The issue nobody wants to address

[Welsper59]

Well to quote someone else:



The language might be a tad harsh but the point is still valid.

So to directly answer your question so there's no confusion:

"Will adding a public parser change the minds / behavior of players who are lazy / refuse to play up to par?"

Maybe? But most likely not.

What it will do however is hold those players accountable for their role. in some cases knowing that your performance is put on display for others to see is enough of a reason for some people to actually pick up the slack especially if they're afraid of getting booted from a dungeon with a DPS check that they aren't meeting. And by meeting i mean like the barest of bare minimum DPS, as in so far below that they obviously aren't paying attention.

In other cases it allows for more feedback and control in party stations when you have 3/4 or 7/8 people actively trying and 1 person who is obviously along for the ride.

I won't argue about that, as I do agree about the benefits towards those situations. It'll simply be a tool to support the necessity to properly kick, which as the person quoted said, is something that can already be done, just not as effectively or easily. I'll just say that this is likely an example of us just wanting to grasp whatever form of mediation, despite it not being as common as implied (for most of us). Which leads me to the next point.

Player testimony on these forums alone have shown that it isn't as rare as you think it is, from constant calls for DPS check nerfs as early as demon wall and threads like this popping up on the front page:

Tales from Duty Finder Some make you laugh some make you cry. Let's vent.

It happens quite often given how many of the (very low mind you) but large variety of DPS oriented content checks spread out everywhere from leveling dungeons, to Ex roulette to endgame aren't being met.

As to dungeon etiquette It really depends on the situation and how far below the bar the player is. If the party is incapable of clearing the content because it's designed around 4 players actively contributing and 1 player isn't thus leading to constant wipes? They'd probably be replaced.

Is it a situation where the dungeon is still progressing relatively quickly but one guy is slightly below where he should be or obviously being carried but it isnt to the detriment of the group? I'm personally not likely to care tbh, unless they start complaining.

Something to keep in mind is that we always remember the bad, more than the good (or acceptable). We focus on these things, so it's natural find out about. A lot of the time, it's the same people posting on same-topic threads. I'm guilty of that, definitely. But you have to take into account what the ratio is of these bad and completely unacceptable occurrences are. Out of the literally hundreds/thousands of group content that most of us have done, can we honestly say that the inexcusable wipes/problems, specifically from DPS, occurred so often that we could even remotely consider it something more than "rare"? Speaking on an individual level, as our own personal experience is the only thing we truly have to go on as fact. I can say that, personally, it is absolutely rare in ratio to the whole of groups I've been in. It's almost guaranteed you'll encounter it from time to time, but hardly something you always expect in a general situation. Specifically pointing out ridiculous expectations, like clearing a DF T9 or Ultima HM back in ARR is not a valid argument, as we're talking about the whole here, and I know some people would reach for those to support their arguments.

The majority of those posts in the thread pertain to complaints about bad tanks and healers, more than DPS, if the first 3 pages and the last are anything to go on. What DPS complaints I did notice were specific to SMN though lol. I have my own complaints about bad tanks in AV. Tanks that don't know how to build threat or manage AoE threat. They're literally the only problems I've encountered when it comes to AV, which has been the only thing I've gotten lately for lower roulette. Parsing doesn't exactly save me from those terrible tanks, honestly.

Sure, i get that and i don't disagree.

Just because you figured it out and didn't need a boot to the butt doesn't mean that other players do not however.

Like i said there are a large number of players who have issues with very basic rotations and DPS output. I mean if steps of Faith is anything to go by there are a large number of players who have issues following directions that are literally being shouted across the screen by NPCs like.. that instance could literally have been titled "Follow the fly text (Normal)" and people still were wiping it to the point of needing nerfs.

/nod Yep. But again, that's something irrelevant to parsers and just a matter of L2P.

This is already the case.

We already as a community condone "witch hunts" when it comes to tanks / healers, in fact it's more commonly done so because a large amount of the time the mechanics are DPS reliant and theres no way to prove that the DPS failed them.

Stop me if you've heard this one before on a wipe:

"Where are the heals!?"
"Healer, why didn't you heal me!?"
"Seriously healer!!!!!!???1111111"

Never mind that the DPS was eating "backhand-ga VII" and the mob in question only uses it if it's failed to be killed / stunned in time.

This game is unlike most other MMO's in that the majority of content is balanced around DPS checks or DPS oriented mechanics. This isn't like a lot of the other MMOs that simply have extended tank and spank fights that can be drawn out due to tank / healer stamina, or even fights that have tons of mechanics that need to be handled and account for DPS players spending long periods of time not even hitting the mob.

Personally i'd love those, give me levers to pull, mobs to position, buttons to hit, floors to jump etc. all of that makes for much more interesting fight design in the long run.

Instead a large number encounters are based on "Do X amount of DPS or you wipe" end of story, like almost all of endgame and a large number of dungeon mechanics ranging from leveling dungeons to Ex roulette are literally this, making DPS an equally crucial role to tanks / healers but the community still has this mindset that they somehow share less of the responsibility. And the best part? The game doesn't even offer you a tool to see how well you are / aren't doing when those checks come up.

How is a tank or healer going to prevent Nidhogg from BBQing the party because the DPS failed to do enough damage before the hard enrage sets in? Do more DPS? Sure, on TOP of already tanking and healing the encounter, surely the answer isn't to ask the DPS to pick up the slack.

High responsibility roles are always the first to blame, be it parser or no. There's no escape from that, even if DPS were more accountable.

The general flowchart goes:
Did tank die? If yes, blame healer.
Did healer die? If yes, blame tank.
Did DPS/support/etc die? If yes, blame healer and/or tank.
Did the whole group die because of not properly taking down a target before a party wipe mechanic occurred? If yes, blame DPS.

Notice how many occasions roles besides DPS get called on? Of course, there are some mechanics that rely on others to do something extra, like any gaol type mechanics. This is just how things work in a party setting with designated roles. You rely and place more responsibility on the people who keep you alive than you do the people who might get you through something faster (which is one of the only varying effects between competent DPS).

I'm all for changing how content is designed personally, but between the Devs wanting things to be cleared in relatively quick times in the DF (as in they don't want 1 hour long boss stamina fights) and the fact that mechanic based fights seem to have the lowest clear rates / most nerfs in the game (See; Steps of Faith, Turn 2 without enrage strat,Turn 7 before the nerf, Turn 9 etc) DPS checks seem to always be the fallback option.

As long as content is going to have DPS be the set bar for pass/failing then yes there very much is an accountability issue if we can't get players to meet that bar and public parsing would greatly help this.

Yes, exactly. This is a big part of the core argument that should be stated for pro-parser arguments. There's also the unfair advantages bit between console players inability to access parsers themselves is also in relation to that, regardless of how minimal it is and the fact that there are ways to get said information through others, it's just something you can't do on your own as a console player. It's a strong supporting argument because of that inability and the fact you're essentially encouraged to break the rules a bit.

I don't mean to imply that players were parsing PGs i mean that public parsers allowed players to see how well the skills they practiced in PGs translated to live content, aka live-per content feedback for DPS after they get the basics of their roles down in training.

Ah. Got it. It's also worth noting though that in relation to WoW and the PG, they also intended for people to use their in-game tips/guide on how to play the class. Just simply following that, and reading the skill description, you'd already be set on how to play that specific class properly/decently. Unless of course, someone were that helpless or stubborn. In which case, it's unlikely anything would change them and they probably wouldn't even clear the PG lol. My main point of the whole matter is that parsers are great to have and use, but they don't do as much, or rather aren't as impacting as others think to the bad player community. There are much better reasons to be pro-parser than to argue for the tool to simply point out bad players, as you/me/others have indicated. People need to stick to those arguments, instead of always defaulting to the finger pointing one.

[Ryel]

I won't argue about that, as I do agree about the benefits towards those situations. It'll simply be a tool to support the necessity to properly kick, which as the person quoted said, is something that can already be done, just not as effectively or easily. I'll just say that this is likely an example of us just wanting to grasp whatever form of mediation, despite it not being as common as implied (for most of us). Which leads me to the next point.

Something to keep in mind is that we always remember the bad, more than the good (or acceptable). We focus on these things, so it's natural find out about. A lot of the time, it's the same people posting on same-topic threads. I'm guilty of that, definitely. But you have to take into account what the ratio is of these bad and completely unacceptable occurrences are. Out of the literally hundreds/thousands of group content that most of us have done, can we honestly say that the inexcusable wipes/problems, specifically from DPS, occurred so often that we could even remotely consider it something more than "rare"? Speaking on an individual level, as our own personal experience is the only thing we truly have to go on as fact. I can say that, personally, it is absolutely rare in ratio to the whole of groups I've been in. It's almost guaranteed you'll encounter it from time to time, but hardly something you always expect in a general situation. Specifically pointing out ridiculous expectations, like clearing a DF T9 or Ultima HM back in ARR is not a valid argument, as we're talking about the whole here, and I know some people would reach for those to support their arguments.

The majority of those posts in the thread pertain to complaints about bad tanks and healers, more than DPS, if the first 3 pages and the last are anything to go on. What DPS complaints I did notice were specific to SMN though lol. I have my own complaints about bad tanks in AV. Tanks that don't know how to build threat or manage AoE threat. They're literally the only problems I've encountered when it comes to AV, which has been the only thing I've gotten lately for lower roulette. Parsing doesn't exactly save me from those terrible tanks, honestly.

Honestly i believe we can and that's the sad thing, i won't say that statistically it happens more often than not. I would however say it happens enough to be an issue that actually warrants attention. On the casual spectrum it's not like this game has a ton of content that is really taxing / difficult and yet for some reason we seem to get a large number of nerfs / echo to accommodate poor play. I'm not specifically referring to endgame like coil / Alexander either.

I know personally it's gotten to the point for me (and this is completely anecdotal) that I'm hesitant to queue for low level roulette because of the constant disasters I've seen in dungeons / story mode primals.

/nod Yep. But again, that's something irrelevant to parsers and just a matter of L2P.

In the case of Steps of Faith yeah, however it shows that we cannot have mechanically driven fights because the player base cannot handle them so the Devs keep going back to DPS checks.

High responsibility roles are always the first to blame, be it parser or no. There's no escape from that, even if DPS were more accountable.

The general flowchart goes:
Did tank die? If yes, blame healer.
Did healer die? If yes, blame tank.
Did DPS/support/etc die? If yes, blame healer and/or tank.
Did the whole group die because of not properly taking down a target before a party wipe mechanic occurred? If yes, blame DPS.

Notice how many occasions roles besides DPS get called on? Of course, there are some mechanics that rely on others to do something extra, like any gaol type mechanics. This is just how things work in a party setting with designated roles. You rely and place more responsibility on the people who keep you alive than you do the people who might get you through something faster (which is one of the only varying effects between competent DPS).

I would argue that this game (unlike other MMOs) makes DPS a high responsibility job by the nature of DPS checks, the player community however does not approach content with this mindset, and the game offers no tools or feedback to bring players up to the level content is asking for.

That is to say.. not only are there no rewards or feedback for a DPS player to know how well they are performing their job there's not even a metric given to allow them to improve. DPS checks are often pass/fail and either the party wipes or it doesn't and it doesn't tell you which DPS helped contribute to that.

Yes, exactly. This is a big part of the core argument that should be stated for pro-parser arguments. Unfair advantages between console players inability to access parsers themselves is also in relation to that, regardless of how minimal it is and the fact that there are ways to get said information through others, it's just something you can't do on your own as a console player. It's a strong supporting argument because of that inability and the fact you're essentially encouraged to break the rules a bit.

agreed.

There are much better reasons to be pro-parser than to argue for the tool to simply point out bad players, as you/me/others have indicated. People need to stick to those arguments, instead of always defaulting to the finger pointing one.

I actually fully agree with this.

The issue that this thread initially tried to address before it became The Great Parse Debate of 2015 #80,000: "uMad Edition" is that the community at it's base level seems to have a fundamental issue with calls for players to improve in any capacity. Like we actively encourage and support mediocrity in the form of calls for content nerfs, cries of "it's just a game!" or "it's my 12 bucks a month!" and in the worst case "You're just an elitist!!" whenever someone even hints at the idea that perhaps players should try.

I think part of the reason that the parsing debate keeps coming up is because the players that are aware of this realize that the community is in desperate need of a wake-up call to show just how bad the situation often is, before either content continues to get nerfed to the point that it becomes just plain uninteresting or the Devs just stop trying altogether.

I'd love to step away from DPS checks and have more mechanically driven fights which would lead to an environment where parsers are essentially useless, but the reactions to things like Steps of Faith tell me that i'm not allowed to have that.

[Welsper59]

Honestly i believe we can and that's the sad thing, i won't say that statistically it happens more often than not. I would however say it happens enough to be an issue that actually warrants attention. On the casual spectrum it's not like this game has a ton of content that is really taxing / difficult and yet for some reason we seem to get a large number of nerfs / echo to accommodate poor play. I'm not specifically referring to endgame like coil / Alexander either.

I know personally it's gotten to the point for me (and this is completely anecdotal) that I'm hesitant to queue for low level roulette because of the constant disasters I've seen in dungeons / story mode primals.

All/most of those issues are not parser related though, at least the ones out of highest endgame raid tier. You're right that it can reach a point that attention is needed. What we need isn't parsers, but rather something to either encourage or, more effectively, force learning to play acceptably in most content, including higher end faceroll 4-mans. This, on its own however, creates headaches in other ways that either already marginally exist now or will come to be.

If what a lot of pro-parser people are using as a point is accountability, then that point is the focus that needs to resolved. As I always point out, parsers don't do much for this, outside of finger pointing. It won't affect bads from getting what they want for being bad/lazy.

It's the fact that accountability is being taken into consideration as having an impact of sorts as pro-parser that makes me really dislike the argument. It falls short to fix that problem that is so popularly referred to, yet pro-parser arguments for it seem to think that's fine and the minuscule benefit towards that is enough to warrant having it lol. It's basically reaching. Which is why I argue that accountability is hardly a point worth mentioning for a pro-parser argument. There are just too many variables at play for it and much of what is being said can already be done in some way.

In the case of Steps of Faith yeah, however it shows that we cannot have mechanically driven fights because the player base cannot handle them so the Devs keep going back to DPS checks.

Yes, and that's something that circles back to how it's an ineffective way to get people to play better. Referring to both the devs fallback on DPS checks and the argument that officiating parsers will help people improve, in a notable way, any differently than they could now.

I would argue that this game (unlike other MMOs) makes DPS a high responsibility job by the nature of DPS checks, the player community however does not approach content with this mindset, and the game offers no tools or feedback to bring players up to the level content is asking for.

That is to say.. not only are there are rewards or feedback for a DPS player to know how well they are performing their job there's not even a metric given to allow them to improve. DPS checks are often pass/fail and either the party wipes or it doesn't and it doesn't tell you which DPS helped contribute to that.

I can certainly agree with you here, though only in terms of endgame progression raiding, rather than most things of lower tier. As you've pointed out before, most of the lower content is simple enough that the need for something like parsers to complete it would just be ridiculous lol. It's just a matter of getting people to try (or making them try), if they want to succeed. This is accomplished through content development, rather than anything else. If we want them to fix something, they need to do it right. Not band-aid the problem with something that barely does anything at all for it. Parsers have a greater beneficial impact in other areas, which I would argue is universally agreed upon, and those are the ones that need to focused on.

I actually fully agree with this.

The issue that this thread initially tried to address before it became The Great Parse Debate of 2015 #80,000: "uMad Edition" is that the community at it's base level seems to have a fundamental issue with calls for players to improve in any capacity. Like we actively encourage and support mediocrity in the form of calls for content nerfs, cries of "it's just a game!" or "it's my 12 bucks a month!" and in the worst case "You're just an elitist!!" whenever someone even hints at the idea that perhaps players should try.

I think part of the reason that the parsing debate keeps coming up is because the players that are aware of this realize that the community is in desperate need of a wake-up call to show just how bad the situation often is, before either content continues to get nerfed to the point that it becomes just plain uninteresting or the Devs just stop trying altogether.

I'd love to step away from DPS checks and have more mechanically driven fights which would lead to an environment where parsers are essentially useless, but the reactions to things like Steps of Faith tell me that i'm not allowed to have that.

Glad we can come to several agreements in our own ways lol.

[Ryel]

All/most of those issues are not parser related though, at least the ones out of highest endgame raid tier. You're right that it can reach a point that attention is needed. What we need isn't parsers, but rather something to either encourage or, more effectively, force learning to play acceptably in most content, including higher end faceroll 4-mans. This, on its own however, creates headaches in other ways that either already marginally exist now or will come to be.

True, i'm always saddened that the system for Guildhests werent properly taken advantage of by the Devs, they seem like such a great opportunity for learning but:

A) They aren't mandatory / part of the main scenario going up to 50 and now 60 with Heavensward.
B) New ones aren't added when more content hits.

It baffles me as to why these seem like such a missed opportunity to help players grow and improve. Even with the addition of Heavensward they could have added a whole set of "Ishgardian training drills" to go over various encounter mehcanics and yet we don't see anything like that added.

If they had properly kept up with those we probably wouldn't see half the issues we currently do and there would be less cries for a public parse to be added (though it wouldn't completely remove the need).

If what a lot of pro-parser people are using as a point is accountability, then that point is the focus that needs to resolved. As I always point out, parsers don't do much for this, outside of finger pointing. It won't affect bads from getting what they want for being bad/lazy.

It's the fact that accountability is being taken into consideration as having an impact of sorts as pro-parser that makes me really dislike the argument. It falls short to fix that problem that is so popularly referred to, yet pro-parser arguments for it seem to think that's fine and the minuscule benefit towards that is enough to warrant having it lol. It's basically reaching. Which is why I argue that accountability is hardly a point worth mentioning for a pro-parser argument. There are just too many variables at play for it and much of what is being said can already be done in some way.

I would argue that finger pointing isn't always a bad thing if it doesn't come from a point of hostility, sometimes players just need someone to point at their play and say "Hey, look at this for a second".

I do think all roles need a form of accountability in instances where the game expects us to work together, that isn't to say that carrying someone here and there is out of the question but even the tiniest bit of effort from the party goes a lot further than players realize.

Game systems should teach us from the ground up what's expected when we enter a 4/8 man party, then feedback systems should support that to make sure we're putting into effect what we've learned.

Additionally i would ask if you've read this Reddit thread that keeps being tossed around (for good reason):

FFXIV Parsing: Is banning it actually preventing arrogance, or fueling it?

It touches on some of the same points, and actually raises the counterpoints of players pointing fingers without numbers to even back them up

EDIT: Judging by posted comments you already have.

Yes, and that's something that circles back to how it's an ineffective way to get people to play better. Referring to both the devs fallback on DPS checks and the argument that officiating parsers will help people improve, in a notable way, any differently than they could now.

If MMO history is any indicator, community response to public parsing will mostly be apathetic, and players generally won't care. I do think it's better to have than not in most cases however.

I can certainly agree with you here, though only in terms of endgame progression raiding, rather than most things of lower tier. As you've pointed out before, most of the lower content is simple enough that the need for something like parsers to complete it would just be ridiculous lol. It's just a matter of getting people to try (or making them try), if they want to succeed. This is accomplished through content development, rather than anything else. If we want them to fix something, they need to do it right. Not band-aid the problem with something that barely does anything at all for it. Parsers have a greater beneficial impact in other areas, which I would argue is universally agreed upon, and those are the ones that need to focused on.

Yeah in the majority of low end content the idea of bringing up / using a parser is just laughable, but it does raise some eyebrows when people wipe to things like Nidhogg because a DPS was like... eating glue or something.

Glad we can come to several agreements in our own ways lol.

Same, i think this is a conversation that definitely needs to be had in the open even if every point isn't always met eye to eye.