DPS Meter Megathread

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Asgerr

Noaani wrote: »

Asgerr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

As to the basics of the rest of your post, you agree that it is up to a group leader to work out why a failing group is failing.

Cool.

How do they do that without a combat tracker?

I mean, it's rare a group is failing because someone is standing there doing nothing, or not doing something that is easily spotted during combat. If a group leader is looking out for players not performing well, chances are the group failed because the group leader was too busy looking around to actually do what they need to do. The way a group leader finds what is going wrong is by looking at a combat tracker for the issue.

So, if we now assume that in Ashes, group leaders will not use combat trackers to boot players mid content because they no real way to replace them, and also that group leaders will use a combat tracker to find what is wrong with a group and attempt to fix it, what are the issues with combat trackers?

Well failures could be a number of things.

Tank didn't use the right mitigation skills, sucks at blocking, has bad positioning, steps into every AoE.

Healers don't use the right healing spell. Healers die because Tank pointed the boss the wrong way. Healer simply had bad positioning and couldn't hit his heal from too far away.

Now tell me how a DPS meter tells you about this?

Simple.

Look at the incoming damage the tank recieves, if every AoE is on there, you know he is being hit by them. If the tank is getting hit by larger amounts of physical mitigation than he should, or doesn't have periods where it is substantially lower comparatively, you know they are not using mitigation skills properly. If the tank has a low rate of successful blocks, you know they are not blocking properly.

If the healers are using the wrong healing spell, well, you can see the name of every healing spell in ACT, so that's a no-brainer. If the tank has the mob positioned incorrectly, you can see the people being hit by the attacks that positioning is intended to prevent. If only one non-tank group member is getting hit by those same attacks, you know it was that one group member, not the tanks positioning.

I mean, these are all basic combat tracker use cases. These are LITERALLY the things a combat tracker is created to communicate to players.

I disagree on the principle of what the Tracker does. The tracker automates these things, which you could --as a wise leader of the men in your raiding group -- observe with your own eyes.

You don't need the tracker to see if your tank keeps getting his health bar decimated, or that no one is filling it back up with healing spells.

Thus, what will ultimately remain of the combat tracker is the DPS meter, indicating to you which player to kick for sub-par damage (the standard of sub-par being here a subjective metric).

I agree that replacement of a player whilst in the raid is nearly impossible in Ashes, short of family summons. However raid groups can also call it quits, return to town, kick the players from their group and recruit new ones to try again.

Dygz

Noaani wrote: »

What we do know is that without a means of fast travel, a person in a group or raid can not be easily replaced.

All we know is that they won't be as easily relplaced as with fast travel.
And that is not enough info for your argument to be convincing.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

What we do know is that without a means of fast travel, a person in a group or raid can not be easily replaced.

All we know is that they won't be as easily relplaced as with fast travel.
And that is not enough info for your argument to be convincing.

I mean, it is enough info.

The greater the barrier it is for a new player to be bought in to a group, the greater the incentive is to run with what you have.

While we do not have all the info on exactly how much harder it will be to bring in a new player, and thus how much more likely it is that a group will not boot players mid content, all that does is leave the discussion with being a case of how much less likely it is that players will indeed be booted from groups mid content.

The argument that WoW levels of this will happen in Ashes is a non-starter, we are simply left with that discussion as to how much less of it will happen.

So sure, the lack of fast travel is a massive influence here. That will see it happen much less. But then you can add to that the fact that dungeons in Ashes are open, and thus respawn. If you are going to bring in a new player mid content, you will NEED to meet them at the entrance to said dungeon - meaning the group or raid needs to start again from the beginning.

Then you have the PvP factor. A single player moving towards a group or raid area that is likely to be frequented by rivals is a fairly easy target for others to take out. This may mean that even if the group or raid is waiting for this new player at the start of the dungeon, the player may have issues even getting to that location. The group or raid may need to go out to meet them to even get them to that group or dungeon entrance.

If this is a raid, and the raid dungeon is within a group dungeon (as has been suggested as a possibility), then the raid will have to leave the raid dungeon, go to the start of the group dungeon and meet the player there. They may even have to leave that group dungeon to assist said player with other potential issues as above.

These are all things that are significantly more likely to be issues than not. If you are able to put some thought in to that and still come up with the idea that it will be common that people will be booted from groups mid content then I am unsure what to tell you.

Noaani

Asgerr wrote: »

I disagree on the principle of what the Tracker does. The tracker automates these things, which you could --as a wise leader of the men in your raiding group -- observe with your own eyes.

As someone that has been using combat trackers for about two decades, assisted in creating several trackers, and created plug ins for ACT, you can disagree on what a tracker does all you like.

You will be objectively wrong on that count, but you are welcome to be wrong.

You don't need the tracker to see if your tank keeps getting his health bar decimated, or that no one is filling it back up with healing spells.

If you are looking at your tank closely enough to know if his health is going down due to the mobs AoE, melee attack, barrage, or a hidden player attacking him, then you are not focusing enough on your role within the group or raid.

If you are able to focus well enough on your role, and are still able to see all of what is happening to your tank, and to your healer, then you have content and combat that is so easy that a combat tracker isn't needed.

I personally hope for better than that from Ashes.

Thus, what will ultimately remain of the combat tracker is the DPS meter, indicating to you which player to kick for sub-par damage (the standard of sub-par being here a subjective metric).

If this has not happened to be in nearly 20 years, why would you think it would happen now.

In my time in gaming, I have literally kicked one player from a group or raid. That was because they were not curing ailments as per the instructions given to them, causing 20 consecutive wipes (player was booted, we world first killed the encounter on the next pull).

I have literally never kicked a player for low DPS. I have never even SEEN it happen. Not even one time. Not in pick up groups, not in pick up raids, and definitely not in any group setting.

I agree that replacement of a player whilst in the raid is nearly impossible in Ashes, short of family summons. However raid groups can also call it quits, return to town, kick the players from their group and recruit new ones to try again.

Think about this for a minute.

Imagine you are running that group or raid. You are not being all that successful, and you know it is because a portion of the group or raid are not up to par for the content you are on.

If you feel that the group or raid as a whole is still good enough to take on the content that you formed said group or raid to take on, why on earth would you go back to town - which involves travel time and potential PvP - reform the group or raid - which involves time - and then travel back to the place you just came from - which again involves travel time and potential PvP?

Literally the only reason you would do that is if the group or raid as you have it now is not good enough to take on the content you want to kill. If they are good enough as a whole, then you would push onward, because that is the most efficient thing to do.

You would only follow your suggestion above if there was no way the group or raid was able to take on the intended content. If this is the case, is it not in literally everyone's best interest that the group or raid be dissolved then and there? Even if a portion of that group or raid want to try again...

Noaani

GethOverlord wrote: »

Mechanics are more important.

See, this is true in WoW.

However, it is only true because in a game like WoW, the combat system is so damn simple that a four year old can master a class.

You can't create any challenge that is based purely on WoW's combat system, because there is no challenge in that combat system. This is why mechanics are what WoW raids lean on to add challenge. Other games lean more on the combat system for that challenge, often throwing in chaotic elements to encounters rather than requiring perfect execution of what basically amounts to a Dance Dance Revolution routine, as WoW requires.

While it is true that we do not know the metric that Ashes will use to determine how they will increase the difficulty of mobs, what we DO know is that what ever metric it is, a combat tracker will assist players with it. It could well be that they use how many wipes the raid had on the previous encounter, but it could also be that they only take the successful pull in to consideration.

In fact, a combat tracker may even be the only way of knowing objectively what metrics are being looked at. If the developers don't outright tell us, this is guaranteed to be the case.

TheClimbTo1

Dygz wrote: »

Impossible to do math without a calculator.

I have fingers, fool!

TheClimbTo1

Noaani wrote: »

TheClimbTo1 wrote: »

Damokles wrote: »

The thing is that many games already have a damage log, it should be easy for them to implement an easy display for it. They can make it person specific (no one can see the dmg from other people except when you are the group leader).

DPS meters have a place in games in my opinion, as long as you dont get isolated because you do mediocre dmg. Group/Raid leaders need dps meters to weed out the weak (people who dont carry their own weight if you know what i mean aka those that dont even do mediocre dmg and bring nothing else to the table)

Yes, but it is the person deciding what 'mediocre' is. And why should they settle for 'mediocre'?

All this does is lead to people being kicked in the search for the Elites. Now that doesn't mean this is the wrong perspective, as a Team Leader you really should want the best you have available.

What I'm arguing with is, this will never be used to find out who is doing 'less than mediocre'. The bar will be much higher than that, and everyone under it will be getting cut unless they fill a different role/function.

And to be fair, any Group Leader NOT doing that is actively hurting their entire Group. But I thought the idea of Ashes was to kick it a bit old school, breath some fresh air into the Genre, and not be an 'Open Guide, Read How To Dungeon, Then Go Dungeon' MMO... it was meant to be a 'Go Dungeon' MMO. All the Guides and Min/Max were the things people were blaming for ruining MMOs in the first place, for leading to Elitists being Gate Keepers of Content.

This doesn't mean Leaders shouldn't be looking to actively improve their group, but maybe the skill in that is being able to see and understand what is going on instead of looking at a meter and kicking everyone under a certain number. Maybe not having such info spoon-fed will separate those that have skill, from those that read spreadsheets prepared by others.

Maybe not everyone should not be a good Team Leader (though all should strive to be), just like everyone should not have the most Epic Flying Mount. We don't want this to be a Game where everyone does the same 3 Builds over the same 3 Classes, and we don't want this to be a game where every Dungeon is ruled by the same static set up.

There will be losses. There will be Dungeons and Raids dropped and failed. And there will be those that find the right people and put them together to make it past such hardships. That's part of what is supposed to set Ashes apart. It's supposed to be tough. Looking at DPS Meters and saying "That video said everyone under this number goes... so, they go" isn't very tough.

@TheClimbTo1

Tell me WoW is your only real MMO experience without telling me WoW is your only real MMO experience.

First point, a group leader will only kick those under a specific number - as you suggest - if they know they are able to easily replace them. This is why this is an issue in WoW and not in other MMO's - other MMO's simply do not allow for players in groups to be replaced that quickly. This is why it is blatantly obvious that WoW is your only real MMO experience.

Based on this one fact alone, assuming Ashes has no family summons, the phenomenon of groups booting people mid content to replace them simply won't be a thing in Ashes. Any arguments against combat trackers that are based on this are simply unfounded.

So, let's just ignore them, shall we?

As to the basics of the rest of your post, you agree that it is up to a group leader to work out why a failing group is failing.

Cool.

How do they do that without a combat tracker?

I mean, it's rare a group is failing because someone is standing there doing nothing, or not doing something that is easily spotted during combat. If a group leader is looking out for players not performing well, chances are the group failed because the group leader was too busy looking around to actually do what they need to do. The way a group leader finds what is going wrong is by looking at a combat tracker for the issue.

So, if we now assume that in Ashes, group leaders will not use combat trackers to boot players mid content because they no real way to replace them, and also that group leaders will use a combat tracker to find what is wrong with a group and attempt to fix it, what are the issues with combat trackers?

WoW is probably my least played MMO. I played Never Winter Nights when it was 2D Top Down on America Online. I played the current NWN. I played Mortal, I've played Mortal II. I played Guild Wars. I played New World. Yes, I've played WoW. I play Entropia Universe.

You're confusing kicking people mid Raid with Gatekeeping. Raid is done, numbers are checked, names are marked off lists. You don't know the numbers fully until the Raid is done. What I said was, when it's done and numbers get looked at, those under a certain threshold get kicked. You don't kick people for lacking damage MID RAID, you kick people for pulling Mobs they aren't supposed to, or triggering Mechanics they aren't supposed to that lead to Wipes. Because just not doing a lot of damage, that's still more damage than an empty slot, so as long as they aren't actively wiping your group you wouldn't kick Mid Raid.

Tell me you make a lot of assumptions without telling me you make a lot of assumptions. You have no clue about my MMO experience, and you didn't ask. You could have asked, you should have asked.

What I'm talking about is DPS Meters setting a benchmark for Numbers that then lead to Gate Keeping Content which then becomes META.

And how can a Raid Leader do his job without Meters? Same way we did back in the 90's, before we had all those meters. Pay attention to what is going on. Have the knowledge of what the abilities are, what they look like, watch your Team to see what they are doing. Is Ranged DPS dropping good rotations? You can see that by watching them. Is Melee DPS dropping good rotations? You can see that, by watching them. Are Heals doing their job? You can see that... can you guess how you can see that? Guess.

It's a skill. Looking at the visuals, watching your group. It takes a LOT of knowledge, you have to know what these things look like. You have to understand why the rotations are what they are. And if something new is happening, you have to be looking at the reasoning for it and how that influences the action.

You do realize MMOs were a thing BEFORE Trackers were a thing, right? There was a time we did these things WITHOUT Trackers. And no, not every one has this kind of skill. Nor should everyone. If everyone can just be a Top Raid Leader, then no one is a Top Raid Leader.

Also, take this into consideration. I spec my Abilities to lower Defense. I'm casting the same Fire Ball you are. Mine does less damage than yours. But because of this EVERYONE in the Raid now does more damage... more than offsets my lack of damage. But some lazy Leader looks, sees you have more Damage than me, doesn't understand the Team is doing more Damage BECAUSE of me.

The idea is to get away from Lazy Meter Reading. The idea is to get back to UNDERSTANDING WHY a Player is going with a certain set up, and what that brings.

You don't need Meters to be a Good Raid Leader. In fact, some would argue if you need Meters you can't be a Good Raid Leader.

Noaani

TheClimbTo1 wrote: »

And how can a Raid Leader do his job without Meters? Same way we did back in the 90's, before we had all those meters.

2 points here.

First, games in the 90s were dead simple.

Second, combat trackers existed in the 90s.

Fun fact, combat trackers existed before MMO's - despite what you seem to think. They weren't invented for the MMO genre, they were redesigned for it.

You're confusing kicking people mid Raid with Gatekeeping. Raid is done, numbers are checked, names are marked off lists. You don't know the numbers fully until the Raid is done. What I said was, when it's done and numbers get looked at, those under a certain threshold get kicked. You don't kick people for lacking damage MID RAID, you kick people for pulling Mobs they aren't supposed to, or triggering Mechanics they aren't supposed to that lead to Wipes. Because just not doing a lot of damage, that's still more damage than an empty slot, so as long as they aren't actively wiping your group you wouldn't kick Mid Raid.

I mean, wouldn't you be kicking everyone if the raid is done?

So, you want to talk about gatekeeping as being the Big Bad Evil now. Cool.

If I run a raid with you and it is successful, why would I not welcome you back? Sure, your DPS may be a bit lower, but so what? We were successful, you didn't pull mobs you weren't supposed to pull, nothing at all like that.

You have so far failed to give me a reason as to why you think this gate keeping would even happen, you have just asserted that it would with literally nothing at all to back that up with.

I mean, if you had just basic logic to back it up, that would be enough. The problem is, you don't. If we were successful with you on a raid in the past, why would we not bring you again?

Also, take this into consideration. I spec my Abilities to lower Defense. I'm casting the same Fire Ball you are. Mine does less damage than yours. But because of this EVERYONE in the Raid now does more damage... more than offsets my lack of damage. But some lazy Leader looks, sees you have more Damage than me, doesn't understand the Team is doing more Damage BECAUSE of me.

A combat tracker will tell me what you are doing.

However, what if someone else in the raid has that debuff, and they do not stack? Or what if we have other debuffs that reduce defense against that damage type down to below the soft cap - or the hard cap? A combat tracker will also give me the information I need to work that out. Sure, you could ask, but then we have 40 people all needing to compare specs, and that would literally take longer than the raid itself.

You don't need Meters to be a Good Raid Leader. In fact, some would argue if you need Meters you can't be a Good Raid Leader.

A good raid leader is one that recognizes that a minute and a half of wasted raid time in a game like Ashes equates to a full hour of combined player time.

A good raid leader respects the time of the members of their raid.

As such, a good raid leader uses what ever tools are at their disposal - approved by the game publisher or not - and does what they can to not waste the time of the members of the raid.

Combat trackers are such a tool.

Fortunately, they already exist for Ashes - that part isn't up for debate.

Asgerr

TheClimbTo1 wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Impossible to do math without a calculator.

I have fingers, fool!

And toes! Don't forget toes!

GethOverlord

Noaani is the kind of person that just micromanages at work based on metrics in a datasheet instead of watching his workers do their actual job and socialize with them to get to know them on a personal level 😮‍💨

DaffyDux

I think you could incorporate some kind of way of testing builds (like combat dummies on your homestead) DPS meters in general though? I really don't think they are a good idea and I hope that Intrepid doesn't go the WoW route with raiding. It sucks.

Noaani

GethOverlord wrote: »

Noaani is the kind of person that just micromanages at work based on metrics in a datasheet instead of watching his workers do their actual job and socialize with them to get to know them on a personal level 😮‍💨

Funny thing is - as I am reading this, I am planning the next social event for my team at work... deciding between paintball and bowling - though an escape room may be on the cards.

That said, I do have data on each person on my team. I go over it with each of them twice a year.

I get the feeling that you seem to think that these two things can't coexist.

Dygz

Combat dummies don't help determine much because it's really about how well you synergize your abilities with the other members of your group - as well as the group's tactics vs the encounter.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Combat dummies don't help determine much because it's really about how well you synergize your abilities with the other members of your group - as well as the group's tactics vs the encounter.

Agreed.

Combat dummies are only any good for comparing a player in solo combat.

Even if you could get dummies that allow for multiple people to take them on, you are still only looking at comparing builds on blank targets.

DaffyDux

There is no reason why you couldn't attack a dummy as a group and see the combat logs. It will give you and your group a general idea of DPS output and synergies but wouldn't allow an EXACT measurement for every encounter. This is a good thing IMO. General DPS meters lead to min-maxing and toxic meta gameplay.

Noaani

DaffyDux wrote: »

General DPS meters lead to min-maxing and toxic meta gameplay.

No they don't.

Min-maxing and a meta are things that will happen anyway.

One needs to only contrast Archeage and EQ2 to understand how wrong this statement is.

EQ2 had high combat tracker use (ACT was developed for EQ2). The game has no real class specific meta, people generally run which ever build they think it best for them at the time - often just a build they will enjoy.

More to the point, EQ2 was one of the least toxic games I have ever played.

Archeage, on the other hand, has very low combat tracker use. I am the only player I know for sure to use one.

However, the game had a fairly strict meta - one that didn't shift at all for about 5 years. The game is also incredibly toxic.

So, based on these two games, your assertion that combat trackers lead to toxicity or meta gameplay are just outright false.

A game will have a strict class based meta if players feel there are no real options for how to best play a class. If you have combat trackers, and they show that classes only have one build that is viable, then that will become the meta.

Basically, a game having a class based meta is a result of the game not balancing builds within classes overly well.

Toxicity to me seems to be a result primarily of games that treat players as disposable, and so players treat each other as disposable. Archeage has a lot of content that has groups automatically form, and as such you don't really need the people on your server to particularly like you.

In games where groups for content are only ever formed by players, where players decide who to invite, people tend to be less toxic, because the more toxic they are, the less content they will be able to run.

Dygz

Combat logs are irrelevant.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Archeage, on the other hand, has very low combat tracker use. I am the only player I know for sure to use one.

Did you use it mainly for pve or for both pve and pvp? I dunno how classes worked in AA, but in L2 the pve meta never really changed because devs never even tried changing it, so using a tracker for pve wasn't really important. And in pvp you mainly just looked at what did most dmg and which CCs were the most successful and mainly used that, because there wasn't much of a rotation in L2.

If AA is anywhere close to that, I'd understand why barely anyone used trackers. Though I remember you saying that your friends used trackers in L2, so maybe you just missed the people who did the same in AA (just as I never met any trackers in L2)?

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

So everybody knew which is the meta?
That could AoC do too. Just show a list with the metas in game and make those 3rd party sites redundant

I mean, maybe it was because I came into the game a year late and never played on the official servers with the big bois, but the party setup for top dps was always the same. Throughout ~6 years of updates only maybe 2-3 classes got added into the rotation and only because they got a new cool debuff that was useful in pve. So anyone who wanted to farm bosses used the same classes pretty much all the time.

I personally hope this is not the case in Ashes cause I'd love the game to have such a deep variety of class/augment interactions that you can't just have "the best party setup". Mainly because in my experience you just had to level up the characters required for particular bosses if you wanted to farm them and get the chance to get the loot (cause guilds split that up by farm involvement).

DaffyDux

"No they don't."

Yes, they do.

Min-maxing and a meta are things that will happen anyway.

Yes, there will be attempts and Intrepid should fight it every step of the way, as they have stated they will, with their 0 tolerance policy towards add-ons.

One needs to only contrast Archeage and EQ2 to understand how wrong this statement is.

and I only need to pick two other games with completely different experiences to show how utterly redundant this point is and how utterly wrong you are

So, based on these two games, your assertion that combat trackers lead to toxicity or meta gameplay are just outright false.

Yeah, and based on two examples that I could choose, from the thousands of games I have played over 3 decades that, your claims are outright false. See how this works?

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