If running a parser makes you cynical and depressed, why do it?

[Rilifane]

I don't think there needs to be said anything about Extremes/ Savage, because that's obviously the type of content where a more critical look at your own and your team mates' performance becomes mandatory and ACT (plus fflogs/ xivanalysis) is the only way to really to that. People can feel like they're doing good all day, the analysis often tells a completely different story.
Sure, it's not pleasent to have various tools tell you "you sucked" after you thought you did well, but at least I know what I need to work on and where my mistakes are. Because I don't remember every little thing I did over a 10min+ fight.

If I have a parser running for non-endgame content, it's usually either to get a better overview over how the others play and know who gets my cards, dance partner and priority when raising and adjust my gameplay accordingly or simply to see how I'm doing on a newly leveled job in casual practice. It also helps me handing out comms to someone who definitely deserves it. Bonus points for people who use things like Shield Samba or Second Wind regulary to support the team.
And after running the three experts for who knows how many times, it's fun for me to try and expeririment here and there to see if I can squeeze out a bit more dps by adjusting some things. Optimization in content where nobody cares about is just for the sake of being less bored after running something for the umpteenth time, I guess.

[TaleraRistain]

I think you can kind of see the answer from some replies on this thread. Some people get their knickers in a twist if someone else, even in basic MSQ content, is not playing the way they think and want them to. Since they go in with expectations toward other people, they get upset by the data provided by the parser. Those who are using it for self improvement don't get upset, because they are going in with a mindset of using the data to enrich themselves in some manner.

For people who get depressed by the numbers X or Y class does, they sound like they aren't playing the class for the right reasons. If you love the class, don't let someone else's opinion or expectations make you hate it.

[dasmause]

I think you can kind of see the answer from some replies on this thread.

It looks to me you saw that answer before you came to the thread...

[Raven2014]

I think you can kind of see the answer from some replies on this thread.

And did you actually read the thread yourself?

[Vidu]

I think you can kind of see the answer from some replies on this thread. Some people get their knickers in a twist if someone else, even in basic MSQ content, is not playing the way they think and want them to. Since they go in with expectations toward other people, they get upset by the data provided by the parser. Those who are using it for self improvement don't get upset, because they are going in with a mindset of using the data to enrich themselves in some manner.

For people who get depressed by the numbers X or Y class does, they sound like they aren't playing the class for the right reasons. If you love the class, don't let someone else's opinion or expectations make you hate it.

Yeah, because expecting people to perform reasonably well in any content is such a terrible and unreasonable thing to do... I dont want to turn this into another "Stories from the Duty Finder"-thread, but to illustrate what I mean I'll still share this story from yesterdays expert roulette, which was done parser-free btw but still left me quite annoyed, since I had the (obviously totally wrong and missplaced!) expectation that someone who's reached level 80 would know the basics of their class and someone who wasnt new to the dungeon would also be able to perform the simple boss-mechanics Amarout offers.
Not so the WHM in this case: Cure-spam, regen placed on between/during pulls while I'm at fullhealth, MedicaII-spam, I saw excatly one Holy being cast the entire dungeon, I never saw the bubble, he died during the first boss AND during the last boss - during the last boss because despite him spamming Cure the whole time he didnt heal himself up before raid-damage happend - at that point the boss was at 60% and we still made it, thanks to Clemency.
I dont need a parser here to be annoyed that someone whos reached level 80 with their job doesnt seem to have the faintest idea how to play it properly.

This "anti-paser" crowd likes to portrait people who uses parsers as people who'll yell at anyone who isnt pulling at the very least purple parses! But thats simply not true - I cant recall if I've ever seen someone being called out in DF over a parse at all, but I know that anything we share in our FC or amongst friends isnt "Oh, this samurai is only pulling a green parse, what a noob!" but rather "...guys, I have this samurai whos pulling something like 2k... that would have been okay-ish at the end of HW, right?"
In my experience is far more likely to run into someone who is severly underperforming, to a point when it feels to me that one can say hes not meeting the reasonable expectation we should have of someone whos doing max-level content than to meet someone who'll throw a fit over a BLM dealing 14k instead of 17k.

In regards to the job-dps: I love my bard and its the only dps I actually play (RDM only if I have a pretty mage-glamour I wanna show off). To me its the most fun and engaging dps to play, so I'm sticking with it. But based on the needs of a team I'll switch. Its not making me outright depressed (which is to big of a word to throw around in this context anyways), but it will leave me with a heavy sigh.

You guys are welcome to live in your little bubble where everyone is nice and nothing matters, so you dont need to care - about your performance, about your teammate, about job-balance... bursting this bubble is totally possible without parsers, though. You need to close your eyes to way more than ACT.

[SerLuke]

This "anti-paser" crowd likes to portrait people who uses parsers as people who'll yell at anyone who isnt pulling at the very least purple parses! But thats simply not true - I cant recall if I've ever seen someone being called out in DF over a parse at all, but I know that anything we share in our FC or amongst friends isnt "Oh, this samurai is only pulling a green parse, what a noob!" but rather "...guys, I have this samurai whos pulling something like 2k... that would have been okay-ish at the end of HW, right?"
In my experience is far more likely to run into someone who is severly underperforming, to a point when it feels to me that one can say hes not meeting the reasonable expectation we should have of someone whos doing max-level content than to meet someone who'll throw a fit over a BLM dealing 14k instead of 17k.

I'm not anti-parser, I'm anti people using a parser to beat people over the head with it to have some smug sense of superiority in a video game and obsessing over numbers. I've had good experiences with people uses parers, a friend of mine offered to help me clear Titania and Innocence ex even though I wasn't that much interested in them but they helped me with call outs and I got through it. Afterwards they went through some of the stuff they saw in my FF logs and politely showed me some areas why I could improve.

You guys are welcome to live in your little bubble where everyone is nice and nothing matters, so you dont need to care - about your performance, about your teammate, about job-balance... bursting this bubble is totally possible without parsers, though. You need to close your eyes to way more than ACT.

And there it is. I remember a thread here where people were talking about being patient with their teammates in their party because they might be having a bad day, or they might be sick, or maybe they have a disability, many, many people replied saying such people are a burden and shouldn't be playing or should only play with friends, lets be honest its not about you caring about your teammates, its about you getting done asap with a dungeon. I work 8 hours a day, drive typically 45 minutes both ways to and form work, yeah I love when EX roullete only takes 15 minutes but I can deal with a 25 minute run, its not that much of a freaking big deal I'm not that important to go on about people wasting my time.

And here's the thing, I've been the Paladin duoing bosses down from 50%+ with a DPS because the rest of the party wiped, I don't use that as a reason to look down on others though, I feel a sense of accomplishment sure but I'm not going to go on about how the other people were bad or sucked.

[Vidu]

I'm not anti-parser, I'm anti people using a parser to beat people over the head with it to have some smug sense of superiority in a video game and obsessing over numbers. I've had good experiences with people uses parers, a friend of mine offered to help me clear Titania and Innocence ex even though I wasn't that much interested in them but they helped me with call outs and I got through it. Afterwards they went through some of the stuff they saw in my FF logs and politely showed me some areas why I could improve.

I'll repeat myself by saying that this "beating someone over their head with their numbers"-thing is a something I dont ever recall seeing in a random DF-group. I'm not completly sure that it never happend, because I cant recall each and every one of the thousands of runs I did in the past 6 years, but it surely isnt something that happens frequently, at least not in my experience.
You seem way more obsessed with this idea that people use parsers as an ego-boost by putting other people down than people actually obsessing about numbers...

And there it is. I remember a thread here where people were talking about being patient with their teammates in their party because they might be having a bad day, or they might be sick, or maybe they have a disability, many, many people replied saying such people are a burden and shouldn't be playing or should only play with friends, lets be honest its not about you caring about your teammates, its about you getting done asap with a dungeon. I work 8 hours a day, drive typically 45 minutes both ways to and form work, yeah I love when EX roullete only takes 15 minutes but I can deal with a 25 minute run, its not that much of a freaking big deal I'm not that important to go on about people wasting my time.

And here's the thing, I've been the Paladin duoing bosses down from 50%+ with a DPS because the rest of the party wiped, I don't use that as a reason to look down on others though, I feel a sense of accomplishment sure but I'm not going to go on about how the other people were bad or sucked.

You're seeing what you want to see - you made up your mind about people who care about their performance and expect others to do the same. We might have different ideas about what "caring about your teammates" includes - for me it includes that you are trying your best and if that best is far from the reasonable expectation at your level, you show that you're trying to improve. Its not about wasted time for me, its about playing in a way that shows you're respecting your teammates time - thats a difference! I dont care if a dungeon takes 15 minutes or 25 as long as I see everyone put in an appropriate amount of effort, either with their performance or through communication if there is a problem to show that you care about the team. You can call me sensitive here, but it feels kinda "disrespectful" to play this game with people who have an attitude of "I dont need to learn/look up my rotation, I dont need to update my gear and I play how I want" - and in my experience those are far more common than the parser-jerks you're talking about or the people who are severly underperforming due to some sort of illness or disability.
You're reaching for extremes here again, while using those people as some sort of scapegoat - let me just tell you that I've seen quite a few threads from people with disabilities here and they were mostly asking what job would be best for them to play in order to not "hold back" their team - not because they were worried about being called out or kicked, but because they wanted to make sure to contribute as best as they could because they cared about the people they'd be playing with.

I would also like to point out that if you got your impression from the forums, and specially the "Share a DF story"-thread, that this is a place people come to to vent - often right in the moment when they're either still really upset or maybe feeling really good about themself, probably because they've got a reason to feel that way right now. I doubt that most of those people who vent run around with a god-complex. I can assure you that even after sharing that story I'm not having a god-complex and dont look down on people who are still trying to learn - as long as they do that. I am looking down on people who clearly show that they dont care at all - you know, the "You dont pay my sub!"-crowd. But not because of their performance, but because of their attitude.
...okay, I got slightly offtrack here, but what I was trying to say is this: You're probably looking at a glimpse of a persons experience with the game and draw conclusions from there that might simply not be true. People who share parser information in the DF-thread to point out how bad excatly that guy was doing. Someone whos sharing a story like that - and is rightfully annoyed by someones severe underperfomance (again, I want to make clear that I'm not talking about the difference between an orange and a purple parse but between "doing okay for level 80" and "doing okay if this was still level 60... at level 80") - isnt necessarly someone whos shaming that person over their numbers. Its also not necessarly someone whos getting "depressed" over parsers either - and since you brought up disabilities I'd like to mention again how bad that choice of a word there is...

In my experience it has a lot more to do with peoples attitudes and behaviour than just with pure parser-numbers. Those are often just what breaks the camels back.
It has a lot more to do with whos showing they care - and who doesnt. Numbers can be one indicator of that: Bad numbers show that you dont care enough about your performance to put in that little bit of effort to figure out how to play that job properly and by doing so you're accepting that every group you get paired with in DF will "suffer".
And I'm sorry, thats just not an attitude I find acceptable and I'll never understand why people do that. This idea that this is "just a game" always seems like an excuse to me that just doesnt work. Of course its just a game, but why does that prevent you from putting a minimum amount of effort and care into it? I'm rambling right now, because I'm at a total loss... when I spend time with something - be it a game or any other hobby - I care about that and make sure to do it "right" - I've thrown away 30 hours of a cross stitch project because I made an unfixable mistake, because I cared about getting it right instead of just going "well, whatever". So, I'm doing the same when I'm playing the game: Trying to get things right.
So thats why I cant see why its so unreasonable to expect other people to at least try to reach a minimum amount fo "getting it right".
I dont mean to look down on people who are obviously pretty oblivious of what they're doing, but I can absolutly not understand them. I suppose being ignorant of things that effect not only me but other people too is just not something I can relate to or sympathise with.

[CrimsonGunner]

Snip

please try to read what im saying to you with a calm and soothing tone of voice.


first of all calm down and release your rant ok?

second its our hobby and we play it during our spare time for fun so the amount of effort to it could be minimal cause again it is just a game.
that being said i do expect that at a proper level of content that does require certain amount of effort like raids,savages and extremes there should be a certain level of caring.
dungeons and normal trials are fairly low level of effort needed to clear them but i think we can agree there's minimal level and there is absolute 0 effort.
i believe your a person who will see a person under performing/making mistakes will offer him help and advice to improve him and make the gaming experience funner to him and everyone but if we do stumble upon a player that doesn't do anything on purpose(a.k.a leecher) you can always kick him from the party and if not we can always leave and join a different one with the ability to report them as well for ruining the experience.

i believe the OP is probably referring to those who care about big damage numbers and will first stomp at people and laugh at them cause they deemed them worthless because their numbers are a bit lower.
now i am sure most of the community(at least most people i met during my runs) aren't like that and probably used a parser during their runs to just improve themselves but as you mention the thread "share a DF story" and the venting going on does give the expression that those with parser judge and then laugh/dismiss you behind your back after the run was over which is essentially toxic.

as for my view on the point of this thread, i understand the OP point of view since i saw people complain not about the gameplay or mechanics of a job but rather about how much numbers the job does that the discussion of it reaches a point that on borderline obsession with it.
the only one who should care about a damage numbers professionally are DPS classes cause damage is their main thing to do and any discrepancy on it especially a wide gap leads to banning their jobs at parties for higher tier content.
the point of the OP ,i believe he is referring to those people who started taking those parser numbers to a level that it becomes worship and instead of using it to self improve, they start to use it as excuses or as the sole measurement of people and more importantly job and worse roles when that is simply not true(like you said your clemancy saved your party which is more important then damage).
i mean there's a thread about why tanks damage don't reach dps class damage levels, which their complain is seeing those numbers makes them feel bad for playing their role(which i find comparing between roles is really irrelevant) and that its ruining their enjoyment of the role which making you ask yourself why they do it then?

[Lersayil]

We get cynical and depressed about people being lazy, and stuff dying slowly. The parser just puts that into numbers. Also helps to direct your gaze of disapproval. Not that I would ever say anything anymore, since feedback is frequently ill received, no matter how polite or mildly / vaugely worded.

[Lambdafish]

I'm confused, is the OP talking about dungeons or savage? parsing in dungeons I can understand the point of this thread, but if it concerns savage then I'll answer simply with:

"Why do it? So that we as a group know how to beat Titan's enrage"

It's as simple as that.