Would you like an in-game parser?

[Xlantaa]

but that wouldn't work because those who want parsers to judge others will say "Oh! You're not allowing parser to parse you! You must SUX0RZ!!11! We not want you, turn on parsers or /kick plzkthx."

It is a god way to detect them and blacklist/kick from party. :P



The major fear here is not having or not parsers. The problem here is the creation of a DPS obsesed community. Parses has pros? of course. But the problem here, and I think people is ignoring it deliverately, is the creation of this DPS community.

Think on the speedruns. Speedruns has becoming the usually strat for almost dungeon (with excetions like low level dungeon, and even here I see peopel trying to speerun it), ignoring mechanics like kill adds or avoid damag to be able to finish quick. Meybe beause the dugeons does not offer actuall challengue, ro the community is just impatient, whatever, is not the point here. First, the Speedruns was a thing for some people in determinated dungeons (remember the infamous Blayflox Hard), but little by little, it started become the norm, the only way to do a dungeon, to the point that on every roulette people is doing it, even if new people is running for the first time, they jsut ignore them and demanding big pulls, and sometimes, get angered because someone refuses it. This is the common thing in dungeons/trials now.

You can extrapolate this to the parses. At the beggining, parses are used in a specifics things, like DPs improvement for some people, Ex primals or High level raiding, but little by little, this will be extend to the low level content, people will start demanding a specific number of DPS (like they started demanding speedrun). In the beggining, will be 1000 of this kind of palyers, then this palyers become 2000, then 4000, then 10000, then 20000, this will extend to all the game. Then we will have a new rule. Dungeons/trials must be done in X time, and also, people must have X DPS or they suck.

Now, think on the casual palyers, This ones can improve, but some of the, just no, doesn' have time or they jsut want run a dungeon and do others things. This casualsprobably will rerepsent the 50% of the total players. Do you think is a good idea harras them in this way? If they see the game turn into a DPS race, they probalby won't continue playing. THat's less moeny for FFXIV. Guess who will pay the consequences and who will lose content...

This is the problem I see. Not the parser itself, but he fear to turn the community into a Parsed obsessed one, like happenend in other MMO before.

Now, my question is, how can we stop the bad using on the parsers? How can we avoid turn all the content in a DPS race? The only possible way, is allow parsers only on determianted things, like preformed parties or high level content, and prohibited it in any other thing, like rouelttes. But, people is demanding the parser FOR ALL content.

For me, is clear. I like have a parser, but, I'm aware this will cause more problems than benefics. So, I say no or personal parser only for this reason, not because I hate parsing, but because I fear the game turn into a crap shit DPS obsesed.

I'm sure if this problem wasn't a thing, most people wil lagree on having it, becaus there was no problems and won't affect negativity to anyone.

PD: Sorry for my bad english.

[Reynhart]

but that wouldn't work because those who want parsers to judge others will say "Oh! You're not allowing parser to parse you! You must SUX0RZ!!11! We not want you, turn on parsers or /kick plzkthx."

And suddenly, those people won't be able to hide under their false "By using a parser themselves, they'll be able do measure the size of their own...progress"

if i have it right from the last unofficial census there is around 400k players on the NA/EU Data-centers.
so 300 votes are like hmm approximately 0,01 % :P

Oh, shoot, I forgot to vote on the poll...so, 1 voice for no parser, over 307 total votes...Yeah, my pitiful vote, who would change absolutely nothing on the end results, would actually count thirty times more on this poll than the poll itself on the whole community...
Sure...a vaaaast majority...

[Reinha]

Random stat breakdown time

I would just like to point out that any percentage comparisons related to total votes are completely irrelevant because we can vote on any number of options. The OP says so right in the first post. The total number of votes is not a good thing to compare to, because it does not represent the total number of voters (a sample of the population). A percentage display only matters if it's a percentage of voters and not votes. There is, however, one thing you can do with this data. You can compare how many times more an option was voted for than another option, because we can only vote once on each option.

As of now, it's 53 for no, 163 for personal, 102 for public. There is an unknown amount of people voting multiple options.
(1) Voters support a personal parser 3.08 times as much (208% more) as no parser. Other way around: the number of votes for no parser is 0.33 (33%) compared to the number of votes for a personal parser. (67% less voted for no parser than personal)
(2) Voters support a public parser 1.96 times as much (96% more) as no parser. Other way around: the number of votes for no parser is 0.52 (52%) compared to the number of votes for a public parser. (48% less voted for no parser than public)
(3) Voters support a personal parser 1.60 times as much (60% more) as a public parser. Other way around: the number of votes for a public parser is 0.63 (63%) compared to the number of votes for a personal parser. (37% less voted for public than personal)

I would also like to agree with Thunda_Cat that you have to take into account the possibility that some people vote for no parser and personal parser as valid options, but are opposed to a public parser. You can't just say "the majority wants parsers in any form and we just need to decide which form", because some people would rather have no parser at all than a public parser. As Layla said, the third option is formulated "Yes, but I would only like a personal in game parser", which will have guided the voters to make their choice. It was not a question of "Do you want parsers? Yes/No". There were 3 distinct options. Personally, I ticked the first and the third options precisely because of how the third option was formulated, but do not make the mistake of assuming I am in favor of a public parser. I didn't tick that box and my vote does not count towards that option in any way. Interpreting the votes as such is flawed.

Also, the last 2 number breakdowns are sort of pointless. They are just guesswork. You don't know how many voted for both parser options and you don't know how many voted for one parser option plus the no parser option. You also don't know the number of voters. Arbitrary numbers offer nothing of value and would be better left out of any statistical analysis.

[Ghishlain]

Actually, 1.0 and XI communities were not like that. But maybe it's because they were united against a common enemy...the game itself

What a parser would make is certainly not improve the community, and, probably make it worse.

But, as I said, allow each player to chose. Make an option to hide or show your damage for parsers.

It's funny you should mention these games as games that didn't really user parsers. While I didn't play 1.0 at all so I can't speak to it, but it would make a lot sense for a game that didn't rely heavily on hard enrages and DPS checks to not require the use of an ingame parser. The only monster I can think of in XI that had some sort of timer in the 75 era was PW (and even that monster didn't have a timer until a LS tried to fight it for SIXTEEN hours straight)

Probably not the best example of a game that didn't really need to use a parser.

For your third line, I will say if a personal parser is considered, that parser should never have the ability to be revealed. It's there to measure yourself and that's it - no one else needs to know that number.

And suddenly, those people won't be able to hide under their false "By using a parser themselves, they'll be able do measure the size of their own...progress"

I would probably refrain from making generalized statements like these. They do nothing more than undermine both your character and your argument by attempting to paint the other side under a very general paintbrush of "abusive" players.

This is equal to anyone claiming that you don't want a parser in game because you just want to be a lazy DPS and watch netflix all day while jamming auto attack into the boss and/or monsters.

It's an incorrect generalization and not conducive to actual discussion. And yes, this comment applies to both sides of the argument in this thread.

Oh, shoot, I forgot to vote on the poll...so, 1 voice for no parser, over 307 total votes...Yeah, my pitiful vote, who would change absolutely nothing on the end results, would actually count thirty times more on this poll than the poll itself on the whole community...
Sure...a vaaaast majority...

I should really look up Statistical Significance again and see if we have a significant sample size. You hear political polls where they polled 1,406 respondents and it apparently this is significant to them. Considering, in this particular context of my link, the Canadian population is 35.16m if about 33% of the population is considered active voters (11.60m); 1,406 respondents only represents 0.0121% of that population.

300 out of 400,000 is still more significant than that (0.075%). >>; [Editted due to another post]

Are there any statistician majors in the house? lol Would like an expert opinion xD

[EDIT]

I would just like to point out that any percentage comparisons related to total votes are completely irrelevant because we can vote on any number of options. The OP says so right in the first post. The total number of votes is not a good thing to compare to, because it does not represent the total number of voters (a sample of the population). A percentage display only matters if it's a percentage of voters and not votes. There is, however, one thing you can do with this data. You can compare how many times more an option was voted for than another option, because we can only vote once on each option.

As of now, it's 53 for no, 163 for personal, 102 for public. There is an unknown amount of people voting multiple options.
(1) Voters support a personal parser 3.08 times as much (208% more) as no parser. Other way around: the number of votes for no parser is 0.33 (33%) compared to the number of votes for a personal parser. (67% less voted for no parser than personal)
(2) Voters support a public parser 1.96 times as much (96% more) as no parser. Other way around: the number of votes for no parser is 0.52 (52%) compared to the number of votes for a public parser. (48% less voted for no parser than public)
(3) Voters support a personal parser 1.60 times as much (60% more) as a public parser. Other way around: the number of votes for a public parser is 0.63 (63%) compared to the number of votes for a personal parser. (37% less voted for public than personal)

I would also like to agree with Thunda_Cat that you have to take into account the possibility that some people vote for no parser and personal parser as valid options, but are opposed to a public parser. You can't just say "the majority wants parsers in any form and we just need to decide which form", because some people would rather have no parser at all than a public parser. As Layla said, the third option is formulated "Yes, but I would only like a personal in game parser", which will have guided the voters to make their choice. It was not a question of "Do you want parsers? Yes/No". There were 3 distinct options. Personally, I ticked the first and the third options precisely because of how the third option was formulated, but do not make the mistake of assuming I am in favor of a public parser. I didn't tick that box and my vote does not count towards that option in any way. Interpreting the votes as such is flawed.

Also, the last 2 number breakdowns are sort of pointless. They are just guesswork. You don't know how many voted for both parser options and you don't know how many voted for one parser option plus the no parser option. You also don't know the number of voters. Arbitrary numbers offer nothing of value and would be better left out of any statistical analysis.

I can accept this. I will remove that the last two calculations as they were just an attempt to try to show what the percentage would be but that is indeed right in the sense that it is guesswork at best.

I've modified my comment that's in the same post as this towards Reynhart as well just to reflect that "300 responses doesn't necessarily mean 300 individual posters" as that is true too.

[EDIT2] I'll also update that particular post to be the "personal vs group" breakdown as well since it only seems fair.

[EDIT3] Also would like to point out quickly here that even though we don't quite know how many pollers voted for multiple options, the number of "no" votes, even if you consider many "no" voters also voting for "personal", is still overshadowed by those who would like to see a parser (but perhaps not to the 80+% I mentioned earlier in the thread).

[Eidolon]

It is a god way to detect them and blacklist/kick from party. :P

The major fear here is not having or not parsers. The problem here is the creation of a DPS obsesed community. Parses has pros? of course. But the problem here, and I think people is ignoring it deliverately, is the creation of this DPS community.

Think on the speedruns. Speedruns has becoming the usually strat for almost dungeon (with excetions like low level dungeon, and even here I see peopel trying to speerun it), ignoring mechanics like kill adds or avoid damag to be able to finish quick. Meybe beause the dugeons does not offer actuall challengue, ro the community is just impatient, whatever, is not the point here. First, the Speedruns was a thing for some people in determinated dungeons (remember the infamous Blayflox Hard), but little by little, it started become the norm, the only way to do a dungeon, to the point that on every roulette people is doing it, even if new people is running for the first time, they jsut ignore them and demanding big pulls, and sometimes, get angered because someone refuses it. This is the common thing in dungeons/trials now.

The reason we do not speedrun low level dungeons is not because of the fact that we do not want to. It's because it is wildly impractical to speedrun low level dungeons. Think of any pre-30 dungeons you get.

Most TP-using classes won't have reliable AoE DPS (DRG's don't get theirs until 30+, SMN's don't get bane until 30+, etc...)

Not only that, gear is even more felt inside low level dungeons. You're given an ilevel spread of 3 ilevels in leveling dungeons. Compare this to the spread of ilevels you get inside of level 50 and 60 dungeons. In this dungeons, you have spreads of potentially 30-40+ ilevels. This is pretty massive by comparison! And that gap helps us speed run.

That isnt' to say we don't do minor speed run tricks inside of leveling dungeons, however! It's all about efficiency for players! For example. When I do my leveling dungeon, I go as a SCH. Why? Because I can DPS the whole time if I do. That attributes to a speed run. If I tank for a freind, and I see we have a SMN, I'll pick up 2 groups instead of 1. Why? Because Bane can then hit the full amount of full-potency targets + do the minor-potency targets at the same time.

If we have TP classes, I of course keep it to one at a time, and play more aggressively as a tank. Turning off tank stance, for example, to do extra damage is not uncommon in pre-50 dungeons (Though for most of them you won't even /have/ tank stance.) This is another factor of speed running. People want to get things done fast. Parsers are a tool within that purpose, but they are not the cause of it.

You can extrapolate this to the parses. At the beggining, parses are used in a specifics things, like DPs improvement for some people, Ex primals or High level raiding, but little by little, this will be extend to the low level content, people will start demanding a specific number of DPS (like they started demanding speedrun). In the beggining, will be 1000 of this kind of palyers, then this palyers become 2000, then 4000, then 10000, then 20000, this will extend to all the game. Then we will have a new rule. Dungeons/trials must be done in X time, and also, people must have X DPS or they suck.

While you could, in theory, suggest that this is, in part, due to Parses, I do not necessarily agree with such an idea. I believe that, more than anything else, this has to do with two factors:

1) Player Comfort.
This is a big one for me. Back when 2.0 launched and all we had was the initial dungeons + initial raid, and everyone was slowly fighting their way up the ilevel totem poll, and the game was <new> and <shiny> to everyone, people were a lot more careful. Content felt harder to us, as players, and thus we reacted in kind - they proceeded more cautiously.

However, Even back during 2.0, speed runs still existed. Our method of handling Speed Runs, however, was different. Take, for example, Amdapor Keep - we would consistent do Sac Pulls. This has nothing to do with a DPS community. It merely had to do with a Min/Maxing community. Because of the caps that SE put on gear for every week, Players became obsessed with maximizing their time.

2) Square Enix's insistance on slowing runs down as much as possible
Remember Amdapor Keep when it first came out? People would sac pull to the end, sacrifice the paladin, raising, and then continuing on to fight the boss. Can you attribute this action to parses? Not in the least. It's all about time and efficiency.

And Square Enix Did what they could to 'fix' that, which is what winds up making us do large pulls instead:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/71744-NA-FINAL-FANTASY-XIV-Hotfixes-%28Apr.-21-2016%29?p=1246517&viewfull=1#post1246517

Changes have been made to the behavior and mechanics of the enemies found within the “The Wanderer’s Palace” and “Amdapor Keep” dungeons to counteract instances of players running through the dungeon without engaging enemies on the way to bosses.

As advancing through dungeons without defeating enemies is not an intended strategy, we plan to continue making further changes in the future to discourage this type of behavior.

3) Player Gear
Once more I want to go back to Brayflox and take a look at the differences between it, and the original Amdapor Keep. When Brayflox came out, we didn't speed run it due to a parser community. Rather, we speed ran it because we became able to speed run it. Our understanding from two patches of the game had taught us how to handle AoE pulls. But not only that, our gear as a whole had started to out pace the patches.

Most players were at a reasonable ilevel at this point. And thus, the method for speedrunning would start becomming more and more common. You wouldn't have to wait and find specific people to go speedrunning - you could do it with anyone, in DF. The tactic became more and more popular amongst the community, and it had nothing to do with parsing. Rather, it had entirely to do with our gear, comfort, and the design of dungeons.

Ultimately, you can say it happened as well due to videos of speed runs becoming popular, and people integrating that into DF. Speed runs of Amdapor Keep weren't as common before we saw videos of it. That's just how a community works.

Now, think on the casual palyers, This ones can improve, but some of the, just no, doesn' have time or they jsut want run a dungeon and do others things. This casualsprobably will rerepsent the 50% of the total players. Do you think is a good idea harras them in this way? If they see the game turn into a DPS race, they probalby won't continue playing. THat's less moeny for FFXIV. Guess who will pay the consequences and who will lose content...

Here, however, is another issue I have. You attempt to suggest 'Think of the Casuals!' but let's be fair - do you really think they would be bothered by a Parser within the environment?

I am of the belief that most players in this game are mature enough not to harass people with it. Right now, the only reason you can reasonably state "the only people who harass people about their DPS are people with parses", is because of the fact that only people with parsers can see dps numbers. It'd be impossible for anyone else to see. This also completely neglects the entire subsect of people who don't harass people while using a parser, or hell - like myself, even compliment others when we see amazing dps, and can use our parser to see without watching one person like a hawk that someone might be underperforming.

What parsers do, as a whole, is improve the community, because it gives us a metric by which to say "Hey, you're struggling at X Y Z points, what's going on? Anything I can do to help?" And this is something that has often left my lips while running things with others, particularly during dungeons. It's enabled me to see at a glance, quicker, when someone is underperforming, and move to assist them.

Furthermore, without a parser, there is very little input for a casual player. The type of casual player you are suggesting, will likely be the type that subs for a month, gets all the content 'done' (Runs it once), and then stops playing. This is not the type of Casual Player you can hope to retain. However, there is a seperate subsect of casual players that - just as the hardcore player - will have a 'hook.'

This hook is called progression. For a casual player, since they're not pushing raids and pushing their DPS during raids, the only way for a casual player to see progression is in the minor ilevel increases, as well as doing better at dungeons. Some casual players enjoy seeing their numbers - as stated by a number of them in this thread.

This is the problem I see. Not the parser itself, but he fear to turn the community into a Parsed obsessed one, like happenend in other MMO before.

People state "Like what happened in the other MMO's", but I have yet to see any of them give a genuine source on this. It's been contested many times that parsers existed in many of these communities long before they became toxic.

Quite the contrary, one user suggested it wasn't the parsers that made the communities grow toxic, but the use of gearscore in one such case - such as WoW.

Now, my question is, how can we stop the bad using on the parsers? How can we avoid turn all the content in a DPS race? The only possible way, is allow parsers only on determianted things, like preformed parties or high level content, and prohibited it in any other thing, like rouelttes. But, people is demanding the parser FOR ALL content.

For me, is clear. I like have a parser, but, I'm aware this will cause more problems than benefics. So, I say no or personal parser only for this reason, not because I hate parsing, but because I fear the game turn into a crap shit DPS obsesed.

I'm sure if this problem wasn't a thing, most people wil lagree on having it, becaus there was no problems and won't affect negativity to anyone.

The way to handle it is not necessarily to prohibit its use just because some people might misuse it. That is what is referred to as punishing everyone for the actions of some. Instead, focus your sights on the players that use it to harass people.

What Square Enix truly needs, is clear and defined rules for how to handle the parser. You should not be allowed to harass someone. Let's think about this for example:

Let's say you have a summoner. You're doing big, AoE pulls, and the summoner is pulling in 1000 DPS. Everyone has access to the parser, can see this, and in a perfect world, here is what would happen: You would tell them they're underpulling on DPS a little, and ask if they understand how to do AoE DPS.

WHAT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN: You see that 1000 DPS, say "OMFG U ARE SO HORRIBLE **** U ****ING SUCK! BOOT!" and then they get booted.

The second example should never happen. And in the cases it does, those that do that should be punished with temp-bans. Harassment, regardless of using a tool, needs to be treated as what it is: Harassment.

You have to accept you can never fully prevent harassment, and punishing the majority for the sake of preventing the minority will never be a good solution!

PD: Sorry for my bad english.

Permit me to say, your english is quite beautiful. I would not of known it was 'bad' in your eyes less you said it, so - have some more confidence in yourself! Just be like "x3 Muh english is *****in'!'

[randysquirrel]

The major fear here is not having or not parsers. The problem here is the creation of a DPS obsesed community.

For all the bad things you suggest would happen should an in-game parser be introduced (and from which I infer you think is not currently the case)... half the playerbase ALREADY use a parser, and none of these things happen

[Reynhart]

I would probably refrain from making generalized statements like these. They do nothing more than undermine both your character and your argument by attempting to paint the other side under a very general paintbrush of "abusive" players.

If you look at the points that were made here, most people claims they want a parser to judge their personal progression. For that, a character-by-character option would be a fine middle ground. If suddenly, they want to enforce the parser on you because they want to see your numbers, then it's a totally different topic.

You hear political polls where they polled 1,406 respondents and it apparently this is significant to them.

Like this result is significant to those who want a parser here. You can make statistics say a lot of things if you know how to twist them.
Last year, they made a poll to change schedule for nursery school in my city. 35% of people was in favor and 41% was against. The report said that since only 41% was against, then it was not the majority, and so they made the change...

[MeiUshu]

For all the bad things you suggest would happen should an in-game parser be introduced (and from which I infer you think is not currently the case)... half the playerbase ALREADY use a parser, and none of these things happen

they use it and dont speak of it why ? because they could be reported AND banned. If this is not the case anymore and there is in fact an in game parser allowed there will be abuse of it since there is no repercussions right ? and since you dont really need any reasons to kick someone, the *i dont like him being not up to paar because of parsers numbers* a common reason to get rid of players even if they are new, Learning or just trying out....having a parser and allowed in game will just make this community more toxic then it already is

[Eidolon]

they use it and dont speak of it why ? because they could be reported AND banned. If this is not the case anymore and there is in fact an in game parser allowed there will be abuse of it since there is no repercussions right ? and since you dont really need any reasons to kick someone, the *i dont like him being not up to paar because of parsers numbers* a common reason to get rid of players even if they are new, Learning or just trying out....having a parser and allowed in game will just make this community more toxic then it already is

Quite the opposite, actually. Consider this:



We can't tell someone they're doing poorly, because of the fact that if we do, we run the risk of 'getting reported for using a parser.' Rather, because some players have chosen to weaponise this fact, players are unable to help eachother.

So instead, we get to the point where - instead of trying to help people, we just kick them without a word, because their DPS is too low. We are unable to help them.

Enabling a parser to be used in a social and casual environment, will enable people to speak up about lower DPS - so long as it is done in a constructive manner. This is because it also protects the one looking at hte numbers from the people who go "You're parsing! Enjoy your ban! Hahhahaha." (Which is a genuine response you will see constantly.)

[LaylaTsarra]

For all the bad things you suggest would happen should an in-game parser be introduced (and from which I infer you think is not currently the case)... half the playerbase ALREADY use a parser, and none of these things happen

Do you care to provide a link to justify that statement, Randy, or is that another LETS ASSUME what everyone does. The raiding community isn't anywhere near half the community and I'd venture to guess it's actually a very small part of it. The parser crowd needs to step back and stop thinking they are the game, they aren't. Most people I would suspect don't even know what a parser is let alone have one or want one. But then again I have to be careful and qualify that cause it's MY OPINION and I don't want to assume it's true like some here LOVE TO DO.

Lets massage the truth to fit in with our personal agenda after all it's a forum and what is posted here HAS TO BE TRUE, right?