NO DPS or Threat Meters

[Dinadass]

I am to say the least anti-meter and anti parsel.I knew easily who was doing well or not.Learning to watch my whole screen and react to what i had to stayed with me.Its why im better at video games than my girlfriend who loves them.I always spot things she doesnt.She is a example of a the minds we have in gaming today.Minds like ours are quickly being put aside.Being able to observe,react, and strategize is just meaning less and less.

Mind explaining how you could tell the difference between someone doing 1000 DPS and someone doing 2000 DPS while you yourself are busy tanking/healing/dpsing/whatever? Because I'm pretty sure you couldn't, unless it was just the two of you there. In a raid of 20 or more players, it's pretty much impossible to accurately guage any one person's contribution without meters/parsers/etc. unless it's something obvious like the main tank not attacking.

[ag0nizing]

Edit - And the simple undeniable fact is that it took a shed load more effort and concentration to keep that tank up in EQ pre or post PoP than it does in WoW.

The differences would be that even in vanilla WoW it only took 10% of the effort to get to MC than it did to take down Nagafen or Vox. It took 10% of the effort for every expansion thereafter to get geared for the next content in comparison.

When it comes to pure actual mechanics, i'm still waiting for examples of what constitutes hard in WoW. As in: This fight required you to do X things at once, and OT this and that.

Enough jibber jabber which just states an opinion, put up some hard facts or examples?

Regards,
T

Alright, lets see what we got here.

Took alot of concentration to keep a tank up in EQ? I must have missed that memo when we dual box are clerics in CH rotations from Kunark to PoP. It was tough doing a small count and hitting one button? Time to time, we actually would use a HoT and patch heal if needed!

Just a few examples of what WoW did right.

BWL and Naxx were quite well made and had challenges.
Zul Aman, doing the timed run, amazing.
Hell even some the fights in Karazahn had good mechanics.

Wrath, ICC had some fun fights, Blood Queen, Sindragosa, LK all come to mind.

I mean, Naggy and Vox raids weren't that tough at launch, once we all figured out you could just sit your Ranged DPS and Healers down the stairs so they didnt get hit by AoE, it was basic.

But I mean, you want me to name this great hard content with WoW, name some for EQ? I mean up until SoL every fight was nearly Tank/Spank AoE damage and a fear mechanic.

[Wolfgrey666]

In the old raids while they were big raids with alot of players they were also still a bunch of groups stuck together, each with their own leader.A easy example would be in EQ2 where one of the raids i enjoyed in good ol Crushbone was a 18 man raid.6 players a group but all together.However since each group still had their own leader it was still fairly easy to see who is taking too much or putting too much dmg out.The latter was typically noticed by the tank having to use too many threat generating attacks or abilities or seeing say a assassin grabbing even the smallest amount of aggro.Each leader and possibly another group member always watched their own groups while maintaining what they had to.

In that situation it isnt hard to understand what your doing at all and i have been in much bigger raids but the principles remain the same.The ability to look for clues,observe enemy AND group(and some raid members) life bars,use your own skills and abilities accordingly,watching enemy movement,watching for aggro from behind,watching your group members(and raid healers or mages) mana bars, and remaining effiecient while doing all this was common for EQ players and EQ2 players.

Keep in mind these skills for these players were just normal.You dont need to know every little number to do what you need to do, i mean its nice but not needed.In the end simply observing takes care of most while knowing what to do and how to react takes care of the rest.In my opinion i found WoW way too easy for that and it dumbed down the process.It was far too easy to manage your groups and far too easy to not really make mistakes anymore.The fun and challange to me was gone.The game was way too simple for me.

[Torq]

Dear Ag0nizing,

Took alot of concentration to keep a tank up in EQ? I must have missed that memo when we dual box are clerics in CH rotations from Kunark to PoP. It was tough doing a small count and hitting one button? Time to time, we actually would use a HoT and patch heal if needed!

At first yes, once it was already achieved and people were geared. Noone would use a Bot'd healer to CH. Against this is all based on context.

I mean, Naggy and Vox raids weren't that tough at launch, once we all figured out you could just sit your Ranged DPS and Healers down the stairs so they didnt get hit by AoE, it was basic.

Agreed, but it took a lot of effort to actually "get" there due to the 10 minute buff timers. As stated above in this thread by myself, difficulty can be measured in many differing ways. When you look at EQ now with WoW rose tinted glasses of course it will seem easy. You obviously played EQ, so try to think back to how it was then, not how you remember it now?

But I mean, you want me to name this great hard content with WoW, name some for EQ?

The expansions are all hazy in my mind, so i'll name some I distinctly remember. Some i've already stated:
Nagafen/Vox simply due to the mana pool pre dragon haste - you stated it was easy once you'd worked out the mechanics, I agree, but the fight in itself with regard to preperation was very hard
Ssra Emperor - prior to anyone knowing the strat or having worked it out this was a guild killer. Even once it was worked out it was no walk in the park with four different tanks to control.
Sontalak - Again subjective but without proper gear nigh on impossible (gear, read clicky)
Rathe - Is anything actually comparable in WoW in sheer requirements, numbers and coordination?
Plane of Fear/Plane of Hate - At the time of release without any post expansion gear this was a nightmare due to pathing and actual number of mobs
AoW - Again with no post expansion gear, this was another guild killer where keeping the tank up was hard as nails.
Uqua (or however it was spelt) - I don't actually remember how many guilds managed to complete this prior to end of GoD. Insanely hard dungeon with multiple tiered mechanics.
GoD 6 man trials (now the fourth time I mention these) - Again this stopped entire guilds being able to progress due to the DPS/Healing requirements based on 6 people only.

Edit - I didn't actually add this, but it's worth noting. PoAir. How many guilds actually completed the whole PoAir? Difficult in it's own right for completely different reasons.

Regards,
T

[Sethalus]

Holy cow!

101+ posts!

I read the first page....I'm not reading through 101+ posts ...sorry.

But, it does seem like this topic has been discussed before. I think it falls into the "Add-Ons" thread" maybe if I remember right.

DPS Meters ...ah yes!

I remember this was a problem for me being a Warlock in WoW (Back in Vanilla WoW, when you could not have multiple specs, and whatever the game has not to solve that problem). I was a Demo Spec Lock, which everyone know was a PvP build, made for survival in PvP, I.E. being able to take a lot of dmg, and live to tell the tale, plus killing the whole other side of the team in Warsong Gultch in the process...anyway...

When I was in the Raid guild I was in, they were constantly on my case about not doing enough DPS, and wanted me to respec to the Destruction Build for Doing mass DPS in Raids, Glass Cannon Build.

I was not pulling my own weight...

Everyclass had the same problem really. Tanks wanted to be DPS for PvP, and Healers wanted to be DPS (Shadow) ....


The simple solution is to have multiple specs, or whatever. Which I think Rift has covered with the Souls thing.



My biggest problem with DPS meters was always that people were trying so hard to be on Top of the DPS meter for bragging rights. Thus generating too much aggro and pulling it off the Tank.


If this was not a problem, I would not mind it. But it is so, I guess we will just have to deal with it.


I guess what I'm trying to say, is I know their uses and they are few.
I like them, and I don't like them at the same time.

[Dinadass]

Agreed, but it took a lot of effort to actually "get" there due to the 10 minute buff timers. As stated above in this thread by myself, difficulty can be measured in many differing ways. When you look at EQ now with WoW rose tinted glasses of course it will seem easy. You obviously played EQ, so try to think back to how it was then, not how you remember it now?

GoD 6 man trials (now the fourth time I mention these) - Again this stopped entire guilds being able to progress due to the DPS/Healing requirements based on 6 people only.

These sorts of things are not a good type of difficulty to encourage in my opinion, same with fights like Xegony (At least the 45-minute CHeal rotation portion. The other parts of the fight were okay. Like tanking her and staring up at her crotch for an hour.)

Stuff like the Rathe Council was great though. There was still a definite gear level required, but the fight took so much more than just that.

[ag0nizing]

Dear Ag0nizing,



At first yes, once it was already achieved and people were geared. Noone would use a Bot'd healer to CH. Against this is all based on context.


Agreed, but it took a lot of effort to actually "get" there due to the 10 minute buff timers. As stated above in this thread by myself, difficulty can be measured in many differing ways. When you look at EQ now with WoW rose tinted glasses of course it will seem easy. You obviously played EQ, so try to think back to how it was then, not how you remember it now?



The expansions are all hazy in my mind, so i'll name some I distinctly remember. Some i've already stated:
Nagafen/Vox simply due to the mana pool pre dragon haste - you stated it was easy once you'd worked out the mechanics, I agree, but the fight in itself with regard to preperation was very hard
Ssra Emperor - prior to anyone knowing the strat or having worked it out this was a guild killer. Even once it was worked out it was no walk in the park with four different tanks to control.
Sontalak - Again subjective but without proper gear nigh on impossible (gear, read clicky)
Rathe - Is anything actually comparable in WoW in sheer requirements, numbers and coordination?
Plane of Fear/Plane of Hate - At the time of release without any post expansion gear this was a nightmare due to pathing and actual number of mobs
AoW - Again with no post expansion gear, this was another guild killer where keeping the tank up was hard as nails.
Uqua (or however it was spelt) - I don't actually remember how many guilds managed to complete this prior to end of GoD. Insanely hard dungeon with multiple tiered mechanics.
GoD 6 man trials (now the fourth time I mention these) - Again this stopped entire guilds being able to progress due to the DPS/Healing requirements based on 6 people only.

Edit - I didn't actually add this, but it's worth noting. PoAir. How many guilds actually completed the whole PoAir? Difficult in it's own right for completely different reasons.

Regards,
T

We used bot healers in CH all the time. It wasn't hard.Out of all of those, ill give you Rathe council and AoW. But the rest were due to terrible game mechanics. Don't confuse hard with a ****ty mechanic like Buff Timers and standing near a wall in hate would aggro whole zone. Ssra was so so, but Naxx four horsemen was 100% tougher. Never played GoD so I cannot comment on those.

[Apoc]

ROFL @ 154 pages of this. Redonkulas

[Dinadass]

In the old raids while they were big raids with alot of players they were also still a bunch of groups stuck together, each with their own leader.A easy example would be in EQ2 where one of the raids i enjoyed in good ol Crushbone was a 18 man raid.6 players a group but all together.However since each group still had their own leader it was still fairly easy to see who is taking too much or putting too much dmg out.The latter was typically noticed by the tank having to use too many threat generating attacks or abilities or seeing say a assassin grabbing even the smallest amount of aggro.Each leader and possibly another group member always watched their own groups while maintaining what they had to.

In that situation it isnt hard to understand what your doing at all and i have been in much bigger raids but the principles remain the same.The ability to look for clues,observe enemy AND group(and some raid members) life bars,use your own skills and abilities accordingly,watching enemy movement,watching for aggro from behind,watching your group members(and raid healers or mages) mana bars, and remaining effiecient while doing all this was common for EQ players and EQ2 players.

Keep in mind these skills for these players were just normal.You dont need to know every little number to do what you need to do, i mean its nice but not needed.In the end simply observing takes care of most while knowing what to do and how to react takes care of the rest.In my opinion i found WoW way too easy for that and it dumbed down the process.It was far too easy to manage your groups and far too easy to not really make mistakes anymore.The fun and challange to me was gone.The game was way too simple for me.

I asked how you could tell if someone in a 20+ man raid was doing the same DPS as everyone else, and your answer was to use a gimmick fight where the raid splits into groups of 6? And you still only accounted for people pulling aggro... Yeah, of course you can see that without a meter/parser.

How can you look at 15 different people DPSing the same target and see the one person who is doing half as much DPS, while you yourself are busy fighting?

[ag0nizing]

I will tell you how they did it, ran a Parser.....

[Kidomi]

That's wrong. A meter would include all figures any parser can bring up.
Get a better meter if it doesn't.

The term DPS meter for me brings up a Single number, (your damage per second), while a Combat Parser brings up, healing, interrupts, CC used, incoming damage, ie ok that guy done great dps but also took silly amounts of damage because he kept pulling agro off the tank, so healer had to work twice as hard, potentially causing issues. DPS is only one part of the story in any group work.

[Torq]

We used bot healers in CH all the time. It wasn't hard.Out of all of those, ill give you Rathe council and AoW. But the rest were due to terrible game mechanics. Don't confuse hard with a ****ty mechanic like Buff Timers and standing near a wall in hate would aggro whole zone. Ssra was so so, but Naxx four horsemen was 100% tougher. Never played GoD so I cannot comment on those.

Dear Ag0nizing,
If you used Bot Chealers on the first attempt at any raid content, you guys truly had balls. If you did, how come I don't recognise your guild name, has it changed, because you'd be legendary if you did.

Now onto the definition of hard. This is where arguements come about, because it's all subjective isn't it? If the hardware, mechanics, latency made it "hard" to fight for X,Y,Z reasons, it was still hard, no? I don't think any side can actually convince the other because we all measure things differently.

You avoided a couple of my examples, but they in themselves were also hard. Maybe not in the fight mechanics, but in the simple preperation. Sontalak for instance required monumental amounts of camping for everyone to get enough clickies to keep buffs protected. Is camping hard? Well in EQ it kind of was due to horrendous spawn timers etc.. again another possible measure of difficulty.

Anyway, i'm going to let this one go, because I simply see that everyone views things differently and doesn't measure things in the same way. It would be kind of boring if they did, I guess.

Thanks for the responses, much appreciated. I like a good discussion!

Regards,
T

[Kidomi]

That's what a meter do nowadays.
Please adapt with the "modern" gaming.

I would count Recount as a Parser from that screenshot and nope never tried it. Never went near WoW, was not a fan of the warcraft universe so played SWG, EQ and EQ2, and went onto more modern games, and skipped over WoW.

I would still prefer to use an out of game engine because its usually easier to make it show exactly what you want, hell to be honest I likely to write my own anyhow its not that hard as long as the combat logs are sensible set up.

[Wolfgrey666]

Raid groups are split groups simply put together.For one you arrange before hand by lvl and classes for dps.Also seeing who does the most damage can result in threat loss.However the lowest dealer it is hard to see.That can be taken care of prior to by arrangement and knowing what skills that person is using.It would probably come down to the group leaders knowing the players in their groups.I admit a meter or such would help out in knowing exactly who but i just dont see the point if your group is successful.If certain players are doing too much work and its known then the questions are asked.But if we are talking about raids(not newb raids that are random) then we are talking about guilds that already know their players abilities.

When i played before, communication was never a problem combined with observation.Even then i dont see the need for meters or parsers.If your groups are well organized and well thought out it just isnt an issue, even in raids.As long as you succeed well and effieciently then these questions do not come up.

[Kidomi]

And I would blacklist u as you seem to be one of those who doesn't perform optimally. Why should I invite a slacker?

But the people who use them are already overserious jerks. They were like it in EQ when I played until OoW and never even heard of parsers and in EQ2 from launch.If anything, the meters do you a favor by having those jerks kick you from a group before you even get in to it.I've never seen parsers turn otherwise good people into jerks.