Parsers

[Gamemako]

Instead of "Man my DPS was terrible, maybe I should improve and try again later" it's "BAN THAT GUY FOR MEASURING MY PERFORMANCE!"

Again, OP has stated that he didn't care about the parsing and just used it as an angle to crucify someone for calling him out. This thread is not "Parsers contribute to an elitist and toxic gaming environment and should be forbidden;" this thread is "Parsers let me get people I don't like banned and should be forbidden just in case I have the opportunity to get somebody with them!"

Yoshi has already pretty well explained why parsers have been left in that grey area. Parsing isn't cheating, but he doesn't want players butting heads over "must do XXX DPS or kick." Yet somehow, OP has taken the third way, where the law exists only for his own amusement and not for the benefit of the community at large. That's what so damn disgusting about this thread. This instance is hardly some egregious abuse. "DPS is too low" is not an uncommon problem in fights, and it isn't going to take long before everyone points out the obvious weak link, parser or no. It happens with tanks and healers, too, even where they aren't parsed: people will call out tanks for taking too much damage due to not rotating cooldowns properly (or at all), and healers get knocked for not healing properly at critical periods like mountain buster, double WW, or death sentence.

The difference is, for all of those things there is a contract (implicit or explicit) and the person is aware of the forthcoming judgement.

Actually, we are very well aware of the judgment. It is frequently accompanied by "Tremble before the might of the earth!" or similar exclamation.

//EDIT:

Instead of sending people away for failing, make them a better player. In other words, "what is most important" is the interaction with the other player, not the success or failure of the group.

I don't think that's necessarily the point. I do agree that people should put more effort into improving the play of others and am not fond of the "must know fight" stuff, but evaluation has to be a part of that. The point of the MMO is not only interaction and not only progression; it is both.

[Clavaat]

I don't think that's necessarily the point. I do agree that people should put more effort into improving the play of others and am not fond of the "must know fight" stuff, but evaluation has to be a part of that. The point of the MMO is not only interaction and not only progression; it is both.

I should explain what I meant here better. I agree that it is both interaction and progression, however contradicting one another at any point will result in conflict (positive or negative). I believe that having a better interaction will result in better progression naturally. Through my experience, this has been the most successful. It can be easy to get impatient, but staying positive and continually giving each other tips for specific points results in success. Outright telling someone "bad DPS, leave" will not fulfill anything for anyone involved. Now, the person who kicked has to find a replacement, and may have the same issue with the next person, or a new one crops up. The person kicked is disappointed, uninspired, and didn't learn anything. Both solutions will typically take the same amount of time, so why not take the more positive route?

EDIT

-snip-

Please see what I wrote above, I think it's relative enough. Particularly the last statement.

[Gamemako]

I believe that having a better interaction will result in better progression naturally.

I think there are times when the two are simply at odds. It takes time to learn rotations and learn what abilities to use when. You can't pay attention to mechanics and do your rotation at the same time unless that rotation is committed to memory. This is a good part of why people struggle with Titan HM. I can give examples of where sticking with it helped (Ifrit EX: 7 players walked in without previous clears, wiped 5 times, almost abandoned, won in the end) and times where all it did was frustrate people (oh man, all those Garuda and Titan runs without enough DPS). It is simply infeasible to teach a player his entire job as well as fight mechanics and have him get it all down properly in 60 minutes. You can't do everything for him. Sometimes, the only answer is to tell a player to go learn rotation and practice on a dummy.

[Pooky_Pasha]

OP, are you trolling? Just kidding! Please, please don't make a post about my douchebaggery!

But seriously, given:
1) We have no screenshot with what was actually said,
2) We have a biased version of only one side of what happened,
I don't see any thing wrong with what he did. If your damage was so bad on Moogle fight that someone felt the need to question your intentions, I would probably do the same. I may or may not run a parser, but when I can know for a fact that my straight VIT build WAR is outputting 25%+ more damage than an equally gear Zenith dps, I often have the same thoughts that healer did. It really sounds like the healer was taking the fight seriously for himself or someone he was helping, and thought you might be trying to ruin it for the others.

[TomTom1968]

If Parsers are used in statics, they are fine. They can help to see who needs to improve most and if a class is available twice in your static, parsers give you a nice way of comparing yourself and taking the challenge in case you are behind your mate. Parsers are also nice to see if a new rotation works out in an instance.

Everything else is as far as my experiences go only a form of calling out and another method to blame somebody. You can't expect that others take the Game as serious as you do. Majority gives a crap about the best way to run a dungeon. They want to beat it and done. How it happened doesn't matter.

Last week I was in CT with my main char and in the first fights, I was always helping one of the other groups because we got our targets down quickly. In the Behemoth fight I got a call from work I had to accept. Not beeing able to concentrate anymore I died twice in that fight and barely made any damage. Directly after the fight, a guy from another alliance called me out lol.

Even after I told him that I sadly was brain afk due to a phone call, he continued to talk about me. That's exactly what I mean. He did not look at the other fight results which should have showed me at the first third of his parser list at least, no that one time fuckup because Real Life interrupted me was in his focus. I have yet to see a public run where a guy running a parser says "Player yyz, nice DPS". It is only used for the blame finger. People don't learn from such statements so SE's attitude about parsers is perfectly fine with me. If you use them in your fight club (which doesn't exist as we all know) nobody cares, if you put the blame on ppl in a public run using parser results, you can get in trouble for it.

[Shyluv]

I never said running a parser in itself was bullying. But in CT and primals I have seen many people bully and harass because someone was parsing low.

Yes, you can be bullied over the internet. Just because it's not face to face doesn't mean anything.

[Maelwys]

I never said running a parser in itself was bullying. But in CT and primals I have seen many people bully and harass because someone was parsing low.

Yes, you can be bullied over the internet. Just because it's not face to face doesn't mean anything.

Actually they're substantially less personal (it largely doesn't matter to the instigator who their target is) but it happens a lot more (due to the anonymity and lack of any social repurcussions). This takes many forms - one is forum flaming, another is in-game trolling/harrassment. And finally, some people just LOVE to fling verbal poop at anyone they consider "an opponent" - trash talk in online PVP games is the ultimate culmination of this.

All this is (I'm serious) known as the Greater Internet F**kwad Theory.
And a classic example of it is the post right above this one.

Link to original source (I'm not posting a direct image, since language used is NSFW)

[Shyluv]

Removing someone for not doing as much damage as you think they should isn't bullying. It's not what I would do first, personally. But whatever.

Saying something along the lines of, for example, "You're parsing stupidly low. Stupid must run in your family. What's your IQ score? Probably lower than you're parsing. If you can't understand simple rotations, I feel bad for any children you might have. Assuming you're smart enough to know where to put it." And then continuously calling the person stupid; that is bullying and I have seen that and worse.

I didn't read the OP as bragging that he would report anyone for parsing.

...Again I was posting this to show how people are using parsers to put players down...

[Casper]

The question when you have a low dps in your party is: why do they have low dps ?

Yeah sure if the tank forgot shield oath then the fix is easy (press a button).

But if a dps is not applying all his dot, why is it ? Laziness ? Not knowing he should ? What else is he forgetting ? Is he using hisoff CD abilities, his procs ? Does he know his rotation ?

All this take time. For people in my FC, sure, i will take the time to teach them and be patient. For people outside, i'm sorry, but it's not my job. If they can't put some time and thinking into how to best play their class, they can get into someone else's party and see if they are more welcome there.

And thinking that someone that is parsing 130 as blm on titan ex for example is going to suddenly jump to 180 because you tell them "hey buddies, don't forget to look out for those shiny procs, they will help you put out more damage ! " is completely insane.

In all cases this is no reason to be mean to them and to insult them. But, in a party labeled as "experienced", i would definitely not hesitate to say "i'm sorry, but your damage output is dramatically lower than what is expected for a dps in this fight. I would suggest you invest some time in looking for ways to improve it. In the meantime, i will have to replace you, as you are hindering this party".

[LoganBGone]

To make it simple. Yes you can get banned for using a Parser. Telling someone that they have bad damage is Toxic to the game. Telling someone they need to have a better rotation is also toxic to the game. People get kicked out of parties because they aren't doing "top damage". Now these people that get kicked out don't understand why they are getting kicked out. People who use parsers actually don't know how to play the game properly. They look at parser numbers and say, "hey, your not doing ur job because this number says so". They become so dependent on Parsers that they actually have no idea whats going on in the game. Party members are a summoner, bard, blm. Now the drg gets caught in certain moves that capture him causing him to wait for his partners to release him. During that time the "parser" is making the drg look bad. Continued....>