Damage Meters

[Verius_Nox]

There is no such thing as self improvement anymore. We're all winners, we all get a trophy, we all get told we're doing great because we're having fun.

[Bishop81]

...

Looking at some of the posts in this thread, I can totally understand why most players don't have sympathy for the raider's plight.

[Ayuhra]

Today some stranger parsed me on Cuff of the Father and I was lowest DPS (I was mostly focusing on AoE while single targetting Dolls and Gobwalker things). I didn't want to do the walker because I thought I was contributing but he called me useless. If I was bottom of the barrel in my gear then I probably was.

Anyway the moral of the story is it really broke my confidence.

This situation really reminded me how awful it is to have to hear that from someone else.

I'm pretty sure I could tighten up my damage with some sort of visual aid. I've done it in other MMOs.

Flying blind I confuse myself.

[Makeda]

Wouldn't the same problem still exist?
The causal/bad that's scared of numbers is just simply going to be scared of colors now. Even with the color bar the person that doesn't know their rotation by now most likely doesn't care to. So we're back in the same situation, someone is the weak link, we don't know who, no one is going to step up so we can't correct the problem.

Where does this hateful conservative meme come from anyway?

I've been playing these games since 2005 and I've never met this mythical player that doesn't care, wants to get carried, and 'whines to daddy'. The only people who 'whine to daddy' are the ones who claim everyone else does, when they get called on it.

Not everyone is as super amazing as you. But that doesn't meant they don't try or don't want to get better. They just haven't gotten there yet.

Either they don't know how, they lack the resources to figure out how (time, skill, agility, able-bodied-ness, whatever), or they are not aware of what they're doing wrong. Or quite often, they have been burned and intimidated by those who's so-called-advice is sharply toned and full of negative slams. Ok, so maybe you learn best by being punched in the gut and told you're worhtless... I grew up in a ghetto and got out, so I can relate to that. But not everyone works that way. You don't need to sugar coat things because life isn't binary... but you don't need to urinate on people when you talk to them either...

But I've never met a moocher except for the rich girl that wanted to make me her latin pool boy when I was 22...

This negative attitude against other players is the real problem... Get over it that other people are not at your pace... Help them get there, or shut up about it.

As for meters...

I really like the color codes idea. But I'm thinking the colors might work best with red as 'more DPS than needed', orange as just right, yellow as a bit low, and green as not enough - like the enmity meter works.

[Terribad]

I've been playing these games since 2005 and I've never met this mythical player that doesn't care, wants to get carried, and 'whines to daddy'..

Just because YOU haven't met these players doesn't mean they don't exist. People wouldn't mention them if they never, ever existed. Also I believe there's a thread here asking for Garuda story mode to be nerfed(A bad that wont learn mechanics). If you've been here since 2.0 release you'll know about people screaming about AK nerfs. There's plenty of people here (and in many other mmos) that simply do not care about rotation but they want (for whatever reason) to do end game content.

And the whole "Everyone isn't as good as you, everyone isn't pro" No one is asking for everyone to be God tier players, most people just want people to put forth SOME effort. There's guides, fc mates, ls mates, the forums, reddit, youtube, etc if you can't take 3 minutes out of your day to learn your class (or just read your tool tips) then that goes back to my original point that they don't care.

Help them get there, or shut up about it.

Not only is it not my job to teach them about THEIR job they DECIDED to play. It's not enough time to do that in dungeons and 2. a lot simply don't want help.

Ran into a PLD just today that would not use flash or any of his aggro abilities me and a dps offered help several times very nicely. He ignored us except to ask for a raise once I let him die. Ran into a healer that kept using cure 2, asked if I could offer advice, got told "No". Like i said with as easy as this game is if you make it to 50 and don't know your rotations or what to do by then, you simply do not care.

[Kitfox]

What I would like to see is a damage meter measured in potency/second instead of damage/second. Buffs/crits should affect the potency done the same way they would affect damage done. That way gear is mostly factored out - still some effect from skill speed and crit but gives a much better way to measure yourself.

This would actually be really cool. Sometimes it's hard to tell how people are doing when gear levels aren't comparable. Though I'd still like to know the final number also, or have a "gear multiplier" shown somewhere for raiding purposes.

[seekified]

The thing is, a lot of people who don't care about optimizing their play also won't care about a system like this. I have friends who've played since open beta and still can't name a surprising number of the skills they use on their main class. These things just aren't important to a lot of people, as annoying as that may be for us minmaxing, theorycrafting types.

That said, I'm all for have some kind of DPS measurement system ingame if only to make my own life easier.

[ElHeggunte]

I've been playing these games since 2005 and I've never met this mythical player that doesn't care, wants to get carried, and 'whines to daddy'. The only people who 'whine to daddy' are the ones who claim everyone else does, when they get called on it.

Really? I've played my fair share of MMOs and while this isn't necessarily super common, I see it a lot more than I'd like. It happens the most in content that involves lots of people because it's easier for an individual to blend in. For FFXIV that content would be things like CT/ST/WoD and soon whatever new 24-man we're getting for HW. I've seen more people than I can count intentionally get themselves locked out of fights or just park themselves on the boss and auto-attack, only coming back often enough to accept the inevitable raise or to cast lots on loot and move on to the next boss. These same people are often the ones that "accidentally" pull the boss or delay rolling on gear so they can't be vote kicked. If you've been playing MMOs for 10 years and haven't seen one, you're not paying close enough attention.

[Vurtney]

Combat Rating Meter

I've had this idea for some time as well. Instead of cold numbers the meter gauges player performance with current gear level in mind and actions made in combat (just like any dps meter) but gives more rewarding feedback through colour (and maybe sound)

A colourful visual cue. It doesn't provide hard cold numbers yet is enough information for even the most casual of the casuals to know how he/she is faring in a fight.

Feedback like this is commonly used in fast paced action games because it feels so damn satisfying (yummy endorphin) It doesn't suddenly make lazy or mediocre players play better but it's a fun personal performance guide to work and have fun with.

[Voltyblast]

If you took away the DPS checks why would you ever take a DPS job? just stack tanks and healers. Tanks in DPS stance can put out respectable damage, 800 plus compared to a pure DPS 1100. plus they have the survivability with extra HP. can switch to tank stance if needed. Guaranteed if they removed DPS checks then 6 tanks, 2 healers would be the way forwards.

The cerberus fight wasn't a dps check and that was an example of how a fight can be done without proper dps check: it was inventive, very creative, and I liked the team work there than in any other CT encounter. Yes it was a casual 24 man raid but it proved that they can make a fight that doesn't solely rely on not missing your combination for max dps output.

And it's also why I never dare to dps in any fight. I considered myself a decent monk and bard back in 2.0 but I don't like this feeling of stressing (keyword here) myself to squeeze my dps to the maximum, for then realizing I wasn't doing well because "I'm missing some vital combos here".

In addition, like Ayuhra said.

Today some stranger parsed me on Cuff of the Father and I was lowest DPS (I was mostly focusing on AoE while single targetting Dolls and Gobwalker things). I didn't want to do the walker because I thought I was contributing but he called me useless. If I was bottom of the barrel in my gear then I probably was.

Anyway the moral of the story is it really broke my confidence.

This situation really reminded me how awful it is to have to hear that from someone else.

I'm pretty sure I could tighten up my damage with some sort of visual aid. I've done it in other MMOs.

Flying blind I confuse myself.

Indeed, without any visual means I can't tell how I'm doing and I don't want a random guy that I'll never see ever again to say "u suck git gud".

Sorry, but I play games to release stress, not for gaining more.

Still the point remains: if ALL fights are dps checks, a parser will be required no matter what. I only suggested a method to make the parser less (keyword here again) required than usual but since they want to make all fights a dps check, a parser will be always wanted and needed.

And until further notice, I fully support an in-game parser idea.