They Should Add An Official Damage Meter With One Condition

These constant arguments that visibility creates toxicity are amazing. Because they're a naked double-standard only ever apply to DPS. Why can we see everyone's health bar? It breeds toxicity toward healers if you can see they're letting people die. Why can we see where the boss is sitting? Why can we see mitigation buffs on the party window? You can see if the tank isn't using their abilities or positioning the boss poorly. It gives you the leeway to yell at both of them! Oh wait, but it doesn't. Because the TOS forbids it.

Could we see how the DPS are doing then? NO! Toxic! You can't see it! Evil elitists! It's the death knell of all games if you can see how crappily **I** am doing! Oh but whining about bad healers is my right as a gamer.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Oh but whining about bad healers is my right as a gamer.

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Now that you mention it, I've seen stuff like "The healer let me die!" FAR more then I've seen people talk about DPS.

It's almost funny how value of DPS trackers changes depending on the point of view. When seen negatively the defenders will dismiss their "power" but when shown in positive spectrum they'll go into overselling them. Personally I don't care about them too much but I don't believe community as whole can use them. Ultimately Damage, DPS however you want to put it is the end result. All you know is that X did too little damage. But why? Was the tank not keeping the boss steady which resulted in Melee DPS having to adjust their position and miss their GDC? Were the mechanics simply a counter to the BLM? (Extreme Navel says hi). Were Red Mage or Summoner busy reviving medics when they died? Was the tank doing poor job at mitigation which forced Healers to waste everything they had to keep them alive? While decent statics could probably figure those things out any less coordinated groups from PF and Duty Finder won't be really able to utilize the info in any constructive way. Making them integral part of the game also expands their reach into areas it's not even needed like Dungeons, Normal and Hard Trials or regular difficulty raids where "perfection" is not required. I won't say people don't use it there but I also don't think it's widespread.

There's also one risk I can't properly overlook. That damage will become goal in itself. Even in cooperative experience there are more than enough players willing to treat it as competition. And while I see nothing wrong with two teams competing in things like World First Clear of content or later the fastest clear I don't think there should be anything that incentives players in same group competing with one another and I'm afraid that this is what would happen if damage tracker would become widespread in the less punishing content. So yeah personally I see to many risks and really not enough rewards.

In Shadowbringers, I had a friend who ran the meter all the time and that was around the first time I was finally getting into hardcore content. There wasn't really any toxicity, and instead, I really appreciated when our fights got run through XIV analysis just so I could see what I was doing wrong and where I could improve my playstyle, reminded me about skills I needed to press more, etc.

Those are what myself and plenty of others want, just a self-improvement metric. Stuff like The Balance is great for learning your rotations and everything else, but combining it with something like XIV Analysis is just such a handy way to improve your own gameplay, nevermind any console friends who might want to undergo similar improvements.

I see it as less "tryhard/toxic" and more wanting to pull my own weight better in farm parties and the like because honestly, who doesn't like a faster clear? I'm aware the toxic parsers exist out there, but more often than not, I've seen people just wanting to improve themselves.

Nah.
Not needed.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

There's also one risk I can't properly overlook. That damage will become goal in itself. Even in cooperative experience there are more than enough players willing to treat it as competition. And while I see nothing wrong with two teams competing in things like World First Clear of content or later the fastest clear I don't think there should be anything that incentives players in same group competing with one another and I'm afraid that this is what would happen if damage tracker would become widespread in the less punishing content. So yeah personally I see to many risks and really not enough rewards.

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Damage is already the goal. Square has seen fit to delete nearly all useful systems that you could work toward otherwise. CC basically never works in any remotely difficult group content. Heal checks are a joke. Tank mitigation is a breeze. Damage is the only thing that actually matters in most parties.

In fact, -not- having meters is one of the things that led us to current healer design; back near the end of Heavensward, YoshiP stated that they were stripping some DPS abilities off Scholar because it would free their focus up for healing. Something something "The White Mage would do all the healing while the Scholar would DPS away". Except that wasn't true. Now, if you were a DPS main just looking at cast bars and the Medica 2 buff uptime on your own character, you'd think the WHM was doing extra heavy lifting. Parses told us otherwise. The SCH was doing more healing through their oGCDs AND outdamaging the WHM at the same time. The healing landscape was plain as day if you looked at The Forbidden Website. Square has made some factually incorrect statements over this lack of information.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Damage Meters aren't needed for any high end content in this game, all of it is able to be completed without ever installing ACT of having anyone in your party with it. The dev team thoroughly tests it every time they release something new.
The amount of toxicity they generate isn't worth it. I reject your opinion entirely that they don't cause toxicity.

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You're the leader of a PUG party (or even a static) trying to clear the new EX / Savage fight but are having trouble clearing the DPS burst phase mechanic.

You have a a DPS who is putting out as almost much damage as their job possibly can, 90-99%.

You have two DPS who are somewhere in the middle.

And you have one DPS who is missing GCDs.

How do you determine who might be slacking a bit that can help out the group? You're not going to stare at their character during the encounter.

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Originally Posted by AngelCheese77

I’ve played MMOs since EQ in 2001 and NEVER has it been needed. Only reason is for those who min/max or for raids to be the first on a server.

If the mob dies before the enrage, you won. You did the DPS needed.

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And when the mob doesn't die, it helps to know who you can help as a group improve so you CAN beat said boss.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

There's also one risk I can't properly overlook. That damage will become goal in itself. Even in cooperative experience there are more than enough players willing to treat it as competition. And while I see nothing wrong with two teams competing in things like World First Clear of content or later the fastest clear I don't think there should be anything that incentives players in same group competing with one another and I'm afraid that this is what would happen if damage tracker would become widespread in the less punishing content. So yeah personally I see to many risks and really not enough rewards.

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But this is already the case? Should be obvious with how much emphasis people put on things like doing uptime strats in Party Finder. You only do those if you want maximum DPS.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Damage is already the goal. Square has seen fit to delete nearly all useful systems that you could work toward otherwise. CC basically never works in any remotely difficult group content. Heal checks are a joke. Tank mitigation is a breeze. Damage is the only thing that actually matters in most parties.

In fact, -not- having meters is one of the things that led us to current healer design; back near the end of Heavensward, YoshiP stated that they were stripping some DPS abilities off Scholar because it would free their focus up for healing. Something something "The White Mage would do all the healing while the Scholar would DPS away". Except that wasn't true. Now, if you were a DPS main just looking at cast bars and the Medica 2 buff uptime on your own character, you'd think the WHM was doing extra heavy lifting. Parses told us otherwise. The SCH was doing more healing through their oGCDs AND outdamaging the WHM at the same time. The healing landscape was plain as day if you looked at The Forbidden Website. Square has made some factually incorrect statements over this lack of information.

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I did never deny that this statement is factual in High end content not once. Even if I sincerely doubt that it's as rigid as "if every single one of us won't output our absolute theoretical best we're doomed". I Was talking about content where damage checks and mechanics are somewhat more lenient. Dungeons first and foremost. Trials at less than Savage level. Raids on regular level. Situations where messing up is not fatal. How I know it? Because I've been a part of groups that cleared this kind of content and I factually know at least one person fucked up more than it should and that was me. I am improving slowly but steadily as I get more and more hang of my abilities but it's still far from absolute perfection. Yet alongside some friends and absolutely random people we cleared 2nd coils synced. Was it a total mess? Sure. Did we wipe more than we should? Good lord we did. Do I still have no idea how the hell did we make it through Turn 4 Last Phase? Yep. And yet it's cleared with much less than perfect results. That's just what happens below High end. And I wouldn't want to lose it over pointless prattle about DPS

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

I did never deny that this statement is factual in High end content not once. Even if I sincerely doubt that it's as rigid as "if every single one of us won't output our absolute theoretical best we're doomed". I Was talking about content where damage checks and mechanics are somewhat more lenient. Dungeons first and foremost. Trials at less than Savage level. Raids on regular level. Situations where messing up is not fatal. How I know it? Because I've been a part of groups that cleared this kind of content and I factually know at least one person fucked up more than it should and that was me. I am improving slowly but steadily as I get more and more hang of my abilities but it's still far from absolute perfection. Yet alongside some friends and absolutely random people we cleared 2nd coils synced. Was it a total mess? Sure. Did we wipe more than we should? Good lord we did. Do I still have no idea how the hell did we make it through Turn 4 Last Phase? Yep. And yet it's cleared with much less than perfect results. That's just what happens below High end. And I wouldn't want to lose it over pointless prattle about DPS

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Damage checks being more lenient still means that damage is the endgoal, because they are still damage checks.
In the end, because you want enemy HP to drop to 0 before yours does, damage is always the endgoal. This game doesn't support/utiliize other methods or an alternative focus for clearing an encounter.