Parsers add replayability for casual players

[NanaWiloh]

So if you support parsing and want to point out to people that they could improve. Well hiding your own LOGS or posting on a character that has not see a run in ages. Is going to raise questions about your motives and honesty in this matter. Talking about using data to back your claims then hiding your own data is just being two faced. To those who support parsing and dont hide their data. Thank you for being open I give you credit and a nod of respect.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

So if you support parsing and want to point out to people that they could improve. Well hiding your own LOGS or posting on a character that has not see a run in ages. Is going to raise questions about your motives and honesty in this matter. Talking about using data to back your claims then hiding your own data is just being two faced. To those who support parsing and dont hide their data. Thank you for being open I give you credit and a nod of respect.

Hiding logs in general is frowned upon. I may not be proud of mine - especially during last tier - but keeping them concealed lowkey makes me looks sus.

[linayar]

Except it isn't emboldening players as that applies they're condoning the behavior.

You don't have to condone someone's behavior to embolden them to do it. If they allow parser in the game, that will open up discussion based on parser in game.

They're only able to clear on the backs of better players willing to put forth more effort. This is the intrinsic problem people have, specially at the higher end difficulty level. Many of us on the pro-parser side aren't asking for perfection but an effort and willingness to improve. Of course SE has little incentive to promote any system that might keeps players away no matter how unfit they are for that content since it potentially impacts their bottom line.

SE also has little incentive to micromanage player interaction. If you don't like how someone else plays the game, then you don't have to play with them. Parser won't do anything for people who don't care to improve.

I guess I can report my static members if I cause a wipe and they point it out because it's pointing out an inconvenient truth, since it's harassment now.

Or maybe I can hold myself accountable and take no offense which is honestly bare minimum in a cooperative setting regardless of the difficulty of the content.

It's not an either-or scenario. You can hold yourself accountable and try to improve based on what they say and still take offense and report them for how they say it. The moderator will then (hopefully) carefully examine any evidence they have and decide whether it is harassment. If it is, then your static members can also hold themselves accountable and be held accountable by SE for what they say and maybe they'll learn to say it better next time.

[Rinhi]

So if you support parsing and want to point out to people that they could improve. Well hiding your own LOGS or posting on a character that has not see a run in ages. Is going to raise questions about your motives and honesty in this matter. Talking about using data to back your claims then hiding your own data is just being two faced. To those who support parsing and dont hide their data. Thank you for being open I give you credit and a nod of respect.

storm themselves said they haven't had done any hard content in several years in a different thread, so their opinion comes from a purely casual viewpoint
same goes for mine

Consider the argument in this thread. Many raiders are coming in and saying they want to not only hold people to their arbitrary standards in their own content, but they want the content aimed at the casual playerbase to also hold to those arbitrary standards.

Raiders don't like casuals who don't prepare for the hardcore content and who don't view that content with a hardcore mindset. That's a fair assessment. But another fair assessment is that the more hardcore playerbase can't and won't accept the casual mindset in the casual's content and instead want to force their own rules on it.

If raiders want casuals to respect their content, they have to also be willing to respect the casual's content.

honest question, what do you gain by being so disingenuous? almost no one (of the raiding folk that posted) said that casuals should be held to their standard, not a single one, yet most of you anti-parser posters are pretending they do and endlessly post and preach about it as if they do, why?
what do you gain from straight up lying?

people generally don't like it when other people waste their time or worse, play bad on purpose because 'they don't like how skill X or Z looks' or they RP as a freeze mage, which is straight up toxic and griefing.

not a single person is asking everyone to play like a tryhard pro-gamer in all kind of content, but just that people try to learn how to play their classes and not get coddled by people excusing and enabling their toxic behaviour

most of the arguments against it are completely hypothetical what-if scenarios or prior bad experiences, either by an a**, which is a valid concern, but one which also can be swiftly dealt with by a GM, or prior games, but those games weren't XIV

Let us make two assumptions here.
[...]

people against setting up some kind of standard will just ignore this post or dismiss it as anecdotal evidence, which it is, but use their own anecdotal evidence as a complete and undeniable fact

[SturmChurro]

..

People wasting my time is literally why I stopped doing extremes, and the few times I tried to PUG savage was even worse.. I gave that up in a matter of weeks. Constant 'trap' parties, "farms". I could barely prog, because even when a party was labeled a specific way people who have no idea what they are doing (or looking for a free ride) join anyway, and I had to repeat the same thing over and over and over - not even progging further. Tens of hours wasted. Don't get me wrong, when EW comes out I'll probably jump back into it (for a time), but God...

[Lanadra]

almost no one (of the raiding folk that posted) said that casuals should be held to their standard, not a single one, yet most of you anti-parser posters are pretending they do and endlessly post and preach about it as if they do

Speaking as someone who would qualify as 'anti-parser', I can and will recognize that what most pro-parser folks are asking for is not 'play Stone Vigil at Savage level' but rather 'have a decent understanding of the basics of your job and use them as is generally regarded as common sense'.

Common sense in this case being: Don't stand in the bad stuff. Use AoE's for grouped enemies. Pitch in with DPS as a healer when the situation allows for it (which is plenty often). Use enmity skill as a tank. Do rotations that make sense and as the skills literally tell you to. Etc.

None of the above gives me any kind of an inkling of a reason as to why DF content, why, to use the same example, Stone Vigil needs a parser used in it. But then that has been my primary issue with this entire subject and as I've stated numerous times at earlier points in this thread.

The status quo purely from a 'how do we use parsers' perspective works. Those who want it, have it, those who don't want it, don't have to deal with it. Those who harass others with it are actioned for it. This is how SE wants it to function, where they'll turn a blind eye to those who use these tools in good faith and are free to smack down any bad actors as they desire.

People.. pro-parser people, have already indicated that they don't need a parser to see whether or not someone is underperforming, they can tell even without. This all seems to be about some strange desire to force an officially sanctioned parser on everyone whether you want it or not.

Above is also why I personally am anti-parser. I don't care that people who play savage/ultimate use it. I understand that the content and specifically DPS checks require such. Have at it.

What I do care about is that I don't have to deal with it. I don't use a parser. I don't play content that requires a parser. I play my jobs competently for normal difficulty content (read: not savage level). I simply do not want to be forced to deal with a parser. If I wanted one, I would be using ACT.

This is what a lot of pro-parser people don't seem to get. Just because someone doesn't want a parser forced into their face no matter what they do, does not mean that we accept or excuse poor play, as in, exceptionally poor play or silliness like 'i don't want to use half my kit because I'm ice mage'. I would be just as annoyed as any of you would I be forced to deal with such nonsense.

Yes, DF means you, even if through gritted teeth, sometimes have to deal with shit people. At the same time, asking a healer to use more than just Cure as well as DPS in the ample down time they get is not 'telling someone how to play', it's asking them to be at least moderately considerate of the fact that they're only one of 4/8/24 people doing the content and that others also rely on their performance to ultimately clear content in a way that everyone can be happy with.

[Shurrikhan]

People.. pro-parser people, have already indicated that they don't need a parser to see whether or not someone is underperforming, they can tell even without. This all seems to be about some strange desire to force an officially sanctioned parser on everyone whether you want it or not..

People... pro-"literacy" people, have already indicated they don't need books to learn how to do the tasks they encounter. This all seems to be about some strange desire to force officially sanctioned ink-bound paper masses on everyone whether you like it or not.

I don't mean to tease, exactly, but if a competing viewpoint is that the only thing the tool (a parser, in this case) uniquely provides is a information of threshold convenience as to be useful as a learning tool or to better contextualize what one is already seeing, why are we treating "parser" as if it were itself derogatory? Just a note, and I apologize if I've misread the tone here.

What I do care about is that I don't have to deal with it. I don't use a parser. I don't play content that requires a parser. I play my jobs competently for normal difficulty content (read: not savage level). I simply do not want to be forced to deal with a parser. If I wanted one, I would be using ACT.

Personally, I don't like playing group content with my mini-map open or chat open unless I need them. As integral as they may seemingly be in general, or certainly be when their need arises on the rare occasion, I have absolutely no use for them most of the time. To me, they're distracting. But, nicely, I don't need to see them. Unless/until there are markers set up, call-outs, or likely points of discussion following a wipe, I simply have them hidden. I can do that.

Why, in content that has no need for a parser, would the toggleable parser UI element be any different from any of the other, similarly toggleable, UI elements?

I don't ask this to harass, but rather in the vein that there is a mutual exclusive element here... if those who do want to, even if only a single time, right-click (down thrice, right once, X, left, down, X, Circle x2 on Controller) on their parser would occlude any and all affordances of real-time or post-combat conveniently compiled quantitative information to all console users or any PC users who don't want to risk ToS infringement or aren't comfortable installing addons.

I understand the concern, if held, that the inclusion of a parser could sort of "roll over" into areas beyond the UI element itself, be that through additional support or learning systems that make mention of the information from such a system or social mention (people talking about numbers). Anecdotal though it be (and virtually all evidence is until compiled through scale and methodologies that generally have little in common with actual player experience), my experience is that the latter concern need not be one. Whether in ESO, GW2, NWN, RO, B&S, Vindictus, Tera, or WoW (see the page 37), for instance — all MMOs with substantial parser use, "parser culture", and/or similar official baseline information systems — parsers have bled through beyond personal, optional use only so far as friendly competition, apprenticing (i.e. learning from those who outparse you; and if you think parsing low has ever given space for a casual jab, going sweaty in casual content opens one up plenty to teasing like "So, you gonna teach us how do that, big sis, or is it all just gear?"), and when it's actually needed (i.e., serious content with actual throughput-related walls to present progress). As for the prior, I can't imagine the small savings in immersion being worth avoiding that kind of in-game support, especially if done tastefully, that could open up more of the game to more of its players and/or eventually allow for more means of player engagement as naturally contextualized learning becomes less of a hurdle.

I do think that any concrete discussion of implementing a official parser or similar system of information must include discussions of...

1. quality — e.g., how well can it provide information that actually helps the player improve, such as giving performance information in terms that are minimally skewed by gear and ensuring that the information is surrounded by sufficient context to be of use and not skew play towards tunnel-visioned button-crunching), and
2. tasteful implementation — both in the sense of minimizing novel purely symbolic interactions (those that are more about the information itself rather than interaction with the events/content/play being described, including the hypothetical "parser fights", which I can readily imagine even though I've never seen one occur across an unhealthy amount of MMO play) and minimizing fourth-wall breaks, etc.

However, to me at least, it does seem painfully restrictive to deny an optional learning tool's — especially one with, across many an MMO, a deep history of being significant and uniquely helpful to hands-on or through-practice learners — being made greatly more convenient just to remove a more-than-likely one-time inconvenience. (And that's assuming the parser wouldn't be locked behind the likes of the Halls of Novice, the thematically-fitting Arcanists' Guild, or the like, in typical systems-roundabout XIV style, leaving you to simply avoid picking it up in the first place.)
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:: I apologize if this has come off as disrespectful to your view here. I cannot promise that I understand it entirely (though mostly just from the same general caution by which I'd be loathe to say "I understand what you're going through"), but let me say that it seems very reasonable. I've encountered my own share of overly intrusive meta-elements or content-to-social fixations in certain games, or even just programs or tasks/activities in general, and were an official parser to inevitably follow that suit, I'd want nothing to do with it. (Perhaps the chief difference here is only that I expect such will not be the case, and that I am at least willing to set criteria for success, if discussion goes more concrete.)

However, we are at a point of necessary conflict here. While I would not want an official parser that does not meet some pretty high standards of quality and tasteful implementation (above), I do believe that such is possible and therefore must try to promote at least a conditional place for informational learning tools, among which parsers are a tried and tested success even despite, imo, a distinct lack in quality across most existing versions. My expectation is that, parsers being already significantly useful, improvements in parsers' quality would only make them better and would, in direct consequence, also address many of my chief concerns regarding tasteful implementation.