How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Darkplanet]

I totally agree that if a player wants to improve they should have the resources available to them and I also agree that the striking dummies are not enough. But I also don’t believe that numbers will tell you if you are a good player or not, you might work out a better rotation but that doesn’t help you with awareness, working together, mechanics.

And fundamentally I think it comes down to this, with bosses and raids the creators want to evaluate a team of players, not individuals. It’s not YOUR dps check it’s the parties. And yes i know some people just are bad and they bring everyone down, and statics generally (in my experience) have far better total dps cause they all know and work together.

you already seem to be beating yourself up about it, would comparing your numbers to others really help? If there are official parsers people will be posting there numbers (which they already do post them) and always someone will be better then you, with higher numbers for a various different reasons least of all their rotation, I just imagine all the people telling *themselves* they suck cause their numbers are lower then someone under very specific conditions.

[Darkplanet]

and well i'll offer my suggestion to better the striking dummy system: instead of "kill this in a certain amount of time" you could simply switch it to it times how long you took to kill the dummy. you killed it in 1 min 30 seconds, well then you try a few different things and oh you killed it in 1 min 20 seconds this time, you can see that you improved. Would that be satisfactory for people? it could avoid all the numbers while giving you an indication of dps improvement.

and maybe you could set an option that there could be random aoe's you have to dodge or mechanics that could help you improve reflexes. Also a tank dummy would deal damage to you so you have to learn how to rotate cooldowns while dpsing, and maybe healer you have to heal a dummy while killing a different dummy to get the feel for managing both, basically making things more realistic to actual boss battles. idk there is a lot they could do with it and I think they definitely need to improve the striking dummy system.

[Jojoya]

and well i'll offer my suggestion to better the striking dummy system: instead of "kill this in a certain amount of time" you could simply switch it to it times how long you took to kill the dummy. you killed it in 1 min 30 seconds, well then you try a few different things and oh you killed it in 1 min 20 seconds this time, you can see that you improved. Would that be satisfactory for people? it could avoid all the numbers while giving you an indication of dps improvement.

Except killing the dummy 10 seconds faster on a random attempt doesn't necessarily mean you improved. It could just mean you had a lucky string of crits, direct hits, procs, etc. for a change. That's why a striking dummy is never the answer. It's not going to tell you why you ended up killing it faster that one attempt.

A parser will break down all the information and let you know if it was just that lucky string or if there was something else at work to increase your damage. Maybe you managed buff uptime better while getting the same number of crits as you usually do - that would be a true sign of improvement.

If you can't see the full breakdown of the numbers, you don't know what changed. As long as fights are tied to timers, those numbers are important.

There's also a lot more to a fight than just dealing damage. Parsers will track the other information as well.

Parser are not a bad thing. They're an excellent tool when it comes to improving your play. Taking them away because some people choose to use them the wrong way doesn't benefit anyone in a game where the numbers are important because you're limited by a timer.

[SleepyNeko]

I've read that some people used to use Dummies to calculate dps, not sure how it worked but maybe that can be used.

[Sigma-Astra]

I've read that some people used to use Dummies to calculate dps, not sure how it worked but maybe that can be used.

Dummies are great to practice your rotations on, sure, but not to calculate your DPS because dummies have much more health on them in order to make up for the fact that you're not dodging mechanics.

[Bhearil]

Giving parsers is akin to give the community a loaded gun. Per se it does nothing except when numbskulls appear and start shooting people with it, so the safest bet to avoid that mess is not introducing it on the first place.

A tool is not good nor bad but on this case it WILL be used wrongly by certain groups of people and divide the community.

On that sense remembers me to USA guns. Since theres so many guns on wrong hands, you need one to defend yourself and your family but by doing so you continue the cycle of gun violence (guns easily avaliable->bad guys use them for ill things->people use them to protect themselves from the bad guys->guns easily avaliable) and once started the cycle is very hard to stop since it comes with a heavy cost

[Speaks]

Giving parsers is akin to give the community a loaded gun. Per se it does nothing except when numbskulls appear and start shooting people with it, so the safest bet to avoid that mess is not introducing it on the first place.

A tool is not good nor bad but on this case it WILL be used wrongly by certain groups of people and divide the community.

On that sense remembers me to USA guns. Since theres so many guns on wrong hands, you need one to defend yourself and your family but by doing so you continue the cycle of gun violence (guns easily avaliable->bad guys use them for ill things->people use them to protect themselves from the bad guys->guns easily avaliable) and once started the cycle is very hard to stop since it comes with a heavy cost

Never seen someone pull mental gymnastics like that before just so they can bring up their political opinion on a video game forum.

[Dualgunner]

Never seen someone pull mental gymnastics like that before just so they can bring up their political opinion on a video game forum.

I've seen people liken parsers to the second amendment before. It's always about as convincing as the post you just read.

[Speaks]

I've seen people liken parsers to the second amendment before. It's always about as convincing as the post you just read.

Both comparisons are ignorant of anything they are trying to address. Why bother making it at all. Trying to start a political flamewar on a gaming forum is just goofy.

Actually on topic now;

Players are already parsing and using that knowledge to kick you and others. If it was officially allowed the only thing you can expect to change is:

PS4 players will be able to see their own damage and have an easier time improving themselves.
You will know why you got kicked. You will obviously still get kicked, that was going to happen regardless. But at least now you have a goal set to hit to improve youself on.

In my eyes SE has two options.

They can either keep their official stance on no parsing. That is fine, and I will accept that in it's entirety but with one caveat; all content regardless of difficulty up to and including Ultimate has to be able to be cleared with 2 competent DPS, 1 competent healer and a single competent tank. No hard enrages, no DPS checks, no forced tank swaps. After all, your DPS doesn't matter.

They can keep their current fight design. This is perfectly fine and I will accept that in it's entirety, but with one caveat; Parsers are open in content. After all, your DPS matters.