FFXIV's Double Standard - Third-Party Usage and Spam Report Trolls

[Reap00]

When you're crying, all you see is crying because your tears have obscured your vision. Here. Dry them with this reality check: Your opinion isn't right just because you have it.

Why would I change my opinion due to nonsense a perfect stranger spouts on a public forum? Silly kids.

[Krotoan]

This is becoming a big issue. I've been seeing an uptick of some people getting suspended for the dumbest things. My tank for my group today was suspended for 10 days over absolutely nothing - and a lot of this is caused by the double standard that was set by SE from when Xenos was banned for a clip on Twitch(which is OUTSIDE of FFXIV).

"absolutely nothing" is a HUGE gloss over. We need some details here. I've yet to have any friends, LS members or FC members get even warnings for "absolutely nothing".

As for Xenos: Streaming yourself is basically providing evidence. Just because it wasn't within the client doesn't mean it isn't actionable by them. Maybe don't stream if you're going to break their TOS.

[Nestama]

All I see is a lot of crying kids. You won't change my opinion. You don't need parsers.

In dungeons and alliance raids, definitely not. Maybe Extreme content, too, depending on the DPS check. For Savage and/or Ultimate though, it really helps. It adds up everyone's DPS and shows you what the parties overall DPS is which can tell you whether you're meeting the DPS check or not. Also seeing if you're doing the expected DPS of {job} is nice, imo. Especially if you have high ping.

[EaMett]

It's always the people who do content where performance heavily matters that think this. It's cute every time.

Thanks for siding with me. And yes, a performance measuring tool is useful for content where performance matters. Not so much elsewhere.

[Vyrerus]

By whom is the question.

Anybody who plays well. Optimized, "theorycrafted" rotations and substats aren't required for clears. They help, a ton, but they aren't required. Neither is parsing nor datamining. As for gearing, there are two ways to gear, conceptually. You either gear for consistent damage or mercurial damage. Mercurial damage generally trends higher due to being multiplicative with raid buffs, but it varies job to job and is usually at disadvantage early in new expansions. Though it also depends on the substat totals you have to work with, with the gear allocated to your job.

Before you could assume that you had to improve or change your rotation as individuals, you'd have to get to enrage with nobody dying, because more often than improper rotations, it's player death or fight illiteracy that leads to enrage wipes rather than one person doing a less-than optimal rotation. Battle strategy and how mechanics are reacted to and carried out has a far greater impact on raid and individual DPS than fine tuning a rotation.

Parsers don't make people understand concepts, and honestly, you have to play from a conceptual standpoint in order to "craft" optimal rotations. The parser itself is merely what checks the math to rule out human error, but it is not necessary.

[Vyrerus]

You do realize every single rotation, theorycraft and guide all rely on parse data and simulations, yes? None of them could exist with accurate information if it weren't for parses because they'd have no way to verify anything. .

Many rotations in this game only have one or two logical loops for the order in which each jobs' actions should be performed. As such, it's quite easy to find what works and what doesn't in order to achieve high damage. Of course, without a parser to verify the math more easily, it'd be a lot harder to verify which rotation is best, but it'd still be doable. Not only that, but for a lot of jobs, particularly Tanks and Healers, their rotations are so easy that the only way to improve on doing them is to physically improve your reflexes, ping, and conceptual level of play. Like you don't need a parser to tell you that it would behoove you as a tank to not lose uptime if possible, get in as many or all of your big hits under buffs, both yours and the party's. As such, there's an upper limit to how well you can perform, and once you reach it, everything else comes down to gearing, RNG, fight strategy, and the proficiency of your team.

Also bear in mind that since parsers don't teach you what's important to look at within an parse itself, that you'd still have to understand things like crit variance and the like in order to understand parse results. If you're already playing from a conceptual standpoint, then all a parser really is, is an easy way to see all of the fight statistics. While useful, it's unnecessary.

[Vyrerus]

So please, indulge me. What is optimization to you? Shower me in your 0 experience of the things you've directly spoken of.

Sure thing, though no member of the community will ever have set opinions.

Optimization in terms of FFXIV is things like, mapping out the fight with exact timers for cooldown usage and burst windows. Or knowing which opener to use if part of your opener relies on a speed buff prior to an attack buff vs. the length of the fight and how its downtime windows affect that.
Optimization is communication between healers on who's healing what, with what, and whether or not we're gonna lowride HP for snap heals for Limit Break speed boosting (Not sure if this is applicable anymore).
Optimization is tanks and the party deciding when and where they're going to position the boss, whether party positions for mechanics should be adjust based on that or not, depending on party composition.
Optimization is deciding whether or not the standard comp is required for the fight or not. If not, what's best to double or not double up on.
Optimization is fine tuning for the type of clear you want. There's progression optimization and then there's speed-kill optimization and then there's challenge run optimization.

All optimization really means is maximizing your, or your group's, performance for the task you want to perform.

Also, if it's something that must be agreed upon by the group, then it's not something that would be done by default. This includes any discussion of individual positions or boss facing relative positions. So your last example of what's not optimization doesn't hold up (Ruby/E5S), since by considering that and enforcing what will be done in line with the group's strategy would serve to improve performance of the group as a whole.

I've raided Savage in this game for as long as it's been around, so I've got some experience in this. Please, be less condescending in further discussion.

[SinisterJoints]

I'm always impressed when people who do literally no endgame at all (which is the main place things like ACT are used or matter) are such experts on it.

I'm always impressed that people think just because other's dont raid that they don't know about ACT's Timeline plugin, or callout plugin, timers plugin and ofc course, dps plugin. Please stop...

[SinisterJoints]

You don't need a parser to improve. The people that spout that drivel are the same people that enjoy bashing other players because they aren't up to their standard. That is why you don't have parsers in this game officially and never will.

then how do you measure your improvement? pencil and paper?

[Vyrerus]

then how do you measure your improvement? pencil and paper?

By keeping track of your wipe to clear consistency. Clear consistency isn't held in very high regard by our raiding playerbase, for some strange reason.

For individual DPS, how fast you can break the current highest SSS dummy. For group, how fast you clear fights with the same set of players.