This is why this game should'nt get a parse

[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.