The issue nobody wants to address

[Welsper59]

This is the internet, that's bound to happen. Take a look at any twitter argument or political oriented facebook page's comments.

In my experience, pointing this out to people doesn't help. People demonize the fence-sitters and skeptics just as much as the other side.

"If you're not with us, you're against us" is a line the people actually use to win over crowds.

[CosmicKirby]

snip

Probably a bit too pointed for a general discussion of a videogame, despite being true.

[Archaell]

…

Not everyone who supports parsers has knowledge to teach other players about their job. Which means that mediocre players would benefit from the parsers the most. Honestly, I can’t pay focus to others while doing my job to the best of my abilities. It would decrease my own performance, making the situation even worse. That’s why parser is needed.

I'm trying to get someone to actually answer the points made instead of repeating the same point that they've made before

I have tried to answer all your posts in this thread… it is not possible. There are too many. So ask specific questions and you will get specific answers.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that the "correct side" has only morally upstanding people and that the "incorrect" side is vile.

As Atoli said, it is kinda weird to act unfriendly when you try to prevent toxic behaviour. Fanaticism is on both sides of the argument, I keep that in mind.
Personally, I seek parser that would help us deal with people who can’t do their part in fights, while not giving too much power to elitists.

[ChandraNoctis]

Parsers would be fine if they are available to ALL players. PC only parsers leave out at least 35% (likely more as this is old PS3 data) of the player base. If parsers are used then they should be available to all players which eliminates some troll in a dungeon lying about dps numbers or just saying one person is bad when really they are maybe 20 dps from the highest dps. I've seen this happen recently when other the non-parsing player had commented about being on a console.

If allowed then party parser data should be available directly (not second hand) to the whole party for it to be useful, help people improve and to avoid conflict which occurs when only one person has access to the information.

[Whiteroom]

What is your basis for imagining that there will ever be general availability of parser data for all players? The many instances where players have been disciplined over parser misuse should be adequate evidence that this will not happen. Or do you intend to ignore that as well?

Because the discussion is about an SE provided parser, avalible to everyone. There is a don't ask, don't tell rule in place that is hypocritical on SEs part as it totally excludes a large portion of the population from using them, while the rest are, as long as they don't bully others with it.

It is a common topic in parser threads, and important, given the devs reliance on dps checks as core mechanics. Also, their stance on the is somewhat informal if you've ever taken the time to read Yoshis own comments on them.

As to your questions, type parser into the search option above, they have been asked many times and you should find your answers multiple times in each thread.

I was not answering your questions previously as I was not talking with you in this thread, and had seen nothing original, relevant or reasonable asked. It's funny that you speak on people ignoring negatives, all the while brushing off or ignoring the positives. So what are the big negatives I see in parsers, from this game and others.

1. Parsers will turn the population into DPS eating abusive a hole zombies.
Well, other games I've played, which have an official parser, have the same ammounts of abuse going on as we have here already. Just sometimes it involves a number. More often than not, when some dummy totally misused the parser and ripped on someone in ignorance of how to actually read it, they were laughed out of the group. Anywho, there is probably a version of this point, with a reply on every page, in every thread that contains the word parser.

2. This ones funny, as it was somehting said post parser in other games. DPS meters make everyone in the game way too dps focused and they ignore everything else in the great dps race.
Umm.. well.. the answer here is obvious. Dps centric ffxiv? Well I never! Parsers could help to improve that dps they they are already blindered on though.

3. And I'm surprised this isn't brought up more often. Some of the more easily discouraged players may see their output compared to others and give up on the game.
My answer to that is that it is a sad reality. I may be able to teach the odd person a thing or two, but I can't be a life coach in game. But on the flip side, how many already give up in frustration at the failure of content due to dps checks being met? Well, we cant say for sure, because we don't have access to any comments or reasons left when people cancel their subs.

There are other minor arguements put forth from time to time, but mostly it's just a fearmongering version of #1, or someone saying falsely that SE is against them because of #1.

[OPneedNerfs]

The things many don't want to realize, is that parsers are already in game and being used. The ones asking for an official ones are doing so for the benefit for the console players.

You guys can argue all you want about toxicity/etc. But the truth is, you're arguing against something that would improve QOL for console players.

[Wildsprite]

I still think personal parsers are a good idea. let us see our own numbers. I suspect it would get quite a lot of players asking for advice on how to improve their numbers.
I am against the 3rd party/multi player parsers because far too many players use them to grief others rather than to try to give advice with them.
a simple thing like
"hey I'm using a parser do you want to know your numbers so it might help you improve"
would go a long way
instead we get a lot of
"your numbers are on the bottom. you suck"
let me see. most parsers can simulate but not get actual numbers from DoTs so that argument does not work. No I'm not going to listen to the argument that 1 parser is more acurate than another because it has some acurate simulation of the DoT(sorry but BS). if the numbers are not reported to the log the parser does not actually have them.
on the other hand a personal parser that is official would have these numbers.
They have said they are considering personal parsers. possibly on striking dummies
I would rather they just let us use the parser in action in DF so we can see what our best is in that situation to tell if it needs improvement. but alas this is thier game so who knows what they will do.

[Malevicton]

I have yet to see any evidence that parsers cause harassment. Everyone that uses that argument relies on it being a given, but if you google around for it all you find are ffxiv threads about hypotheticals where it's taken as a given...

This community is the only one with this attitude about dps meters. Every community will have its differences, but this is a pretty extreme deviation on a pretty simple and commonly accepted tool. I don't understand it at all.

[Wildsprite]

I have yet to see any evidence that parsers cause harassment.

fair enough. however players with bad attitudes do use parsers to grief other players. That is the argument that SE is using. Not that the parser itself is a bad thing.
I almost never know if another player is using a parser till one of the bad eggs decides to grief someone else in the party.

[Malevicton]

fair enough. however players with bad attitudes do use parsers to grief other players. that is the argument that SE is using. not that the parser itself is a bad thing.

It's actually not the argument SE is using, though. Lazily quoting myself from earlier in this thread:

Devs have asked people not to use them for harassment, but they've never really said that they would cause more - that's just something the community decided. This source is a bit old (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-WX...outu.be&t=6m5s) but he never even mentions harassment as one of the reasons, let alone the foremost. Here's another interview (http://gamerescape.com/2014/02/12/ps...naoki-yoshida/) where yoshi's asked about it and never mentions harassment in a 3 paragraph answer. If your argument is that it's a dev position, then you should really have a source. In this case, that's not the dev position, it's a community position.

I know everyone says it's a dev position, but it's really bugging me because it's really not true at all. After the first ZAM interview where he laid down fight club rules, everyone started saying stuff like "so basically as long as you don't use it to harass people, no one will know." Which is true. But that was just because harassment would break the fight club rules; harassment itself was never the focus until the community made it that way. Harassment being in any way relevant to parsers was a conclusion drawn by the community via a series of implications, none of which are really tied to any dev statement.

At this point everyone just assumes it's true because so many people say it, and people say it because they assume it's true, and they assume it's true... ad infinitum.

Besides, it's not like harassment or griefing would suddenly not be reportable.