The Real Problem with Parsers

[Aiselia]

I dunno, it seems kinda spot on to me.

Only if you think that living conditions of an entire country are analogous to a dungeon in a video game taking 20 more minutes.

Yes, I can guarantee that.

So you speak for absolutely everybody in the game that everyone knows the real life details of everybody else and will accept lower DPS coming from someone who has, say, an injured nerve in their hand which prevents certain quick movements?

No, joining content is entering a contract with the group to do, and be able to do, enough healing/tanking/dps to clear the content.

And when you can clear the content but it will just take 20 minutes more, that's acceptable for every person in the game?

Can you stop dragging our conversation in circles?

I'm not. If the only people in a position to prove your claim are SE, and they happen to disagree with your claim, why are you still claiming it? You shouldn't make claims that you can't personally prove and rely on your opponent to prove. (And don't forget, I'm not your opponent because I don't make the decision of whether SE adds a parser or not.)

I went into the content in good faith that everyone present would be able to complete it

And if you were proven wrong, then that should have taught you a valuable lesson that premaking parties is a lot safer.

What makes their queue time worth more than the time of the entire party?

The fact that the entire party had the option to not queue into duty finder and get them.

Maybe help them get better? Just an idea.

If they really wanted to get better, they clearly have the internet and can look up even basic guides on their class.

To paraphrase someone: if the boss dies one second before enrage, I've done too much DPS. Right?

I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to make sense. But if it's cleared, it's cleared.

It was called Steps of Faith.

Which, in my experience, had less to do with not being good DPS and more to do with not doing mechanics, be it missing DKs, ignoring cannons, or whatever.

Granted, but then they're probably having to leave whatever group they're in to look up guides.

They could do it between groups or in their 30 minute queues. :P I doubt they'll always be in a dungeon and once they're out after failing they completely forget that they failed and requeue. And, I mean, if they refuse to go outside the game to figure out how to play, I don't hold out much hope that they'd listen to a complete stranger judging them in the middle of a dungeon run.

If this is the mentality SE wants to breed, then strict DPS checks probably aren't the way to do it.

Which I've honestly yet to see outside things I wouldn't queue randomly for. And, I mean, if the mentality of "DPS MUST BE THIS HIGH TO RIDE" is contained only in those high end things that actually do require strict DPS checks, that's different from if (and when) it (inevitably) spills into things that don't require strict DPS checks at all just because it may take a few more minutes to get through.

Get back to me when they allow PS3 to have an equal footing.

Are there any serious raid groups that all play on PS3?

And somehow I doubt that you never played with anyone outside the 40 people in your WoW raid back in the day.

Actually, I rarely did. With 40 people in a raid group, there's usually 4 others that wouldn't mind doing other dungeons during down time.

It's less easy to notice something like that, where all buffs and debuffs are up as appropriate, but it's still a very significant issue.

And did you clear it? And if not, was it entirely due to his less DPS?

And that's even if I grant harassment as a drawback of group parsers, which I don't think it is.

Doesn't matter if you do or not. It matters if SE does.

It will never cease to amaze me, the lengths someone will go to defend their "right" to suck at a game.

So... you're being another case of why they shouldn't officially add group parsers? I mean, if you're going to harass someone about their DPS when you're not even in a group with them, you clearly couldn't handle actually being in a group with someone with low DPS.

[Isala]

So... you're being another case of why they shouldn't officially add group parsers? I mean, if you're going to harass someone about their DPS when you're not even in a group with them, you clearly couldn't handle actually being in a group with someone with low DPS.

Buddy, I've been in groups that had such low DPS, they couldn't actually beat Nidhogg in the Aery. I've been in groups with such low DPS, they died to the Demon Walls in AK hard. I've died to Odin repeatedly, with 10% HP left. I've seen the enrage in A1 more times than I'd care to admit to. I have had groups with such horrible DPS, the healers and tank were outDPSing all of them. So don't you dare tell me I can't handle actually being in a group with someone with low DPS, because I have seen the absolute worst players in this game. Maybe, if we actually had a tool to let them know how terrible they were doing, they might be able to improve themselves. But instead, I got to waste hours of my time, failing to content that shouldn't even be considered hard, because nobody wants to take the personal responsibility to actually play right.

[waifugenerator]

How would a personal parser be a problem at all??? It'd let PS4/3/bad players see what numbers they're pulling, and help them improve. It gets kinda annoying having to ask my PC friends to parse me

[SlyRoyale]

It'd be great if console players could have access to an official parser instead of relying on their PC friends to check their numbers for them. To be brutally frank, I feel unfairly excluded from the information parsers reveal simply because I do not play on the right platform that can use third-party programs to collect that information. It contains information that every player should have the right to observe for the sake of self-betterment and working with others to help them improve, or in some cases improve together. As for those who would abuse such information, we already have the means to deal with it. An official parser wouldn't make things any different.

I honestly believe that a parser is more beneficial than it is harmful as some fear.

[Cynfael]

Buddy, I've been in groups that had such low DPS, they couldn't actually beat Nidhogg in the Aery. I've been in groups with such low DPS, they died to the Demon Walls in AK hard. I've died to Odin repeatedly, with 10% HP left. I've seen the enrage in A1 more times than I'd care to admit to. I have had groups with such horrible DPS, the healers and tank were outDPSing all of them. So don't you dare tell me I can't handle actually being in a group with someone with low DPS, because I have seen the absolute worst players in this game. Maybe, if we actually had a tool to let them know how terrible they were doing, they might be able to improve themselves. But instead, I got to waste hours of my time, failing to content that shouldn't even be considered hard, because nobody wants to take the personal responsibility to actually play right.

I'm in complete agreement.

As has been said many times before, there are a lot of players who don't religiously follow forums or look up a wealth of meta-game information, but who might be persuaded to get a clue if an in-game tool (rather than an irate player) gave them the notion that they were doing something very wrong.

I'm not talking about the people who more or less do what's expected of them even if it's not always optimal; this is more about the legit garbage-tier players who aren't even aware that their lack of skill is seriously inconveniencing others.

Someone's right to be terrible at the game extends about as far as it begins to cause others to have a similarly miserable experience, IMO.

[Viridiana]

Only if you think that living conditions of an entire country are analogous to a dungeon in a video game taking 20 more minutes.

They are analogous, in that it's possible to use one as an analogy for the other.

So you speak for absolutely everybody in the game that everyone knows the real life details of everybody else and will accept lower DPS coming from someone who has, say, an injured nerve in their hand which prevents certain quick movements?

I would call this shifting goal posts, but it's more like you tried to move the game into another stadium. You originally asked if I can guarantee that everyone kicked has the potential to improve. I can guarantee that, because if absolutely nothing else, the gear treadmill will go on, and those people I guarantee can get better gear to try again later, which will improve their output even if they perform to exactly the same level.

And when you can clear the content but it will just take 20 minutes more, that's acceptable for every person in the game?

I'm not even sure what you're arguing against here. >_>

I'm not. If the only people in a position to prove your claim are SE, and they happen to disagree with your claim, why are you still claiming it? You shouldn't make claims that you can't personally prove and rely on your opponent to prove.

Because at the moment they've asserted it without establishing their criteria, which makes it a worthless assertion. As it stands, they've basically said, "We're worried about people harassing others if we enable a parser." But they haven't even asserted a rough estimate of how many people would harass others with a parser, much less how much of an increase that would be over the current state. If they were genuinely concerned that parsers inevitably lead to harassment, they'd be cracking down on all parser users because those people would inevitably be harassing people. Clearly then, we can all (including SE) agree that parsers do not inevitably lead to harassment. Harassment and parsing are two separate issues, completely able to arise independently.

Meanwhile, one of my FC mates earlier today was actually judged for being an Au Ra, because apparently fantastic racism is starting to spill over into real life, or something. Yet no one would suggest getting rid of races in the game, right? Fact is we don't need parsers to be jerks to each other, the monkeys will just be throwing numbers instead of offal.

And if you were proven wrong, then that should have taught you a valuable lesson that premaking parties is a lot safer.

Because if I get a single counter-example, I should immediately give up on the whole enterprise? If a bank has a single loan get skipped out on, they should stop handing out loans?

I mean, I hate to keep bringing up real world arguments, but your logic is escaping me. You seem to be saying "Don't hold the bad guys accountable for their actions, just stop trusting anybody!" I guess I could go through life extending trust only with extreme caution and letting very few people into my inner circle. But that seems much less like living.

The fact that the entire party had the option to not queue into duty finder and get them.

I…don't even know what you're trying to say here. The queue time of one person is worth more than the time of the entire rest of the party because the entire party had the option not to queue into DF and get that person. That's what you just said. I'm really struggling to find the logic here.

If they really wanted to get better, they clearly have the internet and can look up even basic guides on their class.

Some people are extremely averse to going outside the game for help.

I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to make sense. But if it's cleared, it's cleared.

According to you, clearing just as the boss enrages is the only objectively reasonable amount of DPS to require. So we should never expect anyone to push harder than that, right? Because if we expect people to clear things any faster than just as the boss enrages, we're being objectively unreasonable. In the spirit of that, if it appears the boss will die too soon before enraging, I'm going to sheathe my weapons and go stand in the corner from now on. Because if anyone expects any more than that from me, they're being unreasonable, according to you. >_>

Which, in my experience, had less to do with not being good DPS and more to do with not doing mechanics, be it missing DKs, ignoring cannons, or whatever.

Which all fall under doing DPS. The only aspect of that which wouldn't fall under DPS would be the tanks gathering mobs under Vishap's neck for maximum cannon damage. Nearly every other way that it commonly failed was the result of a DPS failure.

And, I mean, if they refuse to go outside the game to figure out how to play, I don't hold out much hope that they'd listen to a complete stranger judging them in the middle of a dungeon run.

Ya never know. People can be really weird.

Which I've honestly yet to see outside things I wouldn't queue randomly for. And, I mean, if the mentality of "DPS MUST BE THIS HIGH TO RIDE" is contained only in those high end things that actually do require strict DPS checks, that's different from if (and when) it (inevitably) spills into things that don't require strict DPS checks at all just because it may take a few more minutes to get through.

Did you ever queue original Amdapour Keep? Before they nerfed Demon Wall because so many people couldn't kill it, I mean. Or Ifrit Hard without a caster LB, when people actually had to put out some DPS in order to kill nails on time? Or Titan Hard in the first month or two, when the heart phase was nerve wracking for a lot of groups?

Are there any serious raid groups that all play on PS3?

How serious is "serious"? I recall at least one FC whose every player was on PS3/PS4; if they have an FC raid group, that would be a yes.

And did you clear it? And if not, was it entirely due to his less DPS?

No, we didn't clear it because we couldn't pass the heart phase because we didn't have enough DPS. This was like a year and a half ago, so I can't recall with certainty if there were any other issues, but considering I was bothered enough by his DPS to dig into parser records to figure out what was going on, I'm reasonably sure there wasn't a more obvious issue contributing to our failure.

Doesn't matter if you do or not. It matters if SE does.

But what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. There would need to be evidence that adding a parser meaningfully impacts the number of actual (versus reported) harassment cases. And since committing harassment seems to be corellated much more strongly to being a jerk than to running a parser, that's gonna be a tough sell. I'm totally willing to be proven wrong, but the only people in a position to do so are also unwilling to do so.

[drmambo1999]

Oh my......O.O That's a lot of aggressive multi quoting about something that, is for the most part, a hypothetical conversation. XD

I stand by my original opinion. I don't think official parsers will affect the community all that much despite individual feelings about how players treat others regarding their DPS.

I will agree with, as stated above, having a personal or private parser would be nice just for the sake of self improvement.

[OPneedNerfs]

To those okay with people doing insanely low dps, would you report someone who only auto-attacked the whole dungeon? If you would, congratulations you're a hypocrite.

[NekoGenesis]

However, the state of the game currently is that parsers are being used (by PC players) extensively, and since we're not allowed to mention parsers or anyone's numbers for fear of getting suspended/banned it's hard to tell DPS when they need to improve and when they need to pick up the slack.

Parsers don't really make people assholes either - they were already assholes in the beginning if they kick you because you do 50 DPS less than the super optimal hyper mega perfect rotation posted by *insert famous youtuber here*. And in this game, they kick you anyway because they're parsing using a 3rd party program instead of an official one, they just don't tell you why they kicked you, and it will get filed under the catch-all "differing playstyles" reason for kicking (if in a dungeon) and in a PF you'll probably just get booted.

In some aspects of the game where DPS checks are important (Bismarck EX being the most common example), it does not make sense why DPS are not being held accountable for their performance. If a tank does bad, your party wipes. If a healer does bad, your party wipes. If a DPS does bad, in Bismarck EX, Ravana EX and in Savage, your party wipes but they get away with it because lolparsers (either that or the entire group of DPS gets kicked, the party falls apart, and you're back to shouting in PF looking for a clear, which is unfair on the 3 other DPS if its only 1 DPS that's bringing the group down). Now its easy to pinpoint the problem if its the Tank or Healer stuffing up. If the Tank's health drops to 0 suddenly, it means they didn't use the appropriate cooldowns to mitigate incoming tankbuster damage. It is also obvious if a Healer is struggling and can't keep up with the Healing required for a fight. It's harder to discern the individual damage of a DPS unless you're watching them more than you're concentrating on your own character or the actual fight.

[Aomine1992]

Meh I'm not for parsers but I'm not against them...only because when I was new I didn't realize how bad I was until a buddy ran a parser and I got my act together real quick and not only tripled my my DPS but I became more aware....

Buttttttt there are way to many idiots in this game who instead of sending maybe a tell or message amongst friends saying hey your dps is a bit low you can do this....we get in party chat with 7 strangers "hey DRG your DpS is 500 get your ish together" and everyone laughs at this person I got mad and defended them cause it was wrong but thus proving my point of idiots in this games...

Granted it can go the other way being nice and the person telling you to go f yourself And they play the way they want lol the point is PARSERS are not the problem..but also won't really fix much but carve out a chunk of the games population as being unfit players