Guild Wars 2

I’m surprised this compromise hasn’t yet been mentioned (or did I miss it? Sorry!): a training instance in the mists that you can test your skill rotation on, and after 2(?) minutes it resets and gives you a damage breakdown like it would give you if you died in sPvP. This would let me test certain aspects of my build that I’m curious about: e.g. is it better to have my other traits here? Or should I drop this signet and take this active skill instead?

A responsible player will use this knowing that they’re just fine-tuning a build. It’s in the Mists, so it’s not going to be a reflection of your gear necessarily, so hopefully that will be far enough removed that nobody is going to say insist on you divulging your DPS #.

Mathemagician.1836:

I’m surprised this compromise hasn’t yet been mentioned (or did I miss it? Sorry!): a training instance in the mists that you can test your skill rotation on, and after 2(?) minutes it resets and gives you a damage breakdown like it would give you if you died in sPvP. This would let me test certain aspects of my build that I’m curious about: e.g. is it better to have my other traits here? Or should I drop this signet and take this active skill instead?

A responsible player will use this knowing that they’re just fine-tuning a build. It’s in the Mists, so it’s not going to be a reflection of your gear necessarily, so hopefully that will be far enough removed that nobody is going to say insist on you divulging your DPS #.

while this would be interesting to test sustained damage instead of burst damage, it’s completely inapplicable to dungeons as the mists and pve are getting more different every day, with not only gear but skills differing as well. I think testing your build in the mists is already more or less ok, as you have steady weapons, can swap stats at will (and at no cost) etc. but testing your build for pve or wvw is not possible right now. I tend to just attack a champion I know well (giant in nageling i.e.) to see how I fare, but thats completely unscientific as I just test how good a build feels, I don’t compare the actual numbers.

@Iruwen:
actually I have, but not that long. the playerbase just freaked me out too much, I was used to a more mature tone from a RP-UO shard (yes, I kinda grew up sheltered in terms of MMO’s).
I think you’re confusing ‘vocal minority’ with majority. gearsharing wouldn’t be used by the majority of the gw2 players. it would be used by people with specific requirements (which they’d usually tell you very clearly and before you even join a group), lets call them elitists, and people on the mental level of seasponges, who read some stuff they don’t understand (or rather, watched a video, reading’s way too much of a hassle), and blubber about very loudly – I’d call them buildparrots. the first group typically consists of players who would use such a feature wisely and they are very inconspicuous, as long as you don’t join their groups you won’t hear from them ever. most of the time they even disguise themselves as normal players and simply don’t care about your setup.
the latter group thinks they understood how the game works but simply lack the mental capacity to really do so. they will spout the stuff they heard/read all over every area, completely out of context. will gear sharing in any way increase their population? no. will gearsharing help them discriminate more? no, they don’t need a rational reason anyway.

if the wow kiddies you mentioned didn’t have a way to see the build of others, they’d STILL spout the same nonsense, because that’s their personality. it has absolutely nothing to do with the features a game offers.

everyone who wants a gearcheck right now already asks for it and kicks people who refuse. the only difference in official gearsharing would be that trolls no longer can so easily hide in such groups. all other groups wouldn’t start gearchecking just because it became more simple to use.
I also expect some people to adopt it as a standard, even though they won’t care at all, as long as you’re helping, or rather, as long as you don’t bring the biggest design flaw of GW 2: magic find.

Mathemagician.1836:

I’m surprised this compromise hasn’t yet been mentioned (or did I miss it? Sorry!): a training instance in the mists that you can test your skill rotation on, and after 2(?) minutes it resets and gives you a damage breakdown like it would give you if you died in sPvP. This would let me test certain aspects of my build that I’m curious about: e.g. is it better to have my other traits here? Or should I drop this signet and take this active skill instead?

A responsible player will use this knowing that they’re just fine-tuning a build. It’s in the Mists, so it’s not going to be a reflection of your gear necessarily, so hopefully that will be far enough removed that nobody is going to say insist on you divulging your DPS #.

This would be an interesting idea.

In The Secret World they have the gatekeeper, basically an NPC that offers three challenges (tanking, DPS and healing, since it is a trinity based game). To gain access to nightmare more dungeons (the hardest ones in the game, and basically the endgame) you need to defeat solo one of the challenges, which involves fighting the NPC that does the kind of things bosses are expected to do (AOE circles, melee damage at one point, ranged damage at another and so on). In the tanking challenge some NPCs show up and do damage to the boss, you have to keep the boss’s attention in you while absorving enough damage to survive the encounter for a set amount of time, in the DPS one you have to keep doing damage to the boss while avoiding his attacks (if you do too low DPS for too long, you lose the encounter), and in the healing you have to keep alive the NPCs attacking at the boss, including one that intentionally stays inside the AOE circles.

There’s already something like that in the heart of the mysts (or was in beta, can’t say I’ve been much there after release), of course without locking access to anything, where you can fight NPCs of different professions to test your build against them. I could imagine something like this in PvE, maybe an instanced area (so only your damage counts) where you can select among different kinds of training golems, one might be a melee fighter, another a ranged fighter, another a condition applier and so on, some letting you stay there and attack, others forcing you to be on the move, maybe even doing more basic versions of some bosses attacks, and once you’re done fighting them you get a report about your average DPS, how much damage you made Vs. how much you received, how much you healed, your highest damage attack and so on, so you could see how good is your build working and how to improve it.

Ensign.2189:

You’d have to pair them with damage taken, prevented, and healed meters for this not to devolve into a bunch of idiocy.

Believe it or not, someone on the team is going to get the aggro from a champ mob and take more damage than everyone else. That person is going to have to spend more time evading and not dealing damage.

My observation is that without clear aggro mechanics, people have a tendency to glorify not being the guy getting aggro above all else – and this would just reinforce it.

I was about to mention this, and in the words of Mike Tyson, “everybody has a plan until they get hit”.

While with my Ranged I can stay at 1500 dealing consistent damage without ever needing to dodge (graveling from AC for example), in my Warrior it’s a very different story.

A global end score would be nice, just make sure it does tell all the story.

I didn’t read any of the Kitten post before me, But i do wish we has a PERSONAL dps meter. When i make a build i want to know how well it performs on REAL numbers, Damage, Healing and damage mitigation(would be nice) no one else needs to see what you are doing, But this will really help people learn the game and how stats work.

Instead of adding a DPS meter, they could just simply bring back the Master of Damage (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Master_of_damage). They could put him in the Hall of Monuments if getting attacked by multiple people wouldn’t work, or they could just put him in the mists.

Devastator.7428:

Instead of adding a DPS meter, they could just simply bring back the Master of Damage (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Master_of_damage). They could put him in the Hall of Monuments if getting attacked by multiple people wouldn’t work, or they could just put him in the mists.

This will do fine +1

TLDR at bottom
I’ve read a few threads already on this matter… I was wondering if anyone had come out at least with a simple third party tool that could parse the combat log…. Honestly… What the hck is the big deal with ppl and comparing it to WoW or any other mmo. The game doesn’t even have any serious end game PVE content to make it special or force people to get discriminated for their numbers.

All I would be asking is a personal dps meter so I can test my abilities and see what kind of spec is optimal for dealing damage and killing my foes faster. With the upcoming change to MF I want to know what spec I can use and what setup I can use to farm more mobs faster as in KILL STUFF FAST AKA HIGHER DPS. In its current state specially playing a necro with all the condition damage variables I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT SPEC GIVES ME THAT……………………………………….. I have even thought about quitting the game because of the lack of end game content and the dps thing is bothering me too… why? because I don’t feel I can do much to improve myself at level 80. You can buy a full set of rares And see no difference at all with exotics or legendary weapons… it only looks. I can’t tell wether I hit truly harder or not, wether my ticks are healing me better or not. Might as well play in level 1 gear, It doesn’t matter.

The funny irony about this is, Then why is it that very few people will take a lowbie leveling into a underscaled dungeon. You will be told, you don’t have level 80 gear that would improve your stats and do more damage or survive better. AKA damage does matter, but you have no way to tell wether this is actually true or not when underscaled, it’s all based on speculation, but it is already discriminating against people leveling. Why then add all these dungeons when 80|% of the time you can’t even do them while leveling unless you find some benevolent character that will allow you into their group?

Rant off… Just add personal damage meters for personal use, you don’t have to show party wide meters, it doesn’t matter. The fights don’t have enrage timers, there’s no dps contest for it. The reason WoW needed it is because almost every fight in the game had some sort of dps requirement after vanilla WoW, there were enrage timers that had to be met. I hated carrying the 15 plus kids in 40 man raids that would either be disconnecting, lagging, texting on their phone while autoattacking, having to carry useless deadweight healers was also an issue. The damage meters fixed that and by introducing the idea of dps requirements it gave other fights more complexity over time requiring optimized gear potential to do more damage in time to beat whatever req you had to beat.

THIS GAME HAS NONE OF THAT SO WHY SO MUCH ANIMOSITY AGAINST A DUMB STAT TOOL?

I don’t understand the population, I was a hardcore raider in my time yes. Was I elitist? Yes, to a certain extent, I like progression and challenges (which this game does not have at all, since it’s focused on personal progression for looks only). The only reason i’m still hooked on this game is making money in it, I like playing the TP and making gold, I always found it fun to grind for things like that, but at times in the day I just feel i’m wasting my time, theres’ no end game to do… WVW is a mass of text on my screen with horrible clutter, it’s fun at times but mediocre at best. I’m not saying WoW pvp is better, not the way it is now days, a decade ago it was fun…

TLDR:

-People already don’t take undergeared downscaled lowbies to dungeons.
-Personal dps meters allows you to gauge different specs for damage, which at the moment is impossible to ascertain.
-There’s no true competitive end game content where people will be whining about bad players having horrible dps (plus they wouldn’t be able to see the other peoples’ damage anyways.

I just spent over 10 minutes writing this, and honestly I don’t know why, because ANET doesn’t care what players say, no matter how valid the option is. The game will stay mediocre at best due to these limitations on the players, simple changes would make it more enjoyable and also allow for a bigger chunk of the gaming community that has different appeals to play the game instead of trying it for a month then forgetting about it.

Scootabuser.4915:

We already have stigmas that players make from research, spreadsheets, and experiance.

I know for a fact that many of them are just WRONG.

Why not add a Total Damage meter in game? The consequences of not having one have been worse, and classes have been downright excluded from content.

I know it will never happen though, because people don’t know the difference between Total Damage and DPS :/

Yeah lets give elitists access to more information they can’t understand so that they can draw bad conclusions and wrong assumptions against the people who are probably keeping them from dying.

I just want a way for ME to measure MY damage and functionality and how MY gear affects it, and eventually adjust stats in order to “optimize” MY performance.

“How do I know if, as a phantasm mesmer, it’s better to go full power/crit/crit dmg or also throw in a “bit” of condition damage for the bleeds or healing for the regeneration?" – “How can I know if stacking might is better than go with utilities and other more useful tools? How can I know if picking up these traits and utilities I end up doing more overall damage but, since I have to stack buffs etc, in the end I waste time and also dps and functionality?” The only informations I’m given is that phantasms and me deal direct damage and so zerk is the way… but are we sure that there isn’t a certain value of another stat which would be beneficial to stack to a certain extent?

As it is now, it’s impossible to analyze MY damage or functionality because the combat log doesn’t even show pet damage, condition damage, conditions applied, boons applied, boons removed or healing done. How am I supposed to better myself? Just go with what others say (And they might be wrong too because it’s not like they are any different from me, as far as the informations given are concerned)? Have I just to “hope” that I’m doing good when perhaps I just picked up the wrong stats and am impairing my party?

To a certain extent, we are all living a little delusion where we are good and efficient when we could actually bring more to the table.

I’m just asking for a way to measure MY OWN performance. I don’t care about others, they’ll have to deal with their own, I have to deal with MINE.

As you may know, WoW got two combat log tabs: one that shows what happens to you and your opponents, and one that shows what happens to everyone. I’m asking only for the former. The current combat log only shows direct damage done and received. It would be extremely appreciated if it showed:

• Direct damage done by/to you AND your pets/minions
• Condition damage done by/to you AND your pets/minions
• Conditions applied/removed by you AND your pets/minions
• Boons applied/removed by you AND your pets/minions
• Healing done by/to you AND your pets minions
• Crowd control done by/to you AND your pets minions

Do you think you can implement all the above? In addition to this, do you think you could implement a PERSONAL damage meter showing average dps/healing, total dps/healing, highest damage/healing skill

Also, stop giving me the bullkitten of elitists and what not; there is a lot to gain, both for the newbies and the ones who are (or think to be) experienced.

Also, as some of you stated somewhere else, skills do not rely entirely on damage and so, people excluding you from parties just because you don’t do the same damage as them, even though you bring utilities and what not, already prove not to be understanding very well game mechanics and should be avoided and left in their delusion. From my point of view, it’s better for you… or do you prefer to adapt to random people who think to know what matters and what not and are arrogant about it?

I think I love you metallus.

You worded what I wanted to say with a lot more experience in the game thanks!!

INDEED, all we are asking is a little analysis tool to show us our damage, OUR DAMAGE, NOT THE PARTY, JUST MY DAMAGE, SO I CAN ACTUALLY optimize my playstyle instead of sitting here boring wondering what to do. Some people enjoy theorycrafting and gear optimizing in games to feel stronger and it is a driving force to play the game. I already covered the whole topic of elitism. In fact, I’d like to add, for those of you that THINK it adds elitism, it really does not if its personal, and secondly…. you probably have never experienced what competitive high end raiding is. It goes well beyond damage meters. It involves being able to actually do an encounter correctly along side of being able to communicate with players and put decent inputs for the encounter. That’s how high end progression has always been and it applies to any game, mine is coming from WoW, meters matter when its a dps race, but being dead and useless means 0 dps so w/e, again this game has no such mechanics for berserk timers etcc.. so all that elitism talk really boils down to being irrelevant and angry ignorants fearing the game might become a WoW clone. It won’t, it’s not, a s t u pi d analysis tool doesn’t turn the game into another game… get over it already jesus.

Could be the end of Rangers forever if they did this…………..

But I do like the idea, just a bit worried how pathetic my (Ranger) damage will be compared to any other profession.

If your dps as a ranger sucks, you are not using him to it’s full potential.

With a dps-meter, we could finally show, how wrong the usual pug-assumption “Warriordps >>> ALL” is. This would not be the end, but the beginning.

Molch.2078:

If your dps as a ranger sucks, you are not using him to it’s full potential.

With a dps-meter, we could finally show, how wrong the usual pug-assumption “Warriordps >>> ALL” is. This would not be the end, but the beginning.

I think you might be in for a bit of shock…………

i want to see individual player’s damage in my groups. Just seeing my damage alone tells me nothing about my contribution to the group.

oh wait i’m sorry, this is a dps meter thread. “grumble grumble ELITISM!! grumble grumble COOKIE CUTTER”

See your damage: sure.
See other peoples damage: No thanks.

Been there, done that, so sick of it, please don’t let that kind of bullkitten come into this game.

Bullkitten -chuckles-

Seems like none of you read what we posted earlier…

A. There’s no real pve in this game to be even worried about “damage” competition. If people do complain, they’re pathetic and let’s put it at that.

B. WE WANT INDIVIDUAL METERS TO GAUGE GEAR PERIOD. Now if people want to make spreadsheets and guides with dps comparisons be my guest. No one cares.

C. If you read point B. Go back to point A. and drown in it for a few minutes to figure out what I’m trying to see.

D. IF you managed to understand point C. then you realized there isn’t much room for elitists to come into play mainly because THERE IS NO REAL PVE IN THIS GAME.

E. I really don’t know what else to say about it, the dps NPC master of damage or w/e is also a good idea. All we want is a way to gauge and optimize gear/specs which at the moment is all about how I look and not how much I’m really doing.