DPS Meter Megathread

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Dygz

Aerlana wrote: »

Combat tracker is a way to fight meta, not support it...

LMFAO
I’d ask what you’re smoking, but…
I don’t want to get that fucked up.
😂🤣

Ruerik

Dygz wrote: »

Aerlana wrote: »

Combat tracker is a way to fight meta, not support it...

LMFAO
I’d ask what you’re smoking, but…
I don’t want to get that fucked up.
😂🤣

Do explain to us then, how not having a combat tracking available to anyone (which is impossible, there are going to be combat trackers, dev supported or no, against ToS or no, there is a group of people that will have com bat trackers)

DO explain please, how in this magical universe where NO ONE has any combat tracking, how there is not going to be a meta.

/popcorn

Ludullu

Taerrik wrote: »

DO explain please, how in this magical universe where NO ONE has any combat tracking, how there is not going to be a meta.

I think what Dygz meant is "trackers literally show you the best way to play which will become meta", while not having a tracker will keep you guessing for much longer. And those who do get some form of a tracker will keep the info to themselves in order to compete better with those who don't have trackers. And when there's no truly established "best way to play" - there's no real meta. Yes, there'd be trends, but those would always appear sooner or later, while trackers would just create a fast track to a fully established meta.

ariatras

Noaani wrote: »

One of the other key aspects to the suggestion I made in this thread about 90 pages ago is that along with a combat tracker being a guild perk, it should only track members of that specific guild. This means that if you are not keen on trackers, and find yourself in a group with someone that has access to this built in tracker, they are unable to use it on you.

The other key thing to point out about this is that the player in question probably still knows who in the group is good, and who is shit, you really don't need a combat tracker to tell you that. This means that even having combat trackers segregated in to guilds like this isn't going to inherently stop the issue of people that are wanting to run content for fun joining up with people that are wanting to run the content efficiently.

Since that is not a combat tracker issue at all, it can't be fixed by the addition or removal of combat trackers.

Yea, I didn't read through all these pages, but that seems like a great solution to me.

Aerlana

NiKr wrote: »

but those would always appear sooner or later, while trackers would just create a fast track to a fully established meta.

sooner or later, the problem is the same
And yes, combat tracker helps...

When meta will says that ranger has to be rogue subclass (totally random example...) it will be hard to be a ranger-summoner and find spot in parties.

But with the same meta, people see that while being a ranger-sumoner you does more damages than the ranger-rogue... they will say "ok, he is not meta but is better, so lets get him"
This is why i say combat tracker is a tool against meta. And this is based on my experience when i stopped high end, and swapped to mid-tier guilds...

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

Not if they are youtubers... they like likes more and sell their souls to gather them. And the streamers.

If Intrepid stays with their goal of forbidding addons - those youtubers will get banned

Aerlana wrote: »

But with the same meta, people see that while being a ranger-sumoner you does more damages than the ranger-rogue... they will say "ok, he is not meta but is better, so lets get him"
This is why i say combat tracker is a tool against meta. And this is based on my experience when i stopped high end, and swapped to mid-tier guilds...

Again though, the tracker will just give you objectively best way to do smth, which then becomes meta. It does not counter meta in any way, it defines it.

And if ranger-summoner did more dmg than ranger-rogue, yet it wasn't meta - that only tells me that w/o a tracker people wouldn't figure out the best way to do dps and once they hit content that requires best dps - they'll have to try more stuff, which would literally mean destroying meta.

And this would take way longer than people just using trackers for each encounter and see what class/build does the best dps. And as soon as you know the best way to do smth - there's literally no reason to not do it, hence meta.

Dygz

Taerrik wrote: »

Do explain to us then, how not having a combat tracking available to anyone (which is impossible, there are going to be combat trackers, dev supported or no, against ToS or no, there is a group of people that will have com bat trackers)

DO explain please, how in this magical universe where NO ONE has any combat tracking, how there is not going to be a meta.

/popcorn

Um. Pretty sure I wrote....

Dygz wrote: »

Some people will try to META.
The problem is devs building features to support that.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

Again though, the tracker will just give you objectively best way to do smth, which then becomes meta. It does not counter meta in any way, it defines it.

And if ranger-summoner did more dmg than ranger-rogue, yet it wasn't meta - that only tells me that w/o a tracker people wouldn't figure out the best way to do dps and once they hit content that requires best dps - they'll have to try more stuff, which would literally mean destroying meta.

And this would take way longer than people just using trackers for each encounter and see what class/build does the best dps. And as soon as you know the best way to do smth - there's literally no reason to not do it, hence meta.

It's not objectively best, though.
It's data which some people will subjectively interpret to be objectively best.
And.. that's assuming that everyone agrees that most efficient as possible is a goal people should strive for.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

It's not objectively best, though.
It's data which some people will subjectively interpret to be objectively best.
And.. that's assuming that everyone agrees that most efficient as possible is a goal people should strive for.

I'm talking in the context of people doing pve/pvp which requires your best dps to properly clear. This kind of content doesn't appeal to you so obviously you wouldn't care about this kind of stuff, but Noaani being one of the biggest PvErs here and also a big proponent of meters just tells me that anyone who wants to be at the top would follow the meter religiously.

And the data would be objective because people would be testing stuff out until they found the biggest numbers. And meters would provide the fastest way to get to those numbers, while w/o meters you would in fact be only guessing where and which dps is really the biggest.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Some people will try to META.
The problem is devs building features to support that.

Some people absolutely will create a meta, and only accept people that follow it.

Thus is a case with or without combat trackers. I am sure you understand this.

This comes back to efficiency players converging with players that are just there for fun. Combat tracker or not, these people mixing will always cause friction.

At least with a combat tracker, you can objectively prove to someone that wants to run meta that the build you have is viable - assuming it is indeed viable.

If you dont know of your build is viable - due to not caring or what ever - then you just shouldnt be grouping with someone that does care.

Again though, this applies whether combat trackers exist or not.

So, in regards to a games meta, the only affect combat trackers have is allow people to expand the meta - assuming the game isnt designed in a manner where there is only one viable build.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

I'm talking in the context of people doing pve/pvp which requires your best dps to properly clear. This kind of content doesn't appeal to you so obviously you wouldn't care about this kind of stuff, but Noaani being one of the biggest PvErs here and also a big proponent of meters just tells me that anyone who wants to be at the top would follow the meter religiously.

And the data would be objective because people would be testing stuff out until they found the biggest numbers. And meters would provide the fastest way to get to those numbers, while w/o meters you would in fact be only guessing where and which dps is really the biggest.

It's not just that it doesn't appeal to me...
RPGs should not be designed to require "best dps to properly clear". "Properly clear" really has no place in an RPG.
Obviously, if that is not designed to be a thing, what determines "top" would be different.
Ashes class design is pretty much anti-META.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

It's not just that it doesn't appeal to me...
RPGs should not be designed to require "best dps to properly clear". "Properly clear" really has no place in an RPG.
Obviously, if that is not designed to be a thing, what determines "top" would be different.
Ashes class design is pretty much anti-META.

I mean, "a hugeass dragon" will require "hugeass dps". And you can truly know where to get that dps if you use a meter. And the dps itself will require a proper build on a proper class that is using proper abilities in a proper order (mainly for best resource management) in combination with several other people who're doing the same thing.

Again, you don't appreciate hardcore content as much as someone like Noaani does so of course you wouldn't see the value in meters. But you're both playing RPGs, just on different sides of their spectrum. Or at least please don't tell me that you don't consider EQ2 an rpg

Dygz

Um. No. A huge ass Dragon should not require Damage Per Second to defeat, in the manner that you suggest.
A huge ass Dragon should require approx 40 player characters - probably 5 groups comprised of one of each Primary Archetype - what MMORPG gamers refer to as DPS will be a component of that, sure.
DPS meter is kind of a misnomer in that sense, anyways.
An RPG should not be designed to require "proper abilities in a proper order". That's basically the antithesis of an RPG.

It's not that I don't "appreciate" hardcore content.
Raids can be hardcore without being designed for "proper abilities in a proper order".
I don't appreciate Noaani's concept of "top end raid". That much is true.
And... Ashes isn't really designed with that concept of "top end raid".

I dunno what you mean by both playing RPGs.
That's technically true in some fashion but meaningless in this discussion.
And, no, this isn't really about being on different ends of a spectrum.

Ludullu

Dygz wrote: »

Um. No. A huge ass Dragon should not require DPS.

Ok then, a simple question: can a lvl 1 "whateverclass" kill the "final boss" in any d&d campaign? Or does that lvl 1 dude need to acquire some abilities and level up their stats and maybe get a few friends and then properly use all those resource in order to defeat the boss?

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Um. No. A huge ass Dragon should not require Damage Per Second to defeat, in the manner that you suggest.
A huge ass Dragon should require approx 40 player characters - probably 5 groups comprised of one of each Primary Archetype - what MMORPG refer to as DPS will be a component of that, sure.
DPS meter is kind of a misnomer in that sense, anyways.

Why do u need 5 tanks for this dragon? What ability does it have that makes me want those 5 tanks rather than some additional DPS, healers or support?

A requirement for DPS on a raid is a means of developers checking the basic capability of a raid. IRS like a measure - you need to be "this" good to pass here.

This is why encounters that have little else to them other than a minimum DPS are called DPS checks.

The same principle exists for healing and survivability (either just the tank, or the whole raid).

These requirements are literally what makes it so that single digit percent of players can kill an encounter. Without them, they become easy.

Ludullu

Any encounter pretty much comes down to resource management (in the widest meaning of that definition). If your character has 10hp and 5def and the opponent does 11dmg against 6def - u ded in 1 hit. But if you buff up your def, drink a potion for more hp, use a -atk debuff on the enemy and hit him with smth strong w/o going over your mana value - u'll probably survive.

Now extrapolate this kind of "equation" to the size of a raid and to the complexity and difficulty of a boss that, supposedly, only a fraction of the players on any given server can kill. And now it takes way more "resources" than just a buff here and a potion there. You now need to maximize your damage output "per turn" w/o sacrificing all your mana/hp pools, because the boss will probably take more than "one turn" to kill. Hence the dps requirement, on top of proper ability usage, on top of proper class setup, on top of proper builds for all those classes.

Ruerik

It sounds to me, like there is a fundamental disagreement about a LOT more than the need to be allowed to use simple DPS meters.

You have players that want encounters to be properly challenging, and a major part of that challenge will be needing to
1) Perform Mechanics
2) Not get hit by things
3) Mitigate and Shield unavoidable damage so you dont get one shot (I really hope this is a thing, and I mean not some bard just having to use and forget about maintaining 100% uptime on a skill, I mean DPS players having to use a support skill as they see a boss charging up a attack, to lower enemy damage for 5-10s and this skill has like a one minute cooldown so it cannot be spammed! I want people to have to PAY THE HECK ATTENTION and not just do a rotation and collect loot)

4) Manage healing and tanking responsibilities
5) And most important, everyone, including tanks, and healers, and DPS players, contributing to doing damage to the enemy to be able to meet DPS checks. The boss needs to have things that have to be dealt with in an appropriate amount of time.

If we dont have these 5 basic requirements at a minimum, then all enemies are just simple loot boxes. Show up when they spawn, eat a pizza with your left hand while you barely contribute anything, maybe just start a dps macro with your right hand to play your character for you....

I dont want encounters to be that easy, I want encounters to be fun. I do not want macros to be a thing. Players using macros to do their rotation should be shamed out of any game they play because it should not be viable.

But maybe I am in the minority here, maybe the majority of players want to be able to show up at a boss, if it takes them 30minutes of mindlessly doing dps (aka alpha1 fire dragon), so be it thats what they want to have to do to get their loot.

And for the record, I am not opposed to **SOME** encounters being soloable also. I soloed the ice and poison dragon in alpha1 as a mage (using mount healing). But this should only be the case for low tier bosses.

Aerlana

NiKr wrote: »

Again though, the tracker will just give you objectively best way to do smth, which then becomes meta. It does not counter meta in any way, it defines it.

Meta is defined when the game is released, and change when a patch is released. Players just find out what the meta is.
COmbat tracker totally helps to find the meta, and ... i totally always admitted it.

But yes, combat tracker fight meta.
When meta is there, some people, will try to follow it blindly. even if they don't understand it.

Fighting meta so means simply prove that even if you are not playing the "meta build" (in my example, the "ranger-rogue") you can still perform more than people who plays meta ...

NiKr wrote: »

And if ranger-summoner did more dmg than ranger-rogue, yet it wasn't meta - that only tells me that w/o a tracker people wouldn't figure out the best way to do dps and once they hit content that requires best dps - they'll have to try more stuff, which would literally mean destroying meta.

In my example i defined the "ranger-rogue" as the meta DPS... are you really sure that playing meta = being top1 DPS ? ... really ? So why even put button to play, gives skills, have strategy to apply ?

No in my example the combat tracker showed that the non meta build did out DPS the meta build because the player was better... in such situation, i say to the meta dude "sorry, train, play better, maybe find anything you like to play instead of a thing you think you need to play, and try again" and will say to the other "welcome"
Even more true because the first began with a strong advantage... proving that the second is more efficient, but a lot more better player than the first.

Without combat tracker, it would be harder for the non meta build to be accepted. the proof of being good enough would be harder to be shown...
And most mid tier guild (all in fact...) are always more motivated to invite people following meta than others... and THIS is the real problem.

So yes, combat tracker help to fight against meta... or to use better sentence : Combat tracker help to fight the effect of meta on mentality

Remove the combat tracker, a meta will form. Close or not of the "real" meta, there will be a meta.
And people will discriminate other based on the meta. And in my example, they will say "oh you are a ranger summoner ? hum come in but only if you swap your secundary archetype to rogue"... Combat tracker is the tool you need to say "hey, no... look at my results"

Dygz wrote: »

It's not just that it doesn't appeal to me...
RPGs should not be designed to require "best dps to properly clear". "Properly clear" really has no place in an RPG.
Obviously, if that is not designed to be a thing, what determines "top" would be different.
Ashes class design is pretty much anti-META.

15 years of Pen and Paper or on Nwn1/2 RPG... i always optimised all my characters, playing with people doing so, with DM offering us fight hard enough to justify to optimize them
So your first statement is purely a personnal feeling. and yes you are far from alone to think this way. but lot are thinking another way. Even on games like FFXI where the meta was very large...

Meta will exist, if it exist on PnP RPG...

In fact i remember you, on another topic, defending actively a meta for ashes...
When people explain we could think about other way to think balance, you said "no, has to be this way" ... It was about tank is the only tank of the game. (while i advocate about all XXXX-Tank being able to be decent off tank... ) this way, you said you wanted to define the tank job being done only by tank as main archetype... you defined a meta you wanted to exist.

Also, if you manage to read me to this point : part of what you said about the good top end content is true :
No need to have the fight ask for X DPS to be done. the soft/hard enrage for every boss is a thing i really dislike (i mean really). it can be a thing sometime, but not everytime.
I spoke earlier in this post about FFXI, in this game lot of boss have no kind of enrage, and you could fight the boss during 30 minutes, one hours... OR MORE. i would have really NO problem to have the top end find to be thought about a raid of 40 people with a good mix of role with decent gameplay needed for a fight around 1hour - 1h30. which sure, with minmaxing and training would be reduced to 30minutes by top worlds.

But don't gather a random group... i have currently a table on DnD, their only healer is a paladin... and no real tank, they are a glass canon team. (but the canon is really strong) i can guarantee you that some fight, even with enough magic items and lvl20, if they are not in absolute luck, they will never win it... Without some bonus help (like a friendly NPC ^^" ) This is reality of RPG.

Taerrik wrote: »

But maybe I am in the minority here, maybe the majority of players want to be able to show up at a boss, if it takes them 30minutes of mindlessly doing dps (aka alpha1 fire dragon), so be it thats what they want to have to do to get their loot.

Back in "good old days" some players played MMORPG and didnt play most boss, considering they didnt have the gameplay level for it, and didnt want to push themselves into it, enjoying the game without it.

This is what also MMORPG are... some content that only some manage to win against,
Some of encounter for you will be easy, until you begin to find challenge, and maybe, in the end a challenge that you and your guild will need 3 months to pass.
Meanwhile other people will simply spend those 3 months just for the first ennemy that did resist you a little.

Back in this time, loots were nothing more than the keys to get to even harder fight, the reward was not the loot, but to find a new challenge.
This was WoW case... while people roam naxx or sunwell, other still struggled in BWL or SSC. And they wanted to finish it and get loot... to then go to AQ40 or black temple, where other already were... working they way to reach naxxramas and AQ40.

2 things killed this :
-The vertical progress destroyed at each expansion. you don't need to do the hard content to see the harder one, discover the environment, lore, aesthetic, etc. You just need to wait
-the "catchup" middway between each raid tier, WoW like FFXIV helps you a lot to have stuff as strong as the one in the raid.

In both, the stuff became the reward, you tried to kill bosses for their loot to have the big ilvl before others, but this is no more needed to do more contents.

Dygz

NiKr wrote: »

A simple question: can a lvl 1 "whateverclass" kill the "final boss" in any d&d campaign? Or does that lvl 1 dude need to acquire some abilities and level up their stats and maybe get a few friends and then properly use all those resource in order to defeat the boss?

Why are you asking about a Level 1 defeating a boss designed for groups?

That’s a question you should ask if I stated that a raid of Level 1s should be able to defeat any boss.
But, I didn’t say anything like, “A Level 1 player character should be able to defeat any boss.”

What I said was that in an RPG, META should not be a thing.
In D&D, your group does not have to defeat a boss by using “proper abilities in the proper order.”
You need to have a group with a Challenge Rating that can defeat the CR of the encounter.
You’re probably going to want at least one healer in the group or everyone will be using a bunch of Health potions, but…
There’s no META dictating what abilities must be used or what classes must be used.

And the same will primarily be true for Ashes.
A raid will want to be the appropriate level for the encounter, and… the game will be balanced around an 8 person group with one of each Primary Archetype.
Other than that, it shouldn’t be about “proper abilities in the proper order”.

You determine a strategy to defeat the challenge based on how your group or raid prefers to synergize their abilities - while factoring in the likely strengths and weaknesses of the mobs in the encounter.
But, devs should not be designing for an objective META.
A raid just needs to find a strategy that defeats the encounter. It doesn’t have to be META. It certainly doesn’t have to be the best DPS.

And, you don’t need a combat tracker to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. You also don’t need a combat tracker to determine who is effectively synergizing with others in your group or raid.
You aren’t going to need a combat tracker to notice that your Ice abilities are weaker in a hot biome or against a Winter Dragon.

You don’t need a combat tracker to tell you that people in your group should probably synergize their Snares.

Some people will attempt to META.
That doesn’t mean that the devs should design such that only one objective META can defeat encounters. What’s the point of having 64 classes if everyone has to use the same abilities in the same order if they want to kill the raid boss??
That’s the antithesis of an RPG.

We’ve got 64 classes, plus a plethora of Social Org, Religious, Racial and Node Type augments, but you think there should be a cookie cutter, objective META to defeat bosses??
That’s absurd.

Ludullu

Aerlana wrote: »

Remove the combat tracker, a meta will form. Close or not of the "real" meta, there will be a meta.
And people will discriminate other based on the meta. And in my example, they will say "oh you are a ranger summoner ? hum come in but only if you swap your secundary archetype to rogue"... Combat tracker is the tool you need to say "hey, no... look at my results"

I should've made my point clearer. I'm against the high speed that trackers provide to the players who want to get to the "real" meta. The things you said literally tell me "once the people know who does more dmg - that's gonna be the meta and anyone who's not that class won't be welcome". And I want to delay that moment as much as I can.

Yes, there'll be some meta as soon as people start thinking about who's stronger. But it won't be cemented for a while because someone somewhere will be testing stuff and will figure out that someone else is stronger. But with trackers that "figuring out" stage will be super fast and after that you'll have a cemented meta that doesn't change at all.

And patches changing the meta is a thing that I've seen getting flack from people on this forum. I'm perfectly fine with it because that's how L2 balanced its classes, but I've seen people be against big nerf/buff changes with each patch. And if you meant that the new gear sets will somehow change class meta so much that people will shift classes, then I'd sure as hell be interested in seeing how exactly people would react to that kind of thing.

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