How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Aerlana]

*snip*

First, easiest way, it is a "learning tool" because it can show you if you are bad or no. if you need to improve a lot or no.
Silly to say but we need this to know. lets say, tomorrow you become a lumberjack, you cut trees, you cut 10 trees a day. knowing this, are you able to say me if it is a good or bad number? now i say you that your neighbor does 20 a day... now you can answer.

Second, have to learn to read it. we know that 3 > 1 because teachers said it. parser can list all skill you used. How much you used each, how much time you did have crit for each skill.
So you did a rotation for the first try, you know there is matter because at 1 minute 15 second, the boss go away, you cant anymore damages. but there is maybe things to change a little. lets do a out of GCD skill a little sooner than expected maybe it will allow you to get it a little more before the boss jump, so a little loss on one point to a little win after. try, and lets see what parser say, what from the 2 thing does the most damages (and remember to see how much critical etc)

Third : you are in a team. you are a samurai ok. but, when the RDM does his buff, it improves your damages. while watching the parse of the whole team, you think the RDM could delay 5 or 10 second the buff to get more damages. It is not so stupid sometime. (a skill with 2 min cooldown in a 10 min fight can be use 5 time. you can delay some of the uses to get it 5 times)
Oh, and, with the graph you see that at a time, the 2 healers clearly drop in damages => why? maybe tank can change a little to get this drop shorter? or even DPS?


There is example because i dont know how to explain well. but the main matter is to learn to well read it, not just "hey i did 5% more damages than last time"
Doing the rotation perfectly? yes good, when the boss dont move, when you dont have to move, etc. during each fight there is plenty thing to adjust, and not all time stuck to exactly the rotation...

[Vidu]

Yea they give you the barest of bones in this game but that isn't enough for ex and savage which we agree needs to change. The difference being I guess you think a parser is the answer. I don't think so as this game even at the highest levels doesn't really need that much detail to kill anything again unless your speed running or testing theories.

I dont think its the answer - I think its one of many answers, including stuff like better job-guides and stricter gates for endgame content, like a requirement to beat SSS for certain content before you can enter it, aswell as betetr overall feedback.

[HyoMinPark]

So I've been thinking about this alot, reading other posts in here and the like, and one thing kept being brought up that no one seems to question: A tool for parsing can be used as a learning tool. I agree, as a whole, I mean, you'd have to come up with some compelling argument to try to say that information - no matter how it was gotten - (in this case parsing) isn't useful in some way to help better yourself. The problem I am having is this: how is it a learning tool? I mean yea, it has the numbers, but the numbers mean nothing when left by their own. I did some looking around on fflogs (as well as I could anyway, I don't know anyone specifically to look up, and evidently I have nothing logged on there) to see if I can find something...but came up short.

So the question is: How can this be a learning tool, when there seems to be nothing to compare the evidence with? Say for example, we get an official parsing tool...that's neat, but how is one going to know they are doing good or bad? What is the benchmark for dps for a dps in iLevel 180 gear? A tank in iLevel 260 gear? I can see how that would be useful, cause then I can take my numbers and put it to a benchmark...but as it stands now..I see nothing...just a bunch of useless numbers that people in current gear doing current content are proud to have public. If this parsing tool was to be official and public for all...well...not everyone is 70th level in alpha savage gear.

Not everyone participating in Savage is full i400 in full Savage gear either; the tier just started.

A parser has to be used in conjunction with another analysis tool in order for someone to effectively learn with it (outside of seeing their numbers compared to other similarly geared individuals and thinking “that seems kind of low... I wonder why”). You also have to be able to read and understand the data within FFLogs to understand what it’s trying to tell you, as well as have the motivation and open-mindedness to improve.

FFLogs is just one example, but there’s a new xivanalysis tool that was developed by people to specifically address optimization for specific jobs, and it’s used in conjunction with a parser and an upload to FFLogs. I was toying around with it last night actually, looking at my groups weekly Chaos clear. Sadly, BRD is currently not supported, but every other job we had was (PLD, WAR, MNK, DRG, MCH, SCH, AST).

For each one, it provided a checklist of things one should look out for with regards to optimizing rotations: for example, the PLD analysis addressed how many FoF windows only had 0~1 Goring Blade applications within their window as opposed to 2 applications, which is what one should aim for; it also had information about Holy Spirit usage. AST has checklists for the amount of Draws/Sleeve Draws they missed within the encounter. DRG has Blood of the Dragon uptime analysis, and Nastrond optimization.

All jobs have a standard timeline mapping out the skills they used (and showing when they overlap with raid buffs or when they come off cooldown), and they also address things like triple-weaving, and tell you exactly where you weaved and what you weaved; that is along with a message stating to avoid weaving more than 2 oGCDs within a GCD window.

With regards to DPS per item level, there is currently no way to determine this save for historical data, which in and of itself will probably not always be that accurate. These first few weeks are when most raiders are in i380 crafter/normal mode gear, so they could be used as a benchmark for i380. But this will skew in the future because statics/individuals that progress faster will gear up faster (provided RNG is kind to them with drop), widening the gap between i380 and i400.

What would be useful would be if FFLogs would consider things like your current gear with regards to rankings, but that is not a function it currently offers, and I am not sure how the developers of the site would go about implementing it. It is not something that I am against, but it is also not something I have an easy answer to with regards to implementation.

I also think that FFLogs should go back to filtering out DPS with Balance and DPS without Balance like they had in Creator back when Balance was +20% for a naked one, +10% for AOE, and +30% for Enhanced. That way you get more of a raw number, and not a Balance-fed number—even though it fairly easy to tell when someone was fed Balances if you know where to look for the information. At that point, you can use the rDPS calculator to determine how much damage Balance gave them, and subtract that from their total DPS to find out what their actual damage would be like sans Balance feeding.

[Daibunnie]

Yea they give you the barest of bones in this game but that isn't enough for ex and savage which we agree needs to change. The difference being I guess you think a parser is the answer. I don't think so as this game even at the highest levels doesn't really need that much detail to kill anything again unless your speed running or testing theories.

Don't see how you reached that conclusion when 95% of the community never even cleared any savage content, let alone ultimate. Again, the parser shows how many times you used a specific skill, which itself can give a general idea of what a person is doing. If you're a pld at o11s, your only combo should not be just the halone combo and spamming shield lob. Nor should you be spamming cure 1 142 times at The Burn as a whm. The only reason why we even know they did this is because of the parser.

[Penthea]

If you're a pld at o11s, your only combo should not be just the halone combo and spamming shield lob. Nor should you be spamming cure 1 142 times at The Burn as a whm. The only reason why we even know they did this is because of the parser.

To be fair you can easily catch a lot of stuff like that just from watching the players and your ui.

If you know a class you'll recognise skill animations, especially anything flashy. You can see on the enemy targets if they're missing dots or debuffs they normally should have with the current classes in the fight. You can see on your own buffs if you're lacking a party buff that should be there. You can look at the party ui to see if the tank uses defensive cds. It's especially easy to see what a caster is doing because you can see hardcasts in the party ui. You don't need a parser to see if the whm is spamming cure 1.

Of course having a parser makes it easier to spot these things in a more indepth manner, and it can show you things you maybe didn't see at the time. But let's not suggest that parsers are the only way of seeing whether someone is pressing the right buttons or not, because that is simply not true.

[Daibunnie]

To be fair you can easily catch a lot of stuff like that just from watching the players and your ui.

If you know a class you'll recognise skill animations, especially anything flashy. You can see on the enemy targets if they're missing dots or debuffs they normally should have with the current classes in the fight. You can see on your own buffs if you're lacking a party buff that should be there. You can look at the party ui to see if the tank uses defensive cds. It's especially easy to see what a caster is doing because you can see hardcasts in the party ui. You don't need a parser to see if the whm is spamming cure 1.

Of course having a parser makes it easier to spot these things in a more indepth manner, and it can show you things you maybe didn't see at the time. But let's not suggest that parsers are the only way of seeing whether someone is pressing the right buttons or not, because that is simply not true.

I don't see how you're going to catch all that while fighting anything in savage as well as how much dps each player did. Several people also have special effects from other players turned off to prevent fps drops mid fight. Also, you shouldn't have to be monitoring every single player at this level of content when they're expected to at least know how to play their class. And you're right, you don't need a parser to see a whm cast cure 1 once, but it will point out that the whm casted cure 1 way more than average while cure 2 is under 10 uses.

No one is suggesting that a parser is the only way to see if someone is playing correctly, but its an easy solution to get players to understand what they're doing wrong from the start without taking any risks or wasting time, because in the end, most people don't want to teach a player how to play their class during savage and would rather just kick and replace them.

[Penthea]

No one is suggesting that a parser is the only way to see if someone is playing correctly

You'll find that in the below quote from your previous post you did exactly that. Perhaps this isn't what you meant, but this is how it appears.

If you're a pld at o11s, your only combo should not be just the halone combo and spamming shield lob. Nor should you be spamming cure 1 142 times at The Burn as a whm. The only reason why we even know they did this is because of the parser.

I don't see how you're going to catch all that while fighting anything in savage as well as how much dps each player did.

No of course you will not catch every single thing, especially in savage as sometimes your attention is demanded so much that you can't keep watching every combat detail that is presented to you. I even said parsers make it easier to access this information. I was merely correcting you when you said the only reason people know that someone did something wrong is because they could see it in a parser, and I was stating examples of how you can see poor performance without one.

but its an easy solution to get players to understand what they're doing wrong from the start without taking any risks or wasting time, because in the end, most people don't want to teach a player how to play their class during savage and would rather just kick and replace them.

I completely agree that parsers are an easy solution to get more indepth combat information. While a lot can be spotted from personal observational skills and experience, a lot of what players do wrong is sometimes too subtle to see in the heat of battle or you simply haven't the time to look. But this doesn't change that you can spot quite a lot on your own. Very often if someone is really bad at the game it will be obvious without a parser.

[Daibunnie]

You'll find that in the below quote from your previous post you did exactly that. Perhaps this isn't what you meant, but this is how it appears.

No of course you will not catch every single thing, especially in savage as sometimes your attention is demanded so much that you can't keep watching every combat detail that is presented to you. I even said parsers make it easier to access this information. I was merely correcting you when you said the only reason people know that someone did something wrong is because they could see it in a parser, and I was stating examples of how you can see poor performance without one.

Not sure what your point is or what you're "correcting". Regardless, only the people that were in that instance knows what the pld did. Everyone else can only look at the log and judge what happened, assuming there isn't any video of it. Same situation with the whm, it's difficult to make an accurate critique of what went wrong but the overuse of cure 1 and almost no usage of cure 2 shows that the whm spent most of their time healing in small amounts.

I completely agree that parsers are an easy solution to get more indepth combat information. While a lot can be spotted from personal observational skills and experience, a lot of what players do wrong is sometimes too subtle to see in the heat of battle or you simply haven't the time to look. But this doesn't change that you can spot quite a lot on your own. Very often if someone is really bad at the game it will be obvious without a parser.

Are you talking about randoms from df or a party attempting savage? Other than specific situations like someone failing a mechanic or the party keeps hitting enrage, most players won't notice what every individual is doing during any savage content because they are expecting everyone to somewhat know what they're doing instead of having to keep watch.

[RuleofThree]

With regards to DPS per item level, there is currently no way to determine this save for historical data, which in and of itself will probably not always be that accurate. These first few weeks are when most raiders are in i380 crafter/normal mode gear, so they could be used as a benchmark for i380. But this will skew in the future because statics/individuals that progress faster will gear up faster (provided RNG is kind to them with drop), widening the gap between i380 and i400.

SO what you guys are telling me is that unless you are in relatively current gear, you are forced to assume your results are ok, based upon rotations and similar data? There is no hard and fast data that suggests 'ok, based on this sample in 3.0 24-man raids, it looks like a person in best gear at the time, can push out 'x' dps. Currently, in same iLevel gear, I'm pushing out 'y' dps. I wonder what I'm doing wrong for the gear and skills available to me at my level

...you are forced to guess?

I mean. I guess I could go out and put on iLevel180 gear as a dps, run a dungeon appropriate for that iLevel range, and see what I get? But again, how do I know that the number I got is accurate, if I have no sample data to base it off of?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

To be fair you can easily catch a lot of stuff like that just from watching the players and your ui.

If you know a class you'll recognise skill animations, especially anything flashy. You can see on the enemy targets if they're missing dots or debuffs they normally should have with the current classes in the fight. You can see on your own buffs if you're lacking a party buff that should be there. You can look at the party ui to see if the tank uses defensive cds. It's especially easy to see what a caster is doing because you can see hardcasts in the party ui. You don't need a parser to see if the whm is spamming cure 1.

Of course having a parser makes it easier to spot these things in a more indepth manner, and it can show you things you maybe didn't see at the time. But let's not suggest that parsers are the only way of seeing whether someone is pressing the right buttons or not, because that is simply not true.

Give this a try in Savage. You're almost guaranteed to mess up yourself or get killed because things happen quickly enough you aren't going to catch everything unless it's blatantly obvious. Furthermore, most people don't have intimate knowledge of jobs they don't consistently play nor should they. I only need to know the basics of Black Mage and that it can deal upwards of 7,000 DPS. I won't be able to tell said Black Mage is doing 4,500 DPS as I'll only notice the boss taking much longer to die or we're seeing a mechanic we could otherwise phase. A parse highlights precise who is holding the group back. Depending on the group, they may be able and/or willing to offer some advice, but that shouldn't be expected in a farm party where you're expected to know the fight and your rotation.