DPS Meter Megathread

Taerrik wrote: »

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 [THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF EACH PRIMARY ARCHETYPE]
5) And most important, everyone, including tanks, and healers, and DPS players, contributing to [DEFEAT THE ENCOUNTER].

I agree with most of that.
I’d quibble over some those details.
Don’t need a DPS meter for any of that.

MrMilot

Situation awareness meter and fun meter suit me.

Aerlana

Dygz wrote: »

You’re probably going to want at least one healer in the group or everyone will be using a bunch of Health potions

[...]

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.

In this post, here are 2 meta you are yourself defining.

First for DnD = a group needs a healer or a BUNCH of potion (so prepare lot of consumable)

Second on Ashes : the balance is around 8 person, one of each primary archetype, and saying it this way, it feels obvious for me that "due to the balance, this is how you should have to do your party"

Those are meta. for the second, it is assumption/expectation because the game is still in development, but if to kill boss, the best way is to have the 8 archetype in each group that fight the boss... it is already a meta.

A game with no meta : you take 8 random people (considering everyone is 100% gameplay efficient) and you can kill the boss this way with a similar difficulty in any mix of 8 character.

Dygz wrote: »

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.

I want none of that, I'm just being realistic about what's gonna happen despite Devs' wishes. No matter how well Intrepid balances their classes, there'll be some combination of them that will do the most damage compared to any other combination. And gear augments/builds will probably be enough to counterbalance any boss variability (unless Intrepid want people to have full accounts of alts to properly fight bosses).

I asked about lvl1 fighting the final boss because I was leading up to the thing I wrote in another post here - "the resource management in a fight". Knowledge being one of those resources.

I'm not a d&d player, but, from what I've seen about it, "perception check" seems to be a highly valued ability that boosts your "knowledge resource". So if a campaign has magic elements interacting with one another and you have, say, a lightning ability that is boosted by the target being wet - you might want to perceive a puddle behind the boss, push him into it and then zap him, in order to maximize your dmg output relative to your mana consumption (correct if my assumptions about d&d are wrong). That would be you "using your abilities in a proper order", in order to properly use your resources.

Same can be applied to mmo bosses. There'll be some general mechanics, but the boss' attack and hp pool will define how much dps you'll need to have in order to beat him before he goes through the entire mana/hp pool of your raid. And the harder the boss - the more resources and the better resource utilization you'll need to have to beat him.

And in order to achieve the things Steven alleged to be trying to achieve (mainly "only a few % of players will beat some of the bosses), they'll have to design the bosses in such a way that only the highest dps raid setups will be able to kill the boss. And the design has to be that way by definition. You can disagree with such a design, but that is what Steven said he wants to have in the game.

And just to repeat and reinforce my stance on the topic: I'm against any and all addons/meters/etc.

Otr wrote: »

If players are concerned that other players will enforce a certain meta upon them, would they accept some daily fluctuations in how damage and spell works?

I hope this design stays around and works out how they want it to, because to me this just sounds like "pvp on the boss to stop others from farming it, until the world setup makes you your strongest and you can kill the boss"

That's what I'd like to have in the game, but I'm not sure how many people would like that.

Dygz wrote: »

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.

Conversely;

We’ve got 64 classes, plus a plethora of Social Org, Religious, Racial and Node Type augments, but you think raid leaders are going to let people come along with just any combination of these?

The more freedom players have with how they can build their character, the more one of two things will happen.

1, players will need to stick to pre-defined builds

Or

2, players will need to prove their build can meet a specific standard.

Guilds simply will not allow you to just rock up with any old build. Not if they want to be successful.

That right there is what would be absurd.

Now, if you want to rock out with your what ever build all by yourself, have at it, no one cares. It's when you start grouping up with others, where your performance suddenly becomes a factor of the groups performance, that is when people will require you to either prove your build, or be a known build.

NiKr wrote: »

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.

In my opinion, this wont happen.

Imagine you are running a top end guild. The raid size is 40 people, and you want no more than 48 in your guild (45 or 46 most likely).

You need to fill these spots out before you get to the end game content, because you cant get to that content without a full raid.

So, who do you invite?

Rhetorical question, I'll tell you.

You invite exactly 4 tanks, but two of them need to have alts.

You invite exactly 10 healers, and 6 bards.

You invite 8 mages and 8 rogues, 4 ranger, and the rest fighters and summoners (both of whom should have DPS alts, as we do not know if these classes are viable).

So then you get to your end game content, and it turns out you want all 8 mages, but only need 4 rogues, as melee isnt that effective (your fighters are having to use alts already).

Now for the next question; do you replace some of your rogues?

People from WoW would likely say yes.

They are wrong.

The thing with Ashes specifically is that you do not know what the next content will be, nor do you even know when it will be. It may well be that the very next week there is a change in node state, and suddenly mages are less useful, and melee is all the rage.

As such, even if you are taking on content that you know isnt well suited to melee, you still want to take your melee along.

In a game like this, guilds are far more likely to be interested in the player, rather than the character or build.

Now, this obviously only applies to guilds, and has no real application to pick up content - but it does still apply perfectly well to PvP as much as PvE.

Noaani wrote: »

In a game like this, guilds are far more likely to be interested in the player, rather than the character or build.

I hope it's that way and I hope that Intrepid can balance their pve content in such a way that "each of every arch" is optimal, but could be tweaked a bit by replacing one or two people with some double class or simply by changing augments. But we'll have to see.

I'm used to having people in my constant party rather than just classes that are free to be switched out, so I'd be completely fine with Ashes going down the same balancing route. And I've made my main class work through several updates where it was nerfed, and I was still doing just fine in pvp.

And if those kinds of changes make it so that trackers don't exacerbate the meta issue - I'd only be glad about that.

Otr wrote: »

But you wouldn't know if you are at your highest peak level or not. And you might not get the same team configuration every day.

I was talking in the context of guild vs guild fighting for bosses, not just randoms gathering together.

And in that context it'll probably be same groups of people with the same classes knowing exactly their peak strength or building themselves for a particular world setup (i.e. fire mages waiting for a sunny summer day or lightning mages waiting for an autumn/spring thunderstorm). And they'd be fighting anyone else trying to kil the boss right up until the proper world setup runs around. At least that's the approach I'd take if I was trying to make a hardcore pve guild in Ashes.

Otr wrote: »

Also not only meta is supposed to be able to kill a boss. That is bad game design which encourage finding out which is the meta.
Players enforce metas upon others to save time, to do things as fast as possible. They want the end results fast. And to reduce the risk of failing.

And in the context of open world bosses, you have to have speed on your side because you never know when your enemy will roll up on your raid and ruin it. If your non-meta raid takes 10 mins to kill a boss, that might be 2 minutes too late, because the enemy guild have come and wiped you all. But if your meta raid can kill the boss in 6-7 minutes - u gucci.

Otr wrote: »

If the game rewards players who make more damage then why tries to hide damage trackers? It gives some advantage though to those who tag first the NPC. Is that the way to combat metas?

I'd think so. If the first raid has a sub-optimal setup and had the first hit, but then the second raid with an optimal setup comes up and starts hitting the boss too, the og raid would have to decide: do they flag up and try their luck in pvp/pk or do they think they have enough dps to do the 40% required for loot before the boss dies.

I'd assume that with a tracker this wouldn't really be an issue because the og raid would've used said tracker to know what the best dps setup is and utilize it to kill the boss w/o a problem (well, unless the 2nd group PKs them).

And in case either situation devolves into pvp - the tracker wouldn't matter either way cause you'd no longer be just hitting the boss.

Otr wrote: »

If players are concerned that other players will enforce a certain meta upon them, would they accept some daily fluctuations in how damage and spell works?

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I don't see how this would be a benefit to anyone.

If there were fluctuations like this, they would need to either be minimal, or noticable. There isnt really a third option.

If they are noticable, all it will do is force people to not take players at a disadvantage at that point in time with them. This seems counterproductive.

If the effect is minimal, then people would just ignore it.

Keep in mind, the effectiveness of a build that in a game like Ashes (where the potential for building your character 'wrong' is a design goal), the difference between a properly built character and an equally geared but improperly built character can very nearly be measured in factors of magnitude of effectiveness, rather than just in increased percentages of effectivness.

Look at Path of Exile for an example of this. You can build a character properly and just wreck content, or you can build a character so poorly that you cant even finish leveling and literally have to abandon the character (respec'ing is hard).

Eith the variation available to us in Ashes, I would expect a well built, well played character to be five times as effective as an equally gear but poorly built and played character.

So yeah, I dont see daily fluctuations making much of a difference.

Balfazar

I'm all for NOT having a DPS meter. IMO it takes away from the immersion and makes it feel like I'm playing a maths simulator.
A real DPS meter to me is a notepad and pen to theory craft or to get some rough calculations. Experimentation is the best teacher.

Ruerik

Balfazar wrote: »

I'm all for NOT having a DPS meter. IMO it takes away from the immersion and makes it feel like I'm playing a maths simulator.
A real DPS meter to me is a notepad and pen to theory craft or to get some rough calculations. Experimentation is the best teacher.

Experimentation and DPS meter go hand in hand.

With combat logs being provided to us as part of the basic gameplay (on the wiki), a outside of game program already exists (ACT) that will parse those logs in real time so that we can see the effect of our build.

If Intrepid somehow manage to block reading of network traffic (good luck Intrepid if that is your goal because no other game with a combat log has managed it), then the next option is to simply record our gameplay and use a screen grabbing program to calculate how much time in combat and how much damage is done.

In both situation of using these outside of game apps, those theorycrafters that are designing their builds will use FACTS provided to them by measurement, rather than FEELINGS of wow this felt like so much more efficiency.

And then the youtube videos and guides will follow and everyone in most guilds will slowly start to enforce this, whether the original build creators admit to using a measurement tool or not.

I have said before, while Ashes may not support -in game addons-, players will develop other ways to measure performance. If Intrepid state this is a ban-able offense, then these players will just never say anything about it and use them anyway. Intrepid have zero way to check what kind of other programs are running in the background outside of Ashes so long as those programs do not inject anything into the game itself.

I still believe even after reading over 105 pages of argument, that it doesnt matter how anyone feels about whether these tools SHOULD exist or not, the truth of the matter is that they WILL exist, and we should focus as a community, with very different playstyles, belief systems and desire, on how we can coexist together to remove any form of toxicity whether real or percieved.

And so on that topic of how do we create a peaceable community:

In my experience, having played and completed the top high end content in every MMO I have played, WoW, Age of Conan, SWTOR, FF14 to name a few, the highest levels of toxicity come not from the raiders themselves, but from mid tier players that only want to enforce a meta without understanding why it is meta, what makes it work, what other options they have, or what is actually needed and required to complete the content they are attempting.

This toxicity has nothing to do with the measurement tool itself, and everything to do with player perception of what is required and what can reach that requirement.

So the question is, how do we approach this player perception. (To me the solution is quite obvious, by use of a measurement tool to say HEY LOOK! I am reaching the requirement as a player with my gear and build already)

Aerlana wrote: »

In this post, here are 2 meta you are yourself defining.

Neither of those ar META.
And it's not something I'm defining.
One of each Primary Archetype is dev defined.
But, there are 64 classes and a plethora of augments, so one of each Primary Archetype doesn't com anywhre close to needing "the proper abilities in the proper order" as an objective META that requires a DPS meter.

Aerlana wrote: »

First for DnD = a group needs a healer or a BUNCH of potion (so prepare lot of consumable)

That's not a META since their are a variety of healers that could be chosen, rather than requiring one specific type of healer. Also since, it's still possible to defeat encounters with no healer.
That's not most effective tactics available... that's just developing a tactic/strategy that works.

Aerlana wrote: »

Second on Ashes : the balance is around 8 person, one of each primary archetype, and saying it this way, it feels obvious for me that "due to the balance, this is how you should have to do your party"

LMAO
Well, what "feels obvious" to you is problematic...especially with regard to an objective META that requires a combat tracker.
Again, it's the devs that have stated that the game will be balanced for 8 person groups with one of each Primary Archetype. So, we don't need a DPS meter/combat tracker to determine that.
And each Primary Archetype has at least 8 variations which are viable, rather than being limited to just one of those 8 variations in order to defeat a specific boss. It's also not limited to specific augments on specific Active Skills to defeat a specific boss.
So, no, most effective is not necessary - all that's necessary is... effective.

Aerlana wrote: »

Those are meta. for the second, it is assumption/expectation because the game is still in development, but if to kill boss, the best way is to have the 8 archetype in each group that fight the boss... it is already a meta.

It's not one objective META. It's a balance that has many variations. And it's not a META which requires a DPS meter.
Context is important.

Aerlana wrote: »

A game with no meta : you take 8 random people (considering everyone is 100% gameplay efficient) and you can kill the boss this way with a similar difficulty in any mix of 8 character.

LMAO
No. Not really, But thanks for playing.

NiKr wrote: »

I want none of that, I'm just being realistic about what's gonna happen despite Devs' wishes. No matter how well Intrepid balances their classes, there'll be some combination of them that will do the most damage compared to any other combination. And gear augments/builds will probably be enough to counterbalance any boss variability (unless Intrepid want people to have full accounts of alts to properly fight bosses).

That's like saying that somewhere in the world is the world's strongest person.
And theree will be people striving to be the world's strongest person.
That doesn't mean that you won't be able to overcome strength challenges unless you have the world's strongest person with you. You just need to have someone who is strong enough to defeat the challenge.
And, you probably don't need numbers to tell you if you have someone strong enough to defeat that challenge.
You can just bring an extremely strong person with you. You might choose to bring several extremely strong people with you. You might choose to bring strong people with you and also some levers and or pulleys because what's truly important is defeating the challenge; not defeating the in the most efficient manner.

NiKr wrote: »

I asked about lvl1 fighting the final boss because I was leading up to the thing I wrote in another post here - "the resource management in a fight". Knowledge being one of those resources.

That's an absurd tack. What is the correlation between Level 1 and "knowledge". And what in the world does that have to do with this discussion?
It seems like you are talking about player knowledge rather than character knowledge.
A very knowledgeable player can have a Level 1 character. That's not going to help the Level 1 character defeat a "final boss". The player character will need to be an appropriate level and have abilities and gear that allow that character to defeat the boss.
Doesn't have to be the Most Efficient method. Just has to be effective enough to succeed.

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not a d&d player, but, from what I've seen about it, "perception check" seems to be a highly valued ability that boosts your "knowledge resource". So if a campaign has magic elements interacting with one another and you have, say, a lightning ability that is boosted by the target being wet - you might want to perceive a puddle behind the boss, push him into it and then zap him, in order to maximize your dmg output relative to your mana consumption (correct if my assumptions about d&d are wrong). That would be you "using your abilities in a proper order", in order to properly use your resources.

You would probably be able to perceive a puddle beind a boss without a perception check.
And, yes, individuals will strive to maximize the effects of their abilities. Hopefully, they will also strive to synergize with others in their group to maximize the abilities of their team as well.

You don't need any kind of combat tracker to decide to try to push the boss onto the pool of water to increase Lightning damage from the Mage. Should be an effective tactic.
You also don't need any kind of combat tracker to decide to push the boss onto the pool of water to have the Mage use an Ice spell that will have a boost on the Snare and Ice damage and stack that Snare with a Snare from the Rogue which also inflicts a Bleed.
Both of those tactics should be effective - which is most effective is irrelevent as long as both tactic sare effective enough to defeat the boss.
But, it could be that the group has a Mage that focuses on other schools than Elemental, so they bypass that pool and use a different tactic that is effective at defeating that boss.

NiKr wrote: »

Same can be applied to mmo bosses. There'll be some general mechanics, but the boss' attack and hp pool will define how much dps you'll need to have in order to beat him before he goes through the entire mana/hp pool of your raid. And the harder the boss - the more resources and the better resource utilization you'll need to have to beat him.

The boss' hp pool will determine how much damage you need to defeat the boss. Damage per second only has relevance when there are phases with specific time requirements designed for that enounter... even then, it's a range of seconds...probably closer to a minute.
How quickly the boss' attacks will go through a raid's entire mana/hp pool will be determined by many factors besides just the raid's damage per second, like gear and Passive Skills and potions.

Yes. The harder the boss, the more resources and the better resource utilization a group will need to defeat the boss. It will likely be more challenging to find an effective strategy for the config of your group.
That does not mean that people must conform to an objective META to defeat the boss - especially not as interepreted from a combat tracker.
Where you state "proper abilities in the proper order" what's actually needed are "effective abilities in an effective order" - effective enough to defeat the boss, rather than the most efficient.
Some payers will be striving to be the most efficient - to the degree that use combat trackers to not only defeat the boss, but also defeat the boss as quickly as possible.
But, it's not necessary to defeat a boss as quickly and efficiently as possible.
You just have to be effective enough to defeat the boss. And, if the devs don't include combat trackers, that means they expect us to be able to defeat bosses without relying on combat trackers.
Most efficient is irrelevant.

NiKr wrote: »

And in order to achieve the things Steven alleged to be trying to achieve (mainly "only a few % of players will beat some of the bosses), they'll have to design the bosses in such a way that only the highest dps raid setups will be able to kill the boss. And the design has to be that way by definition. You can disagree with such a design, but that is what Steven said he wants to have in the game.

It's not really "highest dps" in the manner you propose.
The top tier groups will have top tier attributes, of course. And, relatively speaking, that will include player characters with extremely high "dps". Sure. But...

Top tier groups will mostly be those who are the best at devising winning strategies for their group configurations.
We can expect those who are consistently in the top 1% to have extremely effective tactics - not necessarily the most efficient tactics. And not necessarily all conforming to a cookie cutter config some people have decided is META due to their combat tracker evaluations.

People can devise extremely effective tactics without relying on combat trackers.
And it's most important that the devs design with that expectation, rather than providing combat trackers and then designing encounters with the expectation that everyone will be using the combat trackers they provided to defeat every encounter.

NiKr wrote: »

And in the context of open world bosses, you have to have speed on your side because you never know when your enemy will roll up on your raid and ruin it. If your non-meta raid takes 10 mins to kill a boss, that might be 2 minutes too late, because the enemy guild have come and wiped you all. But if your meta raid can kill the boss in 6-7 minutes - u gucci.

Well, people who are extemely competitive might want to have speed on their side in any case.
But, you can't always get what you want.
Some people want to be on separate PvE-Only servers. Some people want to be on RP-only servers.
Some people want Corruption to be less harsh.

And in Ashes, don't expect that you will always defeat the encounter.
Even if you defeat a raid in 6-7 minutes, the next session will be different, so it might take you 10 minutes to defeat it again, in any case.

Enigmatic Sage

almost three and half years later

this thread is going strong.. lol

Ransel

I don't mind dps meters, but as I'm sure others have said, I don't think people should be harassed based on dps meters. I think a style similar to FF14 is a good thing to aim for.

DPS meters are more than just a dick measuring tool for combat classes, it also lets new players know if they are using their skills effectively, or if some combat style isn't working on a particular monster or raid.

It also lets healers know who is about to get their proverbial cheeks clapped.

I mean people will find a way to use DPS meters one way or another, might as well have them implemented in some fashion.

Warth

Just a fictional scenario here, but if:
Intrepid would have an in-game vote during launch week asking:
Do you want an official DPS-Meter build into the game:

Yes
No
Don't Care/No Opinion

What would you estimated the distribution of votes between Yes and No to be?
Obviously, this should not be an argument for or against DPS-Meters as the general opinion isn't always best, just a fictional scenario regarding the public MMO-gamer opinion regarding DPS Meters