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

[HyoMinPark]

I see a lot of people complain about tank DPS or other people's DPS, why look at others numbers? or even your own if you think SAM or Ninja or BRD or DNC or RDM are now ruined? I really fail to see how people are enjoying the game when they complain about how numbers are so low or that their numbers aren't high enough compared to other people. So really if looking that closely at numbers is hurting your enjoyment of the game, why do it? Does your numbers have to be X amount higher than someone else's for you to be having fun? I can understand running one for self improvement but it seems like this obsession over numbers is just ruining the game for people by causing them to be bitter and cynical.

A lot of people use parsers to judge their own self-improvement. I believe that this has been stated repeatedly in the past in the multitude of parser threads that appear on this forum. There’s nothing in this game that tells us how well or how poorly we are doing—unless we want to actually add up all those numbers in the Battle Log. And, let’s face it: no one wants to do that. So they run a program that automates the process.

In high-end settings, parsers can be used to determine where weak links may be, be it in healing or damage dealing. Coupled with FFLogs and XIV Analysis, further analysis can be done to see why things may not be as smooth as some think. FFLogs and XIV Analysis have to have a parser in order to provide a player with the rotational information they seek, so parsers, by extension of these applications, help players figure out where they may be making errors in their rotation/gameplay.

At an even higher end, parsers, repeated testing, and simulations are used to determine optimal rotations for every job. Those that take all of the time and effort required to acquire these numbers then publish them and rotations for the rest of the playerbase to follow.


Some people would like to see improvement, but, for whatever reason, may not be seeing it in their logs. There can be a myriad of reasons for this (e.g., lingering rotational issues, poor kill time, poor optimization with static/party members, job balance issues, etc.), but it can be disheartening to not see the improvement that you might be wishing for. And sometimes this isn’t the fault of the player. I main DNC—the lowest job in terms of aDPS—and it is a bit depressing to see myself, in a good run, rolling 11~12k while the BLM is pushing 17k. And let me tell you how awful it is to see DNC numbers synced down in UCoB, where I trade places with the WAR because DNC doesn’t have access to Flourish or Saber Dance at level 70, and those are two huge chucks of our personal damage.

But this discrepancy between myself and a BLM isn’t really a reflection of poor skill or play—it’s the sheer gap between my job and jobs at the higher end of the DPS food chain. And this can be said for any of the physical ranged right now, but for DNC especially, since parsers do not show rDPS and we get a big chuck of contribution through that. I notice higher numbers on BRD because BRD is mostly aDPS now—barely any rDPS. And it feels ridiculous sometimes, and I wish that parsers showed rDPS as well. Anyways, how else am I to continue to judge how I’m doing if I decided to close the program? Then I’d be completely in the dark, and I’m not sure being ignorant of my performance is any better than the 11~12k.

What makes me cynical isn’t necessarily the numbers I see. It’s the knowledge that the physical ranged are so imbalanced and undertuned compared to the rest of the DPS jobs that makes me bitter and cynical. And the lack of acknowledgement of that from the development team doesn’t help. We’ll see what 5.1 brings, but I’m not holding my breath for something substantial. For what it’s worth, seeing what they did to BRD and AST in ShB makes me just as cynical and depressed as knowing that my preferred role is basically limping its way through high-end settings.

[SerLuke]

To clarify I'm not taking about savage or extremes but people who put under's a microscope in daily casual content like roulette.