Quote Originally Posted by Miracle_Diva View Post
My, my.
First of all, no one is asking to have parsers in low level dungeons. Second, it is not needed for throwing dirt around, but for making people feel somewhat responsible for their play in a GROUP CONTENT.
Again, I don't see any actual reasonable explanation of why it is fine to jump around lazy casuals that don't want their "fun" ruined by toxic hardcore players, yet it is not fine to ask of somewhat decent performance in ONLINE GAME, where you interact with OTHER people. Why do you protect those who do not want to drag their own weight in a group content? Why is it okay to absolutely disrespect others' time when you join a group? Why is it fine to "let them play how they want" while they don't give a damn about anyone else but themselves? Why only THEIR fun matters?
Indeed, you are playing with other players -- including those who would rather never see a parser in any game ever again, because of negative experiences dealing with people who have abused them. It may not ruin your own experience, but I can personally guarantee that they have ruined the experience for many others.

Now, it's not that those who want parsers don't matter, but you're ignoring the other side entirely: those who DO NOT want them because it's a MASSIVE negative to their own experience playing the game. They aren't being lazy or intentionally underperforming, they just don't want anyone shoving a damage meter in their face (or anyone else's for that matter) and berating them over not meeting an arbitrary or even relative standard; so long as the boss goes down, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day.

So how do you keep both sides of the fence happy? The current "detente" is the best one I've seen, which is essentially turning a blind eye to their use so long as the data is kept to yourself despite it technically being against the rules.

Or more simply -- no harm, no foul. And it's working.

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To give some context, I played WoW for many years; I've seen many cases where they've been used right... and infinitely more cases of the ludicrous excesses and abuses of parsers. There it actually does bleed into leveling content, the optimization mindset is so dominant and the community so petty that they'll boot players from groups for not meeting ridiculous and entirely unnecessary standards. Parsers aren't the only cause of the issues in that game, but they are a major driving force behind it; I simply do not want to see the same decay in the community happen here.

In the end, parsers will drive more players away than it will help draw players in or retain current ones. Because you'd be a fool to expect that the "average player" will use them in a reasonable and productive manner.