How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So in other words parser toxicity is the most common form of toxicity in WoW that you know of, given you can't even remember anything else.

That is... a quantum leap in logic. Or lack thereof. I merely stated people in this very thread have said otherwise. In what universe does that abruptly make it the most common form of toxicity. In my experiences, albeit from forum discussions and reddit as I do not play WoW myself, parsers aren't any more toxic than anything else. You're putting forth anecdotal evidence and claiming it factual.

Firstly it's very unlikely that's the only reason why its banned.

Because the developers want us to pick up the slack for other players. Yoshidra outright stated as much almost verbatim. They have the misguided belief people will muscle bad players through, thus bolstering clear rates. While this mentality does work in Japan, it simply doesn't in NA/EU. In fact, it's a very common Japanese development philosophy to obscure information as they either want you to figure it out independently or play the game as they envision it. This is why JRPG are numerous for more convoluted system design than their Western counterpart. Put simply, the devs want us to simply clear content. Which is fine, in theory, but a good amount of raiders either way to see gradual improvement or don't want to carry players they perceive liability. There's a reason ranking systems have become ubiquitous nowadays, and why it's a highly requested feature for FFXIV itself; in the form of Mythic+.

Another but less mentioned criticism about parsers is that players often use them as the sole indication of a class's worth. While this may look harmless at a glance, this is something that actually threatens class identity.

This already happens. An official parse won't make a lick of difference because most people who care about job balance are already well aware which jobs are more favourable. It's literally among the first things theorycrafters work out whenever new adjustments are made. The difference between WoW and FFXIV is everything in the latter has viability. WoW, on the other hand, doesn't. Some classes are simply inferior in every way. I can't go into specifics since I only know from hearsay, but it's fairly common knowledge WoW balance shifts on a whim, and some classes don't fair too well. Nevertheless, when "meta" has been brought up on Reddit, the typically response is, "Who cares? Everything is viable." So no, I'm not buying a public parse would abruptly make people dismiss Red Mages in dungeons. Which is a ludicrous thought anyway since their AoE potential is monstrous. People generally don't care what you do in dungeons beyond healers DPS, larger pulls and aoe-ing. Even Savage where parse use is commonplace, they don't. Most groups who block Samurai or Black Mage do so because they have come across so many bad ones, they're just a little jaded.

Secondly this beneficial tool is too easily abused, and thus it can become the opposite of a beneficial tool. I won't argue that it's beneficial to see your performance in a way that can be analysed, because it is. However the issue is quite a large amount of players don't know how to use this tool properly.

In WoW I got hassle on an alt because my dps was crap...but it was crap because most of my dps came from dots and mobs died well before they could have their full effect. I tried explaining this but all I got was "lol l2p". The funny thing is on my main I played the same class and I had among the highest dps in our raids even though it wasn't even my main spec. I definitely knew how to play it. But due to classes not being designed to be balanced in low lvl content, and encountering players who don't understand this, I got hassle over something completely out of my control. This was far from the first time I had seen something like this happen.

And? Some moron acted like a jerk, only making themselves look foolish. Who cares? You laugh and move on with your life. I had a Tsukiyomi EX party where a Samurai I was out-dpsing by a 1,000 despite having died called me shit when I said people need to step up the damage. You know what I did? I laughed at him. I also mentioned in a roundabout manner the Bard was doing almost double his damage when he mouthed off to her. By the way, here is a prime example of toxicity, and it isn't coming from the parse users. Remember how I accused your stance of coddling? This is precisely why. Some idiot says mean words to someone, and we need to wrap them in blankets and ban the parsers because they may, possibly, potentially, unknowingly get their knickers twisted. We can't have anyone's feelings hurt! You have just described a safe space.

I once got yelled at by a very good player. He wasn't particularly rude, just blunt. I messed up mechanics because it was 4am and a friend dragged me into Sephirot EX when I was half asleep. Did it sting a bit? Sure. I still pulled up my panties and got over it. They were right to criticise. And even if they weren't, I shrug it off and move on.

I already see this sort of thing in XIV. Every so often when I pug dungeons I see healers given snarky remarks over lack of dps even though the tank is obviously putting them in a position in which they can't do much dps or else there will be a wipe. This is already happening just from people watching hardcasts in the party ui. Can you imagine what that would be like if everyone had a parser?

Yes, you could point out to the DPS crying about everything taking longer maybe they ought to do more damage than the White Mage.

This is entire post is, frankly, quite disingenuous. You only highlight the negative; insinuating a doom and gloom scenario is basically the only possible outcome. Meanwhile, I have actually spoken to people who had no one idea they were doing anything wrong because the game does a piss poor job showing any information. Not too long ago, I even had a Dark Knight in Guardian Normal ask if someone were parsing. Why? He'd been trying to improve but as a PS4 player, he couldn't see his numbers. Unfortunately, people rarely discuss the positive side of parsing because drama is typically more compelling on forums. That, and you have people convinced ACT is the boogeyman that will destroy FFXIV if it were ever made public. God forbid you actually improve before trying out Savage...

No I'm not, I'm blaming people who don't know how to use a parser correctly and people who intentionally misuse it.

By coddling the entire community because a few jerks exist. That is shifting blame onto the tool itself; insinuating it's too dangerous. You cannot draw parallels to WoW because your experiences are anecdotal. Not to mention, WoW boasts a significantly larger playerbase. Therefore, as I mentioned earlier. You are going to see more toxicity by virtue of the sheer population difference hence why people generalize Gilgamesh as a "shitty elitist server." You were simply more likely to find an "elitist" on Gilgamesh than Zalera.

All this being said I think XIV should give better tools to allow players to access their own performance. At the very least the game should display personal dps. The stone sky sea dummies should also display dps instead of just giving players a timer to go on and forcing them to go to a third party tool to glean the true meaning behind their kill time. Additionally there should be more analytical utility given to target dummy furnishings, because right now their function is too basic. Currently pc players are at a distinct advantage when it comes to analysing personal dps and I think SE should address this in some manner.

A personal parse, while not a bad start per se, doesn't work well in a game so heavily reliant on team composition. Without any context, a person seeing they're doing 4,000 DPS on Samurai may assume that is pretty decent despite Samurais pulling beyond 7,000. You also have to factor in raid buffs and how they correlate with each respective job. Bards, in particular, are going to have widely fluctuating results because they are more dependent on Crit progs and piercing. Furthermore, you do realize PF will demand you show these personal parses as proof you have a general idea what you're doing, yes? Essentially defeating the entire point behind anonymity.

Regardless, a target dummy will not display accurate results relative to a mechanic active fight whereas a parse will. You can see in live action how badly movement impacts your DPS as a Black Mage or how dropping your combo severely lowers your damage. None of this is visible on a dummy that won't do anything. I suppose it's better than nothing though.