Letter to MR Yoshi: Why parses system is destroying the ffxiv world.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

This is a game design fault that's actually endemic to MMOs.

You and I very seldom agree on anything. For once... that isn't the case.

A good, yet, simple example of lacking information are secondary stats. How much does Critical Hit benefit you over Determination? How much does Determination contribute to healing? The devs have handwaved this as something they don't want to elaborate on because "some people enjoy figuring it out!" This is among the reasons parsers have become so prevalent. Generally speaking, people are not a fan of being kept in the dark. If they're going to meld materia, they want to have an idea towards the impact it will have not guess.

On the subject of triggers, one of the top tier raiders commented on his dislike of the Gaol one yet mentioned how poorly designed that mechanic was. Their reasoning? "If SE wants people to rely less on triggers, give them a chance to react for longer than a split second."

While I know you despise parsers, I still think they would significantly help improve the playerbase, thus allowing for more developed content than what we've seen at the casual level. Of course, only if SE swiftly bans those who abuse other players with that information.

[Ultima]

You and I very seldom agree on anything. For once... that isn't the case.

A good, yet, simple example of lacking information are secondary stats. How much does Critical Hit benefit you over Determination? How much does Determination contribute to healing? The devs have handwaved this as something they don't want to elaborate on because "some people enjoy figuring it out!" This is among the reasons parsers have become so prevalent. Generally speaking, people are not a fan of being kept in the dark. If they're going to meld materia, they want to have an idea towards the impact it will have not guess.

On the subject of triggers, one of the top tier raiders commented on his dislike of the Gaol one yet mentioned how poorly designed that mechanic was. Their reasoning? "If SE wants people to rely less on triggers, give them a chance to react for longer than a split second."

While I know you despise parsers, I still think they would significantly help improve the playerbase, thus allowing for more developed content than what we've seen at the casual level. Of course, only if SE swiftly bans those who abuse other players with that information.

Instead of having to do all the work for SE by parsing their data and theorycrafting, which is unavoidable because we will always do that just to doublecheck the dev's work - but we can always reduce how much we have to do it with their help. It'd be nice if they'd throw us a bone and show us their openers/rotations, their stat priority, etc. I want people on the dev team who manage and main a job to write a guide on how to play it for the community and post it in-game like in a help guide or something. Could even be the Hall of the Intermediate idea, but you meet a "famous" member of your Job who will show you the ropes.

When 4.0 came out, nobody could believe some of the changes that were made like to WAR's defiance/deliverance where you'd LOSE half your gauge for swapping stances. Anyone who played WAR at a serious level was deeply hurt by this change and switched jobs or begrudgingly pushed through while voicing complaints the whole time. How can I believe this dev team has any idea what they're doing for game balance if they'd make such a grave error as a penalty for switching stances that completely ruins your rotation? The beast gauge has been a nightmare in general, but that was the big kicker.

[RiyahArp]

While I know you despise parsers, I still think they would significantly help improve the playerbase, thus allowing for more developed content than what we've seen at the casual level. Of course, only if SE swiftly bans those who abuse other players with that information.

If you said we should have it for raiders, that's one thing. But a lot of us don't want developed content at the casual level. If I wanted more difficulty, there already is savage and ex trials; i don't want it pushed down to where I can't escape it, and everything is a mini ex trial. Mr. Kusakabe is saying inelegantly an important point; people really don't want this to shift in a more hardcore direction, and making the argument that we need legal parsers to make casual content harder isn't really a good one.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If you said we should have it for raiders, that's one thing. But a lot of us don't want developed content at the casual level. If I wanted more difficulty, there already is savage and ex trials; i don't want it pushed down to where I can't escape it, and everything is a mini ex trial. Mr. Kusakabe is saying inelegantly an important point; people really don't want this to shift in a more hardcore direction, and making the argument that we need legal parsers to make casual content harder isn't really a good one.

I'm... actually perfectly okay with parsers being restricted to EX Primals, Savage and Ultimate. Have it be an option you can check when making a PF not unlike how the Recorder works. That being said, a full premade party could have that same option for dungeons. Just leave it as is if you elect to queue solo.

[Ultima]

I'm... actually perfectly okay with parsers being restricted to EX Primals, Savage and Ultimate. Have it be an option you can check when making a PF not unlike how the Recorder works. That being said, a full premade party could have that same option for dungeons. Just leave it as is if you elect to queue solo.

I think it should extend to all level 70 content, getting to level 70 is no small task even with a job level boost and it's ridiculous to think there's no possible accountability in EXR/70 Trials/Normal Raids. These are the building blocks to EX/Savage/Ultimate, I miss the days of 2.0-2.2 ARR where you had the original 3 Primal HMs and they were a good way to progress your skill level. Ifrit HM was a leap over Praetorium's Ultima Weapon fight and Garuda HM ramped up from Ifrit HM and Titan HM was often compared to T5 in terms of difficulty though that's a bit much.

The point I'm trying to make is there was a gradual ramp up in difficulty from what would become known as "Expert Roulette" Dungeons to HM Primals to Raiding. Now the difficulty curve is Dungeons -> Normal Trial -> Normal Raid -> EX Trial -> Savage -> Ultimate. People HATE doing trials like Shinryu because there's no reward, they take a long time (because nobody knows their job), and they roadblock you then you're done and never do them again.

So, I'd rather we start measuring people for improvement by level cap but at the latest, we should start testing them during Normal Raids like Sigmascape Normal as that is the closest we have to ARR's HM Trio in terms of difficulty. People will do all this content and then they go into EX Trials or Savage and the difficulty and expectations are suddenly turned on their head and it's a really brutal environment, we need to start it where the difficulty isn't too high so people start to get an idea of what it's like.

[SaitoHikari]

Right. Aside from that distraction from the 27-year old who whined about millennials in another thread (being around the same age as me and probably younger than half the people in this thread) and said something stupid about raiders and parsers supposedly being unemployed losers that doesn't really need to be piled on any further...

I'm... actually perfectly okay with parsers being restricted to EX Primals, Savage and Ultimate. Have it be an option you can check when making a PF not unlike how the Recorder works. That being said, a full premade party could have that same option for dungeons. Just leave it as is if you elect to queue solo.

I would not actually include EX Primals in that category, if only because the average difficulty of them as of late has really dropped to the point where official support for parsing really isn't necessary at all in there. It'd cause more problems there rather than anything else, particularly more people enforcing certain party comps, and we don't need THAT in content that is only meant to serve as a bridge to Savage raiding (especially when you're expected to run EX primals maybe hundreds of times on release to get the mounts if you decide to go for them, as opposed to Savage being weekly gated affairs). Failures from EX Primals have far more to do with failing mechanics that outright wipe the run, rather than hitting enrage.

[Ultima]

Right. Aside from that distraction from the 27-year old who whined about millennials in another thread (being around the same age as me and probably younger than half the people in this thread) and said something stupid about raiders and parsers supposedly being unemployed losers that doesn't really need to be piled on any further...



I would not actually include EX Primals in that category, if only because the average difficulty of them as of late has really dropped to the point where official support for parsing really isn't necessary at all in there. It'd cause more problems there rather than anything else, particularly more people enforcing certain party comps, and we don't need THAT in content that is only meant to serve as a bridge to Savage raiding (especially when you're expected to run EX primals maybe hundreds of times on release to get the mounts if you decide to go for them, as opposed to Savage being weekly gated affairs). Failures from EX Primals have far more to do with failing mechanics that outright wipe the run, rather than hitting enrage.

Parsers and FFlogs can read the data to see who is failing the mechanics, there's plenty of useful data that can be gained from a parse even if the content isn't too difficult. Another example of data you can get is the timeline of when the boss goes invulnerable so you know when to hold your CDs. I really don't understand why people are so afraid of having parsers in every part of this game, it really doesn't hurt anyone to have it available from the very beginning. If you can't trust people with this tool, then the community is rotten to the core and the game is fundamentally making people "toxic" as they say.

[jameseoakes]

Parsers and FFlogs can read the data to see who is failing the mechanics, there's plenty of useful data that can be gained from a parse even if the content isn't too difficult. Another example of data you can get is the timeline of when the boss goes invulnerable so you know when to hold your CDs. I really don't understand why people are so afraid of having parsers in every part of this game, it really doesn't hurt anyone to have it available from the very beginning. If you can't trust people with this tool, then the community is rotten to the core and the game is fundamentally making people "toxic" as they say.

As I said earlier some of the language used already in this tread shows that I don't trust the community with group parses.

[SaitoHikari]

Parsers and FFlogs can read the data to see who is failing the mechanics, there's plenty of useful data that can be gained from a parse even if the content isn't too difficult. Another example of data you can get is the timeline of when the boss goes invulnerable so you know when to hold your CDs. I really don't understand why people are so afraid of having parsers in every part of this game, it really doesn't hurt anyone to have it available from the very beginning. If you can't trust people with this tool, then the community is rotten to the core and the game is fundamentally making people "toxic" as they say.

I do agree, but let's face reality for a moment here. People will find an excuse to be stupid by default. Implementing official parsers for all levels of content is not worth the headaches from the community at the earlier end of the content spectrum, period. I would not rather give certain people ammo about how parsers are to blame for all of the game's problems for content that such data really isn't critical for, especially those without enrage timers and in the context of certain jobs not really getting the tools to function coherently until much later in the game (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, MACHINIST).

Lord knows we already have enough RDMs in ARR content screaming at their co-DPS to work harder without realizing that no other job can even touch RDMs in ARR, due to how front-loaded their damage is compared to every other DPS in the early levels. Oh, and mass pulling tanks in freaking Toto-Rak, Hakkuke, or Brayflox in the presence of DPS classes that don't even have their AoE skills yet.

Savage/Ultimate only (and training dummies/Stone, Sky, Sea) is my stance. Everywhere else is not worth the trouble.

[Ultima]

I do agree, but let's face reality for a moment here. People will find an excuse to be stupid by default. Implementing official parsers for all levels of content is not worth the headaches from the community at the earlier end of the content spectrum, period. I would not rather give certain people ammo about how parsers are to blame for all of the game's problems for content that such data really isn't critical for, especially those without enrage timers and in the context of certain jobs not really getting the tools to function coherently until much later in the game (I'M LOOKING AT YOU, MACHINIST).

Lord knows we already have enough RDMs in ARR content screaming at their co-DPS to work harder without realizing that no other job can even touch RDMs in ARR, due to how front-loaded their damage is compared to every other DPS in the early levels. Oh, and mass pulling tanks in freaking Toto-Rak, Hakkuke, or Brayflox in the presence of DPS classes that don't even have their AoE skills yet.

Those people are going to scream that parsers are the problem already, if you make something idiotproof then someone will build a better idiot. Enrage timers are the least of my concern and certain jobs are designed like trash because they change dramatically at several level ranges but SE is a small indie studio so they can't spare the resources to streamline the jobs from 1 to cap despite the fact that several jobs are in need of it. But, you're again giving credit to the idea that there's these imaginary boogeymen who are going to jump on someone for pulling slightly less DPS in Sastasha.

I've never met a single RDM do that, so I can't even fathom that. I mean hell I pull massive amounts of mobs in content like Toto-Rak and such because it's easy and it's still quicker, these are problems that don't exist, you just don't pull as wildly if there isn't AoE skills. This has nothing to do with parsers, this has everything to do with dungeons being boring slogs and jobs not getting essential skills until you're almost at level cap or at cap. What you're telling me is that the community is fundamentally incapable of being trusted with this knowledge because of a few bad eggs and if we're going to throw out the batch because of a few bad eggs then I guess we're going to get more threads of people demanding they stop making Savage/Ultimate because it isn't their kind of content since nobody will improve, so they'll try to drag it down to their level.

FFXIV is a paradox of a game, they hide information from you, their rotations are lengthy, there's a TIME LIMIT on how long you have to do dungeons BUT you're still expected to treat it as a casual experience when it's impossible to educate someone on their class because their rotation is like 25 buttons with intricate details like oGCDs. You know what is a good source of toxicity? That timer, if I have to reapply Protect or I see like 60 minutes remaining on the duty list, that makes me feel awful and it lets me know that people are severely screwing up or not trying.

The game will have to dumb down the rotations if they want to really stop the toxicity between "for fun" and "for not doing this dungeon any longer than I have to" players.