Original Post — Direct link
I have heard Steven say this number of times that this games gives "no participation trophy". You have to "earn" your rewards in the game. This is great and I am all for this.

However I have also seen Steven claims (indirectly) that if players excludes other players from their group for number of reasons such as poor performance (lack of dps etc), then that's a toxic behavior.

Is he not contradicting himself here? The idea of "No participation trophy" means you have to measure other people's performance. If you have a flying mount then you have put in the time and effort to do it and the flying mount is the measure.

So why can't player measures each others performance? Why is that toxic?
over 4 years ago - StevenSharif - Direct link
Hello! The toxicity I am referring to for the meters does not contradict the participation trophy philosophy for the following reasons;

IMO when you choose to exclude someone due to their performance or build (which happens often, not always) you are choosing the easiest path to success. This path is more easily available to groups that parse combat data through dps meters.

The desire to obfuscate (or make less prevalent by not offering this feature) so that groups are encouraged to grow together and help one another become better by more old school/organic methods of trial and error, efforts in watching other people during the raid, by failing repeatedly until success is possible. Now, could people use meters to aid in this task? Yes, but in my experience it isn’t used in this way..more often it is an exclusionary tool designed to separate players.

So to conclude,

My stance on participation trophies is that things should be hard, people should fail, the bitter taste of defeat is what makes success that much more rewarding. Helping other players learn encounter strategy, and fine tuning their play style for high end content is an important part of eliminating participation trophy. Growing together is a good thing, and that includes failing together as a means to drive for success together.

My stance on dps meters, these help automate the encounter, provide an easier way to complete content, creates less failures by eliminating the less experienced or less optimized players, defeat becomes less bitter tasting because it is experienced less often, and the reward is now glancing at a chart and eliminating the lesser players.


I’ve given my opinion and decision on the meters discussion and have read the opposing and supporting arguments. Hope those who disagree can understand the decision. If not, that’s ok too! ❤️