DPS Meters...

[SlickDevlan]

This is why DPS meters are a mistake.

 

The proper metric in PvE, which is a joke anyway in every modern MMO, is killing the boss. That requires an understanding and implementation of fight mechanics more than it requires a couple more dps, especially when the added dps comes at the expense of proper coordination or movement. Learn the fight, do it well and you will succeed.

 

Frontline progression raiders understand this because when they down the boss, no one has the gear to crush meters. It is the after-comers who don't know how to play who complain about dps. They do this because they can't sustain performance over any appreciable length of time and therefore need the boss to go down before the fire/adds/etc kills them.

 

DPS meters are a metric for gear, not performance. If you want to know how "good" you are, then get involved with PvP. That will tell you very quickly who knows their class and who doesn't.

 

And yet, having a dps meter completely fails to prevent "frontline progression raiders" from not using one...

[Thankyjack]

And yet, having a dps meter completely fails to prevent "frontline progression raiders" from not using one...

 

LOL - you and I need to agree to disagree. I respect your opinion (and I use meters). I just think the majority of people would misuse them and we would have another WoW community.

[Vakdaron]

I hope they never let mods be used in this game. WOW had so many tools to help play your character for you that they had to costantly buff instances. You ouldn't even check the boss, only read what your mod told you to do. DPS makes it that people will bm you or think they are powerful. They will kick you out of a band if they see you don't do enough etc... So I hope it stays like this so I can play like I want and it has always been good. CC is also required in this game and when dps becomes too important for players, CC start disapearing and the games changes and everything become dps and balance issues happen and the game becomes a routine, a ob a cooldown rotation. Don't want this at all.

[SlickDevlan]

I hope they never let mods be used in this game. WOW had so many tools to help play your character for you that they had to costantly buff instances. You ouldn't even check the boss, only read what your mod told you to do. DPS makes it that people will bm you or think they are powerful. They will kick you out of a band if they see you don't do enough etc... So I hope it stays like this so I can play like I want and it has always been good. CC is also required in this game and when dps becomes too important for players, CC start disapearing and the games changes and everything become dps and balance issues happen and the game becomes a routine, a ob a cooldown rotation. Don't want this at all.

 

Another misguided soul who thinks that he HAS to play with people that he doesn't seem to like...

[Seanchen]

Personally I was a big fan of dps, hps and tps meters in Wow and enjoyed dps/hps in Rift for exactly the reason wiser people than me have mentioned before. Understanding the impact of rotation on your output in any one of the above helps you to coordinate your efforts in an encounter. Based on the other influences on your fight such as mutiple mobs, movement required and interrupts/stuns required etc you know how to help your group or raid team in the best manner possible.

 

Knowing a boss 2 second cast gives you just enough time for a high impact action or likewise not enough time for others guides your actions... what action can I get in to get the biggest effect possible in the time given.

 

But the two make up the whole for any good player and suggesting otherwise is foolish. Yes dps meters help and yes knowing tacts help... why on earth would you split out the to and suggest that one is not helpful?

 

You will always get elitist guilds and groups and whilst they might not focus on dps output if meters don't exist, don't fool yourself into thinking that rotation and gear won't be on their hit list too. Believe me in elitist groups someone is always watching and they are waiting to point out how to do things better.

 

Again I repeat what others say but if you don't want to live in an elitist world it's within your power to chose not to play in their sand pit. Start your own guild or join one that is social and less pressured toward hardcore end game rinsing

 

My vote is for the meters (all of them!!) because I aim to have dps/heal/tank roles and I want to be the best that I can. Understanding my class, my rotations, other peopls class and rotation "and" my outputs all help me improve

[Clarino]

I am 100% for the dps meter.

I enjoy sitting down with calculator, doing theorycrafting and then testing my dps on the test dummy as much as I enjoy leveling, questing, warzones, raids and all other aspects of MMORPG.

If you don't like damage meter and there is one - you have an option of not using one. If there's no damage meter - I don't have an option of using one.

More options -> more happy people -> more money for Bioware.

[Helvallyn]

I think BIOware have been trying to do the right thing with MODS and DPS and have listen to their customers or some of them at least.

 

Maybe they should link MODS and DPS meters and the different type of servers.

 

 

Example

 

PVP = MODS and DPS Meters

PVE = No Mods and DPS Meters

RP = No Mods or DPS Meters

 

 

Maybe this will bring balance to the force.

[kpalais]

I would love a damage meter as much or more then I would love a more-easily customizable UI. I could do without the mods that are pretty much required in WOW because half the encounters have raid-wiping gimmicks based on movement and timers. As long as those are kept out, I have no problem with limiting mods. I would really like a better UI control.

 

I personally think that most of the people whining about damage meters should take a long look at themselves and ask why it's so important to *them* that there not be any.

 

Damage meter's don't make people elitist jerks, or empower them to be as such. The groups, general, society allow that. If you're afraid that a meter will reveal that your chosen 'fun' spec sucks for healing/tanking/damage, well live with it. It would be true with or without meters. If your in a group with a *fun*spec and you keep wiping on boss after boss, while your spec might be fun, chances are you aren't creating a fun environment for your group mates, congratulations. Your fun spec is really a selfish affectation that you're inflicting on and ruining the fun of others. Who really have just as much right to fun as you do. It's just a game, but as someone who has a full-time job and a life, I would rather not spend an extra hour in a flash-point or group dungeon because we're wiping for your fun.

 

And hey, if your group succeeded with your *fun* spec, then what maters meters? Arguing and complaining against said meters did nothing to impact your fun, your just arguing against the fun of others. Thanks.

[Ashorian]

Frontline progression raiders understand this because when they down the boss, no one has the gear to crush meters. It is the after-comers who don't know how to play who complain about dps. They do this because they can't sustain performance over any appreciable length of time and therefore need the boss to go down before the fire/adds/etc kills them.

 

while it may be true that frontline raiders rely less on meters to complain, they sure do rely on them to gauge individual performance. in a situation where x add(s) has to go down in y time and there is time off the boss and a soft enrage (say a mechanic that increases in damage/difficulty over time as the fight goes on) you bet your butts these guys have theorycrafted to the max, worked out the best possible dps rotation and are implementing it while at the same time doing all the other things you say such as perform the mechanics of the fight itself.

 

it's because they know how to interperet damage over time and what works the best and who is doing better or worse and who died to what and can get quick feedback on that which enables them to quickly assess a situation and do better the next time. it's much more helpful to say "at 4:30 into the fight such and such happened, let's be ready" than "well i think this happened at one point."

 

sure meters are misused by ******es, but they are a tool that progression pve players use extremely well and extremely often to analyze encounters and perform better. to say otherwise you are only fooling yourself.

 

 

encounters can be done without dps meters and hps meters and incoming damage parsing, to be sure, but there is no reason to exclude them on the basis that there are jerks in the world. there are jerks in real life too. they're everywhere! but we're not ALL jerks.

[Cadath]

Meters can bring about elitism...but at the same time, why should I be forced to carry you?

Its one thing if we get through it..but I dont want to wipe endgame day after day because some guy doesnt remember there is no auto attack in the game. Or is only there for "Fun" and likes to only use lightning and nothing else.

 

meters show if people are doing that...and that is important. I dont want to spend my credits repairing items, and carrying people who dont want to do anything but be carried. That isnt acceptable.

 

Imagine wow without meters...people still wouldnt be able to do Lich King on heroic because, hey everyone they are with are friends!! and no one knows that autoattack isnt optimal, even in cata gear!!

 

So yes, it bring about elitism...but it also lets me know what im doing right, and what im doing wrong....and who isnt even attempting to try at all, wasting the time of everyone else in the party.

[choppefett]

The biggest problem with damage meters is that we'd quickly see 100's of "nerf this class" posts (not their own of course). I believe the player base should play no part in balancing the game because players will never have a the required complete set of data to justify any claims. Bioware does. Lets leave it to them.

[rooklv]

The devs have stated that there is x% of variance between optimal dps performance between classes in all rolls. This means that there is a class that is a single digit percentage better and something that the worst class in that same roll. Whatever the metric is here. Smart money says it's dps/hps/tps and eh. Clearly, there is a set of meters somewhere out there dev side tracking this sort of thing, right?

 

The player base in any and all games will always choose the thing shown to have the highest dps, or hps, or tps, or eh, or whatever metric a given group of players have placed the highest priority on, meters can only serve to reduce the class diversity the devs seem to be aiming for. When the average dps is 100, a 5% difference is only 5 dps. When it's 10000... it's 500. (wow has this problem. Skillflation has driven minutia into prominence).

 

Given these two facts, it's probably a bad idea to take a player base that has been through skillflation in more than a few games and have been trained to focus on single digit percentage points difference in a particular metric the tools to continue to do so and kill player diversity.

 

Does that make some people liable to do silly things like spec odd and do substantially more than single digit percentage points worth of damage to a given metric? Sure. But, guess what, those some people would exist either way. The only thing meters really accomplish is give people a cheap way to try to glean overall performance by seeing one metric that doesn't ever give the whole story.

 

Personally? I'd rather spend 5 more minutes on a fight with a group who can dance underwater and not get wet than have to deal with people with their noses buried in meters trying to prove that one guy needs to do 3% more dps for us to kill a boss before we drown.

[Thankyjack]

while it may be true that frontline raiders rely less on meters to complain, they sure do rely on them to gauge individual performance. in a situation where x add(s) has to go down in y time and there is time off the boss and a soft enrage (say a mechanic that increases in damage/difficulty over time as the fight goes on) you bet your butts these guys have theorycrafted to the max, worked out the best possible dps rotation and are implementing it while at the same time doing all the other things you say such as perform the mechanics of the fight itself.

 

it's because they know how to interperet damage over time and what works the best and who is doing better or worse and who died to what and can get quick feedback on that which enables them to quickly assess a situation and do better the next time. it's much more helpful to say "at 4:30 into the fight such and such happened, let's be ready" than "well i think this happened at one point."

 

sure meters are misused by ******es, but they are a tool that progression pve players use extremely well and extremely often to analyze encounters and perform better. to say otherwise you are only fooling yourself.

 

 

encounters can be done without dps meters and hps meters and incoming damage parsing, to be sure, but there is no reason to exclude them on the basis that there are jerks in the world. there are jerks in real life too. they're everywhere! but we're not ALL jerks.

 

Maybe we have a misunderstanding. I am all for logs. In fact, performance during raids is evaluated with Logs since most damage meters are terribly inaccurate. Any experienced raider will tell you that looking at dps meters after a wipe is useless (regarding dps) given ramp up versus burst dps (especially without a burn phase).

 

There is a ton of dps theory crafting that goes on before a progression fight, but you learn to trust your other raiders. You don't micro manage them. If you do, then you aren't doing it right.

 

Meters can be used for are evaluating things like interrupts, making sure people are switching targets, friendly fire, etc. - things that have nothing to do with damage output. Even then, the results have to be taken with a grain of salt because they just aren't that accurate.

 

I know many Raid leaders love to use meters, but, quite frankly, these tend to be late game raiders who have a group made up of people with a wide range of end game gear and just want to down the boss before new content. Again, these teams are racing against the inevitable wipe that comes from poor execution.

[JekRendar]

Imagine wow without meters...people still wouldnt be able to do Lich King on heroic because, hey everyone they are with are friends!! and no one knows that autoattack isnt optimal, even in cata gear!!

Hey kiddo, let me tell you a story.

 

Back in my day, before all these fancy e-peen meters, we used a simple phrase when players couldn't accomplish something: L2P. Players will never "need" mods. Ever. They adapt. It's the survivalist instinct that MMO games have had since UO.

[Montecristoe]

In order for a parser to function we would need a combat text, we don't even have that (and I really don't know why).

 

Wrong.. each time someone hits a mob, the server sends the client an update of the mobs health as well as who dealt the damage. It is not part of a chat log, but the data is still being sent to your client, otherwise combat would not work correctly.

[AngryBuddhist]

Wrong.. each time someone hits a mob, the server sends the client an update of the mobs health as well as who dealt the damage. It is not part of a chat log, but the data is still being sent to your client, otherwise combat would not work correctly.

 

So you think you can write a packet sniffer to parse the messages coming from server to client? Good luck with that.

[Atamosk]

I played wow (still do a bit) and i liked dps meters, but this game feels more like a single player game. I feel like as long as bioware keeps the dps of the classes in line or the amount of damage they can do then i dont think we need meters. As long as we they can garentee the damge to compete im ok with not knowing exact numbers. can number crunchers still do some math to figure out this stuff without combat text? idk

 

i dont really care either way. It would make the game less fun if it turned into, "you cant spect that way because you can't do enough damage"

i think pve should go the way of people doing their role in a fight will win the fight. Like dps should know the fight and contribute with an ability to win the fight.

 

in single player games we dont have meters so i dont know how we figure out how we are "good" in regular rpgs.

 

haha rambling.

[SaltyAdmiral]

Epeen?

 

Whats wrong with a little friendly competition? When me and my friends play we love to compete at topping the dmg meter, its just damned good fun.

 

I don't do it for personal growth at all, just for fun! But as a bonus, it probably do contribute to me getting better also, because I work harder to win.

I can not see a good reason not to include it at least, if you don't want it, don't use it:)

 

And btw, where is target of target? When I'm tanking I really like to have that option!

[Deganji]

As much as you all say add-ons are for personal growth and getting the most out of your character, sorry but it rarely happens like that. You may use it that way, but most do not.

 

The elitists will always use it to berate the casual player to make themselves feel better. "You did 10 DPS less than me, you suck!!" Don't kid yourself and deny that it happens.

 

This next part is gonna make you some of you rage, but I'm going to say it anyway. Add-ons are a crutch. You need to download something extra to compete? Maybe you might be the bad player. Think about that.

 

Seriously, a mod that holds your hand and tells you when the boss is going to do bad things to you? That was a required one for raiding guilds in WoW. Never used add-ons in WoW and did fine, don't need them or the type of people that use them here.

 

I wouldn't be this way if DPS meters didn't go hand in hand with horrible attitudes, but that's all I have ever seen. Heck, I might be all for them if people didn't act like stupid kids, but this is the internet after all.

 

But then again, I'm an older gamer who remembers when we played games for fun, not like they were second jobs. You kids get off my lawn! hehe

[Abye]

People with the mindset that don't want damage meters, just stay out of operations and hard mode and we should be able to get along.

 

Normal mode:

If a tank messes up, group dies

If a healer messes up, group dies

If dps messes up, people won't notice

 

A typical dev instrument for hard mode and operations seems to be rage timers.

now:

if dps messes up, group dies

[Shinavast]

My take on meters is that they are not at all about epeen, but rather about a tool. The tool has a few uses:

 

Gives me some measurable data that I can use to test theory for specs.

 

Helps me identify members who might need a bit of guidance with spec or rotation.

 

They also give a pretty good benchmark on the requirements for an encounter.

 

It has nothing to do with L33tness or Epeen or whatever you want to call it (and fair being fair, people on both sides of this issue cause friction with phrases like that).

 

 

Fact of the matter is this: The existance of an add-on still supplies you with the right to choose to use it or not. You do not have to use them if you don't want to. Simply don't download.

 

The lack of their existence gives those that want to use them no choice in the matter.

 

At the end of the day, these things are about how YOU want to play: not how you think others should play their game.

 

 

And before anyone comes in with the inevitable "its existence ultimately means that it's forced upon me under duress".

 

No. It's not. Don't download it. No one can make you.

 

 

-- Shin

[Pinworm]

Give it till the next patch maybe. It's only a matter of time before a big MMORPG getsa Damage Meter. WoW didn't have it until LATE in the games release.

 

I remember damage meters in Molten Core so I dunno about this.

 

But yes, I want them, real bad. I have no idea if changing my rotations is better or worse and it's frustrating me.

 

I also miss competing with my friends.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Pinworm

[kylrapture]

The only thing I'm concerened about, is what someone above me alluded to. Meteres WILL produce elitism, extreme amounts of it. Certain specs WILL get shooed to one side. Classes will be fitted into tank only/heal only/dps only slots, this is not what swtor was designed around.

Thats why most classes (within the adv class) can tank AND dps or Heal AND dps. Meters and the associated attitudes that went with it made wow a horrid epeen raging mess.

The onus is on Bioware to deliver what they promised, just reading some of the replies on this thread are making me dread what's going to happen here, some seriously selfish and out-of-perspective stuff being said.

Now, if everything is viable (as bioware claim) there should be no problem, right? Wrong I think, imagine a n encounter that requires 5k dps to do it well. The community "thinks" it should be 6k and you do 5,5k, guess how many times you will be kicked? You ARE doing what's required bu it's still wrong-due to meter enforced elitist attitude.

Bring meters in and watch the quality of the community crumble.

 

don't get me wrong, i used them in the past in wow raiding days to improve my performance, but it did remove some of the fun and made me enjoy actually playing less.

[Hyde_v]

The only thing I'm concerened about, is what someone above me alluded to. Meteres WILL produce elitism, extreme amounts of it. Certain specs WILL get shooed to one side. Classes will be fitted into tank only/heal only/dps only slots, this is not what swtor was designed around.

Thats why most classes (within the adv class) can tank AND dps or Heal AND dps. Meters and the associated attitudes that went with it made wow a horrid epeen raging mess.

The onus is on Bioware to deliver what they promised, just reading some of the replies on this thread are making me dread what's going to happen here, some seriously selfish and out-of-perspective stuff being said.

Now, if everything is viable (as bioware claim) there should be no problem, right? Wrong I think, imagine a n encounter that requires 5k dps to do it well. The community "thinks" it should be 6k and you do 5,5k, guess how many times you will be kicked? You ARE doing what's required bu it's still wrong-due to meter enforced elitist attitude.

Bring meters in and watch the quality of the community crumble.

 

don't get me wrong, i used them in the past in wow raiding days to improve my performance, but it did remove some of the fun and made me enjoy actually playing less.

 

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on damage meters. I have learned some absolute truths about people in my years of gaming. One of them is that humans can corrupt and distort anything given to them. Damage meters may have started out as a way for players to measure and improve themselves. But they evolved in to how the majority of the gaming community would evaluate itself. If you did not meet or exceed whatever someone's expecations were, whether they were realistic or not, you were locked out. Or kicked out.

 

I've always looked at it with simple expectations: did the boss die? Did the party wipe? Did we get loot? If the answer is satisfactory to all or most of those questions, I do not care about anyone's DPS. So it took three minutes instead of two minutes and forty-five seconds. Big whoop. We won. I don't care how much damage you did. I'm not overly concerned with out much damage I did. Sure, I don't want to suck. But it's not really what is important.

 

I think this is one of WoW's problems. Players would constantly whine to Blizzard developers that their class and abilities were not doing enough damage. Mostly because their fellow players were telling them so and not allowing them to play the game. The developers would then cave to demands to avoid losing subscribers in a never ending circle.

 

Bottom line, I am not interested at finding myself locked out of Star Wars content because another player thinks I am not doing enough DPS. And this is what DPS meters would ultimately do to this game.

 

As for the comment someone made in this thread about not having to play with people who don't play like you do, if the bar is set by the community at a certain level and you cannot advance or even see content without going beyond that bar, your choices of you can play with are suddenly limited. Fair or not, that is how MMOs work. At least, in my playing experience it is.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Hyde_v

[Clarino]

The only thing I'm concerened about, is what someone above me alluded to. Meteres WILL produce elitism, extreme amounts of it. Certain specs WILL get shooed to one side. Classes will be fitted into tank only/heal only/dps only slots, this is not what swtor was designed around.

Thats why most classes (within the adv class) can tank AND dps or Heal AND dps. Meters and the associated attitudes that went with it made wow a horrid epeen raging mess.

 

So let me make sure I understand your point. You are saying, that meters should not be added to the game, because if Bioware screwed up with class balance, then meters will reveal that thus forcing people who want to perform their best to re-roll. So if there are no meters - there is no evidence of class imbalance, and everyone is happy. Am I correct?

 

Now, lets look at the example of the game that has meters - WoW. When do people care about the meters? I see that in 2 cases: 1) when people are going to do some hard stuff, 2) when people are wiping on a boss.

I have NEVER seen anybody being kicked out of current-style cataclysm heroic because they were doing low dps, simply because the content is extremely easy. And I HAVE seen people being kicked out of heroics in the beginning of Cata, when they were actually somewhat hard. And I HAVE seen people demonstrating their DPS on the training dummies when they wanted to come into an almost full guild run of some current hard mode raids.

 

So there are 2 options: 1) If the end game content of SWTOR is very easy, then meters won't make any difference - nobody will care if different spec or class will perform 5% better than yours if boss requires half as dps to die anyways. 2) If the end game content of SWTOR will be actually hard (as hard as, let's say, Shannox HM in Cata) - then without meters and raid mods it will be quire challenging. And the raid leader may be mislead into thinking that the boss is too hard for the raid and requires extra gear, instead of kicking some 4-5 slacking damage dealers.

Also we should note, that in this example we are talking about somewhat hardcore raiders. Casuals never care about meters, even in WoW.

 

So - I do see no harm from damage meters in any of the cases and I do see quite a lot of harm from not having the damage meters.

 

P.S. I also can never understand people who play the bad spec for dps and get upset when you link a damage meter. If you want so much to play your "super-duper" spec - then play it and ignore the meters - you are having fun after all, right?. And if you want to be a good dps - then change your spec and go practice your rotation. Or do you like being an ostrige - meaning that as long as you don't see the damage meters, there's no problem with your dps?