Why people still USE ACT knowing their breaking TOS ??

[JanVanding]

I never even played that game, you're being a word I can't use here because it'll get me banned. You are being completely unreasonable and, frankly, a butt. You don't have the slightest idea WHAT gets passed on to the devs, if anything.

Former Bug Hunter for another company, I've an intimate knowledge of how the process works thanks.

When a Game Director says no, it's as good as the final word until a time when a new Director takes over/is appointed. Threads like this are typically ignored at large

The fact you're getting heated and want to call me names speaks volumes that they're right to keep that stance as your intentions are clearly not good ones.

[jameseoakes]

I never even played that game, you're being a word I can't use here because it'll get me banned. You are being completely unreasonable and, frankly, a butt. You don't have the slightest idea WHAT gets passed on to the devs, if anything.

We do have the devs stance on it they do seem pretty adamant about not wanting to introduce DPS calculation tools, I copied this from the official live letter translation

"However, calculating another player’s DPS and posting that information online to shame them is clearly harassment and warrants a penalty. That would be an issue even before we consider whether using tools is allowed or not. Additionally, we often receive requests for an official damage calculation tool, but we would never implement one. The reason for this is because it may become the root of many disputes within the community."

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...802-14-2020%29

[JanVanding]

There are few things more toxic then telling stop doing something they like just because they have a different view and vision of that thing then you. You preach about how Parsers make people toxic. I've got a different take: The person who sees toxicity everywhere should check their shoes.

Read above you, a kind gent linked the very directors letter where Square and YoshiP said never.

I'm simply only relaying that same opinion with the understanding of why. Earlier in this very thread I said Parsers themselves as tools can be indeed used for good, for self improvement and betterment, unfortunately there's too many that use them for bad.

I don't see everything as Toxic either, as a realist my opinion can often come over as a bit cold and uncompromising and I apologise if you construe it in a fashion other than that.

But the point stands, the Director and Square Enix themselves said "Never", that's as end of the line as it gets unfortunately.

For the record I'm honestly not opposed to a Parser that only allows you to see your own performance and data as that eliminates a large potential abuse factor as it would be a Parser used for it's intended function, self improvement.

It's seeing others Data where the problem for potential abuse comes in.

[TheRealQuah]

Years of case studies of parse tools show they are very often used poorly and for shaming and it's the "Don't ask, Don't tell" mentality that stops the majority of that behaviour for fear of reprisal.

If we had an official tool, the shaming behaviour would increase exponentially. I still remember the huge discussion about it in Rift, when Trion caved and put in an official parser, it immediately started being used for bad.

"Don't ask, Don't tell" and unsupported is how it should stay.

Parsing isn't toxic, people are. If ACT disappeared today, do you think that would stop assholes being assholes? Nope. People who use ACT to belittle people would carry on belittling people if it went away. That's a fact.

99% of people who parse are doing it for reasons which include personal improvement, optimization, fighting for spots on leader boards and only care about it in ex/savage/ultimate content.

Ironically, the other 1%, the people who parse you in a dungeon and call you out etc, are on the whole casual players who think they are hot shit.

Been playing this game since 2014, and yet to see a situation where someone is shaming others over parses. In 7000 hours.

[Hyperia]

Parsing isn't toxic, people are. If ACT disappeared today, do you think that would stop assholes being assholes? Nope. People who use ACT to belittle people would carry on belittling people if it went away. That's a fact.

My gripe is more with fflogs than ACT as people are always trying to race to the top. I’m not a fan of leaderboards like this. I do agree that the devs have worked themselves into this situation where DPS comes before anything else.

I wish they gave tanks and healers more things to do besides DPS but that’s all we have. I prefer to heal and not min-max dps to a perfect rotation as posted on the Balance Discord. As such, I gave up raiding savage and most extreme fights. I know I’m not a great DPS player so I removed myself from the equation. Yea it sucks, but that’s life.

[Mhaeric]

My gripe is more with fflogs than ACT as people are always trying to race to the top. I’m not a fan of leaderboards like this. I do agree that the devs have worked themselves into this situation where DPS comes before anything else.

As a heads up, fflogs is more than just a leaderboard. It has some pretty useful tools that ACT alone doesn't provide. E.g. The simplest one is the more useful adps and rdps numbers which are different than the number that ACT comes up with because they include or don't include some damage based on which buffs were in play and used by whom. A more advanced one is that you can watch the fight in real-time (minus graphics and telegraphs) to get an instant replay of sorts.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Pretty terrible examples honestly. None of those games you listed have anything remotely resembling strict enrage/DPS checks and that is why parsing is a thing in FFXIV. Wanna get rid of parsing? Then get rid of enrage timers and DPS checks. But that would basically trivialize everything so what would even be the point anymore?

Even then honestly you'd still have people wanting to do speedkills and those people will want parsers to help with their optimization so that might not even work.

Yet that's not what it's used for, and that's the main issue. The very fact that parsers and parse websites for FFXIV involuntarily parse others proves that. And games that do fully permit you to treat others like garbage over their parses like WoW have miserable communities with parties that constantly fall apart and despite the widespread use of it are still absolutely packed with horrible players, more so because they refuse to do mechanics if it means sacrificing 1% on a parse.

If you solely wanted it for your own use, and for the use of other like minded parsers, you would only need to parse yourself. If a dps check is 1000, you only need to check your own dps is 1000 and that of your premade who has all agreed to use it.

But again- that's not how the parsing system works, the website only lets you opt out but that means the vast majority of players who have no interest in being part of the parsing community, who often wouldn't even know about the website, are forced into it regardless. The thing is, it's never 'enough' for the parsing community to use this for self improvement and clearing premade content- if it were fflogs would purely be an opt in website solely used and solely with information on players who want to use it for self improvement. The reality is- most players don't care about it one way or another, at least until their sole experience with it is always some toxic player using it as an excuse to insult them, at which point of course people will hate it, and of course SE won't support it since it's been proven every single time that it breeds toxicity.

And despite this SE still lets you guys parse, they still let you use these tools, you guys have literally nothing to complain about if you genuinely want to use it for self improvement as you keep saying. Yet still this topic keeps coming up because SE isn't willing to let parsers openly name and shame or treat others like garbage- because that's really what this is about, SE is letting you use it in a non-toxic way, but people want to use it in a toxic way and are mad SE won't let you. If you truly, genuinely wanted to parse solely for non toxic reasons- well grats mate, you've won, you already have that, no reason for this to constantly be constantly complained about.

[Mhaeric]

If you solely wanted it for your own use, and for the use of other like minded parsers, you would only need to parse yourself.

This is not correct. Your parse number has no meaning whatsoever unless you can compare it to others to know where you stand. Every single instance has a different parse spread both as a whole (e.g. each fight in a raid tier has different dps values) and across jobs (i.e. monks are 3rd place in Idol of Darkness fight because of the huge hitbox and low movement needs, but 7th in Refulgence due to a higher movement requirement and severl boss jumps) so you can't even compare your own parses from one content to the next let alone judge how well you're doing without knowing how others are performing relative to you.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Which you'd have with others who want to parse- and if nobody else wants to parse that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the activity.

[Mhaeric]

Complaining that someone compiling publicly available numbers in an easier to digest format isn't a valid denouncement of it. Parsing doesn't provide any information to others that isn't already available to them. You'd do better to ask SE to allow you to turn off your damage numbers than complain that people are essentially spreadsheeting the numbers provided.