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

[IdowhatIwant]

if you're playing with randos you have no room to complain unless they are literally incapable of playing or are intentionally playing wrong to troll. you want to hold people accountable via parsing? do it with a static.

No... I think randoms should be accountable. If you do not want to be accountable than do not join the group to do to content you do not want to be held accountable for. Some content requires X amount of DPS to complete. If you cannot contribute properly to that than do not join.

this shouldn't even be a discussion considering how a near-borderline obsession with both parsers and other addons was one of the contributors to particularly famous mmo's fall from grace. instead of helping improve players all parsing did was create a barrier to entry to anyone new, making it difficult if not sometimes impossible to find a group willing to help you learn mechanics. it made your in-game time more like a 2nd job where you'd need to provide references from old statics and logs of previous content you ran, all just to play a game. it got so bad that the devs incorrectly assumed that end-game, ultra-parsing content where you needed an addon to track your healing/damage and act as a digital GPS telling you what to do and where to go is what people wanted.

If you are referring to WoW, I did not die because of add ons. It died because the game had less content, more grinds, crappier lore, and devs that stopped caring. Same thing that will likely happen to this game over time as it already has started happening.

my personal beef with parsing is that it discouraged people from thinking on the fly and coming with novel or otherwise creative solutions to situations or mechanics that would ordinarily be glossed over for the sake of speed. parsing can make things smooth and consistent but it quickly becomes an issue the moment the party hits the slightest bump. learning to handle things organically (including helping other players) instead of following a script is overall more important to making a pleasant community where the majority is - at the very least - capable of clearing content instead of a select few.

A parser calculates DPS. It does not stop people from clearing content, people stop people from clearing content, or stop themselves in many cases as well. Having a calculator up does not control my reaction speed. Having a parser does not magically give me and my group a strategy got clearing. That being said this game is heavily scripted and after a couple runs of something you should be able to tell exactly what is coming up and when.

in MMOs there will be always people interested in the numbers, whether they be the equivalent of min-maxing powergamers from tabletop RPGs to people genuinely interested in statistics and the math behind it all. there will never be a way to stop parsers from logging and - as far as i am aware - the only methods that could detect parsers would be incredibly invasive anticheat system(s).

The point of an RPG is usually to progress, which involves some sort of care behind min-maxing, stat progression, and the mathematics behind it.

but despite my acceptance that parsers will always exist, i am in full support of discouraging usage of said parsers to gatekeep other players. you are free to treat the game as a job but you are not free to force other players to also treat it like one.

Well personally I don't want to treat the game as job, which is why I prefer to not play with players that are going to make my short time to attempt to clear content a waste of my short time. That being said, if you are joining a static or a raid group it essentially is like a job, you are making a mutual agreement with others to meet at x time and do x task for x amount of time to reach x goal. If you are not willing to do that, than don't.

there is nothing forcing you to remain in a group for any content that would require all 8 (or more) players to pull their weight as even the timeout is trivial at that point due to the fact that one usually would need to find another static which more often than not have a consistent schedule/day they play per week/month.

I don't know if I am following you here. Are you saying there is no reason to join a group where it is expecting that you pull your own weight? I attempt to pull my own weight in ever group and I expect the same out of those that join my group. PF, Static, What ever. If you don't want to play the game and pull your own weight than again don't do the content where these things are required.