This is why this game should'nt get a parse

[Squintina]

If you havent experienced this, groovy. But your personal experiences arent evidence it does not occur at all. Merely that you have not encountered players who do this. Thats all it means. But there are plenty of personal accounts who have said they have encountered players like this (in raids, in dungeons, in Trials) in some capacity.

So because some people will be jerks, no one should get it (officially)?
Some people are jerks in dungeons if you mess up a mechanic. Some people are jerks in pvp. Some people are jerks in hunts. Some people are jerks just talking in chat or novice network. Some people take advantage of FCs. Heck one person was being a jerk in the gold saucer by dancing right on top of the NPC to handle the jumping GATE challenge in to making it difficult to hand in.

If you take down anything someone could abuse to tear others apart, you have nothing left except a single player game.

Besides there are people who want an official parser that works only for them (not the whole party, just "me") so they can see their own numbers and not anyone else's. They could then compare with people they trust by chatting and asking about their respective numbers. What about that version?

[Melichoir]

Snip

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."

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. Only that you will have to acknowledge that should they be incorporated, you will see an increase in that behavior as it becomes more readily accessible to the player population. There are ups to it, but there are also some downs. And what the Devs may be trying to avoid is excessive striation of the player base due to numbers not being high enough.

snip

So some quick things

Anecdotal experiences that say "I havent experienced it, therefore it does not happen" is not the same as anecdotal experiences of "Ive experienced it, so it must be happening on some level."

One is saying their experience is an absolute, the other is saying that their experience is proof that is is occurring in some capacity. So its nto canceling the other out. The second experience is outright refuting the first due to the applications of those experiences.

Also, yes. There ARE good people who want to help others. Im not saying they dont exist. In fact, they could very well be a majority of players. But that does not mean that there arent people who are jerks, or people who that theyre not in significant enough number to be damaging to the player base. It is really one of those things that a handful of jerks can spoil the whole experience.

Snip

Youre conflating in game mechanics with a function that is not necessary to the game, as well as arguing that some people are negative, so adding a parser to teh game wont change the status quo.

Parsers are, ultimately, not necessary for the game. They provide a LOT of useful info that definitely helps people, but they ultimately are not integral to beating a raid. If youre hitting an enrage, you already know its cause Damage is to low, so people need to review their class and practice it as well as gear and make sure theyre doing fight mechanics right. A parser can help you optimize, but again, is not a necessity. It is a creature comfort, nothing more. Unlike lets say a threat meter, which is necessary due to boss mechanics requiring swapping or making sure tank is the primary focus of the boss.

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. This ended up striating the player base a bit and fueling some toxicity. It made it harder for enw players to experience the end game stuff and be a part of the community. Not impossible, just more difficult. And the reasoning was the same: Its officially a part of the game, therefore it can be used as a means to sort out the baddies from goodies.

The Devs may be aware of this, and trying to avoid that facet.

[Jijifli]

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."

Tell me if this helps.

Yes people can abuse it. Everything you put in the game can be abused. Wanna guess what I found the day Play Dead went on the mog station? Can probably guess when a M Lalafell sticks his butt up in the air. So should we remove Play Dead? Because some people are abusing it to do things they shouldn't?

Or what about another one. Sound Effects. You remember <se.7> right? People can abuse that to annoy you in chat, forcing a BL or to mute the game/section that the noise is tied to. Should we remove sound effects? They're useful for getting important mechanic related info out, but people can be mean with it, just like parsing is good for getting tons of combat information, but someone can be mean with it.

Also, I don't need a parser to tell you that your dps is trash. I can see it just fine by watching your rotation and enmity generation. Should we remove those enmity bars then? And animations?

[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?

[StarRosie]

Anecdotal experiences that say "I havent experienced it, therefore it does not happen" is not the same as anecdotal experiences of "Ive experienced it, so it must be happening on some level."

One is saying their experience is an absolute, the other is saying that their experience is proof that is is occurring in some capacity. So its nto canceling the other out. The second experience is outright refuting the first due to the applications of those experiences.

I have to disagree, Neither Bourne nor Sebazy seem to be saying "I don't see it, so it never happens." but asking for evidence that it happens and this is mostly due to perception. I'm merely taking a stab here, but I think it's a little on the money. But they may not see it due to them being in groups that use a parser either personally or responsibly. So it is not that they are saying "I've never seen this so it must never happen." but more "I've never seen this, can you please provide me an example so I can understand. Because the groups I run don't do this." if that makes any sense. Meanwhile, our perception is that we have been in groups that have jackholes that do use parsers in a abusive manner so we do know it happens and have either been victims of it or know victims of it and that can color one's perception in a discussion like this. But, like all tools, it is subject to abuse by some. A hammer is a tool but some will use it as a weapon. (No, I'm not gonna use the "Should we ban all hammers?!" argument, that's silly.)

Personally, I wish people wouldn't be huge dicks to eachother and we could all get along and hug it out! So, I don't like the idea of leaving a possible tool of abuse on the table. But we don't, so there isn't much I can do other then report those who use the hammer to kill people rather then pound in some nails. Sooner or later, either you'll weed out enough of the jerks that they won't be a problem anymore or the jerks will get the message and either shut up or tone down. But again, the majority shouldn't be punished for the acts of the minority.

[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?