more interested in that one fun time (and it will only happen once) than in the game being healthy and long lived.

It's more about the economy and the difference in risk.

Only one group can get the resources from an open world spawn. With instances, all groups get rewarded. This destroys the friction created by limited resources.

There is also less risk. Since you have less of a risk of death in an instance, there is less reason to farm anything in the open word which also destroys any reason to fight over anything in the open world.

Instances have their place but their rewards can't overshadow the rewards from the world or it throws off the risk/reward balance and incentive to care about the world.

As i side note, i like how you say we "turn our nose up" at instanced content like we don't raid in other games. How dare we want something different.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

An example of this is instanced content. You can't PvP people in an instance, therefore the point of instances must be to prevent PvP.
The thing is, that isn't the point. The point of instanced content is so that everyone has some content. No one wants to stay in a game, attempting to raid, if all the content is open world and other guilds are killing it all. Instanced content keeps the people that are missing out on open world bosses interested in the game - meaning they are more targets for PvP players than if they were playing a different game. It also allows that guild to remain somewhat competitive with the guild that IS killing that open world content, even if they are still a bit behind.

This keeps players in the game, it keeps opportunities for PvP live, it adds more gear that PvP'ers will want to fight over. It is an all round good thing for PvP'ers - yet literally all of them turn their nose up at the prospect of the game having some instanced raid content.

All they seem to think about is how they want to interrupt the raid during a fight, they are more interested in that one fun time (and it will only happen once) than in the game being healthy and long lived.

And I think L2 had the best balance of the two. It just didn't go for the mechanically difficult pve in its semi-instances. Tweak a few features around those semi-instances or set them up in such ways that those people who're good at pve have a better chance of entering the location.

Hell, have a difficult solo instance that rewards you the item that you then need to use in order to enter the boss room. I'd assume all the PvErs would at least enjoy the extra content. And all the "true pro top lvl" PvXers can really prove their skill by being good at both pve and pvp.

You'd still have pvp around the bosses against other guilds that are trying to kill it, but the pve content itself could be completely separated from pvp. Though I guess the pve parts of those guilds would probably just stand around w/o flagging up, so that kinda kills the whole idea. You could maaaybe add some "the door requires both blood and *the item*"-type thing, so that you'd have to fight in that location and then you'd be able to use the pve-acquired items to enter the boss instance.

Either way, I think there's ways that can combine both sides to truly make the game pvx. Having instances give you good gear would usually just lead to people grinding those instances until you get all the gear you can get out of them. And if the only way to get BiS, after that, is only through open world means, then I'd assume pvers will feel fucked over because they'd now have to pvp to progress further.

Though I'm also used to people just farming both, people and mobs, so I might be really wrong with the assumption that "pvpers" would grind instances and that "pvers" wouldn't want to pvp to progress.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

And I think L2 had the best balance of the two.

For it's audience, maybe.

The problem is, that audience doesn't really exist any more.

L2 players were - generally speaking - new to the MMO genre. They would have taken what ever the game had to offer and enjoyed it, because they had nothing to compare it to - and in many cases, no alternative, comparable games to play.

Neither of these things is the case any more. When people pick up an MMO, it will instantly be compared to all other MMO's.

Again though, your suggestion here is fine for some content - it does not work for all content.

You are only taking in to account the functionality of instancing that removes other players from the situation - you are not taking in to account the functionality of it that gives each guild some content to participate in.

Let's make a bunch of assumptions. If we are to assume that the game is to offer 20 hours of raid content a week to players, we are to assume that as low as 10% of players will go after this raid content, and assume that 50,000 accounts will be active per server, and guilds will limit themselves to an average of 50 players each. Then we assume that all raid content is non-instanced (as in, there is only one version of it at a time).

This means the game needs to offer up 2,000 hours of open world raid content in total. That is unreasonable.

Even if you take a single encounter that takes perhaps an hour all up to kill, and you make it just respawn so that this one encounter can take up time from multiple guilds. You then have the issue of it not being anything to fight about (why fight over something that just respawns basically instantly?), but even then due to Intrepid being keep on keeping content to a prime time window per server, it is still only "servicing" perhaps 4 or 5 guilds a day.

This is the thing. There NEEDS to be content to fight over, but in order to be worth fighting over, that content needs to be rare. In terms of raid content, that means basically spawning weekly, at the most.

However, this isn't going to support a raid game, and so simply can not be the only type of raid content.

Without something to go after 3 or 4 nights a week, with a reasonable chance of either success or progress, raiding is not sustainable in any game. If all of those 100 potential guilds are going after only a handful of encounters, that is simply not sustainable. Even if only 10 guilds are going after it, that is not sustainable.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

However, this isn't going to support a raid game, and so simply can not be the only type of raid content.

Without something to go after 3 or 4 nights a week, with a reasonable chance of either success or progress, raiding is not sustainable in any game. If all of those 100 potential guilds are going after only a handful of encounters, that is simply not sustainable. Even if only 10 guilds are going after it, that is not sustainable.

Guess Intrepid will have to get away from the label of "a raid game". Because they can't have a gear-giving daily instance that would satiate the hunger of all the raid wanters, due to that literally destroying the economy of the game.

They can't have the semi-instances that I suggested because the reward would be too limited (even though that's one of the core principles of the game).

They can't have complex owpvp bosses because, as you said, they'll never get killed.

So the only solution is to either have instances w/o gear, and have all your pvers be butthurt about having 0 gear, or to remove pvp entirely and just make a ton of bosses that people will fight whenever they can w/o anyone interrupting them.

mcstackerson

Noaani wrote: »

Without something to go after 3 or 4 nights a week, with a reasonable chance of either success or progress, raiding is not sustainable in any game. If all of those 100 potential guilds are going after only a handful of encounters, that is simply not sustainable. Even if only 10 guilds are going after it, that is not sustainable.

Why should the game change it's design for 10% of the playerbase?

The majority of MMO players who play popular games that center around raiding don't even raid.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Guess Intrepid will have to get away from the label of "a raid game". Because they can't have a gear-giving daily instance that would satiate the hunger of all the raid wanters, due to that literally destroying the economy of the game.

I think this is a misunderstanding of what instanced raid content is.

Sure, instances have lockout. However, daily lockouts are traditionally for group content. Raid instances have weekly lockouts.

Such content wouldn't ruin the economy in the game. You asserted as if it is fact, but offered no reason as to why it would be the case. The rest of your argument here kind of hinges on the assumption that it would indeed ruin the economy.

Also, they aren't trying to be a raid game, and they have not called themself one. However, if they are going to have a raiding scene (which they have said they want), then obviously they need to have raid content, and attract raid players.

Your suggestions here make about as much sense as saying the game is PvP, but we are going to limit PvP to 1v1 arenas only, and PvP players should just be happy with that. The game would then not be PvP, would not attract a PvP crowd, and if other aspects of the game are dependent on the game having good PvP, the game as a whole will fail.

Aspects of Ashes (such as PvP) are 100% reliant on the game having good PvE.

Noaani

mcstackerson wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Without something to go after 3 or 4 nights a week, with a reasonable chance of either success or progress, raiding is not sustainable in any game. If all of those 100 potential guilds are going after only a handful of encounters, that is simply not sustainable. Even if only 10 guilds are going after it, that is not sustainable.

Why should the game change it's design for 10% of the playerbase?

I agree, they shouldn't.

However, raid content that is so difficult that only 10% of the player base would be able to kill it (suggesting they expect a larger over all portion of players to attempt some raid content) has been the plan since 2018.

So the question is, if that is a part of the games plan way back then, why should they change the games design to take it out?

Steven has said that instances will contain scripted bosses, and that they will drop loot, and that his loot will not be best in slot.

Nothing I have ever suggested about raiding in Ashes deviates at all from that paradigm laid down by Steven, I am simply suggesting ways to achieve the other thing that has been laid down by him - that raiding in Ashes should be an asperation for those that are not raiding. It should be the thing that people want to be able to do.

Batresh

I think Devs should also consider the dangers of build inspection.
The meta will force players to make certain build decisions.
Party leaders will inspect build and decline players for their gear and build decisions alone, not for their actual damage or party supporting cababilities.
I think you shouldn't be able to inspect the whole build of another players character. Maybe you should be able to inspect the characters gear atleast, because you want to show off your well-earned gear.

Instead of dps meters for whole party. I'd rather have a MVP screen like in Lost Ark or something alike
Where you can see the player who did most damage for the encounter
and then you can see your own damage
But you cannot see the rest of the partys damage.

The same you do for healing and support too ofc.

In addition to a MVP screen or the alternatives. Have a DPS meter but you can ONLY see your own DPS and stats.

Tragnar

Thing is that I believe that build inspection is something that Steven is categorically against as a toxic feature - at least that is my impression

Noaani

Tragnar wrote: »

Thing is that I believe that build inspection is something that Steven is categorically against as a toxic feature - at least that is my impression

Indeed.

This is one of the many contradictions I have seen in this game.

Killing a new player just trying to get started in the game is fine. Killing someone and taking a portion of their materials is fine (and then just kill them again and take more). Destroying a city that players have spent dozens or hundreds of hours to build is fine.

But looking at someones gear? We can't have that, someone may get their feelings hurt!

To me, that is Ashes of Contradictions.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Sure, instances have lockout. However, daily lockouts are traditionally for group content. Raid instances have weekly lockouts.

Such content wouldn't ruin the economy in the game. You asserted as if it is fact, but offered no reason as to why it would be the case. The rest of your argument here kind of hinges on the assumption that it would indeed ruin the economy.

My logic was based on your "20h of raiding a week" suggestion. I guess EQ's instances work differently or maybe I misunderstood how they worked in wow/ff14/l2, because I'm used to "instance" being a thing where you enter it, clear it and you're done. You could then repeat it immediately for more loot. And you could repeat it ad nauseam, until you get literally all of the possible gear from it.

And yes, those would be the party-centered instances, so they're usually way smaller in scale and difficulty (though not necessarily). I haven't run raid-sized instances in wow or ff14, but in L2 you'd have epic bosses (that you needed a raid to beat) with respawns ranging from 36h up to 11 days. And when NCsoft added pure instanced content meant for 36+ players, it reset on wednesdays and saturdays.

Both of those raid-type contents gave you top tier gear or epic uniques, so any amount of time spent on them was worth it. But if we exclude the pvp from the encounter, the farm itself would at worst be 5-6h, with pure instanced content being on a timer of no more than an hour (iirc). So none such content could provide you with 20h of raiding content, unless you were the top guild on the server and was clearing literally all the bosses.

Yet you're suggesting having 20h of raiding content a week. But, if it's instanced content, it wouldn't give BiS, so, in theory, it shouldn't be as difficult as the top lvl EQ raids you love, because I'd assume way less than 10% of pvers would even attempt it due to shitty rewards for a huge time investment.

And then comes my issue with supposed economy breaking potential of instanced content. Like I said, I'm used to associating instanced content with "reruns until you get everything you want", so I was mainly talking about that kind of thing ruining economy (everyone runs them w/o any interruptions, gets all the gear they'd ever need and all the mats from said gear, and can keep getting it again and again if they want = broken economy imo).

If we take only raid-sized instances that you can run only once a week, then I'd assume you have to get a ton of gear out of them, right? Because you're asking for 20h of gameplay from 40 people w/o a repeatable acquisition of gear from the instance. And a ton of gear that anyone can get w/o outside interruptions leads to broken economy. Any self-respecting high lvl guild would be running this weekly instance on all their members because they need to get the maximum value from the instance, no matter if it's a pvp guild or a pve one.

If you don't give out big quantities of gear and you don't give top quality gear for those 20h, then I must ask, do pvers really only want pure content w/o any tangible reward? Because I'd be completely fine with having some uber difficult instance raid that gives you some cool cosmetic and/or a title. Go and enjoy it for countless hours until you can beat it.

But as Steven says in references for this page, instance content will be mainly group-based and story-related. And any gear you get from it would probably be some basic "works for your level but far from the best"-type deal. I think the main source of confusion for you, when Steven says "raiding content", comes from the difference in the meanings of that definition.

I think you mentioned playing AA. I haven't played it, but I've heard that most if not all huge bosses there are open world, is that right? Cause if it is, then I'd assume that when Steven says "raiding content" he just means a huge boss with a ton of people fighting it. Now all the EQ devs at Intrepid will most likely push ow boss mechanics to their limits, but from all the info that I see, the raiding will still happen in the open world.

But you seem to be stuck on the idea that "raiding content" (or at least its best version) can only happen in instances, so when you hear Steven say that he wants raiding in Ashes, you immediately think that they'll appeal to your most desired type of content. And this is exactly why I said that Intrepid should distance themselves from being a raiding game (what I should've said is "a game with raids"), because, just like you, I'm sure the masses would also think about wow/ff14 raiding when they hear that classification for Ashes. And they'll be sorely disappointed.

mcstackerson

Noaani wrote: »

So the question is, if that is a part of the games plan way back then, why should they change the games design to take it out?

The system is designed the way it is for the same reason nodes are, by creating limited supply, you create player friction and conflict. Your recommendation destroys that.

Noaani

mcstackerson wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

So the question is, if that is a part of the games plan way back then, why should they change the games design to take it out?

The system is designed the way it is for the same reason nodes are, by creating limited supply, you create player friction and conflict. Your recommendation destroys that.

No it doesn't, and basic math is your friend here to prove that.

Imagine the game has 5 instanced raid encounters (I am not asking for more than this).

Imagine each encounter drops enough crafting material to make exactly 2 items.

Thus means that a raid of 640 item slots (40*16) is able to get 10 items per week from these encounters at the absolute best.

Further, since these items are not best in slot, they aren't even the items that these people are really wanting - they are still interim items.

Sure, other raids may be able to kill those mobs as well, but they have their own 640 item slots to fill.

If this level item item acquisition destroys the limited supply of items in the game, then itemization in the game was already destroyed.

Child Item