In competition with myself: a request for PERSONAL parsers

[KaldeaSahaline]

I'd still take the idea over the nothing we have now, though.

I don't disagree with your notion, it's the caving in that I disagree with. I'm honestly tired of "half-assed" fixes like the upcoming glamour changes. I get that making an actual optimal solution takes time/money/effort, but I'd rather NOT have the glamour log until 5.0 if it's actually good, rather than getting something that's barely an improvement now. That just ends up pushing the real implementation even further out.

And let's be fair, SE have flat out said they won't release an unmitigated official parser. Numerous times. What we're doing is speculating on building something they very well may add.

SE also released 1.0, Diadem, Diadem 2.0, LoV, thought 2.0 WAR was good, thought 3.0 PLD was good, etc. They're perfectly capable of being wrong about things, even the decision to add/not add an official parser.

Just because they think something is good/right doesn't mean it is.

Seeing party members' dps is not actually going to reveal anything more about performance than what a player can voluntarily find out by using a personal parser.

This statement is actually flat out incorrect and completely misses one of the core tenets of why pro-parsers want an unmitigated parser.

We want accountability. That's what so many anti-parser people misunderstand. We don't want to roast you over your performance. We want you to see it with your own eyes so we don't have too. We'd love to help you get better or clear content because there's no more hidden expectations/blame. The fact that it is all hidden right now is why there is such a strong divide in the community. It's why there is so much resentment between skilled and ignorant players.

and before anyone suggests the common denominator is me and hey maybe I need to improve , I take criticism well. If it provides any kind of suggestion on how to improve I'll try it. Through this I learned how to tank better, and in many games I've significantly increased performance. But I've never been told "God, you're a shitty *class/character/job* and wandered off to go find out WHY that person has said that JUST from that comment. "LOL our dps has 200DPS lower than me and I'm healing". I'm not asking that person for helpful tips.

Personal IRL example - my old boss was brilliant. The sheer complexity and number of IT issues this man solved was beyond reproach. That said, he was a TERRIBLE people manager. He simply never had time for any of his direct reports. Everything I learned was from simply watching and collaborating together and it's been a tremendous boon to my personal career.

Had I ignored his teachings, advice, or methods because I didn't like the way he spoke (and I didn't), or the way he managed the team I would be a significantly less skilled professional today because of it.

The point of this example is that I hope to demonstrate to you that even if you don't like the approach/statement, disregarding it based on feelings is ONLY hurting yourself. It's an incredibly close-minded viewpoint and directly contradicts your statement of taking criticism well. Please do not take offense, try to look at my statement logically and see where I am coming from. I am only trying to help.

I tank too. I don't want people ALSO bitching about the DPS I'm doing/not doing in addition to how I don't use cooldowns and/or should pull more stuff. I imagine a parser would also be able to tell you how much the Healer is overhealing or not contributing to DPS, that sounds like extra unfun they don't need. Saying that those classes suffer so DPS should too isn't a great argument. You'd be adding grief to everyone's life if this couldn't be turned off.

Do you know how a parser works and the types of information it tallies/tracks and what types of things you can glean from it with a quick glance (and a more in-depth view?)

The reason I wanted to respond to this comment was because I've seen this several times in the FF14 community anti-parser crowd where they bash them, without even knowing the breadth and significance of the data it gives. How can someone be against something they don't even know what it is/does? I wasn't sure if you were speaking speculatively (i.e. what FF14 official parser would have) or about the existing 3rd party tool.

That'd be like me saying the Australian Gov't sucks. I have no idea how they operate or what processes they use, i'd be a fool for taking a stance on it without understanding it first.

Never have I experienced a more toxic MMO playerbase then there, and having multiple instances where you're rewarded for going fast didn't help with that, though it certainly encouraged people to try harder and push themselves to the limit.

Hi former top 20 US raider here. I have played WoW on and off for just about 14 years now. I can count on 1 hand (less than 5 incidents of actual toxicity). Want to know why? Because at the level I play at, people hold themselves accountable. There's no need to "bash" anyone because we don't make excuses for our mistakes. We simply own them and fix them if able.

I can pick and choose players to play with that fit my skill. WoW doesn't force me to play with people who have no business being in my groups. It's why when people praise the FF14 community it's hard for me to see why.

• I spend more time getting called names for playing well
• Carrying players who were near AFK (pressing a button every 9-12s)
• Watching people talk trash based on flat out inaccurate assumptions (so and so you're not doing any DPS I am watching you, meanwhile that person is only 30 DPS behind them, and the HEALER IS ABOVE BOTH, and I the tank am above all 3...
• Being reported for asking a healer to DPS (they did EXACTLY 0 dps). They were active less than 18% of the entire dungeon. Imagine if I a tank or a DPS was only active 18% of a dungeon, how much fun would YOU be having?
• Being told I should have been aborted for ASKING if the other tank wanted some tips, not giving tips, merely asking if they were interested.
• Kicked from an FC because I said that Lakshmi EX was disappointing as an EX primal.
• Top DPS in Rabanastre on 2 bosses as a tank, (no bonuses in my alliance, can't speak for others).
• 2 back to back runs of O3N where I was top DPS as tank by a staggering margin, neither run had bonus. Fun fact, DIDN'T GET ANY LOOT EITHER.

Anecdotal sure, but it's more experiences JUST off the top of my head in the past few years of playing, vs. over a decade in WoW.

[Paladinleeds]

SE also released stuff, thought other stuff was good, etc. They're perfectly capable of being wrong about things, even the decision to add/not add an official parser.

Just because they think something is good/right doesn't mean it is.

Please don't think me an SE white knight. I am not. I've seen the housing debacle and think they've approached it horribly, I've seen the inventory mess cash grabbing techniques they use. I think SE far from flawless (heck, if it wasn't for the story and my houses, I'd be packing in the game for good), it's just they've been so anti parser, like I mean they vehemently do everything they can to avoid adding it, that a full blown unmitigated parser is so unlikely to happen I'd bet money on it not being added. It doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong, they're so firmly set in their ways with regards to it that it is almost impossible to change that ship. That is my point. They can be wrong (and IMO are wrong on over 50% of things), but they are also prideful and stubborn.

[RichardButte]

I don't disagree with your notion, it's the caving in that I disagree with. I'm honestly tired of "half-assed" fixes like the upcoming glamour changes. I get that making an actual optimal solution takes time/money/effort, but I'd rather NOT have the glamour log until 5.0 if it's actually good, rather than getting something that's barely an improvement now. That just ends up pushing the real implementation even further out.

You're preaching to the choir, I assure you.

There's also a crazy amount of hypocrisy in the fact that tanks and healers have the equivalent of parsers as everyone can tell when they mess up.

[TaranTatsuuchi]

...
I really wish I was exaggerating, alas, that's not something screenshots do. And no, they weren't dead the whole time (5 deaths, and they got raised reasonably promptly on all but one occasion, there's no way I was hard casting a raise on them after their performance earlier on), neither were they lagging or DCing, their movement was smooth and consistent, as was their partners.

Looking at the log a bit more closely would almost have you believe they were sat in the corner AFK but the replay shows otherwise. From the first minute alone I'd almost wonder if they were either a bot or simply auto following their partner and being multi boxed. But once the panic clearly sets in and they pretty much drop any attempt at casting much of anything, you can clearly see that they are aimlessly running around with all of their effort being channeled into simply staying alive. They simply shouldn't have been there as they didn't have the mechanical aptitude or awareness to cope with the content. As unbelievable as it is, it would have been better for them to simply be AFK as at least they wouldn't have been such a burden on myself or the one other decent healer there.
...

Oh my...

I heaven't even looked at much stuff on fflogs...
But wow.

That was some poor performance.

[Krotoan]

Personal IRL example - my old boss was brilliant. The sheer complexity and number of IT issues this man solved was beyond reproach. That said, he was a TERRIBLE people manager. He simply never had time for any of his direct reports. Everything I learned was from simply watching and collaborating together and it's been a tremendous boon to my personal career.

Had I ignored his teachings, advice, or methods because I didn't like the way he spoke (and I didn't), or the way he managed the team I would be a significantly less skilled professional today because of it.

The point of this example is that I hope to demonstrate to you that even if you don't like the approach/statement, disregarding it based on feelings is ONLY hurting yourself. It's an incredibly close-minded viewpoint and directly contradicts your statement of taking criticism well. Please do not take offense, try to look at my statement logically and see where I am coming from. I am only trying to help.

point taken, and from a purely logical point of view that makes sense. But aside from the fact that hey, that's real life and your JOB (this is what I do for fun man.. ) I'm also not going to even acknowledge someone who thinks that "LOL U SUCK" is how you criticize or even talk to someone. Do you honestly think that someone who presents their initial foray into gaming advice with a childish insult and a LOL is someone I want to engage for more information? Sure by extrapolation if you get "lol u suck" from EVERYONE you play with there's something wrong and I'll look into it myself. But I can count on one tongue the amount of times that that comment has followed with a useful bit of information about my playstyle or rotation. I take criticism well, but I don't tolerate idiots and neither should anyone else. Maybe if enough people stopped and said "how about you offer some useful advice instead of insulting me" the LOL crowd (no not league but those are some toxic people as well) might rethink how they talk to people. Learning to do your job better is one thing, harping on someone to play a game "optimally" is another.

Do you know how a parser works and the types of information it tallies/tracks and what types of things you can glean from it with a quick glance (and a more in-depth view?)

The reason I wanted to respond to this comment was because I've seen this several times in the FF14 community anti-parser crowd where they bash them, without even knowing the breadth and significance of the data it gives. How can someone be against something they don't even know what it is/does? I wasn't sure if you were speaking speculatively (i.e. what FF14 official parser would have) or about the existing 3rd party tool.

That'd be like me saying the Australian Gov't sucks. I have no idea how they operate or what processes they use, i'd be a fool for taking a stance on it without understanding it first.

I don't use the current parser no. As far as I know there is ACT which I've not really looked into at all and FFlogs which I've checked the.. I think ONE log that someone has parsed with me on the run. I'm going from what I know of older DPS meters and log parsers from wow. They tracked all the information I mentioned. I'm assuming here that an official parser would have access to this info and would display it in realtime if requested. Yes this is a hypothetical addon, but if they're going to actually devote resources to this, why wouldn't it have this information? If you think I'm bashing parsers you have misunderstood me though. Parsers are a tool like anything else, the people who use them need regulation and restriction AND protection. Are you against someone being able to turn it off? Why? Someone who doesn't want that called out has something to hide sure, but as you've said, contributing members of a raid or static will never refuse and if you refuse then that's a pretty good sign you don't want to take that person. The person who's "shitty" saves face and everyone else gets their self improvement tool. Win win. Forcing people to open themselves up to criticism while they're trying to enjoy something isn't fun.

[Dzian]

The issue is a personal parse will never work because it will never tell you enough information to male an accurate judgement.

In 8 man content for example the basic composition of the other 7 people in the party have a very significant impact on your "personal dps" how a ninja uses trick attack can make a big difference to your drg dps.
How an brd uses song or an ast uses cards also have a major impact on your dps. How and where a tank positions a boss can again have a major impact on your dps. Sus ex for example when tanks have the boss away from the crack adds up to tons of lost gcds when melee have to cross sides with the lightning markers. Or in o1s where that boss is placed can determine if 3 melee dpscan squeeze around it or just 2 without overlapping circles. Similar thing in o2s again.

How the rest of the party stacks and spreads can have a major impact on your dps. That brd or healer that has the stack marker but won't move in melee range forcing the melee to lose gcds by stacking on them outside of attack range. Or that drg that drops a toxic puddle or something right on the blms freshly deployed leylines. Or right on a bosses backside forcing melee to move out and miss positional.

Even in 24 mans rabanastre that player that gets marked for the charge runs away instead of runs close. Say goodbye to your dps.

All of these things add up to a massive impact on your dps And without all of this information anything you have is useless.

As such a personal parse can simply never be accurate enough to be useful.

As you will never be able to tell if you actually played better or the rest of the party had a bigger impact on your fps than it did last run.

In the first run maybe you got 5k.
In the second maybe you got 5.4k

Is that because you played better or because the ast threw better cards at you or the ninja made better use of trick attack in synergy with chain stratagem fornthe rest of the party made better use of there buffs.

You'd never be able to answer that with a personal parse and thus you'd never be able to explain the huge difference in dps from one run to the next. And that makes it useless as a tool.

This is why I think yoshi stance is the way it is. Because Ayers simply don't realise what makes up there for they think it's just them and how they play but the reality is there's so much more to it. Not do they realise the limitations of a parser and to many take it as gospel fact.

They are amazing tools the problem is players just don't want to learn to use them properly. They just want a number that tells them everything and that simply isnt possible

[Sebazy]

Even in 24 mans rabanastre that player that gets marked for the charge runs away instead of runs close. Say goodbye to your dps.

All of these things add up to a massive impact on your dps And without all of this information anything you have is useless.

As such a personal parse can simply never be accurate enough to be useful.

As you will never be able to tell if you actually played better or the rest of the party had a bigger impact on your fps than it did last run.

In the first run maybe you got 5k.
In the second maybe you got 5.4k

I think you and pretty much every other person that states this is missing the point here.

First off, existing parser results are also tainted and skewed by the rest of the group, does that make that useless too?

Secondly, you show me a player that manages 5-5.4k in a raid boss encounter and I'll show you a player that's either practiced extensively with a parser or is using proven rotations and openers that were also built upon data from a parser.

Other than top end PS4 players, this isn't for that crowd. They already have better.

This is about taking a tool, simplifying and removing the fear/hassle/platform factor from it and as such, making it accessible to the masses that might well want it.

This is for the people that might only be doing 1.5k-2k DPS (Or perhaps even less). They might well overhear friends in an FC or LS discussing what damage they did in their 24 man or they might even see figures banded about on here or Reddit. This is the part where they realise that hey, they are likely doing something quite significantly wrong. It's about getting that first spark in the hope that it'll ignite a desire to up their game and play at a more respectable standard.

Even if it gets 1 in 4 of those sub 2K DPS doing 3K+, that's a huge win in casual end game content.

TLDR: Those that are optimising the last 10% of their role are likely already using something better, this isn't meant to replace or supersede that. This is a taster for the masses.

Yes it would almost certainly be inferior, but it absolutely will not be useless (Unless SE chose to cripple it to that stage of course). This is 2018, try seeing in colour rather than black and white. You might like it.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Please don't think me an SE white knight. I am not. I've seen the housing debacle and think they've approached it horribly, I've seen the inventory mess cash grabbing techniques they use. I think SE far from flawless (heck, if it wasn't for the story and my houses, I'd be packing in the game for good), it's just they've been so anti parser, like I mean they vehemently do everything they can to avoid adding it, that a full blown unmitigated parser is so unlikely to happen I'd bet money on it not being added. It doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong, they're so firmly set in their ways with regards to it that it is almost impossible to change that ship. That is my point. They can be wrong (and IMO are wrong on over 50% of things), but they are also prideful and stubborn.

I don't I just wanted that comment out there for visibility and not even that, opinions can always change, especially if the argument is compelling enough.

point taken, and from a purely logical point of view that makes sense. But aside from the fact that hey, that's real life and your JOB (this is what I do for fun man.. ) I'm also not going to even acknowledge someone who thinks that "LOL U SUCK" is how you criticize or even talk to someone. Do you honestly think that someone who presents their initial foray into gaming advice with a childish insult and a LOL is someone I want to engage for more information? Sure by extrapolation if you get "lol u suck" from EVERYONE you play with there's something wrong and I'll look into it myself. But I can count on one tongue the amount of times that that comment has followed with a useful bit of information about my playstyle or rotation. I take criticism well, but I don't tolerate idiots and neither should anyone else. Maybe if enough people stopped and said "how about you offer some useful advice instead of insulting me" the LOL crowd (no not league but those are some toxic people as well) might rethink how they talk to people. Learning to do your job better is one thing, harping on someone to play a game "optimally" is another.

To be fair, I think I am approaching this much more realistically/logically than most. I'm not assuming the worst possible scenario that many anti-parser players take because I am not emotionally invested/affected. I give criticism to players all the time. I do it as straightforward as possible. I don't sugarcoat or placate insecurities. I treat people how I would want to be treated and that is by telling me like I am human being that I am a problem to the success of the team. I don't always hit the mark and some people are beyond help, so I don't worry about those fringe cases. I focus on the meat and potatoes, the scenarios under the curve. Not the hostile people saying XYZ, but the person complaining in general about lack of DPS. Or the person who calls you out, and gives a warning to step it up or we'll replace. None of these things are toxic or even bad.

You've made it clear that you're in agreement with your OP that I responded too. I merely wanted to say that SOMETIMES even the fringe cases have merit, for better or worse.

They tracked all the information I mentioned. I'm assuming here that an official parser would have access to this info and would display it in realtime if requested. Yes this is a hypothetical addon, but if they're going to actually devote resources to this, why wouldn't it have this information? If you think I'm bashing parsers you have misunderstood me though. Parsers are a tool like anything else, the people who use them need regulation and restriction AND protection. Are you against someone being able to turn it off? Why? Someone who doesn't want that called out has something to hide sure, but as you've said, contributing members of a raid or static will never refuse and if you refuse then that's a pretty good sign you don't want to take that person. The person who's "shitty" saves face and everyone else gets their self improvement tool. Win win. Forcing people to open themselves up to criticism while they're trying to enjoy something isn't fun.

Correct and they do. I just wanted to clarify that's all. As I said, you'd be surprised at how many anti-parser people actually have no idea what it even does and the breadth of info available for review. Sometimes they LITERALLY think it's just an arbitrary DPS number, which would be incredibly useless, yet they hate it. It always came off odd to me to hate something you don't understand, but people are people.

In regards to your question: Yes I am against turning it off. Because people need to be held accountable for better or worse. I personally believe that after a very brief growing pains, people will see better people and ask for help (or review the results themselves). I also believe that people will see bad people will be more accepting of help because they'll be able to see it.

Again, I'm not focused on the fringe cases. I don't think there's much merit into that. I want to focus on the majority of players under the curve.