Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[LilimoLimomo]

And no, the 30 second clip in the op doesn't count, even though I can see very clear and obvious clipping in it.

Hmmm, it's odd that in all the time this thread has been up, with all the pushback this thread has received, nobody has ever mentioned this "clear and obvious clipping" in my updated test video. Which is strange, because you'd think that if someone wanted to call my evidence into question, this would be the easiest and most effective way to do it! But perhaps no one else has your keen eyes?

Though, it's odd that you would make a post focusing on a request for new tests if you had already invalidated my old tests. You could have simply pointed out the clipping, been specific about when it was happening and how you could tell so that any reader (myself included) could verify your claim of the test's fault, and that alone would have removed the foundation of my arguments. It certainly is odd that instead of simply doing that you only mentioned this "clipping" as a vague footnote.

And alongside the above, it does feel a bit odd that you'd mention a "30 second clip" when that's an order of magnitude shorter than my actual test video. Are you certain you watched the right video?

All of which is to say: sus.

But just because it's sus doesn't mean you're necessarily wrong. So could you provide more details about this clipping that would allow others to verify it? The more information you provide, the better we'll be able to see eye-to-eye.

Op, all you do is ask people to "try it and see." You provide data, but have no demonstration to back up said data.

The test is a demonstration of the data. It answers the question "do macros innately cause action loss".

That said, I understand what you're getting at. You're more or less asking a different but related question: "Yes, you have data that demonstrates that macros don't innately cause action loss, but can a person really use macros in a way that doesn't cost them some amount of action loss?" It's a valid question.

There's a reason I haven't focused on that question, and that's because it's trivially easy to answer: it depends on context, ergo yes.

Because even if macros did cause significant action loss, there are plenty of FF14 players who would still benefit from macros. For example, it's not uncommon for players to have trouble remembering where 30 different actions are on their controller, and when you have trouble finding an action it can end up taking precious seconds to find and use it. Some players will be able to improve and readily access every action in their arsenal, but others will hit a wall. If the use of macros can make actions easier to find for this kind of player, such that they can press the action they want with less delay, then even if the macro loses some frames upon press, the result can be that the players action per minute improves.

However, there can also be the exact opposite result. A player could find macros confusing, could forget which 2 actions are bound to the same button, and thus macros could actually make their play worse, even if macros don't innately have any action loss.

Which is to say, for some people macros will improve play, for others it will hinder it.

What I've learned over and over again throughout the course of my life is that people have different capabilities. Each of us have different strengths and different weaknesses in a variety of areas, and because of that we have different experiences and different challenges. That's why instead of being prescriptive, I instead encourage everyone to give macros a try and see what the impact is. Then depending on their individual results, they can each decide to what degree — if any — they want to keep using macros.