The only 'Real' solution to DPS Meters

[Canadane]

As it stands right now, a failure of a tank, and a failure of a healer is quite obvious, even if there are more than one of each in a party. It usually results in a domino-effect of a party wipe, and who the first domino to topple over is right in plain sight of everyone.
When a tank or a healer fails, they'll be booed and jeered, as one would expect. I wouldn't say I'm the worst tank out there, but I've sure felt the pain when I messed something up!

But when a DPS doesn't carry their weight, it's not always so obvious.
Yeah sure there's times when you see someone trying to shoot Bismarcks back from the island or something like that, and you know they're not contributing anything. But often times, you have four or more dps classes smashing away at a target, and if there's a harsh dps check involved in the fight, you fail. You wipe. But there's nobody to point the fingers at. There's nobody to say to, "Hey you could do better. Would you like some tips?" There's nobody to receive the booing and jeering the tanks and healers have to go through.

Not only is a lack of an ingame damage meter report bad for supporting a players improvement, it's also against the equality of roles. There's a reason tanks and healers are usually in higher demand. Because playing them comes as a double edged sword. People love you, but if you mess up, they'll hate you forever. DPS classes don't get this treatment, and can soar on by with mediocrity and never be noticed, be called out, or improve. If a DPS class were to live with the fear of being treated poorly when they play lazily, they may not see playing as a tank or a healer as such a scary thought anymore. And maybe, just maybe, we'd see a more tanks, more healers, and less of a queue time all around.

[Kaedan94]

2) It will be used for harassment: Then why couldn't we just report the players using it as a harassment tool and have them dealt with in the same way we deal with all other forms of harassment? "Guns don't kill people, people kill people...With guns."

The "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is a fallacious argument that typically only Americans use (I'm an Ex-pat with a unique perspective having lived in several countries with varying laws).

When accused of being rude or abusive, Americans are quick to cite that people are rude and abusive all around the world. So by your own logic, there should be roughly equal murder rates in all first world countries. But that's not the case. America's murder rate per capita is at keast 10 times higher than any other first world country (which have strict gun regulation)... with 90+% of the deaths being caused by gun violence.

Yes, people make the decision to be bad people... but guns give them an easily accessible tool to be bad people. Same thing with a parser. Jerks are going to be jerks regardless of whether or not they have parsers (guns), but the parser (gun) makes it much easier for them to abuse people (kill people).

That being said, I'm not against parsers altogether. I've used them in the past with other games, and I wasn't adversely affected, mainly because I wanted to be as good as I could be. But I saw abuse of others first hand; even if it was somewhat deserved for refusing to listen to advice, etc, it doesn't make it right. There have been plenty of great suggestions on how to include parsers but avoid the negative social effects. In particular, a "game" at the Golden Saucer to indirectly check your DPS, or personal parsers or dummy parsers.

Just because you may be responsible with parsers (guns), doesn't mean everyone is, or even the majority are.

[HulveinBlitz]

So begins the immediate derailment of a thread.

Pretty much.

[Renault]

snip.

But they are going to use it anyway. As can be seen with many other cases of control, not just guns, controlling something through restriction does not make the use of it go away.

[Ryel]

Terrible comparisons

Lets not turn this into the gun debate or imply that parsers are tools designed specifically to inflict harm / act as a tool of self defense (as guns usually are).

A proper comparison to a parser would be a stopwatch, or a calculator. Both are inherently harmless tools that perform no function outside of quantifying data, they in no way shape or form can do any harm to another player even if used incorrectly.

Can they be read incorrectly? Sure.

Can players be jerks with them? Yep.

These are both community concerns, ones that are better left to the GMs to interpret and enforce.

The game should not suffer a lack of positive features because of a fear of players mistreating each other on the internet, as that can be said about nearly every single system in the game from Glamours and Dyes, to minions and job choices. The key difference being that content is being designed with performance in mind and players have no way of knowing what that level or performance is on an individual level.

[Stormrider]

Also they probably prefer to be preemptive about harassment. This game doesn't seem to have the same amount of GM involvement that other games have. Also with cross server groups it emboldens the jerks. If we believe that the anti tell system in place for dungeons is for harassment and not some weird server issue.

I kind of miss meters from other games. But also remember the shaming of the jerks in main cities to keep the jerks inline. A few complaints from them usually led to making them miserable instead.

[Kaedan94]

Lets not turn this into the gun debate or imply that parsers are tools designed specifically to inflict harm / act as a tool of self defense (as guns usually are).

The OP opened the door, I was simply responding and debunking the ignorant claim that "guns don't kill people, people do", and he made the original comparison.

As I said, I'm not against parsers personally (I have used them), but I am capable of acknowledging and understanding that they do compound an already existing problem and make it worse. I have seen abuse first hand, and it's not acceptable.

However, there are ways to implement parsers while mitigating the negative effects.

[Renault]

However, there are ways to implement parsers while mitigating the negative effects.

Which are? C'mon man, this is a discussion. Let's hear your ideas!

[Ryel]

As I said, I'm not against parsers personally (I have used them), but I am capable of acknowledging and understanding that they do compound an already existing problem and make it worse. I have seen abuse first hand, and it's not acceptable.

However, there are ways to implement parsers while mitigating the negative effects.

Abuse and Harassment is unacceptable in all forms, which is where proper teaching and enforcement come into play.

You don't restrict the functions of a calculator or a stopwatch because someone might get upset that they got poor results, you allow systems that teach them why they got those results and you punish the people who would harass them for getting them in the first place.

What sounds like the better approach? Take away / disallow game functions that everyone can benefit from because people can abuse them without proper education and oversight? Or, Teach people the hows and whys of the tools and their functions and weed out the bad applies via GMs?

[Mikedizzy]

People are already using them, what could it hurt to just make it available to everyone? At least if SE made it the results should be accurate and not "estimate" dots and such.
The game needs it...just give it to us please. I just would prefer to have it so that you only parse yourself and only share if you want to via some options/toggles. Problem solved. The battle log is just a mess. The log doesn't even give us an option to sort the data at all.