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

[Jinxie]

Coming from wow, and having used recount in wow, I can say...Parsers pose both a positive and negative for gamers.

On one hand, I see why people want them. I love to track my dps and try my best to improve!

But, I know 100% FOR A FACT that this will cause people to just indiscriminately kick people for 'low dps'. People will flame, and hate, and be unduly rude to someone who may very well be 'new' to the class or game as a whole, which sours the entire experience.

The fact of the matter is people can't be trusted with parsers in the open because that will happen. People suck and while many of us could potentially parse responsibly? The majority won't and as soon as it became 'ok' the floodgates of haters will open.

Also, as a world-first raider in wow who came from a situation of PAID gaming for pushing the stats to the limit and the dps to the very edges of what a player can achieve? As someone who spent 12 hours a day preparing for an 8-hour raid nearly every night during high-time raiding content?

The people who complain the MOST about 'baddies' aren't usually the good players or cutting-edge raiders. They're the wannabe poser elites who just crap on people to feel better about themselves. The real trail-blazing raiders don't usually complain if someone has low dps if they're progressing if they're learning if they continue to improve. Because that cutting-edge level content requires patience. Wipe after wipe after wipe, sometimes only gaining 2% ground on a boss on day one each try.

This caliber of player understands that 'skill' isn't just a number on a parser but in the resilience of the player and their ability to learn and respond to both mechanics, and to their fellow teammates. When someone isn't performing, isn't trying and isn't putting out dps one of two things will happen. Thing one: they don't flame the person, they simply remove them. No words, no hate, nothing but a swift kick and moving on. Thing two: They explain "hey, it looks like you're going to need to work on some things before you're ready for this content. Here are a few learning sources, and some tips for later. We wish you luck but unfortunately, you're not working for us right now." and a kick.


So I have to side with SE in regards to parsers sadly. As much as I'd love one, I love the environment of less hate more. It'd be great to track myself, and perhaps they could add that, a self-parser. Because if people can track others legally, the only thing that will come, is people bashing others without regards to anything other than a number on a list.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So I have to side with SE in regards to parsers sadly. As much as I'd love one, I love the environment of less hate more. It'd be great to track myself, and perhaps they could add that, a self-parser. Because if people can track others legally, the only thing that will come, is people bashing others without regards to anything other than a number on a list.

You are neglecting key difference. First and foremost, FFXIV is not WoW nor does it boast even a fraction of the equivalent playerbase. The two cannot be directly compared in this regard because you'll inevitably see worse offenders in a game with several times the subscription numbers. It's no different than assuming Balmung or Gilgamesh are terrible servers because you come across more jerks from there than anywhere else. Considering Balmung once had more than triple the players of smaller servers, it's hardly surprising you will see more jerks from Balmung than say, Zalera.

Secondly, WoW focuses almost exclusively on raiding. Therefore, it fosters a stronger competitive environment—a fact made all the more evident with open world PvP. This inevitably attracts a more aggressive element. None of this occurs in FFXIV, thus you will see less people openly abusing parsers because the mindset between each game is different.

Finally, it ultimately comes down to moderation. If players who do abuse parsers are swiftly dealt with, this becomes a non-issue long term. The only way this ever balloons into a serious problem is if SE allowed it to happen. Regardless, their stance is entirely counterproductive to the game's design. As someone mentioned elsewhere, we have a game dedicated almost exclusively to pumping out damage—so much so, even tanks and healers are expected to contribute—yet the game goes out of its way to conceal all that information. Even worse, they waste development time and resources on frivolous pursuits in the name of "improving player skill!" which accomplish nothing, i.e., the tacked on job gauges, when a parser does precisely what they want.

[Vstarstruck]

You are neglecting key difference. First and foremost, FFXIV is not WoW nor does it boast even a fraction of the equivalent playerbase. The two cannot be directly compared in this regard because you'll inevitably see worse offenders in a game with several times the subscription numbers. It's no different than assuming Balmung or Gilgamesh are terrible servers because you come across more jerks from there than anywhere else. Considering Balmung once had more than triple the players of smaller servers, it's hardly surprising you will see more jerks from Balmung than say, Zalera.

Secondly, WoW focuses almost exclusively on raiding. Therefore, it fosters a stronger competitive environment—a fact made all the more evident with open world PvP. This inevitably attracts a more aggressive element. None of this occurs in FFXIV, thus you will see less people openly abusing parsers because the mindset between each game is different.

Finally, it ultimately comes down to moderation. If players who do abuse parsers are swiftly dealt with, this becomes a non-issue long term. The only way this ever balloons into a serious problem is if SE allowed it to happen. Regardless, their stance is entirely counterproductive to the game's design. As someone mentioned elsewhere, we have a game dedicated almost exclusively to pumping out damage—so much so, even tanks and healers are expected to contribute—yet the game goes out of its way to conceal all that information. Even worse, they waste development time and resources on frivolous pursuits in the name of "improving player skill!" which accomplish nothing, i.e., the tacked on job gauges, when a parser does precisely what they want.

You have a point, forgive me if this feels like I am putting words in your mouth but this is my spin on the situation after reading that.

Remove all DPS checks and make the game more "unskilled friendly" or put in parsers. You can't have your cake and eat it too. All those gauges and attempts to lessen the "skill gap" did not achieve anything.

I forget where or who said it. The meaning was basically "parsers don't turn people into jerks" if someone is going to be a jerk, they are going to do so without parser, likewise those intend to be helpful and not toxic will continue to do so. I do think there is a type of person that is more or less "passive" until put in some environment that triggers them to say something. Basically I do feel parsers will increases minor harassment in trying put people down, but as your post says, it will not balloon effect if SE takes action on it. The other problem with this though, and SE may be aware of it, they would need to change their policies to make room for it. It is likely they will end up banning more people then they will like to with parsers with their current "3 strikes per lifetime = ban" Having parsers is likely going to see a large hike in bans just because 3 of the most miner things can = ban. (Though they should change that regardless, Oh made 3 "mistakes" in 10 year span? ban. that isn't fair)

Another problem is the target audience of this game. Look at all the MSQ complainant threads, some stated almost quitting because people leaving them behind getting kicked etc. What about those that did quit over it? or felt the community was too toxic for them because of it? That blanket change they did was to prevent potential sub loss. Now the point in bringing this up is what will happen to new players with parses being public okay? THIS was a LONG time ago, I do not remember when, but ironically I did witness parser harassment in a MSQ roulette dungeon. (the one doing the harassing STILL pestered the victim even AFTER 2-3 people telling them to stop they can get in trouble because of SE's zero tolerance policy on parsers). People are definitely willing to this anywhere, and even in low level content. What if the person being harassed left the game forever? costing SE a sub? GM policy has no reimbursement type actions when stuff like this happens. So even if that person doing the harassment is punished, the damage is done to the customer, and is not reversible leading to a loss in sub. I am sure that is SE's strongest motivation in deciding what to do.

so having a public parser means overhauling GM policy and I am sure SE does not want all that extra work, time, and money investment. Much easier to just say no parsers.

[van_arn]

They're not doing themselves any favors by making SSS "secret" content either. If they'd replace the guildhest daily with a solo SSS adjusted to the max tier of content a player has unlocked some of the more toxic casuals would riot at first, but we'd see improvement longer-term.

That or they'd stop unlocking higher tiers of content and we'd be better off there, too.

[Jijifli]

THIS was a LONG time ago, I do not remember when, but ironically I did witness parser harassment in a MSQ roulette dungeon. (the one doing the harassing STILL pestered the victim even AFTER 2-3 people telling them to stop they can get in trouble because of SE's zero tolerance policy on parsers). People are definitely willing to this anywhere, and even in low level content. What if the person being harassed left the game forever? costing SE a sub? GM policy has no reimbursement type actions when stuff like this happens. So even if that person doing the harassment is punished, the damage is done to the customer, and is not reversible leading to a loss in sub. I am sure that is SE's strongest motivation in deciding what to do.

so having a public parser means overhauling GM policy and I am sure SE does not want all that extra work, time, and money investment. Much easier to just say no parsers.

I just want to chime on this second part of your post for a very important mention, which shows it's the player, not the parser.

Did the person in this example use a parser? Ya. Was he being rude and toxic with it? Ya. But is it because a parser exists? No. He could have easily harassed over anything else. Could have harassed them for their glam, or their chosen race, or maybe that they're new and falling behind. None of those are related to parsing, but in this same example, you'd of course punish the player for harassment. So why would it be different if there's a parser? Guy is toxic with it? Punish them. Harassing a player for numbers and harassing them for being new would have the same effect, only people act like putting in numbers excuses the first one.

[Shurrikhan]

You are neglecting key difference. First and foremost, FFXIV is not WoW nor does it boast even a fraction of the equivalent playerbase. The two cannot be directly compared in this regard because you'll inevitably see worse offenders in a game with several times the subscription numbers. It's no different than assuming Balmung or Gilgamesh are terrible servers because you come across more jerks from there than anywhere else. Considering Balmung once had more than triple the players of smaller servers, it's hardly surprising you will see more jerks from Balmung than say, Zalera.

Secondly, WoW focuses almost exclusively on raiding. Therefore, it fosters a stronger competitive environment—a fact made all the more evident with open world PvP. This inevitably attracts a more aggressive element. None of this occurs in FFXIV, thus you will see less people openly abusing parsers because the mindset between each game is different.

Finally, it ultimately comes down to moderation. If players who do abuse parsers are swiftly dealt with, this becomes a non-issue long term. The only way this ever balloons into a serious problem is if SE allowed it to happen. Regardless, their stance is entirely counterproductive to the game's design. As someone mentioned elsewhere, we have a game dedicated almost exclusively to pumping out damage—so much so, even tanks and healers are expected to contribute—yet the game goes out of its way to conceal all that information. Even worse, they waste development time and resources on frivolous pursuits in the name of "improving player skill!" which accomplish nothing, i.e., the tacked on job gauges, when a parser does precisely what they want.

While I am in agreement with almost everything you've said in this thread... Two things:

1. How is WoW any more focused on raiding than XIV is? Both have about the same amount of side-content, the only real difference being that apart from "pet battles" (analogous to our TT more than our LotV), the side content still uses the same main gameplay systems. If anything, there tends to be more actually useful things one can do (e.g. to improve their character) outside of raiding in WoW than XIV... PvP also sees hugely more focus there, and yet I've never seen any WoW PvPer somehow consider Battlegrounds, PvP Raids, Brawls, or Arenas as part of "raiding".

2. Why should parsers be uniquely saddled with a moderation check when the harassment is merely changing mediums, rather than being newly produced? That's like saying these newfangled Blu-Rays should be uniquely checked for pirating just because they're a distinct medium from DVDs... It's simply harassment. If whether the claims made are actually evidenced by fact or not matters, then it's not yet harassment, but merely criticism. Until people are going out of their way to harass someone, to demean their reputation, or are putting someone down without any reasonable potential to incite improvement, we're not yet at harassment. And once they are doing those things, the source is utterly irrelevant.

I strongly suspect that the frequency of actual harassment over poor performance would decrease with ubiquitous parser usage. People are far more assertive of suspicions than they are of fact, especially when acting in an officious manner. The more doubt possible, the more heavy-handedness is applied to compensate. I've had another DPS harass me (as in constant spam tells after the dungeon until I blocked them) for my openers despite clearing trash mobs and bosses nearly as quickly when he was "brb; bio" for 4 minutes straight. I thought he was just trolling at first. Sadly not. Over the last four years, I have seen (what was tending towards, but, unless the confrontation extended beyond the relevant content, never actually reached) harassment in DF groups only a handful of times, and in all but one case it was by the lowest performing player. (The only exception was a "speedrun Warrior" who kept imploding when he technically should have lived if he'd had an experience healer, but that's still iffy in terms of practical performance, given that the healer stated quite clearly that she only just swapped from SMN to SCH....)

I may have provoked some of that spam by mentioning, just the once, that Spread Shot works well on multiple targets, but that's about where I draw the line. Asking, "Hey, DRG, could we start clearing up these packs a bit quicker?" (as he fails to AoE in a 5+ mob pull) is not. And while it may be easier for the tank to notice what's going wrong and why when a parser is available, there is very, very little difference to the confrontations, if any, that ensue.

so having a public parser means overhauling GM policy and I am sure SE does not want all that extra work, time, and money investment. Much easier to just say no parsers.

How? The ToA says "no third party tools". This would not be that. And the GM policy is likely already immured in further unwritten guidelines; setting aside the question of "could this finding be made only through the use of a parser" would only make their job easier and their policies simpler.

Then you look at this game, and there really isn't any competitive gameplay in it outside of PvP (That's a joke/discussion for another time). On top of that, this game's inherent mechanics and enrage checks promote (if not force) healers and tanks to push as much dps as humanly possible to kill something in the appropriate time. There isn't anything wrong with that per say, but then as you say they hide relevant information that makes it impossible to actually tell who is good or bad at the game. This is a pretty big failure in the game's design in itself. You can't expect a competitive raiding environment to not have a means of gauging itself, and I think that's what the OP, and others like them, seem to honestly forget.

So, world firsts and clear progress are competitive in WoW but not in XIV? How does that work?

Healers are also just as expected to deal damage during healing downtime in WoW as here, multiple specs even needing to weave it in in order to regenerate resources or accelerate utilities. One healer spec even heals solely through DPS. That only deepened in recent years with the removal of MP costs from most basic offensive spells, as that was the only limiting constraint leading to "full sustain" (to intentionally and tactically... do nothing) downtime previously.

[Vstarstruck]

How? The ToA says "no third party tools". This would not be that. And the GM policy is likely already immured in further unwritten guidelines; setting aside the question of "could this finding be made only through the use of a parser" would only make their job easier and their policies simpler.

I just want to chime on this second part of your post for a very important mention, which shows it's the player, not the parser.

Did the person in this example use a parser? Ya. Was he being rude and toxic with it? Ya. But is it because a parser exists? No. He could have easily harassed over anything else. Could have harassed them for their glam, or their chosen race, or maybe that they're new and falling behind. None of those are related to parsing, but in this same example, you'd of course punish the player for harassment. So why would it be different if there's a parser? Guy is toxic with it? Punish them. Harassing a player for numbers and harassing them for being new would have the same effect, only people act like putting in numbers excuses the first one.

You are missing the point, I am not defending SE at all. I was giving you something to think about on WHY SE does not want parses. You are missing my point completely. Punishing them does not reverse or do anything to the victim. Some most likely unsub over it feeling the community is too toxic for them. I get the feeling SE wants to put the least amount of money in this game as possible while getting most they can get out of it. If this is the case, it is simpler, cheaper, say no parses.

Since they can't reimburse or try to reinsure something will be done, SE prob fears it will make some people just quit and unsub. givin some of the threads here on the MSQ stuff, I wouldn't be shocked if some did unsub over stuff like this. So to help prevent that, "no parses " is easier.

[Jijifli]

You are missing the point, I am not defending SE at all. I was giving you something to think about on WHY SE does not want parses. You are missing my point completely. Punishing them does not reverse or do anything to the victim. Some most likely unsub over it feeling the community is too toxic for them. I get the feeling SE wants to put the least amount of money in this game as possible while getting most they can get out of it. If this is the case, it is simpler, cheaper, say no parses

I didn't say you were defending square. I was saying that I can be just as hostile to a player in the same scenario without mentioning dps numbers. If I REALLY wanted to, I could just keep making alts and harassing them after the dungeon, telling them nasty messages that'll make them quit. I don't need a third party software to do that. In fact, Square put in the information needed to make that easier. So we're removing contacts, right?

[Vstarstruck]

I didn't say you were defending square. I was saying that I can be just as hostile to a player in the same scenario without mentioning dps numbers. If I REALLY wanted to, I could just keep making alts and harassing them after the dungeon, telling them nasty messages that'll make them quit. I don't need a third party software to do that. In fact, Square put in the information needed to make that easier. So we're removing contacts, right?

That is a good way get you banned from the game. Also it is a fallacy to say they would been insulting over something else if no parser exists. Why are you even talking about this? in the big scope of things, this conversation has no point.

[Shurrikhan]

You are missing the point, I am not defending SE at all. I was giving you something to think about on WHY SE does not want parses. You are missing my point completely. Punishing them does not reverse or do anything to the victim. Some most likely unsub over it feeling the community is too toxic for them. I get the feeling SE wants to put the least amount of money in this game as possible while getting most they can get out of it. If this is the case, it is simpler, cheaper, say no parses.

Since they can't reimburse or try to reinsure something will be done, SE prob fears it will make some people just quit and unsub. givin some of the threads here on the MSQ stuff, I wouldn't be shocked if some did unsub over stuff like this. So to help prevent that, "no parses " is easier.

But it's not. When the problems raising concern is the heat of the confrontations themselves, policing is always more expensive than not policing. The task itself costs, and its only result is to create the same situations you are allegedly trying to mitigate.

To police for parsing is to police something which is not visible, and for which all reports are reliant first on hearsay. It would be like trying to punish someone for flicking their finished cigarette into the road, in a time somehow before sufficient camera evidence. If they were audibly recorded yelling out that yes, they were littering, then that's that (although even that could be stated ironically). But anything short of such is a nightmare to try to act upon.

Why would any company do that to themselves?

The more XIV takes ownership of essential learning tools, the less the players are reliant upon third-party tools, which have possible benefits far beyond merely parsing that SE cannot necessarily account for (e.g. those things that one could honestly call cheating or would reduce the time for raids to clear even the mechanics of a given raid -- as per DBM and Big Whigs in WoW) and SE must otherwise constantly provide controlled breaks in their code to prevent, increasing awkward delays and inefficiencies in an already notorious webcode.

Why wouldn't SE take ownership of the only thing that's managed to provide significant support to player learning inside their game?

Yes, players could still access the theorycrafted rotations available online. They could still access class guides. But they can scarcely test things -- really test things -- for themselves without such a tool, let alone do so through an in-game method of instantaneous and continuous feedback. That is hugely valuable. You have a resource which, once integrated, is both part of the ingame experience and adds a near-endless level of depth, self-competition, and "minigame-ness" to the game.

Consider what would be needed to provide even half that benefit:

• You'd need encounters difficult enough to enforce learning... costing you maybe a twelfth of your playerbase in the process if not properly supported beforehand...
• Near-mandatory guildhest-style learning exercises, each likely crafted with care, for solo and group contexts...
• Likely somewhat intrusive tips and ingame guides, each again likely crafted with care...
• And, quite likely, performance indexes that likely already require the framework of such a parser by which to compare your past and current progress (likely to others' as well)...

That's not to say that much of those things wouldn't be worth having, given the time, but despite the far greater effort required, they are unlikely even to produce nearly as great of benefits. So again:

Why would SE set themselves in the awkward and ambiguous position of policing against the one thing noticeably supporting their playerbase's breadth at higher limits of content (Ex Primals and upward) through in-game and often intrinsically entertaining means? Why wouldn't they claim it for themselves by doing much the same, and slightly better, such that players don't need that gateway drug, so to speak, cutting off most of the monetary support for truly undesirable third-party advantageous programs? (Funny thought: Nude mods, of course, won't be affected by literally anything else in the realm of 3rd party business, except perhaps through fewer visitors to the same mod sites that may host them...)