Would you like an in-game parser?

[RobbieH]

It again sounds as if you think that I am saying a parser is a pre-requisite to learning your class. I am not saying this. I am saying that a parser is a tool that can be used to augment your learning and improve your play. Undoubtedly, you learned how to play via trial and error - whether you realized this or not.

You literally said, "What basically you're saying is that everyone was bad before parsers were made available, please."

Yes that's what i took from what you said, there were already great players before parsers were made available, hence my logic.

Example: Solitude FC on Ragnarok

They were the first ones i remember selling content (at least on the server), this means that they could do runs with 7 people, and back then the DPS checks were tight since it was a phase of gearing up, Titan HM is still the biggest Wall i've seen in the game so far, Bismarck could be seen as another one, but i still think Titan HM was the hardest due to how much damage you would take, and it was: Kill it before it kills you (soft enrage), this was especially fun because it was teaching Healers, especially, how to precast (as in, start medica before stomp hits), unlike a guaranteed wipe on Bismarck if you don't kill adds in Time.

I miss those times (except running Castrum for tomes lol).

People can learn from parsers via trial and error and receiving feedback. That is essentially how people learn everything in their life. You don't need someone to teach you something in order to learn. That said, having a parser could also provide feedback to see if you are properly performing what has been taught to you.

Bruce Lee and his Master Ip Man would like a word with you on that, just kidding

Yes, and personally i've noticed a few things looking at stats of other players (not DPS numbers but rather auto attacks, crits, dots etc), such as them using Aeolian Edge much more often than me, having AST Buffs, DRG Buffs and use pots.

I personally don't use pots because they're too expensive for what i can make daily and the rate they're spent, and because i came back a month ago (quit before POTD was made available), so it's been a catchup fight for me along finish Ninja Anima -- so it doesn't make sense for me to use Potions on the content i've been doing (Normal Alex, 24 Man Raids etc)

Anyway, where i want to get with this is that for people to get their best numbers, they need external buffs, no new here, until you come to the bad players again, they might look at top players numbers and see themselves doing farm lower not taking party buffs into account, and for reliable party buffs you need for other players to be good players too, hence why i keep defending why people should help each other.

PF for static goes like: "Need X with exp in A10S, preferably A11S", this is pretty much a Wall for a lot of people, yes they can make a PF for it, they can also wait hours with Raid Finder, but in the end if the other players are bad that player will still find himself thinking he's the actual issue of doing less DPS, and here's where the parser isn't useful.

For the in-game parser to be useful, it would need to display advanced statistics, such s buffs, crit, auto attacks etc

Or players would be confused if they're the issue not knowing that others aren't buffing them.

Sure it does, you said yourself that you can read tooltips to logically create a rotation. If say you are doing something you are familiar with and then read the tooltips and go, hey wait a minute, doing this might be a DPS increase -> makes adjustment, parser goes from 80 to 75.. Oh I guess that didn't work better. You continue making these iterative tests and you see your 80 DPS go up to 100, instead of down to 75.

This isn't that accurate if the parser doesn't display crit % and detailed info on DPS, crit makes DPS swing a lot, they might do more DPS with a worse rotation simply because they got lucky with crits.

A parser that just displays DPS is not useful at all, if we get advanced stats then we're into something.

Indeed, you need to experience it I guess. I have played WoW on and off, and in heroic dungeons and in looking for raid (expert roulette and weeping city equivalents), no one cares if you do poor DPS. I've been in groups where I am doing (#'s made up, as it's been a month since I played), 350k DPS, the hunter will do 300k DPS and the mage will do 80k DPS. No one says anything and we all just finish and go home. In mythic dungeons, I once saw someone giving a Warlock a hard time for low DPS, but they did not kick the warlock. It wasn't very friendly, however. It's only in harder content do they actually require higher numbers.
That said, I am sure there are people who are rude in Heroics and mock people's DPS, but they are few and far between.

That's good to know, i guess people just like to put a bad name on WoW for whatever reason.

Here's hope it would be like that in FFXIV if the parser was added.

People can learn without a guide, btw. However, people with a parser can still player poorly, and people without a parser can still play well. Parsers will not make everyone great. What it will do is provide feedback, so that people can naturally learn and adopt better practices.

I came to that conclusion, because your argument against a parser is that you learn from reading a guide. Yes, you can learn from a guide, but that is irrelevant to whether a parser is helpful. I think that the SSS has its uses, but not everything can transfer. I often need to alter my rotation and/or opener as a Summoner, based on how soon a jump is coming. For example, I'll throw out painflare to quickly get DWT so I can spam Ruin III and Deathflare prior to a jump, rather than hitting fester twice and then letting Aetherial stacks drop during the jump. Having real time feedback can show how these adjustments affect my overall DPS.

So far i've seen people asking to see their DPS, that alone is not enough by a long shot, if we had access to advanced stats, like i mentioned above it's another story for a lot of reasons.

As for optimizing rotations depending on fight that's something were advanced stats shine, just having the DPS numbers would be like:

"Huh i did less DPS this time but i think i crit more, why do i have lower DPS?"

This would just confuse players.

I strongly believe that the concerns over people kicking players in non-raid content, for having low dps, is unjustified

Yet it still happens, i remember back in ARR doing WoD, there was this Warrior and his friend, the Warrior had FCOB Weapon, for some reason every fight they would use Alliance chat to humiliate other players, one example was "LOL a WAR doing more DPS than BLM!", the next fight was "Look at this garbage Tank who can't keep aggro and is doing Healers DPS".

I'm not saying it will become more Toxic just because, i've witnessed pretty bad things in this game.

@RobbieH

Your replies were actually pleasant to read till page 143. I am not able to relate to your example of people with depression, I live in a large community of military veterans who suffer from physical to mental inadequacies and the only reason they can perform ever day tasks and go above that is because they gave themselves goals to get there.

I'm sorry but you can't possibly compare a Military individual with some random person, military people go through a LOT of intensive training, both physical and mental, they were trained to be both strong physically and mentally or they wouldn't finish recruit to begin with so they have something to back them up, going to war and see a lot of "twisted stuff" can make them depressed, crazy, and a lot of bad things, i've knew one who committed suicide in his pool.

A simple person with Depression, especially those dealing with Suicide give up on stuff much more easily because they don't feel like things are worth it anymore, i did volunteer work with those people so i know how it's like.

I can only assume you believe your opinion realistic and others are far to optimistic. Although your realism is stifled by the fact that WOW has been the best selling MMO even with its toxic community and accessibility to add-one.

Not really, i mentioned that i don't play WoW and took the argument of someone else from a few pages back that said it become very toxic when parsers were added.

I can agree with you that bad players will stay bad, but is it better to let them hide behind anonymity or give them a little push by letting others see their lack of performance? I believe the Ffxiv community has at least that much understanding.

I might be wrong, but bad players can become better if taught by experienced players, the problem is that almost no one bothers with that.

Just look at when Mentor system was introduced, everyone running around showing off the crown icon, not even 5% of those people actually helped anyone.

And there's people that do mentors roulette for the solely purpose of getting the mount.

Hi.

I was going to let my last post be my last post in this topic, but I'd just like to quickly clarify something.

Parsers give you information - they are strictly a tool meant to inform players of their DPS, HPS, and gDPS. They can even go further beyond this as shown from the way that FFLogs extrapolates data from ACT - you can now see boss ability timings in an easy visual format, the damage type of the boss' abilities (magical, physical, or darkness), and you can even see how your DPS/HPS/gDPS compares to other people playing your job/other groups.

This is all good information to have. If someone says "you're doing low DPS", you can now visually see how much lower and you can go to FFLogs to look up players above you in the same fight to see how they handle specific mechanics/what GCDs they use/CDs/etc.

There is absolutely no advantage to not having this information, especially when it is already available to most of the playerbase. Anything that "could" happen has already happened or was never going to happen. How ever toxic the community currently is, that is how it will remain if they implement an in-game parser. Nothing will change in that regard.

Now it's important to note that a parser is a tool. A bad player isn't going to suddenly learn how to be top percentile on FFLogs by just giving them a parser - they have to want to improve themselves and they still have to actively go out of their way to do that. What a parser does for them is it shows where they stand - they now know how much they need to improve and can use that information to help them do that. Without the parser they have to not only want to improve, but also convince other people to upload their parses to FFLogs just so they can have the same information as them.

In-game parsing, as it stands, is a QoL change. It is not the only change needed to make players better at the game, but it is information that will go a way to helping them - even if you interpret it as just a small nudge. People have wanted this implemented since 2.0, and we are now at the end of 3.0. I wouldn't say that parsing is a necessity and if implementing it takes place of something more important like the Intermediate Hall then I'd say push it aside until it can take the place of some other QoL thing. Because, imo, as far as QoL is concerned this is one of the most important features to implement. It should be at the top of the priority list, alongside in-game stat weight tooltips.

In conclusion there's nothing bad about implementing in-game parsing - it already exists for PC players, any perceived problems with it are already happening (or are never going to happen). I legitimately can't wrap my head around any argument against implementing an in-game parser, outside of "we used the resources for that on this more important thing". Anyway, like I said, last post so just to clarify I wanted to agree to disagree because I knew you'd do what you're doing now which is replying to everyone and their mother to defend your stance - imo that leads to more arguing than discussion and I don't really enjoy arguing. All the same, you're entitled to your opinion and I'm in no way saying you can't freely express it, I just really didn't want to go back and forth 500 times about this. Take care.

Thanks for coming back to the discussion, sorry for not splitting your comment into parts but it's been 6 hours since i've eaten and starting to feel dizzy and i've been editing my posts a lot (in parts) to match replies.

The issue, like mentioned above if you don't want to read i understand, is that most people who want the parser is simply for the sake of seeing their DPS, this alone is not nearly enough, people are taking it as if they will add advanced statistics like we already have, if this was the case then i can agree with it, but just asking for something "just to see my DPS" is not by any means useful at all.

We need access to advanced stats such as auto attack and crits percentages, uptime, buffs, debuffs, resource management etc

If so we're indeed into something.