DPS Meter Megathread

This discussion was created from comments split from: DPS Meter Megathread.

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Juvens

@noaani I see what you mean now and I'm clearly uneducated in this area. I assumed that they could simply prevent anyone using combat tracker if they wanted to. But it relies on combat logs right? Without the logs it can't function? Or is that a naive assumption and there's always a workaround?

RahkstarRPG

Genoblast wrote: »

On a side note. A game with a sub fee should have quite a lot less toxicity by default. People who are willing to pay money to play a game will naturally be more invested in playing rather than trolling.

Uh... Have you ever heard of World of Warcraft, upon which basically the entire conversation is predicated?

Noaani

Juvens wrote: »

@noaani I see what you mean now and I'm clearly uneducated in this area. I assumed that they could simply prevent anyone using combat tracker if they wanted to. But it relies on combat logs right? Without the logs it can't function? Or is that a naive assumption and there's always a workaround?

That is how the majority if combat trackers work, absolutely.

The people making the two I am following are assuming there will not be any logs, and so are taking other routes.

GW2 is an example of a game that didn't allow combat trackers at all on release, but players made one for it anyway, even without logs.

Namil

All of this Damage Meter talk is making me want to avoid PvE like the plague.

If encounters are designed primarily around exceeding mechanically per player then DPS shouldn’t have much of an exaggerated focus as it does in some other games. I know in WoW bosses have enrage timers and occasionally some additional monsters need to be bursted down in boss fights but these things are what the game is balanced around. If the game doesn’t have things which create major urgency on how quickly players are damaging down bosses and monsters then the need to focus so dramatically on DPS shouldn’t really be there either, not for only a singular player but the whole group.

In all of the actual good raiding guilds I’ve participated in, the only people holding us back were typically those too focused on their damage rather than avoiding standing in the fiery shit.

This conversation would be a lot more beneficial after we get a larger scope for the dynamics of boss and mob encounters.

Noaani

Namil wrote: »

All of this Damage Meter talk is making me want to avoid PvE like the plague.

If encounters are designed primarily around exceeding mechanically per player then DPS shouldn’t have much of an exaggerated focus as it does in some other games.

The problem I have with this is that if encounters are *not* designed around the need for players to exceed mechanically - as you put it - then those players that do exceed mechanically will not find any challenge. Basically, the game can not reward good players in regards to PvE unless there is a need for players to actually be good.

On the other hand, if players are required to be good, then a combat tracker is needed in order to objectively assess what is and isn't good.

In all of the actual good raiding guilds I’ve participated in, the only people holding us back were typically those too focused on their damage rather than avoiding standing in the fiery shit.

That is straight up poor guild leadership. No other excuse.

Good guilds don't let players get away with this kind of behavior. If players are doing this, then you set up the parse to show the how much damage is taken from standing in that fiery shit, so you can show the whole raid how bad these players are at doing the thing that they need to get better at.

Most players only need to be embarrased in front of their friends like this once before they stop.

Even in games where combat trackers are not heavily used (Archeage), players still don't get out of that fiery shit just the same as they do in games with heavy combat tracker use.

You can blame the players involved here, you can blame the guild leadership, but you can't blame combat trackers for this when they are the best tool you could possibly ask for to get rid of this behavior - but only if you know how to use it properly.

BlizzardEntertainment

I would prefer damage meters to be a mod to the game rather than something that is built into it.

Noaani

BlizzardEntertainment wrote: »

I would prefer damage meters to be a mod to the game rather than something that is built into it.

That would be the worst result for all players involved - but seems to be the likely outcome.

Beeper

Current wrote: »

Nope, good riddance.

Everything I could have come here to say, and more.

Noaani

Bearheart wrote: »

Current wrote: »

Nope, good riddance.

Everything I could have come here to say, and more.

The problem is, there will still be combat trackers.

Namil

noaani wrote: »

The problem I have with this is that if encounters are *not* designed around the need for players to exceed mechanically - as you put it - then those players that do exceed mechanically will not find any challenge. Basically, the game can not reward good players in regards to PvE unless there is a need for players to actually be good.

On the other hand, if players are required to be good, then a combat tracker is needed in order to objectively assess what is and isn't good.

Well a good balance would be somewhere inbetween having good raid-wide DPS and having good mechanical skills, my point here was that it makes sense to create encounters that mostly focus on requiring players to have to match the difficulty of these mechanics to actually kill the boss rather than be in a DPS rush to down it. As far as I can recall also, Steven has said that the quality of the loot that you get from killing raid bosses or difficult monsters is dependent on how fast you actually kill these monsters which means that there is definitely incentive for players to keep getting better and not settle with just being able to eventually kill it after X minutes and get the worst quality gear possible but there's also not an absolute barrier to entry requirement which would deter the more casual playerbase and prevent them from completing this content.

noaani wrote: »

That is straight up poor guild leadership. No other excuse.

Good guilds don't let players get away with this kind of behavior. If players are doing this, then you set up the parse to show the how much damage is taken from standing in that fiery shit, so you can show the whole raid how bad these players are at doing the thing that they need to get better at.

Most players only need to be embarrased in front of their friends like this once before they stop.

You can say what you want but that behaviour to me is the worst form of leadership, why would you purposefully embarrass a guildmate infront of the rest of the team for getting too carried away with their damage. A healthy guild would mention this to them and let them know what they've done wrong in private, this is a game not military camp and I prefer the people I interact with in game to treat other players like people instead of a tool to advance themselves. You can have a competent raid team without resorting to that.

noaani wrote: »

You can blame the players involved here, you can blame the guild leadership, but you can't blame combat trackers for this when they are the best tool you could possibly ask for to get rid of this behavior - but only if you know how to use it properly.

I'm not blaming anything in particular, combat trackers do facilitate toxicity and that's not something you can dispute. Obviously toxic players will be toxic players no matter what in my opinion and I'm completely impartial and uncaring whether there are ways to monitor encounters or not. I think the stance of 'Not allowing DPS meters because they are toxic' is inaccurate, it's a metric that isn't totally necessary to have which facilitates toxic people to continue to be toxic and taking away that ability as much as possible is fine by me.

Noaani

Namil wrote: »

You can say what you want but that behaviour to me is the worst form of leadership, why would you purposefully embarrass a guildmate infront of the rest of the team for getting too carried away with their damage. A healthy guild would mention this to them and let them know what they've done wrong in private, this is a game not military camp and I prefer the people I interact with in game to treat other players like people instead of a tool to advance themselves. You can have a competent raid team without resorting to that.

A guild obviously shouldn't make this their first way of dealing with a situation like this.

First of all, all players should be aware of the encounter mechanics, their role in the encounter and what is expected of them. If this is not clear to every member of the raid, again, bad leadership.

From there, if a player isn't doing as they should, the raid leader should be telling that player that they are not meeting the expectations that were set for them, and link them the parse numbers in private. From there, the leadership is able to link the next pull in guild or raid chat if it is still an issue.

I didn't think it was necessary to point out that all of this should go on before just bluntly posting how shit someone is doing, but hey.

The point I was making was that a good guild leader is able to use a combat tracker as a tool to ensure that the raid members are doing as they should, and no raid leader worth the title would ever let any member of his or her raid put DPS over executing the encounter mechanics.

I'm not blaming anything in particular, combat trackers do facilitate toxicity and that's not something you can dispute.

Oh, I can argue that easily.

Three games. WoW, EQ2, Archeage.

WoW and EQ2 have heavy combat tracker use, Archeage has virtually none.
WoW and Archeage have tools for automatically forming groups for content that matters, EQ2 does not.

WoW and Archeage have famously toxic communities, EQ2 does not.

Don't try and tell me combat trackers cause toxicity, it simply doesn't hold to basic scrutiny.

3am

I see we have some "hardcore raiders" that don't want the extra challenge of parsing their own data. Never thought I'd see hardcore players begging for things to be easier.

It would be nice to know if third party use of DPS meters will be punishable.
And if there will be an active effort to shutter any such programs.

Noaani

3am wrote: »

I see we have some "hardcore raiders" that don't want the extra challenge of parsing their own data. Never thought I'd see hardcore players begging for things to be easier.

It would be nice to know if third party use of DPS meters will be punishable.

I'm not sure you know what you are talking about, to be honest.

I'm actually very sure though, that you have not read much of the thread nor taken on board the arguments of either side.

Namil

noaani wrote: »

Namil wrote: »

You can say what you want but that behaviour to me is the worst form of leadership, why would you purposefully embarrass a guildmate infront of the rest of the team for getting too carried away with their damage. A healthy guild would mention this to them and let them know what they've done wrong in private, this is a game not military camp and I prefer the people I interact with in game to treat other players like people instead of a tool to advance themselves. You can have a competent raid team without resorting to that.

A guild obviously shouldn't make this their first way of dealing with a situation like this.

First of all, all players should be aware of the encounter mechanics, their role in the encounter and what is expected of them. If this is not clear to every member of the raid, again, bad leadership.

From there, if a player isn't doing as they should, the raid leader should be telling that player that they are not meeting the expectations that were set for them, and link them the parse numbers in private. From there, the leadership is able to link the next pull in guild or raid chat if it is still an issue.

I didn't think it was necessary to point out that all of this should go on before just bluntly posting how shit someone is doing, but hey.

The point I was making was that a good guild leader is able to use a combat tracker as a tool to ensure that the raid members are doing as they should, and no raid leader worth the title would ever let any member of his or her raid put DPS over executing the encounter mechanics.

I'm not blaming anything in particular, combat trackers do facilitate toxicity and that's not something you can dispute.

Oh, I can argue that easily.

Three games. WoW, EQ2, Archeage.

WoW and EQ2 have heavy combat tracker use, Archeage has virtually none.
WoW and Archeage have tools for automatically forming groups for content that matters, EQ2 does not.

WoW and Archeage have famously toxic communities, EQ2 does not.

Don't try and tell me combat trackers cause toxicity, it simply doesn't hold to basic scrutiny.

I literally didn't say they caused toxicity, I said they gave toxic players a platform to be toxic. We clearly play very differently and I would rather do a 1000 other things than have to interact with you in a team based environment solely as a result of what you've said.

You shouldn't do that shit at all, but thanks for clarifying you did something else before being an asshole to the people you are playing with lol.

If you want to suck the fun out of a game then do it, if you want to treat your guild like a job then do it but this isn't how I'd enjoy myself and I couldn't care less about how your guild was ran.

By the way, you're the problem if that's really how you go about your business in a video-game. Again, something about treating people like people just appeals to me a little more

Noaani

Namil wrote: »

You shouldn't do that shit at all, but thanks for clarifying you did something else before being an asshole to the people you are playing with lol.

It is a raid leaders job to serve the raid, not the members of the raid. I hope you are never in a position of leadership if you are this concerned with people liking you all the time.

If there is a member that is holding the raid up, a good raid leaders priority is not that player, nor that players feelings. It is to the other 39 people that are present, and the collective that they all represent.

If you want to be in a more casual raid, that is actually great. You and your 39 friends can get yourself all stuck on that one encounter, spending combined hundreds of hours of your time on it (remember, 1 hour spent, is actually 40 hours with 40 people), all because no one wanted to hurt the feelings of that one guy that didn't realize he was holding all his friends up.

You're the kind of person that wouldn't tell someone they have green stuff stuck in their teeth, even if they were heading in to a job interview. I'm the kind of person that would tell them as soon as I see it.

Sure, it may be embarassing now, but in the long run the person would rather know.

Edit; if that person in my raid would rather have not known, and would rather have held up the whole raid, then he is not a player that is suitable for my raids.

3am

@noaani played pretty much every major MMO launch in the last 15 years, raided in most all of them. Lead raids in WoW and FF. And I literally spent an hour reading the entire thread before posting. Thanks for your input though!

Hardcore used to mean progress by any means necessary within the games ruleset. This games ruleset is to not have dps meters. Adapt, overcome, conquer. If you can't do these things you can't really say that "you" are the hardcore raiders.

And as for the punishment, I'm asking because Steven stated they don't want those third party applications. I would like to know if it's like a soft ban on them or an actual ban on them.

Noaani

3am wrote: »

If you can't do these things you can't really say that "you" are the hardcore raiders.

I don't.

I would consider myself a successful raider, not a "hardcore" raider. I can't even bring myself to call anyone "hardcore" without a strong sense of sarcasm, as it is not a word I can take seriously.

If you've lead raids in WoW, you are "hardcore"!

And as for the punishment, I'm asking because Steven stated they don't want those third party applications. I would like to know if it's like a soft ban on them or an actual ban on them.

My reason for not caring about this is because there will be nothing at all running on my computer that Intrepid would be able to identify as a combat tracker - and without being able to identify it on my computer, the only way they will know I am using one is it I say I am.

Basically, if they attempt to do this, all it will achieve is putting a rootkit on every players computer in order to spy on what applications they are running concurrantly to Ashes - without actually finding anything.

Namil

noaani wrote: »

Namil wrote: »

You shouldn't do that shit at all, but thanks for clarifying you did something else before being an asshole to the people you are playing with lol.

It is a raid leaders job to serve the raid, not the members of the raid. I hope you are never in a position of leadership if you are this concerned with people liking you all the time.

If there is a member that is holding the raid up, a good raid leaders priority is not that player, nor that players feelings. It is to the other 39 people that are present, and the collective that they all represent.

If you want to be in a more casual raid, that is actually great. You and your 39 friends can get yourself all stuck on that one encounter, spending combined hundreds of hours of your time on it (remember, 1 hour spent, is actually 40 hours with 40 people), all because no one wanted to hurt the feelings of that one guy that didn't realize he was holding all his friends up.

You're the kind of person that wouldn't tell someone they have green stuff stuck in their teeth, even if they were heading in to a job interview. I'm the kind of person that would tell them as soon as I see it.

Sure, it may be embarassing now, but in the long run the person would rather know.

Edit; if that person in my raid would rather have not known, and would rather have held up the whole raid, then he is not a player that is suitable for my raids.

Because I wouldn't publicly shame someone I think of as a friend means that I wouldn't tell them something important that they should know? Despite me saying earlier that they should be dealt with privately? What you're saying isn't 'Letting someone know they have green stuff stuck in their teeth' it's walking into a room and telling everyone in that room to laugh at them for having green stuff in their teeth.

I never once said players shouldn't be called out and told when they're doing something wrong, I said your approach was unnecessary, because it is. Obviously players should be expected to take their own share of the load in the group and do it correctly.

3am

noaani wrote: »

Atama wrote: »

Isharya wrote: »

You talk about guilds shaming and excluding you but do you want to be in a guild that would do that anyway? if the people you are guilded with a meter shamers do you really want to be IN that guild?

This, totally. I’ve seen these “hardcore” guilds and avoid them. If you don’t want to be judged and pushed don’t join them.

I "am" those hardcore guilds, but I don't judge, I attempt to help.

It's far more productive.

but you did say it though...
or did you not read the whole thread including your own words?
Anyway, maybe you should look at it as a greater challenge! Instead of a great negative.
and maybe cheating isn't the best way to be considered one of the hardcore guilds.

Noaani

Namil wrote: »

I never once said players shouldn't be called out and told when they're doing something wrong, I said your approach was unnecessary, because it is. Obviously players should be expected to take their own share of the load in the group and do it correctly.

I think you are missing the actual point of all of this.

The point is that I said you could use a combat tracker to tell who is getting hit by the fiery shit. I also highlighted what would be a last resort as it was the most visual means of illustrating the point that the tool that you are saying is causing an issue is actually the tool that is the remedy to that issue. That is the point.

In terms of linking in guild chat, as I said, it would be after telling that player in private, several times. Again, I didn't think this would need to have been clarified as it should go without saying.

If I am linking a players poor performance to the guild as a one off, it means I am one pull away from booting the player from the raid, and thus the guild (something I have had to do only once, in almost 20 years).

However, I will make a point on some encounters that warrant it to have a parse that shows either the most or least damage that a specific attack does (content depending). Players can and do use this kind of thing to compete in the same way they use DPS to compete.

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