Parsers add replayability for casual players

[Shurrikhan]

I guess that just brings to question, what is an arbitrary standard?

Let's not pretend the numbers (e.g., boss HP and enrage timers) aren't coming from somewhere. Do we call each player playing at ~80% of what their character, if perfectly mapped out, could do in that fight under identical conditions "arbitrary"?
If the enrage timer were set to whatever clear time play-testers managed with mild experience over the given spec but decent enough understanding of many other factors of "good play" in the average of a few trial runs, is that, too, "arbitrary"?

Similarly, if someone, in having found several more ways by which to engage with their job -- say, by learning how to make use of a Yaten-Enpi extension for rotational sync, how to swap in an early Yuki rotationally to have Yaten-Enpi available for forced melee downtime, when to rotate in a Yuki-Hagakure vs. a Gekko/Kasha-Hagakure, when to remain in scripted Haga rotation vs. switch to "overclocked" or "ad-hoc" rotation -- and like that content is initially tuned for a given tier to have stakes by which that engagement felt pertinent and rewarding, is it "arbitrary" that they would want to see that tuning principle remain?

Well let's look at one that's commonly brought up relating to more casual content: time spent.

I've seen all over these forums that people expect a dungeon to take no more than 15 minutes. If it goes to even something like 18, they feel that is too much.

But where in the game design is that a requirement? That's what makes it arbitrary. They're not using the time allowed by the game and in this content you usually don't run into an enrage timer. It's an arbitrary standard created by a segment of the community. There's no statements by the devs or anything in their design that says the content can't be completed outside that standard. Just the expectations of some people they visit upon people in a situation where they let the game randomly match them up with others who may have differing playstyles.

One of the things people need to do when they put their fate into the hands of the random matching system is not be so unbendable on those expectations. Because PUG situations can be very different. If they aren't willing or able to play with less than perfect players, the game does give them the option of going in premade.

This is useful. Though I'd argue we ought to look at it a few different ways.

I'd agree, for instance, that expecting run times to fall within 20% of their ideal is, in an average party, overly demanding. But that also wouldn't account for context. Is the run taking 20 minutes because the tank is dying when the heal starts to idle? Because one or more DPS cannot, for the life of them, dodge the boss mechanics and ends up at less than half their would-be throughput? Is the run taking 25 minutes because the tank will only pull only one mob at a time? Is it taking that long because a DPS refuses to AoE? Or, is it just a minimally geared party? Given all those varying contexts possible, a fixed expectation would indeed seem arbitrary.

That said, and I apologize if I misread the trajectory of your prior posts and those to whom you were responding, my point was aimed more at quality of play itself, and the timers that convey those standards (e.g., Hard enrages in Extreme and Savage content). Similar to the dungeon clear times, if looked at as some fixed number (even if on X job at Y gear), quality of play would again seem arbitrary, but generally those numbers instead come from somewhere (e.g., some level of familiarity and effort at the minimal or likely gear levels) that connects back to making a form of player engagement pertinent and rewarding.

In game parsers are never going to happen and there is good reason since in nearly all cases that a parser is available players tend to be abusive with it.

Citation needed.

Though even in WoW if people wish to have their group be 30 ilvls higher what exactly is the issue if that is the desire of the group?

I mean in DF I sometimes already boot first time players in certain dungeons if they are playing crital roles cause I rather not deal with it. Sure it may be rude and a asshole response but end of the day if the group wants a certain standard I do not see why it is such a large issue.

I cannot say on principle that even unreasonable levels of exclusion (i.e., those greatly in excess, through gear or prior achievement progress, etc., of what adjusts for risk of some factor of failure, such as skill, latency, etc.) are inherently toxic, but it will often be self-defeating. If fearmongering occludes a place for skill or merit, for instance, such as by requiring so much gear that one is carried through relative performance that would be far below standard, it both

1. forms a very different identity for the game, likely not in the direction most of the people initially attempting to improve their content enjoyment created those parameters for, and
2. will likely create a trench in progression paths for which the devs will have no remedy, since it would be almost entirely a community-formed issue.

That is of course assuming, perhaps hyperbolically, that the practices spread or otherwise standardize. I'll let your own experiences judge whether that is a typical phenomenon. I can only offer that exclusive practices have seemingly tended to exponentiate slightly (or, to "trend") in each of the MMOs I've played thus far (Neverwinter, Ragnorak Online, TERA, Blade & Soul, WoW, and, ofc, XIV).

I apologize if this has seemed to give off a tone that exclusion is inherently bad. Often what we call "exclusion" is in fact just the presence of a greater number of (thereby more finely tuned/crafted) difficulty levels and differences in intended audience. Many of the things we in one breath call fundamentals of good design (such as by letting the player determine to what extent they want to engage in/with X, Y, or Z) can be turned about into derogatory meta-descriptors in the next. But, that can lead into a great many rabbit-holes (especially regarding intrinsic vs. extrinsic reward and consequent tenuous goal intersections), so let me oversimplify for now with a hackneyed, "Your actions have (subtle, longterm) consequences (that may run opposite to the principles your actions followed)."