Why people still USE ACT knowing their breaking TOS ??

Seeing streamers using these on their stream and also non raiders (group parties/dungeons) maybe ffxiv need to add their own version of parsing to remove need of addons/plugins ???

It's mainly a thing to cover Square. So if you choose to download anything like that and there's technical issues or viruses, Square will simply tell you it's against their terms to even use them so your help will be next to nothing. I doubt they'll actually ban someone using them.

They don't want to add damage meters to avoid toxicity but they turn a blind eye to people using them as long as they are not calling people out and being abusive with it.

It's a very "don't ask, don't tell" rule. So long as you aren't being a jerk with your parser SE won't do anything about it. If they actually enforced it and somehow got rid of all parses the raiding scene in this game would die overnight.

It's kind of to their benefit to feign ignorance. Even if the tools the community makes are producing incorrect data, or data that differs from their own, and even if our assessments are incorrect, overall it directs people to more informed discussions than if we never had it, and by our discussions we are a step closer to producing more useful feedback for the developer. Of course, it's up to us for how we interpret it, analyze it, make suggestions, make arguments, but it's still overall a net positive nonetheless. Yeah some people will be rude about people in their party underperforming, though that's more an issue of rude people than ACT itself.

Some people I know who use it (definitely not me because I would never break the rules...) ignore the TOS because it's a pointless rule and it's impossible to enforce.

The stated intention behind the rule was to prevent harassment. This it flawed because bullies will bully others whether they have third party tools to back them up or not. At the end of the day, ACT does nothing more than organize data that the game already gives you.

If SE truly wished to shut down damage meters they could change the game to not transmit combat number for other players. Only providing personal damage + healing, party casts, and enemy HP updates would have virtually no impact on gameplay and completely eliminate any possibility of making a functional damage meter. The fact they have chosen not to shows just how little they truly oppose parsing.


I'd be a huge fan if SE wants to implement their own in-game damage meter, though if it isn't fflogs compatible or have an integrated system with the same tools then I suspect it wouldn't be used extensively.

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Originally Posted by Sallian

They don't want to add damage meters to avoid toxicity but they turn a blind eye to people using them as long as they are not calling people out and being abusive with it.

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This never made much sense to me, cause can't they still do that with their own parsers? They can still look at chat logs at people being toxic about dps.

It's hard to know exactly how well you are doing as a DPS without one. Yes, there's Stone, Sea and Sky, but that just gives a baseline gauge of whether you can output a certain minimum dps on a target dummy and isn't actually that useful of a metric and on top of that the HP bars on those aren't always balanced well. Yes, you can watch how fast mobs die to know if dps is good or not, but you can't really know how much of that contribution is you and what your actual output is relative to others. It also doesn't give any sort of fine detail about your performance or any realistic way to compare your performance from run to run. In short, if your goal is just to go out and have fun doing content and clearing it is enough for you then no, you don't need a parser at all. If your goal is to push your DPS skills as much as possible while having fun doing content then a parser is very much needed.

The other major use of a parser is for AST/DNC/DRG/etc to know who to throw their dps buffs onto in order to get the most of out them. The enmity meter sort of does this, but it's not a perfect option and isn't always a reliable gauge. E.g. multiple targets aren't always hit equally by every dps so might give different rankings depending on which you look at. And the same thing as above where if you are just out there to have fun and clear it doesn't matter who it gets tossed onto so you don't need a parser, but if having fun for you includes pushing your dps contribution to the limit then making sure your dps buffs end up on the people that are outputting the highest dps is essential and a parser gives this information at a glance.

Because SE allows it. I mean if you get caught with a parser then in the end you were being a jackals with it. It is allowed in the sense they do not go hunting down people that use it. More or less you have to do something that puts a gaint sign on your back for SE to even take notice.

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Originally Posted by MichiPichi

This never made much sense to me, cause can't they still do that with their own parsers? They can still look at chat logs at people being toxic about dps.

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I think the thought is if they add it to the game, then it becomes required, and people cant escape it.

Not that I agree with people being dead weights, but it is what it is.