Editorial Gamasutra: DPS and the Decline of Complexity in RPGs

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Nobody said that soloing with a fighter is a cakewalk. Just that it's possible.

stuff

Maybe you're right and the game does let you kill liches with relative ease with Azuredge (or Imp. Mace of Disruption), no matter what they do. Pretty sure PfMW can be cast without a time of vulnerability though, with its zero casting time. There's a ton of other enemies that are immune to normal weapons though and cast PfMW - rakshasas, vampires, demons, IIRC some mindflayer too plus certainly something I'm forgetting. Plus Absolute Immunity cast by anyone, even if it's not as renewable.

How many mages do nothing but renew their protective spells all the time? Even with SCS2 (where mages have more protective spells memorized, a lot of them in contingiencies, triggers etc) there's a timeframe between when the spell runs out and the AI decides to recast it.

It's not the melee'ers only problem that you can't always hit people, though. A lot of times enemies just deal much more DPS than you can heal with potions - and that you're often vulnerable to save-or-die stuff, and often have to rely on rare potions, scrolls or PW: reload to survive. When you're a single target with a very limited set of protection spells, surviving all the shit thrown at you is not so simple with just the DPS and HP of a single character.

With very few exceptions like demi liches you can kite any encounter with boots of speed, jugging a potion every 6 seconds (without losing your attacks per round). Save-Or-Die? First, when you solo you'll get loads of XP so your saves will soon be in the negative. Second, Potions of Invulnerability, which give AC 0 and - 5 on saves cummulatively.

did look up some info, the vanilla game indeed has been solo'd by a barbarian at least. Now when using even a moderate SCS2 install, and a less magic-resistant melee class than that, I don't see anyone doing a playthrough unless exploiting the AI in the lamest way or relying on tons of reloads and dumb luck. And to me a properly balanced BG2 install is always more relevant when game design is discussed, than the vanilla.

Potions which give fire resistance (cummulatively), magic resistance, magic shielding, immunity to all spells up to lvl5 etc etc. green protection scrolls at temples usable by anyone. Potions of Invisibility. A cloak that reflects spells.
Anyway, I disagree that SCS2 "properly balances" the game. It just makes the NPCs use the same cheese the player can use. And that typically results in running in circles drinking healing potions for the first 12 combat rounds, when the enemy mages are 100% undispellable and invulnerable and waiting until their spells ran dry.

 

[crawlkill]

Anyway, I disagree that SCS2 "properly balances" the game. It just makes the NPCs use the same cheese the player can use. And that typically results in running in circles drinking healing potions for the first 12 combat rounds, when the enemy mages are 100% undispellable and invulnerable and waiting until their spells ran dry.

There's a pervasive dumbassery in the nerd character that makes Spergus basementicus interpret anything that requires him to spend more time on something as making that thing 'more challenging.' It doesn't matter how rote the actions are, how samey and bland; if it ups his clicks required, he takes pride in inflicting it on himself. See every piece of whining ever that an inventory system is 'too simple.' What is it about geeks that we so often simultaneously want to avoid engaging in anything genuinely difficult but compose completely imaginary 'real challenges' for ourselves? I assume it's some sort of self-scourging thing? That'll keep the Black Plague away, for sure.

 

[Azrael the cat]

guys i'm starting to suspect that sea didn't invest any points in his brevity skill at char creation

I'm with sea. Brevity for the dump stat!

 

[Excidium]

If you two engaged in a quote battle it would crash the codex.

 

[Wyrmlord]

But generally, the idea of blunt vs slashing or which breaching spell to blow is ignorable,

It's not ignorable at all.

When you are against a golem that does 20-30 points of damage, and you can only do 1 point of damage to it with a slashing weapon, of course that is a serious penalty. Unless you are regularly getting that fighter out of harm's way and healing him with your cleric, he is dead.

 

[crawlkill]

But generally, the idea of blunt vs slashing or which breaching spell to blow is ignorable,

It's not ignorable at all.

When you are against a golem that does 20-30 points of damage, and you can only do 1 point of damage to it with a slashing weapon, of course that is a serious penalty. Unless you are regularly getting that fighter out of harm's way and healing him with your cleric, he is dead.

and yet I have never once in a decade and a half of playing the various Baldur's Gates swapped weapons to kill those enemies. I'm not saying weaponswap might not make it easier; I'm saying that the decision is -easily ignorable.- and even if it weren't, does opening your inventory and switching one weapon for another really constitute 'interesting?' particularly when 2ED&D's proficiency system essentially castrates a fighter using anything other than his specialized weapon?

ignorable. undersupported. meaningless. I'm not sure if you know about, y'know, suffixes and shit? but the syllable -able at the end of an English or French word means "with the capacity of being." so something that is ignor|able...can be...ignored. doesn't mean it has to be, just that it readily can be. and, at the end of the day? the mechanics you invoke to get around your four or five golem enemies in the entire game who have significant slashing damage reduction, if you decide to do so? -still just about maximizing DPS.-

 

[tuluse]

I remember fighting skeletons in BG1, and having to stop using piercing weapons.

 

[DraQ]

The problem with DPS (or DPT, for that matter) isn't the statistics itself.
It's that in order to make even asking about this statistic worthwhile (justifying calculation and display of it in the UI) several conditions must be satisfied and each of them is indicative of shit design.

1. HP bloat. HP of your typical opponent must be high enough to make damage range, criticals, to-hit and rate of attacks (to illustrate - MG will be better against infantry than tank cannon loaded with sabot rounds regardless of DPS) irrelevant, as opposed to averaged continuous damage output.
It's shit design, removing much variation and tactical choice from the game, sucking out all the excitement and artificially padding the combat.

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics, such as DT or some form of non-linear damage reduction (as was the case in Morrowind) that would make distinction between, say, a single 100 points hit and 10 10 points hits important.

3. Relatively little encounter variety.

Merely having DPS displayed in menu doesn't automatically make your game shit, however if displaying DPS is worthwhile, then your game is probably already shit.

BUT: if you *design* your game with DPS stat in mind, then yes, DPS will *make* it shittier than it would be otherwise.

 

[Kirtai]

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics, such as DT or some form of non-linear damage reduction (as was the case in Morrowind) that would make distinction between, say, a single 100 points hit and 10 10 points hits important.

Your MG vs tank cannon example works here too, just in reverse. There's not much point in machine gunning a tank after all.

 

[crawlkill]

1. HP bloat.

But how do you reconcile HP bloat with your characters not being oneshotted? When you're oneshotted, you just...reload. That's not a great gaming experience, in my experience. It's not like you call it quits. You just have to try again and hope.

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics

I don't really see how IE-style number shuffling would change this. I guess there was a Project Eternity document that discussed making all armors their own kinds of tradeoffs for different playstyles? Armor variation is so frequently meaningless (cast invis + equip field plate = backstab fighter/thief/warrior to obliterate the mage straight away and have AC -11 thereafter! and that's the WORST way to do the encounter!). We shouldn't need a D&D fiat like "Can't change armor in combat!" The armor should be able to offer us something to sell itself for a whole encounter.

3. Relatively little encounter variety.

Well, yes, repetition is always a problem. An encounter should more or less be designed as a puzzle, not just as a collection of unrelated dangerous elements.

BUT: if you *design* your game with DPS stat in mind, then yes, DPS will *make* it shittier than it would be otherwise.

Uh...what? No. If you design your game -without- damage output in mind, then...I don't even know what then. Then dystopia. You need to design your game with damage output in mind. The hope is just that it shouldn't be the only or by a wide margin the best number you've got.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics

I don't really see how IE-style number shuffling would change this.

Instead of armor as in pieces of armor, think defense generally - saving throws, damage reduction, armor class etc. Flat number damage reduction particularly shows something DPS is particularly bad at accounting for. DR of 5 will effectively halve a DPS of 100 that comes from 10 rapid attacks, while it will do very little against a DPS of 100 from a single slower attack. So DPS will either be a useless number or, if you are designing around DPS, defenses will have to be proportion based.

 

[Johannes]

Nobody said that soloing with a fighter is a cakewalk. Just that it's possible.

Wrong:

with little more than the slimmest modicum of thought I can easily play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 through melee-solo. with any number of PC classes.

I don't exactly remember how quick the AI is about renewing PfMW, but it doesn't leave much leeway with it - and unless you've got instakill weapon or such, there's not really enough time to do anything but scratch a stoneskin or two off and possibly get some point of elemental damage in over it. You might interrupt another spell if cast, but not the PfMW.

And all those potions and scrolls are relatively easily dispelled, and Doom and Greater Malisons are easy to cast and hard to get rid of.

Probably still possible, given enough reloads - but with that consideration almost anything is.


SCS2 is not perfect, the game still retains its suckyness in regards to AIs poor spatial understanding - you can run away and let their buffs run out, nuke them from the fog of war, etc. which are unfair to me since the AI will never do such things. But in regards to the "cheese" that the AI now uses, that's the interesting stuff in the game! Both sides have some drastic measures to protect themselves and to kill the opposition, the over-the-topness of some abilities is exactly what makes the game fun and interesting. It's not perfect but still better tactically han roughly any other RPG out there.
And what the hell about mages being undispellable and invulnerable? You really believe that? I never did any running in circles, drinking potions, action since there was no way it healed me up enough to withstand all the damage I'd be getting in if the enemy's left to do whatever it wants, unless I play on some kiddie difficulty maybe. No, I'll rather dispel their "undispellable" protections every time.

 

[Johannes]

But generally, the idea of blunt vs slashing or which breaching spell to blow is ignorable,

It's not ignorable at all.

When you are against a golem that does 20-30 points of damage, and you can only do 1 point of damage to it with a slashing weapon, of course that is a serious penalty. Unless you are regularly getting that fighter out of harm's way and healing him with your cleric, he is dead.

and yet I have never once in a decade and a half of playing the various Baldur's Gates swapped weapons to kill those enemies. I'm not saying weaponswap might not make it easier; I'm saying that the decision is -easily ignorable.- and even if it weren't, does opening your inventory and switching one weapon for another really constitute 'interesting?' particularly when 2ED&D's proficiency system essentially castrates a fighter using anything other than his specialized weapon?

ignorable. undersupported. meaningless. I'm not sure if you know about, y'know, suffixes and shit? but the syllable -able at the end of an English or French word means "with the capacity of being." so something that is ignor|able...can be...ignored. doesn't mean it has to be, just that it readily can be. and, at the end of the day? the mechanics you invoke to get around your four or five golem enemies in the entire game who have significant slashing damage reduction, if you decide to do so? -still just about maximizing DPS.-

A lot of golems are fully immune to most kinds of physical damage, so ignoring a weapon change does seem a bit weird... Either you're talking out of your ass or just lucked out on picking the right sort of weapon to begin with.

I do agree though that most damage types in D&D don't really add anything of interest to the game.
Enemy immune to X? Use Y which is about the same but of different damage type.
Enemy immune to Y? Use X which is about the same but of different damage type.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Wrong:

with little more than the slimmest modicum of thought I can easily play Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 through melee-solo. with any number of PC classes.

I don't exactly remember how quick the AI is about renewing PfMW, but it doesn't leave much leeway with it - and unless you've got instakill weapon or such, there's not really enough time to do anything but scratch a stoneskin or two off and possibly get some point of elemental damage in over it. You might interrupt another spell if cast, but not the PfMW.

Mkay, I didn't say it.
Last time I've played, I solo'ed with a Kensai up to level 21 before dualing to mage. From this experience I have little reason to believe that finishing the game solo is impossible for a fighter (in vanilla). With SCS2 otoh I wouldn't know how to defeat a demilich or demogorgon, but those fights are optional. As for PfMW, again, against humanoid mages, you switch to a non-magical weapon if required. I did this all the time. And even ignoring that, PfMW lasts for 6 combat rounds and mages won't have more than 2 or 3 max memorized.
Azure edge is only insta-kill for undead but it deals good damage anyway, it's a ranged weapon usable by a Kensai who can't otherwise use ranged weapons, which made it quite useful in general.

And all those potions and scrolls are relatively easily dispelled, and Doom and Greater Malisons are easy to cast and hard to get rid of.

Pfft. Saving throws are a concern only for the first few levels and even then can be improved by potions. But yeah, if you fail one, even against something comparatively harmless like charm or dire charm (which technically might not even result in getting you killed), it's immediate game over.

Probably still possible, given enough reloads - but with that consideration almost anything is.

Perhaps it causes less reloads than with a full party because you don't have to bother with 50HP squishies.

is not perfect, the game still retains its suckyness in regards to AIs poor spatial understanding - you can run away and let their buffs run out, nuke them from the fog of war, etc. which are unfair to me since the AI will never do such things. But in regards to the "cheese" that the AI now uses, that's the interesting stuff in the game! Both sides have some drastic measures to protect themselves and to kill the opposition, the over-the-topness of some abilities is exactly what makes the game fun and interesting. It's not perfect but still better tactically han roughly any other RPG out there.
And what the hell about mages being undispellable and invulnerable? You really believe that? I never did any running in circles, drinking potions, action since there was no way it healed me up enough to withstand all the damage I'd be getting in if the enemy's left to do whatever it wants, unless I play on some kiddie difficulty maybe. No, I'll rather dispel their "undispellable" protections every time.

Perhaps you have different settings in SCS2, or perhaps your memory tricks you.
Every mage starts a fight by triggering a host of protective spells including spell immunity abjuration and divinitation. For the first 12 combat rounds you won't dispell anything. The only non-abjuration spell to dispell something is Ruby Ray (Alteration) and that one dispells exactly 1 spell. btw it's a targetted spell which you can't use on improved invisible characters. Did I mention SI: Divination is also always up on enemy mages? So yes, odds are you were doing exactly what I did, waiting out the first 12 combat rounds dealing with the summons and try to heal or avoid damage and only then proceeding to strike back, because you sure as hell didn't dispell anything during that time. Such an encounter is fine though, the problem only arises when every fucking mage encounter becomes the same. Especially since it's not particularily challenging anyway. The approach of stuffing half the spell book of npc mages with protection spells and almost all the other half with summons becomes a bit tiring eventually. A bit more variety in that reagrd wouldn't have done any harm. Other things SCS2 did like giving high-level enemy mages/clerics HLAs or beefing up demons/celestials were pretty good though.

 

[Johannes]

SI:Divination doesn't protect from a thiefs Detect Illusions, and SI:Abjuration mostly protects from Dispel/Remove Magic and not from the spell protection removers. So while these do make the process of getting to those actual combat protections slower, it's still very much doable. And Secret Word and Ruby Ray are given small AoE to affect imp. invisible creatures (helps enemies too) in SCS if you select it so.

And saving throws are not a problem? Get hit by a sequencer with several greater malisons and consider it again. And those potions are fast and easy to dispel, since you'll never have spell shield or other spell protections up (unless there's some item with some such charges?), gives you only one round of safety more in the worst case.

 

[waywardOne]

A good rpg won't be hurt by utilizing DPS measures as long as there are other aspects to combat that defy (easy) quantifying like positioning, synergies, or even fatigue.

I might also argue that an rpg putting that much effort into combat may not be such a good rpg in the first place.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

SI:Divination doesn't protect from a thiefs Detect Illusions, .

never used that, I think most thieves don't even get it? Imoen?

SI:Abjuration mostly protects from Dispel/Remove Magic and not from the spell protection removers.

It protects from ALL Abjuration spells, including the abjuration spells that are no dispellers (e.g. Demilich Trap the soul, Imprisonment)
What are the spell protection removers that aren't Abjuration, except Ruby Ray? None? Oh wait, Spell Strike is Abjuration AND Alteration. No idea, if it's subjected to SI : Abjuration.

So while these do make the process of getting to those actual combat protections slower, it's still very much doable. And Secret Word and Ruby Ray are given small AoE to affect imp. invisible creatures (helps enemies too) in SCS if you select it so.

Secret word is abjuration and ruby ray is a level 7 spell. What do you do? Spend your newly aquired very few lvl7 spell slots on ruby rays, hoping to catch the enemy (must not move) with the tiny AoE possibly removing one protection spell at a time? The only actual use a Ruby Ray has is to remove a spell trap. For that, one might have one memorized as soon as you have enough slots, otherwise there are far better choices for your lvl7 slots.

And saving throws are not a problem? Get hit by a sequencer with several greater malisons and consider it again.

First, tell me what enemy mages in BG2 have a habit of hitting you with one or several sequencers stacked with malisons? Not a single one? Thought so. But nice theorizing. What IF someone were to cast several malisons at you. Well then :shock: you'd have considerably decreased saving throws and would probably need to quaff another potion of Invulnerabity or two to set things straight again. I consider myself lucky that no enemy actually does it.

And those potions are fast and easy to dispel, since you'll never have spell shield or other spell protections up (unless there's some item with some such charges?), gives you only one round of safety more in the worst case.

Look, when you solo with a fighter (we're still talking about soloing? I'm not sure after your reference to Detect illusions above) you will have some problems with saving throws early on in the game before you get all the good equipment and get better saves as you level up. A hold Person that gets through, or whatever, means game over. There are ways to counter that to an extent as I described. Alternatively, as a berserker you're immune to that stuff because of your rage. But anyway, as you level up and get better equipment saving throws cease to be a concern entirely. Saving throws don't matter when your saves are -10. And that will happen soon enough. It would indeed need stacked malisons, doom and the like to change that, and who does that to you? Nobody.

 

[DraQ]

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics, such as DT or some form of non-linear damage reduction (as was the case in Morrowind) that would make distinction between, say, a single 100 points hit and 10 10 points hits important.

Your MG vs tank cannon example works here too, just in reverse. There's not much point in machine gunning a tank after all.

Indeed.

1. HP bloat.

But how do you reconcile HP bloat with your characters not being oneshotted? When you're oneshotted, you just...reload. That's not a great gaming experience, in my experience. It's not like you call it quits. You just have to try again and hope.

Getting oneshotted is not bad mechanics. Bad mechanics is when you can get oneshotted completely randomly, through no fault of your own. If you can reliably avoid getting oneshotted by using right tactics, then it's perfectly OK and even desirable mechanics.

If bad tactics results in death, then is there much difference between getting one- and ten-shotted? Only that the latter is needlessly drawn out, has absolutely no impact in terms of presentation, and can likely be offset by sufficiently large array of healing potions which makes for shit mechanics.

OTOH, if individual hits matter, then:
-damage range matters, because dealing low or high damage on single individual attack may drastically alter the course of battle.
-contingency plans matter, because of the above.
-battles are generally shorter, but more tense and have more impact.
-there is less margin of error and room for shit tactics.

2. Lack of any interesting armour mechanics

I don't really see how IE-style number shuffling would change this.

And I mentioned IE where exactly?

3. Relatively little encounter variety.

Well, yes, repetition is always a problem. An encounter should more or less be designed as a puzzle, not just as a collection of unrelated dangerous elements.

Going for dynamics centered around DPS removes quite a lot of elements of potential solution of such puzzle.

Uh...what? No. If you design your game -without- damage output in mind, then...I don't even know what then. Then dystopia. You need to design your game with damage output in mind. The hope is just that it shouldn't be the only or by a wide margin the best number you've got.

There. Fixed.

 

[Johannes]

SI:Divination doesn't protect from a thiefs Detect Illusions, .

never used that, I think most thieves don't even get it? Imoen?

SI:Abjuration mostly protects from Dispel/Remove Magic and not from the spell protection removers.

It protects from ALL Abjuration spells, including the abjuration spells that are no dispellers (e.g. Demilich Trap the soul, Imprisonment)
What are the spell protection removers that aren't Abjuration, except Ruby Ray? None? Oh wait, Spell Strike is Abjuration AND Alteration. No idea, if it's subjected to SI : Abjuration.

Let me repeat: it does not protect from spell protection removers.
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm

So while these do make the process of getting to those actual combat protections slower, it's still very much doable. And Secret Word and Ruby Ray are given small AoE to affect imp. invisible creatures (helps enemies too) in SCS if you select it so.

Secret word is abjuration and ruby ray is a level 7 spell. What do you do? Spend your newly aquired very few lvl7 spell slots on ruby rays, hoping to catch the enemy (must not move) with the tiny AoE possibly removing one protection spell at a time? The only actual use a Ruby Ray has is to remove a spell trap. For that, one might have one memorized as soon as you have enough slots, otherwise there are far better choices for your lvl7 slots.

What's the alternative? Running around trying to survive for 20 rounds waiting for the enemy buffs to perish?

First, tell me what enemy mages in BG2 have a habit of hitting you with one or several sequencers stacked with malisons? Not a single one? Thought so.

Every other mage with SCS2 does it.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Let me repeat: it does not protect from spell protection removers.
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm

If true still irrelevant since those spell protection removers are single target spells and you can't target the mages under improved invis and SI: divination.

What's the alternative? Running around trying to survive for 20 rounds waiting for the enemy buffs to perish?

Exactly, your only choice. Unless your are high enough level to abuse chain contingiency to circumvent the fact that you won't be able to target your spells at invisible characters.

Every other mage with SCS2 does it.

A flat out lie.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Last time I've played, I solo'ed with a Kensai up to level 21 before dualing to mage.

That's an astonishing 7.75 million XP required to get a Level 21 Kensai / Level 22 Mage.

Did you reactivate in SoA or ToB? Was Watcher's Keep required to get that kind of XP?

Curiously, was it fun or more of a morbid experiment?

 

[GordonHalfman]

Let me repeat: it does not protect from spell protection removers.
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm

If true still irrelevant since those spell protection removers are single target spells and you can't target the mages under improved invis and SI: divination.

http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-scs.html

More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning
Although it isn't documented, the 5th level spell Breach will remove a creature's combat protections (such as Stoneskin) even if that creature is protected by Spell Deflection, Spell Turning or Spell Trap; it will not, however, affect creatures like liches or rakshasas, because they are immune to spells of level 5 or below (not that there are many of the latter in Baldur's Gate I!). This component removes both features: Breach now bounces off Spell Turning (etc.), but it affects even those creatures immune to "normal" 5th level spells.
Once this component is installed, the Breach effect of the Wand of Spell Striking will behave in exactly the same way as the Breach spell.
Enemy wizards will assume Breach works this way (and so won't target characters protected by Spell Turning etc with a Breach), even if you don't install this component.
This component is identical to the equivalent component of SCSII.
This component changes those spells which target a creature's spell defences (e.g.Secret Word, Spellstrike, Ruby Ray of Reversal - but not Breach) so as to allow them to target creatures which are protected by Improved Invisibility. (This works by targetting the closest hostile, protected creature to the target point.) The idea of this component is that these spells can now be cast on enemy mages who are protected by Improved Invisibility - this makes the Improved Invisibility / Spell Immunity: Divination combination less overpowering.

 

[Johannes]

Let me repeat: it does not protect from spell protection removers.
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/SpellsReference/SpellProtections.htm

If true still irrelevant since those spell protection removers are single target spells and you can't target the mages under improved invis and SI: divination.

What's the alternative? Running around trying to survive for 20 rounds waiting for the enemy buffs to perish?

Exactly, your only choice. Unless your are high enough level to abuse chain contingiency to circumvent the fact that you won't be able to target your spells at invisible characters.

Every other mage with SCS2 does it.

A flat out lie.

It's just a simple fact that I never, ever used the strategy of running away for buffs to perish in my run of SCS2. Just because you didn't figure out how to do this doesn't make it impossible.
Though using the thief Detect Illusions skill made it a lot easier, almost felt like cheating when such a simple ability is so powerful, but still, that wasn't the only way to get through enemy protections.


And regardless of exactly how common greater malison exactly is, you will run into it. A lot. Might not be half of the mages in the game exactly that have it memorized, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than that either. Maybe you played an earlier version of the mod which didn't feature it so heavily?

 

[abija]

Wow, this thread is full of decline. Several codexers (some of which I thought were not retarded) cannot grasp the concept that a system with several types of damage, resistances and armor cannot be depicted in "DPS". Only decline games where dmg is dmg and armor is armor can even be sensibly depicted in dps.

PoE shows dps for each of its skills and the system is as close to a clusterfuck of combat mechanics as you can get without going retardo mode.

The funny thing is Sea doesn't even understand what the DPS info you get in WoW or D3 represents and analyzes how it influences modern RPG design.

Issues with the article btw:
- no examples
- direct consequence of first one: the article gives the impression all of Sea's experience with modern rpgs are WoW and D3
- stuff that's so wrong that it hurts your brain: like hit, crit damage being removed/irrelevant because of "DPS as a gameplay concept"