The Real Problem with Parsers

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Originally Posted by Lyrica_Ashtine

Or look at it the other way around; you use the tool to train yourself

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Why does this require the party being able to see your parser during a fight rather than you being able to see it? I don't need to know how much damage the DRG is doing to know how much damage I'm doing as a BRD. In fact, how much damage the DRG is doing is entirely irrelevant to how much damage I'm doing as a BRD because they have two different expectations for damage.

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You're only looking at the negative

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

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Seeing when a DPS does less, in real time, is valuable.

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Yes, I already know that's your position. I asked why, not for you to restate your position.

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Seeing what the team did at the precise moment of wiping when trying a new strat is valuable.

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And why does this require you to be able to see the parse during the fight when the fight's already over? Maybe if you weren't staring at your parser and paying more attention to the strat, you wouldn't have wiped.

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For reference what are you arguing you want out of a parser? Are you saying you don't want the team to see what everyone can do until after the fight? Are you saying you want it all to be personal so that the team is unable to see what numbers a person did unless he so wishes to share with us?

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Pretty sure I've made it clear already what I think is the best middle ground between a useful tool for self-improvement while avoiding abuse potential.

But, I guess I'll say it... again...

Personal parsers by default with optional sharing. You can always see yours, but can't see others' information unless they manually choose to share it with you.

If you're making a pre-made, you can make it a rule to share and if people aren't okay with that, then you don't go in with them. If you're in DF doing raid content for some reason, people get to choose whether they share and if it becomes relevant (wiping due to DPS checks), you can ask people to share to see what happened and if everyones' DPS is close and you just need a small push or someone's really not trying. If you're in DF doing roulettes or normal dungeons, you don't really need to see the information because there's not many strict DPS checks in roulettes.

So is there anyone besides Aiselia who has any reason not to implement regular parsers?

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

So is there anyone besides Aiselia who has any reason not to implement regular parsers?

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So, when you said you were done, you didn't mean you were done with the thread, but that you were done trying to contribute any actual discussion?

But the answer to your question is yes, because I'm clearly not the only one who's given reason not to implement them. Most people who do, though, just get attacked for being bad, so it's no wonder they expect parsers to breed elitism.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Why does this require the party being able to see your parser during a fight rather than you being able to see it? I don't need to know how much damage the DRG is doing to know how much damage I'm doing as a BRD. In fact, how much damage the DRG is doing is entirely irrelevant to how much damage I'm doing as a BRD because they have two different expectations for damage.

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

Yes, I already know that's your position. I asked why, not for you to restate your position.

And why does this require you to be able to see the parse during the fight when the fight's already over? Maybe if you weren't staring at your parser and paying more attention to the strat, you wouldn't have wiped.


Pretty sure I've made it clear already what I think is the best middle ground between a useful tool for self-improvement while avoiding abuse potential.

But, I guess I'll say it... again...

Personal parsers by default with optional sharing. You can always see yours, but can't see others' information unless they manually choose to share it with you.

If you're making a pre-made, you can make it a rule to share and if people aren't okay with that, then you don't go in with them. If you're in DF doing raid content for some reason, people get to choose whether they share and if it becomes relevant (wiping due to DPS checks), you can ask people to share to see what happened and if everyones' DPS is close and you just need a small push or someone's really not trying. If you're in DF doing roulettes or normal dungeons, you don't really need to see the information because there's not many strict DPS checks in roulettes.

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FFXIV raiding is a series of DPS checks. Yes, every single raid at its core is a DPS check in FFXIV with interspersed mechanics, either due to an enrage or things much more specific/tangible per a part of the fight. A1 and A2 are mostly extremely easy enrages, though not easy enough - players to this day still wipe on them.

A3S, there are two very specific DPS checks, arguably more depending on overall gear/skill but there are two very big DPS checks, Hand of Pain and when a Limb grabs your healers. When learning Hand of Pain in i190, we had to push out quite a bit of DPS, we HAD to look at our parsers, at the damage incoming tab, and see who the heck was slacking, what CDs we could throttle from X point without being a risk to overall enrage, see how much damage a class could do in the 20s the Hand was active. 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 - that enrage didn't come for free in near i190. That enrage still doesn't come for free for most groups in i200.

Same with A4S except the DPS checks are even more sensitive overall when it comes to push timing. Someone slacking? You bet we rode them until we could clear, like any good group will do, because we don't want slackers wasting all of our time after a few hundred pulls. The other night on A4S we enraged a bit earlier than we normally have allowance for and I got called out for being 100 DPS lower than I should have, and I sucked it up and realized what I did at a certain point was simply no good. I used that info to get better.

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.

It seems like you're pro parser (I guess?), but you believe that info shouldn't be given to others unless they want it. Sorry, can't get behind that, DPS is too big a deal in FFXIV. If you suck as a DPS, much like sucking at surviving as a tank or healing as a healer, tough cookie, everyone should know who to blame when you wipe because maybe for once you'll do some research and not get carried, or get laughed out of a group for being unwilling to improve.

If you just all of a sudden starting using a parser, aside from your own data it's not that useful. But the more you have it running and looking at what everyone is doing, the more useful it becomes as continued use helps gain context and comparisons. For instance, you'll be able to tell if your DRG replacement for the day is trending behind your normal DRG by the time the first jump happens in A1, or if someone else on your team is just having an off run. You will be able to tell at what point healer’s dps starts to drop, maybe to time your own Virus or Eye for an Eye use next time to give the healers and extra GCD or two to dps. To be honest, the usefulness is near endless and limited only by the mind and creativity of the user. It really is great data that can be used in so many good ways. Playing as an Astrologian for instance, it helps to know who to give buffs to even in a PUG, or what dps to raise first if both happen to be dead. It's never the be all end all, maybe you want to get the SMN up first for another raise...or give the Balance to someone who just put up Raging Strikes regardless if they seemed to be the strongest dps or not - but it's a data point to help you along in your decision making progress.

To be honest, at this point I really think you are arguing for the sake of arguing. 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.

My personal belief is that in a game where you are part of a group, everyone in the group should see how everyone in the group is doing, and DPS is important enough to be a measure. Then, we as players should best decide how to utilize the info, make decisions, and interact with each other.

I may never agree with you and you may never agree with me. That's ok - variety is the spice of life. But arguing that real time parse data isn't useful just seems silly - it most definitely is. I don't even think that's debatable. You just weigh your fear of player reactions more heavily.

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

Okay, but let's assume that all the data gets collected and shared as a parse that shows how the whole fight went instead of just "Here's the final DPS numbers". You'd still get the exact same information as if you saw it during the fight, but would have the down-time to talk about it as well as to actually comb the data instead of trying to pay attention to parsers plus your rotation plus mechanics.

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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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Unfortunately, as I said in the previous post, I don't expect that SE would bother to make it available to certain platforms and not all, given that they also could have done that with TP bars ages ago, which is a huge game-changer for Bards and NIN and knowing when to Paeon/Goad.

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I agree with you here :(, just showing a possible benefit from having a full-party parser over a personal-only parser or a personal parser with a share (or rather "allow others to parse me") option.

--Erim Nelhah

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

So, when you said you were done, you didn't mean you were done with the thread, but that you were done trying to contribute any actual discussion?

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Done trying to understand your definitions of vague and specific. :P

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Originally Posted by Aiselia

But the answer to your question is yes, because I'm clearly not the only one who's given reason not to implement them. Most people who do, though, just get attacked for being bad, so it's no wonder they expect parsers to breed elitism.

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

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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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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Please stop with this fear mongering, give us facts that parsers turn saints into sinners. No more confirmation biases, no more hyperbole.

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Originally Posted by ShanaShirayuki

Please stop with this fear mongering, give us facts that parsers turn saints into sinners. No more confirmation biases, no more hyperbole.

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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.