DPS Meter Megathread

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CrazySquiggle

seaber wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Sometimes, when a thing isn't working, it's only not working because one or two components of the thing aren't working.

When this is the case, you need to diagnose where the problem is, and then you can address that problem.

You don't swap out a car's engine just because the spark plugs are not working, you simply diagnose the issue, and deal with the one component.

A combat tracker is literally a diagnostic tool. It allows you to find what part of the whole needs attention - how you then deal with the need to fix something is then up to the individuals involved, but if you don't know where the problem is, there isn't much you can do to fix it.

The notion that you don't need a combat tracker because you put aside the individual in order to further the whole can only come from the perspective of only using a combat tracker as a means of e-peen waiving, which is all many people know how to do. However, that is a misuse of a combat tracker as a tool, and in no way takes away from the value of it when used correctly.

To me, this is no different than someone using their cars dyno results to gloat to others - when the actual purpose for putting your car on a dyno is to make sure all the individual components of the car work in harmony, and that improvements made to it provide the expected results.

Jinkies! I didn't realise raiders were inanimate objects that will get replaced as soon as the raid leader has ordered in a new part. If only it were possible to trust an inanimate object to fix its own mistakes and communicate when it can't .

Usually people only get kicked from a raid for two reasons:

1)Being an asshat
2)Making the same mistakes over and over again after being told repeatedly how to fix the issue

There is a third reason, but I very rarely ever seen it and I played Tera for 7 years, which is notorious for its high skill set needed for raids and dungeons. That is people getting kicked for being under geared or unprepared. From what I heard from others, it apparently happened all the time, but I was a leader in a hardcore guild, so we all were hitting the ground running and very rarely had issues with each other. Well, on the other hand, we were all pretty sadistic assholes and loved teamkilling each other whenever we were not doing anything serious like a speedrun or attempting world first.

Noaani

whitedude31 wrote: »

seaber wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Sometimes, when a thing isn't working, it's only not working because one or two components of the thing aren't working.

When this is the case, you need to diagnose where the problem is, and then you can address that problem.

You don't swap out a car's engine just because the spark plugs are not working, you simply diagnose the issue, and deal with the one component.

A combat tracker is literally a diagnostic tool. It allows you to find what part of the whole needs attention - how you then deal with the need to fix something is then up to the individuals involved, but if you don't know where the problem is, there isn't much you can do to fix it.

The notion that you don't need a combat tracker because you put aside the individual in order to further the whole can only come from the perspective of only using a combat tracker as a means of e-peen waiving, which is all many people know how to do. However, that is a misuse of a combat tracker as a tool, and in no way takes away from the value of it when used correctly.

To me, this is no different than someone using their cars dyno results to gloat to others - when the actual purpose for putting your car on a dyno is to make sure all the individual components of the car work in harmony, and that improvements made to it provide the expected results.

Jinkies! I didn't realise raiders were inanimate objects that will get replaced as soon as the raid leader has ordered in a new part. If only it were possible to trust an inanimate object to fix its own mistakes and communicate when it can't .

Usually people only get kicked from a raid for two reasons:

1)Being an asshat
2)Making the same mistakes over and over again after being told repeatedly how to fix the issue

There is a third reason, but I very rarely ever seen it and I played Tera for 7 years, which is notorious for its high skill set needed for raids and dungeons. That is people getting kicked for being under geared or unprepared. From what I heard from others, it apparently happened all the time, but I was a leader in a hardcore guild, so we all were hitting the ground running and very rarely had issues with each other. Well, on the other hand, we were all pretty sadistic assholes and loved teamkilling each other whenever we were not doing anything serious like a speedrun or attempting world first.

I was about to reply to the post you've replied to here, but you've about covered everything for 99.9% of guilds.

I have been in a guild that had a policy of "if you think you are better than anyone in this guild try out, if you are better, you now have their raid spot", but this is an exceedingly rare situation for guilds to have.

For the most part, if a raid guild is successful but is having an issue on one encounter, then there is probably a small tweak that needs to be made. It is rare that it is a case of having to replace a person, and though this does occasionally happen, it is only ever after a solid attempt to help that player improve.

Even top end guilds are loathe to boot someone from a raid or guild.

Firstly, this is because it's often hard to preempt the fallout that it could have on the other members of the raid. While some people join a raid guild with friends, many other friendships are formed, and I have seen a otherwise well lead raid guild evaporate within hours after a single poor decision to guild kick a player that was well liked, without going through what could be considered the normal process - identifying the issue, educating the player, reassessing the issue, repeating up to two more times if necessary, then removing the player from the guild if no improvement is made.

It isn't ll that dissimilar to the process you need to go through to fire someone from a job in a country with reasonable workers rights laws.

Further, in many non-WoW games, the actual strategy used on an encounter is a closely guarded secret - at least for the first few weeks/months after a kill. If you boot a player out, that means all the strategies you and your guild have worked hard to construct will now be handed for free to what ever raid guild that player goes to (and most raiders do go to another established raid guild).

So, I guess in reply to @seaber, no, players aren't replaced as soon as the raid leader orders in a new part. If anything, raid guilds go to extreme lengths to keep the guild together, which is why there is usually such a stringent recruitment process - as for the most part, once you are in, you are hard to get rid of, so best make sure only suitable people are let in.

Edited to add; most people that complain of getting kicked from a raid guild are actually just people that failed to pass the recruitment stage. They were never actually "in" the guild, even if they had the guilds name tag.

As many guilds hold a vote on whether to accept a recruit or not, and recruits are only ever taken on content that is considered easy for the guild, there is almost never any issues with booting them.

Wandering Mist

@noaani any guild that replaces raid members at the drop of a hat based on performance alone gets a wide berth from me.

In my experience those types of guilds have a very toxic atmosphere since everyone is constantly competing with each other. They are more concerned with being the "best" rather than working as a team.

Azryil

I don't think it's unreasonable to drop players that are under-performing during a raid encounter. When it comes down to progression raiding having a large roster and being able to trade people out reduces the time it takes to down encounters. I've been in guilds in the past that would do this, and I wouldn't call them toxic, they're just goal driven and doing what it takes to succeed. It's not like we dropped people because of one bad pull, rather if we spent an hour wiping and there was a couple people that were constantly failing at a mechanic or were under performing at their role, they would get replaced with someone on the bench and we would continue pulling.

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

@noaani any guild that replaces raid members at the drop of a hat based on performance alone gets a wide berth from me.

In my experience those types of guilds have a very toxic atmosphere since everyone is constantly competing with each other. They are more concerned with being the "best" rather than working as a team.

I would simply say "same", but I have yet to see one.

In the year and a bit I was in the guild that had the "if you're better, you get their slot" policy, we had exactly one player put that policy to the test.

It didn't go well for that player.

The rest of us (the whole server, since the player in question was an opinionated loudmouth) had our own meme for the next 6 months.

Despite what many players think - and what raid guilds often like to propagate - players in top end guilds become friends. I've spent a lot of time in casual guilds in MMO's, about twice what I've spent in top end guilds. There is usually much more of a friendly atmosphere in a top end raid guild as there is in a guild that would style itself a "family" guild. The only people I consider friends still all happen to be from top end guilds.

I'm sure some could say something about pressure situations and such, but I think it's as much to do with when you spend 4 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week with the same group of 30 - 40 people, doing something you really enjoy, friendships occur far easier than when you just happen to share a chat channel with 150 other people.

seaber

@noaani It was your analogy I was reading.
I still do not know why you feel you need a diagnostic tool. If you won't use it to decide who to exclude, do you only want it to make raiding easier?

Noaani

seaber wrote: »

@noaani It was your analogy I was reading.
I still do not know why you feel you need a diagnostic tool. If you won't use it to decide who to exclude, do you only want it to make raiding easier?

As has been pointed out a few times by a few people above in this thread, top end guilds are far more likely to try and fix an issue that a member of the raid is having, rather than replace that member of the raid.

The first step to this is exactly the same as the first step would be if a raid was planning to exclude a player that is not performing - and that first step is identifying the problem.

Whether replacing the person or trying to help then perform on that piece of content, you can't do anything if you don't know exactly who is causing that problem, and exactly what that problem is.

Neither of these are possible without some form of diagnostic tool.

The presence of a combat tracker doesn't make raiding easier, it allows the developers to develop harder, more intricate raids than would be reasonable for them to create without such a tool being present.

Developers develop based on an expected level from players. Expected expected level, gear, expected player numbers, expected available information. The more of each of these a developer can expect, the more intricate and precise he can develop his encounter while still being reasonably sure players will be able to defeat it.

Take out the information, and since developers develop to what they expect from players, developers are tying their own hands in terms of what they can reasonably expect players t deal with. This means raiding as a whole is less interesting, and due to bland content, won't hold the raiding communities interest for long at all.

Azathoth

"The presence of a combat tracker doesn't make raiding easier, it allows the developers to develop harder, more intricate raids than would be reasonable for them to create without such a tool being present."

Assuming players need a combat tracker to handle harder, more intricate raids is a disservice to the players. They develop challenging content to challenge players as a whole, not just the ones that feels it's necessary to squeeze out every last % by using a diagnostic tool to enhance their performance.

Yes, all of the analogies are great, but in the end IS deciding not to add one indicates (to me at least) that they plan on their players rising to the challenge by being challenged, failing, and trying again. Not using a tool to bypass most of that.

Ghoosty

dygz wrote: »

It depends on what is meant by detriment and "harmful".
If I thought an individual's DPS was low -especially if that player's character was max level- and I suggested they use an ability that player says they never use or they something similar to, "Well, that is a Repel ability and I'm an Ice Wizard so I don't use that ability...," I would start thinking of abilities other players could use to increase that player's damage input -via buffs or combo synergies, etc- or, how we could debuff the opponents such that they are more vulnerable to that individual's damage abilities - in this case, "What can we do to increase the power of that person's Ice abilities and what can we do to make the opponents more vulnerable to Ice abilities?"

There are 2 thing:
1. Without DPS meter/ACT, you do not know that individual's damage is not high enough. It is also possible that the boss is partially resisting to Repel ability so actually you should find out something increase the Repel mages damage, not the Ice mages. Without the proper tool it is quite hard to find out.
2. The CRPGs has stronger limitation than the P&P RPGs. You can't implement everything what came to the players mind. So you have very limited working strategies. So sometimes if you stick to do not use a useful ability you have to overgear the boss, no other options.

I stopped to raid 5 years ago, but I have worse experience to be kicked because I do not have 'proper' specialization just because the random homepage said that it is better, that I have too low DPS, see the report.

Ghoosty

azathoth wrote: »

"The presence of a combat tracker doesn't make raiding easier, it allows the developers to develop harder, more intricate raids than would be reasonable for them to create without such a tool being present."

Assuming players need a combat tracker to handle harder, more intricate raids is a disservice to the players. They develop challenging content to challenge players as a whole, not just the ones that feels it's necessary to squeeze out every last % by using a diagnostic tool to enhance their performance.

From one side you are right, it makes the raid easier. But I find it similar to play only with 1 hand. It also makes the raid harder, but in a different way.
I was never tried to be the best, I did not spent hours/days to find the best build. But if we wipe in a raid I always start thinking that I did something wrong. The ACT is a very good tool to find out wether I did something wrong or somebody else. If I die, I can see that I received the less damage in the team, but the healer forget about me. In this case I feel calm. If we wipe and I see that my damage done is at the buttom of the team, I know that I need to do something other way. I am not a hard RP players so I will use each skill, but I like play-styles so if a specialization need different play-styles, I refuse to use it. This is the developers job to make viable each specialization. But if I need to learn a new rotation or need to change the enchants etc. I gladly do it for the team. But I would like to emphasize, without the tool, I do not know that I have to change something.

Dygz

Devs should have their own combat trackers in any case. They don't need players to use them in order to design harder, more intricate raids.
According to what Steven and Maggie said in the June Livestream, they consider "top end raiding" to be very niche. No reason for them to provide a combat tracker for "top end raiders" at the expense of the rest of the playerbase. Again, this is akin to providing an RP-server.
RPers might argue that without a dev designated RP server, they won't hold the RP communities for long.

I don't think we necessarily have to know whether an individual's damage is not high enough. The team just needs to know that the team's damage isn't high enough - and how to synergize abilities in order to increase damage. Or how to synergize abilities to increase shielding or healing to extend damage output. Or know how to extend combat while they whittle down their opponents.
It's more important for the players to know how to fight as a team than it is to focus on the damage output of one player.

I think the proper analogy would be that the boss is partially resisting Ice abilities, which might indicate that Repel abilities are what's in demand for Wizards in the raid. But, content should be designed such that even Ice Wizard can significantly contribute to defeating such a boss without using Repel abilities. This is especially true for Ashes, where we have numerous augments from racial, religious, social and Node progression in a addition to up to 5 weapon abilities on advanced weapons.
But, by max level especially, we should already know before we leave for the raid that the Winter Dragon is likely to be resistant to Ice abilities... and have contingencies for that. Might be that my Ice Mage doesn't use Fire abilities from the Mage primary archetype while fighting the Winter Dragon, but instead uses Fire weapon abilities from the Igneous Wand created from the resources dropped from the Fire Dragon we defeated earlier.
Or maybe I'm going to bring along that Meteor Spellbook in addition to my signature Polar Staff.

I don't know what is meant by not being able to implement everything that comes to a player's mind in CRPGs. Pen and paper RPGs have that limitation as well.
"Overgearing" the boss is a viable option.

Ghoosty

dygz wrote: »

I don't know what is meant by not being able to implement everything that comes to a player's mind in CRPGs. Pen and paper RPGs have that limitation as well.

In a P&P RPG, I can hit a pillar with my fireball, what collapse the roof. I can climb on my other party member to reach a better position to fight. If it is a jump type boss, we can lure it to a smaller room to block his jumping ability. Kite a nearby fire based enemy against the ice based boss to attack each other.
If the developers do not think of these possibilities, you can't do them. In a P&P you can, because the DM can react dynamically.

" But, content should be designed such that even Ice Wizard can significantly contribute to defeating such a boss without using Repel abilities. "

It is depend on if it is just the player do not want to use that ability or that specialty do not have the ability and the player should respec to use it. If the first one, it is not the designer's responsibility. If the 2nd one, I agree with it. The designers have to find the way to make that specialty useful.

""Overgearing" the boss is a viable option. "

If we are talking about a smaller friendly group, I agree with it. With friends the wipe is also fun. If we are talking about random players, I do not really want to wipe all night without knowing what the problem is. If we/they can't solve the issue, I do not want to spend more time in that team. So me or the weak chain link have to leave.

Dygz

I can kite bosses in a CRPG. There CRPGs and MMORPGs where players learn how to enhance the abilities of their teammates - which should be the case in Ashes. Also, in most MMORPGs players have access to a much wider pool of abilities than characters in a pen and paper RPG - and can even switch specs. So, that all balances out.
Also, we shall have to see what is possible with destructible walls and doors in Ashes.

It doesn't really depend - and especially shouldn't depend on respeccing in an RPG. Especially for Ashes, since Steven wants to bring more of the old-school RP back into the RPG portion of MMORPG.
It's the designers' responsibility to ensure that there is not just one viable method or just one viable spec for defeating a boss. Again, especially true for a game that has augments from a variety of paths - in addition to the myriad combos of weapon abilities possible.

Again, we should know how to play, regardless of whether we know the specific players.
Which of our abilities enhance types of abilities in the other classes. Which of my abilities enhance the damage of other abilities, which of my abilities add a debuff to the mob(s) in and simultaneously enhance the damage of abilities from a different class. Do I have roots and snares that will add to the damage dealt by a Summoners minions? Does my aggro ability enhance the damage of a teammate attacking from stealth?
Those are the types of strategies we should be learning and looking for - rather than relying on combat trackers.
Sometimes, it's just not possible to win with the group you are with, regardless - so you either have to retreat and regroup/replan or wait to overgear. Combat trackers do not inherently result in a winning strategy.

Noaani

azathoth wrote: »

"The presence of a combat tracker doesn't make raiding easier, it allows the developers to develop harder, more intricate raids than would be reasonable for them to create without such a tool being present."

Assuming players need a combat tracker to handle harder, more intricate raids is a disservice to the players. They develop challenging content to challenge players as a whole, not just the ones that feels it's necessary to squeeze out every last % by using a diagnostic tool to enhance their performance.

Yes, all of the analogies are great, but in the end IS deciding not to add one indicates (to me at least) that they plan on their players rising to the challenge by being challenged, failing, and trying again. Not using a tool to bypass most of that.

Without some sort of tool to tell you what went right and what went wrong, that "being challenged, failing and trying again" is all about guesswork and luck, not rising to a challenge.

In order to rise to a challenge, one needs to know what that challenge is. Not knowing what the challenge you are facing even is, yet overcoming it anyway, is actual pure dumb luck.

That isn't rewarding content.

Further, as I tried to point out in my previous post (and perhaps failed), it isn't about players needing the tool to be able to take on intricate content, it is about the developers being able to develop even more intricate content than they otherwise would if they know players taking on that content likely have access to a combat tracker.

Developers will ALWAYS develop content with one eye totally fixed on what to expect from players and player characters. We will still be able to kill content without a tracker, because the content will be made to be able to be killed without one. However, that content will be far less interesting than content that is designed when developers develop content for players with a tracker, as the very presence of a tracker allows the developers to put more in to an encounter, to tighten up tolerances.

The more you add to an encounter in terms of mechanics or the smaller the room for error a raid has, the more enjoyable the encounter is for the raid. Without a tracker, there is less scope to add multiple mechanics to an encounter, and the room for error has to be larger, thus the content itself is - by it's very design - less enjoyable.

Noaani

I totally missed this post, probably due to it having a Bartle score in the second line - the MMO player equivalent of a horoscope.

So, I guess thanks @ghoosty for quoting a part of this post that I found interestingly uninformed enough to comment on.

dygz wrote: »

I don't really care much at all about DPS. I don't believe that damage per SECOND really matters. DPS is more of a gamer perspective than a dev perspective - the seconds usually aren't crucial. It's usually damage within a span of minutes that is crucial, but... let's go with the colloquial meaning of DPS.
If I thought an individual's DPS was low -especially if that player's character was max level- and I suggested they use an ability that player says they never use or they something similar to, "Well, that is a Repel ability and I'm an Ice Wizard so I don't use that ability...," I would start thinking of abilities other players could use to increase that player's damage input -via buffs or combo synergies, etc- or, how we could debuff the opponents such that they are more vulnerable to that individual's damage abilities - in this case, "What can we do to increase the power of that person's Ice abilities and what can we do to make the opponents more vulnerable to Ice abilities?"

I'm ONLY looking at the portion quoted above, and in this portion I have two major things to point out, things that tell me the poster doesn't really know what they are talking about.

First of all, DPS isn't a measure of damage over any one given second. It is a measure of all damage done in an encounter- or even in a night raiding - divided by the number of seconds of that encounter or nights raiding. It is divided over seconds in order to make it an easy to read, remember and compare number, not because people actually care about how much damage was done in an individual second.

In practice, DPS is a measure of how much damage a given player deals against an encounter, divide by the number of seconds that encounter lasted for, so saying you don't care about how much damage per second a player does, but do consider the amount of damage within a span of seconds to be crucial, all that tells me is - once again - that this is a player that doesn't know what they are talking about, yet continues to talk regardless.

Now on to the second portion of the above post, and the second point I would like to make.

To suggest that if there was a player that was under performing on your raid, one could simply make up that lack of performance via buffs and debuffs tells me that the raid leader is worthless, as in order to be able to put a buff on that player, there has to be an unused buff somewhere in the raid. It's not like buffs are an infinite resource - any good raid leader will make sure that they are making 100% use of all buffs they have on their raid.

Further to that point, if you had a spare buff, say +100 to spell damage, and you had an under performing wizard and a not under performing wizard, you put that buff on the not under performing wizard as that will get you more value out of the buff - and at the end of the day, that buff is a resource belonging - and to be used to the benefit of - the raid.

Redistributing buffs in order to cover up a lack of player ability or willingness to be as good as they can is poor raid leadership. It is the kind of leadership that will see a raid never make it past the first handful of encounters, and puts players off raiding.

No one playing a support class likes to be told to put their buffs on anyone other than the optimal person for them to be on. It's why people playing support classes play support classes.

The suggestion of looking at buffs and debuffs to help one under performing player in your raid is viable, rather than helping that one player perform better by themselves, tells me that - once gain - this is a player that doesn't know what they are talking about, yet continues to talk anyway.

Wandering Mist

noaani wrote: »

azathoth wrote: »

"The presence of a combat tracker doesn't make raiding easier, it allows the developers to develop harder, more intricate raids than would be reasonable for them to create without such a tool being present."

Assuming players need a combat tracker to handle harder, more intricate raids is a disservice to the players. They develop challenging content to challenge players as a whole, not just the ones that feels it's necessary to squeeze out every last % by using a diagnostic tool to enhance their performance.

Yes, all of the analogies are great, but in the end IS deciding not to add one indicates (to me at least) that they plan on their players rising to the challenge by being challenged, failing, and trying again. Not using a tool to bypass most of that.

Without some sort of tool to tell you what went right and what went wrong, that "being challenged, failing and trying again" is all about guesswork and luck, not rising to a challenge.

In order to rise to a challenge, one needs to know what that challenge is. Not knowing what the challenge you are facing even is, yet overcoming it anyway, is actual pure dumb luck.

That isn't rewarding content.

Further, as I tried to point out in my previous post (and perhaps failed), it isn't about players needing the tool to be able to take on intricate content, it is about the developers being able to develop even more intricate content than they otherwise would if they know players taking on that content likely have access to a combat tracker.

Developers will ALWAYS develop content with one eye totally fixed on what to expect from players and player characters. We will still be able to kill content without a tracker, because the content will be made to be able to be killed without one. However, that content will be far less interesting than content that is designed when developers develop content for players with a tracker, as the very presence of a tracker allows the developers to put more in to an encounter, to tighten up tolerances.

The more you add to an encounter in terms of mechanics or the smaller the room for error a raid has, the more enjoyable the encounter is for the raid. Without a tracker, there is less scope to add multiple mechanics to an encounter, and the room for error has to be larger, thus the content itself is - by it's very design - less enjoyable.

I'm not sure I agree with anything you just wrote there. First off, if we go with your logic then anyone who manages to kill a Dark Souls boss does it purely by guesswork and dumb luck. After all, Dark Souls players overcome plenty of challenging content without the need for any kind of combat tracker aside from their own health and stamina bars.

Let me put it this way, If I'm fighting a dragon and I die to its breath attack, I don't need to look at a combat tracker to know what went wrong. All I have to do is open my eyes and use my brain to work it out. It's not hard.

Increasing the amount of mechanics and decreasing the margin for error in a raid encounter are fine but up to a point. Mechanical overload is a very real thing, and just because a fight has a lot of mechanics doesn't necessarily make it hard. I also dislike fights where the entire raid can wipe purely from a single person's mistake. These kinds of fights typically rely on everyone in the raid performing 100% perfectly all the time, which is too much to expect from even a 10-man raid, let alone a 40-man one.

More is not always better.

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

More is not always better.

When you have 40 people to entertain, yes it is.

As far as I know, Dark Souls is single player only. As has been stated in this thread, a combat tracker is of minimal (virtually no) use to a single player.

While I agree that mechanical overload is a thing, that is also kind of my point. The point of overload is almost totally dependent on how much information you have available to you - if you have more information, you can tackle more mechanics before you reach that overload point.

As to encounters where one person making a mistake can wipe the raid - while they have their place (the end of raid progression), they usually only exist because developers are getting closer to that mechanical overload and still want to challenge a raid. Increase the amount of mechanics developers can throw at players while still being confident players can eventually come out on top, and you reduce the need to put one mistake mobs in to raid progression.

Blackhearted

IS wants us to focus on teamwork and environment and an ACT takes away from both of those.
Youre saying u want more mechanical challenge but yet ure saying u cant figure out the encounters without an ACT.

Noaani

blackhearted wrote: »

IS wants us to focus on teamwork and environment and an ACT takes away from both of those.
Youre saying u want more mechanical challenge but yet ure saying u cant figure out the encounters without an ACT.

That really isn't what I'm saying at all, not even close.

I'm saying developers will develop content based on what players are capable of doing. This is the basis for what every MMO does - this is why you are able to beat content but not necessarily walk all over it (usually).

A big part of what players can or can't do on a raid is in direct relation to what information they have access to. The more information players have, the more intricate and balanced the developers can make the encounter.

Intricacy and balance are two of the major factors that make tough encounters enjoyable.

Without access to that information, the developer of an encounter has to develop the encounter with a less precise notion of balance, tilted in favor of the players. They also can't make encounters as intricate, as if there are 10 things going on and players have access to a combat tracker, then they are able to figure out which of the 10 things went wrong. Without a tracker, developers can only really put one or two things happening at a time in to an encounter. Any more than that and players have no real way of knowing what went wrong, thus no real way of knowing what they need to fix.

I'll always be able to beat raid encounters, because developers ill only ever develop raid encounters based on what tools I have. I don't need more tools than what the developers had in mind when developing an encounter.

However, I want there to be a thriving raiding scene in Ashes. That can only happen if the content itself is enjoyable. If the actual content isn't enjoyable, raiders won't stay. On the other hand, if it is, raiders will stay in the game en masse for years.

Thing is, as I've said, raid encounters need intricacy and balance in order to be enjoyable. Both things that are able to be vastly improved if there is access in some form to a combat tracker.

Dygz

In practice, DPS is a measure of how much damage a given player deals against an encounter, divide by the number of seconds that encounter lasted for, so saying you don't care about how much damage per second a player does, but do consider the amount of damage within a span of seconds to be crucial, all that tells me is - once again - that this is a player that doesn't know what they are talking about, yet continues to talk regardless.

Yeah, and I'm still saying that it's not damage per seconds that is crucial but damage per minutes.
And specifically damage per specific section of minutes rather than just overall damage during the encounter divided by the seconds of the encounter.
We don't need to know how much damage per second of the overall raid, rather we need to know that we need to try for optimal damage during a particular section to ensure that the mobs or bosses don't repop or regen health.

noaani wrote: »

To suggest that if there was a player that was under performing on your raid, one could simply make up that lack of performance via buffs and debuffs tells me that the raid leader is worthless, as in order to be able to put a buff on that player, there has to be an unused buff somewhere in the raid. It's not like buffs are an infinite resource - any good raid leader will make sure that they are making 100% use of all buffs they have on their raid.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.
For one thing, I didn't state that one could make up lack of performance simply via buffs and debuffs. Debuffs and buffs were listed along with other tactics.
I know that debuffs and buffs aren't "infinite resources". I never suggested that they were. That they aren't infinite resources is an intrinsic aspect of that point.
In D&D, targets take damage while prone. We should have something similar in Ashes, such that targets take extra damage while knocked down - so that everyone knows that when the Tank successfully knocks down a target there should be designated people in the group who pile on extra damage after a successful use of Charge.
Healers should be aware that an opportune time for healing the Tank is while the buff for increased healing from outside sources is active after the Tank triggers "Ultimate defense skill". Healers should be aware of the combos that lead to that Ultimate. And should probably be on the lookout for the Tank to use Cover, since they will be taking extra damage from that ability as well.

noaani wrote: »

Further to that point, if you had a spare buff, say +100 to spell damage, and you had an under performing wizard and a not under performing wizard, you put that buff on the not under performing wizard as that will get you more value out of the buff - and at the end of the day, that buff is a resource belonging - and to be used to the benefit of - the raid.

Yeah. Probably the buff shouldn't be as simple +100 to Spell Damage.
All abilities used to defeat challenges in a raid are used for the benefit of the raid.

noaani wrote: »

Redistributing buffs in order to cover up a lack of player ability or willingness to be as good as they can is poor raid leadership. It is the kind of leadership that will see a raid never make it past the first handful of encounters, and puts players off raiding.

Ah. You seem to be stuck on the concept of layering buffs on players before starting the raid.
I'm also talking about the buffs and debuffs that become active when other players are using their abilities.
It's not just about leadership - it's about each individual understanding how they can assist their teammates' tactics.
Healers shouldn't just be staring at health bars to see whose health is low. (We know that, in Ashes, healers will be more active in combat than that in any case.) And the same should be true for all the other classes.
Fighters should be keeping an eye out for Rangers to use Snare and Slice in order to stack Bleed damage.
Necromancers should be keeping an eye open for when the Shadow Caster casts Shade because Shade increases the damage of a Necromancer's Zombies for targets trapped in that aoe. That's the kind of design the devs should be focused on; not providing players with combat trackers.
It shouldn't just be, "Hey, the Mage's DPS is low so they are 'underperforming.'" Rather it should be, "Hey, both the Mage and the Summoner will do more damage if they coordinate Shade with Summon Zombie."

Being less than "as good as possible" does not intrinsically lead to failure. So, no, that neither leads to failure nor puts players off of raiding. What puts people off from raiding is the instance of elitists that everyone must be as good as possible in order to participate.
Hence, the problem with DPS meters being used to determine what is "as good as possible".

noaani wrote: »

No one playing a support class likes to be told to put their buffs on anyone other than the optimal person for them to be on. It's why people playing support classes play support classes.

hahahahha
That simply isn't true but I can see how elitists might believe that.

noaani wrote: »

The suggestion of looking at buffs and debuffs to help one under performing player in your raid is viable, rather than helping that one player perform better by themselves, tells me that - once gain - this is a player that doesn't know what they are talking about, yet continues to talk anyway.

Buffs and debuffs and knowing how to take advantage of them to aid the performance of your teammates is part of helping individuals perform better. As is teaching individuals how to do so.
When the group decides that more healing is needed, we shouldn't just be thinking that the High Priest is "underperforming", rather we should be determining how the Soulbow, Soul Weaver and/or Highsword can assist that High Priest.
It might not be that the issue is that a Necromancer is "underperforming" - it might be that it would be better to do a group Summons.
The concept of DPS meters and combat trackers assessing "underperformance" is precisely the problem.

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