Damagemeter issues

[Sorane]

Hi!

(If someone could paste this mail to the US Forum where Turbine Devs read more actively this would be appreciated, thanks in advance! As a EU-gamer I cannot access the US-Forum, and I'd really like the Devs to get aware of my project and maybe getting open to some discussion of what is needed to further this project)

I am currently working on a Combat Log Analyzer, a shell-tool (independent of LOTRO, you run it in a shell after you quit the game) which examines the Combat Log Data to provide data like "who has done damage how much?", "who has healed how much?", "who died how often?" - sort of an "external Damagemeter".

Unfortunately the Data the Combat Log provides is not fully sufficient to extract the data for a complete damagemeter. I will list below what additional data I would need to complete my project. It would be nice if the Dev working on the Combat log could look into it. For further discussion (I would be also willing to send a Beta version of my Analyzer tool to him, including source-code, if he wants) about the issue I would also be available at [email protected].

Data needed:

- Currently the Log only reports Heals, various things (people revived, people dying,...) and damage you do to mobs or which mobs do to you. It does NOT report damage people in the same fellowship like you do to mobs, or mobs do to them (asides from "... has succumbed to his wounds", "... has defeated ...").

For a working Damagemeter this information is ABSOLUTELY required!!!

- For decent DPS calculations timestamps are needed. I have some good ideas how this could be done:

* A line "Combat started." and a line "Combat ended." could be inserted, whenever the fellowship/raid enters/leaves combat. This way my log parser could filter out time where the fellowship does not fight (AFK-times and such) for the DPS-Calculation.
* It would be easier, if like at the start of the log the start-time is reported, at the end of the log the end-time would also be reported (currently I am using the "time of last file modification" instead).
* Start of the Log timestamp should include year and seconds (seconds being most important for accurate DPS-numbers).
* It would be nice if for every skill-usage the time the skill execution needed
would be listed.
* I am a bit in doubt if the heals reported in the combat log are "complete".
I wonder if really all of them have been reported in the log? But might be they actually ARE.

Further things which would be nice to have:

* The name of the skill causing a damage/heal/etc. This way a percentage could be calculated how often someone used certain skills.
* Currently only the amount of damage "coming through" is reported. How much damage was absorbed by resistances would be nice to know.
* If an attack was blocked/parried/evaded or if it missed would be interesting to know.
* For curing status effects currently it is only reported THAT they have been cured, but not by whom.
* a clear notation around player/mob names to distinct them from parser
keywords would be nice. For example instead of
* EDIT: Clear display if damage/heal was done "normally" or by a potion,
or by a conjunction


You wound the Dourhand for 77 Damage.

Player(Sorane) wounds Mob(the Dourhand) for 77 Damage.

This way for one thing problems like when someone calls his character "wounds" (my parser checks for this word ;-) ) could be fixed, and also it would be easier to filter out Mobs from the damagemeter. And the player
who runs the log would not be reported by the name "You" as currently ;-)

* If threat information would be included a threatmeter could be written.
To make a threatmeter make any sense, of course it would have to be
"real time" which means inside the game. Actually I would be willing to
write the Parser-Code for it and send it to the Devs, so they could
integrate it into the Game UI if they would be willing to do this.
Same about the damagemeter code of course. Some things actually
could be done much easier with game integration (like finding out
who is a player and who a mob).

Thanks in advance.

Sorane