Survey: Community Opinions Regarding Parsing/Parsers in Final Fantasy XIV

[RichardButte]

RichardButte, you seem to have some bias and keep repeating the same things over and over. I really feel these comments would been better placed in threads with subjects of why we need better teaching tools in the game for players. This thread is nothing more then taking a servery on how people feel about parsing. So when you are taking your comments from other threads and putting them here, it is easy to see why people may not understand where you are coming from, like how you misunderstood Istaru's sarcasm.

It sounds like I'm repeating myself because the same points have been used to counter the argument against parsers and there has never been a rebuttal.

Either everyone in the game should be judged on their performance, or no one should. It's neither fair nor good game design to have some roles that have pressure on them to perform while another has next to none.

The root of the problem is ultimately a lack of teaching, but I don't see the devs bothering to rectify that issue any more than they've managed to wrangle the database problems.

And this became a discussion about parsers long before I showed up so don't pin that on me. :P

[Vstarstruck]

It sounds like I'm repeating myself because the same points have been used to counter the argument against parsers and there has never been a rebuttal.

Either everyone in the game should be judged on their performance, or no one should. It's neither fair nor good game design to have some roles that have pressure on them to perform while another has next to none.

The root of the problem is ultimately a lack of teaching, but I don't see the devs bothering to rectify that issue any more than they've managed to wrangle the database problems.

And this became a discussion about parsers long before I showed up. :P

I am not repeating myself, ill just leave it as that, also you did not reply to what I was talking about, at all

it is easy to see why people may not understand where you are coming from, like how you misunderstood Istaru's sarcasm.

[RichardButte]

I am not repeating myself, ill just leave it as that

If you're referring to the last post on the previous page, yes, I read it: you were insisting that it's difficult for tanks to screw up in low level content and a bunch of other things that sidestep the question.

When a healer or tank fails at their role, not only do we know who failed but we know it immediately, and judgement usually falls upon them immediately.

Sometimes people will forgive them and just continue on. Other times they won't, but that's not a subject that's relevant to the discussion because it still avoids answering the real question.

How is it fair that two of the three roles can be so easily judged upon their performance while the third cannot?

And I KNOW the answer, just as everyone who's anti-parser does: it isn't.

It is completely and totally NOT fair that tanks and healers have an incentive to perform their roles well or be kicked while a terrible DPS can hide in a group of 3 others and will more than likely escape detection.

I've done dungeon runs as a DPS when I had yet to master (or grasp at all) the class I was playing and was absolutely slowing down the run and forcing the healer to work a lot harder to keep the tank alive for the duration of the extra long pulls. The irony is that it actually would've been the DPS' fault, had the healer gone OoM and we wiped.

There is no equivalent to that for tanks and healers for which they won't be kicked or the duty abandoned outright, because if they're playing as badly as I was and as badly as DPS can and yet still fly under the radar, the group would most certainly be wiping constantly.

This is not an equitable situation, and while I strongly feel this is mostly a problem because the game fails to properly educate DPS players on how to play their classes well enough to pass DPS checks and whatnot, it does not change how massively unfair this is to healers and tanks.

That's why every cry of "THINK OF THE TOXICITY PARSERS WILL BRING!!!" reeks of hypocrisy, because anyone saying that is being willfully ignorant of the fact that the tank and healer version of parsers has been in the game since launch...

[HyoMinPark]

Done it - I'd have liked a small 'additional thoughts' box at the end so I could bash out a tiny paragraph of the reasons why some of my answers seemed a bit contradictory ...! But hey. Looking forward to the results.

That is an excellent suggestion. If I ever decide to do another survey in the future (either regarding this topic or another one I end up curious about), I will certainly keep something like that in mind! ^^

I did your survey, decent to say the least.

I do however feel the reasons against are filled with far to many condemning theories.

If this is regarding the opinionated question in each ("Why are you [opinion] parsing/parser in FFXIV"), an explanation of why I choose those specific options will be addressed in my analysis of the data (I plan to have a tl;dr version and a more in-depth one for those interested). But, in short, I chose the options for each of the opinionated questions based off of the arguments and reasons I frequently see posted when parsers come up. ^^ I also include an "other" options for people to share anything I may have missed, or to just add in their 2 gil about the questions. I've gotten some fairly decent "other" responses too, so that makes me happy. ^^

I’m not sure if said parsers even consider the differences between jobs and how many different abilities they bring to the group.

Examples being Bard dps while adding buffs the entire fight. Where it is part of there rotation it also effects there ultimate dps output, as well as having all instant cast abilities over castable.
Red Mage’ often battle res in alliance raids or normal raids. This effects dps output.

Regarding this, the parsers would probably function identically to how ACT functions, whether they are group or personal. Any deeper analysis such as buffs/debuffs/etc, would have to require another program/website to view. I say this only because I don't know if such a complicated analysis system would be made readily available in the game due to resources. I probably should have been more clear about what the hypothetical in-game parser would do, so that is my mistake.

[silverlunarfox]

Hyomin, I appreciate the work you're putting into this. Just thought you should know :3

[Aylis]

I answered as best as I can (am pro-parser) and I look forward to the results!

I would like to add in though under the topic of personal experiences with parsers and active harassment twords either others or myself. Totally outside FFXIX because I play other games that do have an active public parsing system built into the games. In those games never have I once seen harassment of others or been a victim myself of number harassment. The only occasions where convos creep in of "hey your numbers are kinda low" is when it pertains to the most upper end raids. Which is understandable, for basic content, most generally don't really say anything about others numbers.

I almost wonder if that's why parsing toxcity exists here, simply because the numbers for everyone ain't shown. While in the other games where they are shown, it almost triggers a mental thing cos nobody wants to be "that player" when numbers are shown and it shows who's not pulling their own weight. I do far more content in those games then here and because of parsers and shown numbers, things like ice mages, voiceless bards and dragoons with broken ankles really just don't exist. Everyone pulls their own weight as best as they can.

[KaldeaSahaline]

Players will always find a way to exclude others and it's in SE's best interest not to put their big rubber stamp that that sort of mentality is okay.

Did you miss the fact that PF is incredibly exclusionary by nature and SE made it even more so in SB, thus putting their big rubber stamp on that mentality as being OK?

This game would only become more toxic with parsing and people would just stop including players who didnt quite make the bill. (Even if they are actually very good people.)

Do you mind linking to the study that showed without a doubt that parsers directly create more toxicity?

I'd be really interested in reading it if you had it. Or were you just posting from an anecdotal emotional standpoint?

I almost wonder if that's why parsing toxcity exists here, simply because the numbers for everyone ain't shown. While in the other games where they are shown, it almost triggers a mental thing cos nobody wants to be "that player" when numbers are shown and it shows who's not pulling their own weight. I do far more content in those games then here and because of parsers and shown numbers, things like ice mages, voiceless bards and dragoons with broken ankles really just don't exist. Everyone pulls their own weight as best as they can.

Bingo IMO of course. I said it in another post, we don't want to harass you about your numbers. We want you to see your numbers so we DON'T have to say anything to you about them. You'll see them and make the conscious decision to either improve or be excluded.

Exclusions doesn't have to be so badly connoted for the majority.

• Criminals are excluded from the general public
• People are excluded from being allowed to walk on highways
• JV players are excluded from Varsity sports
• Unqualified candidates are excluded from jobs
• Less intelligent students are excluded from good schools

Are these bad things too?

[Vstarstruck]

When you do this again can you explain what you mean by indifferent? I think that would of fit some people here better that picked something else.

What I am getting at is some people might only want some form of personal one or some kind of personal gauge to help people to know how they are doing. A full blown public one is just opening pandora's box sort of speak. I am still bothered by the huge skill gap this game has because it does not show enough in game. How come they did not do anything to curve skill gaps anyway? was it always like this?

Do you mind linking to the study that showed without a doubt that parsers directly create more toxicity?

I'd be really interested in reading it if you had it. Or were you just posting from an anecdotal emotional standpoint?

Play wow, or hell it even happens in this game time to time even though it is supposed to be "not allowed"

[Ametrine]

Anti-parser, never personally witnessed harassment, but it's a loaded gun. I feel we should just be better prepared for harder content through leveling and/or have better tools to practice on our own than have a number machine telling the world that we are good or bad.

[akaneakki]

Play wow, or hell it even happens in this game time to time even though it is supposed to be "not allowed"

I bought a potion on wow, well friend gave it to me to see if I wanted to play with them. Yet to see it happen that I get called out, haven't seen anyone call out anyone in savage or extremes (yet their dps is like below tanks or on pair with them). Rarely happens, so since people say it happens often, I must be blind, so please be kind and share those proofs.