Any chance of an official data parser so we can test our character builds?

A data parser will give you data on your performance that can be calculated by the chat log such as:
Accuracy %
Evasion %
Avg. Damage per hit
Avg Damage per weaponskill
SP gained
SP/hour
XP gained
XP/hour
% party damage contributed

We use this information to see what the best builds are and to test new ideas with numbers that matter. So instead of "I have 13 more str" you can say "13 Str adds 7 dmg to my average melee hit damage on Braggodocios."

This data will help the players figure out how to choose between equipping or speccing strength, attack, accuracy, evasion...everything.

It's no secret that people will end up using parsers anyway. I would like to see Square Enix make a parser as they have made a windowed version. It would be quite innovative for a publisher to do so, and they could make more powerful parsers with better data than what we are comfortable doing. As it stands, the community will make parsers for the game anyway. That's less safe than Square Enix providing that service themselves in-house. Therefore, if there is a security argument, one has to argue that Square Enix creating the service is more safe than the players creating it, given the fact that it *will* be created because players want it.

A parser isn't about unfair advantage, even though it is a third party program (which is why SE should build one because they're great MMO content). It's about knowledge and using that knowledge for gameplay decisions and competitions or debates.

I'd like to see an Official Parser.

I would say yes i want this also, although we all know SE will never allow it.

Oh god yes.

Though, I suspect the entire system is getting revamped soon anyway...

I think the old stigma of "third party program" is not a good excuse to dismiss a very enriching MMO feature, and as it would be a first party program, or not even a unique program at all, they could put it entirely within-house so no there aren't any security holes.

I don't see any down sides that are legit. One could be that knowing this data takes the voodoo out of stats and exposes the real effects of abilities instead of the magical allure of them that often drives their aquisition. If players realize half the abilities don't actually do anything and half the stats don't matter, then the proficiency of the balance gets called into question. However, you can't base stats on a lie forever if they truly aren't worth it. Not having a parser only buys you time before people realize the effect is a herring.

As for the security concern, we're nowhere close to modding the market ward system, so in-house systems aren't threats. If we make it, which we will if they don't, that's more of a security threat than if they made it themselves so we didn't have to.

When they make a parser-equivalent, it can be clean and perfect and more powerful than we make it.

When we make a parser program, we'll tend to tack things like agro distance, spell distance, and a bunch of questionable borderline material to it that don't just give you data you could have calculated, but actually enhance gameplay.

Right now the parser is run along with narcotics by suspect players when Square could be regulating parser gameplay and taking credit for the great idea.

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Originally Posted by Peregrine

I think the old stigma of "third party program" is not a good excuse to dismiss a very enriching MMO feature, and as it would be a first party program, or not even a unique program at all, they could put it entirely within-house so no there aren't any security holes.

I don't see any down sides that are legit. One could be that knowing this data takes the voodoo out of stats and exposes the real effects of abilities instead of the magical allure of them that often drives their aquisition. If players realize half the abilities don't actually do anything and half the stats don't matter, then the proficiency of the balance gets called into question. However, you can't base stats on a lie forever if they truly aren't worth it. Not having a parser only buys you time before people realize the effect is a herring.

As for the security concern, we're nowhere close to modding the market ward system, so in-house systems aren't threats. If we make it, which we will if they don't, that's more of a security threat than if they made it themselves so we didn't have to.

When they make a parser-equivalent, it can be clean and perfect and more powerful than we make it.

When we make a parser program, we'll tend to tack things like agro distance, spell distance, and a bunch of questionable borderline material to it that don't just give you data you could have calculated, but actually enhance gameplay.

Right now the parser is run along with narcotics by suspect players when Square could be regulating parser gameplay and taking credit for the great idea.

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There is a parser out there.... a certain thaumaturge in a certain forum has used it extensively

In regards to the OP, one downside I see is that it will give fodder to the elitist mentality of "You must have X or you will be gimp," or "Dungeon party. PST for invite. XYZ minimum parsers only." Such attitudes must be considered before deciding to put this in.

Yea it does promote elitism and DPS scoring.

Parser, yes please.

The fact that you don't allow useful utlities and customizations gives 3rd parties a pretense to make their own.

Lets hope something like this could be added along with some type of talent system. I really think FFXIV needs to abolish the stat points system, or at least allow individual stat point allocations depending on the job you are currently playing. However, with a talent system, along with this, it would allow for a lot of uniqueness and customization which is something this game definitely needs!

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

In regards to the OP, one downside I see is that it will give fodder to the elitist mentality of "You must have X or you will be gimp," or "Dungeon party. PST for invite. XYZ minimum parsers only." Such attitudes must be considered before deciding to put this in.

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When elitism bears its ugly head, that's a desperate consequence of the stat system iteslf being unforgiving. Nothing inherent about a parser drives elitism, it only shows the stat system for what it is and that can't be changed. The parster only provides information that would otherwise be driven by either ignorance and biased placebo effect (My gear makes me better because I paid a lot for it compared to you) or just straight gearscoring for no reason (your gear scores 3500 okay but how much better is it than a score of 1500?).

XI's system went elitist well before parsers proved there were big differences in gear setups, because XI's system is inherently brutal to players who don't get in line. I think if you run a XIV parser, it would actually make you feel more comfortable in choosing your own path. I've stopped min-maxing altogether until the new battle engine. I have 90 STR DEX PIE and INT to cover meleeing and nuking. I don't spec to over 150 any more because I know for a fact it doesn't matter.

It's actually liberating and makes me less elitist to know, as opposed to not knowing. And it's not like you can't inherently tell the stat system in XIV is much more forgiving, to a fault almost.

But really when you look at a belt like penance...what is it *actually* doing for you? It's not actually doing anything. 2 str is nothing. It may be something after the stat system is repaired, but I think it's better for the players to go into the unknown with tools to figure things out intelligently and rationally instead of believing in the heart of the cards.

Basically the heart of the cards--placebo-- can also be used to support elitism, when a parser could remove that voodoo. If we don't know how much str affects damage, I can hold the penance over your head as much as I can get away with. If we DO know how much str affects damage, then everyone knows I'm no better than you are for having it. At all.

That is a brilliant rebuttal. I am left with no response. I just hope that in the end 2 STR really doesn't make enough of a difference to matter.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

That is a brilliant rebuttal. I am left with no response. I just hope that in the end 2 STR really doesn't make enough of a difference to matter.

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It's sophistry. A stat system is supposed to matter. A stat system where differences in stats don't matter is broken by definition. A parser will erase all experimenting with stats and wipe certain builds from existence. It will indeed remove all doubt from what's best. You will strive towards only one setup as DPS, only one setup as tank, etc.

That she can divide her stats by 90 is an intended feature of the system. However, having more STR should by any logic make you stronger. The point of this stat system was to make people chose whether they want to do 100% physical damage and throw everything they have in STR, or make a hybrid DD class and divide stats between STR, INT, etc... but evidently it is somewhat broken.

You don't need a parser to know any of that. If the system worked, a 150 STR person and a 75 STR 75 INT person would still deliver the same damage or have different playing advantages in the field.

A parser simply cuts experimentation out and forces everyone to choose the nominally higher damage builds, so when the system works and you make a hybrid class, you will see the classic parser junkie come into your party and say:
"You're gimp, i'm PARSING the fight", because while you got the skills you liked and played with making your ideal hybrid class, he has followed the build he found on a forum and can now deliver more damage per hour than you, even though he gets enmity at every blow (and brags about it) and forces the healer to go the extra mile to keep him alive, since parser junkies only care about parsing what matters to them.

A parser is simply a way to give elitists the cold data to support their endless bragging and annoying other people. The game is supposed to have "A good fighter" and "an okay fighter" with people realizing STR is what makes them stronger and striving to try different things to make them more effective in battle, not making builds like robots to be either "a LEET fighter" or "a GIMP fighter."

The problem with parsers is that it's always assumed that the numbers supplied by them are significant differences without much consideration other than for "power leveling" and DPS, while this game is designed so that there is little permanence thus far promoting almost everything as a viable means of play. The unintended effect of such things is to stigmatize the game community by having players try to sect themselves as "hardcores".

However, this bound to happen no matter what- so it has no harm for simple calculation's sake, though I certainly hope SquEnix is investing in such for their own testing to tweak and adjust things as needed to make a broad scope of value with no "best" in sight.

Point is- Though it's bad for a game community, it's an inevitability, legal or not. Thus, it's probably best for SquEnix that they let the players do the hard-testing for them and make all the calculations they want.

I approve of this.

Dont be a fool thinking that this idea is bad because it promotes elitism. That elitism will be there regardless. Us min-maxers on BG will figure out the best possible combinations for everything and people will run with it. This'll just make the task easier.

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Originally Posted by Kurokikaze

I approve of this.

Dont be a fool thinking that this idea is bad because it promotes elitism. That elitism will be there regardless. Us min-maxers on BG will figure out the best possible combinations for everything and people will run with it. This'll just make the task easier.

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Precisely, it's the player's purpose to find the most suitable ranges for certain effects, and the designer's purpose to broaden such as much as possible. If we try to call it bad or immoral, then we sacrifice the development of the game as a whole because we want to avoid elitism. If we learn such things and present them to the developers, our information and insight can guide them to make a game which doesn't need "elitism".

Parsers don't kill experimenting, they facilitate it and improve it. They make testing and experimenting objective and functional instead of biased and subjective. In fact, a parser would help you experiment with stats and certain builds to legitimize them. The alternative is that the player who balks at "cookie cutting" is the sole determinant of how viable their "unique" combination is, which is inherently biased and other players will pick up on and discriminate against that bias to the point where the setup gets MORE flak than it actually deserves just to prove a point.

It's easy to discriminate against setups that look gimp, but harder to discriminate against setups that hold their own on the parser even though they look ridiculous. No one makes fun of setups that perform nominally lower than the established setups as long as there is novel benefit to the combination. The parser doesn't tell us much about your setup that we didn't already know, really. It just validates it objectively.

You may pitch to us a red mage who nukes like a mage and melees like a DD. You may say you do a lot of damage after "experimenting with it." We see your nukes hitting for 85 and your melee hits wailing at a whopping average of 9 per hit, and while the 3 dds are each doing 28% of the damage, you're doing 10%, which is 4% more than the whm casting banish intermittently when they're bored. The parser tells us what we already know: that a RDM/WAR is not even half a meleer and not even half a mage, so we're better off getting a full one of either.

If your "experiments" validate your odd combination without a parser, but if a parser would be the end of your odd combination, then your experiments are invalid. The parser should back up your experiments, not crush them.

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Originally Posted by Augury

The problem with parsers is that it's always assumed that the numbers supplied by them are significant differences without much consideration other than for "power leveling" and DPS, while this game is designed so that there is little permanence thus far promoting almost everything as a viable means of play. The unintended effect of such things is to stigmatize the game community by having players try to sect themselves as "hardcores".

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This is true. The current game has very little use for a parser, because almost nothing you do matters. In an 8 man NM fight, all of your DDS will parse within +- 2% of each other in party contribution unless they are a ranger. It's always DD1 17.5%. DD2 18%. DD3 19%. DD4 10% but they're the ones that start the regimens so they have a lot of inaction time. Mage 1: 20%. Mage 2: 21%. Tank: 1% Healer: 1%. Again, nothing we didn't already know, but the frustrating part is that Mage 1 has a +1 Jade Crook, vintage robe, and blended stats under 100, and mage 2 has a jade crook+3, seer's cowl, and pumped >130 stats in int and pie. Stats and gear almost do not matter. Certainly "subs" don't matter. I can have cure III on my bar if I want and it doesn't my DD output at all while still retaining the ability to cure for 500+ on marauder because I don't need 140 str on marauder to max out its power output.

However, I think this system's about to get the boot because of the generic battles it's creating. The end of this generic path is--everyone is an archer with cure III and siphon MP. There. Everyone is everything now. Tank. Healer. DD. Everyone's every woman. It's all in them. Get hit? Hit your enmity - skills and let someone else get hit while another archer cure III's you. Win.

If the stat system tightens up like they already said is a problem, and if the jobs have more of a specific role then those stats and those roles will need to be objectively verified for quality. And in that new system, I think a parser will have more of a function.

theres a difference between 10% of people with third party programs and etc saying you suck look at the parse, and it being an official part of the game.
parse doesnt speak to a lot of intangibles, like hate management, damage avoided (there are actually a lot of skills that you can avoid positionally) debuffs etc, putting a parse is officially telling people these are the factors on which you should judge yourself, and we encourage you and other people to judge each other, thats why we have this tool built in to the game.

Its a pretty bad idea.

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Originally Posted by Physic

theres a difference between 10% of people with third party programs and etc saying you suck look at the parse, and it being an official part of the game.
parse doesnt speak to a lot of intangibles, like hate management, damage avoided (there are actually a lot of skills that you can avoid positionally) debuffs etc, putting a parse is officially telling people these are the factors on which you should judge yourself, and we encourage you and other people to judge each other, thats why we have this tool built in to the game.

Its a pretty bad idea.

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But...they are factors by which you should judge yourself and others. If this is a stock race and we're all driving the same cars, that's great too. I like the idea of judging performance strictly by gameplay. But this isn't a stock racing genre. People have different stats and different builds. There will always be differences that need more appropriate tools of comparison than biased subjectivity, otherwise you get discriminatory ignorance and fanboyist loyalism.

You're straight up talking about feedback relating to your effectiveness as a fighter and a mage. So many people play all those "intangibles" you mention wrong because they're not getting feedback on their performance compared to others except when some elitist blows up on them.

Give them the parser. Just knowing their DPS is lower than their friend will raise it. Seeing that their attacks hit for less than the same lancer with no loss in accuracy improves their game--maybe they have too much accuracy on.

When you let 10% of the population walk all over you by shunning the tools they spend time with to get better, it's no surprise that they beat your contribution to the party by 15% and are mad at your performance. You can't beat someone by 15% if they're not doing more than one thing wrong, either in terms of gear or how they play the job. Not even caring how you're doing is the first wrong thing, and it makes a player at least 5% down already.

Just running parsers and seeing your performance makes your performance go up. So much moreso in this game than in XI where your playstyle determines your effectiveness as a fighter more than in XI, and a SE-developed tool could tell you all of that information.

It should not be a tool used by the elitie to forge their elitism over a community that doesn't have the information. Give all players that information. Who are the marauders and conjurers who aren't interested in how they're doing? Give them a fishing pole!

Parse data raises player knowledge about the world they live in and the job they play.
Parse data raises player performance just by reviewing them.
They add reason and sensibility to a world otherwise run by bias and ignorance.
That they will be used by players anyway isn't even an argument to add them officially. They should be added officially because they're beneficial tools that players want.

Well let me put it like this, you add an official parser, your saying as the developer, this game is about beating your friends in parsing. It becomes a car race game.

if people want to add thier own little mini games, or goals to defeat someone else or do more damage, of course you cant control that, but its not officially what the game is about. Right now, in theory an mmorpg is supposed to be about exploring/adventuring in a large world with other people and developing your charachter. Putting in the parse will change the focus, and no one can even say the game isnt all about a parse, cause then the response would be, yeah it is, they put in the game.

What might be interesting though, if they did implement some parsing, would be in terms of a training area or zone, where you can basically test your gear/skills/set up. That way people seeking to test thier builds, or see if an item is worth it can, while not exactly putting it into every situation.

Competition is amusing though, so it would be interesting if they added it to some competetive events. one team versus the other, could see while completing the same content, a breakdown afterwards of the key data. But i would put this in seperate venues from like experience and quests, and major content, and story elements. Also i would have various modes, like time attack, survival, versus Hardcore monsters, sweeping regular mobs.

I mean looking at your dps versus bones when your a monk, and dragoons on colibris, its really not the whole story.

"Well let me put it like this, you add an official parser, your saying as the developer, this game is about beating your friends in parsing. It becomes a car race game."

That's your interpretation of the social kinetics. By adding a parser, you're really saying as the developer: here are the tools to test the world you live in and bring out your full fighting potential. Anyone can interpret parser data and react based off it. It's free chance to improve your character. Better than gear, it's knowledge about your discipline plain and simple.

"Right now, in theory an mmorpg is supposed to be about exploring/adventuring in a large world with other people and developing your charachter."

So develop your character by paying attention to how your character develops. Use the parser. Encourage the parser. In fact, only in a MMORPG where you're not supposed to be about developing your character would a parser become "the wrong message" to send.


"What might be interesting though, if they did implement some parsing, would be in terms of a training area or zone, where you can basically test your gear/skills/set up. That way people seeking to test thier builds, or see if an item is worth it can, while not exactly putting it into every situation."

Even better. Set the eva, def, mdef, acc, attack, and stats of a robotic foe in the training ground for players to test their builds. If you just don't want people running parsers on your character, that's fine but that's a little jaded. They have a right to know what kind of adventurers they're rolling with. As you said, the game's about character progression. If you're 15 percent behind, the game's about that too no matter how much you don't want it to be.

Physic-
It is the player's responsibility to learn and understand a game- as well as to build a friendly social environment which promotes ambitious builds/play. The numbers aren't what have failed most games- it has been the players and the environment they produce. Many people who parser do it out of pure fascination, and intrigue to a game's mechanical workings, so that builds may be more scientifically made. In most situations, it wasn't the people who extracted and worked the data who created the bad environment, but the people who read, regurgitated and misused said data to prove how "awesome" they think they are. That's a social dynamic- something we could change as a community, but not as players observing numbers.

i really dont care too much about people running parsers, but when the developer puts it in the game, it becomes an official part of the game. Eyeballing some one and seeing what thier doing, and making a spreadsheet about it is a different feeling. just like official sports players do things sometimes with thier stats in mind, people parsing do the same type of stuff.

I rem in vent a friend was talking about how he would have his own personal parse battles with his fellow players, and how they had little dirty tricks to get a bit of an edge on the stat front, it was amusing, but not really something id want to see become an official part of the game. your right about this, once you see the parse, your going to want to compete, just seeing the numbers is going to make you try harder, and look at thier gear etc. But is that the way it should be? to that level?
honestly i prefer just playing with people and having fun, once you add official parse, gear is going to become even more of a factor, then comes gear scores, it really doesnt sound fun to me. annnnnnnd i knew a lot of people that could perform well in a camping parse, but they sucked when it came to actual real play, like in dynamis and nyzul/ salvage.

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Originally Posted by Augury

Physic-
It is the player's responsibility to learn and understand a game- as well as to build a friendly social environment which promotes ambitious builds/play. The numbers aren't what have failed most games- it has been the players and the environment they produce. Many people who parser do it out of pure fascination, and intrigue to a game's mechanical workings, so that builds may be more scientifically made. In most situations, it wasn't the people who extracted and worked the data who created the bad environment, but the people who read, regurgitated and misused said data to prove how "awesome" they think they are. That's a social dynamic- something we could change as a community, but not as players observing numbers.

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I agree with you, running parsers to try and see and understand how things work, or compare the damage between two different styles, It is really just science and breaking the game down to understand it. Lots of good information came out of parsers. But when its an official part of the game, its going to be used mostly to say you need to be this high to ride, or you suck, or im better than you.
Im not morally opposed to parsers, just i know if its officially added, its going to create a certain environment and playstyle, that i dont think adds to the game experience overall. Its pretty hard to control the social dynamic, but if you as a developer put something like that in the game, you are telling players that they should be taking note of the data, and building your social interactions with that in mind.

Parser battles are for people new to parsing who get a little carried away with what the parser has done for their game. Those tactics don't impress the people who are veterans of it. We all know the cheap tricks in FFXI so that your weaponskills are placed in such a position to give you more of the damage percent. When players strategically place their weaponskills to maximize their % party damage, they end up hurting sp per hour because the team DPS stats go down. The only thing they're doing is shuffling %'s around while decreasing efficiency, overall hurting the party's output. In XI, no one wants to ws at the start of the fight.

****, I'll do it. There. It's at 60% life.

% party contribution is a less useful stat than accuracy %, critical %, average melee hit, average critical hit. We all know that the best player in a XI party is often the 2nd contributor because they spend more time tanking than number two, who is free to do more DPS. We all know this.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...7712069&page=1

There's one that's more polished and it'll technically calculate whatever you tell it to from the chat logs of battling, crafting, or gathering. It's only limited by your ability to design formulas to spit out relevant data, and the only reason it's not already finished is that the game's performance and stats are so meh that no one is interested in improving their characters any more.

I hope all that changes with the new battle system. Right now player have no incentive to improve their characters and the mechanics don't have complex enough choices to impact performance, so naturally there is no need for such tools. That's not a good thing, that means your game's completely boring and meaningless.