For measuring distances only

So, yesterday, I was fortunate to run a large chunk of Naxx in WoW.  It's outdated content, as far as numbers go.  Gear and player power have inflated a bit since it was revamped back in '08.  But, the fights still have the same mechanics and the dungeon crawl experience is still fun.

The thing that I didn't realize until I stepped inside was that I was running with a bunch of people that usually farm the current raid content, dabbling in the hard modes.  So, they had a substantial leg up on me as far as output goes.  The kicker is: I had no meter addons installed, no way of measuring everyone's damage/healing, etc.  So, while I couldn't quantify it exactly, they probably eclipsed me in terms of death-dealing.

Things died just the same.  Who did the most damage didn't matter, from where I was sitting...we all hit the bad things and said baddies died...so who cares?

Why should we give a crap about these little graphs o' damage/heals?

There is a time and place for looking at numbers.  If you're on a cutting-edge progression raid group, you need to know exactly how everything went, every second of the fight, so that you can hone your performance.  You need to know how you can better combine your skills with those of your teammates, and what it will take to get the raid as a whole to the next level of performance.

That's all well and good...if you're personally very picky about how you do or if your group gets paid to raid.  What ticks me off is when people are given these tools and then grossly misuse them.  It wasn't uncommon in WoW to get booted after just a few pulls if your numbers weren't up to everyone's liking...nevermind if you had a noticeable gear gap because you've just come back from a long gap, nevermind if you're doing everything you can and being a great player...it was ____dps or bust.

It's not like the meters were infallible.  Some classes/specializations are notoriously hard to correctly measure due to their design.  Healer A may absolutely outshine Healer B's healing output, even if B's whole strategy is designed around damage prevention/absorption.  So, they're doing equal work and keeping people alive just the same...but A will get all the glory.

It's just not fair.

So, having lived in this climate for several years (and in the gaming world, that can absolutely feel like an eternity), I was surprised at swtor's solution to players clamoring for combat meters: you have to toggle it on manually, and you can only see your own data.

Holy crap that's beautiful.  Third party sites sprung up that allow you to upload your logs and have visual representations for everything...so players can have their data in an easy-to-read form.  Then, the sites allowed for guilds and raid groups to upload individual logs for all parties on a per-encounter basis.  Glorious.

So, if you were in a group that wanted to discuss the minutiae of the encounter, or if you're being paid to do it and need to justify your awesome job, you can all CHOOSE to put your data out there for others to see and analyze.  It's voluntary.  You can't be mid-run in group content and have some faceless name anonymously vote-to-kick you for a poor number showing...because he/she can't know it.

Of course, they can still vote-to-kick you, but you can't really stop people from being dicks, now can you?

Yeah, JJJ, I'm lookin' at you.