The Real Problem with Parsers

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Originally Posted by Attarik

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Parsers are not always used to belittle others over insignificant dips in DPS. Parsers are used to calculate all readouts of damage, how much damage is being done during certain phases or the course of a fight, and all sorts of objective information that provide further insight to how an encounter went. They are used to gauge where players are in regards to the amount of damage they do, and provide evidence on whether those numbers are fine or could be improved on. If someone has a parser and abuses it to harass others, we already have the means to deal with those people. Should SE implement an official parser, there would arguably be little difference in how parser abuse would be handled.

Despite the fact that tools can be abused, the fact remains that the benefits outweigh the negatives, especially against embellished claims how parsers are always used to belittle and exclude people over minimal DPS dips.

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Originally Posted by SlyRoyale

char limit.

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So, they're not used to exclude others based on dps drops, they're just used to exclude players who don't do the dps you think they should. Wonderful.

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Originally Posted by Attarik

So, they're not used to exclude others based on dps drops, they're just used to exclude players who don't do the dps you think they should. Wonderful.

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I have not said anything along those lines. All I explicitly stated was that parsers are used to calculate DPS and provide evidence to support those calculations, and such boons are more valuable than the exaggerated fears against the tool. Anyone who abuses that information should be dealt with appropriately through harassment reports. Please do not twist my words around to fit your fear mongering anti-parser agenda if you want your stance on the matter to be taken seriously. All you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Heck, when battling the enrage we had to look at what a class is doing at X point because we could know who was slacking

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Okay, and here's what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying it's not useful to have the information at all. I just do not understand why it's inherently more useful at the time of, when you won't really be able to do much of anything about it until after the wipe. If you can get a breakdown of the fight after you've wiped, getting the same information as you would have during the fight, and now have the time to actually look at the data and talk to whoever it was that was slacking and make suggestions, why would it matter much if you saw it during the fight or after?

If your DRG is 200 DPS lower than they should be, which, for argument's sake, is definitely going to lead to a wipe because it's just too low, why does it matter whether you see that before you wipe or after? How often could you actually save a wipe by pointing out that the DRG is too low and they manage to pick up and make up for what they lost when you've already spent X amount of time being too low, as compared to you having to go another try but this time talking to the DRG beforehand?

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Not to mention countless times we've wiped and looked into the healing/tanking side of things and found out what wiped us, who was slacking with CDs, and how to fix that with new CD timelines or an altered strat.

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Which you would have generally looked into after the wipe, no?

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you believe that info shouldn't be given to others unless they want it.

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I believe that the information shouldn't be default available to everybody in every form of content. You don't need to know somebody's DPS in Fractal or Neverreap or a vast majority of dungeons because you're unlikely to wipe due to DPS. The worst that's going to happen is it's going to take a bit longer.

I do agree that there IS some content where knowledge of party contribution IS a big deal. It's a minority of the content in the game, though, and with optional sharing of information, you can limit when other people can see your output to the content where it actually matters if you want, and the people who fear that parsers will cause elitism don't have to worry when they queue for a dungeon that someone's going to look at their DPS and mock them because they can keep theirs private for that.

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Originally Posted by Sidra

Your core belief is simply that it's a change that would create animosity from certain players to others. And that outweighs any potential usefulness in your mind.

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No it isn't.

My core belief is that in a majority of the content in the game, such as dungeons and story trials, knowing how much DPS the rest of your party is doing is not a huge enough issue unless EVERYBODY is low, because there's little outside of EX trials and raids that will wipe you for not meeting a strict DPS check. In content like raids and EX trials, where you actually do have strict DPS checks, yes, I agree that being able to see what your party's putting out is useful and important. I disagree that it's important enough in anything outside that.

Which is why I don't think a forced-visible party parse is the way to go. By letting people choose when to share it, they can choose not to share it in unimportant content if they wish because it's unimportant, and show it in high end content where it IS important enough.

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real time parse data isn't useful just seems silly - it most definitely is. I don't even think that's debatable.

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Okay, so how is being able to see that someone's DPS is low 4 minutes into the fight more useful than seeing that it was low after a wipe due to low DPS? If it's not debatable, it should be easy to answer that.

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Originally Posted by Erim-Nelhah

That would work....but I don't think you realize quite how much data that is if it isn't already being stored by the client, which means that you have to hope that they allow each client to store parse data for all party members, just not show it unless allowed to by said party members. Otherwise they likely wouldn't allow you to see full parse data for others unless it's pre-shared.

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Well, I mean, the data's already being shared between people now and essentially being stored in your chat. Effectively, an in-game parser, from the way I understand parsers, and I may be wrong because I've not exactly created one, would essentially be your combat log organized into specific people and sorted to a readable state with math pre-done for you when it comes to things like DPS calculations. The data is already "stored" in your chat log, it's just not in an organized state. Sharing the parse would essentially just be allowing your group's parse windows to put the already-stored data into a readable state.

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

Maybe you shouldn't try to speak for other people after how the whole "I'm gonna make up SE's position" debacle went.

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I didn't make up anything. I repeated things that I've seen from other places. If you want to crap on someone for "making up SE's position", go talk to them. Also, start crapping on people who make up what others are saying when they're quoting things that clearly contradict it. I suggest starting with Elazu who keeps saying people who are good are all elitists.

Also, you shouldn't be the one acting smarmy over it when you didn't come up with the argument.

This is what you said:

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

I don't have to claim that. The pro-parser side already proves it by saying that they'd totally take people to task over low DPS even in content that doesn't have DPS checks at all. Regardless, that's not my claim. That's SE's fear. It's irrelevant if I make that claim because you still have to prove SE wrong. If I stayed out of this thread completely? Yeah, SE would still think the same thing.

Who says it's unneeded? Remember, SE already has the stance that they don't want people to turn into mouthy jerks if they let them talk about others' DPS. If you want to try to help get parsers, you've got to somehow convince them that they're wrong. Which means dispute is absolutely needed.

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You were leaning pretty hard on it being a dev position.

And then many posts after this was disproved you pulled back to the whole I'm-just-going-off-what-I-heard (which doesn't make it better, btw, you shouldn't be spreading that kind of stuff around based on unsourced rumors you heard on the forums). Pretty much every time your position turns out to be provably wrong, you just abandon it and pretend you never actually argued it. And then if someone asks you to clarify your position you just insult their reading comprehension. It's getting old.

I'm also not sure what you mean by your last sentence.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Not my fault if you can't come up with objective benefits.

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I gave you the objective benefits back at page 47 and 49 and discussed it with you on page 48 in detail about the post on page 47 in particular. Your only source of "defense" was your "anti-jerk stance", which you came with "personal parsers" which I elaborated that personal parsers would be far more jerk-prone than public parsers on page 48 as well.

I gave you objective benefits: Beneficial for the majority of a group who have a common goal. Your only reasoning so far that's against this kind of benefit are "people are jerks". I reacted to you that your kind of thinking would cater to the jerks you're so "anti-jerk" about, making entire communities bow down to those who you supposedly despise or even fear so much.

I haven't really read those 53 so I guess my post must be random right now.

The only thing I honestly see SE doing is adding a damage/healing points counter tab with not that much detail outside of the current combat log. Something similar to PvP end results but it's an actual live feed. I think it would be nice if there was an option to view the best record for every instance on the most damage done by each job as well as damage taken/mitigated and total healed/restored points (not overhealed)

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Originally Posted by Attarik

So, they're not used to exclude others based on dps drops, they're just used to exclude players who don't do the dps you think they should. Wonderful.

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This again.

If a tank or healer is not doing their job, causing your party to be unable to beat the content they'd be called out on it and replaced. Why is it fine for a dps to hold people back? I take it the anti-parser crowd still has no answer for this question?

A DPS who makes it impossible to beat certain content should absolutely be replaced, just like a tank or healer. They don't deserve a free pass just because they play a dps job.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Okay, and here's what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying it's not useful to have the information at all. I just do not understand why it's inherently more useful at the time of, when you won't really be able to do much of anything about it until after the wipe. If you can get a breakdown of the fight after you've wiped, getting the same information as you would have during the fight, and now have the time to actually look at the data and talk to whoever it was that was slacking and make suggestions, why would it matter much if you saw it during the fight or after?

If your DRG is 200 DPS lower than they should be, which, for argument's sake, is definitely going to lead to a wipe because it's just too low, why does it matter whether you see that before you wipe or after? How often could you actually save a wipe by pointing out that the DRG is too low and they manage to pick up and make up for what they lost when you've already spent X amount of time being too low, as compared to you having to go another try but this time talking to the DRG beforehand?

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Mainly because sometimes total DPS isn't as important as what someone does in a particular phase or up to a particular spot, when learning. It's good to have a timeline as you see it, basically; the end result number isn't always one you can analyze and get some info out of, especially if someone dies or does a mechanic wrong which would destroy your results when otherwise you could get some info out of them during the fact.

Yeah you typically do just look at the information after the fact for tank/heal deaths. Main thing I was trying to say there was the group should have that info all the time, not privately attached to individuals or otherwise unavailable.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

I gave you the objective benefits back at page 47 and 49

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You gave objective benefits of seeing the information, which I've not disagreed that seeing the information can be important in the right situations. You did not give objective benefits of forcing the information to be public over being optional to be public, particularly for content where DPS doesn't make a difference outside of saving a few minutes.

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Originally Posted by Elazu

This again.

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Hey, I asked you a question about you making things up back on page 50. Could you answer it, please? I'm honestly curious.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Shortcut to question

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Mainly because sometimes total DPS isn't as important as what someone does in a particular phase or up to a particular spot, when learning. It's good to have a timeline as you see it, basically; the end result number isn't always one you can analyze and get some info out of, especially if someone dies or does a mechanic wrong which would destroy your results when otherwise you could get some info out of them during the fact.

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Okay, so it's basically just so you know where a specific problem may happen, for example, if they strangely popped a CD just before a phase where they wouldn't be able to really use it to its full extent (for example, boss goes invulnerable and they're only 5 sec into their cooldowns)?

But, I mean, if we assume that a forced-party parser is going to show you in-depth information into their CD usage or when/where they died, couldn't an end-result parser also show a timeline? Like, select a player, then it opens up a window that shows a more in-depth information timeline, while the standard UI view of the parser would be limited to more limited information.

Alternatively, what if the optional part was only who it shows to, but still would show real-time data if you selected to make it public? In which case, literally the only difference would be that instead of the party being forced to be able to see it even in content where it largely doesn't matter, one can choose whether or not theirs shows up on someone else's sheet. When doing savage content, you could still set rules to have it set to public for the run.

One thing I will say that I have noticed from players in regards to parsers that does kind of irk me, is that some players will pick what they consider to be the best rotation based on parser results off Youtube or Reddit and hold that as the "One way to play the class." This mind set is limiting in my opinion and I think that might be a factor as to why many dislike parsers.

I do think, however, that parsers can and should be used to encourage players to experiment with their jobs and find new better DPS results. I for one would really appreciate a tool like that as I play on PS4 and don't have any FC buddies that can Parse me as my FC is made up of IRL friends. I find myself doing a lot a research and trial and error with my job because of this and it would just be so much easier and faster to know if I am holding up with my DPS if I had a personal Parser.

I think adding parsers you can use on others might be a step too far, at least at the moment, but I see nothing wrong with having personal ones.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Okay, so it's basically just so you know where a specific problem may happen, for example, if they strangely popped a CD just before a phase where they wouldn't be able to really use it to its full extent (for example, boss goes invulnerable and they're only 5 sec into their cooldowns)?

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I suppose that would be a benefit but I believe Sleigh was more or less implying that the parser would be able to show you more accurately specific points in time where your numbers dip and why. I stated this like 30 pages ago or something along those lines how having a parser available to me at all times would allow me to really get a feel for certain phases and where I stand. I suppose if a parse could be designed such that it would show me a timeline, as you called it, that might be worthwhile but even if that was possible I would still much rather have access to it in real time.

Seeing a graph or a timeline of my numbers and cooldown usage after a wipe or a clear doesn't really carry the same weight as in real time. In real time I can start to notice a trend and immediately fix it. After a wipe I can only see that there was an issue and can only hope to rectify in the future.

Interesting how I leave this thread every couple of days only to see it grow and expand to new arguments. Last time I was checking this thread it seemed like the argument was parsing was bad because of the animosity it could spread. Now it seems as though the argument has shifted from that to, why do you need to see your numbers right away?

Not saying anything other than I'm noticing a trend. The longer this conversation goes on, the more it seems to be leaning towards the side of adding in an official parsing tool for the game. Either the people devoutly against parsing aren't as strong in their convictions enough to continue to have a discussion on the matter or they're changing their stance.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Hey, I asked you a question about you making things up back on page 50. Could you answer it, please? I'm honestly curious.

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Hey, had you on ignore since the first post you posted! Lucky you I actually checked this one!

'Elitist' on this forum is generally used as a synonym for 'someone who is capable'. And the 'I play for fun' excuse always comes up when people are being called out for bad play, as if being good at the game is not fun.

Seems like you're ignoring the stuff the person on page 50 posted just to argue for the sake of arguing with someone who is pro-parsers (as always). It's easily interpretable the way I did (looks like I'm not the only one either!).

Why is this thread still going?

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

You gave objective benefits of seeing the information, which I've not disagreed that seeing the information can be important in the right situations. You did not give objective benefits of forcing the information to be public over being optional to be public, particularly for content where DPS doesn't make a difference outside of saving a few minutes.

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This was discussed on page 48. Where your "counter argument" was "personal parsers". I elaborated that "personal parsers" are more jerk/abuse sensitive than public parsers

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Originally Posted by Attarik

Anyone (provided they have a brain and have played any mmo) can tell you what parsers end up doing. Provide solid evidence that this doesn't happen and that people somehow benefit from being harassed in a video game, no more stating opinion as fact, no more blatant lying, no more complaining about a strangers dps checks.

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I've played different MMOs for about 9 years now and I can't remember running into harassment, even in the "oh so toxic" WoW and I've yet to see it happen in here either. The worst thing I've seen is someone complaining inside FC/LS/guild/whatever how this run is taking so long, because of bad DPS, or a general "We need to do more damage". I do remember seeing the occasional praise for high DPS. Vast majority don't simply care about the numbers of others as long as the content gets done.

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

I suppose if a parse could be designed such that it would show me a timeline, as you called it, that might be worthwhile but even if that was possible I would still much rather have access to it in real time.

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This is possible with the most commonly used parser. You can watch a timeline of the whole fight that shows a rolling ten second (default, changable) average DPS, HPS and damage taken; a "VCR", where you can see who attacked or healed what for each second and tooltips for exact values; or you can create a scratch encounter of the fight or individual players and see their exact numbers and how and what they did from 2:41 to 3:20 of the fight, for example. There is even a death report, which shows what happened in the last ten seconds before death.

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

I suppose if a parse could be designed such that it would show me a timeline, as you called it, that might be worthwhile but even if that was possible I would still much rather have access to it in real time.

Seeing a graph or a timeline of my numbers and cooldown usage after a wipe or a clear doesn't really carry the same weight as in real time. In real time I can start to notice a trend and immediately fix it. After a wipe I can only see that there was an issue and can only hope to rectify in the future.

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Okay, but what if you can see your data during but not others'? You still can see your own data to know whether you need to pick up the pace during the fight, you just wouldn't be able to point it out to someone else, and I'd assume that if that someone else was capable of picking up the pace to adjust in mid-fight, they should be able to do it while being able to see their own data as well without being told.

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The longer this conversation goes on, the more it seems to be leaning towards the side of adding in an official parsing tool for the game. Either the people devoutly against parsing aren't as strong in their convictions enough to continue to have a discussion on the matter or they're changing their stance.

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Well, I've always been for adding at least a personal parser into the game for the objective benefits it brings, with a minimal amount of stepping on peoples' toes. Even the biggest fear monger can't argue that a personal parser that others CAN'T see will breed elitism because there wouldn't be a difference between that and what there is now except that each person can see their own. Unless they become elitist to themselves. Which I'd kinda like to see.

"YOUR DPS IS TRASH, ME. LEARN TO PLAY. I AM SUCH A LOSER. Why am I so mean? I don't need to harass me like that. I'm going to report me."

Almost all of the people "devoutly against parsing" don't really stick around more than a few posts to say how every DF group will turn into a drooling ragefest.

Right now I'm just trying to find out what would be the happy medium where the most people are at least satisfied, even if their situation isn't what they feel to be perfect. From the anti-parser side, it seems to revolve around "Other people don't need to know my DPS", so personal. From the pro-parser side, it seems to be important that it shows enough detail to be able to figure out what went wrong instead of just having a "You did this much DPS during the whole thing!" flat number and that seeing others' DPS in certain situations is important. Which is why I suggest a parser that's default personal but can be shared. It's not forcing the anti-parsers to always be visible, while giving pro-parsers the information they need on themselves and an option for them to get the information they may need about other people in the situations where it is important.

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Originally Posted by Elazu

Hey, had you on ignore since the first post you posted! Lucky you I actually checked this one!

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That's an odd claim since you've responded to me a few times, but okay.

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'Elitist' on this forum is generally used as a synonym for 'someone who is capable'. And the 'I play for fun' excuse always comes up when people are being called out for bad play, as if being good at the game is not fun.

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Okay, but the person you responded to didn't say anything about that. They didn't bring up whether people are capable or not. They didn't even imply that being capable was synonymous with being elitist. They only said not to be elitist.

So what you're saying is that because other people that weren't the person you responded to (allegedly) used elitism and capability as synonyms, you just assumed that because this person who is a completely different person than they were used the word elitist, they must have been referring to people who are capable, and not actual elitists? And that when they say "I play for fun", they're not just saying "I don't concern myself with how much DPS the others in my group are doing because I'm too busy having fun" (which they basically did say), they're really saying "I'm bad but it's because I'm having fun"?

So the answer is that you actually do believe that just because they use the word elitist they're automatically lumping elitists with all good players, period, even if they say nothing of the sort? Huh. Okay, thanks.

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

This was discussed on page 48.

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On page 48 you gave the subjective benefit of not having people hide their information. It appeared to be your stance that if everyone chose to hide their data after a failed DPS check, it would have been inherently better to have been able to force you to see it. I then responded to that with

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If nobody's willing to share at all, vote abandon. If they're not willing to help solve the problem, then being able to default see their numbers won't solve it either.

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Actually, you know what, upon looking back there, I made this post:

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Shortcut

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The only thing in that post you responded to at the time was accusing me of lumping people together again because you didn't notice that I said "some people", not "everybody", which wasn't even a point directed at you. Which, by the way, you also conveniently didn't respond to when I pointed out that I didn't say everyone, which is poor form from someone who accuses me of avoiding people who prove me wrong.

Your next post after that was asking me how I'd prove someone's using only one attack without a parser, which is an incredibly strange question.

We then skip forward to page 51 where you claim you made an argument 6 pages previous that I didn't present a valid argument against. But it's obvious that you're the one that skipped out on that argument because I was the last one to say anything on that train of thought on page 48 before you moved on to accusing me of saying things I didn't and implying you need a parser to see someone spamming the same animation.

Maybe we should just add the expert roulette options skilled party or I like to push buttons so that if the people who pull less dps than level 50s show up I'm allowed to kick them. Or isn't that what the term expert implies?

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Okay, but what if you can see your data during but not others'? You still can see your own data to know whether you need to pick up the pace during the fight, you just wouldn't be able to point it out to someone else, and I'd assume that if that someone else was capable of picking up the pace to adjust in mid-fight, they should be able to do it while being able to see their own data as well without being told.

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This is funny you say this. Several months ago I posed this same idea. I certainly wasn't the first person to come up with this idea and judging by the number of times I see someone come into new parser debate threads and say, "How about this idea I had: Personal Parse," I wouldn't be the last. Its been pointed out that just a personal parse wouldn't be nearly as useful as one that can show all the numbers which I can agree with but I'm much more open and receptive to the personal parse. On a basic level, I'm mainly interested in my own numbers anyways so just the personal parse at least satisfies what I'm mostly after. It's only after I've perfected my own runs that I start worrying about other people performing.

I would rather have something over nothing so if my only option was personal parse or no parse, I'd take personal parse. I firmly believe the best option would be for SE to create the personal parse that has the option of displaying the numbers to others if you so choose. So at least we are like minded in this respect.

I'm sure there's someone out there who would argue against that but then I think at that point they're not necessarily right anymore. To be fair though, in certain content I'd rather see all of my teams numbers so that I could actually see how poorly they were performing and I know some of them wouldn't turn it on. There's a couple people in my static who routinely underperform and I'd much rather know about it than not know about it. So I guess there's always some argument to be had on this issue but I'd much rather have that middle ground then nothing at all.

EDIT: It's interesting I just thought of this. Having access to all the numbers in my group would allow me to more accurately fix problems that arise. For example, if I see that there's certain phases where a fellow DPS or a tank is just not putting out numbers, even though it's on them to fix it, my group is funny where there's some member who's just can't or won't perform well enough. Countless times we've had to step up and devise strategies as the DPS simply just to push the phase even quicker just so our OT doesn't have to tank another T9 add because he just isn't good at mitigating anything. I say this because having the numbers of say, our bard, and knowing he really really struggles with an important phase of the fight, rather than yell at him to "git gud" I'll just see what I'm at and pump out even more if I can. It's not really fair to me but that's just how our group has operated for the last two years and if we only had a personal parser, I wouldn't be able to see those numbers. Just food for thought I guess.

Someone tell me how I'm supposed to know who to give Balance and Arrow to without a parser.

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Originally Posted by pushin_tin

Someone tell me how I'm supposed to know who to give Balance and Arrow to without a parser.

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Clearly the answer is to flail in the dark, even though your utility, if it's balanced remotely appropriately, is balanced around giving it to someone performing at a high standard.

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Originally Posted by Attarik

Parsers have -never- lead to anything positive in an MMO, no matter what people claim their use and benefit is they are always used (almost exclusively) as an excuse to belittle and exclude other players over insignificant dips in DPS. A personal parser is fine, but the second you force others to show your their statistics, it becomes problematic.

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A parser helped my friend learn the proper rotation for his class and increase his DPS by almost 200. The two of us (both DRGs in gear of the same ilvl) had been running Odin with my FC, and one of my other FCmates noticed that his DPS was significantly below mine, which shouldn't be the case in a fight where the only mechanics to deal with are AoEs that both of us had to dodge. So we decided to go check out his rotation on our striking dummy, and sure enough, he was doing several things wrong. Once those were pointed out and he looked up the proper DRG rotation, his overall DPS increased significantly-- a win-win situation for everyone.

He had no idea he was doing anything wrong rotation-wise until it was pointed out to him; had my FCmate not said something, he would never even have had the chance to improve because he didn't realize there was room to improve in the first place.

The real problem is people still don't, after 55 pages of this thread, know how to separate players from tools.

Or tools from tools.

You know what I mean.

And that the problem is players and not parers. Also a lot of playing the victim lol.

That just took me forever to read, but it seems like a lot of people are arguing with nothing but based assumptions on how the community will be reacting to parsers when they are out. I've been playing this game for a while now and I can't believe how SE is spoon-feeding their playerbase on every single level. And if I have learned anything from the past year, it's that SE doesn't meddle when it's a player/player perception issue, they only care when it's game/player issue. Right now this parser thing seems like a player/player issue and the only reason why SE would do something about parsing when reported isn't because it's being used to confront people or whatever, it's because of the third party tool and that breaks their rules. Once parsers are a part of this game officially, people will have to learn to deal with it.

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Originally Posted by pushin_tin

Someone tell me how I'm supposed to know who to give Balance and Arrow to without a parser.

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Well, NIN doesn't Goad any more with visual TP data than without.

In any case, the correct answer is

me.

I had a case the other day in DD, pulls were taking ages to die. I noticed the blm was single AF building then using transpose, I politely pointed out he should use fire III then fire II and finish up with a blizzard III. The healer immediately responses with "your just being a dick, I'm sure he knows the basics.

I responded " I have been watching his casts to see why things aren't dieing" to which I was called a stalker lel

The blm mentioned he was highest dps (second dps was a ninja not following positinals) I had a little chuckle to myself.

Even with a parser it won't make you a better player but I'm sure once he comes across another blm and sees the major dps difference he will realise hes doing it wrong.

Full fledged group parsers could do more harm than good, but there could be some sort of middle ground.

I think that the best solution would be to give everyone personal parser, so they can see their own performance, and the rest of the group should see only icons similar to enmity.

Something like: Bellow 70% of average dps of the class red icon, <80% orange, <90% yellow, 90-110% green, 110%+ blue.

Of course that would require some work on developers' part to determine what the average is and how it is calculated.

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Originally Posted by Archaell

snip

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Considering the players were better at ninja than the devs believed was possible, a metric of average dps determined by them would be a bit suspect.

When your lowest dps is doing +400 below the 3rd place dps and 50 below tank, it gets pretty frustrating, especially when you're broke and cant afford xpots and with the tight dps checks in a3 and a4 savage. Having a personal parser here would help make the player aware of his shortcomings.

And help him "git gud"

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Originally Posted by Stupiduglytaru

I had a case the other day in DD, pulls were taking ages to die. I noticed the blm was single AF building then using transpose, I politely pointed out he should use fire III then fire II and finish up with a blizzard III. The healer immediately responses with "your just being a dick, I'm sure he knows the basics.

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In this situation it would've been nice to quantify numbers to prove your point. It's an example of where regardless of having a parser (the BLM comparing himself to a NIN, both being subpar) or not (the blm is never keeps AF), you can still tell people are playing less than ideal and it won't stop them (or their perception of others) being a douche.


On a side note, I ran into a BLM last night that would never keep AF either. Would always do fire II to drop UI stacks, then blizzard x2 to get UI2, and fire II. On a single target. Not responsive either and would always follow closely to the healer, so the rest of us in the party assumed he was a bot and got removed around the second boss.

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Originally Posted by segagamer

If no parsers are allowed, how are we able to see the pro groups like this from the DF?
http://i.imgur.com/ARTBqK5.png
This is from an A4 run I just did. (NIN died in quarantine so I was expecting low dps from him at the end of the fight.)

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This is the reason why parsers should exist. Parsing 289.27 at ilvl170+ is NOT ACCEPTABLE, and if it wasnt for the mnk (who has a parser, so he can git gud), this group would see enrage all day.

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Originally Posted by ForbiddenMonk

This is the reason why parsers should exist. Parsing 289.27 at ilvl170+ is NOT ACCEPTABLE, and if it wasnt for the mnk (who has a parser, so he can git gud), this group would see enrage all day.

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The Ninja died in quarantine, so he was out o commission the entire fight. The warrior on the other hand, that's less than auto attacks and a dps that was potentially dead for the entire fight and explains why the ninja died in quarantine.

Didnt see that death in quarantine part. Even better, by analyzing the parse, you were able to determine that it was the War's fault for the Ninjas death, rather than the nin's dps. Boom. Parser helped

How about a middle ground, between personal parsers and group ones. Since the DF interface already differentiates between pre-made party and random one, I'd suggest it'd be implemented so that you only see the real time parse for the whole party in pre-made party. That way those who want to better themselves and/or help FC mates can do runs for that purpose. Or any sort of raid statics would see whole group performance. However, when being in random DF one would only see their personal parse real time, and only exiting the dungeon would be shown the averages of other party members. That way they could still compare themselves to the others for learning purpose but at that point there'd be no real issue about kicking/harassing due parse since the party has fizzled.

I wont say the parse number is much of a viability, but once the fight ends I tend to look at those odd numbers with more detail...
Like opening their skill usage... I've seen horrible things...

NINs using no DoTs in Alex runs...
BRDs using Windbite 134 times while Heavy Shot was used once in an A3 run...
MNKs hitting no positionals...

Yes the parser number might be too big a thing to look at, but if you take some time to analize their fight... some things really get... well you might get eye cancer if you are lucky.


I've also been on the other side of the coin tho, people judging others for the wipe based on parsing numbers... like this one WAR which after wipe was all "oh WAR parsing higher than the DPS how sad" in an A2 run where he didn't notice that the DPS were dying at mobs he was supposed to be tanking and one of those dead-and-res DPSes jumped on the gobbie so of course their DPS was going to drop...

This is still going.

As long as hard enrages exist based on killing something before a time limit expires, you need the ability to objectively look at the numbers you're putting out. This isn't up for debate. The potency system is certainly a decent way to 'eyeball' something via potency/gcd, but you can have no way of knowing for certain that ABC > BCA > CAB without the data.

All that parsing / meters do is take that data and put it in an easy to read format of Damage Dealt / Time in Combat.

You want it as a personal parser? Fine, go for it.
You want it as a public opt-in parser? Fine, go for it.
You want it a training dummy that'll give you a report after you leave combat with it? Fine, go for it.

But it needs to exist within the game because console players cannot access third party Parsers without someone else's aid. When the tool is that vital, not having it openly available to the player within the game itself is inexcusable.

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Originally Posted by Sida

How about a middle ground, between personal parsers and group ones. Since the DF interface already differentiates between pre-made party and random one

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The interface does, but I don't think the instance server differentiates at all. Basically, based on what I've seen when entering an instance with a full party, when you queue up in DF, your current party gets sent to the matchmaking system to fill any open slots (even if you don't have any). Once your party is full, the matchmaking system then queues everyone in the party into the instance queue as a group, and the group is then sent to the instance. Once in the instance, the instance server puts everyone into a new "instance" party with a random leader (you can verify this by entering with a full party a few times and watching who becomes leader once you're in the instance). As far as I can tell, the instance server is never told whether you're a preformed group or not.

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I'd suggest it'd be implemented so that you only see the real time parse for the whole party in pre-made party. That way those who want to better themselves and/or help FC mates can do runs for that purpose. Or any sort of raid statics would see whole group performance. However, when being in random DF one would only see their personal parse real time, and only exiting the dungeon would be shown the averages of other party members. That way they could still compare themselves to the others for learning purpose but at that point there'd be no real issue about kicking/harassing due parse since the party has fizzled.

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With the above in mind, this may not be feasible to implement. The alternative of an opt-in party parse is better in almost all cases anyway, since it allows someone in a DF pug that's wiping to enrages to request everyone's parse so that if it's a single weak player they can be helped to improve or, if necessary, removed from the group (and an otherwise good group not be forced to abandon).

--Erim Nelhah

First of all I am part of the "A FORM of Parser" side of the argument. Meaning I approve parser use for personal/FC usage, but not so much of "this is your dps in a random 4-man and should be kicked" side of things.

Parsers are good at evaluating who is under-performing, either intentional, or unintentional. But it could be used for good. Such as figuring out mechanics that you just wiped to and are unsure as to what happened. Or you see another player doing more dps than you are with the same job/gear. Maybe they adjusted their rotation just a bit to eek out a bit more dps. It could also help with who was out of position by using a certain site's combat replay feature.

Do people Fear Monger parses saying X job is under performing....yes unfortunately. But they sometimes forget that people can abuse parses. Look at Summoners abusing the parsing meters on Faust. They may show as being high on the dps meters but they are also intentionally cleaving onto the adds.

Weren't yoshi mention something like a dummy giving u parse number being implemented?

The easiest way to circumvent the DF problem of people getting kicked from the official parser would be to only show the breakdown of the parse results after a dungeon/raid is cleared. Simple. People can simply leave at the end before they harassed for their extremely sub-par dps (E.g. 700 and below dps at i190).

This wouldn't solve the initial problems of people getting kicked from DF by people using the unofficial parsers still. The way to solve this problem? As Yoshida once said, "Git Gud".