How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[sarehptar]

Regardless of my own opinion on parsers (which is that I would always expect at least one person in the group to have one, and I like to know my own numbers when I'm doing things worth parsing), I can see the logic behind not even adding a personal parser.

I mean, the first time the group wipes due to low DPS, expect the chat to flood with "Post your numbers" or people throwing their own numbers out voluntarily to demonstrate that it wasn't them i.e. point fingers at others. This is inevitably going to lead to people being badgered, especially if they don't want to share their numbers. (The opinion "People with low DPS deserve to be badgered" is a whole other can of worms.) Probably would be plenty of salt if someone lies about their numbers and others notice (such as if someone is using a "real" parser). I doubt it would go this far in most parties, but there would probably even be some parties listed as "If you don't want to share numbers, don't join" or even "SS in Discord required." If they make the personal parser optional, please look forward to "Parse or don't join" groups in PF.

The argument that "There's already plenty of ways to be toxic, so adding this won't increase toxicity" is kind of like saying "There's already plenty of ways for my house to burn down, so there's no reason not to leave the stove on." Any additional avenue to harass others will result in more harassment; that's just the nature of humans. To me, the question isn't "Will this cause more harassment?" but "Does the amount of benefit this would have outweigh the increase in harassment?" The devs seem to be on the side of no, it won't.

(Side note: As a PS4 player, I find it a bit ://// when people on PS4 act like they have no way of judging their skill and output. Even without a parser, anyone who has decent understanding of the game and other DPS classes can tell who is being a drag to the party--and you can definitely tell when it is you who is weighing the party down. Pretending you have no sense of where you stand in DPS just because you don't have access to a parser is nothing but a nice-sounding excuse.)

They've already basically said no to parsers a million times, so I doubt anything is going to change there. What I'd like to ask for is a more effective Stone, Sky, Sea. When the dummy has no mechanics, there's zero chance it could ever be an accurate measure of your output under pressure. The Dummy ought to be able to utilize at least some of the boss's AOEs to better simulate the real fight.