Would you be against or for rewarding good performance in parties?

[Lynart]

you literally just said not to assume the rules are static. what's the opposite of static rules?

For mother ****ing sakes do I need to spell it out for both of you "software developers"?

If you have an abstraction or interface, it may or may not be implemented and can be derived.

If an interface or abstraction is enforced on this system for every dungeon, each dungeon could have a unique implementation of said contract. By no means would this involve any artificial intelligence because the developers could simply override or use existing rules from the base implementation (if one exists).

I'm sure we're both very glad we don't work with each other. The above is really basic knowledge; I used the terms interface and abstraction intentionally as they're well understood by anyone that goes onto stackoverflow for work or school.

[Teryaani]

No, I wasn't referring to anything close to the complexity of machine learning, or artificial intelligence with either my initial post or the high level discussion of interfaces or abstractions. Please explain how you came to that conclusion.

If you want to reward certain player behaviors, do what other games do and add a series of achievements (with appropriate vanity rewards) and link them to specific dungeon mechanics. It's easier and less contentious than this. Any time a system like this comes into play it gets gamed and exploited. It's more hassle than it's worth.

[SendohJin]

The reward for SE is simple: keep the ex hardcore players that have become casual players happy. Though I have no idea if there is a significant amount of those type of players as I really only know myself as one.

........and my subscription is running out lol

Not talking about the reward for SE, what's the reward for an individual player in such a system. what do you get at the end of the dungeon?

[SendohJin]

each dungeon could have a unique implementation of said contract.

that just means each dungeon has static rules for the dungeon.

post limit: to clarify, why do you think your unique implementation is going to be besides a set of static rules for that dungeon?

[sarehptar]

DPS- +: Amount of damage done, amount of support skills used (aggro management etc; ) during combat, number of attacks hitting more than two targets. -: failing to reach damage thresholds, damage taken by avoidable aoes and cleaves, % time spent not attacking in relation to total combat time, failing to reach support skill threshold.

The amount of work necessary to make this viable in the hundreds of extremely situational instances in FFXIV means it will never happen. Case in point: BRD.


Amount of damage done: In pure numbers, BRD does less damage than other classes, and it is designed this way because of its mobility and support capability. Unless BRD/MCH is put in a category of their own (more work), this metric will always unfairly advantage classes that are considered "support DPS."

Amount of support skills used: Theoretically would help even out the BRD/MCH lower-damage-lower-points issue--except that support skills are situational and only used when needed. If no one in the party needs MP, I'm not gonna be popping Refresh left and right. If the tank isn't taking much damage, I'm not going to use Palisade. Support skills are useful only when they are needed, and making BRD/MCH points based on them will just promote poor gameplay, not improve it.

Number of attacks hitting more than two targets: Some DPS have fewer AOEs than others, and some classes need more wind-up to effectively utilize their AOEs. Mage's Ballad now procs Rain of Death spam off of critical hits from BRD DoTs, which means you have to take the time to apply those before you can utilize that AOE effectively. Again, unless all classes are given their own individual metrics, which would be a ridiculous amount of extra thought going into planning for each instance, some DPS would be disadvantaged here over others.

Damage taken by avoidable aoes and cleaves: And if the tank cleaves me because of poorly positioning mobs, will I lose points, or him/her?

% time spent not attacking in relation to total combat time: The % of the fight spent sitting through unavoidable periods boss invulnerability makes this a silly idea entirely.

This is just one example--you could do the same for every DPS, healer, and tank class. There is no situation in which Square would be able to define specific enough guidelines for every single job in every single duty to make this addition worthwhile.

[Driavna]

Just use Overwatch and how the play of the match works, even today after tweaking the hell out of it is still a mess. Also, at times be the top in something could mean you ignore other stuff.

Sure, you could make said mechanics give more points but them people will "fight" for the most valuable stuff.

[KDSilver]

While I agree that a good performance should get a better reward,
It will never work in FFXIV whatever you do.

All you can just do is keep doing you best all the time for self sastisfaction and to help people.
It may be sad for some people but that's how it works in this game.

[Spiroglyph]

Actually quite like this idea - parsers and third party softwares are frowned upon and we have little to no chance of ever seeing an in game DPS-meter outside of SSS. As such, I really would like to have some way to see/measure one's performance (something for the user only, as this could lessen harrassment) that isn't simply being able to clear the instance.

Commendations are nice enough, but they're rather fickle things and I think they're a pretty unreliable way to evaluate one's performance. I just really want SOME way of being able to tell if I'm playing adequately or not, if I'm meeting certain "standards" of play and if not, well, at least I'll KNOW I'm supposed to be looking into something that I'm probably doing wrong. :/

I really like OP's idea of the meters for DPS and tanks - I'd like to add maybe something like... also measure their performance by the amount of ground aoes they take, or something, so as to avoid people saying that numbers are everything that matters in this game - overall performance isn't just DPS output, after all. For healers I like the suggestion of amount of HPS and deduced points for overhealing

[Nora_of_Mira]

It hit me today that the reason why party mechanics in MMORPGs' suck is because regardless of how you preform, you are rewarded the exact same as every other player.

I'm against this idea entirely. I don't even agree with the opening statement. My good performance is rewarded with fast clear times (which equates to more runs in my allotted play time). Everything I've seen listed in this thread seems.... a bit selfish in nature, though I don't believe that's the intention. Everyone wants to be rewarded for their work but IMHO, its important to know how rewards manifest in a cooperative environment than just asking the devs "can I get more stuff for being better". Wanting more than the "bottom performers" is simply exclusionary and doesn't fit in FFxiv's (Yoshi's) vision for how they want this MMO to work. Speaking strictly of dungeons, of course. Extreme content exists for this reason.

Also, "good performance" can mean anything. Everything I see listed in the proposal are personal goals, high dps, cooldown usage. What if good performance involved something more collaborative? There aren't many ideas that come to mind (probably why this doesnt exist) but using Goad on your fellow DPS comes to mind when we want to AoE down mobs. If other role actions had party usage, I can see that being a thing.