Parsers add replayability for casual players

[RushRiviera]

If I felt the risk of uniquely parser-enabled toxicity had more reality behind it than merely rhetoric, that kind of half-measure would have, imo, some reason behind it, but still wouldn't quite seem reasonable.

The idea admits, after all, that people can utilize and would want the kind of information, but then immediately treats them as too weak-willed or temperamental to be entrusted with it in the few places where it'd provide proper contexts. It just... reeks of bait and condescension. Moreover, it seems like it would exacerbate existing irritations whereby an otherwise good design concept would seem to have been purposely sabotaged in being locked away to awkwardly revitalize something it has no business being locked behind.

However, if that half-measure were sold to me as a part of a larger roadmap, testing to ensure quality before releasing it into a wider game, sure, it would then seem reasonable. But otherwise... it just feels hypocritical.

I agree and personally, I would love to see a full official parser as I think it would give an added challenge and make content more fun. However, if harassment in parties is the big concern for most people, we do have to understand that their concerns are just as valid as ours.

The only way forward would be to find a solution that works for everyone, and although a solo, FATE only parser is not entirely what we want, it is at least a step forward that also takes other peoples concerns into consideration.

[Shurrikhan]

I agree and personally, I would love to see a full official parser as I think it would give an added challenge and make content more fun. However, if harassment in parties is the big concern for most people, we do have to understand that their concerns are just as valid as ours.

The only way forward would be to find a solution that works for everyone, and although a solo, FATE only parser is not entirely what we want, it is at least a step forward that also takes other peoples concerns into consideration.

That's a good point, and admittedly we need to see these things not only as they are at one point in time, but also in terms of what consequent pathways they may open thereafter.

Likewise, even if my experience across several MMOs that user parsers have led me to believe that there is very little substance behind those fears (i.e., they don't match the evidence coming from places that actual use parsers), I cannot deny that those fears are substantial (or, that there's very real anxieties and potential points of strong irritation surrounding all this). For that reason, my gut instinct is generally to tread carefully, bringing step by step and in XIV's own way what functions of parsers I feel are more useful to XIV, rather than trying to shove the concept in wholesale.

But I also can't deny the existing anxieties and stressors that information systems--headed by the synecdochal, well-known "parser"--could address. Now, parsers alone establish only a narrow band of play, throughput, but taken alongside the context of even just not dying (which, in a typical XIV fight, laden as they are with vulnerability stacks that makes any cumulative failures fatal, is often indicator enough of decent play) and if largely adjusted for one's gear and buffs granted/received (such as by instead using relative potency contributed), that's... pretty good. But, it doesn't have to be the limit. There's so much more we can do with Halls of the Novice, with SSS, with Guildhests, even with Squadrons and Trusts, especially with that kind of real-time or post-fight contextualized but immediate feedback, that can get people to feel less anxious about trying harder content and reduce tensions where we might otherwise see clear gap between those carrying and carried to points that could upsetting to the prior half and disheartening to the latter. Those benefits need to be looked at too, with at least the same level of vivid imagination, especially if/when the concerns and benefits may intersect, such as in those aforementioned anxieties and irritations.

This kind of stuff shouldn't be an easy path, and its answer won't likely come from principles alone. Social pragmatics need to play a concern, as do game constraints, the XIV flavor, and even questions of where we want to maybe take group content design in the future (e.g., to maybe actually play around with concepts like CC or kiting or focus fire, all of which would be absurdly difficult and/or foreign by today's norms). But I do feel the principles ought to at least lead us in the direction of considering how we might better inform players and utilize affordances similar to and beyond what parsers have done so far rather than forfeiting any of those opportunities on notions of what could go wrong without competing vision of what net positives would likely go right.

[/rant]