Best part of a new patch? Third party tools not working.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

How many Mods/Plugins/Tools were made for Raiding vs anything Non-Raiding? Isn't like 95% of the game like not Raiding content?

• Body/Hair/Tattoo-mods
• NSFW anything

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Nah, pretty sure mods for going futa is solely a raid buff and would only ever be used by raiders.

...raiders of what, you may ask?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It's essentially just a matter of adding an extra button per combo that one could then place at will.

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Mm... yes and no. The issue is that given how the hotbars work, it would likely have to be a second copy of the entire combo... or you would need a sort of hotbar action abstraction system (which I suspect is how the mod that consolidates combos in PvE likely works).

The latter would be the better approach, honestly. Especially because you could then functionally make it a 'build your own combo' system; instead of "here is a pre-made button that is your entire chain", you would just have a little hotbar-like list you could drag actions onto, then you'd drag the icon for that list onto a hotbar. Each time you pressed the button, it would send the current action, and advance one step.

For those who just want their 1-2-3 on a single button, that handles it easily. From an accessibility standpoint, it wins for flexibility because someone could put a mix of GCD and oGCD into a single button. For instance, someone could make a combo button that was (to use SGE as an example) "Eukrasia" followed by "Prognosis", and then they could just hit that button twice quickly to do Eukrasian Prognosis.

I've mentioned this in other threads touching on accessibility, but back in the WildStar closed beta I had a dear friend who had severe nerve damage to his hands from his time in the military. He could barely type coherently when his hands seized up, and hitting any sort of precision button combo was... let's just go with "a non-starter" at those times. The solution I came up with for him was something sort of like what I describe above: I wrote a tool that let him create those sort of combos, and then bind it to like... 6-9 different keys. So, for instance, he might have an attack rotation in a combo cycle that was bound to `, 1, 2, 3, and q. Then as long as he hit that general area of the keyboard -- which was doable even when his hands were seizing up -- he'd do the action he meant to. And there was a keybinding to toggle that mode on and off, so he could also (try) to type normal text in the chatbox.

Unfortunately, he passed away due to pneumonia before I finished the project, and I lost heart and handed the code off to someone else. (Get your flu shots!)

But if we want to approach the PvP-style combos in PvE as an accessibility thing, I think I'd rather do it more like that -- a more open-ended system, that can address more use cases -- than simply consolidating the 'stock combos' each into a single cycling key. Especially since that solution would allow people both to do the consolidated combos or to leave the actions split across multiple separate keys, as best suited their taste.

(Sorry, accessibility is a thing I have come to take very, very seriously in game design.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Nah, pretty sure mods for going futa is solely a raid buff and would only ever be used by raiders.

...raiders of what, you may ask?

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Twitch is a 3rd party tool uh-huh. Lets condemn Streamers as well for ... Streaming!! obviously

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Twitch is a 3rd party tool uh-huh. Lets condemn Streamers as well for ... Streaming!! obviously

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https://media.giphy.com/media/ls4p6m...ized-large.gif


(I kid. Streamers are fine.)

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Square knows however the potential loss of players if Plugins are completely denied by making something that detects Plugins. It's best for Square to update and improve the game that makes a lot of the plugins unnecessary by default.

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I don't write mods for FFXIV for a variety of reasons (save general-purpose game-agnostic shaders that have been folded into GShade)... but for games where I have been a mod author, I have usually said that my "victory condition" for a given mod is "the devs realize this is useful enough / improves things enough that they fold the feature into the game and I no longer have to maintain it."

I would not be shocked if many of the FFXIV mod authors had that same mindset.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

As soon as SE solved the rampant RMT advertisement problem by disabling the ability for free trial accounts to whisper and mail by late Stormblood, Guildwork was basically no longer necessary, so its creator opted to stop updating it.

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Not quite true. The developer got a job at Discord and didn't have the time to dedicate to Guildwork anymore.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Stop being a slave to politics.

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That's such a Gamer thing to say.

Just posting here for my daily dose of drama.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Nah, pretty sure mods for going futa is solely a raid buff and would only ever be used by raiders.

...raiders of what, you may ask?

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The Lost Ark ;D because they're in for some booty

...

I'll stop.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Knowing or not knowing usage of 3rd party tools isn't going to affect you in-game. How come people default to condemning Raiders though? Even the once that "don't use any". Think we failed as a community here... cause we're progressive and inclusive... we should be condemning everything!

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Let's also not neglect the fact that UNFORTUNATELY Viera and Hrothgar players felt reliant on the modding scene to have a more complete experence in the same vein as every other paying subscriber here.

Especially, you know, the one race that needed to pay a fantasia just to change "hairstyle".

3rd Party tools should not be viewed as the norm, and I support that view. However, there are plenty of third party tools made available (for PC players, sorry console players) who have zero impact other than quality of life. Stuff unrelated to allowing more than certain waymarks, stuff unrelated to parsing. Especially when Square Enix's response to player demand has been inconsistent and zig-zaggy. And I say "Unfortunately" because at the end of the day, yeah, third party software shouldn't have as much an impact in the community as it currently is having.

But Square's stance is comprehensive. Third Party Tools are a window to a lot of nasty stuff they don't want to handle, so it's to be frowned upon and not used. However, they won't police people because there are some tools that fall into a gray area, and other tools also draw in attention to the game as it is, allowing people to feel more invested in their character if it happens to have detriments.

So if Square isn't going to police it, why are people having their knickers in a twist over something that doesn't affect them?

Because they can be lewded with mods? Sorry but that's on the modder and you can, and should, report them asap. Because that's frowned upon by modders as a whole, and there are ways to only apply mods to your own character.
Because they can be harassed with parses? You're gonna get kicked out for underperforming either way, parses just make it easier. It's still frowned upon and considered a stupid thing to do, something SE DEFINITELY slams down on when caught. But it would otherwise be no different than me using in-game stuff to achieve the same thing, like your numbers or melds.

These things happen so rarely, yet people fear it irrationally. I attribute this both to a lack of skin when dealing with these things, and also exacerbated perception of something negative.
It's like the fear of flying. You know accidents happen, but some people still fear it even though you have more chances of getting into a car crash than a plane crash.

Let's also not forget that BLM and MNK needed tools to parse the servers' ticks to ensure they made the most out of their class. Something that has since led to the classes being changed. Sometimes a wrong happens to make a right.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

*snip*

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Certainly agree with your points
Many stated and I agree that largely Developers making plugins aren't doing it out of Malice, but mostly to improve FFXIV's experience and showing Square possible upgrades and features. Hrothgar/Vierra hair included to name a few. Square knows this! and rather then pooling their own resources? they have a policy that they are not policing as you said, they are looking the other way. This costs them less money and resources, solving a lot of issues on themselves by the community even if its against ToS.

For the player-base, be it I think a minority in the west? To demonize everything so quickly? And auto default relating plugins to mostly Raiders? a tad misleading and provocative... If only we had the same valor towards all Plugins like NSFW / Lewd / Nudity / RMT etc but of course they wont... even when raiding makes up 5% or 10% at best of FFXIV =u=;

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Originally Posted by Saraide

That's such a Gamer thing to say.

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Because wanting to keep Western politics and ideologies out of entertainment is wrong apparently.

What was I trying to gain with this post? To answer the conversation surrounding "should third party tools be allowed?" - by third party tools i simply mean additions or add-ons that are not native to the game (this excludes voice chat protocols). Programs that were not intended by the developers to be used, specifically ; Parsers, "Triggers", etc - when someone gets on the game on a PS4 its not ethical or fair any of you have these advantages. Their is simply no argument against that. If you find that your own human intelligence needs to be supplemented by AI or plugins then you are not playing the game as intended. it is indeed obvious that during every patch 3rd party tools rarely work, and I am simply giving kudos to players who continue to clear content without them. Peace out.

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Originally Posted by Saranade

"Triggers"

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Someone certainly is triggered.

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Originally Posted by Saranade

Programs that were not intended by the developers to be used, specifically ; Parsers, "Triggers"

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Cat's out the bag - It's somehow " Specifically Raiding plugins only " for the OP that's unfair.

Glamour Plugins to bypass not paying for Mogstation Fashion and Mounts? Race-Swap with a button to bypass not needing to pay for Fantasia's everytime? Selling Prebuild House decors with a Plugin? Body-mods to sell NSFW Gpose on Twitter for Dollars? That and so many more things, all somehow less worse then Raiding Tools? No-no, no nitpicking. Usage of All Third party tools are prohibited

Square's ToS and Yoshi made it very clear. Scrutiny on just specifically for Raiding Tools? makes no sense. It's All third party tools. Now you might find something more unfair like Raiding tools vs another plugin, but it doesn't matter. It means All third party tools.

That this bothers you, is the best part though cause it shouldn't affect you xD

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Mm... yes and no. The issue is that given how the hotbars work, it would likely have to be a second copy of the entire combo... or you would need a sort of hotbar action abstraction system (which I suspect is how the mod that consolidates combos in PvE likely works).

The latter would be the better approach, honestly. Especially because you could then functionally make it a 'build your own combo' system; instead of "here is a pre-made button that is your entire chain", you would just have a little hotbar-like list you could drag actions onto, then you'd drag the icon for that list onto a hotbar.

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So, mods actually do... both. The consolidation macros, moreover, are just prepackaged forms of the second (in which you can consolidate whatever you want in whatever order you want, including both oGCDs and GCDs, even based on conditionals like targeting enemy, targeting friendly, or targeting nothing). (The super cheesy ones go further in conditional scripting, but the more basic ones are merely this.) They're effectively just how macros work in WoW, if not for WoW's own familiarly arbitrary restriction (against priority order GCDs -- whereas oGCDs, for whatever reason, are still allowed to be done all in one key), much like virtually any decent use of macros is arbitrary reemed in XIV.

That said... both would work fine. Having a separate per combo key or just... not screwing over macros.


I give you four buttons: Hard Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater, and Souleater Combo. Maybe the last comes in its own "Combo Actions" section, or maybe it's just part of the same basic skills page.

Let's say, for the sake of fairness between those using consolidation or no consolidation, Syphon Strike and Souleater themselves are no longer trap buttons; instead, they literally can't activate until you reach their step.

If you put fewer than n steps of the combo on your bar including the combo key or n-1 buttons after starting placing discrete steps alongside the combo key in the missing one's place, the Actions and Trait menu will flash the remainder at you to remind you to slot them, but you could always just, say, do Hard -> Syphon -> {Combo} so that you could just default to hitting button 3 if you like. You can use both at the same time; it just reminds you to put in the combo and/or the missing steps if you're screwing yourself over.

(The only thing you can't manage under this new baseline functionality are conditionals, such as to cause Bloodspiller to replace your other weaponskills if you would otherwise overcap on your Blood Gauge.)

At base, only Hard Slash and Souleater Combo start off available, the latter of which literally shows Hard Slash.

• You hit Hard Slash or Souleater Combo [Hard Slash] and... Syphon Strike lights up and becomes available, Hard Slash desaturates, and Souleater Combo then shows Syphon Strike. Souleater remains locked.
• You hit Syphon Strike or Souleater Combo [Syphon Strike] and Syphon Strike, too, desaturates and again becomes locked, Souleater lights up and becomes available, and Souleater Combo then shows Souleater.
• You hit Souleater or Souleater Combo [Souleater] and you return to the base state.

Those can work simultaneously. One can have one or the other, for any particular combo, or technically both. Want Ley Lines separate from Between the Lines, then just slot those two separately instead of using the pre-build consolidation.

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(Sorry, accessibility is a thing I have come to take very, very seriously in game design.)

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Same. I just think having no easily seen and graspable system could a missed opportunity for accessibility.

I'll gladly take a not-gutted macro system, but I think having some buttons/macros that are already there, quick to drag and drop, would not only create an easier alternative, but also a sort of welcoming mat for those later improved macros. (Naturally, also let players choose also to automatically drop in the consolidations instead of discrete keys (toggleable separately by type -- e.g., Necessary Sequences, Natural Sequences).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

So, mods actually do... both. The consolidation macros, moreover, are just prepackaged forms of the second (in which you can consolidate whatever you want in whatever order you want, including both oGCDs and GCDs, even based on conditionals like targeting enemy, targeting friendly, or targeting nothing).

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I should clarify a little bit what I meant there. (I am still deep in migraine-land, so I do apologize if I either ramble or am not as clear as I could be.)

From what I can see of how the hotbars work from a bit of cursory poking, there's no (rational) way to constantly swap actions in and out on in series. The PvP action buttons appear to work sort of like macros behind the scenes, where the actual ID of the action on the bar doesn't change, but the icon (and other metadata, like tooltip et al) and the code executed by that action ID do.

Now, in PvP, there's no way to put the individual pieces of the combo on separate parts of the hotbar. (At least, not without some trickery.) But to have the option of both the individual 1-2-3 actions on the bar and to have a PvP-style single-button-combo, you would either need to make a new copy of that combo (e.g. something with a separate action ID than the actual individual actions), which could also be dragged from something -- say a "Combos" tab of the Actions & Skills list -- or you would need a more complicated/abstract system which could basically just take generic 'this is the combo sequence' lists of actions to be executed in series.

That's all I mean: basically, if the devs wanted to pull one-button combos a'la PvP into PvE, they either need to define every possible combo folks would use (and make pre-made 'combo sequences' that could be put on a hotbar) or they need to make a tool in the game that lets players define those for themselves. The latter is more work, but -- in my opinion -- also the 'correct' approach.

But if that's a QoL change they intend to make as part of their (demonstrable) effort to take QoL hints and lessons from the modding community, given this game's wonky input system and code cruft, it's probably not one that we'll see land in the client in the immediate future.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Same. I just think having no easily seen and graspable system could a missed opportunity for accessibility.

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On this we agree entirely.

(I'm actually in the middle of writing up a guideline document on "designing for accessibility" for the gamedev team I lead in my spare time, because -- as said -- I do feel fairly strongly about accessibility issues. So, migraine or not, this topic in a general sense is all fairly front-and-center in my thoughts right now.)

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

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Just to reiterate for clarity, I guess the way I'm thinking about it is simply:

1.

I want to see the macro system un-gutted largely because I'm tired of getting a pretense of depth in place of actual depth, especially considering that that pretense quickly becomes a challenge only of physical dexterity.

If there's, for instance, no reason ever to use another Burst Shot over Refulgent Arrow, then one can already simply key-swipe RA->BS every time without checking the proc anyhow; there's no cognitive task or point of engagement there, only a slight added physical challenge that only affects a small group of players, and not in a good way.

Now, I'd be fine also with Refulgent Arrow being bankable and leveraging that depth --I'd even find it preferable-- but so long as it's to remain braindead, there is just no reason not to let people consolidate it at will. And even if reason to bank it were added... why not let people take the less optimal option if it'd better suit their needs anyways?

Now, there is of course a lot people can do about being physically affected by button bloat. When I badly sprained my wrist, I had to change my Caps Lock to an Alt key and then use 1234QWER, Caps-1234QWER, Shift-QWERASDF, Ctrl-ASDFZXCV (altogether just a column of keys in very easy reach so I at most had to move my index finger one key over) so I could still reach stuff without worsening it.

But I don't feel like that's terribly relevant anyways, as it shouldn't be a thing that requires so unique an extent of solution based only on physicality (still rather common differences therein), and --even making such fixes to a pretty deep extent-- one can still encounter issues under the present button count (especially if they want to leave their movement keys free).

2.

I do think there needs to be slightly more automatic or at least plug-and-play / pre-fabbed options for that accessibility.

These things need to be visible, obvious, and seemingly already integrated. It really ought to be a job better done than through, say, as provided by the still-kinda-obscure conditional macros in WoW that require looking through 3rd party sites just to figure out how to write them or a ReAction (plugin) macro here (far more intuitive, but still requiring creating a sequence of skills and targeting schemes for every damned ability set one wants to fix).



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Tangent/Aside, but still related to general accessibility (though related to healers and making room/time for the kind of button-pressing required that isn't related to separate action keys):

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

<See for ideas on improving the control scheme such that oGCD single-target buffing would be a non-issue anyways, even for controller players, while making the game smoother as a whole>

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Originally Posted by Saranade

What was I trying to gain with this post? To answer the conversation surrounding "should third party tools be allowed?" - by third party tools i simply mean additions or add-ons that are not native to the game (this excludes voice chat protocols). Programs that were not intended by the developers to be used, specifically ; Parsers, "Triggers", etc - when someone gets on the game on a PS4 its not ethical or fair any of you have these advantages. Their is simply no argument against that. If you find that your own human intelligence needs to be supplemented by AI or plugins then you are not playing the game as intended. it is indeed obvious that during every patch 3rd party tools rarely work, and I am simply giving kudos to players who continue to clear content without them. Peace out.

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Life's not fair, just letting you know.

Also you need to direct your complaints to Sony and do some actual research into why consoles can't mod as easily. It's possible to do but is definitely not as simple as PC modding.

PCs shouldn't be handicapped or limited just because you chose a console to play on. Bottom line is, Yoshi already stated more times than necessary that they aren't going to put anything into the game to stop modding or plugin use from occuring. Kinda just gotta suck it up and deal instead of trying to ruin the experience for other people. Maybe upgrade to a PC too because your PS4 is gonna explode sooner rather than later with how old that gen is.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

That hate is a little bit misplaced though, no?

Mods aren't inherently evil, neither is the majority of players using them. This player in particular is just an entitled outlier.

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If theres a way, ppl will use it, if it has protection against abuse, ppl will overcome it. Its ALL or NOTHING and the rules already say nothing.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I want to see the macro system un-gutted largely because I'm tired of getting a pretense of depth in place of actual depth, especially considering that that pretense quickly becomes a challenge only of physical dexterity.

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They dont want us to use battle macros, thats why its slow and not made for chaning battle stuff...

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Originally Posted by Saranade

What was I trying to gain with this post? To answer the conversation surrounding "should third party tools be allowed?" - by third party tools i simply mean additions or add-ons that are not native to the game (this excludes voice chat protocols). Programs that were not intended by the developers to be used, specifically ; Parsers, "Triggers", etc - when someone gets on the game on a PS4 its not ethical or fair any of you have these advantages. Their is simply no argument against that. If you find that your own human intelligence needs to be supplemented by AI or plugins then you are not playing the game as intended. it is indeed obvious that during every patch 3rd party tools rarely work, and I am simply giving kudos to players who continue to clear content without them. Peace out.

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I started on PS4 and most my time on the game has been on PS4/PS5. I truly don't care if someone uses parses/triggers/whatever. I don't feel superior doing content without 3rd party tools because there's still far better players than me out there.

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Originally Posted by PredatoryCatgirl

I think that's a totally different issue. I have friends who do savages regularly, and they will often die if they get the *normal* version of the raid they're progging in roulette because they keep expecting the savage mechanics.

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this is genuinely so true. I don't use 3rd party tools (like cactbot or w/e) and I cleared the last savage tier. and then I got p7n in my raid roulette and died like 4 times because I couldn't remember any of the normal mechs lmao. I've seen static members rack up like 6 vuln stacks in raids we cleared the savage versions of because we spend so much time in savage we forget how to play the game outside of it lol.

also I'm genuinely convinced that equipping an ultimate title makes you play worse. I have to keep taking mine off mid duty because it's embarrassing messing up easy mechs while flexing your ultimate clear

And they are working again.

Cry me a River.

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Originally Posted by Saranade

What was I trying to gain with this post? To answer the conversation surrounding "should third party tools be allowed?" - by third party tools i simply mean additions or add-ons that are not native to the game (this excludes voice chat protocols). Programs that were not intended by the developers to be used, specifically ; Parsers, "Triggers", etc - when someone gets on the game on a PS4 its not ethical or fair any of you have these advantages. Their is simply no argument against that. If you find that your own human intelligence needs to be supplemented by AI or plugins then you are not playing the game as intended. it is indeed obvious that during every patch 3rd party tools rarely work, and I am simply giving kudos to players who continue to clear content without them. Peace out.

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Actual clown hours lmao. Kinda cements the idea that you only post to troll. Surprise surprise.

Third party tools appear to be working again given what other people have been saying.

Alas, poor Saranade. She'll become the Mariah Carrey of anti-3rd Party Tools, entering suspended animation until whenever they cease to function.

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Originally Posted by Hanaya

[…]also I'm genuinely convinced that equipping an ultimate title makes you play worse. I have to keep taking mine off mid duty because it's embarrassing messing up easy mechs while flexing your ultimate clear

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In a perfect world, people would recognize what those title meant: the player have cleared & very likely to be great at that specific duty. Yes, there are cloned mechanics, yes there are recycled mechanics. But there’s only so much a person can remember when there are hundreds of duties in the entire game. Considering the general time investment required to get a clear from high ends, I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly being shoved to random, lower lv duties will bamboozle them.

Messing up gameplay fundamentals (i.e. ABC) consistently is however a different story.

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Originally Posted by Hanaya

this is genuinely so true. I don't use 3rd party tools (like cactbot or w/e) and I cleared the last savage tier. and then I got p7n in my raid roulette and died like 4 times because I couldn't remember any of the normal mechs lmao. I've seen static members rack up like 6 vuln stacks in raids we cleared the savage versions of because we spend so much time in savage we forget how to play the game outside of it lol.

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To be fair, there's really only a few normal duties that will trip you up enough to kill you if you're used to savage/extreme versions; most might leave you confused, but usually reacting to something that doesn't happen at all instead of stepping into something deadly. Having gotten P8N for the first time in ages last night, I kept trying to prep for knockback or "get out of the hitbox" whenever he started the snakes or centaur/dog/hippo/whatever portions, and then feeling like a doofus for reacting to something that didn't even happen.

But the ones that do have a mechanic different enough to kill you in normal, they are doozies. The "wait, the horses happen during what?" during Thunderstorm in E5N, the knockback in Emerald normal that doesn't happen in Emerald EX, etc.

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Originally Posted by Saranade

did i say this was new?

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then why mention it?