They Should Add An Official Damage Meter With One Condition

[CosmicCoqui]

You're ascribing morality to a tool. That's like saying 'knives are bad because someone killed someone with a knife'. Parsers are a tool. Full stop. They're a tool. They, themselves, are not good or bad.

What is good or bad is how they are used, and how they are moderated. Which is the real thing that needs to be considered.



You just described most of the 'bad use cases' - but those can be mitigated by messaging and moderation. Going back to the knife example... we don't allow people to bring sharpened knives to certain places because there's not a lot of justification for them in those places. We punish people for using knives in certain ways as a deterrent to keep people from abusing the tool.

Same thing with parsers. By having firm messaging about how you can and cannot use the parse tool, by designing the parse tool to be positioned appropriately(ie. with a focus on your own personal numbers rather than others) and by having rules with specific punishments to deter misuse... you can mitigate the negative impact of them.

You describe the worst case scenario as if it's impossible to prevent... but it IS preventable. Knowing that those are the 'worst case scenarios', the team can come up with solutions to mitigate them.

ex. If the team makes it clear that it is against the rules to press someone to show their parse and that such behaviour is punishable... they make it clear that you shouldn't do that. They could also add a 'report for parse abuse' option to the in-game reports that would submit the chatlog for review to make it easier to report... just as one possible option.

The tool itself is not bad. The tool is meant for people to self-evaluate to help themselves understand where they fit in the game and how well they're performing. It can be used for bad... but to believe we can't have a tool because it could be used for bad is a level of pessimism I'm not comfortable with.

Because it has been used for bad in other games that have built in parsers already. It's the reason why Yoshi does not want it here because he has seen it in other games. That last bit of your statement "we can't have a tool because it could be used for bad is a level of pessimism I'm not comfortable with" completely ignores that fact. It always leads to toxicity no matter what. With one being officially added, parse harassment would result in a few day suspension versus the current possible instant ban.

[Sebazy]

Because it has been used for bad in other games that have built in parsers already. It's the reason why Yoshi does not want it here because he has seen it in other games. That last bit of your statement "we can't have a tool because it could be used for bad is a level of pessimism I'm not comfortable with" completely ignores that fact. It always leads to toxicity no matter what. With one being officially added, parse harassment would result in a few day suspension versus the current possible instant ban.

It's every bit as likely that Yoshida doesn't want to implement it because the community will do a better job of it, for free?

And no, having a parse tool doesn't always lead to toxicity no matter what at all. That's simply stretching the truth far beyond reality. There are plenty of people that parse purely for their own ends across a wide variety of content and have no interest in saying a word about it outside of their own private circles and statics. Where's the toxicity in using it purely for self improvement and optimisation?

And again no, SE officially adding one has absolutely no bearing on what penalties would be thrown for harassment for a couple of different reasons. Remember that this game has an exceptionally hard stance on verbal harassment, if SE were to make it very clear that this isn't acceptable with the release of a parsing tool then the reality is that the status quo really wouldn't change. You don't need to use third party tools to get account strikes which will rapidly lead into an instant ban, simply copying and pasting lines of NPC dialogue or asking to be kicked from a duty is enough to achieve that. There's no reason for parser related abuse to be treated any differently unless SE explicitly chose to which is incredibly unlikely to happen. This isn't FFXI or WoW.

[Saraide]

It's every bit as likely that Yoshida doesn't want to implement it because the community will do a better job of it, for free?

And no, having a parse tool doesn't always lead to toxicity no matter what at all. That's simply stretching the truth far beyond reality. There are plenty of people that parse purely for their own ends across a wide variety of content and have no interest in saying a word about it outside of their own private circles and statics. Where's the toxicity in using it purely for self improvement and optimisation?

And again no, SE officially adding one has absolutely no bearing on what penalties would be thrown for harassment for a couple of different reasons. Remember that this game has an exceptionally hard stance on verbal harassment, if SE were to make it very clear that this isn't acceptable with the release of a parsing tool then the reality is that the status quo really wouldn't change. You don't need to use third party tools to get account strikes which will rapidly lead into an instant ban, simply copying and pasting lines of NPC dialogue or asking to be kicked from a duty is enough to achieve that. There's no reason for parser related abuse to be treated any differently unless SE explicitly chose to which is incredibly unlikely to happen. This isn't FFXI or WoW.

People forget that to notice someone performing very badly you often do not need a parser at all, you just need to look at what they are doing. And already it's not allowed to be a mean about it.