Banned for Windower?

[Bubeeky]

While this guy is obviously trolling, his point is still valid. Even casting a Cure spell, you'd need more than 5 lines (on most jobs) to equip your maximum Cure Potency set. After that if you're casting any other spell without changing your gear sets you're not performing as well as you could be. The only spells I can think of that are acceptable to cast in Cure Potency gear besides Cure spells are statless spells (like a good amount of buffs, Dia (1/2/3) and so on) and only if you don't have Haste or Fast Cast gear for the applicable slots (perhaps -Enmity, -SIR, and Conserve MP to a lesser extent, but in most cases those stats are negligible and not worth carrying around extra gear for).

And forget using latent gear like Sorcerer's Ring, Medicine Ring, Minstrel's Ring and so on, or Elemental Obi's/Twilight Cape/Zodiac Ring.

Hell, even if by some miracle of chance you can get away with 5 lines of gearswaps in one macro and be performing at your best (read: extremely unlikely), you should still be hitting 2-3 macros per spell unless you're casting with literally no break between spells, in which case add the extra 1-2 macros at the very end, after the last spell you cast when you get a break. Why 2-3 (or an extra 1-2 at the end of spamming)? One for the spell itself, and then 1-2 after the spell completes to equip your idle set; Refresh/Regen/PDT/MDT/Movement gear (which should probably be more than 1-2 macros, but I'm willing to accept simply Refresh gear in a mages set). Some would argue that an extra macro at the beginning to equip Fast Cast gear should be included as well.

I don't care if you don't have access to windower/its plugins/its extended macro possibilities, Bubeeky, you are not performing as well as you could be.

And before you get all hostile, I'm not flaming you. I doubt we'll ever interact so your lack of striving for perfection really doesn't affect me. Even if we did interact in-game, I don't actually expect perfection of everyone, or anyone for that matter, except myself. I'm not saying you're a gimp for this, but if you think you are performing optimally or even adequately, you, sir, are extremely mistaken. Just the little bit above are clear and perfect examples of how you could better yourself if you so desired, all without the use of windower, and believe me, there are many more examples I didn't list because I'm aware that this post will go in one eye and out the other and be taken as an attack and likely responded to in kind or just outright ignored. People that argue and use the points you do rarely want to improve themselves and take any advice/recommendations/pointers as offense.

lol first I don't get hostile on a forum, no point to it

second, I always perform at my best...there's no point in pushing myself past the point where ppl are cured. What exactly is the point of using a useless second macro to macro in extra gear when I'm already curing for more hp than ppl have?

Anywho, u guys assume I don't gearswap...I have gear swaps on literally every macro, I just limit them to within the space provided in one macro. Every spell is optimized for what I need.

I don't take offense at anything ppl say here, but I hope that you guys don't look at someone that doesn't use windower and 45 macros as being gimp...plus, no need for the paragraph at the end hun, it helps to stop arguments and flaming if you try assuming that the person will be nice first

PS. I really don't care enough about the forums or any kind of online ego to continue a potential flame war or an examination of what ppl I'll never play with think of me so I'm ending my part in this thread, so good luck to all here and if u see me in game, say hi, blessed be to all

[Greatguardian]

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.] [/b]

Not defending anyone. Using a single 6-line macro for anything is pretty damn horrible and gimp. But it's not like your mule is any better. A gimp calling someone else gimp is going to get anyone's attention. Want to be taken seriously? Post under an account that doesn't suck.

Your safeface is almost Leroy level.

[Leonlionheart]

Would likely quit if Windower wasn't available. Sadly I feel the game is not worth playing without it's utility and convenience.

First page I know, but quoted for truth.

I've played for 7 years without it, and I now realize what a mistake that has been.

[Melodicya]

Hello Everyone!

A number of posts were made that were off the topic of this thread. Please try to keep to the topic at hand. Keep in mind that bringing up someone's gear in game will likely lead to an off topic discusison, and can derail a thread. Please also refrain from name calling and personal attacks, as these are also violations of the Forum Guidelines.

If there are any questions about the Forum Guidelines, they can be reviewed here:

FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines
http://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=20&la=1

Thank you for your understanding!

[Lollerblades]

Some people use it some poeple don't ... It's been around to long to ban now and SE would kill off quite a fair few of their players if they where to ban them ... They aint going to do that... if you dislike Windower then dont use it

[Aureus]

Some people use it some poeple don't ... It's been around to long to ban now and SE would kill off quite a fair few of their players if they where to ban them ... They aint going to do that... if you dislike Windower then dont use it

It's not only that; windower corrects some pretty fundamental flaws with the pc version of FFXI. Let's be blunt here, it's 2011, most people expect a MMORPG to have certain features (minimap, macros that don't suck, recast/status timers), and the fact that FFXI is lacking them is a major flaw. ToS aside, the GM staff and the dev team has to realize this on some level, which is why most third party applications are overlooked.

[Kari]

second, I always perform at my best...there's no point in pushing myself past the point where ppl are cured. What exactly is the point of using a useless second macro to macro in extra gear when I'm already curing for more hp than ppl have?

Look at it this way.
You may be performing at your best, and that may be fine for you, however, someone using Windower with SpellCast, will be outperforming you. Although it MIGHT be possible for you to perform that well, you'll be required to spam multiple macros for every action you make, whereas they only require the actions to be made.

Let's say your macros have you set up for Cure, with 50% Cure Potency.
And let's say that you're having a competition with someone who uses SpellCast.
This person is able to idle in their Refresh and -Damage Taken pieces. Before casting Cure, they auto-swap into a fastcast/cure cast time/etc set for maximum cast speed, maybe Haste or whatever else as well. In the middle of the cast, swapping to 50% Potency, AF3 +2 Body to enhance the Stoneskin effect, MND gear, etc. After casting, swapping back to the previously mentioned idle set.

Clearly, you'll be outperformed in this situation.
Does it matter? It highly depends on the situation. What you're fighting, party size, combined skill of the group, combined gear level of the group, etc.
In some cases, the advantage that person would have over you would be minor, or possibly unimportant.
However, in other cases, the advantage could mean the difference between keeping your group alive. Be it the casting speeds, the potency of your cures, the extra cureskin, MP management, whatever.

Not saying "switch to Windower or be forever gimp", just, those who use Windower properly will most definitely have an easier time performing to their maximum efficiency.

----

As for the general topic:
People comparing Salvage Bans to Windower are extremely off.
Salvage duping was something that a player of any game should be aware of the consequences to.
The amount of people who thought it was "okay" to abuse the exploit, are MUCH MUCH less than the amount of people using Windower. Just as well, this was back when FFXI had a fairly large amount of people still playing IIRC.

Banning EVERYONE who uses Windower, would be banning about 70% of PC users, give or take.
From there the game would most definitely slowly die.

[Alienmonkey]

Bless you for that post.

[Arcon]

Can't say I like where this thread is going. It's almost pomoting Windower. Windower is just a convenience tool, you don't need it to be good, you can still suck very bad without it. It doesn't even necessarily make it easier, but just that, more convenient. The best WHM I have ever known in the game never used it. Pressing three macros instead of one isn't any harder at all, just inconvenient to some small degree. but playing to maximum efficiency has very little to do with the amount of macros to press, but more about taking notice of stuff around you, making the right decisions as fast as possible, react to different circumstances as fast as you can and know what to do. Those things no third party tool will help you with.

The thing I'd say is most advantageous to Windower that others don't have is the Distance plugin, because that's the only thing you can't do efficiently without it. Sure, after years of playing you may be able to judge the distance better, but with differently sized mobs and elevated terrain or something, it will throw you off again. Apart from that, Windower is seriously just that, a convenience tool. I know many great players who never touched it and plenty of useless people who abuse it to no end.

[Greatguardian]

People can definitely still suck with Windower.

People can be good without Windower.

But no one, on any server, at any level, from any background, speaking any language, in any reality will ever be performing at their best without it.

Why? Windower makes good players better. And everyone will always have room to get better.