Why all the fuss about Recount? We already have Gearscore...it's called "Armor Rating." Why is it that so many of the detractors of recount are treating pro-recount players in the EXACT elitist, insulting demeaning way they say they don't want to be treated and then make up excuses as to why it's okay...Irony and hypocrisy at once.

With all respect, yes it is PVP. PVP servers have always been the haven of hardcore players who love to fight and at the opposite end the softcore players who like to beat up lower level players on a regular basis. That said, you DID choose to level on a PVP server and thus you will be subject to numerous drive by gankings. I like a good fight and have no interest in harassing lowbies per se, but that will not stop me from toasting the occasional lowby I encounter in my travels. It makes things much more exciting for everyone than a "hands off until level 30/40/50" sign. Welcome to MMO PVP

It sounds like you should consider rerolling on a PVE server. This MMO has levels, unlike real life, which is why in real life a clueless civilian can waddle up to a locked and loaded M2 .50 caliber machine gun, (yes, the "Ma Deuce", headspace and timing anyone?), press the trigger and expect to bring forth death and destruction upon people and objects downrange of that weapon. In an MMO that M2 might simply not operate for the civilian, the civilian being of too low a level to operate it OR the people the civilian is shooting at may just laugh and suck it up, wander up to said civilian and one shot him with the flick of a finger. 10s and 20s should have ZERO chance against a 50. To do otherwise defeats the purpose of having levels in the first place. Guns and guards so people can't so easily camp transportation nodes seems reasonable. They are not particularly tactically significant at the moment. The badge thing...it's a PVP server the whole point of which is that you are never safe in an area where you are flagged. Do yourself a favor and seriously consider rerolling on a PVE server for your own good.

It would be nice to be not so reliant on meters and metrics, but this game like any MMO similar to it, is a numbers game, there is NO escape from that. Enrage and other timers, for example, are mostly used as gear gateways, which is good because it keeps players who really shouldn't be doing an encounter from wasting their time on it. Take the numbers out and all that is left is the choreography of "the dance", the rhythm and timing all of which can be affected by connection lag, native talent, communication, focus and knowledge. More "dance" requires much more study than DPS. DPS in and of itself is relatively simple in most cases but hard data helps turn theories into measured quantified facts. The more an encounter requires that everyone be up to speed on the encounter, where tighter rhythm and maneuver are required, the more the possibility that otherwise "small" errors are now big errors and cause more wipes. One of the reasons for global cooldowns: Some people are better and faster than other people. This applies in doing boss encounters as well. The people best equipped to take down a boss are also the people most likely to want and use metrics: They are focused on beating the content and want to do the best they can so they get numbers and develop strategies. The people who come after and do a cookie cutter walkthough developed through someone else's long hours and hard work are the ones more likely to say, "we don need no steenkeeng metrics." If no one really needed to make those efforts in the first place then the encounter is perhaps far too easy? The real protest against a recount type meter seems to come from casual raider types who have as much ego invested JUST in not getting their sensitive feelings hurt as they accuse more hardcore players of having in wanting a recount meter JUST so they can wave their epeens around, which is foolish and arrogant, the very things of which they accuse epeeners considering most players want the data so they can improve their game play. P.S. Lerthan, it's always easy to point out what we think is wrong but it is much more difficult to offer truly viable alternatives: In that spirit, what suggestions would you make to improve the encounter design process?

We have thousands upon thousands of posts that pretty much boil down to: 1.) Recount is good because it allows us to measure and analyze important numbers and other data to improve our game play. This is harmless from a logical point of view. 2.) Recount is bad because it will be just another way for people whose ego's are driven by those same numbers and data to treat the protesters, who are ALSO driven by ego, badly, thus hurting the feelings of the protesters. This is harmful from an emotional point of view, for the protesters at least, as not everyone is as sensitive as they are. Now go back and read those again, really. #1 Is a logical position. #2 is an emotional position driven by ego on the part of the PROTESTERS, MANY of whom are behaving in EXACTLY the insulting, demeaning manner to the pro-recount people they SAY they so dislike receiving from others. There is no integrity in position #2 as it is basically an emotional, "I don't want you to tell ME how to play, but it's okay if I don't want YOU to have recount so you can play YOUR way." #2 IS...#2...it's just "nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo" in disguise.

Mhmm.

I think you have been feeling defensive and regurgitating this position for so long that you fail to see that YOU sound EXACTLY like those players you dislike. You call them pathetic elitists and basically say "Good players just know good players and good players don't need meters" and demean players who like and use meters. A name-calling elitist calling other people elitist and demeaning their play preferences. Who'd a thunk it in an MMO, huh? Go look in the mirror. Pot meet kettle. You are the very thing you say you despise. Moving on: What it really seems to boil down to is this. People don't want to get their feelings hurt by: A.) Being refused entry to or being kicked from a group for having too low DPS and thereby inviting multiple group wipes due to various requirements, including but not limited to timers, not being met as if all the factors you mentioned, while important, somehow mitigate that. B.) Feeling bad because that other guy that lives almost his entire life online has much better gear and has much better damage and healing output--and he likes to give unwanted advice and spam meters in chat. My initial thoughts are: Get over it. Really, get over it. Just like in real life, there are plenty of people with more talent, knowledge, intelligence, nicer stuff and sadly, some of them are very happy to tell you about it. (Some of them are also button pushing monkeys with grind gear so good they almost can't fail at damage or healing.) Get over it. People are here to be entertained and have fun, not wipe over and over on bosses because, despite your "1337" playing skills and awareness you just don't have anything like the damage or healing output for the group to succeed without you being substantially carried. (That said I will take a good player who needs a little lift over a bruiser who stands in fire any time.) PVP at least has bolstering so better players can make more of a difference even if they lack a full toolbox. Why not just say, "I think recount promotes bad attitudes more than it helps with player assessment because..." rather than call other players names and demean their play preferences when it clearly bothers you when they do the same thing to you? In a group setting parsing damage, healing and threat output, (and checking for standing in fire, etc.), help with a basic assessment of brute force throughput relative to the other members of the group which is mostly the point. Everyone can be doing their jobs perfectly and without the damage and/or healing they won't be able to take down a boss even without an enrage timer. So yeah, keep thinking that damage and healing output aren't relevant enough to downing a boss to keep track of. Let's take the damage healing and protection meters out of pvp while we are at it...and those silly medal thingies, well... While you and your friends may have been poorly treated, it doesn't change the fact that if you aren't beating a boss you should take a look at everything you mentioned INCLUDING your DPS and HPS, this being a numbers vs numbers game and all. Groups of super mega awesome players with inadequate DPS and HPS still don't down bosses until they have adequate amounts of each. That said, THOSE players know this, show awareness of it and embrace it rather than run away from it. P.S. No one in their right mind is going to manually wade through a combat log...that is what addons are for, yes?

POOF YOU'RE DEAD! Are you going to reroll? Constantly rezzing pretty much kills immersion. Seriously though, your position would have all the integrity in the world IF you never, ever respecced. Respec even once and you are now trading immersion for convenience and the debate becomes purely about how easy it should be to respec as we can already respec any time we want with a trip and a bag of cash.

It would appear you do not wish to have your performance evaluated by others and you are thinking that most of the people who don't want to be "outed" by hard numbers on meters in public are the same self-starter, go-getters who will sit up late trying different rotations and priority lists until they max their DPS...except that they have no numbers to compare them to. They could just read about it instead and max their DPS and HPS and not worry about meters. I think you should reconsider your position because for most people that is just as likely in game as it is in real life...and it's not likely at all. In real life I count on my mentors and colleagues and subordinates to assist me in improving myself even if I don't always agree with them or do what they recommend. I certainly don't hide from them. They count on me to do the best I can. What you and so many others are advocating is a way to avoid responsibility and accountability to your fellow players.

Quoting myself from the misplaced dual spec thread under "Classes": As has been previously pointed out: 1.) Dual specs are coming and this thread is a waste of time. 2.) We can already respec any time we want to. The only difference between dual specing and respecing is a trip and a silly amount of cash, that's it. Dual speccing is about convenience in a game, not an affront to "real life." SWTOR is just as far removed from reality as any other MMO for the purposes of fun and convenience and any argument against respecing that is not based on the idea of convenience being too much past a certain level has no place here. What many, many people actually seem to be suggesting is that respecing ITSELF devalues the entire point of specs and of course the only solution to THAT problem is to allow NO ONE to respec AT ALL. We get one chance and one chance only. We don't like our spec then we reroll, yes? When patches come out that cause balance changes, well, that's just tough luck isn't it? Allowing people to change specs devalues specs and we need to maintain the integrity of our original choices, amirite? For the "immersion" folks, YOU only get to die once, then you must reroll. Now THAT is realism. Let me be the 1,000,006th person to suggest to all of you who think this way: Feel free to never, ever respec no matter how many mistakes you make in your builds and for those deeply concerned about "immersion" feel free to reroll immediately after your character dies for the first time. At least those who choose to never respec or choose to reroll upon their characters first death will have their integrity...everyone else is arguing about how much convenience there should be...

As has been previously pointed out, what information can be gleaned from one set of data without another to compare it to in terms of performance since performance is what kills bosses and wins games?

I think the side quest dialog is for immersion purposes to get us a bit more emotionally invested in the story as most of the side quests are related to the class quest chain. Otherwise we'd just be charlies angels talking to a box named bosley. I agree that a fleshed out guild system with banners and perks, cross-server battlegroups and more warzones, (and hoods that can go up and down and a companion hat toggle...), would go a very long way towards increasing game quality of life. P.S. Not much time was spent writing and entering all that dialog anyway... P.P.S. And a dungeon finder...and a real auction house with real sorting...that combat log that can be read and parsed for performance...

I don't remember who it was in the original iteration of this thread that said it but paraphrasing, "Let's get rid of health bars too. You'll know you are dead when you drop." There's a lot to be said for this. Healers can just spam heals in their private whack-a -mole hell not knowing how much healing they are doing while the DPSers flail away doing often sub-optimal damage, (which can wipe the raid and lead to unnecessary extra attempts), until the boss without a health meter finally falls down. Yes this is a silly example of a silly idea. Damage meters won't hurt anyone or anything. The same elitist tools play this game too and they will figure a way to exclude those unlike themselves. Get over it and go play with someone else. Play with folks who like to raid in a relatively relaxed manner but with some focus so you don't spend hours upon hours wiping and running. If one analyzes fights there are often good reasons why a particular Healer or DPSers numbers drop during a particular fight. Pro raiders should know where and when this occurs and how to mitigate it as well as possible. People will analyze these things whether you like it or not. (The results of this are often strategies that we, the non pro-raiders, can use to down the same bosses without the headaches and the wipes encountered in working original content.) Sadly, this is the era of handing out trophies to the losers of competitions so they don't feel bad for coming up short and so people are being encouraged to settle for being second best. Even if you are casual you should be able to find plenty of references on how to optimize damage or healing for your class and spec if you don't want to figure it out yourself. This isn't rocket science but it DOES involve a lot of numbers...numbers that can be measured and analyzed and used for development. Most of the "NO!!!" replies are based on fear of being seen as incompetent or inept which is understandable until one realizes that having meters can assist one in optimizing ones damage and healing output to a great degree without the anal retentiveness required of professional raiders. For instance, assuming Bioware has taken any time to do some streamlining on damage and healing priorities, ones results should be fairly consistent with ones gear level. The idea of other people seeing my numbers scares me not at all. As a tank and healer in that fantasy game with the initials "W" "O" "W" I liked the various ways of parsing combat logs for checking damage done, healing done...and checking to see which DPS or anyone else...was standing in fire rather than paying attention. I do NOT like the idea that people feel like they should be allowed to waste my or any other players game time wiping in operations and losing in PVP by not bringing their "A" game whenever possible. Not the best gear, not the best damage, not the best healing, but the willingness to listen and learn and try to do better without making excuses. This thread is full of excuses. Players who don't feel like getting off their asses to improve their play make wiping on ops and losing at PVP much more frequent and much less fun for many more people. Say "YES" to meters and other forms of combat log parsing so we can see who IS doing crap damage and crap healing and standing in fire and guide them.

This.

As has been previously pointed out: 1.) Dual specs are coming and this thread is a waste of time. 2.) We can already respec any time we want to. The only difference between dual specing and respecing is a trip and a silly amount of cash, that's it. Dual speccing is about convenience in a game, not an affront to "real life." SWTOR is just as far removed from reality as any other MMO for the purposes of fun and convenience and any argument against respecing that is not based on the idea of convenience being too much past a certain level has no place here. What many, many people actually seem to be suggesting is that respecing ITSELF devalues the entire point of specs and of course the only solution to THAT problem is to allow NO ONE to respec AT ALL. We get one chance and one chance only. We don't like our spec then we reroll, yes? When patches come out that cause balance changes, well, that's just tough luck isn't it? Allowing people to change specs devalues specs and we need to maintain the integrity of our original choices, amirite? For the "immersion" folks, YOU only get to die once, then you must reroll. Now THAT is realism. Let me be the 1,000,006th person to suggest to all of you who think this way: Feel free to never respec no matter how many mistakes you make in your builds and for those deeply concerned about "immersion" feel free to reroll immediately after your character dies for the first time. At least those who choose to never respec or choose to reroll upon their characters first death will have their integrity...everyone else is arguing about how much convenience there should be... (I am not picking on you specifically, Slick. I only picked your post to quote because it was short and I was tired of reading the same arguments over and over again.)