SE: How do I know if I am doing enough damage in Savage?

[Kohashi]

There is no way to pinpoint whether you are proficient in your job or if you only think you are doing good. At least the game does not provide any meaningful tools for it.

One of my biggest challenges when playing dancer was to hit and do 8/9 GCDS during the burst window, because sometimes clipping meant I would miss at least one. For you would be during the Brotherhood window.

Other things to consider, buffs always kept up, hitting your positional at all times, and not canceling combos.

[Exmo]

I’ve met new players that are wrong about how to play their job and think they’re doing it right. I was personally like this when I started trying RDM in raids. And sometimes they just think “wow, this first floor of Savage is really hard” instead of realizing something is wrong with how they’re approaching their job. They only find out they’re playing wrong if they look up tutorials (but why look up tutorials for something you think you already know how to do?) or someone else points out their problems by using logs.

Because you hit enrage without deaths and you're using good gear, mats, food and pots, and somehow you forgot to check at the very beginning if you were sufficiently competent with your class (eg. you skipped rotation guides, you skipped SSS, you're unpracticed with the class, etc).

Again, it's not that complicated. This is normally a self-correcting problem. You see a problem with your group's dps, you know you're using all the right bells and whistles, so you reevaluate the basics.

[Inputnamehere]

Ask SE to drop their ego and finally give us some kind of "performance rating". Despite someone will start fuann complaining.

[Hastatus]

I have read all kinds of guides: I even saw one that suggested locking your GPU to specific framerates based on your ping ranges. lol All I want is to see how much damage I'm doing so I can see what job choreography does more damage. The solution to look at all the guides that probably based their data on fruit of the poisonous tree seems kind of like an indirect argument that these numbers are needed by almost everyone even if they don't know it. The entire combat system of the game is based on cumulative damage. The calculations are there; they are just not visible. To deny a system that would help teach people to maximize their damage which is the whole point of the game's combat is more and more misguided as DPS checks become tighter and jobs get more buttons.

Interesting. Can't give us cumulative totals because of harassment possibilities. Is that the only excuse SE has ever given?

To SE: The simple way to prevent harassment is to make a damage meter a privilege that you can take away. In fact it could be used to prevent other types of non-dps-type harassment by locking out its use by any player who commits any type of harassment. Players who want to use such a meter would not want to lose access to it. Players who are already prone to harassing based on DPS are already likely getting the data through illicit means...so preventing access to an in game meter is just punishing and impeding the honorable players. Just make the meter unlockable upon completing your first current Extreme or Savage and only allow it to be used to see one's personal damage at first. Perhaps unlock being able to see everyone's personal damage upon clearing the fourth Savage boss. Only allow the meter to be visible for Extremes, Savages, and all Striking Dummies (I'm not allowed to have an opinion on Ultimates).

I did figure out how to calculate cumulative totals, but it is tedious. I made a fourth Chat Tab naming it Damage. I had forgotten about these options. I set it up with timestamps and to only show personal damage. I can then tediously copy paste that info one 'page' at a time into a spreadsheet by converting the data from "text to columns" and then I can sum the damages. I assume copy pasting to and from the chat logs manually is not against terms of service or else everyone pasting links in chat or others copy pasting them to their browsers would be in trouble?

[12:32]  Critical! Peerifool takes 7251 damage.
[12:32]  Peerifool takes 4769 damage.
[12:32]  Peerifool takes 4640 damage.

I need my numbers. And bring back Arithmeticians.

[Supersnow845]

Square enix is so stringent with in game chat I simply do not understand why they are so afraid of DPS meters. If they give people a DPS meter and someone goes “haha look at this loser BLM doing less damage than the SCH” then just report with the saved in game chats and boom….ban. Like it’s so easy to prevent harassment in game over this because they already do it. It’s the one thing GM’s actually do in this game. If they are worried about out of game harassing well that already happens anyway but it’s really only 2chan that takes it too far

Are they worried people will become discouraged when they see their own terrible DPS? It’s hard to know you are playing terribly when the game actively hides your performance from not just others but yourself as well. Arguably the current situation is worse as any veteran just runs ACT and can see how bad the other person is doing but the other person can’t see how badly they are doing. If you know you are playing terribly and don’t care well then you don’t deserve a seat at the design table anyway

[Jeeqbit]

The solution to look at all the guides that probably based their data on fruit of the poisonous tree seems kind of like an indirect argument that these numbers are needed by almost everyone even if they don't know it.

For the most part, no, these things could be figured out purely with what we have access to in the game:

• Calculate potency-per-second (potency divided by cooldown/time before used again) of each action and ability to determine priority (usually, this is gonna result in getting the right opener on its own).
• Reading tooltips, descriptions, status effects and observing effects in the game.
• Common sense (ie. Always Be Casting, food, pots is duh if you think about it when trying to do your best).
• You can add the combat log into a spreadsheet like you mentioned and simulate DoT effects with (potency x (time divided by 3)).

To deny a system that would help teach people to maximize their damage which is the whole point of the game's combat

There's no reason why players can't teach this. It's a social game. They have the novice network, FCs and obviously the community has hundreds of thousands of FFXIV discords, including hundreds of large ones, just to help people learn the game. Not to mention thousands of people have made YouTube guides over the years - including small creators that just helped the few hundred people who stumbled on their guide.

as DPS checks become tighter and jobs get more buttons.

DPS checks may arguably be tighter with how strictly they now align raid buffs and account for that, but we've had tiers since Abyssos that weren't seen as tight by many people and the DPS checks quickly become nothing in PF after 7 weeks when everyone gets their tomestone weapon and other players helping out already outfitted themselves with a mixture of raid and tomestone gear.

So I mean those DPS checks only matter if you're in a rush to clear it all week 1 which plenty of players don't care about. Just like a lot of people aren't in a rush to skip MSQ just so they can get their weapon and extreme mount day 1. Not everyone has this strange need to do everything day 1.

As for jobs getting more buttons, I kinda agree they get busier from Stormblood but often now it's just more buttons, not meaningful buttons with as distracting interactions and time limits like we used to have.

Can't give us cumulative totals because of harassment possibilities. Is that the only excuse SE has ever given?

Yes. I recall them saying they started developing an addon API (I assume after talking to a plugin dev in ARR in person) but they scrapped it for this exact reason. I imagine the other reason though is the challenge of getting them onto consoles.

I can then tediously copy paste that info one 'page' at a time into a spreadsheet by converting the data from "text to columns" and then I can sum the damages.

I recall Yoshi-P said he was aware people could do that exact thing because he is a big spreadsheet person given spreadsheets are a massive part of his job.

I assume copy pasting to and from the chat logs manually is not against terms of service

SE log it to a file anyway, albeit delayed. The filename changes every 7 minutes to 6 hours ish, depending on factors I'm unsure of, so there is a massive set of log files going back years in your Documents directory that even includes chat history.

[Kohashi]

The easiest way to implement this is a solo dps matter without showing everyone else, but only the individual performance.

[Enjuden]

Those who are saying you can figure it out in game are delusional at best, and simping at worst. There are some classes that are very straight forward such as Dancer or Summoner, but even they have ways you can lose your dps entirely. Monk is not one of those jobs, and it's very easy to screw up or simply get lost in the moment and drop too many things. M5S week 1 you will see the enrage cast unless you're the best of the best, with gear from the later floors, and week 2 wasn't much better with kill speeds either. With monk, you can lose thousands of dps by misaligning buffs, which it has enough to juggle to make it substantial

Stone Sky Sea was fine when the game gave somewhat accurate dps with them like in Heavensward, where the game was much slower and had far fewer things to align, but it has stopped being useful since that expansion ended. There's too much movement and downtime even going back to Stormblood to say that is an accurate measure. Let alone that it gives zero information. 'Wow you beat the boss, but you could do better!' They had that dialogue in ONE dungeon in Stormblood and Endwalker, and it's gone. Why isn't this in the literal in game dummy that is meant to encourage you to learn rotation? Maybe compare you to someone else who's done SSS as well? Why doesn't the dummy or the training guy tell you anything about how to do more?

Until SE gives up this extremely stubborn and foolish stance of not teaching players how to play their job, this will continue to happen in all content. Frankly, they should be filtering people who do not know how to play their job in the MSQ and then teaching people what they could be doing better, but that is too difficult. SE already has the money from the MSQ andies who only play one month then leave, why not use that month to help?

If you do care, the only way is through outside sources, since SE has refused to help players be better at any content and just gave up with the echo buff instead. Look up xivanalysis and your name on fflogs. You'll see why.

Inb4 banned for talking of the forbidden site directly.

[Voryn]

Because you hit enrage without deaths and you're using good gear, mats, food and pots, and somehow you forgot to check at the very beginning if you were sufficiently competent with your class (eg. you skipped rotation guides, you skipped SSS, you're unpracticed with the class, etc).

Again, it's not that complicated. This is normally a self-correcting problem. You see a problem with your group's dps, you know you're using all the right bells and whistles, so you reevaluate the basics.

I’m more specifically referring to beginner/casual players that don’t necessarily have the knowledge to diagnose the problem or to realize that they might be the ones doing something wrong in their rotations or uptime. I’ve had a session of dying a few times in M1S to enrage with only two or three deaths, in 7.1 where people had much better gear than they needed, and the people thought the problems were the two deaths and that was savage is just really really really hard. And then I noticed players not using any abilities at all during mechanics despite having spent multiple sessions trying to get the clear. I saw their characters spent a lot of time only running, or the party list rarely showed them casting offensive spells. Players who don’t know what to look for don’t really notice this stuff unless either someone else tells them or a a third party tool tells them.

I don’t disagree that this problem can be solved with some reflection about one’s own performance, as is the case for a lot of us that figure it out. But since I’ve seen people either get the answer wrong (eg. “I just need to gcd heal less,” “we need to never die so we can clear M1S”) or fail to even realize there’s a problem in how they’re playing (“savage is just really really hard,” “as a healer it’s not my fault we’re seeing enrage”) then I think ingame feedback of some kind would be good for new players.

Otherwise there will be people who either keep playing at a beginner level, or just give up, because they don’t know enough to identify and solve the problems. Even if it’s straightforward for those of us who already know the game.

[Jeeqbit]

people thought the problems were the two deaths and that was savage is just really really really hard

This is the standard assumption because usually we don't look at eachother's gear or performance closely unless we notice it out of the corner of our eye. The standard assumption is they are all giving it their all, even though we know that isn't actually the case in PF a lot of the time, because it's expected.

the party list rarely showed them casting offensive spells.

Which you see in the game.

Players who don’t know what to look for don’t really notice this stuff unless either someone else tells them

The player doing it should be aware they are not doing attacks for an extended period of time and that this is logically why they'd fail a DPS check and that doing more attacks would mean more damage. If they need something to tell them this then that is strange.

Maybe we should all make macros for prog parties that say "btw if you stop attacking to do mechanics, then it's time not spent doing damage, and not doing damage allows the boss to be alive to cast enrage "

Thinking about it, it's probably related to them using Standard camera because of how much quicker it is to turn around at the last moment to step out of an AoE with Legacy. It could be solved by SE simply making Legacy default or recommend it when people unlock High-End duties in Raid Finder.

For healers it's probably related partly to autofacetarget, which is useful for attacks but it also turns you for heals when this is not required for heals. I had to make a macro to work around this to heal while a gaze was going off in Savage once, so I could still autofacetarget for attacks. I met a healer the other day that was struggling with this and I forgot to mention it.