DPS Meter Megathread

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burnthefern

damokles wrote: »

@burnthefern @wanderingmist

I know that the DPS in itself is useless, but they also have a "total damage done" meter, which in turn is incredibly usefull.
Elitism is always something that should be avoided but we should also consider another thing: Raids in general were once only doable for the best geared/skilled PvE players (the "elites") mostly.

I led Raids from WoD through Legion to BfA, and the total damage done meter was immensely helpfull to root out those that were either doing something very wrong or just didnt carry their own weight.
It is always easy for normal raiders to say that the raids became too focused on elitism, but if you cant do the modicum of damage to the boss and dont bring anything else to the table (buffs from the paladin, off heal from the druid, heroism/windfury from shaman, ability to soak aoes etc (thats all froma classic perspective) ) then you just cant do the raid.

Oh I definitely agree with you. I was on the top end of raiding for a while and was usually in charge of deciding what healers werent carrying their weight and kicking them. I do think it's extremely helpful to know who isnt doing their job, but that's also exactly why I dont think we will see meters. Theres no way to avoid that exclusion that comes with that knowledge. Intrepid wants to avoid that exclusion as much as possible.

Shoklen

insomnia wrote: »

I recall them saying there wouldn't be one. As others have said, sometimes they cause more harm than good. It isn't always about how much dps you do. Also about cc etc

I vaguely remember hearing the same a long time ago. Hopefully the stance hasn't changed.

If I am remembering correctly and there will not be any parseable data coming from the engine.. Then no point debating it, really.

Azathoth

@grisu I think my example was more of hiring your friend who is almost like a mechanic versus hiring a real one. If you want to have fun and get some work done on your car, your friend is fine. If you want to let the professionals handle it, then maybe don't use your friend. But in both your example and mine there is an indication of a more serious/professional level of gaming.

If you are in a hardcore guild, you likely won't have these types anyways as you mention. But not all guilds are hardcore, and some that aren't still kick members from raids for not having the 'right' build. I do see your point, if you want to be able to exclude players because they didn't pick the one optimal build for their class, a hardcore guild is likely more your style.

I agree with @burnthefern as well. I would go a step further and say that not only does IS want to avoid that level of exclusion, they would probably like to avoid having their player base build the same 8 characters over and over because of optimization. Will this happen? Sure, but that doesn't mean IS has to implement the tools to help.

Wandering Mist

@damokles and @burnthefern Again, that information from the meters is only useful if you know how to analyse it in the context of each fight. To do that you typically need to know everything about the boss mechanics and be familiar with every single class in your raid. Just because someone is a raid leader doesn't mean they know everything, especially on progression runs where dps meters are of the most use.

It's all very well saying "oh, that person did the lowest amount of healing/damage" but unless you know why that happened, the information is useless to you. In order to fix a problem you have to know the underlying causes, which requires you to not only look at all the information on a dps meter, but to see what happened in the fight itself. How many times have you seen a raid leader rage at someone for dying and yet the raid leader has absolutely no idea why the death happened? It happens so often and it comes down to pure ignorance, nothing more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVISGXo8gTA

This video shows just how much information you can gain from both a dps meter and warcraft logs, information that is crucial for finding out why your raid team can't kill a boss. The thing is, the majority of people who install a dps meter never look past the "damage done" or "healing done" number, so they are only getting perhaps 10% of the amount of information available to them.

Plateau

Wandering Mist

@Leonerdo the problem of how much information to give to players about game mechanics is something developers have struggled with for decades. Even if the devs wanted to give us all the information (which is unlikely), it just isn't practical.

https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Defense

This is the wiki page for a single stat that used to exist in WoW. Do you really expect the devs to put all this information into the tooltips in game?

You do touch on a good point though, which is that in modern WoW combat there are tons of passive procs baked into each class that can only be tracked using a dps meter. It's physically impossible to tell where your damage is coming from without referring to a dps meter. I doubt Ashes will have this problem, at least in the very beginning.

grisu

@azathoth You lost me there, I seem to not be able to understand where your example is coming from and I don't like your implications at all.
I obviously don't know your personal experiences and I am sorry if those experiences lead you to such a negative view to focused raiding, because focused raiding is a lot of fun too and not at all business like.
I'll leave this topic be now either way.

azathoth wrote: »

(...)they would probably like to avoid having their player base build the same 8 characters over and over because of optimization. Will this happen? Sure, but that doesn't mean IS has to implement the tools to help.

So instead of fixing an obvious problem, imbalance, they just hope that the community won't notice it at all/for a longer time?

Plateau

Roko

As long as nobody other than myself can see my damage / healing done; and Intrepid lets me report those that find a way to do it, so they get banned. The same way FF14 does it, i'd be OK with it.

burnthefern

wanderingmist wrote: »

@damokles and @burnthefern Again, that information from the meters is only useful if you know how to analyse it in the context of each fight. To do that you typically need to know everything about the boss mechanics and be familiar with every single class in your raid. Just because someone is a raid leader doesn't mean they know everything, especially on progression runs where dps meters are of the most use.

It's all very well saying "oh, that person did the lowest amount of healing/damage" but unless you know why that happened, the information is useless to you. In order to fix a problem you have to know the underlying causes, which requires you to not only look at all the information on a dps meter, but to see what happened in the fight itself. How many times have you seen a raid leader rage at someone for dying and yet the raid leader has absolutely no idea why the death happened? It happens so often and it comes down to pure ignorance, nothing more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVISGXo8gTA

This video shows just how much information you can gain from both a dps meter and warcraft logs, information that is crucial for finding out why your raid team can't kill a boss. The thing is, the majority of people who install a dps meter never look past the "damage done" or "healing done" number, so they are only getting perhaps 10% of the amount of information available to them.

Again, this still leads to exclusion. I never mentioned exclusion based on a single metric, I'm talking about people not pulling their weight when all the metrics are considered. If someone's class cant perform to a certain standard, and as a player they are unable to mechanically perform at the skill level required, would you keep them onboard? I personally wouldn't. That's exclusion. You seem to be under the impression that every raid leader will act altruistically when given access to this data. People are pretty shitty, and while I believe you would use the meters to better the raid by figuring out who needs advice instead of a kicking, I firmly believe most wouldn't. Now, again, I do agree that there should be meters, however I dont think we will see them because of the exclusion that they bring.

burnthefern

@wanderingmist
Cant edit on mobile for some reason, but I re read your post and you seem to understand that most people aren't going to be using this information correctly. So I'm unsure as to what the point you're making is?

Azathoth

It's not about making all classes balanced to each other. But each class will likely have an optimal build. I would assume hardcore raid teams would be more likely to expect the optimal build on raids than other guilds or raid teams.

Overall, I think the DPS meter is nice for players to have access to, but is unnecessary for others to have access to.

@grisu
I have no negative experiences with raid teams. I'm sorry you couldn't follow my example.

Noaani

I've always been a big fan of DPS meters. More specifically, I've always been a big fan of Advanced Combat Tracker.

As a tool, ACT is able to tell the whole raid WHO is doing what amount of damage, WHEN they are doing that damage (no point in attacking a boss if they have a reflect up), and even HOW players are damaging an opponent.

On top of that, ACT is able to tell players who is healing, who is receiving healing, who is receiving damage, how much damage is being mitigated, how many attacks are being blocked or parried and a whole host of other, useful things.

I'm going to go back to the mechanic comparison from earlier. Almost all cars run via the same process - internal combustion engines. This has been a thing for 133 years now, and in that time, car manufacturers have gone to great lengths to get the most efficiency out of this basic process.

One of the things manufacturers have done to get the most they can out of an internal combustion engine is they have set several subsystems to run off of computer systems rather than purely mechanical operation, to get better performance than they would be able to otherwise get.

In order to allow mechanics to repair these high tech cars, manufacturers have developed diagnostic tools that can be plugged in to the on board computer in order to get diagnostic information. Without these tools, workshops would have a hard time figuring out exactly what is wrong with any given car, as often the issues don't present themselves in a mechanical manner.

To me, a combat tracker is like this diagnostic tool. It's only needed if the developers want to really push their content. If they keep content simple - DPS check mob, then a heal check mob etc - there is no real need. If, however, they want to push content to be new, interesting and exciting, us players need tools to be able to diagnose things when it isn't working as we expect.

I, personally, am hoping the developers make actual interesting encounters.

That said, I understand how some people dislike DPS meters and such. No one wants to be called out for poor DPS, even if you are on a pickup raid as a healer. Sadly though, many players think they know what they are talking about, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

So, my suggestion would be to put in a full combat tracking system in, but put it in as an option at the guild level. Almost all guilds would either be "for" or "against" using such a meter in guild groups and raids, so give them the chance. If a guild advertises as using a meter, then when joining, you know what to expect, and if they advertise as not using it, then you also know what to expect. If joining a pickup group or raid, a DPS meter is not an option.

To me, this is the best way to appease all people.

Wandering Mist

@burnthefern I'm perfectly ok with exclusion in games, and even if I weren't it would be inevitable. After all, if you are doing raid content that requires every single person to pull their own weight, you only want to take the best people for the job. My problem with dps meters is that it causes unnecessary exclusion due to ignorance.

I also believe that (as of the information we currently have) Ashes of Creation won't require dps meters or boss mod addons to complete the raid content. WoW raids are designed in such a way that you need those third party tools in order to succeed, at least when it comes to mythic raiding. And despite people complaining that WoW combat is boring, the amount of under-the-hood mechanics that make up the combat make it the most complex in any game I've played.

Simply put, in order to do mythic raiding in WoW, you have to get the most out of your class. And in order to do that you need a host of addons including dps meters.

@noaani I like your car mechanic analogy. To extent it a little bit, putting a dps meter into Ashes is like using modern car diagnostic tools to fix a car built in the 1920s.

Wololo

So is it true that with a DPS meter, a player in raids should be spamming his own autoattack that gives 60% damage increse instead of a skill that gives your whole group of 7 to 40 people a 10% damage boost ? I just feel that whole DPS goal takes away from making any sort of plays that doesnt give you DPS but still help the party. A newer player with less strong gear would prefer to keep the DPS up instead of peeling/buffing/healing for a few teammates that are about to die, just because he needs to prove himselve with a DPS number.

Ezenkrul

No reason at all for a DPS meter and if I recall correctly they do not want to implement one or allow add ons. Which is AMAZING.
If you cannot tell you or someone else is not doing what they are suppose to be doing by just watching and learning...then you don't deserve to know.

Damokles

ezenkrul87 wrote: »

If you cannot tell you or someone else is not doing what they are suppose to be doing by just watching and learning...then you don't deserve to know.

So you have the time to watch after other players in a raid, while doing mechanics and organizing the whole raid?
It is impossible to watch over 40 people in a fight, while managing the rest of the raid...
Without a way to see where the raid lacks in damage, you will just wipe and wipe and wipe again, without knowing who does not pull his own weight....

Wandering Mist

damokles wrote: »

ezenkrul87 wrote: »

If you cannot tell you or someone else is not doing what they are suppose to be doing by just watching and learning...then you don't deserve to know.

So you have the time to watch after other players in a raid, while doing mechanics and organizing the whole raid?
It is impossible to watch over 40 people in a fight, while managing the rest of the raid...
Without a way to see where the raid lacks in damage, you will just wipe and wipe and wipe again, without knowing who does not pull his own weight....

You can often get more reliable information from just looking around you at what is happening. Yes it's harder to do but we'll worth it if you can manage it.

Raids very rarely wipe due to lack of damage. Yes, having higher damage output can make a fight easier, and in some cases higher damage can make up for mistakes, but most of the time it just comes down to execution.

If you execute the fight properly and don't die, you will kill the boss. This is the main difference in mindset between your average WoW player and a top mythic raider. A mythic raider only cares about dps parses when a boss is on farm because they understand that execution is everything in progression raiding.

Plateau

Wandering Mist

@leonerdo WoW bosses don't have hard enrage timers anymore, and haven't for quite some time. I could be wrong but I don't think any boss has had a hard enrage timer since Cata. For the record I hated hard enrage timers on bosses, and I was very glad to see they had gone from the game.

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