Parsing? Drama? ToS? Solution!

[Eli85]

So, PS4 player here without a friend who feeds me information on my parsing. When I'm playing poorly, I know it. You do not need a parser to tell you that. You just know it.

So, yes, the game doesn't do a good job of pointing out that your DPS is mediocre, but players know when they are playing poorly, and still don't improve. All the Proving Grounds experiment did in WoW is highlight the larger subset of players who a) know they're playing poorly and b) do not have any desire to improve. You can communicate in the clearest possible terms that the player needs to do better, but these subsets will not improve because they do not want to.

Yes, the reality is sad and sobering, but it is what it is; and S-E, rightly so, doesn't want to force these players to quit, and any difficulty increase in non-end game content will do that. Other developers have admitted that, from their data, they find that when players hit an obstacle they can't overcome, they often play something else instead of trying to improve.

:| That's the western gaming audience for you.

[Liam_Harper]

So, PS4 player here without a friend who feeds me information on my parsing. When I'm playing poorly, I know it. You do not need a parser to tell you that. You just know it.

Surprisingly more untrue than you'd think.

This is something I learned back in SB when I got curious and checked fflogs for the first time to see if anyone had uploaded any of the EX runs I'd been pugging, so I could actually see my performance. Up to that point I'd always thought I'd been doing sufficiently well. I got most of my rotation right and sure I had to move away from the boss for mechanics but doesn't everyone? I geared correctly, looked up rotations online, beaten SSS and was fairly sure I was at least doing decently.

How was I really doing? Terribly. Grey parses. It was a bit of a shock, what was I doing wrong? It turns out that without any way to gauge performance over the last year or two, I'd become lenient. I wasn't pushing myself. Dodging mechanics while doing a great rotation at the same time seemed really hard so I assumed most players didn't get that perfect. I had no one to compare to, no standard to set for myself. All I had was assumptions, not solid facts and stats.

It was only after that, that I really started looking at how to raise my gameplay. I learned how vital uptime is, how to maximize it. I pushed my rotations until they became muscle memory. And in the end, while I'm not an incredible player, I improved significantly. And it even made me enjoy the game that much more, because I had goals to strive for and room to learn and improve.

But you just can't gauge performance accurately over a feeling.

[linay]

no standard to set for myself

Well, there is a standard: beat the fight before enrage with minimal deaths for a clear or no death for a farm.

[Eli85]

Surprisingly more untrue than you'd think.

This is something I learned back in SB when I got curious and checked fflogs for the first time to see if anyone had uploaded any of the EX runs I'd been pugging, so I could actually see my performance. Up to that point I'd always thought I'd been doing sufficiently well. I got most of my rotation right and sure I had to move away from the boss for mechanics but doesn't everyone? I geared correctly, looked up rotations online, beaten SSS and was fairly sure I was at least doing decently.

How was I really doing? Terribly. Grey parses. It was a bit of a shock, what was I doing wrong? It turns out that without any way to gauge performance over the last year or two, I'd become lenient. I wasn't pushing myself. Dodging mechanics while doing a great rotation at the same time seemed really hard so I assumed most players didn't get that perfect. I had no one to compare to, no standard to set for myself. All I had was assumptions, not solid facts and stats.

It was only after that, that I really started looking at how to raise my gameplay. I learned how vital uptime is, how to maximize it. I pushed my rotations until they became muscle memory. And in the end, while I'm not an incredible player, I improved significantly. And it even made me enjoy the game that much more, because I had goals to strive for and room to learn and improve.

But you just can't gauge performance accurately over a feeling.

This may be your experience, but it is not everyone's, and certainly not my own. On every job I play competitively, I research the optimal DPS rotation. I then master that rotation. When I'm doing a fight, I know when I'm doing that rotation well or poorly, ergo that feeling can inform if I'm doing good or bad.

Really easy.

[Hash_Browns]

This may be your experience, but it is not everyone's, and certainly not my own. On every job I play competitively, I research the optimal DPS rotation. I then master that rotation. When I'm doing a fight, I know when I'm doing that rotation well or poorly, ergo that feeling can inform if I'm doing good or bad.

Really easy.

Quick question then - how well do you think you do?

[Eli85]

Quick question then - how well do you think you do?

The answer has no relevance to the discussion at hand.

[Dogempire]

This may be your experience, but it is not everyone's, and certainly not my own. On every job I play competitively, I research the optimal DPS rotation. I then master that rotation. When I'm doing a fight, I know when I'm doing that rotation well or poorly, ergo that feeling can inform if I'm doing good or bad.

Really easy.

Honestly, you're probably not doing as well as you think you are. When you upload parses you either do better or worse than you think, it's pretty rare to guess close to the right percentage. Heck I've had fights where I felt like I did everything perfectly and ended up with a 66, and fights where I just felt like I was plodding along, going through the motions and trying to improvise but not really thinking I did notably well and end up with a 97 or 98.

You can know your rotation inside and out and think that since you did it perfectly you got a high parse, but that's not always the case.

[RagingStallion]

Honestly, you're probably not doing as well as you think you are. When you upload parses you either do better or worse than you think, it's pretty rare to guess close to the right percentage. Heck I've had fights where I felt like I did everything perfectly and ended up with a 66, and fights where I just felt like I was plodding along, going through the motions and trying to improvise but not really thinking I did notably well and end up with a 97 or 98.

You can know your rotation inside and out and think that since you did it perfectly you got a high parse, but that's not always the case.

if you're doing 97 dps right now you are not pressing your buttons

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Ahhh. Another 'get gud' solution post. The problem with your solution of further gaiting content behind instanced dummies and attempting inform players of underpeforming is that THERE IS NO OFFICIAL APPROVED SE WAY TO PLAY FFXIV. All of the optimized rotations that you can look up online were all developed BY PLAYERS. As far as the developers are concerned, if you que at the appropriate level/ilvl and do mash-button damage you will likely clear the content in the allotted time.

Savage/Extreme is the exception and the difficulty is it's own gate. Locking out people who want to try or learn by using level synced dummies (which already exist. See: Stone, Sky, Sea) do not prepare the player for the ridiculous mechanics that are prevalent throughout Savage level content. This is the equivalent to SE adding iLevel caps to leveling content. It's a bandaid. To ensure minium requirements are met. This will not improve anything. It will just ensure that people who might want to get into high-end have more hurdles to face than over-critical statics and salty pugs that kick you if you die.

What you really want is better pug groups. Because statics actually require proof of skill through FF logs or parsed runs and are very picky about who they accept. For regular content? Welcome to gaming with the general public. It ain't for snowflakes.

Expecting SE to further divide the skill gap is not only hilarious its also futile. But thanks for the post. I enjoyed it.