Built-in Parsers

[kikix12]

This is generally what happens when you bring up the discussion of a parser, or of parsing in general. The two sides will always clash. And you will never be able to get a straightforward answer to your question(s) from either so long as one side continues to endlessly debate with the other.

I know. The reason why I brought those two questions back is more of an attempt to actually bring the topic back onto parsers themselves, more so than a hope of getting actual answers. I have my own opinion of what the answer is, which correlates with your stance on it, by the way. But these questions were originally supposed to serve the duty of making the anti-parser people actually consider why they have such a belief in the supposed negative impact of in-game parsers.

Clearly...that purpose they failed at miserably, keh.

I’m always one to welcome friendly debates, and I’m sorry that your original questions have remained unanswered. But such is the way of discussion forums, generally speaking.

They were more like early arguments. And I'm afraid that "it's the way" of more than just forums, which I'm sure that every person up for an actual discussion, where actual arguments are exchanged back and forth, find out quite early on, keh. A shame, really.

(...)people are going to be jerks with or without a parser, and people should stop blaming the tool; they should blame the person. A parser will not directly or indirectly affect the way an individual behaves—if they seek to be a twat, then be a twat they shall, whether or not they have a parser at their disposal.

You, me and multiple others have brought this up in this thread (I can imagine it being in past ones too, though I wasn't a witness of em myself), and yet, they are 'conveniently' ignored by those against the parsers. I just don't understand how someone can complain about not being listened to (which many of these 'anti-parsers' people claimed in this thread), while themselves not even in any way responding to some of the arguments brought up...Hence, why I stopped actively reading this thread for the past few days. There just was little point in a discussion where the core points I brought up would just be ignored. Though I am surprised the thread is still not 'dead', keh.


As for the research, it would actually be quite nice if one of the developers/publishers actually that have a semi-successful or successful MMO title made such a compilation before and after adding a parser...but that's not going to happen either, keh.


Still, I appreciate you putting time into putting out your stance on these questions, thanks.

[Khemorex]

snip

well seperating people into "no parser" and "parser" is not going to increase/decrease df times. people will use what ever is going fastest.
Also no one is ignoring anyone , but the pro parser people still trying to teach the no parsing people how much good a parser will do , without having the negative impact in mind

Yes its easy to ignore the negative stuff , when it does not affect yourself ^^ (neither u cant understand why people dont want parsers since people lack the understanding for it)

Like in real life , people will only start to care about something when they are affected from it.

Good day to you

[MoroMurasaki]

well seperating people into "no parser" and "parser" is not going to increase/decrease df times. people will use what ever is going fastest.
Also no one is ignoring anyone , but the pro parser people still trying to teach the no parsing people how much good a parser will do , without having the negative impact in mind

Yes its easy to ignore the negative stuff , when it does not affect yourself ^^ (neither u cant understand why people dont want parsers since people lack the understanding for it)

Like in real life , people will only start to care about something when they are affected from it.

Good day to you

What negative effects?

Do you mean your tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that widespread parsing will turn everyone into kick-happy trolls?

For like the tenth time please offer something that isn't antecdotal to back up your claims.

[Oscura]

well seperating people into "no parser" and "parser" is not going to increase/decrease df times. people will use what ever is going fastest.
Also no one is ignoring anyone , but the pro parser people still trying to teach the no parsing people how much good a parser will do , without having the negative impact in mind

Yes its easy to ignore the negative stuff , when it does not affect yourself ^^ (neither u cant understand why people dont want parsers since people lack the understanding for it)

Like in real life , people will only start to care about something when they are affected from it.

Good day to you

I've run into enough rude, negative, passive-aggressive and quite frankly unpleasant people in this game. It is not as if this game is sunshine and rainbows, then suddenly parsers will give us dark clouds and sadness.

I understand why people don't want parsers personally, but to pretend that there aren't already issues or that they will somehow get worse just because of parsers existing is just a bit too paranoid and negative even for me.

[kikix12]

well seperating people into "no parser" and "parser" is not going to increase/decrease df times. people will use what ever is going fastest.

If a person doesn't want parsers but still will go into a parser queue, especially since the additional option should, normally, make the no-parser queue faster (people wanting parsers would be added to the no-parser list if their queue would take too long, but the reverse would not be true), then clearly they weren't all that strongly against it as some would make me believe. I am against open-world PvP, so I don't play open-world PvP. In games where there are open-world PvP maps, I don't go to those maps unless absolutely necessary, and even then, I play those games only if that's limited to the bare minimum. I just don't do stuff that I don't want to do. Why would others be any different, when they have the option not to do it?!

Also no one is ignoring anyone , but the pro parser people still trying to teach the no parsing people how much good a parser will do , without having the negative impact in mind

This whole thread is a suggestion about how to limit any POSSIBLE negative impact to the bare minimum, and there were multiple suggestions, the initial one in my opening post included, how to go about that. All those suggestions were nearly or completely ignored by the people that do not want parsers. Often they were twisted around (like happened with Taika's suggestion about making it limited to high-end content).

Yes, there were constructive posts from people that are opposed to the parsers. I want to make clear that I did not ignore them or "see what I want to see". However, that doesn't mean that all the points of the "pro-parser" group were contested, while I cannot remember a single thing from the "no-parser" group that was omitted. Heck, some of the "no-parser" groups arguments were responded to in a multitude of ways by multiple people, not just once or twice by a single person.

Yes its easy to ignore the negative stuff , when it does not affect yourself ^^ (neither u cant understand why people dont want parsers since people lack the understanding for it)

Whatever have made you think that it wouldn't affect me?! Of course it does affect me. I am actually as casual a player as they get. Heck. If parsers were limited only to high end content, then chances are that the parsers availability in them would be the only reason for me to actually start doing them, even then through all sorts of learning parties rather than clear ones, probably.

But you see, I look at both the bigger picture and the details. And I try to look from various perspectives. I may fail of course...but accusing me of being wrong on the basis of me not being affected and not knowing how it feels?! That's purely ignorance on your part, when I made myself quite clear where I stand in the early posts in this thread.

Like in real life , people will only start to care about something when they are affected from it.

If this would be correct, there would be no such thing as a "Crusade" or "Inquisition". People do a whole lot of butting in on another persons stuff, even if it doesn't involve them, just cause they feel like it. Politics, religions...stuff like that, which is normally banned on forums, are banned for the very reason that people have strong opinions on them even if they shouldn't matter to them in the slightest way at all.

[Zafire063]

I can understand not wanting a parser. The reasons have already been stated.

I would like to see something that tells the party that you're doing significantly less than you should be for the item level you're at. It doesn't even have to be strict, just something that will flag people who obviously aren't interested in trying.

[Xlantaa]

The only way to reduce to minimum the parse impact is making the abuse (abuse in ANY possible way, that includes kick or discrimination on a player for underperfoming) punishable:

Any party which kick form a duty (ANY DUTY) because numbers are not good for them (ANY number, under-performing or not).
Any party who deliberately discriminate in PF, prohibiting player form join if not enough DPS for them, even if that player can complete the duty.
Any person who mock or harass a player because his numbers.
Any player who upload the data to a third party site (FFLogs type), specially if not have the party member consent.

This is the only way to make the parser safe. But most of you will argue with the "why I can't kick the under-performing player?". If you think this, you DON'T WANT a parse to see statistics and help improve, you want it to exclude people.

A parser without limits will work only in the Happy Rainbow Land where everyone is a good person and is full of Ponnies and Moogles. But we know that is not the case, so it is necessary a lot of restrictions.

It is very hard to accomplish without cause a heavy gap on the community.Isolating players with no enough skill from others (that already happen, but this will cause a even bigger gap).

The majority of player base consider good being able to beat a duty, not the damage deal on them. Most people come to play and not worry much about things. Making a tool that can be potentially used to cause a negative atmosphere will cause that player stop play this game. Since majority are ignoring the parsing, the amount of player that can be lost due this will cause a heavy lost in money for SE. it is not only morality and education, it also also economic. Those player you mock, harass, kick because number are paying this game too. If they stop play, you know what will happen. A player who cannot play or is discriminate will stop play. They won't think "oh, maybe I can improve my DPS and I won't be kicked!", most of them they just stop play.

[HyoMinPark]

well seperating people into "no parser" and "parser" is not going to increase/decrease df times. people will use what ever is going fastest.
Also no one is ignoring anyone , but the pro parser people still trying to teach the no parsing people how much good a parser will do , without having the negative impact in mind

Yes its easy to ignore the negative stuff , when it does not affect yourself ^^ (neither u cant understand why people dont want parsers since people lack the understanding for it)

Like in real life , people will only start to care about something when they are affected from it.

Good day to you

You have zero quantitative evidence that implementing a built-in parser in high-end duties will increase or decrease the amount of negativity already present in this game. The "pro-parser" posters in this thread have all achknowledged that, more than likely, things are going to remain just as they are, where as the "anti-parser" posters continue to act as if implementing a built-in parser in content where it matters is the equivalent to the end of the world, and that suddenly the amount of twats and toxicity is going to increase one hundredfold.

The only posters I have seen acting remotely negative in this thread are those against parsers, but they have yet to give any evidence to back up their claims outside of anecdotes. Because such evidence does not exist--they cannot see into the future, and see that people are going to just start kicking players because of a bad parse. Jerks will continue to be jerks, whether or not they have a parser to publicly use or not. Built-in parsers are not a green light for harassment. GMs would still continue to take action against any and all who are reported with sufficient evidence of harassing another person. That isn't going to change just because of a toggable feature in PF. Criticism isn't a form of harassment when delivered constructively, and if a person doesn't like parsers, don't join a PF where it's displayed that a parser is going to be used. Just like you wouldn't join a Lootmaster party if you dislike Lootmaster. It's that simple.

The only way to reduce to minimum the parse impact is making the abuse (abuse in ANY possible way, that includes kick or discrimination on a player for underperfoming) punishable:

Any party which kick form a duty (ANY DUTY) because numbers are not good for them (ANY number, under-performing or not).
Any party who deliberately discriminate in PF, prohibiting player form join if not enough DPS for them, even if that player can complete the duty.
Any person who mock or harass a player because his numbers.
Any player who upload the data to a third party site (FFLogs type), specially if not have the party member consent.

All of these are already punishable offenses now, although the first one has to be extremely cut-and-dry for it to not just be considered "differences in playstyle" (e.g., chat log evidence of a conspiracy to kick someone "because they are not good enough"). Regarding PFs, the party leader is allowed to set whatever restrictions they want; it's their PF. Regarding FFLogs, players can claim their character and opt to have all publicly uploaded logs hidden, as far as I'm aware.

This is the only way to make the parser safe. But most of you will argue with the "why I can't kick the under-performing player?". If you think this, you DON'T WANT a parse to see statistics and help improve, you want it to exclude people.

This exclusion already happens. If you look in PF, there are plenty of parties that exclude: players under the minimum ilvl set by the PF leader, jobs the PF leader does not want in their party, players that have not cleared the duty trying to join groups looking to farm. The list goes on. And, in private parties, the leader is allowed to set whatever rules they want--it's their PF; not a DF group. That's why those options to limit jobs and set an ilvl requirement exist.

Not to mention, the "high DPS or kick" parties already exist. And they will always continue to exist, parser or no parser. It's not like the implementation of a parser is going to change their existence, and neither side can prove it will be an increase or decrease. Again, you cannot prove implementing a parser is going to suddenly increase the amount of harassment that already takes place. Nor can you make mass assumptions like the last paragraph of your post:

The majority of player base consider good being able to beat a duty, not the damage deal on them. Most people come to play and not worry much about things. Making a tool that can be potentially used to cause a negative atmosphere will cause that player stop play this game. Since majority are ignoring the parsing, the amount of player that can be lost due this will cause a heavy lost in money for SE. it is not only morality and education, it also also economic. Those player you mock, harass, kick because number are paying this game too. If they stop play, you know what will happen. A player who cannot play or is discriminate will stop play. They won't think "oh, maybe I can improve my DPS and I won't be kicked!", most of them they just stop play.

You don't have any evidence to back those claims up; so they really equate to little more than fearmongering.

[Taika]

I can understand not wanting a parser. The reasons have already been stated.

I get not wanting to use a parser. But I don't think there has been a sensible reason stated for why they shouldn't be allowed as an optional feature. Why deny them from those who want to use them in their premade groups consisting of people who have joined knowing the runs will be parsed?

I would like to see something that tells the party that you're doing significantly less than you should be for the item level you're at. It doesn't even have to be strict, just something that will flag people who obviously aren't interested in trying.

I really don't get how it would be in any way better to have someone simply flagged as awful instead of having the objective numerical context to measure all group members' performance. The first one will just make a person feel bad, the second option explains what's wrong in their performance so they're able to fix it.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The only way to reduce to minimum the parse impact is making the abuse (abuse in ANY possible way, that includes kick or discrimination on a player for underperfoming) punishable:

Any party which kick form a duty (ANY DUTY) because numbers are not good for them (ANY number, under-performing or not).
Any party who deliberately discriminate in PF, prohibiting player form join if not enough DPS for them, even if that player can complete the duty.
Any person who mock or harass a player because his numbers.
Any player who upload the data to a third party site (FFLogs type), specially if not have the party member consent.

This is the only way to make the parser safe. But most of you will argue with the "why I can't kick the under-performing player?". If you think this, you DON'T WANT a parse to see statistics and help improve, you want it to exclude people.

A parser without limits only will work only in the Happy Rainbow Land where everyone is a good person and is full of Ponnies and Moogles. But we know that is not, so it is necessary a lot of restrictions.

It is very hard to accomplish without cause a heavy gap on the community.Isolating players with no enough skill from others (that already happen, but this will cause a even bigger gap).

Just a quick note on the first and last ones, we certainly don't want to punish players by having them HAVE to keep someone in party who's underperforming, for fear of punishment, nor discourage them from making use of FFLogs. For example, I've never given my consent to my static members uploading parses, so anything goes up, good or bad, and being that I don't (can't) parse, I generally have no say on it, lest I restrict everyone's numbers from being uploaded. Perhaps my absolute worst run was someone's best, and I wouldn't want to deny them that.