DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

I'm not aware of anyone arguing that DPS meters won't exist.

Since we all know the exist, I fail to see how Intrepid not implementing one itself would have any impact on anything at all.

I mean, at that point, you can't even look to any other game and say "we don't want that here", because no MMO has implemented a combat tracker in to the client. So basically, Intrepid are just doing what everyone else has done.

If they wanted Ashes to be different in this regard, the only thing they really could do is implement a tracker them self, so that they have full control over it.

Assuming they are looking for a different result than other games - the fact that they are performing the same actions is just baffling.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

Then by your own statement all of the most successful games failed, because they didn't meet the design - you literally are taking design goals for something they are not. Design goals in games is the same thing as sketches for artists - you want to have a general idea for the project you are working on, but you still have a lot of leeway to even change the design goals/sketches as you get further into it.

Your logic is absurd.
All games do not have the same design goals.

I'm sorry i should have specified that all games didnt meet perfectly their own designs - i have no idea why should i have to specify this automatic presumption

And by your logic, it's perfectly fine if Ashes is pay to win or ends up with a PvE-Only server.

Sorry, but that conclusion is totally devoid of any logical reasoning - how do you go from "designs are not the same thing as implementations of designs" to "you end up with p2w and pve only"

Tragnar wrote: »

You are completely wrong in this - if anything the last few weeks showed is that players want to have in an mmo a lot of content, that respects their time and investment without bullshit whale exploiting monetization - dps meters are not at all comparable in importancy with these topics, but are inevitable with big population

Yep. Everyone wants Ashes to have lots of content that respects their time investment without whale exploiting monetization.
And we don't need DPS meters to accomplish that.
If DPS meters are inevitable then this thread has no purpose.

If the game director doesnt believe they are inevitable then the reason for this thread still exists

Vhaeyne wrote: »

It is naive to think that not having the game's official blessing on DPS meters will remove toxicity. People get toxic AF in "Extreme" FFXIV content (content that is designed to be beginner raid content).

Removing DPS meters is just taking tools away from guilds. That is, if you think Intrepid can prevent DPS meters from existing. Which I am extremely skeptical of myself.

As far as I know, no one has stated that the devs not including DPS meters will remove toxicity.

Dygz: "no official statement"

Ashes devs are not including DPS meters because that will reduce toxicity.

Dygz: "i believe"

The devs won't be removing DPS meters, rather they won't be implementing DPS meters.

Dygz: "i argue on semantics, not on the stance"

And the devs will be bannin add-ons.

Dygz: "i'm for intrusive platform scanning for the purpose of banning people for using addons"

I'm not aware of anyone arguing that DPS meters won't exist.

Dygz: "to end my post here is my subjective observation"

Noaani

Here's the thing I don't get about banning add ons.

If I am able to parse combat from a YouTube video (as I have done), then I am not even interacting with the game. As far as I am aware, it is not against YouTubes terms of service for me to parse combat that is posted on their platform, and as such Intrepid have absolutely no say in the matter.

So, as we are able to parse from YouTube videos, that means in this situation the closest thing to interacting with the game is OBS or what ever software is used to record it. This means that if Intrepid want to ban someone for using a combat tracker, the only course of action they have is to ban people for recording in game combat.

They can not ban anyone for how they interact with a YouTube video - that is simply not something that can legally be in their terms of service unless Google approve it.

Tragnar

Noaani wrote: »

Here's the thing I don't get about banning add ons.

If I am able to parse combat from a YouTube video (as I have done), then I am not even interacting with the game. As far as I am aware, it is not against YouTubes terms of service for me to parse combat that is posted on their platform, and as such Intrepid have absolutely no say in the matter.

So, as we are able to parse from YouTube videos, that means in this situation the closest thing to interacting with the game is OBS or what ever software is used to record it. This means that if Intrepid want to ban someone for using a combat tracker, the only course of action they have is to ban people for recording in game combat.

They can not ban anyone for how they interact with a YouTube video - that is simply not something that can legally be in their terms of service unless Google approve it.

The only way around that is to limit the ability to screencapture the game - like you need to get a license to stream the game

Dygz

Which is why the devs aren't going to ban people for using YouTube outside of the game.
But, YouTube is not an add-on.
I'm pretty sure the devs will not include a tool that lets you view YouTube from inside the game.
And...I'm pretty sure the devs would ban an add-on that allows people to view YouTube from within the game.

Dygz

Tragnar wrote: »

I'm sorry i should have specified that all games didnt meet perfectly their own designs - i have no idea why should i have to specify this automatic presumption

Same reason why you should know that no one said anything about perfection.
That's what happens when you twist statements into a strawman argument.
Twisting statements into an absolute creates not just a strawman fallacy, but also a reductio ad absurdum fallacy, which inherently invalidate your arguments.

Tragnar wrote: »

Sorry, but that conclusion is totally devoid of any logical reasoning - how do you go from "designs are not the same thing as implementations of designs" to "you end up with p2w and pve only"

I didn't write "you end up with p2w and pve only". You wrote that.
We are talking about design goals; not designs.
The devs have the design goal of not including DPS meters. Just as they have the design goal of not being P2W and not having separate PvE-Only servers. And, sure, at the end of the day, it depends on what they actually implement rather than what they say they will or will not implement.
Just as Steven says he is against P2W and against PvE-Only servers - he is also against supporting DPS meters.

Tragnar wrote: »

Dygz: "to end my post here is my subjective observation"

I think you were trying to make a statement about the difference between reducing toxicity and removing toxicity??

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Which is why the devs aren't going to ban people for using YouTube outside of the game.
But, YouTube is not an add-on.
I'm pretty sure the devs will not include a tool that lets you view YouTube from inside the game.
And...I'm pretty sure the devs would ban an add-on that allows people to view YouTube from within the game.

But, if they aren't going to ban people for using YouTube, and we can use YouTube to parse combat, that means they can't ban people for parsing combat.

Ergo, any talk about banning people for using combat trackers has absolutely no place, as that is not something Intrepid are able to do.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

I'm sorry i should have specified that all games didnt meet perfectly their own designs - i have no idea why should i have to specify this automatic presumption

Same reason why you should know that no one said anything about perfection.
That's what happens when you twist statements into a strawman argument.
Twisting statements into an absolute creates not just a strawman fallacy, but also a reductio ad absurdum fallacy, which inherently invalidate your arguments.

I certainly won't dig into the conversation history to quote your strawmans. Even then if you stick to only this point is that you started with the strawman in here. Also I don't recommend using copy pasta latin quotes in a game forum, because the only thing that this accomplishes is to show everyone how hard you're trying to look "smart"

It is quite hilarious that you bait with strawman post to attack the reply being absurd example and that "somehow" invalidates my arguments

Tragnar wrote: »

Sorry, but that conclusion is totally devoid of any logical reasoning - how do you go from "designs are not the same thing as implementations of designs" to "you end up with p2w and pve only"

I didn't write "you end up with p2w and pve only". You wrote that.
We are talking about design goals; not designs.
The devs have the design goal of not including DPS meters. Just as they have the design goal of not being P2W and not having separate PvE-Only servers. And, sure, at the end of the day, it depends on what they actually implement rather than what they say they will or will not implement.
Just as Steven says he is against P2W and against PvE-Only servers - he is also against supporting DPS meters.

Lemme repeat again: Design goal isn't the same as implementation of the said design goal.

Holy shit, what is so hard to understand that certain point? You're just showing your incompetency to understand simple points, because you are always looking for any consecutive words taken out of context to be able to be understood in a way that supports your "deconstruction"

Tragnar wrote: »

Dygz: "to end my post here is my subjective observation"

I think you were trying to make a statement about the difference between reducing toxicity and removing toxicity??

Do you realize that "reducing toxicity" and "removing toxicity" is literally the same thing? It might be just a quirk of the english language, but if you are in the process to remove all toxicity then you are basically reducing toxicity until it reaches nonexistance.

Once again you are only typing random conclusions that are only leaps of thinking completely devoid of logic and using that as "proof" of my arguments being invalid

And here you miss the most important point - the goal of a discussion is to get to a common ground on which we can both agree and then we can take the discussion to the next level in actually constructive way - so stop deconstructing all points as "moot" or "invalid", because your "deconstructions" are nothing but leaps of fantasy thinking completely devoid of logical steps how you got to that

Noaani

Tragnar wrote: »

Do you realize that "reducing toxicity" and "removing toxicity" is literally the same thing? It might be just a quirk of the english language, but if you are in the process to remove all toxicity then you are basically reducing toxicity until it reaches nonexistance.

Yeah, Dygz arguing semantics probably deserves it's own post on the Ashes meme thread imo.

In terms of reducing/removing toxicity, it seems to me that if you have 100 toxicity and perform some action that lowers that to 80 toxicity, you have removed 20 toxicity and reduced the toxicity to 80.

I wouldn't even call it a quirk of language.

Aerlana

Wingtzu wrote: »

dps meters are not at all comparable in importancy with these topics, but are inevitable with big population

I couldn't disagree more. Easy-access dps meters will inevitably bring about a toxic game culture hellbent on optimizing the fun out of the game. For proof you need only look to the difference in the WoW and FFIV communities.

There is nothing "inevitable" about large MMOs and some imaginary need to have hard numbers to crunch.

@Wingtzu
i was activ in two different topic around adding ingame combat tracker in FFXIV.
the first one lead to have the dummycheck for Xtrem-sadic content... Allowing people to know their DPS on dummy already... (we know the life they have, you can know easily the time you need to break it. => life divided by time => damage per second)

And while being already a good thing, was not enough, another topic born. I will pass over all pro/con argument (already did in this topic) but while using parser as personnal tool and for my FC i discovered with this second topic a site like warcraftlogs existed for FF... fflogs.
How ? some "anti parser" were angry and used this topic to ask SE to make thise site close... because there was fight data uploaded from some fight they were in... (and they were show being around the 25-40% lowest part of DPS ^^')

I invite you to go there, and look if your character got some datas... https://fr.fflogs.com/
If no, or you do not so much extrem farm / sadic bosses (which is fine) or you are really lucky...
If yes, do you really think that on FFXIV, combat tracker is not a thing ?

About the FFXIV toxicity around content, i spoke about it, and from the "pro combat tracker" side, an answer is already given to you i won't add. But it exist totally. Toxicity is not just "stfu noob" ... There is many way to be toxic, far more malicious (and not only about endgame content/DPSmeter). The main difference between wow and FFXIV toxicity ? on wow side, it is most of time totally assumed, and shown, on FFXIV side, it is more in the shadow.

As was said, FFXIV get a huge use of combat tracker. Because lot of people have competitiv mind... (not because they want to be toxic). Yoshida clearly said he didn't want to ban ACT users... while using third party program is illegal. (so using act is illegal)... for 2 reasons
1) non official but he knows he would harm his community and the game if he did.
2) he can't...

He can't like he can't ban people for modding the game aesthetic (nude big tittied girl with big... yes... this )
He can't because hunting such people wouldn't be free... far from it. It would be spending a lot of money, to ban people, and finally... having less customers. Because the large majority of modders and users of ACT are good people, who enjoy playing the game, who are not toxic, can even fight all kind of toxicity...

This is why i laugh when i read Steven "we will ban them all" ok... Maybe he dreams about it, he thinks will be easy to do what 25 years of MMORPG never did... I am no programmer, but i see those 25 years of games with the "third party program is forbidden" in the rules of all of them... And i see those 25 years where reality is far from this rules... I can't imagine steven doing what no other before did.
And even if he ban all third party program... (will be problem for streaming, for razer synapse users also... i will be ban even while i never used macro with my mouse :') ) don't worry, there will be way you won't see there is parsing... or simply, i will record runs... and while recording runs, it will be even better to see who underperformed during the dungeon... (So easier to see to who i should give advice, and what advice... or ... against who i can be even more toxic next time because i know he is bad). While combat tracker only show who did bad damages, who was unable to avoid AOEs. With the video record i will be able to see even more flaw in people's gameplay (me included)

Toxicity in MMORPG is a great problem. and the one helped by combat tracker is no exception. But you don't fight toxicity by hiding it. combat tracker can also be used against most "combat tracker toxicity" ... Most (if not all) people i saw being really toxic with it (pointing people with low DPS as problem in the wipe when not the main problem) were not so good DPS themselves, they had good one, but could be better. or even worse, they had good DPS, but... no interrupt, no cc, took lot of damages, etc. all those things shown by combat tracker... was so easy to just say them "before spitting about other people gameplay, try to improve yours first".
AND as i already said... combat tracker is a really good tool to... help other people to improve. to give them advice. Not generic advice "to play well this class, do this" no... but more "you should think more often to use this skill" and you can even make them understand why (understand how to play is the best way to improve...)

Gaskie

Toxicity will always exist in some form in all games.
A meta will always exist in some form in all games.

These two facts are unavoidable due to human nature. Excluding some way to parse combat logs does not prevent either of these things happening, it simply makes the job of assessing your own performance more difficult.

I'm not a top player, but I do like to understand how my actions in game during combat relate to real world performance. How else am I meant to understand the impact of my gearing and build choices? For a lot of people it's not about simply finding what's "best", it's about having the ability to optimise and understand the choices you make and how they impact what you're able to do.

Talking more from a group perspective as a guild leader or officer, I like to understand where weak links exist so that I can resolve problems. These weak links may be down to player skill of course, but they may also be down to the choices we make while our characters grow or simply down to class differences. Being able to see these things allows guild leaders to customise group composition to fit their guilds' desired goals. Any guild with even the smallest hint of competitiveness will want the ability to do this.

While I appreciate and understand the stated design goal of "every tank class can tank every encounter" the fact remains that one of them will be the best. There will be advantages and disadvantages to each (hopefully on an encounter by encounter basis) but one will always stand out. I would be far, far more worried if this wasn't the case as at that point we have reached class homogeneity, rendering personal choices obsolete. Why make certain choices if at the end of the game everything is equal and the only difference is in the colour of your armour or the shape of your weapon?

In summary, I appreciate the downsides of making certain data available to players and those cannot be ignored. However, they should not be ignored at the cost of allowing players access to the information they need to improve their play and make informed choices about how to build their character.

Dygz

Tragnar wrote: »

Do you realize that "reducing toxicity" and "removing toxicity" is literally the same thing?

LMAO
Here you prove that you don't know what remove means, you don't know what reduce means and you don't know what literally means.
So... further discussion with you is pointless.

Khronus

Imagine keeping thread alive for 86 pages and never realizing how insignificant the topic really is. Add it in, don't add it in...the game will still be great with or without it AND there are more important topics that deserve this much thought and care. This discussion has devolved into arguing about players knowledge of what the words "remove" and "reduce" mean and how someone doesn't know anything about end game metas/player behavior. The goal is to have Steven/Intrepid read these comments and gain insight on how to proceed in development. The jabs at each other just reduce the brain cells of the readers.

If you think a dps meter causes toxicity, you are in the wrong guild (join my guild, I'll prove it). Stop thinking that a dps meter will create toxicity in random groups. It's not a thing in AoC. You don't get to sit in town 24/7 and play with a group finder. I've never had dps issues from guildees because I help them. If you aren't willing to help someone else to achieve a common goal, you don't need to be playing mmorpgs. I don't even want a dps meter but if it is in the game, I would use it. Keep this shit professional so the community doesn't turn into a heaping pile of Activision-Blizzard.

Denahi

I personally believe that DPS meters and addons that are used too ie, measure raid content is, as others have stated, bad for the game. It does feed into a toxic enviroment, and jt ruins the enjoyment of the combat when people are more focused on keeping up an optimal parce to maximise their DPS, it kills the potential multitude of diversity that the combat has if everyone starts optimizing their combat after the dps parse that does the most damage for each respective class. ESO is massively toxic and elitist in raid content because of this element, if you can't reach a certain dps threshold during every single boss encounter then you're frowned upon and often kicked as a result. I am absolutely against any third party addons and DPS meters, as it ruins the diversity and fun elements of combat and it often breeds contempt in player group's. It's a massive no from my side.

Tragnar

Dygz wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

Do you realize that "reducing toxicity" and "removing toxicity" is literally the same thing?

LMAO
Here you prove that you don't know what remove means, you don't know what reduce means and you don't know what literally means.
So... further discussion with you is pointless.

Ladies and gentlemen here we have a prime example of a person that has extremely underdeveloped logical thinking. So let's show how my statement is actually true:

"reducing toxicity" is a process of shrinking the % of player to player interactions that are toxic up to 0%
"removing toxicity" is a process of removing toxic player to player interactions that has an effect of reducing the overall toxic player to player interactions count

So you have 2 descriptions or "labels" of the exact same process - which actually is the best usage for the phrase "literally the same"

The only difference I acknowledge is that both statements imply a different perception, because human mind views the word "removing" as more harsh than "reducing"

So please, when you find yourself in a discussion with this forum poster, please refrain from expecting any logical argumentation, because the said forum poster is unable to process it

Vhaeyne

Khronus wrote: »

Keep this shit professional so the community doesn't turn into a heaping pile of Activision-Blizzard.

I liked this quote. I also like how your post reads like it could be the last post in the thread.

The perfectly worded ending.

Yet... see you in another 86 pages.

Tragnar

Thing is that we know next to nothing how actual raids (not those open mini world loot boxes) are going to actually work and we have just an early look at skills and builds in general - i could even say that those seem like placeholder skills to me if they didnt have actually decent animations in the alfa.

I get it - but if you are a gameplay guy and not an exposition guy then you don't really care how beautiful it looks, how the economy looks like, how the quest system works or how the node systems even work - because all of that is just world exposition

How it feels to control your character, what things you can do with your builds, what challenges you can do with your character - that is gameplay - and I can't in good conscience talk about the control of your character when I don't have alfa, can't talk about builds since it is mostly just preview of few things with some placeholders and the rest planned for future alfa stages

akabear

This thread has really only discussed in detail one issues raised about DPS meters and left some of the other issues unaddressed. To me, one other significant issue a DPS meter has the potential to incur is the accelerated knowledge that comes from the interpretation of the information that would otherwise have taken hours upon hours of multiple tries and collective knowledge to obtain.

This, to me, the knowledge shortens playability of a game and threatens its longevity.

In one of Jahon`s videos, he explained how his partner had an average character but after review of her DPS he was able to change her strategy and take her from mid game to end game playability.

If this approach is permitted, then the mid game players get pushed to end game and the field is no longer a range of capabilities.

I don`t see a solution for this other that what has already been suggested will be implemented.

But then again, way back, I recall playing RPG`s and there was no internet to fall back on, or others to consult with and I had to just work it out and that is what made the achievements so much more meaning full.

Whereas nowadays, get stuck for more than 5min, and it is way too tempting to just do a quick forum search, watch a youtube video or post a question and you are provided the solution on a platter and can get back into it. A great medium has become the death of effort and reward.

The unfortunate workaound I see is this then falls back on the developers to increase and keep increasing (at considerable cost and time) the sophistication of the game dynamics. And that cost and time, I would imagine is exponential.

Aerlana

akabear wrote: »

This, to me, the knowledge shortens playability of a game and threatens its longevity.

Easy to learn, hard to master...

And there is some really good game where knowledge increase its longevity. The more you know the game, the more you play it. This is the specificity of roguelite, but we can also see this in different form in solo RPG (where there is a natural end) and if it exist for solo RPG, so it is for MMORPG where there is no end
example of games not roguelite where the more you know, the more you realise you did low part of game and want to do more : souls game, many metroid vania. Fallout 1/2/new vegas where you replay.

If a MMORPG got shorten a lot because people have combat tracker, this is the game design the problem. . . If people got bored before they killed end game content 1 years ago and have nothing more to do, it is not combat tracker, sharing advice and information or anything the problem, but the game design...
And also, it is another game design problem : longevity = end... MMORPG = never ending game

And if one thing can have a "endless" longevity it is a faction vs faction system MMORPG, The PvE can have a end, but a well made PvP MMORPG will never get an end. (you can get bored after doing 10k hours of pvp, but not for this you got "the end" )

FFXIV game mechanics didnt change from ARR, we know them extremly well. They didnt need to add more sophistication, increase difficulty of class gameplay. And this is a PvE game... (with worst PvP for a mmorpg) They just have to continue to produce PvE content. (then comes the vertical problems). This is the same for its big brother, FFXI. People understood quite early most system mechanics.

If they manage to create a good gameplay, with the "easy to learn, hard to master" logic, the simple fact the game is PvP will allow it to have a really long life. Devs will just have to avoid the boredom to come. (expanding world, new pve content, new open world mechanics, new systems, etc etc). And because the "roadmap" on wiki says there will be patch and expansion...

Also, you speak about a problem where combat tracker is only a really small part of problem... Most guides about MMORPG you find on the game, even explaining "secret features" are from people sharing experience, and working together to find solutions, understanding on subject where data tracker have no use. This problem is far more vast than data analysis.

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

This thread has really only discussed in detail one issues raised about DPS meters and left some of the other issues unaddressed. To me, one other significant issue a DPS meter has the potential to incur is the accelerated knowledge that comes from the interpretation of the information that would otherwise have taken hours upon hours of multiple tries and collective knowledge to obtain.

This has been discussed in the thread - it's such a short thread I'm surprise you missed it.

Basically, what the discussion boiled down to is this - those that want to progress quickly (whether that is in content or in knowledge) will do so, and those that don't want to will not do so. A combat tracker will not alter things for those that do not want to progress so quickly.

If you assume that any Intrepid sanctioned combat tracker in Ashes were to be built in to the games client, set as a possible guild perk and only worked on members of the same guild, then those that don't want that speed of progression simply don't have it.

If this were how things were to be set, those wanting this knowledge faster will have the ability to do so, and those not wanting to progress that fast will have the ability to not do so.

In other games, this doesn't work as if a combat tracker exists for the game, no one really has any reason to not use it unless they have absolutely no interest in playing the game in an effective manner. As such, anyone that is grouping can be reasonably expected to be using one (don't waste my time joining my group if you aren't interested in being effective in your role).

The reason this would work (assuming implemented as discussed in this thread) is because only people in guilds with the combat tracker selected as a perk will have access to it, those whose guild selected other perks instead simply do not have access to it, an so can't be expected to be using one.

If a majority of the players in the game straight up don't have any access to combat data, this only leaves people passing on information to them as a means to speed up their understanding of the game - and so it would in fact go much slower for them than it would if Ashes just had a third party tracker (which it already has).

However, you have kind of skirted the reason why it is important to have combat trackers here - probably without realizing.

While it is perfectly fair to say those people that want to progress slower should be able to do so, it is equally fair to say those that want to learn as much about the game as they can as quickly as they can should also be able to do so.

It is clearly not a good idea for a game publisher to hand out bans if people do not wish to progress their character at a certain minimum speed, or to learn the game as a player at a minimum speed. That is something I would never suggest could be a good idea.

Equally, it is not a good idea for a game publisher to hand out bans of people do wish to progress their character faster, or to learn the game as a player faster.

Right now, that second scenario is the scenario that Intrepid have opted for (they will not be effective at it, but it is their current policy).

Clearly, that is absolutely bullshit, and no sane player should let that stand.

However, we should be advocating for the above to not stand, but in a way where combat trackers are not forced down everyones throat, where those that want to progress at a slower pace can do so, without those around them trying to hurry them along all the time.

Again, this is why the guild based tracker works. As long as people play with likeminded people, those that want a combat tracker will have access to it. but won't be able to use it on those that are not in their guild. Those that do not want a combat tracker will be in a guild that doesn't have it, and as such literally no one is able to use a tracker on them.

This is the only way to allow both groups to exist - and that is why this thread is as long as it is. If Intrepid outright enable trackers, the group of players that don't want to have them shoved in their face don't have a game to play. If Intrepid ban players for using them, the players that want to learn the games systems and understand things don't have a game.

Without a middle-of-the-road solution, one group or the other simply doesn't have a game here - fortunately there is a middle-of-the-road solution, if Intrepid decided to take it.

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