Parses

Anyone who've play long enough with me will know that I'm obsessed with collecting VW parse data. I collect parse data not just in battles I've fought, but also collect parse data if someone I know of was in a pt I wasn't in. Ganu and Ager often send me provenance parses before I even ask, even if I'm not in the pt.

One main reason why I'm obsessed with collecting data is probably because parse analyzes each player's capability and traits in the pt with numbers. Before I started collecting parse data, I never know each players can have such wide array of different trait in a MMO. If I'm in the pt, I was often too busy to observe. But after reading parse data, it gives clear idea of what kind of player each player is. Are you a player that only epeen with dmg and never proc? Or are you a player that always proc, and proc faster than everyone else? Do you die a lot in VW? Or you somehow always survived? Do you click macro fast enough? Or often fall behind in macro clicking speed? Do you often forget to pop temps and food? Do you WS on Pil and waste TP when shield is up? Do your DD just fall behind everyone else's in terms of dealing dmg? Or your DD always top the parse by a large margin, or somehow dealt more dmg than everyone expected your job to do? Are you a player that just focused more and make less mistake, or you make more mistake than everyone else?

After I started collecting parse data, I get to "know" many players on this server, which sometimes I find it interesting to observe. I guess, I'm just interested in the "software"(play style, traits) of each player, not just "hardware"(gears, jobs)

However, I often meet many player that is against VW parse, for various reasons, thus time to clarify.

1. If you parse, you see WARs spamming Ukko and don't proc.

This is No.1 excuse against parse. So let me say it this way, if you see a EV/HQ when enemy HP at 90% and don't proc, you're a retard. If parse is stopping you to proc, then you're a retard. It's not parse's fault that the player doesn't proc, it's player's fault.

But NQ proc isn't worth the effort if you're a DD, and if NM HP at 5%, and still 45 sec remaining on fana+ red capped, then it's not worth the effort to do HQ/EV when enemy is going to die in next 10 sec too.

2. Your dmg isn't important, getting your job done is more important.

But for majority of jobs in VW ally, doing dmg is also part of your job.

3. You can't do anything about it if parse shows someone's DD is gimp.

If that gimp DD is me, then I can try to fix it after reading the data. But if it's other pt member, it is true that if I'm not pt lead, or if pt already started fighting, I can't do anything about it. What I can do is next time I should avoid inviting that person as a DD on anything important.

The fact is, after I "know" each player, I can do a rough estimate on how fast this pt can deal dmg in set time frame, and estimate the success rate of this pt. For NMs like Provenance Watcher, it's best to kill it in under 2 min, if it last over 3.5 min the chance of wiping will increase quite a lot. And there are certain amount of dmg pt must do in 2 min if you want to kill it that fast. Same for B.rex, before weaken items added, if pt can't kill B.rex with 1 HQ proc, the chance of it becoming a drag and zombie fight will increase.

I also noticed, the player who parses often has stronger DD ability in VW, I believe it's mainly because player that parses are more willing to play aggressively and care about dmg output more. Since parse also shows human error and every mistake you make, those who parses are probably also focused more and makes less mistake.

For example, after I got parse data from Ganu, I noticed I made more mistake than he does: Higher death rate in VW, slower QD/WS speed and so on. This forced myself to focus more to improve my performance, revamp my macro(since I don't use spellcast/windower, macro is often one reason why I fall behind) and so on.

Before I started collecting parse data, I usually focus on the gear grind aspect to improve my job. Now I realized that gear doesn't mean everything.....I added new recast echo, added dusty wing macro, and dmg taken- set macro right beside WS macro, and started to spam macro button before WS animation goes off. Those aspect aren't something I cared about back then.


4. Why do you care?

Why do you care about having optimal output and focused this much for 1% difference? Why do you play MMO and avoid making mistake like a rl job? Why do you care at all, it's just a fucking game.

I guess it depends on your personal philosophy about playing a MMO. Personally I take COR very seriously and treat it like a real job, or a piece of art work even. I always ask myself "Are there any way to do better?", and never satisfy with my performance. I will never tell myself "You're doing good enough", I always tell myself "I can do better than this". The moment I tell myself I'm doing good enough, it will be the time I stopped improving.

Once I joined Someone else's Provenance pt, before enter dragon BC I rolled a No.9 chaos and No.6 fighter on DDs. Pt lead asked, "Is your roll ready?", I replied, "If you're ok with No.6". He said "sure". Then 1 member go afk for 1 min, I decided to use this time to try for better number. After he came back from afk, my pt already had No.11 No.10 buffs.

Honestly, getting No.6 or No.10 doesn't make very big difference in a 2.5 min fight. I'm not going to get any extra reward from doing this. Is it dumb to care this much in a MMORPG when you're not going to get paid or something?

Maybe it's just how I live with this job, I guess. The title of this blog is "A life of pirate", thus playing this job probably already became part of my life.

Sometimes I do feel frustrated, when I can't get certain gears, or when spellcast/windower users just WS/QD faster than me. Sometimes I wonder why it's this tiring to play a game. But the satisfaction it brought once I got my desired outcome is also unmatched. I guess that's the main reason to play MMO to begin with.

5. Parse is there to make other ppl feel bad and inferior, it's just there to boost your self-esteem.

Yes, it's right, parses are for elitist epeens, for satisfaction value. But so does playing this game and do everything else. I can argue that doing every event in this game, like VW, dyna, abby etc are for self-esteem and satisfaction value. You grind a gear like AF3/empy/relic/VW drop, you feel satisfied after you got it and made those who does't have the gear jelly, that's exactly the same thing as parse. You go help friend/lsmate to get their stuff done, you feel satisfied that you have the power to help ppl, that's exactly the same thing as parse too. The sole purpose of playing MMO, is already for self-esteem but nothing more.

And whether other player will feel bad and inferior, it's their problem. If they care about their performance, they will feel inferior. If they doesn't care, then they won't feel anything. The fact is, you can't stop someone from feeling inferior. Even if they don't feel inferior in MMO, maybe after they log off they will still feel inferior in certain area. The only way is to deal with it and get over it. You can't really stop any human being from feeling inferior tbh.