The whole "play how you want" argument only goes so far. When you're talking about a game where success is determined by the group, if one person isn't doing a satisfactory job, they're forcing everyone else to work harder. In that way, their "play how they want" is impeding upon my "play how I want" because they're forcing me to work harder to cover their being bad or not wanting to do shit.
A BRD that simply spams Heavy Shot is going to fulfill your "pewpew" requirement, but they're going to be doing a helluva lot less damage than they *should* be doing (it's entirely appropriate to use the term "should" since the devs developed the game around specific capabilities), which lengthens the fight and forces everyone else to make up for them. A WAR spamming BB and nothing else is going to keep aggro, but they'll take more damage and end up generating less enmity/damage because they're not applying debuffs (10% damage debuff and 10% slashing resist debuff are *huge* boons) or using their Wrath stacks like they should be, which will force the healer to work much harder. A healer that stands around and does nothing when there is nothing to heal is, quite explicitly, doing nothing when they could be doing *something*; you wouldn't be alright with a tank that does nothing once they've established aggro because, even if they no longer need to establish aggro, their attacks still contribute to the group's success.
In an RPG, because it's a single player game, you can play however the hell you want because it's a single player game. No one is expecting you to do your job but yourself. In an MMO, you have to recognize that the 'M's stand for "massively multiplayer", and, as such, you are forced to interact and cooperate with other players as part of the game. If you're not capable or willing to perform at a level where you're not forcing everyone else to make up for your substandard performance, you're directly impacting other peoples' play experience in a negative way, and, because they can't *force* you to stop playing like an idiot, there is nothing they can do about it except for leave, which, given that *you* were the one that was breaking the social contract by requiring everyone else carry your ass, is patently unfair.
Basically, you got it backwards. In an MMO, I'm well within my rights to expect people to perform to a suitable standard because it is a *social* game. If I wanted to be able to play however I wanted, whether optimizing play, handicapping myself, or just being lazy, I would go play a single player RPG because, when I'm doing *that*, I'm not screwing over 3 or more other people just to please myself.
How did you know?
