Mods/Apps And Gear : Their Effect on the Community

Now, first of all... I sincerely hope TOR doesn't go down that WoW road of gear approach. It was terribly done. It's already been said why: every tier of gear actually makes the former worthless and if you are still on the former then you are likely to be excluded from some things. Be two tiers behind and you can completely forget about it.

I believe that is the heart of the problem. It creates artificial borderlines that are not needed. There are other ways to make people want to experience new content. To name a few: actual cool content lol, small improvements as opposed to bigger ones, more customization options or also just "cooler" looking stuff and I am sure you can come up with more.

Now since TOR has the story to back the new content I am hoping they will not make it as gear based as WoW. One can always hope.

Aldemarran wrote:

If your opinion is that gear should not determine what activities you can participate in, then I agree with you. But gearscore mods don't cause this, game mechanics controlled by Devs do.

If your opinion is that gearscore causes the superiority complex, we'll have to agree to disagree. In my opinion people use what they find; they are not used by what they find.

(...)

In any event, may we all have the best of luck finding communities we are happy in!!!

These are the parts that I fully agree on. (except that last part: aren't you already? )

It's not the mods that are the main reason for this gear elitism but the way the game unfolds. If there hadn't been gearscore (which was the case for a very long time) people would just check your gear and estimate if you were good enough. That's the exact same thing except gearscore is arguably better at doing that for you.
That means if you have "crappy" gear you will be excluded either way. No blame on gearscore here.

I see no problem with gearscore and I would put it as an informative tool strictly. It gives you nothing you couldn't figure out yourself with more time on your hands. It merely puts the pieces together for you.

Not unlike this, you cannot say the knife is at fault and not the man who used it to kill that girl in a dark alley. It's all about what we make of these tools. Unfortunately the game mechanics promote that kind of elitism, so that is what the tools are mainly being used for. You cannot blame the tools for that for that is what they are: tools.

I disagree however with you on that part where you say people will always find some way to exclude you, even if the game is set up very neatly. That is true to some extent, yes. But a majority of the people who used to tell people they are not good enough for their group will now actually play with them, if their gear is really good enough.

I don't think people do this kind of thing because they want a feeling of empowerment. They merely are not patient and understanding, as well as helpful and kind and respectful to other people enough (basically everything we promote here). They just wanna go out and clear the content instead of wiping with people whose gearscore is on average a couple of points lower.

If you absolutely want to put a label on it it would be this for me: They associate this with success (it often leads to ingame success to be fair, as obviously gear steps are too big, so it really makes a big difference...) which will get them the attention they seek. I do not believe their motives are to stand in front of other people and being able to tell them "I own you". They simply seek to have a reputation of success and be "admired" or at least known for this. They wanna see the other chars turning while they walk down the city with the shiny epics.

TL;DR: Gearscore is an informative mod and simply a tool that is absolutely not responsible for the elitism we witness. It is actually the game mechanics that cause that (in WoW those are the jumps in performance according to your gear level). People want to be the best so they look for the potentially best players. Players who are down a tier or two are therefore not even considered. It's something one has to understand too: If you want success (which is natural) your average guy won't wanna have the patience to gear the nice guy up till they can beat that encounter, they'll want to take the easy way and go with already geared up people. Most people are just not very considerate and are only looking out for themselves. /TL;DR

Which takes us back to the bad communities you often encounter in MMOs nowadays.

To sum it up, I'd say there are two things mainly responsible for this elitism: Bad community and bad game layout. Most of the times nowadays you encounter both, which makes it so hard to fight against it.
If one of the two is eliminated it makes everything a lot easier already. Sure, there will still be some guys, but WAY less than before and I'd assume that if one of those two problems is addressed correctly then the majority of the community will behave in a more considerate way. Be it because they are now a good community or because gear doesn't make THAT much a difference anymore.
Of course the perfect scenario would be both of those to be "fixed".


Just my opinion, but I am at this point rather convinced of this.

Quote :

I see no problem with gearscore and I would put it as an informative tool strictly. It gives you nothing you couldn't figure out yourself with more time on your hands. It merely puts the pieces together for you.

Not unlike this, you cannot say the knife is at fault and not the man who used it to kill that girl in a dark alley. It's all about what we make of these tools. Unfortunately the game mechanics promote that kind of elitism, so that is what the tools are mainly being used for. You cannot blame the tools for that for that is what they are: tools.

I agree and somewhat disagree...somewhat...

Gear score is only an informative tool. As you said, it tallys everything up instantly instead of you having to sit there and figure it all up on your own...this does not cause the game to break or anyone else's game to be altered in any way.

The way one's game is altered from gear score (and this is where I slightly disagree) is the way elitist asses misuse the tool and reject or ridicule other players. Game mechanics make for tough raids sometimes, that is very true. But even with hard mechanics, one can still be nice and not have to ridicule others.

So the point is, as stated above, there is nothing wrong with the tool, only the childish behavior of the clowns who misuse it. Therefor we need to lay blame where it is intended...at the jerk instead of the mod.

Grome wrote:

...
TL;DR: Gearscore is an informative mod and simply a tool that is absolutely not responsible for the elitism we witness. It is actually the game mechanics that cause that (in WoW those are the jumps in performance according to your gear level). People want to be the best so they look for the potentially best players. Players who are down a tier or two are therefore not even considered. It's something one has to understand too: If you want success (which is natural) your average guy won't wanna have the patience to gear the nice guy up till they can beat that encounter, they'll want to take the easy way and go with already geared up people. Most people are just not very considerate and are only looking out for themselves. /TL;DR

Which takes us back to the bad communities you often encounter in MMOs nowadays.

To sum it up, I'd say there are two things mainly responsible for this elitism: Bad community and bad game layout. Most of the times nowadays you encounter both, which makes it so hard to fight against it.
If one of the two is eliminated it makes everything a lot easier already. Sure, there will still be some guys, but WAY less than before and I'd assume that if one of those two problems is addressed correctly then the majority of the community will behave in a more considerate way. Be it because they are now a good community or because gear doesn't make THAT much a difference anymore.
Of course the perfect scenario would be both of those to be "fixed".


Just my opinion, but I am at this point rather convinced of this.

I'm sure you are right in at least some cases regarding the laziness. Game layout must surely exacerbate this problem. Let us assume you are right across the board for the moment. What I found (back before gearscore in Vanilla WoW) was that people tended to join a guild, hang out as long as they were getting upgrades (3-6 months before they "caught up" usually), then start some drama over what was wrong with the guild or raid and leave. I analyzed their drama repeatedly. In nearly every case it came down to "I am not getting the loot as fast as I think I should so something must be wrong. Here's what I think is wrong...". I watched a guild gear 3 raids worth of people and still not be able to move beyond the first tier of content. And I know it happened to guilds on that server.

TL;DR
I've reached the point where, whether the motivation is Ego or Laziness, I'd at least like to know about it before I invest a lot of my time into people. Their reaction to Gearscore is one way of weeding them out early.

Circling back to the thread title once more. My bias or the belief that I am deeply convinced of is that blaming the tool never really solves a problem. And the game, like the mods & apps, is just a tool for having fun. Hence I am convinced that the gaming community is what must change or the people conflicts will find a way to destroy fun. Hence I am here on these forums

Coldhart wrote:

The way one's game is altered from gear score (and this is where I slightly disagree) is the way elitist asses misuse the tool and reject or ridicule other players.

To be fair, I never really experienced the effects of Gearscore ingame. I quit WoW at the end of BC - when exactly did GS jump in?

So I have not actually seen people ridicule others based on gearscore numbers. I didn't expect something like this, as it was not like that before and people could just have said things like "omg T4 what a noob you should really quit". It's true though that GS makes the ridiculing a little more accessible - but I would figure it wouldn't make that much a difference?

I like Actionbar mods, and such, cosmetic things really. But I used all the performance mods, because I had to in a Hardcore guild.

My objections to GS are the same ones I have for Real Money Transfer:
Benefit in the game world should come from within the game world.
Elitism should be discouraged; fairness should be encouraged.

Do your own thing. When that forces others to change it's no longer your own thing.

Beyond those I'm a mellow guy.

The first problem is the design which sets up the issue. If that particular design is unchangeable, then the problem is the player route to deal with the design.

It will be interesting to see how TOR designs their systems.

Quote :

To be fair, I never really experienced the effects of Gearscore ingame. I quit WoW at the end of BC - when exactly did GS jump in?

It came out some time after lich king...can't really remember exactly when.

Coldhart wrote:

Quote :

To be fair, I never really experienced the effects of Gearscore ingame. I quit WoW at the end of BC - when exactly did GS jump in?

It came out some time after lich king...can't really remember exactly when.

Around Patch 3.2 on Skullcrusher at least.

Stryklone wrote:

My objections to GS are the same ones I have for Real Money Transfer:
Benefit in the game world should come from within the game world.
Elitism should be discouraged; fairness should be encouraged.

Do your own thing. When that forces others to change it's no longer your own thing.

Beyond those I'm a mellow guy.

The first problem is the design which sets up the issue. If that particular design is unchangeable, then the problem is the player route to deal with the design.

It will be interesting to see how TOR designs their systems.

I understand your point. But still: I would not compare GS with RMT at all. Can you explain in what way GS does not come from within the game world? I feel this is where I don't get your reasoning. (After all it just takes a look at your items and evaluates them according to a set of formulas)

Yes, elitism should indeed be discouraged but that is not the task of the mods but either the people or the game.

Grome wrote:

I understand your point. But still: I would not compare GS with RMT at all. Can you explain in what way GS does not come from within the game world? I feel this is where I don't get your reasoning. (After all it just takes a look at your items and evaluates them according to a set of formulas)

Not trying to be facetious here, just trying to describe succinctly: When the all-powerful Wizard is shown to be just a man pulling levers behind a curtain, he's not from the fantasy realm of Oz where witches fly on brooms and brainless scarecrows dance.

Here's one end of the game combat info spectrum: Your character casts a Stun. If it works, you see the target stop moving.
Here's the other end of the same spectrum: Every player knows all damage, all resistances, percentages to hit, percentages to crit, morale modifiers and results, plus the AI coding along with all formulae, variables and expressions for all mobs.

Both ends only give information. Both ends are extremes. The effect on gaming is vastly different. My preference is to stop very close toward the "know numerical damage" only point. Other people see it differently. They can get their joy from numbers and I will be sincerely glad they are enjoying themselves ... until I'm forced to abide by their choice.

The game I played the most was D&D pen and paper, and wrote some of the rules and descriptions for the AD&D 2nd Ed. The Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual was designed for gamemaster use but of course there was no way to keep it restricted from players. However, in my experience when the players adjusted in the combat from what they knew in previous encounters and from observation, there was an excitement and fun not possible from looking in the book for the info. They had combats many still remember a few decades later.

Quote :

Yes, elitism should indeed be discouraged but that is not the task of the mods but either the people or the game.

In SWG the devs gave a Christmas season present of a Holocron to each character. It aided people working toward Jedi. In January, the devs complained too many people were working toward Jedi!
The intent may be nice but in the end it's the effect which counts.

Anyway, that's my reasoning for my actions and others are certainly welcome to their own.



TL;DR: Asparagus and Aspertame are the answers to the Mayan mysteries.

Quote :

They can get their joy from numbers and I will be sincerely glad they are enjoying themselves ... until I'm forced to abide by their choice.

I'm failing to understand how GS is going to change the way you play at all. How can it? It's not going to make you have to fight any differently. Only the people using it can by telling you things like "your gear score sucks so you can't come" or "your gear score is awesome. You can come with us any time", etc, etc. And if this is the change in play for you that you are talking about, then again, it is not the mod. It's the morons misusing it.

]

I'd like to point out, about gearscore, that a group of raiders defeated Yog-Saron in full blues to prove skill matters more then gear.

It is a tool to use to help make an evaluation but you should ignore the magic number of their item level combined, this is not indicative of how well they play. You still should either know them if possible, or inspect them to see how they gem and spec.

I don't use the mod at all, I go based off faith and a willingness to give someone a shot. Gearscore cannot calculate all the little things that go into being a good player, like being able to manage raid mechanics.

A 6.4k Gearscore character is no good to me if they're dead or iceblocks the entire freaking raid or cause us to wipe because they're above us.

Specially since you can ebay your bloody gearscore, and obtaining a half decent GS is easier then pie with all the hand outs wow gives (not saying it's bad, just that is it VERY easy to obtain good gear.)

I particularly enjoy confounding gearscore addicts when I perform way above my given item level, where they see me as being at.

Gearscore, for me, is a mod no one really needs and really should not be defended, as I feel it goes beyond simple misuse and is ruining the communities of the game. People got a long before it came out by *gasp* actually playing with people to see how good they were!! Making a community instead of isolated islands of guilds, staring at your gear instead of YOU.

Coldhart wrote:

And if this is the change in play for you that you are talking about, then again, it is not the mod. It's the morons misusing it.

I understand you blame the ones who misuse it. I look at the effect, the end result.

Was it the calm water which kept the iceberg from being seen? The moonless night? Was it the captain's fault? The company wanting a record speed? Rivets instead of welds? Not designing enough watertight compartments?

I'm not looking about for who or what caused the shipwreck. Whatever the reason, there are people in the water.

So you blame GS for the people's faults. I'm sorry but that's not an arguement about mods being ok or not. The mod works as intended, an informative mod, nothing more. It's not the fault of the mod that people treat others poorly.

Stryklone wrote:

Coldhart wrote:

And if this is the change in play for you that you are talking about, then again, it is not the mod. It's the morons misusing it.

I understand you blame the ones who misuse it. I look at the effect, the end result.

Was it the calm water which kept the iceberg from being seen? The moonless night? Was it the captain's fault? The company wanting a record speed? Rivets instead of welds? Not designing enough watertight compartments?

I'm not looking about for who or what caused the shipwreck. Whatever the reason, there are people in the water.

To pull out a cliche, "The ends do not justify the means." Forcing people to use Viking Longboats because they are proven to work in icy climates is not a valid means of resolving the problem. It may solve the iceberg problem, but it will re-create the problems taller, deeper ships were designed to solve. You may resolve the elitism problem, but you create further problems in preparing raids and diagnosing failures.

I don't think we have the right to tell other people whom they have to play with or what reasons they have to have to play or not play with someone. What we have the right to do is gather with those who are like-minded. And the GS elitists don't have the right to tell us to play only with people who have similar GS for the same reason we don't have the right to force them to play with people of different GS.

I find myself dangerously close to repeating myself here. This leads me to suspect this is something where we are just going to have to disagree.

Coldhart wrote:

So you blame GS for the people's faults. I'm sorry but that's not an arguement about mods being ok or not. The mod works as intended, an informative mod, nothing more. It's not the fault of the mod that people treat others poorly.

We all admit there are problems with it. How does your insistence to place blame fix those problems? It doesn't. Problem fixing in a game, from whatever source, is a game company responsibility.

Stryklone wrote:

We all admit there are problems with it. How does your insistence to place blame fix those problems? It doesn't. Problem fixing in a game, from whatever source, is a game company responsibility.

We are discussing it. Obviously we cannot fix it. (Not in WoW anyways)

Aldemarran wrote:

To pull out a cliche, "The ends do not justify the means." {...} I don't think we have the right to tell other people whom they have to play with or what reasons they have to have to play or not play with someone.

Exactly my points.

We can agree to disagree. All points raised on both sides have been raised more than once; there's no need for me to post again.

Certainly SWTOR is aware of the controversy which is why seeing how they approach it will be interesting.

Stryklone wrote:

Aldemarran wrote:

To pull out a cliche, "The ends do not justify the means." {...} I don't think we have the right to tell other people whom they have to play with or what reasons they have to have to play or not play with someone.

Exactly my points.

We can agree to disagree. All points raised on both sides have been raised more than once; there's no need for me to post again.

Certainly SWTOR is aware of the controversy which is why seeing how they approach it will be interesting.

I would not agree that those are your points. In fact I would categorize this as you "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel."

In attempting to remove tools from the hands of Elitists (and from everyone else as collateral damage) you are attempting to control how they behave. We stated the mod was not the problem, you stated that the cause was irrelevant.

Stryklone wrote:

...I understand you blame the ones who misuse it. I look at the effect, the end result.
...

At the point that you don't care whether the behavior or the mod is at fault, I have to say that you are willing if not deliberately trying to control the behavior of other players at the expense of anyone else. This is where I have a distinct difference of opinion.

Such passion in this Topic!

Great opinions all....I can tell that this is a sore subject among more than just a couple of RiGers...

I really hope that SWToR "Gets it right"...

Quote :

How does your insistence to place blame fix those problems?

WoW. I didn't realize I was the one insisting or laying blame on anything. My whole point from the beginning was that GS was an informative mod, nothing more. It will not physically make a person play better or worse. You are the one sir, who is insisting that it's basically a game breaking mod.

Please do not put words or paraphrases into my mouth.

A proper way to use GS...

I have always been the raid leader in almost every guild I've been in. Mainly because I look at facts and love to see stats and I take the time to look at other people's strats and try to include those ideas into our own strats. Basically I try to make the raid go as smooth as posible for everyone as a whole.

I usually don't even bother looking at GS until we already have the group together for the raid (Our raids always went by sign-ups on the raid schedule). Once we have a game plan, I would then usually look at the group GS (This includes everyone, both singled out and the group's average score). We usually have several different strats that we would use for each boss encounter. By knowing the gear score, I could determine which strat might work best. I would also know if we may be too weak to go up against certain bosses. If I felt we were too weak as a whole, I would inform everyone that we may have problems getting past "X" boss and I would leave it up to them wether we try or not (most of the time we tried anyway).

Note: I did not exclude anyone from coming with us on the raid. I did not point out anyone's gear score numbers (high or low). I did not make anyone feel like they didn't belong. And wether we took that hard boss down or not, you better believe we all had fun no matter what. But what helped bring about our fun was GS. If I had not used it, we may have tried a harder strat and wiped several times. Noone likes to keep wiping over and over again. It takes the fun out of the game. So in a way GS was just as much a tool to garantee our fun as it was a tool for getting the job done. And some may say that wiping and learning on your own is part of the fun. I agree when you're still trying to figure out a new boss. But when you're fighting something for the umpteen bazillionth time and you have people who do not try to find out what to do for themselves, then it falls on the shoulders of the raid leaders to make it good. People who don't understand this have never had to lead 25 to 40 or more people through a raid that could take 4 to 6 hours in one night.

This is what GS was made for. And in it's intended form, it can be great. But when people misuse it, it can have very devistating effects.

And as everyone's stated, we're definitely repeating ourselves. So I bid this thread farewell. Everyone is different in what we like and want in a game and in RL and as I posted in another thread (Funny haha coming...) Opinions are like a$$holes (<--Selven Profanity Filter Activated (tm)). Everyone has one, but some stink more than others...Schwen, go wash that thing man! >.<

Man how did all these posts on mods lead this far? Honestly, I don't even care if they allow mods or not. I just wanna have fun..."Girls"...er..."Guys...We just wanna...we just wannaaaaa. Guys just wanna have fun! Ok, girls do too

Kind of funny you are actually agreeing on the problem, just not the sentence.

Coldhart wrote:

Quote :

How does your insistence to place blame fix those problems?

WoW. I didn't realize I was the one insisting or laying blame on anything. My whole point from the beginning was that GS was an informative mod, nothing more. It will not physically make a person play better or worse. You are the one sir, who is insisting that it's basically a game breaking mod. [...]

Government banned books for less than that.

There are misconceptions to my position I don't wish to last forever, so pardon the encore for that purpose.

Coldhart wrote:

Quote :

How does your insistence to place blame fix those problems?

WoW. I didn't realize I was the one insisting or laying blame on anything. My whole point from the beginning was that GS was an informative mod, nothing more. It will not physically make a person play better or worse. You are the one sir, who is insisting that it's basically a game breaking mod.

Please do not put words or paraphrases into my mouth.

I certainly don't want to put words or paraphrases in Coldhart's mouth. I gather from his comment he took mentioning "blame" as a condemnation of himself? It is not a personal slight. I apologize to him if my sentence came across that way. The blame has to do with mods or people being responsible for misuse of Gear Score. These are the words used from his thread posts as the basis for my comment, nothing else:
- "Then it's not the mods you're dealing with. It's someone saying that you're better than this person."
- "But like I posted earlier...it's not the gear score mod causing the problem...it's the people missusing it and being asses to other people."
- "And if this is the change in play for you that you are talking about, then again, it is not the mod. It's the morons misusing it."
- "So the point is, as stated above, there is nothing wrong with the tool, only the childish behavior of the clowns who misuse it. Therefor we need to lay blame where it is intended...at the jerk instead of the mod."

Hopefully that misconception is now cleared up.

I also don't want word put into my mouth, especially the accusations that I'm trying to stop other people from playing a game how they wish. In fact, I am strongly against anyone being told how to play the game how someone else wishes. Coldhart and others are also strongly against being told that, and that speaks well of their integrity which I do not question.

Since they don't feel GS interferes with the gameplay of others, their integrity and wish for fair play is intact and laudable.
Since I do feel GS interferes with the gameplay of others, I am against it with the same integrity and wish for fair play.

Now, using my own words, someone may think me (a) an idiot (b) insane (c) crazy (d) all of the above for having my opinion that it interferes. They are welcome to have their opinion of my opinion.

I just want to make sure it isn't misconstrued. I'll say it again:
I am strongly against anyone being told how to play the game how someone else wishes.

We have the same wish but different perceptions of where the threat is. It is perfectly fine to disagree on that point.
We both are against - and rightfully so - against anyone being told how to play the game how someone else wishes.

Lastly, I'm not trying to change any existing game like WoW. If the devs hadn't wanted big mods in their game they wouldn't have allowed them. I'm not playing any MMO at the moment, knock yourselves out. I'm not even trying to change any future game like SWTOR (with that game 3 years in development even before the forums opened, things like the Wizard name we might influence ... the big stuff we don't have a chance. Again, just my own opinion, yours is welcome to vary). I only express my hope for what I want or don't want in a game I'd like to play.

However, opening my own mouth seems to cause a firestorm so I'll cease that here. The rest of this post is composed from the words of others. I agree with them. Anyone is welcome to disagree. Have a wonderful new week, everyone! My Mod/Apps Effect on the Community? posts are ended.
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"First let me say I like UI mods. I like being able to set up my screen exactly how I want it. And love macros, being able to combine two or more buttons into one reduces the clutter on my screen.

However, I don't like other mods. The damage meter was the death of cooperative game play. Suddenly it wasn't about doing a clean run of a dungeon with no-one dying. Suddenly it was about whose name was at the top of the damage meter." - Godric_Barbarosa
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"Mods can be useful, but there are some mods that push the boundaries of what you should be allowed to get away with.

Also as said, some mods get a bad rap because people misuse them.

Best examples are DPS meters and Gear Score." - Kai-Sun
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"The problem is, their are Mods, and then their are Mods.

Some simply help you play a game, others are so assisting as to take away any need of skill or thought process from the player, others CAN be game breaking." - Ty-Odi
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"It's a tool used to create castes. Rejecting certain people simply because they don't fit the metric. It cause rejection, exclusion and piss off nice people when they realize they were used by a soon-to-be Gearscore addict so he can reach that "caste" level. But Gearscore exist only because the game focus on gear level to complete content and it is used that way because people are selfish and greedy...

Although, while I hate them. I don't mind if people use them and I have no problem with UI mods that simply re-arrange, re-skin or simplify access to already available information." - Azarhal
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"Damage meters however have introduced to the game the factor of perfection. People had an easier job to tell what they had to do to maximize their 'utility'.

As it catches on, the developer has to react and adjust difficulty for encounters and such. They need to provide challenges after all. Therefore damage meters have generally raised the difficulty and thus we end up with the same situation as before without actually taking a big net benefit with us.

There is quite the negative effect actually: It raises the pressure on everyone because these tools define the player and how he's supposed to play. Even if you don't want to use it and find like-minded people you will probably have a difficult time doing so because the encounters are designed to fight "stronger", "more perfect" groups.

We end up in a world where people favor a "strong" guy over a nice one. It almost makes me think it's directly related to why the community as a whole is in such a bad place." - Grome
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"It's all about the numbers, disgusting. I see it as the main catalyst for WoW's cesspool, which naturally flows over to other titles through the effect on the community it has. So wether we like it or not, we'll feel it in SW:TOR." - Sylrah
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"If and when this game hits that wall of feeling like a gear grind over that 'I am having fun' it will be the beginning of the end for me, at least as far as PVP and Raiding are concerned. I will take part in them, and likely enjoy them for the most part, but if i keep getting those messages i got in WoW which tell me I cannot take part because my gear score is too low.....then I will slowly loose interest, I did in WoW as well, so I am sure this will be no different.

Gear treadmills suck, they stop people from actually playing the game, and it removes the 'Fun Factor' for me.

As do any Mods which promote this elitism." - Ty-Odi
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"Gearscore, for me, is a mod no one really needs and really should not be defended, as I feel it goes beyond simple misuse and is ruining the communities of the game."- Kai-Sun
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"I believe that is the heart of the problem. It creates artificial borderlines that are not needed. There are other ways to make people want to experience new content. To name a few: actual cool content lol, small improvements as opposed to bigger ones, more customization options or also just "cooler" looking stuff and I am sure you can come up with more.

Now since TOR has the story to back the new content I am hoping they will not make it as gear based as WoW. One can always hope." - Grome
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TL;DR: My arms aren't tired because I carry a light saber.

Wow....what a heated discussion.
To the people saying GS and DPS meters are just informative tools and we must blame those who misuse them: this is correct. Indeed these mods do no harm if used properly. But going back to the analogy with the guns. Gun doesn't fire by itself and is just a piece of metal. Yet in many, many countries around the world guns are prohibited. The reason is, the authorities are 100% sure somebody will use them inappropriately, no matter what. I think the same goes with these addons.