Guild Wars 2

EDIT: So many people are missing the edit at the bottom of my next post I’ll just make it the first thing that shows up here. I have used the words dps meter throughout these next two post. Anytime I say dps meter, I also mean amount of health revived meter, healing done meter, dodges meter, buffs given meter, debuffs applied meter – essentially a complete picture of what people contribute in dungeons. A dps meter would be only one facet of the overall implementation.

I think that gw2 should implement a dps meter. Two things I want to establish about this meter before I continue: 1. You will be able to choose who can see it, whether it be your entire party, just yourself, or no one. 2. You will be able to link dps from previous encounters.

My first argument is that gw2 is ultimately a game focused on self-progression, like most MMOs. Part of this progression is being able to identify your dps going up, either from getting better gear or becoming better at your rotation / choosing a more optimal trait setup and such. Yes, you can see your numbers as you hit and how they’re going up. It might be true that you can sort of tell how much stronger you’re getting because of gear. It might also be true that you can tell between the damage of trait setups when the difference is obvious.

That’s not good enough. There are different trait setups for classes where the dps difference is not that noticeable (and it’s a testament to how lacking my knowledge of my own damage abilities as a result of the absence of a meter is that I don’t know how much “not that noticeable” equates to). The problem is, not that noticeable does not mean negligible. For higher end difficult content, (FoTM 40+, Arah) having that extra dps would certainly help. I will also note the added benefit to the game of helping out min-maxers. You might not agree with their philosophy that you should try optimal gear/build setups, but you should at least allow them the chance to actualize their own preferences in the game rather than denying them that opportunity.

My second argument is based on a philosophy of group interaction. I think it’s fair that if you don’t want your group knowing how much dps you’re doing that you should be able to withhold that information. I also think it’s fair for groups that want to optimize their composition to be able to choose people based on their dps. Again, I think in difficult content, this is warranted, and also in dungeon farming where extra dps means more runs and thus more gold. A group that ultimately desires people who can do great dps should not be forced to include those who don’t meet their standards because the UI doesn’t allow them to access relevant information, especially when there are legitimate reasons for doing so (For those of you worried about the elitism this could lead to, I’ll respond to it further down). I’ll take a second here to note that this is ALREADY the approach taken by ArenaNet with regard to pinging gear: you can volunteer that information or you can choose to withhold it, but likewise groups are able to pick whom they want based on the decision to withhold or volunteer information.

My third argument responds to concerns of elitism, how having a dps meter could lead to people with lower dps being excluded from groups. I contend that this elitism already exists in the status quo, except currently people are being denied spots based on gear rather than dps. What does this proposal solve? Recognize that gear right now serves two purposes: it tells group makers how much potential dps you can pull, and it serves as proxy for how good you are at the game (people who have better gear -tend- to be better at dps, but that’s not always the case. However, it’s certainly a useful metric – a person with 2 infused fotm rings is more likely to be better than a person with two green ones, by virtue of their having cleared fotm up to level 26). No one cares though about how much POTENTIAL dps you can pull; they want to know how much ACTUAL dps you will pull. Pinging good gear means you MIGHT put up good numbers, pinging good numbers means you certainly put up good numbers. So the so-called elitists (who often have legitimate reasons for wanting well-geared party members) now will exclude people based on dps rather than gear. People can now link dps meters and say, “well, I might not have 5 ascended pieces of gear, but I pulled as much dps as you said you were looking for on lfg.” This means people who before were being DENIED spots based on gear are now earning spots based on their skill. People who were getting spots based on gear might now not be based on their skill. This is definitely preferable to the status quo in my eyes, for two reasons. 1. I think if “elitism” is going to exist either for gear or for dps, you should normatively prefer the one that is based on how good a player is rather than the amount of time he spends on the game. 2. The numbers of players excluded will be far fewer – how many people with all infused ascended gear do you know suck at dps? Whatever that number is, I think it’s a lot less than people in only rares/exotics who know how to play and would perform up to par.

The final group of responses I’ll handle right now include the following: TL;DR, You made X grammar error that invalidates your entire post, umadbro. I know how the Internet works. To you people, actually talk about the content or kindly get the kitten out (kittens need walks sometimes).

Thanks all for your thoughts in advance!

EDIT: A lot of people are making the argument that dps meters shouldn’t exist because dps isn’t the only way to contribute to a group. I like – and buy – the argument that a lot more goes into the game than just dps. I’d be totally okay with the meter also including relevant metrics such as damage taken, healing done, interrupts done, players revived, buffs given, etc. Recognize, however, that the argument simply means that there should be other meters as well, NOT that there should not be a dps meter.

i certainly hope no massive storm (like 15 pages long for example, …:P ) comes as a result of this topic. however having cleared at the start of this post that there are options to …opt out, or keeping it voluntary, i dont see much reason to oppose this.

Ezpz.7612:

My first argument is that gw2 is ultimately a game focused on self-progression, like most MMOs. Part of this progression is being able to identify your dps going up, either from getting better gear or becoming better at your rotation / choosing a more optimal trait setup and such.

I do not agree with this, because fundamentally GW2 is NOT focused on gear progression, which makes it unlike most MMOs.

With that, your entire argument falls apart.

Furthermore, I can’t see this being optional. It’s either DPS on or kick. When on it’s minimal this dps or kick. This minimum is always based on the most optimal cookie cutter, so fundamentally it’ll remove all builds, skills and traits from the game except the #1. What good is that?
Nothing good can come from this. I don’t want this game to have cookie cutter builds and rotations. It makes the game less fun.

marnick.4305:

I don’t want this game to have cookie cutter builds and rotations, because skills offer so much more than mere dps.

I wholeheartedly agree. If a DPS meter was put in place the first thing that would happen is cookie cutter builds, and then selective classes for dungeons. I personally like the chance to enter a dungeon with any ol random group of people.

There is no need for a dps meter in this game. There are no specialized “trinity-like” classes, and any instance can be done with any mix of classes. All a DPS meter will do is make people get all wrapped up in something that’s not necessary, and add a level of work/pressure to the game that is inversely proportional to fun.

If you’re really into needing to see those numbers, GW2 is not the game for you. There are others out there with DPS meters – I recommend those.

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with this, because fundamentally GW2 is NOT focused on gear progression, which makes it unlike most MMOs.

With that, your entire argument falls apart.

First off, it’s just untrue that the entire premise of all my arguments are based on the idea that GW2 is focused on gear. It’s simply a strawman argument you’re knocking down here – my point is that people like to see themselves perform better, regardless of whether that’s because of gear or because they improved their skills or because they tried out a new trait setup. And that to deny those people the ability to optimize their dps is unfair to them, even if you yourself do not buy into their mindset. I also listed two other impacts that you completely don’t address: that groups should be able to set criteria for whom they voluntarily associate with (and that this is ALREADY the practice with gear) and that the dps meter actually SOLVES for elitism because instead of people being denied based on gear, they’re now denied based on dps, which is better for reasons explained in the OP.

marnick.4305:

Furthermore, I can’t see this being optional. It’s either DPS on or kick. When on it’s minimal this dps or kick. Nothing good can come from this. I don’t want this game to have cookie cutter builds and rotations, because skills offer so much more than mere dps.

Right now those people are saying ping full berserker exotics or kick. I’ve already explained why it would be better for those people to say ping X amount of dps or kick, because now people with not optimal gear but good dps are included. It seems that your problems with a dps meter are worse without a meter than with it.

If its for personal use then sure. Anything for self improvement. However, I don’t want people seeing my data and telling me I suck an boot me without discussion. Especially if they don’t know if I’m in the middle of a gear gather or something.

marnick.4305:

Ezpz.7612:

My first argument is that gw2 is ultimately a game focused on self-progression, like most MMOs. Part of this progression is being able to identify your dps going up, either from getting better gear or becoming better at your rotation / choosing a more optimal trait setup and such.

I do not agree with this, because fundamentally GW2 is NOT focused on gear progression, which makes it unlike most MMOs.

With that, your entire argument falls apart.

Furthermore, I can’t see this being optional. It’s either DPS on or kick. When on it’s minimal this dps or kick. This minimum is always based on the most optimal cookie cutter, so fundamentally it’ll remove all builds, skills and traits from the game except the #1. What good is that?
Nothing good can come from this. I don’t want this game to have cookie cutter builds and rotations. It makes the game less fun.

This.

Also the game needs to move away from the DPS or get out mindset, this is purely player created and makes the game much less fun.

We have the ability to create different builds, experiment with different playstyles and gear combo’s- the moment you have a DPS meter all that goes out the window.

There are other ways of contributing to a fight you know.

Maybe a dpsmeter not, but a zone like the golems of pvp to test skills ans builds in pve (with the pve skills ans stats) could be a good idea

DPS meters never measure non dps a player does. AKA ressing, healing, actively dodging so the rest of the team doesn’t have to, See first encounter in TA as example where people can get aggro on all the wurms.

The only people that like these kinds of tools are DPS freaks. Same for inspect. They don’t make for a better community, rather they tear down communities.

“I wholeheartedly agree. If a DPS meter was put in place the first thing that would happen is cookie cutter builds, and then selective classes for dungeons. I personally like the chance to enter a dungeon with any ol random group of people.”

“There is no need for a dps meter in this game. There are no specialized “trinity-like” classes, and any instance can be done with any mix of classes. All a DPS meter will do is make people get all wrapped up in something that’s not necessary, and add a level of work/pressure to the game that is inversely proportional to fun.
If you’re really into needing to see those numbers, GW2 is not the game for you. There are others out there with DPS meters – I recommend those.”

I’m just going to lump these responses together because they’re essentially the same issue. You guys are arguing that certain classes will be excluded from runs because of having dps, but you never actually consider the argument that right now those classes are ALREADY excluded (don’t believe me? just go on GW2LFG and look at all the LF4M berserker warrior ping ascended gear or kick posts). With a meter, people who don’t have the best class/gear but can still do their job now have a chance to group with those elitists, and the people who don’t care about what gear/class their party members right now aren’t going to all of a sudden become elitist about dps. This is the last time I will be making this argument until an actual response is made to it. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

I like – and buy – the argument that a lot more goes into the game than just dps. I’d be totally okay with the meter also including relevant metrics such as damage taken, healing done, interrupts done, (EDIT: players revived, buffs given are also good metrics to have on a meter) etc. Recognize, however, that the argument simply means that there should be other meters as well, NOT that there should not be a dps meter.

Morrigan.2809:

marnick.4305:

Ezpz.7612:

My first argument is that gw2 is ultimately a game focused on self-progression, like most MMOs. Part of this progression is being able to identify your dps going up, either from getting better gear or becoming better at your rotation / choosing a more optimal trait setup and such.

I do not agree with this, because fundamentally GW2 is NOT focused on gear progression, which makes it unlike most MMOs.

With that, your entire argument falls apart.

Furthermore, I can’t see this being optional. It’s either DPS on or kick. When on it’s minimal this dps or kick. This minimum is always based on the most optimal cookie cutter, so fundamentally it’ll remove all builds, skills and traits from the game except the #1. What good is that?
Nothing good can come from this. I don’t want this game to have cookie cutter builds and rotations. It makes the game less fun.

This.

Also the game needs to move away from the DPS or get out mindset, this is purely player created and makes the game much less fun.

We have the ability to create different builds, experiment with different playstyles and gear combo’s- the moment you have a DPS meter all that goes out the window.

There are other ways of contributing to a fight you know.

Yeah. Play like you want. But truth is: berserker, maximum dps or suck and are useless.
Therefore +2 for a dps-meter, even if you can choose if it’s visible for other players or not.

The point is those people and classes that are seen as undesirable can still do their job without a DPS meter. The only groups they are excluded from is the Zerker-Warrior-ping-gear groups.
No one else gives a kitten and quite happily do their stuff.
DPS meter is not necessary and will not really help anyone because no matter how good your intentions are I bet you 2 hours down the line that those same Zerker-Warrior- ping-groups will be abusing it.
Again this game is not supposed to be DPS or get out.

edit: “Yeah. Play like you want. But truth is: berserker, maximum dps or suck and are useless.
Therefore +2 for a dps-meter, even if you can choose if it’s visible for other players or not.”

And there we go

I’ve spent ages explaining to people that DPS is only one aspect of play. Singling out that aspect and making it all important, such as by making it the only real aspect of play you can really track, sends the wrong message to the community.

Already we see people saying warriors and zerker gear are the only way to be in PvE. It’s not true. It’s not fair. It’s not fun and it shouldn’t exist. Part of the blame for this must go to Anet.

But the untold story of being part of a group doesn’t always go with tracking stats.

Most recently I’ve gotten more in to the SPvP side of things. There are games my team loses were my score is hugely high. And there are games when I know for a fact that I helped my team win and my score is abyssmally low. There are different reasons for this.

For example, if I’m annoying and harrassing enough of the other team to throw them off their game and continually getting them to chase me, I stop them from capping. I might have hardly any kills (because they’re after me en masse). I might have hardly any caps, because I’m keeping them away from points, which is what I’m trying to do, but I get enough of them annoyed enough to abandon their game plan and lose the match. No stat measures my contribution to the team. When I’m playing for points, I’m less useful, when I’m playing to win I’m more useful.

A DPS meter is a red-herring. You, OP, may know this. But most people won’t. Introduction of a DPS meter will give them the completely wrong idea. I’m dead set against it.

I say FORCE it to be only visible to you….otherwise people will ask you to activate the visibility or they’ll kick you.

Making it only visible to yourself, and I support this 100%

Vayne, thank you for the response – I’ll respond to the parts of your post that pertain to the introduction of a dps meter only, but I do think what you’re saying about sPvP is true and should be fixed.

“I’ve spent ages explaining to people that DPS is only one aspect of play. Singling out that aspect and making it all important, such as by making it the only real aspect of play you can really track, sends the wrong message to the community.” and “A DPS meter is a red-herring. You, OP, may know this. But most people won’t. Introduction of a DPS meter will give them the completely wrong idea.”

I responded to this halfway done the page, and have now edited the OP part two second post to state that this meter would not only track DPS but other relevant statistics.

“Already we see people saying warriors and zerker gear are the only way to be in PvE. It’s not true. It’s not fair. It’s not fun and it shouldn’t exist. Part of the blame for this must go to Anet.”

An argument literally NO ONE in this entire page has responded to is that if people are saying warriors and zerker gear are the only way to be in PvE, then the introduction of meters can ONLY serve to fix it. When you see that thief can dps as much as a warrior, or when the healing/buffs given meter calls attention to how good the ele you had in your group was, that’s the only way to fix the problem. The people who are excluding will continue to exclude. The people who aren’t won’t all of a sudden start. All this proposal does is give you a way to measure yourself, and give people who perform well but have unconventional classes/gear to show the elitists that their assumptions about the game are incorrect.

skills > dps. So why do you want to measure an inferior thingy? Because skills are not measurable?

I have a warrior specced for CoF speedruns. I have a guard specced for all around stuff with some berserker equipment, but not everything. I’m not skilled with a warrior (I have like 40 hours of play with it). I am skilled with a guard ( thanks to my 1500 hours of play). I finish CoF quicker with my guard than with my warrior in a 5 warriors setup vs. a 4 warriors + 1 guard setup.

So… no, dps and dps-meter isn’t the solution.

I also think DPS meter belongs to games with Trinity system.

In general we don’t want people to focus only to DPS. I’m willing to say it’d be good in places like Cof1 where your survival is dependent on your DPS, but in general dungeons I’d rather see people ressing than casting just whatever that makes the DPS meter go a little bit higher.

And let’s be honest here – DPS meter wouldn’t solve elitism in any way. People would still request you to post your gears and kick you out if you don’t have what they want. We’ve all seen that this happens in other games with DPS meter. It’d be just that extra elitism it brings – you’d be kicked out later for not having enough DPS in case you do stop to res someone.

Ezpz.7612:

My third argument responds to concerns of elitism, how having a dps meter could lead to people with lower dps being excluded from groups. I contend that this elitism already exists in the status quo, except currently people are being denied spots based on gear rather than dps.

Just because some people currently enforce this execrable group culture doesn’t mean we should whole-heartedly embrace it.

In other words, just because some people vehemently say something is so, it doesn’t make them right. Like the Flat Earth society or Creationists.

Morrigan.2809:

The point is those people and classes that are seen as undesirable can still do their job without a DPS meter. The only groups they are excluded from is the Zerker-Warrior-ping-gear groups.
No one else gives a kitten and quite happily do their stuff.
DPS meter is not necessary and will not really help anyone because no matter how good your intentions are I bet you 2 hours down the line that those same Zerker-Warrior- ping-groups will be abusing it.
Again this game is not supposed to be DPS or get out.

edit: “Yeah. Play like you want. But truth is: berserker, maximum dps or suck and are useless.
Therefore +2 for a dps-meter, even if you can choose if it’s visible for other players or not.”

And there we go

I agree that we don’t need a DPS Meter. Not on this game!

I find amusing how popular belief leads ppl to take for granted that Full Berserker is the higher DPS build when almost all Full berserker players stays 50% or more of the time in downed state.

In this game we should be looking for the highest DP10S instead of the highest DPS.

/cheers

In response to “I also think DPS meter belongs to games with Trinity system.
In general we don’t want people to focus only to DPS. I’m willing to say it’d be good in places like Cof1 where your survival is dependent on your DPS, but in general dungeons I’d rather see people ressing than casting just whatever that makes the DPS meter go a little bit higher.” and “skills > dps. So why do you want to measure an inferior thingy? Because skills are not measurable?”
——-
Already been answered twice in this thread, once at the bottom of the second post, and once with the seventh post on this page. Please at least read responses to arguments already made before you make the same argument 3 people made before you.

The reason why I think a meter won’t fix the problem is because of the way human nature works. I’m pretty sure Anet has all these numbers. It’s not Anet’s fault that people get obsessed with pure efficiency. But as already pointed out in my PvP story, pure efficient can’t always be measured by numbers. The very existence of the tool will teach peiople to focus on it, even people who don’t focus on it now.

It’s a matter of, not so much of metrics, but of awareness. In Guild Wars 1, you had two possible ways to upgrade a weapon for your character. You could use +5 armor or +30 health. I tried testing it a million ways, and could never be sure, even after five years, which of those was the better of the two options. So I didn’t pick one over the other. There was no real proof.

Here, the actual proof of “more damage” will have people convinced they should build for more damage. But that might mean a ranger taking a skill that isn’t search and recuse into a dungeon. That skill doesn’t do pretty much any damage, it just gets people up faster.

Evasion skills or blinding skills, won’t show up on a DSP meter, nor will they really show up on any kind of meter.

I have skills that help the entire party but they’re not always increasing my damage.

A metric that is misleading is one that is not well done. The numbers themselves and access to them is enough to mislead a whole lot of people. It won’t make damage less important, it will make damage more important, because in people’s heads it will become even more important.

And even changing the name, note you started calling it a damage meter. It’s how people will use it, whatever you call it.

I should mention I used a parser (which is what you’re asking for) in Rift when I played it, and it pretty much destroyed any enjoyment of that game for me.

I’d like to have a DPS meter so I could compare DPS on various classes, but also on different builds. It would be nice if we could see how much dps we bring by stacking might/vuln or casting time warp etc. But other thing that would be nice as well would be some burst meter since in some encounters high burst damage is much more important then overall dps.

I have no issues with it being shown for myself only since I want it for myself in the first place.

Thank you for being the first one after about twenty posts to actually engage the meat of the original post. That said, I don’t think the response made is going to be true.

“People would still request you to post your gears and kick you out if you don’t have what they want. We’ve all seen that this happens in other games with DPS meter. It’d be just that extra elitism it brings – you’d be kicked out later for not having enough DPS in case you do stop to res someone.”

First off, I’ve given arguments why people would not care about gear if they had access to dps because gear is only POTENTIAL dps but dps done in the past is actual dps. But even if this were true, having an official link to your past performance would fix this issue, as it can legitimize your claims.

In response to: “Just because some people currently enforce this execrable group culture doesn’t mean we should whole-heartedly embrace it.
In other words, just because some people vehemently say something is so, it doesn’t make them right. Like the Flat Earth society or Creationists.”

We wouldn’t be whole-heartedly embracing it, we would be creating a tool with uses completely independent of their purposes, while giving them quantitative evidence that they are incorrect.

“I find amusing how popular belief leads ppl to take for granted that Full Berserker is the higher DPS build when almost all Full berserker players stays 50% or more of the time in downed state.
In this game we should be looking for the highest DP10S instead of the highest DPS.”

For the fifth time, the meters should include accurate metrics such as time spent in downed state and active dps across entire fight rather than just when you are dpsing. This is the last time I will be responding to this argument until something actually new is said.

OP the meat of your post is should a DPS meter be in the game or not. I understand why you want it, but I’ve played too many games that have had it and it’s never been good.

These responses are completely relevant and on topic to the subject you’ve brought up. You believe it won’t add to the elitism that springs up in all MMOs (and has even started up here).

The ONLY way you could possibly avoid it is to make it available only to you, and not allow anyone else to see it ever under any circumstance.

Three replies to Vayne whose posts I have really appreciated on this thread then to bed for me:

“Evasion skills or blinding skills, won’t show up on a DSP meter, nor will they really show up on any kind of meter.”

Blinds applied, attacks evaded are both meters that should be added. If I could change the thread title from DPS meter to just meters that measure all aspects of game performance, I would.

“It won’t make damage less important, it will make damage more important, because in people’s heads it will become even more important.”

I don’t see why that would be the case, if there were 10 different meters, and dps were only one of them.

and finally “I should mention I used a parser (which is what you’re asking for) in Rift when I played it, and it pretty much destroyed any enjoyment of that game for me.”

Thank you for realizing that I’m asking for a parser unlike a pure dps meter like 10 other people on this thread. That said, I’m not sure how knowing how many attacks you’ve dodged, how much damage you’ve taken, etc take the enjoyment out of the game for you, especially since you would be able to turn it off in this implementation.

That’s all for now folks, I’ll come back to this thread later. Thanks for the contributions everyone, even the repetitive posts.

I’ve never seen a “DPS meter” that accurately measures my contributions like applying and maintaining group-wide 16 stacks of might or maintaining 80% uptime fury across the team (because frankly 20%+ of your crit damage belongs to ME under those conditions when judging DPS done…).

A gauge visible strictly to yourself its possibly a tool for improvement, but the reality is its gonna be used as a measuring stick for pure ego. ANY sort of cross character gauging and you might as well have an inspect function first – and all the kitten droppings that go with that…

Against. Fiercely.

Most of the OP’s points make sense, however there is something that I’m worried about: the implementation of such a DPS meter (or any kind of metric) will change how much importance people put onto it.

Right now, other than CoF farm groups, high level fractals, and Arah, nobody really cares too much about your actual DPS or support (unless you die every 3 seconds, who really cares how much damage you do in SE, for instance).

With meters easily available for DPS (as well as healing, stuns, and whatever), it will encourage people to enforce a minimum skill/gear level. So, for instance, it might be that you need a minimum of 5k DPS (or 5 stuns per minute, or 3000 healing done per 10 seconds, or something like that) to do CoE.

The inclusion of such an easily-checked metric (and if anyone refuses to show their actual DPS-meter readout, it can be assumed that they do not know/are below the threshold, both of which are reasons to group kick them) means that there will now be people excluded from doing content.

Personally, I don’t really care too much, as it will help dungeon runs go smoother (you never need to wonder if that longbow Ranger is actually doing anything), but it seems to go against what a lot of people like about the game – that dungeon runs are not exclusive to a group of players above a certain gear/skill level.

TLDR: DPS meter will change GW2 dungeon-going culture to what people don’t like.

Edit: I know you can already pseudo-check by pinging gear. What I mean is that it gives people an easy way to check, thus encouraging everyone to do so, all the time.

For – but not for party selection reasons. Simply for build fine tuning.

Being something of a perfectionist I often find myself thinking “How much damage is this rotation really adding and how does it break down into condition/power/crit damage”, “Can i trade off a few points here and what loss of damage does that cause”. With no way to monitor my own DPS I can only wing it

Even GW1 had a DPS test target in the mists for experimenting with builds, GW2 has no such feature

Playing for maximum DPS in a game isn’t fun for me. PERIOD. In Rift, before I used a parser, I was doing less damage. I got a parser and I was able to streamline my damage. I did great. I really got the damage going.

I needed precisely 2 sets of macros on two keys, ocassionally hitting a third key. So essentially my rotation was boring as hell, but I did great.

The problem is, people have already forgotten about fun. They forget that the object of games IS to have fun. The more focused people are on numbers, the less they focus on stuff like immersion. The more out of the world they’re taken, and in my opinion, that’s not good for most games, but that’s completely terrible for this game.

This game was less designed to be a numbers game. You see this because every profession IS viable in a dungeon. But of course, people who like efficiency and numbers are very loud on forums, tell everyone that they must have zerker warriors (not in any way true) and pretty soon half the population starts to believe it.

Sure you can get through a dungeon faster with the right exact build but this wasn’t how Anet advertised the game and I believe the people they were trying to reach were people who wanted to have fun, wanted to experiment, wanted to just play what they enjoyed.

And because of human nature, less and less people will be doing this.

What I really wish is that they could create a fun or enjoyment meter, because that’s what people have left behind that they really need to learn, far more than how much damage they do or how many times they dodged.

Ezpz.7612:

Already been answered twice in this thread, once at the bottom of the second post, and once with the seventh post on this page. Please at least read responses to arguments already made before you make the same argument 3 people made before you.

So you can be pedantic with people, but we can’t be with you? Oh kitten …

Ok in bed now but will write up two more quick replies:

1. Against the concern that the meter wouldn’t actually track buffs: “I’ve never seen a “DPS meter” that accurately measures my contributions like applying and maintaining group-wide 16 stacks of might or maintaining 80% uptime fury across the team (because frankly 20%+ of your crit damage belongs to ME under those conditions when judging DPS done…).”

It’d actually be really easy – look at amount of crit damage done, take twenty percent of that, multiply by the uptime, and list that as the contribution under the buffs section of the meter.

2. Against the idea that culture would change: “With meters easily available for DPS (as well as healing, stuns, and whatever), it will encourage people to enforce a minimum skill/gear level. So, for instance, it might be that you need a minimum of 5k DPS (or 5 stuns per minute, or 3000 healing done per 10 seconds, or something like that) to do CoE.” “TLDR: DPS meter will change GW2 dungeon-going culture to what people don’t like.”

There’s already a super easy accessible way to check and enforce a minimum: right now it’s happening with gear, i.e. ping X gear or get kicked. A minimum of do X dps or get kicked would not be any different than the gear requirements that already exist. If you make those people care about performance instead that’s an improvement over the status quo. As for the people who don’t care about gear right now, they’re not gonna care about whether you’re minmaxing your dps build either even if they have to tools to find out, cause they have the tools to find your gear right now and don’t care.

So many players afraid of the big bad DPS/Tank/Heal meter.
I think it is the same as in real life: most people suck at their job and are afraid when an inspection comes.

I do not care about DPS meters usually, because I run dungeons with my guild.
If someone does low DPS, we do not care.
if someone dies a lot, we do not care.
But we do not care because we are a family and we support each other.

There are times when I have to go with total strangers in Dungeons.
Way to many times the run goes wrong and I want to know who did what wrong so I’ll know in the future to put him/her in my little black book
As many of you are saying, this is a game and it is all about fun.
But there is no fun in repair bills and constant wipes or too long runs.

Your gear is blue? Don’t need you. Level up, get some coins and get the proper gear. It is not that hard.
Your skill is low? Why do I have to carry you? Learn to play solo and you will do just fine in a party.

I am sick of players just wanting to tag along and get some free loot and exp.
Work for it!
Or go play solo. PvE, PvP or WvW. You have choices.
If you don’t want others to know your real potential, why you need them?

Nike also raises a point I’d like to affirm as well.
How much “DPS” do the side effects of Blast Finishers and other combos do?
They generally buff the abilities of your team-mates, increasing their DPS or durability, allowing them to dish out damage for longer. There’s no possible way you can accurately measure such contributions to the team’s overall DPS, and this is where your reasoning falls down.
People who focus on DPS meters are generally only interested in their own performance; but Guild Wars 2 is very much about how you perform as a team.

For example, my Warrior uses Hammer & Longbow. My direct damage is respectable, but not massive. However, on my own, through creative use of combos, I can stack 14+ stacks of might for the team quickly and efficiently. Any meter that measured my character’s DPS would not be taking into account my contribution to the team’s DPS.

My Mesmer generates lots of Chaos fields regularly that result in team members frequently getting Chaos Armor. Chaos Armor gives the bearer random boons and anyone striking them suffers random conditions. How do you accurately gauge my Mesmer’s DPS?

My Thief and Necro generate Dark fields which result in life steals for teammates using skills in them.

Do you begin to understand why simply measuring an individual’s DPS is futile when judging their overall contribution?

Ezpz.7612:

marnick.4305:

I do not agree with this, because fundamentally GW2 is NOT focused on gear progression, which makes it unlike most MMOs.

With that, your entire argument falls apart.

First off, it’s just untrue that the entire premise of all my arguments are based on the idea that GW2 is focused on gear. It’s simply a strawman argument you’re knocking down here – my point is that people like to see themselves perform better, regardless of whether that’s because of gear or because they improved their skills or because they tried out a new trait setup.

It is the opening statement of your argument. If that opening statement is patently wrong, I’m not going to comment on the rest.

In formal logic you have a premise, and out of that you deduce a conclusion. Your conclusion could potentially be right but if your premise is wrong, it doesn’t mean anything in a rational way. That’s not a strawman, that’s merely using proper logic, which I would expect from you if you are arguing to implement something as controversial as dps meters.

I’m going to chip in and say that there should be meters that record different statistics. It would not be bad to know how one of your builds is fairing compared to another numerically.

To all of the naysayers:
There are already Training Dummies in LA. They have no purpose because of the way they are, but it’s very obvious that ANet intended them to be a way of checking your damage.
There are already Steady Weapons available in the Mists. They are literally designed as a way to check your damage without variables. They are designed for people looking to min/max, so it’s apparent that ANet didn’t complete abandon the idea that certain players do like to see numerical efficiency.

If dps meter, only for yourself – no option to compare dps in team. This would end in a “switch on your dps meter or kick” for those who don’t wanna show – and fairly said, only thos with high dps meter will have to show it.

“People who focus on DPS meters are generally only interested in their own performance; but Guild Wars 2 is very much about how you perform as a team.
For example, my Warrior uses Hammer & Longbow. My direct damage is respectable, but not massive. However, on my own, through creative use of combos, I can stack 14+ stacks of might for the team quickly and efficiently. Any meter that measured my character’s DPS would not be taking into account my contribution to the team’s DPS.
My Mesmer generates lots of Chaos fields regularly that result in team members frequently getting Chaos Armor. Chaos Armor gives the bearer random boons and anyone striking them suffers random conditions. How do you accurately gauge my Mesmer’s DPS?
My Thief and Necro generate Dark fields which result in life steals for teammates using skills in them.
Do you begin to understand why simply measuring an individual’s DPS is futile when judging their overall contribution?”
Have a meter that reads “You contributed 14 stacks of might, or you gave 5 aegis protection, you applied crippled X times, you life stole this much health.” When it’s really clear mathematically like a stack of might, you can even directly say how much they helped out the group. When you’re applying aegis protection, it can say how much damage you would have taken otherwise. For cripples/daze/etc, the meter can simply record how many of those you applied. It really isn’t difficult.

“It is the opening statement of your argument. If that opening statement is patently wrong, I’m not going to comment on the rest.
In formal logic you have a premise, and out of that you deduce a conclusion. Your conclusion could potentially be right but if your premise is wrong, it doesn’t mean anything in a rational way. That’s not a strawman, that’s merely using proper logic, which I would expect from you if you are arguing to implement something as controversial as dps meters.”

1. You never addressed my response that what you believed to be my premise was not even my premise. 2. What you say about formal logic is only true if the premises are dependent on each other, which they are not, since each premise independently proves the conclusion. For example, let me demonstrate. Suppose the conclusion is, “the government should legalize X drug.” You could have two arguments: 1. “The government does not have the constitutional power to prohibit X drug.” and 2. “The government, even if it had the power to prohibit X drug, should not do so because it has harmful consequences.” Even if argument 1 were incorrect, argument 2 would still prove the conclusion. Hope that helps. And please don’t end with the ad hominem, it detracts from your argument.

Have them implement such a tool in the Mists only.

The players are too carebear to care.

I think the overall point remains; why do you need a tool to judge a player’s contribution when simply playing with them and observing them should be enough?
Or is it simply to boast how your DPS is higher than someone else?

And I think you may have actually missed my point too; I wasn’t talking now much damage your character did but rather how much damage other player-characters did through the buffs and debuffs applied by you to your team and the enemy.

And it really IS that difficult, especially if you know anything about how condition damage currently works, where all players applying bleeds for example, contribute to the overall stack.
Tell me, how do you accurately measure individual DPS in those circumstances?

“Why do you need a tool to judge a player’s contribution when simply playing with them and observing them should be enough?”

I can observe a player swinging a sword or casting a spell. I have no way of knowing what the actual effect of the swinging of the sword was without something to tell me “it applied a bleed” or “it crippled the enemy” or “it did X damage.” Maybe your group is continuously wiping and you need to troubleshoot what is going on to finish the dungeon. It wouldn’t be a matter of boasting but actually contributing and getting the job done.

“And I think you may have actually missed my point too; I wasn’t talking now much damage your character did but rather how much damage other player-characters did through the buffs and debuffs applied by you to your team and the enemy”

I understand. I think I responded when I said you could take everyone’s crit damage and take whatever percent what contributed by might and list it by might next to the buffs/damage component of the meter.

“And it really IS that difficult, especially if you know anything about how condition damage currently works, where all players applying bleeds for example, contribute to the overall stack.
Tell me, how do you accurately measure individual DPS in those circumstances?”

25 stacks of bleed, let’s say every player applies 5 for the sake of simplicity, just divide the damage from the 25 stacks by 5. Or if there are uneven amounts of bleeds applied just divide by whatever portion of bleed damage by the stacks that you personally contributed.

Deepcuts.9740:

So many players afraid of the big bad DPS/Tank/Heal meter.
I think it is the same as in real life: most people suck at their job and are afraid when an inspection comes.

This is a game, not a job.

Some players still haven’t figured out this isn’t WoW, more at 11.

Pro: DPS meter for yourself that others can’t see
ABSOLUTE Con: DPS meter that lets you compare your DPS with others.

never underestimate the dungeon elitists in this game.
even without a meter, they already kick people by the weapon used, class, utility used, gear skin or a downed.

Grounder.7381:

never underestimate the dungeon elitists in this game.
even without a meter, they already kick people by the weapon used, class, utility used, gear skin or a downed.

and that´s exactly why we don´t need a meter. These people would only be multiplied.

Mungrul.9358:

And it really IS that difficult, especially if you know anything about how condition damage currently works, where all players applying bleeds for example, contribute to the overall stack.
Tell me, how do you accurately measure individual DPS in those circumstances?

Do you know how CD currently works? Stacks of bleeds do contribute to an overall stack, but your own individual stacks tick separately from the others. Your stacks of Bleeds will do damage based on your CD. It’s already calculated in a separate manner, displaying them as such would not be any more difficult.