In competition with myself: a request for PERSONAL parsers

[Teraluna]

Parsers, like any tool, are good if used beneficially.

But as we all know, they have been - for years - used as an ingame insult mechanic by a percentage of the playing population.
Unfortunately over these years this percentage has increased as the ingame social standards have suffered an ongoing decline.

Some would say the playerbase only has itself to blame for some people's resistance, even dislike, of this tool. Whilst acknowledging that not all players are the same, it would be hard to argue with this statement

Now a personal parser, whilst on paper sounding like a safer option in terms of in game behaviour, does open the door to this, and fairly easily.

For example: A players posts their parser in group/raid chat and demands others do the same. Those who don't are an immediate insult target for the original person and maybe others.
This spreads to general chat, as people are publicly criticized for not posting their personal parser information.

As the statement above suggests, the playerbase should look at it's own behaviour before looking at the developers - and the ever increasing trend to use parsers, not as a benefit, but as an antisocial insult in the game.

[Awha]

Maybe in the future with the record feature since I think it functions by recording actions then recreating the situation. If the recordings can be saved and uploaded maybe the people at FFlogs can some how use that data to convert a run into data that can be viewed on FFLogs like a post run parse. Either way asking something of the team behind FFLogs more likely result in action being taken than asking SE.

I know nothing about programming so take my idea with a grain of salt. Just spit balling.

[Nedkel]

Or maybe just make a color indicator for the party memeber names in the UI, so it will take the total damage done and compare it to total damage done by the party.
So we could have colors from green to red to indicate how much each memeber contributes to the game, that would make things even easier than a parser and raw numbers.
For example, white would indicate contribution to the overall damage done white 0-5%, yellow 5-10%, green 10-15%, blue 15-20%, orange 20-25%, red 25-30%, purple 30%+.
And i believe it would be a good indication, because 30% is already a good chunk of contribution and none would expect from a dps insane numbers, but it would also make super easy to see, when a dps doesnt do his job properly. It would be quite easy for dps to reach purple, since healer and tank doesnt contribute too much into the damage pool, and it would prevent dpsers from not giving a two ducks about the game, because lets face it some people just push two buttons for entire dungeon thinking they are doing anything.
These guys are a bigger problem than a dps who makes many mistakes one after another one.
And for the 8 man or 24 man dungeon, the requred contribution could be 2x lower or 6 times lower, so it will match the number of players in the team and the contribution from one each.

[Sebazy]

I have no problems with personal parsers, as long as it becomes a actionable offense to demand someone elses numbers.

Agreed, SE implementing personal parsers would definitely need some kind of caveat to the order of covering the misuse and abuse of the data it provides. Whilst I do feel that DPS need to be a little more accountable for their performance in high end content that actually warrants it, there does need to be a middle ground here to keep things civil, SE are typically very good at handling in game harassment so I suspect as long as this was kept as an actionable offence as it is now, people would learn very quickly (Or simply get banned if they don't, win win IMHO!).

You want a personal... parser?
Go hit the dps check statues and see how much time left you have on them.

SSS is a horrible flawed concept that had only minor relevance to the content at hand during Gordias and arguably has little to none now. There's no provision to handle pushing or holding DPS as appropriate (Hi Cruise Chaser & Zurvan), nor is there any effort made at teaching a player how to maintain their APM and minimise disconnects during mechanics, something which is fundamental to performing well.

Not to mention, as a healer main, SSS is about as useful as a means to judge how long my keyboard is going to survive as it is any indicator of my performance in raids. It's not fit for purpose, not even slightly.

Or maybe just make a color indicator for the party memeber names in the UI, so it will take the total damage done and compare it to total damage done by the party.

Whilst I'd personally quite like this, I could imagine a lot of people objecting to it. I can very quickly link a multitude of recent expert roulettes where I've personally been doing 35% or more of the damage myself as the healer. Whilst it wouldn't make much of a difference to me as I can already see that as is and frankly it doesn't really bother me, I suspect it might play on under performing player's nerves a little, will they worry that I'm about to start chewing them out at any moment? It'd work a little better if it was personal only and displayed on your HP/MP/TP bar instead (That near useless icon just to the left!). Granted, the question would be then be a case of if anyone took any notice of it =/

If SE want to put a parser, they would by now. Good devs don't though. Why? Because it's a restriction to how they can change or design fights. Think a boss who will hit harder if you hit them hard or reactively put up shields. Sure -you- get better but your party won't and take the hit. They would anyway if your only purpose is getting better on damage. Good dancing > 2 bigger left feet.

It's a team mode, anything personal isn't good. And most importantly, this is a video game. It's all assigned numbers, you're not supposed to get better. Michael Jordan never beat himself, just ask EA.

What?

We've had the 'mechanic hits harder or weaker depending on your dps' thing already, back in A3S, whilst it was the reverse of what you're saying, it was also one hell of a hurdle during early progression and even more so later on for more casual groups. Honestly, getting past that mechanic during 3.0 without a single parser in the group is quite a feat. The vast majority needed at least one to start helping optimise things or the group would simply hit a wall with it.

A team's individual skill is the foundation upon which the party's overall performance is built upon. Good party damage is a by-product of a player who can maintain high APM and minimise disconnects during mechanics. Being able to dance is also a vital skill, but once you move up from 24 mans and into EX/Savage and then early Savage progression, it quickly becomes only part of the picture.

Your comments about RNG order of actions betray your knowledge (or lack of?) of how the end game actually works. End game RNG is little more than a case of picking from two or three attacks during a mechanic, or the direction in which an aoe or cleave goes. Whilst the mechanic might target different people, it's not really RNG when that mechanic always happens at the same point. A11's often wild variance was purely down to how different players would push the multitude of little phases at differing speeds, it was all scripted at the end of the day.

[Nedkel]

Whilst I'd personally quite like this, I could imagine a lot of people objecting to it. I can very quickly link a multitude of recent expert roulettes where I've personally been doing 35% or more of the damage myself as the healer. Whilst it wouldn't make much of a difference to me <cut 1000>

Without knowing that, they will never get better, since a big part of casual players just spam few buttons thinking thats all what they could do, this thing actually happens in other mmo games too.
Thats good if they will feel ashamed by their performance known by everyone in the team, someone need a kick in the butt to know if they need to git gut or are they gut enough.
The boundary of 30% contribution is not really high and as a dps the man could do it easly unless he doesnt care at all.
Dps damage is high in this game overall, so let them know when they socks.
Tanks and healer know when they did bad, let the others experience the same, that may sound cruel, but it is the only way to mobilize happy casuals to actually contribute into the team based mission.

[Hasrat]

Without knowing that, they will never get better

There is no magical solution to getting poor players to perform better. Players that genuinely want to do better will seek out any tools to help them do so. Players that are indifferent will continue to disregard what they don't understand.

I personally find any argument to the effect of "this will help other players" to be anywhere from naive to absurd. If you want a parse to help yourself or your static or friends or whatever, just say so. But, short of 100% hand holding AI takeover, bad players will continue to be bad.

[Nedkel]

There is no magical solution to getting poor players to perform better. Players that genuinely want to do better will seek out any tools to help them do so. <cut>.

Its not like everyone out there that is not good enough because they dont care, they also dont know how to or they never looked into any guide for their class.
Someone who see them not performing well could advice them if they see so.
I was adviced by many about the dungeon routes, and still i get advices, but if i would play a dps, who would tell me what i am doing wrong?
I would happly grind up to 60-70 level without realizing i do less dmg than a tank, and get blamed later for damage by parsers.
The game overall will be better with that simple in game parser, so new comers like me or anyone could realize what is a part of my job in a team since the very begining of the game. You cant get better without knowing your ground you are standing at, its easy to tell when you play healer or a tank, but as a dps there is no way you could see it. Encouraging these dps's into doing more will push them to try harder or learn.
Imagine you are playing as dps yourself and you just started playing the game, seeing somebody getting purple and you green will tell you could do much better than that, it will make you thinking what you could improve, pushing you into looking for some guides online.
And a third party parse is not a solution, a lot of people believe they could get easly banned for using it or just simply cant because they are on console.

[Eylirria]

SSS is a horrible flawed concept that had only minor relevance to the content at hand during Gordias and arguably has little to none now. There's no provision to handle pushing or holding DPS as appropriate (Hi Cruise Chaser & Zurvan), nor is there any effort made at teaching a player how to maintain their APM and minimise disconnects during mechanics, something which is fundamental to performing well.

Not to mention, as a healer main, SSS is about as useful as a means to judge how long my keyboard is going to survive as it is any indicator of my performance in raids. It's not fit for purpose, not even slightly.

I know, that was kind of my point. Kind of like how a personal parser is just as useless.

[Sebazy]

I know, that was kind of my point. Kind of like how a personal parser is just as useless.

In your eyes perhaps.

Would a group wide parser be more useful to the right people? Most likely yes. Case in point, I linked a screenshot of a BLM doing 165 DPS in Rabanastre in another thread, how long do you think she would have lasted if people had have been able to clearly see that. Whilst I suggested that she simply shouldn't have been there in the first place, nobody would have deserved the almost inevitable butchering she would likely have received if her performance was there for all to see.

As such, a personal parser is the best compromise especially given the casual nature of this game for the most part.

Is it useless? Absolutely not, with a legitimate feature in the game, people will be more likely to discuss and compare numbers with friends, more people will potentially overhear that and get rough reference points from there.

It's not a feature to turn everyone into world first progression raiders, rather it's there to help give people something by which to gauge themselves if and when they decide to take some interest in that. If it improves even 10% of the population, that's huge as far as the more casual endgame content goes and frankly, if it helps avoid a repeat of the BLM I saw earlier, that's even better as that wasn't good for anyone involved.

Find any stormblood A rank, relay it. do not join a party. As tank, do 100k damage to it. Find another one, relay and same thing no party, as dps do 100k damage to it. Compare your loot and results. This is called JOB BALANCING.

I'm not really sure what your point is here? Tanks have a much easier time with these due to being rewarded for agro. Voke followed by 100ks worth of damage in tank stance works wonders. This isn't any kind of secret that I'm aware of?

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

I'm not really sure what your point is here? Tanks have a much easier time with these due to being rewarded for agro. Voke followed by 100ks worth of damage in tank stance works wonders. This isn't any kind of secret that I'm aware of?

It relates to how devs can design any fights with a difficulty setting (=synced). Each job (even on the same role) has their own min and max. On top of that job min and max, there's also the mechanics min and max which sets the difficulty. Without it, there won't be such thing called difficulty, there's only spamming your rotations. This is an example of devs conversation:

dev A: Let's make a platform where people can fall off.
dev B: Ooh that's evil. I like it but they'd just avoid the edges.
dev A: Nah we'll make large AoE so only small edges they can stand on.
dev B: Some jobs would have lower damage from not doing positionals.
dev A: You mean like DRG? Yeah they do like their jumps.
dev B: Okay we'll make their loot range lower. Their max range is still 95% chance tho, right?
dev A: Yeah, if they do more than max just make the loot for another job. Obviously they don't need that gear.