Parsers add replayability for casual players

[Clicked]

Lately I've found myself wondering why I bother running level cap content. Sure, it earns me better gear, but it's not like I can notice those incremental improvements without a parser. I'm on console so I can't even download one sneakily if I wanted to.

If I were into Savage/Extremes, you could make a case that I should care about my gear so that I can make those clears easier on my group. But I stopped doing PF content in Stormblood because it just causes me to burn out super fast. Regular content is pretty faceroll without great gear so my gear doesn't make or break my party.

So without any way to notice my improvement in normal content, why should I care about my item level? All I care is that I have the ilvl to enter content to get through the story and that's literally it. I don't even care to get my ilvl up for Endwalker since it'll all be available for Poetics in November anyway.

I know I don't need to have the best gear for my content. But having a parser, or even being given a grade at the end of a duty, would add so much replayability to end game content for me. I would keep working toward perfecting my gear because I could see the fruits of my labor.

Yeah I know, no one is forcing me to play level 80 stuff, I can level other jobs, there is side content, etc. Yeah I play other parts of the game. But I really wish I didn't feel like abandoning something the second it hits 80 because I've run out of goals for that job.

Please add parsers to your game SE. Casual console players would have more reason to play end game content. Item level is not fun to track. Output/throughput is!

[Provoke]

S.E. would lose valuable casuals to 1st Party Parsing. It'll NEVER happen.

[Sotaris]

S.E. would lose valuable casuals to 1st Party Parsing. It'll NEVER happen.

Why though? I seen so many poor discussion points on this so I'd be interested why you think this.
Personally I'd be happy with a client side parser, and what I mean by that is only you can see your numbers so no risk of in-game harrasement.

[DPZ2]

Personally I'd be happy with a client side parser, and what I mean by that is only you can see your numbers so no risk of in-game harrasement.

"Link to a screen-shot of your numbers, or you can't join this party. By the way, you'll need to have your gear inspected to ensure your iLevel is at least 30 above content requirement as well."

Followed by "This is bad. How did someone like you ever make level [60/70/80] !? Blacklisted".

[Based on conversations in WoW, where you could actually use a parser].

[Miracle_Diva]

"Link to a screen-shot of your numbers, or you can't join this party. By the way, you'll need to have your gear inspected to ensure your iLevel is at least 30 above content requirement as well."

Followed by "This is bad. How did someone like you ever make level [60/70/80] !? Blacklisted".

[Based on conversations in WoW, where you could actually use a parser].

If you can't join That party, join another one or make your own with your own rules. What is the problem here?

[DPZ2]

If you can't join That party, join another one or make your own with your own rules. What is the problem here?

I was being "polite" ... I'd be banned from the forums to relate actual conversations.

[Shurrikhan]

"Link to a screen-shot of your numbers, or you can't join this party. By the way, you'll need to have your gear inspected to ensure your iLevel is at least 30 above content requirement as well."

Followed by "This is bad. How did someone like you ever make level [60/70/80] !? Blacklisted".

[Based on conversations in WoW, where you could actually use a parser].

I'm guessing you haven't been on WoW in a while?

Any content prior to the latest expansion is level-scaled. However, the scaling is such that low levels are effectively, in their one- to three-button spam, supercharged as if benefiting from a level capped player's full toolkit's worth of cooldowns at all times. "Damn, you're putting out numbers like you're still level 10" would be a complement. Except, people don't really talk about numbers. They didn't much before, as they were useless without context, and they certainly don't now, as scaling has made them utterly useless for figuring out performance during leveling unless one is familiar with how much that spec can put out with X relative gear at Y level across Z number of enemies.

By the time you get to upper content, such as Mythic+ (which caps its rewards at level 15 but technically continues upwards indefinitely, and is presently nearing level 30 for the world's best groups), parses still play very little part except in informing tanks of safe pull sizes when working with PuGs. That aspects has been replaced, ultimately, with Raider IO, which is essentially a sum of dungeon difficulty levels cleared. If I want to see who to invite to my +10, I look for those who have timed at least an average of +9, which is what raider IO then tells me (though it's rather more lenient and granular than mere pass/fail checks). That's it. In difficult content, there is literally no way to replace someone anyways, and the parses are irrelevant outside of specific contexts of comp, tank style, party ambition, dungeon, difficulty, and affix, so you just go by what people have done so far.

Please don't take this as a wholesale defense of M+. There's a ton wrong with it, especially in terms of creating unnecessary points of conflict among players. But parsers at best form some manner of explanation for why someone left a failing group (e.g. repeatedly wiping to what should have been an easy boss or taking forever on would-be easy trash) after they'd already left it. They do not influence your joining a group (they've little correlation to success and are entirely falsifiable) and they do not influence your remaining in it (because you literally cannot be replaced anyways).

And for anything under M+ difficulty, your relative throughput scarcely matters.

Raids, meanwhile, are no more likely to check your logs until Mythic level than a Savage PuG would be here, and certainly will not accept, let alone require, a screenshot of your parses. (And, as mentioned before, fflogs (and warcraftlogs, for that matter) do not need live parsers to operate; they are a separate technical matter, even if they may share "parse culture".) Rather, they will simply look at your ilvl, whether you've completed at least up to the prior boss, and compare those two factors against competing candidates.

[Sotaris]

"Link to a screen-shot of your numbers, or you can't join this party. By the way, you'll need to have your gear inspected to ensure your iLevel is at least 30 above content requirement as well."

I wouldn't join that party, simple as that. Or making my own PF group. Also this type of scenario would be quite rare overall as people don't request your fflogs today for PF minus a scarce minority that I wouldn't be joining any how.

[ForteNightshade]

"Link to a screen-shot of your numbers, or you can't join this party. By the way, you'll need to have your gear inspected to ensure your iLevel is at least 30 above content requirement as well."

Why are you entitled to join someone else's party? They could put up "only catgirls in bikinis are allowed" and it's perfectly valid because they put up the PF.

Followed by "This is bad. How did someone like you ever make level [60/70/80] !? Blacklisted".

This is nonsense. Unlike you, I've actually been in parse parties or in PFs where people are clearly aiming for logs. They very rarely care about you beyond whether you met the PF requirements and are able to perform mechanics. If the party isn't up to snuff, they'll likely ditch without saying a word. Some random person they meet in PF will likely be forgotten within an hour unless they stand out in some specific way. In fact, Arthars and Xeno, two notorious streamers who are often cited as "bullies" have said as much. They don't remember you nor do they care beyond the moment you're failing a mechanic which wipes everyone else.

The idea people would suddenly start blacklisting you for poor gear is pointless fearmongering. Unless your gear is so bad, you can barely live an AoE.

[DPZ2]

The idea people would suddenly start blacklisting you for poor gear is pointless fearmongering. Unless your gear is so bad, you can barely live an AoE.

Not 'poor gear'. Not having gear that is at least 30 iLevels above that required for the content.

Meh, it was a thing. You apparently never lived through those days in WoW.