The Real Problem with Parsers

[Linadae]

I have no problem with parsers provided they only show you your own numbers and not anyone else. Coming from WoW I've found that parsers tend to...well enable people to be jerks and the community is already toxic enough without more help.

And to those who feel disabled people shouldn't play if they can't get better, I feel that's a really terrible attitude to take. My mother who is 66 years old plays and not only are her reflexes slowing, but her hand eye coordination and memory isn't as good as it used to be. She tries to get better but as an elderly person she is reaching her skill limits.

However I would NEVER suggest she quit playing because she enjoys the game and has been lucky enough to find a FC willing to put out the extra effort to help her through Alexander and other dungeons.

[Elazu]

Coming from WoW I've found that parsers tend to...well enable people to be jerks

Pretty sure there is a video posted in this very thread proving you wrong.

[Aiselia]

Pretty sure there is a video posted in this very thread proving you wrong.

Pretty sure that one person going into some runs is hardly proof of anything, especially from a game with millions of people.

Unless that video showed him partying with literally every single person in the game, it's no more objective proof than anybody giving their own experience with the game.

[Erim-Nelhah]

I have no problem with parsers provided they only show you your own numbers and not anyone else. Coming from WoW I've found that parsers tend to...well enable people to be jerks and the community is already toxic enough without more help.

And to those who feel disabled people shouldn't play if they can't get better, I feel that's a really terrible attitude to take. My mother who is 66 years old plays and not only are her reflexes slowing, but her hand eye coordination and memory isn't as good as it used to be. She tries to get better but as an elderly person she is reaching her skill limits.

However I would NEVER suggest she quit playing because she enjoys the game and has been lucky enough to find a FC willing to put out the extra effort to help her through Alexander and other dungeons.

I would agree with your sentiment, if I thought the community was truly toxic. You'd think, from the frequency of posts about toxic players, the community is very toxic...but for every such post, there might be 10 parties that could have warranted one....and hundreds or even thousands that didn't. If parsers change this, it won't be much - if you want an example, the video linked a few pages back is an excellent one, showing how someone could, in a game with parsers, get carried through any DF-style content. PF would be a bit different, I think, but PF groups can also afford to be more selective, and can post their requirements in the comment. And IMO, if someone doesn't meet those requirements and joins anyway, they deserve what they get. I personally would like to think I wouldn't be rude about it, but I know people who would.

As for the second part of your comment...I don't think that anyone here has said that people who physically can't do great dps shouldn't play. The closest I think was said is that such people shouldn't be playing with other random people in content they know they can't pull the numbers for. IE if you can't do 600 DPS and know it, you shouldn't be joining a Bismarck EX party in the PF unless you know they're good with that.

--Erim Nelhah

[Senfei]

Nothing wrong with parsing. If you think parsing is going to to turn an otherwise well adjusted, wonderfully nice and friendly player into a raving maniac who demands you increase your dps by 5.7% or face the votekick wrath, you are delusional. Someone who is rude is gonna be rude, they don't need a parser to justify themselves.

I may or may not have parsed a Sohm today DPSing as a 54 Bard and with a Monk as my dps co-pilot. They may or may not have achieved numbers around 20% over what my auto attacks do. If all this parser fear mongering were true, I would have supposedly gone super saiyan rage EX god mode and exploded my keyboard with insults and votekick attempts. Fortunately since that is stupid and never happens, I just whined to my FC about how slow the run was and finished. The End.

[Clarkamite]

Nothing wrong with parsing. If you think parsing is going to to turn an otherwise well adjusted, wonderfully nice and friendly player into a raving maniac who demands you increase your dps by 5.7% or face the votekick wrath, you are delusional. Someone who is rude is gonna be rude, they don't need a parser to justify themselves.

No no no, that's incorrect. If you have a parser you could literally be Mr. Rogers and the nicest guy or gal in the world but the second you turn it on you turn into The Incredible Hulk and just start breaking faces. Everyone knows this.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

No no no, that's incorrect. If you have a parser you could literally be Mr. Rogers and the nicest guy or gal in the world but the second you turn it on you turn into The Incredible Hulk and just start breaking faces. Everyone knows this.

You can't blame the tool for a player's behaviour. That's on the same level as blaming a bicycle while cyclists are ignoring traffic rules.

I haven't bothered reading through 38 pages worth of yes-no-yes-no arguments, so I'll drop my 2 cents here: Stop looking at a possible witch hunt that may or may not be initiated by a selective group of people - Hooligans among football fans or literal medieval witch hunting. A parser tool could be useful for those who want to improve their damage output and get out of the so called "scrub zone". If such tools did not exist, no one would have created these "optimal DPS rotation guides" that's all over the place. Prime example being the dragoon topic here. Sure, you can create a rotation based on just theory, but this would create questions as why the rotation in question is "the best" and people start pulling out their spreadsheet programs based on average numbers they put out they see on screen. You could say they're manually "parsing". Such tools would just make it easier and help those improve for those who want to improve. Not only that, if said tools are presented on a silver platter, it may even motivate players to improve more. It takes far less effort and time than using spreadsheets, after all. For those who do not want to improve should not be surprised if they can't beat current- or last patch content till gear makes it completely obsolete. Nor should they be surprised if they get kicked out from parties for being the main cause for failing DPS checks for certain encounters. Which can be argued with what the OP started with what can be roughly translated into "I play like how I want to play". Such comments are double edged. If you choose how you want to play, then the same applies to others and who they decide to play with.

[RapBreon]

An easy way I've found for saying 'dont do this' is to just say what the problem is and making sure everyone is aware of it:

"We can't have the death zone on the healers, so please everyone watch out for that when it goes out"

Or something like that.

I suppose. The people I've spent lots of my time playing vidya with over the years; typically don't appreciate it just as much. Being said, they'd bitch about anything, so that might be the problem.

[Clarkamite]

You can't blame the tool for a player's behaviour. That's on the same level as blaming a bicycle while cyclists are ignoring traffic rules.

I don't know if you thought I was serious or not but I wasn't. I was being completely sarcastic. I've been on the side of parsing since day one.

[Gorlioliolio]

These are the stupidest threads ever, got through 15 pages before I couldn't take it anymore so let me sum it up for anyone skipping to the end.


Bad Player - "I don't want parsers, people will kick me from groups"

Good Player - "But if you have parsers then you can improve and people won't kick you from groups as often"

Bad Player - "I don't want to improve, I want to push 1 2 3 repeatedly and waste everyones time"

Good Player - "But you are wasting multiple peoples time, over and over again, including your own"

Bad Player - "I don't care I pay my $15 each month to do what I want, if you kick me your a selfish elitist prick"

Good Player - "You do realize that wasting 3 peoples time is more selfish than wasting 1 persons time right?"

Bad Player - "How do you know I'm the one wasting peoples time, are you parsing? I'm gonna report you"

Good Player - Initiates votekick

Bad Player - Sits at GC house or idyllshire for 30 minutes while complaining on the forums that they got kicked

Other people on the forums - "You know if you had parsers you could try to improve and people wouldn't kick you"

Bad Player - "Your all elitist selfish pricks and I'm gonna report everyone"

Other people on forums - "There are multiple guides/youtube videos available to help you improve your gameplay, watch some, try it out maybe in the future people won't kick you all it takes is a little effort on your part"

Bad Player - "HARDCORE ELITIST A-HOLES"