Discuss: Are DPS meters bad for MMOs?

[Tausa]

I understand the point the person was making, but it isn't DPS meters that are the problem. it's the fact that most people in our world do not have an understanding of what a particular metric does and does not indicate.

From experience in many game that allow DPS meter can be useful, If two people in same gear,job and level, have very different numbers, one may need help. In hardcore party, this can help figure out if boss mechanic and weakness.

It is problem when one only looks at a number without understanding. In Titan, I was told by 3 people who kept dieing to plumes and landslides (I only took damage from stomp) that we were failing because my BLM had very low numbers. I was doing caries and sells with other groups. I added in AoE on bombs. It did absolutely nothing for our success, but their meter said I went from last place to #1 every single time after. We still fail till we replaced them. Then we farmed for 3 hours, all wins.

[QiLymePye]

Ive never used or seen "Parsers" before but here is my question to the community: From reading these post, it seems that this parser measures dps output. Can it be used to measure other important stats? for ex. having High dps isnt the only thing that helps getting clears, maybe it can measure roles or something like how much dmg players are taking, how fast or efficient are they using their skills, avg. healing per sec, etc. What im essentially asking is is it a way to check not only dps, but other jobs? Cause it seems like people wanna just check to see if dps is being met but there are other factors too, especially in this mechanics-heavy game. would help the whole group to know what needs to be fixed on wipes while making sure that EVERYONE could have accountability, not just dps.

[Da_Hero]

im with all the others that said to just make your numbers visible to you...that way you can try to better yourself, without being able to scrutinize others over their numbers. I think this game needs something like this, as it does very little to teach people new to mmos how to play their class in the first place

[Stihllodeing]

Imo this game doesn't need a "dps parser". If it were to have a parser and it was only a dps parser then that would be lazy.

I would like to see a parser that has healing out, damage in, damage mitigated, etc.

Parsers are great tools.

[QiLymePye]

Imo this game doesn't need a "dps parser". If it were to have a parser and it was only a dps parser then that would be lazy.

I would like to see a parser that has healing out, damage in, damage mitigated, etc.

Parsers are great tools.

Yes! something that shows what the whole party is doing as a whole, instead of singling out one person. DPS is important, but so is healing, mitigating dmg, generating and maintaining hate, etc... Its like basketball, yes the point is to score more than your opp. but also other stats like ast, reb, blks, stl, etc. are also important. And just putting up lots of points(or in this case causing lots of dmg) doesnt mean you will win all of the time. Its a team sport(in this case, party game). Cant just blame one position and track only one position.

[Gardes]

I prefer the HP check without a time limit honestly.

So what if a group find a kite strategy that takes 2-3hrs to kill good for them. The penalty for doing so is it is taking 3hrs to kill it instead of 15mins.

So you liked 1.xx's 'almost everything is kited because we can' combat strategy? All the final job story quests are 8 man and damn near everything gets kited. War battle had 1 tank kite all the birds, pld battle had one tank one of the boss, drg battle had one tank kite the dragoon (or was it the dragon, can't remember), mnk battle had one tank kite everything as the group takes the adds one by one. I think only the brd and blm one had people ccing the mobs with sleep. It's not fun and sacrifices one person's enjoyment because all he gets to do is just run away to kite. Makes every new battle we encounter just a matter of 'can we kite this or not?'

Ive never used or seen "Parsers" before but here is my question to the community: From reading these post, it seems that this parser measures dps output. Can it be used to measure other important stats? for ex. having High dps isnt the only thing that helps getting clears, maybe it can measure roles or something like how much dmg players are taking, how fast or efficient are they using their skills, avg. healing per sec, etc. What im essentially asking is is it a way to check not only dps, but other jobs? Cause it seems like people wanna just check to see if dps is being met but there are other factors too, especially in this mechanics-heavy game. would help the whole group to know what needs to be fixed on wipes while making sure that EVERYONE could have accountability, not just dps.

You can check almost anything. Our OT was having trouble taking the adds in phase 3 of t9 and we weren't sure why. He just keeps failing at it and someone else looked around in the parser and turns out he's missing quite a bit. We just assumed that everyone would already know what their accuracy needed to be at but apparently he didn't. Oh hey, guess how we know our acc limits? Some early birds tested them for us! We're now farming t9 with the same method and having no problems with adds.

Another example, turn 9's phase 4 where the boss starts using a multi-hit move that can do a total damage of more than the tank's hp. As the tank I died to it and people start wondering if my mitigation was late or in the wrong order and whether I should switch them around because the attack alternates in damage strength against me. I was sure that I did it perfectly and I didn't get myself killed. Someone else looked around in the parser again and I was right because the damage I'm taking from claws was minimal from all of them and it couldn't have killed me. After an even closer look, it was found out that I got killed by someone's thunder debuff and I didn't need to change my play style.

Another example! Back in turn 8 before echo, we were reforming the group and got a new healer who has never done the turn. I personally recruited him because I used to do the 1st binding coil of bahamut as a static with him and thought he was good. We were having trouble keeping the tank alive (wasn't me at the time) and people started looking at this new whm and he was getting exasperated because he was trying to do his best and our sch started getting sarcastic with him. So again, someone else looked at the numbers and he started noticing that the sch's healing numbers are suspiciously low considering he is much better geared than whm (half when he has i110 book and the whm has i90 zenith). We didn't tell this to any of the healers because we weren't sure if this is normal. Shortly after the sch left due to irl schedules (for real) and we tried another sch and we suddenly don't have anymore problems and we looked at the numbers again. The new sch is also better geared and more experienced at turn 8 and his healing numbers are higher by a little bit than the whm so we now know it was the previous sch slacking and blaming the other healer. But I suppose that's water under the bridge but at least we found out why.

[Krr]

Ive never used or seen "Parsers" before but here is my question to the community: From reading these post, it seems that this parser measures dps output. Can it be used to measure other important stats?

Yes! Despite being used most commonly to measure DPS, a parser tracks all measurable statistics across an encounter, such as damage taken, ability use ratios, healing per second, % of healing as overhealing, deaths, boss ability use and damage output, encounter length etc, etc, etc. You can graph and plot any of these statistics across most common models. If it shows up in your combat log and is a number you can probably track it, which is very useful for raid analysis.

Obviously, we see them so frequently called 'DPS Meters' because that's all tryhards use them for.

[QiLymePye]

I see. Thx for the explanation guys(girls if there were any). SO basically like most are saying in this thread, people are just being Aholes and blaming DPS because their numbers are maybe easier to translate than other stats? I like what a poster said earlier about giving ranks to players based on job roles after fight, something that can let the whole party see whether it was the mnk or maybe it was the healer, etc. letter grades like F-S. At least just for df instances.

[Bishop81]

you must not have done a solo sport. your biggest competitor is yourself, not other people.

I think you are missing the point here ...

Not everyone sees this game as a sport!

Personally I see it as a trip to Disneyland, for a grand old time, and I'm fairly certain I don't want some guy yelling at me to "walk faster", that we have to "finish all rides by 3pm".

[Krr]

If the game is a themepark I want to meet the jackass who designed the ride that's a fire-breathing transgender dragon chasing you down a go-kart course while your go-kart is chained to 7 other peoples', and if you didn't bring 7 friends you have to run the course with 7 strangers from the internet. Also the line is 30 minutes long because you decided to pimp out your red go-kart instead of a green or blue one.

I WANT TO GET OFF NAEL DEUS DARNUS'S WILD RIDE