I would like to know how to do the following things without third party tools:These are a few things that I can recall off the top of my head. And I don't use this nonsense, so I obviously don't know the full scope of what someone can do with it.
- Use Fast Cast gear to reduce the casting time of spells that aren't already extremely long, like Raise, while also landing the spell in potency/etc gear. This one is very significant.
- Use obis and other situation-specific latent effect gear without having to create entire additional macro sets, books and equipsets for every possible combination.
- Have my macros operate differently depending on my subjob, my current HP, MP and TP, etc etc.
- Use more augmented items of a certain type than I have equip-compatible inventories, or store these items in the same inventory
- Switch more than 6 pieces of gear (realistically 3-5) more than once per second.
- Have my gear swap as expected when I accidentally press two macros too close together.
- Use /equipset in conjunction with /equip and not end up with flip-flop behaviour.
- Lock equipment slots so that I don't need entirely new, almost identical macro books for when I melee and when I don't, or when I use a capacity points cape and when I don't.
- Use Quickcast gear and also be sure I can land spells at full potency.
- Use a job to its full potential without locking myself out of doing the same for other jobs due to a lack of equipsets
- Equip sets with the right amount of haste or dual wield based on my buffs without having to dedicate entire macro pallets and equipset pages to each scenario
- Replicate a mode toggle function (another massive deal)
- Cast spells from the menu in appropriate gear instead of the macro bar in situations where the latter is struggling due to UI lag
- Cast spells using the console in time-sensitive contexts AND in the appropriate gear
- Automatically reapply non-overwritable buffs without manually cancelling them
Some of these things are a bigger deal than others. Some are huge. All of them present an advantage that tool users have over legitimate players.
I understand the appeal of referring to such things as "quality of life" when FFXI's UI struggles under the demands we place on it, but when those "QoL" features have a direct impact on someone's performance that grants them an advantage over others, that is cheating.
Ultimately I can't give you numbers because I don't use the tools I'd need to produce the numbers. But I don't see how it's possible for someone familiar with those tools to look at the list above and suggest that at least some, if not all, of those examples make their characters more capable. And this is just one tool.
Just look at the ubiquity of the terms "pre-cast" and "mid-cast" in all contexts where spells are involved, even ones like Cure. I can do a pre-cast for my Raise spells, certainly, but for Cure? Absolutely impossible. That means my Cure spells land in hybrid sets that have to cap fast cast as well as every other variable relevant to Cure - there's no way my cures will be as good. Same goes for nukes - I sacrifice casting time, or I sacrifice potency. Tool users get both.
And, to anticipate a response, this example of fast casting at full potency may seem trivial - it's only shaving off a little time per cast, right? - but all of these cheats need to be considered in the wider context of the game - what they actually enable. Black mages that are able to -ja down Omen mob packs and take nearly no damage / lose MP via manawall because their -ja are nearly instant and they auto-swap back into -DT gear almost instantly? I just can't do that.
Does that ever happen, though? I don't think I've ever seen someone who uses gearswap come to the official forums and ask that the things be made equal. After all, their friends already have the same advantages they have.Also: Yes, tool users may already have the functionality they want, but they can still encourage them to make that functionality available to everyone. Not everyone is so selfish.