DPS Meter Megathread

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oOKingOo

From a PvP perspective, I don't see the need for DPS meters. However, there should be battlefield stats such as kills, damage dealt and taken, healing done, shields provided, buff time, and debuff time. These metrics can provide valuable insights into player performance and contributions during battles.

In PvE, I've heard that DPS meters are often used to exclude people from parties, but they can also be beneficial for optimizing builds and rotations. A more engaging approach might involve testing DPS on lower-level bosses or mobs, requiring players to invest time in figuring out the most effective strategies rather than simply standing before a training dummy and observing a bar.

This way, the game encourages experimentation.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

The notion of "watching" to see what is going on is a joke in games with a good (complex) combat system.

But during the fight, are you not watching both the fight and your ongoing log? Or did EQ completely forgo visuals in favor of text?

I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).

Azherae wrote: »

The reason I bring this up, NiKr, is because DoTs, almost by definition, are poor candidates for visual or auditory feedback.

To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on you at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.

Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.

Those who still have problems even with such a mechanic would have problems with parsing logs on the fly as well. Also, was that class' info not anywhere online? Could no one just, like, play that character to the point where you get this ability and literally just see how it works? I know this is a dumb question, but I feel like it applies to dumb people. "Educate yourself" and all that.

I played every class in L2 at least to the extent of understanding what their abilities do, so that I could know not only how to play against them, but potentially help others understand them as well (and have done so on multiple occasions).

Azherae wrote: »

Note I'm not saying 'you can't play the game this way', I'm only appealing to 'the fact that you already understand why people want 'Ricochet' level logs, and therefore I'm assuming you suggested the log filters.

Nah, I was just trying to visualize in my mind how I'd prefer my combat log to look. Just several thin windows of incoming dmg (singular hits), incoming debuffs, incoming dot dmg.

Incoming magical dmg would be blue in that first window, phys would be red. Debuffs would be painted rainbow by type, so a glance would give me at least the type of stat reduction I received (and I'd be able to check the icon visually if needed). Dots would just be there, and with time I'd underline names with dangerous dots, so their dots would be more visually apparent in the log.

I know this doesn't cover all the things, but I'd only know which things it needs to cover when we have the final game in our hands.

Azherae wrote: »

They're nice, but they'd cover your whole screen. And at that point, you still need to be very visual to read them all. Personally I'm not. Regardless of the fact that I read very fast, it's way easier to just remember every effect. That's how 'cluttered and distracting' a complex system ends up being.

I mean, as I see it, knowing literally all icons and their effects is literally the base level of knowledge required to be even semi-competent at the game.

People who can't keep up with the pve/p pace or the log or the icons or whatever else will simply not be competent. And I don't think anything can help them, not trackers, not meters not anything. I don't really watch Asmon's WoW streams, but I sure as hell constantly hear his complaining of people not doing mechanics or not "walking out of the red". And that WITH wow's insane addons that yell at you what to do. How would one expect those kinds of people to track anything in a fight that might involve pvp on top of pve.

I realize this is probably cruel to them, but I simply don't see how they can be helped in this particular context. If anything, my suggestions of having good visuals is an attempt at that, but both you and Noaani say that visuals can't really do shit in a properly complex game, so then how in the hell would those people even clear content like that?

And if we're not talking about such people, then we're simply back to Noaani's classic argument of "there's literally nothing you can do because I've already ACTed all over your game"

Azherae wrote: »

There's one other problem that I don't know if you're familiar with, which applies to this as well. When an opponent's DPS is based on their attack speed, the only visual indicator of their attack speed build's power is how fast your log is scrolling or how quickly the numbers are flashing. I'm not saying it's impossible to keep track of that, but it's sometimes very hard to judge effectiveness.

There's a reason why 'building for huge attack' is considered a noob trap in many games. "Bigger number better!" is difficult to dispel when the 'actually bigger number' is 'a smaller number, but more often'.

I know this quite well cause L2's 2 biggest and highest value dpsers were Orc classes, one with a HUGEASS double-hander and the other with knuckles. I'm sure you know what the differences were.

They were somewhat interchangeable, though particular gear pieces made the double-hander just too stronk, so he was usually preferred. But until those pieces, knuckle boy was accepted in most raids.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

The reason I bring this up, NiKr, is because DoTs, almost by definition, are poor candidates for visual or auditory feedback.

To me this still comes back to UI issues. Let's say you can have 10 negative effects on your at any given time during a fight. Those 10 icons could be grouped by type, which has its own player-chosen color, and positioned vertically where the player would have that line in their periphery. So when you see a "red" icon pop up in your field of vision - you'll know you're being dmged by a certain type of dot.

Like, I'm still all for logs having good written feedback, but I do think that visuals can be improved as well. The BDO example kinda proves that to me, cause they could've literally just had an icon on the effected targets of "you have this dot on you", and at least some players would notice that this icon disappears once you step away from that "OP" class.

The problem is not the icon. The icon works fine. The problem is 'recognizing which players you need to move away from and which you don't need to move away from', because you need to also see the precise damage that each tick of the DoT is doing.

That is the 'issue' with audiovisual feedback for DoT in games with a higher amount of it. Once you are in range of both Steel and Sevarog and they both built Fire Blossom, in Predecessor, you have no immediate way to know which one is doing 72 damage per second and which is doing 23 (these numbers aren't real exactly).

Then, you get stunned, and suddenly it's doing 104 and 46 (Fire Blossom DoT doubles when you are immobilized). But also just taking magical damage, in combination with a different item, increased your opponent's Magic Damage Bonus, or reduced your Magical Armor, or something, so actually, the number doesn't even stay the same from moment to moment.

I could get close to someone, and the damage tics look like '40, 42, 84, 88, 55, 121, 140' (these numbers DO appear on the screen). And then someone else nearby with a similar effect does '34, 37, 80, etc'.

Also remember that unless they removed anything similar to Hallowed Ground (the Alpha-1 Cleric ability) and Chains doesn't do DoT, Ashes already has this concern.

Anyways, the involved person has requested that I discontinue attempting to explain it. Your perspectives tend to be unyielding, so, thanks for answering, on their behalf.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

The notion of "watching" to see what is going on is a joke in games with a good (complex) combat system.

But during the fight, are you not watching both the fight and your ongoing log? Or did EQ completely forgo visuals in favor of text?

I could maybe see how ff11 could maaaybe be played through text, though even then it seemed like positioning mattered, so you'll still need to track the target at least with your peripheral vision. But EQ2 seemed way more visually involved (at least from the stuff I've seen from both games).

Just talking outgoing damage, if you were playing a DoT heavy class, you would have potentially 20+ log entries per second.

Even as one of the slower casting classes, I still averaged 5 entries a second. If we were to add incoming damage, healing in and out (I could heal a small amount of mana) etc, it would be double that. No one is reading even 5 lines a second and still playing their class well enough to meet the requirements of the encounter.

As a result, no one looked at the in game logs in EQ2 - there was just no point. Most people didn't even have a text window for combat - it went to the log file and you would look at it via ACT. It was just not viable to look at it in game.

As to trying to get an idea of what is happening via in game visuals - nope, again things were moving too fast, there was too much happening. When 24 people each have 4 or 5 status effects on the boss, you can't tell which 100 are on it by looking - obviously. As a result of this, most people turned as much of the visual clutter of combat down on raids in order to increase performance, and to be able to get a better idea of the one thing you could keep an eye on in raids - p[ayer positioning.

When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.

Ok, so again, how did people play then? If there's so much stuff happening every second, what did ACT do to let people process this? If there's dozens effects at the same time, how exactly did ACT make it NOT dozens of effects at the same time?

Positioning is the simplest part of a raid, so I'd assume people were just looking at ACT instead of the game, cause, as you say, looking at the game was pointless. Is there a video recording of how ACT looks like during an EQ2 raid? Cause I find it hard to imagine how can a program, that supposedly simply reads and parses the log, help a human process that amount of info on second-to-second basis.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

When people say that you should be able to see what is happening by looking at what is going on screen in a raid, people used to games like EQ2 take that to mean that the person wants a combat system so incredibly simple that it is possible to read the combat log during combat.

Ok, so again, how did people play then? If there's so much stuff happening every second, what did ACT do to let people process this? If there's dozens effects at the same time, how exactly did ACT make it NOT dozens of effects at the same time?

It did - but as I have said many times, you don't look at ACT during the fight, you look at it after.

Anyone watching a log or a tracker during a fight was not going to be able to perform their role in that fight. Again, this is why the notion of not having one in a game with a good combat system just doesn't compute - you need a combat tracker to go back after the fight and see what happened, there is no potential way to see what happened during the fight because the human brain can't process information that quickly.

This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.

I think I finally understand why it needed so many attempts. Cause no one new what they were doing, because the game literally doesn't tell you (at least in a viable way).

So ok, then how exactly do you apply ACT's info in the next fight, if you got no way to even know what's going on, cause there's too much info input?

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

This is why - as I have said MANY times - no tracker = simple combat and simple encounters. So simple that a person can watch it in real time and understand everything.

I think I finally understand why it needed so many attempts. Cause no one new what they were doing, because the game literally doesn't tell you (at least in a viable way).

I'm not sure why this is the takeaway you have from this.

I mean, yeah, EQ2 didn't tell you how to kill its top end encounters - it was up to players to work out. Before you could work out how to kill an encounter, you needed to work out what it was doing.

Working this out was a major part of the raiding scene.

So ok, then how exactly do you apply ACT's info in the next fight, if you got no way to even know what's going on, cause there's too much info input?

Depends.

If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.

On the other hand, if you are wanting to look at something specific that went wrong - after you have worked out what needs to be done - it would take seconds to pull up in ACT.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.

Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?

Cause if they have any kind of randomness, I simply cannot imagine how exactly were people playing the game if they can't physically react to all the info input, the logs don't help because you can't read that fast, ACT doesn't help during the fight because it's functionally the logs and the visuals are literally non-existent because the game is all about telling you mechanics through text.

I can obviously watch a recording of a fight, but that tells me nothing about how people were playing the game. Like, the first point of view of gameplay. I cannot comprehend its flow. Or, to be precise, your description of the game does not allow me to even comprehend it (not necessarily your fault, just the overall design seems to come off that way, from your words).

If I was trying to fight a boss in EQ2, what would I be paying attention to during the fight? Simply positioning and my rotations (in sequence with my party's/raid's)? But if bosses have mechanics with 0 visuals and I can't react to them in text - how am I supposed to play around them during the fight?

Which is why I'm asking whether the fight is literally a carbon copy of itself on every single pull, cause at that point it'd at least be simple memorization, and I can totally understand that.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.

Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?

Cause if they have any kind of randomness, I simply cannot imagine how exactly were people playing the game if they can't physically react to all the info input, the logs don't help because you can't read that fast, ACT doesn't help during the fight because it's functionally the logs and the visuals are literally non-existent because the game is all about telling you mechanics through text.

I can obviously watch a recording of a fight, but that tells me nothing about how people were playing the game. Like, the first point of view of gameplay. I cannot comprehend its flow. Or, to be precise, your description of the game does not allow me to even comprehend it (not necessarily your fault, just the overall design seems to come off that way, from your words).

If I was trying to fight a boss in EQ2, what would I be paying attention to during the fight? Simply positioning and my rotations (in sequence with my party's/raid's)? But if bosses have mechanics with 0 visuals and I can't react to them in text - how am I supposed to play around them during the fight?

Which is why I'm asking whether the fight is literally a carbon copy of itself on every single pull, cause at that point it'd at least be simple memorization, and I can totally understand that.

I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.

But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.

I feel we're in a weird situation here, because you're asking for an explanation of something that by definition of 'being complex to be interesting' is so complex that it can't be explained to you in that way.

It's like how comprehending high level StarCraft play isn't a thing you can do without years of playing StarCraft. Not even the flow will make sense.

But yes, it's that random, it has hidden parts, it has many complexities. FFXI Campaign is sometimes literally the equivalent of undertaking a small military operation (of the Greco-Roman Imperial era).

It's not that the boss has no visual data, it's that it has 'tiers'. I can use Briareus to explain this to you if you care a lot, but the short version, if you remember from the check, is that you can visually see Briareus use Mercurial Strike, and the visual cue of Mercurial Strike tells you to look at your log for a moment to see how much damage it did.

From there it's a mental priority stack like any other high difficulty game.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.

But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.

My memory must be decaying due to my zoomerization (ADDzation?).

@Noaani is EQ2 also simply about post factum reactive gameplay?

Cause I can totally understand that. I don't like it, but if that is how it is - I understand that.

edit: All I was asking is what players pay attention to. If it is simply "smth happened - do a mental tree on how to react" - that's super easy to understand. And I guess the log parsing just helps build that tree at the raid's scale, so that everyone is on the same page.

Noaani

NiKr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

If it is info on the encounter, you usually apply it the next week, not the next pull. It would take literal hours to go through the fight to work out what was happening. This is why it wasn't uncommon for my guild to spend time during the week, perhaps during the day at work, perhaps in the evening at a bar, going over this data.

Ok, then the only question I can ask when it comes to my attempts at imagining how the direct gameplay of the encounter went is this: are EQ2's bosses fully scripted with 0 changes between pulls?

Nope, there was randomness.

As to how people played - as I've said to you before, it was hard (I just scrolled up and saw Azherae saying the same thing).

The comparison to top end Starcraft play is apt (I look at it and have no idea what's going on). It takes years to gain an understanding - and as I have said the best raid content in a game comes several years after release.

Perhaps you may be starting to understand why I have said a few times that PvP focused players simply aren't up to the task of top end PvE. If nothing else, it takes longer than most PvP players spend in a given game to get truly proficient at high end PvE.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I've sort of explained this before, I can find the post for you.

But the short answer is, it's just that hard, and the design of FF11, at least, is not 'react when the thing happens', it is 'react to the situation caused by the thing happening', which you have more time for.

My memory must be decaying due to my zoomerization (ADDzation?).

Noaani is EQ2 also simply about post factum reactive gameplay?

Cause I can totally understand that. I don't like it, but if that is how it is - I understand that.

Again, this is actually slightly oversimplification.

So backing up a step.

There's the information you need to see, to defend against, or heal directly after, an enemy attack, or to coordinate your synergy/Skillchain. This is not a thing you look at logs for.

There is information you need to know about basic DPS, DoT values, and fluctuations in those values. This information is in your logs, but it's hard to track it all consistently unless you're the player 'assigned to tracking it'.

Then there's the statistics, which are an integral part of Tab-Target and Hybrid MMOs with evasion and accuracy. In order to have a reasonable idea of the statistics, you must have all the log data. We're back to 'what happens when you fight Baltheus with short range weapons' if you remember that part.

Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?

If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.

DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).

Trackers become 'necessary' when all of the following are true:
1) The game contains accuracy and evasion, and has enough activity that you might need the statistics
2) The complexity of decision making is heavily influenced by data from up to 7 or more seconds ago
3) There are a large number of mechanics, changing status, DoT, or players interacting at the same time

So Pred doesn't need a tracker really because it doesn't have #1, and BDO doesn't need it because it doesn't have #2, and L2 (apparently) doesn't need it as much because it doesn't have #3.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

As to how people played - as I've said to you before, it was hard (I just scrolled up and saw Azherae saying the same thing).

Again, I don't think I've ever said it was easy.

All I was asking is what were people doing during the encounter. SC can be broken down to attention to management of resources, food, production, units (macro and micro), scouting and the decision tree that includes all of those factors. Obviously executing all of that is beyond difficult, but at the very base of second-to-second actions it's simply shift of attention from a thing to a thing.

I was asking what were players shifting their attention to in EQ2 raids. If it was just "my positioning, what did the boss just do to me/others, what should others do in response and what should my response be to support them (all in the context of a preestablished tree of decisions, that's based on log parsing)" - all of that is easy as fuck to understand, but obviously hard as fuck to execute.

Now, either/both of you tell me - is that what you pay attention to or not.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?

Yep.

Azherae wrote: »

If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.

DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).

So yeah, sounds like my explanation in the comment above is correct. Gameplay is about complex reactive raid-wide decision trees.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Most people play these games by simplifying when they feel stuck. If simplification consistently leads to success, then the game is simple. We can agree on that much, right?

Yep.

Azherae wrote: »

If you want a complex game, you need it to be true that simplification can't consistently lead to succeeding. And in this type of game you need the statistics, and the statistics are low on the 'list of things you can see'.

DoT is lower on the list than statistics, and falls lower and lower based on how complex the game is (remember that ping also determines how and when your client receives data about something, so when I 'change the damage my DoT is doing, the display on your screen/log isn't precisely attuned to what is happening on the server).

So yeah, sounds like my explanation in the comment above is correct. Gameplay is about complex reactive raid-wide decision trees.

Also, before we go in any weird directions, remember two things.

1) You're the one that mentioned that you can't imagine how people were playing the game with randomness on top of all that.
2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.

This is the 'danger' of not including them if you want a complex game.

In Pred, my group uses replays. I can see everything, they watch replays and ask me to confirm what I saw vs the replay, or 'they get upset', then 'I remember what actually happened' (sometimes I go check the replay myself to be absolutely sure but I'm about 90% of the time correct), and then I tell them which part of the replay to watch.

Without the replays, what happens is different. One might even call it 'more toxic'. (this has nothing to do with Trackers, because Intrepid says we're getting a combat log, and if we have a full combat log, we have 'a Tracker' relative to this part).

So my team doesn't need to be able to adapt to everything mid-match, when they can't, we just lose (or win because either the enemy team can't either, or I can manipulate their behaviour because I'm Jungler).

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

1) You're the one that mentioned that you can't imagine how people were playing the game with randomness on top of all that.

You saw my AC6 gameplay and heard how I approach the difficulty in games like that. My default approach is "why would you get hit when you can avoid getting hit, and if you can't avoid - git good". This is why I couldn't even comprehend what Noaani was saying.

But your comment there made me finally realize that yall are completely fine with being hit (apparently because the game's complexity doesn't physically allow to avoid things). Which is why I switched so fast.

Do you have any friends who're super good at SC(2)? Cause we're a bit in too deep in our own bubble, so it's be interesting in hearing from that person whether my generalization of player actions during a match is anywhere near correct. I've pretty much never played either SC, but I followed the pro scene in early 10s, which is where I base my generalization on.

Azherae wrote: »

2) It's not that absolutely no one can do it, it's that it's genetic lottery if you can do it or not, and trackers are the solution to this that is employed to even the playing field and foster camraderie.

Again though, trackers help with the tree, right? They have no mechanical influence on the player's actions during the encounter itself. So, realistically, only those genetic lottery winners can clear the pve Noaani and you are talking about. Because clearing that lvl of difficulty still requires the player to hold a ton of info in their head, even if their job is simply watching where they stand and remember the tree when they cast abilities.

And as I said before, I'm all for deep and extensive logs. And I've come to terms with inevitability of trackers a long time ago.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Again though, trackers help with the tree, right? The have no mechanical influence on the player's actions during the encounter itself. So, realistically, only those genetic lottery winners can clear the pve Noaani and you are talking about. Because clearing that lvl of difficulty still requires the player to hold a ton of info in their head, even if their job is simply watching where they stand and remember the tree when they cast abilities.

And as I said before, I'm all for deep and extensive logs. And I've come to terms with inevitability of trackers a long time ago.

Not exactly, this is the structure that leads to what PvE Raiders consider to be a large part of the content.

On Pull #1 you don't have enough data to strategize (this is true in all games that go beyond 'dodge when attacked, you'll notice it in a specific part of AC6 later). Everyone must watch everything, because you don't know what's important vs not. The enemy can 'feint' with less important things to overload you, or sometimes a specific random sequence is something your party/raid in particular just shrugs off.

On Pulls #2-5 you are gathering data, if you don't win, it's probably because people don't yet know which thing exactly they're supposed to be focused on, out of the massive amount of stuff happening. PvP is similar, for you, I hope (I only play games where it is similar for me).

On Pulls #6-15 you're tweaking builds, learning reactions, and in a complex game, you're still doing what you were doing on pulls #2-5, because there are still things about the boss, random combinations and situations, that didn't come up before that. You might get lucky during this time, and 'your preparations from #2-5 were enough'. This is 'just about average PvE' to the players generally who care about this. PvP players who face weaker opponents who are easy to manipulate or don't adapt, have the equivalent. Think 'strong guild who hasn't learned tactics and is carried by gear'.

If you didn't get lucky, or the boss is really complex or has different 'phases' (this isn't a good example, it's moreso a condition where they do something differently for a short period in response to something else), then Pulls #16-25 are more of the same. People are really working out 'what they need to pay attention to', and the logs/tracker is there to give you the statistics to make those decisions (again, ENTIRELY because it's a Tab-Target or Hybrid MMORPG, Action ones still have the statistics based on your own personal skill, but your build doesn't matter as much unless it's Predecessor tier of complexity in builds, which none are).

Pulls #25 and on are tweaking builds, making sure to do all mechanics perfectly, synchronizing in weird situations where, for example, the enemy needs to be CCed, but it's not absolutely clear whose job it is in any precise moment, so sometimes two people CC at once, both go on cooldown, now no more CC, things go bad...

Somewhere in there, depending on the type of game and the mechanical complexity, you probably win. And that was the fun.

"Oh damn we both stunned it, can we still win?"
or
"No don't stand behind me now DAMMIT, someone rez... too late... fine..."

Stuff like that.

The part relevant to this discussion is, the 'Savant' or the 'Tracker' is what gets you 'through' Pulls #6-15. Together, players discuss how to tweak their builds, approaches, teamwork, positioning, and so on, to respond to the many random situations the boss presents. The number of pulls is related to 'how much information you need to gather, to know which parts of the information you can ignore'. Games with 'weak' PvE that doesn't provide the sequence above, and games with weak PvP opponents, are the same. If you can, in one encounter, grasp everything the boss can do, and spend time watching the statistics, follow the scripted mechanics if any, and know what to ignore, then it dies somewhere in Pull #2-5 stage.

This is why there are no true top-end guides, too. Because 'which things you tweak' depend on what the strengths and weaknesses of your group are. Eventually there will usually be a guide of 'here's the simplest combination of classes to take to this boss to negate the maximum number of things so that you don't have to track it all'.

It's the equivalent of finding out the OP meta-build for PvP. Except that in FFXI at least, that 'simplest combination', which is 'the best combination' to the masses, can still get royally fucked over by one of the rarer random ability combinations. The odds are just less, and the sort of person who 'just wants to clear' (whether because they don't enjoy the complexity, or it's just a guild that has something 'on farm') will just shrug it off and go again.

Because 'someone said this is the best, there are videos of people beating it like this, so I know it's possible so I'll just do it too'.

That's why AC6 has build guides like that.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Stuff like that.

Now I need Noaani to weigh in on this comment, because what you described would be a roughly mid-high lvl of pve encounters as how I imagine good ones to be.

But going off of Noaani's explanations about EQ2, this would be smth like a low tier boss.

This is why I had bigger troubles comprehending his explanations of his points, rather than yours. I could watch those ff11 raid videos and superimpose them onto the things you've explained about the game and I'd have a super rough picture of how I'd "look like" if I was playing it.

But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described, but then this doesn't help me comprehend the difference between the 25th+ pulls from your example and the "hundreds and hundreds of pulls" from Noaani's usual ones.

If it's simply about the "stat values of bosses (both basic and ability ones) are at such a high limit that you need a near-perfect raid build to succeed, and even then you probably got lucky" - I can understand that. But iirc Noaani has also said that different guilds managed to kill bosses with different builds. So is it ultimately just luck (based on super high skill of course) or are those bosses not, in fact, at the max limit of what's even probably to kill.

Extrapolating my AC6 experience to a raid one is somewhat easy, even if I add the lens of higher lvls of complexity. But that's still just under the difficulty from your example. Noaani's somewhere above the skies with his numbers.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Stuff like that.

Now I need Noaani to weigh in on this comment, because what you described would be a roughly mid-high lvl of pve encounters as how I imagine good ones to be.

But going off of Noaani's explanations about EQ2, this would be smth like a low tier boss.

This is why I had bigger troubles comprehending his explanations of his points, rather than yours. I could watch those ff11 raid videos and superimpose them onto the things you've explained about the game and I'd have a super rough picture of how I'd "look like" if I was playing it.

But I've watched a few EQ2 raids, and they don't match Noaani's explanations. Now, Noaani has stated before that the most difficult bosses weren't even recorded really, so maybe I've only seen the lvl of stuff that you just described, but then this doesn't help me comprehend the difference between the 25th+ pulls from your example and the "hundreds and hundreds of pulls" from Noaani's usual ones.

If it's simply about the "stat values of bosses (both basic and ability ones) are at such a high limit that you need a near-perfect raid build to succeed, and even then you probably got lucky" - I can understand that. But iirc Noaani has also said that different guilds managed to kill bosses with different builds. So is it ultimately just luck (based on super high skill of course) or are those bosses not, in fact, at the max limit of what's even probably to kill.

Extrapolating my AC6 experience to a raid one is somewhat easy, even if I add the lens of higher lvls of complexity. But that's still just under the difficulty from your example. Noaani's somewhere above the skies with his numbers.

If it helps, I was actually describing mid-level content as well.

But as for the different guilds with different builds concept, remember one specific thing I said.

"My guild shrugs off different things than your guild does."

This is a thing I expect in Ashes, or rather, I deeply hope for. You can parallel to AC6 once again. "My build shrugs off different things than yours does." My challenge to you actually, based on that, would be that when you return to AC6, you should consider this a bit. Maybe even 'try not to change your build too much unless you're hard stuck'.

Baltheus is easiER (not easy) with your build, than with mine. Two later bosses, I just cut through trivially, and I know that your build will have much more issues with. That's the complexity.

For harder bosses, add more mechanics that aren't related to your class which you must also learn (and therefore get disrupted from all your muscle memory and related skills), or take the FFXI approach and 'combine abilities that, if put on players, would be explicitly unbalanced'. 'You can't counter both of these things at once without massive effort and perfect execution'. Then increase those and the randomness. As I understand it, EQ2 is harder than FFXI because it has a lot more of the 'this boss mechanic is specific and goes against your standard ability and muscle memory'.

Briareus, as an example, only has one such thing (the Zombie status making it impossible to heal) and otherwise relies on the idea that a Samurai Gigas with magic damage is meaningfully 'less balanced' to have to fight. Toublek has more of the 'standard' approach that I understand, with the Geysers and the Rat Transformation and whatnot.

The problem with explaining high level content is that it's not 'describable'. If 24 people need to talk about a single encounter for 20+ hours and their conclusions are specific to them the only way I could give you an example would be to give you logs from our discussions.

If you want a 2 hour log, though, lmk (it covers a single teamfight situation in Pred)

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