Dam. meter

[Llan]

-snip-

Everything you're saying right now is basically: "I feel it's like this therefore it's a fact".
The facts are, you do not need anything to have fun and complete casual content.

People are already using parsers in end-game hardcore content. There is no problem to be solved.
So adding a parser will solve which problems, but do not consider your major argument so that it can be easier for me to refute, sounds familiar?

And isn't your opinion also "for you personally"? I mean for reals, if we are suppose to not consider semantics here, then this whole discussion is irrelevant and the logical thing is to not implement something that already exists, even though it is not built-in it still solves the very problem people are bringing up.

[Greedalox]

And isn't your opinion also "for you personally"? I mean for reals,

That's why I'm inquiring

I can see that you don't believe having an astonishing low bottom line player base as a communal issue, so I can see how you wouldn't see eye to eye with my points. If you don't see that as a problem, that's where our dissonance is! I believe this community can be better if given the tools to do so, and I also don't believe it's problematic, elitist or anti-casual- but I do understand how you may see people wanting numbers on screen as opposing to your views.

So what I've gathered from your posts is that you're worried it will pull away from resources and that it's not necessary for casual content.

Would you mind an official parser being added to Midcore and Hardcore content? Or was that just a half point for yourself?

Edit: Side note! You say the community is split on yes/no, how would you feel about a checkbox in the settings for if you want to display an official parser or not (Depending on Mid/Hard or +Soft depending on how you answer my above question).

[Canadane]

Alright.
We already have a 3rd party that can be used by people that really care about it adding a built-in one would be redundant and a waste of resources

Going to let you in on a secret. They already exist for developer builds. It'd take significantly less resources than you'd think.

[Llan]

There are other solutions to improve players performances that don't rely on the community to "be nice about low numbers and teach people". Which is what they'll try to do in SB. I'd say having a better Novice Network training quest line would also be beneficial and more engaging than a parser with systems that they already have in-game thus requiring "less work". A small revamp into the practice dummy would also be an interesting solution to allow low DPS players to improve their rotations without being DPS shamed by people everywhere.

Im also not a White Knight for the bad players in hardcore content. If you are joining hardcore raid groups you should know that you need to be at your best.

@Canadane

Like moving something from dev to production environment will not generate problems.

[Sebazy]

IMHO SE only really have themselves to blame for the current disparity in skill level between progression raiders and the casual majority. Personally I can think of 3 ways in which SE could chose to address it.

1) Probably the most likely way forward would be to simply educate the masses better, the class quests and progression pretty much just throw new abilities at you and leave you to figure out what to do with it. In some cases it's fairly obvious and straightforward what you should be doing, but in many others, it's just like 'hey I got a new button, what do I do with it? It's quite clear that a good portion of the player base needs a nudge in the right direction for certain jobs.

2) The next approach is to simply force the player base to get good by the way of harder content. Now we all remember the drama over stuff like Steps, Ozma and Thordan EX, but I'm firmly of mind that people objected to these because they were sudden spikes of difficulty in a game that outside of coil progression and savage, was generally very easy going and forgiving. Having content gradually ramp up as you hit the end game would help alleviate these issues somewhat as well as raising the overall bar of player performance as people hit the actual end game.

3) This leads onto my third approach which is possible in some regards, and sadly unlikely in others. Yep you guessed it, SE would do well to make a players performance clearer and easier to digest. The manner in which dot damage is displayed to the player could use a rethink and of course, there are plenty of ways to clarify a players damage simply by taking data that's already there in the chat window and simply displaying it better.

Naturally I couldn't touch this topic without addressing parsing, and of course I agree that a fully featured recount style in game parser wouldn't go down well. Personally I feel that the harassment angle is significantly overplayed though, the tools to wave unwanted data in peoples faces have been in place for years now, this would really just even the playing field between PC and console players, as long as it was made clear that harassing a player over damage numbers regardless of it's source is still a reportable offence, things would be fine in my eyes.

However, there is a different approach I think SE could take with this, one that would be discrete, private and too vague to use as ammunition, but still be able to let the player know how they are performing in the grand scheme of things:

Simply put, the parameters bar (aka your HP/MP/TP bars) has an icon to the left of it that is useless. In my eyes it'd be fairly easy for SE to have an algorithm that worked out each jobs optimal single target DPS for a given iLvl, I would then take that number and break it down into sensible tiers and have the parameters bar icon display as such. For example, sub 40% of optimal DPS and you get a black icon, from 40%-60% you get bronze, 60%-80% gets you silver and 80%+ nets you gold. Aoe doesn't really need to be accurately displayed accurately really as aoeing is going to pad even a low tier player upwards which will give them the indication they are onto a good thing, this doesn't need to go into fine detail, it's purely there to show a player if they are on the right track or not.

A perhaps controversial way of taking this further would be to add achievements for hitting the various dps tiers vs end game content. Players who don't want to be called out on this stuff will typically have their achievements hidden as it's the default setting anyhow, but for those that are interested in their personal performance, it gives them something shiny to aim for and take pride in earning.

There is a 4th option of course, and that is for SE to simply let things continue as they are, but in my eyes, allowing such a disparity in playerskill to run unchecked is everybit as problematic as diving down the parsing rabbit hole. Whilst it's not really a problem in this tier, I stand firm in my belief that A4S would be nigh impossible for the overwhelming majority without either a parser within the group or optimal rotations and strategies based on data that required a parser to obtain in the first place.

[Misutoraru]

29 pages, it is like a dog chasing it's own tail
we will never reach an agreement with other sides
we both have out concern and evidences to support our own statements
and we both make assumption
at the end it turn out to be which side you viewing the issue on
the good out weight the bad or vice versa
but I must say I am glad that dev sharing the same stance as me

[Dualgunner]

29 pages, it is like a dog chasing it's own tail
we will never reach an agreement with other sides
we both have out concern and evidences to support our own statements
and we both make assumption
at the end it turn out to be which side you viewing the issue on
the good out weight the bad or vice versa
but I must say I am glad that dev sharing the same stance as me

S'why I've mostly given up on the argument. It's not worth the energy imo, nobody on either side will change their minds. So why am I here? I dunno to be honest. It's kind of fun to watch the show.

Taking random DF groups, not FC mates and statics, in those cases, it is always harassment. I am sure that is the focus of SE not allowing them as well. We all know a static would help each other???? So it should been clear what I was saying.

It's hard to offer any assistance to people in random dfs when they can say "Hey your dps is X, it could be higher if you did Y instead of Z" is harassment because of parsing and that can get you a ban. I recall Dervy, the guy behind the DRG rotation and many accepted stat weights, got banned from the forums for openly parsing to share this information that should have been widely available anyway.

[Ama_Hamada]

S'why I've mostly given up on the argument. It's not worth the energy imo, nobody on either side will change their minds. So why am I here? I dunno to be honest. It's kind of fun to watch the show.



It's hard to offer any assistance to people in random dfs when they can say "Hey your dps is X, it could be higher if you did Y instead of Z" is harassment because of parsing and that can get you a ban. I recall Dervy, the guy behind the DRG rotation and many accepted stat weights, gotbanned from the forums for openly parsing to share this information that should have been widely available anyway.

That is not what I mean. You can also word it differently to see what is off in the rotation anyway. I do not need a praser to tell me seeing 3rd wave on expert when dps are in 270 have low dps. Still that is not the comments I am talking about, I am talking about whenever there is a reference to a praser in randoms, it is always used to put someone down in some way, not help them.

[Dualgunner]

That is not what I mean. You can also word it differently to see what is off in the rotation anyway.

That's still a lot of the issue. It doesn't matter how you word it, all it takes is someone having a bad day already taking it the wrong way and reporting.

I do not need a praser to tell me seeing 3rd wave on expert when dps are in 270 have low dps.

Again, I don't need an aggrometer to tell me what is and is not aggro'd to me and who is ripping off of me by not attacking my target. Having an aggro meter helps though.

Still that is not the comments I am talking about, I am talking about whenever there is a reference to a praser in randoms, it is always used to put someone down in some way, not help them.

First: may I see your facts and figures? If not then all you have is anecdote and I rebut with "Well that's not *my* experience, which is people getting banned for trying to be genuinely helpful." Case in point Dervy.

Second: I am also talking about just trying to help a random. In the words of the Joker, "All it takes is one bad day." and you're banned for trying to provide quantitative (as opposed to qualitative--both are equally useful, I'm not saying you can't help without a parser) help.

Yeeeeeeah that's what I'm doing. 30 pages and it's like a broken record.

You know, for what it's worth, I'd be open to doing like a test run with an official parser added for a short time, just so we could be completely sure how the community would react to it.

A test run for an official parser would be nice, even if it was an official parser. And I suppose I have a bit of a question to Yoshi P regarding "They'll force you to share your numbers"--how? Kicking you? Report it for harassment, as you are mandated under any part of any ToS to share any bit of your HUD with anyone else.

[ToasterMan]

A test run for an official parser would be nice, even if it was an official parser. And I suppose I have a bit of a question to Yoshi P regarding "They'll force you to share your numbers"--how? Kicking you? Report it for harassment, as you are mandated under any part of any ToS to share any bit of your HUD with anyone else.

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be real here. The ONLY reason I'm against the parsers being official is because I think that the downside of harassment and ego issues will outweigh the upside. When you get rid of that factor, I don't think there's a reason not to have it. The next worst thing that could happen is that people ignore it, and that doesn't justify not having it. Sure you don't NEED it in order to improve......but it helps. I don't need protect to clear an expert, but it still helps. Why would I not use it? We can all sit here and talk about our experiences and what we think would happen until the cows come home. (And we already have.)

Something I've realized is, nobody knows for sure what would happen if an official parser was introduced to the community. I don't think we'll reach a solution to this until a proper experiment is preformed. One that will present hard data that we can draw a conclusion from. Unfortunately, I don't think SE is too keen on doing something like that.