The Real Problem with Parsers

[Aiselia]

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

Okay, and here's what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying it's not useful to have the information at all. I just do not understand why it's inherently more useful at the time of, when you won't really be able to do much of anything about it until after the wipe. If you can get a breakdown of the fight after you've wiped, getting the same information as you would have during the fight, and now have the time to actually look at the data and talk to whoever it was that was slacking and make suggestions, why would it matter much if you saw it during the fight or after?

If your DRG is 200 DPS lower than they should be, which, for argument's sake, is definitely going to lead to a wipe because it's just too low, why does it matter whether you see that before you wipe or after? How often could you actually save a wipe by pointing out that the DRG is too low and they manage to pick up and make up for what they lost when you've already spent X amount of time being too low, as compared to you having to go another try but this time talking to the DRG beforehand?

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.

Which you would have generally looked into after the wipe, no?

you believe that info shouldn't be given to others unless they want it.

I believe that the information shouldn't be default available to everybody in every form of content. You don't need to know somebody's DPS in Fractal or Neverreap or a vast majority of dungeons because you're unlikely to wipe due to DPS. The worst that's going to happen is it's going to take a bit longer.

I do agree that there IS some content where knowledge of party contribution IS a big deal. It's a minority of the content in the game, though, and with optional sharing of information, you can limit when other people can see your output to the content where it actually matters if you want, and the people who fear that parsers will cause elitism don't have to worry when they queue for a dungeon that someone's going to look at their DPS and mock them because they can keep theirs private for that.

Your core belief is simply that it's a change that would create animosity from certain players to others. And that outweighs any potential usefulness in your mind.

No it isn't.

My core belief is that in a majority of the content in the game, such as dungeons and story trials, knowing how much DPS the rest of your party is doing is not a huge enough issue unless EVERYBODY is low, because there's little outside of EX trials and raids that will wipe you for not meeting a strict DPS check. In content like raids and EX trials, where you actually do have strict DPS checks, yes, I agree that being able to see what your party's putting out is useful and important. I disagree that it's important enough in anything outside that.

Which is why I don't think a forced-visible party parse is the way to go. By letting people choose when to share it, they can choose not to share it in unimportant content if they wish because it's unimportant, and show it in high end content where it IS important enough.

real time parse data isn't useful just seems silly - it most definitely is. I don't even think that's debatable.

Okay, so how is being able to see that someone's DPS is low 4 minutes into the fight more useful than seeing that it was low after a wipe due to low DPS? If it's not debatable, it should be easy to answer that.

That would work....but I don't think you realize quite how much data that is if it isn't already being stored by the client, which means that you have to hope that they allow each client to store parse data for all party members, just not show it unless allowed to by said party members. Otherwise they likely wouldn't allow you to see full parse data for others unless it's pre-shared.

Well, I mean, the data's already being shared between people now and essentially being stored in your chat. Effectively, an in-game parser, from the way I understand parsers, and I may be wrong because I've not exactly created one, would essentially be your combat log organized into specific people and sorted to a readable state with math pre-done for you when it comes to things like DPS calculations. The data is already "stored" in your chat log, it's just not in an organized state. Sharing the parse would essentially just be allowing your group's parse windows to put the already-stored data into a readable state.

Maybe you shouldn't try to speak for other people after how the whole "I'm gonna make up SE's position" debacle went.

I didn't make up anything. I repeated things that I've seen from other places. If you want to crap on someone for "making up SE's position", go talk to them. Also, start crapping on people who make up what others are saying when they're quoting things that clearly contradict it. I suggest starting with Elazu who keeps saying people who are good are all elitists.

Also, you shouldn't be the one acting smarmy over it when you didn't come up with the argument.

[Sleigh]

Okay, and here's what I'm trying to get at. I'm not saying it's not useful to have the information at all. I just do not understand why it's inherently more useful at the time of, when you won't really be able to do much of anything about it until after the wipe. If you can get a breakdown of the fight after you've wiped, getting the same information as you would have during the fight, and now have the time to actually look at the data and talk to whoever it was that was slacking and make suggestions, why would it matter much if you saw it during the fight or after?

If your DRG is 200 DPS lower than they should be, which, for argument's sake, is definitely going to lead to a wipe because it's just too low, why does it matter whether you see that before you wipe or after? How often could you actually save a wipe by pointing out that the DRG is too low and they manage to pick up and make up for what they lost when you've already spent X amount of time being too low, as compared to you having to go another try but this time talking to the DRG beforehand?

Mainly because sometimes total DPS isn't as important as what someone does in a particular phase or up to a particular spot, when learning. It's good to have a timeline as you see it, basically; the end result number isn't always one you can analyze and get some info out of, especially if someone dies or does a mechanic wrong which would destroy your results when otherwise you could get some info out of them during the fact.

Yeah you typically do just look at the information after the fact for tank/heal deaths. Main thing I was trying to say there was the group should have that info all the time, not privately attached to individuals or otherwise unavailable.

[Aiselia]

I gave you the objective benefits back at page 47 and 49

You gave objective benefits of seeing the information, which I've not disagreed that seeing the information can be important in the right situations. You did not give objective benefits of forcing the information to be public over being optional to be public, particularly for content where DPS doesn't make a difference outside of saving a few minutes.

This again.

Hey, I asked you a question about you making things up back on page 50. Could you answer it, please? I'm honestly curious.

Shortcut to question

Mainly because sometimes total DPS isn't as important as what someone does in a particular phase or up to a particular spot, when learning. It's good to have a timeline as you see it, basically; the end result number isn't always one you can analyze and get some info out of, especially if someone dies or does a mechanic wrong which would destroy your results when otherwise you could get some info out of them during the fact.

Okay, so it's basically just so you know where a specific problem may happen, for example, if they strangely popped a CD just before a phase where they wouldn't be able to really use it to its full extent (for example, boss goes invulnerable and they're only 5 sec into their cooldowns)?

But, I mean, if we assume that a forced-party parser is going to show you in-depth information into their CD usage or when/where they died, couldn't an end-result parser also show a timeline? Like, select a player, then it opens up a window that shows a more in-depth information timeline, while the standard UI view of the parser would be limited to more limited information.

Alternatively, what if the optional part was only who it shows to, but still would show real-time data if you selected to make it public? In which case, literally the only difference would be that instead of the party being forced to be able to see it even in content where it largely doesn't matter, one can choose whether or not theirs shows up on someone else's sheet. When doing savage content, you could still set rules to have it set to public for the run.

[Clarkamite]

Okay, so it's basically just so you know where a specific problem may happen, for example, if they strangely popped a CD just before a phase where they wouldn't be able to really use it to its full extent (for example, boss goes invulnerable and they're only 5 sec into their cooldowns)?

I suppose that would be a benefit but I believe Sleigh was more or less implying that the parser would be able to show you more accurately specific points in time where your numbers dip and why. I stated this like 30 pages ago or something along those lines how having a parser available to me at all times would allow me to really get a feel for certain phases and where I stand. I suppose if a parse could be designed such that it would show me a timeline, as you called it, that might be worthwhile but even if that was possible I would still much rather have access to it in real time.

Seeing a graph or a timeline of my numbers and cooldown usage after a wipe or a clear doesn't really carry the same weight as in real time. In real time I can start to notice a trend and immediately fix it. After a wipe I can only see that there was an issue and can only hope to rectify in the future.

Interesting how I leave this thread every couple of days only to see it grow and expand to new arguments. Last time I was checking this thread it seemed like the argument was parsing was bad because of the animosity it could spread. Now it seems as though the argument has shifted from that to, why do you need to see your numbers right away?

Not saying anything other than I'm noticing a trend. The longer this conversation goes on, the more it seems to be leaning towards the side of adding in an official parsing tool for the game. Either the people devoutly against parsing aren't as strong in their convictions enough to continue to have a discussion on the matter or they're changing their stance.

[Elazu]

Hey, I asked you a question about you making things up back on page 50. Could you answer it, please? I'm honestly curious.

Hey, had you on ignore since the first post you posted! Lucky you I actually checked this one!

'Elitist' on this forum is generally used as a synonym for 'someone who is capable'. And the 'I play for fun' excuse always comes up when people are being called out for bad play, as if being good at the game is not fun.

Seems like you're ignoring the stuff the person on page 50 posted just to argue for the sake of arguing with someone who is pro-parsers (as always). It's easily interpretable the way I did (looks like I'm not the only one either!).