DPS Meter Megathread

I realize I didn't answer your question at all @NiKr.

Subconscious avoidance of a specific interaction.

I don't need the meter, my teammates do. For them, I AM the meter. Hopefully you know what I mean enough that I don't really need to say it and provoke the potential ire of a certain type of person.

I don't use combat trackers, I just need a combat log that I can access after the fact, because people can't pull references directly out of my brain.

Right, so then just this question remains then and I'll address this to both of you (Azherae and Noaani) and go to sleep so I'll read the answer later. Gotta have at least a bit of sleep before the super hype Sumeru reveal stream in Genshin

whatever your answers are, this has been a good discussion for me, thx for sharing your povs.

NiKr wrote: »

What if there was no logic? What if the boss wouldn't have any particular triggers and would just use random shit from his skillset and switch his targets randomly - would that still be interesting for you?

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Why did my Black Mage die? Their big spell hit at the end of an accidental Magic Burst and the boss now decided they looked tasty. Now we have no Stunner and everything's gone to hell. Oh well, ok, let's change the Weaponskill the Ranger uses so that this won't happen.

Parsing for damage is easy, you can just use a dummy or similar at-level mob for that. 'Watching a Replay in full' is harder.

Ok, this would probably go a bit too deep into the "middle ground searching" territory, but at this point I'm just curious about a pov other than my own on this topic.

If I understand correctly, you needed to see that course of events in the fight in the tracker in order to understand boss logic at that moment, right? What if there was no logic? What if the boss wouldn't have any particular triggers and would just use random shit from his skillset and switch his targets randomly - would that still be interesting for you?

Completely randomly?

Sure, I'm fine with that too, but that defeats the Trinity System of MMOs and lessens the 'Role Playing' aspect.

On the other hand, you just described one of my favorite FFXI bosses, so there's that. It's still true to say that the 'Tanks' don't get to do their 'usual job' when going into that fight, though.

Other than that, if you kept at least 'chances for Enmity to influence the attack's main target' but otherwise completely random, then yes, you just have 'most of FFXI' at that point, bearing in mind that the boss is limited by TP and cannot 'just spam powerful abilities if no one is attacking it' (given how TP gain works it CAN spam those abilities as soon as about 10 people are attacking it).

NiKr wrote: »

Right, so then just this question remains then and I'll address this to both of you (Azherae and Noaani) and go to sleep so I'll read the answer later. Gotta have at least a bit of sleep before the super hype Sumeru reveal stream in Genshin whatever your answers are, this has been a good discussion for me, thx for sharing your povs.

NiKr wrote: »

What if there was no logic? What if the boss wouldn't have any particular triggers and would just use random shit from his skillset and switch his targets randomly - would that still be interesting for you?

Randomization (complete randomization) is where you need a tracker most.

You want to look back at a pull (successful or not) and see why that pull succeeded or failed. What ratio of abilities did the boss use, were there abilities used one after the other that caused specific issues, and if so, is there anything you can do about that next time?

While it is absolutely possible to look this up in your logs, a guild based combat tracker is essentially nothing more than a faster means of looking this up and comparing the logs of those in your guild.

It's when trackers get removed from a guild setting that what some people consider to be issues start to happen.

I don't understand how completely random defeats the Trinity System and lessens the RP aspect of combat.
Trinity and RP is about how the group uses the strengths and weaknesses of each class in the group to defeat encounters.
Random attacks from the boss lessens efficiency of defeating the encounter by making it challenging to anticipate what's coming next. Also makes it challenging to guarantee win conditions.
But, none of that affects the Trinity System or the RP aspect of combat.

DPS Meters and META tactics that result in cookie cutter builds lessen the RP aspect of combat.

Azherae wrote: »

Sure, I'm fine with that too, but that defeats the Trinity System of MMOs and lessens the 'Role Playing' aspect.

On the other hand, you just described one of my favorite FFXI bosses, so there's that. It's still true to say that the 'Tanks' don't get to do their 'usual job' when going into that fight, though.

We could maybe finally move on from boring "agro the mob and stand in this place" gameplay to fun and engaging "track the mob's agro and defend the person who he agroes on next". I, as a tank, would love that shift personally.

Noaani wrote: »

Randomization (complete randomization) is where you need a tracker most.

You want to look back at a pull (successful or not) and see why that pull succeeded or failed. What ratio of abilities did the boss use, were there abilities used one after the other that caused specific issues, and if so, is there anything you can do about that next time?

But what if that same combination of boss attacks never repeats again? Wouldn't that have been wasted time spent going over smth that might never return?

Dygz wrote: »

I don't understand how completely random defeats the Trinity System and lessens the RP aspect of combat.

I think Azherae meant it as "tank is no longer tanking, because the boss is never tied to the tank and instead just runs around". Some other roles might get diminished too, if the boss' and class design doesn't account for the randomness of the fight. Maybe healer is never needed because the boss does some weak random shit. Maybe archer is useless because he's constantly getting attacked and get utilize his range dps (though it could be argued that archer's kiting role is played at that moment). I'm sure there's a few other possible hole in the trinity system and roleplaying aspect of it that appear once the boss is no longer controllable by the players in any way. The tank is just the most glaring one.

Um... So... RP is more than just each class efficiently fulfilling their primary Trinity role...especially in Ashes.
Which is why it's important to not just look at numbers and instead check to see what else an individual is doing for the group.

There is more to being a main tank than just holding aggro. And there is definitely more to playing a Tank/x than just holding aggro.
Ashes encounters are designed with the expectation of 8-person groups that have one of each Primary Archetype, so whatever randomness a boss might have... that's still going to be a part of the design.
I think we know that "completely random" has to be hyperbole. No boss is going to have attacks that are 100% random. I don't even know what that could possibly mean unless we have AI always procedurally generating brand new attacks on the fly.

I don't understand what can be meant by "maybe healer is never needed". A healer is never needed means that no one ever takes damage. And that must mean the group is so over-powered compared to the boss that a combat tracker is irrelevant.

"One of the design elements that we're implementing into our raids is that the raid will not be exactly the same every single time. You're going to have variables that can't necessarily be pre-planned out for. You can pre-plan out for a lot of the raid like how many DPS do you need and healers and support; where the key position and all that kind of stuff; but I think the compelling aspect of Ashes raiding will be the difficulty in achieving this content and having that content change from session to session as well. We want there to be variables that get manifested by you know what type of node got developed elsewhere. Is he going to have acolytes or cultists? What will the acolytes have skills [available] to them? What kit is the boss gonna have? What available skill repertoire will the boss be able to [wield]? ... A lot of those systems are influenced obviously by world development. So the raid kind of takes into account at what stage has the world developed: Are there two metropolises now available in the world? Okay well let's activate this skill in this skill. Now you have five metropolises, well now all these skills have been activated. Are there are they all economic nodes? Are they all military nodes? That we can change things based on that stuff. And it really is a threat assessment from the environment against the players."
---Steven

Just because you "didn't need a healer" in one run of the raid does not mean you won't need a healer when you return. Also, just because you don't "need" healing does not mean you won't want a Cleric. A Cleric is more than just a healer.
A Ranger/x is more than just ranged DPS. What else is that Ranger doing to aid the group when they aren't doing ranged DPS.

The Trinity System simply informs us that there is a rock-paper-scissors aspect to the strengths and weaknesses designed for each Archetype and that different Archetypes will want to rely on each other in a group to synergize strengths and mitigate weaknesses.

RP should primarily be about the Archetypes and how the Archetypes synergize their abilities with each other to defeat content. Trinity is mostly a meta-textual way of thinking about the underpinnings of combat.
If the group can defeat a boss without the Tank/x ever using aggro, that's OK. It doesn't diminish the Trinity System and it doesn't diminish RP.
If you can find a way to defeat a boss using all Tanks or all Clerics - that is still RP. And it doesn't really "defeat" the Trinity System unless defeating bosses with all Tanks or all Clerics is the rule, rather than the exception.

Dygz wrote: »

The Trinity System simply informs us that there is a rock-paper-scissors aspect to the strengths and weaknesses designed for each Archetype and that different Archetypes will want to rely on each other in a group to synergize strengths and mitigate weaknesses.

This is factually incorrect.

The trinity system is system whereby the tank stands in front of as many attacks as they can, keeping the target occupied, healers heal said tank, and any others that may take damage, and DPS deal out the damage.

The trinity system isnt some R/P/S system of class design, it is black and white roles within a group.

I'll tell you what has destroyed MMO's over the last 15 years even more than LFG systems, more than cross server content, more than daily quests or log in rewards - special little snowflake players that refuse to fall in line with the trinity system.

Want to make MMO's great again? Have a hard and fast trinity system where there is no room for ambiguity, no blurred lines, no "well, I'm a healer primary, but I've got my DPS bow out and I've taken Bard secondary, so put me in as a tank" people that think they can just be and do what ever and the rest of us need to accept that.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Sure, I'm fine with that too, but that defeats the Trinity System of MMOs and lessens the 'Role Playing' aspect.

On the other hand, you just described one of my favorite FFXI bosses, so there's that. It's still true to say that the 'Tanks' don't get to do their 'usual job' when going into that fight, though.

We could maybe finally move on from boring "agro the mob and stand in this place" gameplay to fun and engaging "track the mob's agro and defend the person who he agroes on next". I, as a tank, would love that shift personally.

You would. You are in the 'bring it on' category of player. I'll leave it to your personal experience to inform your perspective as to how many others like you there are.

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Randomization (complete randomization) is where you need a tracker most.

You want to look back at a pull (successful or not) and see why that pull succeeded or failed. What ratio of abilities did the boss use, were there abilities used one after the other that caused specific issues, and if so, is there anything you can do about that next time?

But what if that same combination of boss attacks never repeats again? Wouldn't that have been wasted time spent going over smth that might never return?

That's usually easy to tell, but the entire reason you do that is so that you know that the issue was random and not with your plan, or you 'realize that you may also need to prepare people for that scenario' because the path through the fight might be so different. We're back to 'Jormungand' again (and I'd just go back to that topic). A 20-30 minute fight where multiple people are properly engaged, as we discussed there, means someone eventually misses something, possibly quite early in. (Even considering what this topic is, I prefer not to derail it, because despite what might currently be under discussion, I truly do 'see the purpose of this thread as giving Noaani a space to discuss with people and advocate for the suggestion given on behalf of me and others', glad to poke at boss design there though).

NiKr wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

I don't understand how completely random defeats the Trinity System and lessens the RP aspect of combat.

I think Azherae meant it as "tank is no longer tanking, because the boss is never tied to the tank and instead just runs around". Some other roles might get diminished too, if the boss' and class design doesn't account for the randomness of the fight. Maybe healer is never needed because the boss does some weak random shit. Maybe archer is useless because he's constantly getting attacked and get utilize his range dps (though it could be argued that archer's kiting role is played at that moment). I'm sure there's a few other possible hole in the trinity system and roleplaying aspect of it that appear once the boss is no longer controllable by the players in any way. The tank is just the most glaring one.

This is another whole separate topic and I'm sure we could find some post to piggyback that discussion off of that 'no one is using'.

Anyways I have no answer for you, Dygz, that you are likely to 'understand'. Your definitions are not similar to mine. NiKr, I don't personally care about the Trinity system, 'hard tanking', or that type of combat role. TL is purported to be Weapon based, as is Onigiri, as is Elite Dangerous.

I'm not going into a discussion about 'player synergy vs player twitch skills vs player role' again, as it leads to things that my mind labels as contradictions even when I try to understand a certain point of view. I will gladly throw a bunch of data and answers at NiKr if you two want to hash that out, my personal request is that you make a new thread for it or use the 'Character Balance' one on the front page somewhere.

I'll definitely segue that one into this if you want.

Azherae wrote: »

I'll definitely segue that one into this if you want.

Nah, it's fine. I think I'm kinda done with this thread. At least for now. I understand that it's not the game that requires the combat trackers, but the people themselves. And changing people is wayyy harder than changing a game's design.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'll definitely segue that one into this if you want.

Nah, it's fine. I think I'm kinda done with this thread. At least for now. I understand that it's not the game that requires the combat trackers, but the people themselves. And changing people is wayyy harder than changing a game's design.

This is also my conclusion.

The top 10% of players are often led by the top less-than-1% of players, the 'shot-callers' in Raids, the 'Moguls' in Econ, etc. There's whole videos for just WoW about World First raid groups where the shot-caller explicitly doesn't even play in the raid because the amount of things you need to do and track is so 'much' that they are better off not.

From that (and massive discussion on the matter from that scene) we have the implication that content 'at limit' had a situation where the pioneers of it 1) had 30+ people, 2) (presumably) chose the one most observationally-endowed and possibly tactically skilled from their ranks to be in that role, in a game where WeakAuras and similar add-ons are a thing, and then 3) still concluded that it would be better if that person was only watching and commanding.

Because that's what the content required.

Go down one tier. Or two. There is a level at which that person 'can do it while playing', or at which 'they can do it in real time no WeakAuras no Combat Tracker'. If Steven's goal is 'I would like to cap everyone at this point, and make it so that the content is limited to groups with the sort of person who can do this with no external assistance' (let's go so far as to assume that me writing a Combat Log parser was off limits)...

Then he's just chosen his 'single digit percentage' by a different skillset than a game that allows Trackers. And this could easily be a functional goal. It 'creates a winner' by a factor that is a population selection based on something that could probably be outright genetic. But some would say skills are a gene lottery, so that's fine.

If anything, the thing I don't like about it, is that Trackers, particularly in games where there is true challenge, are a good way to spread out those 'skilled players', to allow them to form groups with less tactically skilled players rather than 'causing the friction and toxicity that comes with having no objective data'. I believe the latter can ultimately lead to a situation where all the 'skilled players' congregate together for success over time rather than leading and improving their less-skilled friends and counterparts.

I object to this game design style, despite 'being one of those players' with a group that has literally pushed through all that already, It's the sort of thing a more elitist/toxic version of me would design, which is why I usually doubt that Steven's stance is exactly what is presented as a whole. But either outcome is an accusation, either I'm saying 'this is performative (like YoshiP's stance)' where the 'you can't use Meters' is just a way to appease all the people who think they are bad while doing nothing about it...

Or I'm saying 'Steven is a toxic elitist who, as a leader, prefers a scenario where leaders have additional power and control because others don't have access to tools that can rival their abilities'.

But one can take the third option and take it in good faith, in which case, the response (from me at least) is 'see if someone can convince Steven that this will lead to one of the above and he should change stance'.

And that, I leave to Noaani and any staff Intrepid has who hold similar views, one step at a time.

NiKr wrote: »

But what if that same combination of boss attacks never repeats again? Wouldn't that have been wasted time spent going over smth that might never return?

The number of abilities that a mob would need to have to be able to assume this would be the case is fairly high.

If a mob had that number of abilities, it would mean that basically all mobs have the same abilities (there aren't all that many actual abilities - it is the combination of abilities that makes things interesting).

If a mobs have the same ability set, you will come across that same killer combination at some point, on another mob.

Keep in mind though, we are now well and truly out of any real world scenario here.

Azherae wrote: »

Go down one tier. Or two. There is a level at which that person 'can do it while playing', or at which 'they can do it in real time no WeakAuras no Combat Tracker'. If Steven's goal is 'I would like to cap everyone at this point, and make it so that the content is limited to groups with the sort of person who can do this with no external assistance' (let's go so far as to assume that me writing a Combat Log parser was off limits)...

Then he's just chosen his 'single digit percentage' by a different skillset than a game that allows Trackers. And this could easily be a functional goal.

Yes.

Dygz wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Go down one tier. Or two. There is a level at which that person 'can do it while playing', or at which 'they can do it in real time no WeakAuras no Combat Tracker'. If Steven's goal is 'I would like to cap everyone at this point, and make it so that the content is limited to groups with the sort of person who can do this with no external assistance' (let's go so far as to assume that me writing a Combat Log parser was off limits)...

Then he's just chosen his 'single digit percentage' by a different skillset than a game that allows Trackers. And this could easily be a functional goal.

Yes.

Well, I doubt you will see the same three options I do, but just in case you agreed with anything ELSE I said, which is it for you? Doesn't have to be so discrete.

1) Performative, it's impossible to stop trackers, meaning that the winners will be cheaters OR that they will be constantly having to prove they don't cheat (because there's no way to detect it, and the definition of Combat Tracker is confusing in the case of someone like me who can program parsers)
2) Elitism, where the ideal is that people like me form exclusive groups with others like me when it comes to top end encounter content (this applies regardless of the content type, most analysts of the type I mentioned function across disciplines because again... genetic)
3) You hope that Steven has a more permissive stance on the type of tracker that I can write, or perceive that if I write it myself and don't just download it, I'm still being rewarded for my personal skill and should be allowed to do so as long as I don't distribute it (in which case those punished would be those who don't write them).
4) Insert own.

I can see an interesting world in case #3 where my team could 'register their proprietary tracker with Intrepid so that they know how it works and can just ban OTHER people doing it the same way'.

Victory by Verran Patent Law.

I think it's both 1 and 2.

Cheaters gonna cheat.
Elitists will strive to be elitists in any case.
The devs should not provide tools to make that easier for them.

Steven should not have a more permissive stance.

Aerlana

NiKr wrote: »

What I'm trying to get at is this: would those bosses still be interesting if their skillset was completely randomized right from the first second of the fight? Or am I wrong and they were already randomized?

FFXIV are fight where there are close to 0 RNG (wow still more with "who will be targeted" that can be source of big mistake if people are not focused).

Skillset of bosses are for hardest boss (in FFXIV, the "really hard" being ultimate and to a lesser but still hard, the 4th/last of a tier raid) hard to deal with, and really unforgivable. putting a RNG without increasing the time you have to prepare could make it close to impossible.
A perfect example are tank bust, skills that can easily one shot a tank. many doesnt have anykind of cast bar, nothing call them (aside "it is the timer where the boss will do it") so if tanks and healer doesn't know "it is time" the tank will die... The "shield" healer cannot keep non stop its shield on tank (not enough mana for the whole fight and... he still needs to do DPS for enrage) and the tank doesnt have enough CD to have at least one activ any second of fight.

But FFXI showed RNG works well for high end difficulty, and even in recent MMORPG, lost ark recently showed it aswell... it is in fact like arena size, size of raid, game with/without healers (or even tank LA got no real tank)
Those are just elements that never avoid to do hard fight, but change how you can make the fight hard but not impossible. Devs knows their game, and have their own experience of previous fight so all those are never a problem.

Have to understand that when we reach top end, the fight design first have ton consider people able to play their class perfectly, so to give close to 100% of their potential DPS. Then those are people that understand well the game mechanic. Those two element won't vary from boss another because bind to the game. so if you want to do tough and really challenging fight, you HAVE TO include the need to be "close to perfect" in both of those point. This is where many games have "easy fight" because quite permissiv about those 2 base knowledge that allow top players to just faceroll the fight.
Also, there are MANY way to challenge the DPS of the raid... The "hard enrage" is the most common and the easiest to do for devs... but this is the only reason we see it everywhere.

In such situation, people also need ways to improve themselves close to "perfect"

edit : holy trinity (or even ... could see up to 4 roles with support like bard in FFXI being not healer, but really strong addition to group)
This is JUST another criteria of design. bind to the game mechanics
You can do a good MMORPG, with hard and engaging fight, with not this trinity,
Now, Ashes will have this trinity and maybe the 4 side (some people consider cleric will be healer, while bard will buff others but not heal... ) so all design have to push each role and not allow a "finalyl, if we play perfectly, we can avoid to take the cleric"

Dygz wrote: »

The devs should not provide tools to make that easier for them.

This is something of an interesting stance.

If you assume the combat log exists for players to look at and discuss within a guild, all a combat tracker is, when broken down, is an easier means of doing that.

If the developers see fit to add in a market, then one would assume they will add a search function to that market to make it easier to use. They could just list all items and make players manually search through the market for the item they are after, but they wont, and no one would expect them to.

Same with ability hotkeys. They could make it so you need to type in a / command to activate an ability, but they dont, they give you a more convenient means of doing this.

If you add in a system to the game, you add in basic QoL functionality for that system.

If Intrepid want players having logs, add in basic QoL functionality for them. Basic QoL functionality for a combat log is essentially a tracker - a means to sort and display information from the data in those logs.

Not doing that will lead to cases like is evident in this thread - some people will mistakenly label as cheaters those people that are simply adding that basic functionality that Intrepid should ship with the game.

I mean, if the idea is to lower the level of toxicity in the game...

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'll definitely segue that one into this if you want.

Nah, it's fine. I think I'm kinda done with this thread. At least for now. I understand that it's not the game that requires the combat trackers, but the people themselves. And changing people is wayyy harder than changing a game's design.

This is sort of true, sort of not true.

If you look at combat tracker use in most games, it starts off as player driven. I'll use a tracker because I enjoy using them.

However, by the time the developers get to.adding new content, they can either decide to tune it to the capacity players actually have, or to the capacity the developers want players to have.

Every game I have played has done the former. New content has always been added to a game based on the actual ability and capacity top end players have.

As such, if top end players are using trackers , this will be factored in.

If developers want to develop an encounter that they expect a guild to spend 2 weeks on, that encounter will look vastly different based on if the developer is assuming players use trackers or not. If the design is based on players using them, there will straight up be more things to figure out.

A guild without a tracker may get there eventually, but it will take.months rather than weeks, and assuming the developer is even remotely capable of adding content, guilds without trackers will very quickly find themself entire content cycles behind everyone else.

At that point, it absolutely is the content that requires people at the top end to use trackers - but the content is only designed that way because people use trackers.

Nkw, if that new content was made without the assumption.ption of trackers, those using them would breeze through it in days rather than weeks, leaving the developer outright unable to keep up with new content.