An Alternative? to parsers..

[KaivaC]

I've honestly waited for months where people say harrasement on a daily basis happens in game because of parser, so I'm still waiting. I mean waiting for proof.

It really makes me wonder, however, with as many folks claiming harassment over parsers, and yet no one has really brought forward a screenshot to prove their argument. 'I don't need proof, it happened in every other MMO, it'll happen here', or, 'Just trust my word'.

We all remember the last person that tried to claim this, and got called out on it for outright lying. Actually have not seen that person since being called out, surprisingly.

[akaneakki]

We all remember the last person that tried to claim this, and got called out on it for outright lying. Actually have not seen that person since being called out, surprisingly.

Ah yeah, I'm still waiting for proof, going to ask some people, because I'm honestly tired of those ''it happens all the damn time'', yet to see anything.

[KaivaC]

Ah yeah, I'm still waiting for proof, going to ask some people, because I'm honestly tired of those ''it happens all the damn time'', yet to see anything.

Maybe I'll do a little social experiment...I'll just go 50% on something easy, like O2S, and see what is said. I honestly want to see these supposed claims of harassment.

[BluexBird]

Maybe I'll do a little social experiment...I'll just go 50% on something easy, like O2S, and see what is said. I honestly want to see these supposed claims of harassment.

Oh, it happens. I see it from time to time. The only time it bothers me is when they expect high levels of play. Like... 3000-3500 DPS doesn't bother me, but you will sometimes get people complaining that they aren't doing over 4000. Like dude... chill please or go make a speedrun party. lol

Now often during farm parties, I'm used to seeing DPS drop below 3000 and that's often fine most of the time. Unless I notice we aren't gonna beat enrage, I don't say anything. And I think that's how it should be.

[SenorPatty]

Maybe I'll do a little social experiment...I'll just go 50% on something easy, like O2S, and see what is said. I honestly want to see these supposed claims of harassment.

You're not gonna find any. Anyone who uses a parser is aware of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy so no one's going to hang themselves out to dry by announcing it in a pug setting. By that same turn, that's also why someone gets silently kicked or the party disbands and the bad player can't return to the party via blacklist. That's where the claims come from. They can't prove with hard evidence that they got kicked because of bad parse. They can only strongly guess that's the reason but this begs the question: if you got kicked without any jeer whatsoever, why call it harassment?

[Tridus]

You're not gonna find any. Anyone who uses a parser is aware of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy so no one's going to hang themselves out to dry by announcing it in a pug setting. By that same turn, that's also why someone gets silently kicked or the party disbands and the bad player can't return to the party via blacklist. That's where the claims come from. They can't prove with hard evidence that they got kicked because of bad parse. They can only strongly guess that's the reason but this begs the question: if you got kicked without any jeer whatsoever, why call it harassment?

Yep. And I'm failing to see why that's better. Silently kicking people and leaving them no apparent reason as to why is less "toxic" than telling them exactly why so they can work on it?

Doesn't make much sense to me.

[CosmicKirby]

You're not gonna find any. Anyone who uses a parser is aware of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy so no one's going to hang themselves out to dry by announcing it in a pug setting. By that same turn, that's also why someone gets silently kicked or the party disbands and the bad player can't return to the party via blacklist. That's where the claims come from. They can't prove with hard evidence that they got kicked because of bad parse. They can only strongly guess that's the reason but this begs the question: if you got kicked without any jeer whatsoever, why call it harassment?

It's a similar situation to getting fired IRL in some places. By law they can fire you 'for any reason' as per your contract, yet they still need a reason to fire you, and there's certain reasons that, even with a contract, they CANNOT fire you over, such as your race/religion/other protected status. So if one day you get up and fired without a word, and upon investigation it appears to be some minor infraction, the proof is on the fired to explain if they were fired for an illegal reason.

Fortunately and unfortunately this is near impossible to do. If there was wrong doing it's unfortunate, but if there was none on the employers part, then it protects them from the fired's attempts and legal response.

Unfortunately for all of us, this sort of situation just BREEDS fear mongering and paranoia. Any situation where the information is unknown is ripe for that sort of mentality and social grooming.

[SenorPatty]

It's a similar situation to getting fired IRL in some places. By law they can fire you 'for any reason' as per your contract, yet they still need a reason to fire you, and there's certain reasons that, even with a contract, they CANNOT fire you over, such as your race/religion/other protected status. So if one day you get up and fired without a word, and upon investigation it appears to be some minor infraction, the proof is on the fired to explain if they were fired for an illegal reason.

Fortunately and unfortunately this is near impossible to do. If there was wrong doing it's unfortunate, but if there was none on the employers part, then it protects them from the fired's attempts and legal response.

Unfortunately for all of us, this sort of situation just BREEDS fear mongering and paranoia. Any situation where the information is unknown is ripe for that sort of mentality and social grooming.

This is why I'm not fond of real world analogies for gaming comparisons. There's some key bits that just don't fare well. First, in the real world, each country and/or state has its policies when it comes to firing an employee. I'd delve further but there's too many variables to go on about this. What's important here is this game, silent kicking is not an offence. SE puts emphasis on how things are terminated (as in, was there harassment on the way out? did anyone verbally assault anyone after the kick, etc). The most likely response from SE if someone were to report someone else for just being dropped without a word is "sorry it happened. best of luck".

Which brings me to the parser harassment part of this. As I mentioned, due to SE's policy, no one in their right mind-especially in a pug-would tell someone they got kicked related due to parser reasons. Look at the Tales of DF thread. Notice how every time someone goes out of their way to explain what someone else is doing wrong WITHOUT a parser, they still get shit on so I can assure you its not gonna be the use of a parser that's gonna make someone test their chances to point out the obvious. So the natural recourse is either disband the party or kick after the run, both done in silence to avoid getting slapped by SE.

And so here we are, Anti-Parsers voicing that parser harassment happens on a regular basis and yet, what I have seen so far are suspicions. Lots and lots of suspicions. I remember on these forums, there was this one guy who was not gonna take any chances with anyone and report at the mere suspicion and/or mention of a parser. It was the most flabbergasting thing I had ever read to that point but that's how crazy the paranoia goes.

The anti-parser crowd don't want to get kicked silently from a party but at the same time, they don't want to hear the truth because in both cases for them, its toxic and its harassment.

Damned if the pro-parser do, damned if they don't.