Would you like an in-game parser?

[Preypacer]

Stopped reading after this. One requirement of a raid group is someone who parses, when you put that static together. Someone is parsing. Give me a world first or a world tenth that didn't use one. Hint: you won't find one.

So, your argument is... "parsers are necessary because people use them"?

You seem to have missed the point of my post (or that part of it at least). Whether or not they're used isn't the question. Obviously they are.

The question is "Do players in this game, FFXIV, need the parsers to clear content? Are parsers necessary?"

And the answer to that question - definitively and verifiably - is no, they aren't. Players have been clearing the content just fine without them for almost 3 years now - and doing so pretty darn quickly in many cases.

Some people are just obsessed with reducing everything down to numbers - "min/max" this, "optimal" that - and mistake something they want as something the game needs.

Another question is, would parsers give ammunition to those already prone to being asshats, to become even more so? Historically, in every other MMO they've been in, yes, it will. Those people already exist in this game. They even post in these forums - at least a few in this very thread.

A very real concern with many, is that those people would not keep such "standards of performance" to themselves. They would impose them on everyone else. And not just in end-game raid content. No no, in DF as well. How do I know? Because they've already been doing it - insisting that if you're in "their party", haven't studied videos on the content, and are unable to perform up to their standards, that you're wasting "their" time, and holding "them" back. Some have requested ways to lock out people they deem "unworthy" of being in "their groups" - yes, even in DF. Just spend an hour or three going back over the numerous threads and discussions archived on these forums for the last 2+ years. You'll see plenty of such attitudes on display.

What do you think those people would do if actual numbers became available to them? Do you think they'd suddenly become conciliatory and helpful? Do you think they'd wield that information respectfully and reasonably? Hell freaking no they wouldn't. They'd become even worse. Again, history - across myriad other MMOs - has proven this out, and the "seeds" are already planted in this game's community.

Give those people access to that data, and they would immediately weaponize it against other players, berating, insulting, humiliating, purely to groom their own sense of superiority, and boost their own ego. Yoshi-P is clearly aware of this kind of behavior in other MMOs, and realizes bringing that capability to FFXIV in an official manner would inevitably produce the same results. He doesn't want that crap infecting XIV's community any more than it already has. This is why he is against implementing parsers officially, and made the compromise of the SSS - which, yes, does provide sufficient feedback of whether a player's prepared to take on given content, in a purely binary, pass-or-fail kind of way.

And if you don't like the way I've depicted a portion of this game's community, hey... don't get angry at me. I don't make people behave the way they do. Ask them why they behave that way in the first place.