Thank you Yoshi for your stance on DPS meters

[linay]

But they don't?

It's not about do's or don'ts. They can.

The issue isn't about appropriately using the parser to help with actual issues that cause a wipe. It's about when someone misuse the parser information to call out someone specifically in a dungeon run where no one is dying and you're beating the enemies, etc. Obviously, when you know how fast a run can go, you can still call out people without actual parsing information, but that information is data that strengthens your argument, therefore, it facilitates your action in calling them out.

This is my own speculation (obviously), but given their official stance, it looks like (unless the problem is obvious without a parser, like someone keep failing mechanic) they would rather people call out the problem in general, and if the group can't do it, to disband, rather than pointing someone out specifically via parser information.

It's not ideal, but legitimate use being affected by illegitimate use is not surprising. And yes, people have to accept that not running optimally (aka mediocrity as another thread puts it) is acceptable means of playing the game in general from the devs' viewpoint as far as I can tell. People can of course choose to play with those who share their game play philosophy.

[Angus-Beef]

I'll just post what I've posted in another thread about parsing,

The tool is never at fault because it can only tell facts, what you do with those facts is the issue, People NEED to be willing to improve within FFs community, removing or adding a meter will change nothing so long as this remains the issue.

I'll even elaborate further, due to the quote sounding a bit, harsh. In this game we have content that requires optimization, Ultimate, Savage, and even some EX fights require it, parsing and being able to see the numbers needed to kill the boss or get through X phase is helpful for people wanting to get through the fight over wiping a bunch of times to one dps or a bunch of dps not meeting a check, or a healer not meeting a heal check, or tanks not mitigating properly.

And while yes calling someone out is toxic, not knowing who exactly is under-performing will also lead to people equally being toxic and throwing around the blame over trying to figure out what to do better. This situation is a double edged sword, theres negative on both sides, there positives on both sides. But in the end we need to as a community learn how to help one another, parser or no parser, If you go into Eden 4 Savage Day 1 and have no Parser, then you need to know YOUR part, know YOUR rotation, know when to pop YOUR buffs. Until WE take responsibility as a community for OUR actions, and learn to play better, learn to be helpful, learn to NOT HARASS people, We will always have these issues.

In the end, I will end on this, Recount, Skada Damage Meter, Details, ACT, These are programs that only present FACTS, what you do with these FACTS, is the problem, not the program. We as a community need to learn how to NOT be harsh and mean to our fellow players.

[SamSmoot]

You don't need to go that far. Just parse all players and then at the end of a run give players their A-F grade in comparison to all historical runs of that content for their job. The player only sees their own score. If you get an F you can ask around and people will tell you you need better gear or maybe the gear is good but your rotation isn't etc.. Or you can decide not to do anything about it. Nobody needs to know.

That would work also, especially with 4-player groups, since you'd be compared to all previous groups and not just the one you were in.
Something like this should also compare you only to others of the same job and +/- 10 item levels for accuracy though

[ForteNightshade]

Yes, Yoshi P isn't stupid and KNOWS that for the raiding scene ACT is useful, but if you are in a culture where that kind of pressure is baked in you're going to be more sensitive to how toxic it is versus a culture that engages in more bickering but at the end of the day considers harassment minor - and don't go out of their way for the most part to get someone to kill themselves over performance of a game. Like I said earlier the Koike incident that came up in game was a harsh reminder for Yoshi P on how scary that conflict can get for JP. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...arser/ddxxeua/

So do you release a copy of a JP game without an official parse?

I think people misinterpret me for being against parsing and getting better at performance due to how incredibly snarky/negative the replies have received. I'm actually not, but it's the way those replies are being made is why I SEE why we're never gonna get a parser.

The Koike incident is entirely isolated where those same players also ventured over to twitter to sexually harass the streamer. Do you really think her DPS being displayed mattered? They clearly didn't care about the ToS or any rule violation because they went out of their way to harass this poor woman on several platforms. Parsers were simply one more tool in the arsenal no different than someone who already intends to rob a store and grabs whatever they can improvise into a weapon. If this is truly one of the reasons Yoshida doesn't want parsers, it's a rather shortsighted excuse—one that puts all the blame on a tool instead of the people who were already willing to break their rules. Furthermore, it makes him look like a massive hypocrite when he goes on to allow ACT to function in a "grey area". The tool is bad enough it needs to be banned because it caused harassment yet we'll allow players to use it silently?

For the record, I don't think this incident has much impact on his decision. It's more the general belief he and the dev team have regarding content. The stance they have seemingly taken is as long as you clear, even if it means bringing up the slack of others, it's entirely fine. Their solution has been instead of providing a tool for improvement, they continuously make the content easier. That's why EX Primals have laughably low enrages now where you can have 15 deaths and still clear. It's also why Savage has become increasingly watered down.

[QT_Melon]

The Koike incident is entirely isolated where those same players also ventured over to twitter to sexually harass the streamer. Do you really think her DPS being displayed mattered? They clearly didn't care about the ToS or any rule violation because they went out of their way to harass this poor woman on several platforms.


For the record, I don't think this incident has much impact on his decision. It's more the general belief he and the dev team have regarding content. The stance they have seemingly taken is as long as you clear, even if it means bringing up the slack of others, it's entirely fine. Their solution has been instead of providing a tool for improvement, they continuously make the content easier. That's why EX Primals have laughably low enrages now where you can have 15 deaths and still clear. It's also why Savage has become increasingly watered down.

I think you very much missed the point about the culture of harassment. They didn't EVEN have a parser at that point. 2 Posts above you I also said this was just the most well documented case. This isn't the only case.

The general community in Japan does not waste time bickering or having an argument to begin with, they disband/shuffle the party and move on. They have a higher clear rate anyways.

The issue is that when the harassment occurs it's serious where the person is stalked people around them are also targeted to the point of getting address info and trying to get players to commit suicide.

There was a player recently banned from the game by SE, which had to withstand a long standing harassment issue and deal with this behavior. The start of it? He copied and pasted another person's text without crediting that person. The player long since apologized for it - but that wasn't enough. That player and anyone who came in contact with him was targeted with the type of harassment I mentioned above. The victim had long ago used a mod and that was continually brought up - because culturally the community highly frowns on the use of mods in any capacity (even cosmetic).

In game for a majority of content we have some ways to get around this. Savage being being a small amount of content we have the topic of Parsing via third party tool. Where he states what his culture does basically, be quiet about it. Disband and move on. Don't waste time bickering.

If he doesn't want to feel that a death or suicide was because of a GAME (due to how his culture is) I get it. I am not exactly happy about not having one in game but I get it. I get why after seeing non stop pages of "discussion" passive aggressive remarks, and outright insults that this is not going to happen and why it just cements it. I get why one incident just also further cemented their stance.

Does it suck that we do have to keep quiet about it, and not have an official one? Yeah it does (at least for us culturally) but at least we have a tool that gives us a start even if third party for Savage - but we still have to figure out the rest (ie clipping/weaving, optimal times for rotation, fight mechanics etc) but ACT isn't going to replace community/mentor advice.

[Penthea]

The general community in Japan does not waste time bickering or having an argument to begin with, they disband/shuffle the party and move on. They have a higher clear rate anyways.

The issue is that when the harassment occurs it's serious where the person is stalked people around them are also targeted to the point of getting address info and trying to get players to commit suicide.

It seems to be a cultural thing in eastern Asia to be very polite, don't say anything negative, and if something negative happens move on from it quickly and try to not get bogged down by it. They don't like arguing, so if someone doesn't conform to what they think is an acceptable standard, they drop the person and get on with their lives. But there is a point in which that all goes out the window and a witch hunt starts.

There was a player recently banned from the game by SE, which had to withstand a long standing harassment issue and deal with this behavior. The start of it? He copied and pasted another person's text without crediting that person. The player long since apologized for it - but that wasn't enough. That player and anyone who came in contact with him was targeted with the type of harassment I mentioned above. The victim had long ago used a mod and that was continually brought up - because culturally the community highly frowns on the use of mods in any capacity (even cosmetic).

Harassment in games is a problem all over the world but how it manifests isn't the same everywhere due to culture. The above might seem crazy to us in the west but this kind of thing isn't entirely unusual in the far east. If you do something bad enough over there that provokes a public negative response, things can get really really ugly.

This isn't to say things are better in the west, because they're not. They are merely different. Very rarely does a witch hunt like the above begin with something so minor. I would even go as far as to say a witch hunt on that scale is very rare. While that is good, the flip side is when players in the west are unhappy they're often open about it instantly, and this results in seeing harassment issues significantly more often.

Basically in the west harassment happens more often, but it is generally little other than flinging some insults and it's over within the day if not the hour. In the east by comparison you rarely come across harassment but when you do it is sometimes merciless and can last for long periods of time.

It certainly is some food for thought.

We like to argue about parsers here, why we should have them, why we shouldn't, and a lot of people saying we should just suck it up and try to improve when someone tells us we're bad. When we argue about it we are thinking about our experiences as players in our own region within our own culture. We say "someone saying your dps is bad isn't such a horrible thing" and in the grand scheme of things it is not. However...

...when you look at how harassment sometimes manifests in Japan the argument surrounding parsers does change. Perhaps SE are concerned that having an official parser would result in some of the insane witch hunts in the JP servers we sometimes hear about.

In the west we would never think that it would be possible for someone to be publicly ostracised so much that anyone who is even in contact with them is given the same treatment. In Japan? We've seen it happen already and for something we would consider really minor. So it's not outside the realms of possibility that it could happen due to a dps issue as well. We all hate when players are not good at the game but I think everyone here would agree that simply being unskilled or lazy doesn't warrant a witch hunt. In Japan? Well...that might be a different story.

Does it suck that we do have to keep quiet about it, and not have an official one? Yeah it does

It does. I really would love to see some manner of parser come to the game. A personal one at least that shows the player only how they performed, and grade it so they have some idea as to whether it is good or not. Parsers are incredibly useful tools but the community in any region can't be trusted to give and take criticism sensibly and that is why we don't have one.

[Bacons]

Parsers don't cause toxicity. You know what does? Having 2 dps doing 15k while the other two are struggling to break 8k and causing the party to fail the same dps check over and over. At the end of the day, it's a simple matter of subtraction. Boss has X hp, you need to take away Y amount by Z time or you fail.

But to avoid hurt feelings we can't ask the nin why he isn't using TA at all, or the dnc why he hasn't had a dance partner for the last 2 attempts. Instead we have to just kick that person so they never get any better and come whine about elitist groups kicking them for no reason.

[Shurrikhan]

It seems to be a cultural thing in eastern Asia to be very polite, don't say anything negative, and if something negative happens move on from it quickly and try to not get bogged down by it. They don't like arguing, so if someone doesn't conform to what they think is an acceptable standard, they drop the person and get on with their lives. But there is a point in which that all goes out the window and a witch hunt starts.

When playing on Chocobo they always seemed as kick-happy as any NA server, just sometimes with even less said.

[Deceptus]

In the end, I will end on this, Recount, Skada Damage Meter, Details, ACT, These are programs that only present FACTS, what you do with these FACTS, is the problem, not the program. We as a community need to learn how to NOT be harsh and mean to our fellow players.

On the flipside if you're in the content where these facts matter (savage, ultimate and some new ex's) don't be surprised if people see you slacking and ask for you to improve.

Respect other people's time.

[Penthea]

When playing on Chocobo they always seemed as kick-happy as any NA server, just sometimes with even less said.

My apologies I didn't make it clear I was speaking very generally about people in that particular section, and not specifically about the JP servers. I have some friends who lived in Japan for a while who told me about how people act there, and I am personally interested in eastern Asian media so I am familiar with what their audiences consider to be acceptable or unacceptable, and how they act with either reaction. A lot of what we consider to be very minor in the west (like a pop star dating someone, or accidentally saying profanity) can seriously damage your career in eastern Asia. My impression is that as long as people conform and do their best to not offend anyone, everything is very calm, but when someone does a mishap that could be interpreted as disrespect it can snowball very fast.