How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Dualgunner]

You just answered your own question. I'm on PS4 also and I gauge player skill based on mechanic execution and relative ease of combat flow. A dead dps will always do less dps than a decent dps who didn't die the whole fight. Anyone can smack a boss that is just standing around but not everyone can do that while dodging aoes, doing mechanics and still getting in your positional's.

It's not anything you said but I want this pinned as the reason that beyond learning basic rotation, SSS is useless for gauging damage potential.

[Fyce]

They already give a table of a few metrics at the end of a PvP session. They could test it on dungeons to see if the community would suddenly turn into a toxic wasteland. Just display the numbers after you exit the dungeon (during the black screen), and that's it. If someone take the time to reach you outside of the dungeon you just cleared to be a jerk, just report, blacklist and voila. But I don't think people would even take the time to look at this table most of the time.

[van_arn]

Why have an official parser? Just require a certain damage threshold to be met or you're booted for being afk.

[SenorPatty]

It just hit me that I actually haven't answered the question at hand: would an optional official parser be toxic?

I guess I should analyze the implications of what it would mean first if it was official.

So say tommorow, SE decides to give the okay for an official parser. That means it would a parser created by their own hands (or whatever developer they want to use), slap it on ff14 for pc and ps4. Then they would probably iron out some code of conduct related to that, which I guess it wouldn't be all that different from the code of conduct they have in their ToS (no harassment of any form, etc etc).

Now we get to the nitty gritty of the playerbase and its usage of its parser. So, since this is an optional parser and it's private, it would essentially be the simplified battle log that we have in the game but with the "your own" settings and augmented to check your numbers cleanly and whatnot. So far, no reason yet for the parser to be any more or less toxic than the current situation the playerbase is in now because there's no way for anyone to actually see other people's parses. I suppose in cases where statics are involved and they're looking to recruit, they may request a SS of your parse through Discord but that still not anymore toxic than the current situation we're in. (Btw, I should clarify here that when I say this, I'm not saying the asking of ss is toxic. I just simply mean in the case of where someone doesn't take well being demanded a SS or the one asking not being civil about it).

I suppose the real question then becomes this then: In this scenario, when SE creates their own parser, to they ban the use of third party parsers that already exist, like ACT? or are they flexible enough to allow the use of both?

It's a very important question because if SE does decide to ban the use of third party parsers (again, in that scenario), then we're looking at a different kind of toxicity: resentment. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that outright banning the use of third party parsers in support of one that only allows a private use would have some people irked at the very least. You have to remember that parsers can be used to help other people to foster improvement, not just because they don't have one but because having another person review the parse with you and giving you additional tips and information can prove at times to be even more valuable than if you were trying it out yourself. Banning third party parsers removes that, and in turn can build resentment. It would most likely be pointed at SE, especially at first but I'm not optimistic enough to say that it wouldn't leak in game.

On the other hand...

In the scenario where SE allows the use of both, then we're actually right back where we started, more or less. People ingame who challenge savage/ex content generally expect others who do the same to improve themselves whenever they can, as that community typically encourages one another to always try to reach the peak, so to speak. There wouldn't be any more toxicity that already exist in the game in terms of...quality (yeah, the quality of toxicity. I just said that. ugh /facepalm). But quantity? Well now we're looking at all the savage/ex ps4 players who will be expected to use this parser to improve themselves. "No real excuse not to use it" will be the flyby tag of this official parser. So the people who were already toxic to begin with simply have a wider scope of people they can target to be abrasive with. In contrast, the quantity of ps4 only players who always wanted to improve via parser means that now they can and by that same train, pc players who were mostly hush hush and had cloak-and-dagger meetings on how to improve themselves can now do it openly without fear of backlash or being reported falsely.

So I guess to sum all of this up, in my opinion, is that an official wouldn't see any more toxicity then we already have if third party parsers are also allowed, nor is it toxic in itself. However, banning the use of third parties parsers would now have a good chunk of people requesting that very same official parser to allow review of other people's parses and until SE complied with that demand, I more inclined that we'd see continual resentment against SE and possibly against some players as well.

[Freyt]

I think one that only reports to you your own details might be alright, so you can determine how well you yourself are performing in relation to a separately reported average and peak performances.

[Shurrikhan]

It wouldn't, so long as it's not merely personally based. Suspicion invites far more assertion than actual, ubiquitous knowledge. When everyone both knows who's underperforming and know that the underperformer knows it, there becomes no more than to comment on directly than one would the color of a whitewashed wall.

Instead, the question shifts to readiness, either technique or effort/wellness -- a difference in knowledge or priority/state. Of any communication that can occur between a party that needs or at least desires change from a given player, that is solely the part that allows for constructive criticism. The effect of universal, full-breadth parsers is to accelerate processes of communication past the majority of less useful and high-toxicity segments and straight to what's useful and for which toxicity, if any, is never purely so.

Perhaps a group will still take issue with a player for coming in without the readiness required by the party, given its description. Perhaps their effort or technique shows clear, almost invasive negligence on their part. These conflicts will still occur, but I do not find them to be toxic, even if they may feel as such to the player being rejected, just as that player's behavior will have seemed toxic and warranting removal to the rest.

But leave it personal, and it becomes a test of suspicion. Consider: you know your own performance, and it seems sufficient, and yet the party is failing. You know it's not you, so it must be one of them. And so, having exhausted, or nearly so, your own limits of contribution, you can only look out for mistakes on the others' part to suggest corrections or party member replacements, if necessary. Your focus is ambiguous and misdirected, and for what... To protect whoever is need of correction from accurate, proportionate efforts of suggestion? And what can you do but look? Ask them? They are free to lie: that is the sole functional purpose of personal parsers. Whatever the purpose, that is the distinction in functionality. One, when underperforming, can avoid responsibility and improvement by lying.

Every distinction between personal and full parsers is one which allows for--even invites--conflict and toxicity. Information is not inherently toxic. Responsibility is not inherently toxic. To ask for personal over full parsers is like saying that people should be barred from their glasses in seeing, and from relevant conversation with, whom they would date. Sure, it may begin more parties/dates, but you'd only have greater and more numerous feelings of disappointment or rejection in the result.

Real-time by-fight performance has far less ability to be used offensively or in grievance than what we already have in the form of fflogs, whereby one's parses can be posted without knowledge to be held representative of your overall performance. That is something actually worth being worried over. It is a place where one would expect to see either only one's best and wholly voluntary reports, or their personally made and representative portfolio of many, many parses -- formed to weigh them against each other and others', be linked for help and suggestions, etc -- and yet singular, outlier parses can be submitted without one's permission, to be held with no distinction to fidelity whenever one's name is searched. That allows for unfair discrimination -- a sense that one's perception is out of one's hands. That is problematic. But a real-time check of one's performance in a given fight does not belie one's performance in that fight. It's just pure information that does not pretend to any context or implication greater than itself.

Edit:
To be clear, I'm not saying that even just a personal official parser wouldn't be a massive improvement, provided it can render at least as much accuracy and detail as our third-party ones, and hopefully even improve upon their models. But as many people seem to believe that privacy protects against toxicity, I feel the need to show that, historically, the effect has always been the opposite. One is free to simply not care that they are underperforming in casual content, whether their numbers are shown or not. Broad parsers invite certain conflicts early on to create conventions in their resolution where personal parsers keep them hidden for a bit longer, but extend and agitate the conflicts with that added time. On the whole, I believe that -- and psychological, historical, and sociological studies, including ones on game metrics specifically, all seem to point similarly in cases of partial ambiguity -- there is likely to be greater total conflict, and certainly more "toxicity" (which I'll define here as intentionally maligned behavior frequently sourced by animosity or defense-response, usually from trying to create distinction between oneself and "other" or to reject another side despite unclear, unresolvable borders) allowed for by personal parsers than broad parsers.

I'd be happy even just getting a page that shows how many unnecessary hits the party as a whole took, how many orbs it let through, how much damage was dealt, and how that compares to the damage necessary to clear gauged against expectations for the phases/durations covered, with a personal parenthesized contribution to those metrics of progress and mistake. The prior can in many ways shift the psychological focus away from oneself, especially if it reveals what's left to improve upon. I just feel that it would, in fact, be inferior in the long run to broad parsers, especially where every bit matters. And of course, this is all assuming that we can look at data graphs in order to figure out what can be improved upon (i.e. the fflogs level of analysis but in-game and at-will), rather than having just a final average. Without such, parsers can (deservedly, in my opinion) excuse the culling of players not pulling their weight as per the expectations listed in (or conventional to) the party's formation. But with such, the emphasis falls to optimization, and the skilled often feel a tacit obligation to improve, rather than merely remove, what issues the party faces in the context of the fight, specifically.

[KaivaC]

well-thought out response

Okay, that is a fair assessment, one that I hadn't considered. Let me throw a different sort of question, and really, anybody can tag along in it if they desire. Not really trying to turn this into a discussion about me, but I am affected by the lack of a parser. Personally, I don't mind if good or bad logs are uploaded on me - it's something that I can still use. Unfortunately, I feel like a personal parser would be the closest compromise we could hope for. Which would be so much better than nothing. I don't like that the JP playerbase are the ones that, for the most part, determine QoL issues to be addressed by the devs. Suspicion aside, the ToS could still cover harassment over logs - there's no reason to feel pressured by somebody else to provide official parser information. If statics want to know, they could either look up fflogs or do a test run to see if a player is a right fit. At least, that's just how I feel.

[Shurrikhan]

Okay, that is a fair assessment, one that I hadn't considered. Let me throw a different sort of question, and really, anybody can tag along in it if they desire. Not really trying to turn this into a discussion about me, but I am affected by the lack of a parser. Personally, I don't mind if good or bad logs are uploaded on me - it's something that I can still use. Unfortunately, I feel like a personal parser would be the closest compromise we could hope for. Which would be so much better than nothing. I don't like that the JP playerbase are the ones that, for the most part, determine QoL issues to be addressed by the devs. Suspicion aside, the ToS could still cover harassment over logs - there's no reason to feel pressured by somebody else to provide official parser information. If statics want to know, they could either look up fflogs or do a test run to see if a player is a right fit. At least, that's just how I feel.

I'd be fine with automatic online reporting, or even just convenient manual reporting, as I imagine an official means would be (well, if not provided by the XIV team, at least). I just don't like when it's inconvenient to get into, yet others have the ability to report as if... for you... in ways you may not (likely will not) desire. If it's not going to be representative due to count, it ought at least to be evenly preferential.

So, in short, I'd like to see logs publishable through Lodestone, via highly convenient integrated systems, which ought still to tie into pretty much exactly fflogs systems (as it's hard to imagine better detailed readability than what that site provides), perhaps also with toast and link systems ingame.

Honestly, if they actually could take a simplest comprehensive solution approach, rather than forcing counterintuitives into design as usual, I'm less worried about online records than just the useful metrics which aren't merely DPS or HPS within the real-time parsers.

___________________


Many players have suggested a DMC-style letter ranking system and while I disagreed with such at first because I didn't want it to be the limit of parser information, I new feel that such could be a great "at a glance" metric, if well tuned and defined. But, such would be very complicated to craft well. In WoW, such a system would doubtless include mitigation provided--including by interrupt or CC, and perhaps even by holding attention on would-be damage without permitting it (i.e. kiting)--but that's... awfully difficult to calculate.

Alternatively, though, you could just look at the rating for a particular fight, group-wide, and then just provide metrics on a player-by-player basis without judging the individual contributions. Did you slaughter that pull, relative to your ilvl? (Or, both.)

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I don't think there's any way to make it optional. People would be pressured into using it by the community.

I mean, if it were implemented like Duty Recorder. You can simply make a PF and turn the feature off. People may be disinclined to join your party but it's still optional.

[Arkdra]

They would have to hire more people to deal with all the nonsense from people being jerks about parsers. Bear in mind that I am very much for personal parsers. I really don't see the harm in letting people know where they stand as long as that information can't immediately be turned on people. Sometimes you get to carry really bad players and that is life in an MMO. But it seems really unfair that console players have no way to gauge their performance without someone else parsing them.

I also think, in addition to personal parses, that the game should give a basic rating to performance, just because contextless numbers are kinda meaningless. just a bad/decent/good rating, though they would have to be really careful with how they word the hey you suck message.