Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
What is your baseline even to evaluate someone? What are you comparing it to? You have no objective parameters to check, just your "gutfeeling".
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
Players using the DPS outcome to blame failure on one or two players I think would be missing the point of the team activity.
Group leaders should be mature enough to give a "we failed but it's okay" talk to everyone, and then reach out to the individual players and give them all advice or at least ask them what happened.
Teams shouldn't target specific group members and then everyone pitch in and tell that player what they did wrong and how to "correctly" play their character for raid content.
This is my dilemma with the DPS meters. I think a lot of good points are made for why group/raid leaders should have access to one during those events. I also think a lot of good points are made about the type of players that use this information to kick team members from teams when maybe they just had an off go at things.
Since we can't police those that would have access, nor should we, i think Ashes current stance on not having one is better.
Like all points in this forum, these are just opinions.
In WoW, the dps addons lead to players choosing optimal races for classes and choosing top dps classes instead of what they truly enjoy. Dps addons led players further away from the immersion and creating their own character.
Even in WoW I can see without addons if healers are not casting, if tank isnt getting shields, if tank is lacking threat, if dps are autoattacking, where and how people are moving, how they die, etc.
When you play without dps meters and feel how the encounter is easier, see how players make plays to ease the encounter, or see how a player bursts down the trash, you will realize even without addons that they are good and make friends with them for further runs. Players will get picked into raids for their reputation instead of charts, making the game more social and improve the community in the game.
I dont think dps meter is mandatory in any game.
I can agree that dps meters are a great way to theorycraft ur dps, but even w/o the meter u can test ur damage on the same target with different builds and take time.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
That’s not to say they’re needed in every game. It would be great if AoC just didn’t need them.
To think that third party DPS neters won't exist is wishful thinking at best.
Also, I want to see other people's DPS, so that if I am under-performing in some aspect (all mitigating circumstances notwithstanding) compared to another person playing the same class mix, then I can find ways to lift my game. I enjoy pushing myself to some extent, but I am far from an elitist. Who knows, I may even end up being primarily a crafter, assuming the game lives up in that respect.
There must have been some bad experiences in other games (WoW?) for people to be so upset about such a useful tool, when used properly. That fault lies in the community, not the tool.
100% agree with you dude. The main game I have most of my experience with dps meters is Tera, and it got so bad that the devs had to ban dps meters and if you are caught posting dps anywhere for anyone you can get banned. I got banned for a week when I was helping some guildmates perfect a couple builds because I posted a few dps meters stats in guild chat and a few guildmates reported me. Funny enough though, they decided to brag about getting an officer banned and got blacklisted from the server and they had to transfer to a different server. Totally worth it
I did specifically say that if all we got was a pure DPS meter, it would be a waste of time. I've specifically been referring to a combat tracker this whole thread, rather than a DPS meter. A combat tracker can tell you everything (if you know how to read the information).
Further, I've also said the best way to implement it in my mind is at the guild level, as an optional perk.
If you are in a guild of like-minded people, they probably all don't want one, and as a guild, you can opt to take a different perk instead. However, if I am in a guild of like-minded people, we will want one, and thus we can opt to take that as a perk instead of something that may be less useful to our guild, and more useful to your guild.
This also means that pick up groups and raids do not have the option of using a combat tracker, eliminating what I perceive as the major issue people have with them - pick up group/raid leaders that think they know what they are talking about, and use DPS readouts as a means of belittling others, usually for no reason.
Especially since I don't expect guilds to be the primary form of group I associate with in Ashes.
But, that really depends on whether the DPS meter becomes deemed a cookie-cutter requirement by the Ashes community.
What I am afraid the most about having a general dps meter is getting meta preferential groups along with it. Being able to keep dps meters out of the game means people are more open to different builds.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
When I started raiding i would get cut from raid cause dps to low but had no idea what type of dps was required for those raids . Eventually I got better but would of been lot easier if I knew about how much dps I needed to do in the first place.
They could make it so that the group would learn their overall damage after a wipe or after a kill, so that they can see who or where they need to improve.
Overwatch also ccounts your overall damage dealt etc...
If I were designing the boss fights (given the little information we have on the combat system) I would put a higher emphasis on survival and control rather than raw damage output, as that would rather a highly mobile action combat system. Boss fights like this wouldn't be dictated by the amount of damage the raid does and therefore a damage meter would be pointless.
I know that many things are influencing your dps, but if the raid takes you along as a DD aka damage dealer, then the person should be able to dps and do the mechanics.
And also... you are also only theorizing about the raid design of ashes here: we have 0 knowledge about it currently as far as i know...
If the raid takes you along as a support (dps AND buffs for example) then they would not look at your dps/damage. The meter would only be important for people that are required to mainly push their damage numbers, to burst down smaller spawning adds or to fill in eventually required damage for spezific phases.
My current feeling is to wait until we actually experience both the combat and the raid encounters before demanding we have dps meters, because if Intrepid are smart about it (and NOT make GW2's mistake of putting WoW-style raids into a game that wasn't designed for it) they could create boss fights where dps is a very minor factor.
A full combat tracker though, that would account for those things that affected the DPS of the DPS class, and so is more useful.
If Ashes has a combat log that is able to be exported to a text file, ACT will be used. It was developed for EQ2 originally, but has been used in maybe a dozen MMORPG's to date, including FFXIV.
That said, I'm not sure if I want ACT to be compatible with Ashes. While ACT gives an incredible amount of information (do a google image search for Advanced Combat Tracker), there is so much info to be had that most people simply can't figure out how to do anything more than look at raw DPS.
If there is no built in tracker, I can see people either using or building third party tools. Even if the tool has to scan on screen text for information, players will find a way to get a readout of the info they want. I'd rather see a built in option for the people that really do want to use it, but one that puts more info than just DPS in an easy to access and understand kind of format.
Ah, there has been some confusion here about my use of the term "dps meter". In WoW you have the "recount" addon, which players call a "dps meter" when in fact it is a full Advanced Combat Tracker. It is a very powerful tool and on top of that you have warcraft logs that is a third party website for fight analysis.
So, when I say "dps meter" in WoW I'm referring to recount which is an ACT. Now that that is sorted out I go back to my earlier point that you also mentioned, that when things go wrong (i.e. a raid wipe) your average player will look at the data in its simplest form, which in this case usually results in the following 2 questions:
Who died?
Who did the least dps?
They won't look anymore into it than that, and they certainly won't use the full suit of tools available to them in recount or warcraft logs.
WoW is an interesting beast when it comes to raiding. Blizzard have fully accepted that players are going to develop all manner of addons to help them, and so they have designed both the combat system and the raid encounters under the assumption that everyone is going to use those tools. The result is that if you intend to do anything harder than LFR you need to use those third party tools. It is physically impossible to get the most dps out of your character without Warcraft logs, just as it's impossible to do mythic raiding without boss mods and timers.
Ashes (I hope!) won't be like this, so dps meters and boss mods shouldn't be necessary.
While parsers are almost universally used in raiding in most games that allow them (or don't not allow them), there is no game other than WoW in which they are required or developed around - as far as I have ever seen.
As with many things WoW has done, I look at WoW in terms of it's entire add-on scene as a specific example of what to not do. I'd rather have nothing than have something that is 100% depended upon by the entire raiding scene of a given game.
However, there is scope for something between what WoW has and a total absence.
I'm sure you know the technical details of how third party parsers work - but I'm going to quickly run over it as I understand it. The general idea is that the game spews out information in real time to a specific text file, and the parser reads that file in real time. Many things are calculated, and the parser can trigger notifications when it receives specific lines of text - for example, a notification when the parser reads a line of text indicating that an enemy is about to use an AoE ability.
The developers decide exactly what information gets sent to that text file. If they don't put in any text notification that a boss is about to cast an AoE, the parser can't give the player any notification thatit read that line of text. However, if that ability is used on a specific timer, most parsers have the ability to time from when it was last used by the boss, and give a warning a few seconds before it is used again.
Based on all of that, if a developer gave encounters abilities that didn't have any text indication of them about to be used, and set their timer with a +/-15 second timer instead of a set timer, then there is no way third party add-ons can time that specific ability, leaving developers free to only provide on screen animation based notifications for the players - something a parser can't pick up on.
This means add-ons like boss mods would be literally impossible to make - meaning encounters could not be developed around them.
So basically, what I am saying is that even if third party combat trackers are permitted in the game, Intrepid still maintain 100% control over what information they do and do not give players, based 100% on what information they export to that text file.
The idea behind some of WoW's raids is enjoyable. Some heavily scripted encounters can be fun, and I'd really like to see things like that in Ashes (better executed than in WoW, just using a similar idea). However, no matter how good the game, how good the content, I simply can't enjoy any game that "requires" a third party add-on in order to play.
They are fine as options, imo, but should never be required.
To me though, this is more of an argument to have one built in to the game than it is an argument about anything else.
You can see who did dps, maybe who died first. You won't be seeing why they died, who's fault it was from dps meters.
DPS meters will discourage build variations and push towards choosing the specs with highest dps.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
It is indeed true that you cant know how someone died(even though you can see how much damage someone gook from something and then deduce from that), but you can then ask them yourself why they died! it is important to know how someone died, and you can most of the time see in the meter how someone died, and who took unnecessary damage.
I never said remove the importance of DPS in raids, just reduce it in favour of control or survival. I doubt you would see progression groups with just tanks and healers for a number of reasons:
1. There simply won't be enough pure tanks and healers to make up a full raid squad
2. Having no dedicated dps will drag out the fights so much. Ever been in a 20-25 minute boss fight before? It's a slog and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to do that. Raid teams often bring in more dps on farm runs just to speed up the fights.
3. Depending on how the boss fight is balanced, there will be an upper limit of how many extra healers will increase the survivability of the group. If a single healer is strong enough to keep everyone at full health all the time there is no need for a second healer.
Dedicated DPS will always have a place in raiding. All I'm saying is that you can design raid encounters where the ultimate win condition isn't based on some arbitrary number, but rather on executing the mechanics and staying alive.
The point of a combat tracker is to be able to get a better idea of what is happening. It isn't just about seeing who is doing what DPS, it is also about seeing when that DPS is being done, to what target, who is healing, who is buffing. It gives the whole raid an objective view of not only what the raid is doing, but what the encounter is doing.
A proper combat tracker will always tell you why a player died, and from that you can easily extrapolate whose fault that was. You will be able to see if that player that died took direct damage from the encounter (a result of pulling aggro, his fault and/or the tanks fault). It will tell you if that player had a DoT on him that the healer was supposed to remove. It will tell you if an AoE hit that player and killed him.
The ONLY problem with combat trackers comes when people try and use them thinking that all they do is show DPS.
According to statistics the average human has less than 2 hands. It's your job to understand what that means, not the statistics job to clarify. People please...
It provides a basic to look at yourself and see wheter you are where you want to be in every context. DPS meter is not the reason for garbage human behaviour and it's not the reason for WHY the highest dps is usually needed just a tool to achieve it.
That's game design and balance fault. If the game says "after 5 minutes you all die to enraged boss attacks" then you need to squeeze in the required dps for it. Wether you have a dps meter or not is irrelevant. The game says you need to finish in 5 minutes. Period. Don't willfully reverse cause and effect to make a point that doesn't exist.
No dps meter is at fault that the best hunter build only deals half the damage of the warrior. There are only so many spaces in a raid to deal damage. This is the games fault period.
If you don't have a tool to compare builds then how are you going to hit those benchmark that the GAME requieres you to hit?
Also it doesn't discourage build diversity, people are lazy and the VAST majority isn't interested in testing out builds. They just take whatever works in their class and fly with that. That has always been true and has no relevance on your own choice. Wether they run with a popular build or not has no bearing of what you want to do. It doesn't make the game better or worse because more people run a particular build or not.
And if you say "but I get excluded from groups for it" then again, that's human garbage behaviour and will exist with or without dps meter. Look for a better group and if everyone says it, well maybe then your special snowflake build just can't keep up with what THE GAME requieres from you. Or maybe you are a lazy bastard that just wants to leech stuff, why would I have to suffer you?
And again dps meter provides an easy comparison of classes and builds, it showcases inbalances on the games side a lot quicker and prominently, providing developers with information to fix broken stuff and bring everything into a reasonable/wanted area.
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
You can see every skill players pushed before they died. Yet it doesnt reveal players locations nor does it
always reveal why the group died.
You will still need to ask personally someone died and believe them or you can ask your raid or track people urself as a leader. What I'm getting to with this is, why is that addon still mandatory? You could skip checking the tracker and directly ask your group what went wrong.
The players will tell you then if they had dots healers were supposed to dispel, if healer cant manage healing then the group needs to consider going more defensive.
Your response doesnt still provide a reason why a combat tracker(dps addon) is mandatory to have, or providing more pros than cons.
@grisu
I first was for dps meters(combat trackers or w/e u want to call it), but then I started wondering why.
I personally love theorycrafting and experimenting and dps addons help A LOT with that, but after pondering it a while I can see more cons than pros.
If Ashes was to create a boss that one shots you after 60seconds after getting below 5%, I could notch a bit towards requiring dps addons, but so far IS has been reluctant towards dps meters pointing towards not developing that sort of content. 'What prevents the developers from collecting that data without players acknowledging it?
Being able to easily compare the dps differences between specs is a con, not a pro. Being able to say "that this player did this dmg with this spec and you have to roll that spec because he did good dps" is bad thing.
When players arent forced into prioritizing dps only, they can make builds most suitable for their playstyle and optimize them depending on encounters.
Say Rain of Arrows does insane dps at max but u couldnt have a stun trap with that. The ranger is doing sick dps from afar while melees are spamming defensives instead of dmg because the trash ranger couldve stunned and killed with normal skills are debuffing others.
DPS addon didnt couldnt tell u the ranger couldve stunned those mobs and saved the party, instead the ranger can say others suck because he was doing the highest dps.
Knowing IS is reluctant towards having dps meters is pointing towards developing content that requires innovation instead of dps.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
This video perfectly describes the kind of dps meter that I enjoy, and how it should be measured for self improvement. An experienced team will always understand the mechanics and what dps should be based on performance for the DPS classes. Tanks and Healers demonstrate their skill by staying alive and holding aggro or buffing/debuffing and healing. Tera is a pure skill based game and makes WoW look like a casual wonderlane (because that's what it is). This fight in particular is one of the most challenging boss fights for tanks and healers in the history of Tera. Also known as a Dark Souls difficulty boss.
What matters is actually being able to defeat the boss - and that should not be determined by seconds.
Shouldn't matter whether it takes my group 2 hours or 3 hours or 4 hours to kill the boss - as long as we devise a strategy that allows us to kill the boss... and we enjoy the experience.
I think what we really want is to ensure that our overall damage and heals are greater than the overall damage and heals from the opponent. When, I'm snaring and kiting and throwing down shields and barriers, my dps might be very low compared to others using different tactics. What really matters is whether the opponent gets defeated - not how quickly I'm doling out damage.
Perhaps my team excels at soaking and avoiding damage while preventing opponents from healing - our dps ends up being exceedingly low and our battles prolonged compared to other teams with high dps - but who cares as long as we're all having fun playing our roles the way we like to play them?
I agree. The devs can use dps meters if they wish.
DPS meters in the hands of players is more of a problem than a boon.
For people like you (casual) a dps meter is more of problem because you don't care that much about improvement which is fine. To each their own, but people like me put our boots on the pavement and run full speed at bosses and focus on taking them down as fast as possible. I am almost never around people like you because you don't care to keep up with me. That is expected and understandable. I very rarely seen any of the problem anyone has brought up in this post most likely because I just avoid people that can't keep up. The only time I ever dealt with casuals was when I decided to use a lfg system of any sort when none of my friends were not online for whatever reason. IS will either help us with a DPS meter or we will go out of our way to make one. That is what will happen whether anyone likes it or not.
Obviously, people who care about taking down the bosses as efficiently and quickly as possible are going to want whatever tools allow them to do so.
People like you who feel like they are rarely around people like me feel that way because people like me get kicked from groups that have people like you. Therein lies the problem.
We will have to see if IS allows a DPS meter add-on.
I thought they weren't allowing add-ons, but... it's not something I've been paying attention to, so I could be wrong about that.
We shall see.