So, can we just ban damage meters already.

[HyoMinPark]

But why so many tanks seem allergic to them is a worthy question, which pre-dates shadowbringers.

I understand when you say cooldowns don't affect damage; I"m saying I think some tanks seem feel bad pressing anything that doesn't affect their damage.

No. The tanks that don’t utilize their cooldowns are bad players. It’s as simple as that. It has nothing to do with parsers, nor has it ever. The same is said for healers that won’t use their entire toolkit (healing or damage spells), or the DPS that won’t AOE/use their raid buffs or basic job mechanics (e.g., BRDs that won’t use their songs). They’re simply bad players, and the parser is irrelevant here. Don’t conflate the two.

[Daibunnie]

But your feeling safe about kicking just makes me believe people are being all the more silly about GMs and 'if a player feels offended' arguments then. If the GMs are able to apply logic to vote kick situations, they will apply that same logic to other areas of reporting.

They are either consistent in their job, or they are not. Which is it?

It's more of being paranoid over the already vague rules. I've read over some of the posts here, and several people seemed to have silently kicked as well instead of going along to help the problematic players that might get them reported instead. So either they weren't reported for it or they were and the GM that looked over the reported decided the kick was valid. Of course, this is all an assumption, but I think its reasonable to think that each GM will handle those specific reports differently and maybe sometimes incorrectly or unfairly.

Combining your recent posts, and especially this one, you have effectively said the following:
-When I tell someone they are playing bad, they can report me, and I don’t trust the GMs to deal with it appropriately, so I kick them instead.
-I’m comfortable kicking people because even if they complain, I know I can give a good reason to the GM which will make them see it as ok.
You effectively are saying you trust the GMs when you have a complaint about someone, but you don’t trust the GMS when the complaint is against you. Hmmmmmm

Context in each report and reason for kicking matters here. Why should someone take the risk at "offending" another player and receive a warning on their account when it's very easy to just dismiss that player instead for "gameplay differences?" Sure, they might get reported for the kick regardless, but at that point, the reason for the kick is validated and within the tos.

For disclaimers, I haven't started a vote dismiss or voted intentionally so far.

[Forever_Learning]

No. The tanks that don’t utilize their cooldowns are bad players.

Unfortunately, people are bad.

Simple: they are incompetent as players. Similar to healers that tunnel vision on DPS or DPS that tunnel vision and ignore mechanics.

Simply saying they are bad players is a shallow and insufficient response.

A better question is why are they bad players that are so focused on their DPS

The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?

I argue it's due to the influence of things like parses, because people want to rank, and they want to beat others, and where they place on FFlogs.

Am I saying something controversial if I say that people will even alter how a particular fight is done in order to increase their ranking on FFlogs?

It trickles down, it trickles down to the average player that just has a parse and feel satisfied they are the top DPS in their particular group.

I understand how this mentality develops because I had it when I played a Mage in WoW, and understood how the parser was impacting me.

I don't seriously believe I'm the only person to have experienced the psychological impact of the parser, which is why many choose to avoid them outright.

Context in each report and reason for kicking matters here. Why should someone take the risk at "offending" another player and receive a warning on their account when it's very easy to just dismiss that player instead for "gameplay differences?" Sure, they might get reported for the kick regardless, but at that point, the reason for the kick is validated and within the tos.

All I'm saying is people have a right to criticize in a polite way, they have the right to kick, and they have the right to report when they feel they have been harassed. People are going to be people, as someone earlier said, and it's up to the GM to decide how to handle each case, and more generally, how strongly they want to force it.

[HyoMinPark]

Simply saying they are bad players is a shallow and insufficient response.

A better question is why are they bad players that are so focused on their DPS

How do you know that the reason they aren’t pressing cooldowns is because they’re “so focused on their DPS”. You’re providing an equally insufficient response here because you aren’t offering any proof aside from your personal conjecture. At least my saying “they’re bad players” has some grain of truth, because tanks being allergic to CDs predates any sort of focus on tank DPS, which wasn’t a thing until Gordias in HW. Before Gordias, tanks were always in tank stance playing it safe—there was no optimizing of tank damage.

The focus at the high-end is on tank damage now because every other part of their role (enmity, defenses) has been made trivial: ShB tank stance is a joke in terms of its enmity generation; fights are scripted, so you always know when and where you will use which cooldowns. Cooldowns are mapped throughout a fight.

The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?

Source that this is the common denominator?

I argue it's due to the influence of things like parses, because people want to rank, and they want to beat others, and where they place on FFlogs.

High-purple and orange ranking tanks know how to use their cooldowns. Because they realize if they die, so does their parse. You’d have an argument if we were discussing pre-5.0 tank stance, but we’re discussing defensive cooldowns. The tanks you are describing are not ranking high-purple and orange—because they tend to die to the first buster they take, and their death means the death of any parse/rank they were hoping to achieve.

FFLogs are irrelevant for everything outside of Savage/Ultimate anyways—and let me assure you that the tanks that are worth any sort of high rank don’t suffer from an allergy to CDs.

Am I saying something controversial if I say that people will even alter how a particular fight is done in order to increase their ranking on FFlogs?

Alter the encounter how? Be specific here. Because, right now, the only thing you’re really being is vague.

It trickles down, it trickles down to the average player that just has a parse and feel satisfied they are the top DPS in their particular group.

Even if this trickles down and what you’re saying is correct, that still doesn’t make what I said incorrect. Tanks that won’t use their cooldowns are bad players. There are no if’s, and’s, or but’s about this. No matter how much you try to argue that this is the fault of parsers, which you can’t really prove.

[ForteNightshade]

Simply saying they are bad players is a shallow and insufficient response.

A better question is why are they bad players that are so focused on their DPS

The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?

I argue it's due to the influence of things like parses, because people want to rank, and they want to beat others, and where they place on FFlogs.

Am I saying something controversial if I say that people will even alter how a particular fight is done in order to increase their ranking on FFlogs?

It trickles down, it trickles down to the average player that just has a parse and feel satisfied they are the top DPS in their particular group.

I understand how this mentality develops because I had it when I played a Mage in WoW, and understood how the parser was impacting me.

I don't seriously believe I'm the only person to have experienced the psychological impact of the parser, which is why many choose to avoid them outright.

Because Shadowbringers made tanks into pseudo-DPS. There is literally nothing else for them to focus on. Defensive cooldowns have zero impact on your damage. Not pressing Vengeance for a giant pull or tank buster just means you're an idiot. It doesn't mean you're focusing on your DPS. Hell, Vengeance gives you DPS, albeit minor. So not pressing it is a DPS loss. You are insisting on a correlation between poor CD management and FFlogs when there isn't one. Worse even, it makes no sense. A tank not using their CDs is a dead tank, which means good bye to their parse.

Put simply, what you're trying to insinuate just doesn't happen. The "mentality" is people are bad and this game does very little to discourage that behavior.

[Forever_Learning]

Even if this trickles down and what you’re saying is correct, that still doesn’t make what I said incorrect. Tanks that won’t use their cooldowns are bad players. There are no if’s, and’s, or but’s about this. No matter how much you try to argue that this is the fault of parsers, which you can’t really prove.

My point wasn’t that they aren’t bad players, my point is providing an explanation for what leads some people to be bad because they focused too much on their DPS. I’m discussing human psychology here rather than anything specific to end-game or a savage fight. When you put a ranking in front of people, and they see where they place, it can impact how a person view’s their performance.
Stating that parsers can make some people overly focused on their DPS isn’t a controversial statement. Furthermore, It doesn’t have to be specific to Final Fantasy, or frankly to video games, when people have a visual assessment in front of them, which also ranks them, it often affects how they behave. I’m not purposely trying to be vague, I’m saying it’s a general human phenomenon.

Put simply, what you're trying to insinuate just doesn't happen. The "mentality" is people are bad and this game does very little to discourage that behavior.

Yes, it does happen. I can list you plenty of examples and anecdotes, and many of them come from WoW where parsers are more prevalent. Players absolutely do make decisions, bad decisions, in hopes of doing more DPS. Yes, they are bad players, yes they make bad decisions, and yes, some or many of them are influenced by the parsers. As I heard one content creator comment on her show when trying to tell someone to do mechanics better, the response she received was “but the meters, I gotta stay high on the meters”. As I said before, stating that parsers can make some people overly focused on their DPS isn’t a controversial statement.

[Raven2014]

A better question is why are they bad players that are so focused on their DPS
The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?
I argue it's due to the influence of things like parses, because people want to rank, and they want to beat others, and where they place on FFlogs.
Am I saying something controversial if I say that people will even alter how a particular fight is done in order to increase their ranking on FFlogs?
It trickles down, it trickles down to the average player that just has a parse and feel satisfied they are the top DPS in their particular group.
I understand how this mentality develops because I had it when I played a Mage in WoW, and understood how the parser was impacting me.
I don't seriously believe I'm the only person to have experienced the psychological impact of the parser, which is why many choose to avoid them outright.

Here are some little fact for you:

-Bad players don't care about parse. Know a tank who joint a new static that doesn't parse. After weeks of wiping to enrage and the group keep insist it's his damage is bad (probably because he's new), he asked them to use parse to set the record straight. The result: as a tank he was outDPSing half of the group, and the 3DPS that was above him were gray while he's a purple.
-Players that go ham on parse while they can be many things, including toxic (usually no more or less than the bad players), elitist w/e, but "bad" players tend to be not one of those things.


If you ever had the luck to be graced by a party that full of parsers, it can turn into one of two things:

- If you are a good player, it's likely gonna be the best party you ever had. Things would die so fast, so little damage is taken, and everyone happy at the end.
- If you are a bad player, then either you gonna get a free carry, or you gonna make the party fall apart.

The point is: good and bad player (especially when they drip to the respective extreme end) don't tend to mix when they run into each others, especially in harder content. And frankly pretty much every debate/discussion/rant about this subject have always come down to that disparity. Take healer for a example: a high parse healer doesn't mean that healer doesn't heal. It means the healer will do the exact amount to keep the party alive, no more no less. Healers can't get a high parse by themselves, they rely on their party not to make dump mistake and take unnecessary damage, or tanking the floor that require them to raise. In an ideal scenario, they will play in a competent party that offer them exactly that. But that become a problem when they got pair with "bad" players. You know ... the type who insist "you're a healer, your job is to heal and cover my butt. If I miss a mechanic, you must heal me and not let me die, and if I kiss the floor it's your fault and you must raise me ASAP". And if the healer doesn't do that then it's "OMG YOU ARE A GREEDY HEALER, BAD HEALER NOT DOING YOUR JOB". Something like that.


A lot of time, they're not even talking in the same wavelength. In one of the recent topic that I think some of the people in this participated, there were this one person who declare "I never step into savage, but I know all what it is about and I believe it's not worth it". Then this person went on an on about how "Tenacity is a good stat" base on "evidence from expert roulette" while using all the wrong assumption about the "raid" stat. And people who actually do savage just like ... dude ...

It's not trickle down, it's just the case people like to dismiss anyone who doesn't play the way they want as "bad". Not really different then politic really.

[Forever_Learning]

Here are some little fact for you:

-Bad players don't care about parse.

My argument is that parses can make some players play badly and do incorrect things because they are overly focused on DPS.

I made the remark originally to explain why I prefer the status quo rather than having parsers be an official part of the game.

Are you arguing that parsers should be an official part of the game?

On the topic of people from different walks of life coming together, I hope they converse in a polite manner.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

My argument is that parses can make some players play badly and do incorrect things because they are overly focused on DPS.

I made the remark originally to explain why I prefer the status quo rather than having parsers be an official part of the game.

Are you arguing that parsers should be an official part of the game?

The thing is, parsers are usually only used in Savage/Ultimate and Savage/Ultimate is designed around maxing DPS. It's still a bit of hypocritical of SE to design content around it but not giving the players the tools to measure it. And as common as enrage-wipes are in this meta (still trying to finally beat E2Ss enrage myself..), I also laugh in the face of everyone telling "Healers don't need to DPS" or "Tank DPS is not that important".

[Sebazy]

The common denominator to all of these players is their over focus on DPS, why?

This is the main issue with your thinking.

If I had to point the blame at any single issue and say that this defines a good or bad player. It's their overall APM.

A bad player won't be keeping their GCD rolling. They won't be getting oGCDs and cooldowns in there. They will stop hitting buttons all together during movement phases and mechanics and may get flustered or distracted easily by things going wrong. It all boils down to hitting buttons. You've got no chance of hitting the button at a good time if you're not hitting it at all.

This applies to all roles. A bad tank that isn't getting value of their cooldowns isn't doing so because they're tunnelling on their DPS (you can typically guarantee that's grey anyway), it's because they just aren't hitting buttons fast enough for whatever reason, be it hand dexterity, speed of thought or even just a lack of understanding.

The same goes for truly bad healers, the fact that they may or may not DPS is kind of besides the point. Once mechanics start happening and people start taking damage, their healing can usually fall off a cliff as they panic and it's always reflected in their active rate and CPM.

Yes there are some healers out there that will focus too heavily on DPS and fail to see impending issues. But it's not really a tank problem. Certainly not to the extent that you're suggesting.