DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

@Cameron Bittner

Cameron Bittner wrote: »

Please do not let weird elitist infest the soul of this game.

In my mind, if you take any sentance that contains a player type, you need to agree with that sentance regardless of what player type you place in to it.

So in order for you to agree with this, then you need to agree with the follow;
Please do not let weird roleplayer infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird casual infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird crafter infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird achiever infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird explorer infest the soul of this game.

Now, to be clear, I don't agree with any of these positions. I think the game should be suitable for all of these groups, but I also think that all of these groups have the potential to "infest" the game from the perspective of any other type, if they are left to their own devices.

This is why my suggestion has always been a combat tracker with limits. Allow the "elitests" to do their thing, but allow it in a way where it doesn't impact on those that do not want it. This same basic principle should apply to all of those groups.

Having a marrage system is great for RP'ers, and so should exist. However, it shouldn't be something others feel they need to get involved with if they don't want to.

Having a player summons is great for casual players, but shouldn't be implemented in a way where it is easily abused to perform functions it was not intended to do.

Having achievements in game is great for players that like them, but shouldn't be implemented in a way where they become a way to prove to others that you have completed a specific piece of content.

Having exploration points in the game is great for explorers, but it shouldn't be done in a way where all players feel they need to mark those points.

Having a combat tracker is great for the efficency based player, but shouldn't be implemented in a way where other players feel the need to be bound by it.

I am quite honestly not sure how players can argue against this.

3am

Dead horse is dead. Conclusion, some people will cheat because playing within a games guidelines is too much for them to handle.

Noaani

3am wrote: »

Dead horse is dead. Conclusion, some people will cheat because playing within a games guidelines is too much for them to handle.

Dead horse isn't dead, because there is still discussion to be had.

Tragnar

Funny thing this game - I have always been using DPS meters and I have always been using it to check some things I was interested in right after finishing an encounter. I understand the addictive nature of watching the dps number and what it means for players that do not play in guilds where everyone knows everyone and while I would love to keep that responsive piece of UI I understand Steven's stance on this and considering that combat logs give me much more than these meters ever can. I wholeheartedly agree that DPS meters SHOULD NOT BE in the game, because even when I like to use it - the removal will not impact me in any significant way.

3am

noaani wrote: »

3am wrote: »

Dead horse is dead. Conclusion, some people will cheat because playing within a games guidelines is too much for them to handle.

Dead horse isn't dead, because there is still discussion to be had.

its a cyclical discussion that goes like this.... 1."A select few people want dps meters" 2.everyone else "no"
return to one then to two then reread this line.

Cameron Bittner

noaani wrote: »

@Cameron Bittner

Cameron Bittner wrote: »

Please do not let weird elitist infest the soul of this game.

In my mind, if you take any sentance that contains a player type, you need to agree with that sentance regardless of what player type you place in to it.

So in order for you to agree with this, then you need to agree with the follow;
Please do not let weird roleplayer infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird casual infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird crafter infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird achiever infest the soul of this game.
Please do not let weird explorer infest the soul of this game.

Now, to be clear, I don't agree with any of these positions.

Why you gotta make me try hard

Roleplayers: Let them RP, I am going to RP with people not even RPing lol. But let's look at Goldshire on a certain wow server.. and remember that some people take it too far when given the tools to do it. This should be a safe place for kids as much if not more then adults.

Casual: tbf this game is a "Ha Haa" to the casual themed mmos/p2w that are the current state of mmos right now. So it's hard to counter point something that is built into the games core design. But at least I'll say dps meters would greatly decrease the chance of a person staying in a group, making friends, getting into the raid, that guild.... based on some number that do not show what that person could be capable of, with just some homies. But that not really the point you where trying to make there.

Honesty: I got goodish points for the other ones too but too much typing tbh, the end game is just that you want to make the game fun for all aspect.

But at the end of the day, I would rather have a game with the right social dynamics to make it a amazing experience. And that is fragile and these things matter. For the greater good lol

Effluvikoff

If you want player skill quantifying mods you're the cancer killing MMOs. You don't realise it, but you're 80 iq or lower.

Noaani

3am wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

3am wrote: »

Dead horse is dead. Conclusion, some people will cheat because playing within a games guidelines is too much for them to handle.

Dead horse isn't dead, because there is still discussion to be had.

its a cyclical discussion that goes like this.... 1."A select few people want dps meters" 2.everyone else "no"
return to one then to two then reread this line.

You've not been paying attention to the discussion.

Perhaps on purpose - it's really hard to explain things to people who are going well out of their way to not understand.

Noaani

@Tragnar

Tragnar wrote: »

Funny thing this game - I have always been using DPS meters and I have always been using it to check some things I was interested in right after finishing an encounter. I understand the addictive nature of watching the dps number and what it means for players that do not play in guilds where everyone knows everyone and while I would love to keep that responsive piece of UI I understand Steven's stance on this and considering that combat logs give me much more than these meters ever can. I wholeheartedly agree that DPS meters SHOULD NOT BE in the game, because even when I like to use it - the removal will not impact me in any significant way.

While I understand this perspective, it is only looking at combat trackers from the perspective of an actual real time meter in game.

I'm actually all for that not being possible at all, because it serves no actual practical purpose, and leads to people thinking that is what these tools are actually for.

To me, with the exception of when two guilds are competing against one encounter, I don't see any need or reason to have real time feedback from a combat tracker - everything can come after the encounter is over.

Noaani

@Cameron Bittner

Cameron Bittner wrote: »

But at the end of the day, I would rather have a game with the right social dynamics to make it a amazing experience. And that is fragile and these things matter. For the greater good lol

I totally agree with this, but my point is that combat trackers are not going to negatively impact the social experience as long as the rest of the game is built correctly.

My usual way of pointing this out is to cite three games; WoW, Archeage and EQ2. There are other games that will fit in here, and I have yet to see a game that doesn't actually fit this paradigm, yet I still use these three games.

Of these games, EQ2 and WoW have fairly heavy combat tracker use - Archage has very low combat tracker use.
WoW and Archeage have systems in place to automatically form groups for most of the more popular content.

Archeage and WoW have famously toxic communities. EQ2 has a community that generally helps each other out.

To me, this straight away says combat tracker usage is not a factor in regards to the games social dynamic. What it says is that the game systems other than combat trackers are far more important, and combat trackers essentially have no real impact.

EQ2 had combat tracker use that was essentially available to all players, and virtually every group had someone that was running one - yet there were no real issues with it at all in that game.

This is significantly more open use of combat trackers than I am suggesting for this game.

Noaani

Quiltsharts wrote: »

If you want player skill quantifying mods you're the cancer killing MMOs. You don't realise it, but you're 80 iq or lower.

The cancer killing MMO's is games that have systems in place that allow players to treat other players as disposable entities.

Edit to point out the irony of this post being somewhat toxic, while complaining that other people are toxic.

Aeri

Second post on these forums, and I'm 2/2 on Walls O' Text...

Unless a game straight up doesn't rely on damage in a typical sense, there is, objectively, no reason that a DPS meter shouldn't be included in the game by the developers, for one simple reason:

Someone, somewhere, WILL create one. And it will be used by many, many people.

About the only way possible for an MMO to not have a DPS meter created by a third party, would be to have no combat log output, and absolutely nothing in the client-side memory related to damage being done. If either of those are true, then the above statement will apply, and someone will make their own meter.

Damage meters are a topic that typically provides a lot of friction between gamers. If the devs do include one in the game, people that don't like damage meters, or just want to play casually, or for any number of other reasons will complain. If they don't include one, people that want to min/max, or want to improve their personal performance or the performance of their group, or other reasons will complain - and then they'll find said third-party meter and use it.

And yes, as long as there are damage meters available - whether first- or third-party - players will use them to exclude other players. Even if official meters are limited to guilds that opt-in for them, it is naive to think that some people in the guilds that don't opt-in won't use third-party meters, and cause friction within those guilds.

The goal, therefore, would be to find a solution that creates the least amount of friction overall.

For that, I propose a modified version of the view that the Final Fantasy 14 devs take on damage meters. While those developers do not specifically allow DPS meters, they know that they exist, and basically have a plain "Do not talk about DPS meters for our game" approach. Most of the time this works, but it has caused issues a couple times.

Intrepid should either develop and include their own damage meter into that game, or otherwise find and officially support (or perhaps outright hire) a third-party developer that wants to make a very comprehensive one. The first option would be preferable from a legal standpoint, I imagine. Then, within their Terms of Service, it should be clearly stated that any negative issues that arise within the game due to the usage of damage meters, as well as any specific harassment of individuals, will be dealt with very, very harshly. I'm not a lawyer, but I know that there would be sufficient legalese to cover their bases.

This will do a few things. First, it will put the onus of DPS matters in the hands of guild leaders/officers as far as controlling their members. You want to be a hardcore, min-maxing raid guild? That works fine as long as everything stays within the guild. Have a member that isn't cutting it for DPS or such? Handle it in your Discord channel.

Second, it helps regulate some of the more toxic behavior that comes from elitism. Someone starts railing on another player in public chat channels because their DPS is bad? Intrepid is cleared for punishments. Someone joins a casual guild and starts berating members for bad DPS in-game? Beyond just kicking the player from the guild, the guild leader would have the option to rely on Intrepid if things get out of hand.

Third, which is similar to the above point, this would help prevent streamers from going too overboard. This is a point that DOES need to be taken into account in today's gaming world, because a streamer with a large audience can potentially trigger a flood of harassment. While it's not always intentional, it can happen. This isn't me trying to stop some of the more snowflake players from having their feelings hurt: if a streamer makes an offhand comment, then nothing should happen. But if they start screaming and yelling at a specific player for not being good, it reflects bad not only on the streamer, but also on the game. Alongside this, if a streamer makes an offhand comment and their audience goes on a harassment campaign all on their own, Intrepid would have more leeway to deal with those particular people, while leaving the streamer alone.

Fourth, by putting this in writing into their ToS, simply playing the game means you agree to it. By NOT including a DPS meter directly into the game, any third-party meters have to be covered by generic third-party-tool legalese within the ToS. This is a much, much grayer area, and while a game company will never likely be sued over something as small as a DPS meter, it can prevent a lot of friction purely in the form of every single player knowing where the developers stand on a specific issue.

Fifth, and this is directed entirely at Intrepid: Let the players help balance your game. You will no doubt have a QA team, and they will try their hardest to balance skills, abilities, monsters, and bosses. AND THEY WILL FAIL, 100% GUARANTEED. It may not be a massive failure, but there will never be a time that a game is completely balanced. This also isn't to say that you have to accept any ideas the playerbase throws at you. But, objectively speaking, the players are an enormous resource that many developers seem to completely ignore when trying to balance things.

However, using DPS meters, the players will quickly - often very, VERY quickly - outpace anything that your QA team could possibly due as far as min/maxing every aspect of the game. Use their work to help balance things, it's already going to be released as public knowledge. I would even go so far as to say that it would be extremely beneficial to create and release a simulation tool to the public. Why limit yourself to a team of 10, 20, even 100 QA testers, when you could expand things to thousands or even millions of perfectly willing and able players? Yes, a developer should be the primary source of QA for their game, but using your community is a perfectly valid resource, so utilize it to its fullest extent.

TL;DR: I feel Intrepid should make their own DPS meter for the game, but then include wording within their ToS to basically have a very-low tolerance, "Do not talk about the DPS meter" approach.

Perhaps other ideas could be incorporated into this, such as the idea (I believe from @noaani ) to have some sort of opt-in flag/description for guilds that specifically want to use/require DPS meters. But in general, by not having a DPS meter built into the game, you're only opening up the possibility of more issues.

Noaani

@Aeri

I completely agree with your post, other than these two points.

Aeri wrote: »

About the only way possible for an MMO to not have a DPS meter created by a third party, would be to have no combat log output, and absolutely nothing in the client-side memory related to damage being done. If either of those are true, then the above statement will apply, and someone will make their own meter.

---

And yes, as long as there are damage meters available - whether first- or third-party - players will use them to exclude other players. Even if official meters are limited to guilds that opt-in for them, it is naive to think that some people in the guilds that don't opt-in won't use third-party meters, and cause friction within those guilds.

To the first, I know of at two other methods that people have used in other games, both of which are being considered for Ashes should the need arise.

For the second, the people that I know that are making combat trackers for this game will happily stop, if there is one built in to the game that meets basic functional requirements.

It is a fair amount of time and effort to get one working in an acceptable manner, more time and effort than it worth it if there is one build right in to the game.

Based on this, I would think that if Intrepid had a working combat tracker in the games client before the people working on combat trackers put too much effort in to them, that those people would simply stop making their versions of trackers for Ashes, as they wouldn't be worth the time.

But yeah, other than these two points, I agree.

Cameron Bittner

noaani wrote: »

Quiltsharts wrote: »

If you want player skill quantifying mods you're the cancer killing MMOs. You don't realise it, but you're 80 iq or lower.

The cancer killing MMO's is games that have systems in place that allow players to treat other players as disposable entities.

Ok, so this is something I actually like to read. That, like out of all the "but this, but that, but over here look" crap, is something i love to fcking read. That should definitely be a vaule a mmo company should have at core design but then it's back to the he said she said rotation and people are still going to be people regardless.

I played WoW. Got king slayer when he was current guild leader/raid leader etc etc, not bad 16 yo at the time lol, then dropped off.
Came back and went insane in only arenas in WoD, stopped again. Then in BFA I tried to get back into raiding, I went hard. Had good IL, great DPS, can learn all mechanics usually in one fight without explaining or addons. But no matter what I did, I could hardly get in groups for almost ANYTHING, dungeons or raids, or mythic+ what ever.
Becuase of something called IOraider or some crap. It tracked you... score or something for raids and everything.. so I have not raided in years.. my score was apparently trash. I had to go hard in arena again and get that big boy gear to basically slide my way in to A FEW groups. So that's my emotions behind your comment.

I guess the real enemy is not necessarily a dps meter, but the overreach it could have and use of add ons and systems in place that do things like that.

What is a example a low usage dps reader thingy. If you dont mind I'm just used to anyone being able to auto post the whole list of dps after a fight

Noaani

@Cameron Bittner

Cameron Bittner wrote: »

I guess the real enemy is not necessarily a dps meter, but the overreach it could have and use of add ons and systems in place that do things like that.

Things like that need API access, something that is not on the table at all in this game.

I completely agree that things like that are an absolute cancer on MMO's, and fortuanately they only exist in the cancer of MMO's - WoW.

No other game has anything quite like it, and no other game wants to have anything like it.

In games without utilities like this, but with combat trackers, admittance to guilds is generally based on your ability to perform the function you are applying to join for. Usually, guilds will look at the gear you have equipped and decide if you did well based on that gear or not. I have also been in guilds that hand players standardized gear for any test they do upon recruiting (the assumption there is that if you are in the guild, your gear will get upgraded before long, so it is best to assess you on your ability).

In games without utilities like the above, and also without combat trackers, you are assessed based on class, build and gear.

People are going to be assessed, one way or the other. I would rather that assessment be done based on my ability, not based on some metric that a website has applied to me (WoW), or based on the fact that I am using a build posted randomly on a website.

There is only one way I can be assessed based on my performance.

Aeri

noaani wrote: »

@Aeri

I completely agree with your post, other than these two points.

Aeri wrote: »

About the only way possible for an MMO to not have a DPS meter created by a third party, would be to have no combat log output, and absolutely nothing in the client-side memory related to damage being done. If either of those are true, then the above statement will apply, and someone will make their own meter.

---

And yes, as long as there are damage meters available - whether first- or third-party - players will use them to exclude other players. Even if official meters are limited to guilds that opt-in for them, it is naive to think that some people in the guilds that don't opt-in won't use third-party meters, and cause friction within those guilds.

To the first, I know of at two other methods that people have used in other games, both of which are being considered for Ashes should the need arise.

For the second, the people that I know that are making combat trackers for this game will happily stop, if there is one built in to the game that meets basic functional requirements.

It is a fair amount of time and effort to get one working in an acceptable manner, more time and effort than it worth it if there is one build right in to the game.

Based on this, I would think that if Intrepid had a working combat tracker in the games client before the people working on combat trackers put too much effort in to them, that those people would simply stop making their versions of trackers for Ashes, as they wouldn't be worth the time.

But yeah, other than these two points, I agree.

I have never looked into creating a DPS meter, so those were the only two methods I could think of immediately. I suppose screen-reading (assuming there are damage number popups) could be another, though I don't know if it's one of the other two you mentioned. I would actually be interested in learning about other methods, if you didn't mind PMing me to tell me, or something of the sort.

Regardless, the point I was trying to make was that unless every single possible method of creating a DPS was removed, someone will create one, which I believes still stands.

The second part was less that people would or wouldn't stop creating DPS meters if an official one was added, but more that if any meter existed at all - which one eventually would be - it would be used to somehow exclude people in the game. This is more of a problem of whether the game developers (in this case) would have more or less control over what could be done in such circumstances, whenever problems arise.

@Cameron Bittner

I believe you are talking about the Raider.IO rankings/addon. That, I think, is more a symptom of WoW having a (in my opinion) grossly overinflated API that enables way, way too much. It's also one of those problems that is good on paper, but in practice, it's kind of horrible, mostly because humans are terrible. Kind of like communism, haha.

As for your last question, there realistically isn't a "low usage" form of a DPS meter, or at least, not one that the players won't take advantage of. One example I saw thrown around in this thread was only having a personal DPS meter. However, this would be a 100% useless metric without having other peoples' numbers to compare it to. Even if only that was available, someone would figure out a way to take your number, and report it to a third-party site or something to be used to compare to everyone else. Kind of useful if you're using it to compare yourself, but overall not really worth it - any guild that wanted to use this type of metric would require all their members to use said website, which means it would likely be better just to have a fully-implemented meter in the first place.

The main thing is basically making a system that can't be overly abused (like the WoW API/Raider.IO situation), but also a system that isn't completely out of the developers' control, such as with a fully third-party meter. Trying to find a really good middle ground can be somewhat difficult, however.

Effluvikoff

noaani wrote: »

Quiltsharts wrote: »

If you want player skill quantifying mods you're the cancer killing MMOs. You don't realise it, but you're 80 iq or lower.

The cancer killing MMO's is games that have systems in place that allow players to treat other players as disposable entities.

Edit to point out the irony of this post being somewhat toxic, while complaining that other people are toxic.

Only from your point of view. Since you can't understand the wonder of an MMO being relative to how open it's systems are to viewing, and think it's only about toxicity instead of something more like immersion/discovery/wonder.

Also, toxicity is healthy. Every now and then you need a good ol'glass of stfu. Here it comes, open wide.

Sangramoire

@noaani

I see what you mean when AoC has pretty much already mitigated a lot of the possible negativity that can come from a tracker but if the tracker isn't really being used to get rid of people that are under performing in the raid then why do you even need a tracker. Like I mentioned before, the right way to use a tracker would be to easily find out who is not doing so well. After finding that out the tracker doesn't really help as to why that player isn't doing so well because the tracker doesn't provide any extra details and not having a tracker to begin with doesn't necessarily make it more difficult to find out who is struggling.

Having any sort of tracker in the game, even after all the things that AoC has already done to prevent possible negativity that can come from them, will still inevitably bring in negativity. How? well even though the system with no LFG discourages kicking a party member just like that due to the time it would take to find someone else, many guilds will still do it because they still don't know any better. You said it yourself, it's not about the tracker it's about the people.

noaani wrote: »

If the entire game allows for it, but the game doesn't have combat trackers, people will still act that way.

The tracker just gives those people an easy excuse to kick someone. While that negativity is mitigated by AoC because of how the game works compared to say WoW, I still see no positives to having a tracker. Some will argue that it helps them theory craft builds and such but adding a DPS dummy that only you use at your house or something would be much better for that.

A personal DPS meter would also not be a very good idea because all that would do is some guilds would force people to have to join their discord or something and post a picture of their DPS and if they refuse they get kicked out.

So I do agree that trackers in AoC would be much better handled than in a game like WoW but there's still no positives that I see, only negatives. Am I missing something here?

3am

noaani wrote: »

3am wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

3am wrote: »

Dead horse is dead. Conclusion, some people will cheat because playing within a games guidelines is too much for them to handle.

Dead horse isn't dead, because there is still discussion to be had.

its a cyclical discussion that goes like this.... 1."A select few people want dps meters" 2.everyone else "no"
return to one then to two then reread this line.

You've not been paying attention to the discussion.

Perhaps on purpose - it's really hard to explain things to people who are going well out of their way to not understand.

You've said this before when you had forgotten your own posts " I am the hardcore guilds" noanni. You haven't been paying attention to the answers.

Lostforever

I don't understand *some* AoC player

One one hand they want be PvP killers.
One the other than they don't want their feeling hurt if someone exclude them for their DPS.

Either you are killer or you are snowflake, I don't see how you can be both

Now before call me names, I am an average player. I suck in PvP and PvE but I don't give a crap about anyone judging me for my poor performance. So when some one kill me in PvP, I shrug it off. When someone call out my poor DPS, I shrug that off as well. This is why I can't get my head around PvP players being scared of DPS meters. If this is pure PvE game then I can't understand people being scared of DPS meters.

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