Discuss: Are DPS meters bad for MMOs?

[Mykll]

I mean, if we mean actual dungeons, the only mechanic that forces you to stop your DPS are ones where the boss becomes invincible or you have to move to avoid an attack. They still encourage doing the most DPS possible as much as you can.

LotA:

Bone Dragon. E-Peen DPS people keep burning dragon, instead of stopping and getting on skellies. Enough skellies alive causes wipe. Or, burn skellies as soon as they spawn instead of letting them being dragged away. 6 skellies dying next to dragon causes a wipe.

Atomos. Tunnel vision DPS doing max. DPS, instead of getting off Atomos and helping with adds building up. Yes tank and pad DPS need to do their job, but Atomos DPS need to be aware and stop DPS for a few seconds while they get on adds. That can cause a wipe.

Vassago. Doing as much DPS as possible on Vassago, don't swap to the bombs which could lower your DPS numbers some. Enough people do that causes a wipe.


King Behemoth. People ignoring bombs and Iron Giant to push as much DPS as possible on KB. Causes a wipe. Seems to be happening more and more with the last IG where KB is almost dead. Last Meteor comes down with IG still alive.


Syrcus Tower:

Glasya Labolas. Push DPS as much as possible, ignore the little beam things. Can cause a wipe. And I LOVE seeing people kill themselves when he has the 2 reflect damage buffs on.

Amon. Tunnel vision DPS as much as possible on Amon and ignore the slimes and the death ghost dudes whatever they are called. Can cause a wipe.

Xande. More tunnel vision DPS on Xande, melee DPS says "No not me I'm not moving to the yellow circles and stopping my DPS". Enough people do that causes a wipe.

There are plenty of cases where, especially a melee DPS, will not get off the boss, swap targets or whatever, for fear of losing that little bit of DPS, all the while the boss is not invincible nor have to avoid an attack.

[MorbidAngel]

Parsers are only good for e-peen min/max'ers. Nothing in this game requires anyone to have a parser.

[Gilraen]

Great list of bosses...

Nice that some people pay attention to the battles. I've got some others in not so brand name dungeons.

Copperbell:

Ochre Jelly (name?) - You can't hurt it directly so there's really no DPS race to kill it, the DDs are largely left to keep the spriggan adds in check while the tank holds hate and the healer keeps the tank healthy.

Gigas boss - While he can be DPS'ed down NOW by level 50 players, anyone not level 50 have to keep the adds managed or they could easily overwhelm the party.

Copperhell (Copperbell Hard)

First Gigas boss - If the DDs go nuts on him you could easily force the phase changes, which creates a spreading fire effect on the platform and spawns several adds. Including bombs that will wipe the party.

Biggy - Like ochre jelly before, you can't really hurt him so it's all down to add management and keeping healthy (and avoiding attacks) while the real damage via bombs is managed by a party member, preferably the tank.

Halatali

Firemane - If you push the phases too quickly the adds will add up faster than the DDs can keep in check, which can result in area wide damage.

Demon boss - Same as with Firemane, though the boss has moments of invulnerability on top of that.


There's more but I'm just working off memory, I'd have to check the dungeons again.

[Kazumac]

Parsers are only good for e-peen min/max'ers.

Nope, they are good for anyone wanting to improve their performance and not limited to only being useful to DPSers. Spell breakdown and over heal examination are quite useful to the introspective healer.

Though I do agree they are not required. In my opinion there is a large gap between good for (in the way you used it) and required.

And it's funny the only time I've seen someone kicked for lack of dps has been me. It was due to the group perceiving SMNs to be low on the dps side and the group was having issues with having enough dmg in Garuda ex (back pre echo). My buddy who was parsing the fight with me, sent me a tell afterwards telling me I actually was outperforming everyone by a wide margin. We had a good laugh about it but it just goes to show that groups will make these decisions informed or uninformed... Wouldn't be nice to actually be able to have real information instead of just guesses? People will get kicked/harassed for low dps with or without a parser.

Actually I have a good answer to why and it has nothing to do with required/good for the community etc. They can't allow 3rd party apps b/c it would make playing on a PC an advantage over the PS users. And this is why good or bad third party tools will more than likely always be not ok officially.

[CrystalRainbow]

MY answer to this, and my wife posted it somewhere else is to not show DPS numbers.

Which I think would be a great April 1st patch.

[Gardes]

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I really like how you two provided examples with the assumption that attempting to maximize dps = ignoring mechanics. Even included fights that becomes faster and easier when the dps is high while the mechanics are still done properly and spun it into something bad just by adding 'tunnel vision'. Best of all, all the examples are from low to medium difficulty content.

[Gilraen]

I think the tunnel vision here is excluding anything prior to Coil. Content isn't invalidated just because of age or level, it's still relevant and it still has people trying to race like the rewards will somehow be better for it. It's especially obvious in the pre-level 50 dungeons because tanks rarely have access to all their hate generation abilities leaving DDs the potential to steal hate. I see it way too often. Few learn how to throttle themselves and while that makes for great DPS, the mechanics more often than not punish you for it. It was asked when maximizing DPS is a bad thing, examples were given but it's debunked on the sole premise of, "But that's not Coil." XIV is more than just Coil.

[TheMax1087]

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Unless the definition of stopping dps has changed somehow, switching to adds has absolutely nothing to do with stopping dps, not to mention your analysis of atomos(the tank and whichever 2 dps are on the pad are always enough to kill all the adds that spawn) and glasys(the first set of adds do not need to be killed, just the ots and 2 healers entering the fields of the ones with the lasers is enough) are wrong. What you are actually describing is ignoring mechanics, which people actually trying to maximize dps don't do, as you can't dps while dead.

[Gardes]

I think the tunnel vision here is excluding anything prior to Coil. Content isn't invalidated just because of age or level, it's still relevant and it still has people trying to race like the rewards will somehow be better for it. It's especially obvious in the pre-level 50 dungeons because tanks rarely have access to all their hate generation abilities leaving DDs the potential to steal hate. I see it way too often. Few learn how to throttle themselves and while that makes for great DPS, the mechanics more often than not punish you for it. It was asked when maximizing DPS is a bad thing, examples were given but it's debunked on the sole premise of, "But that's not Coil." XIV is more than just Coil.

"But that's not Coil." XIV is more than just Coil.

I never mentioned anything of the sort. I said low to medium. Primal fights do exist. You're the one jumping into conclusions AND be the one to exclude coil in the first place and chose to include 'tunnel vision' as part of your argument, which is something that can still happen in any fight, including coil. You know what, let me write against your examples.

Copperbell NM
Jelly: The boss cannot be hit for damage until its last form but the spriggan adds can be. Low dps can result in the spriggan destroying the trigger to summon bombs, slowing down the jelly dispersion mechanic. High dps does the opposite
Gigas boss: High dps on boss allows the party to ignore adds even without 'lvl50' players. I know this for a fact because I've seen parties with zero 'lvl50's doing this on the first month of ARR launch. Should the party decide to go for the adds, high dps also helps kill the adds faster. (I also don't see why lvl 50 on non lvl 50 dungeons matter at all. They're being level synced down and it wouldnt make a difference if a lvl 25 or a lvl 50 enters a lvl 20 cap dungeon, they're still capped down to lvl 20. I also heard that the cap also brings their gear down to that level cap's gear to white gear level. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at by repeatedly throwing in 'lvl 50' in these examples)

Coppebell HM
1st Gigas: On the very first pull, you already have adds. If the party can dps the boss and the adds fast enough, they can dps the rest of the aoe packs that come just as well. High dps also kills the bomb quickly, minimizing the chance of wipe. Low dps on bomb will wipe the party
Biggy: While dpsing the boss down manually is not feasible, the adds needs to be dropped quickly. The fire adds casts high damage spells and hurts the healer's mp more than anyone else. I've actually seen parties wipe from the insane fire damage because the fire adds were allowed to live for too long.

Halatali NM
Fire elemental: Completely possible for this boss to be burned down while ignoring adds. In fact, my first experience was at ARR launch, going in as a tank and having my 2 dps burn this down quickly while the healer just heals through the damage, making me think that that's how the fight was designed to be until I came in to the dungeon a 2nd time. I've also healed this fight as a low level conjurer. The damage is a joke and my mp barely took a dent at that level despite the heal spam.
Demon boss: Actually a fight where high dps is actually what you would want. Low dps on the fire lights will add extra damage to the party while high dps will make the boss become vulnerable to attacks again faster. Win condition is to defeat the boss, the torch phases are phases where you are not working towards that objective and should be completed quickly. I don't see how you can say that high dps is detrimental to this at all.

[Enjuden]

Parsers are only good for e-peen min/max'ers. Nothing in this game requires anyone to have a parser.

Let's completely forget Coil and Savage Coil shall we? I wish people would not use the excuse of 'Oh, people are going to focus on their DPS and not any mechanics' when the majority of players do this at a constant basis without a parser.

There is nothing in this game that will help those players, parser or otherwise besides a good smack in the head telling them they're wrong.