Musings on Mods

So, I heard from a fairly popular Youtuber that Square Enix is considering mods. Generally I take a fairly libertarian view towards game design but I think I have a few... reservations... on the matter of mods in MMORPGs.

So, I'm not going to fluff this thing too heavily, lets jump straight at the elephant in the room, namely damage meters. I heard from this youtuber that you can read your DPS against a target dummy, I don't know how that works but I think damage meters are great in the abstract. The problem is when you allow damage meters in the field.

The pro-damage meter argument usually goes like this: "I want to know how well I'm doing compared to other DPS". To that I say: Awesome. My Lich King raid group regularly had friendly arguments about who was top DPS 1 week or the other. This doesn't become a serious issue until you look at the PUG scene. My personal, very unscientific case studies indicate a general attitude of camaraderie among PUG groups in FFXIV. Attitudes typically come down to "did we kill it or not?". I think this is an excellent attitude and I sense it regularly in PUG groups on FFXIV. Seeing as how 90% of the content is geared towards PUGing I wouldn't change it for the world.

Compare and contrast to the PUG scene in World of Warcraft. Damage meter mods are not just expected for raiders, you are actively looked down upon if you choose to keep it off. This, my friends, is very stressful. On top of that, other people can see your damage readings in which case you run headlong into what the folks at Penny Arcade refer to as GIFT (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory) which is normally formulated as:

(Normal Person)+(Captive Audience)+(Anonymity) = (Complete Asshole)

That usually covers the reason why people become insensitive and generally sociopathic online. I would offer a corollary that I believe includes why this is worse in online games; formulated as:

{(Normal Person) + (Captive Audience) + (Anonymity)}*{1 + (Data Known)/(Data Available)} = (Online Game Troll)

So, what does this Gobbledygook mean? All it means, generally speaking, is that what is considered general internet douchebaggery is amplified by raw data. The type of people who fall victim to GIFT are generally made far worse when given just enough information to give them a sense of empowerment. I point again to World of Warcraft. I played heavily in Lich King (I was a semi-pro Holy Paladin) and PUG raided as a resto druid in Cataclysm. PUG raids in WoW are... pretty vitriolic. All it takes is 1 wipe for people to descend upon the lowest DPS like a pack of ravenous Tonberries. On top of that we have all seen that one mage that is constantly pulling ahead of the tank because he wants to pad his Damage Dealt reading. On top of that, damage meters eventually leak into players' expectations for game design. The drive for optimized builds and streamlined experiences has pushed Blizzard to embrace level design that closer resembles hallways with copy paste monsters than well fleshed, organic zones with mystery and danger like The Vault.

As a quick aside, I would like to point towards Rift : Planes of Telara. specifically the class system. you are allowed to choose 3 classes and mix/match them to suit your play style. This would normally lead to thousands of potential classes but the drive for optimization has slimmed that down to 2 or 3 viable combos per archetype.

To compound this, mods require a great deal of momentum from the player community. We can romanticize all day but ultimately, mod designers do what they do for recognition. This isn't a bad thing, I'm not saying modders are greedy or fame obsessed. All I'm saying is that human beings need to eat. People do in fact make mods because they love the medium, but in the end every modder hopes to bet scouted by an organization that can pay more regularly than a tip jar. For this reason, modders will generally flock to games that guarantee a large payoff in exposure for their input of time and effort.

To illustrate this point I would like to bring Rift back into the argument. Rift does in fact have mods but they aren't nearly as high in quality as World of Warcraft. This is because there was a mad rush initially to become the Tandanu of Rift. Unfortunately, the lack of a very large player base meant that the Curse Spotlight only fell on Rift developers rarely; sure, there were mini spotlights like "Best in Class: Rift" or "Best in Class: Elder Scrolls IV" but the major spotlights always went to WoW and Minecraft and those were the guys getting scooped by talent agents. Nowadays, Rift's mods are out of date and buggy.

Another quick aside, Optimization. 1 guy in his basement can't ensure that his killer app will work on every PC out there, let alone the PS3/PS4. when Blizzard allowed DBM in WoW it worked... okay because it allowed them to slack on encounter design (specifically conveyance) because DBM could pick up the slack. Will there be mods on PS4? if so, what kind of quality control could you possibly enforce? how do you know Tandanu will develop for all 3 platforms? Hell, I cant even get Recount to work right on my top of the line 2011 PC. We cant expect someone working for free to make a mod that will run equally well on an '08 laptop and a PS4 while maintaining the 30 FPS minimum necessary to remain competitive. That kind of thing takes dozens of programmers and QA personnel with fleets of computers testing on a wide array of hardware skews. WoW modders can (kind of) get away without the professional QA testers because the player base is so incredibly huge that the reams of metrics data provided by the 6 million players allows for them to pull off--- admittedly half assed--- quality control but those same devs would have to hire entirely new teams to develop for the PS3 and PS4.

TL;DR: Square Enix is one of my favourite development firms, but I seriously doubt they have the infrastructure to do it. just because Blizzard can (barely) pull off mods that doesn't mean that its a good thing for every MMORPG, or even any MMORPG.

Just a tip, you can edit your post to bypass the limit. Personally I've heard nothing of the sort.

SE has been promising addon support since before ARR's release. They just keep pushing it back, again and again and again. It's not a huge deal since people are making useful addons anyway, just we can't talk about them.

...Still no third party replacement for party bars that show when a party member is out of range, alas, but not really something that can be done with an overlay. So maybe we'll get official support, someday, and it will be nice...

Damage meters are a tool. Every tool that has ever been created can and has been abused (I'm looking at you, awl... you know what you did).

The reason "people will be jerks" is not a reason not to do something. You are never going to stop people being jerks. So if we accept that "jerks exist" as a given we cannot change, there's no longer a reason not to provide the tools.

As someone else also pointed out, damage meters exist right now. You can't talk about them in-game because they involve third party programs which are technically against the TOS (though Yoshi P has said in the past that he's fine with people using them... just don't be a jerk with them). So it's a tool that some of us have right now. Keeping it in this state is really unfair to console players because there's no way to make it available to them.

Also, have you seen the dps checks in this game? They're the realest. It actually IS important for me to know not only if I am doing my job properly, but that everyone else is too. Otherwise you can't fix problems.

if they didn't want people to be annoyed about people putting forth poor DPS, they shouldn't have put such extremely strict DPS checks into heavensward.

(hello Bismarck EX)


any single argument anyone might have about "oh but people will use it to harass" is outweighed by the fact that you absolutely need to put forth a certain amount of DPS to clear specific heavensward fights, and being unable to tell who is dead weight on your team is a severe handicap as a result.

not that i condone harassment of course, but it's extremely stupid that the current extreme primal fights have such strict DPS checks, with absolutely no way ingame to tell who's lagging behind if you cannot pass said checks .

I have a mixed feeling about addons.

WoW is almost unplayable at advanced levels when you go in naked. Deadly Boss Mods and damage meters are a must as are mods that change the UI. Raiding Guilds used to ask for screenshots of your UI to be sure you were modded. It's a bit silly and...I think DBM has ruined my ability to play this game. How do I move out of AoEs without a sound blaring in my ear? I'm having to teach myself to rely on visual queues only after a long time of heavy reliance on audio ones. Honestly a part of me would love to have a DBM and a timer addon to help me manage BLM a little better but I shouldn't NEED such things to play. If they became available I'd need them because you are just crippling yourself without such things.

Damage Meters are.... How to discuss damage meters. Any DPS would love to have a live parse on their screen telling them how they are doing. It helps you tighten rotations when you know exactly what you're contributing to a fight. The problem is meters change the environment of playing a DPS especially in a PUG. Whereas before you were a united front against a boss now you are engaged in a competition with everyone around you to not get kicked from the group. This attitude has actually destroyed the self esteem of some WoW players. I know some players who came here, tried their best, and kicked themselves if they felt they were underperforming (heck I do this). One person I know tried healing a Trial for the first time and after seven wipes she was in tears and had to leave even though the rest of the group was trying to encourage her to try again. It's hard to feel good about anything when MMO addons have taught you to see yourself as a number and nothing else. You know how people in FFXIV will usually attempt something a few times before voting disband? In WoW people usually only have one attempt in them. If the numbers don't look fantastic they will leave, to heck with people who've never done the content before (they're usually vote kicked anyway)

If SE allows addon support they will have to be careful in its implementation. I worry addons could change some things about the community. They are great tools but tools are all they ever should be.

That was probably a rambling post, sorry, never had my coffee today.

I really hate posts that grossly exaggerate the "harassment" caused by parsers. I played WoW for years and can count in one hand the times a meter maid caused drama and they are always promptly told to stop by everyone else. People seem to only remember the few times they run into jerks but disregard all the hundreds of other times were nothing at all happened. I'll also add that parsers aren't required by most raid groups. In fact, there are very few addons that groups usually require (can only think of DBM but even that isn't always required).

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Originally Posted by nyttyn

if they didn't want people to be annoyed about people putting forth poor DPS, they shouldn't have put such extremely strict DPS checks into heavensward.

(hello Bismarck EX)


any single argument anyone might have about "oh but people will use it to harass" is outweighed by the fact that you absolutely need to put forth a certain amount of DPS to clear specific heavensward fights, and being unable to tell who is dead weight on your team is a severe handicap as a result.

not that i condone harassment of course, but it's extremely stupid that the current extreme primal fights have such strict DPS checks, with absolutely no way ingame to tell who's lagging behind if you cannot pass said checks .

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I think a problem with Bismarck Ex, especially right now, is its minimal ilvl requirement. You can go in there with ilvl 142 which is total nonsense. Even Neverreap and Fractal require 145.

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Originally Posted by nyttyn

if they didn't want people to be annoyed about people putting forth poor DPS, they shouldn't have put such extremely strict DPS checks into heavensward.

(hello Bismarck EX)


any single argument anyone might have about "oh but people will use it to harass" is outweighed by the fact that you absolutely need to put forth a certain amount of DPS to clear specific heavensward fights, and being unable to tell who is dead weight on your team is a severe handicap as a result.

not that i condone harassment of course, but it's extremely stupid that the current extreme primal fights have such strict DPS checks, with absolutely no way ingame to tell who's lagging behind if you cannot pass said checks .

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It's a BS response to tell people "you're dead weight according to my unauthorized mod that tells me you suck"

SE clearly has the ability to tell the player/party who is purposely dragging down the party, it exists in the PvP content.

What needs to happen is that the rewards need to scale by participation. So you can't "carry" dead weight, or better yet "can't sell clears"

A dungeon should not be clearable with one person being dead weight. Regardless of the gear creep.

But to the OP...

Mods are extremely abused in MMO's, especially mods that give the player access to content they should never ever have. I'd rather the status quo stay, and SE hand out a better carrot for preventing bad behavior and breaking existing DPS mods than opening add-on's up and someone figuring out how to automate the fight due to too much information being present in the client.

Besides the fact that this topic has already been beaten to death, I would just like to point out that DPS meters are already a thing in FFXIV. They are against the ToS however. Just 2 days ago I was being complimented on how I was outdamaging their MNK in a duty finder party.

DPS meters are here to stay. Not going anywhere, sorry. That's just a fact of the genre. People can already parse you and if you're in a group with a few jerks playing together they can see on their meter that you're low they can kick you. Now, if they're smart they won't flat out tell you that it was your damage, but the fact remains the same.

I like DPS meters. I would like to glance down and be able to tell my friend to stop paying so much attention to Netflix because he's slowing us down.

I hope they allow them when they eventually introduce addon support.

So, I see a lot of interesting points here. There are a few troublesome ones that mostly fall under the purview of the "Git Gud" defense. I don't know how useful that sentiment is; its not like most low DPS are going into their pugs with the "how little can I do" mindset. I wont say that demographic is nonexistent because I know a few people who only play DPS because they can basically get carried so long as they spam Heavy Shot. I feel that this particular thread fails to consider the community support angle. I mentioned earlier that optimization is difficult if you don't have a fleet of testing machines.

Also, I think I sense a certain... misunderstanding; Blizzard does not take responsibility for quality control on their mods. That is entirely the responsibility of the modder. When SE says "we want to include mod support" that only means "You will be able to use 3rd party mods" and not "we will do the legwork to make sure your mods actually work on anything other than your one computer". It also doesn't ensure that SE will strive to maintain compatibility, if a new raid comes out and it causes a fatal exception with your UI mod then fixing it is between you and whoever might be in charge of the mod (if anyone is even paying attention) or whoever is developing a competitive product at the time. All and all, I think this issue is largely soluble once your community hits a critical mass.

Kisai makes an interesting point about mechanically incentivizing skillful play. I'm not sure if the dev team has the firepower to pull off a system that allows better loot drops depending on contribution, plus, I can't help but imagine all of the new players who showed up at the tail end of Heart of Darkness and would, by no fault of their own, be kept away from any of the gear by such a system. I would like to see Kisai elaborate a bit more on her idea, however, sounds interesting.

Risvertashi mentions the unofficial addons. these include parsers but also include the spawn timers for rare mobs. I think these exist in a kind of "sweet spot". They are accessible to people who really need to know how they are doing and are willing to put in some work and ultimately lie just out of reach to players who just want to attack people with bad gear or low skill. I also would like to add onto my point that the ilvl system seems to be doing a decent job of weeding the slackers out of high end content. My wife and I both do high end content regularly (she is disabled and I'm on summer holiday from uni) and while I've never really seen any of these vitriolic players, she has seen one, so, in over 200 combined PUGs, only one jerk is pretty good. Compared to the completely unverified 10%-20% asshole ratio in WoW, I think those stats are damn fine.

Which leads me to a quick aside to Hobostew. The community in XIV is actually very kind compared to other online games, I would, however, urge you to understand that your experience in this game may be an outlying factor and may not be reflective of the general experience.

Being legally blind I full well enjoyed the audio cues DBM gave me.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

This attitude has actually destroyed the self esteem of some WoW players. [....] One person I know tried healing a Trial for the first time and after seven wipes she was in tears and had to leave even though the rest of the group was trying to encourage her to try again. It's hard to feel good about anything when MMO addons have taught you to see yourself as a number and nothing else.

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This game... DPS are often treated as disposable, replaceable, less valued than tanks and healers and it really wears on you. Black mage is the only battle class I've leveled to 50 and I really enjoy playing it, but I often consider leveling a tank or healer so I can be 'useful'. I was actually referred to as a leech during a hunt when they first came out by a jerk of a healer just because I was a dps. Stupid me I apologized and explained it was my only class.

Before I was first told my numbers I generally assumed I wasn't the best but I always tried to be better so I wasn't super bothered. Then I was informed my numbers sucked so I went on journeys like in some 90s movie to speak with the great black mages of the server and figure out in depth what I might be doing wrong. Updated rotations for my increased stats, utilization of less popular actions like aetherial manipulation, really practicing my slide casting for dodging. Informed my numbers are still bad, bottom dps in the group, even beneath some of the heavy dps tanks. I cried. I just felt like quitting the game entirely at that point but I love it (and I've spent a lot of money on it) so I stayed.

In the end my tentatively bad self esteem towards my playing solidified into a crippling fear of playing with certain people (I pugged into a t13 party with like 6 of them and literally started trembling) and constantly apologizing for being bad when I go into a fight I'm newish to. I've been reduced to tears multiple times because of the shame I feel over my apparent inability to play the job I love well. It's even worse now that I'm trying to limp through this convoluted new black mage rotation for boss battles chock full of aoes. It's gotten to the point that I can't believe any compliments on my playing because I'm sure they're only saying them because they can't see the numbers.

Sorry for my stupid post; I'm tired and this new rotation makes me want to apologize for existing every time I pug one of the new fights. Just ignore me.

I don't even understand how what you said relates to my post but I'll try to clarify in case there was some misunderstanding. Harassment by people who use parsers or any other addons/mods for that matter is hugely exaggerated. I'd argue harassment in general doesn't happen very often at all it's just that you simply remember those few times that you were harassed more than the times when you weren't.

I'd also like to say that the WoW community is actually very much the same as this community as much as some of you would like to believe otherwise. This is because all these communities are made of people and people will behave like people no matter where you go. There are always a few jerks but most people just want to get things done without any drama.

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Originally Posted by NozomiKei

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This is how I feel too sometimes. Luckily I fell into the arms of an FC with pretty decent players who have been willing to let me learn the game and my class. I suspect I am still bad at Black Maging. I can keep our rotation up on a target dummy but any time I have to target switch or move I flail a bit. I aetherial manipulate, offensively convert, use my shields where needed to spare the healer grief but my raw damage output I can tell still needs some tightening. Frankly, I don't think the new rotation is very fun but with some QoL tweaks it could be. It's frustrating to lose a rotation for 30 seconds due to movement or because a faster class finished off a mob before you could hit it (No my Blizz IV didn't land, I needed that!)

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Originally Posted by hobostew

snip.

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I wouldn't say it's exaggerating to say mods like damage meters can cause a cultural shift that makes DPS feel even worse. It does, absolutely. It's giving the jerks we have now a legitimate megaphone with which they can be jerks. I'm not saying it would ruin the game. I played WoW for eight years sometimes casually sometimes as a progression raider and I certainly would not have done that if I felt like I was going to watch someone punch my mom for hours each time I logged in. And I used damage meters to measure my own performance and found them a valuable tool. I like the idea of them, I'm just always a bit unsure about introducing them to a new game.

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Originally Posted by Nikita

Now, if they're smart they won't flat out tell you that it was your damage, but the fact remains the same.

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Pretty much. If it's a raid and you're on voice, you'll get told there and told to step it up or be replaced. In the DF, it's just a silent kick for no reason apparent if you don't have your numbers.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I wouldn't say it's exaggerating to say mods like damage meters can cause a cultural shift that makes DPS feel even worse. It does, absolutely. It's giving the jerks we have now a legitimate megaphone with which they can be jerks. I'm not saying it would ruin the game. I played WoW for eight years sometimes casually sometimes as a progression raider and I certainly would not have done that if I felt like I was going to watch someone punch my mom for hours each time I logged in. And I used damage meters to measure my own performance and found them a valuable tool. I like the idea of them, I'm just always a bit unsure about introducing them to a new game.

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This was largely what I was referring to in this general warning. I don't think mods are inherently bad. At the risk of sounding hokey, I think that we are at a critical junction and the soul of the community is being discussed. Do we want to be like WoW's community. Many people come here because the WoW community is vitriolic and they want to play with a more laid back community. Do we want to take a step towards WoW for the sake of a little convenience or do we want to continue to be a community that is welcoming to casuals and newcomers?

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Originally Posted by Hobostew;

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I admit. mods are awesome, in WoW I have GTFO, Gatherer, DBM, and ElvUI and my Monk and Death Knights were damn good. I left WoW because it's community was unneccisarily mean to people who were even slightly behind in the learning curve. I have seen DPS get kicked, not because they caused a wipe, but because the DPS was less than 5% outside of expectation for their ilvl. I want us all to consider this thoroughly before we push SE to enable mods. If we feel the convenience of mods is worth the risk to our collective soul then I fully support the community's push for mods. I merely intend to urge caution before jumping headlong into what many of us think we want

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Originally Posted by Carson_The_Brown

Kisai makes an interesting point about mechanically incentivizing skillful play. I'm not sure if the dev team has the firepower to pull off a system that allows better loot drops depending on contribution, plus, I can't help but imagine all of the new players who showed up at the tail end of Heart of Darkness and would, by no fault of their own, be kept away from any of the gear by such a system. I would like to see Kisai elaborate a bit more on her idea, however, sounds interesting.

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To simplify:

A DPS is there to DPS, a Tank is there to Tank and contribute some DPS, and a healer is there to Heal and maybe throw some DPS if there is opportunity for it.
But what happens is someone with a 'parser' goes "oh X isn't contributing enough DPS, kick em" and that player gets kicked not knowing why they were suddenly kicked.

So what has to happen is that rewards (including tomes) need to be distributed by participation. In a light party two DPS players should be contributing >50% of the Damage, and if they aren't, that is a problem. Tanks and Healers would be based on Enmity. Where a Tank needs to keep Enmity > 90% of the time, and Healers need to NOT take enmity by overhealing (it would probably require tracking unnecessary overhealing vs revives itself.)

In a Full party, the conditions change depending on the number of tanks. No DPS should be carried, if there are 5 DPS means that 12.5% x 5 = 62.5% of the Damage must be done by the DPS, of which each DPS needs to contribute at least 12.5%. When there are two tanks, the combined tanks need to have 90% of the enmity time. When there's one, then it's 90% alone. When there are two healers, both healers need to be healing, not just one.

Which comes back to the entire idea where if a healer or a tank is contributing more DPS than a single DPS player, than the weak DPS player shouldn't be rewarded for doing nothing. In the case of things like Extreme Primals and Raids, where "carries" are endemic, someone who doesn't contribute enough, wouldn't get the reward gear/token, and it wouldn't count as a clear.

I don't think the only difference between this community and WoW's community is the existence of addons, and that giving us access to an addon API changes us into WoW's community. I don't buy that. It's a strawman, and not a very effective one.

As people have pointed out, an underperforming dps can and will be kicked right now without even the benefit of knowing that they were doing something wrong. Now I think that kicking someone for being 5% off their "expected" dps is a little stupid. There are a lot of reasons that can happen, especially in the mechanics-heavy fights that FFXIV favors, that have absolutely nothing to do with someone being bad at their job. At least if that dps can see their own numbers, they can know that something might be wrong with what they're doing and work to correct the problem. Right now, I think that most dps probably believe they do their job really well and aren't making any mistakes. I can tell you that in the majority of cases I've seen, this is not the case. But there's no convenient way for me to help someone do their job better if they think they're doing well already. I need data I can show them to back up something like that.

WoW players and FFXIV players are pretty fundamentally different. I say that having played both games at a high level. I don't believe that giving us an addon API turns us into some kind of MMO Lord of the Flies rendition.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

To simplify:

A DPS is there to DPS, a Tank is there to Tank and contribute some DPS, and a healer is there to Heal and maybe throw some DPS if there is opportunity for it.
But what happens is someone with a 'parser' goes "oh X isn't contributing enough DPS, kick em" and that player gets kicked not knowing why they were suddenly kicked.

So what has to happen is that rewards (including tomes) need to be distributed by participation. In a light party two DPS players should be contributing >50% of the Damage, and if they aren't, that is a problem. Tanks and Healers would be based on Enmity. Where a Tank needs to keep Enmity > 90% of the time, and Healers need to NOT take enmity by overhealing (it would probably require tracking unnecessary overhealing vs revives itself.)

In a Full party, the conditions change depending on the number of tanks. No DPS should be carried, if there are 5 DPS means that 12.5% x 5 = 62.5% of the Damage must be done by the DPS, of which each DPS needs to contribute at least 12.5%. When there are two tanks, the combined tanks need to have 90% of the enmity time. When there's one, then it's 90% alone. When there are two healers, both healers need to be healing, not just one.

Which comes back to the entire idea where if a healer or a tank is contributing more DPS than a single DPS player, than the weak DPS player shouldn't be rewarded for doing nothing. In the case of things like Extreme Primals and Raids, where "carries" are endemic, someone who doesn't contribute enough, wouldn't get the reward gear/token, and it wouldn't count as a clear.

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That's some pretty interesting math. Unfortunately this sounds like a system that would reward anyone who bothers to step into the encounter room, which would make it redundant. I want to see that idea fleshed out, though. Maybe a feature that only allows the party to /kick people who contribute less than X enmity per second, requiring a specific pack of enemies be defeated before the option becomes available.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

I don't think the only difference between this community and WoW's community is the existence of addons, and that giving us access to an addon API changes us into WoW's community. I don't buy that. It's a strawman, and not a very effective one.

WoW players and FFXIV players are pretty fundamentally different. I say that having played both games at a high level. I don't believe that giving us an addon API turns us into some kind of MMO Lord of the Flies rendition.

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But of course, I don't mean to insinuate that the two communities are at all similar.

I personally believe that communities are moral entities. So what does that mean? The full explanation is here with a study on the ramifications thereof here but to grossly oversimplify, that means that they can be effected by their environment. Obviously there is a huge difference between the XIV community and the WoW community and no action can possibly make them identical. My concern is what the tools made available might do to the personality of the community. Once again, your results may vary but my observations (which I admit could be deeply flawed and are easily falsifiable) indicate a certain quality present in XIV's community that isn't present in communities that have these quality of life addons. My studies (I am a student of game design, hence why I would have case studies on the matter) indicate that while antisocial personality types are equally represented in all communities, there are environmental qualities that encourage these fringe elements (the rough estimate is that these antisocial elements constitute about 15% across the board on all communities) to behave more proactively.

In short, of course there aren't more sociopaths on WoW and of course there are some fundamental differences between the WoW community and the XIV community just like how there are some fundamental differences between any two entities, be they people, cities or corporations. Nobody is arguing those points. What I would argue, however, is that things like easy-access damage meters and boss assistants allow the more troublesome elements of the community (including both players and developers) an easier means to express themselves.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I think a problem with Bismarck Ex, especially right now, is its minimal ilvl requirement. You can go in there with ilvl 142 which is total nonsense. Even Neverreap and Fractal require 145.

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Well it can AND has been cleared at ilv150 (and ravana 160) lol

It's just that some people plainly suck at rotations, keeping up buffs, positionning etc. Some jobs also underperform in regard to others.

I've played a lot of WoW. I had always used DPS meters, and I rarely saw people call each other out. I mean hey, I may have made a comment or two over vent to friends about someone who obviously didn't know how to play their class, but I was never rude to them.

Yeah, there are jerks out there. They're going to be jerks weather or not they have DPS meters. What's so wrong with a meter that tells you how people are performing? What's wrong with wanting to find out who is holding your group back vs a DPS check boss?

Now, I've seen some people making comments about people who are clearly emotionally unstable and bursting into tears upon looking at their meters, without any provocation. That's not the meter's fault. They need psychiatric help.

There are already jerks, trolls, and douche bags galore in this game. Guys. Seriously. Calm down. You might perceive people to be more douchey with meters, but they're just channeling that same douche energy in a different way - namely calling out people who are under-performing.

Imagine how much faster CT runs would have went if you could see which summoners were just spamming ruin II and not casting any DoTs!!!

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Originally Posted by Carson_The_Brown

That's some pretty interesting math. Unfortunately this sounds like a system that would reward anyone who bothers to step into the encounter room, which would make it redundant. I want to see that idea fleshed out, though. Maybe a feature that only allows the party to /kick people who contribute less than X enmity per second, requiring a specific pack of enemies be defeated before the option becomes available.
...

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The math is just aligning it with the Role's purpose.
In a 4 player dungeon under "perfect" conditions:
1 Tank has Enmity 100% of the time
1 Healer does 100% of the healing
2 DPS deals 50%+ of the damage (each responsible for 25%)

In an 8 player dungeon under "perfect" conditions:
2 Tanks have Enmity 100% of the time
2 Healers do 100% healing in tandem with each other
4 DPS deal 50%+ of the damage (each responsible for 12.5%)

In both cases it should be assumed that the Healer does ZERO DPS and thus the DPS players should be able to do 66% of the DPS without an issue if both healers are not doing DPS. In overgeared situations, the Healers may have less need to conserve MP for healing and could probably drive the DPS players portion of DPS down below 50%. So that's when it starts shifting back to the point where a healer may end up doing more DPS than one of the DPS players.

Like what would "improve" the dungeon content management would be to have the dungeon prompt to kick DPS players that can't meet the generous 12.5% or 25% requirement to not be a "lame carry" or kick healers that are spending too much time DPS'ing or attracting enmity with overhealing, or Tanks that are not tanking.

"<Player> DPS is not sufficient to continue the dungeon and will be replaced if the party is KO'd", "<Player>'s healing technique is not sufficient to continue this dungeon and will be replaced upon Party KO", "<Player>'s enmity control is not sufficient to continue this dungeon and will be replaced upon Party KO"

At least that way, it's much easier to get rid of carries, bots, and you don't get situations like what happens in Coil where you wait for 2 hours only to see a vote abandon after the first wipe.

Hence giving a heads-up for the named player to improve or for the rest of the party to be less aggressive on taking other roles (eg Healer tanking, DPS healing, DPS tanking) if they want to keep them.

As for rewarding simply stepping into the encounter room, no if a player can't hit the target, they wouldn't get to "need/greed" on the item, and wouldn't get a clear from such content. For harder "extreme" and "savage" content, the numbers would probably be less generous since they are tuned differently.

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Originally Posted by Carson_The_Brown

My studies (I am a student of game design, hence why I would have case studies on the matter) indicate that while antisocial personality types are equally represented in all communities, there are environmental qualities that encourage these fringe elements (the rough estimate is that these antisocial elements constitute about 15% across the board on all communities) to behave more proactively.

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Oh my, you have picked an interesting field.

I'd say you're probably only correct about communities that do not have fulltime PvP. So PvE games, yeah, 15% seems pretty consistent.

PvP games, is all about pulling down "white knights" to the bullies level. So games that have a specific PvP element (eg WoW, SW:TOR, Aion, Archeage) where PvP is engaged all the time, players will go out of their way to cause misery to the other faction "because I can." Other games that have PvP as a criminal element instead (Wizardy Online, Archeage), actually creates a community out of the sociopaths and the role players who can keep their moral sense in check to play with them. Like in Wizardy Online... at least the NA version before it was closed, also had a Permadeath mechanic, so it was not in your best interest to keep throwing yourself at someone, because eventually you'll just get ganged up on. Even then, we had at least one "notorious criminal" that everyone had on their personal KOS (Kill on Site) list. Making friends with the players who play criminals, tends to get you a certain level of "Mafia-like" power in that game. I think most players went to TESO or LOTR who played it when it shutdown. But it makes for an interesting case study in how the toxicity of the player base combined with a mechanic (full time PvP) that allows it, actually keeps people from enjoying or even trying it.

So a small portion of players willingly drive people from the game through various forms of griefing

Which comes back to the mods question. Do not, under any circumstances give players tools to enable griefing. Allowing players to see other players DPS other than their own enables such. In another game I played there was this notorious mod that allowed a decimal value of combat power to be displayed in the game where otherwise would show "weak, weaker, strong, very strong" beside the monster or player's name. That unauthorized mod is so notorious that it's claimed to be the sole excuse to install mods/hacks/cheats into the game client. That mod was the equivalent of being able to see the players maximum DPS, even though it had zero bearing on the players actual skill level as it was only a calculation based off their stats and gear equipped. Still, players would use this unauthorized mod to find PvP targets. I even called out people on this by equipping a kind of twinking gear (gear that deliberately changed the combat power to a low value, to change the skill experience gained when fighting weaker monsters) and standing in places that people same-race PvP, and sure enough there will be every half hour or so, people that just come by entirely to score "weak" kills, when I could kill them in one shot with or without the gear.

Fortunately FFXIV doesn't have such a PvP system, but if a "dueling" system ever came out, this is exactly what would happen if too much access is allowed by authorized mods.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

The math is just aligning it with the Role's purpose.
In a 4 player dungeon under "perfect" conditions:
1 Tank has Enmity 100% of the time
1 Healer does 100% of the healing
2 DPS deals 50%+ of the damage (each responsible for 25%)

In an 8 player dungeon under "perfect" conditions:
2 Tanks have Enmity 100% of the time
2 Healers do 100% healing in tandem with each other
4 DPS deal 50%+ of the damage (each responsible for 12.5%)

In both cases it should be assumed that the Healer does ZERO DPS and thus the DPS players should be able to do 66% of the DPS without an issue if both healers are not doing DPS. In overgeared situations, the Healers may have less need to conserve MP for healing and could probably drive the DPS players portion of DPS down below 50%. So that's when it starts shifting back to the point where a healer may end up doing more DPS than one of the DPS players.

Like what would "improve" the dungeon content management would be to have the dungeon prompt to kick DPS players that can't meet the generous 12.5% or 25% requirement to not be a "lame carry" or kick healers that are spending too much time DPS'ing or attracting enmity with overhealing, or Tanks that are not tanking.

"<Player> DPS is not sufficient to continue the dungeon and will be replaced if the party is KO'd", "<Player>'s healing technique is not sufficient to continue this dungeon and will be replaced upon Party KO", "<Player>'s enmity control is not sufficient to continue this dungeon and will be replaced upon Party KO"

At least that way, it's much easier to get rid of carries, bots, and you don't get situations like what happens in Coil where you wait for 2 hours only to see a vote abandon after the first wipe.

Hence giving a heads-up for the named player to improve or for the rest of the party to be less aggressive on taking other roles (eg Healer tanking, DPS healing, DPS tanking) if they want to keep them.

As for rewarding simply stepping into the encounter room, no if a player can't hit the target, they wouldn't get to "need/greed" on the item, and wouldn't get a clear from such content. For harder "extreme" and "savage" content, the numbers would probably be less generous since they are tuned differently.



Oh my, you have picked an interesting field.

I'd say you're probably only correct about communities that do not have fulltime PvP. So PvE games, yeah, 15% seems pretty consistent.

PvP games, is all about pulling down "white knights" to the bullies level. So games that have a specific PvP element (eg WoW, SW:TOR, Aion, Archeage) where PvP is engaged all the time, players will go out of their way to cause misery to the other faction "because I can." Other games that have PvP as a criminal element instead (Wizardy Online, Archeage), actually creates a community out of the sociopaths and the role players who can keep their moral sense in check to play with them. Like in Wizardy Online... at least the NA version before it was closed, also had a Permadeath mechanic, so it was not in your best interest to keep throwing yourself at someone, because eventually you'll just get ganged up on. Even then, we had at least one "notorious criminal" that everyone had on their personal KOS (Kill on Site) list. Making friends with the players who play criminals, tends to get you a certain level of "Mafia-like" power in that game. I think most players went to TESO or LOTR who played it when it shutdown. But it makes for an interesting case study in how the toxicity of the player base combined with a mechanic (full time PvP) that allows it, actually keeps people from enjoying or even trying it.

So a small portion of players willingly drive people from the game through various forms of griefing

Which comes back to the mods question. Do not, under any circumstances give players tools to enable griefing. Allowing players to see other players DPS other than their own enables such. In another game I played there was this notorious mod that allowed a decimal value of combat power to be displayed in the game where otherwise would show "weak, weaker, strong, very strong" beside the monster or player's name. That unauthorized mod is so notorious that it's claimed to be the sole excuse to install mods/hacks/cheats into the game client. That mod was the equivalent of being able to see the players maximum DPS, even though it had zero bearing on the players actual skill level as it was only a calculation based off their stats and gear equipped. Still, players would use this unauthorized mod to find PvP targets. I even called out people on this by equipping a kind of twinking gear (gear that deliberately changed the combat power to a low value, to change the skill experience gained when fighting weaker monsters) and standing in places that people same-race PvP, and sure enough there will be every half hour or so, people that just come by entirely to score "weak" kills, when I could kill them in one shot with or without the gear.

Fortunately FFXIV doesn't have such a PvP system, but if a "dueling" system ever came out, this is exactly what would happen if too much access is allowed by authorized mods.

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I think a dueling system would be interesting so long as it was exactly that, 2 explicitly consenting players (that does not mean 1 consenting player and another player that "consents" by being in the same zone; something that involves a button prompt saying "Nosrac has challenged you to a duel, do you accept?") or 2 consenting teams fighting in a format similar to Arenas. I personally abhor violence against moral entities (even in a virtual environment) but some people genuinely find pleasure in PvP.

That being said,

many open world PvP games include a similar mechanic. WoW's level notation (gray for >10 below, yellow for competitive, orange for >2 levels above, red for <6 levels above, and ?? for everything else) a system that tells you the exact power level can be a boon or a bane depending on the general intent of your game. I agree that it would be a system breaker in a game like WoW. How much worse would the griefing be if you could get a handy readout on that Belf saying "you have 50 ilvl over him"? I doubt this would become an issue in FFXIV since SE doesn't really do PVP design.

Also, 15% is actually accurate even in PVP games. Griefers and Campers are actually a very, very small portion of an MMO's community. I mean, if you expand griefer to mean "anyone who has ever intentionally engaged in PVP against a vastly inferior opponent" then I could see the percentage jump up to 60 or 70 percent, closer to 90 or more if you include people who have engaged in the sort of cowboy justice that used to go down in The Burning Crusade; but if you're only defining griefer as "an individual who intentionally and habitually engages in violent behavior against a target to the exclusion of the intended use of the medium" then 15% basically holds true everywhere from ArcheAge to 4chan.

Unfortunately, Finagle's Law is a real thing that needs to be tended to. You can rely on people using any given thing for the most perverse possible ends. That's why I typically believe MMORPGs need to be highly controlled environments. Your average individual cant really be trusted to police itself.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I wouldn't say it's exaggerating to say mods like damage meters can cause a cultural shift that makes DPS feel even worse. It does, absolutely. It's giving the jerks we have now a legitimate megaphone with which they can be jerks.

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As opposed to how it is now, where just the heals and tanks get crapped on for not doing their jobs?

I'm all for dps meters, yeah you will have your people that are jerks about it, but most of them.are being jerks already. I would much rather see my dps so that I would know where I stand and if I need improving. Also it does yet you know if there are weak links. Right now so many parties arent passing BEX because they cant get enough dps. I would much prefer to know why. Is it that everyone is a sub par dpsnin the group, or is one or two people really not doing their job.

Wish SE would just patch out the parsers....just adds toxicity in every game where they are allowed

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Originally Posted by Slirith

Wish SE would just patch out the parsers....just adds toxicity in every game where they are allowed

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A: That's impossible
B: Jerks don't need a tool in order to be jerks. Trust me, they'd find a way without it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

As opposed to how it is now, where just the heals and tanks get crapped on for not doing their jobs?

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I am not sure that "other people are jerks so we can be jerks back" is really a helpful argument. It kind of feels like the American argument that says "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Yes, DPS are frequently culprits in this, does this mean we want to arm tanks and heals with the capacity to retaliate?

Also, how many people on all 3 sides of this debate are going to pre-emptively strike bad damage dealers? In my, admittedly, exhaustive experience with PUGging in addon-enabled MMOs has shown that people doing low damage lashing at the tanks for not surviving adds and heals for not keeping the tanks in check occurs just as often as you see tanks preemptively vote kicking DPS because the first boss didn't go down fast enough. If the issue is really DPS wanting to know if they are measuring up then there are better ways to do it than making any failure publicly available.

Shaming people for being bad at their job doesn't actually help them improve. It only makes them more nervous.

I think the answer to tanks and heals getting flamed is regulation, not more fire. The commendation system is designed to incentivise more cooperation. The devs should focus there for eliminating hostility towards tanks and heals. The fact that tanks and healers are largely pacifistic at this point (though my sample pool is hardly representative) is good. As a DPS myself I think the answer is to encourage DPS to be less hostile.

If the driving issue behind enabling mods revolves around damage meters then I might suggest a different solution. What do you think would happen if SE decided to add a separate commendation that can only be given to PUG DPS? Greater scientists than I have already proven that the lower vitriol among tanks and heals can be linked to them getting most of the Coms. I think the hope of getting the commendation could help to alleviate the issue of harassing DPS better than giving tanks and healers a way to bash back.

In short, if the reason for damage meters is to check unruly DPS, the answer is letting them know that there are consequences for their actions and letting the know that those consequences don't have to be negative. These people are cruel because they need attention, lets give it to them.

Doesn't really matter what some random youtuber says, even if they are popular.

SE has been "considering" addons for years. The fact they are still "considering" it speaks worlds. Protip: In Japan, if your boss is "considering" an idea that you've put forth, what they are really saying is NO. They are just being polite by not flat out rejecting you.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan94

Doesn't really matter what some random youtuber says, even if they are popular.

SE has been "considering" addons for years. The fact they are still "considering" it speaks worlds. Protip: In Japan, if your boss is "considering" an idea that you've put forth, what they are really saying is NO. They are just being polite by not flat out rejecting you.

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Hate to break it to you, they've moved on from "considering" it long ago, it's since been confirmed to be in the works.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ff-.../1100-6425730/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaedan94

SE has been "considering" addons for years. The fact they are still "considering" it speaks worlds.

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SE (or rather Yoshi-P) had always publicly approved of add-ons, and specifically said that when they worked on ARR, the UI scripting engine was completely overhauled to accommodate user-made custom UIs. After 2.0 launch, little have been revealed about the add-on system, but what had been said about it was never "considering it", but "working on it".

At the very least, the concept for FFXIV add-ons is one focused on customizing the UI, with certain (but limited) information not presented in the default UI but available for custom UIs to expose. That info probably will not include damage log numbers, however, as is evident from Yoshi-P's stance on dps meters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Carson_The_Brown

I am not sure that "other people are jerks so we can be jerks back" is really a helpful argument.

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Funny that that is what you got out of it. It's not about being jerks back. The whole argument against parsers is summed up as, "people will be jerks to dps.". Well guess what, tanks and healers already get this, but I don't see anyone talking about babying them. The parser is more than a tool for improving your own dps. While it is primarily that, it also allows you to see if people in the party are not doing their job. When I join a party, I want to carry my weight, and I am in the right to want others to do the same.

While people can take the time to teach if someone if they feel like it, they are by no means obligated to, or are a bad person for not wanting to. Sometimes I'm in the mood to help, others, I really don't want to.

This is a game with many dps checks, and no way, save passing them, to know how you are doing. Unless someone is obviously terrible, there is no way to know where you are going wrong. How many dps entering BEX right now are going, "I thought I was good, but I can't clear this check." When maybe they are preforming and getting stuck with those who aren't. In a couple of my runs that failed, I've had the same DRG, DPS isn't coming close, is it him? I don't know. But he is a common member in low dps parties. So, is he unfortunate enough to be just getting stuck with bad dps, or is he the issue? Right now, when I join a party and hes in it, I'm not thinking "Yay! Clear for sure!"

Also, your solution of comming dps goes nowhere if people don't know who is performing.

I saw a lot of abuse of the parse system in DCUO. A lot of people who didn't know what they were talking about slamming people. But you have slamming anyway. And hey, if there is a parse system, maybe, just maybe, that lippy dps who likes to yell at everyone, will think twice after seeing where he stands. Instead of thinking only of the abuse the system will cause, maybe we can look at some of the abuse it will alleviate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zfz

SE (or rather Yoshi-P) had always publicly approved of add-ons, and specifically said that when they worked on ARR, the UI scripting engine was completely overhauled to accommodate user-made custom UIs. After 2.0 launch, little have been revealed about the add-on system, but what had been said about it was never "considering it", but "working on it".

At the very least, the concept for FFXIV add-ons is one focused on customizing the UI, with certain (but limited) information not presented in the default UI but available for custom UIs to expose. That info probably will not include damage log numbers, however, as is evident from Yoshi-P's stance on dps meters.

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The dataminers (modders/hackers/cheaters/botters) already know what is scriptable should it ever be enabled.

My primary concern is about sending too much information to the game client that makes modders have an advantage over vanilla game clients. At no point should a game client be able to "DPS meter" anyone but themselves. The game server should be able to determine who is doing less than half the damage they should be doing for that level, and "enrage timers" are the hard version of that.

As for commendations. Once you have 3000, you don't care anymore http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wi...r_Commendation

I think the problem here is that the commendations aren't role-centric. The server could assign a rating and the players could just approve or disagree (with the entire party rating.) If a player constantly scores low on a certain role (Eg DPS), they get lower queue priorities for the duty until they improve their rating in easier content, or if they hit "theoretically zero" they get blocked from the duty until they improve. eg "You are not experienced enough for this duty, improve your gear, or form a party to play this duty", being kicked consecutively by the server drops them an entire rating, including disconnects.

All this would do is assign a "difficulty" rating for the gear equipped and move the goal posts for players that are "awful" at their role at that gear level.

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Originally Posted by Nikita

Hate to break it to you, they've moved on from "considering" it long ago, it's since been confirmed to be in the works.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ff-.../1100-6425730/

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Yeah... I'll believe it when I see what was actually said in this supposed interview with Yoshi-P. Gamespot's translations have always been shaky at best.

I'm not saying they will definitely never come. Just that people need to be very careful when deciphering what's actually being said. The fact they've been "working on it" for so long is a strong indicator that it's not anywhere near a priority, and that addons probably won't come in the common form people are used to.

so, a number of interesting ideas here. let me address them paragraph by paragraph.

firstly, you say right here

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

Funny that that is what you got out of it. It's not about being jerks back. The whole argument against parsers is summed up as, "people will be jerks to dps.". Well guess what, tanks and healers already get this, but I don't see anyone talking about babying them. The parser is more than a tool for improving your own dps. While it is primarily that, it also allows you to see if people in the party are not doing their job. When I join a party, I want to carry my weight, and I am in the right to want others to do the same.

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Okay, I really don't want to strawman you so let me first verify your point. I see here "The issue isnt that people will be jerks to DPS" followed immediately by "people are already jerks to tanks and healers, why should DPS get a pass". I believe I might be misunderstanding you so I would ask you to elaborate.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

This is a game with many dps checks, and no way, save passing them, to know how you are doing. Unless someone is obviously terrible, there is no way to know where you are going wrong. How many dps entering BEX right now are going, "I thought I was good, but I can't clear this check." When maybe they are preforming and getting stuck with those who aren't. In a couple of my runs that failed, I've had the same DRG, DPS isn't coming close, is it him? I don't know. But he is a common member in low dps parties. So, is he unfortunate enough to be just getting stuck with bad dps, or is he the issue? Right now, when I join a party and hes in it, I'm not thinking "Yay! Clear for sure!"

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I find from my personal experience with XIV that I don't need to see a number in this game to know I'm under performing. In fact, I would argue that the stringent nature of the DPS checks kind of makes it apparent with no uncertain terms. I understand that my experience is very personal and may not be reflective of the average player. If you are regularly clearing a dungeon but you show up once and the DPS checks aren't getting passed then you can be largely certain its that Dragoon you were referring to. If all of your dungeons are clearing really slow then you can be certain it's your own doing. As far as this Bard is concerned, that particular binary--- whether the checks are getting passed regularly--- is the only important part of the readout and you don't need a 3rd party posting leaderboards after every single trash pull, which, I am sad to say, happens in about 10% (speculative, not calculated) of my solo WoW PUGs.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

Also, your solution of comming dps goes nowhere if people don't know who is performing.

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At the risk of sounding like a no good hippie lib, I think commendations should be handed to the players that take an active interest in the community, not the ones pumping out big numbers. I speculate adding a commendation that can only go to DPS would help promote this philosophy.

I remind all this is a socially-aspected game, not a spreadsheet simulator.

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Originally Posted by Whiteroom

I saw a lot of abuse of the parse system in DCUO. A lot of people who didn't know what they were talking about slamming people. But you have slamming anyway. And hey, if there is a parse system, maybe, just maybe, that lippy dps who likes to yell at everyone, will think twice after seeing where he stands. Instead of thinking only of the abuse the system will cause, maybe we can look at some of the abuse it will alleviate.

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While little peer reviewed research has been done on how this affects video games, there are a plethora of studies concerning the comparative effects of positive and negative reinforcement in relation to behavioral modification. For your perusal I have placed links here and here, along with a hilarious short comic on why buisinesses hate yelp here simply because I think this comic explains perfectly why giving people the unfettered means to complain about each other is a universally bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan94

I'm not saying they will definitely never come. Just that people need to be very careful when deciphering what's actually being said. The fact they've been "working on it" for so long is a strong indicator that it's not anywhere near a priority, and that addons probably won't come in the common form people are used to.

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I agree wholly with your point, but I would like to add that the moderators are in fact reading these, we need to keep discussing the issue, examining it from every potential angle and finding new angles to study. if they do implement mods I would like them to be implemented in a way that most players feel is to their interest. Last thing we want is to become Rift : Planes of Telara