An Alternative? to parsers..

[DeaconMoore]

1.6 million active characters in a 13 year old subscription game when the last expansion was in 2016 is "not good"? Anyone else in the MMO market would take that in a heartbeat.

It's actually pretty damn terrible when you consider they stood at 10+ million active players at the beginning of the expansion previous to that.

Not that I would attribute damage meters to its decline. Those were in WoW pretty early on during its rise to fame in the first place.

[Vejj]

Mhm... 1 big puppet with boss attributes. Limited Time and deal as much damage as possible. Based on the dealed damage the system gives you a Rank, for example A. Sounds good for me. But i guess, then there will be lot of guilds who wants new players with dps check of S rank xD

[Tridus]

It's actually pretty damn terrible when you consider they stood at 10+ million active players at the beginning of the expansion previous to that.

And far less than that by the end of said expansion. WoW's been on a cycle for years where people come back with a new expansion, play it for a while, and quit. WoD gained and subsequently lost five million subscribers in six months, which is when Blizzard stopped putting out official subscriber numbers. Nobody knows for sure just how low it got before Legion spiked it up again, but the pattern started in Cataclysm.

AFAIK, Warcraft Census also only includes EU and NA. The Chinese operation is entirely excluded, but it's included in the "10 million active players" number that Blizzard put out. So those numbers are not reliably comparable because they don't measure the same thing.

An actual apples to apples comparison is to compare the WarcraftRealms.net numbers with itself from the past.
Active characters right now: 1,705,559
Active characters on January 9, 2017: 1,939,909 (via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170109...com/census.php )
Active characters on January 2, 2016: 2,111,349 (via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160102...com/census.php )
Active characters on January 3, 2015: 4,284,715
Active characters on January 9, 2014: 3,127,056
Active characters on January 21, 2013: 664,013 (no idea what's up with this number, because on Feb 10, 2013 it was 1,155,764)
Active characters on January 16, 2012: 3,352,153
active characters on January 8, 2011: 4,816,671
Active characters on Nov 25, 2010: 5,384,340 (compare to 4,668,736 on December 10, 2010 to see just how swingy these numbers are)
active characters on March 17, 2010: 5,956,356
Active characters on January 12, 2009: 8,096,731
Active characters on August 15, 2008: 6,619,804
Active characters on Sept 28, 2007: 312,095 (again, no idea what's up with this number, because on July 6, 2007 it's 6,560,407. Sometimes this data just doesnt make sense.)
Active characters on March 28, 2006: 4,538,166
Active characters on February 15, 2005: 1,263,640 (one of the earliest captures)

The Wayback machine has fewer captures once you get into 2008 and earlier. But you can see from this that it's never shown 10 million active characters, and usually shows nothing close to that even after Blizzard was saying they had 10 million active accounts. Anyone with alts that count as active would show up at least twice in these numbers, too.

Hell, if you compare to exactly a year ago, the census number has barely changed. With Legion being a year older this year and basically over, and no release date for the already announced next expansion, that number looks pretty solid.

Not that I would attribute damage meters to its decline. Those were in WoW pretty early on during its rise to fame in the first place.

Yep.

[MoroMurasaki]

One of the last interviews recently to ask Yoshida about parsers, to which a friend was one of the lucky few to be present, he said Yoshida's face went serious and said, in firm English, "No." That same friend wants in game parsers and he pretty much said, yeah, we're not going to get them just from how Yoshida answered, it's beating a dead horse.

Also, the in game culture stuff you quote is stuff not supported by SE. If it ever interfered with SE's business, they'd ban it. As it is with parsers; you get caught talking about it in game and get reported, you get suspended.

Right now, Yoshida's stance is very anti- parser.

Honestly, I'd sooner adopt the JP style of things: if you can't clear the content after so many tries, disband. It's not like I could help someone improve if they play a class I'm not good at, so even if I wanted to help them, I couldn't. However, I also don't want my own time wasted. Just appeals to me as it doesn't break ToS and my own time wasn't wasted.

You've hit the nail on the head. I guess being incredibly obtuse has it's advantages.

It's almost like you didn't read the whole post you're quoting - Yoshi wants money. It is his job. He does a damn good job of getting that money. Good for him.

The logical reason he would oppose parsing has nothing to do with this made up 'toxicity' and everything to do with how it can negatively impact their profitability as I said.

If people get told that they suck, even in a very polite way, they're going to become discouraged. A game that lets you think doing whatever the hell you want is not only acceptable play but good is a game that retains that expansive group of hypercasual players. A game that throws in your face all the time that you're doing 10% of the group's damage or, with more specificity, 50% of the damage put out by your healer (as a class designed to do damage) loses a lot of those subs.

Why do you think there are so many more dps than tanks and healers? Because as a dps it's rare in casual content to get called out on being bad. As a tank or healer your poor play is a lot more visible a lot earlier in the game.

Why is that? Because there are no indicators of poor play for a dps player right now. Parsers would be that indicator. Stop trying to romanticize Yoshi's stance on this into some sort of moral issue. From a business standpoint parser inclusion doesn't make sense and that is almost assuredly the roadblock here.

[Nedkel]

Yet it still remains the king of MMO's. Also, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make regarding the population of the game in correlation to parsers/combat logs. WoW's population declining has nothing to do with combat logs/parsers, that hasn't been a thing since wrath. Nice try though. I also, never said anything about blasting or griefing other people, I have never once done that nor do i intend to, so once again I have no idea what point you are trying to make.


Your entire post makes no sense whatsoever. The game will be fine with parsers, all you're doing is proving my point in how certain members of this community like to over exaggerate when it comes to parsers/combat logs with this hilarious "The sky is falling" mentality. Also, when you are trying to debate a point don't resort to comparing a video game to Real-life scenarios, It just makes you look foolish. I honestly have nothing more to say at this point.

The king of mmo who lost 80% of its original playerbase within few years, how does it compare to other online games available on the market like Lol, cs go, dota 2? These games are still growing and developing, i dont see them failing apart as fast as wow. The game is losing its playerbase for a reason, balancing and designing entire game around numbers and dps, this does not work well for the game. Instead of refreshing game mechanics and graphics, it boils in its own sauce in prior to cater the minority of the playerbase who use combat meters. And so, that minority is what they had left from being very first successful game to the king of the dying game genre.


FF xiv doesnt need a parser to became a successful game.
What does it bring to the gameplay? Literally nothing, it just opens the window for the mad players to blame the others when they dont meet their expectations, over a PVE. Its really stupid if you think about it, since the dps score overall is the sum of all factors in the game and its not the really clear indicator of someone ability to play the game.
Specific boss mechanics, trash mobs mechanics, support buffs from other party member, the job type, quality of the EQ, does tank pull a ton or just few at the time, does the tank died few times and dps had to run around, it all affects the dps, so calling each person over their poor performance is a big nonsense.
Some people will argue, how do i get better at game without the numberz? Well if someone is willing to get better at the game and learn, he still has to look for some guides online and could watch few guides on youtube from someone experienced with specific job, thats more than enough for the game. Maxing the build and rotation in order to pull 99.999% performance is not what you are asked for in this game by anyone, if you get bored and need some challenge, change the class to tank and stop playing ezy mode dps, simple lol.
Again, if you expect duty finder to give you a decent players with perfect EQ then you may as well try playing lotto, because these are the minority overall. The rest of the people are either mediocore, bad, dont care, dont have time to spend into the game or their item level just barely hits the requirement, its just the way it is, like in any other game, there is a half above average and the other below average.
Sure you could force them to get better at the game, and for sure you will fail on it, same as blizzard failed on their mmo. A parser will not encourage them to get better, a number is just a number, it still will be up to them if they are going to search the internet for some guides or not. More often, they will just get annoyed and experience calling on their performance from other party members for playing badly. Why should someone like that baddy bother being harrased for few numbers, when he could play Rsix or pubg?
Its all about maintaining enough playerbase, so the game will be alive for longer, we should care about this. Instead of a parse, the game should have the job quests explaining and showing how specific abilities works and how to mix them with other abilities, that would make much better work of improving playerbase overall skill than a parser and toxic behaviour.
The game has enough its own problems, SE doesnt need a toxicity to be overwhelming one, in other mmorpgs you could be straight away banned for combat meters, and you dont have to insult anyone over their performance.

[Penthea]

Yeah uhm... I'm all for this and everything, but I still think the vast majority of people who are against parsers, are actually against it because they don't want to be held accountable for how much they might potentially be SUCKING. All that talk about how it would make players "more toxic" is just a cover argument.

No, some of us come from games in which in-game parsers were commonplace and had to endure so much needless drama because of them. I'd rather not go back to the days when someone would get called out for doing crap dps even when their gear obviously prevents them from doing more. I have always healed so I was rarely part of it but watching it was enough to develop a strong distaste for in-game parsers.

I don't even want to think about how 24 mans would be if everyone had a parser. There's enough QQ in there as it is.

Parsers are very useful tools but the sad truth is they're often used as a platform for players to feel justified in being awful to others. They're too easily abused.

[JohnnyDevo]

I don't currently have time to read through the thread, so I apologize if this was already brought up.

The problem surrounding the parser is a complicated one. As it stands now, it essentially exists as the most un-enforced rule in the game. It's in the terms of service to not use them, but the director has said (paraphrased) "it's fine, just don't use it to be a dick". This creates the situation we have now, where it's blatantly obvious to those who use a parser who is underperforming, but they can't speak up about it for fear of getting reported for parsing.

As it stands, there's basically three options.
- Crack down on parser use officially
- keep the system as it is
- implement an in-game parser of some kind.

+ Option one represents a reduction of dps-based discrimination entirely, since most people would stop using it, and those who do use it would keep completely quiet about it or get banned. Outweighing this advantage, however, is the negative opinion of players who might quit the game because of this decision and the increased manpower on SE's end to actually police this.
+ Option two represents the least amount of effort on SE's part. In addition, it kinda combines the best of both worlds; players can record and compare their numbers, but there still exists a deterrent against, to use an over-used term, toxicity. As a counter to it, it can be said that toxic players will be toxic regardless of said deterrant and the existence of an internal/external parser wouldn't really change that or SE's rules against it.
+ Option three represents the highest amount of effort in developing and implementing an in-game parser, but once that's complete the "effort input" remains the same as option two, in that SE simply puts passive effort into policing problem players. Another disadvantage is that those who are defined as "poor performers" might become discouraged and quit the game.

The common theme? Both options one and three represent a higher resource allocation and a possibly lower income for the game as a whole. I can see them going with option three with the condition that they become strict with dps-based harassment, but there's still the issue of actually devoting resources to developing the supported parser. In the end, if it happens, it'll be one of the things we get instead of a dungeon during an odd patch. So 4.3 at the earliest.

Just my two cents.

[F_Maximillian]

The king of mmo who lost 80% of its original playerbase within few years, how does it compare to other online games available on the market like Lol, cs go, dota 2? These games are still growing and developing, i dont see them failing apart as fast as wow. The game is losing its playerbase for a reason, balancing and designing entire game around numbers and dps, this does not work well for the game. Instead of refreshing game mechanics and graphics, it boils in its own sauce in prior to cater the minority of the playerbase who use combat meters. And so, that minority is what they had left from being very first successful game to the king of the dying game genre.

FF xiv doesnt need a parser to became a successful game.
What does it bring to the gameplay? Literally nothing, it just opens the window for the mad players to blame the others when they dont meet their expectations, over a PVE. Its really stupid if you think about it, since the dps score overall is the sum of all factors in the game and its not the really clear indicator of someone ability to play the game.
Specific boss mechanics, trash mobs mechanics, support buffs from other party member, the job type, quality of the EQ, does tank pull a ton or just few at the time, does the tank died few times and dps had to run around, it all affects the dps, so calling each person over their poor performance is a big nonsense.
Some people will argue, how do i get better at game without the numberz? Well if someone is willing to get better at the game and learn, he still has to look for some guides online and could watch few guides on youtube from someone experienced with specific job, thats more than enough for the game. Maxing the build and rotation in order to pull 99.999% performance is not what you are asked for in this game by anyone, if you get bored and need some challenge, change the class to tank and stop playing ezy mode dps, simple lol.
Again, if you expect duty finder to give you a decent players with perfect EQ then you may as well try playing lotto, because these are the minority overall. The rest of the people are either mediocore, bad, dont care, dont have time to spend into the game or their item level just barely hits the requirement, its just the way it is, like in any other game, there is a half above average and the other below average.
Sure you could force them to get better at the game, and for sure you will fail on it, same as blizzard failed on their mmo. A parser will not encourage them to get better, a number is just a number, it still will be up to them if they are going to search the internet for some guides or not. More often, they will just get annoyed and experience calling on their performance from other party members for playing badly. Why should someone like that baddy bother being harrased for few numbers, when he could play Rsix or pubg?
Its all about maintaining enough playerbase, so the game will be alive for longer, we should care about this. Instead of a parse, the game should have the job quests explaining and showing how specific abilities works and how to mix them with other abilities, that would make much better work of improving playerbase overall skill than a parser and toxic behaviour.
The game has enough its own problems, SE doesnt need a toxicity to be overwhelming one, in other mmorpgs you could be straight away banned for combat meters, and you dont have to insult anyone over their performance.

May I just point out that all of those examples you put are games that have strict rankings and make results visible not only through the match but after the match ends? They also are highly competitive and are e-sport games. Did it ever occur to you that other changes to WoW are what caused the declining population, not to mention MMORPGs falling from popularity in favor of easy in-easy out mobile games or games like league etc;?

No FFXIV does not need a parser to be a successful game nor do I think we'll ever get one, or a ranking system, or any other in-game feature that may provide feedback that isn't "you're the hero of the realm here's your extra shiny loot". I recall reading an article from when ARR launched and some japanese idol (possibly, some woman hired to do pr at least) was harrassed harshly (sickeningly so from what I remember) because she was doing poor dps. That led to some massive backlash and I believe it was from then on that SE really buckled down on their parser stance. Those who were around at the time or better versed in the history of the game could probably find articles on the incident. It would be nice for all to have the opportunity to parse (specifically the ps4 players) but things work as is. If anything it's more unfair to those who are silently kicked without knowing why IMO.

[RiyahArp]

no, we don't need a parser or parser alternatives, people are clearing content fine as it is. Quit asking.

[MoroMurasaki]

no, we don't need a parser or parser alternatives, people are clearing content fine as it is. Quit asking.

Practically a meme at this point, I swear...

Why do you think most people are clearing content? Because guides, strategies and rotations are being developed by people who parse then being distributed to the masses.

Quit playing so dumb.