The issue nobody wants to address

[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.