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

[RiyahArp]

I hate to keep coming at you like this but... does this mean if you did have a chart you would be acting this way?

I'd be a different person in a sense if I wanted that chart enough to have it, the way the game is now. If I valued DPS that highly and could back it with parses, yeah I'd probably act that way. if I couldn't back it, I'd quit, because there's little point in being below 50% in a game that values ranking or numbers so heavily. If they forced official parsers, chances are I'd quit soon as they'd probably follow it up with other changes that would make the game less fun.

[Dualgunner]

Kindly raidgoers is a bit much when they can't go five seconds without describing other players as burdens that need to be carried, lazy, moochers, needing to feel the responsibility and pressure of their job, etc.

Wouldn't describe you as kindly either, generalizing an entire subsection of the playerbase as all having one specific attitude toward parsers and pretending your word is law. In fact I attribute less good will to you than I would them, any day of the week.

[Paladinleeds]

What he needs first is someone who is willing to teach him some. I don't know if he has asked, but a lot of the fcs I've been in no one bothers to teach.

What if the game said "There's room for improvement here. Based on your gear and your class, your damage output is very low"? Would that help? Mind you, I'm not advanced level or anything, but I can probably help teach the fundamentals to people.

And at this point, i wouldn't care if they barred people from savage with harsher prereqs. Let them put some hard trial or something up that is solo or something.

This I can agree with too.

[KaivaC]

I'd be a different person in a sense if I wanted that chart enough to have it, the way the game is now. If I valued DPS that highly and could back it with parses, yeah I'd probably act that way. if I couldn't back it, I'd quit, because there's little point in being below 50% in a game that values ranking or numbers so heavily. If they forced official parsers, chances are I'd quit soon as they'd probably follow it up with other changes that would make the game less fun.

I'd like to jump in on this point, and us this to elaborate something else with me. I didn't have the maturity level to deal with what I saw when I found out where I was parsing. Let's be honest, it's only been two months since I last raided - I know I'm not the right maturity level to raid quite yet, though that is partially why I have switched to a new character, so I can relearn on the side when I'm not enjoying the other aspects of the game.

That being said, I put a value on parse numbers where it matters - which is in Savage and Ex modes. I don't feel that there is nothing wrong with being an average player, or for the context of fflogs, being a green player. For that matter, if this is your first raid tier, I don't see a whole lot wrong with being grey tier hitting anywhere from 3.8k to 4.8k (I think that is the current average for greys). But first and foremost, it should be used as a tool for improvement - leave the competition for those who are at that level. As long as one is improving, and is using the parser for that purpose, then there's not really a problem.

I feel like the problems lie in three areas.

1) Using it for competitive purposes when you are not at that level - I am a prime example of what happens with that regard. Moving on.

3) Not using it to improve. I am a huge proponent in using the information recorded to figure out where you can improve at. It's common knowledge that the game doesn't do a good job at giving you what you need to really optimize yourself. That being said, and this is a point that I understand - not everybody wants to improve. Not everybody can improve beyond a certain level.

3) Using it for bragging purposes/outside of Savage and Ex trials (this has a caveat...let me get to it)/to act like you are a better player. I think this point right here is where the claims of harassment tend to come from. Don't get me wrong, if you are able to parse as purple right now without being padded, amen to you, be happy about it. But using it as a front to brag that you are a better player, or to hold yourself as being above other players, I feel like this is primarily why there is no official support for it. Stuff like this can and does lead to harassment. There's more on this, but let me move on to my caveat.

Using it outside of Savage/Ex fights. Outside of endgame, if it's not being used to name and shame, to harass, I don't see an actual problem with this. You don't learn to get good at your job by jumping into endgame immediately. You learn to optimize even further when you make it to endgame, but you use all the dungeons leading up to endgame to get good at your job - you have plenty of opportunity to nail down the basics of your job up to that point. Parsing in dungeons, I feel is a pretty nice way to gauge yourself without the pressure of the high intensity that comes with Savage/Ex, to a point. I'm starting to lose focus on what I'm trying to say, but hopefully the gist of where I am getting at is somewhat clear.

Also, I am not a fan of writing long posts, so gonna have to cut it off here - will be happy to clarify further if asked.

[JunseiKei]

You get grey DPS by underperforming or repeatedly dying.

You're basically saying that it doesn't matter you can clear the fight, only that you perform to a percentile that you choose.

Like I said, I fully expected the responses of 'their party, their rules' or 'make your own party,' but it undermines the way was intended to play because of...

... a third party leader-board.

Looking at RDM top 400 slots for God Kefka, I see a bunch of people with mixtures of DRG, BRD, and NIN. When you're comparing that against someone else's team, like mine which is the 'worst' composition, SAM, MNK, BLM and RDM, the numbers are highly skewed and misleading. You may end up doing things that hinder your own personal DPS for better raid DPS (like the timing of embolden or raising other people because you have the MP and the dualcast feature). Also, take into account gear people have (some re-run with better/ maxed out gear for better scores, further skewing the perception acceptable and what isn't). My point here is it is not simply 'underperformance' or 'dying' that leads to these percentile rankings and then having people, like the above, make misguided requirements. People don't care that you can simply clear the fight at that point.

Again, that's why I'm more against the leader-board aspect of FFLogs, rather than parsing and the rest of FFLogs. FFLogs has a great feature to help you optimize and show you exactly where you went wrong. That's fine, in my opinion.

EDIT:
At one point farming NeoExdeath, raid members told me 'Look Xo, you get a 90 percentile on RDM! Isn't that awesome?' I told them, 'No. I can't even feel great about it. I did the exact same things as normal, the only thing different is we picked up a bard (and I think we had an AST, I can't quite recall). It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with utility.' (It's since been bumped down because I don't think I went back in to farm 'cause I got everything I wanted. If that parse was even kept up since that person left.)

[RiyahArp]

Wouldn't describe you as kindly either, generalizing an entire subsection of the playerbase as all having one specific attitude toward parsers and pretending your word is law. In fact I attribute less good will to you than I would them, any day of the week.

good thing I never ask to be described that way, or point myself as really a nice person and its those mean bad raiders who demonize me, eh?

What if the game said "There's room for improvement here. Based on your gear and your class, your damage output is very low"?

You'd have to ask what happens to them if all they can do is raise it to "low" given savage standards. Not really an argument people like to have, the idea that a lot of people will fail the standards the community expects. there always will be people performing below average in any ranked system.

That being said, I put a value on parse numbers where it matters - which is in Savage and Ex modes. I don't feel that there is nothing wrong with being an average player, or for the context of fflogs, being a green player. For that matter, if this is your first raid tier, I don't see a whole lot wrong with being grey tier hitting anywhere from 3.8k to 4.8k (I think that is the current average for greys). But first and foremost, it should be used as a tool for improvement - leave the competition for those who are at that level. As long as one is improving, and is using the parser for that purpose, then there's not really a problem.

...then why is it such a bad thing to hide your logs? If it's just for self improvement, other people don't need to see how well I do. But in practice, its used as more; sort of a performance history and screening tool.

[Dualgunner]

good thing I never ask to be described that way, or point myself as really a nice person and its those mean bad raiders who demonize me, eh?

Not explicitly, no.

[KaivaC]

...then why is it such a bad thing to hide your logs? If it's just for self improvement, other people don't need to see how well I do. But in practice, its used as more; sort of a performance history and screening tool.

Probably because of the stigma that somebody is hiding bad play. This is more of a question for the raid community at large, not just one or two individuals. If i notice somebody's play that catches my attention, I'll look them up, yes. If they play better than me on a job I'm on, I'll compare notes. If I feel they did badly, I'll just be curious about it - but my curiosity stays with only me. What I've said is just my own personal stance, and isn't reflective on how others may view it. Self-improvement is how I am currently approaching parsers.

I personally am not hiding my logs, because I am not ashamed of them. I also don't care if somebody wants to judge me for them. I know that I want to improve, and that is good enough for me. If, on my current main, somebody doesn't want me in their party because of logs if they ask for them, then so be it. I'll just move on to a new group and improve from there. Again, that is what my stance on the subject is, and not reflective on how others may feel.

[Paladinleeds]

You'd have to ask what happens to them if all they can do is raise it to "low" given savage standards. Not really an argument people like to have, the idea that a lot of people will fail the standards the community expects. there always will be people performing below average in any ranked system.

That's a tricky question, I'll have to think about that some more.

...then why is it such a bad thing to hide your logs? If it's just for self improvement, other people don't need to see how well I do. But in practice, its used as more; sort of a performance history and screening tool.

It's because of the opt-out system. You have to explicitely go and hide your logs, which makes people think there's something to hide (which thinking about it, could potentially be breaching GDPR, which states you have to give explicit permission to use certain data, but I'm no law specialist so could be wrong on that). Were it made opt-in (with everyone's logs hidden retroactively as part of that), then the stigma would go away as hidden logs could just mean someone doesn't know that FFLogs exists. As it stands, anyone who has hidden logs (like myself) obviously knows about FFLogs, as they had to in order to hide their logs, and thus it raises questions as to why they've actively hidden them.

EDIT: And for anyone who tries to say "You must be bad because you're hiding your logs."... I know I'm bad, then again, I think I've only ever attempted to fully pug Savage once, and that was because a friend asked me to (which btw I failed miserably at). Every time I've done Savage otherwise, it's been with a static. Because my static disbanded I actually gave up doing my weekly Savage clears, don't want the hassle of that with PUGs.

[MoroMurasaki]

The issue with this is not solved by a parser. The issue with this generally happens because the guy goes through the game without anyone caring enough to mentor him, or even doing stuff with him to notice he is so low. A universal parser doesn't solve this; you'd need in game, defined rotations and tutorials similar to a fighting game, or at least other players who teach people.

A parser doesn't help this guy, because it's not useful feedback to him. 1.2k dps doesn't mean anything to him. What he needs first is someone who is willing to teach him some. I don't know if he has asked, but a lot of the fcs I've been in no one bothers to teach.

And at this point, i wouldn't care if they barred people from savage with harsher prereqs. Let them put some hard trial or something up that is solo or something. I'd rather have this than have the game turn into a slog in order to teach everyone with the expectation we eventually all do savage level dps.

I still fail to see how an ingame parser wouldn't help people. If you go through the game as a dps class and understand that your job is to kill their things I don't see how you could make it through more than a few instances where the tank and healer outdpsed you before you would start to wonder if you should do some research.

Absolutely no one is suggesting that "we all do Savage level dps" and I challenge you to find where that has been suggested. An ingame parser would do the very thing SE has been taking about for so long; narrowing the cavernous gap between the skill floor and skill ceiling. If you keep seeing that your damage is significantly below that of your peers you'll try new things. If you try new things you'll stumble upon improvments. Eventually the ice mages/no DoT BRDs/zero dps healers of the world would see a visual representation of their lack of comtribution and do better because no decent human beings want to hold a team down.

You can blame poor performance on whatever you want, at the end of the day we are all responsible for our own play. Everyone has the same opportunity to look up guides and information, the only thing that is restricted is the flow of information about each individual's effectiveness. It is the biggest detriment to breaking into raiding and endgame and there is only one solution - transparency.

I'd be a different person in a sense if I wanted that chart enough to have it, the way the game is now. If I valued DPS that highly and could back it with parses, yeah I'd probably act that way. if I couldn't back it, I'd quit, because there's little point in being below 50% in a game that values ranking or numbers so heavily. If they forced official parsers, chances are I'd quit soon as they'd probably follow it up with other changes that would make the game less fun.

I suppose this is a key difference between us, even when I've known beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was carrying someone through a piece of content (via someone in the group parsing as I've always played on ps4) I have never felt the need to shove their faces in it. The worst I'll do is roll on gear I don't need or not give a commendation.

I would never quit because my logs are subpar either. Right now I'm raiding on WHM (even though I think I'm a better RDM) and my absolute best logs barely break 50%. I'm not discouraged by them though - I started very late in the tier, raided a fair bit of it on RDM instead of WHM, generally heal more considerably more than my cohealers and only joined a static a short time ago. I understand all of these things impact logs, especially in Savage, and wouldn't let my self esteem be shaken by them.

Your assumptions prove the old adage about assuming correct time and time again.