DPS Meter Megathread

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grisu

Keeping track of a sustained 10 minute testrun of your new build will be a long list of numbers related to different skills, momentary boosts and crap. I want you to show me how you evaluate that and keep track of several people at once.

What is your baseline even to evaluate someone? What are you comparing it to? You have no objective parameters to check, just your "gutfeeling".

Azathoth

Would 'failing' a dungeon/raid be on the group, similar to "we all could have done better?" Or would it fall on the shoulders of the one or two players that didnt meet the expected DPS of the raid leader?

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.

Blackhearted

Even in wow you could have people ccing adds and take part in other important events that bad leads dont realize because they are only looking at the dps meter.
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.

Atama

wanderingmist wrote: »

@blackhearted unfortunately, in WoW you definitely need dps meters, simply because there is so much going on in the combat that it's impossible to tell what is doing damage without a dps meter.

Exactly.

That’s not to say they’re needed in every game. It would be great if AoC just didn’t need them.

aileric

I find it odd that many people argue that DPS should only be seen by the individual and the group leader. Who do you think will be kicking people from groups, rightly or wrongly, based on the meters? Yes, the group leader. It is simply naive to think that people will not be seeing each others DPS in one way or another, so just person up and deal with it. You can chose to associate with elitists who will navel gaze and ponder the detail of the DPS stats, or hang with more free-wheeling types. No one is forcing anyone.

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.

CrazySquiggle

aileric wrote: »

I find it odd that many people argue that DPS should only be seen by the individual and the group leader. Who do you think will be kicking people from groups, rightly or wrongly, based on the meters? Yes, the group leader. It is simply naive to think that people will not be seeing each others DPS in one way or another, so just person up and deal with it. You can chose to associate with elitists who will navel gaze and ponder the detail of the DPS stats, or hang with more free-wheeling types. No one is forcing anyone.

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

Other than that experience though I havn't seen too much of what everyone is worried about mainly because I consider myself an elitist just because I constantly try to improve and be better than everyone else in whatever role I play.

Noaani

dygz wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

A good combat tracker, as opposed to just a damage meter, will be able to tell the whole group/raid what is going on.

The combat tracker I've used in the past (Advanced Combat Tracker) will tell the whole raid how often that player used their damage boost to others in the group/raid.

If it is a new player and a good raid leader, they will be able to use that info to help that new player become better. A good raid leader knows that personal DPS is not the number one metric to judge all classes by, and that some classes - such as one with a raid wide 10% damage boosting ability - are all about buffing others in the raid rather than pushing out raw numbers themselves. A good raid leader will be able to tell this new player that they aren't expected to push out high DPS numbers, but rather their ability at their class will be judged by how well they boost the raids DPS as a whole.

If all we were to get was a pure DPS meter, I'd consider it to be a waste of time. If we get actual, useful information though, it will be - obviously - actually useful.

I would rather pay attention to how the members of my group like to play and figure out to best support their tactics than focus on DPS - especially DPS calculated by a meter.
At the end of the day - I care about finding a way for our group to defeat the challenge - I don't really care about the DPS.

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.

Dygz

Guild perk option might be a nice way to go.
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.

Blackhearted

Guild perk option sounds really pretty good as guild runs have way different atmosphere than pugs.

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.

consultant

Think if Ashes of Creation posted recommended dps that would solve a lot of problems. Their is literally a minimum amount of dps required for bosses as a group or it is a wipe. That way players would just know in advance if they need to improve.

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.

Damokles

I think that a damage meter based on the boss itself would solve most of it.
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.

tiltowait

I like the 'on fire' system for doing well. I vote for that. Like in overwatch, when you do a ton of damage and capture the point, your little portrait catches fire. No numbers, just a good feeling for knowing all your buttons are getting clicked right.

Damokles

@tiltowait
Overwatch also ccounts your overall damage dealt etc...

Wandering Mist

@damokles and @consultant The same problem would occur, namely that there are many many things that affect a player's dps that a dps meter will never account for. On a side note, I fear you are thinking about this in terms of raiding from WoW or FFXIV. Ashes is a completely different game with a different kind of combat system. I would be hugely disappointed if Intrepid tried to put WoW-style raid encounters into Ashes.

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.

Damokles

@wanderingmist
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.

Wandering Mist

@damokles Again you are assuming that Ashes raids will have set dps requirements because that is the staple from games like WoW and FFXIV.

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.

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

The same problem would occur, namely that there are many many things that affect a player's dps that a dps meter will never account for.

This is why I agree that a pure DPS meter would be a bad thing.

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.

Wandering Mist

noaani wrote: »

wanderingmist wrote: »

The same problem would occur, namely that there are many many things that affect a player's dps that a dps meter will never account for.

This is why I agree that a pure DPS meter would be a bad thing.

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.

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

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.

WoW is unique in this regard.

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.

Plateau

You can't remove the importance of DPS in raids, or progression groups will take purely tanks and healers to maximize their survival.

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