Would you like an in-game parser?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

People use parsers to improve, but they also use them to kick people and belittle, or to try and make normal content into a big status race (cough, fflogs.) There's always positive and negative to any change, and you have to look at it honestly. POTD was positive in that it let people get exp solo and experiment, negative in that it let people shortcut normal party roles if overused..

First and foremost, let's not conflate kicking and belittle. The former can be warranted, especially in harder content if said player isn't performing well. That being said, no one is denying the negatives. We simply disagree they would be any more prevalent than they are now. People willing to harass due to parses will still do so, they'll just avoid mentioning numbers. Anyone whining about parses in a dungeon are, bluntly stated, idiots. Ironically, this is now you exaggerating. Very few people even care about dungeon; many raiders avoid doing them entirely. In over two years, I have never once seen anyone mention parses in dungeons or normal modes. I won't argue it doesn't happen since I can only cite my own experiences but nowhere near to the extent you're insinuating.

Parses aren't a magical fix nor has anyone suggested otherwise. They'll simply be a helpful tool. I'm a far better player now than when I started people I looked up guides and parsed myself. Add a proper difficulty curve and we'll start to see improvements over the long term.

[Mature]

I just want a personal parser to improve my gameplay by knowing my numbers. I have no interest in knowing how others are doing as I just wanna get better. But at the moment I can't because Im relying on SSS and I don't think it's pretty accurate cause I don't see my downtimes and how to improve them.

I don't see any harm about a personal parser at all.

[Sebazy]

For every person using it as a helpful tool, there are at least three people being unhelpful tools. Either to stroke their own ePeen, by being condescending pricks tp attack those they deem inferior, or simply to try and segregate themselves from the "baddies".

Either you're playing in a manner that paints a target on your own back or you grossly underestimate the number of people that parse.

The overwhelming number of people won't say a peep about dps numbers and such simply because it's a near guaranteed temp ban the moment you put someone's back up.

For most people, they only care about themselves, their static and their triggers.

One thing that is worth noting on this though, even though I'm very much for parsing and such, I do think that even if SE do make moves to build a parser into the game, they should keep to their current rules regarding harassing others over numbers. Simply put, don't do it or you spend time in the GM Jail, no ifs, no buts.

Though no one really wants a personal parser but a small minority, the rest want public parsers so they can ostracize the unworthy under the guise of "helpful tool".

Whilst I do think it's a huge shame that you feel that way, I do at least agree in the sense that a personal parser is a good first step forward. A group wide parser just isn't necessary for casual content and I don't think the community as a whole is ready for that quite yet.

As fot the "no evidence" replies, come on. How many times:

1. have you done a dungeon that takes five-ten more minutes over the average time?

How about over 30 minutes? I've done Skalla in 17 minutes with 1 DPS and 2 healers with FC mates, very few roulette groups do it in under 20.

2. Wiped multiple times in a hard mode trial

The only thing hard about most hard modes is the difficulty in managing to wipe when one of the healers has a pulse =(

3. vote abandoned a 24 man run

Rabanastre's steadily got better now thankfully, I didn't bother with it last week but I'll give it another crack tonight to try and farm up a piece I want.

[Sebazy]

Parses aren't a magical fix nor has anyone suggested otherwise. They'll simply be a helpful tool. I'm a far better player now than when I started people I looked up guides and parsed myself. Add a proper difficulty curve and we'll start to see improvements over the long term.

This, the simple in game parser output most people are asking for here isn't going to be anything like as detailed as what you see on logs.

Rather it's an easy to read and understand data point with the goal of sparking a players curiosity about there own performance and hopefully start them on the road to improving where possible. As is, this game simply doesn't provide enough feed back for many DPS jobs to have any idea about how well they are doing or not. I'd argue that 2.x-3.x SMN was almost impossible to optimise to a high standard with how dots are displayed, look at how poorly people thought of them in 2.0 before we had any parser data to work on.

[KaivaC]

Then you'd need to seriously discuss the raid situation in game, whether or not it should define the endgame experience

I'm pretty sure I've said it myself in other discussions, but I'll say it here: the general player base isn't good enough for endgame experience. I mean for a while after Susano Ex dropped, players still couldn't remember to stop dropping their purple markers on the party, and a lot of them still dropped the thunder on the tiny safe zone. Still do, actually. But regardless of that, outside of an endgame situation where raiders are parsing, players coming from casual content tend to brute force everything - even if they'll get a much higher damage by executing their combos. I'm sure you've seen the 'never DPS healers' or the Ice Black Mage, or the 'Only Jolt' Red Mage, or the Samurai who only uses their combo up to the first Sen.

[Reinha]

Add a proper difficulty curve and we'll start to see improvements over the long term.

Right now it goes something like this: leveling content and roulettes, Shinryu nm, Omega nm, Rabanastre, Susano+Lakshmi ex, Omega 1+2 savage, Shinryu ex, Omega 3+4 savage, Coil ultimate. Do you feel like there are steps missing on the difficulty ladder or do you think the ratio of easy and hard content is not properly balanced when progressing through the (end) game?

[ovIm]

Right now it goes something like this: leveling content and roulettes, Shinryu nm, Omega nm, Rabanastre, Susano+Lakshmi ex, Omega 1+2 savage, Shinryu ex, Omega 3+4 savage, Coil ultimate. Do you feel like there are steps missing on the difficulty ladder or do you think the ratio of easy and hard content is not properly balanced when progressing through the (end) game?

The issue here presents itself in the fact that Shinryu, Omega, Rabanastre, Exprimals, Omega Savage and Coil Ultimate are all things that you only do when reaching level 70. But there is a whole 69 levels in between that, with a dungeon roughly every 2-4 levels starting from level 15. In those dungeons, very few are actually a bit harder than the majority of the rest, and even those are so easy that they pose no threat. A good thing would be to ease the players to more challenging content while leveling and playing the game instead of just presenting them Shinryu normal after Ala Mhigo (I still remember the days after launch. Many people were overwhelmed.)

[Tridus]

Even 24 man raids are a joke now. The other night a friend and I had an experience in Rabanastee where our tank was, essentially, a training dummy for the boss. I tanked our Azure Guard on WHM. No disband.

For anyone who thinks this is an exaggeration: it's not. I was on SCH healing this. Moro literally tanked the Azure Guard phase for our group on WHM. The first time it caused a wipe because we had a hard time keeping up with the surprise extra healing requirement and that mess caused it to not die in time.

The second time, we were ready for it. Moro held it for a while, then it bounced around between a couple of DPS (we think the NIN popped Smoke Screen on her which is what finally got it onto someone else). It was an impressive feat of seven people working together to carry someone. When people say that bad play is exaggerated, I point out that this is a 70 tank who was told explicitly in party chat that he needed to pick that add up on the B marker and somehow failed to do so twice, while a WHM was able to do it. I shouldn't even have needed to explain it since at this point "your healer is being punched in the face" should be enough for a 70 tank... but nope.

We ended up having to kick that guy after Hashmal when he died so many times that both healers stopped raising him. The replacement was a super friendly PLD that barely made it into the third boss because the main tank kept pulling as soon as he got within range without waiting for other people or letting me finish the explanation of the fight that the admitted newbie was asking for, which in itself is not exactly top notch group behavior.

If you think that bad play doesn't exist just because there's no disband, you've missed the point entirely. There's no disband because the difficulty level is low enough that DF groups can carry people. While there's some threshold where that's perfectly fine (levelling dungeons shouldn't require 99th percentile DPS out of everyone), failing at the absolute basic requirements of your job should probably carry a heavier penalty than "the healer can tank it and it's fine".

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Right now it goes something like this: leveling content and roulettes, Shinryu nm, Omega nm, Rabanastre, Susano+Lakshmi ex, Omega 1+2 savage, Shinryu ex, Omega 3+4 savage, Coil ultimate. Do you feel like there are steps missing on the difficulty ladder or do you think the ratio of easy and hard content is not properly balanced when progressing through the (end) game?

If I were to split each into categories, which I'll preface now by saying is entirely subjective...

- Leveling content; roulettes are complete jokes that barely require a pulse
- Shinryu Normal was a decent incline
- Omega normal is, once again, a complete joke
- Rabanastre is... sadly, very easy. I'll give credit to Hashmal, and Mateus has some potential but otherwise it's slightly above Void Ark
- Susano/Lakshmi EX were laughable
- Alte Roite has no business being labelled Savage; Catastrophe isn't much better but would have been an okay entry fight
- Halicarnassus and ExNeo are fine
- Shinryu EX is fine
- Ultimate is so far above everything else, it shouldn't be compared. Even Gordias and Midas veteran will struggle

The issue stems from the amount of easily tuned content verse what comes after. Imagine if Omega normal were reasonably challenging—perhaps to Susano EX levels. Yes, the reward structure needs to change but it allows the more casual playerbase to experience a "harder" fight that will actually prepare them for Savage if they so choose. The gap between Catastrophe and Halicarnassus is enormous. Not just in DPS requirements but mechanical awareness. It's even worse with Shinryu EX as that fight demands competency from everyone. Illustrating how easy Alte Roite was, people in full ilvl 290 gear melded Vit into their accessories and beat him before enrage. He was tuned 30 ilvls below the lowest raid relevant gear. What a lot of raiders found irksome about this is how it crept into our content but I digress. What often happens with fights is these huge jumps in difficulty. Ultimate suffers similarly. Clearing Neo means very little when the tier above it demands 90-95% perfection over almost twenty minutes.

It's those large gaps they need to start closing. Going from V2S to V3S or Shinryu should feel like a gradual incline not a punch in the face. On a lesser example. Should I be capable of clearing dungeon bosses with the healer dead? Because I have. Hell, a few very good players and I managed to mitigate our way through multiple screw ups on Hashmal. Almost the whole three Alliances were dead and we still pushed him. I appreciate the game needs some easy content, and I don't wish to deny it such. Just the amount creates the aforementioned gaps.

Edit: I only just thought of this comparison but look at Titan Hard mode. He actually hurt when relevant yet remained entirely reasonable. Why couldn't Susano normal be similar? Even if they wanted to keep harder content separate from story, then scale V1N with Titan in mind.

Another aspect I didn't touch upon is job rotation. Players are never taught how basic openers work. Hence why you see so many Monks using Tornado Kick on CD. Without a parse, they likely have no idea it's actually hurting their damage.

[LyraKuroneko]

I'm against parser in game. Already enough cancerous player with the way it is now.
Some will say that you don't need a parser to have this type of player and it's true but you can't report those people easly so...