Discuss: Are DPS meters bad for MMOs?

[ruskie]

Back in my day we were able to pass DPS checks in MMOs before anyone even knew what a parser was. Do you know how we did it? If your party failed a DPS check, everyone took responsibility for it. There was no "blame game." Every single person told themselves, "I need to get better so we don't wipe again," regardless if they were actually the ones holding the party back or not, and then proceeded to practice on other enemies or dummies.

While there was no back in my day for me. This is how our static operates. We don't focus on a single person but in general the whole group. We will go to train as a group to improve everyone. We will go in blind into fights to learn and understand the mechanics with no guides or anything. Just our brains and reactions.

What I would like to see done in the game is as someone mentioned...

A training room BUT one where you go in and select one of the many bosses in the game - but only for stuff you have cleared as your opposite. I wouldn't mind this being also a light, full party content but also have an option to solo(make the rest be NPCs). So that the "dummy" as it were would actually emulate real fights and not just be a dummy. Then you could actually improve yourself more.

[LunarEmerald]

A dps responsibility is to do good dps. A dps that doesn't is not fulfilling their role. In difficult content, one bad dps is all it takes to hold the entire party back. If someone isn't pulling their weight then they should be called out on it. Healers get blamed when they screw up and let the tank die. Tanks get blamed when they lose hate and let somebody else die. So are dps free of responsibility? The answer is no. Dead weight is dead weight. Dps or not. If you're a hindrance to the group and don't make an effort to improve yourself then it is your fault and nobody else's. I also find it silly because parsers are a way a dps can see their performance and improve. Imagine a tank not being able to see enmity meters and just had to guess how much hate they had over others. That's kinda how it is. A parser is an essential tool for a dps.

[Ellatrix]

A dps responsibility is to do good dps. A dps that doesn't is not fulfilling their role. In difficult content, one bad dps is all it takes to hold the entire party back. If someone isn't pulling their weight then they should be called out on it. Healers get blamed when they screw up and let the tank die. Tanks get blamed when they lose hate and let somebody else die. So are dps free of responsibility? The answer is no. Dead weight is dead weight. Dps or not. If you're a hindrance to the group and don't make an effort to improve yourself then it is your fault and nobody else's. I also find it silly because parsers are a way a dps can see their performance and improve. Imagine a tank not being able to see enmity meters and just had to guess how much hate they had over others. That's kinda how it is. A parser is an essential tool for a dps.

Except some play dps so they feel absolved of responsibility (and it's why they don't like tank or healer). Oops.

[Zaft]

Parsers are tools and are neither inherently good or bad. That being said, I believe they are a good thing for any game, because they give you a metric by which to measure performance. Before there were any accurate DPS meters, my FC calculated our DPS by determining the HP of a target dummy and then recording ourselves fighting it for "x" minutes (say 5 minutes). Then you count how many times the dummy "died", multiply that by its HP, and divide it by the amount of seconds you fought to determine your DPS. The problem is that there is as of yet a raid that is a simple target dummy (T8 tries to be), so it does not necessarily represent a player's performance in an actual fight.

As said by others prior to my post, it is not the tool but the people who are a problem. Using a parser to improve yourself and let others know if they're doing something incorrect is great. Using a parser to belittle people and harass them is not. It's an attitude issue, not a parser issue.

[LunarEmerald]

Except some play dps so they feel absolved of responsibility (and it's why they don't like tank or healer). Oops.

Yeah. That's the problem. But no role is free of responsibility. If you aren't contributing to the group then you don't belong there. Dps isn't a free pass to be lazy and be exempt from criticism.

[Fornix]

DPS meters in current form as seen in many MMO's are bad for MMO's. As it leads to segregation of the community. Those who use DPS meters and have the ability to not only keep pushing their own DPS as well as observe other's DPS. And those who can only guesstimate on whether their DPS is improving and can't see the contribution of others.

And this may cause frustration on both ends. Users may notice some group members are simply failing to pull their individual weight and as such feel like they're merely carrying those individuals. Whereas on the other hand those without the DPS meters may be trying their best, but by lacking the live feedback they can't judge the impact of small rotational errors. And despite trying their best, they may still end up getting booted from the group. Whether that boot from the group would be justified or not, would depend on the cause of failure in the group. Although lowest DPS may quickly become the black sheep out within PUGs, even if wipes didn't even come down to insufficient overall DPS.

In general though it'd be more fair to all players if developers would integrate DPS meters for all players to make use of. That way you eliminate the advantage DPS meter users have over those who don't. And although it won't make mediocre players exceptional, nor would all players truly need it, it could greatly help diminish the gap between the players who barely out DPS a healer or tank and the rest of the DPS.

[Aylis]

Its touch and go for me on the topic. While personally in the old days I did love parsers be it for dps or healing as a tool to let me sort out which builds and which rotations worked out against which didn't. Something to allow me to fine tune things away from other players so as not to use them as part of my experiments. As a tool they were great, to the people that wanted to use parsers as weapons to attack others? Not as great.

I do question the benefits of them now in today's game however as the era of "tank and spank" has pretty much drawn to a close in mmo's. Games today have more active dodging and mechanics and due to the fact parses will never really display an accurate result. Near to the point as several others have mentioned in this thread with various encounters. Almost as if having a very high dps parse is "doing it wrong" in regards to certain fight mechanics.

Aside for the fights that have phases where strict DPS checks come into play. That's the only benefit to parsers I can think of in modern mmo's

[rappa]

Bad players will be the worst with or without the parser.

[Staris]

they should remove health bars, unit frames, party frames, abilities and player names too.

I should join any instance and instantly win and get loot, maybe using keys from the cash shop to enter to make it more meaningful.

Really i only want to watch the cut scenes.

Oh and make it a single player game too, with offline play.

Thanks!

[AxelDH]

There really should be a way to display your own DPS in game. They could just make it so you cant see other peoples! You wouldn't be able to troll others about their DPS if you cant see it, but being able to see your own is invaluable when trying to perfect your technique.

A lot of people cant use parsers themselves for one reason or another; those who play on PS4 for instance. Having to ask others for feedback all the time is a pain, and as everyone sets their meters up a little different, they can possibly give you inaccurate results. So an official, accurate DPS meter would be nice to have.