If I wanted to be staring at math all day I certainly would not be playing a video game
Take it from someone who does stare at math all day: the math involved in MMORPGs that would be useful for a player to understand is usually pretty trivial.
I don't think we are talking about the same things here. I'm talking about always using optimal conditions, aka min/maxing. Basic theorycrafting is quite interesting and can be fun. I don't personally have any problems with basic theorycrafting even if it does involve math I may or may not understand.
I'm talking about those who are seriously parsing numbers over a videogame. It didn't bother me until they shoved said numbers down my throat telling me the way I play wasn't viable because X produces 200 points more damage then Y.
I've done quite a bit of reverse-engineering game formulas. I've picked apart how some things worked in games that were intended to look like randomness to players. I've written explanations of how one particular system or another in a game works that were several pages long. I've made game-related spreadsheets several megabytes in size to keep track of my data. And that's all child's play compared to what I do for my real-life job.
The mathematics involved in computer games that it might help a player to understand is almost invariably introductory stuff. By "that it might help a player to understand", I mean to exclude stuff like the precise details of how computer hardware works, which no one but engineers at the companies that build it knows. Usually the math in games is just arithmetic, and perhaps occasionally it might help to know a bit of calculus or be able to run a regression. And that's for the people doing heavy-duty theorycrafting, not the ones merely looking at the results.
On another note, DPS is usually overrated. Very rarely is DPS the difference between success and failure. Even when it is, higher DPS may be the one that leads to failure, as someone trying to do to much damage gets himself killed.
Mages have three trees not two. Until you include frost in that comparsion you are not looking at all your options. It is the min/maxers that do this. It is the min/maxers that write things off because they aren't optimal. Blizzard is even thinking about giving replenishment to the mage's frost tree. Hardly anybody at EJ will care because I'm pretty certain they will not take a 5% dps hit or whatever to bring a buff to the raid. EJ cares about pigeonhole roles and nothing else. I have been apart of the raiding scene in WoW long enough to know that mages were pigeonholed into being fire mages for all of TBC. The only reason it is any different now because the mechanics of the game changed and allowed arcane to put up numbers beyond a goofy tier set bonus.
Multiple solution != everything is a solution. Frost is OBVIOUSLY (and a lot worse than 5%) not a DPS solution. However, it is a PvP solution. And what is the problem of eliminating some spec from DPS considerations?
And if you brought in the other classes, there are MANY viable DPS solutions so what is the problem here?
Obviously you won't want a HOLY priest to DPS, do u?
On the contrary my holy priest can put out 1500DPS that's more then most DPS I find in PUGs. Just because I'm way better at healing then DPS doesn't mean I can't DPS in a pinch. However most end game WoW players would probably never bother to DPS on a holy priest.
Eliminating specs is exactly the problem, thats what ruins the game. Paladins were lolret, and very weak as protection for a very long time in TBC. I suppose that is fine too? Wrong.
If you can put out 1500dps (which btw, is not really that high at L80 .. geared DPS class can easily do 2k+ and more on bosses) as holy, you probably can do a lot more as shadow in the same gear without further optmizing. So DPSing as HOLY is gimping your group and it can be the difference between brinign down a boss and a wipe.
WOW has 10 classes x 3 spec = 30 spec total. I don't see a reason to have all 30 specs to be viable in DPS. There are quite a few DPS specs to choose from and many of them involves very different play styles (mage arcane plays 100% differently than a rogue DPS built). It is silly to expect every spec for every class can do everything. That would be defeating the purpose of havnig classes & specs.
TBC is just not designed/ balanced well. WOTLK fixed a lot of that.
On another note, DPS is usually overrated. Very rarely is DPS the difference between success and failure. Even when it is, higher DPS may be the one that leads to failure, as someone trying to do to much damage gets himself killed.
It depends on the fight. Some fights have DPS check. OTOH, higher DPS means faster clear of a dungeon. So success is not the only criterion. For example, running heroics has become quite easy once you gear up a bit at L80 in WOW.
So you will expect easy clear but higher DPS allows you to do it quicker, plus it is also safer. A faster dead boss is less likely to wipe you.
Impossible. Look at City of Heroes. In CoH Cryptic hid the numbers to how everything was calculated; damage, defense, accuracy, everything. That didnt stop the players though. The dedicated would perform hundreds even thousands of tests to find the numbers themselves. Years later Cryptic finally gave up and released the real numbers themselves and admitted that the fans were extremely close with their tests. If you hide something people WILL discover it, no matter how well hidden it is. It's a little something we like to call "human nature".
Mages have three trees not two. Until you include frost in that comparsion you are not looking at all your options. It is the min/maxers that do this. It is the min/maxers that write things off because they aren't optimal. Blizzard is even thinking about giving replenishment to the mage's frost tree. Hardly anybody at EJ will care because I'm pretty certain they will not take a 5% dps hit or whatever to bring a buff to the raid. EJ cares about pigeonhole roles and nothing else. I have been apart of the raiding scene in WoW long enough to know that mages were pigeonholed into being fire mages for all of TBC. The only reason it is any different now because the mechanics of the game changed and allowed arcane to put up numbers beyond a goofy tier set bonus.
Multiple solution != everything is a solution. Frost is OBVIOUSLY (and a lot worse than 5%) not a DPS solution. However, it is a PvP solution. And what is the problem of eliminating some spec from DPS considerations?
And if you brought in the other classes, there are MANY viable DPS solutions so what is the problem here?
Obviously you won't want a HOLY priest to DPS, do u?
On the contrary my holy priest can put out 1500DPS that's more then most DPS I find in PUGs. Just because I'm way better at healing then DPS doesn't mean I can't DPS in a pinch. However most end game WoW players would probably never bother to DPS on a holy priest.
Eliminating specs is exactly the problem, thats what ruins the game. Paladins were lolret, and very weak as protection for a very long time in TBC. I suppose that is fine too? Wrong.
If you can put out 1500dps (which btw, is not really that high at L80 .. geared DPS class can easily do 2k+ and more on bosses) as holy, you probably can do a lot more as shadow in the same gear without further optmizing. So DPSing as HOLY is gimping your group and it can be the difference between brinign down a boss and a wipe.
WOW has 10 classes x 3 spec = 30 spec total. I don't see a reason to have all 30 specs to be viable in DPS. There are quite a few DPS specs to choose from and many of them involves very different play styles (mage arcane plays 100% differently than a rogue DPS built). It is silly to expect every spec for every class can do everything. That would be defeating the purpose of havnig classes & specs.
TBC is just not designed/ balanced well. WOTLK fixed a lot of that.
The fact that 1500 DPS is low was the point. Holy priests are healers, but they are some of the most offensive healers in WoW. Tanks can also 1500DPS with ease, as well. You are still thinking inside the box.
My point is that you bring up the question if something is "viable" or not. This question shouldn't be even asked when talking about a video game.
Originally posted by nariusseldon It depends on the fight. Some fights have DPS check. OTOH, higher DPS means faster clear of a dungeon. So success is not the only criterion. For example, running heroics has become quite easy once you gear up a bit at L80 in WOW. So you will expect easy clear but higher DPS allows you to do it quicker, plus it is also safer. A faster dead boss is less likely to wipe you.
If the question is not whether you win, but rather how fast you win, then what you're doing is stupid and trivial and not worth doing at all.
Originally posted by Quizzical If the question is not whether you win, but rather how fast you win, then what you're doing is stupid and trivial and not worth doing at all.
The raid mechanics in EQ for example are often time based. After 2 minutes a wave of mobs spawn, after 4 minutes another wave spawns etc.
Simply bypassing these scripts with DPS is possible, it just trivlizes everything. In lineage2 you have similar mobs afaik, not sure about WoW to be honest.
Certainly, if more mobs spawn at fixed times, without regard to whether the previous mobs are dead, then DPS can matter greatly. But that's a relatively unusual case, and not representative of most battles in a typical game.
Originally posted by nariusseldon It depends on the fight. Some fights have DPS check. OTOH, higher DPS means faster clear of a dungeon. So success is not the only criterion. For example, running heroics has become quite easy once you gear up a bit at L80 in WOW. So you will expect easy clear but higher DPS allows you to do it quicker, plus it is also safer. A faster dead boss is less likely to wipe you.
If the question is not whether you win, but rather how fast you win, then what you're doing is stupid and trivial and not worth doing at all.
LOL .. says you. Efficient run >>> slow run
Plus, higher DPS -> higher chance of winning. We did H HoL this morning and we can down Loken a lot safer with less movement because we have higher DPS now. It used to we have to run around to avoid his AoE. So high DPS is important in many fights.
It is always easier to down bosses with higher DPS.
I think that some people are looking for more from a game than how many raid-runs they can make in an hour. And I see this being the divide in the thread, some are correctly trying to optimise their ability to take down one well defined force with another well defined force as quickly as possible and so claiming sucess in this specific game style. But I would propose to them that there may be different aspects available to gameplay from a game that claims to be RPG.
And so I ask from these people, what loss in game play will you receive if the numbers were hidden and the game mechanics such that it would be very difficult to deduce for anyone other than yourself (due to vast number of options) what is the 'optimum' set up and actions to tackle. I assume that given time playing your character you can develop a feel for works, and no doubt others will exist proposing general themes for characters that suit a given playing style. And most importantly you can still kill things and raid 'dungeons'.
I guess I'm asking, must you know the odds precisly before you will commit, must be sure that your team are capable of a task before attempting it. Must you suceed or is it enough to play???
Serious questions from someone having already 'reduced' numbers in his own design.
I think it's hilarious when people start using damage meters. Who the hell obsesses that much about a game, for god's sake! It must be the mmorpg equivalent of trainspotting, or something. I can imagine them playing their game, hunched over the monitor, charts and damage readouts everywhere and reaching for the next Twinkie while their eyes glitter with little starshells of madness...
Damage meters are kind of like college basketball's RPI. They're a useful tool if used appropriately, but people often try to read way too much into them.
If two players should a priori do comparable amounts of damage, and the damage meters say that one player is doing 10% more than the other, trying to deduce anything from that is a mistake. If the damage meters say that one of the two players is doing ten times as much damage as the other, then there's a problem.
But tracking damage dealt is only a minor use. Tracking damage taken is often a more important use, as it tells you whether the tanks are holding aggro, and if they're losing it, then who is taking it. Tracking healing done is also important, as it tells you whether any potential healers are pitching in on healing, or only trying to do damage.
For what it's worth, since the use of the RPI doesn't seem to be very well known, looking at the RPI of a team's non-conference opponents fairly reliably tells you how hard of opponents the team tried to schedule. The tournament selection committee looks at this and can use it to reward a team that went out and played some tough opponents over one that only scheduled cupcakes. A team's own RPI rating is not a measure of how good the team is, and should not be taken as such.
I am afraid that that would do nothing but slow theorycrafting down for a at most a couple of weeks.
Very quickly all numbers would be known to any player that wished to know them, once someone did the testing the numbers would be posted all over the internet.
I am afraid that that would do nothing but slow theorycrafting down for a at most a couple of weeks. Very quickly all numbers would be known to any player that wished to know them, once someone did the testing the numbers would be posted all over the internet. So pointless really.
Lets assume that we employ some sort of "hand-wavium" cunning ploy to prevent the numbers being calculatable with any genuine certainty for all play styles, hence folk have ideas about what makes things 'good', and players can definintely tell which of their own characters abilities and equipment work better together, but no easy to download tools exist to provide a predefined path along which a character 'should' be developed in order to give whatever it is folk have decided they need. (yeah, hand-wavium, the most cunning of ploys)
So my original question stands.... do you play this game, can you enjoy a game where its not all been provided for you?
And yeah, I accept that theorycrafting doesn't necessarily give you a set path to follow, but a great may folk do follow such predefined gear and skill sets, or at least use tools to optimise, while I imagine far fewer actually sit down and performthe calcs with any accuracy for themselves.
Lets assume that we employ some sort of "hand-wavium" cunning ploy to prevent the numbers being calculatable with any genuine certainty for all play styles, hence folk have ideas about what makes things 'good', and players can definintely tell which of their own characters abilities and equipment work better together, but no easy to download tools exist to provide a predefined path along which a character 'should' be developed in order to give whatever it is folk have decided they need. (yeah, hand-wavium, the most cunning of ploys) So my original question stands.... do you play this game, can you enjoy a game where its not all been provided for you? And yeah, I accept that theorycrafting doesn't necessarily give you a set path to follow, but a great may folk do follow such predefined gear and skill sets, or at least use tools to optimise, while I imagine far fewer actually sit down and performthe calcs with any accuracy for themselves.
The big question is how can you give the player enough information so they can make informed decisions on how well their abilities and gear is performing without actually exposing the underlying numbers?
The implementation of the "hand-wavium" is the crux of the problem. Most players could care less that a certain gear/skill combination lets' them kill a mob a second faster. However, they want to know that their Very Sharp Sword actually does more damage than a Big Pointy Stick.
The big question is how can you give the player enough information so they can make informed decisions on how well their abilities and gear is performing without actually exposing the underlying numbers? The implementation of the "hand-wavium" is the crux of the problem. Most players could care less that a certain gear/skill combination lets' them kill a mob a second faster. However, they want to know that their Very Sharp Sword actually does more damage than a Big Pointy Stick.
Thanks Torik, the important point was made, most players dont care about the subtle increases in efficiency in theorycrafting, unless of course its easy to impliment and most folk are doing it, then you either purposely ignore it (and wonder if your fighting with one arm behind your back) or theorycraft yourself.
Of course the bigger issue is, as you state (and was the point of this thread)... what is this "Hand-wavium"? I feel that we'd begun to debate the merits of theorycrafting, with those who want it argueing against even trying to find a way, as though it would actually change their current game. I think it best if we just accept that the thread is a question of how can it be stopped?
In my paper RPG I'd implemented a simple idea that proved very powerful, its all about perception... basically you dont know how powerful or capable someone is, nor their equipment, only what you can see and your skills can perceive. Hence assuming that a character is not trying to mislead you, you can see what they can do as they do it. A warrior can perceive another warriors combat capabilities as they watch them in action, especially if actually in combat with them, although I'm not using a levels system myself it makes for an easier example: all you need is a %perception of a given foe and as this increases over time your able to perceive their level and I suppose any other stats your system employs, of course you can only perceive as well as you can understand, hence levels higher than your own would be limited in the amount of %perception. Of course a characters perception of itself is deemed to be much higher (unless your character has certain personality flaws) and can therefore define its own abilities relative to others (again limited by flaws). Hence when you first start swinging a sword your an expert (in your head) until you get your arse kicked. When we consider that in an 'adventure-setting' all characters would of seen a great many others with at least similar abilities while growning up, they'll consider themselves 'average', and only as they increase in abilities and encounter others that a true understanding of themselves and others can be formed.
This sounds complex (and on paper it was) but it permits you to know everything about something relative to something else, hence you can tell which sword is more capable given the skill set you employ (perhaps different skills enhance certain weapons), the same for armour etc.
As for the amount of damage you cause to something.... we must be able to see this harm and so be aware of apparently minor or major wounds and see/hear reactions from your opponent, again this is only perception, if you dont know that this creature can survive its head being chopped off you might well feel pretty confident, until it stands back up... wont this thing ever die. Better I think than ok one more shot... yeah, dead, easy.
Like I said its more complex sure, but its an issue of the implementation as to how easy it is to play... The question I think is... would you prefer not to know for sure and so regain risk and adventure in your combat?
And yeah, I accept that theorycrafting doesn't necessarily give you a set path to follow, but a great may folk do follow such predefined gear and skill sets, or at least use tools to optimise, while I imagine far fewer actually sit down and performthe calcs with any accuracy for themselves.
Well most players are not that good anyway, theorycrafting or not. I don't think we should dismiss theorycraft just because of them.
I enjoy theorycrafting. I did *some* calc myself but mostly using tools like RAWR and there are a LOT of assumptions & scenarios one can play with, each arriving at a different solution. It helps me prioritize my gear hunt and also what to wear.
I also don't blindly do what it tells me (for example, spec). I would balance PvE raid vs solo & PvP and sometimes make some compromise because i don't want to respec every 2 days.
This sounds complex (and on paper it was) but it permits you to know everything about something relative to something else, hence you can tell which sword is more capable given the skill set you employ (perhaps different skills enhance certain weapons), the same for armour etc. As for the amount of damage you cause to something.... we must be able to see this harm and so be aware of apparently minor or major wounds and see/hear reactions from your opponent, again this is only perception, if you dont know that this creature can survive its head being chopped off you might well feel pretty confident, until it stands back up... wont this thing ever die. Better I think than ok one more shot... yeah, dead, easy. Like I said its more complex sure, but its an issue of the implementation as to how easy it is to play... The question I think is... would you prefer not to know for sure and so regain risk and adventure in your combat?
Now, if I go back to the same area and the creature has respawned will it be the same strength as the first time I faced it? Or will it have completely random stats so an area that is pefectly safe one day will be a nightmare the next? Essentially, given experience with the game will I be able to tell what strength a particual mob is or will I have to just risk it that I might be able to take it every time?
Impossible. Look at City of Heroes. In CoH Cryptic hid the numbers to how everything was calculated; damage, defense, accuracy, everything. That didnt stop the players though. The dedicated would perform hundreds even thousands of tests to find the numbers themselves. Years later Cryptic finally gave up and released the real numbers themselves and admitted that the fans were extremely close with their tests. If you hide something people WILL discover it, no matter how well hidden it is. It's a little something we like to call "human nature".
That's fine long as the devs let them discover it on their own and this is comming from a numbers geek.
What was good info in the begining has grown into uter nonsense these days. Some builds don't get group invites for DPS reasons even though the person behind the toon may be a superior player. I saw this garbage start near the end of my EQ1 days.
Numbers are great but when they become the determining factor they detract from a title. In the end It should always be about the players knowledge of class/skills not the latest FOTM build.
Originally posted by Zarraa That's fine long as the devs let them discover it on their own and this is comming from a numbers geek. What was good info in the begining has grown into uter nonsense these days. Some builds don't get group invites for DPS reasons even though the person behind the toon may be a superior player. I saw this garbage start near the end of my EQ1 days. Numbers are great but when they become the determining factor they detract from a title. In the end It should always be about the players knowledge of class/skills not the latest FOTM build.
For me it started in EQ1. When tanks needed to make the choice between AC (armor class) or HPS augments. Players with HPS augments basically got plastered and players with AC augments were mitigating a lot more. This was around the Demiplane, TSS era.
The decision between AC and HPS was crucial for survival on some mobs, but not everyone knew why some tanks managed to stay alive much better. Now developers have put both AC and HPS on augments to counter this.
Just to show that sometimes theorycrafting means the difference between winning and losing a raid, theorycrafting and parsing in general have become a very important part of raiding and I think games lose part of their "charm" and "fantasy" feeling because of theorycrafting.
Lets assume that we employ some sort of "hand-wavium" cunning ploy to prevent the numbers being calculatable with any genuine certainty for all play styles, hence folk have ideas about what makes things 'good', and players can definintely tell which of their own characters abilities and equipment work better together, but no easy to download tools exist to provide a predefined path along which a character 'should' be developed in order to give whatever it is folk have decided they need. (yeah, hand-wavium, the most cunning of ploys)
You might as well ask what game someone would play if the sun were to rise in the west. You're asking what would happen if something that logically cannot happen were to happen anyway. If an average player has some vague idea of what works, then players will be able to reverse-engineer the formulas to a pretty high degree of accuracy.
You might be able to make the formulas complex enough that most players would be unable to understand them, but that would only mean that the handful of players who did understand the formulas had quite a large advantage.
Just to show that sometimes theorycrafting means the difference between winning and losing a raid, theorycrafting and parsing in general have become a very important part of raiding and I think games lose part of their "charm" and "fantasy" feeling because of theorycrafting.
But the games gain challenge (which i think people on this site want) and another level of game play mechanics.
Plus, to a lot of power gamers, it is never about charm & fantasy anyway. It is about advancement, progression, power and loot.
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Take it from someone who does stare at math all day: the math involved in MMORPGs that would be useful for a player to understand is usually pretty trivial.
I don't think we are talking about the same things here. I'm talking about always using optimal conditions, aka min/maxing. Basic theorycrafting is quite interesting and can be fun. I don't personally have any problems with basic theorycrafting even if it does involve math I may or may not understand.
I'm talking about those who are seriously parsing numbers over a videogame. It didn't bother me until they shoved said numbers down my throat telling me the way I play wasn't viable because X produces 200 points more damage then Y.
I've done quite a bit of reverse-engineering game formulas. I've picked apart how some things worked in games that were intended to look like randomness to players. I've written explanations of how one particular system or another in a game works that were several pages long. I've made game-related spreadsheets several megabytes in size to keep track of my data. And that's all child's play compared to what I do for my real-life job.
The mathematics involved in computer games that it might help a player to understand is almost invariably introductory stuff. By "that it might help a player to understand", I mean to exclude stuff like the precise details of how computer hardware works, which no one but engineers at the companies that build it knows. Usually the math in games is just arithmetic, and perhaps occasionally it might help to know a bit of calculus or be able to run a regression. And that's for the people doing heavy-duty theorycrafting, not the ones merely looking at the results.
On another note, DPS is usually overrated. Very rarely is DPS the difference between success and failure. Even when it is, higher DPS may be the one that leads to failure, as someone trying to do to much damage gets himself killed.
Multiple solution != everything is a solution. Frost is OBVIOUSLY (and a lot worse than 5%) not a DPS solution. However, it is a PvP solution. And what is the problem of eliminating some spec from DPS considerations?
And if you brought in the other classes, there are MANY viable DPS solutions so what is the problem here?
Obviously you won't want a HOLY priest to DPS, do u?
On the contrary my holy priest can put out 1500DPS that's more then most DPS I find in PUGs. Just because I'm way better at healing then DPS doesn't mean I can't DPS in a pinch. However most end game WoW players would probably never bother to DPS on a holy priest.
Eliminating specs is exactly the problem, thats what ruins the game. Paladins were lolret, and very weak as protection for a very long time in TBC. I suppose that is fine too? Wrong.
If you can put out 1500dps (which btw, is not really that high at L80 .. geared DPS class can easily do 2k+ and more on bosses) as holy, you probably can do a lot more as shadow in the same gear without further optmizing. So DPSing as HOLY is gimping your group and it can be the difference between brinign down a boss and a wipe.
WOW has 10 classes x 3 spec = 30 spec total. I don't see a reason to have all 30 specs to be viable in DPS. There are quite a few DPS specs to choose from and many of them involves very different play styles (mage arcane plays 100% differently than a rogue DPS built). It is silly to expect every spec for every class can do everything. That would be defeating the purpose of havnig classes & specs.
TBC is just not designed/ balanced well. WOTLK fixed a lot of that.
It depends on the fight. Some fights have DPS check. OTOH, higher DPS means faster clear of a dungeon. So success is not the only criterion. For example, running heroics has become quite easy once you gear up a bit at L80 in WOW.
So you will expect easy clear but higher DPS allows you to do it quicker, plus it is also safer. A faster dead boss is less likely to wipe you.
Yup, I remember that.
Multiple solution != everything is a solution. Frost is OBVIOUSLY (and a lot worse than 5%) not a DPS solution. However, it is a PvP solution. And what is the problem of eliminating some spec from DPS considerations?
And if you brought in the other classes, there are MANY viable DPS solutions so what is the problem here?
Obviously you won't want a HOLY priest to DPS, do u?
On the contrary my holy priest can put out 1500DPS that's more then most DPS I find in PUGs. Just because I'm way better at healing then DPS doesn't mean I can't DPS in a pinch. However most end game WoW players would probably never bother to DPS on a holy priest.
Eliminating specs is exactly the problem, thats what ruins the game. Paladins were lolret, and very weak as protection for a very long time in TBC. I suppose that is fine too? Wrong.
If you can put out 1500dps (which btw, is not really that high at L80 .. geared DPS class can easily do 2k+ and more on bosses) as holy, you probably can do a lot more as shadow in the same gear without further optmizing. So DPSing as HOLY is gimping your group and it can be the difference between brinign down a boss and a wipe.
WOW has 10 classes x 3 spec = 30 spec total. I don't see a reason to have all 30 specs to be viable in DPS. There are quite a few DPS specs to choose from and many of them involves very different play styles (mage arcane plays 100% differently than a rogue DPS built). It is silly to expect every spec for every class can do everything. That would be defeating the purpose of havnig classes & specs.
TBC is just not designed/ balanced well. WOTLK fixed a lot of that.
The fact that 1500 DPS is low was the point. Holy priests are healers, but they are some of the most offensive healers in WoW. Tanks can also 1500DPS with ease, as well. You are still thinking inside the box.
My point is that you bring up the question if something is "viable" or not. This question shouldn't be even asked when talking about a video game.
If the question is not whether you win, but rather how fast you win, then what you're doing is stupid and trivial and not worth doing at all.
The raid mechanics in EQ for example are often time based. After 2 minutes a wave of mobs spawn, after 4 minutes another wave spawns etc.
Simply bypassing these scripts with DPS is possible, it just trivlizes everything. In lineage2 you have similar mobs afaik, not sure about WoW to be honest.
Certainly, if more mobs spawn at fixed times, without regard to whether the previous mobs are dead, then DPS can matter greatly. But that's a relatively unusual case, and not representative of most battles in a typical game.
If the question is not whether you win, but rather how fast you win, then what you're doing is stupid and trivial and not worth doing at all.
LOL .. says you. Efficient run >>> slow run
Plus, higher DPS -> higher chance of winning. We did H HoL this morning and we can down Loken a lot safer with less movement because we have higher DPS now. It used to we have to run around to avoid his AoE. So high DPS is important in many fights.
It is always easier to down bosses with higher DPS.
You can get even higher DPS if you don't take any healers or tanks, but only DPS classes.
I think that some people are looking for more from a game than how many raid-runs they can make in an hour. And I see this being the divide in the thread, some are correctly trying to optimise their ability to take down one well defined force with another well defined force as quickly as possible and so claiming sucess in this specific game style. But I would propose to them that there may be different aspects available to gameplay from a game that claims to be RPG.
And so I ask from these people, what loss in game play will you receive if the numbers were hidden and the game mechanics such that it would be very difficult to deduce for anyone other than yourself (due to vast number of options) what is the 'optimum' set up and actions to tackle. I assume that given time playing your character you can develop a feel for works, and no doubt others will exist proposing general themes for characters that suit a given playing style. And most importantly you can still kill things and raid 'dungeons'.
I guess I'm asking, must you know the odds precisly before you will commit, must be sure that your team are capable of a task before attempting it. Must you suceed or is it enough to play???
Serious questions from someone having already 'reduced' numbers in his own design.
I think it's hilarious when people start using damage meters. Who the hell obsesses that much about a game, for god's sake! It must be the mmorpg equivalent of trainspotting, or something. I can imagine them playing their game, hunched over the monitor, charts and damage readouts everywhere and reaching for the next Twinkie while their eyes glitter with little starshells of madness...
Damage meters are kind of like college basketball's RPI. They're a useful tool if used appropriately, but people often try to read way too much into them.
If two players should a priori do comparable amounts of damage, and the damage meters say that one player is doing 10% more than the other, trying to deduce anything from that is a mistake. If the damage meters say that one of the two players is doing ten times as much damage as the other, then there's a problem.
But tracking damage dealt is only a minor use. Tracking damage taken is often a more important use, as it tells you whether the tanks are holding aggro, and if they're losing it, then who is taking it. Tracking healing done is also important, as it tells you whether any potential healers are pitching in on healing, or only trying to do damage.
For what it's worth, since the use of the RPI doesn't seem to be very well known, looking at the RPI of a team's non-conference opponents fairly reliably tells you how hard of opponents the team tried to schedule. The tournament selection committee looks at this and can use it to reward a team that went out and played some tough opponents over one that only scheduled cupcakes. A team's own RPI rating is not a measure of how good the team is, and should not be taken as such.
I am afraid that that would do nothing but slow theorycrafting down for a at most a couple of weeks.
Very quickly all numbers would be known to any player that wished to know them, once someone did the testing the numbers would be posted all over the internet.
So pointless really.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
You can get even higher DPS if you don't take any healers or tanks, but only DPS classes.
LOL .. you don't have to use silly extreme examples. You know that there are healing & tanking theorycrafting too. HPS, TPS, mitigation cap and so on.
Theorycrafting makes THEM better too. In fact, I think HPS theorycrafting is even more important because there are fewer healers than DPS in a group.
Lets assume that we employ some sort of "hand-wavium" cunning ploy to prevent the numbers being calculatable with any genuine certainty for all play styles, hence folk have ideas about what makes things 'good', and players can definintely tell which of their own characters abilities and equipment work better together, but no easy to download tools exist to provide a predefined path along which a character 'should' be developed in order to give whatever it is folk have decided they need. (yeah, hand-wavium, the most cunning of ploys)
So my original question stands.... do you play this game, can you enjoy a game where its not all been provided for you?
And yeah, I accept that theorycrafting doesn't necessarily give you a set path to follow, but a great may folk do follow such predefined gear and skill sets, or at least use tools to optimise, while I imagine far fewer actually sit down and performthe calcs with any accuracy for themselves.
The big question is how can you give the player enough information so they can make informed decisions on how well their abilities and gear is performing without actually exposing the underlying numbers?
The implementation of the "hand-wavium" is the crux of the problem. Most players could care less that a certain gear/skill combination lets' them kill a mob a second faster. However, they want to know that their Very Sharp Sword actually does more damage than a Big Pointy Stick.
Thanks Torik, the important point was made, most players dont care about the subtle increases in efficiency in theorycrafting, unless of course its easy to impliment and most folk are doing it, then you either purposely ignore it (and wonder if your fighting with one arm behind your back) or theorycraft yourself.
Of course the bigger issue is, as you state (and was the point of this thread)... what is this "Hand-wavium"? I feel that we'd begun to debate the merits of theorycrafting, with those who want it argueing against even trying to find a way, as though it would actually change their current game. I think it best if we just accept that the thread is a question of how can it be stopped?
In my paper RPG I'd implemented a simple idea that proved very powerful, its all about perception... basically you dont know how powerful or capable someone is, nor their equipment, only what you can see and your skills can perceive. Hence assuming that a character is not trying to mislead you, you can see what they can do as they do it. A warrior can perceive another warriors combat capabilities as they watch them in action, especially if actually in combat with them, although I'm not using a levels system myself it makes for an easier example: all you need is a %perception of a given foe and as this increases over time your able to perceive their level and I suppose any other stats your system employs, of course you can only perceive as well as you can understand, hence levels higher than your own would be limited in the amount of %perception. Of course a characters perception of itself is deemed to be much higher (unless your character has certain personality flaws) and can therefore define its own abilities relative to others (again limited by flaws). Hence when you first start swinging a sword your an expert (in your head) until you get your arse kicked. When we consider that in an 'adventure-setting' all characters would of seen a great many others with at least similar abilities while growning up, they'll consider themselves 'average', and only as they increase in abilities and encounter others that a true understanding of themselves and others can be formed.
This sounds complex (and on paper it was) but it permits you to know everything about something relative to something else, hence you can tell which sword is more capable given the skill set you employ (perhaps different skills enhance certain weapons), the same for armour etc.
As for the amount of damage you cause to something.... we must be able to see this harm and so be aware of apparently minor or major wounds and see/hear reactions from your opponent, again this is only perception, if you dont know that this creature can survive its head being chopped off you might well feel pretty confident, until it stands back up... wont this thing ever die. Better I think than ok one more shot... yeah, dead, easy.
Like I said its more complex sure, but its an issue of the implementation as to how easy it is to play... The question I think is... would you prefer not to know for sure and so regain risk and adventure in your combat?
Well most players are not that good anyway, theorycrafting or not. I don't think we should dismiss theorycraft just because of them.
I enjoy theorycrafting. I did *some* calc myself but mostly using tools like RAWR and there are a LOT of assumptions & scenarios one can play with, each arriving at a different solution. It helps me prioritize my gear hunt and also what to wear.
I also don't blindly do what it tells me (for example, spec). I would balance PvE raid vs solo & PvP and sometimes make some compromise because i don't want to respec every 2 days.
Now, if I go back to the same area and the creature has respawned will it be the same strength as the first time I faced it? Or will it have completely random stats so an area that is pefectly safe one day will be a nightmare the next? Essentially, given experience with the game will I be able to tell what strength a particual mob is or will I have to just risk it that I might be able to take it every time?
That's fine long as the devs let them discover it on their own and this is comming from a numbers geek.
What was good info in the begining has grown into uter nonsense these days. Some builds don't get group invites for DPS reasons even though the person behind the toon may be a superior player. I saw this garbage start near the end of my EQ1 days.
Numbers are great but when they become the determining factor they detract from a title. In the end It should always be about the players knowledge of class/skills not the latest FOTM build.
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
For me it started in EQ1. When tanks needed to make the choice between AC (armor class) or HPS augments. Players with HPS augments basically got plastered and players with AC augments were mitigating a lot more. This was around the Demiplane, TSS era.
The decision between AC and HPS was crucial for survival on some mobs, but not everyone knew why some tanks managed to stay alive much better. Now developers have put both AC and HPS on augments to counter this.
Just to show that sometimes theorycrafting means the difference between winning and losing a raid, theorycrafting and parsing in general have become a very important part of raiding and I think games lose part of their "charm" and "fantasy" feeling because of theorycrafting.
You might as well ask what game someone would play if the sun were to rise in the west. You're asking what would happen if something that logically cannot happen were to happen anyway. If an average player has some vague idea of what works, then players will be able to reverse-engineer the formulas to a pretty high degree of accuracy.
You might be able to make the formulas complex enough that most players would be unable to understand them, but that would only mean that the handful of players who did understand the formulas had quite a large advantage.
But the games gain challenge (which i think people on this site want) and another level of game play mechanics.
Plus, to a lot of power gamers, it is never about charm & fantasy anyway. It is about advancement, progression, power and loot.