5 reasons why PS4 players need a parser in game

[Sebazy]

Tell you what, if you think you can clear the game all the way from ARR to SB in level appropriate gear starting at level 1 and only using the gear you collect along the way with just one button during combat, I will believe you, otherwise, nope - you're vastly overstating the ease of the game.

I should emphasize that since this is a gauge of the game's difficulty, being carried by others nullifies your claim also.

As a healer absolutely np as long as I was also allowed to cast protect at the start as to avoid immediate suspicion With DPS I'm sure I could cook up some ghastly macro that would work sufficiently well to ensure I didn't get kicked from most runs, don't think I could get away with it on a tank tho =(

The no carry thing kind of makes it tricky though, technically every dungeon/trial would be a carry due to the slacking I'd be doing by mashing that one button the whole time =(

Makes me kind of gutted that I have such horrible internet speeds at the moment, that'd be a pretty fun thing to do.

To take that idea even further, I wonder how far down the line a 'twitch plays FFXIV' would get, lock in a particular job and only allow commands for movement and combat abilities, script it so it'll only ever queue for the highest level dungeon available to it. I'm legitimately intrigued as to how far it'd get assuming SE wouldn't take offence and ban the account of course.

what other mmo is any different people always say how easy this game is , but when I watch videos on other games I always see sayin wow and this game have some of the best raids around.

Maybe it's a recent mmo thing I guess? Simply sitting or standing on the wrong place in an FFXI or Everquest dungeon could wipe out multiple groups and in some cases even render the dungeon a no go zone for a few minutes whilst the resulting train cleared. I remember dungeons in WoW being more akin to FFXIV's late beta and early release with CC rather than aoe being the usual choice. BnS dungeons were pretty similar though with the trash being little more than chaff that got in the way between bosses =(

[akaneakki]

. And you don't need a parser just to know what to do.

No you don't. But to see how you perform you do. You see knowing rotation is 1 thing, doing them inside a fight is another. Just because it's A4 paper and ''makes sense to do certain skill here'' doesn't mean you perform good as you think. You see I'm on ps4 too and I thought I did well until someone told me I wasn't. When I started doing things different I was told I improved by 150-200 dps. However, this isn't something we can always do, you will always need to try the fight over time and have people willing to give you the information you want. Having the information you seek right there as you click on it is far more effective.

This will not only help you improve faster but also knowing what you can do easily while you progress new content. You know many people fail dps check on new content due to having no information of their dps. Some people think they doing well, until they find out later they didn't. Just because you do content, doesn't mean you doing the weight you should do- 75-85% effort. Like I've stated in previous parser threads, put the people that think they doing good but not really doing well, in the same group and it will ring another bell. I have screenshots of a9s enrage with echo and nearly full team of ilvl 270.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

You see knowing rotation is 1 thing, doing them inside a fight is another.

This is why Stone Sky Sea didn't work as a passive means of parsing. It just didn't properly reflect the real thing. Having that means to meter performance under actual battle situations does make a difference, and I certainly won't dispute that. The only thing I dispute is the ability to do so being unreachable without a parser.

After thinking on this a bit, I feel I may be a bit disconnected from the main concerns here because it's never been an issue for me personally. I'm showing my age a bit, but I'm from a time when games didn't have tutorials or in-depth add-ons; we just figured stuff out. Pure trial and error. Repetition. Owing to that, there's a LOT of behind the scenes things I grew accustomed to doing to effectively learn while minimizing mistakes or low performance. That definitely doesn't mean I've always done it right, but when I did it right, however fast or slow I became able to do so, I did so without parsing. It's nice to have, and I'd like to have it. But I don't NEED to have it. Though reflecting on this topic a bit, I can only speak for myself in that regard.

[Vanitas]

Lahabrea is D A N C I N G in his grave as this silly thread of a long overused topic that people have long since needed to get over and accept reality, sows chaos and discord over the realm, in service to the One True God.

[Reiryuu]

1) While I feel the devs should stop this, I support their reasons for not doing so (as long as people are doing it for themselves and not judging others, it's fine if they want to do it.)
2) This *should* be a banable offense and if it's not. They should make it one.

Adding in game parsers would be a huge mistake. If you think it's bad currently, it'll get 5000x worse as soon as SE gives that part of the community an inch.

[Aramina]

The thing is we are paying them money so they don't get to say no unless they want to lose customers..

They can, and did, say no. It's cute that you believe the whole "customer is always right" thing, though.

[akaneakki]

This *should* be a banable offense and if it's not.
Adding in game parsers would be a huge mistake. .

I will say it again. Being offensive will be there with or without parser. So yes it's already in game. Offending people with it will lead to warning(s). This is nothing new. Not adding tools so toxic people who talks bad about people who actually does great if not best in group, will be a mistake. If people gets offended knowing they do bad, is like saying I shouldn't eat sushi because the dude doesn't like fish. We talk savage and extreme primals here.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Not gonna turn this into a Parsers vs no Parsers thing, but I'm all too aware that if you give people any means or criteria to judge others against, they will whether it actually means anything or not. Humor me for a moment if you will.

8v8 Feast, and I'm on a team with someone I had an openly bad relationship with as my SCH and another very good player playing BRD which they weren't as experienced on. The SCH makes a snide quip to me to "try not to get killed to quickly", which I was then focused almost immediately and taken out 4 times (I can't and won't speculate whether that was arranged or circumstance, but I wouldn't put it past them). Taken out 4 times right away, but I then turn around and not only score the most kills for the team but I pull the second highest numbers in damage, only off from the BRD by a slight margin. I had 10 kills; the BRD who out damaged me had 0. Perhaps out of spite, the SCH then tries to cite that the BRD did more damage than me, but in the end, who really put the work in for the win?

Story time over: Fact is people are gonna find SOMETHING to judge with. If PS4 gets a parser, I wouldn't be surprised if PC players go trying to discredit or judge PS4 players for using that parser instead of what they use. Granted, if you focus more on technical mastery of your job instead of "must get X kind of parse!" You're likely to achieve it regardless. Unless somehow executing rotations properly, timing usage of skills and cds effectively, moving efficiently without wasting movement, and utilizing your party's synergies the best way doesn't produce good results?

[thegreatonemal]

I will say it again. Being offensive will be there with or without parser. So yes it's already in game. Offending people with it will lead to warning(s). This is nothing new. Not adding tools so toxic people who talks bad about people who actually does great if not best in group, will be a mistake. If people gets offended knowing they do bad, is like saying I shouldn't eat sushi because the dude doesn't like fish. We talk savage and extreme primals here.

You act like we all dont already know toxic people exist. All we are saying is the problem will get much worse and for what 10% of the playerbase to actually use parsers and fflogs for what they are intended: optimizing your dps in a given fight. without an fflogs type of add on to go with all you are doing is giving the keys to be even more toxic to half the player base that can't access yet and the other half to fully use it.

[HyoMinPark]

@bswpayton - While you're correct in saying that toxic players will be toxic regardless of having a parser or not having one, using "No Bonus" PFs is not a very good example of toxicity. A better example would be something more along the lines of some people you meet in DF who bail after a single mistake in a piece of content (bonus points if they were the one who caused the wipe, and even more if they were wearing Savage gear), or these individuals in 24-mans who start MT wars with the other alliances. That's a better example of immaturity and toxicity. Not "No Bonus" PFs. That's simply parties wanting members who have already cleared the content (and hopefully know said content) for fast and efficient farming.

To OP, I played on PS4 for over a year before I switched to PC, and started looking at ACT to judge my own performance. Before I switched, I knew people who parsed, and my numbers stayed the same, of course increasing as my gear improved. So I do not feel like I was at a significant disadvantage by not having a parser while on console. I don't even look at my parser during duties, since I play in Full Screen, and rather tend to check the data on it after I've done several different duties to see what my numerical performance was like (if I even bother to run it--a lot of the times I don't, and only tend to use it when I'm doing Savage or Ex primals). I don't use parser callouts for mechanics; I prefer to rely on my own eyes and awareness for that.

What I'm saying is, I performed just as well without a parser, as I did with one. Any improvement I made with either due to gear changes, or not being cheap and actually using consumables. Before I even looked at Krietor's bard guide or looked into using a Double-EA versus Double-IJ opener, I still had an opener fairly similar to Krietor's. Sure my parser is useful for judging my burst damage in one opener compared to another, but even when I was on PS4, I knew people who parsed, so I just asked them to watch my dummy parses for me.

Anecdotal, I know. But that was my experience, and I can't be the only one in this sea of players who faired fine without a parser.

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ADDITION HERE: Sorry, it's late here, and I've been out all day so I'm a little tired and scatterbrained right now.

I wanted to add that I don't really approve of this division you're suggesting: that PS4 players are at a terrible disadvantage compared to PC players just because they lack access to a tool like ACT. I am sure there are plenty of people out there who play on PS4, who do not have access to parsers, and who perform just as well as Savage raiders who parse every piece of content this game has. Success and performance are all based on skill, not a parser. While parsers may help with analyzing your performance and analyzing what may help you succeed/clear a particular piece of content, insinuating that PS4 players will always be at a disadvantage or less skilled or whatnot compared to PC players just because they cannot parse themselves is sort of insulting to the PS4 playerbase.

You don't need a parser to be an amazing player. Quite personally, some of the most amazing people I have met are people who don't care a thing about parsers or parsing. Do they have lower numbers than a Savage raider? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't make them any less amazing, and some have taught me a lot of the stuff I know, not ACT. Any further knowledge I gained was based more off of me reading guides, and trial-and-error, some involving parser analysis and some not.

(And when it comes to things like learning how to handle mechanics, parsers can't teach you that. They may be useful for watching DPS during high DPS checks, but they can't teach you how to handle Zurvan's Soar mechanic, or Sephirot's Mad Hops, or Refurbisher's Double Scrapline. Parsers are useful, but they can't teach you everything. Some things take more than just high parses.)

My experience may be anecdotal, but I do know of some players who play on console, who do not parse, and yet they still perform well. Maybe they have had friends parse them and help with rotations. Or maybe they haven't. But my point is, don't create a PS4 versus PC division when we don't really need such a thing. I know it already exists to some extent, but let's not exacerbate it.

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While I would not be opposed to personal parsers (not public ones) being added into this game, it has been said time and time again by the developers that no such add-on will ever be supported by SE. And there have been many examples of why that is so. Just because we pay SE a subscription does not mean they have to give us everything we demand. We pay them for this game (a service), and they reserve the right to develop it as they ultimately see fit. I can't say I know of many people (or anyone really) who have threatened to stop playing if an in-game parser isn't added.

It would be like me going to McDonalds and demanding they serve me food from a Burger King menu, because it's what I want, regardless of how it may or may not profit them. I'm a paying customer, so I should get everything I ask for, right? No. It doesn't work that way. Businesses strive to make their customers happy, but they don't bend over for us, or ask us "how high" when we tell them to jump.

It's a sad thing that you're threatening to leave if SE doesn't add in an in-game parser. But, in the grander scheme, you are just one $15/month sub in a sea of hundreds of thousands of subs. And I am not saying that in a mean way, but from a business perspective. FFXIV losing one subscription isn't something that will prompt SE to suddenly go back on their countless "no's" to parsers. And, like I said, I know of no other people who have threatened to quit over the lack of such an add-on.