WoW without damage meters and combat logs

[Heladys]

How can you improve if you can't gauge performance? Ridiculous idea.

Meters aren't the problem, people who'll fuck around and underperform and make everyone else work harder to support them are the problem.

[qactuar]

Fairly surprised at the very strong pro-meters stance in here, would have actually expected overall opinion to be less positive about it.

Personally, I would prefer the game to have much less of these public stats. No logs / damage meters, no item levels, no achievements. And while we're at it, no DBM either, but that's a different topic.

Granted, damage meters in particular are a great way to monitor and work on your own performance. But I think its A) UI-based stats are the least immersive way to give performance feedback to the player, and B) yes, I do think it has elevated elitism to untolerable levels.

Many argue it'll make "kicking baddies" harder, I'd argue this is actually its greatest benefit. If somebody REALLY screws up, you won't need a damage meter to see it, you will know just by watching the player act and react. In fact, it might force group leaders etc. to make even more informed decisions, because they'll actually have to consider a player's actions as a whole instead of just relying on some, sometimes very questionable, numbers.
And if players don't do any MAJOR mistakes and maybe only lag a bit in DPS or whatever, then good thing that's not visible to others. Unless your a mythic raider, perfect perforamnce just isn't needed to finish content. Yet everybody insists on it, much to the detriment of the overall enjoyment of the game. And let's be honest - in the vast majority of cases, bad stats won't be used to support someone with constructive feedback, but instead just to flame others.
Ideally, not having these stats available to everyone would force players to be more cooperative instead of just raging against each other constantly.

Having said that, I don't necessarily mind if the stats are available to each player themselves, so you can monitor and improve on your own performance. Making sure players won't be forced/expected to share these though (eg some mandatory addon that will broadcast all) would be tricky though.

Anyway. Very theoretical discussion, no way in hell Blizz would ever consider restricting such statistics anymore

I'm with you! Having the info available isn't necessarily the problem, it's what a lot of people end up doing with it that's the problem. A lot of folks in here are claiming that 'they use it to improve' even though far more people use it not to see themselves, but to see others and publicly call them out. It's the same reason why addons like 'whatever it's called that broadcasts when someone dies to fire' exist: Policing other players. Personally I feel it's things like that which contribute to the generally hostile environment in most public groups, and what really sucks about that is in most cases it doesn't even matter. Unless you're doing progression or something in a tight group, there's no reason to scrutinize performance as much as is done.

[Heladys]

Unless you're doing progression or something in a tight group, there's no reason to scrutinize performance as much as is done.

Even if you're in LFR you can still wipe to a dps check. When the meters show five people doing under 75k dps (you could do more autoattacking) then fucking right you need to scrutinize performance.

[Katchii]

The problem isn't the data itself, it's how assholes use it. Those assholes would exist with or without the concrete data, they'd just find another way of doing it. Since that's the case, there's really not a solid enough argument or justification for not having them, because having that data is valuable to everyone, not just the a-holes who abuse it.

[ls-]

And both DBM as well as extensive stats have a strong similarities I think. Both kind of leading towards a somehwat more.. mechanical gameplay, where the game feels a little like a spreadsheet-based airplane simulator rather than a playground where you can be somewhat creative and figure things out yourself, instead of being told what to do and how well you did by some UI component.

You do understand that hiding these stats won't solve anything and will just make things ever worse for many people?

There's DPS stats for HotS and D3, people use tools like ACT for games w/o public logs and/or addon support, theorecrafters will get necessary data regardless of how well devs try to hide it.

However, your average Joe will suffer way more because we'll go back to having CLs (class leader) in guilds and people being forced into certain builds w/o any room for argument, you either spec into X/Y/Z or GTFO, whereas, now you can prove that w/ current stats and gear you modified build is indeed better for you.

That's just how games are now, everything is datamined and calculated. There's people whose RL job is do these things, they get paid for it. At this point it's impossible to get rid of this stuff.

[nekobaka]

...

Not to mention that the removal of focus from power based performance would make the game all the more mechanic focused of which is an on going argument and a huge issue at the entry level even with LFR that is very lenient on DPS.

I'm with you! Having the info available isn't necessarily the problem, it's what a lot of people end up doing with it that's the problem. A lot of folks in here are claiming that 'they use it to improve' even though far more people use it not to see themselves, but to see others and publicly call them out. It's the same reason why addons like 'whatever it's called that broadcasts when someone dies to fire' exist: Policing other players. Personally I feel it's things like that which contribute to the generally hostile environment in most public groups, and what really sucks about that is in most cases it doesn't even matter. Unless you're doing progression or something in a tight group, there's no reason to scrutinize performance as much as is done.

I keep my fail and tattle taunt mods silent for the most part until there is an issue leading to wipes or hostility. Unfortunately I have had to pull those mods out after cases of players flaiming a healer for their death and trolls who taunt the boss. The only times I have ever used these mods to "shame" someone is because they are being the toxic one. Personally I have seen more cases of such features to call out toxic players than to shame for the sake of shaming.

Too often have I come to see a thread on official forums of someone trashing a guild groups PuG only for someone to post the logs which contradict the accusers story. Sure if a group is clearing stuff and is not griefing then I see no reason to kick under performing players. It is when players are keeping the group as a whole from progressing does such scrutinization come forth. Why should a dozen or even two dozen players have their progression cut short from one person?

[Nathreim]

There was a time before such things and we still killed bosses. It was actually kinda good cause people payed more attention to mechanics not their epeen.

[Deleted]

There was a time before such things and we still killed bosses. It was actually kinda good cause people payed more attention to mechanics not their epeen.

and the good players pay attention to the mechnaics and check meters once they wiped or they killed the boss(or they died from something).
people who only pay attentio to their epeen and not mechanics dont belong in raid anyway.