The Real Problem with Parsers

[Erim-Nelhah]

but I can tell you that the scenario I posed will absolutely happen.

Do you think that scenario is going to happen in the duty finder? Because I'll be honest: I really don't care if it happens in PF - the person creating the party sets the rules. Don't like the rules? Don't join that party. If it happens in the duty finder, it's going to be one of those few things that gets me to initiate a votekick on someone - you joined DF, which means that you agreed to help a group of random people clear a duty. Asking for Parse SS or kick/leave in DF is just rude, and if you're wiping because of low dps you probably already know who's doing badly, and can simply ask everyone to state their parse in chat (so that the bad player, even if he doesn't, can see what the others are parsing).

tl;dr: If I see your scenario in PF, I don't care, assuming it was stated in the PF listing. If I see that happening in DF, I'm probably gonna pre-emptively votekick the requestor.

--Erim Nelhah

[Aiselia]

it's possible to use one as an analogy for the other.

You can use pretty much anything as an analogy for anything else if you don't care if it's valid.

You originally asked if I can guarantee that everyone kicked has the potential to improve.

I then immediately qualified that with "Meaning no medical issues restricting them or anything like that?" You either missed that or chose to ignore it intentionally, neither of which does you any favours.

the gear treadmill will go on

Which will be irrelevant to anybody who gets repeatedly kicked from content for not doing enough DPS because they won't be able to get that gear. And, in fact, the problem will get comparatively worse as the people who DO get the higher end gear will increase their expectations of DPS to match because the higher gear increases everybody's. If someone doesn't accept 500 DPS now, they're not going to accept 550 DPS at i220.

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

Then scroll back and look at what you said? It seems pretty straightforward to me. You said that joining a group is entering a contract to be able to do enough tanking/healing/DPS to clear it. So then as long as you can clear it, they're holding up their side, right? Even if the dungeon takes another 20 minutes or even another hour, if the content gets cleared, they are holding up their side of the contract?

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.

The problem with your thinking is that you think they owe you that. They don't. If I like to have my door locked because I'm afraid of people walking into my house and robbing me, I don't need to assert a rough estimate of how many people might rob me. Instead, the person trying to convince me to leave my door unlocked has to prove to me that I won't get robbed.

If their argument is then that "Yeah, you might get robbed, but those people might get caught and go to jail so that would clean up the streets," well, that's working even worse.

they'd be cracking down on all parser users because those people would inevitably be harassing people.

You're blatantly ignoring an important part, though, and that's their current policy regarding TALKING about the parsers. Yes, people are using parsers in-game now. But they're not allowed to call someone out on their DPS with it. If they put parsers officially into the game, then in order to maintain their CURRENT state, they'd have to continue to take the stance that you're not allowed to bring anybody else's DPS up, which would, of course, defeat what everyone seems to want. And remember, if their stance right now is "We won't outright stop you from using them, but we don't want you bringing it up to anyone", why do you think people going "Oh yeah, we'd totally call people out" would help move them from that stance?

This goes back to the whole "estimate" thing. Why should they give you an estimate of how many people would call others out on their DPS when you have a thread full of people here wanting desperately to call people out on their DPS?

Because if I get a single counter-example,

Is it only one time? If so, clearly this isn't an important problem.

I should immediately give up on the whole enterprise?

Didn't say that. Just that if you continue to make the conscious decision to not premake parties, that's your choice, not anybody else's.

If a bank has a single loan get skipped out on, they should stop handing out loans?

If people abuse banks, banks create policies to crack down on abuse. They exercise their options. Your analogy works against you.

You seem to be saying "Don't hold the bad guys accountable for their actions, just stop trusting anybody!"

Except what I'm actually saying is that you have options and it's nobody's choice but your own to not use those options.

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

And some people are extremely averse to being spoken to in-game. What's your point?

According to you, clearing just as the boss enrages is the only objectively reasonable amount of DPS to require.

If you cleared it, you cleared it. Anything faster than that is obviously better, but not required.

Which all fall under doing DPS.

I'd consider it more under mechanics and teamwork since the DPS aren't the only ones that can use the cannons and DK. As well, having a parser isn't going to tell you anything useful if people aren't shooting cannons.

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?

Sorry, how are these relevant to the state of the game now? Please try to keep your arguments centered on a time period that matters.

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.

If the answer really is yes, that there are raid groups that clear, say, Savage content where everyone's on a PS3, then doesn't that mean that parsers aren't necessary for success? I mean, clearly those raid groups won't have a parser, but if they're clearing it, clearly they've figured out how to deal with that.

I can't recall with certainty if there were any other issues

Then your story is not very good proof of much, is it?

I'm reasonably sure there wasn't a more obvious issue contributing to our failure.

In my line of work, you learn that "This is what I specifically remember" doesn't have any reasonable bearing on the entirety of a situation. For example, if everybody's DPS was lower than it could be, then everyone contributed to it, not just the lowest person. Or you specifically remember that BECAUSE it was an obvious issue that stuck in your mind to look up while you tunnel visioned over other issues.

But what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

See above about doors being unlocked. I don't need evidence that someone will rob my house to know that leaving my door unlocked is a bad idea.

And since committing harassment seems to be corellated much more strongly to being a jerk than to running a parser

The difference, again, is the policy. Jerks can run parsers now, but they can't say anything. Adding in an official parser and maintaining the same policy that they can't say anything will not increase verbal harassment because they're still not allowed to say anything, but that defeats your purpose of wanting to be able to call people out on their DPS. Not adding in an official parser but rescinding the current policy about not talking about it will, clearly, increase the number of people calling others out on DPS.

Do you understand the difference here? You, seemingly, and apparently most people here, are not just talking about adding a parser in. They want the ability to call people out on the DPS. People who already use a parser but are arguing that they should add a parser are CLEARLY not concerned with adding the parser itself, but wanting the policy about not wanting people to call others out rescinded. So while it isn't the parser that will turn people into jerks, it's the rescinding of the policy that will open the door for them to be jerks.

the only people in a position to do so are also unwilling to do so.

You're so wrong on two counts. I mean, first of all, you expect SE is capable of proving a hypothetical, which is a completely unrealistic expectation. Secondly, look around you. This thread alone makes it pretty clear that if they rescind the policy that you can't talk about someone's DPS, they're going to get an increase in people being called out, just from the number of people who've shared stories about "Oh, this person was crap but I had to bite my tongue because I couldn't say anything and it was infuriating". Those people are the EXACT people who prove SE's point.

Since you love real world analogies so much, when people want certain drugs to not be restricted by law because they're not really harmful, the onus is on them to prove that they're not really harmful. They're the ones trying to change a law with their argument, so it's their job to prove their argument. So it's your job to prove that they won't be proven completely right and that rescinding their policy won't result in an increase in people being called out and an increase in harassment reports.

[Erim-Nelhah]

...lots of long posts...

So, because (assuming you're playing DPS that day) someone might say something like "Wraith, your dps sux, L2P Noob", I shouldn't be able to say something like "Wraith, you're only doing half the DPS of the other DPS, can you please step it up a bit?"

Or do you honestly think the latter is so demeaning that even THAT shouldn't be said, ever?

--Erim Nelhah

[StouterTaru]

The difference, again, is the policy. Jerks can run parsers now, but they can't say anything. Adding in an official parser and maintaining the same policy that they can't say anything will not increase verbal harassment because they're still not allowed to say anything, but that defeats your purpose of wanting to be able to call people out on their DPS. Not adding in an official parser but rescinding the current policy about not talking about it will, clearly, increase the number of people calling others out on DPS.

You can't use a parser (but they won't enforce it unless you use it to harass someone in game.) You CAN call someone out for poor damage, there is nothing in the ToS against that.

[Elazu]

I really don't think the "send us ss of parse or kick" thing will ever happen. Not even sure where people get that idea, let alone why everyone seems to think it's the natural conclusion. It feels sorta paranoid to me tbh.

However, if they really went the personal parser route then people will just keep using the parsers they use now. A personal parser would be a downgrade of functionality.

Definitely mainly a paranoia thing. The majority of people are terrified by the idea of a parser and come up with all these weird reasons why parsers are the devil (not saying you are one of those @Tsilyi) because it will expose them and they'd finally have to learn to play the game.

[Aiselia]

So, because (assuming you're playing DPS that day) someone might say something like "Wraith, your dps sux, L2P Noob", I shouldn't be able to say something like "Wraith, you're only doing half the DPS of the other DPS, can you please step it up a bit?"

What I think is or isn't too demeaning is irrelevant. What is relevant is what SE thinks and what everybody thinks. This whole thread might be fine with the latter, but there might be 10,000 people in DF right now that wouldn't be fine with it and just don't want to hear it. Now, whether they're right or not is subjective, but whether they're right or not doesn't necessarily mean they won't put in a ticket for harassment, which SE has to deal with in one way or another, which is time and resources spent on what could be a non-issue.

If you could guarantee that the former would be a rarity while the latter the more common, that would, I'm sure, help in an argument about whether it should or should not be allowed. But you can't guarantee that, can you? There's always the possibility that the people that would say the former would outnumber the people that would say the latter, isn't there? Some people find it difficult to stay civil in a thread on the forum about someone's completely hypothetical DPS that they've just made up. Why should SE expect that those people could stay civil in-game if they rescinded the policy to not bring up someone's DPS?

You can't use a parser

ACT doesn't exist, I see.

Maybe you should consider the factual difference between "can" and "are officially allowed to". Because they quite clearly can, even if they're not officially allowed to.

[StouterTaru]

Maybe you should consider the factual difference between "can" and "are officially allowed to". Because they quite clearly can, even if they're not officially allowed to.

Word meanings change over time, it's not 1900 any more.

auxiliary verb, present singular 1st person can, 2nd can or (Archaic) canst, 3rd can, present plural can; past singular 1st person could, 2nd could or (Archaic) couldst, 3rd could, past plural could.
1.
to be able to; have the ability, power, or skill to:
She can solve the problem easily, I'm sure.
2.
to know how to:
He can play chess, although he's not particularly good at it.
3.
to have the power or means to:
A dictator can impose his will on the people.
4.
to have the right or qualifications to:
He can change whatever he wishes in the script.
5.
may; have permission to:
Can I speak to you for a moment?
6.
to have the possibility:
A coin can land on either side.

And you sidestepped the entire point, harassment is against the ToS and always will be. Calling someone out on their damage isn't necessarily harassment.

[Benolan]

Issue is that nobody can take a lick of criticism.

I would say the larger issue is most people don't know how to give it constructively

[Martin_Arcainess]

I love it and I mean love it when people just come out with random figures like the 1% will be happy and 99% will leave, it just goes to show that we can have accesses to SE database and surveys and just appreciate all the hard work people go into to give us these % figures.

Now back onto the subject, I would SE to have a Parser, for myself personnel, too see how I can boost my DPS rotation and to help people out. I went to do Ramuh EX and we was struggling to pass the Adds, if I had a parser, I could see who's not pulling there weight and help them out and help them be a better DPS \o/

In short it's all down to how users use the parsers.

[Aiselia]

Word meanings change over time, it's not 1900 any more.

Even by that definition, "can" is still correct. They, by virtue of action (or lack thereof), give permission to use them. If people didn't essentially have permission to use them, SE would ban everyone that uses them. By not banning everyone who's posted their parse links here, they permit the use of them. If I have all my doors locked and you break in my window and I'm just sitting there watching you steal my things without doing anything, I'm permitting it to happen, even if I want you not to. So sorry, you don't even win a semantic victory.

Calling someone out on their damage isn't necessarily harassment.

And what constitutes harassment is subjective. If I was doing 200 DPS in a run and someone ranted at me for half an hour about how terrible I am, I wouldn't care because if I did care, I wouldn't have been auto-attacking only. Other people may consider "Hey, your DPS is a little low, could you do maybe try a bit harder?" to be harassment and report them. You ignored the important point, that whether or not something is objectively harassment, that doesn't mean that reports can't be put in about it and that's something SE has to deal with somehow, costing time and resources that may be better spent responding to more important matters.