Built-in Parsers

[LastFireAce]

No thank you.

[Baingoleth]

Some anti-parser people seem to keep forgetting that anyone on the PC who wants to parse is already parsing. I seriously doubt that making this official would dramatically increase the number of people who behave poorly about combat statistics. I still hold to my opinion that building an in-game parser would be a good opportunity for SE to disable sending combat stats to other people's clients. Players could use the parser to optimize their gear and rotations if they so wished and no one would have any grounds to chastise anyone else based on numbers.

Personally, I could care less if anyone parses my numbers. I know some people do and I have yet to hear anything abrasive from anyone I have partied with. Before I do a new instance, I make sure my gear is upgraded appropriately and I listen to any advice. I look at the web for any helpful class tips also. So go ahead and parse. You'll find I am doing fine by most people's standards.

That said, I have met people who play very well and they don't care for parsers. They don't mind if other people parse themselves but they would rather not have their characters 'graded' by others. I suspect that the majority of people who wouldn't use a parser either don't care about it at all or don't want to be ranked. Remember that not everyone who is against programs like ACT are against people parsing their own stats.

What if ACT suddenly stopped working for other party members? No one could upload your parse to fflogs. If someone tried to make anyone a scapegoat, vague comments about anyone's DPS wouldn't hold any water. As it is now, people assume that the accusers are running ACT and can see other people's stats. How much better would it be if people were forced to identify actual player errors like poor gear or poor use of skills rather than make comments about DPS and just kick? Then the player who is holding the group up would at least know what they need to fix. Maybe they'd start using a built in parser to learn their class better if it was convenient to enable.

Again, ACT is already in widespread use and it is annoying enough people to be a divisive issue for the FFXIV community. Adding a party parser to the game won't resolve the argument. Could crippling ACT through restricting what the client can see about other player's numbers and adding a personal parser to the UI be the compromise that most people could live with? Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

[MoroMurasaki]

Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

While I am still firmly in the camp of what would essentially be an in-game version of ACT, rankings and all, I think this would be a fair compromise that I could certainly live with.

[DeaconMoore]

Again, ACT is already in widespread use and it is annoying enough people to be a divisive issue for the FFXIV community. Adding a party parser to the game won't resolve the argument. Could crippling ACT through restricting what the client can see about other player's numbers and adding a personal parser to the UI be the compromise that most people could live with? Anti-parser people could have their privacy, pro-parser people could still optimize their toons and PS4 people could finally play too.

Nope.

A personal parser is fine for perfecting your own personal rotation and experimenting with gear builds and such sure.

A group parser is needed to show you who you should be considering giving the boot. A personal parser can't serve this purpose.

[Baingoleth]

Nope.

A personal parser is fine for perfecting your own personal rotation and experimenting with gear builds and such sure.

A group parser is needed to show you who you should be considering giving the boot. A personal parser can't serve this purpose.

Granted I am only level 50 and haven't spent a bunch of time in FFXIV yet but in the MMO I am coming from, we couldn't parse other people. We'd kick from PUGs regularly. Some player runs in like Leeroy Jenkins consistently? Kick. Some player has gear that can't even stand up to bosses a tier lower? Kick. Some player keeps ignoring the raid leader? Kick.

It was very rare that someone was holding the group back who didn't make it obvious somehow. We never needed to parse them. If people knew the mechanics, listened to the raid leader and had appropriate gear there was almost never an issue.

Does FFXIV have an issue where people look on the outside like they can do an instance fine but in reality are just able to hide their ineptitude? I am asking seriously and I am asking as someone who personally doesn't care if everyone gets parsed. I just see this argument coming up over and over with some really upset people and fail to see how poor players can't be weeded out without these metrics.

[Taika]

Does FFXIV have an issue where people look on the outside like they can do an instance fine but in reality are just able to hide their ineptitude?

Yes. Of course the obvious cases are easy to notice (certain buffs / debuffs / DoTs never being up etc.), but if a person is geared alright and knows the basics of their rotation (can beat the SSS dummy for the fight, for example), they can still fail at maintaining decent DPS in a fight while doing mechanics correctly and not dying. The issues may come from example them failing to keep DPSing while handling mechanics (only for small moments at a time but they add up), failing to adjust one's rotation to a specific fight, failing to take advantage from other players' buffs, even things like failing to queue your abilities (I've had one of these in my raid group once: on the outside everything was right but their parses sucked)... These are the type of people who often don't even know they're doing really badly (because they are after all well geared and know what they're doing, at least in theory).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Does FFXIV have an issue where people look on the outside like they can do an instance fine but in reality are just able to hide their ineptitude?

Absolutely. Chief among them were DPS unable or unwilling to perform a proper rotation, which is the bulk of their damage. For instance, I had a Monk in V2S do nothing except Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes and Rockbreaker. Not only does Monk have two combos it needs to cycle, but Rockbreaker is an AoE and V2S has no additional targets except the boss. His numbers were nearly 50% less than a comparably geared Monk. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to notice these things since most players typically aren't pay attention to the rotations and skill usage of others unless it directly relates to their damage.

[Baingoleth]

Absolutely. Chief among them were DPS unable or unwilling to perform a proper rotation, which is the bulk of their damage. For instance, I had a Monk in V2S do nothing except Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes and Rockbreaker. Not only does Monk have two combos it needs to cycle, but Rockbreaker is an AoE and V2S has no additional targets except the boss. His numbers were nearly 50% less than a comparably geared Monk. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to notice these things since most players typically aren't pay attention to the rotations and skill usage of others unless it directly relates to their damage.

So, it's not so much that a player's ridiculous rotation can't be watched during the fight as much as ACT just makes it more obvious. Fair enough. People who are unable to play their class with excellence shouldn't be joining instances that require excellence and should be kicked. As I said before, I like parsers and personally have no issue with the whole party's stats being revealed to the people in the group. I just wish there was a way to simply weed out the players who don't understand their class without having anti-parser people losing their minds. I've grown quite used to parsing without anyone making threats since well before FFXIV and I find all this talk of reporting to GMs unsettling.

[Claymore65]

Nope.

A personal parser is fine for perfecting your own personal rotation and experimenting with gear builds and such sure.

A group parser is needed to show you who you should be considering giving the boot. A personal parser can't serve this purpose.

This is the exact argument we want to avoid when it comes to parsing. Parsers should be used as a tool for improvement, not for exclusion.

There is a very deliberate attempt in this game to avoid excluding players from content, regardless of skill level. In various interviews, Yoshi-P has stated part of the reason he's avoided Talent Trees is the fear that people will exclude players who have the "wrong" builds. This game generally tries hard to avoid player harassment and cultivate a friendly community. It's debatable whether or not they've succeeded, but I think it's clearly an issue they take seriously.

I'm personally neutral on Parsers, but as long as the argument is "Give me Parsers so I can Kick Bads", we're not going to get them. If the argument were "Give me parsers so I can have the information to help myself and my team improve", then your argument seems a lot stronger. It should be a tool for Positive Reinforcement, not to shame others for their poor performance. Unfortunately, I'm unsure how you'd design a parser for that. Maybe it could work like a Combo Counter in Fighting Games, mentioning your DPS is "Excellent" when it's great, but staying silent if your performance is low. It would naturally encourage players to improve, without insulting them if they're not as skilled. Even then, it's a very fine line, and I understand why SE is hesitant to officially support it.

[DeaconMoore]

This is the exact argument we want to avoid when it comes to parsing. Parsers should be used as a tool for improvement, not for exclusion.

EDIT

If you want to be dishonest about it, sure.

E-peen and call outs are the top reasons to use it in them in fights. Learning/perfecting your rotation, experimenting on a target dummy is why you use it outside of fights.