The Real Problem with Parsers

[Cynfael]

This has become an amazingly stupid and bloated thread. It shouldn't take 40+ pages of quote wars to accept the following:

- Use of DF obligates no one to accept their time being wasted by terrible players who do not act on reasonable criticism.
- Willfully bad players are beyond outside help and are likely to be excluded often, parser or no.
- Parsers can (and already do) help many players who want to improve.
- Parsers do not turn players toxic. The fact that you will eventually encounter a toxic player who parses is no more significant than the "Hitler Ate Sugar" fallacy.

[Gorlioliolio]

Yep, and I believe I already went over that I'm not including people who just go in and auto-attack or only spam one attack in who shouldn't be kicked. Something about potentially being AFK during fights or botting, I believe, both of which are reasons.

Then you can try to help him and if he doesn't listen, do whatever. Tanks and DPS are different situations, after all.

How do you know if the one person is just spamming 1 button vs using their full skill set without something obvious like blood of the dragon, or astral fire? Yes they will be lower on the agro meters but any trash pull I generally don't see dps above 5% of my agro anyways from all the aoe spam I do. Oh My God ..... Could there be a tool to help identify this?

And it is the exact same situation, you can still clear, the tank isn't afk, there is no boot option for bad tanking.

[Aiselia]

How do you know if the one person is just spamming 1 button vs using their full skill set without something obvious like blood of the dragon, or astral fire? Yes they will be lower on the agro meters but any trash pull I generally don't see dps above 5% of my agro anyways from all the aoe spam I do. Oh My God ..... Could there be a tool to help identify this?

By watching their animations. Are you suggesting it's hard to tell when someone's spamming the same attack? Each attack has a different animation, after all.

You can kind of tell if that BLM is casting fire spells or just creating a bunch of popsicles. You can tell if a DRG is spamming one attack by seeing if Disembowel/CT ever gets put on the mob. You can tell if a BRD is by watching them for Straight Shot and looking for dots. Same thing for dots for SMN. MNKs would cycle through forms if they're not spamming one attack.

Why do you need a parser for this again?

And it is the exact same situation, you can still clear, the tank isn't afk, there is no boot option for bad tanking.

There is for cheating. If they don't respond to you and are just going in and spamming one attack, botting is a reasonable assumption.

[Slaine77]

I could really careless how long it takes to do a DF, or how much more dps I do then the next person. Trying to be an elitist on a game such as this is laughable. Play the game to have fun, enjoy the random people you play with in a DF, help them if needed. This idea of sprinting to the end and walking over others to do it is retarded. Run your DF with your static if you want to do them quickly. As a dps wating 15+ mins to a que, why even start an argument? Just do your job the best you can and understanding of others about it. At any rate I think everything has been said in the 49 pages of post. Just keep in mind to be an asshole or intolerant to others on this type of game is silly.

[segagamer]

If no parsers are allowed, how are we able to see the pro groups like this from the DF?

This is from an A4 run I just did. (NIN died in quarantine so I was expecting low dps from him at the end of the fight.)

[Gorlioliolio]

No wonder the nin died with that war

By watching their animations. Are you suggesting it's hard to tell when someone's spamming the same attack? Each attack has a different animation, after all.

I'm suggesting that not everyone knows every classes rotations, or really pays attention to it because they are playing to the best of their own ability, a healer might see buffs like heavy thrust or umbral fire up though, and yes as a tank I will see smn dots, but that doesn't mean they are using painflare, dreadwyrm or deathflare, some of us have animations for other classes turned off.

But if auto attacks pull about 180-200 dps (at least mine do as a drk) and the dps is doing 250-300 it's pretty easy to tell. And at that point you can use the parser to look up which abilities were used. If all you see is attack and 1 other thing in their outgoing damage you now know where the problem is and can try to discuss this with them, if they refuse to acknowledge you or to improve at that point I consider it harassment.

[Kenji1134]

@War w/ 86 dps... I think I autoattack for more while running around taking flaming orbs to the face...

#Impressed

[Aiselia]

I'm suggesting that not everyone knows every classes rotations

Knowing rotations of other classes is irrelevant to seeing if someone's spamming one attack.

yes as a tank I will see smn dots, but that doesn't mean they are using painflare, dreadwyrm or deathflare, some of us have animations for other classes turned off.

Aetherflow. If they're sitting at 3 stacks all the time (or never have any at all) and aren't getting any aethertrail attunement, they're not using those skills. This doesn't require a parser. It requires basic attention.

If all you see is attack and 1 other thing in their outgoing damage

If all they're doing is auto-attack plus one ability, you don't need a parser to see that.

So how do you plan to prove any of that? That their DPS is bad, CD uses is bad, healing is bad etc. without a parser?

By the fact that they're spamming one attack. Nobody's DPS is going to be good if they're only using one attack.

Because it's my job to look at everyone else in the group's characters to make sure they're using their attacks rather than just looking at numbers in the bottom corner of my screen.

It's not your job to look at numbers in the bottom of your screen, either. In fact, you shouldn't be looking at those numbers because they shouldn't be there. Factually speaking, it is significantly less your job to be looking at numbers because they shouldn't be there.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Knowing rotations of other classes is irrelevant to seeing if someone's spamming one attack.

Aetherflow. If they're sitting at 3 stacks all the time (or never have any at all) and aren't getting any aethertrail attunement, they're not using those skills. This doesn't require a parser. It requires basic attention.

If all they're doing is auto-attack plus one ability, you don't need a parser to see that.

So how do you plan to prove any of that? That their DPS is bad, CD uses is bad, healing is bad etc. without a parser?

[segagamer]

Because it's my job to look at everyone else in the group's characters to make sure they're using their attacks rather than just looking at numbers in the bottom corner of my screen.