Quote Originally Posted by SeiyaSoiya View Post
I'm curious as to why you consider parsing a chore and a hamster wheel, isn't parsing something you should do for your own self improvement and on your own volition?
Not necessarily talking about you in particular, I see this sentiment to be all too common: parsing is an obligation and something you MUST do to prove to some strangers that you are good at the gamr, even though there has been no recorded ingame instance of people judging you on your parses.
Is it really self-improvement when:

1) There is always new content to clear, which you may not enjoy for having a different difficulty curve, or being more of the same, or having aesthetics/mechanics you don't really like? Off the top of my head, the unskippable cutscenes in certain trials would be very off-putting to older players.
2) Your own main jobs are constantly being reworked: your role diminished/diluted, your ability choice removed, and your rotations gutted? Perhaps you don't want to keep re-learning a job when it will just change again, and often in a less fun way.
3) You have a real life and can discover other interests that translate more directly to benefitting you IRL? Video game burnout is a process that eventually happens to everyone because it is a fairly parasitic pasttime, and that is even allowing for intentionally channeling it in pro-social ways.

All three points just reflect how long the game has been around, and how eventually the divide between various "eras" creates more casual/nostalgic interest in franchise vets. Happens across all media.

And, btw, if it helps categorize my opinion, I am decidedly in the camp of not caring about parsing. I don't have the time or interest in joining a static, and I actually enjoy casual matchups in DF/PF. Not to mention the whole thing feels like a waste of time to me if I'm not ultimately monetizing all those hours sunk into the game, be it through streaming or competitive play. I'm not great--I have really on point days and some faffs, oftentimes related to party communication--but the way I play, I don't need to be.