So, can we just ban damage meters already.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

Yes, it does happen. I can list you plenty of examples and anecdotes, and many of them come from WoW where parsers are more prevalent. Players absolutely do make decisions, bad decisions, in hopes of doing more DPS. Yes, they are bad players, yes they make bad decisions, and yes, some or many of them are influenced by the parsers. As I heard one content creator comment on her show when trying to tell someone to do mechanics better, the response she received was “but the meters, I gotta stay high on the meters”. As I said before, stating that parsers can make some people overly focused on their DPS isn’t a controversial statement.

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You're moving the goal posts here. The original argument pertained to tanks intentionally not using CDs because they're too focused on their DPS. This makes no sense because using CDs has no impact on your DPS. Not using Shadow Wall or Shelltron isn't going to make your DPS increase. In fact, it's liable to decrease your DPS since you'll inevitably die. Hence why I responded as I did. You cannot abruptly shift the argument to people making bad decisions because parsers. Do that happen? Sure. Is it the majority? No even remotely. You also have to consider what is a "bad" decision, which can be a subjective term. If a Black Mage eats a magic with Manawall to remain in their Leylines, it's better for both them and the raid unless that decision forces the healer to overcompensate.

Regardless, your initial premise: tanks aren't using CDs because ACT exists, is flawed. They're bad because of sheer incompetence, inexperience or some other factor. Not due to a parse.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

My point wasn’t that they aren’t bad players, my point is providing an explanation for what leads some people to be bad because they focused too much on their DPS. I’m discussing human psychology here rather than anything specific to end-game or a savage fight. When you put a ranking in front of people, and they see where they place, it can impact how a person view’s their performance.
Stating that parsers can make some people overly focused on their DPS isn’t a controversial statement. Furthermore, It doesn’t have to be specific to Final Fantasy, or frankly to video games, when people have a visual assessment in front of them, which also ranks them, it often affects how they behave. I’m not purposely trying to be vague, I’m saying it’s a general human phenomenon.

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You aren’t discussing human psychology here. You’re trying to draw a correlation between parsers and tanks not using cooldowns with literally no proof to support your correlation. You’re wanting to blame the parsers for something despite having no evidence to support your stance. Why is that?

My “being vague” comment wasn’t directed towards your argument of “tanks don’t use cooldowns because they want to parse well” (which is still a flimsy argument for you to even have, as you haven’t provided any proof that this is the case). I was asking you to elaborate specifically on how “people change fight encounters to increase their rankings” (with regards to tanks only—since we are talking about tanks and how they supposedly care about high ranks so much that they forego using cooldowns). I’m asking you to provide examples to support your argument. Because, right now, you’re making an argument while providing nothing to support it.

Your concern about the controversialness of your statement is irrelevant here—that’s not what we’re discussing. I’m discussing the manner in which you’re presenting this argument, and what you’ve given as your primary argument (“tanks forego using cooldowns because they care too much about their personal damage”) has no support behind it. At least, you haven’t provided any. Which makes it a poor and weak argument. I’ve asked you about three times to provide evidence for your claim. If you’re so sure that what you’re saying is right, why haven’t you done that yet?

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

I don’t disagree with you about the state of tanks. However, I am concerned that there are many tanks putting an over-emphasis on damage. I’ve been in dungeons as a healer and there are many bad tanks who simply aren’t using their defensive CDS, they focus on their DPS and expect me, the healer, to just help keep them alive, so I spend my whole time spamming heals to keep them alive (cause they also don’t want to adjust for mechanics), and somehow as the healer, I am also supposed to have high DPS?

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This argument doesn't make any sense. Tank defensive cooldowns are off cooldown abilities. You're not using them instead of your DPS abilities but between them and in double weaves with DPS abilities. So for tanks, this is not a question of choosing between a DPS skill or a defensive skill, because you're always able to use them at the same time. Choosing to not use mitigation skills does not make you do any more DPS. So it doesn't make any sense to claim these tanks are over-emphasising dps over mitigation, since that's not really possible to do. They are just bad players ignoring a very important part of their toolkit.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

Simply saying they are bad players is a shallow and insufficient response.

A better question is why are they bad players that are so focused on their DPS

The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?

I argue it's due to the influence of things like parses, because people want to rank, and they want to beat others, and where they place on FFlogs.

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You can argue till your face turns white, won't change the fact that 90% of the players (and subsequently 90% of the bad ones too) don't even know parsers and FFLogs exist (or Forums/Class guides/Boss guides etc)

Keep in mind that only a tiny minority uses these programs. The overwhelming majority simply logs in and plays according to their gut feelings.
The result is pretty much always sub optimal play because the game itself does not give you enough information to perform at a top tier level.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

My argument is that parses can make some players play badly and do incorrect things because they are overly focused on DPS.

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So can the desire to squeeze in on more Fire IV or get one more combo through.
Tunnel visioning on DPS doesn't necessarily need a parser in order to happen.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

They aren't consistent. They never are, never will be.
I know it from WoW. It makes a HUGE difference what GM you get if the case isn't clear cut.

Also, if a player is kicked, all they do is assess whether there was flaming involved. You never get banned over the kick itself.
ToS talks about "manipulation of the votekick" not kicking itself.

An example would be a guild group of 7 kicking 1 random so they can attempt to replace him with an 8th guild member. I've never seen that happen because you cannot reliably recruit specific replacements in this game.


Simple: they are incompetent as players. Similar to healers that tunnel vision on DPS or DPS that tunnel vision and ignore mechanics.

There I said it, now go report and ban me. *chuckles*

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Then it seems you have a problem with the mods in WoW, not FF14? I've never played WoW, so I don't know what the mods are like there. I know I haven't had a negative experience with ones here so far, and I haven't encountered anyone in game who was randomly picked on by one.

From the reddit post:

"Regarding the new prohibited behavior, we would like to inform you that you are more than welcome to give advice to other players, or are obviously allowed to disagree with another player.

However, those rules are a reminder so you don't forget to be considerate or understanding when talking to each other. In other words, our new policy aims to create a more friendly atmosphere between our players..."

It goes on to say if someone reports you for the above? And you were just offering constructive criticism, so says ye mods, you will not get a strike.

I have offered constructive criticism often in game. If I see a player that might benefit from it and I have the time, I type. I have never once been approached by a mod about it. That is a lot of dungeons for me to be yapping and possibly offending someone.

And not one visit. It is at the point where you have to ask yourself, who is actually worried here? I know I'm not. Friendly, helpful people are not. Those that can carry on conversations like decent human beings should not be, they're fine too.

Some that are decent human beings have become scared with the negative propaganda, but that's it. This has been blown out of proportion.

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Originally Posted by Imbrium

Then it seems you have a problem with the mods in WoW, not FF14? I've never played WoW, so I don't know what the mods are like there.

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In 10 years of WoW I've seen exactly 1 GM and spoken to three. Al Instances occurred because of some ingame bug that needed resolving.
I've never been approached due to my conduct because I know how to behave myself. In fact I kicked many an abusive player b/c I have 0 tolerance for insults.

I've read a lot from friends and forums to know that GM responses can vary rather wildly if the case is not explicitly stated in the rules because GMs do get to make judgment calls. Not on sth. like a permanent ban, that one has to be reviewed by multiple persons but for the first infractions they have leeway.

In FF-XIV I've never seen or spoken to one. I find it hard to believe that they would act on constructive criticism too but with the way the rules are stated I just don't find any security in them. Decent conversationalist or not I feel uncomfortable not knowing where the line is, so I err on the side of caution and prefer not to say anything and let the bad players figure it out by themselves (I see no need to kick them from dungeons, stuff dies either way it merely takes a bit longer).

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You're moving the goal posts here. The original argument pertained to tanks intentionally not using CDs because they're too focused on their DPS. This makes no sense because using CDs has no impact on your DPS.

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No, if you go back and see post #409, you will see I am discussing many things.
The point about tanks wasn't even specific to tanks in this game, which is why you never see me mention any specific spells.
You can even remove the word tank.
The general point is that parsers can make players overly focused on their DPS, which can make them actually do things that make their DPS worse.

If you want to disagree with me, tell me how there's no chance ever that a parser with an associated ranking will have impact a person's performance.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I’ve asked you about three times to provide evidence for your claim. If you’re so sure that what you’re saying is right, why haven’t you done that yet?

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and I have given plenty of examples. See post #409, or the link I posted about healers being overly focused on DPS, and more general things about how parsers impact how people perceive roles like the tier list created by a content creator. I mentioned how it can lead to people playing in a way that makes things worse for them, mentioned by a person in a web series about a player in WoW, where the bad player is quoted as specifically mentioning the parser.
I'm giving you many examples of how parsers can impact how people play and how it changes people's perception of a job.

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Originally Posted by Taika

Choosing to not use mitigation skills does not make you do any more DPS. So it doesn't make any sense to claim these tanks are over-emphasising dps over mitigation, since that's not really possible to do. They are just bad players ignoring a very important part of their toolkit.

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It's not specific to tank, It's true of any role. There are bad players out there who over emphasize DPS over all else. They are bad. I think it's because they are influenced by how high they rank, and they think playing like that will make them rank higher, when in reality it's the opposite. I admit many of the examples I can give you come from WoW, but that's also a game where parsers are highly prevalent.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

So can the desire to squeeze in on more Fire IV or get one more combo through.
Tunnel visioning on DPS doesn't necessarily need a parser in order to happen.

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I agree, I'm simply saying it's an additional variable that can have an impact.
As you said, it may only impact 10% of the playerbase, but it's still impacting 10% of the player base.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

I’m not referring to myself, how much I like or dislike MMOs, nor discussing how much different people should be contributing. I’m discussing how people should interact with people in an MMOs, especially strangers, and I feel it should be in a civil and mature matter. Do you disagree?

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I actually do disagree. You are free to act however you want to act. But you are also free to report bad behavior. And the offender is free to enjoy their suspension or whatnot. But I have no expectations of people's behavior. You can do whatever you want.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

and I have given plenty of examples. See post #409, or the link I posted about healers being overly focused on DPS, and more general things about how parsers impact how people perceive roles like the tier list created by a content creator. I mentioned how it can lead to people playing in a way that makes things worse for them, mentioned by a person in a web series about a player in WoW, where the bad player is quoted as specifically mentioning the parser.
I'm giving you many examples of how parsers can impact how people play and how it changes people's perception of a job.

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No, you aren't providing me with the examples/support I've asked for. You are shifting the goalposts. Give me an example that supports your initial argument in post #463, which was that tanks are so focused on DPS that they will not use cooldowns. Don't bring in irrelevant information about healers and some content creator because that is not what we were discussing. You're avoiding your initial premise that I have contested. Why is that? Is it actually because you cannot provide proof to support it?

If you cannot support your initial premise, it means that you don't actually have an argument. You're just, as I said before, trying to pin the blame on parsers because "reasons".

Also, leave WoW out of this, because this is FFXIV. Not WoW.

EDIT: I'd also like for you to provide examples of how people change the course of a fight encounter to impact their damage. I've asked for clarification and for you to provide examples of how this is done multiple times as well, but you keep avoiding it. Are you talking about uptime strats? Tank swaps? What is it that people do to "change the course of a fight" so that they can have better damage?

Would be fantastic if this forum could stop eating my response to this.

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I’m discussing human psychology here rather than anything specific to end-game or a savage fight.

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Not really.

Theres a very easy way to psychologically determine the root cause of action among a large unrelated group, and its that the easiest answer is the correct starting point unless you know otherwise.

In this case, the easiest answer to "why do some people play badly" is that some people are bad.


A bad player who doesnt care about parsing will play badly.
A good player who doesnt care about parses will play well.
A good player who cares about parses will play well, and will know at least some of the specifics about parsing.

A bad player who cares about parsing well will still play badly, because they are a bad player.



As someone who has parsed in the top 3-5% in 14, and who had a few top of the list and top 10's through WoW, you learn almost immediately how pointless it is to actually TRY to parse well, because to hit those top of the list numbers, you need a combination of perfect gear, perfect rotation, perfect luck and perfect team play.

Heres the circumstances that led to my top parse (for 2 weeks) on Sarufang 10man in Icecrown:


Perfect fight duration. Sarufang died less than a second after my second cooldown cycle ended.
Perfect team comp. I had every single relevant buff for Ret Paladin damage.
Perfect cooldown alignment. My first set of cooldowns had to align perfectly with our opening cooldown usage, and my second set of cooldowns had to end the same time our second set of cooldowns ended. As I wasnt being catered to, it meant sacrificing 2 seconds of personal cooldown functionality to get things lined up. I also had to have a darkmoon deck proc on the first melee attack it could EVERY proc window that fight.
Perfect timing. I pulled threat after his first three autoattacks (With salvation running) and after one attack later in the fight between Salvation uses. If I had pulled threat BEFORE his melee, or between the tanks gcd and his next attack, perfect parse ends because I am dead or bubbled.
Perfect (ish) RNG. I crit all but 2 attacks while under my first wings, and crit EVERYTHING while Heroism'd.

This also required me being completely selfish with blessing use, I had to give myself every salvation instead of the warlock, so he had to be BoP'd when he otherwise wouldnt have needed it, and had to have full uptime on adds, lowering his overall dps.

And 2 weeks later, Tiny Abom in a Jar would enter the world, be a 13% damage boost for ret over the 2nd best trinket and the only one we got as a guild went to a badly specced rogue, leaving me with 0 ability to parse at the top of the paladin list for the rest of the expansion.

Long story short: The epeen side of parsing is the least useful side of parsing, and everyone who has taken parsing seriously for any amount of time is well aware of that.





With regards to tanks focusing on DPS being the reason they dont press cooldowns:

Its a better logical argument that warrior tanks who DO NOT have a 100% vengeance uptime care less about their dps than tanks who do use it.

As that is a tremendously stupid argument, it almost certainly points out the flaw in the other.

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Agreed that this is FFXIV, but many of us with objections to openly allowing parsers have those objections because of our WoW experience.

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I dont remember this EVER being a thing people cared about, from pre-alpha through Cata at least.

I do remember the massive fits people threw about gearscore being an addon, and thats something MMO's, 14 included, will outright show you in tooltips and character panels now, as well as let you set floors for it in party finder.