FFXIV's loot system's interaction with FFLOG is shrinking the pick-up group community

[FFXIVuseryo]

Okay so I have made threads about 3rd party software before. And I have also made threads about the accuracy of 3rd party software given the cryptic nature of FFXIV's combat log. This is not a thread about those issues. While I am against the use of 3rd party software that give advantage to some players over others; I don't know if they actively hurt the game (aside from bots). I use parsers in almost every mmorpg and I find them very useful. Parsers can help you achieve dps goals in raid teams which would otherwise be nearly impossible to do. I support 3rd party parsers as long as they are accurate. I used them all the time in other video games.

What has been bringing much grief to me lately (actually led me to uninstall FFXIV and take some time off) is the current nature of the FFXIV's loot system and how it interacts with FFlogs. Bots and all that crap did hurt the end game community but this is another level. So what am I talking about here? Basically in FFXIV you can clear a raid once and get loot from it once per week. If you have even just one person with a clear for the week; it halves the loot reward. If you have more than two? or was it just two? then you get no rewards and only the weekly tomes. No one wants people with clears in their weekly reclear raids. Weekly reclear raids make up a majority of raids in the party finder.


What does loot system have to do with FFlogs? majority of the FF players actually do not like parsing or care for it. Parsers I would say are around 20% or less of the hardcore end game community and probably less than 1% overall. So it's not easy to make parsing teams, and so most of the parsing players do pick-up teams. Here is where the problem comes in. The parsers need good luck with crit and direct hit to get a good parse. They also need good luck with mechanic combination. But they also want to actively avoid getting stuck with a clear when they are still trying to achieve a good parse for the select week. Party finder in FFXIV has a filter option which 99% of the weekly clear teams put up; called "Weekly reward unclaimed".

So what is going on is that 1 or 2 parsers end up joining each raid team. They then proceed to wipe the raid feigning a mistake every time they do not get a parse. First two to three wipes are "mb this happened" or "mb that happened". Then they feign a disconnect and either do not come back to the raid at all or come back hoping to resume their antics. At this point the entire raid is tired and so they start wiping each other and the group disbands. The situation is so bad that its very difficult to get a clear after early Tuesday mornings because you will get at least 1 or 2 of these gifted parsers in your team and they will wipe you repeatedly. I actually started kicking people with top parses who had mysterious wipes and my wipes were lessened. Most of these people are human filth with no regard for other people's mental well being or their fun. They only care about how they look in their rankings online.

So most teams are wiping, over and over. Spending hours wiping to content and people just don't want to raid anymore. Statics work but given the issues with scheduling and the current nature of our gaming culture; pugs are actually where most players clear content. No, this is not just greed. These people are not dying to stupid mistakes or greed. It is intentional active planned griefing. People can't clear raids anymore in party finder; they just log on to wipe so that one chosen person by the Gods can rise above the rest and show off their stupid yellow or pink color. Combined data centers made this problem worse and not better because 1) The parsers have more parties to hop between without arousing suspicion 2) Blacklists are actually capped and with this many players you can't really blacklist everyone.

So we have a game we love to raid in. Have devs who do their best making a good game. But an unintentional interaction between how the loot works and how parsing works and we have a pile of dung to roll in on a weekly basis. And I just don't feel like doing it anymore. This and a combination of other factors and honestly all I see are a handful of faces in party finder even after so many of the data centers were merged. And I am starting to see why that is.


Edit: One hour clears extending to four hour clears extending to 20 hour no-clears (and an unsub) is not a small or hyperspecific issue, some people play FF for the endgame and for them this is incredibly unpleasant and furstrating. I am not going to log-in every week and throw 20 hours of my life into the toilet so some chosen one can wipe us repeatedly looking to get high enough crit rate for their pretty pink color

Edit: some people claimed in this thread that no one parses in pugs and that parsing is not possible in pugs. I provided evidence that it is very common and general knowledge. There is actually very little difference between a reclear pug and a parse pug aside from the loot reduction and the time it takes to fill a reclear party vs a parse pug

[Nalam the Venom]

Why post it here tho?

Surely you get more traction and discussion on the FF14 reddit or their official forums.

Seems like a waste of effort to post this wall of text here even if it is an important issue

[Calfredd]

Why post it here tho?

Surely you get more traction and discussion on the FF14 reddit or their official forums.

Seems like a waste of effort to post this wall of text here even if it is an important issue

He could always post it on his blog with his other post.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This highlights one of my primary issues with the way FFXIV savage boss battles are designed: everyone has to execute the fight perfectly, or else it's a wipe. One person botching a mechanic or being an inch off or a split second too late leads to other players taking massive damage. Even if they are not killed you are faced with a huge DPS loss (either because of the death or the 1 minute DPS debuff) which means you won't beat enrage so you mind as well just reset now. 7 people can do everything right and still get screwed because of one person's mistake. Wiping over and over for 2 hours and not making progress because of one mistake is not fun, and those repair bills add up, so you either have to engage in RMT or perform hours of tedious daily roulettes to pay them off. This is supposed to be entertainment, not a second job. Compare that to WoW, where in any given fight there are maybe 1 or 2 players whose single mistake can cause the raid to fail. The entire raid team does not have to be a perfect human being.

- - - Updated - - -

Why post it here tho?

Surely you get more traction and discussion on the FF14 reddit or their official forums.

Seems like a waste of effort to post this wall of text here even if it is an important issue

The official forums and the main subreddit are echochambers of hardcore ff14 cultists who only want feel good thoughts. You will be hard pressed to find criticism of the game there that isn't buried by downvotes, deleted by moderators, or gets drive by "well if you dont like it you can unsub" comments.

[Calfredd]

The official forums and the main subreddit are echochambers of hardcore ff14 cultists who only want feel good thoughts. You will be hard pressed to find criticism of the game there that isn't buried by downvotes, deleted by moderators, or gets drive by "well if you dont like it you can unsub" comments.

Bit hard to take you seriously when you hate everything that isn't a Trials Of game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Bit hard to take you seriously when you hate everything that isn't a Trials Of game.

Oh? You frequent the Trails thread? Then you probably saw my big posts ripping apart CS3 and the Crossbell games. I wouldn't be pointing out the flaws in the games I play unless I wanted them to be better. Nothing will change unless you speak up.

[FFXIVuseryo]

Why post it here tho?

Surely you get more traction and discussion on the FF14 reddit or their official forums.

Seems like a waste of effort to post this wall of text here even if it is an important issue

I don't post so much to gain traction but to see what other people think of my thoughts and feelings. I find the community here to be more introspective. So in that regard I do not see it as wasted effort. Also I'd like the community here to grow and possibly compete with the two outlets you mentioned in your post. And as a user already mentioned they both behave (and actually are) like hive-mind pseudo-advertisement platforms. Another reason is that I secretly suspect some top devs in FF to be reading these forums because I have seen them make the changes I demanded of them =) so there is that lol (primary reason). This forum has class.

[Granyala]

I seriously doubt the validity of your claims, OP.

People hunting for top parses want CONTROLLED conditions.
Joining PuGs is the complete opposite, getting top parses is virtually impossible due to far too many baddies dragging out the run.

Getting top parses mandates (on top of getting good crit / DHit RNG):
- perfect buff/debuff synchonization
- everyone dealing very good damage, resulting in short fights and higher buff uptime %
- obviously: everyone doing mechanics perfectly

Good luck finding that in a PuG. :'D

I do agree with you on one point though: it is lame design to punish the entire raid just because one dude already got loot, which makes it impossible to help on re-clears.
They should change that so everyone gets one personal shot at loot but does not influence the groups.

My guess is: they set it up that way, so the bleeding edge top end cannot do split runs as effectively.

[Arlette]

This thread has everything emblematic of this FF14 subforum.

Somebody inventing a problem that they probably personally ran into once, if at all, and extrapolating it to some big, game-breaking issue.

AND

You have Val coming in and shitting all over the game as usual in the most absurd over exaggerations possible in every possible aspect. And then whine about cultists or some shit because their exact same exaggerative, performative, bullshit gets pushback in places and they can't just barf out garbage and not get moderated for doing it like this website.

[FFXIVuseryo]

I seriously doubt the validity of your claims, OP.

People hunting for top parses want CONTROLLED conditions.
Joining PuGs is the complete opposite, getting top parses is virtually impossible due to far too many baddies dragging out the run.

Getting top parses mandates (on top of getting good crit / DHit RNG):
- perfect buff/debuff synchonization
- everyone dealing very good damage, resulting in short fights and higher buff uptime %
- obviously: everyone doing mechanics perfectly

Good luck finding that in a PuG. :'D

I do agree with you on one point though: it is lame design to punish the entire raid just because one dude already got loot, which makes it impossible to help on re-clears.
They should change that so everyone gets one personal shot at loot but does not influence the groups.

My guess is: they set it up that way, so the bleeding edge top end cannot do split runs as effectively.

Hello there. If you must insist I can provide proof tomorrow though this is common knowledge.

But terms like "Wipe if we get dog first" are common. People also say things like "barse" and "purse" to indicate speed runs without actually triggering the wrath of GMs. Though most of these groups don't fill because only 20% or so of the players are interested in parsing in pugs. The number is high enough though to lead to an endless cycle of spiteful wipes "resets" because the parse players just start joining reclear teams and resetting them repeatedly. It is common knowledge but at day time tomorrow I can easily take screenshots and post them, my sub still has time on it.

[Ghost of Cow]

This thread has everything emblematic of this FF14 subforum.

Somebody inventing a problem that they probably personally ran into once, if at all, and extrapolating it to some big, game-breaking issue.

AND

You have Val coming in and shitting all over the game as usual in the most absurd over exaggerations possible in every possible aspect. And then whine about cultists or some shit because their exact same exaggerative, performative, bullshit gets pushback in places and they can't just barf out garbage and not get moderated for doing it like this website.

But the thing Val is talking about is usually used as a talking point in support of the game. "So much personal responsibility!" and such.

So hey, I would have thought people would be happy about it!

[Granyala]

It is common knowledge

Apparently not, lol.

Fishing for parses in random groups that aren't created for parsing is asinine as it is, wiping on purpose is an actionable offense of griefing:
GMs can very well see if he died intentionally or not, heck after the first time, even the group can do it, especially if they have a live log running.

So I really do not believe you that this is a widespread problem causing the extinction of the PuG scene. Besides, this may vary from region to region an server to server.

- - - Updated - - -

But the thing Val is talking about is usually used as a talking point in support of the game. "So much personal responsibility!" and such.

So hey, I would have thought people would be happy about it!

Val would stop posting if everyone just ignores him.
Just sayin.

Heck, even I know he has a hate-boner for the game by now. :'D

[Zoibert the Bear]

Parse groups are usually labelled PARSE GROUP, because what parsers look for is a like-minded group of people that know how to properly align party buffs and are willing to wipe and re-run the fight as many times are needed for the perfect mechanich RNG. Your middle of the pack clear party will usually not provide that, and if anyone attempting to parse pink is there, they will probably never manage to do it in the first place.

[FFXIVuseryo]

You can get away from barsers joining your group whom have already cleared:



If you've cleared for the week, you can't join groups with this, you also get a warning someone has cleared if they sneak in somehow too.

Joining parse parties then complaining that you aren't getting both loot chests is on you my dude.

You put in the effort to upload a screenshot. Then why not at least read my post before responding to it?

Parse groups are usually labelled PARSE GROUP, because what parsers look for is a like-minded group of people that know how to properly align party buffs and are willing to wipe and re-run the fight as many times are needed for the perfect mechanich RNG. Your middle of the pack clear party will usually not provide that, and if anyone attempting to parse pink is there, they will probably never manage to do it in the first place.

I already stated this but parse groups rarely fill in party finder. Though many people do honestly try to fill them and pull them off the ground. I have seen people hit pink in non-parsing pugs but have seen a 100 rank too. I can post it but I prefer not to link 3rd party stuff out here honestly. There is only 2 to 3 buffs to sync anymore in the game; it is not what it used to be. Many of the buffs are 3 to 5% potency so the potency is pretty nerfed too. Majority of the ranking comes from crit and dhit rng. Kill times don't need to be optimal because the parsers stop counting the fight past a certain point. But you are right that it is unwise and downright stupid to parse in a team that are not there to parse.

But people are greedy, selfish and stupid so they hijack teams for their ill-intentions all the time. They don't want to wait 6-7 hours to eventually fill a parse group. It is just like real life where you have several million people committing crime every year and ending up in prison. If no one stops them and puts them in prison then they will keep doing it because that's just how a large number of human beings are. And that is what is happening right now. Most of these players aim for purple and orange they aren't gearing for pink or yellow; though I have seen an incredibly large number of wipes from people that are stuck at orange.

[Ludek]

This highlights one of my primary issues with the way FFXIV savage boss battles are designed: everyone has to execute the fight perfectly, or else it's a wipe. One person botching a mechanic or being an inch off or a split second too late leads to other players taking massive damage. Even if they are not killed you are faced with a huge DPS loss (either because of the death or the 1 minute DPS debuff) which means you won't beat enrage so you mind as well just reset now. 7 people can do everything right and still get screwed because of one person's mistake. Wiping over and over for 2 hours and not making progress because of one mistake is not fun, and those repair bills add up, so you either have to engage in RMT or perform hours of tedious daily roulettes to pay them off. This is supposed to be entertainment, not a second job. Compare that to WoW, where in any given fight there are maybe 1 or 2 players whose single mistake can cause the raid to fail. The entire raid team does not have to be a perfect human being.

For me that design work on a very first kill of each boss - you get very nice feeling of satisfaction once your group finally does the dance, everything clicks and boss dies clean - great experience, would not do that again.

On reclears it sucks hard, yes in theory you know the entire fight already, but many times someone just will stay 2 pixels off his designated spot and wipe the fight 7 minutes in so you need to slog through all the mechanics again.

This type of design also make gearing totally meaningless - yes items are just stat sticks here, but in other games you at least see your power grows with better stat sticks. Gear is just to pass mandatory healing/dps checks, nothing more. Here difference between killing boss is crafted gear vs full BIS is 2-3 mins max.
You will maybe skip last couple of mechanics (which in most cases are just repeats of the early easy stuff so people can ramp up before enrage), but then you still need to go through all the hard parts which you cannot cheese due to one shots or too many damage downs afterwards.

[Ghost of Cow]

I don't understand this idea of people joining random groups to try to parse. The entire point of trying to parse is that you need a group that's built for it and is playing very specifically/optimally with that in mind.

[FFXIVuseryo]

I did; it was filled with false equivalencies and believing there are correlations where there are none. If you are upset you are not getting both loot chests, that is solved. If you aren't getting parse groups filled, that might have more to do with people avoiding your groups (even the small groups on OCE fill here, and I have no issues getting into groups). If people are greeding and making your reclears take longer, kick them and replace. You can solve all these issues yourself.

You still have not read my post.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't understand this idea of people joining random groups to try to parse. The entire point of trying to parse is that you need a group that's built for it and is playing very specifically/optimally with that in mind.

Yeah it's stupid but given the 2-3 raid buffs we have anymore (all of which are on 2 min cds), pugs don't have issues lining up buffs. It's actually a complaint by the hardcore speedrunners that square enix made it too easy by putting most cds on a 2 min or 1 min timer.

- - - Updated - - -

I will say this once. Because I do not want to go off-topic and derail the discussion. But I recommend people respect the sanctity of this forum by either addressing people's comments or arguments directly, or leaving them alone. Hurling personal insults and ganging up on people is not only a bad look; it actually proves my point correct. I am referring to how some of the posters responded to Val. If members of a community are willing to attack people personally instead of arguing or discussing their beliefs, then it is very likely that these are the people who would wipe people for parses in raids that are set up for weekly clears. People unfortunately do not always respect the goals of channels, forums and party finder teams; requiring that the game devs take extra step to protect users from spiteful behavior and griefing. All I want is for the game to grow and prosper. And it has the potential. But not the way things are going, party finder has been basically dead past tuesdays and the devs really need to take a look at some of these problems and try solving them sooner rather than later

[Femininity]

Totally a non-issue.

[zealo]

This highlights one of my primary issues with the way FFXIV savage boss battles are designed: everyone has to execute the fight perfectly, or else it's a wipe. One person botching a mechanic or being an inch off or a split second too late leads to other players taking massive damage. Even if they are not killed you are faced with a huge DPS loss (either because of the death or the 1 minute DPS debuff) which means you won't beat enrage so you mind as well just reset now. 7 people can do everything right and still get screwed because of one person's mistake. Wiping over and over for 2 hours and not making progress because of one mistake is not fun, and those repair bills add up, so you either have to engage in RMT or perform hours of tedious daily roulettes to pay them off. This is supposed to be entertainment, not a second job. Compare that to WoW, where in any given fight there are maybe 1 or 2 players whose single mistake can cause the raid to fail. The entire raid team does not have to be a perfect human being.

- - - Updated - - -



The official forums and the main subreddit are echochambers of hardcore ff14 cultists who only want feel good thoughts. You will be hard pressed to find criticism of the game there that isn't buried by downvotes, deleted by moderators, or gets drive by "well if you dont like it you can unsub" comments.

That you think the official forums doesn't have it in them to shit hard on the game just tells me you haven't actually spent much if any time at all there.

[Maljinwo]

The fuck's a FFLOG