Can SQ-EN draw a line in the sand w/ 3rd Parties?

[Payadopa]

This thread is placing cactbot on a pedestal if we think it is materially different than a person doing calls. Every single savage fight in the game is scripted in terms of which attacks come out at which point in time.

To each their own, so it is whatever.
I personally have to ask myself at what point I'm handing to much stuff over to a third party and I'm not really playing the game anymore. I'm not saying a certain mod does or doesn't do it, but, I prefer to have as little... interference(?) as possible, if that makes sense. But that's something everyone has to decide for themselves, I guess.

But if sentiments were to change and suddenly people were demanding it id definitely be against it out of principle alone. So far it doesn't concern me.

[KageTokage]

I find it awkward how many people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cactbot is literally cheating because it calls out mechanics before it's physically possible to identify what they're doing. It is not simply doing a player's job automatically.

A prime example of this as already mentioned was with A11S and the Optical Sight variants which do not actually telegraph which one is being used until the cast is around half finished, meaning you effectively have twice as much time to get to a safe zone.

It's even worse with debuff spam sequences like Hello World where you can't normally can't tell what debuffs you'll be getting until after the lengthy cast resolves.

[Arrhin]

If you need to rely on a program to cal out a scripted fight to you so you can clear, then that clear wasn't yours. How is that even fun?

[Alaray]

If the addons don't affect me, I don't particularly care about their usage. Cactbot is able to call some mechanics (swapping platforms in Diamond, Thanjit's Red/Blue mechanic) before the visual indication occurs, which I do think is an issue albeit it's not such an issue that I care about people using it.I just don't want to. It's a personal thing, partly for the learning aspect and partly because it gives me a little pride boost I'll admit.

Pretty much anything else I know of doesn't really matter, botting and script programs and gameplay automation I'm not for (or cheats that provide things like infinite sprint, etc...). But if it's just a UI layout, a damage meter, a running timeline even (considering I could, if I felt like I need to, throw up a timeline on a second monitor and follow along), or the automated callouts (and it'd be nice if the bot could, at least, be tweaked to call things as a player would reasonably be able to see these things)... I don't really care if people use them or not. Some people rely on various third party tools for accessibility reasons, some people rely on them because they do make the content easier in respects they don't find fun to be difficult (nael quotes), sometimes it's just a cosmetic aid -- like UI, and sometimes it's for pretty important information (ACT).

If someone beats UWU with the gaol auto-number thing, I don't care. If someone didn't, they shouldn't really care -- you both achieved your own achievements in the way you both felt was best to do so for yourselves, personally.

So long as content isn't designed around the usage of these tools, it's fine. You can use them, or not use them. If some static's RL demands you to, just... don't play with them? Like it's pretty easy to find a group who doesn't have that requirement. And if somehow none did? Just PF it. Or make your own static.

I think it's a pretty dumb thing to get heated over, to be quite honest. There's some light discussion to be had, sure, but the people who act like there's a moral position about it all are really fuckin weird.

[Saraide]

I find it awkward how many people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cactbot is literally cheating because it calls out mechanics before it's physically possible to identify what they're doing. It is not simply doing a player's job automatically.

A prime example of this as already mentioned was with A11S and the Optical Sight variants which do not actually telegraph which one is being used until the cast is around half finished, meaning you effectively have twice as much time to get to a safe zone.

It's even worse with debuff spam sequences like Hello World where you can't normally can't tell what debuffs you'll be getting until after the lengthy cast resolves.

I definitely do think that's cheating but the actual effect it has is honestly minor. The key factor here is that those encounters are designed without cactbot, meaning that once you know the fight and the variants the attacks have, the advantage someone using cactbot has pretty much just goes away.

[Vyrerus]

I definitely do think that's cheating but the actual effect it has is honestly minor. The key factor here is that those encounters are designed without cactbot, meaning that once you know the fight and the variants the attacks have, the advantage someone using cactbot has pretty much just goes away.

No it doesn't, because you can always use that extra reaction time to preposition. The advantage is ever present, and allows more DPS to be done because there's more leeway to squeeze stuff out.

On a somewhat related note, the reason that this kind of a thing is a problem is because people have egos. People will cheat all day long, look at people not cheating barely making it through mechanical checks or doing less DPS than them, and then rag on them hard, "You suck! I rule. This is so easy, why can't you do it? Git Gud." Etc.

[Saraide]

No it doesn't, because you can always use that extra reaction time to preposition. The advantage is ever present, and allows more DPS to be done because there's more leeway to squeeze stuff out.

On a somewhat related note, the reason that this kind of a thing is a problem is because people have egos. People will cheat all day long, look at people not cheating barely making it through mechanical checks or doing less DPS than them, and then rag on them hard, "You suck! I rule. This is so easy, why can't you do it? Git Gud." Etc.

Prepositioning does not make that big of a difference. In stuff like the intermediate relativity or hello world, prepositioning is far less important than just doing the sequence correctly. Sure, technically the effect is present but it is a lot less than people think it is. Having an mmo mouse with like 12 buttons or something is going to be a lot more of an advantage and everyone is just fine with that. Missing one GCD because you moved out earlier is not going to cost you the run, something else did. Once you start to go for log runs, you'll have to learn the fight anyway and then the extra reaction time starts to become meaningless aswell.

Cactbot is a shortcut through learning but that's effectively it.

People being toxic about it is something entirely different or do you want to claim that people who dont use cactbot cant be toxic about someone messing up mechanics? Like you dont need a parser to see someone doing bad damage if you know the job they play.

[Sotaris]

If you need to rely on a program to cal out a scripted fight to you so you can clear, then that clear wasn't yours. How is that even fun?

I'm sure people who use cactbot still are happy about the clear. While you might not think it's fun, they might.

I find it awkward how many people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cactbot is literally cheating because it calls out mechanics before it's physically possible to identify what they're doing.

I'm not sure I'd go as far to call it cheating tbh but to each their own. The way cactbot works is by a established timeline. Meaning it know when something comes up from the scripted fight. Someone had to create the timeline in the first place.

[Packetdancer]

Prepositioning does not make that big of a difference. In stuff like the intermediate relativity or hello world, prepositioning is far less important than just doing the sequence correctly.

While I agree with you that the advantage of an early call is likely pretty minimal, I do feel like Intermediate's probably a bad example; I'm fairly sure that Cactbot can't call that one early because the debuffs almost certainly appear visually in your status indicators at the same time that Cactbot would be able to detect them. (Now, I suspect it probably shows you the order to do them in, so you don't have the oh-so-common mistake of someone reading the order of execution backwards, but I don't think it can do so early.)

Now, I suspect that it can call something like the Titan markers in p1 early, because there's an animation (which takes time) putting the marker over your head. So I'd not be surprised if Cactbot could call that a second or so earlier than the marker being fully-visible over your head, allowing you to move to your appropriate spot faster and maybe get in one or two more GCDs. (Though I also feel like if you've run E12S enough times, you start to recognize the color over your head when it's just a tiny little blob, well before it resolves into the full shape, so the gap between "human recognition" and "Cactbot" probably narrows quite a bit.)

So while, I can see an argument that it gives an advantage over a raid-caller -- especially since not all mechanics will be called by a raid-caller. (I'm sure as heck not calling your debuffs during Intermediate or your marker during p1 Titan.) I'm just also not honestly sure I care, if that makes sense. For the world-first races, no one will have dissected the fight enough yet to have written the scripts for Cactbot (so it's not like a team can benefit from it), and other than for world-first races, I suppose I just don't think it matters that much.

Now, I really do dislike the 'place markers automatically on people' aspect of things, mind you. But I don't think there's a practical way to stop it (at least, without causing much, much bigger problems), and at least I feel like it doesn't affect me directly.

[KageTokage]

I'm not sure I'd go as far to call it cheating tbh but to each their own. The way cactbot works is by a established timeline. Meaning it know when something comes up from the scripted fight. Someone had to create the timeline in the first place.

Cactbot is not functioning strictly off a timeline and is reading information like spell IDs that are being sent to the game client, otherwise it wouldn't be able to make advance callouts for vague and random mechanics like Nael's AoE combos and Optical Sight that rely on visual tells that a bot would obviously not be able to see.