SE's most difinitive statement yet on parsers

[RaineMagus]

Only impatient players with no intention of teaching others over exaggerate wipes meanwhile tanks and healers get off scot free with all this business of dps and parsers.

I actually disagree. Tanks, healers, and DPS are very connected. Perhaps not in the desire to monitor the damage of the tank, or healing potency of the healer, yet it's strongly related none-the-less.

As an example: A "good" DPS can make an under-geared tank, or fresh tank, look like a terrible-tank. Despite that this player is trying their honest-to-goodness-best (eg, a fresh level 50 PLD trying to hold threat off an iLvl 110 BLM doing triple+ flare). Players glancing simply at the direction and target of mobs, and with no understanding of how gear level difference or damage effects enmity, tend to assume that player is simply TRASH.

As another example: In a low-damage party where the mobs aren't going down fast enough, and the tank runs out of cooldowns.. Where the tank makes the assumption that his or her party can handle xxx mass mob based on their HP / a quick gear inspection ... party wipes.

--Who's the first person to get blamed? Usually the tank or healer. EVEN IF they played well. People start chucking things out there like "If you can't tank it, DON'T PULL IT!".

Conversely, maybe people blame the DPS even though everyone's damage was 'fine', and it actually "is" the tank or the healer who's the issue.


Point being that if one person performs poorly and you have no idea whom, it can look like anyone (role independent). Parties are a strongly collective effort where no single role is trivial, and where the problem isn't always obvious / can be assumed to be pretty much anyone. That's for essentially ANY aspect of the group. Additionally someone is always going to be blamed, even if it's just by assumption (that's just human nature sadly).


I'm not going to advocate parsing as I strongly respect SquareEnix's stance on third-party tools if not just for the safety of its playerbase, and I'm certainly not going to advocate people playing the blame-game. Yet I can understand why some people wish to understand what's happening in a fight, and why it's important to know.

There's already some tools ingame that give an idea of this, such as the threat-meter (which can more or less compare "relative" damage between two players of the same class). However ... you'd be surprised how few people actually know of its existence or look at it.

[Zakalwe]

Cheating?
Lol. Oh please.

Again, not commenting on whether 3rd party programs that parse game data are good or bad. But according to SE, in their most clear language yet, yes they are TOS violations, cheats, and are considered ban-worthy (as in, bans have already been hammered and more can be expected). Catching those who use dps-meters, radar programs, and other 3rd party programs that parse game data may not always be easy, but continuing to argue that SE does not consider them bannable TOS violations is not really an option.

[Elven]

You can spot a bad healer or tank miles away.
DPS? Not as easy; but some people can spot them easily if they've played said DPS class themselves.

Yup you can spot a bad dps straight away if even the simplest mobs take ages to kill of which point people notice that some players suddenly experience the 9000 error.

[Kyroc]

Just because they are against the ToS does not mean they are cheating

[Elven]

Just because they are against the ToS does not mean they are cheating

Of course not but SE clearly want those other apps off the table not necessarily parsers. It's just a shame that parsers fit in SE's ban for people that like to use them. Nothing about the use of them when you get to the crux of the argument they're not allowed bottom line.

[Mogi]

People don't want other people to know they are bad, derp, can't perform a simple rotation, or slacking. Simple as that. The issue with catching someone using a parser is since it reads from memory, it's local to a user's computer. It may also parse log files, also local to the user's computer. The only way to catch this type of reading is illegally gaining access to the system and monitoring for it. Which mind you I said is illegal, and in my honest opinion, if it's on my computer, it's mine. They could have done all the counting on their own servers, but to save CPU and Memory, they chose to give it to the user's systems.

Or you could always just look at the enmity bar to determine who's pushing the most dps, do a screenshot and pixel count. Go old school on it!.

Sounds to me some ppl have to much time on there hands :P dose it matter who is doing the most?

[MicahZerrshia]

I played ffxi for 8 years and never once used any 3rd pt programs and it didn't effect my gameplay in the least. I would run all kinds of events with ppl who used so many illegal add-ons it was ridiculous and not only did it not make me less effective, I could sometimes run circles around them.

Its more about player skill. Who needs to use a crutch and who does not. Parsers Im ok with simply because it allows you to LEARN how to play your class better without hrs of scrolling thru a chat log and adding up numbers. But other stuff is just lazy gaming imo and should be bannable.

That being said, its usually safer to flat ban them all so close any loop holes and allows SE to put their time and money into things that are really important, like content. So I can understand their position on the subject.

[RaineMagus]

That being said, its usually safer to flat ban them all so close any loop holes and allows SE to put their time and money into things that are really important, like content. So I can understand their position on the subject.

I suspect their reasoning is for a combination of different factors, and not just "fairness" as people keep arguing.



A commonly overlooked one is that it really doesn't matter if it's a cheat-tool or not, as these tools come from a source other than SquareEnix... Which may not be reputable, put the security of their customers in jeopardy, and which they certainly have no control over.

This is simply put, something that NO COMPANY is going to endorse for the repercussions that come with it (such as dealing with inevitably hijacked-accounts, etc). The only way to protect their players, imo, is for it to be discouraged / aka, made illegal.

[Krr]

Of course not but SE clearly want those other apps off the table not necessarily parsers. It's just a shame that parsers fit in SE's ban for people that like to use them. Nothing about the use of them when you get to the crux of the argument they're not allowed bottom line.

There's been a lot of off-the-record remarks over the past year about parser use that generally implies the only reason they're against the ToS is because it's costly to write an exception in the legalese, and that "parsers are illegal" is useful as a catch-all way to weed the community of players who use them in a socially-abusive fashion.

There are also dangers affiliated with third-party tools and it would be legally difficult to endorse certain tools 'officially' as ones you could use or that are safe, and it could result in exploitative behavior by any third-party tool creators who got this privilege.

It's similar to how, say, PSO2 says "No American players" in their TOS, but you can relatively freely and safely play in American server communities and pretty freely speak English as long as you aren't disrupting or abusive to the JP players. It's a quick corporate way to remove troublesome folks with minimal due process.

Of course, you should not use a third-party parser. It's against the TOS.

[Sapphic]

Or you could always just look at the enmity bar to determine who's pushing the most dps, do a screenshot and pixel count. Go old school on it!.

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Quelling_Strikes

Doesn't work. Also pets have a hidden enmity bar, so wouldn't work for SMN either as pets contribute a significant part of SMNs DPS. So BLM + BRD have quelling strikes, SMN has unregistered pet, just leaves MNK and DRG.