DPS Parser Solution Idea

While I think both sides of the parser debate have pretty solid arguments I think the core of it boils down to two main points, which I think my solution addresses.

1. People who genuinely want to get better at their rotations and would like some kind of feedback mechanism to help in an environment that doesn’t have people berating them while they learn.
2. People who want to tackle difficult content or pug faster runs of normal content who want a similar mechanism to lend validity to claims of skill from would-be party members.

My proposal is an in-game ranking system using a “proving grounds” environment that keeps the numbers hidden from view and is based on the numbers the devs are building the end-game raid encounters around. There is a similar system about to be introduced to teach beginners and could be expanded to include this solution, which I think makes it more viable as well.

So to illustrate how this works imagine the following:

You que for the dps “Proving Grounds” where you are met with a raid boss, tank, and healer. The npc tank will auto generate an appropriate level of threat, the healer will heal for an appropriate amount (as determined by dev testing for raid level encounters) and your job is to kill the boss while dealing with raid style mechanics (maybe simplified a bit, but should at least create some movement, etc.), within a given window. Your performance would then be ranked from F – SS where A would be adequate dps for the first 2 bosses of a raid, S would be adequate for any raid and SS would be reserved for players pushing the absolute upper limits of what the devs expected for that test, and showing mastery of their rotations.

The encounter would be designed to last 5ish minutes based on your classes expected dps, and would adjust health based on new dps expectations as more gear became available. I would also like to see your gear be set to an average ilvl for the duration of the encounter so that everything could be assumed even, leaving the skill of the player as the only real variable. Potentially having a random order to some parts to make sure the player can think on their feet as well. I think you get the basic idea. make the encounter fair for everyone in terms of gear etc, but make sure its challenging enough to give a decent representation of the skill of the player.

This would obviously not satisfy everyone but should address the concerns of the bulk of players. The absolute extreme of the min-maxing would still congregate together and use their parsers as they are now but, I think this type of system where the numbers are less important is key for the larger base because the devs know what the theoretical max for a class is, and your performance should be measured in a way that is a reflection of your mastery of the class and not your classes relative power level.

This idea still would need a solid amount of fleshing out, but so many of the pieces already seem to be there that I don’t think it would be unreasonable to see implemented.

They adding a beginners hall :)

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Originally Posted by Azazua_azura

They adding a beginners hall :)

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That's the system I'm talking about, but you are not given a ranking as a way to show competency. This idea expands on the beginners hall to a point where it can help take the place of parsers in a way that still performs the core functions of what people want from parsers.

Proving Grounds is just a way to gauge if you are ready for raiding. It doesn't give you what a parser does. Being able to see your DPS during the actual content is invaluable as it allows you to tweak things on the fly. And every fight is different... buffs used at different times or saved for certain phases, different movement patterns, multi-DOTing, etc. FFlogs has been a great way to allow PC players to upload logs for their PS players to look at, but the API still needs to be finished.

WoW has Proving Grounds, but it's not just a gauge of your own ability. It's also a gate to keep bad players out of difficult PUG content until they improve. I'm not sure that's a good route for FF to go though. D:

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Originally Posted by Arrak

Proving Grounds...-snip-

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People who have access to parsers and use them are generally not the bulk of a player base. The bulk of players are not clearing raid content under geared or even at average ilvl. I'm not saying that the information gleaned from a parser isn't valuable or that FF or any other game should try and keep people from using them. It's just that so often they become the end all be all even in situations where a high rank from a "proving ground" would be proof enough of ability. The problem is that the bulk of players look at the parser and see the monk doing 500dps while the black mage is doing 350dps and assume that the black mage is performing poorly. An experienced group will understand how to weigh the whole of the situation while most will condemn and ridicule and kick the player.

Because of this, I'm not proposing this solution as a replacement for parsers but as a way to give the majority of people a fair representation of themselves. There may still be things you can do that are fight specific to improve but if a player is reaching the upper end of a proving ground I can at least bring them into a pug group with more confidence that they will perform at a level that I need rather than going in completely blind and taking their word for it.

Yeah, beginner hall is supposed to be added to the game and I believe they will give something like a grade for doing it. It'll probably be a copy of WoW Proving Grounds. Yoshi-P also mentioned possibly letting people practice individual phases of boss fights without having to do the whole fight. They talked about this in the the 80-something question/answer live letter.

That's interesting, I didn't see anything about a grade which is kind of what started me on this line of thinking. Having the ability to make sure a pug is at least "S" ranked for raiding wold be a huge help to a lot of people and for people wanting a basic benchmark of their abilities in relation to theoretical dps maxes for their class would take care of many of the reasons the average player turns to parsers. Hopefully the ranks or grades are a good representation and not overly lenient so they are actually useful to people.

edit:
I would love for the system to be robust enough and useful enough to curb the parser abuse by people who are using the numbers in isolation as a way to judge people, and creating an unfriendly environment. As you illustrated they are very powerful tools when used correctly, but since they were originally created for more hardcore players to min-max they aren't a tool that offers much needed context for those non hardcore players who are also seeking a way to improve their play. Having a tiered system of nothing->proving grounds->parsers may help with that which would be great for everybody I think.

Not just for DPS they need one for tanking and healing too. Tanks and healers need to be able to push themselves the same as DPS.

The DPS challenge would be how high you can push your damage as well as managing your threat on the targets as to not pull aggro. The tank challenge should be rotation of cooldowns and managing threat on all targets as well as facing AOE away from the NPC helpers(NPC helpers because it's a party scenario :p). The healer challenge should be aiding in DPS, managing threat and keeping tanks and DPS alive.

I hope that is sort of how the trials will be for all three roles anyway. You need to remember that tanking and healing are important for people to do their absolute best on as well.

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Originally Posted by Azazua_azura

They adding a beginners hall :)

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Chances are that the beginner's hall will function like WoW's proving grounds, and probably no more than the Bronze level at that.

Worse still, even if, at best, it has an actual parser, how useful is that really going to be when you can't compare it with real, in-group situations?

At the very least we should all have personal parsers. At best, our class quests should probably start actually helping new players hammer out their rotation, and require a certain level of dps from them (likely using an auto-leveled or synced gear from the given test) so they're not walking straight into future criticism, parsers or no parsers, when the tank notices that they're doing a third of the enmity of the other DPS (no enmity-drops on either) with only one target available, or the party wipes to dps checks.

Beginner's Hall - Endless 30 or raid kick!

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

Not just for DPS -snip-

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In my mind I picture the tank and healer versions kind of like this:

Tank - Threat Generation check - progressively higher threat generation from a dps that the tank must stay ahead of for as long as possible. Grade based on time until you lose aggro.
Tank - Damage mitigation / survival check - Scripted healing based on encounter, boss hits progressively harder/faster. Grade based on survival time and damage mitigated (healing done as well for those built in heals)
Healer - Threat management / Targeting check - increasing dmg amt and frequency over a party of players while not pulling aggro from the tank. Grade based on how long until aggro or party member death.
Healer - Tank healing check - progressively more dmg on the tank, stay under on threat. Grade based on tank survival time.

Though thats just some basics. It could certainly be fleshed out from there.

Pharazon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuBVctXOsyA

This isn't me, but it's pretty much exactly what you're describing, just implemented a bit differently. This is what we believe S/E is going to use as the concept for Beginner's Hall.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

-snip-

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There's still a fundamental problem with the majority of people using parsers. They do not take the context of a fight/situation into account when judging performance. That's why having a well crafted proving ground (not what WoW offer for sure) that showed you a grade based on how well you perform based on the devs expected numbers for a class is a great starting point. You need a basic "does this person understand how to play their class" before you get into fight specific adjustments. It should also provide a better stepping stone into parsers for those situations.