Thank you Yoshi for your stance on DPS meters

[EaMett]

Because 90% of the time the above is a problem is because people call them out using a parser. There have been many ways people have stated a singular player isn't doing their job optimally without harassing and being constructive.

It doesn't matter how polite and constructive you are. The second you isolate a single person out for their dps you're walking a fine line and risk being reported. Your stance would come from parsing anyways because there aren't really any other ways of knowing if a single person's DPS is low, the in game threat meter is too small to tell most of the time.
The flip side to this is you don't parse and you wipe consistently to enrage or dps checks and don't know why. This clearly shows the game is lacking some form of mechanic/tool.

Without parsing you would also be hard pressed to put a group together of similarly skilled players. Which is a must for static integrity. Again the game is lacking something here to stand by itself. It would all be fine and dandy if the content were all super easy, but since they push content that really entices optimization there's a real dichotomy between the high tier content they put out and their "no" parsing ToS (which is diff from their "don't mention it" stance).

[Shurrikhan]

I had a poor sprout rogue in wow who got vote kicked in RFC for low dps because poor guy couldn't do anything with the 4 of us full heirloom melting mobs..

WoW is from NA/FFXIV from JP your laws =/= their laws.

And players who care about parsers will most likely use it so they won't stick with the eula and if they do it will be mostly because it's kinda annoying to setup.
If we put the SE stance on Third Party Tools away for a moment it's like saying it's unfair for people who don't use Recount/Skada/Details.

If they weren't doing anything, neither heirlooms nor a lack of parsers would have saved them. Heirlooms are strictly inferior to at-level gear. And a rogue who isn't allowed to initiate isn't going to get in an attack on anything if running with, say, 3 Marksmen, regardless of how poorly their geared, just due to how that spec bursts. (Same for any other bursty ranged in an easy dungeon; with so little enemy HP, it'll quickly feel useless to take a melee into focused fire; you'd need to pull large and for the melee to have good AoE for them to feel like they have a place.) That's not a parser problem, nor a community problem -- it's a consequence of tuning.

[Shurrikhan]

Because 90% of the time the above is a problem is because people call them out using a parser. There have been many ways people have stated a singular player isn't doing their job optimally without harassing and being constructive.

No, it's a problem when you put a gag order on criticism, arming each player who'd rather threaten others than improve with... a ban gun. Most of the time that gun will merely fire blanks, but if you're just going about your day, how often will that threat have zero effect on your ability to kick one petulant underperformer for the benefit of everyone else? Suddenly every group decision has to be weighed against who's going to take the flak for a good call, all atop no longer being perfectly certain that you are in fact making the right call.

That is a toxic environment.

[QT_Melon]

It doesn't matter how polite and constructive you are. The second you isolate a single person out for their dps you're walking a fine line and risk being reported. Your stance would come from parsing anyways because there aren't really any other ways of knowing if a single person's DPS is low, the in game threat meter is too small to tell most of the time.
The flip side to this is you don't parse and you wipe consistently to enrage or dps checks and don't know why. This clearly shows the game is lacking some form of mechanic/tool.

Without parsing you would also be hard pressed to put a group together of similarly skilled players. Which is a must for static integrity. Again the game is lacking something here to stand by itself. It would all be fine and dandy if the content were all super easy, but since they push content that really entices optimization there's a real dichotomy between the high tier content they put out and their "no" parsing ToS (which is diff from their "don't mention it" stance).

First off, what is parsing? What is ACT?

They are tools. Right? The tool does what? Read your battle log. It tallies up the numbers for you. The settings also allow for things like an "end encounter rate" whether or not you want Pets in the damage equation/healing equation etc...

So the argument is that "there's no way of telling" Oh there always was. It's just cumbersome. So I understand why said tool exists and not arguing about using said tool.


What I am talking about is the harassment issue involving said tool. We also have the fact it's against the terms of service to use said tool. So that's why even though we know people use them for ease of access on the PC platform particularly - the general idea holds present.

A person who raids should know what the entire group should be putting out. That also includes tanks and healers.

My statement asked about this part of the in game parser. Where do you stop on the parsing - like ONLY DPS? If you have a low DPS, is that person really the problem? If we're talking about a person that does half their DPS, you can mention the person has issues with their rotation and move on. The other part may be culture as Japan doesn't bother (unless you are exceptionally bad and they want to send 2ch after you) bickering in parties, they disband and move one AND THAT'S WITH ALL JOBS INVOLVED.

But going on. It may not be the lowest performing DPS is a tank in a particular instance isn't doing much damage at all and doing 1/3 of the damage output that's normally in range for that tank. If we have a parser FOR ONLY DPS in game, and it's a TANK that's part of the issue...considering they generally have the most uptime. People only getting part of that equation are going to start harassing the DPS.

A lot of the people arguing back about not having the parser, say it in the worst, least engaging way as possible for the other side to see how one can be constructive and positive about it. That's the problem. I'm actually offering ideas for players to engage with others in a positive way that's far less likely to cause problems, but people still want to act overly negative about it. So that's why I do feel we've dug our own graves in EVER having a meaningful conversation of having an in game parser. It also didn't help to have the Koike incident - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...arser/ddxxeua/ to cement this issue.

So sadly now I can see why the other camp wants to dig its foot in and say "the community is toxic and shouldn't have parsers" if the person can't even TRY their best on talking with players but then demand others TRY their best

[ForteNightshade]

No. People have said in parties before "we failed the DPS check" it's never been a problem.

Specifically berating a player with a third party tool IS however frowned upon, and punishable.

Telling a player that he/she may want to brush up on his/her rotation and that Stone Sea Sky/Lawns may be a good starting point, and telling them you only want to help them improve is not harassment. It never has been.

The key things are harassment and third party tools.

If you want players to do their best, simply DO YOUR best to relay that information in a non harassing way.

Except what you described is treated like harassment. You have to walk on eggshells to tell a Black Mage their damage is low because the primary concern the devs seem to have is making sure that Black Mage's feelings aren't hurt. I fail to see why saying, "<insert name> your damage is really low. What's going on?" is a problem. Will some people lose their mind? Absolutely. Warn, suspend or ban them. This isn't a difficult concept. The reason they aren't doing it is to keep up the illusion everything is sunshine and rainbows.

[Gemina]

How do you know which player needs to brush up on their rotation without the 3rd party tools? Short of someone obviously using the same attack over and over, of course. Buff/debuffs in the target and party frames only tell part of the story and you still may not know there's a problem with any of those unless it's something that should have 100% uptime outside of transitions.

No third party tools mean I have no way to analyze my performance and find ways to improve since SE won't give me those tools in the first place.

The third party tools are not the problem in most cases. The problem is the players who misuse them to harass others. Taking away tools does not stop the harassment. Those who like to harass will continue to do so.

In the meantime you have removed the tool that a player could have been using to analyze and improve their performance, thus reducing their risk of becoming a target for harassment in the first place.

Wouldn't it be better to remove the harasser and leave the useful tool in place?

You talk as if third parties tools are needed to clear content, and improve your gameplay. Neither if which is true. The PS4 allows me to record my encounter, and I do often. Each time I have viewed one of my videos, I always see ways I can improve, and also the mistakes I made. I have used that visual data to greatly improve my performance the next time I go into the instance. I've also used them for unsynced savage runs to see which and why mechanics are being failed and forcing a reset.

The truth I find is that third party tools help with optimization, which is needed for efficiency; not a clear. And while I can understand that as content becomes more repetitive, efficiency becomes more important; however, players using parsers for such purposes will have a distinct advantage over console players or those who choose not to use these tools. I'm not implying that the tools themselves boost DPS, or that all third party tool users are cheaters. What I am saying though is that it is entirely erroneous to think that players need these tools to improve.

You are right that the problem is not the tool, but the harasser. However, the tool isn't a sentient, paying subscriber; who may, or may not be at fault depending on the validity of those who report them. So let's not be all in favor for optimization and efficiency, and then chastise SE when they do the exact same thing in an attempt to resolve the issue.

[QT_Melon]

Except what you described is treated like harassment. You have to walk on eggshells to tell a Black Mage their damage is low because the primary concern the devs seem to have is making sure that Black Mage's feelings aren't hurt. I fail to see why saying, "<insert name> your damage is really low. What's going on?" is a problem. Will some people lose their mind? Absolutely. Warn, suspend or ban them. This isn't a difficult concept. The reason they aren't doing it is to keep up the illusion everything is sunshine and rainbows.

By the way, they do the same if you call out a healer or tank for the very circumstances the former poster mentioned too. So none of those cases were never okay and DPS got a free pass especially said the wrong way. But does someone have a GM warning from saying it in a polite way, or are we just all assuming that what you're saying IS exactly that case?

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

Having pugged Savage often I've seen so many groups just disband because of 1 or 2 people having such atrocious DPS that you even wonder how they got this far into the tier. Declaring they will never add parsers felt disheartening to hear because it goes to show that the developers are forever happy to keep parsers in a grey zone instead of add official ones where they can give proper rules regarding. Just don't harass or risk being suspended and banned, it's not difficult to enforce that rule and gives players a clear guideline :S.

No one cares about DPS or having the best optimized players in casual content. Unless it's just god awful that's causing stress to the majority of players in the instance (which is rare). But savage and ultimate content they are necessary not just for self improvement but to see where things went wrong. If tanks don't use a CD and get wrecked guess what, they get called up on it and asked to use a cooldown. Or a healer gets asked to heal more. But for some reason, saying: "*username* can you dps some more please, we aren't hitting the dps check" can risk you getting banned. It's ridiculous.

Allow parsers, ban the people who are toxic. Give tools to enable the community to strive for something more than mediocrity (seriously, why has all casual content turned into hand holding? Amdapor keep, pharos sirius coil, hard modes and extremes used to actually give people a reason to step up their game. Everything outside of savage and ultimate is faceroll). It only hurts the endgame playerbase and causes frustration in those that don't want to spend an hour wiping to content for hours in a farm party because someone isn't pulling their weight. But I digress, some people are just happier to live blissfully ignorant that they have wiped the party to enrage and point the finger at someone else than be told "can you do more dps" incase it hurts their feelings...

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Just a question for those who say the tool leads to toxic behavior

Are you being seriouse really are you?
Because if you are.....
Do you also blame games for violence?
You can't blame the tool or entertainment for human behavior. The tools don't make a person behave diffrently than they normally would. The cold truth of it those people who are being called "toxic" would always behave that way rather they use a tool or not just like anyone who is violent is violent because thats who they are not because a "tool" or entertainment made them do it. People do what they want to do stop blaming innocent tools,objects,drinks etc for human natural behavior

[Reimmi]

I think there should be a DPS meter, but only in content where it matters
Extreme, savage, ultimate, etc, no dungeons/normal raids or the such, since they are un-necessary with no enrage mechanics
let people know that they need to improve to clear that content