So this game has dps checks but we can't talk about our dps in game?

[Colt47]

So much this! again its not about optimal dps. Its about everyone knowing the fight and making sure to do mechanics properly. This already causes enough drama llama on the community, I dont need to have people telling me "your damage sucks dude" thrown in when its really not the main issue with these fights.

Oh and my problem is being too obsessed with clearing p2s because I made it to 2% enrage, and have spent countless days now in "clear" groups, that are overconfident and end up proving everyone in the group needs practice, including the people who supposedly have it cleared and are coming back to help.

[LittleImp]

For what it's worth, I did enough practice runs of P1S/P2S to execute all the fight mechanics perfectly, and managed to squeeze out just enough DPS to avoid hitting enrage.

You avoided hitting enrage because someone else likely over-contributed to make up the difference. Tanks should be contributing anywhere from 4.8-5k+ at i580 generally.

Yet, my results could be much, much better despite me already clearing, and my only options right now for real-time evaluation is ACT, which I cannot get to work on my computer for the life of me, and even if I did, it's still a gray area at best, meaning the chances of getting a crackdown for it isn't exactly zero.

Fight execution on most jobs can be fully "solved" based on things like skillspeed, killtime and any downtime phases, and improving your percentile is just a matter of executing cleanly on that solution. Overall the game is much less dynamic than other MMOs, it almost turns into a rhythm game at the high-end. One of the best ways to get better at the game and find useful optimizations is to look at the timelines of players who rank in the top 10 on a given fight. Alternatively, some of the job channels in The Balance have fight-specific advice that can be helpful.

I know FFlogs is a thing, but it only seems to record performances after a clear of a certain boss, meaning that there's no way to know how your personal results were during a wipe, or when you're just wailing on a striking dummy. If there is a way to see that in FFlogs, I don't know how. I'm not good with these things. Regardless, SE should just give us an official in-game performance checker of sorts, so that I can finally have more real-time feedback of my performance without resorting to sketchy third-party tools that are technically still against ToS. If I get kicked from a party for not meeting their desired parses, oh well. To me, that's just a sign that I need to practice more, so I'll just get better until I'm good enough for said party. Or I'll make my own. No big deal. :/

FFLogs can track partial pulls, and dummy parses but they would need to be uploaded from a logfile generated via ACT. For someone who is just starting out, a log interpreter like XIVAnalysis can be okay for identifying broad mistakes, and can be used with logs other people have uploaded for you. For example it, in XIVAnalysis I can see that you have a tendency to significantly over-cap your blood gauge during phases with heavy mechanics (Channeling flow 2 and 3 in p2s).

[Lium]

I assume OP is talking about savage/ex content? Because there's no need for parsers in normal content. I would even go as far as saying this thread (and the many other weekly threads about parsers) are evidence to why we DON'T need them. Look at the toxicity it brings just in discussions.

[Kanella]

I assume OP is talking about savage/ex content? Because there's no need for parsers in normal content. I would even go as far as saying this thread (and the many other weekly threads about parsers) are evidence to why we DON'T need them. Look at the toxicity it brings just in discussions.

Think OP is talking about savage. Extremes have such a long enrage timer, if your seeing it multiple people mustve been fresh with a bunch of deaths or people afk mid run. Which doesnt require a parser to understand why you couldn't beat enrage.

P1S and P2S are similar in that regard having a low DPS check thus invalidating a parser. As long as your group is alive and is not taking multiple damage downs you should be able to clear without much need of a parser even with people who dont understand their class and people who play overally safe. It's only when you start getting into P3S + where the dps check becomes more demanding and the realization that not every clear party is capable of clearing the instance even with near "perfect play" (deathless no damage downs). Instances like this is why an ingame way to identify performance could be helpful, but given the state of the community the parser would the "source" of toxicity. Bad players will learn to blame the system for their inability to clear higher content. And any ingame criticism could be labeled as harassment depending on how the person perceives it.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Think OP is talking about savage. Extremes have such a long enrage timer, if your seeing it multiple people mustve been fresh with a bunch of deaths or people afk mid run. Which doesnt require a parser to understand why you couldn't beat enrage.

P1S and P2S are similar in that regard having a low DPS check thus invalidating a parser. As long as your group is alive and is not taking multiple damage downs you should be able to clear without much need of a parser even with people who dont understand their class and people who play overally safe. It's only when you start getting into P3S + where the dps check becomes more demanding and the realization that not every clear party is capable of clearing the instance even with near "perfect play" (deathless no damage downs). Instances like this is why an ingame way to identify performance could be helpful, but given the state of the community the parser would the "source" of toxicity. Bad players will learn to blame the system for their inability to clear higher content. And any ingame criticism could be labeled as harassment depending on how the person perceives it.

and at the end of the day, nobody wins. Its better to keep parsing as an outside game thing where the option is there for those who reeeeally care about dps performance. I heard SE doesnt actively go around searching for people who have that add-on as long as you dont bring it up anyway. Its fine the way it is.

[Rinhi]

I would even go as far as saying this thread (and the many other weekly threads about parsers) are evidence to why we DON'T need them. Look at the toxicity it brings just in discussions.

because some people shit themselves over and over at the mere mention of a parser, it means that it's a bad idea?

euphares said it perfectly

If the XIV commnuity really is one public meter away from becoming a cesspool, then it wasn't a very nice community to begin with and I think most people on this game need a reality check.

[Packetdancer]

The real truth about why savage is hard does not involve DPS, as I can illustrate with this nameless discussion...

"Okay, you're DPS is not the problem. The problem is you got 4 damage downs during p1s that I still have no idea how you managed to survive. Additionally, you also had to get rezzed twice during p2s because you tried to soul sow during Kampeos Harmaa for "big numbers", and then proceeded to get face planted into a wall by standing too close to an exploding Lalafellen white mage wearing a bright pink piggy suite so people would not miss seeing him. Don't worry, you just need more practice."

Nameless person: "Okay I'll go practice on the target dummy!"

There are times I wish that instead of the Hall of the Novice and Stone, Sea, Sky, we had something akin to the original Secret World's "Gatekeeper".

To explain a bit: in the original pre-reboot version of the Secret World, if you wanted to do Nightmare content (more or less TSW's equivalent to savage), there was an NPC entity called the Gatekeeper who would force you to complete a challenge first. The challenge always had to be done solo, and while it wasn't ever too complex, it definitely was less forgiving than the general non-Nightmare content.

The challenge could be tackled for DPS, Tank, or Healer. The DPS challenge required you to beat an enrage timer while also executing mechanics (some of which could one-shot you), including (if I recall correctly) ones that involved things like dealing with buffs on the boss or debuffs on yourself, not just ground AoEs and whatnot. I think the tank challenge required you to hold aggro to protect bystanders and withstand damage while executing mechanics, but as I hated tanking at the time I admit I never did that one.

The healer challenge -- which still amuses me to reflect back on -- gave you a party of NPC avatars the Gatekeeper created who were deliberately designed to be the worst sort of PUG. They would stand in the bad in the name of uptime, they would do mechanics completely wrong, etc. And as the healer, you had to keep these complete jackasses alive -- and of course you had do it it while also executing said mechanics correctly yourself, and (if I recall correctly, though I may be wrong on this) still doing enough damage to ensure you and the NPC Disaster Team could beat the Gatekeeper's enrage timer.

I don't know that FFXIV needs a Gatekeeper that you have to pass in order to queue into savage. But I do think something like that -- something that forced you to do more than just hit a stationary training dummy -- would be a far more valuable tool for self-improvement than what we have now. Like, you have to beat the calculated DPS check for this fight while also moving out of the bad, or keeping this obnoxious NPC alive, or whatever.

[TaleraRistain]

There are times I wish that instead of the Hall of the Novice and Stone, Sea, Sky, we had something akin to the original Secret World's "Gatekeeper".

To explain a bit: in the original pre-reboot version of the Secret World, if you wanted to do Nightmare content (more or less TSW's equivalent to savage), there was an NPC entity called the Gatekeeper who would force you to complete a challenge first. The challenge always had to be done solo, and while it wasn't ever too complex, it definitely was less forgiving than the general non-Nightmare content.

The challenge could be tackled for DPS, Tank, or Healer. The DPS challenge required you to beat an enrage timer while also executing mechanics (some of which could one-shot you), including (if I recall correctly) ones that involved things like dealing with buffs on the boss or debuffs on yourself, not just ground AoEs and whatnot. I think the tank challenge required you to hold aggro to protect bystanders and withstand damage while executing mechanics, but as I hated tanking at the time I admit I never did that one.

The healer challenge -- which still amuses me to reflect back on -- gave you a party of NPC avatars the Gatekeeper created who were deliberately designed to be the worst sort of PUG. They would stand in the bad in the name of uptime, they would do mechanics completely wrong, etc. And as the healer, you had to keep these complete jackasses alive -- and of course you had do it it while also executing said mechanics correctly yourself, and (if I recall correctly, though I may be wrong on this) still doing enough damage to ensure you and the NPC Disaster Team could beat the Gatekeeper's enrage timer.

I don't know that FFXIV needs a Gatekeeper that you have to pass in order to queue into savage. But I do think something like that -- something that forced you to do more than just hit a stationary training dummy -- would be a far more valuable tool for self-improvement than what we have now. Like, you have to beat the calculated DPS check for this fight while also moving out of the bad, or keeping this obnoxious NPC alive, or whatever.

That's a really great idea. And they've already been playing with 8 man Trusts so they could build on that structure.

It would also help quell the belief that Ronduwil mentions a couple comments past this that some people think the MSQ is preparing you for Savage and needs to be harder. But the MSQ is only preparing you for more MSQ. The extra work someone puts in prepares them for Extremes and Savage. Something like this I think would help make that distinction clearer. People would probably complain if it's too hard, but that's the point of the harder optional content. It's supposed to be a challenge.

[nighttimebunny]

I really hope this isn't about casual content.

[technole]

JP style of not meeting a DPS check tends to be not to call anyone out, abandon duty, and hopefully re-queue RF with better players.

Things like P3 savage tend to be fairly obvious when you are not meeting a check, someone constantly dying before birdies, coming in a late floor with i570 gear, etc.