Why doesn't lotro have a dps meter?

[SaintBass]

I hope they are very careful about what addons they allow. I left AC1 because of all the botters and scripters. I don't want to start down that slippery slope.

With how conservative Turbine is being with the API, I do think they have learned their lesson from AC1. As things are currently, its not even remotely feasible to automate player actions with Lua in LOTRO.

[RingOfFire]

Your actually making my point for me, better then I ever could

We can agree to disagree though, for sure. But time will tell and soon all your TPs will belong to me! (Looking at Kafar)

...and it makes my point even stronger as well.

Of course we can agree to disagree, for where would the discussion be if there wasn't a disagreement?

However, there is one thing which has just occured to me. If such group DPS and threat meters come to LOTRO and are widely used, they need data stored on the server or being sent to clients... but that might actually cause decreased server performance overall to deal with so many queries from the plugins.

Are they really a good idea?

[Devildoc]

If you need a meter to tell you who is pooch-screwing in your raid, your problems are bigger than the issue of carrying one deadweight character.

If you have time to stare at what every other group member in your raid is doing , then you're probably the one jacking up. You won't have time (and even if you did, unless you play all the classes you probably won't know what skills they're using and in what rotation) to notice anything beyond them okay they're actively using skills, they're not just standing there being a TOTAL leech.

[Bradd]

I'm going to put a specific example where DPS meters would come into play as something useful for critiquing group members...

For every example of when a group meter would be beneficial, there are several where it would be detrimental and encourage bad play. As someone who has played with a raiding guild that used meters on a regular basis, I can tell you unequivocally that the negatives far ourweigh the positives.

[Grampsaz]

All yours, man.

Thx man!
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...90#post4914690

Might even have snuck in a compromise of sorts in there for those with some concerns about this subject. Check it out though.

Thanks again

[Devildoc]

Thx man!
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...90#post4914690

Might even have snuck in a compromise of sorts in there for those with some concerns about this subject. Check it out though.

Thanks again

Well that's one thing I'm NOT in support for.. I mean if raid leaders want to require people to use a dps meter (only way this can work for a group meter is for basically everyone to be running the addon and then a way for the addons to send information to each other (WoW has some sort of addon channel that does this)), that's fine but raid leaders shouldn't be able to require people to BUY something in the store.

[Asperity]

The second the API allows access to chat data (specifically the combat log) we can see a greater degree of precision/functionality for CStats as well as a plugins that do nothing but monitor damage and healing output.

I've seen the API and assuming it goes live, and I've already brainstormed how exactly I can vastly improve CStats' ability to detect fight start/stoppage. CStats will be comes immensely more precise, as well as simplified when F2P goes live. I guarantee it.

[Grampsaz]

Well that's one thing I'm NOT in support for.. I mean if raid leaders want to require people to use a dps meter (only way this can work for a group meter is for basically everyone to be running the addon and then a way for the addons to send information to each other (WoW has some sort of addon channel that does this)), that's fine but raid leaders shouldn't be able to require people to BUY something in the store.

Who said anything about requiring anyone to buy it? If I'm a raid leader and I want to use a DPS add-on to make sure your not sucking it up, that doesn't mean you gotta run out to buy it. Though I know you will, because I'll make it my mission to call you out every single run

[SaintBass]

I've seen the API and assuming it goes live, and I've already brainstormed how exactly I can vastly improve CStats' ability to detect fight start/stoppage. CStats will be comes immensely more precise, as well as simplified when F2P goes live. I guarantee it.

This pleases me greatly. Do you plan to release a companion script for CStats or some kind of in-game CStats display? (feasible from my limited understanding... could be wrong)

[Devildoc]

Who said anything about requiring anyone to buy it? If I'm a raid leader and I want to use a DPS add-on to make sure your not sucking it up, that doesn't mean you gotta run out to buy it. Though I know you will, because I'll make it my mission to call you out every single run

Um, Gramps, for DPS meters to work, everyone needs to be running them. Like I said it works by each person's individual combat log parser talking to each other.

[kerryak]

raid leaders shouldn't be able to require people to BUY something in the store.

hehe, I already have this in 'Section V: member expectations' of my guild charter, lol:

Members are NOT expected to spend Turbine Points on consumables, nor will they EVER be required to.

[RingOfFire]

Um, Gramps, for DPS meters to work, everyone needs to be running them. Like I said it works by each person's individual combat log parser talking to each other.

Which would only work through something like CStats on a network scale, right?



I think that right there is the best solution, actually. A program which reads the combat log like CStats, uses some equations to calculate DPS, and then sends it to an identical program at an IP defined as the master server (which would likely be the raid leader's PC) would actually work far better than a plugin. If such a client/server program were to function as follows:

• DPS logging being sent in from another PC would be made entirely optional. To do that, both the client and server (again, likely the raid leader's PC) would have to consent to the data transfer.
• The flip side of this would be effective anti-abuse measures. Because only those who consent to the data transfer would have the group DPS logging active, it is not forced on anyone. If, somehow, someone tries to abuse it for "insolent ends", the person at the other end could simply break the connection and block the IP.

Something like this would keep whatever advantages a group DPS meter would have while severely cutting down on abuse for griefing, would it not? The output of such a program could be projected next to the window for LOTRO (if not running full-screen), or perhaps onto another monitor. Only those who want a group DPS meter involved need to set up the client/server function... those who do not want their DPS logged can simply ignore that function or not use the program at all, and therefore opt-out.

The real advantage this would have over a plugin is the anti-abuse measures. If a plugin were used, there would be no way to block someone else in the group from abusing a DPS meter for griefing... while with a program which would function like this, it is still possible to use it responsibly while blocking any griefers.

Does that sound reasonable? We really do not need the API functionality for a DPS meter ingame.

[Cellendil]

If you have time to stare at what every other group member in your raid is doing , then you're probably the one jacking up. You won't have time (and even if you did, unless you play all the classes you probably won't know what skills they're using and in what rotation) to notice anything beyond them okay they're actively using skills, they're not just standing there being a TOTAL leech.

So, without any addon at present, how are you dealing with this?

[Devildoc]

So, without any addon at present, how are you dealing with this?

Currently, you can't really identify who's not pushing hard and who's pushing hard, unless everyone parses their log with cstats and sends it into the raid leader, on a fight where they know how much morale the boss has.. then you can see how much total damage each person did..

That's still using a program outside of LotRO, basically the same as an addon.

[FyreBrand]

Yeah, Nim has alot of classy guys that just shut up and execute. The loud ones that don't execute b/c they're being carried are HILARIOUS though. But we've already established that I'm easily entertained.

And she's hot b/c she's Claire Danes. Galadriel may have given Gimli 3 strands of her hair, but Claire Danes gave us My So Called Life.

Have you seen Stardust? Oh, yah.

hehe, I already have this in 'Section V: member expectations' of my guild charter, lol:

That's awesome.

[Cellendil]

Currently, you can't really identify who's not pushing hard and who's pushing hard, unless everyone parses their log with cstats and sends it into the raid leader, on a fight where they know how much morale the boss has.. then you can see how much total damage each person did..

That's still using a program outside of LotRO, basically the same as an addon.

For group/kin cohesion and communication, same-classed characters can get together and share their knowledge/experience/struggles. I'm not talking about a kumbaya party, but a good discussion of successful practice that they have. Whomever is the most experienced of the lot can discuss their findings with the RL. People get buy-in this way, and that's an excellent motivator.

This decentralizes the monitoring requirement on the part of your RL, and you are likely to get much better information that what dps numbers will yield. If your focus is on team-building and performance, this will go much farther than one person teaching others based on addon data. Whether or not your team overcomes that immediate challenge is secondary to the fact that you are building a solid team.

Is this much more work? It sure is, but it pays off in real life in spades. Behind each character is a person that wants to do well. Guide them, treat them well and show them respect, and they will work like nobody's business.

Can numbers help this? Sure. Maybe you already have a tight group with experienced fire-teams and good communication, but with your prevalent concerns about "fail" and "deadweight" people in your group, it doesn't seem so.

Are the concerns about regular kinship groups, or random pugs that are hitting the harder content you're describing?

[Grampsaz]

Um, Gramps, for DPS meters to work, everyone needs to be running them. Like I said it works by each person's individual combat log parser talking to each other.

No they dont dude lol. Turbine can simply add other characters info into the LUA stuffs.

Done and done. Easy Peasy

[Khafar]

Turbine can simply add other characters info into the LUA stuffs.

Not so easy - they don't want to open up server queries to the plug-in API, for a number of reasons. All of the current stuff in the API is only exposing what the client already knows: inventory, current effects on our character (so the client can put up the right icons), current morale and power, etc. That stuff is sent to the client whenever it changes, so it's always up to date. They asked us to help them make sure that we could not ask the server for information and get a reply because if everyone were making tons of queries, it would really hurt server performance. In fact, that could be used maliciously (in ways I'm not going to detail). Getting other people's information would mean server queries, and they're not supporting any of that.

The plug-in architecture is also designed so it cannot talk with external processes, cannot stream data to hard disk (where it could be picked up and coordinated by an outside app), etc. They really want it to be used to help show your character's information however you'd like to see it, to extend the UI in some ways (e.g. additional hotkey slots)... and that's it.

Khafar

[SaintBass]

Currently, you can't really identify who's not pushing hard and who's pushing hard, unless everyone parses their log with cstats and sends it into the raid leader, on a fight where they know how much morale the boss has.. then you can see how much total damage each person did..

That's still using a program outside of LotRO, basically the same as an addon.

Its actually pretty clear from animation and particle effects what different people are doing. I can tell at a glance if the DPSers are DPSing (OK RK's are a little tricky) if the healers are healing, if debuffs are being removed from the group and being applied to targets.... even when I am on my guard tanking everything (or mostly everything), I have my camera zoomed out and trying to take in as much information as possible.

Do I know what everyone is doing at any given moment? Not always, but a good number of skill executions I can identify by sight and sound. If I have a wound, but I see the LM starting to wipe his hands on his pants, I know I don't need to use a pot. If a fight is going slow and I look at the DPSers, I can tell when they are using their damage efficient skills or if a Champ is just spamming Wild Attack, but not using and Strike skills or if the Hunter is spending most of his time in inductions rather than dropping focus skills.

I can see all this while executing my own skills with one hand. I can fire off a skill, queue the next and click on another player to see if they are on raid assist then get back to my target (if not the same) before I need to execute another skill. There is plenty of information out there and while I do not doubt that some incarnation of a DPS meter will help improve player skill amongst DPSers (some people, unfortunately have proven to be too dumb to properly use CStats), I cannot get on board with the assertion that it is necessary.

Those that want to use the tools, will use them. Those that want to improve their quality will do so with or without the use of parsers or meters. If you assert that the community will not go sour just by the mere implementation of these tools, by that same token, these tools will not automatically raise the quality of any particular player or the player base as a whole.

That is why I advocate for these tools as a self improvement medium, rather than a tool for this mystical "raid leader" class of player.

[Tilps]

Which would only work through something like CStats on a network scale, right?

I think that right there is the best solution, actually. A program which reads the combat log like CStats, uses some equations to calculate DPS, and then sends it to an identical program at an IP defined as the master server (which would likely be the raid leader's PC) would actually work far better than a plugin. If such a client/server program were to function as follows:

• DPS logging being sent in from another PC would be made entirely optional. To do that, both the client and server (again, likely the raid leader's PC) would have to consent to the data transfer.
• The flip side of this would be effective anti-abuse measures. Because only those who consent to the data transfer would have the group DPS logging active, it is not forced on anyone. If, somehow, someone tries to abuse it for "insolent ends", the person at the other end could simply break the connection and block the IP.

Something like this would keep whatever advantages a group DPS meter would have while severely cutting down on abuse for griefing, would it not? The output of such a program could be projected next to the window for LOTRO (if not running full-screen), or perhaps onto another monitor. Only those who want a group DPS meter involved need to set up the client/server function... those who do not want their DPS logged can simply ignore that function or not use the program at all, and therefore opt-out.

The real advantage this would have over a plugin is the anti-abuse measures. If a plugin were used, there would be no way to block someone else in the group from abusing a DPS meter for griefing... while with a program which would function like this, it is still possible to use it responsibly while blocking any griefers.

Does that sound reasonable? We really do not need the API functionality for a DPS meter ingame.

I've already written ... something like ... the above. Once it gets some more testing I'll probably make it available.

[Devildoc]

For group/kin cohesion and communication, same-classed characters can get together and share their knowledge/experience/struggles. I'm not talking about a kumbaya party, but a good discussion of successful practice that they have. Whomever is the most experienced of the lot can discuss their findings with the RL. People get buy-in this way, and that's an excellent motivator.

This decentralizes the monitoring requirement on the part of your RL, and you are likely to get much better information that what dps numbers will yield. If your focus is on team-building and performance, this will go much farther than one person teaching others based on addon data. Whether or not your team overcomes that immediate challenge is secondary to the fact that you are building a solid team.

Is this much more work? It sure is, but it pays off in real life in spades. Behind each character is a person that wants to do well. Guide them, treat them well and show them respect, and they will work like nobody's business.

Can numbers help this? Sure. Maybe you already have a tight group with experienced fire-teams and good communication, but with your prevalent concerns about "fail" and "deadweight" people in your group, it doesn't seem so.

Are the concerns about regular kinship groups, or random pugs that are hitting the harder content you're describing?

Kinship, and in some cases we can identify who's not pushing hard, based on less intense fights where we CAN look around and see what other people are doing in more detail, but when you're on a fight that you're still learning, and need to focus on what YOU'RE doing, that's where meters help, cause they can "watch" while you really can't afford to. I only really play champ in end game environment, I can't tell which hunter is using correct skill rotations and the like and I haven't the foggiest clue what RK's do. If I see a non tanking champ use raging blades on a single target, or use ferocious strikes at all, or using brutal strikes while dual wielding, now that, I can observe, and help them with, you're right. But not other classes, and not in stressful fights where it demands all my focus just to make sure I'm doing MY job right.

Like I said, the people not pushing hard usually don't realize "hey, I should probably get some advice on how to max out my dps", they, like a lot of people, figure that because the boss died, they did fine. They never consider the possibility that they're behind the power curve and while not exactly being carried through, could contribute more.

It's a meter or parse that'll make them take a step back and say woah, I'm 100 dps behind other people in the same class? How is that?

[FyreBrand]

Setting aside the "should you" argument let's ask how this could be added to the game in an intelligent manner.

Let's say they're going to add one. How should it be implemented?

If threat meters and parsers were added to the game I would want Turbine to implement it with the following design features:

• Opt In: Each player would have a configuration option for opting in providing their parsing data. The reason for having opt-in for the default should be obvious.

• Tightly Controlled Data Set: Very simple output accessible via a simple default interface designed by Turbine, but modifiable through Lua scripting. That is Turbine would provide a data set accessible and parsable via Lua scripting, but there would be no custom queries pinging the server for more frequent updates. There would only be that predefined data set of data that is available.

• Individual Control: The player decides what they will allow others to see. They can show their damage, healing, buffs cast, debuffs cast, and cc skills used. This way the group interested can monitor not only damage, but how often support skills are cast and when in relation to boss casts. This should help immensely when figuring out timing issues with instance and raid bosses. It will also prevent strangers and pugs from accessing your data without your permission.

[Bradd]

Not so easy - they don't want to open up server queries to the plug-in API, for a number of reasons. All of the current stuff in the API is only exposing what the client already knows: inventory, current effects on our character (so the client can put up the right icons), current morale and power, etc. That stuff is sent to the client whenever it changes, so it's always up to date. They asked us to help them make sure that we could not ask the server for information and get a reply because if everyone were making tons of queries, it would really hurt server performance. In fact, that could be used maliciously (in ways I'm not going to detail). Getting other people's information would mean server queries, and they're not supporting any of that.

The plug-in architecture is also designed so it cannot talk with external processes, cannot stream data to hard disk (where it could be picked up and coordinated by an outside app), etc. They really want it to be used to help show your character's information however you'd like to see it, to extend the UI in some ways (e.g. additional hotkey slots)... and that's it.

Khafar

That is great to hear. I hope they stick to their plan.

[Mineria]

DPS meters just add to one thing.
Micro management of skills, cool downs and so on.
In addition raids will start to base on taking dps with high output, since there isn't much point in bringing death weight into an instance.

Generally I'm against dps/treath meters and raid boss modules.
Ive played with them in WoW for years, calculated shot rotations etc. and was on top of my class and raid group.
Not to mention that I sometimes was pretty harsh vs. other dps'ers on voice chat cause of the dps tracking.

The sad thing with all these mods is, that it makes raiding very uninteresting.
I mean, how boring is it to know tactic z to x compared to discover how it works and how you do it?
The best moments I had in WoW was when we did raids without mods and without pre-written tactics, today its just boring, hence why I stopped playing it.

Plus that such mods change how developers write instance code.
Starting to base fights on maximizing DPS is the worst thing that can be put into a games dungeon system.

Raiding should not be about doing your job right by micro managing the entire skill chain.
Raid mods contribute to the above, that is why I wouldn't like to see them in LOTRO at all.

Its not a question about how far you implement these tools.
If you first open the door making it possible for tracking dps etc. via LUA scripting, there will be full scaled mods available.
And as far as I know groups of people, they will set a requirement for others to use such mods in raids, which will exclude those who don't want to use it from raids.

Top that with increased difficulty of future instances to compensate the mods, raiding without will be more of a hassle than fun.

[Khafar]

Setting aside the "should you" argument let's ask how this could be added to the game in an intelligent manner.

I don't want to even discuss "threat meters". It would just be too large of a screwup for them to supply that, IMO.

As for the DPS data... that shouldn't be too hard. Simply piggyback it on the other fellowship member data already sent to clients, give people an option to allow it to be seen by others, and expose fellowship data in the plug-in API. Then fellowships/raids can use it as individuals permit, and LUA scripters will go off and make some cool ways to present and use it. It would be unavailable outside of a fellowship.

Khafar