Would you like an in-game parser?

[WeekendSoja]

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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)