DPS Meter Megathread

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Niraada

@cleansingtotem I can't tell if you just came here to troll the thread or not. If you'd actually read the discussion, you'd see you're more than a little off base.

I'm not sure what it is you're hoping to achieve with your behaviour, but I hope you find something around to actually enjoy. I find spite and vitriol are pretty ugly.

Nagash

21 pages later and still shit. better come back later and see if there's any gold

Undead Canuck

You know it will just be the same people posting the same comments still. And every now and then a new person bumping it.

Nagash

Undead Canuck wrote: »

You know it will just be the same people posting the same comments still. And every now and then a new person bumping it.

I know, but somewhere there is hope

Lincoln Hawk

cleansingtotem wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

@cleansingtotem I'm not especially worried, no. More concerning to me is your approach of attacking people you disagree with, rather than formulating an argument.

Toxic comments aren't particularly useful.

Not as toxic as people who think they deserve to be carried and to deny other information. But again, this happens in every new MMO. People like yourself think you have the right to demand others play a certain way. And why would that be? Why would a good player be worried about helpful information? Curious indeed.

You are going to get slapped when you are raiding and dps meters arent going to save you. I couldnt even care less if they do add them. But raiders thinking they are going to be efficient/most optimal is laughable in this game, if you complete a dungeon/raid without getting wiped by another group, that will be an achievement all on its own.
Instanced content is not going to be the content that matters, before you try and pull that card either.

Kazezoku

I am in favor of this for several reasons. And if there truly is a progression system in place, then this is an excellent tool for healers, dpsers, tanks that can contribute dps, and several other functions. Additional things like damage taken, or how many casts were used during the encounter. Its a way to compare and contrast against others as well, to help improve your own performance.

I really hope this happens, and that it isn't viewed in a negative light. Its purely informative information that helps improve a single person, or group of people.

Noaani

Niraada wrote: »

So, from what I can see, you don't seem to be able to actually articulate an argument for dps meters

I have never made an argument in regards to a DPS meter, other than the fact that people that use the term clearly don't understand what they do.

There is no DPS meter out there that only measures DPS. Every single one of them is able to measure any aspect of combat you tell it to measure - some of them just require a little more work to be able to do that than others.

My argument is in regards to a combat tracker, which is the correct term for what most people refer to as a DPS meter.

And yes, it absolutely will tell you what mechanic someone did or did not execute properly - but only if you actually know what to look for.

Just to put you at ease though, I'll give you the non-raid reasons there should be a combat tracker in every MMO.

1, it allows players to objectively assess builds. Like it or not, many players out there do not enjoy coming up with their own builds. The more complicated a class system the game in question has, the more people simply can't be bothered. These people would rather go to the forums and find a build that someone else has posted.

If the build that these people post is not particularly good, the players that use it instead of coming up with their own build will think it is the game that is at fault, not the build that was posted. These people are used to builds being posted all being somewhat viable, as that is how it is in almost all other games.

Without a combat tracker, players can't objectively test and compare these builds before posting them, and others in the community can't objectively peer review them objectively.

2, combat trackers allow players to find bugs and errors in the games combat systems. Literally every MMO I have played has had players present bugs to developers that they have found using a combat tracker, and in most cases, the developers have been able to take that information, very quickly either reproduce the bug or find the error, and push out a fix for it.

I have done this myself, submitting a full bug report on a games faulty RNG system (a system that impacts literally everything players do). I submitted this report with tens of thousands of data points in order to show that it was an actual error - an amount that would not have been possible without a combat tracker (even though it wasn't actually even combat that was being tracked in this case - as I said, combat trackers track EVERYTHING).

3, combat trackers allow the games community to discuss class balance with the games developers in a way that is not simple whining.

With a combat tracker, players can present actual balance issues to the developers, and can do so with enough data to back themselves up, which would see any good developer look in to it a bit closer. Without objective data to back up a balance issue like this, even the most well informed post on class balance would be completely indistinguishable from the proverbial 'Rock" telling the deves that they think 'Paper' is overpowered, but 'scissors' is fine.

This doesn't mean the developers listen to one group of players over another, it means the developers should listen to objective data over opionion.

Without a combat tracker, there is no objective data.

That right there is three reasons without even touching groups or raids as to why combat trackers absolutely should be in every MMO.

Noaani

Nagash wrote: »

21 pages later and still shit. better come back later and see if there's any gold

I'll @ you if i see anything here I think you'll like.

Noaani

cleansingtotem wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

So... I'm still wondering how meters help people execute mechanics and what actually relevant information you're trying to obtain from them.

Trackers help you find out what mechanics you need to execute.

Again, in most games, you don't know this going in to the encounter for the first time.

If you go in to that dragon fight, you don't know if you actually need to to avoid the breath, it may well be that it is best to heal through it. Until you look in to the possibility, you don't know. Without hard numbers, you can't look in to it.

As to the raid dying before 30% consistantly, how do you know which of the mechanics you are not executing properly without a combat tracker? Most encounters have more than one thing going on at the same time, most of which will kill the raid outright if done wrong. A combat tracker is really the only way to know what went wrong.

So, from what I can see, you don't seem to be able to actually articulate an argument for dps meters, instead trying to bundle it in with other things such as event logs, leading me to believe that you don't actually have a real reason for wanting them.

A dps meter is not informative as to what mechanics someone did or did not properly execute, and if even a proponent of them can't come up with a single reasonable argument for them... well, I'm sure you see where this is going.

Just do be clear. An event log is not a dps meter. No matter how much you might wish to convince me otherwise.

Again. dps meters are unnecessary. Your straw man argument fails to move me.

We found the guy whos worried he will be removed from groups. Dont worry, you guys show yourselves in every new mmo.

Arguing against more information never makes anyone look good.

To be fair, this is a valid complaint - people being worried that a combat tracker will see them removed from groups.

To be clear, I am saying people being worried about it is a valid complaint - I am not saying people being removed from groups is a valid complaint. Basically, the perception of an issue is real, even if the issue is not. There are people out there with a crippling fear of zombies, and that is a real thing that needs to be dealt with and taken in to account - even if zombies are obviously not real.

This is the main reason as to why my suggestion has been to limit a combat tracker to a tool that guilds can use, and that only tracks combat of members of that guild.

Without actually impacting on the people that will put a combat tracker to it's best use, this limit will eliminate that fear - which again, is a real fear and should be taken in to account, even if the reality of what that fear is doesn't itself need to be taken in to account.

Aardvark

noaani wrote: »

cleansingtotem wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

So... I'm still wondering how meters help people execute mechanics and what actually relevant information you're trying to obtain from them.

Trackers help you find out what mechanics you need to execute.

Again, in most games, you don't know this going in to the encounter for the first time.

If you go in to that dragon fight, you don't know if you actually need to to avoid the breath, it may well be that it is best to heal through it. Until you look in to the possibility, you don't know. Without hard numbers, you can't look in to it.

As to the raid dying before 30% consistantly, how do you know which of the mechanics you are not executing properly without a combat tracker? Most encounters have more than one thing going on at the same time, most of which will kill the raid outright if done wrong. A combat tracker is really the only way to know what went wrong.

So, from what I can see, you don't seem to be able to actually articulate an argument for dps meters, instead trying to bundle it in with other things such as event logs, leading me to believe that you don't actually have a real reason for wanting them.

A dps meter is not informative as to what mechanics someone did or did not properly execute, and if even a proponent of them can't come up with a single reasonable argument for them... well, I'm sure you see where this is going.

Just do be clear. An event log is not a dps meter. No matter how much you might wish to convince me otherwise.

Again. dps meters are unnecessary. Your straw man argument fails to move me.

We found the guy whos worried he will be removed from groups. Dont worry, you guys show yourselves in every new mmo.

Arguing against more information never makes anyone look good.

To be fair, this is a valid complaint - people being worried that a combat tracker will see them removed from groups.

To be clear, I am saying people being worried about it is a valid complaint - I am not saying people being removed from groups is a valid complaint. Basically, the perception of an issue is real, even if the issue is not. There are people out there with a crippling fear of zombies, and that is a real thing that needs to be dealt with and taken in to account - even if zombies are obviously not real.

This is the main reason as to why my suggestion has been to limit a combat tracker to a tool that guilds can use, and that only tracks combat of members of that guild.

Without actually impacting on the people that will put a combat tracker to it's best use, this limit will eliminate that fear - which again, is a real fear and should be taken in to account, even if the reality of what that fear is doesn't itself need to be taken in to account.

It's a valid complaint that DPS meters cause people be so worried about their spot on the dps chart that they make mistakes, terrible builds that can't do a damm thing other than dps, and sometimes even pull agro and wipe the group all because they are more worried about their spot on the stupid meter than if the group succeeds.

Niraada

@noaani if we're just talking about combat trackers in general, allowing people to review their uptimes, how long debuffs are persisting in the raid, and information that can generally help diagnose where a particular weakness in execution is happening, then I'm all for it.

Where things diverge for me with damage meters in particular is that in my experience, they're not especially helpful in bringing out an optimum performance from raiders and can paint a misleading picture of overall performance.

I may have miscommunicated this previously, but I'm for having tools that are objectively useful in analysing personal performance. I want people to know which mechanics they're not executing cleanly and what non-obvious things that the raid in general needs to be aware of.

I don't necessarily agree however that dps meters are an integral or even useful component of such tools.

Noaani

Niraada wrote: »

if we're just talking about combat trackers in general

That is literally all I have ever talked about in this thread.

You may notice, the only time I use the term "DPS meter" is when I use it to correct people. There is literally no such thing, and any tool that can be used to measure DPS is actually doing nothing more than scanning a log file for specific text to use to perform calculations. In all cases, you can alter the text it looks for which alters the information it picks up, and then you can alter the calculations it does with that information.

This means that it is now telling you what ever information you want, and the DPS that you are doing is one of the many hundred possible things that this can include.

If people have this tool, and they misuse it, then that is not a fault of the tool. If someone is looking at DPS as the only indicator of performance, then that is their fault, not the tools fault.

GazerGrazer

I heard there isn't going to be a damage meter allowed in this game. I think this is a mistake. Damage meters allow you to know how you're performing in comparison to other people of your class. Increasing my DPS is basically where I get all my enjoyment out of PvE encounters. Does anyone else feel this way?

Current

Nope, good riddance.

phdmonster

GazerGrazer wrote: »

I heard there isn't going to be a damage meter allowed in this game. I think this is a mistake. Damage meters allow you to know how you're performing in comparison to other people of your class. Increasing my DPS is basically where I get all my enjoyment out of PvE encounters. Does anyone else feel this way?

You think it's a mistake. Some people also thought it was a mistake in the past. I don't think so and so do many many people from the community.

MrScrewtape

Watched an interesting video recently that went into depth about how players will optimize fun out of the game simply to "be the best" or perform better.

Sure some min-maxers will always do this, because that is what brings them joy. But DPS meters tend to cause situations like "Accepting DPS 40K+ for raid no others", so for people to compete they play what performs best and not what they have fun playing. Because if they don't play the meta for best DPS they will not be able to get into groups for X content.

Yes this hinders min-maxers, but they still can find ways to measure their uber awesomeness without DPS meters. People who want to play to have fun can't undo DPS meter impact.

unknown

This content has been removed.

GazerGrazer

screwtape wrote: »

Watched an interesting video recently that went into depth about how players will optimize fun out of the game simply to "be the best" or perform better.

Sure some min-maxers will always do this, because that is what brings them joy. But DPS meters tend to cause situations like "Accepting DPS 40K+ for raid no others", so for people to compete they play what performs best and not what they have fun playing. Because if they don't play the meta for best DPS they will not be able to get into groups for X content.

Yes this hinders min-maxers, but they still can find ways to measure their uber awesomeness without DPS meters. People who want to play to have fun can't undo DPS meter impact.

I suppose I am just a PvP player, so I enjoy the competitive environment a DPS meter brings. I truly believe it's a mistake to not have one in the game. The argument of, "well I suck, and people know I suck, so I can't get into hard content." seems insane to me. If you want to do the hard content, get good at the game. You don't get benched in games if the average DPS is 50k and you're doing 40k. The best players will do 80k DPS, the average player will do 50k DPS, and the players who get benched are doing 25-30k DPS.

I suppose no damage meter doesn't affect my enjoyment of PvP at all, so I guess it's not a huge deal.

Thinking more into it. I can likely go half AFK in raids because no one will be able to tell how low my damage is, which will make the PvE experience more enjoyable. I can make sandwich, do chores around the house, or even play a phone game, all while gearing my character.

Songcaller

You won't gear your character from being AFK in a Raid. You would either have to craft your own gear or be hopeful the crafters aren't aware you're an AFKer. What incentive is there to arm an AFKer? I'd charge AFKers very high prices if they expect to be carried by my Raid Teams or have Items crafted for them.

Ryufu

You will begin to find enjoyment in clearing the content instead of constantly being in a "big stick" competition with others of your class. DPS meters are not needed in anyway except bragging rights. And I agree that this is what contributes to toxicity.

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