does ZOS have an intended target dps?

Sergykid · September 2019

do they have an opinion or a target about how much dps should a player do? what is, based on what the game provides, a dps that anyone should reach? 10k, 15k?

i ask this because i started to monitor the dps i do in dungeons. I do random pug vet dungeons daily (non-dlc), 4-5 runs, and i look in combat metrics almost after each boss fight (i ignore those unfair, where someone dies or many ads spawn). Dps is low across the board, in 8 out of 10 groups i have an average of 49% group dps (varies between 44%-54%) and i join as healer or tank, meaning i have 3-4 ability slots dedicated to heal or tank. I didn't take into count the cases where i have 70%+ of group dps, because low levels or people that join as dps with 40k hp, or high levels who just light attack.

Sure there are those players that dedicate into numbers and invest time into research to pull crazy numbers. But here i talk about the dps made by the casual player that plays for fun or because it likes how the game works. Don't know numbers but maybe 80% of players can't reach 20k dps in a dungeon group, i picked that value because i have between 25-33k dps with the 49% average group dps i have.

should they raise the floor or lower the ceiling? i know dungeons are not supposed to be rushed through like it's nothing, but i imagine four people of that kind taking up to one hour to finish a dungeon. What suggestion or opinion you have to this?

Bryath · September 2019

I don't have very good reflexes and fumble hitting the right skill quite often, including accidentally opening the menu or help screen. I never use any guides for building my characters, only reading to find out what the skill morphs will do. I knowingly gimp myself for aesthetic reasons, using Ice staff without tri-focus on my sorc and DW/DW on my Nightblade. Still I average 12-16k on a single target, so it's tough for me to figure why anyone would do under 10k.
Otherwise I've got to say that I still find it wierd that taking 45mins-1hr on a dungeon is seen as some god-awful thing. Dungeons were almost always a multiple hour slog in my previous MMOs so its really strange to see people in guild take the time to form up a group and maybe ten minutes later I see tyfg, gg.

Jhalin · September 2019

Well for that last question, they should raise the floor, but by that I mean the Skill Floor.

I’d rather see dps requirements be far higher in the entire game, because 5k dps is sufficient for 90% of the game (overland), leaving player up *** creek without a paddle once they actually start playing an mmo, not skyrim’s inbred cousin

kylewwefan · September 2019

Nonsense. Everyone here on the forum hits 105k+

Ok

To be serious though, I vaguely remember Matt Firor was talking about average damage dealers dishing out around 30k DPS to do DLC or other endgame stuff. Think it was in one of their ESO twitch shows awhile back.

On console, we have no idea what kind of damage were pumping out on the fly. But I’d agree that casual group finder pugs have very very very low expectations of more than 10k DPS.

Also interestingly, I que as a healer many times with just a few class healing spells armed and it’s generally more than enough for Vet dungeons. I go with a friend and they add a few healing skills on and we’re looking at speed run, no death and hardmode all in one go. Basically use a flawless build and you’ll be able to cover all bases.

VamppireGhost · September 2019

I mainly schemed what was posted but I share the same questions. My problem is rotation. There's so much animation canceling and I forget to apply buffs and debuffs most of the time. On average I got about 25-35k DPS on my main (Max CP, Dunmer, MagSorc). I have amazing sustain but know I could do so much better as well.

KingZeldaMaster · September 2019

I don't think that there is an intended dps for damage dealers to hit while in a dungeon/trial environment, but by and large 25k dps self-buffed is enough to clear most content in the game. The downside to a group that averages 25k dps across the board is that said group will be forced to endure more mechanics than groups whose dps average is higher, and more mechanics inevitably means more opportunities for failure (especially in the case of vMoL).

Some content does require a much higher dps floor for completion, i.e. veteran Sunspire. I can't see how vSS could possibly be completed with a group composition where all the damage dealers average at 25k dps, since the off-tank will not be able to deal with the increasing amount of adds during boss encounters. Most people that I've seen in-game who run vSS on a regular basis want damage dealers who are capable of 40k dps self-buffed at a minimum, since it eases the strain on the off-tank.

TL;DR: While I don't believe that there is an intended dps target in ESO, there is certainly content that requires a higher dps floor than elsewhere in the game (see above). For most content in the game, however, 25k dps self-buffed should be enough to at least see a completion, so you might be able to consider that the ESO community's intended target dps. If someone's dps is lower than 20k on a dps character, that person should probably stay away from veteran content until 25k dps is reached on that character. There's my two cents.

MartiniDaniels · September 2019

I think new content is balanced with expectation of 35k+ for veteran and 50k+ for HM. (6M self-buffed)

Nefas · September 2019

1 billion.

Heatnix90 · September 2019

Jhalin wrote: »

Well for that last question, they should raise the floor, but by that I mean the Skill Floor.

I’d rather see dps requirements be far higher in the entire game, because 5k dps is sufficient for 90% of the game (overland), leaving player up *** creek without a paddle once they actually start playing an mmo, not skyrim’s inbred cousin

lol if they raise the floor any higher everyone who stands on it will break through the ceiling even while laying down. What Zenimax needs to do is stop with the major handholding and actually improve the way they provide information regarding game mechanics. I can guarantee you that the average casual knows nothing about the basics of the game such as rotations, item sets, and character specs, all of which are necessary for even getting your foot into the endgame door.

Starlock · September 2019

Every game with a lot of numerical combat mechanics has its min-maxers or power gamers. If my posts contain more than a hit of distain for power gamers, it's because of my experiences with them running and playing in tabletop RPGs (and similar principles apply to MMORPGs). If most players in your group are not min-maxers (and this is always the case) even one min-maxer makes planning combat encounters a nightmare. If you design your combat encounters for the group as a whole, the min-maxers steamroll everything. The other players feel useless, and the power gamer complains the encounter was "too easy." If on the other hand you design your combat encounters for the min-maxer, the enemies will steamroll everything and wipe the rest of the party. The power gamer won't complain, but your other players are going to be pretty angry you just killed off their characters (and in many tabletop RPGs, respawning is not even an option).

It is neither possible nor desirable to balance a game around min-maxers. The history of ESO indicates to me that the developers understand that, and that they attempt to engage in the delicate balancing act that many a tabletop GM have had to do. There are ways to make it work, but it's hard. I don't think that the developers have a "target DPS" as much as they have tiers of play that they aim to develop content for. In doing so, they have to be careful to not alienate the solid majority of players by creating insurmountable challenges for everybody else. However, the newer dungeons they've developed don't seem to abide by this as much as the difficulty of normal DLC dungeons is more on par with some of the vet dungeons of the base game.

As for the disparities between high end and low end damage dealers? There will always be power gamers. One of the few changes one could make to close that gap is to bring back hard/soft caps. Most players will never hit those caps, but the min-maxers not only hit them, they routinely exceed them. I have a feeling that if the developers really cared about the gap, they would have added this into the game by now. But they have not added diminishing returns for stacking resources, weapon/spell damage, DoTs, and so on. I don't think they plan to address it, but if someone knows otherwise based on official communications, by all means cite and share!

VamppireGhost · September 2019

KingZeldaMaster wrote: »

I don't think that there is an intended dps for damage dealers to hit while in a dungeon/trial environment, but by and large 25k dps self-buffed is enough to clear most content in the game. The downside to a group that averages 25k dps across the board is that said group will be forced to endure more mechanics than groups whose dps average is higher, and more mechanics inevitably means more opportunities for failure (especially in the case of vMoL).

Some content does require a much higher dps floor for completion, i.e. veteran Sunspire. I can't see how vSS could possibly be completed with a group composition where all the damage dealers average at 25k dps, since the off-tank will not be able to deal with the increasing amount of adds during boss encounters. Most people that I've seen in-game who run vSS on a regular basis want damage dealers who are capable of 40k dps self-buffed at a minimum, since it eases the strain on the off-tank.

TL;DR: While I don't believe that there is an intended dps target in ESO, there is certainly content that requires a higher dps floor than elsewhere in the game (see above). For most content in the game, however, 25k dps self-buffed should be enough to at least see a completion, so you might be able to consider that the ESO community's intended target dps. If someone's dps is lower than 20k on a dps character, that person should probably stay away from veteran content until 25k dps is reached on that character. There's my two cents.

Very well spoken. And I agree 100%.

Donny_Vito · September 2019

VamppireGhost wrote: »

I mainly schemed what was posted but I share the same questions. My problem is rotation. There's so much animation canceling and I forget to apply buffs and debuffs most of the time. On average I got about 25-35k DPS on my main (Max CP, Dunmer, MagSorc). I have amazing sustain but know I could do so much better as well.

You can always start cutting your Regen until you get to a point where it's tougher to sustain. But when I was stuck in your same area, I started really working on the basics again. I would practice weaving every skill about 50 times....just Light Attack then the skill, and repeat again. It started to feel smoother and smoother and that timing between Light Attack and then hitting the appropriate skill starts to really feel natural. I think for the first few months of trying to go from casual to competitive I was doing the weaving backwards: firing the skill and then the light attack. Took me a little while to break that bad habit.

VamppireGhost · September 2019

Donny_Vito wrote: »

VamppireGhost wrote: »

I mainly schemed what was posted but I share the same questions. My problem is rotation. There's so much animation canceling and I forget to apply buffs and debuffs most of the time. On average I got about 25-35k DPS on my main (Max CP, Dunmer, MagSorc). I have amazing sustain but know I could do so much better as well.

You can always start cutting your Regen until you get to a point where it's tougher to sustain. But when I was stuck in your same area, I started really working on the basics again. I would practice weaving every skill about 50 times....just Light Attack then the skill, and repeat again. It started to feel smoother and smoother and that timing between Light Attack and then hitting the appropriate skill starts to really feel natural. I think for the first few months of trying to go from casual to competitive I was doing the weaving backwards: firing the skill and then the light attack. Took me a little while to break that bad habit.

Yeah that's where I'm getting to right now. And some days that's exactly how I play, almost like it's muscle memory. But other days I pick up the controller and it's like my brain just went stupid and forgot how to even walk in a straight line.

WrathOfInnos · September 2019

The intended target varies widely by content. Some vet dungeons can be done with 5k, while Sunspire HM speed run requires close to 90k. I assume that the devs are aware of this, and planned it this way.

Conduit0 · September 2019

Trials are absolutely built with certain DPS numbers in mind, most trials have multiple DPS check mechanics built in.

Sergykid · September 2019

the average player i was talking about will not go, and possibly never will, to vSS or other vet dlc trials or dungeons. But for them a random dungeon will take an hour or not even finish it because the others in the group will leave.

it's not like every player in the game must complete dungeons, but the number of people doing them seems low, that may be the first step to populate trials

MLGProPlayer · September 2019

Sergykid wrote: »

Don't know numbers but maybe 80% of players can't reach 20k dps in a dungeon group, i picked that value because i have between 25-33k dps with the 49% average group dps i have.

Keep in mind that most tanks and healers in PUGs don't apply any buffs/debuffs, so your DPS is likely to be undervalued.

Turelus · September 2019

I once asked Finn about it and he stated for trials they have an intended group DPS they believe should be reached. He didn't really go into more details though.

Sergykid · September 2019

of course there's content that have a dps check or you wipe, but what about the content that doesn't? Is it ok to take one hour in a dungeon because people have 3k dps from spamming light attacks or wearing tank sets?

Austinseph1 · September 2019

I have 1 dps on every class and each hit 30k with base game sets and no potions with a fairly easy rotation on a self buffed target dummy. I sat down with each one after the patch and worked out which skills work best with a simple rotation. Most use non meta sets with the odd mother’s sorrow or burning spellweave thrown in. I pull much more on my main not because of the build but because I have practiced the rotation a lot on my MagDk. I would say for vet dungeons aim for 20k and for vet DLC a little more. Of course you don’t technically need more but by most of the shield and dps race mechanics they seem to be designed around that much on the higher end. Dungeons are proportionally easier with your dps and makes the jobs of support roles much easier and enjoyable. I took my character development slow so I didn’t hold groups back and made sure to look mechanics beforehand.

WuffyCerulei · September 2019

They do certainly want players to try to pull more dps when it comes to the newer trials on vet, but not force you to be the best dps in the world to just clear them. I like that Sunspire isn’t a complete dps race, but it still has mechanics you can outdps. Like having more than 2 iron atronachs on Yolnahkriin (find that offtanks only can really handle 2 at the most) usually happens when either the dps is low, or dps die. Groups can get like 1 iron atro if their dps is high enough. Another big example is Lunar Phase in Maw of Lorkhaj. Groups with low dps have to deal with pain-in-the-rear mechanic, but groups with higher dps usually avoid it.

redlink1979 · September 2019

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

Don't know numbers but maybe 80% of players can't reach 20k dps in a dungeon group, i picked that value because i have between 25-33k dps with the 49% average group dps i have.

Keep in mind that most tanks and healers in PUGs don't apply any buffs/debuffs, so your DPS is likely to be undervalued.

@Sergykid Not hard to pull 20k dps without a proper rotation if you gold your gear (armor+weapons+glyphs).
@MLGProPlayer Agree. Happens to often. Not everyone is aware that for dungeons a tank should use Ebon set + debuff/buff set

Edit:typo

VamppireGhost · September 2019

redlink1979 wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

Don't know numbers but maybe 80% of players can't reach 20k dps in a dungeon group, i picked that value because i have between 25-33k dps with the 49% average group dps i have.

Keep in mind that most tanks and healers in PUGs don't apply any buffs/debuffs, so your DPS is likely to be undervalued.

@Sergykid Not hard to pull 20k dps without a proper rotation if you gold your gear (armor+weapons+glyphs).
@MLGProPlayer Agree. Happens to often. Not everyone is aware that for dungeons a tank should use Ebon set + debuff/buff set

Edit:typo

I don't agree with the Ebon idea, it's only a little extra 1k health for the entire group. I run YOLO and Alkosh and Lord Warden on my DK Tank. And I can do all content on him as main Tank. Ebon needs a huge buff for it to actually be good.

Dragonnord · September 2019

Nefas wrote: »

1 billion.

That's for magicka toons Nefas. Stamina is expected 2 billion and 3 billion if you are a Stamcro.

Bladerunner1 · September 2019

Base game may be close to 20k 15K

One example of a base game dungeon DPS check is Fungal Grotto 2. The mid-boss summons 4 shadows to chain someone down, and that someone could be one of the DPS.

It requires about 15kdps. Each shadow on vet has 191k health and there is something like 10s exactly 13 seconds to knock one down before the captive dies. The healer and tank could help focus on one, but it's generally chaotic with a pug.

191.4k / 13 seconds = 15k dps

Bladerunner1 · September 2019

I edited the above post after checking some combat logs. Perhaps it's 15k for base game

Sergykid · September 2019

yes, but how many of the players reach 15k dps? not the job of every player to even do any combat, but out of all players that get involved in dungeons at least, how many reach 15k dps?

Morgha_Kul · September 2019

The problem is, I think, and I've said this before, that the range of dps is too wide.

My character is a hybrid, with no attention paid to rotations or buffs. I choose skills for RP or thematic reasons, and because I like how they look. My average dps on this character is somewhere between 2000 and 5000... and I'm able to solo most anything in overland, short of world bosses (and I can still solo a few of those). However, I'm ENTIRELY incapable of contributing to even the basic dungeons, let alone the veteran content. I simply can't tank enough, dps enough or heal enough to be of use, or even to survive, because that content was created for the people doing 30k+ dps.

Meanwhile, those people who are able to do that content are left with a fraction of a game, as EVERYTHING else is rendered entirely trivial. These people will go into a public dungeon, gather up EVERY foe they can find, and obliterate them all in less than a second (I'm not even sure how it's possible, but I've seen it often).

It shouldn't be that way.

There shouldn't be content that is too difficult for players like me to do, and there shouldn't be content that is too easy for the top dps players to do.

My thinking is that the upper level of damage needs to be reined in, probably through some mechanism of diminishing returns. The top dps should be somewhere around 10k. The veteran and group content would need to be scaled back some to account for this, but I think that's manageable.

This way, players like me can still be challenged without being overwhelmed, and dps players can still be challenged by content that would otherwise be trivial to them.

Jhalin · September 2019

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

The problem is, I think, and I've said this before, that the range of dps is too wide.

My character is a hybrid, with no attention paid to rotations or buffs. I choose skills for RP or thematic reasons, and because I like how they look. My average dps on this character is somewhere between 2000 and 5000... and I'm able to solo most anything in overland, short of world bosses (and I can still solo a few of those). However, I'm ENTIRELY incapable of contributing to even the basic dungeons, let alone the veteran content. I simply can't tank enough, dps enough or heal enough to be of use, or even to survive, because that content was created for the people doing 30k+ dps.

Meanwhile, those people who are able to do that content are left with a fraction of a game, as EVERYTHING else is rendered entirely trivial. These people will go into a public dungeon, gather up EVERY foe they can find, and obliterate them all in less than a second (I'm not even sure how it's possible, but I've seen it often).

It shouldn't be that way.

There shouldn't be content that is too difficult for players like me to do, and there shouldn't be content that is too easy for the top dps players to do.

My thinking is that the upper level of damage needs to be reined in, probably through some mechanism of diminishing returns. The top dps should be somewhere around 10k. The veteran and group content would need to be scaled back some to account for this, but I think that's manageable.

This way, players like me can still be challenged without being overwhelmed, and dps players can still be challenged by content that would otherwise be trivial to them.

LOL

Even the hybrid wholely unoptimized theme builds are pulling near 20k these days. You have no excuse to try to eliminate the skill aspect of this game.

“10k” my ass

Bladerunner1 · September 2019

Sergykid wrote: »

yes, but how many of the players reach 15k dps? not the job of every player to even do any combat, but out of all players that get involved in dungeons at least, how many reach 15k dps?

To me it seems to be 3/1 odds of getting paired with a player hitting >15k in random pugs on PC, but I can't tell if it's the other DD or the healer or the tank, or all three are adding up to it. A lot of healers and tanks don't know they could be dealing much damage, and some simply design their character for no damage like a healer I got the other day with "Passivist" in their name.

Anyways, since Devs built a base-game instance with a 15k mechanic, one could imagine that was their DPS expectation of a DD+healer+tank pounding on a shade in unison. So perhaps they want as high as 10k for one person, I'm not sure.

LiquidPony · September 2019

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

The problem is, I think, and I've said this before, that the range of dps is too wide.

My character is a hybrid, with no attention paid to rotations or buffs. I choose skills for RP or thematic reasons, and because I like how they look. My average dps on this character is somewhere between 2000 and 5000... and I'm able to solo most anything in overland, short of world bosses (and I can still solo a few of those). However, I'm ENTIRELY incapable of contributing to even the basic dungeons, let alone the veteran content. I simply can't tank enough, dps enough or heal enough to be of use, or even to survive, because that content was created for the people doing 30k+ dps.

Meanwhile, those people who are able to do that content are left with a fraction of a game, as EVERYTHING else is rendered entirely trivial. These people will go into a public dungeon, gather up EVERY foe they can find, and obliterate them all in less than a second (I'm not even sure how it's possible, but I've seen it often).

It shouldn't be that way.

There shouldn't be content that is too difficult for players like me to do, and there shouldn't be content that is too easy for the top dps players to do.

My thinking is that the upper level of damage needs to be reined in, probably through some mechanism of diminishing returns. The top dps should be somewhere around 10k. The veteran and group content would need to be scaled back some to account for this, but I think that's manageable.

This way, players like me can still be challenged without being overwhelmed, and dps players can still be challenged by content that would otherwise be trivial to them.

Oy vey.

You can still be challenged without being overwhelmed. That's why all content has normal, veteran, and veteran hard mode difficulties. And then further extending that idea, at the highest level of difficulty, you have the option to additionally push for the trifecta achievements (no death, hard mode, speed run).

At some point, when doing group content, you have to put some thought and effort into it. The claim that you are "ENTIRELY incapable of contributing to even the basic dungeons" is patently false. You choose not to contribute.

The bar for completing content on normal difficulty in this game is very low. I could teach my grandma enough to contribute in normal difficulty group content in 15 minutes.