PLEASE VOTE: Give Us Real Combat Logs

[Andryah]

If I had to guess I'd say 20-30% of the WoW population that at the very least pugs raids uses Recount.

 

And are you also guessing that 100% of the WoW population PUGs raids too?

[DarthKhaos]

Actually, you all have a really good point. Thanks for helping me make my decision. I went ahead and canceled right now since I only have 2 days left before it renews.

 

I will check back in a month or two (if I am still interested in the game) to see if there has been any progress. If things are looking up then I might re-sub. If not, then everyone enjoy yourselves. You will have one less person remaining here to argue with.

 

It's a great leveling game with amazing potential for longevity. I really think the fanboyism (not sure that's really a word) is out of hand here; it's a shame that such fervor is allowed to influence the direction of such a great game so strongly, and in such a negative way.

 

For those who are riding the "80% of people posting here don't want this" bandwagon - perhaps you should consider that before long you will be 100% of the traffic once you finish chasing the rest of us away. Lower subscriber numbers is really healthy for a new MMO, right? Right?

I find these posts funny. Someone has a difference of opinion and they're a fanboi. Everyone is going to leave the game and no one will be left playing blah blah blah. I wouldn't cry for you.

 

 

BW telling all the theory crafting sites/users they're wrong on this or that and yet these people are doing the best they can with the scraps they got given. I actually find that a bit upsetting.

What? By giving them personal combat logs they ARE giving them the information they need to theorycraft. I don't see your point.

Edited March 16, 2012 by DarthKhaos

[Esproc]

And are you also guessing that 100% of the WoW population PUGs raids too?

 

No they're not. At least the guild I'm still sort of in always has plenty enough people to run the raids.

 

But I do know that some of the guilds are exploiters as well.

[Loendar]

Cause appears in paragraph 2 as well. You said that no one is claiming logs cause people to be jerks, only that they cause more people to be jerks. And claiming that these 'silent jerks' exist in the first place is completely non-falsifiable. Maybe Jesus made them do it!

 

I suppose we can argue semantics - but you should be able to place the words within the context of the surrounding sentences without my help. But... okay...

 

Is non-falsifiable the same as provable? I like that word... I shall steal it.

 

But there are certainly 'silent jerks' in the world - it doesn't really need to be non-falsified. ;p

[Snoodmaster]

I mention 5 things and you got a problem with one. Guess what? That tells me Personal logs is the way to go.

 

Your list is neither all inclusive, nor is each point equally weighted. The point I listed is a pretty important one.

 

As I see it, logs serve four basic purposes.

 

1. To quantify and measure personal achievement at the current time.

- this is looking at logs and seeing how much dps you are doing

 

2. To guide personal improvement.

- this is where you look back and compare different raids you were in too see where you were more effective and why.

 

3. To guide overall raid improvement.

- this is the post-raid analysis, comparing this raid to previous raids and successful attempts to unsuccessful attempts to figure out what can be streamlined or improved on.

 

4. To find and fix problems occurring in a current raid.

- this is where you look back at a recent wipe to figure out what killed the raid and how to prevent it happening the next time.

 

Personal logs work fine for 1 and 2. They sorta work for 3, but require a lot of overhead and management to get every member of the raid to upload properly. They do NOT work for 4.

 

 

You didn't respond to my statement that the only people affected by making logs personal rather than public are people who are trying to join groups formed by people who want to use logs, but do not want to play with logs. In other words, the people who benefit from a personal only log seem to be those who want to force other people to play according to their own preferred playstyle.

[GalacticKegger]

I was just laughing at the idea that weekly resets would routinely break an add-on. If I had to guess I'd say 20-30% of the WoW population that at the very least pugs raids uses Recount. This is just based on my in game experience with people asking if someone has Recount and getting 2-3 replies in raid chat, the raid being a 10-man. But that's all irrelevant anyways.

I agree with the 20% to 30% of the raiders using recount - maybe even more. According to August 2011 WoWProgress.com numbers, there were 1,605,430 level 85 characters that either personally scored a T11 kill, or were members of a guild that did. Ignoring raiding alts who would also figure into that number, the raw 1.6M raiding toons represents barely 14% of the 11.1M subscribers. So the 20% to 30% you mentioned would be 20% to 30% of the 1.6M WoW characters that raid. There are likely some who use meters and don't raid (PvP for example) but probably not many. Edited March 16, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Seregul]

And are you also guessing that 100% of the WoW population PUGs raids too?

 

Neg, I have no idea there. Certainly isn't all of 'em.

[Seregul]

I agree with the 20% to 30% of the raiders using recount - maybe even more. According to August 2011 WoWProgress.com numbers, there were 1,605,430 level 85 characters that either personally scored a T11 kill, or were members of a guild that did. Ignoring raiding alts who would also figure into that number, the raw 1.6M raiding toons represents barely 14% of the 11.1M subscribers. So the 20% to 30% you mentioned would be 20% to 30% of the 1.6M WoW characters that raid. There are likely some who use meters and don't raid (PvP for example) but probably not many.

 

Rather than focus on raid vs. not raid it might be more accurate to look at how many people mod their UIs. Recount is a staple of just about every posted UI I've seen, and if I had to guess I'd say it's included in virtually all of the UI packages you can get from places like Curse. So I think it's fair to say if you mod your UI you have Recount.

 

I still think it's irrelevant though.

[GalacticKegger]

Rather than focus on raid vs. not raid it might be more accurate to look at how many people mod their UIs. Recount is a staple of just about every posted UI I've seen, and if I had to guess I'd say it's included in virtually all of the UI packages you can get from places like Curse. So I think it's fair to say if you mod your UI you have Recount.

 

I still think it's irrelevant though.

After "retiring" from the raid ranks in WoW (got tired of the peen wars) I got rid of DBM, omen, recount and decursive but kept Bartender. Which is why I'm anxious to see where TOR's UI goes with the 1.2 customization options. I have tempered expectations for the patch but still look forward to playing with it on the PTS. Edited March 16, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[Seregul]

After "retiring" from the raid ranks in WoW (got tired of the peen wars) I got rid of DBM, omen, recount and decursive but kept Bartender. Which is why I'm anxious to see where TOR's UI goes with the 1.2 customization options. I have tempered expectations for the patch but still look forward to playing with it on the PTS.

 

People were comparing it to Rift, I didn't play Rift so I can't say. From the trailer it looked pretty nice. I'd like to be able to create buff and debuff frames like you could with Satrina Buff Frames (by far my favorite addon in WoW), but I'll take what they give. And yes, wtb 1.2 PTS plx.

[Easirok]

Well, for some real numbers that relate to *combat logs* and not *recount usage*, how about this...

 

raidbots.com gets a daily extract from WoL of all raids that have been logged and uploaded to their service in the past 14 days. This would correspond with a combat log feature in swtor that captured all events from all members of an operation into a single file (which is precisely what this thread is asking for).

 

It does not include "LFR" difficulty ("Story Mode" in ToR). It also doesn't include raids where nobody records the logs and uploads them. It's fair to say that a LOT of raid groups don't upload their logs because there are other parsing services and many "casual" groups simply don't care about it. Duplicate raiders are filtered out by raidbots as far as I know (so if your raid is logged by two people who both upload it to WoL you only show up once in the totals).

 

It also does not include "private" logs, although to be honest at this stage in tier progression there are very few guilds who are keeping their logs private. There aren't a whole lot of secrets to be held.

 

Anyways, total raid members for the past 14 days, or two raid lockouts:

 

25 Heroic: 333,384

25 Normal: 330,139

10 Heroic: 579,128

10 Normal: 1,069,216

 

Total: 2,311,867

 

These are all on the shared lockout system. This means there is very little overlap between those groups.

 

Divide that in half, since I will assume that roughly the same number of people raided both weeks, and we get about 1.15 million players.

 

That's roughly 10 percent of the active subscriber base of WoW who not only participate in raid content, but participate and whose performance is being tracked and shared publicly for comparison with others, on a weekly basis.

 

Refusing to provide useful combat logs is in essence alienating 10% of the players who enjoy that very content regularly.

 

 

Also, for those who are so fervently against combat logs, I would encourage you to poke around the raidbots tools. You can see where the game imbalances are. You can see whether one spec is doing better than another on a certain fight (to see if maybe you want to change something up). You can see how long encounters usually take. You can even compare your own personal performance with any other player on a specific fight to find ways to do better (maybe use a cooldown more, use different attacks, etc). Guess what? None of that is even possible without group-wide combat logs.

[Colow_Leper]

That's roughly 10 percent of the active subscriber base of WoW who not only participate in raid content, but participate and whose performance is being tracked and shared publicly for comparison with others, on a weekly basis.

 

Refusing to provide useful combat logs is in essence alienating 10% of the players who enjoy that very content regularly.

 

And, working with your numbers, forcing it could well alienate 90% of the players then.....

 

Hmm - wonder which way they'll jump....

 

Keep the 10%, or keep the 90%

 

tough one that.

 

Edit

 

OK - I'm sorry - I was being facetious.

 

Still, even if just some of the 90% are really against it, you're still looking at alienating a hell of a lot more gamers than the "epeen" crowd.

 

And BW has said that this game was aimed more at the "casual" player.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Colow_Leper

[bhouse]

And, working with your numbers, forcing it could well alienate 90% of the players then.....

 

Hmm - wonder which way they'll jump....

 

Keep the 10%, or keep the 90%

 

tough one that

 

Why would it alienate them, and why would they leave?

 

I highly doubt people will leave if they added in game group logs. So its more like keep 90% or keep 100%

Edited March 16, 2012 by bhouse

[bhouse]

 

Still, even if just some of the 90% are really against it, you're still looking at alienating a hell of a lot more gamers than the "epeen" crowd.

 

And BW has said that this game was aimed more at the "casual" player.

 

People keep mentioning using the logs for epeen, however not a single argument in any of the thousands of posts said they want it to show off their epeen...

Edited March 16, 2012 by bhouse

[Seregul]

Well, for some real numbers that relate to *combat logs* and not *recount usage*, how about this...

 

raidbots.com gets a daily extract from WoL of all raids that have been logged and uploaded to their service in the past 14 days. This would correspond with a combat log feature in swtor that captured all events from all members of an operation into a single file (which is precisely what this thread is asking for).

 

It does not include "LFR" difficulty ("Story Mode" in ToR). It also doesn't include raids where nobody records the logs and uploads them. It's fair to say that a LOT of raid groups don't upload their logs because there are other parsing services and many "casual" groups simply don't care about it. Duplicate raiders are filtered out by raidbots as far as I know (so if your raid is logged by two people who both upload it to WoL you only show up once in the totals).

 

It also does not include "private" logs, although to be honest at this stage in tier progression there are very few guilds who are keeping their logs private. There aren't a whole lot of secrets to be held.

 

Anyways, total raid members for the past 14 days, or two raid lockouts:

 

25 Heroic: 333,384

25 Normal: 330,139

10 Heroic: 579,128

10 Normal: 1,069,216

 

Total: 2,311,867

 

These are all on the shared lockout system. This means there is very little overlap between those groups.

 

Divide that in half, since I will assume that roughly the same number of people raided both weeks, and we get about 1.15 million players.

 

That's roughly 10 percent of the active subscriber base of WoW who not only participate in raid content, but participate and whose performance is being tracked and shared publicly for comparison with others, on a weekly basis.

 

Refusing to provide useful combat logs is in essence alienating 10% of the players who enjoy that very content regularly.

 

 

Also, for those who are so fervently against combat logs, I would encourage you to poke around the raidbots tools. You can see where the game imbalances are. You can see whether one spec is doing better than another on a certain fight (to see if maybe you want to change something up). You can see how long encounters usually take. You can even compare your own personal performance with any other player on a specific fight to find ways to do better (maybe use a cooldown more, use different attacks, etc). Guess what? None of that is even possible without group-wide combat logs.

 

Nice sleuthing. The number does seem high to me though, how does it account for alt runs?

[Colow_Leper]

Why would it alienate them, and why would they leave?

 

I highly doubt people will leave if they added in game group logs. So its more like keep 90% or keep 100%

 

I'd go

 

I have no problem at all having my guild checking over stuff after a raid - making certain that, if I'd signed up to raid, I was pulling my weight (and pointing out ways of improving things).

 

But I'm not having every cretinous epeen slope-head screaming at me in some pug.

 

example

 

waaaaaaaay back in WoW I had some numpty complaining at my hunter because he had so much dex - usual "l2p" comments from him. unfortunate, really, he got kicked from the group - I was outdamaging him about 5 to 1. (this was before the "dex nerf - probably about 4 years ago).

 

I object to what it allows - not the item itself.

 

I also dislike the fact that we end up with 8 character in the game - one of each class type - all playing the same way - all using the same rotations. Every character "minimaxed".

 

So an encounter takes 1 minute 20 seconds to successfully complete instead of 1 minute 18 - sheesh.

[Seregul]

People keep mentioning using the logs for epeen, however not a single argument in any of the thousands of posts said they want it to show off their epeen...

 

I'm starting to think that they aren't so much concerned about so-called "hardcores" bragging about their logs, they're worried that the logs will undermine the bragging they've been doing about their own supposed leetness.

[Snoodmaster]

I also dislike the fact that we end up with 8 character in the game - one of each class type - all playing the same way - all using the same rotations. Every character "minimaxed".

 

So an encounter takes 1 minute 20 seconds to successfully complete instead of 1 minute 18 - sheesh.

 

If you dislike it, then just don't play with those people. Nobody is forcing you to run with people who want to minmax. Clearly there are plenty of people who feel the way you do, more than enough for you to form your own runs. Why is it so important that you go with some minmaxer on his run?

[Colow_Leper]

People keep mentioning using the logs for epeen, however not a single argument in any of the thousands of posts said they want it to show off their epeen...

 

and you think they'd admit it if they did?

 

"Oh - I only want it so that I can show how fantastic my character is and how brilliant a player I am".

 

Nope - they'll not admit it.

 

But

 

I've seen it

 

Mages seemed to be the worst in WoW - at the end of every encounter they'd flash up the damage chart.

 

When my mage was outdamaging them, suddenly they'd stop bothering - odd that.

[Easirok]

If your alt is in a run that someone uses /combatlog to record and then they upload to WoL, then it will show up there. Otherwise, it won't.

 

It's not any smarter than that. Certainly doesn't know that Character X is an alt of Character Y.

 

 

I really don't understand the combative stance of "don't force combatlogs on us". It's an optional feature that would be there if and when you need it. I certainly wouldn't want to leave it running around the clock (these files can get very large). In fact, in my numbers above it should be obvious that nearly 90% of players either didn't raid, or didn't log their raids last week. I am pretty sure they didn't feel violated in any way because a million other players had their raids logged and uploaded.

 

The only thing being "forced" is that by not having that feature, there is a non-trivial number of players who's enjoyment of the game would otherwise be enhanced, or whose "quality of life" would be improved (make no mistake, this is a huge QoL issue for guilds that want to raid hard/nightmare mode content).

Edited March 16, 2012 by Easirok

[Colow_Leper]

Anyway - from the way that I've read this - it seems that we're *not* getting publically accessable real time logs (thank heavens) - it's actually likely that we'll have to submit them after a run.

 

So I'm happy and staying.

 

and, I guess, you guys will keep complaining about it.

 

I hope that the people that don't want it keep saying that they don't want it - otherwise the "vocal minorty" will hold sway once again.

[Easirok]

example

 

waaaaaaaay back in WoW I had some numpty complaining at my hunter because he had so much dex - usual "l2p" comments from him. unfortunate, really, he got kicked from the group - I was outdamaging him about 5 to 1. (this was before the "dex nerf - probably about 4 years ago).

 

I object to what it allows - not the item itself.

 

That has nothing to do with a combat log. Some jerk /inspected you, or more likely he was using that old "gearscore" addon (which I think was broken purposefully by Blizzard because of this exact kind of bullying).

 

He can already do exactly the same thing in swtor.

 

I'm not really sure how you expect a lack of combat log to protect you from that?

 

 

Also, your other example of flashing a dps chart is equally irrelevant. BioWare has already stated they intend to include an in-game dps meter for one thing. And a combat log is external to the game for another. (not to mention, it's pretty difficult to interpret a raw combat log in real-time to the degree you would need for something like that dps chart so so dearly hate - combat log files are usually heavily buffered and only get flushed to disk every minute or two)

Edited March 16, 2012 by Easirok

[bhouse]

Bottom line is jerks will be jerks with or without logs and they will find a way to judge people (looking at you gear checks). It is INCREDIBLY easy to put those players on ignore and play with like-minded people.

 

If you did those two things, real-time combat logs will have no effect whatsoever on your gameplay experience.

[Seregul]

If your alt is in a run that someone uses /combatlog to record and then they upload to WoL, then it will show up there. Otherwise, it won't.

 

It's not any smarter than that. Certainly doesn't know that Character X is an alt of Character Y.

 

 

I really don't understand the combative stance of "don't force combatlogs on us". It's an optional feature that would be there if and when you need it. I certainly wouldn't want to leave it running around the clock (these files can get very large). In fact, in my numbers above it should be obvious that nearly 90% of players either didn't raid, or didn't log their raids last week. I am pretty sure they didn't feel violated in any way because a million other players had their raids logged and uploaded.

 

The only thing being "forced" is that by not having that feature, there is a non-trivial number of players who's enjoyment of the game would otherwise be enhanced, or whose "quality of life" would be improved (make no mistake, this is a huge QoL issue for guilds that want to raid hard/nightmare mode content).

 

Aye, figured. Still, can't imagine they're all running alt runs, let alone parsing them. Good intel.

[bhouse]

and you think they'd admit it if they did?

 

"Oh - I only want it so that I can show how fantastic my character is and how brilliant a player I am".

 

Nope - they'll not admit it.

 

But

 

I've seen it

 

Mages seemed to be the worst in WoW - at the end of every encounter they'd flash up the damage chart.

 

When my mage was outdamaging them, suddenly they'd stop bothering - odd that.

 

 

That is a horrible argument and is the same if I were to say "most people against logs are bad players who don't want anyone to know. They just won't admit to it"