So this game has dps checks but we can't talk about our dps in game?

[Packetdancer]

To be bluntly honest, no one is ever going to actually resolve this debate. And not just because opinions differ, but because both sides are actually right.

Introducing an official parser of some form would absolutely increase toxicity in this game; as I said before, this isn't because a parser is inherently toxic but because the game providing a parser will be taken by some players as implicit permissions from the devs to be jackasses over the data produced by said parser. (I.e., "If the devs didn't want me to say the black mage is a waste of oxygen and internet bandwidth, they wouldn't have the game tell me just how bad the black mage is!") This would hardly be universal, but I guarantee you the number of people emboldened by this would be non-zero.

(Which is additionally problematic as any sort of real-time raid parser is not going to be great at calculating your actual contribution, so the 'objective' number is not going to be as objective as some would like to treat it; it'll measure what FFLogs calls aDPS, meaning it's subject to how well other people in the party are using their buffs and such. To calculate something like FFLog's adjusted "rDPS" with any degree of accuracy would require post-processing the combat log. And that's without getting into the factors influencing healer DPS...)

But conversely, people also aren't wrong that if you want to clear high-end content, for at least some of it the party does have to be doing a bare minimum. Sure, there are fights lenient enough that you can just barely slide through if almost all the group is below-par, provided one or two folks can make up for it. But there are also fights (generally later in a tier) where maybe the entire party doesn't have to be bringing their A game, but they probably need to at least bring their B- game if you want to get through the DPS check. And if you are doing your part, then throwing yourself at the same fight for hours and hours (and hours and hours) only to not clear because other people aren't stepping up... that's going to be frustrating, and a recipe for ire.

Add to that the fact that the lack of any viable tool for console players (other than "get a friend on PC to parse for me") means that even if you only use a parser for self-improvement purposes console players are still at a measurable disadvantage; some sort of official tool in the game would be invaluable for folks on console to work on things. But adding any sort of official tool that provides something that can be interpreted even remotely as being an 'objective' numerical value on 'how good a player are you' is likely to increase toxicity...

And around we go in circles. Neither side is likely to concede the argument because, as noted, neither side is actually wrong in those arguments.

And that? That's the real problem. Not that one side is 'right' and another is 'wrong', but that the ideal solution is somewhere in the middle between the two. Because realistically, both sides of the debate do need to be addressed for a given solution to really be viable.

[Michieltjuhh]

snip

Any form of increase in toxicity that passes boundaries set by SE can be dealt with through regulation. You get rid of the individuals that use it for toxicity, and suddenly there's no more problem with adding an official damage meter, thus having it only positively impact the game.

Except for those players who go into PF with the expectation to get hard carried, since now there's another tool reminding the group that these players are, in fact, underperforming significantly, and do not meet the requirements of the group. And I can't fathom that anyone who doesn't know they're part of this group, would be against an official damage meter because the solution against toxicity incurred by an official damage meter is just as easy as a solution against toxicity incurred by an unofficial damage meter.