DPS Meter Megathread

We have not received permission from Depraved to share the quoted post.

I'm sorry, I actually didn't think you meant that because of the MMOs I played.

But I think that MMOs with combat logs, by nature, came before MMOs that managed to not show the combat logs.

Any game that has either a combat log or a visible HP bar for something has everything that you need to make a tracker. So I'm seriously trying to understand what you mean. You didn't give any examples of games you knew, like that, so I thought maybe you didn't know that games have always had trackers.

We have not received permission from Kaseual to share the quoted post.

Yep, you got it, the thread takes a specific 'turn' after that, which keeps coming up, so in case you do care, and since I'm pretty neutral...

[Those who support or don't care about ACTs] then try to figure out if [those who dislike them] , understand that the current stance won't avoid them (similar to what happens in FFXIV).
[Those people] then ask clarifying questions (and argue with two specific posters), many times getting clarification or giving clarification (about the fact that these tools are mostly unavoidable/undetectable)
[Those who dislike them] either 'retain their opinion, not caring that people will have them, only that they don't become the visible meta', or 'change their minds when they learn that these tools can't really be prevented if a combat log exists or if information is presented to players visually'.

So the 'argument', relative to your understanding, is 'Do you understand that nothing will prevent competitive players/guilds from having or using these, all you can prevent is those users talking openly about them?' with a few recent 'organic' posts more on the 'support for ACTs' side.

So the same question would go to you. If you are happy with the direction, is it because you don't care about whether or not competitive groups use them as long as they can be disciplined for using them if someone leaks the fact that they do (FFXIV stylle) or are you happy because you don't actually understand that no game that presents visual data in this era can avoid having these, or reliably detect them?

Sometimes people have stances that come off a bit weird to the supporters/neutrals when it comes down to that question, and the thread balloons another few pages while one supporter (Noaani) and one neutral (me) half-argue with claims from one neutral (Mag7spy) who sometimes... acts like an opponent (but as far as I can tell doesn't care that a combat log exists and also understands that people can write parsers for those easily, so is mainly arguing for a design space that wouldn't cause this to be very beneficial).

So the thread isn't really about 'DPS Meters' at all at this point, it's about the concept of difficulty in content.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

Right, that's a nice, simplistic system that a certain level of player/tactician can understand and handle without a tracker.

So if we were to continue discussion based on this premise, it would become about how 'that's not really hard enough content', or 'that has nothing to do with trackers'. Whether you understand that yourself or not isn't even really that relevant since the bases are different.

If you enjoy games where that's all you need or want, then good. Some players, particularly 'punishingly difficult PvE enjoyers', don't find such games engaging at all, so they are coming from a different place.

I have the fortune of being that type of player but not personally needing the Tracker as often, but the level of gameplay that I enjoy because it's at my personal limit of what I can do without the Tracker is the level where many other people want one.

And those people would have one, and then I'd be disadvantaged for 'playing as intended'. And then like an idiot, I will keep doing so until either "I get caught in a wave of mass bans with false positives for being a savant" or "The game falls apart because the advantage for those who actually use the trackers is too great for anyone to compete with them".

I expect this outcome, whereas Noaani expects the 'People like me won't even play because it will be BDO PvE tier'.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

For some people this would be enough. For some people this would be too much. It all depends on their goals.

What if people don't want to feel forced to do that?

What if people kick someone else from a group/guild because 'You can just look at the stat screen and simulate the best build for that Class, why would you even want to waste our time getting an item for your build that doesn't match the best build for this content and doesn't appear in any of the builds for the content in our region?'

That's kind of the point. There are definitely players who would be upset if the game offered an extremely detailed stat screen if other people started asking for a screenshot of that screen because 'toxicity'.

And then there are definitely players who will figure out how to screenshot a good build as if they have it, cover it with cosmetics, and use their normal build, and fail the expectations of the group because they 'don't feel like they should have to conform and actually have all the items of the best build'.

That's why it's easy for me, at least, to be neutral. People who want the information will have it. Those who don't, won't have it, and as long as those people don't mix, all is good for me, because I can adapt to whatever the game requires for me to enjoy the experience type I like.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

I'm truly amazed at how deftly you can make everything about 'the carebears'.

Many people hate to lose and hate to feel inferior. I have friends who are not the brightest bulbs in the box who get discouraged because they can't figure out that sort of thing on the fly and have to rely on me for it.

I can't say for you specifically, but I will say that I've met quite a few people who moreso lack empathy for those who have these issues. It's like calling someone who isn't good at doing arithmetic in their head a loser for using a calculator to multiple two six digit numbers because 'you know a guy that can do that in his head'.

Fantasy MMOs are stat blocks. Any game based on anything remotely resembling a D20 system will lead to some people wanting a Tracker purely because the Evasion and Accuracy stats exist, regardless of what the stat sheet says.

I'll continue to be the carebear that worries about those people in games where there is no Tracker. You can continue to be the anti-carebear that tears down their 'paranoia' about how their Accuracy +4 weapon isn't doing what they expect Accuracy +4 to do.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

As I said, I don't really want anything. I'm neutral even if I don't seem like it.

If Steven makes a game that has Accuracy and Evasion in it, makes the PvE hard, and says 'No Trackers Allowed', then the game will get players who are okay with all those things AND with the result that people who use the Trackers will generally have the advantage. Other people will hopefully just not play a game they don't enjoy.

All I want is for people to understand what they're getting into. So I guess I want it to be clear to people that the whole 'We aren't allowing Third Party Tools' will not result in 'no Third Party Tools', it will result in FFXIV endgame situations like the recent beef between Yoshi-P and that guild.

Or as Noaani expects, it will result in BDO Tier PvE. It's not that I absolutely can't parse BDO, it's that BDO doesn't even have things like elemental resistances or separate magic defense stats and their PvE has like 2 worthwhile encounters in the entire game.

As long as everyone knows what they want and what they're getting, 'the Free Market' will handle Ashes.

If you consider it worthwhile to get people's opinions on 'very detailed stat screens' and/or 'Accuracy vs Evasion parsing', another thread would be nicer. Normally I respond in this one because it helps it 'return to the grave' faster.

We have not received permission from Dygz to share the quoted post.

I've never asked actually.

How do you feel about the Accuracy and Evasion stats and their effects on player effectiveness and 'DPS'?

I ask because the primary reason most people I know ever care about Trackers comes from the fact that Acc and Eva stats, especially opposed to each other directly, is squarely in the realm of 'statistical analysis' that becomes very hard to do without a Tracker, and often, it's directly the 'DPS' portion, so it's fair enough to say that most of the time, someone who cares about that aspect really does want the 'DPS meter'.

Do you prefer that Accuracy and Evasion are not parts of the game, that they're 'very straightforward', or that players basically just guess how much they should aim for in their builds (or any other perception you have about it, I don't mean to limit the 'choices' here).

We have not received permission from Dygz to share the quoted post.

Alright, I was moreso referring to a specific thing from some other games that is probably not relevant to you.

In case you've never experienced it, there are certain games where top content will become very difficult if not impossible to defeat if your character is lacking the accuracy to consistently hit them or can only achieve the accuracy to consistently hit them by trading other 'damage' related stats.

It is a common thing for people in that situation to use the Tracker because it's a catch-22 from the design part. Adding more Damage stats does not matter if you miss, and vice versa to some extent.

That's all I'll say, I don't think this is really your type of thing anyway. My only point was that this is one of the situations where I feel it's hard to make a real argument against the tracker because 'Accuracy vs Evasion' is often very statistical and RNG dependent, leading to situations where you get a bad RNG streak and feel like you should change your build (to add more Accuracy or Evasion) when you don't need to, and it ends up being unnecessary (and you still lose because that's the difficulty level of the content).

I'm sure there must be some game where Acc and Eva are meaningful and yet you can avoid this situation, I probably just haven't played it.

Thanks for answering.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

I've recently been studying how to do two things design wise.

1. Design tanks in a game with somewhat lower mobility, but no Evasion stat (action combat-ish)
2. Design a framework that emulates the effect of an Accuracy stat without using one, in a way that doesn't massively favor people with twitch skills.

The result of both methods would however be that many players would be likely to either still want the Combat Tracker, or switch to recording their fights and putting them through visual analysis (I mean, this is still another Tracker, but it's a little harder for some games).

I believe that Ashes is committed to the "Evasion" bit as of what we know now, so you will have to find a different way about it which I feel is unlikely to affect the discussion.

We have not received permission from Arya_Yeshe to share the quoted post.

I mentioned it mostly because I was still thinking about how Dygz prefers games...

I understand the feeling, but you can probably see how it would be difficult to build a combat system that satisfies both you and Dygz.

I am pretty confident now that it can be done, fortunately (not that I think Ashes will do it).

The thing is that it wouldn't really lead to less Combat Tracker usage, but I do think that Dygz would be able to manage without it, so that was the thought process that led to the response.