Parsers add replayability for casual players

[RushRiviera]

It's hard to compromise from a position where you stand only to lose. Anti-parsers have what they want, full stop. There's no reason to take steps in a direction that they quite literally do not want. Especially not when parsers are already widely used and turned a blind eye to by the FFXIV dev team for the only scene that actually needs them.. raiding.

Good point. So, why not add an official parser that is only available during high-end raids? (Savage/Ultimate difficulty)

[Lanadra]

Good point. So, why not add an official parser that is only available during high-end raids? (Savage/Ultimate difficulty)

I'd personally have no issue with it because it would make no difference to my experience. It would at best be a convenience thing ultimately, and knowing that you're no longer using 3rd party software.

I don't even really mind the idea of a 'personal parser' that is game wide either... provided that I can turn it off and that standing policy about harassing people with parser readouts is maintained. Ergo, as long as it doesn't affect or change my own personal experience I don't really mind it. That is not what a lot of people in this thread want though, it's less about 'providing an official tool that's there for you if you want to use it', which would help console players in particular, and more about 'making sure you see at all times just how shit you are'.

And since we got smart alecks aplenty here I will reiterate: I play my jobs competently for the content I partake in. I avoid extreme/savage/ultimate because I am not interested in playing at that level or being proficient enough to do so. Just because I don't want to deal with a parser does not mean it's because of some fear of what I'll see about myself.

[Rinhi]

Define 'decent level' without referring to a parser..

let's see:

• do something more than single pull
  use their AOE combo when it's more than 3 enemies
  use their defensive cooldowns properly
  especially this late into the class: pull wall to wall unless they're undergeared

enough times I've seen a tank lose aggro to the DPS or even me when I was leveling my healers, enough times I've seen them use all their defensive cooldowns at the same time, enough times I've seen them activate it when their health went low, but not once before (this was a mentor btw), I've seen enough tanks throw a fit and get upset because everyone but them wanted to pull more than 1 darn pack, even when you tell them that pulling more is EASIER than pulling 1 pack at a time and thus wasting all their cooldowns (if they even use them lol) and everyone else's cooldowns because they have some kind of aversion for more than 3 enemies
hell, I've seen tanks lose aggro in the last nier raid, which has a minimum ilvl of 495: how are you that far into the game - and that geared up - if you can't even do the bare minimum?!
https://twitter.com/ffxivstruggle/st...31667387650050

[ZedxKayn]

Good point. So, why not add an official parser that is only available during high-end raids? (Savage/Ultimate difficulty)

Raiders already use parsers, it wouldn't change anything except maybe directly give PS players that information as well. The only problem in that very specific type of content is that you can't just tell someone that their damage just isn't enough, you need to kick them silently.

But the main arguments in favor is for more "casual" content, first, in OP's case, encourage the average player to better themselves, right now the game gives absolutely 0 feedback on whether someone is doing great or not: they could be spending the instance AFK and clear anyways because of other people in the party compensating for them, this implies griefing but that lack of feedback means that a player can get to endgame without for example ever using their DoT on DRG and not even know it's poor play.

This ties to second: in most of the people arguing in favor of it's case, hold people who completely half-ass their job, knowingly or not accountable for doing so with data that is available to everyone (so once people realize just the amount of time poor play can waste and how genuinely easy it is to play even competently enough, less enabling, less coddling, less abuse).

Third, parsing can be used as a self-defense tool, I mostly see this as a healer where healing correctly rewards me with stuff like getting rescued to my death by my co-healer because they're under the impression that "I'm a bot" for "only casting malefics" or other type of verbal abuse, when of course I'm doing whatever the situation is calling for.

It's really just, in a co-op setting, doing what you can to not be a hindrance to your fellow party members should be expected and encouraged, and a parser could definitely be a tool used for that.

[Raelsar]

Good point. So, why not add an official parser that is only available during high-end raids? (Savage/Ultimate difficulty)

To use an old adage:
"Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."

That's the biggest concern with any sort of official parser. If introduced, even in a supposedly constrained manner as noted above, the demands to allow it into all levels of content would never stop. The issues they create would outweigh the benefits as it spirals out of control... and unfortunately for the pro-parsing crowd, the historical examples lean towards it creating more social problems than it helps players enjoy the game. So yeah, it would have to be shown that player communities handle the addition of parsers well and don't become heavily biased towards a certain aspect of the gameplay as a result before even a limited implementation would be considered.

As for the "personal parser" argument... it kind of falls into the same issue. Even if players can't see the output of other players, it being there means that someone is going to inevitably talk about their own performance; saying "I did X DPS" is going to responded with "You should have been doing X+Y DPS!", leading to all sorts of problems. No matter how constrained you try to make it, the numbers will get out and the issues will never end.

Unfortunately, as history tells us again and again... people tend to do stupid things when handed a tool that has an easy avenue for misuse.
Rules are in place to help keep that under control, and sometimes the best rule for keeping people safe is to forbid the average person from using it.

[RushRiviera]

To use an old adage:
"Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile."

That's the biggest concern with any sort of official parser. If introduced, even in a supposedly constrained manner as noted above, the demands to allow it into all levels of content would never stop. The issues they create would outweigh the benefits as it spirals out of control...

That doesn't really make sense, the demands to allow a parser into all levels of content are already here. That's what this entire thread is about. This thread is 50 pages long so people are obviously already making demands for a parser. Adding one that is only available for savage and ultimate raids literally gives the majority of pro-parser players what they want... So there will only be a small minority left asking for it to be added to all content.

[Shurrikhan]

Unfortunately, as history tells us again and again... people tend to do stupid things when handed a tool that has an easy avenue for misuse.
Rules are in place to help keep that under control, and sometimes the best rule for keeping people safe is to forbid the average person from using it.

History also tells us that what precedes a given notable tool is still a techne of its own, just as capable of setting contexts of interaction. Just because superstition, for instance, lacks the procedures of what we've since boxed in under the labels of "science" doesn't mean it wasn't acted on.

With our without parsers present, you still have a situation where someone there is a disparity between what is (A) required—e.g., by healing, damage, or mitigation checks—or (B) reasonably expectable—given minimum gear and, for one's level, at least basic level of engagement and understanding—and what's happening in a given setting.

Consider, then... what are the current means, without parsers, by which players can (or are likely to) remedy the situation?

They can, of course, work off whatever indicators of others' mistakes they were able to notice during their own attempts to play well, which can be easier said than done as content grows more difficult. They can state what mistakes they've seen, implicatively pointing fingers, point-by-point, until the voice of the group has found its culprit(s), be they people or actions. They can make assumptions based on known/perceived likely underperformance innate to an undertuned job (especially if early in any given expansion), passing blame with little need even for eyeballed evidence.

What, then, does a parser add? What new means does it create?

We will never see everything that occurred in a fight; a parser, however, will account for all of it. (It's not necessarily contextualized, but every point of throughput is accounted for nonetheless.) We will often make overmuch of the particular mistakes we've seen; a parser will not. We will often assume larger performance differences from perceived imbalance than we ought to; a parser makes no assumptions. We may have the wrong idea of what optimized play entails; a parser forms no ideas, only shows the facts of one's performance.

:: The addition of a parser is little more replacing the likes of children bickering over who owes whom how much of a favor instead with a ledger that can, in this case, appropriately quantify each interaction and bring it all to a sum, thus altogether skipping any need to bicker.

[RushRiviera]

Unfortunately, as history tells us again and again... people tend to do stupid things when handed a tool that has an easy avenue for misuse.
Rules are in place to help keep that under control, and sometimes the best rule for keeping people safe is to forbid the average person from using it.

Out of curiosity, how would someone even be able to misuse a parser that was only available in Savage/Ultimate difficulty raids?

[SieyaM]

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.

If you have such specific standards for groups then you need to be using the PF where you can stipulate those kinds of things, not the DF. The DF is for you to be matched with other players at random, not for you to play at some power trip kicking players you deem unfit to run with you.

[Alxyzntlct]

...We will never see everything that occurred in a fight; a parser, however, will account for all of it. We will often make overmuch of the particular mistakes we've seen; a parser will not. We will often assume larger performance differences from perceived imbalance than we ought to; a parser makes no assumptions. We may have the wrong idea of what optimized play entails; a parser forms no ideas, only shows the facts of one's performance.

:: The addition of a parser is little more replacing the likes of children bickering over who owes whom how much of a favor instead with a ledger that can, in this case, appropriately quantify each interaction and bring it all to a sum, thus altogether skipping any need to bicker.

Um... that's not actually true (that bit I highlighted in bold), at least in my experience. The #1 problem I've had with other people and parsers is the fact that the vast majority of people who use them specifically stop paying attention to a lot of game mechanics and instead focus on the pretty dps numbers. In fact, I've never known any parser to track literally "all of it".

To me, that's the biggest problem with a parser; it doesn't track everything, which leads to some folks focusing on just specific aspects of gameplay rather than all.

Which makes the following statement about the addition of a parser also patently false; so long as any tool doesn't account for everything, then there will be discrepancies in how people perceive and then use such a tool. And it's that perspective difference that folks want to avoid having formally introduced into the game since it leads to unpleasant experiences.

Am I missing something? Is there really some magical parser out there that inherently knows FFXIV gameplay and mechanics and is accurately tracking not only the individual abilities but also denoting context of when and where they all need to be used?