This is why this game should'nt get a parse

[Ferth]

In all honesty, if SE were somehow able to remove the use of the unofficial parsers I would imagine elitism and toxicity would actually become more pronounced. And it probably won't be the elitists being toxic, they will just disappear entirely. You won't see them if you aren't one of them. You'll be left with the clueless, vociferous sludge that will blame everyone else for failing because the notion that the problem might be them is just beyond their comprehension.

Good players use parsers to get better and to help others get better. Bad players will use any excuse they can find to convince themselves that the problem isn't with them.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

If they introduced a parser that was personal only, as someone mentioned earlier (sorry, I couldn't find the specific post while back-tracking) then I would be all for that. I think it would be nice to know how I'm doing with some of the jobs I'm less familiar with.

[Melichoir]

If they introduced a parser that was personal only, as someone mentioned earlier (sorry, I couldn't find the specific post while back-tracking) then I would be all for that. I think it would be nice to know how I'm doing with some of the jobs I'm less familiar with.

That might be useful, but youd need a frame of reference. If you are doing 10k damage, that can be good or bad. 10k damage when people average 50k is terrible. 10 dmg when people average 5k is amazing. Youll invariably need some sort of reference for an individual parser to be useful.

snip

Threat Meters are necessary to the game as they are needed for certain boss mechanics (Swapping and etc.) Its not teh same as a parser. Yes, there are functions in the game that can be abused. But arguing "Oh, other people can abuse these tools, so parsers are ok" is a stupid way to argue. Youre essentially admitting that adding that function will promote toxicity in some capacity. And pragmatically, its likely to be worse than sound effects. Those are annoyances. Parsars feed info that can be sued to exclude or trounce other players.

Look, Im not arguing that theyre completely bad. Just pointing out that there are negative effects to it. Because some arguments here are saying "Nah, nothing bad wont happen!" or saying htat toxicity already exists, so its ok to add parsers, OR that it somehow is the exact equivilant of some already in game tools (threat meters, for example.)

[Jijifli]

Threat Meters are necessary to the game as they are needed for certain boss mechanics (Swapping and etc.) Its not the same as a parser.

Actually, it's the same as a parser, so long as it's not looked at as doing the same job. Let's explain how the enmity bars in game function.

Whenever a player performs an action, enmity is generated, based on the abilities damage and effects, or if it gets boosted or lowered effect from a buff. It does nothing but tell you who has the highest threat. You can also tell who has the highest threat by who the creature is targeting.

Now we can describe a parser.

Whenever a player performs an action, numbers are generated and act based on the abilities damage, healing, and effects, or if it gets boosted or lowered from a buff or debuff. It tells you who's highest in damage.

The difference is Enmity is displayed while damage, healing, mitigation, etc, are not. If you took away enmity bars entirely I doubt it'd change much of anything. You don't HAVE to see it, after all. It's just nice and helpful information. That's why my comparison.

Also, to argue that DPS is not important for mechanics, is silly. There are plenty of DPS checks that, if you fail, will cause a wipe. If you reach these, wouldn't you want to know where the problem is? Since knowing dps isn't important, why not remove all dps checks?

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

That might be useful, but youd need a frame of reference. If you are doing 10k damage, that can be good or bad. 10k damage when people average 50k is terrible. 10 dmg when people average 5k is amazing. Youll invariably need some sort of reference for an individual parser to be useful.

Isn't that what Reddit is for? :P But yes, I get what you're saying. I'd still like to know my numbers without the comparison with others. Perhaps the personal parser could give you an average percentage based on the other's total output? Like a rating, but without seeing everyone elses numbers? Like, you did XX% of the total damage. That would still be pretty motivating depending on your 'score'.

[Sebazy]

If you understood my point, you wouldnt have posted what you did. I was not condoning or condemning parsers. Pointing out that there are ups and downs. That there WILL be people who will use it to attack others. And your response/inference was "I havent personally seen it, so must not be happening."

You're reading what you want to hear. I never said it doesn't happen, rather that I've never seen it first hand. I'm inferring that it doesn't happen anything like as frequently as the nay sayers would have us believe.

Youre second anecdotal point actually bears out my argument. Players who have a high opinion of themselves take the data from the parser and use it as a means of attacking other players. Im not suggesting that we shouldnt have parsers.

Again, you're not reading what I'm saying.

My anecdotal point goes against your argument. Why? The guy wasn't parsing. He was just trolling. It had nothing to do with parsing and everything to do with the guy being an idiot.

Look at it this way:

John goes to his local corner store, tells the assistant that he's got a knife in his sleeve and he'll attack them if they don't hand over the contents of the till.

By your method of thinking, the solution is to ban knives and shoo John on. Of course this doesn't actually work, because John would just pretend to have a bat or a gun next time.

The actual solution is to threaten or actually lock John up, something that happens both in reality and in game thankfully.

Furthermore, you will most likely see an increase in toxicity if it became a part of the game for two reasons. 1 is Greater access, means more trolls statistically, and two it will be argued that because its an official part of the game, it can be used as a means to weed out players from groups. This phenomenon has happened in other MMOs via other superficial additions. In WoW, when achievements were added, people soon were required to 'link their achievement' in order to join a group for content. No achievement, no access.

Anyone would think you were trying to predict Brexit

On the flipside to your arguments, the entire and rather considerable PS4 player base would get fair and equal access to real time parsing not to mention a lot more players overall would be more likely to spot and promptly take an interest in their own performance. These would statistically shunt the average level of play upwards, decreasing the need for toxicity in the process.

Your point about achievements is absolutely meaningless too, achievement requirements when applying to the top raiding FCs were a requirement pretty much from the get go, long before parsers were a thing. Didn't have Titan cleared? There's the door.

The devs are entirely aware of it, thus why Savage has been dumbed down to a shadow of what Gordias and Midas were, again, nothing to do with parsing. SE just want to make the majority of raids as accessible as they can to suit the player base as a whole.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think adding a group wide parser into the game on par with what PC users already have is the right move. The various threads on this topic show that a very substantial chunk of the community just doesn't want it for whatever reason and that's something we all have to appreciate and respect. Thus a discrete self only parser is the better approach to take as it ticks most boxes and fills the gaps that are currently missing.

In short, parsers aren't the problem here, they are just a scapegoat for the real issue that prevails in most modern MMOs:

The lack of fair common decency, consideration and respect within the wider community as a whole.

Remove DPS entirely from the equation and we'd just have threads about people getting chewed out over getting clipped by an AoE or failing a mechanic instead.

By comparison, adding a self only parser into the game client itself would change relatively little in the grand scheme of things, but it'd hand those that want to improve themselves the tool to do so. As far as reference points go, the player base can take care of that itself. With an official tool in game, there's nothing to stop friends from comparing and sharing data if and when they chose to.

Holy moly that got long winded!

[akaneakki]

Many times I've met people who never even parser and tell people they are bad, when they are bottom dps. They call people names etc. You know like in PF, (good farm, high dps) then leader does bottom and blames on others? It doesn't happen often but it happens, so should we take them away the rights to do even PF again?

[IveraIvalice]

Just my 2 cents. I don't like parsers and I don't want an official one. I'd rather not know then to point fingers at someone. Sure it can help a lot but it can also be used to cast blame and single people out. If a person wants to get better they can parse themselves. But someone parsing someone else is just looking for who to blame, even if your looking to help that person they may not want it and they are still singled out

[TroySoFab]

No parser please, I enjoy only pressing one button and watching anime while I play.

[Crowzer]

No parser please, I enjoy only pressing one button and watching anime while I play.

You already watch an anime by playing FF14.