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

[Lium]

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.

I was just going to ask this. Is the Japanese community really pushing for parsers? I don't know because I've never played on a JP server.

[VerdeLuck]

I was just going to ask this. Is the Japanese community really pushing for parsers? I don't know because I've never played on a JP server.

JP mostly plays on console so I seriously doubt they can user parsers, much less want them.

[Mezzoforte]

Going to be frank, Savage is both amazing content and also the most questionable in terms of community health. It feels like a necessary thing to help justify crafting or pushing crafted high iLvL gear. The only reason I don't like it is due to the hard enrage feeling really artificial or out of place, which thankfully the game does away with by saying it's all in our characters head and not really part of the game world.

There's really only two ways to put a limit on a fight: Either a hard enrage that pulls the ground out from under the players, or finite resources at the players disposal to overcome the challenge. The latter would definitely be better than a dps check since typically a finite resource is accountable in the game world itself. It's very easy to tell if someone runs out of healing potions or if they run out of ammo. For DPS checks the only thing someone can do is check if people are getting damage downs or die repeatedly unless they have a tool to utilize for it. Plus even if someone did have a tool, the information needed to figure out why said person didn't perform can be a myriad of reasons.

Resource death isnt any different than an enrage. Resource death turns into the same finger pointing game because instead of seeing if the dps is high enough you gotta see if the dps per resource expended is high enough. Its the same problem and would require external tools to solve. Because the same idiot who cant do his 123 would be doing the same thing while healers are running out of mana.

[Ronduwil]

2. How can there be an in-game tutor if the devs themselves have no idea what that optimal rotation is? A parser isn't inherently a toxic or malicious tool, it just displays data from the combat log visually.

The devs know what it is. How do you think content gets balanced? The skills are deliberately designed with a rotation in mind. That's why most of your GCD skills trigger procs that boost the potency of the next GCD skill that was intended to be in the rotation. No one said the parser was inherently toxic or malicious. The malice is in the majority of players, and the parser is the ideal tool to bring it out. To quote YoshiP on ACT:

That system will be the root of bullying. I'm 100% confident in that... I know you'll see this in party finder: "Only join if you can prove DPS XXX amount." We never want that to happen. Sometimes you go in a dungeon after taking a break from the game. Your item level might not be as high as others' that have been playing. It just becomes like that. It's inevitable for people to start to crave efficiency. I personally don't enjoy games that are all based off efficiency.

I wholeheartedly agree with that.

And no, you don't need Discord for Extreme or Savages, a lot of players clear these through PF. Which is where the frustration comes from.

If you're not using Discord for Extreme or Savages, then prepare to be frustrated. It's common sense. You don't have to take frustration for your own mistake out on others who ignorantly joined a Savage group without realizing everything it entailed. We don't need a built-in addon to help you abuse players who are just trying to have a good time.

Normal raids and Alliance raids have DPS checks, hell even some dungeons have DPS checks. Its just apart of the game. And I've seen failure in all three. The problem isn't that its impossible to overcome terrible dps, the problem is that it happens at all for a very dumb reason. 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.

And those DPS checks are laughably low. I can count the number of times it's happened to me running duty finder content multiple times a day almost every day in the last year on one hand. Like I said earlier, those failures were, in every case, a result of players not even knowing mechanics. It's kind of hard to hit the DPS check with half the players in the raid are out of commission for half the duration of the DPS check. In every such case I've seen, explaining the mechanics so that we're not trying to clear the DPS check with 9 floor inspectors in tow solves the problem. I think you're the one in need of a reality check here.

[Ronduwil]

3. Everytime this topic comes up you guys like to project onto people who care about performance. If you don't care about how you perform when grouped with others, you aren't a casual, you're just negligent and selfish.

I'm not sure what you think I'm projecting on you. Some people simply don't have the reflexes, coordination, experience, or resources to perform at an optimal level. That's how it is. It's not a matter of being selfish. It's a matter of understanding that this is a video game, not a job. Unlike a job, there is no penalty for not meeting your numbers. I'll sleep fine knowing that we would have cleared that boss a few seconds sooner if only I had had my 20 year old self's reflexes. If you want to enter the world first race, join a world first guild, and go hard. Just don't expect everyone else to be like you.

If you are going to queue for group content that involves other random people and they're spending time to get the dungeon done, there is and should be an expectation to pull your weight and participate in an appropriate manner. That isn't hardcore or toxic, its just called being polite. If you fail to do this, you should be called out for it because anyone can meet this standard by just taking 10 minutes to think about their play.

I think we agree on that. I just think that there's a huge difference in expectations between us. As far as I'm concerned, if you're not AFKing and you're making an effort to learn and follow mechanics, you're doing your part. I don't think anyone is a jerk just because they're not performing like a world-first guild member.

The suggestion that someone can join a dungeon and just single-target/auto-attack their way through the entire thing, and that they're entitled to do so at the expense of three other people is quite frankly stupid as hell. If everyone played like that, things would be miserable.

I've never seen anyone single-target/auto-attack their way through content. Maybe because I don't use a parser. Your rage over this non-issue is precisely the reason they will never build a parser into the game. I play to the best of my ability, and I hope everyone else does the same. Yesterday I ran Cutter's Cry with three sprouts, and two of them were on the floor for three quarters of the chimera fight because they didn't know to get away from the ram abilities and get close for the dragon abilities, and neither the tank nor I could heal them. So in the end the tank and I two-manned the boss. Was I salty? Heck, no! It was the most fun I've had in a long time! The other two players learned something new, and they were grateful. I enjoyed my commendation and moved on. Not once did I think that the run would have been better if I had posted parser numbers every five minutes and used them to justify vote kicks.

[Packetdancer]

Yesterday I ran Cutter's Cry with three sprouts, and two of them were on the floor for three quarters of the chimera fight because they didn't know to get away from the ram abilities and get close for the dragon abilities, and neither the tank nor I could heal them. So in the end the tank and I two-manned the boss. Was I salty? Heck, no! It was the most fun I've had in a long time! The other two players learned something new, and they were grateful.

Brief digression, but I always like to give sprouts in there a tip that "RAM means SCRAM, while DRAGON means you should DRAG yourself IN close". I.e., Ram means "get the heck away", dragon means "go hug the chimera".

I have a color-based alternative mnemonic I can pull out as well -- "If it's violet, stay by it. If it's blue, better shoo!" -- but I prefer to teach "Ram means Scram" because there are about 8 billion chimera/garms/whatever in this game, and literally only the one in Cutter's Cry uses color-based toast notifications about eye color, while all of them -- including the one in Cutter's Cry -- use "Ram's Voice" and "Dragon's Voice" casts.

So "Ram means Scram" will serve them as a sufficient mnemonic through the entire rest of the game, rather than just that one chimera.

[Dewslam]

You can't talk about it because MMO players have brainworms that make them unable to talk about parsers without turning into shit flinging apes. Like, yeah if people are failing a DPS check and we can improve our rotation we can talk about it. But that's never how the conversation goes. More often than not you get someone, in the middle of a normal dungeon or alliance raid, screaming about how everyone else sucks because they're playing a level 45 monk suboptimally and telling them to kill themselves for it.

[RHarris1349]

I agree with you regarding the aggro-meter, let everyone be mad their multitude of third-party programs give wrong information.

The issue with parsers is they don’t take from the game-server, they take data from the client. THERE’S THE BIG HINT WHY PLAYERS DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR PARSER. ALSO IT’S A LITTLE CREEPY but maybe that last part is just me. Just comes off a little stalkerish, righ?

I think you’re doing it right, OP. People just want to defend their custom bs.

[RHarris1349]

As a console player, I'd like a way to check how well I was personally doing without having to join the random parse run in PF to check myself periodically. Dummy Testing only tells you so much after all.

Stone, Sea, Sky and a website. Find them. Do the timed test. Input the info. Viola. Easy peasy, just use the internet

[Sarevok_Thordin]

Stone, Sea, Sky and a website. Find them. Do the timed test. Input the info. Viola. Easy peasy, just use the internet

SSS won't throw mechanics at you.

I think the new ToS you can get in trouble for this as well.

People will get creative with it. You don't need anything special to see if someone isn't acting the way they should even doing their basics. For example, a Black Mage that casts Fire 4 very little without Thundercloud popping on them or Xeno being shown on the boss, a Dragoon that never pops Blood of the Dragon etc.

A difference of gameplay from the rest of the group shouldn't result in ToS action for a kick anyway.