Thank you Yoshi for your stance on DPS meters

[EaMett]

snip

I'm not arguing for an ingame parser, nor do I think talking about someone's DPS should be done in any manner other than politely and constructively. I'm just saying SE's ToS, stance, and enforcement (or in the case of parsers, lack of) is a bit of a mess and in some cases creates double standards.

At the end of the day, the raiding community will still parse, SE won't do anything about it unless it's used to harass people (as they should) and we'll keep seeing threads either complaining about parsing or asking for official parsers. The great cycle of mmo life.

[EaMett]

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?

It's the fact it's obvious you can tell they were dpsing low thanks to third party that gets people banned. No matter how polite they are and that's part of the issue. You're being polite and that's fine, but how tdo you know their dps was low? Oh you're parsing > banned because they didn't like being called out and reported you.

[Barraind]

14 design team: We want to make encounters with enrage timers and complex mechanics.

14 design team: We want to make sure people dont have the tools to figure out the mechanics of things without using 3rd party tools.

14 design team: Please dont use 3rd party tools.


Yoshi even KNOWS people that didnt have parsers would manually grep or parse logs after every fight to see what mechanics were doing, what incoming and outgoing dps was, and how long effects lasted. He fully admitted it in his next breath. He knows for a fact its been done since the late 90's in MMO's. Their stance on it is, has been, and will be asinine, and is contradicted by their stance of what encounters they want to add to the game.

[Annihilism]

Why not just get better at the game and not hold back your party because you rather lala erp?

[ForteNightshade]

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?

You can clearly see when a tank or healer makes a mistake on their primary role because it directly results in either their death or someone else's. This isn't true about DPS since the only measure for their success is how much damage they do, which we aren't allowed to see publicly. As for GMs, we cannot post numbers, thus we have no way of providing evidence someone is underperforming. I can tell a Samurai "Your damage is really low, dude." And he can reply, "Are you parsing?! I'mma report you." I now have to dance around and say something like "Nope. I've just been watching your rotation" to hopefully get around potentially being dropped in GM gaol.

Ironically, that scenario above is pretty toxic, and far more common than raiders harassing casual players. But the devs opt to ignore that based on the unproven notion public damage meters would instantly make the whole game toxic. Their end goal is to make sure no one feels bad for being a weak link. It's quite sad we a competitive ranking system for PvP, Crafting and Fishing but nothing combat related despite that being the main attraction of this game.

14 design team: We want to make encounters with enrage timers and complex mechanics.

14 design team: We want to make sure people dont have the tools to figure out the mechanics of things without using 3rd party tools.

14 design team: Please dont use 3rd party tools.


Yoshi even KNOWS people that didnt have parsers would manually grep or parse logs after every fight to see what mechanics were doing, what incoming and outgoing dps was, and how long effects lasted. He fully admitted it in his next breath. He knows for a fact its been done since the late 90's in MMO's. Their stance on it is, has been, and will be asinine, and is contradicted by their stance of what encounters they want to add to the game.

The real irony is Yoshida know were they ever to break ACT somehow, the raid scene dies. That program and FFlogs basically keeps the raid scene alive because it actively give people a goal to strive for even if you're simply aiming for self improvement. There's a reason every other major MMO has a built in parser. FFXIV just likes to pretend otherwise.

[SaberMaxwell]

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.

I don't disagree with the core message; you don't need third party tools to get better. You don't need gym equipment to work out either. They are very helpful, though, and can expedite the process. I'd just like to take this moment to point out that the PS4 is a third party to SE. Their record feature is literally a third party tool. It falls under the same "third party tools" that Yoshi P pointed out when mentioning Discord, how it doesn't interfere with the game and thus is okay, but it remains a third party tool. StreamLabs OBS, likewise, was way more useful to my prog than a parser was. Humorously enough, like a parser, it can be used to harass others as seen in the case of Arthars v. That One Black Mage, 2019.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

While I'll agree that there are ways to tell when someone is underperforming, you're purposely leaving out two important factors:

1. It doesn't matter if you find out who's wasting everyone's time without a parser if they can just accuse you of using a parser. As there is no way to prove use of a parser short of screenshots, any stance the developers take against parsers in practice will require that the accuser's words are taken as fact. They could be considered partial, such that X number of reports must be filed against a given player for them to be banned, but you nonetheless empower people to harass others with zero proof, be it of actual harassment or of use of third-party tools.
   
   
2. Constraints of available time, effort, and attention do matter. That you could do a particular task given infinite time is not the same as being able to complete it within the time given or the task being practically applicable. No one has ever claimed that parsers provide unique information, only that they are uniquely convenient. That convenience does in some way make them uniquely informative. Please do not conflate a computer program and an abacus for sake of twisted argument.

Yes, I can identify an Ice Mage as an underperformer by the simple fact that he is refusing to use Fire spells. I can tell when a DRG is cutting their combos short, or when a Bard is delaying between song refreshes, or even when a SMN isn't juggling their Tri-disasters well. The obvious will remain obvious, to whatever degree the party is familiar with the jobs in question. Bad luck if you're a popularly played job (or if the possible errors therein are considered common knowledge, however flawed that knowledge may actually be); good luck if you're a more rarely played job.

The problem is the closer calls and the toxicity a lack of timely information enforces. You now have to wonder whether a person actually made more mistakes, or if their mistakes were just more visible. And in any kick, you have to wonder who's going to take the blame and the potential ban for having removed a player who had no business expecting everyone else to carry them through the content. That is, again, toxic.

[Shurrikhan]

Why not just get better at the game and not hold back your party because you rather lala erp?

Because lala erp is the game's core attraction and shouldn't be oppressed by people who want to do content?

[Gemina]

I don't disagree with the core message; you don't need third party tools to get better. You don't need gym equipment to work out either. They are very helpful, though, and can expedite the process. I'd just like to take this moment to point out that the PS4 is a third party to SE. Their record feature is literally a third party tool. It falls under the same "third party tools" that Yoshi P pointed out when mentioning Discord, how it doesn't interfere with the game and thus is okay, but it remains a third party tool. StreamLabs OBS, likewise, was way more useful to my prog than a parser was. Humorously enough, like a parser, it can be used to harass others as seen in the case of Arthars v. That One Black Mage, 2019.

Fair enough. I don't have an argument towards that. However I will also point out that I don't need to see everyone else's progress at the gym in order to expedite this process. And if we want to continue with the analogy, if there is a piece of equipment at the gym that I am prohibited to use despite the fact that I know it will improve my workout; I'm not going to use it, because it's against the rules and I would like to continue to workout at this gym.

Fact of the matter is that players who want to improve will use whatever tools are available to them in order to do so, and any tool that can be used maliciously will have to be dealt with, or a guideline set that they are not allowed. We're still on square one, unfortunately. Now in my case, the game does have a duty recorder but it is limited. As such, I still use the PS4 capture feature. I'm willing to bet the same could be said for the parsers. If SE did bring in a tool where a player can only view their own performance, that tool would be deemed inferior and the same third party tools being used now will remain. Why spend the resources when you can just nip it at the bud?

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

snip

But people do go to the gym in groups and spot for one another and have coaches tell them how to lift properly etc. It's the same principle whether you go to the gym for self improvement or as a group to help others as well as yourself, it's just that going to the gym has no enrage so there's no need to kick someone out for low dps (lifting low or w.e).

It would be like this, a dumbbell (parser) by itself is not inherently toxic to other people but if some idiot decides to attack someone with dumbbell (Parser) is it better to restrict the dumbbell for the whole gym? Or just ban the idiot that used it as a weapon? The point here is that SE doesn't want to even consider a parser, even if it presented just your own dps and damage taken it would be at least a start, it wouldn't matter if it was inferior to ACT, it would enable the whole playerbase to get an idea of what they are doing especially PS4 players.