DPS Meter Megathread

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rikardp98

Dygz wrote: »

LMAO.
We have some people here claiming that DPS meter is the same thing as a combat tracker.
But combat tracker can't be the same thing as a combat log?
ACT is an Advanced Combat Tracker. What was the basic combat tracker? How does a combat log not track combat data?
And people complain about me arguing semantics.

The wiki states: "We will be providing combat data for individual players in their chat window, that players can filter and analyze for themselves. The goal is to mitigate and make the practice less prevalent through the ease that DPS meters provide. Also to place actionable enforcement for players who attempt to circumvent the decision by use of 3rd party programs, for which we will be monitoring."
From the standpoint of the wiki - expect combat tracker v combat log to be a matter of semantics.
The wiki states: "The developers believe that parsers (DPS meters) can have negative effects."
So... parsers = DPS meters.
But, just because the wiki lists the combat data quote under combat logs does not necessarily mean that there won't be any parsing available at all.
The quote says that players will be able to filter - which seems different than the most rudimentary combat log.

But, yeah, Steven is fine with a personal combat log and will be against parsers if they provide advanced features that are in ACT, like time alerts.
Steven really doesn't even want us to have numbers in health bars. Rather, he wants us to pay attention to the decay of the nameplates. So expect the level of detailed info in the combat data to be basic rather than advanced.

In Ashes, expect fewer people to defeat a boss like Vaelastrasz with just a 40-person raid.
Steven believes, "things should be hard, people should fail, the bitter taste of defeat is what makes success that much more rewarding."

It might take more than a 40-person raid to defeat such a dragon.
Hardcore raids in Ashes may not be as hardcore as they are in other MMORPGs, just as casual in Ashes may not be as casual as it is in other MMORPGs.
How we go about defeating world bosses in Ashes, as an in-game community, may be very different than in previous MMORPGs.

Steven wrote: "Hello friends! I love reading all of the comments and opinions here. There was also a very large thread on dps meters, a little while back, where I felt Noaani articulated the position in favor of DPS meters very well.

My decision is not to allow DPS meters nor add-ons. I feel we have adequate measures in place to prevent a majority of potential third party trackers. I know this subject has passionate voices on both sides and I respect the various opinions and positions many of you have expressed."

So, again... Steven is aware of the opposing arguments. He just doesn't agree.

"A parser is a compiler or interpreter component that breaks data into smaller elements for easy translation into another language"

The combat tracker takes the information from the combat log via a parser and displays it. DPS meter is a component with in the combat tracker that only display the damaged done per second.

So, parser =/= DPS meters

Tragnar

Noaani wrote: »

I said it last year, and the year before, people that want to track combat will have that data, and no game developer or publish will stop us.

Indeed, like there is absolutely nothing they can do to prevent you from doing that unless they find out who you are and give you an id ban (which means as soon as they find you own an account then it is immediate permaban of that account) and even then there are ways for you to go around that

What I'm talking about is that unless they plan to restrict streaming then using a tracker will be super easy and accessible

Noaani

Tragnar wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Steven wrote: "Hello friends! I love reading all of the comments and opinions here. There was also a very large thread on dps meters. A little while back, where I felt Noaani articulated the position in favor of DPS meters very well.

My decision is not to allow DPS meters nor add-ons. I feel we have adequate measures in place to prevent a majority of potential third party trackers. I know this subject has passionate voices on both sides and I respect the various opinions and positions many of you have expressed."

So, again... Steven is aware of the opposing arguments. He just doesn't agree.

As long as you allow the game to be unrestrictably streamable and at the same to not have quite advanced detection of programs that you run on your setup then you make it really easy to have a game capture being analysed by a tracker. Which is quite frankly very easy to setup for almost anyone, because it would be just about running a screencapture program and the tracker at the same time to have live data even as a discord like overlay when playing

I would very much love for them to focus on fighting cheaters instead

This is how I parsed Stevens combat from a YouTube video.

I didn't quite have it real time - but I also did it myself (using GitHub), and I am no software developer.

As a point to Dygz final comment in that post - the argument that Steven doesn't know the difference between a combat tracker and a combat assistant didn't come up until after that post. He wrote what he said in reference to my argument under the assumption that a combat tracker was a combat assistant - as far as I am aware this is still his mistaken assumption.

Aerlana

Dygz wrote: »

The wiki states: "We will be providing combat data for individual players in their chat window, that players can filter and analyze for themselves.

Data = combat log.
If you want the difference between log and tracker, go to my message with screenshot, you will understand why it is far better to have a tracker and not log... because i have really hard time to analyse hundreds of data without a tool...

Dygz wrote: »

But, yeah, Steven is fine with a combat log and will be against parsers if they provide advanced features that are in ACT, like time alerts.

And i am ok with it... in fact i approve i hate boss modes. even in the act ways where the player have to create it itself after fighting the boss (and so, before having alerts, players have to understand the fight)

Dygz wrote: »

Steven really doesn't even want us to have numbers in health bars. Rather, he wants us to pay attention to the decay of the nameplates. So expect the level of detailed info in the combat data to be basic rather than advanced.

Not seeing healthbar of ennemy is a common thing in MMORPG, even back in the "good old days where MMORPG were great" ... those days when there was already parsers. and is still a thing today.
There is even BDO where you don't have combat bar if you don't learn some knwoledge about the mobs...

And for combat data : "[spell name] does [damages] to [target]" this is what all combat log does, and you can't do less basic than this.

Dygz wrote: »

In Ashes, expect fewer people to defeat a boss like Vaelastrasz with just a 40-person raid.
Steven believes, "things should be hard, people should fail, the bitter taste of defeat is what makes success that much more rewarding."

It might take more than a 40-person raid to defeat such a dragon.
Hardcore raids in Ashes may not be as hardcore as they are in other MMORPGs, just as casual in Ashes may not be as casual as it is in other MMORPGs.
How we go about defeating world bosses in Ashes, as an in-game community, may be very different than in previous MMORPGs.

*

Number of people needed =/= difficulty... Really.

He wants thing hard ? yes, i wait for him and his team to produce boss fight really hard.
But i don't thing the content will be so hard with how false he is about end game PvE in his thought about DPSmeter.

Dygz wrote: »

So, again... Steven is aware of the opposing arguments. He just doesn't agree.

And i will continue to say his point of vue is based over false informations, i can prove it to him if he wants.
and so, his opinion, can be the one that count, remains not accurate at all.

And because he doesn't want at all third party program
Because he wants hard content (it exists nowhere there isnt a decent use of any kind of parser)
because he wants at most not having the "combat assistant"

he really should add ingame combat tracker :

People won't try to go third party program (and it is forbidden in many games, and games never know when player uses it.) Also, many from hardcore community would jsut leave if they are banned for using an external parser. (so lower the level of the whole community )

It will allow all people to master their class, give high DPS, so fight will be focused even more around boss mechanics. Why ? if you consider people will have 95% efficiency, you can set the stats of the boss high enough to avoid people to zerg the boss life so fast that it makes the fight far more easy... because it is what happens in some bosses on other game : they were set for lower DPS player (lower stuff, or devs considered player would'nt be as good) and some team just burn boss life so fast they avoid 10% or 20% or more of boss attack... (some people wants fight doing 10 min instead of 6 min right? yes, so they make the fight far easier!)
Without parser or you kick, or you have people that have this high efficiency gameplay, but far less players. making a bigger gap between players in the same community

With having the combat tracker ingame, he can directly decide what it can show or not show...

Dygz

You can continue to say what you say. You won't be able to prove your perspective is correct.
Steven has professional game designers with decades of MMORPG experience on his team.
If they can't convince him, you can't.

Dygz

rikardp98 wrote: »

So, parser =/= DPS meters

The wiki does not agree with you.
Quick Google search shows people commonly using parser/dps meter/dps parser interchangeably.

Noaani

Aerlana wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

But, yeah, Steven is fine with a combat log and will be against parsers if they provide advanced features that are in ACT, like time alerts.

And i am ok with it... in fact i approve i hate boss modes. even in the act ways where the player have to create it itself after fighting the boss (and so, before having alerts, players have to understand the fight)

The funny thing with this is that literally the only thing ACT does is allow you to set a timer.

You can define the start of the timer as being when a specific effect is triggered (start the timer when you receive damage from a specific ability, as an example). But the player using ACT needs to set how long the timer will count down before sounding, meaning you need to already know the encounter before you can even set the timer.

The thing about this that is most amusing is that literally within a week of EQ launching, people were using actual, literal stopwatches to time abilities on mobs. It is literally just an extension of what was happening all the way back then.

And further, even more amusing to say that it is something Steven doesn't want, all a developer needs to do to make stopwatches (and thus ACT's timer) completely worthless is to not use time as a trigger for abilities.

You can't accurately time something that is irregular.

Aerlana

Dygz wrote: »

You can continue to say what you say. You won't be able to prove your perspective is correct.
Steven has professional game designers with decades of MMORPG experience on his team.
If they can't convince him, you can't.

We can be correct and unable to convince him... If he doesn't want to be convinced, or don't care the opinion, don't care about the proof and fact we give, yes, we won't be able to convince him.

i just hope he will chose to listen the path of wisdom about this subject. and at least gives real argument and not false one.
he has a big, really big misconception around DPSmeter/combat tracker/parsers. This is a big problem... for the PvE... and if he manage to ban any user of third party combat tracker, this will be a big problem for hardcore community.
It is not innocent that on FFXIV there is not any DPSmeter, third party program are forbidden, but there is a tolerance around ACT. Naoki Yoshida knows without allowing this, he would lose most of hardcore community...

Noaani wrote: »

And further, even more amusing to say that it is something Steven doesn't want, all a developer needs to do to make stopwatches (and thus ACT's timer) completely worthless is to not use time as a trigger for abilities.

You can't accurately time something that is irregular.

Yes, there are numerous way to avoid timer to be usefull.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

You can continue to say what you say. You won't be able to prove your perspective is correct.
Steven has professional game designers with decades of MMORPG experience on his team.
If they can't convince him, you can't.

Steven can't be convinced by people he is not listening to.

Again, this is why we should be worried - Steven doesn't know what he is talking about, and is refusing to listen to people that do.

Dygz wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

So, parser =/= DPS meters

The wiki does not agree with you.
Quick Google search shows people commonly using parser/dps meter/dps parser interchangeably.

Because wikis are aways correct.

A parser is any tool that scans data for any reason. When you ctrl+f a document or web page to find s specific word, that is a parser.

ACT is also a parser, it scans data in order to create tables and charts.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

rikardp98 wrote: »

So, parser =/= DPS meters

The wiki does not agree with you.
Quick Google search shows people commonly using parser/dps meter/dps parser interchangeably.

quick google search can get you to detailed explanations on why earth is flat

Like really you want to use searching trend terms as an argument that dps meter is uqual to parser

The best example is from actully the first iron man movie when on the end the character Tony Stark says that it is funny they call him an Iron man, because the suit is made from steel-nickel-titanium alloy

people rarely call things on what they actually are, but what is the most convenient name for them to use

@Dygz it is painfully clear that you've got no personal input into the discussion, you are capable only to recite what Steven has in some of his posts/quotes and when we are talking about the properties of the topic you've got no clue on what is talked about so you default to disbanding the discussion for having no purpose because it is Steven's decision

Dygz

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/483074/damage-meters-yah-or-nay/p2

Aerlana

One thing i want to point out about why having a in game combat tracker would be good for community.

YES there will be toxicity, and avoid another kind of toxicity... won't speak about it, already gave my experience and opinion.

No, this is another thing. The community is not just "hardcore" and "casual"
casual can be good players, able to do hard content, and hardcore can be really bad...
Casual and hardcore are mainly "how much time do i play the game "

But, inside the "hardcore player" there is one small part that is hardcore in playtime, and gameplay level, aiming to be perfect. those are those on the world first run, those and even guild far from top1 are part of it.

Such kind of player will totally take ban risk, to have tool that allow them to improve themselves. they spend lot of time if needed for theorycraft, etc. For them, spending 10% of their gametime outside of the game doing calculation time to get the perfect build, perfect rotation, it is clearly not a problem...

Then there is a part of player, hardcore or casual, with a good focus on the game they play in, trying to give their best, but far from those "topworld". less time, or just not in the mood of spending hours outside of the game to find how to improve themselves.

And finally, players of lower level, just here to enjoy the game in its most simple way...

With a combat tracker, you can reduce the gap of gameplay level between the top world, and the really good players. because there is a tool easy to use, that reduce time to find how to improve yourself, less time "out of game"

Without this combat tracker, you will have a larger gap, more difference between topworld and really good one.
Why is it a matter ? it will reduce the part of players able to kill the biggest boss, while the top world will be able to farm them... Allowing them to have more stuff... be better... more farm, etc.

Why is it bad for the game ? Simply because those guilds with really strong people will be more and more dominant. with 50% of character power in stuff, if difference between the epic stuff from world boss, and the current boss is strong, this stuff difference and gameplay level difference will make those guild really hard to fight, be it in guild wars to destroy their guild freehold or in siege to break the node were they are mostly localised...

Dygz

There are two spectra of hardcore and casual: time and challenge.
I am hardcore time/casual challenge.
Back in the day, lots of MMORPG players were hardcore time/hardcore challenge.
These days more players are some form of casual - because a lot of the people who used to be hardcore time/hardcore challenge now have jobs, families, kids, etc... Many of those have become casual time/hardcore challenge. And quite a few are now casual time/casual challenge.

Expect the manner in which we defeat world bosses to be different than the methods we've used in previous MMORPGs. I don't think we will be farming world bosses like we have in previous MMORPGs because Ashes is dynamic rather than static. We will not be able to do all content -especially not on infinite farm- because content won't stick around forever.
The vast majority of people will not be able to defeat world bosses with just a 40-person raid. And that is OK.
There will still be people who can defeat world bosses consistently - but they will be doing so without in-game DPS meters.
Who says that killing world bosses with a 40-person raid will be the only, or even primary, measure of a competent guild?

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Many of those have become casual time/hardcore challenge.

These are the people combat trackers are most useful for.

With Stevens current plan, players will have to read through combat logs in order to find a piece of information they may need. With a combat tracker, they can basically ctrl+f to find it, if they know what it is they are looking for - which they will only know by paying attention to the encounter itself.

Again, you don't understand the topic in question here. You understand it so poorly that you are now arguing FOR combat trackers to be built in to the games client.

Tragnar

I even had a separate post about compounding effects - when you have 40man raid you have quite large wiggle room to meta comp the living shit out of your raid so the difference between top raids and the average ones will not be counted in percentages but in x times better are they

just for Digz explanation:

It was never said that 8man groups are locked to have only 1 of the main archetype making it impossible to get 2 of the same archetype in the same group - so by that logic the goal to have all archetypes necessary in groups just comes down to the tuning of what is necessary making it for top players just a matter of having each archetype present in the raid so you have 32 raid spots in a 40man raid free for meta comping to their heart's content

I know for sure that if the above average guild raid will clear in 3 hours then the top leaderboard time will be around 20-30 minutes basically locked around travel time through the environment

This is not out of thin air, because there are publicly available data that clearly shows that top players really enjoy perfecting their strategies on clears and basically they become their own enemy since their goal stops being the best players that play the game, but to be the best players that they can become

Aerlana

Dygz wrote: »

but they will be doing so without in-game DPS meters.

Yes... for this we need combat tracker to allow more people being able to do it !

Dygz wrote: »

Who says that killing world bosses with a 40-person raid will be the only, or even primary, measure of a competent guild?

it won't be the primary measure, it will maybe even be a low importance measure
BUT it gives stuff, better stuff + better gameplay = you dominate other...

Don't worry about "competent guild" we will see it fast enough, and it will be even worse without combat tracker, Combat tracker allowing more and more people improving themselves to get closer to the full hardcore player performance

I don't have objectiv proof of it, it is all that comes from 20 years with hundreds and thounsands hours spent in different guild, and speaking with even more different guilds.
It is also because now i grown up, i understand even more than 20 years ago that "the amount of time a hobby ask you is precious" ...

And understand, i do all those statement, all my post not because "i want to have a combat tracker"... i persnally will enjoy the game even without it. not even sure i would join a guild aiming for raid content... and i trust myself enough to reach a decent gameplay level helped with forum speak to share opinion, experience about what i will play.
All my message, and this speculativ statement is because i wish the best for AoC, really. and i am really, really sure, that this question is far from a minor one for the long term

Lilithalia

I love and want a dps meter for myself!

Verus

Incredible that this thread is still active. Adding a quick comment to the flurry.

It is correct that the inclusion of regular DPS tracking and in-depth combat analysis takes away from immersion and comfort, and it bolsters the player enforcement of "the meta". This causes people to feel as though they must play a certain class or style in order to be competitive or to join groups. This is bad, obviously.

If a compromise can be struck to allow something like a specific area for general DPS output testing without the always-present tracking and judging, this could work out. It could even just be finding how long it takes for a player to kill a particular mob or dummy. It's clear the design philosophy for Ashes does not want this to be a WoW-esque numbers game where you just watch a meter and try to get that extra 0.001. This is evidenced by features like the invisibility of enemy health numbers. It should focus more on strategy and coordination, allowing for variety without punishment.

Aerlana

It is correct that the inclusion of regular DPS tracking and in-depth combat analysis takes away from immersion and comfort, and it bolsters the player enforcement of "the meta". This causes people to feel as though they must play a certain class or style in order to be competitive or to join groups. This is bad, obviously.[/quote]

In close to 20 years, didnt find one MMORPG without an "enforced meta"...
so this is not related to any kind of legal combat tracker (because all MMORPG got a combat tracker... maybe not fiesta... right)

Don't worry, without parser, some classes will be prefered to the other.

There is meta in d2 without any combat tracker, in d3, in PoE also

As i proved in other post, a good way to have a more real meta, and a more open play with exotic choice is... having a parser, which will allow people to prove themselves even if they did a build people think "non meta"... Because it is how it works all time. people care less about meta if you prove them with objectiv proofs you do your job, even with a build considered out of meta
So because there will be a meta. (meta will always exist, it is impossible to not see one forming itself) we need parser to allow player to play what they want

Aerius wrote: »

It's clear the design philosophy for Ashes does not want this to be a WoW-esque numbers game where you just watch a meter and try to get that extra 0.001. This is evidenced by features like the invisibility of enemy health numbers.

WoW or FFXIV (and FFXI) don't show the amount of health of ennemy... And there are really tough fights, (the hardest of all MMORPG... while having combat tracker... (like all MMORPG)

Aerius wrote: »

It should focus more on strategy and coordination, allowing for variety without punishment.

This is one thing that amazes me...
People consider it is "big DPS" versus "strategy/coordination" ... it is so dumb...

If you saw WoW or FFXIV end game fight, you can see they are not just having big DPS ... far from this. yes it is the case as bosses like the renown "patchwerk" but nefarian, arthas or Ra den, having best game DPS people of the whole game was clearly not enough to kill them... you needed strategy, with each people of the raid doing their job as perfectly as they could. using more than just "best damaging skills"

Lets set up a situation. a fight is build for being won in around 30 minutes with an average of 5000 DPS spread between all 40 characets in the raid.
It is a raid full of "strategy" and big mechanics.
Now here comes a guild of player that knows game well enough to have a raid with 10k DPS => combat goes down to 15 minutes => easier fight.

Just... watch FFXI With Absolute Virtue and Pandemonium warden...
Even the insane DPS from a team full of DRK with Krakenclub didnt have easy fight on them, while it was the best DPS output they could have. . .
While the krakenclub in DRK hand allowed to make many other boss getting from "hard" to "fight among other fights"

You argument is based on the fact that without parser, people won't try to optimize the most possible their own gameplay, and optimize the guild efficiency. It is totally out of reality. The simple fact you can change secundary archetype will allow them to do so.

And when you reduce fight because you have a lot more DPS than needed you make those fight easier, you can make some mechanic becoming irrevelant. 2 example : add spawning, more DPS => add is less dangerous. A shield you have to break before interrupting boss, again, if team have enough DPS, a "hard boss" become really easy, even with really deep strategy. . .

Before considering that "allowing people to play at their best performance" is a danger for the strategy quality of fight, just ask yourself why because WoW and FFXIV, game with site like https://www.fflogs.com/ are also the 2 games with the most challenging, the hardest PvE on MMORPG market...
(fflogs is a site where people can upload the data from their combat tracker, it allow to compare yourself to all other player, see if you have to improve, see where you have the most lack in your gameplay, etc)

Or... there won't be this kind of player on the game because there is nothing to appeal them enough (And with such anti-parser mentality, there will maybe exist a reason there wont be enough appeal on the game for them : world boss fight will probably be not so hard.)
But we need all kind of player. Because good MMORPG got all kind of them in the game

and i will finish to answer to this

Aerius wrote: »

Incredible that this thread is still active. Adding a quick comment to the flurry.

I will defend the addition of combat tracker even after release. Because it is the best tool to have a smaller gap between topend players and the larger mass of player.
And because behind this "want only boss with big strategy" (like most FFXIV/WoW boss so) those same boss won't be hard enough to allow the game to pretend having a "decent PvE" ... and PvE will just become "how to get thing to craft the best stuff" . . .

This topic is still activ because people like me hope the best for this game, and we need for it to have a "real" hard PvE. And the hardest PvE fight are those needing a deep strategy AND big DPS
not those that only need deep strategy

i hope the best for this game, in with my long hardcore experience on MMORPG, i saw all good a combat tracker can give to a game.
Yes there is also bad things; but it comes from stupid players, players who don't even understand the game... And this kind of player will just be as stupid without combat tracker. Just have to find way to prove they are stupid in either situation...

Dygz

Or, without DPS meters, fights are not designed to be won in 30 minutes.
Perhaps wanting a smaller gap between "topend" players and the larger mass of players is similar to wanting separate PvE servers.
You want that, but that doesn't mean the devs want that.

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