Built-in Parsers

[akaneakki]

Not the point of my comment. I've always been a supporter of personal parsers so I can improve my gameplay. Again, however, not the point of my comment. Having a trial run on parsers isn't going to change people's opinions on them. If anything it is just going to inflame the issue as if it doesn't stay, supporters will be upset and if it does then objectors will be upset.

How much that is true, we also seen that many people want this and that. An MMO can never satisfy too many people sadly.

[MoroMurasaki]

At it's core this argument is over two separate questions.


First, are parsers necessary? For this you don't have to look much further than any given world progression group, of course they are if you want to play the very best you can. No, we all are not going to be those best of the best players but not having the option to analyze your own data is like pulling the rug out from under you before you start. As many of the opponents to parsing are so fond of saying 'you don't pay my sub' so it is certainly not your decision to tell me whether or not I can parse/be parsed.

Right now that's what's happening though - all the whining and crying about this imagined outbreak of toxicity is at best a large hurdle in the way of the push for some kind of in game damag meter. Without something built into the game as a console player I can't see any of this info that is accessible to my PC friends and competition.

The second side of the argument is 'oh the toxicity' and to that I say prove it. You have no way of knowing how parsers could impact the game's community just like there is no way to know how any major change may work out. The only way to find out is to impliment some kind of parser and then see what happens. If the game turns into a toxic waste dump then pull it by all means but I can't imagine it going that way. People are not the awful monsters that some of the posters in this thread make them out to be.

If anything parsers save you from toxicity. Is someone not pulling their weight? You know who it is now rather than wiping to enrage 10 times because you can see that SAM never put up Higanbana or whatever. Rather than being angry and burntout and yelling at each other a group can see who needs to step up and let them know. If they don't? Yeah, sure, they may get kicked. That isn't the end of the world. That one player's time is not more valuable than the time of the 7 others who might have cleared by then without them.

I just don't see the logic in arguing against something that only helps people. If someone uses it to be an ass then blacklist them and move on.

[SDaemon]

How much that is true, we also seen that many people want this and that. An MMO can never satisfy too many people sadly.

True, there will always be some group of players who are dissatisfied with a choice made by the Devs. If SE implements a parser though they should just do so permanently, and work on satisfying both sides of this argument by implementing/adjusting it in a way that both can come to terms with. A temporary one is just going to add fuel to the fire, not change minds.

[akaneakki]

True, there will always be some group of players who are dissatisfied with a choice made by the Devs. If SE implements a parser though they should just do so permanently, and work on satisfying both sides of this argument by implementing/adjusting it in a way that both can come to terms with. A temporary one is just going to add fuel to the fire, not change minds.

That I agree with, it can fuel up the fire more. I just hope they can at least add dummies with mechanics and it's something people need to do before doing fights. There are far too many people who gets carried by other peoples damage. Imagine if tanks, healers and the 3 other dps never pushed themselves? The last guy would mostlikely never seen his/her kill. Then you have the worse scenario where 4-5 people who been carried end up in the same group.

[LastFireAce]

No thank you.

[Baingoleth]

Some anti-parser people seem to keep forgetting that anyone on the PC who wants to parse is already parsing. I seriously doubt that making this official would dramatically increase the number of people who behave poorly about combat statistics. I still hold to my opinion that building an in-game parser would be a good opportunity for SE to disable sending combat stats to other people's clients. Players could use the parser to optimize their gear and rotations if they so wished and no one would have any grounds to chastise anyone else based on numbers.

Personally, I could care less if anyone parses my numbers. I know some people do and I have yet to hear anything abrasive from anyone I have partied with. Before I do a new instance, I make sure my gear is upgraded appropriately and I listen to any advice. I look at the web for any helpful class tips also. So go ahead and parse. You'll find I am doing fine by most people's standards.

That said, I have met people who play very well and they don't care for parsers. They don't mind if other people parse themselves but they would rather not have their characters 'graded' by others. I suspect that the majority of people who wouldn't use a parser either don't care about it at all or don't want to be ranked. Remember that not everyone who is against programs like ACT are against people parsing their own stats.

What if ACT suddenly stopped working for other party members? No one could upload your parse to fflogs. If someone tried to make anyone a scapegoat, vague comments about anyone's DPS wouldn't hold any water. As it is now, people assume that the accusers are running ACT and can see other people's stats. How much better would it be if people were forced to identify actual player errors like poor gear or poor use of skills rather than make comments about DPS and just kick? Then the player who is holding the group up would at least know what they need to fix. Maybe they'd start using a built in parser to learn their class better if it was convenient to enable.

Again, ACT is already in widespread use and it is annoying enough people to be a divisive issue for the FFXIV community. Adding a party parser to the game won't resolve the argument. Could crippling ACT through restricting what the client can see about other player's numbers and adding a personal parser to the UI be the compromise that most people could live with? Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

[MoroMurasaki]

Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

While I am still firmly in the camp of what would essentially be an in-game version of ACT, rankings and all, I think this would be a fair compromise that I could certainly live with.

[DeaconMoore]

Again, ACT is already in widespread use and it is annoying enough people to be a divisive issue for the FFXIV community. Adding a party parser to the game won't resolve the argument. Could crippling ACT through restricting what the client can see about other player's numbers and adding a personal parser to the UI be the compromise that most people could live with? Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

Nope.

A personal parser is fine for perfecting your own personal rotation and experimenting with gear builds and such sure.

A group parser is needed to show you who you should be considering giving the boot. A personal parser can't serve this purpose.

[Baingoleth]

Nope.

A personal parser is fine for perfecting your own personal rotation and experimenting with gear builds and such sure.

A group parser is needed to show you who you should be considering giving the boot. A personal parser can't serve this purpose.

Granted I am only level 50 and haven't spent a bunch of time in FFXIV yet but in the MMO I am coming from, we couldn't parse other people. We'd kick from PUGs regularly. Some player runs in like Leeroy Jenkins consistently? Kick. Some player has gear that can't even stand up to bosses a tier lower? Kick. Some player keeps ignoring the raid leader? Kick.

It was very rare that someone was holding the group back who didn't make it obvious somehow. We never needed to parse them. If people knew the mechanics, listened to the raid leader and had appropriate gear there was almost never an issue.

Does FFXIV have an issue where people look on the outside like they can do an instance fine but in reality are just able to hide their ineptitude? I am asking seriously and I am asking as someone who personally doesn't care if everyone gets parsed. I just see this argument coming up over and over with some really upset people and fail to see how poor players can't be weeded out without these metrics.

[Rinuko]

ACT is starting to become the standard 3rd party app it feels like, the devs are going with turning a blind eye on it.
Idk what the number of users but in XI we had Windower and nobody ever got banned to my knowledge from using it and it was probably used by large marjority of its PC playerbase in its glorydays.

Now the small dev team that maintains XI has implemented the core features (that most people wanted) into the XI client so of course they could add a in-game parser if they chose too, difference is they are "too scared" people being picked on which is a lame excuse imho.