Parsers add replayability for casual players

[NanaWiloh]

Though once again how is it toxic to not want to deal with certain things one finds inconvenient? If the vote pass or people set up PF to exlude such people where exactly is the issue? Or is exclusion just toxic in nature and I just did not get the memo?

You are true glutton for punishment. If you cant bare to deal with players you encounter in Roulette then don't use it. Party finder is for someone like yourself who wants control over who they run with and don't. When comes to the Roulette you are just another player to be used and forgotten about.

[ZedxKayn]

That's not related to parsing. And both raider and casual in this thread have said that just not doing anything isn't okay. But the focus of the thread was on parsing and incremental changes in numbers and how that is supposed to improve the game for casual players.

It doesn't, because casual players don't focus on that. It just invites toxicity and negativity. And my point about respecting casual content is that things like numbers aren't as important in casual content. A clear can still happen by the game design because as others have said, the devs expect the strong players will help the weak. And many of the casual mindset are happy to do exactly that, because they understand there needs to be more leeway for different playstyles in the less hardcore content.

So as I said, casuals need to respect that harder content requires a focused mentality and playstyle. But raiders also need to respect that casual content requires a more flexible mentality and playstyle. Right now, as another poster mentioned, the raider side is trying to gatekeep and dictate who can even play the game at all, and that's just not right. There's room for everyone in this game.

It is related to parsing as I've said earlier because what might be obvious to a very experienced player might not be obvious to the average Joe or even the underperformer themselves without numbers telling them so.

It's gonna be especially useful in 8 man content where a player might see themselves do really low numbers when they had no clue it would be possible for them to contribute that little and could make them be more open to suggestions, ask questions, look up guides, etc, which ties in to OP's point. Or alternatively, it would be easier to hold leeches accountable if the low numbers come from a place of laziness, and what's the most important to me allow people who heal properly to defend themselves against the "healers heal" crowd.

[Caurcas]

You are true glutton for punishment. If you cant bare to deal with players you encounter in Roulette then don't use it. Party finder is for someone like yourself who wants control over who they run with and don't. When comes to the Roulette you are just another player to be used and forgotten about.

Roulette is what you make it. You can abandon, kick or simply go with the flow. However, you second point is what is wrong with DF. Only some people get used, most are the user feeding off others. Treating everyone as disposable is another key flaw in the current system. It enables this user behavior, and elevates trash play and enshrines it as the norm. If one ascribes to this, then well the heap is thyself.

[linayar]

Roulette is what you make it.

Indeed, so if you're not having fun because you're too worried what other people are doing and just feeling sorry for yourself thinking you're being used, well, that's just what you make of it.

Other people tend to just have a fine time getting through a roulette with no problem.

[NanaWiloh]

Indeed, so if you're not having fun because you're too worried what other people are doing and just feeling sorry for yourself thinking you're being used, well, that's just what you make of it.

Other people tend to just have a fine time getting through a roulette with no problem.

I have said multiple times going into DF or roulette with a parse running is just asking for punishment. Parsers will not change the enviorment in Roulette or DF, but if people want to torture themselves who I am to stop them.

[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)."

[Lanadra]

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.

That's because you have no filter. If anything has become clear to me about you across two topics about parsers/community conduct now.. it's that you have no filter. I wouldn't even say that's a bad thing personally.. some people are like that, my own younger sister is like that.

You will boot people for any reason, first timer, annoying you, for giggles (by your own admission in the other thread) simply because you can, because you think it may pass. Not really considering whether you should.

It's similar to how you seem to regard the matter of 'being honest', you think upfront, blunt honesty is always the way to go. except when you can silent votekick Most other people recognize that no, honesty is not always the best route, sometimes you recognize that 'okay, this is something I'd better not say this way' or 'this I better keep to myself'.

[RushRiviera]

Instead of just arguing about why the other side's opinion is wrong, why doesn't everyone just try to come up with a solution that takes the other side's concerns into account?

A constructive conversation is not hard to do, I assume we're all adults here. So why not try to come up with ideas that address the concerns?

Telling someone else that they are wrong is not going to get anybody anywhere because nobody in here has the data to back up either side of that argument.

Constructive conversation. Share ideas. Go.

[WoW]

Instead of just arguing about why the other side's opinion is wrong, why doesn't everyone just try to come up with a solution that takes the other side's concerns into account?

A constructive conversation is not hard to do, I assume we're all adults here. So why not try to come up with ideas that address the concerns?

Telling someone else that they are wrong is not going to get anybody anywhere because nobody in here has the data to back up either side of that argument.

Constructive conversation. Share ideas. Go.

Excellent suggestion.
So to the casuals afraid of parsers and getting kicked for their low DPS. All I can say


Then, you won't have to worry about parsers or toxic people at all!

[Shurrikhan]

Excellent suggestion.
So to the casuals afraid of parsers and getting kicked for their low DPS. All I can say


Then, you won't have to worry about parsers or toxic people at all!

On the off-chance this isn't well-crafted trolling simply meant to condemn, by association, those who want more in-game information...

You say that like no one who'd be newly included by convenient throughput information (as per parsers) in discussion of how one might (and whether one should) improve isn't already trying to improve...

There are certainly some small portion of people who won't try and will never try. That portion will likely shrink somewhat if the context of the game shifts with the inclusion of convenient information because they'll have lost a former throne in regards to what efforts they seemingly ought to spend compared to efforts they are seemingly welcome to take. The throne becomes just another chair among many, one expected to offer, within their capabilities, as much as anyone else, and to join what content they are at least roughly prepared to engage in/with (including, to the parameters of the party, varying greatly between "blind run, and we're drunk", "P1 prog", and "clear party").

But, they are again, a small portion. And for anyone else, "git gud" is frankly useless except in answer to whether a given piece of content is too difficult (as a roundabout form of "It's not, and your gear's not the primary factor in that").