This is why this game should'nt get a parse

[HyoMinPark]

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.

While I’ve never seen a widespread epidemic of harassment via parsers, I’m not claiming that it doesn’t exist. I don’t think anyone in this thread is saying that. I’m just saying that it’s probably not as widespread (i.e., occurs at some alarmingly high rate, or that 9 out of every 10 people who parse abuse people with it) as some of the more anti-parser crowd make it out to be. In my personal experience, I have seen (and reported) harassment via parser once, and I’ve been playing for 2 years, and doing harder content (Extremes/Savage) for a little over a year. The harassment in question occurred in a Zurvan Ex farm group (and, as everyone knows, that fight was already a gathering for the worse sorts of pissants), and the person doing the harassment certainly had no right to be talking big when it came to their damage. I see far more negativity from people that are against parsers than from people who are for them (like the poster who appeared in another parser debate a few months back that said they report anyone and everyone who they think is maybe parsing, evidence or no, and even this thread’s OP).

On the flip side, your argument can also apply to your own experiences: you may have seen more parser harassment than myself or another poster in this thread, but you can’t use your anecdotal evidence to back up a claim that it is wide-spread. There are plenty of personal accounts that say they have never encountered harassment via parser in the entire time they have been playing the game. The argument goes both ways.

No one will say it doesn’t exist. But to base whether or not such a tool should be implemented on the chance that someone is going to abuse the tool is wrong. There is potential for abuse in every feature in this game; should they all like-wise be removed to protect players from potential Vote Kick abuse? Vote Abandon (because we all know of that one person who likes to spam it in 24-mans the minute the alliance wipes once)? Party Finder exclusions (though, to be fair, the PF leader can set any rules he wants and they be valid; their PF, their rules)? Custom emotes (because there have been some lewd ones)? Implementing an in-game parser would not suddenly make harassment okay; a lot of people assume that, if the developers gave us a valid in-game parser, people could suddenly start harassing people left and right with it, and not be punished for their behavior. But that would not be the case; harassment would still be policed as it is now without a supported parser.

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.

With regards to the bolded statement, no one can actually prove that implementing an in-game parser would cause a rise in assholery. No one can prove that it won’t. It’s best to not make such assumptions because they simply cannot be proven. On either hand. All it does is create unnecessary doomsaying. And there are ups and downs to every system; that’s just the way it is. You can’t have a system that is nothing but good or nothing but bad.

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.

I’ve always been of the mindset that you shouldn’t let the bad apples ruin the entire bunch. Don’t punish the good players because the bad ones are being twats.

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.

I think what he’s getting at, is that adding in parsers is not going to suddenly decrease the amount of harassment that occurs via other avenues because all the harassment is suddenly going to funnel towards parser abuse.

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.

You’re right that parsers aren’t necessary. But, for the rest of your paragraph here:
—If you’re hitting enrage, yes, you’re right that it is already known that damage is low. But, how do you know specifically who and/or what is the culprit? Is it the MNK in the HQ crafted gear? What about the MCH in his high-end gear? Is it the NIN? The BRD? And why? There’s no way of knowing the answers to any of those questions without using a parser to further analyze a log and see: “Oh, well the MNK is doing great, but the MCH is really low for his item level” or “Oh, the NIN isn’t actually using any mudras; that could be why” or “Why is the BRD not using their songs? Or reapplying their DoTs with Iron Jaws? Or using Raging Strikes?”

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.

Trolls will be trolls regardless of the tools they have at their disposal. An official parser won’t change that. That being said, like I said previously: harassment will still be handled just as it is now if it’s reported to a GM. They aren’t going to suddenly ignore it because parsers are now “legal”.

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.

There is already a system like this that “excludes” people: Party Finder’s “duty complete” and “duty completion” options. One filters out people who have not cleared content from joining groups that are for farming, and I think such a filtering is justified. If you haven’t done the content, why are you trying to join a farm group for it with no clear? If you haven’t cleared, start a learning or clear party; don’t join one that has a different objective. I don’t think that implementing a parser would have the same exclusions as your WoW example. If, if you end up in a group that, for whatever reason, demanded 95th percentile play, just leave and find/make another one.

Will maybe add more to this after I finish catching up to the thread; just wanted to write this little bit before I forgot.