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

[Vstarstruck]

And I tire of you repeatedly reading only what you want to. No one, ever, in any of the what, four parse threads that have been on the main page over the last month, have claimed parsers have no issues. Only you have insisted this nonsense. We all acknowledge there will be abuse, just like people abuse Vote Kick and etc. What we actually argue is the positives will outweigh the negatives, and bad applies should be properly reprimanded.

This person wants us to believe there will be no abuse, sure others may do what you said but:

Of course I can evaluate parser culture. I've been a better part of it in over a decade of MMO gaming across half a dozen MMO's with both hidden and public parsing.

also comming from someone that is selective who they play with. This person is not willing to admit it would bring more problems then help in the current state of the game, as shown by this quote as well:

It's also his statement in the LL before SB that the skill gap between the average player and the mid- to hardcore player is extremly high and the job adjustments are part of the agenda to close the gap and as long as the gap is as high as now he wont add a parser or something in the line of this.

[Sebazy]

I'm legitimately not trying to be obtuse here, but I'm finding some of your comments such as the above really quite hard to follow?

Are you suggesting that because Kaldea prefers to do stuff with their static when possible, that means that their opinion on the wider scene within the game is null and void? Do you have the impression that they are a hardcore purist that only ever runs content within their own cliche? You make these statements with seeming authority, yet not once have I seen you state or show anything that might suggest that your own experience is somehow more valid? 'I played WoW and it was like a scene out of Harry Brown' doesn't really do it for me, sorry =/

Next up, lets dig a little further into the statement your quote from Legion88 is referring to:

Q: Can we have an in-game parser for ourselves?
HE FREAKIN TRIED TO WALK OUT AND THEY HAD TO STOP HIM! Resounding no.
He understands people want to see theirs, that it helps people play, but then people in the party will demand to know what a person's DPS is, which would lead to fights.
Then, if they release it, it's only a matter of time until it's retooled by fans to see everyone else's.
He is 100% certain that an official parser would lead to fighting and abuse.
Don't rule it out forever, he says. First priority is to better balance the system to close the gap between casuals and hardcore players. After that, they will think about it again.
He doesn't know if he can say this, but is planning out a system that may potentially show DPS, but not as a number, but as something, then showing you how you do on another try - Yoshi moves to the next question.

Ok cool, now things are actually a little clearer.

First up, for the most part, it is as you say, Yoshida is very much against it as things are right now. Literally no one in this thread is denying that.

Continuing on, regarding the following:

He understands people want to see theirs, that it helps people play, but then people in the party will demand to know what a person's DPS is, which would lead to fights.
Then, if they release it, it's only a matter of time until it's retooled by fans to see everyone else's.

The view that it would lead to fights is pretty fair, I'm not going to deny anyone the 'right' to feel that way. However, the second point isn't strictly true, if the parser was entirely built into the client with no data getting sent back to the server, it would be literally impossible to read another player's data without some form of backdoor into their client. The only way in which this statement could be twisted into the truth would be if someone were to take the damage formulae, put them into a standalone DLL and have the throughput analyse every player's metrics via a standalone program. This sounds awfully familiar does it not?

He is 100% certain that an official parser would lead to fighting and abuse.

Again, a fair view and one that is shared by many people. I don't strictly agree with it, but then discussions are boring when everyone agrees so yay for diversity!

Don't rule it out forever, he says. First priority is to better balance the system to close the gap between casuals and hardcore players. After that, they will think about it again.

This goes hand in hand with the situation these forums find themselves in more and more as of late. Go back to late ARR/Early HW and the forum moderators were still highly intolerant of parser talk. I got banned for making a video guide here covering the means of doing huge DPS as a SCH in the early HW dungeons, it had a fairly detailed DPS breakdown within it and I promptly got banned over that specifically (and have an email response clarifying as such). Roll forward to the current day and we have people actively and openly talking specific numbers, linking logs, showing screen caps and even mentioning the software involved. SE's stance on the subject has pretty clearly softened and this goes hand in hand with what Yoshida has said.

Do I think this means that we're about to get an in-game parser? Frankly no. However, I do think that it is something that the team are very likely observing and taking an interest in the ebb and flow of the communities views on these subjects. As such, I feel that it's important that however passionately we might feel about our opinions, it's important that we all do our best to put them forth in both a readable and constructive manner. That goes for both sides of the coin.

Special bonus quote:

He doesn't know if he can say this, but is planning out a system that may potentially show DPS, but not as a number, but as something, then showing you how you do on another try - Yoshi moves to the next question.

Oh snap!

[SenorPatty]

also comming from someone that is selective who they play with. This person is not willing to admit it would bring more problems then help in the current state of the game, as shown by this quote as well:

Sigh

How do I put this?

If we were to gather a hub of a players, set about 10. 2 of them are regularly bad apples but 8 of them are good people.

According to your statement, which you have cited as an absolute time and time again, the use of a parser would have one of those 8 good people turn bad without fail.

This is how we understand your use of "more harassment" and also why it doesn't make sense to us. Since those two bad people are already bad to begin with, you can't have any "more harassment" than those two already produce. So that only leaves the argument that only way it harassment can increase in a quantifiable way is that one of the 8 good people go bad.

Do you now see why people like me and Kaldea and many others can't grasp that? Because you've stated that this exact situation will absolutely happen. It's already crazy to think that people's good behaviour in this game's current policy will absolutely change for the worst if SE decided to give the green light to full blown parse tommorow.

TL;DR: you can't quantifiably have more harassment out of a set of people who are already parsing if it already exist. Stating that it absolutely will increase implies people's current behaviour when parsing is tied directly to the tool.

[Pells]

Raiders would adapt. I agree they would and always do. I have a hypothetical question about that though. Would they be able to adapt to not using any parsers at all? Say the combat log was removed (since that's what parsers read) and thus, they could no longer be used at all. Could raiders still adapt to that?

This already happens, partially. DoT based damage does not show up in the combat log at all, but parsers still somehow measure it.

[KaldeaSahaline]

If I happen to play on console or had no desire to download a third party program I would follow the guides and information on internet.

-_-

You answered my question with the statement that prompted me to ask the question in the first place...

Maybe if we asked them to release a parser on mogstation we might get an official one that way.

DELETE this immediately before you give ANYONE ideas.

For Tenacity, that is being misinformed, people do not do that at all. What people do is debate full ten builds vs getting Tenacity on gear and with DH melds basically and making sure you get x tier of Tenacity before going all out in DH, depending on the build it is only 1-3% mitigation for some increase in dps (varies) Tenacity is not really a finished stat, more like beta since it is new anyway.

Maybe I am wrong, but I think you're the one who is misinformed (do you even have a tank leveled?) I don't recall many actually debating tiers of tenacity. I do remember people debating tenacity OR DH as a function of durability vs. damage, with DH winning out almost universally among the raiding community.

You never answered me, what exactly is your main point trying to mislead people parser harassment does not happen?

Please look through my post history. Find me the quote that says parser harassment does not happen. I will wait.

What do you want me to answer? If it's the question you just asked me, I'm not answering that because I cannot. Not only am I not misleading anyone (ironic coming from you), but it's also not an accurate statement.

That'd be like me saying, Hey Beastmistress why is color purple green. See how silly that sounds?

If you want to know my main reason for posting in these threads it is because I fundamentally believe that an unmitigated parser would be a good tool for the community for reasons I have previously stated.

Full public parser will never happen for this game, PERIOD! No matter how much one single person in a vocal minority tries to claim it is not an issue. I find it funny and semi ironic someone being semi-passive aggressive is trying to argue there is no issues with parsers.

I really hate to sound like a broken record, but are you familiar with the concept of irony?

Wanna know why that happens? in WoW you are not in the general average public, where in ffxiv you are putting your self in it. Simple. You do not know WoW's common because you do not put your self in it. Despite this and your list with problems you seen in the general public of FFXIV, you do not see full public parsers making it worse? this is the internet, keep this in mind.

I've already given examples that directly refute this assertion. Please do not make me repeat them. You're welcome to go back to that post and refute them if you can.

This person wants us to believe there will be no abuse, sure others may do what you said but

See above. I will wait for you to find me stating that. The quote you linked did nothing of the sort.

[Legion88]

selective who they play with

Can you please explain, what you want to say with this?

[Awha]

Snip . . .

The whole post was the answer to your question, not just the first sentence. I know my English is bad, but if you read past that one sentence you would know my answer. Sorry about my English but if you are not going to bother to read the whole post please do not bother to quote me. I know my English is not the best and may be hard to understand so I will paste it here again maybe it was lost in the shuffle.

If I happen to play on console or had no desire to download a third party program I would follow the guides and information on internet. Also people have put together decent rotations from just class previews, they are far from perfect and if say SE blocked ACT tomorrow and a new class came out. The theory crafting community with time would come up with an on point rotation. Granted it would take a little more time for the community to come up with said rotation but I am pretty sure they will be able to do it. People are funny like that, if they want something bad enough they will figure it out no matter how long it takes. Parse makes the gathering and viewing of data easier, but I am pretty sure those work on said programs know how to view the data without the use of a parse so in short they would still have access to that data.

End of the day ACT is not going anywhere we will still have access to the tool. I just highly doubt SE will ever release any official means of tracking performance especially after one of their hosts for nico nico was more or less bash their sub-par numbers. Granted it is one case I highly doubt Yoshi-P will be forgetting said case anytime soon. Maybe if powers shift and Yoshi-P is moved to another project we might get an official one, but while he is behind the helm I highly doubt it.

Though to be frank I do not understand your position, you make it seem as if people are asking for the removal of the tools from the game, I do not think I have seen a single post that is asking for the removal of the third party tools. Just lack of desire for an official one. The information is out there, ACT is not going anywhere so theory crafters and guide makers will still be able to do their thing. So what is your position or better yet why do you quote one part of my post even though and frame it as no tool will be available to help people theory craft? I feel as if you are trying to start conflict here where there is none. Point remains adding an official parser may help some, but in the end a quick google search leads people to many guides from players that already did the research. If players pulling say 1500 dps do not bother to use google to get a basic opener and rotation I fail to see how making an official parse will change their mindset and cause them to improve. A parser can help refine play, but not every player needs one to play better. Sure access to that kind of data can help push a player to that next step, but to reach the bare minimum of acceptable performance a guide with rotation and opener coupled with a little practice is all that is needed. If a player wants to go above the data provided by a parser helps. and if said player wants to push that far they will find a means to get that data if it is that important to them.

All and all with Yoshi-P at the helm we will never get an official parser thanks to a few bad apples and the stigma it carries. As someone else mentioned before this is the hill they choose to die on. We will never change that, so let us just use the tools that we have in place since I do not see SE breaking ACT anytime soon.

[Avatre]

Didn't the community, at some point in pre-HW, come up with a better rotation than SE had for a class? I think it was NIN, but can't recall if that was the one or not.

[Legion88]

Didn't the community, at some point in pre-HW, come up with a better rotation than SE had for a class? I think it was NIN, but can't recall if that was the one or not.

It was in early SB, when NIN got a nerf to ther second(?) tier of the combos because the community doesn't use their expected way of playing the job and were dishing out higher numbers as expected.

[Avatre]

It was in early SB, when NIN got a nerf to ther second(?) tier of the combos because the community doesn't use their expected way of playing the job and were dishing out higher numbers as expected.

Huh...I thought there was one before SB that it happened to as well, where someone with a parser(I think, honestly can't remember) found a much more optimal rotation to what SE had.