Built-in Parsers

[Dzian]

They need to implement an in-game personal parser that gives all the details on your own performance and nothing about anybody else's.

What would that tell you?

A massive amount of your personal dps at any given time is not down to you but down to the rest of your group.. in order to make any sense of your dps you need to understand where it came from and why it is what it is.

A parser that tells you nothing about the rest of the group is useless.

If you take trick attack for example. That one buff can have maybe a 2% increase on your dps.

Just having a bard in your party is an almost permanent 2% increase to crit rate. And that's before counting foe or battle voice.

The point is all those little things the rest of your group does can add up to be a very significant portion of your personal dps. And because of that a personal parser that removes any information about the rest of the party would be totally useless.

You could do a fight twice. First time you might get 5k fps.

Second time you might get 5.5k dps. That might suggest you played better. But the reality is you could have played worse just the 7 people you were grouped with the second time were better players in a better composition. That extra dps then is down to them and not down to you playing better..

So a personal parse wouldn't tell you anything useful at all. Knowing you did more or less dps than you did last time is absolutely useless if you can't account for why you did more. And to do that you need information about the rest of the party.

[BillyKaplan]

A parser that tells you nothing about the rest of the group is useless.

Knowing I had a BRD or an AST in my party is useless if it's a BRD that doesn't keep up songs or an AST that doesn't use cards. And even if they were performing adequately, what matters is that the boss had a debuff on it and that I had a buff on me, two entities whose data is relevant to the parsing. The problem with that is that it will arguably still give you too much information about how other people are performing (ok BRDs should rightly keep their songs up and that's easy to see if it drops even without a parser, but still) and that will net us right back where we started with people at each other's throats.

[Niwashi]

A massive amount of your personal dps at any given time is not down to you but down to the rest of your group.. in order to make any sense of your dps you need to understand where it came from and why it is what it is.

And a good parser should tell you where it came from. It should tell you all the damage you do (both damage you do directly and that you do by buffing other players' attacks). It should tell you everything that affects that damage, including splitting out what portion you're fully responsible for and what portion you only got because of someone else's buffs/debuffs.

That doesn't mean it has to tell you about other damage you're not even involved in.

All of these should be listed:

• You got X amount of damage directly
• You added Y amount of damage to other players' attacks with your buffs/debuffs
• You got Z amount of additional damage due to buffs/debuffs from other players
• The damage you were involved in was: (X+Y+Z)
• Your total damage contribution was: (X+Y)

But what should not be included is:

• Teammate So-and-So got W amount of damage

[Taika]

But what should not be included is:

• Teammate So-and-So got W amount of damage

What exactly would be the issue of seeing your team members' numbers as well? If a group is wiping to enrage, wouldn't everyone just ask for everyone's numbers anyway? And if the group isn't wiping, people aren't very likely to care that much about anyone else's numbers (unless someone clearly isn't pulling their weight, in which case it would be justified wouldn't it)? And if there's trouble with healing, for example, wouldn't it be useful to see if one of the healers is healing significantly more than the other? It should also of course show how much damage everyone's taking and how many times each party member has died, so people can't for example blame healers if they're standing in all AoEs and constantly dying.

I just don't see the downside for everyone seeing everyone's numbers, when everyone's playing in a team and aiming to reach a common goal, in content that requires certain numbers to be met. Again, this could be an optional feature available for premade parties, so groups could use it to their benefit if they wish to do so (of course there could also be an option to only see your own numbers and not let anyone else see yours either, but that's not really useful for stuff like Savage or Ultimate).

[AlexionSkylark]

What exactly would be the issue of seeing your team members' numbers as well?.

How about Which hunting and finger pointing? AKA harassment?

In the current situation people are FORBIDDEN to do it openly risking a report.

[Taika]

How about Which hunting and finger pointing? AKA harassment?

Harassment is and will be a reportable offense no matter if parsers are allowed or not. Also, it's important to separate discussing performance from harassing a player about their performance. Like I've said before in one of these threads:

Right now you can say "You're performing really badly!" and that's not considered harassment. Then you could say "You're performing really badly: your DPS is only 2500 when it should be 4000!". And again, if you add any personal insults or bad language to those, they'll turn into harassment, despite if numbers have been used or not. The main difference in my eyes is that when the numbers are used, the person receiving the critisism will know if it's based on facts or not.

[AlexionSkylark]

snip

As of now, if someone says to someone in my party "You're performing really badly!" I can jump in and say "AND HOW EXACTLY WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? are you using a parser, by any chance?" And the guy would NEED to back down or risk bring reported. If parsers are allowed, he is also entitled to do that which is doing. Which is something neither SE nor all the people against parsers in this and in the myriad of threads over the subject condone.

Again, the way it is right now is more than enough. You're free to use it for your personal use, but NOT to JUDGE OTHER PEOPLE'S PERFORMANCE PUBLICLY.

[Taika]

As of now, if someone says to someone in my party "You're performing really badly!" I can jump in and say "AND HOW EXACTLY WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? are you using a parser, by any chance?"

And then the person says "I'm checking "the enmity meter", your ability use and the damage log" and everyone knows what they're talking about. What you're advocating is people bullying others with a threat of reporting to force them to hide the objective facts about underperformers. Again, no one should be harassed or bullied, over their DPS or HPS or anything else in this game, that should always be reported and otherwise dealt with. But you can't force people to carry others who aren't willing or able to meet the content or party requirements. That's not fair either.

[Ilan]

As of now, if someone says to someone in my party "You're performing really badly!" I can jump in and say "AND HOW EXACTLY WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? are you using a parser, by any chance?" And the guy would NEED to back down or risk bring reported. If parsers are allowed, he is also entitled to do that which is doing. Which is something neither SE nor all the people against parsers in this and in the myriad of threads over the subject condone.

Again, the way it is right now is more than enough. You're free to use it for your personal use, but NOT to JUDGE OTHER PEOPLE'S PERFORMANCE PUBLICLY.

Do you really think that someone needs a parser to see if someone is playing bad?

[Niwashi]

Right now you can say "You're performing really badly!" and that's not considered harassment. Then you could say "You're performing really badly: your DPS is only 2500 when it should be 4000!". And again, if you add any personal insults or bad language to those, they'll turn into harassment, despite if numbers have been used or not. The main difference in my eyes is that when the numbers are used, the person receiving the critisism will know if it's based on facts or not.

Actually, telling someone they're performing badly can in many cases be harassment now. But that aside...

With a personal parser, they'd be getting those numbers. The difference is that you're not satisfied with the game providing them their numbers. You want to take command and be the one giving out your teammates' numbers yourself. That's where it turns into pure selfishness, the part where you are the one to tell them their numbers, or even that you feel you should even know their numbers.

The ones who can actually do something about their numbers ins't you. It's them. So they're the one who should get them. Controlling someone else's game is NOT your job. Your job is to take care of your own character, and see that you are performing well enough. It's up to your teammates to take care of theirs, and their performance.

With a strictly personal parser, you get your numbers and can work on improving your game. Your teammates each get their numbers and can work on improving their game. In a static you can coordinate this and work on your team dynamics to improve how you work together. But nobody gets to take over and appropriate other people's gameplay as their own.