I looked through the older topics and couldn't find anything about this, so I'd like to hear some opinions.
I know there are some heated feelings on this topic, but let's try to keep it civil. I'll outline my thoughts here.
First thing's first. If we have a chat window at all that shows combat information, parsing will be inevitable. If we get timestamps in the chat window that indicate hh:mm:ss, then it will be trivially easy to accurately calculate DPS even without a parsing program. If the indicator is hh:mm, things get a lot less precise, but we could still ballpark our effectiveness using repeated trials. This is honestly true if there is any feedback at all with numerical feedback for combat, chat window excluded. Even with overhead numbers, it could still be calculated with repeated trials.
So the real question comes down to this: Do we completely deprive players of any number-based combat feedback, or do we implement mechanisms to automatically calculate character effectiveness?
Whether it is in or not doesn't really bother me. The great thing about EQ, EQ2, and VG raiding vs say WoW, Rift, Wildstar, is that pure DPS numbers don't matter as much as doing what you're supposed to at the right time. Someone who only cares about being number 1 DPS could in theory really hurt the rest of the raid/group. There were raids in EQ and VG where the mob either reflected all dmg done, or healed for all dmg done where 1-2 DPS screwed us up early on because they wouldn't stop. There are raids where if you keep attacking you will kill yourself, thus depriving your raid/group of your DPS for the rest of the fight
So while a parser to see if that weapon is better, or this skill rotation etc is nice, having it tends to make people worry more about where they are on the DPS ladder, then what are they supposed to be doing during the fight IMO.
We did have topics on this but sadly with the change to the forums, we had to archive most posts prior to 2015, so a lot of these are missing now, feel free to discuss this topic again here.
I will say that as a Guild Leader/Raid Leader myself and someone who actually sits down and spends a lot of time crunching those stats and numbers to be the best I can as a player and to get the most out of raiding, I really enjoyed having access to that data while playing VG and I do not have a problem with it at all.
Parsers are very valuable to anyone who wants to better themselves and put a little bit of extra effort into their characters, raider especially make great use of these tools as do developers.
Kilsin said:We did have topics on this but sadly with the change to the forums, we had to archive most posts prior to 2015, so a lot of these are missing now, feel free to discuss this topic again here.
I will say that as a Guild Leader/Raid Leader myself and someone who actually sits down and spends a lot of time crunching those stats and numbers to be the best I can as a player and to get the most out of raiding, I really enjoyed having access to that data while playing VG and I do not have a problem with it at all.
Parsers are very valuable to anyone who wants to better themselves and put a little bit of extra effort into their characters, raider especially make great use of these tools as do developers.
This echoes my feelings pretty closely. Knowledge is power, and I like to have as much of it as possible.
That said, I do have to say one thing. Please devs, Brad, whomever - make your chat logs extremely explicit in the information they provide. There are already amazing parsing engines available and it would be super cool if we could have chat logs that are written in close to real time so we can parse in real time.
The API for Advanced Combat Tracker (amazing parsing program that is used across many games) is publicly available, so if your developers could take a peek at that while writing the code for combat feedback, it'd certainly make the gaming community that much more satisfied with the game. Vanguard left a lot to be desired in terms of precise information/formatting, which lead to issues when abilities got added later in the game.
Just playing Devil's Advocate a bit here...
But what if all damage numbers and weapon damage/delays ratios were all behind the scenes ?
What if you could tell you got a hard hit just becuase it crunched more... kinda like EQ crits
I don't know because I love to see them numbers roll by but I wonder if the game would be more immersive with all that behind the scenes /ponder...
Anyhow if a traditional approach is used then I would just like a exportable log file with time stamps.
Kiz~
I have a love/hate relationship with parsers. Some people will use them to better themselves and some people will only concern themselves with turning out the highest number possible without considering how it effects the rest of the raid force. I don't know how many times in my raid force I was told that someone couldn't use their interupt because it would ruin their parse........
Like I said I love/hate parsers.
Angrykiz said:Just playing Devil's Advocate a bit here...
But what if all damage numbers and weapon damage/delays ratios were all behind the scenes ?
What if you could tell you got a hard hit just becuase it crunched more... kinda like EQ crits
I don't know because I love to see them numbers roll by but I wonder if the game would be more immersive with all that behind the scenes /ponder...
Anyhow if a traditional approach is used then I would just like a exportable log file with time stamps.
Kiz~
I don't really like the immersion standpoint honestly. Those who prefer immersion can just ignore the numbers and/or turn them off.
Well you can't turn them off if they are the standard on which you're measured.
Kiz~
Angrykiz said:Well you can't turn them off if they are the standard on which you're measured.
Kiz~
Sure, but you'd probably avoid grouping with those people anyway if you were against parsing. I mean, you wouldn't apply to a top raid guild and not expect to have your performance measured. The same would apply here. Parsing isn't the only way to measure player performance, it's just a more streamlined way to present the same information.
If I invite a Rogue to the group and mobs aren't dying any faster than they were before, something's up.
I like parsing mostly for myself; to improve as a player, and to just check out the numbers. I also like a little friendly competition when grouping or raiding and I think parsing can add to that. It's fun to see where you stand in overall dps or heals - as long as no one takes the parse log TOO seriously.
Parsing should definitely not be the only measure of who is a good player or not, especially in a game like I'm hoping Pantheon turns out to be. Raw numbers should never give a 100% true representation of encounters. Parsing will never be able to accurately represent the complicated inter-group dynamics that (I hope) will be necessary in Pantheon. I mean, if I have a spell that boosts other players dps and drops mine for a time, I want to be able to use that with no reservations. If that were parsed, I'd be low on the dps list, but without me using that ablility, we would never have gotten the mob down in time.
I would definitely never join a guild that uses parsed numbers as a criteria for membership or raiding spots (in any game). I'm not a min/max type of player and never will be. Also, that type of play leads to add-ons and 3 button rotations and such. I don't want that. I want to have fun and be successful, but numbers are not the sole key to success. If it turns out they are, this will not be the game for me. I'm not too worried though. I'm pretty sure the dev team is on mostly this same page.
I think parsing is a valuable and fun tool, but just like any other tool, it needs to used wisely.
While parsing does encourage min/maxing it removes an entire meta game for a certain segment of players if you remove the ability to do it. Raider leaders, people who want to improve, etc. As a raid leader/strategist, i delve the **** out of logs when learning events and developing strats. If i get beat by another player of the same class, i look to see what they are doing to see how i can improve. I think it would be a mistake not allow it. Parsing didn't trickle down into the grouping/casual game for years. We were using Yalp, etc in Velious (maybe before, i don't remember) but i don't remember people making waves about poor parsing in casual groups until much later on, post OoW i think.
I think its necessary to have a log file you can parse - at the bare minimum. In a game with any leve of complexity, people want to know how effective different weapons and abilities are against certain enemies. Being able to parse or at least review that information is mandatory IMO.
Marilee said:I have a love/hate relationship with parsers. Some people will use them to better themselves and some people will only concern themselves with turning out the highest number possible without considering how it effects the rest of the raid force. I don't know how many times in my raid force I was told that someone couldn't use their interupt because it would ruin their parse........
Like I said I love/hate parsers.
Liav said:I looked through the older topics and couldn't find anything about this, so I'd like to hear some opinions.
- Should the game have exportable chat logs to be used with third party parsing programs? Why or why not?
- Should the game instead provide an API that can be used to design in-game parsing extensions? Why or why not?
I know there are some heated feelings on this topic, but let's try to keep it civil. I'll outline my thoughts here.
First thing's first. If we have a chat window at all that shows combat information, parsing will be inevitable. If we get timestamps in the chat window that indicate hh:mm:ss, then it will be trivially easy to accurately calculate DPS even without a parsing program. If the indicator is hh:mm, things get a lot less precise, but we could still ballpark our effectiveness using repeated trials. This is honestly true if there is any feedback at all with numerical feedback for combat, chat window excluded. Even with overhead numbers, it could still be calculated with repeated trials.
So the real question comes down to this: Do we completely deprive players of any number-based combat feedback, or do we implement mechanisms to automatically calculate character effectiveness?
Depending on how content is developed will determine if a DPS meter is needed in-game. The game should have some way to measure your DPS in-game if the content is going to have things like DPS races, enrage timers, ect. The community will do this automatically if there is no function in-game that calculates DPS. However, it may or may not be shared with the entire community. This creates what people call the "Hardcore Vs Softcore/Casual" players or those who "min/max" and those who don't. If content isn't too difficult and has no real need for DPS to be measured, it won't be needed as much. Again, it just depends on how the difficulty of the game is scaled for raiding.
I'd like to caution the dev's to not repeat the mistake FF14 made --- Final Fantasy 14 has a huge problem with this. Bosses have DPS checks --- If they aren't met, the boss destroys you. No ifs, ands, or but's. The game difficulty basically goes from a 3-4 from non-raiding to a 9-10 in the raid scene. Player never had to really learn to optimize DPS, so due to this people fail really badly in raids. There's no way for the community to actively watch their numbers and learn how to improve... When to use which buffs, ect. This goes back to my first sentance above... If the content has DPS requirements, we'll need a meter in-game or people will just "cheat" and develop one that reads it themselves.
On a side note, please let us be able to highlight and copy things from the chat window. It's very useful for sharing youtube videos and such.. especially if we have downtime in this game.
I'm pro-parse. I usually play a croud control class, but in a raid I want to maximize whatever DPS i can do while still performing my primary function. If we get another chanter/ psionicist in the raid and i see he's out-DPSing me on the parse, I'm gonna send that guy a tell and ask him what he's doing differently than me so i can become better myself. This helps the guild as a whole in taking down that big, bad raid mob. I've never been in a raid guild where a person was left out of a raid because they were low DPS, but it does help the raid leader determine who might need some tips on maximizing DPS output. If you play a DPS class and you arent DPSing like you should anyhow, then why are you raiding? Just my thoughts on the subject.
I'm not against parsing completely, as long as it doesn't turn into what was seen in WoW with pugs requiring x dps and needing to prove that on a dummy or something. I was always fine with looking at my own numbers in EQ from the combat log while in game, and telling if one weapon was better or not, but never paid any attention to other's numbers and never did any parsing myself.
Zlambit said:having access to your own numbers is fine with me, the ability to paste them into game chats and reading others, is a HUGE NO!
Why wouldn't you be able to analyze anyone elses numbers if you were in range of their attacks? Are they just supposed to make it so everything everyone around you does is completely hidden?
Why wouldn't you be able to analyze anyone elses numbers if you were in range of their attacks? Are they just supposed to make it so everything everyone around you does is completely hidden?
I have no interest in their numbers, if mobs arent dying or mechanics not being countered I prefer friendly chatting about how to fix the issue, versus dissecting their numbers and spell it out for them how they "should" be playing X class, wether I am the one being clueless or giving advice in that scenario dont matter to me.
Access to other players numbers in general will just open up a box of L2P-scrub! We can't close again, and personally I believe Pantheon would be better off without it open.
Zlambit said:
Why wouldn't you be able to analyze anyone elses numbers if you were in range of their attacks? Are they just supposed to make it so everything everyone around you does is completely hidden?
I have no interest in their numbers, if mobs arent dying or mechanics not being countered I prefer friendly chatting about how to fix the issue, versus dissecting their numbers and spell it out for them how they "should" be playing X class, wether I am the one being clueless or giving advice in that scenario dont matter to me.
Access to other players numbers in general will just open up a box of L2P-scrub! We can't close again, and personally I believe Pantheon would be better off without it open.
I really think you guy's are failing to give our mature community the credit it deserves, In 7 years of VG I was never called a "scrub" or told to "L2P", the combines EQ/VG community is one of the best, most mature and helpful that I have ever come across.
Seeing combat numbers is extremely useful in many situations but groups and raids, it is vital, we have already said that we will be showing combat logs in chat as per EQ/VG, people can turn that info off or ignore if they wish, it won;t hurt anyone being there for others to use.
Oh i wish it would be like that Kilsin :)
Unfortunately usefull tools are also easy to abuse, as for the combat logs, i dont have a problem with those, it's the ability to parse others, and then paste results into chat for X purpose i dislike, I guess to me good solution would be a 3rd party or inhouse developed parser with the option to share info with other players parsers or not as an easy toggle, that would give both the number ignorers-self improvers and the raid math-heads what they want.
PS. I got 0 idea if its even possible to make something like that :)
Zlambit said:Oh i wish it would be like that Kilsin :)
Unfortunately usefull tools are also easy to abuse, as for the combat logs, i dont have a problem with those, it's the ability to parse others, and then paste results into chat for X purpose i dislike, I guess to me good solution would be a 3rd party or inhouse developed parser with the option to share info with other players parsers or not as an easy toggle, that would give both the number ignorers-self improvers and the raid math-heads what they want.
PS. I got 0 idea if its even possible to make something like that :)
Personally I love Advanced Combat tracker, I tend to see people slack constantly in groups and on raids just to be "carried" and it lets me see who does what (decides if i play with them in the future or not).