I’ve never understood how this is supposed to be less toxic, because it seems like it would just lead to people getting kicked from groups without even knowing why they’re being kicked and I don’t see how that’s any better.
Wouldn’t it just widen the gap between those “in the know” and those who aren’t? Is “people keep kicking me and they won’t tell me why” better than “people keep kicking me for low dps?”
One of the reasons is because they have seen many in communities like this one misuse it and they dont want it in their game. FF has always disallowed access to their API. I played it just fine without a meter. However, the difference between that game and this one, is that FF doesnt have anywhere NEAR the level of RNG that this one does. On single corruption can easily double your DPS in this game. So much is left up to chance, when if FF, its not. Sure a little is there, absically whether it drops what you need or not, but it doesnt have the stupid systems this game has, therefore, there is no need for something like a damage meter there.
The dont want people using them, and have stated if you are caught using them, then its a ban. Can either play by the rules, break the rules and risk it, or not play at all.
Sounds like you want a different game since damage meters have been in the game since Vanilla.
I think it’d be fine, as long as they punished people trying to go around it or made it so people couldn’t do any sort of logging. The community clearly cannot be trusted with the information without making the game a worse place toxicity wise. Especially to new players. FF defeinitely does fine without. Some of FF’s rules in regards to kicking would also be nice.
There is a solo area in the game where you can measure your DPS.
I honestly don’t stress about DPS meters. Ever. I tank though, so I only care to control the mobs, keep the people alive, save the healer, stuff like that.
Because of that, and knowing how target focused everyone is, it always amuses me to no end when a friend touts their DPS…because I taunted off the healer, who kept them alive, rounded up a ton of mobs in a perfect line for their eye beam.
Lol, it was all you buddy and the Dps meter proves it!! 
At the most basic level I’d stress more since I would have no way of knowing if I’m doing well. If I hop on any dps alt and I do what I perceive as acceptable damage relative to the gear I have on then I’m cool. If I do what I perceive as s…bad damage then I’ll say “ok, I’m trash, let me find out what I’m doing wrong”.
Then of course there is “I ded, what killed me” did I receive healing in that time, was it avoidable damage? what was the nature of the damage (fire, shadow, physical, nature) do I have anything to mitigate such effects?
If Blizz broke damage meters and there was no possible way for me to gauge my performance or to acquire information in an easily readable format (I worded it this way in case someone says look at combat log kek) and I continued to do content where I’d be concerned with such things I’d probably just be trash and not care 
www.fflogs. com/zone/rankings/29#boss=65&metric=dps
Do they tho?
No because certain issues lie within healing/dps meaning if we had no meters we wouldn’t be able to see who is not cutting it thus causing the group to fail. there is ONLY so much others can do to carry the weakest link at some point people need to pull their weight to down content.
it would make things more stressful imo. the problem isn’t with the meters it’s with people not willing to learn. you want to be good in the game? you need to put in time and effort into learning instead of just relying on basic guides online.
talk to other players see what they know and learn from them and make mistakes thats how you learn. EXPERIMENT as well.
this is why you got ignorant people thinking X spec/class sucks for Y content. they don’t suck they just are usually under respresented and compared to the other specs yes they do less damage or w.e. but they are more then viable enough to clear the content you are doing unless pushing hardcore content like extremely high keys and all that.
this isn’t the type of game you mash buttons and hope things die fast. when i used to play frost back in Tier 1 of BfA i was topping this other mage in terms of damage/parses and he had better gear then me and same spec and similar skill set. difference was he was using a generic rotation where as me i didn’t use that rotation i used w.e. i felt was most comfortable after experimenting with it and the generic rotation. difference was it had higher burst but slowed down on stability the other had lower burst but stable damage for long term fights.
I absolutely agree with you. I never use the meters to shame people. If I’m dpsing I use it to see what I can do better. When I’m healing I like to look at it and be like “oh damn that boomkin is doing a lot of dps let me see if he has logs to look at and see how I can do better.”
Oh yea. This game is built for those that love to crunch the numbers. Even though I think it’s a bit out of hand now.
As someone who stopped using recount a couple years ago, the game is vastly more enjoyable not having to worry about some arbitrary epeen meter. I also perform way better not stressing out about a number in a video game. I’ve probably downloaded the add on 3 times since I stopped using it and promptly disable it after a day because the amount of stress it adds is very apparent almost immediately.
I don’t raid mythic and only PuG heroic occasionally, so it really doesn’t matter. If my dps is crap I’ll get kicked, which I haven’t ever been so I’d wager my dps is just fine. I don’t care about improving beyond what my common sense tells me when I make a screw up. If we hit a dps wall in a fight, I kick in my “do better” mode. I don’t let a number tell me what to do. So yeah.
Hate damage meters, always have always will
Without damage meters you only have a health bar to gauge how quick a bosses HP is going down and that is at a group level… thus the meta would shift from individual performance to group performance.
Edit: Stuff like oh it took us 20 seconds longer to kill we need to work on our damage throughput guys.
Or: we wiped because we spent 15 seconds longer in phase 3 come on guys we need balls out BD dps on this phase.
It is no longer identifiable “you as an individual are not doing your part to the group success”… it becomes purely group success.
I feel that while analytical tools are a good thing, its gotten to a point where people are mainly using them to segregate the community into their small clicks of “awesome” or, so they think.
You raise a good point, but to counter, I would like to add that the ability for a human to use resources given to them and make solutions based upon personal hypothesis can all be done without addons, this is what separates the meek from the successful.
All that certain addons did was remove the ability for the human player to exercise their brain to remember things when a computer does all the work for you, are you just ultimately playing on a glorified calculator as opposed to honing one’s mental strengths?
Nah ppl would just figure out a way to identify the weak link.
This is all assuming Blizzard completely redesigns their game and we can’t log anymore.
It would be, “ok we all go to this world quest mob that has a ton of health and 1 by 1 dps it down see who is slow”
There would also be a lot more witch hunting and bickering, flaming and shaming in general.
“I saw Bob launch a chaos bolt at the wrong target”
Bob: “no I didn’t it was Steve”
Blah blah blah.
Damage meters so much more simple. Can just look and see, and appropriately call ppl out when necessary.
or general discussion. zing! 
“Hey why did we all wipe.”
“Well the boss used lightning and then we entered the ddr phase and…”
“No, I mean blame. Who do we blame?”
“Ohh, well lets look at the parse I guess.”
How are you with horror stories? Here is one that will terrify your tiny elite hearts.
[We have hearts? Wut?]
In FF I was in some raid-like content in that it had several bosses in succession each with different mechanics that could absolutely not be face tanked.
[Pfft whatevs noobs]
It was learn or burn.
[OoOoOhhhh]
And we burned quite a few times. But when we did, did we have some hysterical meter maid shouting for kicks and declaring heresies of “low performance?”
[Yaaaasss!]
As it happens we didn’t.
[WHAT!]
When we went under, some of the people who knew what to do went over it, even showed people where to stand. they talked about what to look for, what icons meant what buffs on the bosses did.
[NOOOOoo!! Not my job!! Never!]
Now its true, one could have fit many WoW style cursing tirades and their accompanying rage quits into the space of time that took.
[Rassin frassin right!]
But since nobody really has the option of bursting into tears about dps numbers, the community adapted by trying to make their groups better.
[Terrible idea! Very bad!]
We did learn and made it through the encounter. And the next time through, I was one of those who knew what to do helping people figure out what to do in the DDR phase.
[No learning!!! No learning!]
There were some ghostings, some nonconstructive input. However, I think overall when the option of shaming is plucked from the grasping hand, it produces a better over-all community and raises the general level of skill and attention.
[I shouldn’t have to! I don’t want to! Not in MY groups!]
But, when you can just single people out and dump them into a refuse pile of players non-grata, it can be tempting to wonder why there are so many bad players.
Yep~ Just log in there, target someone for their logs, and then see how long your account lasts. I do think they should be punishing the people that made that website along with the people uploading logs there too though. 
I mean if you log in game and start flaming someone for their logs sure u would get banned.
This doesn’t mean “FFXIV does fine with no logs”
The people there absolutely log their stuff, and they likely just flame you in discord in instead if your dps is garbage.
So sick of ppl pretending like FFXIV is this virtuous game where they are better than the dirty elitists playing wow.
They do the same crap, just look at the website, it’s literally made by the same people who made warcraftlogs. Same format and ui and everything.