Personal DPS and other self-tracking

I figured I'd make this more anonymous, feel free to chime in if compelled to.

I come from a world (not this game) of DPS meters that people use to make a lot of decisions with. While we might not be kicking anyone, we probably will not re-ingite the guy with better gear who did half of anyone's dps and offers no other utility.

There seems to be a long standing stigma with DPS meters in this game, probably for good reasons. After reading the posts, seeing the arena net response, and general position of the meters themselves.

How many people are using them? How many people want nothing to do with them, even if it's just for personal use? Overall damage and other things is listed at the end of a PvP round, but this isnt super helpful when trying to gauge combat on the fly.

Would we want to see a built-in logging function? Or maybe a lua-based scripting mechanism in the game to make it to easier and more controllable for add-on developers?

Edit 10/25: What do I mean by DPS meter? "DPS meter" is a term widely used by many and may have different definitions depending on the community (apparently). What I intend to use the term as... Something that tracks: total damage, damage over time, damage taken, damage taken over time, healing done, healing over time, healing taken, healing taken over time, up time per boon/condition on self, uptime on boon/condition per target, interrupts, stuns, times you were downed, time spent downed, revive count, time spent reviving, misc CC abilities... And beyond.

Ah geez.

The problem with DPS meters is the type of game built, the different game ANet have, the game they want and the weird ground in between where the players exist.

Really, GW2 was supposed to be an action MMO with the typical stats driven systems, traits and skills underpinning a more dynamic, and more reactive, combat. It was envisioned to be much more opportunistic. The notion was that players would dip into combo-fields with finishers almost by chance - not stack max might on a fire field; that they would launch enemies away from them for breathing space - not hold all their CC for a break phase;; that they would kite and dodge and CC and teleport and block and burst and change tactics on the fly.

Instead, we would LoS enemies into a stack of players who would all have the same stats, and this stack would just initiate a fast burn on the enemies HP using the high damage weapons and utilities, or those that buffed their groups damage. Rinse and repeat. ANet had to cater to this mentality after a sort of compromise, they would make this harder to do, but essentially they would allow it. Suddenly, whole professions are left limping along, shackled to the awkward boulders of ANets old intent, the utilities that don't fit these methods, the weapons (and skills) that just don't work in conjunction with this reappraisal of their game.

It's not even the players fault. This lies wholly at ANets feet. They produced an extremely weak PvE mode. One that has been improved massively, but still has a long way to go to deliver the kind of tactical or active depth this game deserves.

Once, the topic of DPS meters was laughed off these forums. Now, they're just another foregone conclusion, another step toward the inevitable MMO GW2 set out to never be, but by degrees, more and more is.

I am all about things, meters and analysis that can make you to play better. The current DPS meter (ArcDPS) is IMO a bit limited to that purpose. The more you know about your successes and failures, the more it improves you in terms of game playing, understanding its mechanics, and being helpful to your game playing mates. Sure you can use it as a tool to troll people, justify kicks and such, but all in all, if a meter can show you where you should improve, it will put ppl on the right track.

This game at the moment favors heavily DPS, and that is something I dont like that much. If a meter could show what would be the outcome without you as a support, you'd not need those subjective evaluations made by team leaders based only about your DPS rating and your personality. You know, most of the meters can only show something like HPS, but they can't show how people were saved from certain death with well timed heals/protection, or how you worked to not even come to such situation.

It's hard to recall much of the original GW, but I remember Mesmer being my favourite class. My buddy was a dervish. He was practically unkillable and I just kept changing the rules as game play went on. It was great.

I still think GW2 has enough uniqueness, and I personally feel that a dps meter would help me understand what I might be doing wrong during certain points. Simply saying "I killed this mob in X seconds, only helps so much" which abilities did the most damage by the end of the fight? Did auto attack matter as much as chaining this and that? But I can't speak from much experience as I never saw game evolution from day 1... Just hoping to see further progression as we (hopefully?) approach a third expansion.

I'm a bit competitive, and would love to be able to analyze this information. End of game PvP stats only help so much.

Seems like most of the people who have a solid understanding of their class/build and have decent-to-good-to-great-to-excellent fine motor skills all seem to love DPS meters because it helps gauge how well they're fulfilling a DPS role (someone will surely point out that 'it's not all about DPS' ... hopefully we don't need to point out the obvious).

Other folk, including people who are good or great at the game, don't care for them. Which is the default position to take going into this game, so, that's obviously more than acceptable/appropriate. Power to you if you don't like dps meters --- fine. But aside from the ones who simply don't care, there is a third group of people who vehemently oppose DPS meters - I would call this the insecure group. "I'm still playing a ranger in WvW zergs after 4 years of playing this game and you shouldn't judge me for having 2k damage/second on average in a zerg fight!" etc ... to be fair, no one deserves to be picked on for their damage - absolutely no one. But I think we are all in our rights to give them an uneasy eye, per-say. And power to anyone who wants to give an uneasy eye to the incompetent - that's OK too as long as they don't flame others or generally act unreasonably rude.

To complicate it, you could take a group of any 100 people, and the percent chance that at least one of those 100 people are going to be complete jerks is 100%. So, I predict in this thread we will see replies such as "yeah but in reality people who obsess of DPS meters DO flame others and are often rude about it", etc ... this is somewhat of a moot point in my opinion; I've seen my fair share of the opposite where more casual players go on absolute witch hunts because they were excluded from an activity that requires a certain level of competence.

tl;dr uncut wood, moving water, stagnant water, cut wood, sun, moon, whatever. Some run a meter, some don't, some get irate about it, some don't, everyone plays the same game.

Unless it's necessary, I don't see why Anet would implement such a feature. We have meters, but they aren't for performance, they are for function. Even DPS meters aren't needed, because we have rage timers in raids (or whatever you want to call them).

@"TamX.1870" said:This game at the moment favors heavily DPS, and that is something I dont like that much. If a meter could show what would be the outcome without you as a support...

While I can't speak to the favouring (just played some PvP as a revenant who tried focusing mostly on staying alive, i did decent damage and helped group mates out), I know what you're saying.

In some ways, it helps the community as a whole. No dps meter means everything is relatively subjective during gameplay, no one's getting kicked for bad DPS, and support roles don't get overlooked. On the flip side, DPS is only one aspect of gameplay. Like a shaman in WoW, bringing utility to the group through AoE stuns, slows, emergency heals and threat redirection, interrupts... It's a HUGE different in the overall feel of a dungeon, it runs better. But the DPS is typically not as great, even though that's the role it's supposed to fill.

I'm starting to develop a theory though, in the general position of the community. Hoping to gain more insight into what might save the games uniqueness, without undermining it's appeal, and maintaining a competitive edge.

Seems like it's now possible for a player to level all the way up to 80, and still not know their class and how to play well. Trains, grouping in-world, etc... This kind of stuff, while fun, can actually have a negative impact.

I started soloing Hero Points in the xpacs and thought "Man, this is hard". Changed my spec and did better, changed a bit more and was able to complete. However, most suggestions to other people complaining about this stuff was either a) get good, or b) find a group. (Where finding a group was the most suggested way). So if we should technically be able to go out and "be heros", if we out to get a group because it's hard.... We're no longer learning.

As for rage timers, what about PvP? Or non-raid content? Or simply using a training dummy to test out if a certain trait takes away too much do to be valuable? Rage timers could expire for reasons outside personal dps too, sure... But if you're in a raid, it would be difficult to track personal performance when more than 8 other people are also doing damage.

Dps meters need to be removedDps meters are the worst thing that has happened to this amazing game. They ruin all the fun for real playerbase,not even 1% of the players finished even one raid boss. Raids and dps meters bring nothing but toxic elitism to the game. You can't even have fun in tier one fractals these days, as someone will be insulting you for the way you play. Raids need to go away and dps meters need to be banned. Real part of the playerbase that keeps the game running plays open world. It's the best kind of content this game has to offer.What does open world offer?

1. Joy of exploration.
2. Teamwork of overcoming challenges.
3. People helping each other.
4. Gathering of useful resources..
5. Feeling like you are part of the big world, striving to make a difference.

What do raids offer?

1. Toxic elitism that starts ruining the game for everyone.

What needs to change?Arena Net Must stop wasting time on developing raids for less than 1% of the playebase composed of nothing but toxic elitists. We could be getting new open world maps every 1,5 months if it wasn't being for the developer time wasted on developing content that nobody plays. And we can't even try to join that content, because toxic elitists will kick anyone for anything they don't like. Ever since raids were introduced, the quality of the game has been getting worse.

Arena Net please make this game great again, where we all can enjoy ourselves without being assaulted by toxicity from all angles.

As a casual who sticks to PvE, I don't really care much about DPS meters one way or another. In PvE, it's always readily apparent why I die or fail at certain content. It's always one of the following:

1. I don't understand the mechanics of the fight. I just need to play the fight more or watch a video on it.
2. I simply don't have the finger speed to avoid certain situations. I'm just not physically capable of quick twitchy movement. Sometimes I find myself in an unavoidable situation. All I can do is shrug and move on.
3. Lag. Either internet or my dinosaur computer.

So just for me, a DPS meter would be meaningless. Could it help me clear content 6.782% faster? I guess. But I personally don't care about things like that. I just log on to relax and goof off.

@Cynn.1659 said:Dps meters need to be removedDps meters are the worst thing that has happened to this amazing game. They ruin all the fun for real playerbase,not even 1% of the players finished even one raid boss. Raids and dps meters bring nothing but toxic elitism to the game. You can't even have fun in tier one fractals these days, as someone will be insulting you for the way you play. Raids need to go away and dps meters need to be banned. Real part of the playerbase that keeps the game running plays open world. It's the best kind of content this game has to offer.What does open world offer?

1. Joy of exploration.
2. Teamwork of overcoming challenges.
3. People helping each other.
4. Gathering of useful materials.

What do raids offer?

1. Toxic elitism that starts ruining the game for everyone.

Saddly no. DPS meters allow classes that would normally not be allowed to be in this content, in this content. Do you play ranger? or necro? Both of those classes used to be Banned from most pug groups for years because of their perceived lack of damage, i dont want to see that again.

I highly doubt that youll find more dedicated players than those who do raids and fractals repeatedly, in fact they might be some of the most dedicated, raids offer people a chance to do group content on a higher level than fractals, which is not a bad thing.

Edit: as to the OPs topic, id like DPS meters to be moved from a 3rd party tool that sees everyones DPS to being part of the game and allowing a person to see their own(only) with group options supported by ANET that way they could be regulated alot easier.

@deadpool.7036, I'm not sure you caught the point I was saying. Meters in general are fine, they are absolutely fantastic tools to get you better. I'd just want those meters to measure right things, the things that matter. Not just DPS, not just HPS, but to get you an idea how you performed in general, how much harder the instance would been if you would not do the right things (or how much easier it would have been if you'd be doing the right things). Same with PvP: I have criticized a lot the way PvP works at the moment, and how the metrics it shows at the end of the fight does not really tell anything relevant for you to improve your game play. Metrics that can't be used to improve your performance are useless. Metrics that you can use to make you better are absolutely fantastic tools.

@Cynn.1659, while I dont like DPS to be the only measured unit in this game, I think that the opposite - not being able to measure anything - is much more prone to toxicity. It is then just entirely up to subjective perspectives, which we see very well in ranked PvP. Measures can be really good, they just need to measure right things.

@"Cynn.1659" said:Dps meters need to be removed

Wow. Very opinionated. Honestly, if this game didn't have raids and fractals... I wouldnt bother playing. It's not the only thing, but it's a big one.

Your open world "pros" list? That exists in most MMOs.... So that doesn't make the game unique at all. If that's it... WoW does just as good of a job and is coming out with more and more of this style of content... Just watch the upcoming content release. Also, that community can be a bit harsh as well... Depends on who you roll with or run into.

Raids? They offer a chance for larger group composition and team work. Elitetists could be found anywhere...

Where are your stats for the 1%? Can we actually measure who does what across all servers?

You think Raids are derailing development? There's a giant list of bugs not getting fixed either.... So no, that's hard to claim as well.

Since you didn't mention PvP, and focused mostly on "toxic" people.... I'd suggest your expectations for the general populations etiquette in an online chat room is a bit too high and probably will never be met. Or the people using the meters to make sweeping decisions are a bit dense.

I'm sorry you believe meters have caused such unpleaseant experiences for you, but ultimately it's people berating you.... Not meters. Do you feel that you play a significant role in group content? And can you prove it? If you don't offer the group anything, your DPS is extremely low, but you're having fun... Then great, but don't expect people playing in competitive content to pat you on the head when you're making it unnecessarily difficult for them.

@deadpool.7036 said:

@"Cynn.1659" said:

Dps meters need to be removed

At most its roughly 10% of people who raid constantly, over that its dabblers at least if you go off of the site that tracks such things.

@TamX.1870 said:@"deadpool.7036 ", I'm not sure you caught the point I was saying. Meters in general are fine, they are absolutely fantastic tools to get you better. I'd just want those meters to measure right things, the things that matter. Not just DPS, not just HPS, but to get you an idea how you performed in general, how much harder the instance would been if you would not do the right things (or how much easier it would have been if you'd be doing the right things). Same with PvP: I have criticized a lot the way PvP works at the moment, and how the metrics it shows at the end of the fight does not really tell anything relevant for you to improve your game play. Metrics that can't be used to improve your performance are useless. Metrics that you can use to make you better are absolutely fantastic tools.

No, I caught it. It's just way different to prove and display "usefulness" as some sort of overall rating.

I mean, what you're suggesting is a MASSIVE calculation. Where a any given current meter is (sumOfSomething() / timeElapsed)... Your presenting that everything be broken down: I mean, I could try to break down some of the math... But it wouldn't even cover half of it....

And how would you track effective mobility towards objectives, or whether or not the player took the right course TO an objective. Maybe avoiding a fight with someone helped win the game by giving a capture instead. You can't even out some of that in a "meter". The meter is a long-term tool. 3 months later you can tell yourself "by doing xyz, I was able to do more of this or that", or, my groups have consistently done more damage because I keep my group boons up longer.

@TamX.1870 said:@"deadpool.7036 ", I'm not sure you caught the point I was saying. Meters in general are fine, they are absolutely fantastic tools to get you better. I'd just want those meters to measure right things, the things that matter. Not just DPS, not just HPS, but to get you an idea how you performed in general, how much harder the instance would been if you would not do the right things (or how much easier it would have been if you'd be doing the right things). Same with PvP: I have criticized a lot the way PvP works at the moment, and how the metrics it shows at the end of the fight does not really tell anything relevant for you to improve your game play. Metrics that can't be used to improve your performance are useless. Metrics that you can use to make you better are absolutely fantastic tools.

Some things just can't be measured. Take for example a well-timed aegis that prevented someone from getting knocked off a cap point or off a platform. Recording that "player X's aegis blocked an attack for teammate Y" is simple, but because you can't see a future that didn't happen you can't predict if that attack would've knocked them off or if they would've dodged or if they would've used a skill to grant themselves stability.

@"deltaconnected.4058" said:Some things just can't be measured. Take for example a well-timed aegis that prevented someone from getting knocked off a cap point or off a platform. Recording that "player X's aegis blocked an attack for teammate Y" is simple, but because you can't see a future that didn't happen you can't predict if that attack would've knocked them off or if they would've dodged or if they would've used a skill to grant themselves stability.

I know this. It does not prevent me to hope measurement tools to tell me - and the others - when I did the right thing, or improve my game play if I didn't do the right thing (didnt cast aegis to prevent my teammate to be knocked off from platform). Most of the people are reasonable anyways, and they don't look only DPS meters to evaluate "goodness" of a player, but they also judge it with personal, subjective insights. IMO it would just not hurt, if measurement tools would catch those things, too.

@"deadpool.7036" said:I mean, what you're suggesting is a MASSIVE calculation. Where a any given current meter is (sumOfSomething() / timeElapsed)... Your presenting that everything be broken down: I mean, I could try to break down some of the math... But it wouldn't even cover half of it....

I know it. I said that meters are basically good and useful, and I just hoped them to measure other things but just plain DPS or HPS.

And how would you track effective mobility towards objectives, or whether or not the player took the right course TO an objective. Maybe avoiding a fight with someone helped win the game by giving a capture instead. You can't even out some of that in a "meter". The meter is a long-term tool. 3 months later you can tell yourself "by doing xyz, I was able to do more of this or that", or, my groups have consistently done more damage because I keep my group boons up longer.

I know, I know. For me, DPS/HPS measure tools are just rough approximations about my progress. I know they are limited, but they still give me valuable information. I would hope meters to be improved. I don't wish them to be removed from the game, because if that is done, any judgement about your game playing will be purely subjective, and that opens - IMO - too much room for personal toxicity in more demanded content.

EDIT: In the previous game I was playing, I was developing the measurement tool for that game, and included few not-that-obvious measurements to that tool. They are not applicable in this game, thought, but in general, I think that surprisingly many things can be measured, and measuring things just makes you better, as you know what made the difference.

I'm just glad at this point, this is purely an academic discussion. If we had a need or if Anet had a compelling reason to add DPS meters, we would likely have them. Luckily for us, raids can be completed without them and the ultimate measure of success isn't based on some presumption about any individuals performance in a team. ANet got it right ... it's the team that wins, so measuring any individuals' performance is unnecessary.

@"Obtena.7952" said:it's the team that wins, so measuring any individuals' performance is unnecessary.

This.

This is the thing so many real life organizations falsely fall and fail, and I have criticized it for many years. This same thing is one of the primary reasons to cause toxicity in ranked PvP (just to remind you, there is no DPS meters available for ranked PvP).

Still, as a member of a team, you will benefit measures that tell where you can improve yourself. I want those measurement tools, not the tools to "find" a false scapegoat when you fail as a team.

@Cynn.1659 said:Dps meters need to be removedDps meters are the worst thing that has happened to this amazing game. They ruin all the fun for real playerbase,not even 1% of the players finished even one raid boss. Raids and dps meters bring nothing but toxic elitism to the game. You can't even have fun in tier one fractals these days, as someone will be insulting you for the way you play. Raids need to go away and dps meters need to be banned. Real part of the playerbase that keeps the game running plays open world. It's the best kind of content this game has to offer.What does open world offer?

1. Joy of exploration.
2. Teamwork of overcoming challenges.
3. People helping each other.
4. Gathering of useful resources..
5. Feeling like you are part of the big world, striving to make a difference.

What do raids offer?

1. Toxic elitism that starts ruining the game for everyone.

What needs to change?Arena Net Must stop wasting time on developing raids for less than 1% of the playebase composed of nothing but toxic elitists. We could be getting new open world maps every 1,5 months if it wasn't being for the developer time wasted on developing content that nobody plays. And we can't even try to join that content, because toxic elitists will kick anyone for anything they don't like. Ever since raids were introduced, the quality of the game has been getting worse.

Arena Net please make this game great again, where we all can enjoy ourselves without being assaulted by toxicity from all angles.

Both raids and fractals has to go and all difficulty make game easy again but seriusly raids is done by more than 1% other wise anet would not bother. Dps meter dont make toxicity people do gw 2 before hot had toxic players in dungeons back then i wanted dungeons gone since i couldnt play it due to being a necro/ranger main. All meter does is report data people can see what is going wrong or can be improved. Raids in gw 2 is fun since its actually engaging i can see you dont like raids or fractals since it breaks core game but the raid team is small. And anyone whos using dps as excuse in a t1 fractal is probly terrible and wants to put blame on others if its t4 cm i get why since there 1 underpeeformer can make time hard.

@TamX.1870 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:it's the team that wins, so measuring any individuals' performance is unnecessary.

True, and I believe those tools exist outside of doing a raid and based on the work that others have posted for raid builds. We all know when we miss a dodge or eat that massive hit ... I don't need a meter for that.

There is more to combat than just DPS, it's a fairly misleading number that is often given too much weight. Now many players understand this, and know how to use it, but far more players don't understand it and it's appropriate application, leading to misuse, and abuse.

@deltaconnected.4058 said:

@"TamX.1870" said:

Exactly. This kind of stuff can't be tracked.

But picture this... Someone who is so focused on being the last second hero, barely does anything except that one thing. (Highly anecdotal, but plaulsible)

Other times, I might be in a group that wipes 5 times because a damage-only class is so focused on dps that they ignore the group damaging mechanic...

But also, that's one minor example. What's also being asked for is a calculation of damage with and without certain boons active, while they were active. So during time X to Y (while this list of 7 boons were active), player A provided (calculation of abilities used per player, during the time frame that did X amount... So player A did more because of B's buff and D's debuff.... I mean, the amount of stuff that would have to be tracked and calculated and broken out is massive. But that's why a simple tool to track personal is generally enough to help a player tune themselves.

@Obtena.7952 said:We all know when we miss a dodge or eat that massive hit ... I don't need a meter for that.

Yes, but maybe your guard would really benefit to know that you eat that massive hit to be able to give you aegis next time. I mean this seriously: in difficult situations it is quite hard to follow all the members of your team, but if there would be a measuremet for guardians to tell when massive hits were taken, it could improve individual guards timings for aegis. Many of you, and me, too, occasionally, are taking measurement tools as a way to find scapegoats for failures, but I think they are more valuable for you as a player to understand better what you can do.

Without meters, I feel like being a blind man in a dark room. I personally really want to know if it is better as a ranger to use maul when its ready instead of autoattacking (it is, at least to certain point), or should I take a sigil/rune for bleeding or burning on necro / fb. I want to know how often sigil of water really procs on my druid to know if it is better or worse than sigil of blood to generate CA, and I want to know how much vampiric presence really healed my team on a necro to be able to evaluate its value.

@"TamX.1870" said:I know this. It does not prevent me to hope measurement tools to tell me - and the others - when I did the right thing, or improve my game play if I didn't do the right thing (didnt cast aegis to prevent my teammate to be knocked off from platform). Most of the people are reasonable anyways, and they don't look only DPS meters to evaluate "goodness" of a player, but they also judge it with personal, subjective insights. IMO it would just not hurt, if measurement tools would catch those things, too.

Depends on what you consider "the right thing" to be. What if 10 seconds later your team get's hit by a massive CoR which ends up costing the game? All of a sudden "the right thing" was not to use your block to prevent a teammates death and instead to let them die and hold the point yourself and block the CoR. In a different future the rev notices this and uses an autoattack first to get rid of the block before the CoR. In yet another future they just wait it out. No matter how you look at it every single action can be gauged as both "you did good" and "you did bad" at the same time because of the infinite and computationally impossible amount of futures available. As a tool developer I just hope that you know that what you're asking for is well outside the realm of what is possible. Which is why meters report concrete data instead of what ifs - if your role as a scourge is to strip boons, make sure the ratio of boon stripping skills to boons stripped (be it total or a specific boon) is at some level. Or the damage you do as a DPS is at some level. Or any other way to measure how effective you are at the role you are assigned

@Reverielle.3972 said:There is more to combat than just DPS, it's a fairly misleading number that is often given too much weight. Now many players understand this, and know how to use it, but far more players don't understand it and it's appropriate application, leading to misuse, and abuse.

There it is.

Someone just stated that, in the current context, we are all decently aware that there's more than just DPS that plays a factor in group success, anyone who says or acts otherwise is a bit ignorant. DPS meter or not, ignorance cannot be done away with.

So again, my proposal and desire is to at least have accurate, personal measurement of performance. My concern, is the lack or support. The problem, seems community driven.

So let's say I'm recruiting for what is seemingly the most difficult content in the game... What process should I use to determine who to invite? Any current method (seems to be) as good as a coin toss.

WoW suffers from this as well. Gear level, previous achievements, dps, class, even proof they've completed stuff that is more difficult.... Doesn't mean they will positively contribute to the group. And a lack of foresight can cause the next hour to be excruciatingly frustrating when you learn the player has probably been carried the entire way.