Confessions of a Toxic Elitist

[Zojha]

I love how some people are so quick to label FFlogs/Parsing "toxic" and "elitist" when those are legitimate tools that can be used as a great metric for personal improvement.

I'd like to note however that random parses are little more than a very, very broad hint.

I personally don't upload any logs and when I look myself up on my "main" (if you can call it that), I can score anywhere between the 99th percentile (lol Void Ark) to the 17th percentile (Cruise Chaser Savage). Other parses are scattered seemingly at random between those extremes.

That's not useful at all, neither for self-improvement nor for simply gauging where I stand. In order to make the parses useful, you first need to create a controlled environment, because a lot of factors beyond skill go into the raw DPS number, especially gear and comp. Well, or you just look at potency per second or something, but I'm not sure if FFlogs has that function anywhere. I couldn't find it at least.

[Calladan]

If you don't you try harder. You don't need to compare yourself to others, because there will always be someone better than you, and when people compare, they don't do it to improve, they do it to play crappy status games over each other.

This entire sentence is so wildly wrong that I had to register on the forums to reply to it.

First of all, how exactly does one "try harder" without learning what they are doing wrong? Pressing the keys / buttons harder doesn't do more damage. The most effective way to learn and improve is to study the work of the best people, and learn from what they do differently than you. FFlogs, and other tools help with that.

Secondly, you say specifically that when people compare, they don't do it to improve. Who the hell are you to decide other peoples intentions? Who are you to dictate that this proven process is invalid? If you don't like it, don't use it, and keep your mouth shut about it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

One criteria is healthy and doesn't lead to a rat race of people endlessly comparing themselves to other people over numbers in a game. If you beat the content, you beat it. Congratulations! If you don't you try harder. You don't need to compare yourself to others, because there will always be someone better than you, and when people compare, they don't do it to improve, they do it to play crappy status games over each other. This is one of the worst aspects of modern gaming, especially in MMOs. And people who keep automating processes like this are stupid; the devs never designed this content to require parsers and act triggers and discord. They didn't design pve to reward people by individual dps, or we'd have letter rankings and a leaderboard ingame like we do for frontlines and feast.

The logs changes the focus of pve to a lot more competitive than it should be. You don't need to know what others do except as a raw number to evaluate yourself. We don't need to know what percentile Kaiva is in; we just need all the data averaged and you put on an individual point on a graph. I don't need to search her out to see her numbers, especially since fflogs creator made it opt out (and the stupid community thinks opting out means you must be a bad player, rather than not liking how I don't consent to my data being put on that site.) I just need to know that i do 3800, and average is 4500 or something. I don't need to have a public profile of my performance as a business card or something/

Are you so arrogant as to actually presume yourself the arbiter of how people enjoy content? Evidently so, considering you cannot seem to fathom it's entirely subjective. What you perceive acceptable, others may not. I, for example, would grow bored simply clearing the same fights each week. I do not necessarily compete with other people but simply myself; with the sole intent of improving to the best of my ability. That is an aspect of the game and FFlogs I enjoy. Who the hell are you to dictate otherwise, especially when you don't even participate in this content? You aren't a raider yet come screaming your incredibly bias opinions as though they were gospel. Do not tell me how I'll have fun. I decide that, not you. If going from a 27% on God Kefka to a 50% is something I enjoy, it's none of your business.

Of course not, because you couldn't care less people have different viewpoints and standards than yourself. If someone fancies speedkilling, they will want to recruit like-minded people. Despite there being nothing inherently wrong with that, you vilify them solely on the basis they aren't satisfied with simply clearing, and won't recruit everyone. Once again, in your crusade to label raiders toxic elitists, you paint yourself with those same brush strokes. How dare people not play the Riyah way.

[Estelle9lives]

I'd like to note...

I mostly agree with you, which is why I mentioned in my original post that Kaiva's sample pool is too small and there are gear problems. You can't really measure where you're standing in those conditions. Doing Savage with pugs will always result in more variable results compared to when you're in a static (specially if it's a solid one), but it's perfectly possible to get clean runs even with pugs to get a good metric.

And yes, I have noticed it is relatively easier to score higher percentile on easier content, like the 24 mans or Sigma NM, as there are a lot more casual players doing said content, and sometimes the classic AFK'ers get thrown in those pools too.

[akaneakki]

Trademarks of a Toxic (FFXIV) Elitist:

You forgot to mention that people who think they play good, but people give them advice, then refuse to take it and tells people how to play. It's like that one person on this forum who said regen shouldn't be used on tanks, because it generates too much aggro, while it's the best gcd in game when it comes to healing. Or DPS who think aoe is bad in dungeons? Etc, the list goes long. And how is it elitist to want people to skip cutsceene? I don't think you understand the word elitist at all honestly.

[Tridus]

If you beat the content, you beat it. Congratulations! If you don't you try harder.

"Try harder" how, exactly? If you're hitting enrage and everyone's alive, what is the problem? How do you fix it? Aside from what some people advocate: disband and go into another group hoping it works out that time. I don't really consider that a terribly great method of doing anything since it's just chance that you might get a better group or you might not.

The only thing you can actually control is your own performance. And surprise, some people want to improve that. You know, just like in any other game on the planet. Some people are happy just whacking a golf ball around, and some people want to get better at it. Who appointed you as the arbiter of what the correct way to play the game is?

You don't need to compare yourself to others, because there will always be someone better than you, and when people compare, they don't do it to improve, they do it to play crappy status games over each other.

Your powers of making wild assumptions and then stereotyping people with them are truly astounding.

This is one of the worst aspects of modern gaming, especially in MMOs.

You think people didn't record data on performance and try to improve it in the past? That's comical. The drive to do stuff better is as old as civilization, and it's always applied to games as much as anything else. Or you think the ancient Greeks had the Olympics for fun?

And people who keep automating processes like this are stupid; the devs never designed this content to require parsers and act triggers and discord. They didn't design pve to reward people by individual dps, or we'd have letter rankings and a leaderboard ingame like we do for frontlines and feast.

The devs created content that requires a certain amount of DPS to clear successfully and no way to ascertain who in the group is delivering it. Which is why we get PF silliness of "disband if you fail on the first one." That's exactly what happens when you have no way to see DPS. You just assume the problem is someone else in the group and hope that next time people are better instead of being able to address the issue. That's why statics love these tools: they want to play with the same people rather than treating other players as disposable randoms to be used to get loot and then discarded.

And you have a problem with people using Discord? lol. Voice chat has been around since Internet speeds got fast enough to support both it and gaming at the same time. We certainly can't allow awful toxic activities like people talking to their friends while gaming. The horror!

The logs changes the focus of pve to a lot more competitive than it should be. You don't need to know what others do except as a raw number to evaluate yourself. We don't need to know what percentile Kaiva is in; we just need all the data averaged and you put on an individual point on a graph. I don't need to search her out to see her numbers, especially since fflogs creator made it opt out (and the stupid community thinks opting out means you must be a bad player, rather than not liking how I don't consent to my data being put on that site.) I just need to know that i do 3800, and average is 4500 or something. I don't need to have a public profile of my performance as a business card or something/

No it doesn't. We blow up Sigma normal every week with a full or near-full party. Sometimes people come who do amazing DPS, sometimes people come who do below average DPS. Nobody cares in that group. We just hang out and have fun. If people want their personal numbers, they're available upon request. Your telling other people that they're having fun incorrectly is neither helpful nor welcome, especially in a thread that was largely positive until your toxic crusade showed up.

[RiyahArp]

Are you so arrogant as to actually presume yourself the arbiter of how people enjoy content?

I think people who talk about improvement generally don't realize eventually you stop improving. You don't need to raid in this game to know this; just play any competitive game at all, and you find out you reach your skill relatively quickly. Then the desire to improve is a noose around your neck, especially when you have a nice orderly list of all the people that are better than you, and quite a few things you never will do because they aren't for you. And then it changes to status games, to exalting your own ranking, to complaining about the noobs and the weak link in your party when you realize they can't improve, and to your level either.

(i dont mean this for Kaiva, I mean in general.)

As for trying harder...you have the tools in game. you remove deaths, and you memorize the fight to the point where you aren't surprised by the content any more. I don't think in SB the DPS jobs are as opaque or as tightly bound by rotations as in HW, where you get disrupted by a combo, you don't just lose the potency from the third hit, you lose the DOT from it too. A lot of the need for stuff was due to HW, both in complexity of rotation and difficulty of bosses.

[Dualgunner]

I think people who talk about improvement generally don't realize eventually you stop improving. You don't need to raid in this game to know this; just play any competitive game at all, and you find out you reach your skill relatively quickly.

I'm sorry...what?

Are you saying that there is a pinnacle, a zenith even, to human capability in anything, including videogames? A point where people reach perfection and improvement is no longer possible?

EDIT: Actually, there are two times I firmly believe when people stop improving. When they give up on themselves, and when they die.

Then the desire to improve is a noose around your neck, especially when you have a nice orderly list of all the people that are better than you, and quite a few things you never will do because they aren't for you.

Maybe it's a noose for you. The drive to improve, for me, is the reason I do anything in life.

And then it changes to status games, to exalting your own ranking, to complaining about the noobs and the weak link in your party when you realize they can't improve, and to your level either.

Riyah, this is a fantasy world you've constructed for yourself. I can't argue this point because it's not a point to argue, it's an impossibly vague possibility scenario that assumes the worst of humanity.

[Jellybums]

I kind of get how you feel. It's like moving from a fish tank to a shark tank. You thought you're the biggest until you met bigger fish. Now that doesn't mean you were never big or in your case good at what you do. Of course you are, you did things well. But you've now entered a more competitive space because you gained awareness of it. Please don't let this impact how you see yourself, your talents/your worth as a person negatively. Though you may not be at the top now, you definitely have potential. Where you rank now is temporary. You have the opportunity to go where you want, as high as you want. Go get it. You sound like you have enough gumption for it anyway.

[Batfist]

As I don't think that the OP really intended this thread to be a discussion about parsing, I'll skip over that debate.

I think that I may have had a similar experience, although I haven't been at level 70 for all that long. The latest savage raids are my first and although I didn't think that I was a great player I did feel that I was not doing badly with either my summoner or my white mage. The parses so show differently though, and like the OP I don't parse myself but I do browse through the numbers.

I was very disappointed to see that I was not ranked as a very good summoner, perhaps due to the time that I had put into improving. I'm not an elitist and I'm not so competitive against other players but I do like to try to always be improving my own performance. I switched to using my white mage more and more. I do enjoy healing quite a lot so it's not a bad thing to play the healing game instead of dps.

I don't rank very well with the white mage either but what I have noticed is that as I learned the 05s fight and became more confident that I became a much better white mage and my playstyle has improved. So has my awareness. I play on the NA servers from the UK and there is always some high latency for me. That isn't an excuse as much as it is another part of adapting my playstyle to deal with fight mechanics. (I've eaten more than one or two diabolical lights!) I try not to ask about the parses as much anymore, unless there is something I want to look over that involves fixing an issue with how we performed.

I have cleared the fight, in a mixed group of friends and PF'ers and that is good enough progress for me. I'll move on through the fights for as long as they are viable and work on improving my performance within the group, supporting them as best as I can. I don't rank well and that doesn't make me feel good but hearing all my friends cheer on discord as well get the clear, knowing that we made it happen, that makes me feel great!

I'm sure in the past that we can all say that we have wanted optimal play, with everyone being good at their in game jobs to help speed up the encounters but we also know the reality of things. Some people learn very quickly, respond very quickly, don't fat finger their rotations, play on a high end pc, don't have any distractions, don't have any latency. I envy them but they are not the majority of players. Most of us are simply doing the best we can and I think that it might help you if you spent a little time thinking about what a good player base is. I think that a good player base is very much focused on improving what you are doing, learning and accepting advice, supporting your friends and those that you raid with.

To me it sounds like you might be a good part of the player base indeed.

Also, first post!