How would an optional, official parser be toxic?

[SenorPatty]

This gets asked far too often. The answer that keeps coming back is a very firm "No." Perhaps joking or not, Yoshida started to walk out on yet-another-Parser-please question. To the point that he said, "No, we will not make an official parser, even if it only tracks the individual. We know it will be broken, re-coded or otherwise re-worked by the community to display everyone. Please stop asking."

As for the topic, "how would a parser be toxic?" Before SE pushed the 'don't ask, don't tell' mentality of parsers, people were kicking under performing players for not pulling arbitrary numbers in their parties. This is probably what SE is trying to avoid, because if they make, or otherwise acknowledge, an allowance of the tool, people will be excluded for ... reasons ... on a game they pay a membership for. It will then be SE's problem officially. Right now, it's more of a 'don't want bad players, don't run with random players' - like any other MMO or multiplayer game.

Source on that quote please. I know he walked out jokingly but I never saw that exact quote.

[Legion88]

Source on that quote please. I know he walked out jokingly but I never saw that exact quote.

Me too.

I only know the statement for the great skill gap and he would think about implementing one when/if the gap would be smaller.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

As for the topic, "how would a parser be toxic?" Before SE pushed the 'don't ask, don't tell' mentality of parsers, people were kicking under performing players for not pulling arbitrary numbers in their parties. This is probably what SE is trying to avoid, because if they make, or otherwise acknowledge, an allowance of the tool, people will be excluded for ... reasons ... on a game they pay a membership for. It will then be SE's problem officially. Right now, it's more of a 'don't want bad players, don't run with random players' - like any other MMO or multiplayer game.

And that still happens to this day. It will continue to happen because people don't necessarily want to carry players who are underperforming, especially if they show little to no desire to improve or learn. Except without a visual parse, people kick or disband silently. Now you have no idea why they party disbanded, no information that perhaps you need to improve and nothing changes.

[Kleeya]

One of those posts is iffy because OP cried foul once. The other one was due to player error.

Both of these have happened, and will happen, without a parser, so these aren't really answers to my question.

Did you even open the two threads to read that even if they were not performed well, the two ops have been subject to rude behavior by the people judging their performance ?

Giving more tools to everyone to judge others will only end up in even more toxicity. "It will happen without a parser anyway" is a wrong argument. You are saying that like if having tons of players who actually dont even know what a parser is, getting suddenly access to one isn't gonna stir up even more trouble.

These two threads are in fact highly relevant to the answer of your question.

[KaivaC]

Did you even open the two threads to read that even if they were not performed well, the two ops have been subject to rude behavior by the people judging their performance ?

Giving more tools to everyone to judge others will only end up in even more toxicity. "It will happen without a parser anyway" is a wrong argument. You are saying that like if having tons of players who actually dont even know what a parser is, getting suddenly access to one isn't gonna stir up even more trouble.

These two threads are in fact highly relevant to the answer of your question.

Yup, I've been following those two threads with some mild interest. You don't need a parser for those kinds of incidents to occur, and they typically happen every day somewhere in FFXIV. Not taking sides in the PLD one, but I don't need a parser to be annoyed when a tank is constantly turning the O11N boss. Especially when they do it just as I am about to hit my Trick Attack. Let alone other players who have been ingrained to expect N/S positioning, and the boss is suddenly turned SE and then you see the cast bar for Starboard.

Yes indeed, perhaps some idiots will decide to be more open with their harassment. And then that's the the report function is for to get them out of this game. I doubt it will become as widespread as some people continually claim that FFXIV will become. Especially since most of the time, you're likely already being parsed anyways if you step foot into any of the current lvl 70 content.

[OurMom]

Did you even open the two threads to read that even if they were not performed well, the two ops have been subject to rude behavior by the people judging their performance ?

The OP in one admitted to messing up and considered the person snapped at them over one mistake they were probably doing low dps. It's not "judging their performance" if they are infact messing up.

The second doesn't even have basic abilities on their hotbar. What is it with this be nice to people that can be bothered to do the most basic of things?

I have seen people zombie their way through fights and when they get back up and still do their proper rotation, yes people are annoyed but they don't kick them. It's when the constant dying is paired with low dps do they get kicked or told to "uninstall". You know what could help with that? A parser so the person can see they're doing less damage than a pld.

[SenorPatty]

Did you even open the two threads to read that even if they were not performed well, the two ops have been subject to rude behavior by the people judging their performance ?

Giving more tools to everyone to judge others will only end up in even more toxicity. "It will happen without a parser anyway" is a wrong argument. You are saying that like if having tons of players who actually dont even know what a parser is, getting suddenly access to one isn't gonna stir up even more trouble.

These two threads are in fact highly relevant to the answer of your question.

From where are we going to get more toxicity, the six other players who were in those parties in those threads or the same person who happened to be jerk?

If the act of kicking someone is toxic itself because that's how someone feels, then guess what? Toxicity of that nature is plenty rampant already. All you have to do is mess up mechanics enough time to get booted. Don't need a parser to help being "toxic" with that. Dps phase not being cleared? Disband, don't need parser to help being toxic with that again. I can bring countless of examples that don't need a parser to help being toxic when it comes to kicking people out.

If you want to argue that parsers will corrupt people's behaviours into being openly or subtly toxic and thus quantifying the amount of toxicity to increased numbers, guess what? People don't change easily. Jerks who like being jerks will continue to be jerks. Civil people who like to be civil will continue to be civil, parser or no parser. However, like any human behaviour, prolonged exposure to positive or negative experiences can change people's way of thinking. You could say parsers can bring out the worst in people but in the same vein, it can bring out the best.

Parsers are not one-sided tools like anti-parser people like to make them to be.

[Zephera]

Did you even open the two threads to read that even if they were not performed well, the two ops have been subject to rude behavior by the people judging their performance ?

It's actually pretty rude to not put in a reasonable amount of effort in a team game as well.

[RiyahArp]

And that still happens to this day. It will continue to happen because people don't necessarily want to carry players who are underperforming, especially if they show little to no desire to improve or learn.

The most wonderful thing about this game is you can completely ignore players like this, just by avoiding 4-5 fights a patch. In casual content, you can perform up to your skill level, and few people care otherwise. The only exception was this patch, when they had a minor difficulty spike in alpha and one expert dungeon. Even then it's really one dungeon and one fight, due to two battles. The people who any harder fights know what they are getting into. You can completley opt in to hardcoring it, or not.

This is the way it should be. You want to play this to relax, you do that. You want to tryhard? Go do the tougher fights. you want to tryhard in casual? PF or FC mates, you only need 4 or 8 for fifteen minutes. Anythign else would ruin this game.

[Gemina]

How would it be toxic, the OP asks? All the while FFXIV has one of the least toxic communities in the mmo genre. Then factor the present toxicity despite the lack of an in-game parser. How much of it is caused by third party tools illegal to the game's ToS? Does anyone truly think that the current toxicity in the game will be reduced by an in-game parser?

SE has a turned a blind eye/deaf ear to those third party tools being used for parsing, and in return you get outright refusal to address any kind of in-game parser. I would consider this a win for those of you who like to use such tools because you're here on the forums talking about how x number of DPS is lacking and are not getting 86'ed from the game.

Fact of the matter is that it is not in SE's best interest to eject players using 3rd party tools. They will discipline players in clear violation, but suspect and hearsay is completely ignored. It really is no different than any other community gathering where you know you cannot stop all illegal activity, but you are required to police the activity you observe and priority is placed on keeping said gathering safe. SE has far less concern for 3rd party tool users than actual harassment going on in the game, which may or may not be a result of them. They most certainly don't want to add to their workload by adding an in-game parser.

So in short, the question being asked should be how would an in-game parser NOT be toxic?