DPS Meter Megathread

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Blackhearted

Can someone here point out what is the logical path for requiring dps meters in raids?

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.

Damokles

@blackhearted
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.

Wandering Mist

leonerdo wrote: »

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

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.

Noaani

blackhearted wrote: »

Can someone here point out what is the logical path for requiring dps meters in raids?

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.

We are talking about full combat trackers - and as pointed out by wanderingmist 3 posts above yours, that is being simplified to DPS meter for convenience.

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.

grisu

blackhearted wrote: »

Can someone here point out what is the logical path for requiring dps meters in raids?

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.

That's the job of the dps meter. It collects information so you can interpret it and look for WHAT went wrong when. It's a data collection tool nothing more, it's your job to use that information correctly.

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.

Blackhearted

@noaani Details! in WoW is pretty much a full combat tracker ure talking about and noone I know speaks of them as combat tracker but dps addons or meters.
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.

grisu wrote: »

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.

'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.

CrazySquiggle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjs6jDUvlMc

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.

Dygz

Yeah, I think there should not be a minimum dps to defeat a 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.

CrazySquiggle

dygz wrote: »

Yeah, I think there should not be a minimum dps to defeat a 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.

Dygz

I care about improvement. I don't care at all about dps improvement specifically.
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.

Azryil

I would rather see a tool like WoW's advanced combat logging(warcraft logs) instead of an in game dps meter.

Dygz

Yeah, if we're going to have combat meters, have it for everything, so we can track utility, aggro, healing, cc, buff/debuff, etc -- in addition to dps.

Azryil

Specifically I don't want it in game at all, what I meant was I would rather have it create a external log file that would need parsed before it's usable, but would include a detailed breakdown of the encounter. This would allow raid teams to perform a detailed post-mortem, allowing them to improve.

BlackBrony

I do not want any sort of addon.
How can I immerse myself in a game when half my screen is taken by DPS meter, pops up telling me the next ability the boss is going to make or what debuffs are affecting me in flashing neon lights?

If want want to improve yourself, that's great. Now, to know how much you've improved, do it like in real life. When something takes less time or less effort to complete after all of your training, then you know you're on the good road.

Ventharien

The problem with these meters is they have negative consequences for both the community and the dev's. For the community, it instills a toxic mentality of maxing dps, to the detriment of actual gameplay, and attempting to circumvent the mechanics of any given dungeon/raid in a torrent of damage. It starts with the dps, then the dps who wish to be the very highest damagers begin to ignore mechanics, expecting healers to keep them alive through any damage, then to the tanks since the healers are now focusing more of their heals on the damagers. And on the dev side, it opens the way for such annoying in game contrivances like rage timers, and dps check bosses. WoW is a prime example of this. In so many raids and dungeons, there are one or 2 fun, mechanical bosses, and many more tank and spank ones. It detracts from the game, and turns the entire thing into a boring, monotonous face roll on the keyboard. If there's a place to check your dps, i'd say the only place you should be able to do so is at some sort of test dummy, maybe even ones near however they allow you to switch your secondary class, so that you can learn what moves best work together, and spend actual dungeon or raid time using your utility, moving, and being a good teammate.

Damokles

@zorish
Well... No one would force you to use an addon? xD

Azathoth

I'm a casual player and I love building efficient and powerful characters. I have never needed a tool to do it though. I do, however, take my time playing/learning/leveling.

Players like me love advancing at our own pace and are capable of doing it without help. Maybe since I am not in a hurry to get to a specific power level I havent looked into these tools.

Like most things Ashes, a DPS meter will be nice and desired by some, but annoying or pointless to others.

Karthos

I don't really know how I feel about meters built into the game itself. I know Steven has said they will have a very customizable UI, so I'm not too worried about screen clutter, yet I still am hesitant to throw support behind something that clutters the screen and isn't an option to be turned off.

grisu

@blackhearted The quote itself gives the answer, it's a lot quicker and more prominently because you as a player can just screenshot it and provide context.
I'm sure they will have tracking on stats and stuff, but every player will constantly be streaming data. It's like a gigantic statistic you have to sieve through for patterns and then u nderstand why it's the way it is.
A dps meter provides a community sieve that takes away a lot of that work. Hence a lot quicker and more prominently.
It is not just enrage timers itself, but as a holy trinity game you have 3 parameters. DPS survivability and healing.
If you want to create engaging content and want it to have a certain difficulty you need to balance all 3 together somehow.
If there is no dps "requierment" per say then the burden falls on the healers and the tanks.(I think it's logical that bosses wil take longer because of lower dps, hence higher burden on the other 2 parameters. I hope I can assume you all follow me on that right?). If they can heal and tank indefinitly to support the "whatever dps" attitude, then the whole boss is trivial with absolutely no risk involved, it just takes more or less longer. I VERY STRONGLY believe that noone likes bulletsponges or wants to be in an 8 man Group/ 40 man raid that has absolutley no danger associated with it.
It doesnt matter if its designed as hard enrage or what not. Bottom line is there has to be some balance between player vs monsters as well as parties/raids vs bosses to ensure engaging content.
DPS meter provides a tool to see where you are right now and where you need to be to challenge something.

Blackhearted

whitedude31 wrote: »

For people like you (casual) a dps meter is more of problem because you don't care that much about improvement which is fine.

Are you saying that its too difficult for a player of ur caliber to improve without a dps meter?

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