Just realized something: FFXIV is a terrible DPS player's DREAM come true...

[Claire_Pendragon]

Spent way too much time in pugs doing O2S who couldnt beat the enrage timer.
I didnt know who was holding who back, and even questioned if it was me. When I got a raid group, they told me I was the highest DPS of the group, and above what was needed from me. So I can say having a means to see your DPS helps a ton.

BUT

Having mid battle parsers does create problems.
I'll give examples real quick, and then talk about what I think is a way to implement parsers.

This obviously doesnt apply to everyone, but WoW is the best example of how people get, when something becomes normal, and people start trying to min/max.
Some jobs dont do as much dmg on their own, but contribute to raid dmg.
If their DPS is low, and people expect "X"dps per person, they can and have kicked people who dont deserve it.
Another example in WoW, but not here, are people who do more dmg at the end of a fight, and it is so high, it makes up for the lack of dmg throughout 75% of the fight. (atm this is shadow priest in WoW)
When they never make it to the end, they look and see a DPS who's doing 20% less DPS than the rest, and they get kicked.
Lastly, is AoE vs Single Target. Less important in savage, but in basic farming roulette dungeons, the jobs that do less AoE dmg will also be kicked, because those who do AoE are going to show a higher amount of dps.

(Ive also ran into people who kicked people out based on what % of the enemies HP they dealt in dmg, rather than DPS. For example, this Warrior did 10k dps. and the leader of the group said everyone must do at least 7k dps. The warrior was kicked, because the other DPS did so much more DPS, that his was lower than their by comparison. The leader looked at how much of their dmg was X% of the bosses total hp. This one is just weird, but i saw it alot in cataclysm, and not as much now.)

The most frustrating thing Ive seen a group do, is kick people who werent pulling.
Essentially ive seen SOOOOO many Hunters, even today, who's DPS is terrible.
So they run ahead of the group, being the 1st to fight, and getting off attacks before melee get to the mobs.
Some people leave the parser going between pulls, therefor the person who gets to mobs 1st has higher DPS. Even if their DPS is terrible, if you only count "in combat" DPS.

This is the MOST annoying one for me. This is the 1 thing that can never be avoided, if you openly allow parsers mid combat. People wont learn their rotations, but instead learn to just run to mobs before the rest of the group. (You can tell they do this because their DPS numbers are different from the rest of the groups, who actually dont keep track of the down time between mobs.)
I also think thats where they stopped looking at DPS, and at total % of dmg done in a dungeon back in cataclysm.

Now, as to how to add parsers.
Personally i absolutely HATE how the game locks you out of content you havent cleared yet, even if you're able to clear it, because clear groups arent capable of doing the fight yet.
Instead, it should be a check mark based on ur ability to handle the test dummy. "Did they beat the dummy and survive?" (survive for healers/tanks)
When they beat it, it should keep track of your recorded DPS, and TELL YOU what it was, so you actually know how much room you have for improvement.
And when people make party finder groups, it should only look to see if you can beat the dummy, and then the leader should be able to look up the record of what your dps was when clearing it. (only showing the DPS of the hardest test dummy, not for each test dummy.)

This both helps players know what thier DPS is, lets a PT leader see what they could do, if given time to learn a fight, lets a PT leader know if they got carried or not last group, if everyone's DPS together will be enough to clear. (in case someone is just shy by a few points for some reason)

Also, the problems i mentioned above cant be caused by this implementation. (It may cause new issues, and of course would be re-evaluated then.)

[dragonseth07]

And no, it is not illogical to associate two things that are directly correlated to each other. Yes, modifiers to their relationship do exist, but almost all of the situations those modifiers see use are edge cases within the realm of dungeon content.

I thought the aggro list was reliable for this until I actually used a crystal ball. Running it taught me immediately that the aggro list is worthless as a gauge, completely worthless.

[Ilan]

Every dps wants to get better.

From which cereal box do you have that crazy idea? You'll find a ton of players, not only dps players, who don't give a sh.. about getting better because there are always people who'll carry them on their backs because its easier as learning to play their class even close to good.

You see dps who are not even using the game give combo and you can't tell me its not obvious that you should use the skill that gets optical highlighted from the game or just standing around and doing autoattacks.


OP: You can see if one of the dps is bad or doesn't play properly without a parser.

[Kyuuen]

This attitude is part of the reason why DF is so awful in this game. There is no community push for players to perform in matched content, so they don't. People coast by doing 1-2-3 all the way up because we let them. I want DF to be a fun experience, not a slog.

Some of the classes in this game damn near holds your hand through your rotation. Not having a parser is not the problem, peoples attitudes are.

A parser does not:
tell you your optimal rotation
inform you of ideal stats for your class
rotation per boss/mechanic

It takes a person willing to learn. And if a players isn't willing to learn their proper rotations or in the least what the game is showing them, then a parser is a pointless tool.

The only thing more tired than this subject matter, is peoples expectations that having an ingame parser is going to act as a remedy and cure-all that will miraculously solve everyones DPS woes.

[SaitoHikari]

-snip-

A parser may not tell you that kind of information, but it gives you direction. Nobody is going to improve if they don't even know there's something TO improve in the first place. You can't argue that people aren't willing to learn if there's nothing that encourages people to do so in the first place. It only makes sense to say that if they willfully ignore said encouragement in the first place - of which, again, there is none.

Why is this concept so hard for people to understand? It doesn't help that as large as this game's community is, there's no single organized English fansite or forum dedicated to compiling information on how each job works (much less actual guides). The only resort for many people on our side of the ocean is google search or, even worse, wading through Reddit's terrible search algorithm.

(And I specify English because I'm willing to bet millions that the Japanese community has far more easily accessible information stored somewhere behind the language barrier, which would explain why the developers don't even see this as a problem.)

[AlexionSkylark]

A parser may not tell you that kind of information, but it gives you direction. Nobody is going to improve if they don't even know there's something TO improve in the first place.

There's Stone, Sky, Sea for that

[Kyuuen]

A parser may not tell you that kind of information, but it gives you direction. Nobody is going to improve if they don't even know there's something TO improve in the first place. You can't argue that people aren't willing to learn if there's nothing that encourages people to do so in the first place. It only makes sense to say that if they willfully ignore said encouragement in the first place - of which, again, there is none.

Why is this concept so hard for people to understand? It doesn't help that as large as this game's community is, there's no single organized English fansite or forum dedicated to compiling information on how each job works (much less actual guides). The only resort for many people on our side of the ocean is google search or, even worse, wading through Reddit's terrible search algorithm.

(And I specify English because I'm willing to bet millions that the Japanese community has far more easily accessible information stored somewhere behind the language barrier, which would explain why the developers don't even see this as a problem.)

No, I fully understand. But what people are asking for and what you're describing are two very different things. Judging by your explanation you want a gauge. Something that takes stock of your current stats, figures it's maximum output, and spits out your destination/target.

A Parser; as I said, is for people willing to learn. If people aren't going to be bothered to do a little work on their own, they will most likely not properly utilize a parser. It doesn't take as much as you would make it sound.

[SaitoHikari]

There's Stone, Sky, Sea for that

Dummy fights are a terrible metric because it only tells you the minimum you need to do, and it doesn't fight back. You won't be weaving in utility skills in SSS for that reason. Plus, it's completely optional, and it's hidden enough that most players aren't even aware it exists.

It's also why using the aggro meter as an indicator of DPS is also a terrible metric due to how differently aggro works for most DPS. BRD and MCH now have two emnity dumps that halve their current emnity, not to mention MCH emnity is also split between themselves and their turret. Same concept for Summoners. And everyone that knows their rotation well enough knows that they MUST use their emnity reducing skills/dumps or else they WILL die.

I dunno, maybe I'm just miffed at the fact that I literally just went through two EX roulettes with co-DPS that was literally doing as much damage as the tank was (and I had literally 3!!! times the damage output because I was actually using multi-target skills in large pulls), and in one run, things were dying at a below average time which caused the healer and tank to assume that the both of us were bad at playing our jobs. Factoring in that our gear wasn't that far from each other, the other DPS really had no excuse besides sheer ignorance.

And that's really what this thread is about in the first place. Good DPS gets zero recognition outside of raids. Parsing was only brought up because it's the only readily accessible tool to measure this. And yet people are afraid to call out bad DPS, because such an act is counterproductive in every way possible - in that doing so basically ADMITS that you're using a parser, and/or that arguing about it ultimately slows down the run even more.

So yes, going back to the original topic, this game really is a bad DPS' dream come true. When something like this is even possible and even bringing it up results in conflict the vast majority of the time, it's an issue that's going to (or already has!) creep into development. What incentive do the developers have to create harder/more varied content when the vast majority of the community is content with the status quo regarding the average player's performance?

At the same time though, I still have to wonder if this is a purely English community problem. You take a quick glance at the Japanese community and notice they have WAY higher savage clear rates AND at the same time, the healer DPS debate isn't nearly as toxic over there as it is on our side of the ocean. Why is that? Because their DPS are expected to perform at a much higher level than ours. My philosophy is that if you're going to main a DPS and take on the burden of the fact that you're going to be sitting in long queue times, you'd better at least understand the basics of your job, because I'd hope you're not sitting in queues for half an hour just to get carried and make things even MORE stressful for the tanks and healers accompanying you.

So there's two topics that people are absolutely tired of hearing about: Healer DPS and bad DPS/parsing. How to kill both with one stone? Start holding the DPS accountable. It doesn't have to be parsing. It's just SOMETHING needs to be designed into the game that gives a clearer indicator on how DPS are performing. Maybe then, it opens a window towards halting the third most annoying topic that gets spammed on these forums - the lack of varied/challenging content. The devs aren't going to break out of this content cycle if the playerbase won't demonstrate that they're ready to move beyond it. The devs, after all, have been repeatedly quoted as saying that they design content while monitoring clear rates - highly implying that if the clear rate doesn't meet their expectations, then they failed somewhere in designing it.

[Hayward]

For the love of all that's Holy...

What I wouldn't give to be able to block threads from Elysium-wannabes running their mouths about other people's perceived shortcomings.

[Rufalus]

Let's note for a while that there are a myriad of reasons for not performing other than being "lazy". There are all kinds of people out there, including ones who are not gamers at heart.

You made many good points in this thread, well said. Somebody in my FC is a busy mother who doesn't have much time to practice and has a lot of distractions, usually playing while a baby is on her lap. All kinds of people play this game, which a dps number doesn't convey. We should be patient and accepting. Like you said, if somebody wants an optimal run, just preform a group. We don't need to harass people who aren't high performers until the game is whittled down to just the hardcore players.