Why doesn't lotro have a dps meter?

[Thieradan]

Oh that is very nice. Thanks for the link.

[rocketeer8015]

You say you wont be kicked out of a raid if your in a good kinship, and you are right. If your in a good kinship you will leave the raid on your own or switch to a "better" class, ofc under the protest of your kinnies, because you care enough about them so you dont want to hold back the raid progress. Then once the new content is on farmstaus you come back and finally get to gear your main.

This happened to me in WoW. We where constantly wiping at a middle of the road boss at 5-10%, and even with actually better gear and a solid rotation i and two other classes like mine just couldnt put out the necessary DPS(was a 40 man raid). The three of us got out(we where not kicked, the other 37 people where ready to spend another couple evenings wiping on the same boss, even though the problem was obvious), two went on "proper" dps alts, and i just stayed out and i dropped my sub. You see i was loving my class, and if i could only be a burden i rather not played at all than leveling another.

This game is not meant to be about dps, you can see it in the class design. The only people who would be fine with DPS meters would be those that knew they would be around the top. Is it so hard to understand that i dont want to have to justify my presence in a group? We are going to get a huge wave of new players that know nothing about the different classes, arn't even used to the concept of non DPS classes maybe, do i want to justify every time what my LM or Captain brings to the table? Let them be in the dark, learn it on their own instead of being spoonfed arbitrary data by a addon that tells them certain players suck.

Yeah i could just avoid pugs, but the puggies one day start to form kins, the kins start raiding and they will advertise in open channels. Look how long it took us to accept the warden, and that was mostly with players who had alot of experience with the game already. If we went around spewing things like medium armor classes cant tank etc, what will a DPS meter do to people unfamiliar with the game and just seeing raw numbers? It will be a constant uphill battle against ignorance, the only solution being holing yourself up in your kin as if it was some sort of mountain monastery.

And for WHAT? What is this great advancement of LotRO we do this for? So a few people can gloat about their digital epeen(and im sorry i have to bring this into the debate, but we know that will happen)? Dont give me the line about its for your personal betterment, you could use CStats for that. We have seen it time and time again, not just in MMOs but in any games that automatically rate a persons performance vs others.

Why do we have to change our game to cater to these people, if you want that go to a game that has it. We are not the people wanting to change the game, you are the ones that want to get your way and damn the consequences or how others feel about it. We need to draw a line, or everytime a couple hundred people form up in forums we will have sweeping gamechanges, and need i to remind people that current lotro players might very well be a minority in these forums not so far in the future?

[dgn-master]

You say you wont be kicked out of a raid if your in a good kinship, and you are right. If your in a good kinship you will leave the raid on your own or switch to a "better" class, ofc under the protest of your kinnies, because you care enough about them so you dont want to hold back the raid progress. Then once the new content is on farmstaus you come back and finally get to gear your main.

This happened to me in WoW. We where constantly wiping at a middle of the road boss at 5-10%, and even with actually better gear and a solid rotation i and two other classes like mine just couldnt put out the necessary DPS(was a 40 man raid). The three of us got out(we where not kicked, the other 37 people where ready to spend another couple evenings wiping on the same boss, even though the problem was obvious), two went on "proper" dps alts, and i just stayed out and i dropped my sub. You see i was loving my class, and if i could only be a burden i rather not played at all than leveling another.

This game is not meant to be about dps, you can see it in the class design. The only people who would be fine with DPS meters would be those that knew they would be around the top. Is it so hard to understand that i dont want to have to justify my presence in a group? We are going to get a huge wave of new players that know nothing about the different classes, arn't even used to the concept of non DPS classes maybe, do i want to justify every time what my LM or Captain brings to the table? Let them be in the dark, learn it on their own instead of being spoonfed arbitrary data by a addon that tells them certain players suck.

Yeah i could just avoid pugs, but the puggies one day start to form kins, the kins start raiding and they will advertise in open channels. Look how long it took us to accept the warden, and that was mostly with players who had alot of experience with the game already. If we went around spewing things like medium armor classes cant tank etc, what will a DPS meter do to people unfamiliar with the game and just seeing raw numbers? It will be a constant uphill battle against ignorance, the only solution being holing yourself up in your kin as if it was some sort of mountain monastery.

And for WHAT? What is this great advancement of LotRO we do this for? So a few people can gloat about their digital epeen(and im sorry i have to bring this into the debate, but we know that will happen)? Dont give me the line about its for your personal betterment, you could use CStats for that. We have seen it time and time again, not just in MMOs but in any games that automatically rate a persons performance vs others.

Why do we have to change our game to cater to these people, if you want that go to a game that has it. We are not the people wanting to change the game, you are the ones that want to get your way and damn the consequences or how others feel about it. We need to draw a line, or everytime a couple hundred people form up in forums we will have sweeping gamechanges, and need i to remind people that current lotro players might very well be a minority in these forums not so far in the future?

Very well said...

+Rep

[Bradd]

What is this great advancement of LotRO we do this for? So a few people can gloat about their digital epeen(and im sorry i have to bring this into the debate, but we know that will happen)? Dont give me the line about its for your personal betterment, you could use CStats for that. We have seen it time and time again, not just in MMOs but in any games that automatically rate a persons performance vs others.

Why do we have to change our game to cater to these people, if you want that go to a game that has it. We are not the people wanting to change the game, you are the ones that want to get your way and damn the consequences or how others feel about it. We need to draw a line, or everytime a couple hundred people form up in forums we will have sweeping gamechanges, and need i to remind people that current lotro players might very well be a minority in these forums not so far in the future?

Many of us are playing LOTRO because it is not WoW. If we wanted to play a game like WoW, with meters, epeen debates, and constant friction between players - we would be playing WoW.

If they add meters and start catering to the people who want to turn LOTRO into WoW junior, then LOTRO will lose its attraction for many of us.

[Asperity]

This happened to me in WoW. We where constantly wiping at a middle of the road boss at 5-10%, and even with actually better gear and a solid rotation i and two other classes like mine just couldnt put out the necessary DPS(was a 40 man raid). The three of us got out(we where not kicked, the other 37 people where ready to spend another couple evenings wiping on the same boss, even though the problem was obvious), two went on "proper" dps alts, and i just stayed out and i dropped my sub. You see i was loving my class, and if i could only be a burden i rather not played at all than leveling another.

40 man raid? Raid content hasn't been 40 man since the end of 2006 in World of Warcraft. Thanks for adding your 4 year old anecdote. It's still completely relevant If you were wiping consistently at 5-10%, then either someone kept messing up at that point, or you were hitting the enrage timer. Enrage timers are a raid mechanic present in WoW specifically to ensure a raid progressing through content is capable of a certain amount of DPS. That mechanic doesn't exist in LotRO, so........ yeah, you're anecdote is even more irrelevant.

These horribly outdated WoW comparisons are growing tiresome.

Many of us are playing LOTRO because it is not WoW.

Then you're playing LotRO for the wrong reason. There's only one acceptable reason to play LotRO: it's based on Lord of the Rings.

[Celt_Ainvar]

You know I can see the book now. Dps meter for Dummys.

But really no one Should be forced to use meters and stuff that could HOG the screen and mybe even Lag There system and other people systems. I will not use it. Becuse I think a meter is DUMB. I will play by Skill not by Meters. If I could I would disable the Hunters meter, Champs and rk. meters becuse I dont use them eather.

For Grampsaz I think the Buff bar has some Neat Features and might be usefull for me. I think that should be in it own Topic not on DPS meters for Dummys.

[Solien]

Then you're playing LotRO for the wrong reason. There's only one acceptable reason to play LotRO: it's based on Lord of the Rings.

Lol...do you tell people what music they should be listening to and what kind of wine to drink, too?

[Devildoc]

Then you're playing LotRO for the wrong reason. There's only one acceptable reason to play LotRO: it's based on Lord of the Rings.

+Rep. That's why I play, and it's 100% true.

I could care less if the game borrows mechanics from other MMO's, especially if they're parts I liked about those other MMO's. I'd love to see the LFG/Dungeon Grouping tools from WoW implemented here, not because I want to play WoW and should go back to playing it, but because it's a damn fine tool to use. Why should we sacrifice the use of good handy tools JUST to be different from a competing MMO? It makes no sense.

[CWood]

Lol...do you tell people what music they should be listening to and what kind of wine to drink, too?

I do. People are often wrong about which music they like and need to be informed that there's much better music out there (even if the sound quality on the videos for it is sorta crummy).

[rocketeer8015]

40 man raid? Raid content hasn't been 40 man since the end of 2006 in World of Warcraft. Thanks for adding your 4 year old anecdote. It's still completely relevant If you were wiping consistently at 5-10%, then either someone kept messing up at that point, or you were hitting the enrage timer. Enrage timers are a raid mechanic present in WoW specifically to ensure a raid progressing through content is capable of a certain amount of DPS. That mechanic doesn't exist in LotRO, so........ yeah, you're anecdote is even more irrelevant.

These horribly outdated WoW comparisons are growing tiresome.


Then you're playing LotRO for the wrong reason. There's only one acceptable reason to play LotRO: it's based on Lord of the Rings.

Its not just a anecdote, LotRO is game and classdesign wise at exactly the point WoW was 4 years ago before BC(before the major redesign of all classes and their roles). Before burning crusade WoW had hybrid/buff classes(Paladin, Druid, Shamans), and weak hybrid classes with pointless talent specs(non heal druids, non heal shamans etc). With BC WoW slowly became an entirely different game, every class can now DPS. If you cant DPS its not because of class design its because you need to L2P(how i hate that abbreviation).

Comparing the effect DPS meters have in such an enviroment, where all players are on equal footing, to the situation we have in LotRO today is either naive or purposely wrong. You say the reason to play LotRO is because it is based on LotR, well i say you are wrong. The reason to play LotRO is because it does things differently, because one likes the vision of the turbine devs and where they are taking us and how they do it. The reason to play LotRO is because its not just based on this IP, but because it is well made. If it was a lackluster game like STO or CO i wouldnt care about the IP.

And what will we have in the end if we just mindlessly copy WoW? A poor mans WoW clone with LotRs IP and a fraction of the budget. Currently there is a vast difference in gameplay between WoW and LotRO, partly due to lack of these addons(DPS/Threatmeters, UI mods like healbot, DBM) and a different class design. Some people want these differences to stay, and some obviously want to play LotRO like they play WoW, just with different raids, different bosses and a different IP.

Again, if you like WoW and its DPS/Threat meters so much why not play it? Why must LotRO become a WoW clone just so you can play a WoW based on the IP of LotR.

[kerryak]

Again, if you like WoW and its DPS/Threat meters so much why not play it? Why must LotRO become a WoW clone just so you can play a WoW based on the IP of LotR.

If only there were multiple MMOs w/ the LOTR IP we could shop around!

[FyreBrand]

Lol...do you tell people what music they should be listening to and what kind of wine to drink, too?

Funny you should say that because that is exactly what comes to mind when people tell me I can't or shouldn't be allowed to play with advanced parsers, meters, or other addons. Why is it so important to them that they control my game play?

[Devildoc]

Funny you should say that because that is exactly what comes to mind when people tell me I can't or shouldn't be allowed to play with advanced parsers, meters, or other addons. Why is it so important to them that they control my game play?

In a group situation if you're not willing to improve yourself you may be hindering THEIR gameplay, therefore you're controlling their game play if what they like to do is group content and you're one of the people they have to RELY UPON. People need to be on the same page. You need to be a team not a bunch of individuals all doing your own thing.

[findorin-gilrain]

In a group situation if you're not willing to improve yourself you may be hindering THEIR gameplay, therefore you're controlling their game play if what they like to do is group content. People need to be on the same page. You need to be a team not a bunch of individuals all doing your own thing.

Aah, now we come to it.
So in the last 3 years, all the fellowships and raids that have occurred across all the servers on both sides of the ocean have not been completed in teams, but simply by bunches of people doing their own thing?
You now feel that your gameplay experience in a group will be lessened if you cannot control the way others in the group play the game?
You want to be able to berate others for not letting you play the group the way you want? (not that you necessarily will - you just want the ability enabled)
No consideration for possibly changing the way you expect to play to fit in with the group?

I was thinking of X-Ray Specs. If I invent X-Ray specs that, as a side effect, let you see completely through someone's clothing, and market them to the public, should that be allowed? Many would say no, but surely you can't blame the tools just because some individuals might abuse them?

[Devildoc]

Aah, now we come to it.
So in the last 3 years, all the fellowships and raids that have occurred across all the servers on both sides of the ocean have not been completed in teams, but simply by bunches of people doing their own thing?
You now feel that your gameplay experience in a group will be lessened if you cannot control the way others in the group play the game?
You want to be able to berate others for not letting you play the group the way you want? (not that you necessarily will - you just want the ability enabled)
No consideration for possibly changing the way you expect to play to fit in with the group?

I was thinking of X-Ray Specs. If I invent X-Ray specs that, as a side effect, let you see completely through someone's clothing, and market them to the public, should that be allowed? Many would say no, but surely you can't blame the tools just because some individuals might abuse them?

It's not necessarily that people aren't team players without the meters, I wasn't referring to that I was referring to the attitude of "who are you to control how I play in a group". The other side of it is that 11 other people who need to be able to rely on you need you at your best, and sometimes people aren't willing to improve themselves.

I'm just an advocate of "whatever tools or teaching a person needs to get better, give it to them" I'm not one to call them "fail" and just give up on them I'm one to say "fail, now how do we improve so you don't fail anymore?". I am a pretty harsh critic when it comes to language, but it is in the interest of improvement.

I don't care that it takes "less skill" or "less thought" to do something with a meter or ui addon, if they're unable to pick something up with what we have now and there's a tool we could have that will help them learn (or in my own case, threat meters for myself), give them.

Saying that they should just learn without the tools because having tools makes it easier and therefore takes less skill.. that's like saying .. paying for guitar lessons makes you a bad guitarist, because you should have the natural talent to just pick it up and teach yourself by ear. Or, for a more appropriate analogy in the same vein.. a guitarist that learns to play via tabulature instead of reading music. I in fact am one of these. I can't read music but I do like to play guitar from time to time. Reading music obviously is a pretty complex language, with all sorts of different notations and timing signatures, it's confusing to me. If I had to just sit down and learn to play a new song by learning to read music, tabulature didn't exist because since it tells you exactly what frets to put your fingers in (provided you're in the right tuning) it makes it "too easy", I'd probably not be able to play the song unless by the off chance I figured it out by ear.

Being able to download a tab and read it and play with that (still using "play by ear" for the timing), I may never be a good enough guitarist to join the G3 tour with Joe Satriani, I may never have my face on a Guitar World magazine cover, but I can play songs I like to play and have fun doing it, and jam with friends in a basement or garage for fun.

It becomes an analogy like this:

Playing by ear "perfect pitch" (a natural talent, you either have it or don't) = Playing without meters or parsers or any deconstruction, just somehow being able to "feel" things out and manage to get it right. Which, I'm sorry if I step on some egos here, is just as rare of a talent as perfect pitch. Most people who claim to be doing so well and don't do any analysis or picking apart or parsing, you run them through a parser to see how well they do and they're shocked at how much lower they were performing than they expected. However those rare few who do have that talent may be the best players at that class for instance, just like some of the best guitarists in the world are self taught and play by ear. Again, it is RARE.

Deconstruction & Analysis with current in game tools, reading combat logs, maybe using Cstats = Learning to play by learning to read music. It works for a lot of people, if not most. A lot of really good guitarists are classically trained and read and write music. A lot of high quality players deconstruct and analyze their characters to get the most out of them.

In Game Meters = Tabulature. It picks up those left behind, the "rest of us" catches us up at least to be in the same ballpark as the people who just naturally have a knack, and the people who deconstruct and analyze their character on their own. It lets someone play their favorite songs without the need for formal training or rare natural talent.

[findorin-gilrain]

It's not necessarily that people aren't team players without the meters, I wasn't referring to that I was referring to the attitude of "who are you to control how I play in a group". The other side of it is that 11 other people who need to be able to rely on you need you at your best, and sometimes people aren't willing to improve themselves.

That's fine, and yes, some people don't want to be told how to play, especially by self-important "experts". That smacks too much of school. By why a meter now? What has changed now that has not been the case for the last 3 years? Talk to them, encourage them, help them - but don't resort to forcing potentially misleading numbers down their throat as a substitute for "team leadership" or "man management".

[Gedachtnis]

Well, meters aside, Lua Scripting is going live!

Woot!

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...-lua-scripting

[Devildoc]

That's fine, and yes, some people don't want to be told how to play, especially by self-important "experts". That smacks too much of school. By why a meter now? What has changed now that has not been the case for the last 3 years? Talk to them, encourage them, help them - but don't resort to forcing potentially misleading numbers down their throat as a substitute for "team leadership" or "man management".

What's changed? They're likely to be an option now, before they never were.

[Grampsaz]

To give you a brief glimpse into what we are investigating, the completion of the vitals API to expose party member and target vitals is on the top of our “to-do” list.

Yes, that does indeed mean that there is no functionality for any “gear score comparison” type add-ons.

Why would they explicitly name Gear score and not DPS/Threat meters?
Further, giving us access to fellow/raid member vitals is just the first step towards DPS/Threat meters.

Thank you to the devs that put their own time into this, then busted their butts getting approved time for this!


I cant wait to see the community members get behind this tech and make some amazing mods!

[Spitefulirony]

Why would they explicitly name Gear score and not DPS/Threat meters?
Further, giving us access to fellow/raid member vitals is just the first step towards DPS/Threat meters.

Thank you to the devs that put their own time into this, then busted their butts getting approved time for this!


I cant wait to see the community members get behind this tech and make some amazing mods!

Because at some point, they will open up the API to chat reading. That's the only way to open up the availability of a Floating Combat Text plugin. Once chat is readable Meters can be made (there would still be a lot of work needed to make them worth even downloading, but they could be made). Also unless I'm mistaken, even then the meters would be on a player basis as opposed to a group, as the plugins can not currently talk to each other. So even making the meters available isn't really that big of an issue at this time.

While I'd really prefer an out of game parcer and Combat Log rework, I don't really care one way or the other about ingame meters, I know what they are really useful for, and I know to laugh at people who try to use them for something else.

But I'd REALLY love a FCT plugin. It's really the only missing piece to fully customize the information on a per player level.

EDIT: and a group frame plugin.

Gear Score type plugins require either to be able to see another players gear, or access to something like mylotro.com. Neither one of which is overly useful for much else, so they can easily keep that part of the API closed and not restrict much but undesirable effects..

[Asperity]

Its not just a anecdote, LotRO is game and classdesign wise at exactly the point WoW was 4 years ago before BC(before the major redesign of all classes and their roles). Before burning crusade WoW had hybrid/buff classes(Paladin, Druid, Shamans), and weak hybrid classes with pointless talent specs(non heal druids, non heal shamans etc). With BC WoW slowly became an entirely different game, every class can now DPS. If you cant DPS its not because of class design its because you need to L2P(how i hate that abbreviation).

100% Wrong. LotRO is nowhere close to being where WoW was 4 years ago. Hybrid specs in WoW were fine after the initial round of class revisions following launch. Feral, Elemental, Shadow Priests were all viable leveling, in PvE, and in general level 60 content. The reason they weren't wanted in raid content had everything to do with the raid content. It was 40 man raids. How do you make raids hard for a group of 40 individuals? You require such a high level of DPS to beat enrage timers, such a high level of healing throughput to keep the raid up through all the damage, both from bosses to tanks and aoe raid damage, and such high mitigation to avoid being two shotted in mere seconds, that specialization was required in order to be successful. We don't have that situation in WoW, the content doesn't REQUIRE that kind of specialization.

Comparing the effect DPS meters have in such an enviroment, where all players are on equal footing, to the situation we have in LotRO today is either naive or purposely wrong.

Equal footing? You are the naive one here. Hybrids are not on equal footing in WoW. My rogue blows every hybrid out of the water on Saurfang, Festergut, Rotface, LD, Marrowgar, Blood Princes, Blood Queen, Putricide. The only fights a hybrid beats my rogue is Dreamwalker, Sindy, LK, and Gunship. Even still, they lose out to Fury warriors on those fights.

And what will we have in the end if we just mindlessly copy WoW? A poor mans WoW clone with LotRs IP and a fraction of the budget. Currently there is a vast difference in gameplay between WoW and LotRO, partly due to lack of these addons(DPS/Threatmeters, UI mods like healbot, DBM) and a different class design. Some people want these differences to stay, and some obviously want to play LotRO like they play WoW, just with different raids, different bosses and a different IP.

Nobody is talking about mindlessly copying WoW. The fact that this subject has reached nearly 40 pages should be a testament to the scrutiny with which meters are being debated. We're talking about one feature, one tool, present it MANY other MMOs, and evaluating its place here in LotRO. No need to make sensationalist claims about how we're trying to turn this game into WoW.

Again, if you like WoW and its DPS/Threat meters so much why not play it? Why must LotRO become a WoW clone just so you can play a WoW based on the IP of LotR.

Who said I like WoW? I obviously don't actively play it anymore. If I did I wouldn't be here. I prefer LotRO because of the IP, and part of how I play MMOs in general includes the use of meters so that I can maximize my ability to play the game the way I like playing it.

You're allowed to stifle my preferred method of gameplay because you're afraid my way might stifle yours? That's the gist of your argument as I understand it, and it sounds awfully hypocritical.

[darkannex]

I'm going to re-enter the fray here, as some people are denigrating other peoples contributions because their WoW anecdotes are out of date.

My WoW subscription expired in June. I've raided up to ICC. I've played WoW since Vanilla. There, credentials out of the way so that I can have my say and not be nitpicked as having 'less than current information'.

The fact that I am here, playing Lotro should be pretty much it's own explanation as to which I prefer and why. But I'll spell it out. I hate group meters. I hate all the stress, aggravation, min-maxing, bs driven epeening that results from it. The argument has been made that since our Lotro community is more mature, that introducing similar meters would not have the same effect. I offer this :
F2P will open the floodgates to ALL KINDS of players.
Introducing a damage meter introduces the temptation/inclination to judge others based on their performance.

I am amenable to meters for self. Only because that is a compromise. I would be pleased to not have any at all. For all the reasons stated and more. But my fears are that even this will lead up to demands that recent meters be posted before being accepted into Kinships/raids/groups. I don't think that's too out of this world, people have done odder.

I am a one Kinship person. In my entire Lotro lifetime (beta to now) I have been in 2 kinships only. I am more than pleased with my kin and we'd never do these things - but having that type of attitude even exist ... and to have it become fostered by game mechanics makes me feel sick.

The reasons people say they want meters :
To improve their gameplay.
---there are ways to do this already. CSTATS does allow (in limited capacity) the ability to get numbers if those are so important. Many veteran players are more than happy to share their experience with their classes and how they have succeeded. And there is the BEST WAY - trying it yourself and seeing what works best.

To weed out 'fail' members
---There are ways to do this as well. Pay attention to what's going on. Be familiar with classes and their animations. Is your group having trouble? Try fostering communication. Run with people you trust for cutting edge content. TRY OUT members before inviting them into the harder content.

.... I don't want to judge harshly to my fellow travellers...but it honestly seems to me that the reason you want meters is because you cannot be bothered to interact with other people - and would rather just a quick and impersonal way to compartmentalize them, weed through them, and run only with those you feel make the cut. I suppose if this mechanical way of playing appeals to you, then that is your right. However, your rights end where mine begin. I also have a right to play, to learn my class, to play to the limits of my ability and contribute as best I can to my fellows. I also have the right to fail on my own merits, and not because a meter says I do. Many of my contributions are not measured with numbers. Many of them are not weighed in a single fight.

If you feel I am not a contribution, then remove me. Try another strategy, get creative. But learn to treat me as a human in - between.

That is what WoW has lost. It has lost communication. Everything has become automated. From fights to scores, to meters to interaction. You interface with tools, not people. You enter groups from LFG interface, where you are gear-checked before being presented dungeons the GAME thinks you are able to do. Once there, your party is assembled for you, people buff automatically using mods, which because noone communicates often overlaps your own pre-programmed buffs. No time to change that, as the group begins immediately.

You can vote to kick someone that you feel isn't doing their job. Of course, you don't have to talk to that person, you can just put the command in the game. And if enough people agree, that person is gone without a word.

BUT if you do a good job at the end, you MIGHT get a 'thanks' before they all leave the group. Maybe. Sometimes.

I do not want Lotro to become a game where it becomes standard to switch people in and out of groups to min/max it. I do not want the fights to be so measured and calculated that it becomes a race with the devs to see if god can make a rock too heavy to lift. Once you have a boss completely reduced to the numerics, we start a race that will never end. Fights will become even harder and less forgiving. Meters will become necessary to even participate/succeed, and then we've stopped experiencing a game world, and start playing at calculus.

Why am I against meters? Many reasons. They all boil down to being a tool that would further mechanize a game that SHOULD be about experiencing people and the world, not number crunching encounters to the point where nothing else matters but that.

Edit : Asperity made a comment here : You're allowed to stifle my preferred method of gameplay because you're afraid my way might stifle yours? That's the gist of your argument as I understand it, and it sounds awfully hypocritical.

Again, I am only bringing this to attention because I feel that this is a vital point, the crux of many arguments here.
My feeling on this is simple : Not having meters might 'stifle' your play. It 'might' make you have to do things that you are not used to. However, you came to this game already knowing these things did not exist. This was a choice that you made. You personally feel that having meters would improve the game FOR YOU. I commend that you are trying to make your experience more enjoyable.

Are meters needed? No. Groups are succeeding well without them. It is not needed to play the game.
Are meters wanted? By some. Not by others.
Are meters detrimental? Some say so, others say not.
Are there any games that exist where the presence of meters has NOT had a bad community effect? None that I have played. But if there is, please tell me.
Do meters provide information that cannot be inferred in other ways? I do not believe so.
Is this a divisive issue? Gods, yes.

None of us plays in a sandbox. Each decision made by one affects the other. But in my opinion, preventing meters in a game that already does not have them is less of an impact than introducing meters into a game that doesn't have them. One maintains the status quo, another upsets it.

[Grampsaz]

Introducing a damage meter introduces the temptation/inclination to judge others based on their performance.

Exactly!

Thank you for pointing that out. We are playing a MMO, this isnt' a single player console game that you can Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start your way through.

In a raid, I depend on the 11 other players to make a successful run happen. If a hunter is floating in the background they should be judged on their performance. If a LM doesn't throw one single heal it either means we did so good we didn't need them, or they just didn't bother. ECT.

They should be judged, constructively of course. The same old argument is in page after page. I dont need them. Well you might not, but what if you do? What if you could get better? Why do ppl feel compelled to sit and rot at their current skill level? Regardless of what it is.

I'm a good player. I'm not great, I'm not the best. But I can play any class at a high level, some better then others. I would love love love a healing meter to see where I really can improve. Is it twisting? When is that group heal too much or not enough? On my RK, Does Epic really fail as much as I think it does? I struggle at healing, have asked for and recieved help from many healers, a couple of the best healers in game IMO. Still, it falls on me. I'm a visual learner. Keeping someone alive or watching someone die doesn't teach me anything. I would love to be able to compare my healing with another healers healing on the fly. Visually I can see/hear what skills they are using, while at the same time I can visually see what their healing output is vs my own. Making adjustments on the fly, not ending encounter running through some numbers in Cstats and started a new encounter again.

Cstats is good, for all its limitations. But Ill take a mod supported by Turbine any day over Cstats.

[darkannex]

Im glad you liked that one point I made. However, I may not have been clear. When I mean 'judged' I do not mean in a way that is healthy. I mean in a public and often humiliating way. It opens the door to judgemental ideals and actions. That is not good for our community.

I'll clarify. There are plenty of ways in game and out to improve your performance. A damage meter is redundancy for that purpose, and harmful in many others.

One cannot turn back the clock. If meters are introduced and do destroy the community, noone will feel good enough about it to say 'I told you so'. It hurts us all.

If they don't introduce meters, then nothing changes regarding that.

Why not try? Because once done, it cannot be undone.

If you depend on those 11 players, perhaps you should know them well enough beforehand to be able to trust their ability/dedication?

[AndroniusFly]

I'm going to re-enter the fray here, as some people are denigrating other peoples contributions because their WoW anecdotes are out of date.

My WoW subscription expired in June. I've raided up to ICC. I've played WoW since Vanilla. There, credentials out of the way so that I can have my say and not be nitpicked as having 'less than current information'.

The fact that I am here, playing Lotro should be pretty much it's own explanation as to which I prefer and why. But I'll spell it out. I hate group meters. I hate all the stress, aggravation, min-maxing, bs driven epeening that results from it. The argument has been made that since our Lotro community is more mature, that introducing similar meters would not have the same effect. I offer this :
F2P will open the floodgates to ALL KINDS of players.
Introducing a damage meter introduces the temptation/inclination to judge others based on their performance.

I am amenable to meters for self. Only because that is a compromise. I would be pleased to not have any at all. For all the reasons stated and more. But my fears are that even this will lead up to demands that recent meters be posted before being accepted into Kinships/raids/groups. I don't think that's too out of this world, people have done odder.

I am a one Kinship person. In my entire Lotro lifetime (beta to now) I have been in 2 kinships only. I am more than pleased with my kin and we'd never do these things - but having that type of attitude even exist ... and to have it become fostered by game mechanics makes me feel sick.

The reasons people say they want meters :
To improve their gameplay.
---there are ways to do this already. CSTATS does allow (in limited capacity) the ability to get numbers if those are so important. Many veteran players are more than happy to share their experience with their classes and how they have succeeded. And there is the BEST WAY - trying it yourself and seeing what works best.

To weed out 'fail' members
---There are ways to do this as well. Pay attention to what's going on. Be familiar with classes and their animations. Is your group having trouble? Try fostering communication. Run with people you trust for cutting edge content. TRY OUT members before inviting them into the harder content.

.... I don't want to judge harshly to my fellow travellers...but it honestly seems to me that the reason you want meters is because you cannot be bothered to interact with other people - and would rather just a quick and impersonal way to compartmentalize them, weed through them, and run only with those you feel make the cut. I suppose if this mechanical way of playing appeals to you, then that is your right. However, your rights end where mine begin. I also have a right to play, to learn my class, to play to the limits of my ability and contribute as best I can to my fellows. I also have the right to fail on my own merits, and not because a meter says I do. Many of my contributions are not measured with numbers. Many of them are not weighed in a single fight.

If you feel I am not a contribution, then remove me. Try another strategy, get creative. But learn to treat me as a human in - between.

That is what WoW has lost. It has lost communication. Everything has become automated. From fights to scores, to meters to interaction. You interface with tools, not people. You enter groups from LFG interface, where you are gear-checked before being presented dungeons the GAME thinks you are able to do. Once there, your party is assembled for you, people buff automatically using mods, which because noone communicates often overlaps your own pre-programmed buffs. No time to change that, as the group begins immediately.

You can vote to kick someone that you feel isn't doing their job. Of course, you don't have to talk to that person, you can just put the command in the game. And if enough people agree, that person is gone without a word.

BUT if you do a good job at the end, you MIGHT get a 'thanks' before they all leave the group. Maybe. Sometimes.

I do not want Lotro to become a game where it becomes standard to switch people in and out of groups to min/max it. I do not want the fights to be so measured and calculated that it becomes a race with the devs to see if god can make a rock too heavy to lift. Once you have a boss completely reduced to the numerics, we start a race that will never end. Fights will become even harder and less forgiving. Meters will become necessary to even participate/succeed, and then we've stopped experiencing a game world, and start playing at calculus.

Why am I against meters? Many reasons. They all boil down to being a tool that would further mechanize a game that SHOULD be about experiencing people and the world, not number crunching encounters to the point where nothing else matters but that.

Edit : Asperity made a comment here : You're allowed to stifle my preferred method of gameplay because you're afraid my way might stifle yours? That's the gist of your argument as I understand it, and it sounds awfully hypocritical.

Again, I am only bringing this to attention because I feel that this is a vital point, the crux of many arguments here.
My feeling on this is simple : Not having meters might 'stifle' your play. It 'might' make you have to do things that you are not used to. However, you came to this game already knowing these things did not exist. This was a choice that you made. You personally feel that having meters would improve the game FOR YOU. I commend that you are trying to make your experience more enjoyable.

Are meters needed? No. Groups are succeeding well without them. It is not needed to play the game.
Are meters wanted? By some. Not by others.
Are meters detrimental? Some say so, others say not.
Are there any games that exist where the presence of meters has NOT had a bad community effect? None that I have played. But if there is, please tell me.
Do meters provide information that cannot be inferred in other ways? I do not believe so.
Is this a divisive issue? Gods, yes.

None of us plays in a sandbox. Each decision made by one affects the other. But in my opinion, preventing meters in a game that already does not have them is less of an impact than introducing meters into a game that doesn't have them. One maintains the status quo, another upsets it.

great post, well written