DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

blackhearted wrote: »

So if someone develops a program that reads players screen for heads and moves mouse instead of game cursor they should develop game around it?

While your snark level is very high with this post, you do bring up a point that I feel should be made.

Before getting to that though, I want to point out how unlikely it is that Ashes will have any kind of "headshot" mechanic. Not saying it won't, just that it's really unlikely.

Right, now to the point.

Developers of online games have their lawyers draw up an agreement that all players need to agree to in order to play the game. This agreement outlines many things, but one of those things - the one that is pertinent to this discussion - is in relation to third party programs.

Now, to be 100% clear, no EULA in history has banned third party programs. This is because they can't. Every single piece of software on your computer that was not written by either party signing that EULA (you and the game developer) is, by legal definition, third party software.

This includes, among many other things, browsers and operating systems (I guess technically Microsoft could state in an EULA that you are not allowed third party programs, but they don't).

So, the common player misconception that you aren't allowed to run third party software with your favorite online game is simply false.

What the section of an EULA that talks about third party software actually does, is tell you what functions that third party software is NOT allowed to do. This usually includes any form of direct input in to the game, it usually includes any form of interference with the game client, it usually includes anythings that reads the part if your systems ram that has been set aside for the game, it usually includes any form of packet sniffing etc.

Now, the program you talk about in your post has to input mouse controls directly to the game client - which is directly against the EULA of every MMO I've ever played.

Now, if you are an MMO developer, and you have an EULA, anything players use that go against that EULA is something for you and your team to fight against. You don't develop around such things, you find who is using them and you ban them - because they are violating your EULA.

However, when people create a tool that doesn't violate the EULA in any way, you don't have the option of banning those players. What you then have is a tool that is in your games community, that players are allowed to use, that isn't against any rules you have set up, even if you don't want that specific tool to exist.

Now, in such circumstance, the developer has no option other than to accept the tool. They can't try and ban it, as the only way to ban that tool would be to disallow screen capture - which then kills off your Twitch and YouTube communities. Since the analysis can be done on a different computer - and developers have absolutely zero say in what you do on other computers you may possess, there is literally nothing they can do other than accept it exists.

So I guess the TL;DR for you would be that the tool you propose would violate the EULA and thus force Intrepid to fight against it, while the tools I have seen in development (well, I've only seen one first hand) don;t break the EULA and thus Intrepid are unable to fight them, regardless of whether they want to or not.

Azathoth

Some people choose not to walk on the paths given, sometimes due to time restraints, sometimes due to laziness, and sometimes due to the general attitude of "who cares." There are also those that just "don't think." However, just because there are those that choose to avoid the paths and ruin the landscaping does not mean the architects should redesign the entire pathway, because many people use the path as intended. This analogy is, "I'm going to do what I want if you don't make it the way I want it," and that's fine.

Which leads back to my other point. If all of these things exist, why would IS implement one? Players that don't need one or would never use it would gain nothing from it, and players that feel it's necessary will obviously (as many have pointed out) use 3rd party programs. Those that try to use Addons will (as of now I suppose) be banned, those that use programs similar to the ones you mention will be fine.

Also, if IS does implement one, and it's not as good as those used by others (or as good or familiar as someones favorite) it's likely they will use outside ones anyways.

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

This ties into @ghoosty 's food analogy. If the food is prepared well you shouldn't need additions like salt and pepper on the table.

This is an interesting analogy.

As someone that worked for many years as a Chef (with a capital "C"), I feel I am qualified to say that if food is prepared properly and additions like salt and pepper are not needed at the table, it is because whoever cooked that food put salt and pepper in it while making it - because that is how you prepare food properly.

---

A lot of the early mods for WoW really were things that Blizzard simply didn't, couldn't or wouldn't add to the game at the time. Most (though not all) of the mods that I know of that were used back then but are now redundant are redundant because Blizzard added the functionality to the game. A few mods were made redundant due to them fixing content.

Your GW2 example is interesting - I stopped following that game years ago. I can't say I'm surprised things went badly if people were suddenly allowed to use a combat tracker openly after many years. If I had been playing a game successfully for that long, and then someone told me my build was bad, I'd be pissed.

Both of these are examples of developers not putting things in the game themselves before launch though. In both games, things went bad.

Surely the solution is to not leave it up to players to develop these tools (which we all know will happen), but rather to give them these tools in a somewhat controlled manner.

I mean, the fact that both WoW and GW2 are worse off for not having these things at launch is not really a strong argument for not having these things at launch, imo.

Wandering Mist

@noaani what you say makes sense. I guess my ideal scenario is game design where the majority of the player base don't feel the need the use a combat tracker. Dps meters in GW2 only really became a thing after the raids were implemented. Before that nobody really cared too much.

So the question is, can you develop challenging group content that doesn't rely on player dps?

Noaani

wanderingmist wrote: »

I guess my ideal scenario is game design where the majority of the player base don't feel the need the use a combat tracker.

I agree.

That's why I've been saying all along to put it in the game as an optional guild perk.

I'm obviously making some assumptions with the following, but if the options are a combat tracker that only tracks members of your guild, a boost if in an all guild group against single group encounters, a boost to raw harvest yields (perhaps a bigger boost if you are grouped with guild members when harvesting - as it is a guild perk), better information on nodes near the guild hall or exclusive (or easier) access to a range of decorative options, then there is one very specific subset of players that would even consider the combat tracker.

Adding it like this does a few things. First, it eliminates the need for third party - yet still 'legal' - combat trackers. Second, it means players that don't understand their full use likely won't have access to them. Third, it means even if players that don't know what they are doing DO have access to a meter, if you are not in a guild with them, they are unable to track you.

With this, no player in the game can have anyone track their combat without essentially giving them permission (being in a guild with that perk counts as giving permission to members of that guild).

While I'm sure someone will say "just make it so you have to opt in to a combat tracker when joining a guild or raid", I think it's fairly obvious to me that if this were the case, pick up groups and raids with less than smart leaders would simply require people to opt in, making the whole thing pointless. However, no one is going to ask you to leave your guild just to join a pick up (unless we end up with ESO structure of guilds, which I seriously hope isn't the case).

This isn't a perfect system, I'm fully aware of that. It is, however, a good system and - more importantly - a workable system.

As to your last line, yes you can develop challenging group content that doesn't rely on player DPS, but my question then is - if they do that, why even have DPS classes?

Noaani

azathoth wrote: »

Some people choose not to walk on the paths given, sometimes due to time restraints, sometimes due to laziness, and sometimes due to the general attitude of "who cares." There are also those that just "don't think." However, just because there are those that choose to avoid the paths and ruin the landscaping does not mean the architects should redesign the entire pathway, because many people use the path as intended. This analogy is, "I'm going to do what I want if you don't make it the way I want it," and that's fine.

A good architect will look at how people are going to use a space. If there is a green area that people need to cross to get from one place to another the good architect will build a path following that exact route, and then do what they can with the rest of the space to make it aesthetically pleasing.

It is the less-than-good architect that put paths in place without taking in to account where people need to walk.

You can't blame that on anyone other than the person that put the path in the wrong place.

As to your question of "If all of these things exist, why would IS implement one?" the answer is, to me, simple.

Control.

If Intrepid implement it, they can do so in a way where not everyone will have access to it, but everyone is ok with that.

If Intrepid implement it, they have 100% control over what functions it has and doesn't have. If there is a functioning combat tracker that is able to tell the raid what the encounter is doing and what players are doing, there will be no need for players to put the effort in to implement anything else.

consultant

Gents there is no way get away from cookie cutters and reason for no dps meter is to reduce toxic element so this means you will still have people telling specifically how to set up your toon. You will still get cut for doing low dps. Cause there is something called a calculator.

There is literally no way to aviod it . Dps Meters or no Dps meters. Reason for no Dps meters is to deter toxic element in game nothing to do if you need them or not or if you know how to use them.

Let me ask you this question. How many Raid Leaders are going to let you into their raid without knowing your dps. Since there are no dps meters they would HAVE to know this information first so...

People are going to notice that certain builds do more dps no matter what. Does not even matter if we have a dps meter or not.

I see you guys go around in circles with all your posts.

How much less toxic are servers going to be without dps meters well not much. I mean it helps a little but but like I said it also hurts a little but (people upset about not having one) so whole thing is just pointless.

Noaani

consultant wrote: »

How much less toxic are servers going to be without dps meters

It will make absolutely zero difference.

Toxic people will always be toxic.

Azathoth

There is a curve where you to want to hit a few things, and there is no way to predict how people will choose to get from one destination to another. So you pick the one that makes the most sense. You don't just place paths for all the different ways people could possibly want to go. You also want to maximize green space for looks

Making the ACT/DPS meter would be the same. Just because Ashes has one doesn't mean players won't use others they favor more for a variety of reasons.

Ghoosty

consultant wrote: »

Let me ask you this question. How many Raid Leaders are going to let you into their raid without knowing your dps. Since there are no dps meters they would HAVE to know this information first so...

How much less toxic are servers going to be without dps meters well not much. I mean it helps a little but but like I said it also hurts a little but (people upset about not having one) so whole thing is just pointless.

I have already told everything what I wanted to tell in this topic. Wanderingmist linked a similar topic from GW2. I read that as well. I would like to highlight one comment from there.
There were no DPS meter at the beginning. You can see what happened there.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/965528/#Comment_965528

Plateau

I can't believe y'all have been bickering about this for what... about a month now? It just goes to show you that it doesn't matter what they do with combat trackers, a significant chunk of players will think it's not enough or too heavy-handed or some other petty complaint.

Is there even anything new to say about it? Or are y'all just reiterating the same stuff with a plethora of examples? (I'm not going to read 100+ long-winded posts, just to find out.)

Dygz

ghoosty wrote: »

I have already told everything what I wanted to tell in this topic. Wanderingmist linked a similar topic from GW2. I read that as well. I would like to highlight one comment from there.
There were no DPS meter at the beginning. You can see what happened there.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/965528/#Comment_965528

7 Pages and still running...

Noaani

azathoth wrote: »

There is a curve where you to want to hit a few things, and there is no way to predict how people will choose to get from one destination to another. So you pick the one that makes the most sense. You don't just place paths for all the different ways people could possibly want to go. You also want to maximize green space for looks

Making the ACT/DPS meter would be the same. Just because Ashes has one doesn't mean players won't use others they favor more for a variety of reasons.

Oh for sure.

At times, you won't be able to predict where people will walk at all. When this happens, all you can do is try to make an educated guess and then hope.

However, that isn't the case with Ashes. We know exactly where people will walk. Maybe not where everyone will walk, but we know where enough people will walk that it is a bad design decision to not build a path there.

As to the green space - again I agree. Green is good.

However, a dirt track isn't green.

If you want to maximize green space, the first thing you should do is put paths where there would otherwise be user generated tracks, because they won't be green anyway. Then you add in paths to make things look good if you need to, then you work with what is left. If you want to maximize green space, what you don't do is build paths in places where people are unlikely to walk, regardless of how nice a path may look there.

Noaani

ghoosty wrote: »

consultant wrote: »

Let me ask you this question. How many Raid Leaders are going to let you into their raid without knowing your dps. Since there are no dps meters they would HAVE to know this information first so...

How much less toxic are servers going to be without dps meters well not much. I mean it helps a little but but like I said it also hurts a little but (people upset about not having one) so whole thing is just pointless.

I have already told everything what I wanted to tell in this topic. Wanderingmist linked a similar topic from GW2. I read that as well. I would like to highlight one comment from there.
There were no DPS meter at the beginning. You can see what happened there.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/965528/#Comment_965528

Even though I haven't followed GW2 for years now, I can't say I'm surprised. In fact, what has happened in that game - according to that thread - is exactly what I predicted would happen here.

I'm going to basically transpose what I gathered from that thread, but convert a few things to be more "Ashes-y" - or specifically to fit in with examples used in this thread.

Back in the day, before combat trackers were allowed, mage/mage was considered the best DPS. If you wanted to run content as an Ice Mage, almost anyone would be fine taking you along, even though you weren't what was considered by mot to be the best DPS class.

However, if your group/raid were not successful, you would be booted well before a mage/mage would be, because everyone knows that the mage/mage was *THE* DPS class, and Ice Mage was more about personal preference. I mean, no one had the numbers to back this up, but literally *EVERYONE* know it to be true.

Now, with no combat tracker, those mage/mage players - potentially players that only play that build because they know they will always get first dibs on DPS spots - may be lazy little shits that are contributing nothing at all to the group/raid. Thing is, no one knows. So, the group leader needs to boot a DPS player and bring in someone different in order to try and beat the content the group/raid is failing on. In this situation, *LITERALLY* all that leader has to go on is the class name, and since everyone knows mage/mage is *THE best DPS in the game, obviously he will want to keep them -and so the Ice Mage is booted.

Thing is, tat Ice Mage may well have been out performing even the best mage/mage, let along the lazy little shits. He may be a player that really enjoys his class, and is able to pull more out of it than someone just playing a class because that's what they have been told is good. We'll never know though, because we have no way of finding out.

Now move on to the day Combat Trackers are made 'legal' in Ashes. Suddenly, people realize mage/mage is good, but only if it has a good player behind it. Players can now see that an Ice Mage is basically on par with a mage/mage, and a good player behind an Ice Mage is as good as good player behind any other DPS class.

If that same group as before were to now run that same content and have the same initial failure as a result, the leader of that group can now look at what happened, see who the lazy little shit is playing a mage/mage, and that Ice Mage that puts all his effort in to that one specific class can now carry on with the group.

Basically, all of that is what I've said in this thread will happen in Ashes. While it would be easy to dismiss it as 'a nice thought', or some such, other than the names of the classes (and the one time I mentioned the name of the game), it is literally exactly what has happened in GW2.

In the end, if a group is failing because it is not reaching the DPS it needs, and you are the DPS player that is doing the least amount of DPS, then you really can't blame anyone but yourself if you are the one that gets replaced.

This is literally the only thing that allowing a full combat tracker of everyone you are grouped with would result in that wouldn't happen without a combat tracker anyway. Everything else that players talk about (toxicity, required builds etc) will happen to the same level with or without a combat tracker - though at least with a combat tracker, the builds have a better chance of being right.

consultant

Any one ever have a tank that always blames the healer then they kick the healer and 3 wipes later find out it is the tank. I just happen to tank to too so........

Dygz

No.

consultant

point is any class could blame someone else for their short commings without dps meter.

Damokles

consultant wrote: »

Any one ever have a tank that always blames the healer then they kick the healer and 3 wipes later find out it is the tank. I just happen to tank to too so........

My best friends were always my tanks so i never really had such a problem.
Another thing would be that our healers were literally gods and we treated them like they deserved, if someone was blamed it was us DD's most of the time.

We also had a combat tracker, so we always knew who fucked up.

Noaani

damokles wrote: »

we always knew who fucked up.

To me, it seems ridiculous that this statement may be a thing of the past.

Godbrithil

It is not the DPS Meter that determines whether the community becomes toxic, but the community itself...

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