FFXIV's Double Standard - Third-Party Usage and Spam Report Trolls

This is becoming a big issue. I've been seeing an uptick of some people getting suspended for the dumbest things. My tank for my group today was suspended for 10 days over absolutely nothing - and a lot of this is caused by the double standard that was set by SE from when Xenos was banned for a clip on Twitch(which is OUTSIDE of FFXIV).

The way this is being abused is that if someone doesn't agree with you or is mad at you, they basically can call the GMs on you for "Third Party Usage" when in fact they weren't using them at all. It makes things difficult because based on what streams have been done by influencers, I've wanted to believe it's a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule among the community for a long time.

However, there have been more and more reports that have caused suspensions in the last few months without viable evidence and they haven't done any wrong. If anything, I want to put out a petition to Naoki Yoshida, the Director of FFXIV and his production team, to update their Rules and Policies in regards to this issue, because it is not explicitly mentioned in the User Agreement.

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any unauthorized cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software or hardware designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

2.2 Real Money Trading, Farming and Power-Leveling. You may not sell, purchase or exchange for real-world money or value any in-game currency, accounts, characters, in-game services, or in-game virtual items. You may not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party or for the purpose of selling any virtual assets to a third party for real-world money, specifically including "gold-farming" and power-leveling services.

2.3 Commercial Use. You may not exploit the Game for any commercial purpose (for example, advertising any product or service in-game, or use by the operator of a cyber café) without Square Enix's prior written consent.

2.4 Private Servers. You may not create, operate, participate in or use any unauthorized servers intended to emulate the Game.

2.5 Data Mining. You may not intercept, mine or otherwise collect information from the Game using unauthorized third party software.

2.6 Hacking and Circumvention. You may not hack, disassemble, decompile, or otherwise modify the Game or server computer code, whether the Game code is located on a DVD, Blu-rayTM disc, your computer/console or on Square Enix's servers, except as expressly permitted by Square Enix or applicable law.

2.7 Modifying or Creating Derivative Software. You may not modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Game or Service in any way not expressly authorized by Square Enix, and may not make any derivative works of the Game.

2.8 Commercial Spamming/Spimming. You may not use (or abuse) the in-game chat and message services to distribute advertisements.

I will compare these rules to what ACT runs on, which multiple people use for personal use. At most, ACT is a use violation of Term 2.5, which includes Data Mining(this infers to the mining of information of any kind from Final Fantasy XIV). However, Final Fantasy XIV has not upheld this agreement on their side in regards to their influencers and others that stream the use of such programs on Twitch and has been normalized over the years.

What they need to do is follow their own guidelines, but in regards to the report abuse that can be used against people by saying they used Third Party Services, I recommend that they do a proper investigation - however, the problem that shows itself when they attempt such is that they are unable to know on that individual computer whether they are using ACT or mods in that regard.

Instead of assuming that these things are in use, there must be proof shown instead of this idea of 'guilty until proven innocent'.

To properly protect players from Report Abuse in bad faith in regards to Third Party Usage, I recommend that the Final Fantasy XIV Team adds a clause to their policy:

3.10 Abuse of the Report System. You may not exploit the report system against other users, in accordance with Term 3.2 on false grounds. Should the user be found in violation of 3.10, the punishment will prompt action from suspension up to termination from Final Fantasy XIV.

As for third party platforms, they need to write themselves in the User Agreement how they're going to handle it because there is no agreement currently in regards to what happens on Twitch. Any criticism from the community helps, but it's becoming more and more of an issue that the FFXIV Development Team needs to address, if not Naoki Yoshida directly as he did when he went over how their system works when they did a Live Letter one time.

Note: Their User Agreement was last updated on 12/24/2019.

the only reason why SE turns a "blind eye" to Third Party Tools usage is due to a small flux of users that use them but honestly I think they shouldn't turn a "blind eye" to them. As third party tools only reinforce toxic behavior and tends to make the game easier to play.

in regards to being punished for out of game actions while playing the game on a public platform like twitch or youtube. The fact that they are streaming the product and playing it as they did makes what they say and do offline still subject to the User Agreement. just think of a person in a E-Sports tournament that was suddenly shouting derogatory things as they were playing in a live match but the opponent couldn't hear them due to their rooms being soundproof and the game having no mic. Yet the camera picked up everything and it was broadcasted to twitch. It's the same thing just on a lesser scale.

edit:
The posts below me in this very thread only reinforces my first statement at how the usage of third party tools just reinforces toxic behavior as there is not only bashing on other players but also advertisements for the usage of such illicit tools and at the end of the day all Third Party Tools (including Damage Meters) require the user to have violated a few rules in the User Agreement. My stance has not changed and I still believe that SE should not turn a blind eye to the usage of such tools

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Originally Posted by znushu

the only reason why SE turns a "blind eye" to Third Party Tools usage is due to a small flux of users that use them but honestly I think they shouldn't turn a "blind eye" to them. As third party tools only reinforce toxic behavior and tends to make the game easier to play.

in regards to being punished for out of game actions while playing the game on a public platform like twitch or youtube. The fact that they are streaming the product and playing it as they did makes what they say and do offline still subject to the User Agreement. just think of a person in a E-Sports tournament that was suddenly shouting derogatory things as they were playing in a live match but the opponent couldn't hear them due to their rooms being soundproof and the game having no mic. Yet the camera picked up everything and it was broadcasted to twitch. It's the same thing just on a lesser scale.

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To be fair, Third Party Tools such as ACT and its Triggers do make it easier to do things such as Ultimate and Savage, however it still is violating the User Agreement in this regard. As for the toxicity you mention, I have not seen it except in the smallest minority of groups become used as a tool to bash someone for not doing their DPS or something else. Out of game actions on the other hand should not be as heavy-handed on that punishment, as they have no jurisdiction over those areas(Twitch, Youtube) that have their own individual User Agreements(hence the suspension of a Twitch user for bashing someone's DPS on FFXIV the other time because it was considered 'toxic' or directing their own viewers to attack another streamer in a hateful way). Final Fantasy XIV has no jurisdiction in those areas, and at best can only talk to Twitch/Youtube about it in regards to that site's Terms of Service and User Agreement rather than banning for something that someone said on another site and not in-game(which, if it was in-game, it would be under FFXIV's User Agreement).

Feel like we are only getting half the story here. Sure you want to defend your friend who you feel was wrongly suspended, but these things don't just happen without sufficient evidence so clearly SE had something to go on in order to execute some kind of action against the player. Not really a double standard though, more use common sense online and no one should really get in to any trouble to begin with.

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Originally Posted by znushu

As third party tools only reinforce toxic behavior

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This has little backing. It feels like you're taking most of this experience from WoW. In my entire life of playing FF14 I have only run into 1 person that was blurting out DPS numbers to others and how bad they were. I simply reported them. They likely got banned.

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Originally Posted by znushu

and tends to make the game easier to play.

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Why do you care how easy or hard the game is for others to play? Shouldn't you only worry about yourself when it comes to this? If you think they make the game easier to play then stop using them.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Feel like we are only getting half the story here. Sure you want to defend your friend who you feel was wrongly suspended, but these things don't just happen without sufficient evidence so clearly SE had something to go on in order to execute some kind of action against the player. Not really a double standard though, more use common sense online and no one should really get in to any trouble to begin with.

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It would be best to explain the common sense SE uses because it obviously doesn't follow through if you're just going on word of mouth and a person's record. Would you act on that without even hearing the other person first? Because honestly lack of communication between who is being accused without chat logs or anything is important - and if they even crossed over into Discord Territory, then that's an entire different can of worms since they've done it on Twitch and Twitter*.

*Doing that with the mod community was justified since it the graphics and such are their property and modification of it violates 2.7.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

However, there have been more and more reports that have caused suspensions in the last few months without viable evidence and they haven't done any wrong.

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Where is your proof of this?

Edit: you also neglected to quote the Materials Usage license, which is going to apply to any content creators including streamers.

https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=authc

Yoshi P. Has no control over the TOS or The EULA for the game that is handled by the legal department. As for bans there are players in this game who will never admit to wrong doing. Some players do things they don't believe is wrong or would offend someone but SE sees it as wrong or offensive. It always needs to be kept in mind that no player can 100% monitor at all times what another player is doing or saying.

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Originally Posted by znushu

As third party tools only reinforce toxic behavior and tends to make the game easier to play.

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I'm always impressed when people who do literally no endgame at all (which is the main place things like ACT are used or matter) are such experts on it.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'm always impressed when people who do literally no endgame at all (which is the main place things like ACT are used or matter) are such experts on it.

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Not to mention that I would really like to see what would come from having no parsing at all. Can you imagine trying to put a week 1 party together without parsing? And how would you know to improve?
All I can think of is that the playerbase would set a website up with their speed kills of the SSS dummies and everyone would compare themselves to those. Which in essence is the same as parsing and fflogs.
What this says is that the content provided by the devs requires a measuring stick that they aren't willing to provide themselves. Hence why players use tools like ACT and why devs turn a blind eye.

Xeno deserved the ban. It was a longtime coming. He was the epitome of toxic to players on a consistent basis. I also guarantee you oh mighty defenders of parsers that all content would be cleared regardless of the use of parsers or not.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

To be fair, Third Party Tools such as ACT and its Triggers do make it easier to do things such as Ultimate and Savage, however it still is violating the User Agreement in this regard. As for the toxicity you mention, I have not seen it except in the smallest minority of groups become used as a tool to bash someone for not doing their DPS or something else. Out of game actions on the other hand should not be as heavy-handed on that punishment, as they have no jurisdiction over those areas(Twitch, Youtube) that have their own individual User Agreements(hence the suspension of a Twitch user for bashing someone's DPS on FFXIV the other time because it was considered 'toxic' or directing their own viewers to attack another streamer in a hateful way). Final Fantasy XIV has no jurisdiction in those areas, and at best can only talk to Twitch/Youtube about it in regards to that site's Terms of Service and User Agreement rather than banning for something that someone said on another site and not in-game(which, if it was in-game, it would be under FFXIV's User Agreement).

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I agree the only time I really see it is in very very small groups and on occasion when someone that was being toxic with it while streaming gets slapped with a temp ban.

However, regardless of the streaming platform, the streamer is still bond by SE's Media Usage License and that is how they get banned. For example streamers can't gate their FFXIV videos behind paywalls and such this is dictated in the media usage license. Its a catch all License from SE and tons of corporations have these media usage license. Simply put, because they are streaming on twitch and or you tube or whatever platform they are streaming on, its fair game with with SE regardless. SE has always been the care bear MMO and will do what they need to do keep everyone welcomed to the game. To be fair, the casual market is huge and in the end SE is about making money.

AS for the two big streamers. They both got temp suspensions. They were told what rule and because of the results of the incident of last year, SE simply wont tell you what, when, or which streaming video and that is their prerogative.

This is simply business. Nothing more nothing less.

As for ACT. Its a good a tool, it shows how you are doing, how bad you are doing. It allows you to improve your gameplay. It doesn't give people the right to be butt heads towards each other and that I haven't seen as much. I believe people make it a bigger issue than it is.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I also guarantee you oh mighty defenders of parsers that all content would be cleared regardless of the use of parsers or not.

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So, it doesn't mean someone shouldn't be able to get their own DPS numbers and try to improve as much as possible. Those who oppose parsers do so out of spite. They most likely had some bad experience long ago in WoW and now all parsers are evil and should be banned from the planet.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

So, it doesn't mean someone shouldn't be able to get their own DPS numbers and try to improve as much as possible. Those who oppose parsers do so out of spite. They most likely had some bad experience long ago in WoW and now all parsers are evil and should be banned from the planet.

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You don't need a parser to improve. The people that spout that drivel are the same people that enjoy bashing other players because they aren't up to their standard. That is why you don't have parsers in this game officially and never will.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I also guarantee you oh mighty defenders of parsers that all content would be cleared regardless of the use of parsers or not.

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By whom is the question. Access to savage clears would be much more restricted without the current tools used to optimize your play. With no reverse engineering and data mining (as per the ToS) you wouldn't even know what stat to equip. I think people take the theorycrafting for granted. Finding literature on proper rotations would be harder and you would'nt be able to measure your proficiency at any point. You would keep hitting enrage with no clue why, forced to wipe the same content week over week until you can get a bit more gear. And if that gear isn't enough, then what?
It's not like there isn't any precedent here. There are plenty of players in the game that don't have parsing insight and don't read up on their rotation. You see them everywhere in normal content. You would outright never clear the savage tier with even a single of those players in your party. E8S would be an insurmountable wall unless everyone else was 90%, but how likely would that be if nobody had access to parsing?

So sure, all content would be cleared but at what cost? And by which portion of the playerbase?

Parsers are fine, jerks that use them to bully others (for views, likes, whatever) aren't.

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Originally Posted by Darsien

It's always the people who don't do content where performance heavily matters that think this. It's cute every time.

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It's always the people who do content where performance heavily matters that think this. It's cute every time.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You don't need a parser to improve. The people that spout that drivel are the same people that enjoy bashing other players because they aren't up to their standard. That is why you don't have parsers in this game officially and never will.

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You do realize every single rotation, theorycraft and guide all rely on parse data and simulations, yes? None of them could exist with accurate information if it weren't for parses because they'd have no way to verify anything. You'd eventually clear content because we inevitably out-gear Savage not because you improved as a player. Even then, it would be substantially harder. Ultimate, on the other hand, would be impossible. The DPS checks are far more strict and without a parser, you have no idea how to improve performance. This is content where if healers and tanks aren't contributing meaningful amounts of DPS, you will wipe. How do you know what's "meaningful" if you literally can't see it? The sheer amount of blame put on DPS players by underperforming tanks and healers would be staggering.

While yes, you can learn the basics without a parse. And even play at a functional level. There comes a point where you need to see results to know whether it's an improvement. This only comes via a parse, either by actively using one yourself or relying on one indirectly through rotate guides and theorycrafts.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You don't need a parser to improve. The people that spout that drivel are the same people that enjoy bashing other players because they aren't up to their standard. That is why you don't have parsers in this game officially and never will.

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How do you know how to improve when you can't tell the results of what you're doing?

The people who spout drivel like yours are frequently the ones performing the worst with no desire to get better.

All I see is a lot of crying kids. You won't change my opinion. You don't need parsers.

People don't get banned over "absolutely nothing", otherwise I'd get banned just for greeting or calling out people (without insults) ingame. And Xenos isn't the only streamer who set the precedent for getting banned for shaming via parser.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all up for support of parsers but let's not pretend that streamers like Arthars (spelling?) don't exist and have used the tool irresponsibly. There's always two sides to a story; be upfront with your friend did and try not to minimize it with "absolutely nothing".

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Originally Posted by Darsien

When you're crying, all you see is crying because your tears have obscured your vision. Here. Dry them with this reality check: Your opinion isn't right just because you have it.

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Why would I change my opinion due to nonsense a perfect stranger spouts on a public forum? Silly kids.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

This is becoming a big issue. I've been seeing an uptick of some people getting suspended for the dumbest things. My tank for my group today was suspended for 10 days over absolutely nothing - and a lot of this is caused by the double standard that was set by SE from when Xenos was banned for a clip on Twitch(which is OUTSIDE of FFXIV).

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"absolutely nothing" is a HUGE gloss over. We need some details here. I've yet to have any friends, LS members or FC members get even warnings for "absolutely nothing".

As for Xenos: Streaming yourself is basically providing evidence. Just because it wasn't within the client doesn't mean it isn't actionable by them. Maybe don't stream if you're going to break their TOS.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

All I see is a lot of crying kids. You won't change my opinion. You don't need parsers.

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In dungeons and alliance raids, definitely not. Maybe Extreme content, too, depending on the DPS check. For Savage and/or Ultimate though, it really helps. It adds up everyone's DPS and shows you what the parties overall DPS is which can tell you whether you're meeting the DPS check or not. Also seeing if you're doing the expected DPS of {job} is nice, imo. Especially if you have high ping.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

It's always the people who do content where performance heavily matters that think this. It's cute every time.

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Thanks for siding with me. And yes, a performance measuring tool is useful for content where performance matters. Not so much elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

By whom is the question.

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Anybody who plays well. Optimized, "theorycrafted" rotations and substats aren't required for clears. They help, a ton, but they aren't required. Neither is parsing nor datamining. As for gearing, there are two ways to gear, conceptually. You either gear for consistent damage or mercurial damage. Mercurial damage generally trends higher due to being multiplicative with raid buffs, but it varies job to job and is usually at disadvantage early in new expansions. Though it also depends on the substat totals you have to work with, with the gear allocated to your job.

Before you could assume that you had to improve or change your rotation as individuals, you'd have to get to enrage with nobody dying, because more often than improper rotations, it's player death or fight illiteracy that leads to enrage wipes rather than one person doing a less-than optimal rotation. Battle strategy and how mechanics are reacted to and carried out has a far greater impact on raid and individual DPS than fine tuning a rotation.

Parsers don't make people understand concepts, and honestly, you have to play from a conceptual standpoint in order to "craft" optimal rotations. The parser itself is merely what checks the math to rule out human error, but it is not necessary.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

You do realize every single rotation, theorycraft and guide all rely on parse data and simulations, yes? None of them could exist with accurate information if it weren't for parses because they'd have no way to verify anything. .

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Many rotations in this game only have one or two logical loops for the order in which each jobs' actions should be performed. As such, it's quite easy to find what works and what doesn't in order to achieve high damage. Of course, without a parser to verify the math more easily, it'd be a lot harder to verify which rotation is best, but it'd still be doable. Not only that, but for a lot of jobs, particularly Tanks and Healers, their rotations are so easy that the only way to improve on doing them is to physically improve your reflexes, ping, and conceptual level of play. Like you don't need a parser to tell you that it would behoove you as a tank to not lose uptime if possible, get in as many or all of your big hits under buffs, both yours and the party's. As such, there's an upper limit to how well you can perform, and once you reach it, everything else comes down to gearing, RNG, fight strategy, and the proficiency of your team.

Also bear in mind that since parsers don't teach you what's important to look at within an parse itself, that you'd still have to understand things like crit variance and the like in order to understand parse results. If you're already playing from a conceptual standpoint, then all a parser really is, is an easy way to see all of the fight statistics. While useful, it's unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Darsien

So please, indulge me. What is optimization to you? Shower me in your 0 experience of the things you've directly spoken of.

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Sure thing, though no member of the community will ever have set opinions.

Optimization in terms of FFXIV is things like, mapping out the fight with exact timers for cooldown usage and burst windows. Or knowing which opener to use if part of your opener relies on a speed buff prior to an attack buff vs. the length of the fight and how its downtime windows affect that.
Optimization is communication between healers on who's healing what, with what, and whether or not we're gonna lowride HP for snap heals for Limit Break speed boosting (Not sure if this is applicable anymore).
Optimization is tanks and the party deciding when and where they're going to position the boss, whether party positions for mechanics should be adjust based on that or not, depending on party composition.
Optimization is deciding whether or not the standard comp is required for the fight or not. If not, what's best to double or not double up on.
Optimization is fine tuning for the type of clear you want. There's progression optimization and then there's speed-kill optimization and then there's challenge run optimization.

All optimization really means is maximizing your, or your group's, performance for the task you want to perform.

Also, if it's something that must be agreed upon by the group, then it's not something that would be done by default. This includes any discussion of individual positions or boss facing relative positions. So your last example of what's not optimization doesn't hold up (Ruby/E5S), since by considering that and enforcing what will be done in line with the group's strategy would serve to improve performance of the group as a whole.

I've raided Savage in this game for as long as it's been around, so I've got some experience in this. Please, be less condescending in further discussion.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'm always impressed when people who do literally no endgame at all (which is the main place things like ACT are used or matter) are such experts on it.

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I'm always impressed that people think just because other's dont raid that they don't know about ACT's Timeline plugin, or callout plugin, timers plugin and ofc course, dps plugin. Please stop...

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You don't need a parser to improve. The people that spout that drivel are the same people that enjoy bashing other players because they aren't up to their standard. That is why you don't have parsers in this game officially and never will.

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then how do you measure your improvement? pencil and paper?

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoints

then how do you measure your improvement? pencil and paper?

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By keeping track of your wipe to clear consistency. Clear consistency isn't held in very high regard by our raiding playerbase, for some strange reason.

For individual DPS, how fast you can break the current highest SSS dummy. For group, how fast you clear fights with the same set of players.

They should just officially allow parsers honestly. Pretty much everyone doing savage and ultimates use parsers and fflogs. If SE actually enforce any type of punishment on parsers then you can pretty much say good bye to 90% of the end game raiding population.

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Originally Posted by Seddrinth

They should just officially allow parsers honestly. Pretty much everyone doing savage and ultimates use parsers and fflogs. If SE actually enforce any type of punishment on parsers then you can pretty much say good bye to 90% of the end game raiding population.

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The reason they can't do that is becaust ACT and other programs akin to it are more than just damage meters. Like SinisterJoints pointed out, they allowed you to have extra telegraphs and timestamps that aren't in the game. This is usually rationaled away as, "It's just a machine instead of a person giving you a callout." But in reality it gives you the tells ahead of the in game ones, meaning you get more reaction and pre-positioning time. If they officially allowed parsers, they'd essentially be condoning a small form of cheating, and would have to create an official parsing program for the game itself, that also worked across consoles that does the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

By keeping track of your wipe to clear consistency. Clear consistency isn't held in very high regard by our raiding playerbase, for some strange reason.

For individual DPS, how fast you can break the current highest SSS dummy. For group, how fast you clear fights with the same set of players.

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That's most likely because once the clear is achieved, the next stop is farming. Farming will always have at some point after the initial wave of first clears, an average clear time that is better than the first clears. To achieve that, you will need mastery of the raid mechs and improving on your performance that was needed for that first clear to hit that farm average.

Otherwise, you'd have people not caring about being in a party that consistently takes 10mins to clear a raid when the average sets it at 5mins.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

That's most likely because once the clear is achieved, the next stop is farming. Farming will always have at some point after the initial wave of first clears, an average clear time that is better than the first clears. To achieve that, you will need mastery of the raid mechs and improving on your performance that was needed for that first clear to hit that farm average.

Otherwise, you'd have people not caring about being in a party that consistently takes 10mins to clear a raid when the average sets it at 5mins.

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I experience a different happenstance, and that happenstance is, usually some individuals are parsing their own runs with random people in the hopes of posting an Orange or what have you, instead of focusing on clearing the content. This results in them taking risks to maximize personal DPS without communicating what they want to healers, or the party in the cases that it is the healers themselves doing this.

Most of the time, average times don't matter to anyone, only things like skipping potentially problematic mechanics. In general, it seems to be selfishness over consistency. It happens in statics too, but statics are generally aware of who their selfish players are, and they generally work around them, especially if they are exceptional.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Fair points

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Here's the thing. Parsers are a required tool to identify issues.

You can optimize all you want with spreadsheets, practice and the likes, but what is to say that a change you made resulted in a gain or a loss? Measuring consistent variances in boss health is going to be incredibly difficult. Maybe the optimization you ran didn't increase the healer dps, or.... more likely someone had really bad crit variance or messed up a bit. You can't actually quantify personal performance without a parser.
Not to mention that the population of players that have the time and will to spreadsheet party mitigation and heals are sub 5%. That leaves a lot of players out.
So what results from having no parser? Well, lets take E8S. You run the content, nobody dies, you get your adds buff, nobody gets debuffs, perfect run yet you still hit enrage. Where do you optimize? Who's lacking? Do you need to change a strat? are your healers overhealing? It could be anything. Maybe it's week 1-2 and your healers aren't pulling 10k dps each in pre/post adds. They're in 480 gear after all. Or maybe it's week 4-5-6 and you just have one dps not performing well. You would have no idea since you didn't have parses to onboard this dps in the first place. Maybe he doesn't care to optimize, maybe he doesn't know how, maybe he thinks he's doing fine. Now what? You have no way of addressing the issue because you don't even know where it is.

This can impact pretty much any group hitting a wall at any point.

Now the other approach is to say "content doesn't need to be cleared as fast, it can be artificially gear locked". Essentially, all the groups that would be inevitably held back due to a lack of optimization tools will eventually clear as they build more gear. That's a fair point of view. It does come with a few drawbacks.
The obvious first one is that some groups will still encounter the issues in the paragraph above even once fully geared with the gear they have available. These people will be locked out of the content. Again, it could be your design choice, telling whether or not it's a good design choice is outside the scope of this post.
The second point is that it ignores some psychological aspects of gear locking. Which can be incredibly frustrating for higher tier players.
But even if we ignore that completely. More importantly than all, gear locking does not work for current ultimates. Since the minilvl-maxilvl delta is 0. Ultimates are all about consistent execution and mechanics. But you absolutely need to be able to identify issues with dps checks. And you will have some.

The game doesn't provide you with the tools required to identify issues within your party. The game provides you with fights that will require you and your party to iron out any issues you may have. You end up with third party tools that help with that. It's natural. And if you don't believe me, just believe SE's "turning a blind eye" policy. There's a reason why they do it.

Also, I think people highly underestimate how instrumental parsers have been in raising the skill of the playerbase. Many, many, many more players would be locked out of clearing savage tiers if we didn't have parsers. Even the good players as they could potentially be partied with heavy carries.. After all, how would they know?