The Real Problem with Parsers

[Viridiana]

Only if you think that living conditions of an entire country are analogous to a dungeon in a video game taking 20 more minutes.

They are analogous, in that it's possible to use one as an analogy for the other.

So you speak for absolutely everybody in the game that everyone knows the real life details of everybody else and will accept lower DPS coming from someone who has, say, an injured nerve in their hand which prevents certain quick movements?

I would call this shifting goal posts, but it's more like you tried to move the game into another stadium. You originally asked if I can guarantee that everyone kicked has the potential to improve. I can guarantee that, because if absolutely nothing else, the gear treadmill will go on, and those people I guarantee can get better gear to try again later, which will improve their output even if they perform to exactly the same level.

And when you can clear the content but it will just take 20 minutes more, that's acceptable for every person in the game?

I'm not even sure what you're arguing against here. >_>

I'm not. If the only people in a position to prove your claim are SE, and they happen to disagree with your claim, why are you still claiming it? You shouldn't make claims that you can't personally prove and rely on your opponent to prove.

Because at the moment they've asserted it without establishing their criteria, which makes it a worthless assertion. As it stands, they've basically said, "We're worried about people harassing others if we enable a parser." But they haven't even asserted a rough estimate of how many people would harass others with a parser, much less how much of an increase that would be over the current state. If they were genuinely concerned that parsers inevitably lead to harassment, they'd be cracking down on all parser users because those people would inevitably be harassing people. Clearly then, we can all (including SE) agree that parsers do not inevitably lead to harassment. Harassment and parsing are two separate issues, completely able to arise independently.

Meanwhile, one of my FC mates earlier today was actually judged for being an Au Ra, because apparently fantastic racism is starting to spill over into real life, or something. Yet no one would suggest getting rid of races in the game, right? Fact is we don't need parsers to be jerks to each other, the monkeys will just be throwing numbers instead of offal.

And if you were proven wrong, then that should have taught you a valuable lesson that premaking parties is a lot safer.

Because if I get a single counter-example, I should immediately give up on the whole enterprise? If a bank has a single loan get skipped out on, they should stop handing out loans?

I mean, I hate to keep bringing up real world arguments, but your logic is escaping me. You seem to be saying "Don't hold the bad guys accountable for their actions, just stop trusting anybody!" I guess I could go through life extending trust only with extreme caution and letting very few people into my inner circle. But that seems much less like living.

The fact that the entire party had the option to not queue into duty finder and get them.

I…don't even know what you're trying to say here. The queue time of one person is worth more than the time of the entire rest of the party because the entire party had the option not to queue into DF and get that person. That's what you just said. I'm really struggling to find the logic here.

If they really wanted to get better, they clearly have the internet and can look up even basic guides on their class.

Some people are extremely averse to going outside the game for help.

I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to make sense. But if it's cleared, it's cleared.

According to you, clearing just as the boss enrages is the only objectively reasonable amount of DPS to require. So we should never expect anyone to push harder than that, right? Because if we expect people to clear things any faster than just as the boss enrages, we're being objectively unreasonable. In the spirit of that, if it appears the boss will die too soon before enraging, I'm going to sheathe my weapons and go stand in the corner from now on. Because if anyone expects any more than that from me, they're being unreasonable, according to you. >_>

Which, in my experience, had less to do with not being good DPS and more to do with not doing mechanics, be it missing DKs, ignoring cannons, or whatever.

Which all fall under doing DPS. The only aspect of that which wouldn't fall under DPS would be the tanks gathering mobs under Vishap's neck for maximum cannon damage. Nearly every other way that it commonly failed was the result of a DPS failure.

And, I mean, if they refuse to go outside the game to figure out how to play, I don't hold out much hope that they'd listen to a complete stranger judging them in the middle of a dungeon run.

Ya never know. People can be really weird.

Which I've honestly yet to see outside things I wouldn't queue randomly for. And, I mean, if the mentality of "DPS MUST BE THIS HIGH TO RIDE" is contained only in those high end things that actually do require strict DPS checks, that's different from if (and when) it (inevitably) spills into things that don't require strict DPS checks at all just because it may take a few more minutes to get through.

Did you ever queue original Amdapour Keep? Before they nerfed Demon Wall because so many people couldn't kill it, I mean. Or Ifrit Hard without a caster LB, when people actually had to put out some DPS in order to kill nails on time? Or Titan Hard in the first month or two, when the heart phase was nerve wracking for a lot of groups?

Are there any serious raid groups that all play on PS3?

How serious is "serious"? I recall at least one FC whose every player was on PS3/PS4; if they have an FC raid group, that would be a yes.

And did you clear it? And if not, was it entirely due to his less DPS?

No, we didn't clear it because we couldn't pass the heart phase because we didn't have enough DPS. This was like a year and a half ago, so I can't recall with certainty if there were any other issues, but considering I was bothered enough by his DPS to dig into parser records to figure out what was going on, I'm reasonably sure there wasn't a more obvious issue contributing to our failure.

Doesn't matter if you do or not. It matters if SE does.

But what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. There would need to be evidence that adding a parser meaningfully impacts the number of actual (versus reported) harassment cases. And since committing harassment seems to be corellated much more strongly to being a jerk than to running a parser, that's gonna be a tough sell. I'm totally willing to be proven wrong, but the only people in a position to do so are also unwilling to do so.