This is why this game should'nt get a parse

[Alien_Gamer]

But there's definitely truth in there as well...Bigoted and hopelessly out of touch with reality imho.

You speak of wording things poorly and then say that? I responded to one thing, that someone said the ONLY people who were against logs were those that didn't want to be shown they were bad. I refuted that with an example of other reasons meaning there is not ONLY one type of person against it.

I also flat out state I know there are people that won't abuse it and those that will. I'm accepting that other people have different views. I'm also accepting that my own argument is purely from my experience, is anecdotal, and not something that is meant to sway other people that like parsers.

Edit:
Dualgunner is right, I misread that statement.

[Sebazy]

So who's the bigot? The one that accepts others like parsers or the one that can't accept that others don't?

To requote myself in full:

And yet, the point that gets missed and brushed over again and again here, is that for every petulant child with a parse window (and likely still going to be an petulant child without said parse window) that's needlessly kicking up a fuss, there's an order of magnitude more quietly getting on with their thing because they just don't care. It's bordering on a discriminatory stance. Bigoted and hopelessly out of touch with reality imho.

Dualgunner beat me to it, but aye, sorry if it came across as me calling you bigoted. That wasn't my intention <3

Rather, I'm referring to the view point that parsers make people toxic across the board, or at least in far far greater numbers than reality.

A better (and less offensive!) way to put my point forward might be as such:

The majority of parser harassment incidents are either here-say (My mate's brother's partner was in a party where someone got called out in Gordias!) or misunderstandings (Aka this thread and my Rabanastre troll). I'm not denying that parser based harassment doesn't exist, but rather that it's not actually all that common, if it was, you can guarantee this thread would be filled to the brim with screenshots of it happening.

On the flipside, I'd like to put this link out there. Note the sheer volume of uploads each and every day. I'd struggle to scrape together a handful of verified incidents where parser data was used maliciously, yet it takes me 30 seconds show literally thousands of occasions where it wasn't, on a daily basis no less.

Don't get me wrong, I love data and it's one of my favourite aspects of progression time, but I do agree with you in many respects. Thus my stance that simply incorporating the 3rd party parser into the game as is would be a mistake. The community isn't ready for that. If we ever do get one, it should be self only and absolutely discrete at least until the populace as a whole warms up to it.

[Alien_Gamer]

Dualgunner beat me to it, but aye, sorry if it came across as me calling you bigoted. That wasn't my intention <3

Its all good, I'll try to read more carefully next time. Sorry for replying as i did.

Thus my stance that simply incorporating the 3rd party parser into the game as is would be a mistake. The community isn't ready for that. If we ever do get one, it should be self only and absolutely discrete at least until the populace as a whole warms up to it.

As a whole, I agree with your stance. But then, how does a community warm up to it? How could SE, or anyone, measure the acceptance of parsers? I suppose the corollary to that is how could one evaluate if toxicity gets worse or better with it? How could a community say this is or is not working? Personally, while I like reading the forums, they would be a poor medium to evaluate such a thing.

[Sebazy]

You're absolutely right, you don't and there is plenty of toxicity everywhere without it. As far as i'm aware there's no rigorous studies on the social dynamics of parsers and toxicity to point to, literally all I have is my experience and the behavior I've witnessed. That is toxicity grows when parsers are allowed in the game.

I'm not even really convinced that it grows once parsers become a thing, rather I think it's down to the content at hand. FFXI's highly competitive endgame scene was incredibly toxic and at times it bordered on a gangland mentality. Nothing I've ever seen or experienced in FFXIV has ever come close to the drama and abuse I saw pretty much every time a desirable HMN or King popped. This was during the days of Zilart and CoP, long before parsing was a thing. I did make a return several years later (Mid WotG) and the endgame had actually mellowed out quite significantly, parsing was starting to become a thing but that had nothing to do with it, it was all down to the lessened competition over content.

Challenging content breed's toxicity amongst pugs when there's an opportunity for failures to snowball over the rest of the raid. Void Ark was a complete cake walk and as a result, it was rare to see drama outside of the occasional troll. By comparison, the more problematic bosses such as Hashmal are breeding grounds for drama especially now where the raider to casual ratio is at it's most skewed. Some people just need a stone to throw when they feel like they are being held back by others and the anonymity of DF causes many to act highly inappropriately compared to how they would behave amongst people they know.

It's not a parser problem, it's a human nature problem and it's certainly nothing new.

The thing is, Alien, parsers are allowed implicitly. The only thing that can get one banned regarding a parser is harassment, and that wouldn't change with an official parser.

It's more a case of 'fight club' rules rather than outright allowed, don't forget this.

I earned myself a temp ban and tasty warning for making a SCH DPS guide on how to do 1000DPS in the dungeons at HW's release, no harassment, no naming and no drama in the thread, just a bunch of video clips along with a guide. My undoing was a screenshot showing the numbers I was putting out. I'm guessing that if I'd just have had the videos with a discrete log link or such I'd have probably been ok, but in showing and naming the software I fell foul of the ban hammer which is fair enough.

It's actually interesting to see that this thread has been allowed to continue TBH. Perhaps the official stance here has softened a little overtime I guess? It'd be nice to know what the actual final say is, but I can't see us getting that from any official source =(

But then, how does a community warm up to it? How could SE, or anyone, measure the acceptance of parsers? I suppose the corollary to that is how could one evaluate if toxicity gets worse or better with it? How could a community say this is or is not working? Personally, while I like reading the forums, they would be a poor medium to evaluate such a thing.

It's pretty much a given that there would be a substantial backlash here even if SE did something as simple as implementing a self only S-F tiered ranking prompt for your own performance in Savage content alone. It'd take time for people to realise that the world hasn't actually ended and that this tool can be rather useful and interesting. Numbers to chase! Something to actually spice up Expert a little bit

For SE to follow it's usage, I suppose the simplest way would be twofold, gate it's usage behind a side quest and track how many people bother with it whilst also keeping a tabs on harassment tickets and such.

As a community we can't even decide if we like Cloud's bike or not, let alone anything serious. That's one for SE to decide.

[Shurrikhan]

Its all good, I'll try to read more carefully next time. Sorry for replying as i did.




As a whole, I agree with your stance. But then, how does a community warm up to it? How could SE, or anyone, measure the acceptance of parsers? I suppose the corollary to that is how could one evaluate if toxicity gets worse or better with it? How could a community say this is or is not working? Personally, while I like reading the forums, they would be a poor medium to evaluate such a thing.

When your majority of experiences of when, say, a DF group upon failing a DPS check of some sorts receives valid, relevant, and not-yet-capitalized-upon pointers for improvement in the given phase and no one snarkily peps back that they're not to blame, or that they know better, or that the advise is officious and therefore inherently malicious, you'd be getting warmer. Bonus if people note things they could have improved, ask questions, or offer other pieces of advice of their own, working towards the end of completion -- often completing the short-term goal by seemingly a larger margin than necessary in order to provide leeway thereafter and best habits leading up to that point -- rather than acting defensively or centering that experience around themselves. By the time the vast majority of people are willing to spend the time to practice and improve on their own time as necessary to perform up to expectations in the content they'll be entering -- and have the tools to let that practice make a difference -- and especially if they can come to enjoy that process of self-improvement, we'd pretty much be there.

Parsers are primarily a self-improvement tool; people need to first be into that sort of thing. Otherwise it's like a gym without members, because any current would-be athelete who'd make use of it only exercises in that very same process that they're working towards. Puny-armed mountain-bikers going down potentially dangerous slopes, slim high school linebackers facing off when they might not be able shove around someone even their own weight, with only the act itself to benchmark from and improve by.