DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

MaiWaifu wrote: »

I disagree with this entirely.

So, are you saying that Margret, who worked in CS for years, is lying?

Or are you simply being one of those people you are talking about with your "expert opinion" here?

I mean, you are talking about IT, presumably because that is a field you have worked in. Margret was talking about CS in an MMO, because that is where she has worked.

So which is it, are you one of those "experts" that know what's wrong, or does Margret know what she is talking about in her literal field of expertise?

Because it can't be both.

As to your comments about multimeters - yes, obviously everyone should know how to use them, and should make good use of that knowledge before calling an electrician.

I mean, I do, and if the fix is something I feel capable to do myself, and am legally within my rights to do, I won't even bother making that call and I will simply do it myself.

I mean, this is a stupid analogy. Of course people should know how to use a multimeter.

Songcaller

MaiWaifu wrote: »

What specific troubleshooting benefit is a DPS meter providing that isn't already in the combat log?

Depends if the tracker provides more information than a combat log. Combat Tracker is such a broad term and we have no combat tracker to discuss - just a potential tracker to discuss.

Noaani

Neurath wrote: »

MaiWaifu wrote: »

What specific troubleshooting benefit is a DPS meter providing that isn't already in the combat log?

Depends if the tracker provides more information than a combat log. Combat Tracker is such a broad term and we have no combat tracker to discuss - just a potential tracker to discuss.

By definition, a combat tracker can not provide any more information than what is provided to players.

This is usually gained from the games log file, but there are other means to gain information if the log file is incomplete. However, these means are still within the bounds of information players have access to.

By definition, if it is taking information players do not have access to, it would cease to be a combat tracker.

Strevi

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

I am unsure either. You mentioned that first.

Where?

I don't recall talking about itemization at all in this thread. It certainly isn't in the portion of text you quoted.

Is it important for raiders to get rewards or only defeating the boss is important?

This is an entire discussion, and isn't really pertinent to a discussion about trackers - as it is it's own complete and separate issue.

The two issues are connected, but only tangentially.

If the ammount of mats on the market is too high, because the way how players defeat the raid, it will impact everybody and probably the drop rate will dynamically be adjusted.
Then the drop rate will be reduced or the difficulty scaled up. Depends if players want easier raid with RNG drops or hard raids with guaranteed drop.
Of course some will try to improve their chances.

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

But can also be about competition and reputation. Speed runners stream their mouse too on twitch when the they play.

As a crafter, I will get the materials from somebody. Might even be a corrupted, deeply in the red. I will ask no questions how he got them

If the raiders can kill the boss but not keep the item afterwards and is lost in a caravan transport and it changes owner a few times before is processed then developers achieved their goal.

Noaani

MaiWaifu wrote: »

What specific troubleshooting benefit is a DPS meter providing that isn't already in the combat log?

As I have said on these forums - indeed in this thread - several times before; in the past I have found a bug that escaped the games developers for years by using a combat tracker.

The bug was in relation to the games RNG system. The system would round 0 - 0.5 as being 0, 0.51 - 1.5 as being 1, 1.51 - 2.5 as being 2 etc.

What this meant is that the first and last number in any given range would come up half as often as it should.

As a bug, this affected literally everything in the game - but developers couldn't find it.

I had a hunch as to what it was, but obviously wasn't going to report a hunch (I wouldn't expect the developer to act on that). So, I performed 10k RNG rolls, collated the results in a combat tracker and sent it to the developer.

The bug was fixed a few days later - after literal years of being in the game.

See, you seem to think that a combat tracker only tracks combat. It doesn't, it tracks everything you tell it to track.

Hell, if I wanted to, I could program ACT to note when a specific player speaks in a chat channel, and record both the time and the message (I could probably also get it to report any mentions of that players name).

Trackers are often used for economic reasons, gatherers use them in many games, even crafters that have an RNG component to their crafting make use of combat trackers to better understand what is going on over time.

Noaani

Strevi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

I am unsure either. You mentioned that first.

Where?

I don't recall talking about itemization at all in this thread. It certainly isn't in the portion of text you quoted.

Is it important for raiders to get rewards or only defeating the boss is important?

This is an entire discussion, and isn't really pertinent to a discussion about trackers - as it is it's own complete and separate issue.

The two issues are connected, but only tangentially.

If the ammount of mats on the market is too high, because the way how players defeat the raid, it will impact everybody and probably the drop rate will dynamically be adjusted.
Then the drop rate will be reduced or the difficulty scaled up. Depends if players want easier raid with RNG drops or hard raids with guaranteed drop.
Of course some will try to improve their chances.

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

But can also be about competition and reputation. Speed runners stream their mouse too on twitch when the they play.

As a crafter, I will get the materials from somebody. Might even be a corrupted, deeply in the red. I will ask no questions how he got them

If the raiders can kill the boss but not keep the item afterwards and is lost in a caravan transport and it changes owner a few times before is processed then developers achieved their goal.

If you want to talk about drops from raids, feel free to start a thread about it.

The only part of your post here that belongs in this thread is;

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

This may be true, but those tools will exist regardless of what Intrepid do in regards to this thread. They will also not be against any ToS or EULA.

If you want to be a guild that gets those drops, you will have those tools.

Mag7spy

@MaiWaifu Noaani is trying to manipulate wording, its not worth debating him over it. He is trying to change their meaning to that she wants trackers in AoC to fill his hurt ego.

Songcaller

Noaani wrote: »

By definition, a combat tracker can not provide any more information than what is provided to players.

I've seen combat trackers that show player silhouettes behind obstacles. That is the issue when you use the term combat tracker instead of combat meter/dps meter.

Strevi

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

I am unsure either. You mentioned that first.

Where?

I don't recall talking about itemization at all in this thread. It certainly isn't in the portion of text you quoted.

Is it important for raiders to get rewards or only defeating the boss is important?

This is an entire discussion, and isn't really pertinent to a discussion about trackers - as it is it's own complete and separate issue.

The two issues are connected, but only tangentially.

If the ammount of mats on the market is too high, because the way how players defeat the raid, it will impact everybody and probably the drop rate will dynamically be adjusted.
Then the drop rate will be reduced or the difficulty scaled up. Depends if players want easier raid with RNG drops or hard raids with guaranteed drop.
Of course some will try to improve their chances.

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

But can also be about competition and reputation. Speed runners stream their mouse too on twitch when the they play.

As a crafter, I will get the materials from somebody. Might even be a corrupted, deeply in the red. I will ask no questions how he got them

If the raiders can kill the boss but not keep the item afterwards and is lost in a caravan transport and it changes owner a few times before is processed then developers achieved their goal.

If you want to talk about drops from raids, feel free to start a thread about it.

The only part of your post here that belongs in this thread is;

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

This may be true, but those tools will exist regardless of what Intrepid do in regards to this thread. They will also not be against any ToS or EULA.

If you want to be a guild that gets those drops, you will have those tools.

Understood.

I will not be a guild.
I'll just join one, to have those drops.

There might be players who would want to get the drops without external tools or deny those who use such tools to get them.
Griefing is a word used by those who lose.
I am not the one to tell what should happen.
And the developers want to be percieved as being on the side which doesn't use external tools. But in my oppinion they will not reduce the raid difficulty to allow more people to get the drops. Else they reduce the value of those items.

But they could create bias and let those who fight longer and strugle more, to obtain those drops, if there is a little bit of RNG involved in this.

Mag7spy

Strevi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

I am unsure either. You mentioned that first.

Where?

I don't recall talking about itemization at all in this thread. It certainly isn't in the portion of text you quoted.

Is it important for raiders to get rewards or only defeating the boss is important?

This is an entire discussion, and isn't really pertinent to a discussion about trackers - as it is it's own complete and separate issue.

The two issues are connected, but only tangentially.

If the ammount of mats on the market is too high, because the way how players defeat the raid, it will impact everybody and probably the drop rate will dynamically be adjusted.
Then the drop rate will be reduced or the difficulty scaled up. Depends if players want easier raid with RNG drops or hard raids with guaranteed drop.
Of course some will try to improve their chances.

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

But can also be about competition and reputation. Speed runners stream their mouse too on twitch when the they play.

As a crafter, I will get the materials from somebody. Might even be a corrupted, deeply in the red. I will ask no questions how he got them

If the raiders can kill the boss but not keep the item afterwards and is lost in a caravan transport and it changes owner a few times before is processed then developers achieved their goal.

If you want to talk about drops from raids, feel free to start a thread about it.

The only part of your post here that belongs in this thread is;

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

This may be true, but those tools will exist regardless of what Intrepid do in regards to this thread. They will also not be against any ToS or EULA.

If you want to be a guild that gets those drops, you will have those tools.

Understood.
I will not be a guild.
I'll just join one, to have those drops.

There might be players who would want to get the drops without external tools or deny those who use such tools to get them.
Griefing is a word used by those who lose.
I am not the one to tell what should happen.
And the developers want to be percieved as being on the side which doesn't use external tools. But in my oppinion they will not reduce the raid difficulty to allow more people to get the drops. Else they reduce the value of those items.

But they could create bias and let those who fight longer and strugle more, to obtain those drops, if there is a little bit of RNG involved in this.

Noaani isn't a developer btw he has no clue what they are doing, if add on and dps meters are not being supported they will be against ToS more than likely unless something changes. Meaning people can get banned.

Mag7spy

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Strevi wrote: »

I am unsure either. You mentioned that first.

Where?

I don't recall talking about itemization at all in this thread. It certainly isn't in the portion of text you quoted.

Is it important for raiders to get rewards or only defeating the boss is important?

This is an entire discussion, and isn't really pertinent to a discussion about trackers - as it is it's own complete and separate issue.

The two issues are connected, but only tangentially.

If the ammount of mats on the market is too high, because the way how players defeat the raid, it will impact everybody and probably the drop rate will dynamically be adjusted.
Then the drop rate will be reduced or the difficulty scaled up. Depends if players want easier raid with RNG drops or hard raids with guaranteed drop.
Of course some will try to improve their chances.

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

But can also be about competition and reputation. Speed runners stream their mouse too on twitch when the they play.

As a crafter, I will get the materials from somebody. Might even be a corrupted, deeply in the red. I will ask no questions how he got them

If the raiders can kill the boss but not keep the item afterwards and is lost in a caravan transport and it changes owner a few times before is processed then developers achieved their goal.

If you want to talk about drops from raids, feel free to start a thread about it.

The only part of your post here that belongs in this thread is;

I think the topic is, if those who get the drops are favored by using external tools.

This may be true, but those tools will exist regardless of what Intrepid do in regards to this thread. They will also not be against any ToS or EULA.

If you want to be a guild that gets those drops, you will have those tools.

Literarily spreading false information on the forums now. This is where we are at on this post with him saying what the developers will do and the rules they will enforce @NiKr @Dygz

Aerlana

MaiWaifu wrote: »

What specific troubleshooting benefit is a DPS meter providing that isn't already in the combat log?

As said, tracker is the same thing as taking all information from combat log, and putting in a spreadsheet
No more no less... The only benefit of using a tracker is... you don't need to spend time filling a spreadsheet.

Now what information a copy/paste from log doesnt provide ?
statistics.
the combat log won't directly gives you your effectiv critical rate. A spreadsheet will, so goes for combat tracker
"but the critical chance will be written in your character sheet" : yes... and ? a game promising me 40% is a thing, the datas showing me i am around 40% is far more important information... And suddenly you watch, only 35% crit with 5 minutes?!... ok lets do try again... i will farm thru monster bashing for one hours now. still close to 35% ? Ok there is a bug.
You will say me you would see the critical rate bug without tracker honestly ? You would spend hours and hours to fill a spreadsheet just to be able to calculate this way critical rate ?

As nooani said, MMORPG rely on RNG during fight. Hit rate, crit rate... but even damages (you don't do 50 but 40-60 dmg). all are RNG...
And it can get even worse if some augment affect critical rate, hit rate, or critical damage multiplicator of skills... also, lets go on stuff side, will it be just +X on some statistics or some stuff will have special effect like trinkets in wow ? And i could continue.

To test it, you won't need 50 line of combat log, neither 100, even 1000 is short, you would aim for 10k to have quite accurate results. without tracker, it means 10k lines you have to take, and put into a spreadsheet...

Devs have lot of things to monitor, we can't expect them to find such "invisible" bug... Except if you have no problem with a buggy game...

MaiWaifu wrote: »

You can report a bug without overwhelming someone with information. If they ask for something specific, sure provide it.

Playing on NwN2 a lot, buggy games, the programmer of servers doing LOT of changes about how the game works must be ready to deal with lot of bug...
They always loved for me giving more than just "i don't do the damages intended" (when the bug is around damages). What kind of monster the bug is on, with specific weapon, with specific feats ? And often what i give is not even enough, and i return doing test. Because the more test i do (and result i give them) the less time they need to spend on it.

Sure, as you say, you can do the bug report as small as possible, but you can do it far more detailed also, nothing you said is a counter argument to what you said, and in my gaming experience... the more detailed it is, the better it is.

And...i spent lot of time for it x_x

Mag7spy wrote: »

Literarily spreading false information on the forums now. This is where we are at on this post with him saying what the developers will do and the rules they will enforce @NiKr @Dygz

Imagine a game that decide that vocal chat is forbidden. be it with discord, teamspeak or mumble or what else... Outside of bad idea... do you really think devs who wants it could put it in ToS ?
This is impossible to enforce it. and on FFXIV, no one ever was banned for using tracker while Yoshida, lead director of FFXIV, said clearly it was not allowed. People were banned for toxic behaviour each time.
Overall, find me one MMORPG where tracker are really forbidden ? i am still looking...

You never said how they could enforce such rule. As far as i know, no way you can enforce it, aside scanning computer activity to know what other software is running while the game is open.
Say me how they can know who is using tracker with accurate result before claiming they can ban everyone using it. And i speak accurate result because banning a few percent of users is totally useless, the "how to avoid being spotted" will spread like a fire...

I said on FFXIV people were banned only for bad behaviour ? yes, it is a well known fact, and was few month only, after it, everyone understood the simple rule to obey : Shut your mouth when you kick anyone from your party, never justify the kick. Because on FFXIV, the party leader decide what do with the party (as in any MMORPG) and don't have to justify his decisions. You can so kick people for bad DPS, or refuse them because their datas on fflogs are bad, there no issue if you shut your mouth aside some "no sorry" or "have to kick you, bye". No proof, no ban.

Mag7spy

Aerlana wrote: »

MaiWaifu wrote: »

What specific troubleshooting benefit is a DPS meter providing that isn't already in the combat log?

As said, tracker is the same thing as taking all information from combat log, and putting in a spreadsheet
No more no less... The only benefit of using a tracker is... you don't need to spend time filling a spreadsheet.

Now what information a copy/paste from log doesnt provide ?
statistics.
the combat log won't directly gives you your effectiv critical rate. A spreadsheet will, so goes for combat tracker
"but the critical chance will be written in your character sheet" : yes... and ? a game promising me 40% is a thing, the datas showing me i am around 40% is far more important information... And suddenly you watch, only 35% crit with 5 minutes?!... ok lets do try again... i will farm thru monster bashing for one hours now. still close to 35% ? Ok there is a bug.
You will say me you would see the critical rate bug without tracker honestly ? You would spend hours and hours to fill a spreadsheet just to be able to calculate this way critical rate ?

As nooani said, MMORPG rely on RNG during fight. Hit rate, crit rate... but even damages (you don't do 50 but 40-60 dmg). all are RNG...
And it can get even worse if some augment affect critical rate, hit rate, or critical damage multiplicator of skills... also, lets go on stuff side, will it be just +X on some statistics or some stuff will have special effect like trinkets in wow ? And i could continue.

To test it, you won't need 50 line of combat log, neither 100, even 1000 is short, you would aim for 10k to have quite accurate results. without tracker, it means 10k lines you have to take, and put into a spreadsheet...

Devs have lot of things to monitor, we can't expect them to find such "invisible" bug... Except if you have no problem with a buggy game...

MaiWaifu wrote: »

You can report a bug without overwhelming someone with information. If they ask for something specific, sure provide it.

Playing on NwN2 a lot, buggy games, the programmer of servers doing LOT of changes about how the game works must be ready to deal with lot of bug...
They always loved for me giving more than just "i don't do the damages intended" (when the bug is around damages). What kind of monster the bug is on, with specific weapon, with specific feats ? And often what i give is not even enough, and i return doing test. Because the more test i do (and result i give them) the less time they need to spend on it.

Sure, as you say, you can do the bug report as small as possible, but you can do it far more detailed also, nothing you said is a counter argument to what you said, and in my gaming experience... the more detailed it is, the better it is.

And...i spent lot of time for it x_x

Mag7spy wrote: »

Literarily spreading false information on the forums now. This is where we are at on this post with him saying what the developers will do and the rules they will enforce @NiKr @Dygz

Imagine a game that decide that vocal chat is forbidden. be it with discord, teamspeak or mumble or what else... Outside of bad idea... do you really think devs who wants it could put it in ToS ?
This is impossible to enforce it. and on FFXIV, no one ever was banned for using tracker while Yoshida, lead director of FFXIV, said clearly it was not allowed. People were banned for toxic behaviour each time.
Overall, find me one MMORPG where tracker are really forbidden ? i am still looking...

You never said how they could enforce such rule. As far as i know, no way you can enforce it, aside scanning computer activity to know what other software is running while the game is open.
Say me how they can know who is using tracker with accurate result before claiming they can ban everyone using it. And i speak accurate result because banning a few percent of users is totally useless, the "how to avoid being spotted" will spread like a fire...

I said on FFXIV people were banned only for bad behaviour ? yes, it is a well known fact, and was few month only, after it, everyone understood the simple rule to obey : Shut your mouth when you kick anyone from your party, never justify the kick. Because on FFXIV, the party leader decide what do with the party (as in any MMORPG) and don't have to justify his decisions. You can so kick people for bad DPS, or refuse them because their datas on fflogs are bad, there no issue if you shut your mouth aside some "no sorry" or "have to kick you, bye". No proof, no ban.

Fluff post you don't speak for the devs.

Dygz

OK.... but... regardless of whether they can enforce the rule...people who break the rule are still cheating... right?

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

OK.... but... regardless of whether they can enforce the rule...people who break the rule are still cheating... right?

In the way of breaking the rule, yes. At its core they're just speeding up the process of them recording a video from all pov of the raid and compiling the combat logs from the same people. But because that's being done by a 3rd party tool - it's against the rules and they'll be cheating.

But as Noaani has said countless times, they don't give a fuck about that

MaiWaifu

Noaani wrote: »

As I have said on these forums - indeed in this thread - several times before; in the past I have found a bug that escaped the games developers for years by using a combat tracker.

The bug was in relation to the games RNG system. The system would round 0 - 0.5 as being 0, 0.51 - 1.5 as being 1, 1.51 - 2.5 as being 2 etc.

Are you claiming you were able to run enough tests by single-handedly in a game to get accurate RNG without developer tools?

That's impressive dedication. How long did that take to gather?

Noaani wrote: »

What this meant is that the first and last number in any given range would come up half as often as it should.

You may have just been unlucky. Even heads/tails dice flips don't translate to 50/50 in practice.

Noaani wrote: »

As a bug, this affected literally everything in the game - but developers couldn't find it.

I had a hunch as to what it was, but obviously wasn't going to report a hunch (I wouldn't expect the developer to act on that). So, I performed 10k RNG rolls, collated the results in a combat tracker and sent it to the developer.

The bug was fixed a few days later - after literal years of being in the game.

I'm curious, what game was this that had a bug for years?

Would you be willing to elaborate what your testing process was to isolate what effected the RNG roll when using the combat tracker?

Dolyem

Day 763

Mag7spy

Dolyem wrote: »

Day 763

more memes please lol

Wyvinar

I'm not a fan of having a public dps meter, but I also really like to see what I'm doing wrong if dealing low damage, one helped me out a whole load recently in a game and once a sorted my issues, I was dealing 3 times as much damage.
So maybe there could be a training area that allows you to see dps and a breakdown of that. I also think it's important to have an hps meter as well, as healers also need to improve, but they need more skill than just trying to heal as much as possible.

Mag7spy

Wyvinar wrote: »

I'm not a fan of having a public dps meter, but I also really like to see what I'm doing wrong if dealing low damage, one helped me out a whole load recently in a game and once a sorted my issues, I was dealing 3 times as much damage.
So maybe there could be a training area that allows you to see dps and a breakdown of that. I also think it's important to have an hps meter as well, as healers also need to improve, but they need more skill than just trying to heal as much as possible.

Ya you should be able to test your damage out since there is a combat log and will show what your damage is doing.

Some people here (small handful) for years have been trying to push for public trackers to track other players.

Child Item