In my opinion, test dummy is the single most important tool to provide players ahead of the upcoming patches. This was talked about before in 2020 -> here and it even got some replies from staff down the road. I want to explain what my vision for test dummy is, why it's more important now than before, and why it will make life a lot easier for staff and feedback more accurate and factual. How test dummy should work: - Use any of the existing GM rooms or custom maps, like this one for example: https://royals-library.netlify.app/map/id=180000000 - Have test dummies with infinite HP and no other stats (no Def, heal etc.) spawned on the map, preferably in rows of 1,2,3,4,5,6 dummies. - Give all players access to this room using an ingame command like ~dummy or through NPC in lounge/FM. Alternatively you can entirely skip the room idea and implement the dummy sack that @nut suggested: Spoiler: click - As for buffs/attack pots, if it's too much trouble to have a NPC that can buff you in that room, just don't bother wasting time on implementing that, it's really not a must as long as you let players bring their own chars inside and create parties. I understand that there could be concerns that players could smuggle buffs and attack pots, so if that's too complicated to implement just have players use their own. All the player has to do is use the ~dpm command/NPC, attack the dummies and get their dpm displayed when the minute is over (or 5 minutes for example if the player wrote ~dpm 5). Here is how another server implemented this for example (with 1 target on the bottom, 6 targets on top): Why it's currently so important: Test dummy was always important, I will reference what @nut wrote again: Spoiler: click However, in recent years it became a lot more important, because it's now clear that the information available is inaccurate and formulas do not reflect the actual in-game damage output of a player. Some examples of these inaccuracies would be: - SE and Assassinate interaction does not match the formulas, and Assassinate itself is weird and probably does not follow the damage formula -> click - In Geybrian's DPS calculator (which is probably the most accurate one we have), he mentions how it should be taken with a grain of salt, because compared to in-game damage the calculator is 7-15% inaccurate: - @Tommy Recently made a simulator and faced similar issues (and more), here The community really cares about accurate DPS comparison, and so far there is no accurate tool to measure it. We've tested DPS on things like Krex 2nd eye, Samurai, Golems, Toad B1 etc. but ultimately no test will be accurate due to player error and different W. Def and heal values. With the balance patches coming up, there needs to be an accurate way to measure DPS so players can submit feedback reliably and staff can check that their patch achieved their balance vision, otherwise the feedback will always be somewhat speculative. In terms of priority, I'd love for this to be implemented before the balance patches, but if it's too late to implement before phase 1 of balance, I'd like it before PB and phase 2. ~dpm concerns: This subject is what makes some people not want an accurate way to measure a player's DPS. The main concern is that if a player can record their DPS, people will start recruiting runs with DPS checks. @Zancks said this before: I personally don't think it's a very relevant argument, and it would be a shame to lose such a valuable feature for that reason alone. Range checking already exists in the game, and it's not widely used at all except for small VL runs specifically, and only on some groups. Those who already range check people could DPS check instead, but what's the difference really? This should not introduce any new problems, especially not for regular non-expedition type of bosses. But even if we look at the worst case scenario of DPS checks for regular bosses, the upsides of having the ~dpm feature are far more significant. Accurate class balance feedback is no small matter, it's extremely important.
