Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced You keep using this word and I don't think you know what it means It means exactly what the definition is. Just because you dont like someone having the choice to say NO to your meters doesn't change that. You do have the choice though, you dense asshole. You have the choice to not join the guild. Someone seems a bit angry here. I already explained why joining the guild and the guild non-consensually having access to my private data in the game is still a problem if joined and the leader/leaders do the exact opposite. And you completely ignored my rebuttal and my suggestion that it could be a voting system for the perk or it could tell the guild that it's turned on. I'm sure they won't just be able to sneakily change guild perks during a raid, you are being a disingenuous, ignorant, and purposefully obtuse person.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced You keep using this word and I don't think you know what it means It means exactly what the definition is. Just because you dont like someone having the choice to say NO to your meters doesn't change that. You do have the choice though, you dense asshole. You have the choice to not join the guild. Someone seems a bit angry here. I already explained why joining the guild and the guild non-consensually having access to my private data in the game is still a problem if joined and the leader/leaders do the exact opposite.
Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced You keep using this word and I don't think you know what it means It means exactly what the definition is. Just because you dont like someone having the choice to say NO to your meters doesn't change that. You do have the choice though, you dense asshole. You have the choice to not join the guild.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced You keep using this word and I don't think you know what it means It means exactly what the definition is. Just because you dont like someone having the choice to say NO to your meters doesn't change that.
Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced You keep using this word and I don't think you know what it means
nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. forced
debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways
Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content.
nelsonrebel wrote: » And I'm the only one between us not resorting to base insults. The moment you started with insults you lost the argument.
Linstead wrote: » But your suggestion is no better, because it WILL in fact lead to the very thing you don't want and have expressed in this thread many times, along with others, that it will lead to a toxic environment. "LFM 3 DPS for raid. Link logs or no invite!" it also introduces another problem that competitive guilds will have to spend needless hours of time each raid night just posting all their logs between encounters
Grimfaldra wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » And I'm the only one between us not resorting to base insults. The moment you started with insults you lost the argument. Nowadays one has to be glad if Godwin's Law is not called upon within 3 pages of a controversial subject.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » The fact of the matter is, it's not "non-consensual" if you willingly joined the guild. And a game that promotes a playstyle of not being able to just change things on the fly to fit certain encounters (for example, it's going to take a big sum of resources and a quest line just to change your secondary archetype and skill point allocation) is not going to just let guilds change their perks willy nilly. Hell I'd be surprised if they could even change them at all. It sounds like you are just scared that one day people are going to find out you are bad and kick you. If you sign up for a guild not using meters, and you see the guild perk that allows meters, you can quit right then and there. There is nothing stopping you from /gquit. And if you do consent to having a guild be able to look at your meters (for your and your guild's benefit, because lets not even pretend like this is somehow harmful outside of 1% of situations that turn toxic) then it should be a really fine compromise. Just like 2 drunken people having consensual sex doesn't turn into sexual assault as soon as one person wakes up and regrets it. So the tldr version is "I want to enforce my playstyle on everyone and they'll get no say" is the basis of your point. There has not been one thing that you have said that makes for a good argument to simply asking people. I'm also not touching that last argument because thats such a non related topic to bring into an mmo discussion on damage meters... Since this has devolved into such a non-constructive conversation though. I'm going to just end it here by saying I do not agree with you and its clear that we're not convincing each other because you fundamentally disagree with me on an ethical level and thats not something people budge on
Linstead wrote: » The fact of the matter is, it's not "non-consensual" if you willingly joined the guild. And a game that promotes a playstyle of not being able to just change things on the fly to fit certain encounters (for example, it's going to take a big sum of resources and a quest line just to change your secondary archetype and skill point allocation) is not going to just let guilds change their perks willy nilly. Hell I'd be surprised if they could even change them at all. It sounds like you are just scared that one day people are going to find out you are bad and kick you. If you sign up for a guild not using meters, and you see the guild perk that allows meters, you can quit right then and there. There is nothing stopping you from /gquit. And if you do consent to having a guild be able to look at your meters (for your and your guild's benefit, because lets not even pretend like this is somehow harmful outside of 1% of situations that turn toxic) then it should be a really fine compromise. Just like 2 drunken people having consensual sex doesn't turn into sexual assault as soon as one person wakes up and regrets it.
Linstead wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Linstead wrote: » The fact of the matter is, it's not "non-consensual" if you willingly joined the guild. And a game that promotes a playstyle of not being able to just change things on the fly to fit certain encounters (for example, it's going to take a big sum of resources and a quest line just to change your secondary archetype and skill point allocation) is not going to just let guilds change their perks willy nilly. Hell I'd be surprised if they could even change them at all. It sounds like you are just scared that one day people are going to find out you are bad and kick you. If you sign up for a guild not using meters, and you see the guild perk that allows meters, you can quit right then and there. There is nothing stopping you from /gquit. And if you do consent to having a guild be able to look at your meters (for your and your guild's benefit, because lets not even pretend like this is somehow harmful outside of 1% of situations that turn toxic) then it should be a really fine compromise. Just like 2 drunken people having consensual sex doesn't turn into sexual assault as soon as one person wakes up and regrets it. So the tldr version is "I want to enforce my playstyle on everyone and they'll get no say" is the basis of your point. There has not been one thing that you have said that makes for a good argument to simply asking people. I'm also not touching that last argument because thats such a non related topic to bring into an mmo discussion on damage meters... Since this has devolved into such a non-constructive conversation though. I'm going to just end it here by saying I do not agree with you and its clear that we're not convincing each other because you fundamentally disagree with me on an ethical level and thats not something people budge on I'm not advocating for anyone to "enforce my playstyle" on anyone else. You are being willfully ignorant and obtuse with your "logic" being based on feelings. No different than a child who can't see reason.
Pantease wrote: » SorianLore wrote: » Actually sometimes you need to not give people the choice. you don't put alcohol in front of an addict and "give them the choice" to not drink... Also L2 didn't have combat trackers, not allowed ones anyway. many mmos didn't in fact. Comparing people who would prefer DPS meters to addicts that feel a compulsion or desperate need for something is a little disingenuous, and belittling and rude to the people who would prefer them to exist in the game. Giving a choice on use of DPS meters, on a guild-by-guild basis, seems like an excellent compromise because by joining a guild, you can choose to either opt in or out of this surprisingly controversial option. If you're playing with others who choose not to use it, then you can play without fear of people using them against you and not feel at all like you're missing out. If you're playing with others that choose to use them, then you're with people who have a similar drive to maximize their potential output in an objectively measureable way. If what you meant to imply by your comment was that people who like DPS meters will choose them if given the option, then you're probably right... but that's a given.
SorianLore wrote: » Actually sometimes you need to not give people the choice. you don't put alcohol in front of an addict and "give them the choice" to not drink... Also L2 didn't have combat trackers, not allowed ones anyway. many mmos didn't in fact.
noaani wrote: » @SorianLore SorianLore wrote: » You don't need "the entire game" to allow it... human beings tend to focus on singular things for the most part when looking for blame. the easier you make it for players to blame folks, the more you'll see it be an issue. Many games have proven very hard fights to not need DPS meters to win it, you instead rely on understanding and knowing your team. If this game is anything like L2, it will not be PUG friendly especially because of the pvp risk associated with inviting pugs to groups, so guilds/alliances will need to work together to take down bosses, or at the very least a very trusted few cause remember, wiping the team and taking the boss is a thing Humans tend to focus on single things, sure, but they don't make decisions based on single things. This is why people place the blame on combat trackers rather than on a much more complex set of circumstances. It's a single thing they can point their finger at and place blame, even though it isn't even remotely accurate to do so. In terms of making a decision though - you are not going to boot someone out of your group if there is no reasonable way to replace them. This is because even though we may look at a single thing in terms of placing blame, we look at the bigger picture in terms of actions. It absolutely is also true that the easier you make it for people to blame others, the more they will do so, but it is also true that the harder you make that blame take the form of booting people from a group, the less likely that action will become. The idea here, from my perspective, is not to prevent people from being able to see who is at fault. The idea is to be able to see who is at fault, and then be in a situaiton where the best course of action is to work with that person to help them improve. As to games that have proven you don't need combat trackers - I don't think this is a relavent point. There is no AAA MMO on the market that doesn't have a combat tracker for it - if you know where to look. As such, it is not really possible to say other games have proven you don't need a combat tracker, as there are no games that exist without combat trackers. L2 , as an example, absolutely does have combat trackers. One tracker that I can think of from that game in particular is likely to work in Ashes with no more than 30 minutes worth of additional effort. This is one that was made by a person I have been following for a while now that is working on a tracker for Ashes - though they were expecting it to be much harder than it now appears it is going to be. This persons tracker for L2 has almost half a million downloads - but that is only the ones from their site, players are able (even if not encouraged) to distribute it freely among their friends. This is also only one tracker, there are others. The problem with that game is people just don't talk about it, even if 10% or more of the population use them (which is an estimation, to be sure). You are absolutely right that Ashes won't be a particularly PuG friendly game though. That kind of eliminates the main complaint that people have against combat trackers, as it is always pick up type situations where problems occur (more specifically, pick up situations in WoW).
SorianLore wrote: » You don't need "the entire game" to allow it... human beings tend to focus on singular things for the most part when looking for blame. the easier you make it for players to blame folks, the more you'll see it be an issue. Many games have proven very hard fights to not need DPS meters to win it, you instead rely on understanding and knowing your team. If this game is anything like L2, it will not be PUG friendly especially because of the pvp risk associated with inviting pugs to groups, so guilds/alliances will need to work together to take down bosses, or at the very least a very trusted few cause remember, wiping the team and taking the boss is a thing
cleansingtotem wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. And I'm fine with that. I just dont believe in forced meters for a solution. Target dummies that give a dps measurement that people may share in order to push those bosses and encounters would be my prefered method. I'm aware that a target dummy doesnt show everything on in a raid, and I like that. It incentivizes players and groups to communicate and work on roles and positioning as the focal point while the dps threshold is a ballpark estimate without over focusing on it. No, you just think you get to suck, and everyone has to play the way you want. Its literally mind boggling. You are not entitled to be carried. And if you dont want to use meters, dont. But to demand others not have them is something else. It also limits just how hard pve content can be, which means were getting piss easy trash and that hurts the game.
nelsonrebel wrote: » debase wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » Ademptio wrote: » I tend to play with friends/family who are generally PvE/RPers and play MMO's just for fun and are very intimidated when they want to join WoW dungeons due to people asking for "Looking for 12k DPS to kill X boss"... This scares off players to even try and join content. Exactly. This is what I mean when the pve community gets stagnant and stalls itself out. It just chases away new players. Whereas people saying "looking for dps,tank, healer" is a lot more open and inviting and promotes a bit more social interactions and you would think in a MMO that would be more important. The knowing mechanics, group composition, and communication will always be more important and I missed the older days when these parts were where the most focus was at and communities thrived on teaching and reaching out to newer/ less experienced players by needing to fill roles rather than filling arbitrary number percentages when people will over dps anyways If bosses have dps checks/enrage timers or are otherwise more difficult because of dps requirements, you are going to have groups/guilds seeking good players and tossing worse players regardless of whether you have a dps meter or not. I don't care if they do it or not, but in a game where things like looting rights are determined by dps as has been indicated... you better believe people are going to push players one way or another on the dps front. If there are mechanics that set requirements for how much damage or how fast things get killed, they will find a way to assess it with or without a dps meter. And I'm fine with that. I just dont believe in forced meters for a solution. Target dummies that give a dps measurement that people may share in order to push those bosses and encounters would be my prefered method. I'm aware that a target dummy doesnt show everything on in a raid, and I like that. It incentivizes players and groups to communicate and work on roles and positioning as the focal point while the dps threshold is a ballpark estimate without over focusing on it.
cleansingtotem wrote: » nelsonrebel wrote: » I mean how hard is it to respect an playerbase. You guys dont even need corruption to show your side as players. Its already plainly evident. if you can't accept that people have an option to say no to your request you need some serious personal development skills. If you don't like them, don't use them, that is the option. You people are the only ones trying to force your play style on others. I don't give a shit if you use them, I however want to get the most from my class. side note, this happens every single time a new MMO comes out. Trash tier players who live in this bizarre universe of nostalgia think how they played MMO's 20 years ago is the same way it should be played today.. And anyone who dares to disagree with that is not a "true" fan of the genre. And Ill the same thing I said in other games, enjoy your game that is doa. Because without meters and addons at launch the game already has a strike against it.
nelsonrebel wrote: » I mean how hard is it to respect an playerbase. You guys dont even need corruption to show your side as players. Its already plainly evident. if you can't accept that people have an option to say no to your request you need some serious personal development skills.
nelsonrebel wrote: » Either way though I'm still full in support of the game not having them anyways. So its a moot point
noaani wrote: » @nelsonrebel nelsonrebel wrote: » Either way though I'm still full in support of the game not having them anyways. So its a moot point You claim to have some experience in MMO's. I'm going to list off a few things that I consider basic facts, if you disagree with any of these, let me know. 1, Top end raiders will have a combat tracker. 2, That combat tracker will need to be efficient to use in order for top end raiders to use it. 3, The combat tracker that top end raiders may be something they need to keep hidden from Intrepid. 4, A third party combat tracker will not have any provision for player consent. 5, Guilds tend to exist of people that want to play the game in the same generall manner. 6, Many players that imitate what they think top end players do will use the combat tracker that top end players use, if they have access to it. --- Now, I am all for requring consent in order to be tracked. It isn't my personal preference, but I fully agree that if you do not want to be tracked, it should be your call. The question then shifts on to how to make that a reality. Starting off with the status quo, with nothing at all built in to the game, top end raiders will find and use a tool. Players that are wannabe top tier players will find out what tool we use, and will then acquire it and misuse it - as is the case in many other games out there (to differing degrees of issue). Sure, the tool may be against the rules (it may not, as well), but it is absolutely possible to design a combat tracker in a way where it is not able to be detected. This would mean that basically anyone that wants to track combat is able to do so without anyone else knowing about it. I have to assume this would be what you would consider the worst possible outcome. So the nest thing to consider are the personal combat trackers as you have suggested. These would cause delays around waiting on people to send data after each pull. A system like that would not be efficient enough for top end players to use, and so top end players simply wouldn't. They would revert back to the system above, and use third party trackers. While a system could be implemented where you give perpetual consent to always have your data sent to a specific player or group, this would still be worse than a built in combat tracker at the guild level. If there is a way for players to ask to see combat data, that is what they will do. People will be recruited in to guilds based on that, and groups will form based on that data. If you do not provide taht data, you do not get in to the group or guild. Thus you still have people being excluded - but rather than being excluded based on what the data says, they are being excluded based on not wanting to share it. To me, this would be even worse in terms of social impact that having a combat tracker that is available to use for all. The develoeprs would essentially be building in to the game a means for players to divide themselves at all levels and in all areas, and to do so by both philosophy and ability - which is clearly bad. If we then look at the guild tracker, as suggested, there is no situation where players can ask to see data. You are either in the same guild as that person and so have access to it, or you and not in that guild, and so do not have access to it. There is no middle ground, no potential conflict point in which players could split up in to many small groups across all segments of the player base. All that would happen with this is that top end raiders would be in guilds - as they are now, casual players would be in guilds - as they are now, PvP'ers would be in guild - as they are now, crafters would be in guilds - as they are not, and people that run group content would be in guilds - as they are now. From there, each of these groups would then have the option to pick something that perfectly matches their particular penchant. Guilds that are more casual will have an obvious choice as to what would best suit that guild, as would PvP guilds, crafting guilds etc. I am not making any suggestions as to what these things could be, as I believe that people that play the game in these areas would be able to come up with better suggestions than I would. The way it should be designed though, is that only guilds with plans to take on top end raid content would even consider taking the combat tracker, if you are looking at anythign else - even taking on mid tier raids - then there is something else there that is far more useful to you and your guild. If you are in a guild that you think is more casual oriented, and they pick the perk that is only really suitable for top end guilds, then you know that you are probably in the wrong guild, as they obviously have far more top end ambitions than they have let on. Regardless of what system of combat tracker the game allows the guild to use, if they have designs on taking on that content, you will not have the option of opting out - the guild will not provide you with that option. And that is essentially the point - if you are in a guild that wants to track your combat, you have the option of saying yes, or leaving. It doesn't matter what system of tracker is in place - this will always be true. In a system with individual combat trackers that are able to be shared, you will have far more people tracking your combat than you would in a system where only top end guilds have a combat tracker as a guild perk, that only works on guild members. The TL;DR here is that personal combat trackers will see you excluded from groups and guilds if you do not share, it is basically building an exclusion system in to the game. If it is guild based and limited to within the guild, there is no real way to exclude people. Lastly, in both cases, you won't have any say in regards to people in your guild having access to track your combat should they want to do that - but only one of these options allows you to group with others without having to supply said data.
