How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[OurMom]

have you ever played WoW? unless you want the FF14 community to turn toxic the last thing this game needs is a dps meter

I see this comment alot, WoW's community isn't has bad as people here make it out to be. People there just want you to not be brain dead and that's it. I played WoW during MoP never touched it prior, had absolutely zero clue what was going on and no one flamed me, harassed me, nor kicked me from a dungeon.

Also if you want you to mention toxic communities, Archeage, BnS, Aion, and BDO and only one of those people actually parse in and people aren't toxic there because of it. Why is this community so scared of stuff? If someone is being a jerk just report them you can't punish everyone for a small few. People are going to be jerks regardless of having a parser or not.

[Lunavi]

Not having parsers is incredibly frustrating, especially when they are needed.

I cannot count how many times I have hit enrage in PUG farms due to poor DPS and know exactly which people are causing the problem, but can do nothing about it but say "dps, do better (which never works because there is no individual accountability)" or simply kick them without a word. Not having a way to see your own damage... in a game where there is DPS checks in every single form of higher-end content is ridiculous.

A lot of anti-parse people cite toxicity as their main reason why they do not want them, but this argument is silly because people will use anything to be toxic. Might as well get rid of chat, or vote kick, or just the entire game in general... Man. I knew someone who will purposefully let people die if they don't like their glamour. Mean people will always be mean people, regardless of what tools they are or aren't given.

I was, and still am, against vote kick to be honest. I have seen people using it in toxic ways far more often than I have seen it used in constructive and helpful ways. it has been tanks in 2.x who tried to vote kick the MNK in dungeons for being a MNK, it has been people who have resorted to trying to vote kick whoever they think voted against the vote abandon they initiated after wipe number 2 on an EX primal.

I have rarely seen moments when Vote Kick would have been a "better" solution than the saltlord leaving.

[KaivaC]

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.

Indeed. I can do that - but even on my Areya character, I had found that I am hurting my group because either I'm not executing my rotation right, or I'm missing positionals, or I'm missing important casts. And I get that not everyone wants to improve. That's fine and dandy.

But I do. And I know others who can't use parsers would love to use a tool like this on consoles to improve. It drives me mad whenever I'm logged in, and I have no way of knowing if I'm hurting my group or not, just based on my DPS. I don't want to simply be decent...most players that I have seen in my 1+ year in FFXIV are decent, just by what I've seen in-game. I want to be good. Most folks on the forums are probably aware that I am driven by this obsession. And this is in a public discussion board. Who knows how many people who don't venture to the forums have similar sentiments. And again, I wish for it to be completely optional, and for it to only parse what you've done.

[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.

[valho]

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.

This isn't exactly correct, during my Suzaku Ex farm this week I have seen instances where I am dead once or twice in the fight and still the top DPS in the fight. Now without a parser and if we wipe the blame would probably falls on me since I died but the truth is it's not my fault. If I pull 6k dps with death and another did 3k without dead, who fault is it if we wipe? Am I suppose to not die and pull 7k DPS to carry him? I don't expect people to have savage tier skill in extreme but I do expect them to pull their own weight. Doing 3k dps with ilvl 370+ is not acceptable at all but without an official parser they wouldn't know they are the problem and the rest of the party wouldn't know either, some else will become the scape goat for the wipe instead. Suzaku Ex is not the only instance I have seen this, even in Sigma savage I have seen this happens. A private parser that can be share if the players want to wouldn't be that bad. At least if someone call you out when you were doing fine you have something to back it up.

[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.

[Ramesses]

Because people can be asses, and will use any tool to put others down. Do we need the ability to parse our damage built into the game? I'd say sure. Will some people use it to be jerks? Of course.

But we can't let that prevent necessary QoL additions. It's really simple as that

This coins it perfectly for me... there are some humans that will continually relish in using this tool to put others down; thus, sustaining--and increasing-- toxicity within the player base.

And that, I cannot abide with.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

have you ever played WoW? unless you want the FF14 community to turn toxic the last thing this game needs is a dps meter

WoW is not the same game as FFXIV nor does it attract the same players. You also have to consider WoW boasters several million players, thus you're going to see the toxic far more often than in FFXIV. A perfect example of this is when blame say things like "Gilgamesh is full of assholes." Well, yeah, because it once had almost double the population of every other server excluding Balmung and a few others. Of course you're going to see more jerks from Gilgamesh. There's simply more people.

Putting that all aside, you don't think people already toxic by nature act this way regardless? The only difference is you'll be kicked without any reason given or the party abruptly disbands.

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.

This is decidedly untrue. In fact, I was in a Tsukiyomi EX party a few months ago where I died early into the moon phase. Despite being dead of the floor for at least thirty seconds, I still remained a 1,000 DPS above the Samurai, who was getting out-dps'd by a Bard by nearly 1,500. When the Bard made a remark, the Samurai called her shit and got into a row with me. All the while oblivious we were both leagues ahead of him DPS wise. The irony is for the talks of parse toxicity, the people using a parse were the ones being bullied by someone who thought they were hot shit and clearly not using one themselves.

You can't always base player skill on mechanics. A Warrior can do everything right mechanically but give up massive amounts of DPS if they don't properly time their Inner Release usage. A Monk blowing Tornado Kick constantly without knowing the proper rotation will loss thousands of DPS yet be entirely unaware.

[Deceptus]

I see this comment alot, WoW's community isn't has bad as people here make it out to be. People there just want you to not be brain dead and that's it. I played WoW during MoP never touched it prior, had absolutely zero clue what was going on and no one flamed me, harassed me, nor kicked me from a dungeon.

Also if you want you to mention toxic communities, Archeage, BnS, Aion, and BDO and only one of those people actually parse in and people aren't toxic there because of it. Why is this community so scared of stuff? If someone is being a jerk just report them you can't punish everyone for a small few. People are going to be jerks regardless of having a parser or not.

This. WoW expects basic competence. FFXIV is pleasantly surprised by it.

You can't always base player skill on mechanics. A Warrior can do everything right mechanically but give up massive amounts of DPS if they don't properly time their Inner Release usage. A Monk blowing Tornado Kick constantly without knowing the proper rotation will loss thousands of DPS yet be entirely unaware.

And if you're a MCH who messes up your Wildfire window, you're done.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Because the skill gap is too big. Even yoshi-p is aware of this as I heard something on the lines of "will think about it once the skill gap is less" A LOT of people simply do not know how to play, and when you try to advice them, they lash out, so can you picture what the situation will be when people can actually see it? Most people do not know how to see rotation issues without parsers. I am all for it, but i feel the general player base isn't. Given this is a forum for a game, most people that know how to play will be here, so this thread is more on the lines of preaching to the choir.

Unfortunately, the skill gap will never lessen until they official allow parsing, be it ACT itself or develop their own. They keep spending resources on silly workarounds which will never accomplish anything. Speaking from my own experienced, I learned to improve because I kept seeing Dragoon pulling numbers much higher than my own. It made me curious, thus I looked up their rotations and what they were doing. That couldn't have happened with a parse. What Yoshida's chasing is a fools goal. A good number of people have no idea they're doing something wrong because they game never tells you otherwise. You have no frame of reference short of "did the boss die or not."