My only point of contention here is that for buffs with a 30/60s duration with no CD time, the might as well be added as trait buffs. But that's just me.
Agreed.
Classes being vastly different at max level compared to low level is a problem, and also makes the leveling process even more retarded and non useful.
Quests and early dungeons should be used to gradually teach people to play properly, so people aren't in for such a shock when they ding max level and enter a raid.
Frankly speaking, we live in an age where informations go ramparts, if ppl won't spend a few minutes to better understand the job they are playing in any way, that's on them I say.
I don't think we need extensive training wheels that will only make us complacent, ACT, fflogs, the balance discord to new a few are avaible to everyone if ppl won't go there by themselves then there's a more intrinsical problem.
heck even a /shout can someone help me understand how [inster new skill here] works? would be a good initiative.
But if the person doesn't do that himself than it highly probable that he/she won't really improve since they have no reasons to, I might be stretching it but perhaps it relates to the low raid partecipation, some ppl aren't simply interested.
You are completly right that the so called casuals are in way higher numbers in every game but it happens in every game that if the so called hardcore players stop playing the game, it starts dying because the casuals lose their fun also since no one is farming the stuff they need or spends their gold/gil or what ever for their items and they also don't get carries anymore and can't do some content because of that. Games need both types of players but that doesn't mean that a casual player has to be lazy and just press 1,2,3.
You really think a parser would help people learn how to play? Parsers are actually really poor teaching tools, sure you may work out things like AOE being more damaging (something also worked out by common sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds, and actually read the floating damage text), but it is far more likely to teach bad habits and incorrect play. The game needs to guide the player better through the early game, properly teaching rotation and game concepts throughout (not just in a big chunk like hall of the novice currently is).
Having a parser in early game would simply teach tanks to be in dps stance, and healers that they need to dps as much as possible, without actually teaching them how to successfully execute those, or why they are important.
I'd like everyone opposed to answer this question not pick and choose little bits to strawman. In regards to me having a personal parser, that I can see built into my hud for fights, what about that offends you or bothers you. Why can't I have it? Maybe if nothing else whIle I'm running the same roulette dungeons every day I want to beat my Previous skills so tell me why my personal parser is such a bother to you
I'm very pro-parser and can give you an answer to that. Having a parser is your choice, but parsers promote poor play if you don't already have the fundamental skill to play the game (hint: how many people in duty finder have this skill?). We would see personal parsers being read wrong, and we would see players who want to inflate their DPS take unnecessarily high risks which may hinder the party more than low DPS. We may also see the opposite problem than we have now, wherein players will think they are playing well just because they have high DPS ("but muh parsers says...") when in fact they have that DPS because they stood in all the AOEs, got all the damage buffs, and had an amazing healer.
Parsers are great for end game raiding, some would even say necessary. But for casual content it would be overwhelming and people would misunderstand and misuse them. Parsers are NOT a teaching tool, they are an optimising tool, and people need to stop treating them like they can teach newer or more casual people how to play.
I'd have to second this. We already have a huge amount of people who already don't understand that parsers are meant for more than just having huge DPS numbers, and the immediate side-effect is not understanding how to read it when it is transferred over to fflogs. Take a gander at reddit to see that on a near-daily basis, there's a request for somebody to read parser information. Turning this over to players in an official capacity in MSQ content, before a lot of players even have a working foundation on their jobs, would spell some trouble.
It's a videogame, not university. Few people out there are in the habit of hunting for information and learning for themselves. As such, I believe the game itself should contain all the necessary information to play correctly. And still, you will find people not willing to read 3 lines in a tooltip. It can't be helped, not everyone takes a game seriously enough to want to play well.
I would never want a parser in my hud. Combat log analysis is done AFTER the fight. Watching it during the fight is waay too much of a distraction and has no benefit at all.
Agreed. People focus WAY too much on on that single tiny DPS number, when a parsing combat data has so much more to offer.
Taking unnecessary risks, as you said, and to the point of meter padding.
How often had I people waste precious GCDs on a mob that didn't need to be DPSed on due to encounter mechanics while the mob that had to die ASAP lived longer in WoW? I lost count. <_<
Yes it's a game, but as you say the analysis is done after the fight as such if ppl don't care it's their own fault not the company or the game.
Since this is a multyplayer game it promotes ppl talking to each other to understand the game and become better if ppl don't do that that's I repeat their own damn fault