DPS Meter Megathread

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Noaani

MrPockets wrote: »

Tragnar wrote: »

if some important game mechanics or abilities are only readable in certain situations only from a combat log

This is assuming the game is being designed with these random, cryptic, "invisible" mechanics in the first place. I don't think anyone is advocating for these types of mechanics to exist without a way to understand them. Rather, they want the game designed in a way that doesn't require tools to parse combat logs; those "invisible" mechanics should be visible some way outside of the combat logs.

I'm not trying to say which design is right/wrong, but this is the design being advocated for by people against the trackers. It it totally fine to disagree, or prefer a different design choice, but don't try and paint the other side as something it isn't.

The argument is that these mechanics should exist in the top end mobs - and probably only the top end mobs. People taking on these mobs will be using a tracker anyway, so having mechanics that require a tracker isn't am issue.

If you are able to kill the hardest encounters in Ashes without a tracker at all, then the PvE in Ashes is just shit - there really is no other way to put it.

And as I have said in the past, Ashes long term viability as a game is reliant on it's PvE content attracting PvE players, who in turn make up the population that the PvP players need to thrive. Without good PvE, you don't attract that PvE crowd, and thus PvP players are left with only other PvP players to fight against, and this will see a steady level of atrophy as even these PvP player leave the game.

Mag7spy

He says only guild but that is just to normalize it. One person thinking is not the same as another as other pro tracker people can say it should be used besides just guilds since its in the game. Or people simply think the tracker doesn't have enough features for them so they can freely use 3rd party one without consequences. Then they try to push up the game difficulty or complain as gameplay should work around tracker difficulty and the information provided to them.

Don't buy it, its simply one step at a time to have trackers being main stream on AoC.

Mag7spy

I seriously can't believe he is arguing if you see what is going on with content that it is easier (doesn't mean the content is easy mind you) then not seeing what is going on all with 0 hints and needing to use extra programs to figure it out because of unfair invisible mechanics instead of proper difficult mechanics.

Its pretty obvious it will take more time to figure it out as you use another tool to make deciphering it easier and much more clear needing to rely on tool that have nothing to do with actually playing the game with detailed tracking to look for the answer.

Using trackers to cheat simply means the game play isn't being about difficult but unreasonable. Gameplay is about gameplay, and gameplay difficult, trackers are there to cheat and give you easier answers away from gameplay.

MrPockets

Noaani wrote: »

Here is a direct challenge to you @MrPockets

Find the issue with a tracker that is built by Intrepid, added to the game as a guild perk (where guilds have other valuable options and can only pick the one they think is most useful to the guild), the tracker only works on players in the guild, that are in the same group or raid, doesn't show any data until after combat has finished, and is able to be accessed on the games companion app or website, should a player wish to look over it later on.

Before answering this, you need to consider who is going to pick this tracker, and how likely they are to join pick up groups in a game like Ashes. What reasonable objections are left with this suggestion?

Now, keep in mind, the only other option that is available to us is for people like me to just have a tracker anyway, as they already exist for this game.

Sorry, I don't have the time to sift through the 1000s of posts you and others have made on this topic over the past 3 years...

With that said, this seems MUCH more of a productive conversation instead of talking about designing fights specifically for trackers or not.

To me the most important part of this whole debate revolves around the "toxicity" aspect, and I think that's where we as a community should focus on. (sorry if you already have done that, but the recent conversations I was reading felt a lot like 2 sides just screaming that the other is wrong)

I will admit that your ideas have potential to solve a lot of the "toxicity" problems...but the game HAVING a tracker, and the game being DESIGNED around a tracker are two completely different debates.

I'll refrain from talking about specific encounter design, as I don't find it very productive. But I'd like to call out the things that I agree with you on about reducing the toxicity revolved around trackers:

not being able to see live dps charts during the fight.
limiting the scope of who's info you can see. (we agree that I shouldn't be able to see some random party member's info)
I find it being locked behind a guild perk fairly interesting, and could be a fun thing to work towards

Based on your idea, it seems like you admit that toxic behavior CAN be caused by specific tracker features. Or maybe you don't think that, and this is your attempt at a compromise? I'm curious what your end goal actually is: do you want to reduce toxic behavior? or do you only want the most challenging encounters possible? both? or something else?

Dolyem

@Noaani Honestly after thinking about it, the guild perk tracker idea will be pointless when people will just as easily make a 3rd party tracker so they can spend their points elsewhere on guild perks

MrPockets

Dolyem wrote: »

@Noaani Honestly after thinking about it, the guild perk tracker idea will be pointless when people will just as easily make a 3rd party tracker so they can spend their points elsewhere on guild perks

This is the same as saying: I can just pirate all the shows on netflix, therefore netflix is pointless. History and the market have proven that people will pay for conveniences.

Mag7spy

MrPockets wrote: »

Dolyem wrote: »

@Noaani Honestly after thinking about it, the guild perk tracker idea will be pointless when people will just as easily make a 3rd party tracker so they can spend their points elsewhere on guild perks

This is the same as saying: I can just pirate all the shows on netflix, therefore netflix is pointless. History and the market have proven that people will pay for conveniences.

We are talking about more elite player types the 1%, They won't waste points and min max everything. It is why im saying his goal is to get trackers to be ok so he can use third party ones. You aren't talking to a honest person.

Dolyem

MrPockets wrote: »

Dolyem wrote: »

@Noaani Honestly after thinking about it, the guild perk tracker idea will be pointless when people will just as easily make a 3rd party tracker so they can spend their points elsewhere on guild perks

This is the same as saying: I can just pirate all the shows on netflix, therefore netflix is pointless. History and the market have proven that people will pay for conveniences.

unlike with netflix however, in a game it will be a competition between players sooo yea

Noaani

MrPockets wrote: »

Based on your idea, it seems like you admit that toxic behavior CAN be caused by specific tracker features. Or maybe you don't think that, and this is your attempt at a compromise?

In 20+ years playing MMO's, I've never once seen any toxic behavior caused by combat trackers, yet I have used them for all but the first month or so of that time.

As such, I do not believe that trackers cause toxicity. If you believe they do, I'd ask you to explain the above.

However, I am aware others have experienced toxicity that involve trackers. I'm not at all saying these situations do not happen - I am simply saying that trackers are not inherently the cause of them.

So, the suggestion is an attempt at a compromise. It eliminates the bulk of the situations where players see combat trackers and toxicity existing together, but leaves trackers available for those that know how to make good use of them (the game is better off with players having access to trackers, we have a history of finding bugs that even developers cant find).

As to my end goal, it is multi-faceted. It can probably be best described as wanting to make Ashes the best game for the most number of people possible.

A part of this means the fame needs to have PvE on par with WoW, FFXIV, EQ2 et al. Not necessarily the same design parameters, but the same challenge, variety and quality.

But it also means making the game as approachable as possible for people that are not in the top 10%.

The other thing an optional tracker like this will do, is force Intrepid to develop some content for people that use trackers right at the top end (where everyone both wanting and able to take it on would be using trackers anyway), but to then develop the bulk of content under the assumption that people are not actively using trackers, but where perhaps a third to half are using builds that are created using tracker.

To me, this result seems to be the best outcome any group of people can hope for.

Noaani

Dolyem wrote: »

Noaani Honestly after thinking about it, the guild perk tracker idea will be pointless when people will just as easily make a 3rd party tracker so they can spend their points elsewhere on guild perks

I dont believe there would be a need to develop third party trackers if the game has a first party tracker that meets minimum viable functionality.

TheMarten

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I have a love-hate relationship with dps meters. On the one hand my inner nerd loves pouring over the data you get from them. But at the same time I hate having to rely on them to know if you are playing well or not.

I'd prefer they stayed out of the game unless we absolutely needed them.

burnthefern wrote: »

Again, this still leads to exclusion. I never mentioned exclusion based on a single metric, I'm talking about people not pulling their weight when all the metrics are considered. If someone's class can't perform to a certain standard, and as a player they are unable to mechanically perform at the skill level required, would you keep them onboard? I personally wouldn't. That's exclusion. You seem to be under the impression that every raid leader will act altruistically when given access to this data. People are pretty shitty, and while I believe you would use the meters to better the raid by figuring out who needs advice instead of a kicking, I firmly believe most wouldn't. Now, again, I do agree that there should be meters, however I don't think we will see them because of the exclusion that they bring.

I would like to add my voice behind the above quotes as both are well said.

I would hate for globally accessible metering. It leads to class (subclass) exclusions by meta-crunching players that think they can tell by a single number if you are a good player or not. Support classes would get hit the hardest in what many refer to as "end game" content. DPS/Healing meters do not tell you what NPC-debuffs lead to the biggest increase in damage, just that Barb-x did the damage. DPS/Healing meters do not tell you who prevented players from taking damage via buffs/debuffs, just what cleric-x did the most healing.

If the Devs decide on a meter (I honestly hope they don't) it needs to be a private meter so that players can tweak their own class and not have some other person telling them how they should be playing. Personally I would allocate that Dev time to other tasks.

Noaani

TheMarten wrote: »

Support classes would get hit the hardest in what many refer to as "end game" content.

This is just outright incorrect.

As a top end player, raider, raid leader and at times guild leader, experience says that this absolutely will not happen.

I can even give you examples of this.

EQ2 is a game that had 24 classes and 24 raid slots. Of those 24 classes, 4 were support classes.

With the same number of classes as raid spots, the logical assumption would be that you would take one of each class. With your assertion that support classes would be left out of top end content in a game that had combat tracker use on par with WoW, we would assume that if any class was under represented, it would be the four support classes.

Yet, literally every top end guild in the game had the aim of filling a total of 8 raid slots with those 4 support classes. Support were better represented in raids than literally any other class in the game.

This isnt an accident or anything - and is also directly due to combat trackers.

When your DPS casters do 500 DPS normally, but then do 850 DPS when they have the right support classes present, it is really easy to justify taking those support classes along.

Without combat trackers telling you exactly how much better off you are with support than without, there is no guarantee that players in general will value their contribution at all - you cant value something you cant see.

DPS/Healing meters do not tell you who prevented players from taking damage via buffs/debuffs, just what cleric-x did the most healing.

A combat tracker can indeed tell you this.

See, people that have this particular view are odd. They complain about what a combat tracker can and cant do, but in doing so are showing us all that they haven't really explored what a combat tracker can do - as almost without exception they are able to tell players the thi g they are trying to say combat trackers cant tell players.

So, combat trackers can indeed tell you who prevented damage in your group or raid, but obviously you dont actually care about that, otherwise you would have known that trackers can tell you that.

Azherae

TheMarten wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I have a love-hate relationship with dps meters. On the one hand my inner nerd loves pouring over the data you get from them. But at the same time I hate having to rely on them to know if you are playing well or not.

I'd prefer they stayed out of the game unless we absolutely needed them.

burnthefern wrote: »

Again, this still leads to exclusion. I never mentioned exclusion based on a single metric, I'm talking about people not pulling their weight when all the metrics are considered. If someone's class can't perform to a certain standard, and as a player they are unable to mechanically perform at the skill level required, would you keep them onboard? I personally wouldn't. That's exclusion. You seem to be under the impression that every raid leader will act altruistically when given access to this data. People are pretty shitty, and while I believe you would use the meters to better the raid by figuring out who needs advice instead of a kicking, I firmly believe most wouldn't. Now, again, I do agree that there should be meters, however I don't think we will see them because of the exclusion that they bring.

I would like to add my voice behind the above quotes as both are well said.

I would hate for globally accessible metering. It leads to class (subclass) exclusions by meta-crunching players that think they can tell by a single number if you are a good player or not. Support classes would get hit the hardest in what many refer to as "end game" content. DPS/Healing meters do not tell you what NPC-debuffs lead to the biggest increase in damage, just that Barb-x did the damage. DPS/Healing meters do not tell you who prevented players from taking damage via buffs/debuffs, just what cleric-x did the most healing.

If the Devs decide on a meter (I honestly hope they don't) it needs to be a private meter so that players can tweak their own class and not have some other person telling them how they should be playing. Personally I would allocate that Dev time to other tasks.

First of all I have ZERO intention of trying to argue with you or 'counter' any of your perspectives, but I would like some context on it...

What game do you know of that has meters where somehow the Support Classes ended up getting shafted or excluded from content because of them?

Apologies if the question seems snarky, it IS an alien concept to me, so any bias you perceive in the question is probably real, but I'd still really like the answer if you're willing to give it.

TheMarten

Azherae wrote: »

First of all I have ZERO intention of trying to argue with you or 'counter' any of your perspectives, but I would like some context on it...

Azherae wrote: »

What game do you know of that has meters where somehow the Support Classes ended up getting shafted or excluded from content because of them?

I guess I should have stated that I am replying to the Dev, not the Forum. I am not here to give my CV to the forum. It should not matter if I am older than dirt and have played 50+ games from The Bard's Tale (1985) -
ELDEN RING. Nor is it the Forum's business what games I have helped design, beta tested, or what mods I have made. I don't judge anyone here if they do not have the skill I have in UE5.

Azherae wrote: »

Apologies if the question seems snarky, it IS an alien concept to me, so any bias you perceive in the question is probably real, but I'd still really like the answer if you're willing to give it.

I don't know what the meaning of this is. I am not sure what you are apologizing for, unless you feel guilty

I don't want you to feel guilty.

Noaani wrote: »

See, people that have this particular view are odd. They complain about what a combat tracker can and [can't] do, but in doing so are showing us all that they haven't really explored what a combat tracker can do - as almost without exception they are able to tell players the [thing] they are trying to say combat trackers [can't] tell players.

So, combat trackers can indeed tell you who prevented damage in your group or raid, but obviously you [don't] actually care about that, otherwise you would have known that trackers can tell you that.

I don't know you, and you don't know me. Yet you think you can judge me? This is how you interact with others even without the benefit of Trackers and logs?!

/snark on: you are exactly the type of person I would trust with that info! /snark off:

Noaani

TheMarten wrote: »

I don't know you, and you don't know me. Yet you think you can judge me?

You are correct, I do not know you.

I dont know what nationality, race, religion, gender, caste, or profession you have, are or identify with.

Nor do I care. Not even a little bit.

What I do know about you - literally ALL I know about you - are the words you type on these forums.

I absolutely will form an opinion of you (or "judge" you, if you prefer) based on that. You are more than welcome to form an opinion of me based on the words I type here.

If you want me to not form an opinion of you based on the first list of things I have already said I dont care about, that's actually fine. You are well within your rights to not be judged by those things, as far as I am concerned.

However, when we post on the internet, we are posting our thoughts and opinions, the essence of ourselves. These are the things people generally want others opinions of them to be based on, rather than things like that above list.

Sharing an opinion that you hold and then complaining that people shouldnt form an opinion of you based on your opinion of other things is just weird.

If someone is forming an opinion of you (or "judging you" if you prefer that term) based on that essence of yourself, and you do not like the opinion of you that they then form, dont go complaining at that person for forming that opinion. Look at the aspect of yourself that you out forward that lead that person to form the opinion of you that they did.

---

Now, more specifically, if you are going to say "I dont like trackers because they cant do this thing", but trackers can indeed do that thing, that is giving people that just know you are wrong very little to work with.

Truth be told,I hadn't formed an opinion of you until reading your second post in this thread. I left you room to back out and say "oh, I didnt know trackers could do that, please ignore my previous post".

But you didn't, you came back and doubled down. That is what settled my opinion of you.

TheMarten

@Noaani

Noaani wrote: »

But you didn't, you came back and doubled down. That is what settled my opinion of you.

As I said in my previous post, I was responding to the Dev. It was simple, what are your thoughts on X? I shared those thoughts. The Dev did not ask for a 1000 word thesis with citations or my qualifications. The Dev understands that all that matters is that I am interested in the game. The Dev wants me to stay that way so I will be here when the game launches. The Dev may even gleam something from what I share.

You and I disagree on Meters and Logs as it relates to it being public. That is fine, I would even say it is helpful for you to say so and for the Devs to read as much.

What is unhelpful is when you try and imply and or impugn that someone's value to a topic is less than yours. You seem intelligent (although you seem to have a thing against apostrophes), so I would encourage you to discuss the topic and not engage in motives or assumed lack of knowledge of the person you disagree with. It may be an IQ vs. EQ issue, I can't say for certain. What I can say is making it personal is not helpful to the Devs.

Who knows, you and I may be in more alignment on the next topic. I would encourage you to not be so "settled [in] my opinion." Until next time.

Noaani

TheMarten wrote: »

What is unhelpful is when you try and imply and or impugn that someone's value to a topic is less than yours.

See, I gave you an opportunity to support your opinion.

I dont actually care about what games you have played. For all I care, you could have spent a total of 5 minutes playing MMO's. However, if you are able to back up your opinion, that opinion is as valid as any other persons ever could be.

Azherae is interested in knowing what games you have played, but they have a different motivation for asking that (they are genuinely curious as to the basis of your opinion).

On the other hand, if you are unable to back up your opinion, you are making it lesser in value than others opinions - and your particular side of the discussion is not a factor here.

Fact is, you claimed that your opinion was in part based on two specific factors. One of those was how you thought support classes would be left out, and the other was what you thought trackers are not able to do.

Both of those specific factors that you claimed are at least partially responsible for your opinion are false, and can be proven to be false.

That's cool, we all have incorrect information at times, and we can only form an opinion based on the information we have.

However, put aside the value I place in your opinion, put aside the value Intrepid place in your opinion - let's look at the value YOU place in your opinion.

If those were indeed factors in forming your opinion - even of only minor factors - the fact that you now know they are incorrect should result in you reconsidering your opinion.

If you are not at least reconsidering your opinion, all that says is that you dont actually think your own opinion is worth much. You should always strive for your opinion to be based on as accurate a set of facts as you can.

If you dont think your opinion is worth much, why should I, and why should Intrepid?

Hinotori

I really hope they don't add trackers or there'll be a server with Noaani In it yelling numbers in chat from raid boss encounters and linking it to group efficiency.

Noaani

Natasha wrote: »

I really hope they don't add trackers or there'll be a server with Noaani In it yelling numbers in chat from raid boss encounters and linking it to group efficiency.

No there wont.

Why would I do that?

Hinotori

Noaani wrote: »

Natasha wrote: »

I really hope they don't add trackers or there'll be a server with Noaani In it yelling numbers in chat from raid boss encounters and linking it to group efficiency.

No there wont.

Why would I do that?

You said it yourself earlier. If you've got a group clearing content you'd want builds that are optimised for that, as well as having people in your guild be the best [insert class here] they can be, otherwise why have them?

So with a tracker you'd be able to demonstrate with the trackers information to back it up the group that would be perfect for the content you want to run.

And you'd most likely ignore other applications of people who fail to match that number.

Which is why I said you'll be in chat yelling numbers and equating it to efficiency if you ever have to find someone.

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