A self-improvement tool is needed in this game, especially for end game

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Yet it's still a sound argument.

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Let's explore this a bit.

If your argument is:

A misused tool is more damaging than it is helpful. Toxic people will misuse tools. Therefore, toxic people misusing the tool will cause more damage than the tool can help people.

It's valid. If the premises are true, then yes, your conclusion is also true.

It is not, however, sound. You cannot prove the first premise, that a misused tool is more damaging than it is helpful.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

I know YoshiP has this belief that the community should teache one another all the nitty gritty about the game but it's not a realistic view and I feel like putting resources into not just this suggestion but any that requests improvements for halls and battle log transparency could go a long way.

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Indeed. The problem isn't players teaching the game to others. Many of us would like to help. The issue lies with players who refuse to accept help or ignore advice.

A minor gate, like a mandatory extended Hall of the Novice, nothing complex, would be targeted at that type of player.

Honestly, I'm not sure that tools like parsers or (an augmented) SSS are really going to address the issue. It's possible that the primary issue is players being unaware of how to properly play their job, but I suspect the real problem is that they simply can't be bothered to care. If it's the latter, tools might not do a lot. I'd welcome them anyway, to be sure, but the fact remains that outside of EX, Savage, or Ultimate content, XIV simply provides little incentive to be a good player.

As an example, the other day, I ran a 24-person Alliance Roulette. We landed on Weeping City of Mhach. Between Forgall and Ozma is that door-looking boss, where each alliance has to activate a platform in order to charge a shield in the middle that protects everyone from an insta-kill mechanic. The insta-wipe move, for those who haven't done the Raid in awhile, has an insanely long charge time - it feels like 30 seconds, even though it's probably closer to 10-15. Either way, it's long - and when the shield is up, it's obvious (giant glowing column and such).

Now despite all this, on this run, I saw a Machinist standing outside the shield. They didn't move to the side platform matching their party. They didn't shift targets to pick on the adds that spawn at one point (though they kept attacking, so I know they weren't AFK). They didn't move to charge the shields. They didn't move within the shield. They just sat there - and finally got one-shotted.

This is not an issue that can be solved by a parser. It's not an issue that can be solved by one-time skill checks like a hypothetically-augmented SSS. This is a player who simply doesn't care, and knows that despite their atrocious performance, they'll get the clear, and all the attendant rewards.

In my mind, this is more likely the root problem. I don't feel like I see incompetent players, so much as I see lazy, selfish players. They're perfectly capable of playing up to a reasonably high standard, they just don't want to bother. A one-time check will push them exactly once, and then they'll go back to doing what they always do: sucking it up and letting others cover for their mistakes. And so long as XIV's Vote Kick system is hamstrung by combat and loot restrictions, so long as replacement times for tanks and healers make even successful kicks not worth the effort, so long as players get the same reward for disparate effort, this situation will keep arising.

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With this in mind, what I'd propose - and which SE certainly won't implement - is FATE-style reward tiers for instanced content. This would require a mechanism that measures, in a rough sense, how well a person is executing their job: oGCD usage, rotations, DoT uptime, healing, enmity. It can't be a simple parser, because that would naturally prioritize damage alone, rather than job performance, and would also penalize players significantly for lower-quality gear. Now, supposing such a tool was implemented, a player running an Expert Roulette wouldn't necessarily get the full 90 Tomestones of Genesis. Say their performance was the equivalent of a bronze: they might only get 20% of the base dungeon reward, and 20% of the Roulette bonus. Say that they're running Ridorana, and a Glamour item they want drops, but they got a low performance rating on that fight and were barred from Needing on it.

In this scenario, individuals who suck slow themselves down. Now there's incentive to improve: it saves you a lot of time. Better reward ratios means fewer dungeons to run. It means faster leveling. It means higher likelihoods of getting the rewards you want.

This approach would address both player skill, and player motivation. That's the ticket forward, in my estimation. It's possible that player ignorance is the primary culprit, but from my perspective, I see far more of an issue lurking in the realm of player motivation.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Let's explore this a bit.

If your argument is:

A misused tool is more damaging than it is helpful. Toxic people will misuse tools. Therefore, toxic people misusing the tool will cause more damage than the tool can help people.

It's valid. If the premises are true, then yes, your conclusion is also true.

It is not, however, sound. You cannot prove the first premise, that a misused tool is more damaging than it is helpful.

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My experiences from other games (WoW being the biggest one) tell me that the potential for abuse could be quite high. You're right, I don't know that for sure. But judging from what I've seen in the past? Yeah, I'd bet gil on it. People will be people. Always.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

This wouldn't work because openers and rotations change all of the time based on player experimentation. Best thing they could do are things more along the lines of combos, positionals, dot uptime, etc.

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They changed based on speed runs or party setups. Openers are the most important thing to learn for endgame content as they set you up for the rest of the fight. And all classes have a general opener to use doesn't need to be the best for every single encounter but it provides a baseline for the lowest players among us to hit.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

My experiences from other games (WoW being the biggest one) tell me that the potential for abuse could be quite high. You're right, I don't know that for sure. But judging from what I've seen in the past? Yeah, I'd bet gil on it. People will be people. Always.

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Will people abuse it? Yes.

Will enough people abuse it that it outweighs the benefits of having it? I don't know, and you don't either.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Will people abuse it? Yes.

Will enough people abuse it that it outweighs the benefits of having it? I don't know, and you don't either.

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Well, we can at least agree on that. Fair enough.

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Originally Posted by Tharnor

This does not even need to be a parser. Make it a grade screen at the end of the dungeon with some basic categories like damage taken, cool down used, and an acceptable total percent of damage done. They could even work in bonuses for getting higher grades.

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I was thinking something like this would be fine as well. Combine it with something like wanderer's tales and except rng stickers, you get so many points based on your grade. Points could be turned in for prizes (that can't be sold, no market board for you) to give some incentive to get to get higher grades for more points.

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Originally Posted by DevonEllwood

I was thinking something like this would be fine as well. Combine it with something like wanderer's tales and except rng stickers, you get so many points based on your grade. Points could be turned in for prizes (that can't be sold, no market board for you) to give some incentive to get to get higher grades for more points.

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I...actually like this idea a good bit. The right incentives will get people to do just about anything.

The way that combat in this game is programmed, everything is choreographed (just call it "Final Fantasy Ballroom Dance Simulator"). A rotation is just a dance routine that everyone is expected to learn (by going outside the game to web tutorials). The only variable left in the normal content is player skill variability within each run. This is like having a team of npcs in a single player game and being dissatisfied with their performance.

Poor team performance makes it more difficult. People have to pick up the slack. I would say "carry", but that now means whoever had least dps, whether or not it was good dps.

In any case, people here are requesting a parser to try to reduce the player skill variability... to make the content easier.

YOU ARE INDIRECTLY REQUESTING A NERF TO ALL NORMAL DUNGEON CONTENT. This is just another "Nerf dungeon XX plz" thread, and quite franky, I'm appalled.

(about 80% sarcasm)

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

No need for a tool. Just put enrage timers in normal. Leniant ones for sure but not overly so. Like 15 minutes for normal alphascape fights, 7 minutes for dungeon bosses etc. People will either wise up real quick, stay out of the content or quit.

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Jokes on you - normal mode raids already have enrage at around 15min each since probably Gordias (can confirm A8N Brute Justice and O3N Halicarnassus based on own experience).

Despite that you could have dragoons never using blood of the dragon, black mages never using fire spells and bards never use songs and still not hit that enrage timer, so thats not gonna help.

Seems to me, the simple answer to a lot of these requests and the solution to a lot of division in the community is a difficulty setting. You want a challenge, set your difficulty up, take more damage, deal less; challenge yourself to the max. For those of us that don't want it set it down, take less damage, deal more. To balance it out, rolls for loot would favor higher difficulty settings first. No freebies for the carried, but no lockout from a large part of the game for the uncoordinated either. win/win.

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Originally Posted by TURBODOG

but no lockout from a large part of the game for the uncoordinated either. win/win.

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Mind if I piggyback on this bit? This is something I see float around here all the time, that a paying customer should be able to do all or most of the content. The thing is, that's just not how nearly any video game in existence works. If I suck too much to beat a boss in God of War, I can't skip it. I can't get carried by other players. I don't get to see the rest of the game. I need to get better, if I want to make the most of my purchase. MMO's hit this weird area where we want to remove skill gating, when skill gating is an integral part of a game experience.

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Originally Posted by TURBODOG

Seems to me, the simple answer to a lot of these requests and the solution to a lot of division in the community is a difficulty setting. You want a challenge, set your difficulty up, take more damage, deal less; challenge yourself to the max. For those of us that don't want it set it down, take less damage, deal more. To balance it out, rolls for loot would favor higher difficulty settings first. No freebies for the carried, but no lockout from a large part of the game for the uncoordinated either. win/win.

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This wont work.
In mixed queues there will be a huge chunk of max difficulty players just for boosting their loot rolls, even if they wont really participate in the content due to too high difficulty for them.
And seperated queues are already implemented, Hard/Extreme for trials and Normal/Savage for Raids and even Ultimate for the extra high difficulty.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

...If I suck too much to beat a boss in God of War, I can't skip it. I can't get carried by other players. I don't get to see the rest of the game. I need to get better....

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The key difference in a single player game is that you're wasting no-ones time floundering while trying to get better, a single player game doesn't blacklist you for not being good enough. As I put it, I get to test drive content that's over my head in an attempt to get good enough to do it properly, you get the trophy I'm not allowed to preserve your bragging rights, I get practical experience to get better as a player. Where would the downside be?

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Originally Posted by Legion88

This wont work.
In mixed queues there will be a huge chunk of max difficulty players just for boosting their loot rolls, even if they wont really participate in the content due to too high difficulty for them.
And seperated queues are already implemented, Hard/Extreme for trials and Normal/Savage for Raids and even Ultimate for the extra high difficulty.

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Fair enough, I seldom examine things from the loopholes that would be abused, not sure why I even joined the thread, it's all what if anyway....

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Originally Posted by TURBODOG

The key difference in a single player game is that you're wasting no-ones time floundering while trying to get better, a single player game doesn't blacklist you for not being good enough. As I put it, I get to test drive content that's over my head in an attempt to get good enough to do it properly, you get the trophy I'm not allowed to preserve your bragging rights, I get practical experience to get better as a player. Where would the downside be?

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This is a good point.

I do worry, however, about the unforeseen consequences to any difficulty adjustment / solo practice system. My general experience right now suggests that people only tend to vote kick / rage / blacklist people over repeated, critical mistakes. If there were more coping mechanisms introduced, would there be less tolerance? Would there be immediate pressure on individually struggling players to lower the difficulty, with increased loot odds serving as extra incentive? Would there be immediate rage for even isolated or slight mistakes, since additional practice tools would in theory improve the base level of player skill?

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All this said, I personally wish MMOs weren't so focused on providing players with comfort zones. To me, the beauty of an MMO is precisely that it isn't like normal games. There isn't practice. It's part of what makes them so addictive for me: my decisions have consequences. I can't just hit the quickload button and have it all be forgotten.

That said, I've spent over 20 years playing video games, so I speak from a position of relative privilege. I've never been afraid to enter content in FFXIV, nor was I afraid even in less-forgiving titles like FFXI. I knew I was never going to be the weakest link in any arbitrary group of 6-8 people. So I can sympathize with people who prefer MMOs that more closely resemble cooperative theme parks than anything else. To each their own.

a self improvement tool. ie take note from snapchat and make it hard to share. if people can't see it easily, they won't force others to share. still ban harassment because some people are still tools. boom.

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Originally Posted by Kirsten_Rev

With this in mind, what I'd propose - and which SE certainly won't implement - is FATE-style reward tiers for instanced content. This would require a mechanism that measures, in a rough sense, how well a person is executing their job: oGCD usage, rotations, DoT uptime, healing, enmity. It can't be a simple parser, because that would naturally prioritize damage alone, rather than job performance, and would also penalize players significantly for lower-quality gear. Now, supposing such a tool was implemented, a player running an Expert Roulette wouldn't necessarily get the full 90 Tomestones of Genesis. Say their performance was the equivalent of a bronze: they might only get 20% of the base dungeon reward, and 20% of the Roulette bonus. Say that they're running Ridorana, and a Glamour item they want drops, but they got a low performance rating on that fight and were barred from Needing on it.

In this scenario, individuals who suck slow themselves down. Now there's incentive to improve: it saves you a lot of time. Better reward ratios means fewer dungeons to run. It means faster leveling. It means higher likelihoods of getting the rewards you want.

This approach would address both player skill, and player motivation. That's the ticket forward, in my estimation. It's possible that player ignorance is the primary culprit, but from my perspective, I see far more of an issue lurking in the realm of player motivation.

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Something like this would generally be impossible to implement fairly without causing mega dramatics..

Can you imagine it if for example if a tank dies in a fight and suddenly one or more of the dps eats a massive cleave and get killed because they had hate.
Let's suppose it takes a minute or so for them to get raised and now there rating is going to be way down even though there's nothing they could have done about it.
open the loot chest from that boss andtheres the item you want but you can't roll....

Or times when alliance members generally end up killing each other because they overlap all those puddle aoes that happen. and now those players who were safe at the arena edge now find themselves in puddles because players have put those puddles on them and left them no where to go. Or 3 or 4 people die because no one else stacked with them for a stack mechanic. both things that seem to happen frequently in 24 man raids. If players were locked out of rewards because of stuff like this there' would be so much outrage.

i cant tell you how many times i've been killed because some idiot with one of those repeating circle aoes makes a bee line for my blm who's then forced to try and move when i shouldnt have to. so even if i survived my rating would go down because this dumb guy is chasing me with his puddles....

a couple of bad players can make even the simplest of things a nightmare to deal with. like in allaince raids yesterday people were dying to the red blue mechanic on angra maiyu because the tanks just couldnt keep the boss still. so what would usually be a quick one or two steps now ends up being trying to dash half the arena floor

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Originally Posted by thegreatonemal

They changed based on speed runs or party setups. Openers are the most important thing to learn for endgame content as they set you up for the rest of the fight. And all classes have a general opener to use doesn't need to be the best for every single encounter but it provides a baseline for the lowest players among us to hit.

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Some jobs have multiple openers, so which ones does the game teach you?

It's wasted dev time, they would have to update it potentially every major patch cycle, and you know how good they are at continually updating a system. Egi glamours every other patch, everyone?

To be honest I think the system is working as intended. It is up to the playerbase to communicate with one another on improving and as much as it should be it's up to the playerbase to help each other out. Now if Bob doesn't want unsolicited advice that is up to Bob, but he is going to have a hard time keeping up.

I think it comes down to, this isn't a dev problem other than rotations could be clearer but I think it is the way it is because they want people to interact. Instead of a tool, receive some mentoring. Instead of being frustrated, offer mentoring.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

I think it is the way it is because they want people to interact. .

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The issue here is that in virtually every aspect of the game they pretty much don't want players to interact or at least on any meaningful level. The game is built more around groups of individuals all soloing the same thing rather than building teams and bonds and working together. This is in part why player interactivity is virtually non existent except the odd hey or wave at the start of an instance.

Players have wanted meaningful ways to interact and build bonds for years which is why people have been asking for fc content since early beta. Things players can work on as a team and not just a group of individuals with similar goals.

Even the msq pushes players away from interactivity. You cannot continue because your in a party. Virtually everything about the game is designed in a way that actually discourages interactivity. Right down to the button mash fest of combat where you don't even have a second to talk because too busy mashing buttons.

I think this is partly why so many groups fall apart and players leave. Because they never interact on any real level. Even static many aren't teams they're just groups of people with the same goal hence why they fall apart so often.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

To be honest I think the system is working as intended. It is up to the playerbase to communicate with one another on improving and as much as it should be it's up to the playerbase to help each other out. Now if Bob doesn't want unsolicited advice that is up to Bob, but he is going to have a hard time keeping up.

I think it comes down to, this isn't a dev problem other than rotations could be clearer but I think it is the way it is because they want people to interact. Instead of a tool, receive some mentoring. Instead of being frustrated, offer mentoring.

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I don't know about that. Most of the playerbase doesn't want help from others, they even think its harassment if you try to help them. What we shouldn't forget is the fact that you have to find someone first who can help you and thats most of the time someone who works with an improvement tool aka. parser which leads us to the title of the thread: a tool is needed.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

People will be people. Always.

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This is true - but the forums have a bad habit of overestimating how malicious "people" actually are.

Take vote kick, for instance. Back before it was added to the game, the forums were ablaze with folks predicting the doom and gloom that would occur when it was added. Duty Finder would be flooded with trolls, forming parties with each other specifically to take folks to the ends of dungeons and then kick them, just for lulz.

Nowadays, folks can barely imagine not having the kick feature. It's a useful tool for removing folks who've disconnected, or are harassing party members, or what have you. Is it sometimes abused? Of course it is. But Duty Finder has not collapsed under the weight of the trolling, like many were expecting.

Seriously, though, the game DOES need some way for players to measure their own performance, ideally in such a way where the game actually suggests ways they can improve. Even when players TRY to help other players, many times they're on such a higher level of play that the advice they give sounds like gobbledygook. Just using the term oGCD will get a player's eyes spinning if they have no idea what a global cooldown is, or what actions it applies to - to say nothing of concepts like ability queuing, animation lock, and so on and so forth. It doesn't help when folks use terms from other games that are never used in this one, such as "taunt". Many of these concepts are crucial to understand in difficult content, and the game does not do much to help learn them.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

This is true - but the forums have a bad habit of overestimating how malicious "people" actually are.

Seriously, though, the game DOES need some way for players to measure their own performance, ideally in such a way where the game actually suggests ways they can improve. .

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Oh, my opinion on the matter has nothing to do with the forums, just for the record. Mine is based off of years of experience in other MMOs, mainly WoW. And I have nothing against parsers themselves. I think they're a great tool. But there's a lot of potential for abuse and it would certainly change how the game is played. Not necessarily for the better. I don't know that for a fact, but this is my opinion. But the game does indeed need a way to show people that there's room for improvement. I just don't think it should be in the form of a parser.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

To be honest I think the system is working as intended. It is up to the playerbase to communicate with one another on improving and as much as it should be it's up to the playerbase to help each other out. Now if Bob doesn't want unsolicited advice that is up to Bob, but he is going to have a hard time keeping up.

I think it comes down to, this isn't a dev problem other than rotations could be clearer but I think it is the way it is because they want people to interact. Instead of a tool, receive some mentoring. Instead of being frustrated, offer mentoring.

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This sounds reasonable, but if you look at it again then it comes problems. Let's use Bob as an example.

Due to the prohibition of third party softwares, other players may have troubles to give advices to Bob. If Bob dies to mechanics, then it is easy to say something about that. If Bob does not die to mechanics but is under-performing, there is no way to tell this with limited information provided by the game itself. Even if other players try to give Bob advices, Bob can choose to listen or not. Since the game does not tell Bob that he did poorly, Bob has no reason to believe what other players said is true. In the mean time, more and more players will get discouraged on giving advice, since they gain no benefit and may get reported or get banned. There may be lots of players who seek to improve, but they have no way to get any information about their performance (for example ps4 players).

This process repeats as Bob can continue to join other parties in the pf for High End Duties without getting into any troubles, even though his skill is not ready yet.

As a mmorpg, the community definitely serves as an important role of improving players' skills, but devs do not support or even against such community.

Devs definitely know what kind of rotation exists in this game, as they even nerfed one of ninja's skills because some players found out a better rotation than what Devs know. So Devs should at least provide some tools in the game to help players better understand their roles.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

To be honest I think the system is working as intended. It is up to the playerbase to communicate with one another on improving and as much as it should be it's up to the playerbase to help each other out. Now if Bob doesn't want unsolicited advice that is up to Bob, but he is going to have a hard time keeping up.

I think it comes down to, this isn't a dev problem other than rotations could be clearer but I think it is the way it is because they want people to interact. Instead of a tool, receive some mentoring. Instead of being frustrated, offer mentoring.

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I think part of the problem stems from there is no way to call a player out on poor performance other than obvious things. I don't mean in a demeaning way, either, or even being a jerk about it. A person with a bad opener and rotation won't really show without outside help, unless you're watching them and happen to know the class inside and out. However, yes, people really stink at taking criticism, while there are others that are unable to give constructive criticism, too.

I've made the suggestion before, but what about an after action report type thing. I haven't done PVP in a long time, but after each match, a window would pop up with all kinds of data like dmg done, dmg healed, dmg reduced by cooldowns, stuff like that. That may work. If I'm a DPS and dead last for damage done, then I know I have to up my game. Make the data sort-able too to make it easy to read. Of course, this only matters if I choose to improve myself, nothing is forcing me to ignore all the data points to keep sucking. /shrug. Quite the pickle.

There are dummy that train people, most people don't know that they exsit.

Maybe make getting X progress on the dummy apart of savage quest unlocking.

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Originally Posted by OurMom

This might be a bit off topic but did they ever give a reason why you can't discuss parsing in PF?

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Someone expecting you to carry them while they underperform may feel slighted when you imply you haven't the incentive or time to meet the needs of people who refuse to meet the requirements set for them by kicking them and attempt to have the party or party leader banned for breaking TOA by using a third-party tool. So, when people check the accuracy of their assessments before kicking people, rather than booting people on suspicion, they make sure to keep their data hidden.

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Originally Posted by Lucke

I've made the suggestion before, but what about an after action report type thing. I haven't done PVP in a long time, but after each match, a window would pop up with all kinds of data like dmg done, dmg healed, dmg reduced by cooldowns, stuff like that. That may work. If I'm a DPS and dead last for damage done, then I know I have to up my game. Make the data sort-able too to make it easy to read. Of course, this only matters if I choose to improve myself, nothing is forcing me to ignore all the data points to keep sucking. /shrug. Quite the pickle.

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Got roped into playing Neverwinter with my husband's family. I will say one of the things I did like after doing a real dungeon was seeing a report of the team after the run was complete: who took the most damage, who did the most damage, who did the most healing. It did give numbers, ranked with those that did the most in that field at the top. Might have been other stuff, too, but those were the things that stuck out to me.

One idea could be to implement a test, like an augmented Hall of the Novice. Then if you complete this test, you can tick a checkbox in your DF that only queues you with others who have completed the test. Nothing overly complex or elite, just basic competency for regular content.

If you want a shorter queue, don't mind carrying others, want to help mentor players or the first time bonus is an incentive then you don't tick the box. This also means those who pay subs or struggle due to disabilities aren't locked out of content.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

One idea could be to implement a test, like an augmented Hall of the Novice. Then if you complete this test, you can tick a checkbox in your DF that only queues you with others who have completed the test. Nothing overly complex or elite, just basic competency for regular content.

If you want a shorter queue, don't mind carrying others, want to help mentor players or the first time bonus is an incentive then you don't tick the box. This also means those who pay subs or struggle due to disabilities aren't locked out of content.

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This would be kind of amazing if it could be executed well. I have my reservations but the idea of it is lovely.

I don't see it happening sadly - SE is very against making queues any longer. Not that I blame them for that, people are impatient.