The issue nobody wants to address

[Gilraen]

You're assuming I don't have fun at work or at competitions...

And the people pushing parsers as the be-all-end-all of self improvement assumes anyone worth calling themselves a gamer must also love doing work and attending competitions. I'm fairly competent, I hate my job and the last time I was in any kind of competition it was a spelling bee in elementary. I'm not competitive in the slightest so peer pressure doesn't mean a thing to me. I'm much too old for that kind of 'game'.

[Kosmos992k]

If players would do only things where they are able to perform that would be bliss... but players are not satisfied and do content beyond their skill level. They just repeat the content enough times till they get good enough groups to carry them - or till they are overgeared enough to clear it.

I tend towards suggesting to such players that they join a social FC, make friends and ask those friends if it would be OK if they helped them through anything that was too difficult for them. This covers many situations including the one we are discussing, but also situations where players are actually impaired, preventing them from be capable of playing beyond specific levels. I know several players who despite some significant challenges or impairments to their capability to react quickly, or execute rotations anything remotely like perfectly; absolutely enjoy playing FFXIV. There is nothing more satisfying to me than being part of a group of friends that helps players in that situation to complete content that otherwise would gate them from progressing the MSQ.

An environment where players use parser data to demand that others improve their performance would be unpleasant for players such as those I am describing. That is one of the downsides to parsers as far as I am concerned.

[Archaell]

...

Impaired players are related to the issue, but I doubt they are the majority. In these cases we have to deal with them on person by person basis. If somebody has conditions preventing them to reach certain level of performance, I am certain the community is nice enough to consider it - the sad thing is when these players do better job than somebody more than able to perform.

[Whiteroom]

And the people pushing parsers as the be-all-end-all of self improvement assumes anyone worth calling themselves a gamer must also love doing work and attending competitions. .

I don't think I've seen a single person push it as the be all and end all of in game self improvement. It is however a very effective and well known tool to use actively or passively to improve your own game or trouble shot problems or hurdles that crop up during content. All the better because you can look at much more than just the dps numbers.

Is a hammer and nails the only way to fasten two pieces of wood togeather, no, but its a very common and effective method that pretty much everyone understands. The same goes for parsers. If you have an extremely effective method you haven't tried, people are going to suggest that before trying to be creative and come up with exotic method of unknown effectiveness to do the same thing.

[Gilraen]

The thing is I don't need a parser to tell me how I'm doing, I can see that just fine for myself. If a run isn't going well, I'll try harder. If in trying harder nothing changes then no amount of data is going to make me try any harder than I already am. All throwing numbers at me will do is point out where the real problem might actually be. We have the best potential to improve when it's on terms of our own choosing, because it will be us willingly pursuing improvement. Forcing people to 'get good' only makes things worse. Doesn't take a degree to realize that.

[Malevicton]

The thing is I don't need a parser to tell me how I'm doing, I can see that just fine for myself. If a run isn't going well, I'll try harder. If in trying harder nothing changes then no amount of data is going to make me try any harder than I already am. All throwing numbers at me will do is point out where the real problem might actually be. We have the best potential to improve when it's on terms of our own choosing, because it will be us willingly pursuing improvement. Forcing people to 'get good' only makes things worse. Doesn't take a degree to realize that.

It's not about forcing you to try harder, it's about giving you more information so you know what's working and what's not.

At the end of the day all it is is information. Sometimes it won't help, sometimes it will. But having more information about your performance is never harmful.

[dank1]

Its not even about the parsers or even how fast a run is completed people don't see the underlying issue. It's about the fact that this community is so anti-performing it seems, due to ANY advice given to players in most situations is seen as a horrible thing and all of the sudden makes you an elitist cause for some reason they imply that most the population has a disability which is the only argument anyone advocating for lazy gameplay can give when the topic of offering advice is given, they all come out with the "well what if the person has a disability!!!1!1!" Argument.

I can tell you right now the ratio of underperformers to how much people actually have disabilities due to known statistics doesnt add up there is way too many people willfully being ignorant, it has nothing to do with being disabled to taking the "fun" out of their game. I cannot fathom how pressing your keys in the correct sequence to perform the correct rotation is any less fun than sticking your head in the sand pressing all the wrong buttons, and of 28 pages no one has answered that.

[Archaell]

...

It is more fun, because you can watch TV, you can eat lunch, you can do taxes, you can even have sexual interactions etc. soo many possibilities.

The players against performance are combined from many categories: 1. You have people who are worried, honestly worried, about disabled. 2. People who are worried about harassment. 3. People who don't like to be told that they can't do their part in a team based game. 4. People who do not care and are focused towards the reward with minimal amount of work. 5. People who play it as a single player game. And of course 6. Trolls.

I can't see it either how can it be fun to let others carry you, but people have different tastes.

[Whiteroom]

Its not even about the parsers ...

Well, like anything in game, with so many players there is any number of reasons why. I believe the major one being the metric, or lack there of, to tell people how they are preforming.

As to the why you aren't able to talk about it, or help, I attribute it to that whole "Everyone gets an award an a parade for participating" social movement. It's gone from everyone on the team contributes and helps, to being, if you are on the team, you don't have to contribute or help and no one can ask you too. It's well past the point of "appreciate your team members" to "coddle them and walk on eggshells because they are too weak to fend for themselves! And if you say anything, even if you are worked to the point of exhaustion to make up for their deficiencies, you are a kitten stomping demon! Your effort counts for nothing, it is your responsibility to do all the work!"

It's so taboo, that look at what you run into when you even suggest there be a metric so people can even see how they are performing within the team.


But, that's like a very rough opinion and stuff...

[raelgun]

Forcing people to 'get good' only makes things worse. Doesn't take a degree to realize that.

Just gonna say this, I play other mmos as well, and the current situation is the worst in the history of mmos, I have never seen such a conflict between 2 groups of players like, 1 side just wants to do stuff properly while players like your self defending such tripe is making the situation the worst I have ever seen in an mmo, many many people say this is the worst skilled playerbase they have ever seen. More and more people are asking for high demands because of the lack of information regarding players performance, parsers will ease this conflict as bad players will then have to answer for their lack of performance or laziness by 1 button spamming.

The moment the end game players quit this game, is the point where this game will die, end game players have always been the back bone of every game and kept it alive, they go then no more FF14 as they are the most dedicated players to the game and also the games biggest ingame advertisement for people to stick around, check all other mmos, this has been true for every single one.