Damage Meters

I think maybe these people never played a game before there were such things as dps meters. They have no idea that it takes much more ability to be able to complete a hard content dungoen/scenario etc, without those "tools". People just want instant anwers and aren't willing to use problem solving skill to figure things out. That's most of the fun, for me at least, in games.

You really do have to rely much more on social skills and generally be more aware of what's going on to play without them. Sure some will slack, but if you really do need a meter to tell you someone isn't pulling their weight, what difference does it really make to you how much dps they're doing?

Then you'd be wrong. As someone who mainly tanked in WoW, and who often topped DPS meters on my DPS characters, I absolutely HATE damage meters. They are, by far, the worst thing that ever happened to WoW, and one of the big reasons why I'm here now instead of there.

Why would someone who plays well or tanks instead of DPSing hate damage meters? Because they utterly suck every ounce of fun out of the game. When I'm tanking, it's the people yelling at each other about the meters. It's the DPS who get tunnel-visioned by the meters, and refuse to get out of the fire/cleaves/etc., because interrupting their rotation would lower their DPS. Or who won't do anything to help the group, even if it means saving the healer and preventing a wipe, because at least they'll be on top of the meters while we run back to the instance.

When I DPS, despite usually being at or near the top of the meters, I hate the constant pressure to have to worry more about the numbers than the content. Despite hating the tunnel-visioned DPS while I'm tanking, I find myself falling into the same habits when I DPS. I'll spend a few seconds CCing the mob attacking the healer, moving out of the boss's cleave zone and interrupting a spell aimed at the tank, and suddenly I'm slipping down the meters and "not pulling my weight". So I end up playing more poorly in order to inflate my numbers on the meters, and somehow that makes people more happy.

And during this "meter pressure", I think back to the days of Vanilla WoW when meters weren't widespread in 5-mans, and how much more fun the game was back then. How much less bickering there was in groups. And I play this game and think how much more fun I'm having, and dread the day when those stupid meters come back and spoil it.

Another example, in WoW one of the more recent fights was Ultraxion. A "Gear check" fight. This is a standard fight where if the DPS dont pass a certain DPS threshold on average, then mathematically the group simply wont have enough damage output to survive past an enrage timer and death is assured. In SWTOR, how could any target damage per second be established? No meters just stunts alot of improvement.

The game needs combat log, dps meter, and threat meter. Opponents of these are baddies afraid of having their lack of skills exposed.

Without dps meters it is extremely difficult to weed the good players from the mediocre and it also helps us get underpowered/overpowered classes fixed.