DPS Meter Megathread

This discussion was created from comments split from: DPS Meter Megathread.

I’ve instructed the mods to focus any dps meter threads into a single mega thread to help focus and centralize the discussion 👍

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

Sapiverenus

Just have an "Inspect Player" sort of thing where you see their damage and self-healing lol Then anyone can tell what their damage output is.

It's like looking at someone hit something. It's generally pretty clear whether they hit hard by seeing them move and seeing what happens to what they hit.

Alternatively damage and healing could have some visual feedback. Super strong hits have more dramatic animations or something. Super fast/ Agi hits hit faster (whether strikes between attacks have some downtime or not it can hit fast). Speed and enhancement of animation would be based on weapon inertia and their agi.

Damn this is quite a mega thread.

Mag7spy

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Just have an "Inspect Player" sort of thing where you see their damage and self-healing lol Then anyone can tell what their damage output is.

It's like looking at someone hit something. It's generally pretty clear whether they hit hard by seeing them move and seeing what happens to what they hit.

Alternatively damage and healing could have some visual feedback. Super strong hits have more dramatic animations or something. Super fast/ Agi hits hit faster (whether strikes between attacks have some downtime or not it can hit fast). Speed and enhancement of animation would be based on weapon inertia and their agi.

Damn this is quite a mega thread.

Nightcorey

I think there should be a way to track the effeciency of players in Raids / Dungeons. That is if AoC will put emphasizes on clearing Raids / Dungeons, meaning they will drop most valuable items. If not, it does not matter, but then the game really needs something to satisfy competitive players.

I do not have a bad opinion about in-game DPS meters, but I understand why they could be bad.

Maybe there should be some combat logs after the instance that can be checked and uploaded (like warcraftlogs), to be able to analyze other players efficiency. I cannot see how we can evaluate why we wipe a Raid without being able ot analyze any sort of logs from all players. There could be that some players are no up to the challenge for a certain encounter, which would just slow down some competitive Guilds progression.

This makes sense for Raids that require 10+ people. If AoC is not designed that way (and I'm new here, so don't know what kind of PvE encounters are planned), meaning there will be only instances for 5-players, combat analysis is not necessary, since players will be able to see who is 'slacking'.

dorrin

Personally (and it is a personal thng) I like a DPS meter. What I dont like is when it's used as a stick to hit someone with. I think a personal meter would be good, but not the ability to share in a group. Then if there was offline charts or benchmarks for example to measure yourself against. Only that I know I like to see how I'm doing against "the normal" expectations of my class. Mostly so if I'm underperforming I can look at what and try to improve. In a group setting, I'd prefer to work together to overcome something irrespective of the DPS at that moment in time.

In a raid type setting of course dps is important, but more so is often the mechanics. IF half of your raid is dead, thats a bigger hit to dps than a few people being 10% behind (for example).

Aerlana

akabear wrote: »

re-posted in the correct thread!

As i said in the post you quoted, tracker is a minor subject that won't change the base philosophy of the game.
Or if you go this way, so, no debate should happen on forum about what is already said (so... no debate about corruption ... which is the most common thing here... )

If you really think that have a in game tracker would be a change of the philosophy of the game... i would be interesed about your arguments this way.
The impact of the game itself would be lesser than, for example... making no corruption in open sea (while all expected it wouldnt be the case as reminder)

While, the idea on the topic where my message comes from, which is making some nodes a NPC territory to reconquer is a deep change : like other ideas of this guy, it would transform part of the game world to a "survival game", ... literally another kind of video game.

And... this debate is in its place on this forum, after all the first post invite to get all discussion around tracker here, and is from... Steven.

Aerlana

Nightcorey wrote: »

Maybe there should be some combat logs after the instance that can be checked and uploaded (like warcraftlogs), to be able to analyze other players efficiency. I cannot see how we can evaluate why we wipe a Raid without being able ot analyze any sort of logs from all players. There could be that some players are no up to the challenge for a certain encounter, which would just slow down some competitive Guilds progression.

the problem of warcraftlog in a system where the official message is "no tracker" ... rely on its FFXIV version : FFlogs.
On wow, you know that in your raid atleast one will have one of the DPS meters.
This is not the case on FFXIV. people might want to not be recorded due to this official message... as in FFXIV, and would end up on a site like warcraftlogs/fflogs.

Nooani suggested an idea that avoid those people to have their datas recorded :
Limited to guilds who wants the tracker, with a tracker you can get thru a guildperk. (so, taking it, is also not taking other guild bonuses as for example more maximum members)
There would be guild using it and guild not using it. And with a tracker doing its work only on guild members, it avoid all those "sneaky record".

Ashes, due to all we heard from devs, can be expected as a game where pickup will be minor part of PvE activity, for the easy part. So, limiting it to guild with high end PvE objectivs won't be restrictiv, it will even be part of define what the guild is, to make people of the same mindset to gather in the appropriate guild, making less drama, or conflict inside guilds.

DeeSav

There should at least be a target dummy or something that records DPS for those of us that wish to take data and improve ourselves.

Strevi

Nightcorey wrote: »

I think there should be a way to track the effeciency of players in Raids / Dungeons. That is if AoC will put emphasizes on clearing Raids / Dungeons, meaning they will drop most valuable items. If not, it does not matter, but then the game really needs something to satisfy competitive players.

I might never obtain a legendary drop with or without DPS meter if those are very hard.
But in a less difficult dungeon, should I care and try to improve or not?
When I play alone, nobody cares.

The problems happen when more players have to cooperate.
Some players want order to maximize rewards, others want chaos to maximize fun.
Those who hate chaos want DPS Meters.
Those who favor intuitive and spontaneous reaction to solving problems, want problems and surprises. They don't want every dungeon run to be the same and a raid leader to punish them if they do not play by the book. But the game rewards both categories when they overcome the chaos, with or without tools.

What should the game developer do, which kind of players to favor?
According to wiki
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Design_pillars

We decided to focus on mechanics that bring the idea of community to the forefront. To get people to interact with each other meaningfully – not just to conquer a raid boss, or to get some coin from a faceless auction house, but to maybe save a city. ... Or building a world together as a community choosing our own fate with our friends.

Dygz

Aerlana wrote: »

If you really think that have a in game tracker would be a change of the philosophy of the game... i would be interesed about your arguments this way.

It would change the design philosphy signifciantly because the devs would design encounters with the expectation that everyone is relying on combat trackers to succeed.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Aerlana wrote: »

If you really think that have a in game tracker would be a change of the philosophy of the game... i would be interesed about your arguments this way.

It would change the design philosphy signifciantly because the devs would design encounters with the expectation that everyone is relying on combat trackers to succeed.

But that isnt a material change from how they will have to design encounters.

Regardless of whether players use first or third party trackers, top end content needs to be designed based on what players are capable of killing.

Azherae

Dygz wrote: »

Aerlana wrote: »

If you really think that have a in game tracker would be a change of the philosophy of the game... i would be interesed about your arguments this way.

It would change the design philosphy signifciantly because the devs would design encounters with the expectation that everyone is relying on combat trackers to succeed.

Just the top-end ones probably though, unless the gear ladder is simplistic.

Dygz

Not just the top-end ones.
That's like assuming that PvPers will rarely gank if there is no Corruption.

CroakerRPG

Dygz wrote: »

It would change the design philosphy signifciantly because the devs would design encounters with the expectation that everyone is relying on combat trackers to succeed.

I disagree. There are going to be people who parse through the data regardless if there is a tracker available to them or not, and that data will be disseminated to the community through one way or another. People will utilize that information to put out higher performance regardless. Having a combat tracker available merely changes the amount of time needed to put together the data, offering more tools to the average player to improve their performance if they so choose. This leads to less disinformation and more build discussion within the community, not a complete change in design philosophy for PvE content.

Dygz

Yep. And those people can parse through the data all they want.
The game will be designed as if 1% of players do that instead of as if 100% of players do that.

Aerlana

Dygz wrote: »

Not just the top-end ones.
That's like assuming that PvPers will rarely gank if there is no Corruption.

this is where you forget a thing : a good PvE side for a MMORPG needs different content with different difficulties. WoW does it 2 way,
on one side while the first boss of a raid is far easier than last, (with around 10 boss between them with various difficulties) there are 4 different mode. LFR, normal, heroic, Mythic. If you just want see the raid, the boss, for the arts, or enjoy easy fight just to be immerse, you will go LFR... Then if you want a little more difficulty you go normal mode : People relying on tracker to segregate other often finished to be the one kicked out of raids... it is rare to find people with really poor DPS for such raid. Then heroic, the case to find "too low DPS" increase but is still not so high, mostly people in hope to get carried on the raid, if we inspect their stuff, the answer is already there. and mythic, where the real high end difficulty is... Where i don't want to go anymore because the time investment there is far too high for my personnal taste now.

THen there is Mythic+... simply, M+2 is easier than M+3, M+15 giving best weekly rewards and over is mostly to flex. Again... for m+15 sure, having people focus, on DPS, on trash skip, on boss strategies, etc etc is mandatory, but in M+2... (and more, when the run begins you can't stop it to replace anyone)

On FFXIV there are "story mode" for primals, most easy content (aside dungeons) then raid24 and story mode 8man raid. Xtrem primals, and finally, savage mode (and over it, ultimate for top end difficulty)
Until Xtrem primals, DPS check are rarelly a problem, and never due to the "enrage" (which exist but rare to reach it. mostly all dead before)

Where in those contant (normal or even heroic raid later in patch, or up to primal xtrem) people are looking at each other tracker is a specific case : farm parties. People want to farm it now, and due to doing it again and again (week after week on wow, spam it during 1h or more on FFXIV) if they see some people are slacking/getting carried on those "farm run" sure, lets see who is the problem and kick him, but it would happen without tracker, because the problem is more the design of both game, with this brainless boring farm.

And even when i was doing top end content... i was defending a lot the development of midtier and lowtier content... For various reason i could explain if you want. but it is, i think, mandatory for the game, the higher it goes, the more important those lower tier.

The trackers won't impact the philosophy because the philosophy is already "high end difficulty will be in game" also. adding tracker or not will just help (or not) players to improve their gameplay with accurate informations instead of feelings, and how fast they can find out new builds again and again (without tracker, it will be far slower, making people more and more to stick to a "meta" which wont move a lot)

Also how devs will do "top end difficulty fights" after the release : look at the previous fight of this difficulty, and some data they want to focus : it can be % of players who killed it around all population, % of player who killed it amongst those who try, or even, amongst those who did a minimum amount of try (like, if they abandonned before 10th wipe, they don't even count as part of people trying the boss). It can also focus on specific part of the difficulty (where did people struggle?)
If they find the last fight was too easy/hard/fine, they take all informations and adapt their metric : make DPS check easier/harder, time to avoid mechanics longer/shorter, etc etc.
People could all use tracker, but the reference fight being killed by not enough people in their opinion, they will reduce the difficulty... again and again and again... until it is fine. same goes with "no tracker use by anyone, but too many manage to kill fight" : they willl go harder and harder

This is like a less punishing or more punishing corruption, or global chat, i did say in my message. It will for sure impact how the game will be played by us, players, and will also have indirect impact on other part of the game (global chat could impact a lot the trade between player) but won't change the philosophy of the base game design. While, i admit that the open see corruption less can be seen as a slight change in base philosophy (but i have hard time to judge how impactfull it will be.)

CroakerRPG

Dygz wrote: »

Yep. And those people can parse through the data all they want.
The game will be designed as if 1% of players do that instead of as if 100% of players do that.

Interested players will pursue high performance metrics regardless if they have a tracker on hand or not. People are always searching for guides and tips to improve. The tracker isn't the deciding factor in content completion. The quality of the content and the skill of the community is. The claim that a tracker will change how content is made is just a false one.

Aerlana

for the impact of tracker in difficult content's design again just lets see on wow...

Vanilla, where tracker was rare thing, the fight grew again and again in difficulty, from onyxia and ragnaros, a Vaelastrasz became a really good boss to see which guild could or could not progress, while remaining easy in regard of chromaggus/nefarian.
AQ40 after went higher, mainly with Ouro, twins and C'thun. and lets end to naxxramas, with many really hard bosses
BC, begining of casualisation many boss nerfed (karazhan mainly)
but there was lot of complains about too easy. because even in Black temple, most fight were realatively easy in comparison of what we had before.

And come WOTLK, blizzard see its most important metrics : income. increase of players. the casualisation is a good idea, dungeons easier so... And come back of naxxramas, with an explanation : only 5% of players saw naxramas back in time (and far less able to do decent progression in it)
Players complained, because most boss from the first tier in wotlk were too easy, far too easy. The tracker was more and more used, and game difficulty went down...
Blizzard finally found solution, the hard mode (then heroic mode). and lets go back to high difficulty (hello mimiron, yogg1/Yogg0 or algalon... for hardest of ulduar).
And this 2 difficulty became 3 (LFR begining with last raid in cataclysm) and finally a 4th one on "easy" side (with last raid of mist of pandaria).

Blizzard began with growing difficulty, and because people complained about losing some difficulty, blizzard added more mode, and mostly on easy side (the last 2 added are the most easy one)

We see that the tracker was not what defined fight, but simply how difficult they wanted it to be, how large part of population could be able to clean it. no more no less. and they added some easy difficulty to please the majority of their customer who wouldn't spend time/effort in those high difficult content.

Noaani

Dygz wrote: »

Yep. And those people can parse through the data all they want.
The game will be designed as if 1% of players do that instead of as if 100% of players do that.

The problem is, 25 - 50% of players will do it, to some degree.

No game is designed around 100% of people using trackers, it is only ever the top 10% or so of content where this is the case.

This will be the case in Ashes, as well.

Sapiverenus

Mag7spy wrote: »

Sapiverenus wrote: »

Just have an "Inspect Player" sort of thing where you see their damage and self-healing lol Then anyone can tell what their damage output is.

It's like looking at someone hit something. It's generally pretty clear whether they hit hard by seeing them move and seeing what happens to what they hit.

Alternatively damage and healing could have some visual feedback. Super strong hits have more dramatic animations or something. Super fast/ Agi hits hit faster (whether strikes between attacks have some downtime or not it can hit fast). Speed and enhancement of animation would be based on weapon inertia and their agi.

Damn this is quite a mega thread.

No

There are both systems where you don't see their damage or always see it. Which is it you're hoping for.

Dygz

GetDatGreg wrote: »

Interested players will pursue high performance metrics regardless if they have a tracker on hand or not. People are always searching for guides and tips to improve. The tracker isn't the deciding factor in content completion. The quality of the content and the skill of the community is. The claim that a tracker will change how content is made is just a false one.

It's not false. If the devs provide a combat tracker they will design with the expectation that 100% of the playerbase will use them, rather than just the numbers-obsessed players.

Child Item