Would you like an in-game parser?

[Archaell]

I think the analogies of school grades are pretty accurate.

If you want to go this route...

Remember how great it was when the teacher decided to give you group projects and put students in the groups randomly?

It is so similar to DF it is scary.

[Dement]

I think the analogies of school grades are pretty accurate. Everyone gets a number from a test and they have a right to not show it to their peers. This could be a different case in your country. I've seen pupils afraid or attention for both good and bad grades, annoyed by their not-high-enough-grade, satisfied with their grade, bullied for their grade, congratulated for their grade, unable to get a higher grade because of their mental limitations, unable to get a higher grade because they just don't put in enough effort to practice, and getting ridiculously competitive over grades. Now bear in mind, everyone knows what the best grade, the lowest grade and the average grades are because the grading system is known to all. There is no need to compare to peers because the scale is already known. Everyone has extensive experience getting graded. Yet, that doesn't change the fact that half the people don't get the grade that represents "good" performance. Knowing their previous grade very rarely resulted in a better grade next time as far as I saw. Even in the case of co-operative projects and tasks that affect every team member's grade, people performed at their usual level.

I fear that the analogy does indeed break down due to the nature of the game. While it is fine for some to show their grade and some to hide their grade for whatever reason they so desire in school; it would be a bit different of a story if the Teacher/Professor suddenly claimed "the entire class passes or the entire class fails based off of if the class can average an 85%" (a DPS check). Also as a fun infusion of chaos a full 1/3 to 1/2 of the class will not even know their grade (PS4 players and those who refuse to parse or listen to parsed numbers) at any given time. Now, how does the class move forward? Who needs additional help and tutoring? If you were going to fail for reasons completely outside of your own control, would you not want to know about it to try to avoid such a fate?

If you understand that some people don't want to participate in a competitive environment or activity, then would you be fine with letting people to hide their dps from others and hide others' dps from themselves? Talking about all content except Extremes and Savage.

I am perfectly fine with parsers being limited to Extremes and Savage unless they release other content that has very stringent DPS checks. Parsers can help teams get through DPS checks, that's their purpose. Additionally, I would reiterate once again that parsers need to be a part of training dummies so that someone can actually practice to improve.

[Remus]

If you understand that some people don't want to participate in a competitive environment or activity, then would you be fine with letting people to hide their dps from others and hide others' dps from themselves? Talking about all content except Extremes and Savage.

So personal parser so you only see it? I wouldn't mind that either at least it some form of measuring yourself. I rather have either a group parser or a personal parser either one is fine.

[KarstenS]

I think the analogies of school grades are pretty accurate. Everyone gets a number from a test and they have a right to not show it to their peers.

This is correct as long the rating only depends on you own work.

But when you do work as a group and the rating depends on the performance of the group, its a little bit different

[Lambdafish]

I think people are asking the wrong questions, because this game is huge and diverse and appeals to many different people. This isn't really a yes/no argument, so I will pose this question:

Hypothetically, SE has announced that they will implement a parser, but the way it is limited is decided by the community. In which content and through which means would you like to see the parser implemented? (you must not answer "no parser at all" because the question is how limited you would make it, and a training dummy doesn't harm your feelings)

My answer is that I would like it in raid finder practice as a global tool, a true dummy parser, and would like also like the option of a mandatory personal "performance grader" (not a parser) on other content, it's like a parser, but it gives you all the feedback after a wipe or clear (the reason for this is to stop tunnel-visioning while only watching the numbers). The problem a lot of people are citing is DF, and this is a fundamental problem with DF, which I think will only be solved through mass SSS gating, which won't happen because SE allows us to go into fights we aren't even geared for.

[Archaell]

If parser is the gun then player's performance is the bullet. Guns are not that great without the bullets. Don't give others bullets and they can't shoot you. Also this isn't a duel. If someone starts shooting the rest of the group can shoot back and kill the evil pro-parser. That's what democracy is about.

[Remus]

People keep saying people bring up numbers in DF (dungeons) and for the time I have been playing since beta I have rarely seen this happen maybe it's because the people I get generally try ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I won't say it doesn't happen but people act like it's some common occurrence. The only time I would say people bring it up often is when they die to enrage or not meeting a DPS check in extreme primals or raids which is fair because the blame will be on the DPS if your not progressing on the fight due to DPS. It seems people are forgetting they are playing a MMO with other people around them.

The person who may not be performing very well and potentially causing wipes due to not doing enough damage might be having fun but they are not considering how the other people within the duty feel at all. Someone mentions being happy after clearing it after numerous tries but whats says the other people are happy as well? The amount of people I see chat about how horrible something went even though they cleared it but they would have preferred not having numerous silly wipes. When I enter DF content I try my hardest because I don't want silly wipes happening such as not meeting DPS checks and I want people to have a somewhat smooth experience.

There are some users who would love to know their DPS mainly on PS4 and based on this thread people would like it. Yes, I know forums are not the majority but I went out of my way to ask some casual friends of mine in a LS and some other places if they wanted a parser and majority said yes they wouldn't mind it. Do you know why they said they wouldn't mind? Because they have nothing to hide with their DPS they know they play at a level which is acceptable to most people and we are not talking "raid level" DPS.

I said it earlier in this Topic. If you are getting harassed or being told your DPS is too low instead of having a fit just improve a little its not that hard but people who are against parser make it seem like it's so much work but its not you just read up on a rotation and what you do after the Opener simple. Learning your job doesn't make you some elite or hardcore it just shows that you understand your job to a level that most people would like.

Just to help those of you out why not head over to the DPS section of the Forum and see how much it provides. It will take you a long way, some of those threads have basic and advanced rotations people can use where you still doing ok DPS with Basic.

DPS Forums

There was not the time to closely watch what he exactly did. If I would do, I would suck up my own rotation and mechanics.

Its not realistic to have an close overview of the entire party to see who is playing bad. As I said before, I have seen some of these guys that claim "I can see who's bad. I do not need numbers for that." in duties and all of them dealt really low damage their own. They should better try out a parser to get their eyes opened, how wrong they are with their opinion.

There is still an unanswered question: How shall they be able to see who is doing wrong, when they are not able to perform good their own?

If you know almost every classes skills its quite easy to have a close overview of the entire party I do it all the time and I can easily determine who is doing low DPS there has been plenty of instances where I forgot to open a "certain" software and my guess is generally always correct when I do open it after a few wipes but what you said is understandable. Some people do act that way but I wouldn't say that's the majority but I think a parser would help because if they see their DPS isn't that great chances are they will try to improve it.

I will say though I have noticed something with the FFXIV community and SE has noticed it as well we are very competitive. They are adding leaderboards to content like Feast and soon to be Deep Dungeon. This is just a theory but would perhaps parsers have the same effect because people would want to be the "best" and this in turn would increase DPS in DF? Then you can say the issue would be people wouldn't focus on mechanics but I don't think that would be the case because people would still want to clear content.

[Archaell]

I will say though I have noticed something with the FFXIV community and SE has noticed it as well we are very competitive. They are adding leaderboards to content like Feast and soon to be Deep Dungeon. This is just a theory but would perhaps parsers have the same effect because people would want to be the "best" and this in turn would increase DPS in DF? Then you can say the issue would be people wouldn't focus on mechanics but I don't think that would be the case because people would still want to clear content.

Imo the bigger issue than the mechanics is the job disparity. Certain jobs can do more dps than the other jobs - they may get some additional utility instead but that is not important.

If people see that class x is doing more dps than class y then they are bound to complain. I wonder how is SE going to handle that? Because I don't think saying "but you get this awesome buff/debuff" is going to calm the mob down.

[Reiryuu]

The person who may not be performing very well and potentially causing wipes due to not doing enough damage might be having fun but they are not considering how the other people within the duty feel at all. Someone mentions being happy after clearing it after numerous tries but whats says the other people are happy as well? The amount of people I see chat about how horrible something went even though they cleared it but they would have preferred not having numerous silly wipes. When I enter DF content I try my hardest because I don't want silly wipes happening such as not meeting DPS checks and I want people to have a somewhat smooth experience.

Let me nip something in the bud right here. When you do this, are you having fun? Do you consider what you are doing "effort" or "work"? People have very different definitions of these terms. Me? I've been playing MMOs for years-- since the original Everquest. I don't sit around and do nothing in a fight. I don't find that "fun" so I am always doing something whether it be DPSing or healing thus what I do all the time doesn't really seem like "effort" on my part either. On days when I am feeling particularly good, I may walk a dangerously low mana level so much that the bards I get in the group panic and turn on Mage's Ballad even though I'm used to starting boss fights and lasting through them while DPSing and healing with less than 15% of my mana pool. On days when I'm sick or feeling tired after a long day, I may not go quite so low and I may even do the occasional stupid mistake like forgetting to Esuna the tank when he gets hit with the hammer in the froggie boss.

Is that one mistake going to wipe the group? Hell no. Have I been called out on the one time it happened? Yup. We laughed it off as the tank happened to be a DRK and he was actually glad he got a chance to replenish his MP. Would some people rage at this one mistake? I'm sure there are a few who would. People aren't perfect. This is a video game. It's not real life and people don't need to get so wound up about little details. I don't like taking things super seriously in video games. That's what real life is for. This doesn't mean I'm spamming blizzard 1 on my black mage and it doesn't mean I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs on full mana on my whm.

I said it earlier in this Topic. If you are getting harassed or being told your DPS is too low instead of having a fit just improve a little its not that hard but people who are against parser make it seem like it's so much work but its not you just read up on a rotation and what you do after the Opener simple. Learning your job doesn't make you some elite or hardcore it just shows that you understand your job to a level that most people would like.

I don't want a public parser because I don't want to be a slave to numbers. I'm not a competitive person and I really don't care about whether I'm 100 dps above or below the next white mage. I don't want people shoving numbers in my face like they're supposed to be some delicious tidbit. Hell, even if they were delicious I don't want them crammed down my throat. With open parsers, people will talk about numbers. It's only natural to talk about something right in front of your face. It's like the weather. But that would make me feel uncomfortable... like someone talking to me about politics or religion (two topics I hate discussing in real life).

And I'm sorry, but I really don't care enough about spending minutes or however long it takes looking up some "perfect" set up to get you through your dungeon 30 seconds faster. Proparsers keep saying "Oh! What about my enjoyment! It's not fun to fail dps checks!" and I'll agree with you there for the most part, but what about "Hey, it's not fun for me to have to spend several minutes of my time to increase some number I don't even care about some arbitrary amount to make you happy when I'm, in all likelihood, not going to see you again, so please, stop just assuming that we're all people who think spamming Impulse Drive in Shiva's rear end on DRG with Internal Release up is our definition of "fun."

Again, do I care if you use a parser to rate and improve yourself? No, have at it. Do I care if people on PS4 were able to download something to parse themselves only? No. By all means. Just don't get me involved unless I ask you. But when people come on the forums and say things like:

When you just want entertainment without any effort, playing a game is not the right thing for you. You should sit back and watch only, like in the quiz show example above.

I have to wonder if they're taking things a little too seriously. I mean really? Any game? I consider my play style "fun" and fairly "effortless" therefore I can't even play Minecraft or Monopoly? Really?

[WeekendSoja]

Snip

Man, I was trying to get a reply to give you an atta-boy before your post started getting replies but not quick enough lol. I do agree with you though. It doesn't take much to be proficient at your job. just a few buttons presses here and there...at some point its like your a pianist playing your job's song you've committed to muscle memory.

Imo the bigger issue than the mechanics is the job disparity. Certain jobs can do more dps than the other jobs - they may get some additional utility instead but that is not important.

If people see that class x is doing more dps than class y then they are bound to complain. I wonder how is SE going to handle that? Because I don't think saying "but you get this awesome buff/debuff" is going to calm the mob down.

With the use of parser's, the gaming community has a general understanding of where you should be as that job...in most current end-game content, people parsing don't even look at the individual numbers until they ascertain that the "total raid DPS" (A function found on all current available parsers) is below the threshold to pass the boss enrage. Though it is a sad fact that people who make these pre-mades can be quick to the "gun" lol when it comes to dismissing weak members...its easier to leave the instance, kick that member, blacklist, and recruit a new DPS than it is to talk to him about it, potentially get reported for harassment, and than banned...someone mentioned accountability earlier, I was also one, but I speak of accountability for both sides, how is the person receiving the advice going to interpret it? Can that person ensure the safety of the parsing party and not end up reporting him if things go south due to the conversation? If you can't be held accountable for your DPS, why should the parser be held accountable for discussing potential options to improve that person only to be labeled a harasser and cheat, and risk the chance of losing all their hard work up to that point. After considering that, its just easier to kick that person from your pre-made after exiting the instance...self-preservation goes both ways in this circumstance.

When you do this, are you having fun? Do you consider what you are doing "effort" or "work"? People have very different definitions of these terms.

This is true, to an extent, I would call this "game" more of a hobby of mine. I come home and I do my family stuff, log on, and play for an hour or two. Now here's where things change for me. How does each person handle their hobby, I was raised to excel at whatever I try, life, hobby, sports, what have you. So I am very comfortable when someone gauges my performance against others. In this case I take my extra curricular activities very seriously...and its fun to me. I can't have everyone agree with me, that's just a fact of life, but forum posts like these are meant for discussion...so far its rarely been a discussion of how it can be implemented, more so the implications of implementing this tool globally.

I've mentioned this before in other posts but it was passed over like a bag of sand on the beach lol but SE should consider dedicating a small data center (when they eventually merge low population servers together with other low population servers) to parser enabled capability and offering a one-time free server transfer to these servers for everyone currently subscribed. This would make the decision more player sided and no one can gripe if they made the wrong choice...just buy a transfer ticket or create an alt elsewhere. (I used the reference data center that way DF and and raid finder capabilities are unhindered by the fact that people have official parser's)

Though, this is just a gut feeling, but I am inclined to say that the parsing community greatly outnumbers the anti-parse community...probably me just thinking too much into it but it may just be the human need of excelling and the validation...could just be me...but I have more often than not heard people become super excited at finally hearing their numbers (more so the console populace on this observation)