What is parsing?

[SwordswornFox]

It’s interesting how a majority of folk who have harsh opinions against parsers and their general use are people who have either no experience in higher tier content or people who have deep, deep gray parses to show off.

I don't do high end content and usually avoid the talk of parsing in threads. Been bullied in several games 'casual' content for poor numbers in a parse when I even flat out told people I'm learning content/class/etc. And that just turns me off of the whole thing.

I have no problem with people using it for personal improvement, just don't talk to me about it.

[Naaura]

I don't do high end content and usually avoid the talk of parsing in threads. Been bullied in several games 'casual' content for poor numbers in a parse when I even flat out told people I'm learning content/class/etc. And that just turns me off of the whole thing.

I have no problem with people using it for personal improvement, just don't talk to me about it.

I wonder what made parsing so popular in FFXIV. Surely lack of dps meters is to avoid bullying and gameplay compelling. And the increase demand in popularity is a result to off-FFXIV gamers such as WoW gamer's habits leaking into FFXIV? I hope not.
I understand the need for it, I am just concerned with the toxicity that gets generated from it :/

[Risvertasashi]

I wonder what made parsing so popular in FFXIV. Surely lack of dps meters is to avoid bullying and gameplay compelling. And the increase demand in popularity is a result to off-FFXIV gamers such as WoW gamer's habits leaking into FFXIV? I hope not.
I understand the need for it, I am just concerned with the toxicity that gets generated from it :/

FF14 has a lot of strict and difficult-to-meet DPS checks. In high end content, failing to meet the DPS check is one of the most common failure points, especially with pug/PF parties.

And it's relatively obvious when other mechanics fail - like if someone didn't stack for the stack marker, or a DPS ate a tankbuster, well, it's pretty obvious from the sudden loss of health and life.

When the boss enrages you know there isn't enough DPS. But if people are just good enough at their rotation to look competent, it isn't obvious exactly where the problem is unless you turn to third party tools. (And if someone just wants to know if they're doing their rotation right so they're not bringing down a group, that also isn't really discernable via the tools and feedback mechanisms available in game)

[Shurrikhan]

I wonder what made parsing so popular in FFXIV. Surely lack of dps meters is to avoid bullying and gameplay compelling. And the increase demand in popularity is a result to off-FFXIV gamers such as WoW gamer's habits leaking into FFXIV? I hope not.
I understand the need for it, I am just concerned with the toxicity that gets generated from it :/

Toxicity tends to be proportionate to the (A) need and (B) room for finger-pointing.

If you think not having convenient information on hand somehow denies people the room enough for tossing blame, you're in for a rude awakening. Suspicion with no shared grounds or frame of reference only deepens that area of toxicity.

The only "advantage" you get out of DADT policy in regards to parsing is people are discouraged from telling you what you did wrong and will instead kick you in silence.

The only "advantage" you'd get out of having no parsers whatsoever (an impossibility, but let us imagine) is you'd have to roll the dice far more often before getting a party who are actually sufficiently prepared for the content they've signed up for, as you'd be that much less able to cut only the chaff and thus be forced to simply disband outright.

Far more of this community's toxicity is resultant from the soft-exclusion of parsers (and the ways that has bled over to soft-bans on advice or constructive criticism and expectations of at least minimum competence) than from parsers themselves.

[Risvertasashi]

If you think not having convenient information on hand somehow denies people the room enough for tossing blame, you're in for a rude awakening. Suspicion with no shared grounds or frame of reference only deepens that area of toxicity.

Just to add on to this, I want to note that from time to time, you'll still see things like, say, a tank or party blaming a healer for not healing, when the tank took 500k damage and so obviously failed a mechanic.

But a healer that knows how to use death reports or other info available to themselves can defend themselves from this.

But but but, even still, some people just really want to be toxic, and will (in this example) blame the healer or whoever else anyways, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

By the way, I do hope I'm not giving an impression that FF14 is super toxic. Some parties are, but most I've been in have been polite, and helpful when someone messes up (though if someone gets upset at being corrected, that can go downhill...), and so on.

[HyoMinPark]

I wonder what made parsing so popular in FFXIV. Surely lack of dps meters is to avoid bullying and gameplay compelling. And the increase demand in popularity is a result to off-FFXIV gamers such as WoW gamer's habits leaking into FFXIV? I hope not.
I understand the need for it, I am just concerned with the toxicity that gets generated from it :/

Likely because current encounter design focuses on damage and not much else.

There’s no such thing as debuffing the bosses anymore. Main stat debuffs like old Rage of Halone’s STR down and Dragon Kick/OG Delirium’s INT down were removed going into 4.0. DoTs are slowly being consolidated where they aren’t being outright removed. Enmity management died with 5.0. Healing requirements outside of early progression are not that strict. Even in the hardest content in the game, healers don’t spend 50% of their time healing. Crowd control hasn’t been an active thing in forever. Nowadays you have the occasional interrupt in a fight that is a must, but they aren’t that common.

In terms of design, gimmicks are few and far between. Most are not hard to grasp. Encounters are incredibly scripted. Some fights have some randomness to things like debuffs your character can get, but mechanically, the fights never deviate. Occasionally, you’ll have X mechanic pattern before Y mechanic pattern, but that’s not a normal thing.

A lot of emphasis is placed on pure damage. The developers have removed many of the other nuances from combat.


As for toxicity and gameplay compelling, that exists with or without a parser. It’s not tied exclusively to parser usage. You see it all the time in casual content where parsers aren’t necessary (and likely aren’t being used at all) in in the “slow pulls” versus “wall-to-wall pulls”/“dungeon speedrun” arguments. Somewhere, someone is being “toxic” and “forcing a playstyle” onto another person. Usually it’s the people who want to do small pulls/not rush the dungeon that claim “toxic speed runners” are forcing them to go too fast, but not always. That’s just the more often seen scenario that gets posted here.

[Katie_Kitty]

I wonder what made parsing so popular in FFXIV. Surely lack of dps meters is to avoid bullying and gameplay compelling. And the increase demand in popularity is a result to off-FFXIV gamers such as WoW gamer's habits leaking into FFXIV? I hope not.
I understand the need for it, I am just concerned with the toxicity that gets generated from it :/

That's not even remotely correct.

The playerbase of this game has a huge problem, they treat WoW like some boogeyman that is the cause of all the game's problems. That's simply not the case. And, in any case, there's nothing toxic about parsing. I recommend forming your own opinions instead of simply adopting the irrational nonsense you get from the people in this game about parsing and WoW.

[Naaura]

That's not even remotely correct.

The playerbase of this game has a huge problem, they treat WoW like some boogeyman that is the cause of all the game's problems. That's simply not the case. And, in any case, there's nothing toxic about parsing. I recommend forming your own opinions instead of simply adopting the irrational nonsense you get from the people in this game about parsing and WoW.

I am aware, that's why I made a question because I am not entirely sure. But a lot of people I know who were ex-WoW gamers are obsessed with dps meters and foam that they cant have it in FFXIV. It's just a pattern I picked up and wondered if was the case.