ArcDps has an insane impact on GW2 as Third-Party Addon

[Discussion]

With every balance patch there come tears and joy and most importantly, a broken arcdps addon.
Gw2's dps meter from the sketchiest looking website makes the a game actually playable anywhere outside open world questing.
It can show squad damage, breakbar contribution, healing and boon-uptime.
Most importantly, it can also create logs on https://dps.report/.
Anything that involves any kind of gameplay improvement or evaluation relies on it.

Without arc, you can barely fix issues as squad commander and you have no idea if you are doing well or not . Even as the anti-wow MMO, it is insane that a third party tool sustains whole game modes.
Anyways,
seems like the developer is on vacation this update and we gotta wait a week or so for it to work again.
Here is to a week in darkness,
and cheers to the guy keeping up the tool all these years.

in Guildwars2by Opposedsum

449

80%

8mo

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phathead

137

8mo

I was originally in the anti-arcdps party--I thought it was just a toxicity enabler. But then I tried learning to play support characters. Knowing my personal boon uptime and the overall party DPS, let me know where I needed to focus and improve. It actually made me a better player.

I never really cared about the performance of my party (unless there was an egregious issue), I am far more interested in my personal performance.

NBNoemi

8mo

DPS meters are sort of like how you approach going to the gym. If you go there for personal improvement it can be a very positive experience, if you go there to people watch and just make fun of other people trying to exercise you're a piece of shit.

Opposedsum

8mo

I am sure that is how most people use the tool..

Hopelesz

Rage Quit

8mo

tbh everyone should be free to use it how they want for themselves, the ONLY real issue is when it is used to be toxic and tell others they're bad. This is not a GW2 issue, it's humans in general in every single thing that has a scoreboard.

ShadowShot05

8mo

Toxic players will be toxic with or without it

archon_wing

8mo

Plus your typical toxic person isn't above flat out lying either. In the absence of tools, they'll just invent some other slight to go after you with.

JonSnuur

8mo

Overwatch tried to remove the scoreboard and use vague Medals instead and lo and behold it didn’t stop people. Devs are well intentioned but wrong.

[deleted]

8mo

I think there's a difference between "being bad" and "being lazy," and most "bad" GW2 players are just lazy. I don't hate them for it, but when it makes my role more difficult, and I've put in the work it tends to feel pretty bad.

I definitely wouldn't go further than saying, "our damage is awkward, our dps need to work on their rotations," but it definitely makes me want to log out. It's weird playing a game where 80% of a rotation is seen as a high-bar by most of the community when it's really just muscle memory & skill priority.

Ranger-New

2mo

And wasted hours upon hours.

Is easy to get your rotation right when all you do is gaming. Is more difficult when all you have is a window to play a game.

Ranger-New

2mo

Not everyone and yes there is a lot of toxicity.

Mostly because the default is to record EVERYONE's dps. Instead of just your own. The purpose of that is to know who to blame, who to shame and who to kick. Stats shaming should be against TOS. But then discord exist. And tools like this exist. So it will happen anyway.

Exioras

-14

8mo

Not in my experience. 20k dps andys LOVE harassing others.

ScribeTheMad

┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

8mo

The true toxicity one was the other dps meter that let you view other people's gear. Sitting in the aerodrome listening to the commander pick people at random and talk about how they were trash for trying to raid with X or Y equipped, truly vile people.

Not that people can't be toxic with ARCdps it's just a narrower scope.

I also found ARCdps to be a huge benefit to myself, when I first got into raiding I was very confident in my own builds, it wasn't until I installed ARC and actually looked at the numbers that I understood my own build couldn't break 8k dps while the meta build could easily hit much higher even as I was learning it.

DrCashew

8mo

Baghawan's. That guy got perma banned. Not for making that tool, but for getting his tool approved by the devs and then making it easy to modify to do gear checking. That was what, 8 years ago now?

ScribeTheMad

┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

8mo

Yeah, was a long time ago, I do still recall that the final straw that got him banned was that they told him to take the gear check version off his website and he agreed, then merely labelled it wink wink Chinese version only.

I'd always assumed since he hosted the gear check version he made it himself, but since he was hosting it I'd say that's an irrelevant detail really.

No_Experience_3443

8mo

I'd love to know how to use the boon uptime thing, i'm new to it and do not understand much about how it works sadly

alexvasnormandy

8mo

The built-in boon table with arcdps can be a bit hard to read, so most people use the boon table add-on which is a lot clearer and gives additional details like boon uptime per subgroup and the like

Diatrus

<3 Muscle Mommy

8mo

When Arcdps is updated. Paste it into main GW2 folder and Knoxfighter's boon table inside bin64 folder which is located in GW2 folder.

After you did it correctly boon table will work.

Without arcdps none of extra add-ons work btw.

You can tweak both too. So change them however you wish.

It basically gives you information about during fight, how long someone could keep up certain boons like quicknesd or alacrity or how many might stacks your subgroup or each person has it.

If you can't keep up properly minimum 70-75% you either play better or adjust guild for more concentration.

OneOf8

8mo

Watch this video. It shows you how to set up a whole bunch of things in Arcdps.

DJ_Warks

8mo

Honestly this is how I use it most of the time. Track my Boon output and generally aim to provide at LEAST X amount (75% uptime) while tweaking my playstyle and gear to improve.

I do use the DPS tracking too, but it's usually to make sure I am not failing miserably compared to the party (Although I get concerned BUT STAY QUIET if I am at the top of the board. I'm not great after all...)

offoy

8mo

If people want to be toxic, they will find a way, things such as DPS meters are irrelevant.

eldrevo

8mo

I don't think it's a toxicity enabler, toxic people will find their way anyway, but... it's just no use to me. I can see the boon uptime and the damage I deal by, you won't believe me, using my eyes to look at the numbers and the boon bar. Sure, browsing the logs is easier, but you totally can become a better player without it if you wanna.

PresqPuperze

8mo

There are thousands of dps logs you can compare yourself to, however I haven’t seen a single source that states which damage numbers certain skills should do by time X, let alone yourself being able to follow those numbers accurately to the tenths of a second.

Becoming a better player is a multi-step process, and at some point you simply need the information arc provides you with. Is 20k on vg bad? No. Is it really good? No. Can you judge the difference without arc? Not a chance.

eldrevo

-1

8mo

What good would this 20k number give you, aside from rating you between 'good' and 'bad'?

My VG kills are about 2 minutes, and after farming it for a while, I can tell you if I waffled somewhere or where could I do better and how. I don't need the table showing me the numbers, I know it by experience and by simply analyzing my rotation. And there's no upper limit to this improvement, you can literally do it forever, step by step. But if you attach a number to it, it immedately gains limitations, and in my opinion adds the ego issue to some extent.

GromiMomi

8mo

Low dps player that thinks he does high dps spotted O.O

eldrevo

8mo

What did make you think I assumed my dps is high? I do acknowledge myself as the smallest peepo compared to speedrun gods anyway :D Doesn't keep me from getting better on my own pace though

MangaIsekaiWeeb

8mo

Just get rid of the ability to see other people's dps without permission and it would cease to be a toxicity enabler.

Knowing your own DPS is fine, but I don't give anyone permission to see mine.