In competition with myself: a request for PERSONAL parsers

[Krotoan]

A personal parser is useless.....

if you never talk to anyone else about your numbers and/or never search for things on the internet .. sure.

[Estelle9lives]

I have to say I agree with Eylirria and Oscura, personal parsers would be a completely half assed measure if the intent is improving the overall skill level of the playerbase. If the player is not interested in improving their performance and researching their job in the first place it would do absolutely nothing for them, as I bet a ton of players think they're doing fine despite doing less than half their potential DPS. Without comparison there's no improvement.

And really? Making it an offense to demand someone's numbers? This game really is a terrible DPS's dream come true. This is basically asking that DPS shouldn't be held accountable for their performance. Oh, we are wiping to enrage? Just imagine consistently hitting enrage on a raid because one of the DPS is doing 2500, and when you ask them for their numbers, they report you and you get a warning/suspension. Fantastic.

[Krotoan]

I have to say I agree with Eylirria and Oscura, personal parsers would be a completely half assed measure if the intent is improving the overall skill level of the playerbase. If the player is not interested in improving their performance and researching their job in the first place it would do absolutely nothing for them, as I bet a ton of players think they're doing fine despite doing less than half their potential DPS. Without comparison there's no improvement.

And really? Making it an offense to demand someone's numbers? This game really is a terrible DPS's dream come true. This is basically asking that DPS shouldn't be held accountable for their performance. Oh, we are wiping to enrage? Just imagine consistently hitting enrage on a raid because one of the DPS is doing 2500, and when you ask them for their numbers, they report you and you get a warning/suspension. Fantastic.

The intent is to make quantifiable data available to those who want to improve. Not MAKING people improve. This isn't about shaming people into improving because OMG lookit your low numbers compared to everyone else. This is about giving people a tool to measure themselves if they want to.

If you ask someone "hey, we're not making the DPS check on this encounter, can everyone post their parser log so we can figure out where to shore up?" you will not get warned or suspended because you didn't DEMAND anything. However if someone says "no" you'll have to respect that and leave them alone. Now..you can make it a requirement for your static/PF that logs are posted and then everyone who doesn't want to participate in that level of play can just not join.

That all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[Singularity]

Perhaps the system could keep (anonymous) records of all runs, and then offer a way to view your results statistically compared to all others on the same job. Pretty much what FFlogs does except anonymous and entirely in-system. Since it'd be integrated into the game, it could even do things ACT/FFlogs can't, such as record what gear was used and allow something like "compare to all within +/-X item levels"

[Stormfur]

I'd love a personal parser. I want to improve but feel like I'm flying blind sometimes. SSS is great and all but those statues have no mechanics to watch out for -- and no team buffs and such.

[RichardButte]

Personal parsers would be useless

People keep saying this with absolutely no basis behind it.

No, personal parsers aren't going to make DPS "accountable", but since SE seems to be mortified of doing that (despite it working in every other MMO I've ever played without turning the community into a toxic mess...), a personal parser that would at the very least allow me to see deviations in my DPS that I could then compare to my usual numbers, and that ALONE would give me a basis of comparison to say, "Hmm, something I'm doing is making it better/worse".

Tanks know they're doing better when they take less damage and maintain constant aggro. Healers know they're doing better when they keep everyone alive and topped off more reliably.

DPS are just fumbling around blind and clueless by comparison, and personal parsers would very MUCH solve that issue.

There are no in-game tools to allow a DPS to know how they're doing from pull to pull, and there are no tools WHATSOEVER for a DPS playing on PS4 to know how they're doing.

Again, tanks and healers have health bars and aggro meters. DPS have NOTHING.

[thegreatonemal]

if you never talk to anyone else about your numbers and/or never search for things on the internet .. sure.

No its just useless a parser provides no context it just spits out a number and you have no idea why that number is high or low unless you can remember every action you did and when you did it over the course of a 10-12 minute fight. FFlogs is what gives that context so a parser on its own does nothing so we would need the parser and a SE sanctioned version of FFlogs which isn't going to happen.

[Nora_of_Mira]

a personal parser that would at the very least allow me to see deviations in my DPS that I could then compare to my usual numbers, and that ALONE would give me a basis of comparison to say, "Hmm, something I'm doing is making it better/worse".

DPS are just fumbling around blind and clueless by comparison, and personal parsers would very MUCH solve that issue.

There are no in-game tools to allow a DPS to know how they're doing from pull to pull, and there are no tools WHATSOEVER for a DPS playing on PS4 to know how they're doing.

DPS have NOTHING.

but DOES the data need to be that granular for you to see progress? I know it's a meme at this point to mention the SSS, but that allows all DPS to know how they're doing gear+rotation wise. And I understand our numbers are lower in the actual trial due to downtime but I dont feel blind and clueless about it. I get it's useful, dont get me wrong, but I don't think we're nearly as uninformed as people think.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

However if someone says "no" you'll have to respect that and leave them alone. Now..you can make it a requirement for your static/PF that logs are posted and then everyone who doesn't want to participate in that level of play can just not join.

That all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

If the group has failed to push beyond enrage and someone refuses to post their numbers, it's likely they are fully aware where the issue originates. Furthermore, the second someone declines, people are liable to kick them, which can never be against the ToS since they should always retain the right to decide how their party will function. Just like you cannot force people to post their numbers. You cannot force people to keep someone in their party regardless of the reason they're being kicked.

but DOES the data need to be that granular for you to see progress? I know it's a meme at this point to mention the SSS, but that allows all DPS to know how they're doing gear+rotation wise. And I understand our numbers are lower in the actual trial due to downtime but I dont feel blind and clueless about it. I get it's useful, dont get me wrong, but I don't think we're nearly as uninformed as people think.

SSS is basically useless. Not only does it omit other job utility, the lack of mechanics makes it a very inaccurate representation of your damage. Another factor in the parse debate is accountability. Sorry to say, but people shouldn't have to carry someone doing the bare minimum just because it's enough to kill a dummy.

No its just useless a parser provides no context it just spits out a number and you have no idea why that number is high or low unless you can remember every action you did and when you did it over the course of a 10-12 minute fight. FFlogs is what gives that context so a parser on its own does nothing so we would need the parser and a SE sanctioned version of FFlogs which isn't going to happen.

All they needs do is endorse ACT for a single raid tier and measure the response. If wide-spread toxicity happens, they can retract said endorsement and point to precisely why. If it actually led to improvements though...

The actual issue is they don't want accountability to that extent because bad players are still profitable. They want people carried as that will keep them subscribed.

[Singularity]

All they needs do is endorse ACT for a single raid tier and measure the response. If wide-spread toxicity happens, they can retract said endorsement and point to precisely why. If it actually led to improvements though...

The other reason they can't ever officially endorse ACT is because it's third-party software whose code is beyond SE's control. If SE officially endorse it, and it has a bug that deletes all your character settings or something, then SE will get the support headache ("you told me it was OK to use this!"). The state of affairs now regarding ACT is as good as it's ever going to get.