Just give us a list of what addons we can use.

[HyoMinPark]

Your point being? Again what parsers tell the player is what said player would eventually figure out.

How would a player figure out what they are doing wrong when this game gives zero feedback? Not hitting an enrage only tells you “overall damage too low”. It does not tell you who was responsible—be it a single person or multiple people—or even why their damage was low in the first place.

[Jaquan]

How would a player figure out what they are doing wrong when this game gives zero feedback? Not hitting an enrage only tells you “overall damage too low”. It does not tell you who was responsible—be it a single person or multiple people—or even why their damage was low in the first place.

First of all you can look at logs afterwards. Second of all are you advocating that parsers are necessary and content is designed around the idea that everyone is using them? I get it. We humans, gamers especially are self centered half brained idiots that won't be able to recognize their mistake unless something points it out with irrefutable proof. We loathe the idea of putting extra effort into anything which can lead for some to expect instant gratification for little effort. But at that point I have to ask. Why the hell we beg for harder content if in our perception we need 3rd party tools to complete it in the first place?

[LittleImp]

Second of all are you advocating that parsers are necessary and content is designed around the idea that everyone is using them?

No, like, the content we have today very likely wouldn't exist without them.

The only reason the community has become skilled at this game to the degree that content like DSR is possible is because of analytical tools like ACT. The game absolutely would not have been pushed as far as it has without players on the cutting edge frequently using these types of tools to collect and interpret data.

You seem to be confusing tools like Cactbot, which actually automate portions of gameplay, with vanilla ACT/FFLogs which simply package and chart existing information in a more human-friendly and accessible way.

[Jaquan]

No, like, the content we have today very likely wouldn't exist without them.

The only reason the community has become skilled at this game to the degree that content like DSR is possible is because of analytical tools like ACT. The game absolutely would not have been pushed as far as it has without players on the cutting edge frequently using these types of tools to collect and interpret data.

You seem to be confusing tools like Cactbot, which actually automate portions of gameplay, with vanilla ACT/FFLogs which simply package and chart existing information in a more human-friendly and accessible way.

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

[LittleImp]

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

This isn't how these tools work. FFLogs/ACT doesn't make suggestions, and XivAnalysis' suggestions are seen as virtually useless at the high-end. Most of the actual 'pinpointing' that is actually important comes from reviewing VoDs. Combat logging is more important from an optimization standpoint, where you're able to more conveniently review and share player ability timelines and statistics. Calling it a crutch is akin to saying a business using graphs to understand and improve their sales is a crutch.

Where are all of the top-end players that supposedly don't use these tools? Why aren't they coming out and making statements against them? The top players of this game, across all regions, make heavy use of programs like ACT and have done so continuously since ARR. Virtually every piece of information any player has taken from sources like The Balance or AkhMorning has been produced with assistance of these types of tools. The entire identity of the game, and the way the players play it, has been actively shaped by this for like 10 years. Content is designed and increased in difficulty around player capability. DSR was made more difficult due to the ease with which players devoured the last Ultimate. The developers couldn't even beat their own ultimate without adding additional checkpoints.

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

We're talking about the analytical purposes of third party tools here, not automation. That's an entirely different can of worms.

[LianaThorne]

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

To answer your first paragraph: Yes it does.

To answer your second: ACT and Cactbot are not the same. You can have ACT without Cactbot. I can understand the outrage over that but at the end of the day, all that it is is accurate callouts. It shouldn't be used in world first races for sure, but outside of that I don't see it being a problem as it usually benefits the entire party via the caller.

Last, since you brought this up, do you personally read through the entire log after a fight and crunch those numbers?

[Jaquan]

To answer your first paragraph: Yes it does.

To answer your second: ACT and Cactbot are not the same. You can have ACT without Cactbot. I can understand the outrage over that but at the end of the day, all that it is is accurate callouts. It shouldn't be used in world first races for sure, but outside of that I don't see it being a problem as it usually benefits the entire party via the caller.

Last, since you brought this up, do you personally read through the entire log after a fight and crunch those numbers?

No. As someone graciously informed me I haven't reach max level thus know nothing. /s

In all seriousness. I'm not a person that puts too much stock into numbers. I look at my rotation after every fight. How often did I fall out of it. Why did I fall out of it? Did I use Leylines at the right time, how should I minimize the movement next time. Many things I can notice that doesn't require me to look at numbers.

[Scaramouche]

No. As someone graciously informed me I haven't reach max level thus know nothing. /s

In all seriousness. I'm not a person that puts too much stock into numbers. I look at my rotation after every fight. How often did I fall out of it. Why did I fall out of it? Did I use Leylines at the right time, how should I minimize the movement next time. Many things I can notice that doesn't require me to look at numbers.

How do you know what rotation you are supposed to do?

[LianaThorne]

No. As someone graciously informed me I haven't reach max level thus know nothing. /s

In all seriousness. I'm not a person that puts too much stock into numbers. I look at my rotation after every fight. How often did I fall out of it. Why did I fall out of it? Did I use Leylines at the right time, how should I minimize the movement next time. Many things I can notice that doesn't require me to look at numbers.

> tells people to use the log to do what ACT does

> doesn't even do it themselves

Don't mind me as I don't take your advice then.

[HyoMinPark]

First of all you can look at logs afterwards. Second of all are you advocating that parsers are necessary and content is designed around the idea that everyone is using them? I get it. We humans, gamers especially are self centered half brained idiots that won't be able to recognize their mistake unless something points it out with irrefutable proof. We loathe the idea of putting extra effort into anything which can lead for some to expect instant gratification for little effort. But at that point I have to ask. Why the hell we beg for harder content if in our perception we need 3rd party tools to complete it in the first place?

Well, first of all—you completely missed my point. Quite gloriously at that.

You insisted that the individual will “figure it out eventually” when it comes to the mistakes they are making. I said that the actuality is they likely won’t because this game does not tell you you are ever doing anything wrong when it comes to your performance or rotation. Just like it doesn’t tell you that you are doing anything inherently right. There is zero feedback provided, so there is no sure way for you to know what mistakes you made and how to rectify them. In my 6+ years of playing, I’ve met more individuals who thought they were doing absolutely nothing wrong when it was clear that there were issues present. But the game won’t tell them what that is. Heck, it does not even tell you how to string together a rotation beyond “this button lit up after that one, maybe press it now?”.

This is not saying that add-ons are needed to clear high-end content. You are deliberately misconstruing my argument. However, they are used when it comes to formulating the basics of any job rotation all the way up to the min-max optimization level. These things weren’t just “figured out eventually”. They were calculated over hours of testing and simulations to find out what the rotation should be for this job or that. They are also used in tandem with other third-party platforms such as The Website That Shall Not Be Named and XIVAnalysis to troubleshoot issues that might be causing a roadblock in prog. A good example is figuring out deaths due to taking too much damage from a raidwide. Will this game tell you why people died outside of they took more damage than their HP pool? No. Will it tell you that you needed an extra 10% mitigation to survive comfortably? No. Will it tell you in a non-convoluted way that the NIN missed your shields and that’s why they were overkilled by 5,000 HP? Not without scrolling through a cumbersome combat log. Why do that when a third-party application can simplify the information the same way copying it into an Excel spreadsheet to parse would? You cannot reasonably expect anyone to sit there combing over the in-game combat log over using a tool that streamlines the information. And that doesn’t make them stupid, since that’s what you want to insinuate here.

Utilizing these things doesn’t make you stupid, nor any less capable of clearing high-end content. Anyone who argues that it does is foolish.

If you want to say that you are a “self-centered, half-brained” individual for utilizing additional tools to troubleshoot problems and improve yourself and the performance of your team, per your response to me, then you can do that. However, using a tool to optimize and figure out mistakes doesn’t make you one. If anything, it shows a desire to expand on your own growth when it comes to proficiency at a job, its rotation, and the content you are in. The opposite of a “self-centered, half-brained idiot”, in my opinion.


This has nothing to do with the third-party apps that automate gameplay. I’m talking about the barebones here: parsers and the programs that exist to use the data obtained by the parser (which is information streamlined directly from the game itself). If you think a calculator is cheating, I hope you never made use of one for any sort of exam while you were in school. That’s all a parser is: a calculator.