arcDPS - allowed?

[Chaba.5410]

The bottom line is that arcdps generally is ok to use because it doesn't violate the policy of giving an unintended, unnatural, or unfair advantage over others, but Anet still reserves the right to take action on accounts that use any third-party programs.  Incidentally that includes overlays like TACO and BlishHUD too.  Fairly typical legal-speak.  You can see in practice though not one really has been banned for this stuff.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Hesione.9412]

It's not only arcdps that can be useful, there are other third-party addons to arcdps which come in really handy in certain situations. For example, the boon information in arcdps is hard to understand when looking for boon duration, and there is an arcdps addon that converts this into a really handy table that shows percentage of uptime. I used this when I was a support class in strikes or raids, looking for alacrity or quickness uptime - for self-improvement reasons. Because I play WvW, I use knowthyenemy.

YMMV etc.

[Kalli.4506]

The risk you take for using 3rd party tools like arcDPS is that the creator could, if they wanted to, make changes to the app that would violate Anets rules.

If I'm not remembering it wrong, some years ago arcDPS had an addon for inspecting other players gears, and that was surely violating the rules of Anet so the creator would have to remove it to make the app safe for it's users. Edit: I think this was about another dps meter app back then, when googling i can't find anything about arcDPS ever had gear inspect 

It's unlikely that arcDPS would add anything now that would make it's unsafe to use, but you can never know for sure and that's the risk you take. Also Anet could change their minds about these tolerated but not supported 3rd party tools. 

Keep yourself updated if you want to use it. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Kalli.4506

[Linken.6345]

8 hours ago, Kalli.4506 said:

The risk you take for using 3rd party tools like arcDPS is that the creator could, if they wanted to, make changes to the app that would violate Anets rules.

If I'm not remembering it wrong, some years ago arcDPS had an addon for inspecting other players gears, and that was surely violating the rules of Anet so the creator would have to remove it to make the app safe for it's users. Edit: I think this was about another dps meter app back then, when googling i can't find anything about arcDPS ever had gear inspect 

It's unlikely that arcDPS would add anything now that would make it's unsafe to use, but you can never know for sure and that's the risk you take. Also Anet could change their minds about these tolerated but not supported 3rd party tools. 

Keep yourself updated if you want to use it. 

Pretty sure you are thinking of bdgm dps meter, they had gear inspect that worked in wvw and refused to remove it so Anet banned the creator if I remember right.

 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

18 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Pretty sure you are thinking of bdgm dps meter, they had gear inspect that worked in wvw and refused to remove it so Anet banned the creator if I remember right.

On a similar note I believe it was arcdps that had equipment templates, but they had to remove them when Anet made their own.

Overall yeah no one knows if the next version suddenly have a hack or whatever. So Anet could of course never "support" it per se. This also applies to games for that matter, never know if there is suddenly a data harvester that would be rather illegal in the EU for exemple.

If I also remember correctly Anet kind of had that "issue" in GW2 when they secretely implemented spyware to cast a wide net on GW2 cheaters (the implementation didnt actually care if you cheated in GW2 or not, it scanned your entire machine for flagged hacks/cheating files even for other games). It was removed shortly after.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Luthan.5236]

This is a bit tricky. But the correct info has already been provided in the thread: Not officially allowed. (endorsed). But people seem to use ot for a long time now - and no bans. Personally I avoid using 3rd party software specifically of that wording from ArenaNet. Unless they officially endorse something I don't want to take the risk. (Would probably also require to often read forums and stuff ... to see if they might change their stance towards this in the future. So you could uninstall it quickly enough then.)

Since I only play GW2 as MMORPG (and other hobbies + single player games) I do not want to take any risk. Even if it is pretty low here. (+ I don't need arcDPS ... the TACO thing is the only one that felt tempting a bit ... for TACO according to google and according to it's developers as an overlay and only using the API they think it complies fully with the TOS - but I played too long with and old computer that would not have been able to handle additional stuff - where I played without it - so I don't feel the need for it)

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

the arcdps developer works pretty tangently with arenanet to keep the featureset in check, and i'm sure they also monitor it in-house. they'll never officially support it, but they won't ban it either until they implement the same featureset in-game (which might never happen).

 

this is the process we already went through with equipment templates, so we know how it works by now.

Edited July 31, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Astralporing.1957]

On 7/30/2023 at 9:39 PM, Linken.6345 said:

Pretty sure you are thinking of bdgm dps meter, they had gear inspect that worked in wvw and refused to remove it so Anet banned the creator if I remember right.

Both had it and when Anet made their stance clear on gear check, delta removed this feature from Arc, while Bhagawan tried to be smart in a really dumb way (by still releasing a version with gear check, just labeled as "for chinese client", which fooled noone). That's why ArcDPS is still around, but BGDM is not.

Notice, that, while they never officially endorsed Arc, and will never clearly say you can use it, they did say they made a general exception for dps meters. allowing them to use memory reading (which they need to even work, as they can't depend on API).

[TheQuickFox.3826]

ArcDPS probably breaches this rule from the NCSoft user agreement:

 

Quote

3.1 Prohibited Conduct.

[...]

iii. Use, obtain, or provide data related to the operation of the Services, including, but not limited to, software that reads areas of computer memory or storage devices; intercepts or otherwise collects data; or redirects, creates, maintains, or emulates the Services.

https://us.ncsoft.com/en-us/legal/ncsoft/user-agreement

If you use it you are at risk. That risk if of your own and ArenaNet may take action against your account. The action is subject to ArenaNet's discretion alone.

 

Additionally, it is not allowed to make add-ons for Guild Wars 2 or any NCSoft games:

Quote

2. Are there limitations on types of Fan Projects?

Yes, in addition to the other terms in this Content Use Policy, please note the following:

Prohibited categories. Use of Our Content in certain categories of projects is strictly prohibited under this Policy, including:

1. • Cheats, bots, mods, hacks, add-ons, exploits, and other unauthorized activity in violation of the User Agreement (such as real money transactions);

https://us.ncsoft.com/en-us/legal/ncsoft/content-terms-of-use

In short: I advise against using it. I have not heard of anyone being penalized (Banned) for using it but that does not guarantee that this will not happen in the future.

Are there alternatives? Limited. You can test your DPS using the DPS golem in the Special Forces Training Area. It has many options to simulate different enemy types and environmental conditions. But GW2 has no option to continuously display your teams DPS statistics during an instanced encounter. Your DPS on the golem may be fine, but your DPS may be bad when performing the many raid mechanics at the same time. ArcDPS will show this. The game client itself will not.

Edited August 1, 2023 by TheQuickFox.3826

[Astralporing.1957]

2 hours ago, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

ArcDPS probably breaches this rule from the NCSoft user agreement:

I did mention in the very post above yours that they made an exception to dps meters from this rule, didn't i.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

2 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I did mention in the very post above yours that they made an exception to dps meters from this rule, didn't i.

The word "DPS" does not occur in any of their legal texts / agreements.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I really miss bgdm, it used to pause dps calculations during invulnerability phases. To be honest, i really wish anet would add gear inspect. Often I see someone really poping off in the dps chart, and I am curious if they have some sorta secret sauce. 

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

I did mention in the very post above yours that they made an exception to dps meters from this rule, didn't i.

They did ... but it was on some reddit posts from a now deleted account.

IIRC the exception was pretty specific. It was not just a general exception for DPS meter but being able to use memory reading on combat data for a DPS meter.

16 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

I really miss bgdm, it used to pause dps calculations during invulnerability phases. To be honest, i really wish anet would add gear inspect. Often I see someone really poping off in the dps chart, and I am curious if they have some sorta secret sauce. 

If it is in open world stuff the secret is just to arrive fashionably late to the fight.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

I really miss bgdm, it used to pause dps calculations during invulnerability phases. To be honest, i really wish anet would add gear inspect. Often I see someone really poping off in the dps chart, and I am curious if they have some sorta secret sauce. 

its usually just computer-optimised builds. that said this requires trillions of iterations (which increases exponentially with each gear, trait, etc. added), so even the best ones are inefficient as it would take years to calculate a 100% optimal build even on server-grade hardware.

 

the existing toolsets like discretize make alot of assumptions to reduce that time to hours or days., but on average a computer-optimised build has a damage floor that's about 25-30% higher than a hand-optimised build, and thus also has a higher damage ceiling with a very good player behind the helm, performing a near-perfect rotation.  the big bad benchmarks use a combination of both, but they're still mostly tweaked by humans over dozens of hours of playtesting to iron out as many inefficiencies as is reasonable (but not nearly as many as possible).

 

its the major reason why we were able to let go of many misconceptions about gearing from the past years.

Edited August 1, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[CoffeePlease.3082]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:58 AM, Takanoshy.5297 said:

hi, few players mentioned the ability to compare ur dps with others using arcDPS and i want to make sure its ok by ur EULA so i wont get banned.

Emidotexe posted a setup guide for arcdps where she addressed this question in the FAQ portion of her video with a screenshot of a dev post related to the topic.

As others have said, it's unofficially fine to use and if that changes they will likely make a very public announcement about it, but if you use it as a tool to be toxic to people then that's what will get you in trouble, not arcdps itself. 

[Noc Rubu.5804]

On 7/24/2023 at 2:07 PM, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

Using it from 2-3y, all fine

Remeber your using arcdps for selfimprovment, not to point fingers at others

Tell that to many ... guilds that sound like ....  Power in the brain types

[Polar.8634]

i don't know about anyone got banned because of arc dps in 5 years i play this game, from your average players to utubers/streamers who use arc on public videos. The whole raid comunity uses arcdps, most serious and not so wvw guilds use arc dps, so even if anet decides to prohibit arc specifically in future they will not do it suddenly.

only risk i can find in using it is that if you dont update it after game version update, it can crush your game. So when you see game downloads some file at launch, delete arc dll file from game and download updated version when available.

personally, i find playing the game on dps spec or cleance spec much more enjoyable with arc dps, as i can see my progress in mastering it. Also, it is important to have when you learn new spec and care about performance, i don't like griefing groups.

[Nephalem.8921]

22 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

its usually just computer-optimised builds. that said this requires trillions of iterations (which increases exponentially with each gear, trait, etc. added), so even the best ones are inefficient as it would take years to calculate a 100% optimal build even on server-grade hardware.

 

the existing toolsets like discretize make alot of assumptions to reduce that time to hours or days., but on average a computer-optimised build has a damage floor that's about 25-30% higher than a hand-optimised build, and thus also has a higher damage ceiling with a very good player behind the helm, performing a near-perfect rotation.  the big bad benchmarks use a combination of both, but they're still mostly tweaked by humans over dozens of hours of playtesting to iron out as many inefficiencies as is reasonable (but not nearly as many as possible).

 

its the major reason why we were able to let go of many misconceptions about gearing from the past years.

The builds do not require trillions of iterations. Math says no. The discretize optimizer is a brute force algorithm that compares all possible options. It could be a lot faster if it would use some kind of branch and bound or dynamic approach since not all possibilities have to be checked. Code is open source so if you want to write that you can do it.

What kind of assumptions is the optimizer doing? Not comparing all stats? That is not an assumption since you can proof it fairly easy that those builds can not be optimal. No need to compare harrier to berserker on a power build.

No idea what you are writing on computer vs hand optimized since those are actually in the ~1% range or far below. The optimizer just calculates the best possible combination to not waste stats. You can do that per hand and people did that before aswell with spreadsheets. It is just annoying.

The reason why some people do so much dmg is because they can press buttons. The average performance in this game is just not great. Some can not even achieve 80% of the bench on a stationary golem so when you encounter players doing vastly more damage it is usually them playing near bench performance. The difference is that big. In rare cases they are also exploiting fight specific tricks like plague signet on ankka to transfer extra condis.

 

[Janitsu.6284]

I hoope they delete ARCdps soon. Getting kicked out of every King's Construct raid fight is getting really tiresome. The game used to be better when there was no DPS.

[Linken.6345]

18 minutes ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

I hoope they delete ARCdps soon. Getting kicked out of every King's Construct raid fight is getting really tiresome. The game used to be better when there was no DPS.

Maybe your just not up to the standard the squad wants, have you tried starting your own squad and type all welcome?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

The builds do not require trillions of iterations. Math says no. The discretize optimizer is a brute force algorithm that compares all possible options. It could be a lot faster if it would use some kind of branch and bound or dynamic approach since not all possibilities have to be checked. Code is open source so if you want to write that you can do it.

What kind of assumptions is the optimizer doing? Not comparing all stats? That is not an assumption since you can proof it fairly easy that those builds can not be optimal. No need to compare harrier to berserker on a power build.

No idea what you are writing on computer vs hand optimized since those are actually in the ~1% range or far below. The optimizer just calculates the best possible combination to not waste stats. You can do that per hand and people did that before aswell with spreadsheets. It is just annoying.

The reason why some people do so much dmg is because they can press buttons. The average performance in this game is just not great. Some can not even achieve 80% of the bench on a stationary golem so when you encounter players doing vastly more damage it is usually them playing near bench performance. The difference is that big. In rare cases they are also exploiting fight specific tricks like plague signet on ankka to transfer extra condis.

 

i'm a career software/game developer who wrote something very similar for personal use (though unreleased due to a messy codebase), i'm well aware of how it all works and i don't need it explained to me.

Edited August 2, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Nephalem.8921]

24 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm a career software/game developer who wrote something very similar for personal use (though unreleased due to a messy codebase), i'm well aware of how it all works and i don't need it explained to me.

Then feel free to elaborate why the optimizer would even scale with server grade hardware when its currently not threaded or why it would take days? The assumptions it takes is that modifiers are constant throughout the fight which is a pretty decent approximation especially since stats are not changing throughout the encounter anyways so statweights would stay the same anyways. Statweights are not effected by % modifiers. 

Some people are working on a tick based simulation too and it does already work in wow without requiring days.

On topic: Arcdps is allowed and pretty much mandatory in endgame if you want to improve. It is completely impossible to measure performance on builds like weaver without it. Feels like you are just doing 20k when looking at numbers when it is doing 40k thanks to tons of small numbers which you can just not add up yourself. Also makes it way easier to compare different squad compositions since using benchmarks is one thing but seeing those apply to a boss with phases is a completely different thing.

Scourge might have "just" a 41k bench but it is fully ranged with a braindead rotation which results in it being pretty much top dps in every fight with longer phases now.

[ArchonWing.9480]

2 hours ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

I hoope they delete ARCdps soon. Getting kicked out of every King's Construct raid fight is getting really tiresome. The game used to be better when there was no DPS.

I get this feeling it's not just your dps....

[Janitsu.6284]

12 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Maybe your just not up to the standard the squad wants, have you tried starting your own squad and type all welcome?

If squad is in LFG it stands for "Looking For Gamers". That means you are looking for people I am not looking for you.

10 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I get this feeling it's not just your dps....

Explain why never kicked when no ARCdps in group then. Have proove of this as well.

[ArchonWing.9480]

8 hours ago, Janitsu.6284 said:

Explain why never kicked when no ARCdps in group then. Have proove of this as well.

How can you know if people aren't using arcdps? I almost never see strangers mention arcdps. Most people don't even talk at all.

I don't usually get kicked from parties, so it's pretty difficult for me to comprehend especially if you are getting kicked regularly. People usually get booted when the fight fails usually because they botched mechanics and don't communicate, or just don't seem to know what they're doing. Being kicked for low dps is a pretty rare reason unless it is in conjunction with a wipe since most people don't care if the run succeeds.

If you do extremely  low dps, that means you have trouble executing your build and controlling your character. It is highly likely that your execution of the actual fights is far from ideal.

In other words, it is entirely possible in some fights you were getting carried so even if they were using a meter, they didn't want to bother replacing you. But in other fights they may not have been good to carry and you played especially bad. They needed more than a warm body and thus you were kicked.

Let's put it this way-- when I do see people mentioning the meter in a serious fashion, it's usually an outlier-- extremely good or extremely bad. So if you get kicked from 1 or 2 parties then you might just have some psycho elitists. If you get kicked from a lot of parties, then you're probably behind the curve.  DPS are a dime a dozen; that's just how it is unfortunately.

Edited August 3, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480