Playing by the Numbers

An Interview with One of EQ2's Top Parser Designers

By: Tony "RadarX" Jones

If you don't know what a "parser" is, you've probably heard the term tossed around a few times among the "super serious." Many of us use them to determine the best usage of our abilities, or in my groups case, to catch me when I should be paying better attention to heals. A parser basically reads the damage and heal data provided by the game and presents it in a easier to read manner. One parser in particular, Advanced Combat Tracker, is one of the best I've seen for EQ2 so far and Aditu its designer was gracious enough to spend a few minutes talking with me about it. It turns out, that not only is Aditu talented with coding, but also knows quite a bit about raiding in EverQuest 2. .

Radar-X: Aditu, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Tell us a little about your MMO experience. Where did you start out?

Aditu: Oh, I guess I started out on Ultima Online. A few years earlier I had made myself a fan of the single player RPG Ultima series, so an online version was intriguing to me. It certainly kept me captivated for a couple years but I eventually got to the point where the only thing to do was run around avoiding PK squads.

Then one day my friend took me out to Best Buy, put a box of Everquest 1 in my hands and told me I was buying it. That on the other hand lasted about six or seven years. EQ was one I *really* got into. A year or so into it, before the first expansion I started getting into a couple raids. Mostly it was a lot of dying, but apparently that didn't dissuade me from wanting to do it the next few years, constantly.

I didn't move to EverQuest 2 necessarrily because it got boring, but there were always "political" problems in large raiding guilds, and waxing and waning of guild health. A few guilds were having problems, and my own along with another were merging members. At that point I was already leveling a character part time in EQ2, and continuing that seemed like it would be more fun than dealing with that political side in a new merged guild. As soon as I neared 50 though I knew I was going to want to raid again, and so I did =)

Radar-X: So you're pretty old school when it comes to MMO's *pours one out for his homies.* I actually moved to EverQuest 2 because I had a prophectic vision of what would happen to SWG. Just kidding. So you played EQ1 since almost launch?

Aditu: I think EQ1 became live around March/April of 1999, and I started playing it around September of that year.

Radar-X: Well since you've seen MMO's transition from the "Golden Age" how do you think MMO's have changed since EQ1?

Aditu: Even though UO was one of the first well known MMORPGs... it seemed to me that EQ1 had a considerable number of lessons learned for the industry. At least the part that is based in the western hemisphere.

At least I hope it was that way... EQ1 seemed to be at the begining of a large MMO boom trying many ideas first. I haven't actually played any outside of those three games, so I can't really say for sure how the industry changed, except the games that I personally played were constantly changing.

I guess one change that I could site easily was the addition of raid content in games. In UO(when I played) there was barely grouping... In the begining of EQ1 there wasn't really a lot of raid content to speak of. The alter planes were added in as an after thought and Nagafen/Vox weren't much better as I understand.

That seems to be a far cry from organized raids in EQ1 with Raid Leader ability skills, dozens of raid specific bosses in a single zone. Locked raid encounters in EQ2 that are tuned to a specific number of people. Raid specific instances.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Parser....or Do We?

Radar-X: Interesting to see a raiders perspective....Many people aren't even familiar with what a parser is? Can you kind of define it for us?

Aditu: In essense, its a program designed to collect data about a battle and display it in an easy to view manner. Usually to calculate simple things like DamagePerSecond of each person or to notify the user of events that they may otherwise miss. In the case of log parsers, they collect all their data from a text file generated by the game. If one were to try... all data collected/analysed by parsers could be done by hand.

Radar-X: Good definition. What function do you think they provide? What type of person is going to use a parser?

Aditu: Mostly, quicker analysis than can be provided manually, or more exact numbers than a gut feeling you can get by just looking at the numbers fly by on screen. Also to tell you when certain events occur so you can take action in response.

They really can benefit anyone who wishes to understand more about a battle than what's immediately apparent. Its obvious if you win or lose a battle, but deeper than that you can better understand what happened and why. On a personal level, you can try employing different strategies and use a parser to see if you were more or less effective by what you changed. In a group level, many use parsers to display DPS statistics to see what they are capable of compared to others, some people find that alone a bit of fun. On a raid level, they're useful to better understand raid encounters and how the game tries to work against the players.

Radar-X:
Wait...you are saying I can be effective? I should learn a lot more about this stuff. What got you into the use of parsers?

Aditu: I wish I could remember the first time I ever used one... it was certainly in EQ1, and I think it was called EQCompanion. The author of the parser was actually a guildmate of mine, so that's probably how I found it. By that time I was heavily into raiding, and sometimes always reading raid instructions in a multitude of channels was hard (at the time EQ1 didn't have the ability to split different channels into different windows). So my main use there was for it to record chat text for me and sort it per channel.

Next I started using a parser called EQWatcher, it was a parser that worked completely in the background and used Text to Speech Synthesis and audio alerts to tell you things. The thing about this parser was that you could write your own plugins if you learned the little language it had for itself.

What I ended up using this for was to time CH chains. If you don't know what this is, its essentially a chain of clerics casting a 10 second heal on a tank in a looping order split at intervals. What the script that I made did was time this interval and speak it aloud. Later on, using a plugin someone else made, I was able to visualize this data in a window EQ1 used for Lore stories but read text files and could HyperLink. In essense, I could create reports about the CH chain and coach the other clerics if they were irregular in their timing or too fast/slow. really was my first experience in creating a parser as well. Even if it was a plugin, and had nothing to do with DPS.

Radar-X: I have heard of the chains but thanks for defining it for the readers What kind of information can a parser provide and what is it limited by?

Aditu: Well, specific things... DPS is popular =) How often you are able to hit a mob, if they are resistant to a specific spell type. If a buff or debuff you are using is having a noticable effect. How often a mob might be casting an Area Effect spell. What types of damage a mob might be primarily using against you. How hard a mob can hit one class compared to another.

Parsers are primarily restricted by what is put into the log file. One of the largest gaps in what SoE has not included in log files is shaman ward absorbtion. Only the person attacking or being attacked can see ward absorbtion. Parsing is also limited by the grammar used to describe events. Sometimes things are vague, especially in some of the non-US localizations of EQ2. Related to this, there can be several mobs of the same name attacking you at once, but the parser will only see one mob until one of them dies and the others continue on. The game just doesn't show in logs the difference between the like named mobs.

Radar-X: I've really gotten into using them myself recently. Guildmates have snagged me on being the lazy healer recently (thats what I get for trying so hard), but using it as a measure of my combat ability has allowed me test out different techniques. One handed weapon or two? Smite line, Strike line, or both? Debuff? Yalup? Intelligence gear or Wisdom gear? The list is endless. I can see using them for these purposes, but what drives a man to create something of this complextiy? Are you happy with where the software is? Are there improvements that you would make on it?

Aditu: Back when it occurred to me, the game was still relatively fresh and trying to find one was next to impossible. I had also started learning a new programming language. Mostly these two things inspired me to make one for myself and close game friends. I wasn't really sure at the time where the project was going to lead or if I would be able to make something worth using in the end. A year ago, I don't think I would have easily imagined it going as far as it has now.

I would have to say I'm especially pleased as to where it has gone.
Oddly enough, the largest plans I've had for the project, I have already completed. Right now I'm finishing ACT's ability to read German localized server logs. Possibly after that, the same for the French EQ2 servers, if I can find enough log samples. In a way it could be a big thing, as I don't think many, if any, can read non-English logs, but it won't really affect current users =)

Templars. What Else?

Radar-X: Well it's an incredibly well put together browser and definetly one of the best I've seen in recent days.

I've seen you posting on the Templar forums. A Templar seems to be an unusual choice of class for someone that parses. Why this class?

Aditu: I don't really remember what I specialized in during my UO time... except that I had plate armor and could cast 8th circle spells(which was the highest). But for my 6-7 years in EQ1, I was a cleric. I didn't want to be anything else. Mostly I liked helping people more than killing mobs all the time. Even if it did sometimes consist of running 7 zones away to ressurect a few corpses for some person. When I came to EQ2, a Templar seemed like the most logical choice.

Radar-X: Support roles can be very rewarding. This is actually the first MMO I've played a healer myself. How balanced do you think Templars are as far as soloing, grouping and raiding? (note: this was asked before LU#21).

Aditu: Hmm, that's a tough one. I don't really play the other priests, but I try to understand a lot about them. I guess the first thing that should be looked at is healing. Since we all heal differently, its pretty hard to balance. Before LU#13 that much was evident. It was obvious that Templars had a good deal, even with Inquisitors having better single target reactives. Over all, ours were higher and increased mitigation, thus making damage lesser.

Now a days its somewhat closer together. Though shaman efficiency is the least in numbers its useful in the most situations, including stacking several shaman in a raid(raid mobs hit through a ward quickly so another can be cast right then). Druids and clerics aren't nearly as stackable, but their numbers are a bit better. Druids heal at a constant rate, and the more the target is lower than 100%, the better. Cleric's rate of healing is dependant on the number of hits the target recieves. So for split heroics, we can heal very very well. For a single raid boss our reactives are much less appealing. Its hard to say if that's balanced because its hard to say whether SoE was balancing reactive numbers for groups, raids or somewhere inbetween.

Buff wise I think we come out relatively well. I honestly like our buff set the most out of the ones I know about. We buff tanks well with hp/melee skills/stoneskin... melee DPS is okay with the melee skills as well. INT casters we don't really do very well, that seems to be more of a druid thing.

Gear wise, I think we have the bonus of having the widest range. We can wear anything that isn't class specific. Of course most will choose to wear plate =) Though a problem with that is there is a great deal of plate gear balanced towards tank classes... luckily one of them is a WIS user.

Damage wise... I don't think you can find anyone at all that will say we have too much damage =P Many think that the point of us healing so well before DoF was because we couldn't do any passable damage. Many bring up that now because healing is now "balanced" according to SoE, we should no longer have such poor damage output. Most commonly compared is the Fury... I've personally seen a Fury in the MT group of a raid get one of the top damage spots in parses. Of course it was situational, but not much more situational than a ranger or warlock needs to get high numbers(lots of AE worthy mobs). I don't know what shaman do for damage, but its probably closer to us than it is to Furies. So in only the context of damage, we're probably not too balanced.

In the context of everything, its really hard to tell where we stand. I think our buffs are good, our debuffs are okay, our healing is bitter-sweet, and our damage is poor. It seems somewhat spread across the board... is that balance? * Maybe *

It seems that SoE is driving clerics towards meleeing for DPS. In a roleplay sense it kind of makes sense, but it doesn't really fit in with my style of play too much. Attacking the tanks implied target is very awkward sometimes when you're trying to heal, assisting isn't much better when you're switching targets to heal as often as might be required. Sometimes when you do and leave auto attack on, your character spins around to face your new implied target. The whole experience of meleeing in groups where you really do need to pay attention to healing isn't positive in my opinion. Doing it in raids, I would never even attempt. Unfortunately, I don't have a simple solution to this.

Though I did just think of a crazy one. We recently got a pet hammer that lasts 45 seconds. It would be interesting if you could develop a melee affinity with it. Like, it is more of a persistant pet, but it has your exact melee stats... maybe even the same weapon/procs. While using it, your ability to melee is somehow stifled since its being directed into the pet. A melee avatar of yourself, if you will. It wouldn't be damage that you wouldn't have anyhow, but it gets rid of the awkwardness of meleeing yourself.

Lastly, something that has bothered me for a while... the skill ministration. You can find more and more items with this skill, however it does very little. Unlike disruption, which I understand affects spell damage(maybe I'm wrong), many of the templar's skills do nothing but effect resist rates in the case of debuffs, or fizzle rates in the case of heals/buffs. I guess I'd like these skill buffs to affect something more clearly =)

Radar-X: Wow...I wish I knew that much about my class. I'm jealous. You need to write Templars for Dummies so I can read it, take over it, and claim it as my own. *wrings hands evily*. So how do you feel about all the DPS changes that are being done on the Test server?

Aditu: Regarding most priest nukes doing more damage for costing more power, I guess this is good. I could still care less about priest melee damage being increased however. It would have to be a large increase for me to consider doing it outside of soloing. As for the Yaulp changes, it seems to be changing lately on test more than it was in KoS beta, so I'm not really sure where it will land.

A Raiders Point of View

Radar-X: Moving on from Templars, since your knowledge of them intimidates me, do you think there is sufficent raid content? Has it improved since launch?

Aditu: Most full time raiding guilds I expect would raid every night... before the first expansion, there seemed to be plenty to do. Many contested (non-instanced) raid mobs, raid instances doable every day, and several with longer lockouts. If you spread things out, there seemed to be at least a few things you could do every day.

When Deserts of Flame was released, this seemed to change. Quite fewer contested mobs I can think of, no 18-24hr lockout raid zones I can think of (maybe prism was one, I forget). Mostly there were just raid instances that locked you out for several days or farming God King eyes in Silent City where you had to fight with other guilds for the right to farm boring repetitive mobs. I guess there were also spawnable faction bosses in Maj'Dul, but they seemed to drop the same item every time and quickly became not worth it.

I haven't seen enough of the current expansion to know how things stand right now.

Radar-X: I don't raid much so I'm just going to take your word for it but the angry villagers have spokenly frequently about the God King eyes. *shudder* So what about a favorite zone?

Aditu: I'm not completely sure that I have a favorite zone per se, but I am a fan of zone architecture. Specifically zones that seem well thought out, instead of just a winding dungeon. Though the theme of Maj'Dul seemed a bit too flashy for me... the Ahket zones with the running water under everything was interesting... it made you wonder what it might have looked like before it became the home of undead. I guess I like classical medieval more than undead(dreary) medieval. Its too bad you can't visit more of these places before their collapse =)

Radar-X: Very true. There are a ton of raid zones I'll never see the architecture of. Ok, final question. What is your favorite mob boss and why?

Aditu: My favorite named isn't really a raid boss, but the boss of a Truth faction quest. A sphinx that asks the group riddles at every quarter of its health. Getting the answer wrong wasn't really horrible, but I always liked answering them correctly. It wasn't really a viable thing to put on many mobs, but I thought it was very neat.

Radar-X: Aditu I really appreciate your time with this and thank you for the great parser you've put together. Make sure to check out his parser here.

Questions, comments, or want to throw something at me? Email me here