Therin wrote:
I used a parser a lot in retail. While I could see they'd be useful I agree with Chase. We've been playing this game for 15 years now. If you can't figure out who is doing the most damage and how to optimize your buff uptime and melee DPS at this point a parser isn't going to help you.
In my opinion they're only useful really for HNMs, and especially for checking accuracy numbers (and even for resist percentages BLM). Parsers can be tricked somewhat in EXP (especially merit parties) by players who know how to game them. Switching targets before anyone else so you don't ever disengage, weaponskilling at 1% to add "health" to the mob whereas its better for the party to save TP, refusing to use Seigan, bitching at your mages for maximum buff uptime or to be first in the Haste order, purposely not Provoking off of your competition so they have to remove Berserk or waste time popping Third Eye, riding buffs longer than you should (especially Souleater) and getting yourself killed just for bragging rights, etc.
If you can't "feel" that you're doing good damage, chances are you're a long way from being truly optimized.
I've never used one on Nasomi and I don't think I would really care to have him devote time to adding one. It would be fun if we could have an in-game "MVP" message when an HNM dies for the player who did the most damage. No extra loot or reward, just a little bragging rights message. But this would probably offend support job players who would never get to see it. And then people would want "most cured" or other things and we'd end up with a cluttered lagfest of a chatbox when something important died.
Example:
Therin defeats Fafnir.
Wolffhardt was the battle's MVP by dealing the most damage to Fafnir.
Everyone voicing that their primary concern with parsing being that people will become terrible party members in order to be on the top of this third-party scoreboard is forcing me to rethink my stance that this is a non-existent/negligible problem. I appreciate everyone’s input, and did not realize that this was a more than uncommon occurrence.
However, I still stand by my thinking that it’s a net positive for the server, and believe that a “free server” would correct it self in the same manner that party members that have poor performance may find themselves receiving less party invites, just as players with poor party etiquette might receive less party invites. Because, the purpose of an exp party is to receive to optimum amount of exp/hr. If that end goal is achieved in lieu of some of the DD trying to attain top parse, I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. Like I said, if a player is trying to force other players to drop buffs so they reach that top spot, it’ll likely hurt exp/hr and ultimately this practice will be extremely unlikely because I think that the vast majority of players want their exp as fast as possible, not to be top parse.