New ToS gives hope for official DPS meters?

[Penthea]

Yeah, and if stricter rules from the change of the ToS results in a massive crackdown of toxic behavior--then we can get parsers? That's my question, lol.

And my question, lol, is why you think a ToS has such huge power? A ToS isn't a god-like entity that hunts for bad behaviour. Enforcing it well requires a fast and easy to use reporting system (which we currently only have for RMT), which means it relies on players first and then GMs. We would need vast improvements on the report system, likely far more GMs than there are now, and SE would need to somehow convince players that their first reaction to bad behaviour should be to report it.

You're literally skipping steps. If you want the ToS to lead the official parsers, then you need to ask for a better report system and GM service first. What we have right now is nowhere near enough for what you want.

[Enla]

And my question, lol, is why you think a ToS has such huge power? A ToS isn't a god-like entity that hunts for bad behaviour. Enforcing it well requires a fast and easy to use reporting system (which we currently only have for RMT), which means it relies on players first and then GMs. We would need vast improvements on the report system, likely far more GMs than there are now, and SE would need to somehow convince players that their first reaction to bad behaviour should be to report it.

You're literally skipping steps. If you want the ToS to lead the official parsers, then you need to ask for a better report system and GM service first. What we have right now is nowhere near enough for what you want.

That's pretty much why the new TOS didn't phase me all that much, outside from wanting clarification on a few points that seemed overly broad. While I have a lot of respect for the GMs of this game, the report feature is so lax it's almost comical. About two years ago we had someone on Balmung that made it their mission to harass a lot of people, with one person in particular bearing the brunt of it. While a lot of it was carried out outside of the game - this person also would go into Shout in the major cities multiple times and tell everyone to avoid the player they were bullying and even private message people they thought were sympathetic to do the same. On top of near weekly name changes, character changes, and FC changes to keep people confused of who they were - to the point many people on the server outright copied their lodestone ID to keep track of them. It only ended when they left for another server because they had officially pissed too many people off and good chunk of the active players had their lodestone page saved simply out of necessity to protect themselves. Not a single report was ever followed through, and believe me, many people reported them.

I do hope the new TOS is a sign that GM's are either going to take reports more seriously or will be able to work through them in a more efficient manner. However unless the GM's become more proactive or are /allowed/ to be more proactive, nothing will really come of it.

[JackHatchet]

I don't see why Square Enix would go through all the effort and money to draft a a new Terms of Service if they weren't going to back it up with stronger enforcement. Unless you think it was just a scare tactic, but I don't think Square-Enix would do that.

[KaivaC]

Yeah, and if stricter rules from the change of the ToS results in a massive crackdown of toxic behavior--then we can get parsers? That's my question, lol. I know Parsers are difficult now, because we currently have toxic people. But Square-Enix wouldn;t be addressing their ToS unless they planned to strengthen their grip on toxic play. Which should make parsers usable, because all the toxic people will be suspended or paranoid of being suspended.

My counter to this is - there are toxic people everywhere. Let's not sit here and pretend that parsers are a large problem, because they really are not. You'll get more toxic people on average on something like the Steps of Faith, then you will elsewhere. I mean, shoot, you'll see it more often in Alliance runs, to be honest.

[Penthea]

I don't see why Square Enix would go through all the effort and money to draft a a new Terms of Service if they weren't going to back it up with stronger enforcement. Unless you think it was just a scare tactic, but I don't think Square-Enix would do that.

Because the ToS is a contract. It enables SE to take actions in any way they please as long as players agree to it, and they have to in order to play the game. It doesn't mean that SE are going to automatically back it all up with a new or better GM service, or a new or better report system. It simply grants SE more freedom to do more stuff. Literally nothing about updating a ToS obligates a company to change or improve their workforce or the software they use to work.

In short, you're jumping the gun. You're basically assuming some changes in how they view acceptable behaviour means they're restructuring the report and GM system in a huge way. When the most likely result is the only change we will see is that GMs will now take action in some matters they before did not, but in the exact same manner as they have been with other issues.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see restructuring and improvement across the board. But I'll believe it is happening when SE explicitly say so. A game company updating their ToS without changing any software or how their workforce is managed is actually pretty common. So unless SE say more, don't expect more.

[Gemina]

Honestly, the whole community is depressing on this topic. I'd love to publicly use a parser as I like knowing the exact performance of my group to see who is the weak point and define how to address. Problem is the paranoia those against it have. Yet we have a thread with over 1k pages of bad DF performances. Double standards much?

It's reasons like this that is exactly why they will never have an official parser. You're not even mentioning anything about improving your own skill, and instead want to use it for exploitative purposes to establish the weak link. Will the parser show that the lowest DPS had a prey marker, and the healer didn't heal or shield him resulting in being KO'd and his DPS plummeting? This is an honest question, not a rebuttal; unless it's true. Point being parsers don't tell the whole story.

The problem isn't the paranoia. The paranoia exists because of the problem, and the DF thread is a testament to the existence of said problem. If the exploitative properties were abused out east where they have more respect for each other, what do you think is going to happen on the DCs out west where everyone steps on each other to get to where they are going because we all think with the mindset of my time > your time?

Simply put, I truly believe personal parsers would go a long way to improve performances, but we're just not ready. There's too many toxic people out there. That's not paranoia. That's a fact.

[AxlStream]

To reply to the question, the weakest link might be me, it might be you, it might be someone else. Also yes, the parser will show he had a death and the detailed will show that this DPS received X ammount of damage and died as a result. You are the paranoia I described. Not knowing the full potential of a tool and just implying I'd use it to blame others.

[AxlStream]

Can't edit on mobile but I meant DPS received X damage from Y attack and died as a result. It's incredibly verbose.

[Gemina]

To reply to the question, the weakest link might be me, it might be you, it might be someone else. Also yes, the parser will show he had a death and the detailed will show that this DPS received X ammount of damage and died as a result. You are the paranoia I described. Not knowing the full potential of a tool and just implying I'd use it to blame others.

I didn't imply it. You did.

[Gemina]

Can't edit on mobile but I meant DPS received X damage from Y attack and died as a result. It's incredibly verbose.

And the question wasn't if it shows "this DPS took x amount of damage from y", the question is does it show he/she had a prey marker and couldn't do jack to avoid the damage, making it the healer's fault why their DPS went down? If you can't read a post accurately, how can you be confided in reading fflogs accurately?