[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Faroth]

I fear you missed the point. People are toxic online anyway, DPS meters were just one of their weapons of choice because it required very little effort to use them to be a dick.

By removing it from those who are going to use it maliciously, you've also removed it as a useful tool for everyone else who'll use it responsibly too. For what its worth, DPS meters predate the apparent decline of the WoW community into it's supposed "break down" too. Everyone had one in your 10 man Strat Baron group, back when that was still a thing. Everyone. Just something to think about.

A tool that only shows you your personal DPS is great in theory, but in practice it'll be a case of simply asking people what their DPS is before inviting them to a group. A tool that doesn't show how well you're perfoming relative to other players is also of debatable use without additional data to support it. 10k DPS might seem good in isolation, but when your Warrior is doing 15k you're still underperforming and you're lacking vital information to reach that conclusion alone.

Never once saw DPS meters in use in Baron runs. And I was a non-raider, so Baron ad nauseum was my endgame in pursuit of pants that refused to drop to complete my set, so I'm doubting your claims that "everyone had one" back then. You emphasize everyone did, so I'm telling you that's flat out incorrect. I would have experienced people using them at some point and I didn't. Not even once. I'm not saying NOBODY had them running. I'm just saying it wasn't everyone and I'd even question if it was a majority.

Your argument supporting this is akin to a room full of people who are all given knives. You know there are 25 nutjobs who are mentally unstable but who cares because knives are useful. It's not your fault if something bad happens just because you gave everyone knives. It's the community's problem. You have no responsibility to come up with a more elegant solution, after all, because it's up to people on how they use the knives you gave them!

Thank the Twelve Yoshida is mindful about creating and fostering a positive experience rather than throwing anything in and saying "it's their problem, not mine."

"People are toxic online, so let's give them tools that makes it easier to express their toxicity" isn't a logical approach.


However, let me propose this for discussion in our differing views on the topic.

How could Square implement a more reliable DPS meter for those wanting to use it for personal use while still maintaining the current "if you're using the ones you're technically not supposed to, we'll look the other way if you aren't a jerk with them" approach they use?

I think making them official opens the door for flaunting them to be viewed as acceptable. Right now they ARE in use, they just aren't as precise as some want them to be and since they're not official and aren't really against ToS, it's a don't flaunt don't tell situation, which keeps them from being touted around for bragging or harassment.

How would we propose making a more reliable and detailed DPS meter while still maintaining this "keep a lid on it" style policy? Suggestions? Thoughts? Or is that policy in and of itself disagreed with as well?

[Kazgrel]

There are tools for tracking dps if one is so determined. The only pitfall is that it's only for pc, so PS4 players get the short end of the stick for that. No, the tools aren't as elegant as something like Recount in WoW (in my experience at least), but they serve the purpose.

Interested to see what "solution" they come up with. While I do believe Yoshida views parsing/meters as more of a problem than they really are, I do understand how he comes to his mindset about parsing. That being said, there's value in that data when it comes to helping people improve their play...but all the data in the world means shit if said people simply don't give a fuck about playing their job to its fullest.

Loosely related, about half a level away from MCH at 60. Swear I don't do decent dps with it but I'm also used to smoking people on dps as BLM (minus the occasional 270 geared SMN that destroys everything). Looked up the opener...lolz. That's a shitload of ogcds to remember how to sequence properly. I'd rather learn MCH than BRD, though...the shot procs make dealing with gauss barrel a lot cleaner/smoother than Minuet on BRD.

[The Casualty]

I wish the community had parsing as an accepted tool. There are far too many runs where I'm the WAR and doing far and away more DPS than all of the actual DPS. Now, I get that there is probably a significant difference between BiS 270 and someone who is 20-30 lower, but seeing people do damage in stuff like Creator normal or Dun Scaith that was only mediocre at level 50 is disheartening.

I had a Mog HM trial roulette a couple days back where we vote disbanded because we couldn't kill the moogles timely enough to avoid the ult wiping the party - on repeated attempts. The BLM and SMN were oblivious and pissed off ranting in party chat. What they didn't realize is that myself - NIN, and a BRD were doing about 80% of the party's damage.

I didn't bring it up with them, because it would have likely gotten me in trouble to do so, and they were insistent that everyone else needed to pick up the slack as they were doing their jobs.

[Katchii]

I wish the community had parsing as an accepted tool. There are far too many runs where I'm the WAR and doing far and away more DPS than all of the actual DPS. Now, I get that there is probably a significant difference between BiS 270 and someone who is 20-30 lower, but seeing people do damage in stuff like Creator normal or Dun Scaith that was only mediocre at level 50 is disheartening.

I had a Mog HM trial roulette a couple days back where we vote disbanded because we couldn't kill the moogles timely enough to avoid the ult wiping the party - on repeated attempts. The BLM and SMN were oblivious and pissed off ranting in party chat. What they didn't realize is that myself - NIN, and a BRD were doing about 80% of the party's damage.

I didn't bring it up with them, because it would have likely gotten me in trouble to do so, and they were insistent that everyone else needed to pick up the slack as they were doing their jobs.

People who want to perform well will learn how to do that with or without a parser/ meter. All the meter does is give a much more easily measurable metric to go by to tweak the performance here and there and allow you to see what other people are doing. Those that don't care to perform, aren't magically going to perform better because there's a parser/ meter available. We already have a somewhat usable measure of DPS in game in the form of the Earth, Wind, Sky dummy thingy for trials that can be used to measure how quickly you kill it which could be used to give a rough DPS estimate. Not exactly the best tool, but it's something. If anything, it could easily be used to measure an individuals performance prior to going into battle so you know who's up to par and who isn't, but it sadly could obviously not be used to measure actual performance during the battle

I personally like having a DPS meter because I like to see my numbers, but it honestly doesn't really change how I play it just provides an easily measurable and therefore reportable metric for my performance. I'm one of the people who looks up guides and uses the targetting dummies to get my rotations down before going into battle. I can't stand the thought of holding a group back or not being good enough or seen as incompetent so it's not like a DPS meter is going to change that. It might affect how I gear or what materia I slot to change my DPS by a few %, but I'm not in bleeding edge progression content, I just do PuGs so that level of min/maxing isn't required. That said, I'm not sure introducing an official parser/ meter would affect the game as a whole because people like me will still keep doing what they're doing, those who want to perform at their peak will be on PC and use ACT (or be on PS4 and have a buddy on PC that has a parser measure you) and the people who already don't give a shit will still not give a shit.... so my prediction is all that will happen is that it will open the doors for more open DPS shaming.

[StrawberryZebra]

Never once saw DPS meters in use in Baron runs. And I was a non-raider, so Baron ad nauseum was my endgame in pursuit of pants that refused to drop to complete my set, so I'm doubting your claims that "everyone had one" back then. You emphasize everyone did, so I'm telling you that's flat out incorrect. I would have experienced people using them at some point and I didn't. Not even once. I'm not saying NOBODY had them running. I'm just saying it wasn't everyone and I'd even question if it was a majority.

-snip-

How would we propose making a more reliable and detailed DPS meter while still maintaining this "keep a lid on it" style policy? Suggestions? Thoughts? Or is that policy in and of itself disagreed with as well?

Perhaps not absolutely everyone had one, but they were certainly a common enough addon even in WoW's early days when the community was, in some vauge undefined way, "better than it is now". Which is why I reject the idea that the addon alone is responsible, it predates most peoples claims of the community being destroyed by quite a long way.

As for a solution, it's not easy coming up with something that hits all the marks. It could perhaps measure you against yourself on previous runs against the same boss, but unfortunately there are quite a lot of variables at play there. It also doesn't really offer you much guidance on how you improve on that, and since it shows your performance in isolation, it's missing some crucial context to allow you to take action from it.

Maybe tell you how far above/below the average for your job you are on a certain boss fight? Lots of variables again, gear being the most important one, but it would give you an idea how you're performing without directly being able to compare that to the people around you. On the downside, if you're a fresh level 60 and find out that you're in the bottom 30% of Dragoons, that can be really off putting. Separating it into gear brackets may provide a temporary work around, but you're going to drop below the average every time you move into a higher bracket most likely.

The reality of the situation is that to really see how well you're doing, you need data from other people too. There are ways it could be done anonymously, but as a means of feedback it's a poor system due to lack of context. I imagine getting a message like "55% of Astrologians out DPS you on this fight" would get the point across, it doesn't offer anything like enough information to take action with.

If you put any hard numbers into it, then you simply have people asking for what that number is before they invite you to a group. But if you don't put any hard numbers in, you've created a tool thats potentially both misleading and unclear.

The best compromise I can really come up with is by making all your logs availible to you, but only via the lodestone, not in game. So you can log in and see how well you're doing, with some hard numbers, but the names of the people you were grouped with are removed from the data. There are a lot of logisitical issues Squenix would have to tackle for this to work, but it's probably the solution that would work best for the most number of players.

[Granyala]

I'm happy with just a proper greeting at the start of a dungeon and a farewell at the end. Something that I see once in a blue moon in WoW as most people just don't give a rats ass were as its the oddity in FFXIV if it doesn't happen. Of course no one is forcing you to do it but it wouldn't hurt now would it? It makes you seem more human than just Tank #39 or DPS #5003.

Yeah, in WoW it's really bad. My character always greets everyone via emote.

As for being chatty: I only type during downtime or if it's absolutely necessary.
ABC applies. Always Be Casting!

People who want to perform well will learn how to do that with or without a parser/ meter.

Very true. having a parser makes learning easier though. I learned A LOT from analyzing raidlogs in WoW.
It's like watching replays of your starcraft games, to see in detail how and where you erred.


Regarding the DPSmeter discussion: Let me reiterate my stance on the matter.
Everyone can clearly see the failures of heals and tanks, since they typically result in either dead people or even a wipe.
Trust me: we ARE getting called out about our mistakes and not always in a nice way.

I see absolutely 0 reason to protect all them DPS players from the same scrutiny.

[Faroth]

The best compromise I can really come up with is by making all your logs availible to you, but only via the lodestone, not in game. So you can log in and see how well you're doing, with some hard numbers, but the names of the people you were grouped with are removed from the data. There are a lot of logisitical issues Squenix would have to tackle for this to work, but it's probably the solution that would work best for the most number of players.

See, this is actually quite unique and something I hadn't remotely considered. This sort of idea intrigues me.

Regarding the DPSmeter discussion: Let me reiterate my stance on the matter.
Everyone can clearly see the failures of heals and tanks, since they typically result in either dead people or even a wipe.
Trust me: we ARE getting called out about our mistakes and not always in a nice way.

I see absolutely 0 reason to protect all them DPS players from the same scrutiny.

Nobody is demanding to see what a tank's threat generation per second per mob are and demanding all mobs be kept simultaneously at a certain threshold that everyone is able to evaluate on the spot. Nor their damage mitigation per fight. Just a hard pass/fail of a wipe is what they're called out on.... or fighting for threat, or simply not picking up a mob at all.

Nobody is demanding data be provided for healers to be evaluated on their dps to heal ratio and the amount of healing/overhealing is done or how their MP management correlates to their performance. Just a hard pass/fail of a wipe is what they tend to be (typically wrongly) called out on.

DPS get called out when they botch mechanics and cause a wipe too (for the love of all, DPS, learn your left from right on Ozma). The ONLY area you can't pinpoint a DPS is on a DPS check, which Square has largely loosened and focused more on mechanics over those. Without parsers and meters, DPS get called out if they spend large amounts of time on the floor. And if things are dying slowly, people notice and say DPS needs to step it up.

I feel like the evaluation of a DPS being so solely focused on how much damage they put out per second tunnel visions a single aspect and makes it the sole focus for the role. Which ironically contributes then to the discussions of how much more responsibility healers and tanks have (well, if you boil DPS down to one purpose only, then....).

What about DPS who properly use their own cool downs and self heals/potions to minimize the strain on healers?
What about DPS who are lower on damage output but never once eat an AoE and nail every mechanic with absolute perfection?
What about DPS who can maintain threat, pick up a freakin' boss, pop cool downs, time their self heals, and survive just long enough until the tank's back in place without healers having to spam heal to have any prayer of him not getting 1 shotted?

None of that is factored into DPS meters, so none of that is something a "good DPS" would do? I'd say a good DPS does all of the above at the expense of a bit of damage output and is the preferred performance. Of course, a great DPS does all of the above and maintains maximum effectiveness of their rotation to result in high DPS, but I'd consider those the cream of the crop.

I feel like DPS meters leading to tunnel visioning DPS who develop a perspective that one thing is all the matters and "so long as you're topping the charts, to hell with everything else" isn't the best measurement.

You noted analyzing raid logs. I understand the value there, but that's not the same as a live running meter stating "X is the top DPS, Y is 2nd" in-game. Evaluating logs after the fact is more like the analogy of evaluating a [Star Craft, sports, etc] game after the game's over to see what went wrong and what can be improved. It can also give the information I'm referring to above in seeing how much unnecessary damage was taken, how many mechanics weren't avoided, etc, in addition to the damage output from an individual.

But I personally don't feel that tank and healer errors you're referring to are an equivalent of a real time evaluation of every second of a DPS performance. They tend to be mechanic errors or basic errors that are glaring. Similar to a DPS attacking the wrong target at certain points, etc. Which are also called out for correction (as they, too, frequently cause a wipe).

[The Casualty]

The best compromise I can really come up with is by making all your logs availible to you, but only via the lodestone, not in game. So you can log in and see how well you're doing, with some hard numbers, but the names of the people you were grouped with are removed from the data. There are a lot of logisitical issues Squenix would have to tackle for this to work, but it's probably the solution that would work best for the most number of players.

I'd much rather them support parsing and just continue to make it an infractable offense to harass people with it.

I mean, it has been and is still kosher to kick people "differing play styles" which already includes folks who don't have a clue with their class. You just can't badmouth them about it.

[Melsiren]

I'd much rather them support parsing and just continue to make it an infractable offense to harass people with it.

Pretty much, people who want to see their DPS run ACT any ways.

[Graeham]

Blergh. My role-play plans fell through due to some unexpected OOC drama. On the plus side it leaves me free to pursue something different, so I'm tempted to try out an Au Ra since we're going to Othard in 4.0.

[Granyala]

What about DPS who properly use their own cool downs and self heals/potions to minimize the strain on healers?
What about DPS who are lower on damage output but never once eat an AoE and nail every mechanic with absolute perfection?
What about DPS who can maintain threat, pick up a freakin' boss, pop cool downs, time their self heals, and survive just long enough until the tank's back in place without healers having to spam heal to have any prayer of him not getting 1 shotted?

None of that is factored into DPS meters

All of the above is recorded by parsers and can be analyzed in the logs.
In fact, I used to do that back when I was an officer.

I know people love to obsess ober DPS / Damage done, but if you look at a log, these are often the LEAST telling statistics. Esp on bosses where damage (burst) during specific moments is important (analyze cooldown management, or since you have a pet in your sig: proper cooldown stacking) or where specific adds need to die fast / other adds are meaningless, yet DPS use them to pad numbers.

As you said: it is different from looking at the DPS graph during a fight (sth I've never done btw, because it only serves as a distraction). I also agree that, outside of savage raiding, enrages are pretty much nonexistent.
Still, if we hit the hard or soft enrage: I like to know WHO performed okay and who slacked. I don't like yelling at all DPS equally.
To be fair: 95% of the time, people wipe b/c damage is insufficient due to dead players. No need for a parser there.

Bottom line: Parsers are incredibly powerful tools and one needs a lot of expertise, class- and encounter knowledge in order to assess their data. Sadly 90% of the people misuse them and think that being on top is all that matters.

[threads]

People who want to perform well will learn how to do that with or without a parser/ meter. All the meter does is give a much more easily measurable metric to go by to tweak the performance here and there and allow you to see what other people are doing. Those that don't care to perform, aren't magically going to perform better because there's a parser/ meter available.

ehhh i disagree. recount/skada are some of the first things anyone downloads in WoW because it's publicly talked about and known.

lots of people in ff14 don't even realize ACT exists until they try raiding savage, and by that point have possibly spent hundreds of hours playing badly/wrong without any indication unless someone decides to face possible reporting to tell them they suck.

[RohanV]

The thing about meters is that in a game without meters, if a run is unsuccessful because of low dps, it's really hard to correct the issue. But in a game with meters, a run that is successful can see a lot of harassment because the good players harass the low performers, hold them to an arbitrary standard, even though the group as a whole is successful.

So to me there are no good choices. On balance, I'm on the no meters side. I'd rather not see see successful runs become toxic. And unsuccessful pug groups are going to be toxic with or without meters.

[threads]

The thing about meters is that in a game without meters, if a run is unsuccessful because of low dps, it's really hard to correct the issue. But in a game with meters, a run that is successful can see a lot of harassment because the good players harass the low performers, hold them to an arbitrary standard, even though the group as a whole is successful.

So to me there are no good choices. On balance, I'm on the no meters side. I'd rather not see see successful runs become toxic. And unsuccessful pug groups are going to be toxic with or without meters.

yea i mean i want to see how the battle revamp goes first. if they get the skill cap more to where it was at lvl 50 like they say then there might not be a need for official meters.

[Binaris]

yea i mean i want to see how the battle revamp goes first. if they get the skill cap more to where it was at lvl 50 like they say then there might not be a need for official meters.

there was still a need at 50. When anything requires the slightest bit of skill. you can be garateed that 3/4 of the people out there will be shockingly bad at it.

[Granyala]

The thing about meters is that in a game without meters, if a run is unsuccessful because of low dps, it's really hard to correct the issue. But in a game with meters, a run that is successful can see a lot of harassment because the good players harass the low performers, hold them to an arbitrary standard, even though the group as a whole is successful.

Don't know about you, but most of the time I don't even open recount if everything went smoothly. (unless I am curious about my performance)

[Katchii]

ehhh i disagree. recount/skada are some of the first things anyone downloads in WoW because it's publicly talked about and known.

lots of people in ff14 don't even realize ACT exists until they try raiding savage, and by that point have possibly spent hundreds of hours playing badly/wrong without any indication unless someone decides to face possible reporting to tell them they suck.

Players like this, that care, just need some indication of what their performance is vs what it could be and some help in fixing their mistakes/ shortcomings. True, that indicator could be a DPS meter, but it doesn't HAVE to be. I'm not saying a meter is useless, just saying that it's not this magical "play better" tool, and it seems some people rely too heavily on a meter to fix their (or others) problems or help them get better when all they really need is a guide or some pointers from someone who knows better.

If a player wants to play at a higher skill level, they will with the right tools at their disposal and a meter doesn't HAVE to be one of those tools.

[Deleted]

Sometimes they have other stuff to be able to tell your dps. For example a group with an average item lvl of above 260 that does not skip the first soar on zurvan is 100% a pile of steaming trash because his first phase is literally a target dummy.
In general thought I do believe they should support parsing but still infract if you use it for harassment.

I highlighted and bolded this specific sentence in case someone gets triggered and if you get triggered even from this then you probably belong in this category so it doesn't matter.

[Melsiren]

Right now players who do care will just run ACT, I guess I don't see the issue here.

I mean if you don't run ACT, or don't look up some sort of guide on how to play your Job. I feel like you don't really care about your performance as is.

[Deleted]

Players like this, that care, just need some indication of what their performance is vs what it could be and some help in fixing their mistakes/ shortcomings. True, that indicator could be a DPS meter, but it doesn't HAVE to be. I'm not saying a meter is useless, just saying that it's not this magical "play better" tool, and it seems some people rely too heavily on a meter to fix their (or others) problems or help them get better when all they really need is a guide or some pointers from someone who knows better.

If a player wants to play at a higher skill level, they will with the right tools at their disposal and a meter doesn't HAVE to be one of those tools.

A lot of players actually need to see the improvement, or they do not believe it.
Dummy testing with a parser tool is also decent when you want to take into account your own player skill.
For example: It's easier to see how much my DPS suffers if I can't maintain a certain buff during a fight and maybe it's overall more DPS if I play safer and reset it earlier etc.