Would you like an in-game parser?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'm not in the mood to be judged...I play the game for fun.

And my fun comes from clearing content. You know what wasn't fun? A Warrior in V4S the other day who pulled less than 1,900 DPS with full 340 gear who at times was getting outdps'd by the White Mage. After almost a hour of him making mistakes or straight losing hate due to his low job, we had to kick him, though he actually left of his own accord right away. Nice enough guy, I'll admit and I bare him no ill-will, but it wasn't fun for the rest of us wiping to Exdeath over and over. The Paladin made no secret he was parsing either nor was he rude about it, just very blunt. Which brings me to...

Most of the talk I see from the pro parser community correlates to weeding out bad players, saving time, lowering frustations... etc... Very rarely do you run into an actual conversation promoting parsers as a tool for self improvement which is the only conversation I actually care about in regards to them. I feel like for this reason they ultimately are their own enemies and fuel the very people they are against..

Why can it not be both? Parses have been invaluable to my own self improvement since I started raiding last tier. At the same time, I do not appreciate my time wasted by people who join parties clearly labeled farm/weekly clear and have no idea what they're doing. A few mistakes or less than stellar damage? Sure. I couldn't care less if you can't top 5,000. In fact, I had a Dragoon last night who was averaging just below 4k at roughly 330 or so. Had no issues with him whatsoever. I take issue with the aforementioned Warrior. Why wouldn't we want to "lower frustrations?" Once again, I wouldn't go into a learning party and expect everyone to be performing flawlessly nor do I expect oranges in a farm. What I do think is reasonable is for me on Dark Knight to not out-dps a Bard or Monk.

[Mycow8me]

Why can it not be both? Parses have been invaluable to my own self improvement since I started raiding last tier. At the same time, I do not appreciate my time wasted by people who join parties clearly labeled farm/weekly clear and have no idea what they're doing. A few mistakes or less than stellar damage? Sure. I couldn't care less if you can't top 5,000. In fact, I had a Dragoon last night who was averaging just below 4k at roughly 330 or so. Had no issues with him whatsoever. I take issue with the aforementioned Warrior. Why wouldn't we want to "lower frustrations?" Once again, I wouldn't go into a learning party and expect everyone to be performing flawlessly nor do I expect oranges in a farm. What I do think is reasonable is for me on Dark Knight to not out-dps a Bard or Monk.

It can be both but I'd rather focus on personal parser conversations leaning toward overall player skill improvement and a smaller gap between low and high skilled players instead. Personal parsers have the potential to help in that regard and I think this kind of conversation is the most beneficial thing to bring to the table if you want to bring parsers into the game or sway an opinion. Maybe its not what your saying, its how your saying it. Why focus on the fact that you are using it to single players out? That player may have been better in the first place with a personal parser, even if not at least you'd know at that point. I feel like I've said this to you before in this thread or another.

Bottom line, a conversation about removing problem players to save you some time doesn't sound nearly as appealing as a conversation about how he may have benefited from the use of a personal parser and been a better player from the start if the goal is to bring one into the game. Just my opinion anyway.