How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[Penthea]

I'll see if I can find it for you, but I very firmly remember WoW Devs citing that their data has shown players have gotten better over the years. They attributed it to addons and community theorycrafting. Which includes parsers.

I would take that with a grain of salt considering there are add-ons that are designed to help you with your rotation. One called something like Spell Flash lit up the abilities you should be pressing. And no it isn't like FFXIV's combo system. It lit up absolutely everything in the rotation including major cds. Of course it is no replacement for personal class knowledge but the point is those add-ons are a crutch that can make players appear far more skilled than they actually are.

There are also add-ons that have trivialised some boss mechanics. For example Shadow Lord Iskar has a mechanic in which you had to pass around an object called "The Eye of Anzu" which required a great deal of coordination and situational awareness...unless you had the Shadow Lord Iskar Assist add-on which made the fight tremendously easier to do. Again, an add-on making players appear better than they actually are.

[starlesss]

i finally managed to read all 62 pages of this tread and decided to make a tl:dr of the people against parsers:

People will be mean to me because my damage is low.

its toxic to not accept someone because their a liability and we should all carry them even if its a farming party.

you don't need a parser to improve. you just gotta be amazing at the and read a guide and then run something perfectly.

the introduction of parser will not improve the communities skill level.

theorycrafters find everything out with simulations and ability descriptions.

FFlogs is toxic

japan's mentality is different and so yoshi-p wont introduce official parsers to avoid potential toxicity (the only legit argument i can remember reading in this tread)

people say WoW is toxic, WoW allowed parsing that means parsing brings toxicity

they shouldn't put parsing because raiders are elitist and will abuse it.

and my favorite parcers=the devil (you would think people would think a bit more about what they say after experiencing HW)

I was on the fence about parsers at the beginning thinking it could possibly lead to more toxicity. But reading trough this tread made me realize that SE should stop coddling us, because it seems the most toxic people are the non parsers living in there bubble

[SenorPatty]

@starless

You forgot to add that even if someone silently disbands a party after repeated wipes, it's toxic because the parser showed who was at fault but the party leader didn't want to tell the culprit directly in order to avoid being reported for being toxic.


Also, breathing is toxic. (Sorry Dual, this is a meme now. Deal with it ;p )

[Aerlana]

*snip*

the addon for eye of anzu was a way to laugh other people. But yes, some couldnt even kill anzu without it. Proof some are bad.
Also, numerous people were unable clearly to kill titan hard/extrem if someone wasnt saying each skill titan will use, one after other...


Also for this i dont want to say "better or worst". And other thing : When we say parsers will improve playstyle. it will do it for those who WANTS improve themselves. Large part of people, really large part doesnt want to always improve themselves (or not improve enough to get the need to some details informations), and so, you can give them as much tool as you want, they wont improve.
But, in most content, we dont care. I really dont care that my daily dongeon does 35 or 40 minutes instead of 30 (and to be honest, the raging one about this are ot only the top level players ... )
When i did the raid with "eye of anzu" i didnt have the addon, most had, and did my work well without, and they did with. but when i watched their "armory" page (like lodestone for characters) i saw that they were clearly not the kind of player wanting to improve. more the kind to click "easy" on the begining of a new game. their choice... Also the kind of people in WoW that come on forum saying "game is too easy" and didnt even go on heroic mode (and evne less mythic where the real difficulty is)

and yes, difficulty of WoW did improve... iskar you point, even with all in the raid having this addon stayed harder than nefarian. easily was as hard as twins emperor or C'thun... Iskar was just a boss in the 2nd part of the raid. when you killed him and 4 other, it opened this access to mannoroth and then, finally the last boss. C'thun, or Nefarian were the hardest boss in their own raid...

But you speak about the wow comunity as a whole, when we speak about parsers only considering "people wanting to improve" (because, watching parser or any other hint, they consider themselves quite bad, and should improve). WoW comunity it is also some people whining because some dongeons are not in the Duty Finder, SO have to get a team in the party finder, with a slitly harder dongeon to do. And consider the people they will party with as toxic brainless parser addict. FFXIV comunity like WoW comunity is not "only one kind of people" some dont care about PvE content, doing only old one to get skins, and then, go roleplay. other dont do anything else than PvP. some tryhard the most difficult content (savage/ultimate/mythic raid / M+ dongeon) And some (like me) stays on "casual" content (heroic raid / Xtrem primals / first/second savage bosses). The "only roleplay" dont care his DPS. the PvP guy will not only think DPS, but also to survive, more crowdcontroll etc etc. When we speak about improvement due to parser it is, at least people like me, wanting to perform a little in content.


Parser improve the playstyle of the people wanting to clearly improve it. The others, if they dont want, no tool, no tutorial, no guide can make them improve.

You want to compare wow to FF. lets focus on the same kind of people on both game. (And when i do it, i am clearly unable to give an answer, the game get so much difference to being able to compare players' level)

[TaiyoShikasu]

the introduction of parser will not improve the communities skill level.

They're not wrong.

[Sneakaboo]

I remember from my raiding days in WOW a DPS/Tank dying and us often not knowing what caused it.
It wasn't uncommon that the first reaction was 'healers didn't heal well' or people simply not knowing what happened.
One quick look at the parser and you could see a tank not using his cooldown or a specific damage dealer taking too much damage causing some healers to go out of mana.
This wasn't followed up by insults or toxic behavior but a simple 'my bad', after all you work as a team.

A realm reborn is very similar to WOW , thus again I see nothing wrong with getting access to the date in a 'legal' manner.
Random groups can be toxic with or without parser, it doesn't matter.

The only argument I could think of is that add ons and especially parsers can improve the play style of people/community by a lot.
People learn from each other and see what type of abilities players use, WOW is a great example.
In the past people struggled with dodging a basic circle, now they can handle complex mechanics.
Tuning encounters around parser also opens new roads.


Add ons in general bring a lot of quality of life features, personally I would have loved a less flashy UI and such.
However I doubt this is ever going to be implanted/tolerated by SE, it might also not be plausible with the PS4.

[CryBloodwing]

I would love a parser that would only show my damage output or healing, but also would show the average output of the same classes that did that same content. So I could compare myself to the average player, not another person in the party.

[Sigma-Astra]

@starless

You forgot to add that even if someone silently disbands a party after repeated wipes, it's toxic because the parser showed who was at fault but the party leader didn't want to tell the culprit directly in order to avoid being reported for being toxic.


Also, breathing is toxic. (Sorry Dual, this is a meme now. Deal with it ;p )

We should also add that being good at any game is toxic. We're all suppose to be terrible.

Cleared Sonic 2 without dying once? You're toxic, man. You should have died 5 times in the Chemical Plant Zone.

[MageBlack]

Would a compromise of sorts work?

Personal parser only, gives you all the info you need for how you are doing, compares it to the average parse for your iLev, you could see parsing leader boards for a specific instance but you could not see party parsing.

[Penthea]

the addon for eye of anzu was a way to laugh other people. But yes, some couldnt even kill anzu without it. Proof some are bad.
Also, numerous people were unable clearly to kill titan hard/extrem if someone wasnt saying each skill titan will use, one after other...

Oh trust me I know, I was raiding with a guild that at the time had some individuals that couldn't handle some mechanics no matter how much handholding add-ons gave them. It was depressingly hilarious to watch.

Also for this i dont want to say "better or worst". And other thing : When we say parsers will improve playstyle. it will do it for those who WANTS improve themselves. Large part of people, really large part doesnt want to always improve themselves (or not improve enough to get the need to some details informations), and so, you can give them as much tool as you want, they wont improve.

I completely agree. However in WoW I saw people find ways around it. Some played the FOTM class/spec so that they looked decent even if they were not and changed class/spec as soon as the balance reshuffled, they used add-ons that assisted them with their rotations, they would intentionally dps the wrong targets if it them made them look better on the meters and often completely refused to use any utility no matter how helpful it might be because having someone else do so would make their dps go down and they would continue to look okay.

I know that some of these are not applicable to FFXIV given SE's stance on add-ons making them awkward to use and how their use is completely absent for PS4 players. But my point is while parsers encourage people to improve their dps, that doesn't mean everyone is going to actually legitimately improve it.

I guarantee if parsers come to FFXIV issues with people ignoring certain targets will become more common. Some classes are better at aoe than others, some can switch target with less dps loss, some classes don't rely on dots for a huge chunk of their damage so they don't have to worry about things dying to soon making them look bad. All this would become very apparent with an official parser and many people will react to this by gaming the game by choosing what they dps based on the dps they would achieve and not based on doing the encounter efficiently or properly. And then the problem with that is many people only glance at the parser and judge an entire situation based on dps results. Their problem player might be their top dps but they might think about kicking someone else. A more knowledgeable or sensible player would dig more and find the truth but everyone knows that common sense is often a super power in mmos.

Sorry but I don't see how FFXIV would be any different in this manner. There is literally nothing about the community in its current state to suggest that the above would never happen.

But, in most content, we dont care. I really dont care that my daily dongeon does 35 or 40 minutes instead of 30 (and to be honest, the raging one about this are ot only the top level players ... )

You mean people like you don't care. I have seen parser abuse in lvl 30 dungeons in WoW. Some people don't understand that classes aren't designed to be balanced while lvling. And some just want to be jerks.

Also the kind of people in WoW that come on forum saying "game is too easy" and didnt even go on heroic mode (and evne less mythic where the real difficulty is)

This isn't unique to WoW, I have seen this in FFXIV too. It happens more in WoW because a massive amount of the lvling content in that game is a freaking joke, and also (dunno about now) back when I played ilvl sync was not a thing so max lvl dungeons that may have been challenging for the intended ilvl were insultingly easy for people in up to date gear.

and yes, difficulty of WoW did improve... iskar you point, even with all in the raid having this addon stayed harder than nefarian. easily was as hard as twins emperor or C'thun... Iskar was just a boss in the 2nd part of the raid. when you killed him and 4 other, it opened this access to mannoroth and then, finally the last boss. C'thun, or Nefarian were the hardest boss in their own raid...

My point is that Blizzard saying their players got better at the game is a flawed statement because of the tremendous amount of add-ons that you can get that can help you. Some help with your rotation, some literally shout at you if you stand in fire allowing you to pay less attention to the arena, some are designed to trivialise boss mechanics, the list goes on.

But you speak about the wow comunity as a whole, when we speak about parsers only considering "people wanting to improve"

I'm sorry but you should not limit yourself to thinking of one corner of the bigger picture. Parsers will affect the community as a whole. It is very short-sighted to only think of those who would use it for self improvement.

You want to compare wow to FF. lets focus on the same kind of people on both game. (And when i do it, i am clearly unable to give an answer, the game get so much difference to being able to compare players' level) (because, watching parser or any other hint, they consider themselves quite bad, and should improve). WoW comunity it is also some people whining because some dongeons are not in the Duty Finder, SO have to get a team in the party finder, with a slitly harder dongeon to do. And consider the people they will party with as toxic brainless parser addict. FFXIV comunity like WoW comunity is not "only one kind of people" some dont care about PvE content, doing only old one to get skins, and then, go roleplay. other dont do anything else than PvP. some tryhard the most difficult content (savage/ultimate/mythic raid / M+ dongeon) And some (like me) stays on "casual" content (heroic raid / Xtrem primals / first/second savage bosses). The "only roleplay" dont care his DPS. the PvP guy will not only think DPS, but also to survive, more crowdcontroll etc etc. When we speak about improvement due to parser it is, at least people like me, wanting to perform a little in content.

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this paragraph. It appears that you think the WoW and FFXIV have a lot more in common than some people realise.

You want to compare wow to FF. lets focus on the same kind of people on both game. (And when i do it, i am clearly unable to give an answer, the game get so much difference to being able to compare players' level)

It would be more accurate to say that WoW is a warning sign for how parsers can negatively affect a game. Just because a tool is useful doesn't mean it can't or won't be abused.

I'm not anti-parser. I'm anti-idiot and anti-jerk.

I don't fancy the idea of handing parsers to idiots and jerks because I have seen what they do when they have them. They don't only bicker among themselves. They bring everyone down with them whether it's inciting needless arguments, falsely accusing people of poor performance, intentionally dps the wrong targets or waste people's time by halting progression with their antics. It is not coddling to want to avoid people who don't know how to or don't want to use a tool properly. If that is coddling then you may as well say the same for people who want to avoid those who don't know how to or don't want to use their classes properly.