The Real Problem with Parsers

[Erim-Nelhah]

Which means what to the 10 years of complaints of elitism from the game?

I've stated that the video mirrors my own experience with WoW's LFD/LFR. My experience might not mirror that of many others, or it actually might. I don't know, and I don't have an active WoW sub anymore with which to go ask them. I do, howver, believe that it does.

... and still nobody has managed to state an objective benefit of having a party parser over a personal parser ...

You want objective benefits? Total Party DPS, total party DPS per phase, and the ability to see total party DPS at any given point in the fight (along with other statistics like HPS, Damage Taken, Mitigation, and Deaths, that a good parser can provide). You mention a share option for the personal parser: That works, provided that someone sharing their parse shares it live, not as a snapshot/total, and that the PS3 can also "share", regardless of its ability to actually show the parser. As for PS3 limitations....the PS3 may end up being limited to the "dummy parser" that's already being worked on because of that. 512M of shared ram just isn't enough - not even for a personal parser.

People should not be joining Dusk Vigil with a NQ 115 weapon (basically nq = i90 weapon or less) or ATMA (LOL U READ THAT RIGHT, AN ATMA WEAPON). They will be full 120 gear and using some garbage tier weapon because they dont understand how stats work in the game.

Ok, then what are they suppoed to be using?

• i110 Soldiery weapon? The easiest way to get one is through questing. A quick check of the quests on ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com reveals that you can get 3 such weapons while doing the story quests, which don't include options for the new classes, and further you have to choose 1 weapon each from 3 groups, which may not reflect the extra classes you want to play. And if you finished the MSQ before HW came out, the quests aren't an option. That leaves people with buying one. The i100 version (only slightly better than an i100 atma) costs 1300 Poetics plus an Unidentified Allagan Tomestone - which only drops from ST, T6, and T7, none of which are trivial to unlock for a newer player, much less run. Oh, and then you have to upgrade it to i110, which requires you to do Hunts or ST for the items, and isn't something a new player is likely to figure out how to do on his/her own.
• Poetics weapon? Those also cost 1300 Poetics, but instead of an Unidentified Allagan Tomestone they require an Encrypted one. Say hello to your choice of T11 or all of CT (twice if you're new, since you have to complete it once to unlock the weekly). Again, neither of these are trivial even to unlock, much less run.
• A decent Primal Weapon? Say hello to Leviathan and/or Shiva EX, both non-trivial fights even at 60. GL with the drop (maybe Ramuh as well, but he doesn't always even drop a weapon).
• HQ Crafted weapon? Last time I looked, the i115 HQ weapons, when crafters even put them up on the MB, cost as much as their i150 HQ counterparts, if not more.

Look at it this way: At least they visited the Crozier (or the Forgotten Knight in the case of DRKs) first, or bothered to get their relic weapon and upgrade it a bit, and didn't come in with just an i55 weapon (yes, I've heard of people running much harder content than DV with that kind of gear).

--Erim Nelhah

[Aiselia]

I've stated that the video mirrors my own experience with WoW's LFD/LFR.

Whereas the video contradicts my experience, where I'd been kicked from a group in the lowest tier of heroics because I wasn't doing comparable damage to the raid-geared rest of the group while on a character that literally had just hit cap and was doing the lowest tier of heroics BECAUSE I needed to start gearing up.

Total Party DPS, total party DPS per phase, and the ability to see total party DPS at any given point in the fight.

Okay, but how is this an objective benefit, to be able to see everyone's DPS during the fight? How much of a difference will it make to you downing the boss if you can see what everyone's DPS is during the fight, compared to after? If you find out halfway through the fight that you're not putting out enough DPS, isn't it kind of already too late? Everyone should hopefully already be trying as hard as they can, you don't have time to stop and talk about strategies and how to improve their DPS mid-fight.

In what situations would being able to see someone's DPS mid-fight make a difference between winning and losing? You can't really do much about it until the fight's over for better or worse.

the PS3 may end up being limited to the "dummy parser" that's already being worked on because of that.

And unfortunately, SE doesn't seem to want to make significantly different changes in versions of the game, whether it's due to the amount of work involved or because they don't want to personally give one group of players an advantage over others, which means if the PS3 is limited to something, odds are that everyone's going to get that limitation.

Sucks, but that seems to be the way SE wants to work the client.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Okay, but how is this an objective benefit, to be able to see everyone's DPS during the fight? How much of a difference will it make to you downing the boss if you can see what everyone's DPS is during the fight, compared to after? If you find out halfway through the fight that you're not putting out enough DPS, isn't it kind of already too late? Everyone should hopefully already be trying as hard as they can, you don't have time to stop and talk about strategies and how to improve their DPS mid-fight.

You need to go back 6 pages, as I've already discussed this with you before and you failed to present any valid argument against it. Which was "personal DPS parsing". Which in turn I elaborated that it would cause more annoyance/grief potential than public parsers.

[Erim-Nelhah]

Whereas the video contradicts my experience, where I'd been kicked from a group in the lowest tier of heroics because I wasn't doing comparable damage to the raid-geared rest of the group while on a character that literally had just hit cap and was doing the lowest tier of heroics BECAUSE I needed to start gearing up.

I've heard of such incidents. I've heard of similar ones here in FFXIV already happening. A question about your incident in WoW: How often did it happen before you got properly geared? I ask, because I've gotten kicked exactly once as a healer from a Heroic dungeon (an early, awful grimrail run before people knew how to bait the slag properly), that I can remember (I wasn't awful, but I wasn't great either), and I did a few runs as WW DPS as well (which I was absolute garbage as), and while I think I did get called out on it once, I never got kicked.

In what situations would being able to see someone's DPS mid-fight make a difference between winning and losing? You can't really do much about it until the fight's over for better or worse.

Being able to see DPS during the fight isn't the benefit. The benefit is to the parser itself, which can show better data if it has access to all the data from the fight (which it won't have if only the final parse data is sent with the share). The easiest way to implement that is to make it so that sharing shows your current parse to those who you shared it with, and enables those people you shared with to continue to parse your info for the remainder of the duty. Having the parser be party-wide instead of personal would also allow SE to give it to PC/PS4 users and not PS3 users with little downside (PS3 users could still be parsed by PS4 and PC users), where with only Personal parsers (if they're implemented but not for PS3) would leave PS3 users hanging unless they got a simple parse share dialog. All of this assumes SE does the right thing and implements a full parser and not just a basic "end-of-fight" parser. If the latter is all that we get, I doubt people who use external parsers will stop doing so.

--Erim Nelhah

[Aiselia]

You need to go back 6 pages, as I've already discussed this with you before and you failed to present any valid argument against it. Which was "personal DPS parsing". Which in turn I elaborated that it would cause more annoyance/grief potential than public parsers.

I went back six pages, and I don't see anything about why you need to see DPS during a run as opposed to afterwards, given that you won't have time to go over rotations during the fight.

A question about your incident in WoW: How often did it happen before you got properly geared?

That specific situation? Once on that character. After that, i tended to just run with my guild and not bother with random queues. Though I had been kicked for having lower-than-raid DPS on characters that didn't raid before. That one I brought up was just a complete low point, where they could clearly see that I hadn't even run any heroics yet since glamouring gear didn't exist then so there was no hiding what gear you were wearing.

The benefit is to the parser itself, which can show better data if it has access to all the data from the fight (which it won't have if only the final parse data is sent with the share).

Okay, but let's assume that all the data gets collected and shared as a parse that shows how the whole fight went instead of just "Here's the final DPS numbers". You'd still get the exact same information as if you saw it during the fight, but would have the down-time to talk about it as well as to actually comb the data instead of trying to pay attention to parsers plus your rotation plus mechanics.

Which, I guess, could be a subjective benefit of personal over party to avoid people tunnel visioning watching their DPS as they try to "win at DPS" but then get hit by a nuke to the face because they were looking where they were compared to the other DPS during the fight.

Having the parser be party-wide instead of personal would also allow SE to give it to PC/PS4 users and not PS3 users with little downside

Unfortunately, as I said in the previous post, I don't expect that SE would bother to make it available to certain platforms and not all, given that they also could have done that with TP bars ages ago, which is a huge game-changer for Bards and NIN and knowing when to Paeon/Goad.

If the latter is all that we get, I doubt people who use external parsers will stop doing so.

I kind of get the feeling that unless they literally put an exact copy of the third-party parsers into the game, there will be people who use them regardless.

I wanna know if we're wiping and the DRG is doing 200 less than other DRGs so I can figure out if the situation sucks for him, or if he's doing something wrong on a personal level, so we can discuss this and fix it. Fix it and beat the fight with the info we gained from a parser.

Right, but does it make a huge difference if you see during the fight that the DRG is doing 200 less than other DRGs or after the fight that the DRG DID 200 less DPS than other DRGs, given that you can't just pull a Zack Morris time-out while you explain the rotation? Either way, you're going to have to wait until after the fight to go over it with the DRG, so if you still get the same breakdown in both occasions, does it matter when you get the information?

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Right, but does it make a huge difference if you see during the fight that the DRG is doing 200 less than other DRGs or after the fight that the DRG DID 200 less DPS than other DRGs, given that you can't just pull a Zack Morris time-out while you explain the rotation? Either way, you're going to have to wait until after the fight to go over it with the DRG, so if you still get the same breakdown in both occasions, does it matter when you get the information?

Or look at it the other way around; you use the tool to train yourself so others don't have to wait "zack morris" timeouts for you.

You're only looking at the negative, there's not a single positive coming out of you. You're not even "pro-parser" any more as you claim you were. You're simply a living contradiction right now.

[Aiselia]

Or look at it the other way around; you use the tool to train yourself

Why does this require the party being able to see your parser during a fight rather than you being able to see it? I don't need to know how much damage the DRG is doing to know how much damage I'm doing as a BRD. In fact, how much damage the DRG is doing is entirely irrelevant to how much damage I'm doing as a BRD because they have two different expectations for damage.

You're only looking at the negative

Not my fault if you can't come up with objective benefits.

Seeing when a DPS does less, in real time, is valuable.

Yes, I already know that's your position. I asked why, not for you to restate your position.

Seeing what the team did at the precise moment of wiping when trying a new strat is valuable.

And why does this require you to be able to see the parse during the fight when the fight's already over? Maybe if you weren't staring at your parser and paying more attention to the strat, you wouldn't have wiped.

For reference what are you arguing you want out of a parser? Are you saying you don't want the team to see what everyone can do until after the fight? Are you saying you want it all to be personal so that the team is unable to see what numbers a person did unless he so wishes to share with us?

Pretty sure I've made it clear already what I think is the best middle ground between a useful tool for self-improvement while avoiding abuse potential.

But, I guess I'll say it... again...

Personal parsers by default with optional sharing. You can always see yours, but can't see others' information unless they manually choose to share it with you.

If you're making a pre-made, you can make it a rule to share and if people aren't okay with that, then you don't go in with them. If you're in DF doing raid content for some reason, people get to choose whether they share and if it becomes relevant (wiping due to DPS checks), you can ask people to share to see what happened and if everyones' DPS is close and you just need a small push or someone's really not trying. If you're in DF doing roulettes or normal dungeons, you don't really need to see the information because there's not many strict DPS checks in roulettes.

[Sleigh]

Why does this require the party being able to see your parser during a fight rather than you being able to see it? I don't need to know how much damage the DRG is doing to know how much damage I'm doing as a BRD. In fact, how much damage the DRG is doing is entirely irrelevant to how much damage I'm doing as a BRD because they have two different expectations for damage.

Not my fault if you can't come up with objective benefits.

Yes, I already know that's your position. I asked why, not for you to restate your position.

And why does this require you to be able to see the parse during the fight when the fight's already over? Maybe if you weren't staring at your parser and paying more attention to the strat, you wouldn't have wiped.


Pretty sure I've made it clear already what I think is the best middle ground between a useful tool for self-improvement while avoiding abuse potential.

But, I guess I'll say it... again...

Personal parsers by default with optional sharing. You can always see yours, but can't see others' information unless they manually choose to share it with you.

If you're making a pre-made, you can make it a rule to share and if people aren't okay with that, then you don't go in with them. If you're in DF doing raid content for some reason, people get to choose whether they share and if it becomes relevant (wiping due to DPS checks), you can ask people to share to see what happened and if everyones' DPS is close and you just need a small push or someone's really not trying. If you're in DF doing roulettes or normal dungeons, you don't really need to see the information because there's not many strict DPS checks in roulettes.

FFXIV raiding is a series of DPS checks. Yes, every single raid at its core is a DPS check in FFXIV with interspersed mechanics, either due to an enrage or things much more specific/tangible per a part of the fight. A1 and A2 are mostly extremely easy enrages, though not easy enough - players to this day still wipe on them.

A3S, there are two very specific DPS checks, arguably more depending on overall gear/skill but there are two very big DPS checks, Hand of Pain and when a Limb grabs your healers. When learning Hand of Pain in i190, we had to push out quite a bit of DPS, we HAD to look at our parsers, at the damage incoming tab, and see who the heck was slacking, what CDs we could throttle from X point without being a risk to overall enrage, see how much damage a class could do in the 20s the Hand was active. Heck, when battling the enrage we had to look at what a class is doing at X point because we could know who was slacking - that enrage didn't come for free in near i190. That enrage still doesn't come for free for most groups in i200.

Same with A4S except the DPS checks are even more sensitive overall when it comes to push timing. Someone slacking? You bet we rode them until we could clear, like any good group will do, because we don't want slackers wasting all of our time after a few hundred pulls. The other night on A4S we enraged a bit earlier than we normally have allowance for and I got called out for being 100 DPS lower than I should have, and I sucked it up and realized what I did at a certain point was simply no good. I used that info to get better.

Not to mention countless times we've wiped and looked into the healing/tanking side of things and found out what wiped us, who was slacking with CDs, and how to fix that with new CD timelines or an altered strat.

It seems like you're pro parser (I guess?), but you believe that info shouldn't be given to others unless they want it. Sorry, can't get behind that, DPS is too big a deal in FFXIV. If you suck as a DPS, much like sucking at surviving as a tank or healing as a healer, tough cookie, everyone should know who to blame when you wipe because maybe for once you'll do some research and not get carried, or get laughed out of a group for being unwilling to improve.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Not my fault if you can't come up with objective benefits.

I gave you the objective benefits back at page 47 and 49 and discussed it with you on page 48 in detail about the post on page 47 in particular. Your only source of "defense" was your "anti-jerk stance", which you came with "personal parsers" which I elaborated that personal parsers would be far more jerk-prone than public parsers on page 48 as well.

I gave you objective benefits: Beneficial for the majority of a group who have a common goal. Your only reasoning so far that's against this kind of benefit are "people are jerks". I reacted to you that your kind of thinking would cater to the jerks you're so "anti-jerk" about, making entire communities bow down to those who you supposedly despise or even fear so much.

[Sleigh]

I went back six pages, and I don't see anything about why you need to see DPS during a run as opposed to afterwards, given that you won't have time to go over rotations during the fight.


That specific situation? Once on that character. After that, i tended to just run with my guild and not bother with random queues. Though I had been kicked for having lower-than-raid DPS on characters that didn't raid before. That one I brought up was just a complete low point, where they could clearly see that I hadn't even run any heroics yet since glamouring gear didn't exist then so there was no hiding what gear you were wearing.

Okay, but let's assume that all the data gets collected and shared as a parse that shows how the whole fight went instead of just "Here's the final DPS numbers". You'd still get the exact same information as if you saw it during the fight, but would have the down-time to talk about it as well as to actually comb the data instead of trying to pay attention to parsers plus your rotation plus mechanics.

Which, I guess, could be a subjective benefit of personal over party to avoid people tunnel visioning watching their DPS as they try to "win at DPS" but then get hit by a nuke to the face because they were looking where they were compared to the other DPS during the fight.

Unfortunately, as I said in the previous post, I don't expect that SE would bother to make it available to certain platforms and not all, given that they also could have done that with TP bars ages ago, which is a huge game-changer for Bards and NIN and knowing when to Paeon/Goad.

I kind of get the feeling that unless they literally put an exact copy of the third-party parsers into the game, there will be people who use them regardless.

Right, but does it make a huge difference if you see during the fight that the DRG is doing 200 less than other DRGs or after the fight that the DRG DID 200 less DPS than other DRGs, given that you can't just pull a Zack Morris time-out while you explain the rotation? Either way, you're going to have to wait until after the fight to go over it with the DRG, so if you still get the same breakdown in both occasions, does it matter when you get the information?

Seeing when a DPS does less, in real time, is valuable. Seeing what the team did at the precise moment of wiping when trying a new strat is valuable.

For reference what are you arguing you want out of a parser? Are you saying you don't want the team to see what everyone can do until after the fight? Are you saying you want it all to be personal so that the team is unable to see what numbers a person did unless he so wishes to share with us?