97 replies to this topic

[Aleister]

I wouldn't want a separate damage log, like people have said before GW2 is designed to have you looking at the action on the screen as opposed to the ui.  But if they just gave you an option to add the skill icons next to the damage numbers in the floating combat text that would be nice.

[kash]

mutalisk, on 29 June 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

Because well your a nood right now. thats all it is! if you play this game for months, years or more you will become a master of understanding what animation are for what types of abilitys in large fights outside of small scale pvp. people some of you remember gaming be for when you played to play the game and did not kick and scream when things did not come easy at first.

i miss hard games now a days they are all fluff easy mmo's and FPS....

RTS seems to be the last of the challenging play but thats mainly because its almost totally player vs player

would a combat log of some kinda be a good add on to this game? i think so is it needed to learn to play just as well as it would be to have it no. its just an added fun factor so because of that alone it seems its worth adding to the game.

its a term a lot of bad players tell other bad players but being this game is not even out yet. i being a bad player technically. i will say it! If you find some thing hard at first its prob a L2P proble.  so learn to F'ing play for once noods! =p

I didn't have a hard time identifying animations and skills, not sure what you're on about. The particle effects in this game, no matter how well mastered you are in identifying them, overlap and consume the UI to much to be distinguishable once there's too many characters. So, you're way off on what I was saying, it has nothing to do with player difficulty, it's simply a matter of having a clean user interface as far as particle effects go.

[Volkon]

Sinte, on 29 June 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

..."DPS meters are evil and are the bane of MMOs"

What he said.

[Specialz]

Sinte, on 29 June 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

.... "DPS meters are evil and are the bane of MMOs" crew.

I know you were trying to be funny or whatever, but dps meters are the bane of MMO existence. They give the illusion of skill or something. I mean if a blind person can manage to be third highest dps in a raid, then you gotta know there is something wrong with it.

Edited by Specialz, 29 June 2012 - 05:55 PM.

[Itharius]

There's a combat log. It's in a tab on your chat window.

Specialz, on 29 June 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

I know you were trying to be funny or whatever, but dps meters are the bane of MMO existence. They give the illusion of skill or something. I mean if a blind person can manage to be third highest dps in a raid, then you gotta know there is something wrong with it.

DPS meters are essential to any MMO endgame content with enrage mechanics. You need to know which player isn't putting out enough DPS to help you win an encounter. SWTOR was such a mess because raid leaders had no tools to gauge player skill, making the hard mode content ridiculously frustrating and gutting the sort of theorycrafting that you find all the time in World of Warcraft, theorycrafting that leads to good class balance.

That said, GW2 DOESN'T have this sort of PvE endgame, so you don't need DPS meters like you did in WoW (and what we should have gotten in SWTOR but didn't). Furthermore, a combat log DOES exist, meaning DPS can be parsed through third party programs, anyway. People ran third party DPS meter programs in Rift, the same can be done for GW2 if necessary. Fortunately, it won't be necessary.

[splincir]

for all that is holy.. please no.

People you have to realize this is a new game. It is different than the game you were playing before. If its not like your game dont assume its doing something wrong. In this case its player error. They dont want people staring at UI and looking at bars and numbers. IF that is what you want then you are playing the wrong game. Go back to your wow. Go back to your Tera or SWTOR or whatever old style MMO you were playing. There is no place in this game for things like this. People just want things handed to them.

Think back to Vanilla wow. There were no damage meters. no awesome UI modifications. When it first released you had to play as is.

Guild wars 2 is even farther from that. They want you to watch your player. Watch the enemy. Watch and see what attacks are actually being animated on screen. Increase your perception and better your awareness. Hone your skill and become a good player. Dont expect just because you think your "pro" or some crap in another game you will instantly know all there is to know about this one. Give the game some time and learn to play the game as its designed rather than asking for it to just be every other MMO.

There are granted some things that need fixing. With hundreds of people on screen the particle effects can become overwhelming and I could see this being toned down some. But to what extent can you really tone down the chaos of 200 characters battling it out. IT is what it is. Chaos and it is as it should be. I would expect no less and no more.

If any of you have seen real battle you would know you dont even need that many combatants to cause confusion.

Make what you will out of it, but all I'm saying is give the game a chance and try to look at it with fresh eyes and dont let past experience cloud your perception.

[Itharius]

splincir, on 29 June 2012 - 06:25 PM, said:

Think back to Vanilla wow. There were no damage meters. no awesome UI modifications. When it first released you had to play as is.

I think you have a gilded memory. All I remember is having to carry 25 people in a 40 man raid because nobody knew how to play the game and just autoattacked the whole time. UI mods gave birth to a more elite class of raiders. Maybe at casual players' expenses, but it made the game much more fun for theorycrafters and high end PvE guilds.

Combat meters and UI mods are ESSENTIAL for games like WoW and SWTOR. My point is that GW2 ISN'T like these two titles because it has no true PvE endgame, so it won't need UI mods. And, of course, there should be no UI mods for PvP because it ruins competitive fairness. WoW PvP was horrible because of mods like gladiator.

Edited by Itharius, 29 June 2012 - 06:35 PM.

[Sprawl]

prism2525, on 29 June 2012 - 07:51 AM, said:

Well, in an all-out war you don't really know who's using what right? That element of confusion adds to the game's beauty imo.

I just look out at my health bar and get out of red circles ASAP.

Pretty sure in a real war people that have been there can tell the difference between a rifle, shotgun, missle, rpg, etc... sorry bro.

[Dream Catcher]

It would honestly be detrimental and useless at best. You are going to get nailed in PvE and PvP if your sole focus is DPS, teams will avoid you like the plague to for Dungeons and PvP.

[Itharius]

Dream Catcher, on 29 June 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

It would honestly be detrimental and useless at best. You are going to get nailed in PvE and PvP if your sole focus is DPS, teams will avoid you like the plague to for Dungeons and PvP.

This whole thread is a moot point anyway, since there's already a combat log. Unless ArenaNet removes the combat log, so long as one exists, you can parse your dps either with a stopwatch + calculator or through a third party parser.

[Sprawl]

Ostra, on 29 June 2012 - 02:29 PM, said:

No we dont need it. Pay better attention and learn what is going on around you.

combat logs are for lazy/bads that do not learn from their mistakes and do not have a good sense of presence. I have never once been killed in WvW by a ballista and thought "Oh wow what killed me?" And I have died in WvW a lot mind you

actually lazy/bad people are the ones like you who didnt realize there already is a combat log in the game, but it sucks, and the scrolling combat text is also horrible when combined with the excessive particle effects.

Dream Catcher, on 29 June 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

It would honestly be detrimental and useless at best. You are going to get nailed in PvE and PvP if your sole focus is DPS, teams will avoid you like the plague to for Dungeons and PvP.

Nobody is asking for a damage meter they are asking for better combat log or better scrolling combat text.

[Itharius]

Sprawl, on 29 June 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

actually lazy/bad people are the ones like you who didnt realize there already is a combat log in the game, but it sucks, and the scrolling combat text is also horrible when combined with the excessive particle effects.



Nobody is asking for a damage meter they are asking for better combat log or better scrolling combat text.

The combat log shows you how much damage you're doing and how much damage you're taking. I don't see how it could be much better. It is what it is, a log.

The scrolling combat text is fine for direct damage. I like how it adds up all the damage you do in a single channel. That makes it super easy to tell how much damage you're putting out. They should do the same for conditions and make condition damage appear as a different color. Then the scrolling combat text would be perfect. Conditions and boons already pop over players' heads, which is already a huge improvement over WoW sct.

[Sprawl]

Itharius, on 29 June 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

The combat log shows you how much damage you're doing and how much damage you're taking. I don't see how it could be much better. It is what it is, a log.

The scrolling combat text is fine for direct damage. I like how it adds up all the damage you do in a single channel. That makes it super easy to tell how much damage you're putting out. They should do the same for conditions and make condition damage appear as a different color. Then the scrolling combat text would be perfect. Conditions and boons already pop over players' heads, which is already a huge improvement over WoW sct.

I still don't think you get it.  

here's one of my old videos from Rift, notice how the scrolling combat shows icons/text?  That's what we are talking about.  Something like Rift where you can toggle, icon, text, shortened text, all, or nothing.

[Fumbler]

A bit offtopic, but I'm more concerned about why we can't see how much health our enemies or fellow players have.  Am i missing the option to turn the numbers on over their health bars?

I can't think of anything in this game that is more lame than that...well, maybe the camera zoom.

[Itharius]

I see what you're saying, but I've always found that sort of scrolling text disorienting, I've always just gone for numbers to reduce screen clutter. I guess I was speaking as to what sort of scrolling text I'd find the most ideal, which is just cumulative damage totals that correspond to the skill I've just used, not lingering damage info with the skill spelled out.

[Sprawl]

Fumbler, on 29 June 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

A bit offtopic, but I'm more concerned about why we can't see how much health our enemies or fellow players have.  Am i missing the option to turn the numbers on over their health bars?

I can't think of anything in this game that is more lame than that...well, maybe the camera zoom.

nope not an option, another thing I'd like to see, but bads running glass cannon specs prolly will cry.

Itharius, on 29 June 2012 - 06:54 PM, said:

I see what you're saying, but I've always found that sort of scrolling text disorienting, I've always just gone for numbers to reduce screen clutter. I guess I was speaking as to what sort of scrolling text I'd find the most ideal, which is just cumulative damage totals that correspond to the skill I've just used, not lingering damage info with the skill spelled out.

The benefit is more on the receiving end, seeing what is hitting you from what class to help better assess threat factors, gearing, spec, etc. of the opponent.

Edited by Sprawl, 29 June 2012 - 06:55 PM.

[Ostra]

Sprawl, on 29 June 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

actually lazy/bad people are the ones like you who didnt realize there already is a combat log in the game, but it sucks, and the scrolling combat text is also horrible when combined with the excessive particle effects.

Nobody is asking for a damage meter they are asking for better combat log or better scrolling combat text.

I dont remember saying there wasnt a basic combat log, just that I have never NEEDED it. If I am besieging a keeping and die to a catapault, a balista or anything else I pretty much KNOW what killed me. Those rare times I dont I can head back out and survey the land to try and find the cause. Its not rocket science but I also come from a heavy PvP and RvR gaming back ground so I am used to not having detailed chat logs and addons to hold my hand.

Even Everquest pvp you started to learn animation and color combos to find the skill that someone was using.

Edited by Ostra, 29 June 2012 - 06:58 PM.

[Sprawl]

Ostra, on 29 June 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

I dont remember saying there wasnt a basic combat log, just that I have never NEEDED it. If I am besieging a keeping and die to a catapault, a balista or anything else I pretty much KNOW what killed me. Those rare times I dont I can head back out and survey the land to try and find the cause. Its not rocket science but I also come from a heavy PvP and RvR gaming back ground so I am used to not having detailed chat logs and addons to hold my hand.

And if three people are attacking you you can't assess who is the biggest threat based on the combat log or combat text because you can't tell whos doing what.  Which is the entire point of this thread.  This is not an add-on discussion, this is something that is provided in most modern mmos, see my rift video that is add-on free.

[Icy Spicy]

Im not understanding the replies on this thread lol, DPS bars and add-ons? what the heck are you all talking about???

This isnt about bringing something over from WOW (which i dont even play),

To the people who say No... The game already has damage counter, but its not informative enough to be useful. and the combat log is not a useful tool in its current state, due to crazy scrolling/lack of UI/combined into chat... they could take it out and it'll make no difference... i mean the game already shows numbers, so why not take it a step further and show the icon too? And NO this has nothing to do with L2Dodge...

just see blow lol... see the -5 and the ICON there? yeah... THAT is what this thread is about...

Edited by Icy Spicy, 29 June 2012 - 07:09 PM.

[Craywulf]

Icons of conditions (near your health ball) are already in the game, the numbers are in the combat log, There doesn't need to be anything more that would hog the screen. I think the reliance of numbers/condition icons in full frontal view has created a very lazy gamer. ArenaNet has gone out of their way to make combat visceral and identifiable in its own right. What it's going take is practice and a lot learning of skills of other professions.

Solution; give yourself time to learn a new way of playing a action-MMO.

Icy Spicy, on 29 June 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

Im not understanding the replies on this thread lol, DPS bars and add-ons? what the heck are you all talking about???

This isnt about bringing something over from WOW (which i dont even play),

To the people who say No... The game already has damage counter, but its not informative enough to be useful. and the combat log is not a useful tool in its current state, due to crazy scrolling/lack of UI/combined into chat... they could take it out and it'll make no difference... i mean the game already shows numbers, so why not take it a step further and show the icon too? And NO this has nothing to do with L2Dodge...

just see blow lol... see the -5 and the ICON there? yeah... THAT is what this thread is about...

Obviously ArenaNet doesn't want to clutter the screen with icons and their damage numbers. Instead you're going have watch the action and pick on what might be hurting you.

[Icy Spicy]

Craywulf, on 29 June 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

Obviously ArenaNet doesn't want to clutter the screen with icons and their damage numbers. Instead you're going have watch the action and pick on what might be hurting you.

Speaking of clutter... I suppose you are right, they didnt clutter it with icons (except 20 combo hearts going off in WvW lol), but they failed with not cluttering it with numbers... This is random 1v1 btw, how is this better than the GW1 pic I just posted? Its not even legible so whats the point of having that? 9922? or 992 and 922? we'll never know

[Ostra]

Sprawl, on 29 June 2012 - 06:57 PM, said:

And if three people are attacking you you can't assess who is the biggest threat based on the combat log or combat text because you can't tell whos doing what.  Which is the entire point of this thread.  This is not an add-on discussion, this is something that is provided in most modern mmos, see my rift video that is add-on free.

Why couldnt I assess the biggest threat? Is the biggest threat the person hitting me for the big damage like a warrior? Or the staff necro laying down all the conditions on me but not hitting hard?? This is something the pop up combat log would not tell me it would take learning the class combo and class mechanics. This is what I mean by lazy gaming.

If I am attacked by 3 people I do not need some numbers flying in front of my screen to tell me who is the most dangerous threat. Learning who and what is more dangerous to you is part of the dynamic skills a PvPer SHOULD learn and requiring a combat popup to tell you is simply not being a good player.

Icy Spicy, on 29 June 2012 - 07:31 PM, said:

Speaking of clutter... I suppose you are right, they didnt clutter it with icons (except 20 combo hearts going off in WvW lol), but they failed with not cluttering it with numbers... This is random 1v1 btw, how is this better than the GW1 pic I just posted? Its not even legible so whats the point of having that? 9922? or 992 and 922? we'll never know

I agree... I think we should get rid of all the clutter on the screen

[Chrisf]

This and a more detailed combat log are two things that I believe need to be implemented before or soon after launch. Anything else is optional, but these are really important.

Edited by Chrisf, 29 June 2012 - 07:38 PM.

[splincir]

Itharius, on 29 June 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

because nobody knew how to play the game

You completely ignored everything I said and targeted my WoW comment. Pretty much paints you as one of the elitists who despises change and half of what guild wars 2 is trying to do.

But you said it yourself and that was really the only point I was trying to get across. When it was vanilla. I mean before molten core. When scholomance was like an impossible raid to some, no one knew what the hell they were doing. Honestly it was better that way. Before everyone was better than everyone else. Before people were getting "carried." The only guilded one is you. If you look back and think to yourself, "I was the only good player, I knew what I was doing, I didnt suck."

Face it, everyone was a newb at some point. Maybe it wasnt wow for you. Maybe it was Everquest or UO. Maybe you ruled the tabletop friday and saturday nights with your buddies as you rolled your dice. You werent born the "winner" you think you are.

[Xiondar]

It's a little chaotic in large scale PvP... I agree, but really the game enforces you to pay attention to what's going on around you. Particle effects have never been an issue with me. The Red Rings are easy to spot and peripheral vision really helps when looking for animation ques.

EX: Ele calls down Meteor Shower; I look out into the crowd while I dodge the AoE and can see this Ele in the middle of a channel animation and I lock her down from a distance. Sure, there could be more than one Ele doing it, but the fact I can notice these things when I put my mind to it really shows the emphasis on skill for PvP.

Dumbing down the PvP to appeal to people that are getting stomped is taking some of the skill curve away; which Anet seems to be proud of having.

I say no, but that is a personal opinion.

[Itharius]

Icy Spicy, on 29 June 2012 - 07:31 PM, said:

Speaking of clutter... I suppose you are right, they didnt clutter it with icons (except 20 combo hearts going off in WvW lol), but they failed with not cluttering it with numbers... This is random 1v1 btw, how is this better than the GW1 pic I just posted? Its not even legible so whats the point of having that? 9922? or 992 and 922? we'll never know

I must have been playing against slower hitting classes in PvP, because I don't remember that garbage popping up above my character. But yeah, that does need to be fixed, and knowing ArenaNet I think they will. In BWE2 conditions and boons appeared above players' heads, that wasn't the case in BWE1. I'm going to wait til BWE3 to start complaining about SCT. Like I said, if they made condition damage additive and separated it from direct damage, that would fix the SCT in large part.

Edited by Itharius, 29 June 2012 - 07:53 PM.

[Sinte]

Specialz, on 29 June 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

I know you were trying to be funny or whatever, but dps meters are the bane of MMO existence. They give the illusion of skill or something. I mean if a blind person can manage to be third highest dps in a raid, then you gotta know there is something wrong with it.

If a bunch of idiots use it as an epeen meter does it make it a bad tool for gathering actual data? No. People care way too much what others think. They're a great way to see what is going on and when. I guess I shouldn't have said "dps meter" but I guess Recount is what most of us look at when they want something presented in detail about an encounter. Don't get me wrong, I hate the whole ranking part of it, but the information part of it was great, and I'd love something similar to be able to be created in the "combat log" area of the chat. Granted, I didn't mess around with it a lot, so maybe you can personalize it to the point of incoming damage to yourself only, or incoming and outgoing. But at default, it was a mess.

Either way just a slightly better scrolling text would suffice. Once these zerg fests are over and people are actually spending 15+ seconds in battles, it will help a lot. Currently though most people die too much because they're either glass cannon or don't use any defensive utilities.

Edited by Sinte, 30 June 2012 - 12:54 AM.

[Craywulf]

A recent video shows that there is in fact conditional numbers. Watch closely as you see numbers pop up with red sploch background (bleeding) and purple sploch background I suspect is confusion.

[Burch84]

Itharius, on 29 June 2012 - 06:10 PM, said:

There's a combat log. It's in a tab on your chat window.


DPS meters are essential to any MMO endgame content with enrage mechanics. You need to know which player isn't putting out enough DPS to help you win an encounter. SWTOR was such a mess because raid leaders had no tools to gauge player skill, making the hard mode content ridiculously frustrating and gutting the sort of theorycrafting that you find all the time in World of Warcraft, theorycrafting that leads to good class balance.

That said, GW2 DOESN'T have this sort of PvE endgame, so you don't need DPS meters like you did in WoW (and what we should have gotten in SWTOR but didn't). Furthermore, a combat log DOES exist, meaning DPS can be parsed through third party programs, anyway. People ran third party DPS meter programs in Rift, the same can be done for GW2 if necessary. Fortunately, it won't be necessary.

I agree no need for DPS meter in GW2, we do have a combat log for personal use.

[Sprawl]

Craywulf, on 29 June 2012 - 07:11 PM, said:

Icons of conditions (near your health ball) are already in the game, the numbers are in the combat log, There doesn't need to be anything more that would hog the screen. I think the reliance of numbers/condition icons in full frontal view has created a very lazy gamer. ArenaNet has gone out of their way to make combat visceral and identifiable in its own right. What it's going take is practice and a lot learning of skills of other professions.

Solution; give yourself time to learn a new way of playing a action-MMO.

Obviously ArenaNet doesn't want to clutter the screen with icons and their damage numbers. Instead you're going have watch the action and pick on what might be hurting you.

They dont want to clutter the screen? Lol have you played?  This is by far the most cluttered game ever with all yhe particle effects.