Absolute frustration at not being able to see my own DPS (ps4)

[Ryel]

-long post-

The majority of what i would have said in response to your initial post has mostly been covered by Zosia's response here, but to what wasn't I'd like to elaborate a bit on myself.

The point I have made, and will continue to make, is that an official parser in the game hands those players a 'stick' with which to beat other players. You can say that they would harass others anyway, and I will agree, they probably would. But by condoning parser use with an official parser, the in-game climate changes to one where it's considered OK to criticize other players performance. Now, if, as I discussed with Kazumac, there was a personal parser, it wouldn't contribute to player harassment, the same jerks would continue to be jerks and the world would turn. If there were an opt-in group parser for pre-made groups, it would reduce any scope for abuse since players voluntarily opt-in to being parsed in a group situation. Once again, jerks will be jerks and the world will turn.

I think this in particular is a major point of misunderstanding when it comes to human nature, let me explain.

While I'm fully aware that what the OP initially asked for is a personal parser and i keep seeing it brought up as an alternative to public parsing that most can agree on as a halfway point I'm going to have to disagree that it will go over as everyone is expecting.

let me make this clear I have nothing against the implementation of a personal parser / opt in parser, however speaking objectively it is more likely to lead to cases of harassment than the alternative of a public parser.

Now why is this?

For one, 3rd party parsers still exist and you will not convince those on PC that use them to make the switch to an inferior product, additionally this still keeps console players at a distinct disadvantage because they are getting partial information and not the whole picture.

Secondly there is no way to add one to the game that will circumvent the issues that will arise as a result of party chat.

Take this scenario:

A party wipes to an endgame DPS check and asks the four DPS classes to post their numbers so they can compare to try and evaluate where the issue lies to work on fixing it.

Two of the DPS post their real numbers, one of them lies and posts false numbers and the last one refuses to post them at all because they fear harassment.

Exactly how do you think this will go over?

A PC player running a 3rd party tool already knows which numbers are correct, those on the consoles now need to sit there and try to math out which numbers are honest and which aren't while the party now comes full stop to start a 10 minute witch hunt to figure out who is telling the truth, and i promise you it wouldn't be the most civil of discussions.

You shouldn't have to sit there to debate for data that should be readily available as the battle log can be viewed by any memeber of the party already, however a parser converts it into a more readable format for quick understanding. Having a group of players that for lack of a better term "hide" their performance for fear of being targeted for harassment will instead make themselves more obvious targets by doing so. If 7 out of 8 players in a party have no issues showing their numbers that 1 person remaining has already made themselves the odd man out and that doesn't' bode well in situations where group cooperation and team-play are paramount.

It's likely to unintentionally antagonize members of the group who otherwise would have been very nice and helpful had they known outright, but now feel they have to pull teeth or fight a party member to speak up so they can fix simple issues.

It just wouldn't end well.

You've linked multiple sources. OK, there are multiple posts in this topic that discuss the opposite experience, the most exhaustively covered example being DCUO. You can link things, so can I or others. It's no surprise that there are many different experiences, points of view or school's of thought on the matter, it's not a cut and dried topic.

If you want to cite DCUO I'm the wrong person to try and use that as a counterargument against, sorry.

I personally played DCUO from the moment it launched back when it was a subscription based MMO and I played for well over a year. So we can sit here and do the anecdotal argument thing all day where I say that my personal experiences were the complete opposite of what was posted in this thread and that seeing the performance scorecard was nothing but positive to the groups I went in.

I never once saw or heard of an issue of harassment or conflict arise for players seeing their performance on display and if anything it allowed us to quickly troubleshoot if someone needed to swap roles (since everyone had a DPS spec and could swap mid raid) because someone in another role was having an issue. it also promoted healthy and lighthearted competition when we knew full well that class balance was messed up and certain specs / weapons were innately more powerful than other combinations at the time (I'm looking at you fire tank, and archer sorcery)

But like the comments before my experiences are entirely anecdotal and I also played on PC (on PvP servers) where the majority of players were already used to parse culture, it's possible the console servers were simply going through growing pains as people who hadn't played MMOs before were adjusting to the concept.

Now see, that's a different argument. In the previous paragraph you talked about the threads you linked to and that the thing you claim I ignore is that people already harass others over their performance. Whether or not developers believe that there is a legitimate fear in the community is a very subjective thing, because it depends very much on the game, community and developer, along with the type of game and how parsing is implemented. Developers frequently mis-read the community and what the wants or needs of the community are. This forum itself provides daily documentation of many, many times when developers have thought the community wanted something and the community has proven the developer to be wrong.

Except here and in other threads we have cases of the community clearly asking for the addition of a parse or performance feedback tool, and more often than not it's the console players who have no access to this functionality asking for it.

I find it hard to believe that the developers could mis-read and misinterpret the current thread's title of a Ps4 players saying they want to be on an even playing field, not to mention that the question has been raised (and responded to) in multiple interviews and during fan fest live letters.

Myself and others see no reason that the fear of a small subset of players should restrict access to features that a larger community of players are asking for, especially considering they are also paying customers.

The counter arguments against them however have been insulting if anything as if they were children being denied a toy

Console users: 'Hey we'd like a way to get feedback on our damage like some of the PC players are able to, is there a way an official method can be added so we can see how well we're doing?"

Counter argument: "Sorry i don't think that's a good idea yours or another player's feelings might get hurt as a result, but feel free to ask a PC user to tell you your numbers"

or even better

Counter argument: "Nah you don't really NEED one you just WANT one"

Console users: "Oh... okay.."

See the issue here?

EDIT: for another perspective that most don't consider this was posted on reddit:

If this game had a built in (personal) parser, I would enjoy gearing up even more.

This aspect of not having a parser hadn't occurred to me, but I totally agree. As a PS4 player the only visible change from getting a new piece of gear is iLvl and, other than needing a certain level to access new content, I've lost interest in my iLvl.

I'm currently on a break from FFXIV and have been playing other random games. Until I read your post it hadn't occurred to me how much I've liked getting a new piece of gear in those games because I can either see numbers for hits on the screen, or can just see the mobs dying faster.

I have all jobs in FFXIV at 50 plus a few at 60, but I rarely play any of them other than my main because I simply can't see whether I am doing well or not on them. I really hadn't realised how much of a hindrance not being able to see my own numbers was until now.