Combat logs 1.2. Parsable outside of game.

[RealAeiouy]

I question your experience. Players adhering to minimum gear requirements have existed since MMOs were started. The heavy emphasis on it is relatively new, but the requirements always existed.

 

 

I respect your opinion. I believe the exact opposite. I enjoy number crunching and tweaking my performance based on real numbers.

 

 

That's nice, but unrealistic when they are implementing combat logging. Most guilds that are raiding current content will require people to send their individual combat logs for parsing. Why make it more difficult for them?

 

Really? What exactly were the gear requirements for vox and nagafan raids in 1999?

[Crutchess]

Meters are easy mode, make the game less challenging and remove the need for players to pay attention to the game.

 

We have a massive number of players who seem clueless on how to play and improve without meters and that is scary and sad. Meters don't make gameplay better. They are a mechanism to short cut paying attention.

 

No. Meters are a way to gather and report data in a visually easy to digest manner. Please give one example of how a damage meter allows me to not pay attention to something.

 

By your logic every mod ever made improved gameplay and that is not true. A lot of mods negatively hurt game play. Meters get players not to pay attention combined with focusing on one thing. It is not good.

Not true. Mods do not all enhance game place, I completely agree. I am not for things like deadly boss mods. These do in fact make things easier and I'm not a fan.

 

People can want meters but they can not do so under the guise of being a more advanced or sophisticated player.

 

I want developers push the boundaries for feedback and not just cop out with easy mode meters.

Again, please give an example of how a damage meter makes the game easier to play.

[Raeln]

You give up some of your privacy when you do things in a group. They could implement this so it only records the group/ops team. If you don't want to share your combat log, then don't join the group. You get your privacy and I get a combat log that tells me what everyone in the team did.

 

Your desire to view everyone's combat log data ala WoW is not more important than the person who desires to retain that right in the form of a permission.

[smexymage]

So if a raid leader asks the newb in questing blues what his dps is and he says his is higher than everyone else, were supposed to just believe him right? Fail.

 

If the raid done enough DPS to beat the encounter then it doesn't matter who was highest, that scenario doesn't actually gain the player any extra loot or anything else for that matter.

[Sbolla]

I don't understand why people insist on seeing the negative in everything.

 

DPS races were one of the most fun aspects of playing a DPS character.

 

Real-time feedback in how I was doing compared to others pushed me to improve my character, improve my play, improve my spec, tailor my gear, and so on.

 

Not having that here has taken away a very practical tool for raid leaders and a very fun aspect of gaming for those who enjoy some in-guild competition.

 

If you don't have that, sure some baddies will be carried and swear it isn't them. People will be using sub-optimal specs and cause raids to fail without any repurcussions. Raid leaders will be making subjective decisions about who to bring along instead of objective decisions, and MOST importantly.......

 

Developers won't have to deal with imbalance issues that can be objectively illustrated.

 

Exactly.

[Nippon]

So if a raid leader asks the newb in questing blues what his dps is and he says his is higher than everyone else, were supposed to just believe him right? Fail.

 

LOL..

 

Elitists...

 

Gotta love them.

 

Or not.

[Snibb]

Still don't understand why they can't have a dps meter in game. Add an option to turn it on or off. Then add an option to turn group dps sharing on or off.

The way it is right now, we just have a much longer process to get to the same conclusion. Why waste your players' time?

 

Edit:BTW players that want an easily readable dps tool are not necessarily elitists, they could be people like me who want a tool to measure my improvement, and see how I stack up against my friends.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Snibb

[Muanthuun]

Personal, downloadable logs are a half-baked, half-assed way to implement combat logs. If Bioware is going to implement combat logs that can be saved for offline parsing, they need to go all the way and let me see everything from everyone.

 

Umm no.

[Muanthuun]

Still don't understand why they can't have a dps meter in game. Add an option to turn it on or off. Then add an option to turn group dps sharing on or off.

The way it is right now, we just have a much longer process to get to the same conclusion. Why waste your players' time?

 

Edit:BTW players that want an easily readable dps tool are not necessarily elitists, they could be people like me who want a tool to measure my improvement, and see how I stack up against my friends.

 

You can do that, with the new tools they are providing.

[Bearhunter]

I don't understand why people insist on seeing the negative in everything.

 

DPS races were one of the most fun aspects of playing a DPS character.

 

Real-time feedback in how I was doing compared to others pushed me to improve my character, improve my play, improve my spec, tailor my gear, and so on.

 

But you do understand that the majority of players is not playing near the nightmare requirements and this lead to ******* dps races where every wannabe stands in the center of a voidzone only to show that the wipe is not his fault because "look at my dps"

[Snibb]

You can do that, with the new tools they are providing.

 

I guess this would be the first I have heard about anything in game real time... Where did you find this info?

[Matte_Black]

The way it is right now, we just have a much longer process to get to the same conclusion. Why waste your players' time?

 

The short answer is that they rather you do the quest/operation to whatever outcome and then go over and discuss performance on your own time if you have the inkling as opposed to harping on one another during the playtime of the entire group and/or potentially dumping someone midway.

 

I personally, rather not have two group members arguing about performance and proper build/gearing/tactics during the mission. If you want that discussion, do it on your own time for sake of those who just want to play. Some players want the real-time data, some may want to hide something but, many of us just don't care that much. You may be helping the group from your perspective but, to many, you are just bogging everyone down in arguments and minutae.

[Gyrovague]

It is for guilds, not to harass people in pugs.

 

Next up: casuals from bad guilds crying that they're never invited to fill in extra spots for good guilds. Film at 11:00.

[fungihoujo]

So if a raid leader asks the newb in questing blues what his dps is and he says his is higher than everyone else, were supposed to just believe him right? Fail.

 

I can tell his dps will be lower and that he hasn't done any research based on the fact that having a crafted set of purples the moment you hit 50 should put you just a few steps behind someone in full tionese.

 

And look, I did that without a combat log!!!!

 

 

I am amazing!

[Locustone]

I see this argument over and over again. A long time ago, games didn't have meters, and people still played them and downed content. Now, every other game has meters, except this one, so because we used to do it without meters in other games long ago, you should be fine doing it that way in this game. Pumping hot dps is fun and competitive, and some people enjoy that.

 

People got around by horse and buggy, traveled on dirt roads, and made their houses of dirt in the past. And they lived and got by. That does IN NO WAY mean that after they invented freakin jet airplanes we should be fine if we can only use a horse and buggy.

 

It's called progress! Using your analogy and line of reasoning... Obviously, even in todays age, we have people living in back water places, uncivilized, no electricity, no toilet paper, eating possums and marrying their cousins--this doesn't mean the majority of us want to do this. Last I checked we were paying for this game and this is still America, we like choices. For those of you who like not using addons/meters then you can choose not to use them, but for those of us who like progress and like to have more information we should have the choice of using addons/meters.

[Azzras]

Personal, downloadable logs are a half-baked, half-assed way to implement combat logs. If Bioware is going to implement combat logs that can be saved for offline parsing, they need to go all the way and let me see everything from everyone.

 

I would argue and say it's implementation is more difficult than the basic logs that other MMO's have.

[Matte_Black]

I would argue and say it's implementation is more difficult than the basic logs that other MMO's have.

 

They have mentioned at the guiild summit how difficult implementing new UI elements can be. This downloadable file method requires little to no, UI development.

[Locustone]

I would argue and say it's implementation is more difficult than the basic logs that other MMO's have.

 

I happen to agree with Mr. Knewt on this. BW was explicity lazy in this implementation. They've said on other posts they are opposed to automation macros and tools, but they support improving systems that seem tedious. How is making a downloadable combat log not tedious. You will now have to dl your log, put it through a third party software and then send it to your raid leaders for analysis. The outcome is similar but very tedious and quite frankly it is annoying. If they are hoping to make people mad by making things intentionally difficult then congrats to them... I just wonder were they go for advise on these things.... It would be so simple to put up a poll on the forums and figure out what their customer really wants vs. what some jaded developer wants.

[terminova]

I happen to agree with Mr. Knewt on this. BW was explicity lazy in this implementation. They've said on other posts they are opposed to automation macros and tools, but they support improving systems that seem tedious. How is making a downloadable combat log not tedious. You will now have to dl your log, put it through a third party software and then send it to your raid leaders for analysis. The outcome is similar but very tedious and quite frankly it is annoying. If they are hoping to make people mad by making things intentionally difficult then congrats to them... I just wonder were they go for advise on these things.... It would be so simple to put up a poll on the forums and figure out what their customer really wants vs. what some jaded developer wants.

 

In games like WoW with easily accessible tools that show everyone's DPS/HPS etc it allowed players to easily be exclusionary which was an unintended consequence of the tools, also known as blowback. Bioware is trying to avoid similar blowback by only having downloadable private logs that can be combined with other players who were on the same guild run.

[Locustone]

In games like WoW with easily accessible tools that show everyone's DPS/HPS etc it allowed players to easily be exclusionary which was an unintended consequence of the tools, also known as blowback. Bioware is trying to avoid similar blowback by only having downloadable private logs that can be combined with other players who were on the same guild run.

 

So your saying it should be OK to suck and get carried through content just cuz your a nice person and want to play the game? I call BS, it should be about choice for both parties.

[Stupiddrummer]

In games like WoW with easily accessible tools that show everyone's DPS/HPS etc it allowed players to easily be exclusionary which was an unintended consequence of the tools, also known as blowback. Bioware is trying to avoid similar blowback by only having downloadable private logs that can be combined with other players who were on the same guild run.

 

if you're being excluded based on numbers, then you probably arent going to be able to put up the numbers you need.

[Drewser]

In games like WoW with easily accessible tools that show everyone's DPS/HPS etc it allowed players to easily be exclusionary which was an unintended consequence of the tools, also known as blowback. Bioware is trying to avoid similar blowback by only having downloadable private logs that can be combined with other players who were on the same guild run.

 

We found out they are not private - so you do not have to combine individual logs:

 

Ten Ton Hammer: Yeah, that was one of my main concerns. I love playing alts, but I don’t want to do the world quests over and over again. Ok, asking one last question and changing the topic rapidly to parsable out-of-game logs. How exactly does that work? From my understanding, only you are able to view your logs?

 

James Ohlen: Yes. We’re going to be able to get logs from your combat and you’ll be able to take that information and look at how your group did in a given combat. Right now, there are two schools of thought on it. One group of players don’t want the combat log because it can be exclusionary and it makes it that there’s all this pressure to perform a certain way. There are groups who think that’s the way it’s supposed to be, who want to be the super-elite group. So we made it that if you want to be the super-elite group, it takes a little bit more work. It’s not so easy to be exclusionary. You have to take that extra step to basically parse it out and look at it. You can get the information you need, but it’s something that we’re not making easy to use. It’s kind of a compromise. There’ll be guilds that’ll make use of it and I’m sure that there’ll be guilds that don’t.

 

Ten Ton Hammer: So you are able to see other people’s combat actions if you go out of game and parse the logs?

 

James Ohlen: Yes.

 

http://swtorhub.com/dash-everything-swtor-12-interview-james-ohlen

[MaverickXIV]

So your saying it should be OK to suck and get carried through content just cuz your a nice person and want to play the game? I call BS, it should be about choice for both parties.

 

I normally don't police spelling and grammar, but the fact that you think people don't want open combat logs because they "suck" makes your "cuz" and your "your" that much more intrusive. Now I can't help but think what a Cheeto-stuffing, Mountain-Dew-swilling cliche you must be to simultaneously hold that opinion and type in that manner.

[Stupiddrummer]

I normally don't police spelling and grammar, but the fact that you think people don't want open combat logs because they "suck" makes your "cuz" and your "your" that much more intrusive. Now I can't help but think what a Cheeto-stuffing, Mountain-Dew-swilling cliche you must be to simultaneously hold that opinion and type in that manner.

 

i someone is mean to you in game, you can use your own logs as evidence that they are in fact, incorrect.

[Moondragon]

Again they devs got something right. I just gained a little ( a little ) more respect for them.

 

There will be combat logs with everything your toon does. These logs can be downloaded to disk. Guilds or who ever from there can get the information they need.

 

This goes a long way for uniqueness of your character. BioWare's philosophy is that you should have some degree of privacy for your toon. Not everyone wants or need to run the "optimal spec" in order to do lower tier flash points and operations.

 

For those high end world first types (used to be me) they will have all the tools the need to further their progression.

 

Kinda cool I guess. I hate open combat logs, so I was opposed to the original "forum idea" of having them. But I don't mind the idea of something on a personal/private level. Still gives the opportunity to share information with each other though for the people who want to know and still allows me to grow, as you put it. Does it solve the ingame whining regarding random groups and "stats". Nope. But I don't mind that. That's not why I'm playing.

 

Don't really know about "uniqueness" though. Once somebody posts up an "effective" log...then everyone will be copying it