Musings on Mods

[Carson_The_Brown]

So, I see a lot of interesting points here. There are a few troublesome ones that mostly fall under the purview of the "Git Gud" defense. I don't know how useful that sentiment is; its not like most low DPS are going into their pugs with the "how little can I do" mindset. I wont say that demographic is nonexistent because I know a few people who only play DPS because they can basically get carried so long as they spam Heavy Shot. I feel that this particular thread fails to consider the community support angle. I mentioned earlier that optimization is difficult if you don't have a fleet of testing machines.

Also, I think I sense a certain... misunderstanding; Blizzard does not take responsibility for quality control on their mods. That is entirely the responsibility of the modder. When SE says "we want to include mod support" that only means "You will be able to use 3rd party mods" and not "we will do the legwork to make sure your mods actually work on anything other than your one computer". It also doesn't ensure that SE will strive to maintain compatibility, if a new raid comes out and it causes a fatal exception with your UI mod then fixing it is between you and whoever might be in charge of the mod (if anyone is even paying attention) or whoever is developing a competitive product at the time. All and all, I think this issue is largely soluble once your community hits a critical mass.

Kisai makes an interesting point about mechanically incentivizing skillful play. I'm not sure if the dev team has the firepower to pull off a system that allows better loot drops depending on contribution, plus, I can't help but imagine all of the new players who showed up at the tail end of Heart of Darkness and would, by no fault of their own, be kept away from any of the gear by such a system. I would like to see Kisai elaborate a bit more on her idea, however, sounds interesting.

Risvertashi mentions the unofficial addons. these include parsers but also include the spawn timers for rare mobs. I think these exist in a kind of "sweet spot". They are accessible to people who really need to know how they are doing and are willing to put in some work and ultimately lie just out of reach to players who just want to attack people with bad gear or low skill. I also would like to add onto my point that the ilvl system seems to be doing a decent job of weeding the slackers out of high end content. My wife and I both do high end content regularly (she is disabled and I'm on summer holiday from uni) and while I've never really seen any of these vitriolic players, she has seen one, so, in over 200 combined PUGs, only one jerk is pretty good. Compared to the completely unverified 10%-20% asshole ratio in WoW, I think those stats are damn fine.

Which leads me to a quick aside to Hobostew. The community in XIV is actually very kind compared to other online games, I would, however, urge you to understand that your experience in this game may be an outlying factor and may not be reflective of the general experience.

[Nadirah]

Being legally blind I full well enjoyed the audio cues DBM gave me.

[NozomiKei]

This attitude has actually destroyed the self esteem of some WoW players. [....] One person I know tried healing a Trial for the first time and after seven wipes she was in tears and had to leave even though the rest of the group was trying to encourage her to try again. It's hard to feel good about anything when MMO addons have taught you to see yourself as a number and nothing else.

This game... DPS are often treated as disposable, replaceable, less valued than tanks and healers and it really wears on you. Black mage is the only battle class I've leveled to 50 and I really enjoy playing it, but I often consider leveling a tank or healer so I can be 'useful'. I was actually referred to as a leech during a hunt when they first came out by a jerk of a healer just because I was a dps. Stupid me I apologized and explained it was my only class.

Before I was first told my numbers I generally assumed I wasn't the best but I always tried to be better so I wasn't super bothered. Then I was informed my numbers sucked so I went on journeys like in some 90s movie to speak with the great black mages of the server and figure out in depth what I might be doing wrong. Updated rotations for my increased stats, utilization of less popular actions like aetherial manipulation, really practicing my slide casting for dodging. Informed my numbers are still bad, bottom dps in the group, even beneath some of the heavy dps tanks. I cried. I just felt like quitting the game entirely at that point but I love it (and I've spent a lot of money on it) so I stayed.

In the end my tentatively bad self esteem towards my playing solidified into a crippling fear of playing with certain people (I pugged into a t13 party with like 6 of them and literally started trembling) and constantly apologizing for being bad when I go into a fight I'm newish to. I've been reduced to tears multiple times because of the shame I feel over my apparent inability to play the job I love well. It's even worse now that I'm trying to limp through this convoluted new black mage rotation for boss battles chock full of aoes. It's gotten to the point that I can't believe any compliments on my playing because I'm sure they're only saying them because they can't see the numbers.

Sorry for my stupid post; I'm tired and this new rotation makes me want to apologize for existing every time I pug one of the new fights. Just ignore me.

[hobostew]

I don't even understand how what you said relates to my post but I'll try to clarify in case there was some misunderstanding. Harassment by people who use parsers or any other addons/mods for that matter is hugely exaggerated. I'd argue harassment in general doesn't happen very often at all it's just that you simply remember those few times that you were harassed more than the times when you weren't.

I'd also like to say that the WoW community is actually very much the same as this community as much as some of you would like to believe otherwise. This is because all these communities are made of people and people will behave like people no matter where you go. There are always a few jerks but most people just want to get things done without any drama.

[Ayuhra]

Snip

This is how I feel too sometimes. Luckily I fell into the arms of an FC with pretty decent players who have been willing to let me learn the game and my class. I suspect I am still bad at Black Maging. I can keep our rotation up on a target dummy but any time I have to target switch or move I flail a bit. I aetherial manipulate, offensively convert, use my shields where needed to spare the healer grief but my raw damage output I can tell still needs some tightening. Frankly, I don't think the new rotation is very fun but with some QoL tweaks it could be. It's frustrating to lose a rotation for 30 seconds due to movement or because a faster class finished off a mob before you could hit it (No my Blizz IV didn't land, I needed that!)

snip.

I wouldn't say it's exaggerating to say mods like damage meters can cause a cultural shift that makes DPS feel even worse. It does, absolutely. It's giving the jerks we have now a legitimate megaphone with which they can be jerks. I'm not saying it would ruin the game. I played WoW for eight years sometimes casually sometimes as a progression raider and I certainly would not have done that if I felt like I was going to watch someone punch my mom for hours each time I logged in. And I used damage meters to measure my own performance and found them a valuable tool. I like the idea of them, I'm just always a bit unsure about introducing them to a new game.

[Risvertasashi]

Now, if they're smart they won't flat out tell you that it was your damage, but the fact remains the same.

Pretty much. If it's a raid and you're on voice, you'll get told there and told to step it up or be replaced. In the DF, it's just a silent kick for no reason apparent if you don't have your numbers.

[Carson_The_Brown]

I wouldn't say it's exaggerating to say mods like damage meters can cause a cultural shift that makes DPS feel even worse. It does, absolutely. It's giving the jerks we have now a legitimate megaphone with which they can be jerks. I'm not saying it would ruin the game. I played WoW for eight years sometimes casually sometimes as a progression raider and I certainly would not have done that if I felt like I was going to watch someone punch my mom for hours each time I logged in. And I used damage meters to measure my own performance and found them a valuable tool. I like the idea of them, I'm just always a bit unsure about introducing them to a new game.

This was largely what I was referring to in this general warning. I don't think mods are inherently bad. At the risk of sounding hokey, I think that we are at a critical junction and the soul of the community is being discussed. Do we want to be like WoW's community. Many people come here because the WoW community is vitriolic and they want to play with a more laid back community. Do we want to take a step towards WoW for the sake of a little convenience or do we want to continue to be a community that is welcoming to casuals and newcomers?

snip

I admit. mods are awesome, in WoW I have GTFO, Gatherer, DBM, and ElvUI and my Monk and Death Knights were damn good. I left WoW because it's community was unneccisarily mean to people who were even slightly behind in the learning curve. I have seen DPS get kicked, not because they caused a wipe, but because the DPS was less than 5% outside of expectation for their ilvl. I want us all to consider this thoroughly before we push SE to enable mods. If we feel the convenience of mods is worth the risk to our collective soul then I fully support the community's push for mods. I merely intend to urge caution before jumping headlong into what many of us think we want

[KisaiTenshi]

Kisai makes an interesting point about mechanically incentivizing skillful play. I'm not sure if the dev team has the firepower to pull off a system that allows better loot drops depending on contribution, plus, I can't help but imagine all of the new players who showed up at the tail end of Heart of Darkness and would, by no fault of their own, be kept away from any of the gear by such a system. I would like to see Kisai elaborate a bit more on her idea, however, sounds interesting.

To simplify:

A DPS is there to DPS, a Tank is there to Tank and contribute some DPS, and a healer is there to Heal and maybe throw some DPS if there is opportunity for it.
But what happens is someone with a 'parser' goes "oh X isn't contributing enough DPS, kick em" and that player gets kicked not knowing why they were suddenly kicked.

So what has to happen is that rewards (including tomes) need to be distributed by participation. In a light party two DPS players should be contributing >50% of the Damage, and if they aren't, that is a problem. Tanks and Healers would be based on Enmity. Where a Tank needs to keep Enmity > 90% of the time, and Healers need to NOT take enmity by overhealing (it would probably require tracking unnecessary overhealing vs revives itself.)

In a Full party, the conditions change depending on the number of tanks. No DPS should be carried, if there are 5 DPS means that 12.5% x 5 = 62.5% of the Damage must be done by the DPS, of which each DPS needs to contribute at least 12.5%. When there are two tanks, the combined tanks need to have 90% of the enmity time. When there's one, then it's 90% alone. When there are two healers, both healers need to be healing, not just one.

Which comes back to the entire idea where if a healer or a tank is contributing more DPS than a single DPS player, than the weak DPS player shouldn't be rewarded for doing nothing. In the case of things like Extreme Primals and Raids, where "carries" are endemic, someone who doesn't contribute enough, wouldn't get the reward gear/token, and it wouldn't count as a clear.

[Callinon]

I don't think the only difference between this community and WoW's community is the existence of addons, and that giving us access to an addon API changes us into WoW's community. I don't buy that. It's a strawman, and not a very effective one.

As people have pointed out, an underperforming dps can and will be kicked right now without even the benefit of knowing that they were doing something wrong. Now I think that kicking someone for being 5% off their "expected" dps is a little stupid. There are a lot of reasons that can happen, especially in the mechanics-heavy fights that FFXIV favors, that have absolutely nothing to do with someone being bad at their job. At least if that dps can see their own numbers, they can know that something might be wrong with what they're doing and work to correct the problem. Right now, I think that most dps probably believe they do their job really well and aren't making any mistakes. I can tell you that in the majority of cases I've seen, this is not the case. But there's no convenient way for me to help someone do their job better if they think they're doing well already. I need data I can show them to back up something like that.

WoW players and FFXIV players are pretty fundamentally different. I say that having played both games at a high level. I don't believe that giving us an addon API turns us into some kind of MMO Lord of the Flies rendition.

[Carson_The_Brown]

To simplify:

A DPS is there to DPS, a Tank is there to Tank and contribute some DPS, and a healer is there to Heal and maybe throw some DPS if there is opportunity for it.
But what happens is someone with a 'parser' goes "oh X isn't contributing enough DPS, kick em" and that player gets kicked not knowing why they were suddenly kicked.

So what has to happen is that rewards (including tomes) need to be distributed by participation. In a light party two DPS players should be contributing >50% of the Damage, and if they aren't, that is a problem. Tanks and Healers would be based on Enmity. Where a Tank needs to keep Enmity > 90% of the time, and Healers need to NOT take enmity by overhealing (it would probably require tracking unnecessary overhealing vs revives itself.)

In a Full party, the conditions change depending on the number of tanks. No DPS should be carried, if there are 5 DPS means that 12.5% x 5 = 62.5% of the Damage must be done by the DPS, of which each DPS needs to contribute at least 12.5%. When there are two tanks, the combined tanks need to have 90% of the enmity time. When there's one, then it's 90% alone. When there are two healers, both healers need to be healing, not just one.

Which comes back to the entire idea where if a healer or a tank is contributing more DPS than a single DPS player, than the weak DPS player shouldn't be rewarded for doing nothing. In the case of things like Extreme Primals and Raids, where "carries" are endemic, someone who doesn't contribute enough, wouldn't get the reward gear/token, and it wouldn't count as a clear.

That's some pretty interesting math. Unfortunately this sounds like a system that would reward anyone who bothers to step into the encounter room, which would make it redundant. I want to see that idea fleshed out, though. Maybe a feature that only allows the party to /kick people who contribute less than X enmity per second, requiring a specific pack of enemies be defeated before the option becomes available.

I don't think the only difference between this community and WoW's community is the existence of addons, and that giving us access to an addon API changes us into WoW's community. I don't buy that. It's a strawman, and not a very effective one.

WoW players and FFXIV players are pretty fundamentally different. I say that having played both games at a high level. I don't believe that giving us an addon API turns us into some kind of MMO Lord of the Flies rendition.

But of course, I don't mean to insinuate that the two communities are at all similar.

I personally believe that communities are moral entities. So what does that mean? The full explanation is here with a study on the ramifications thereof here but to grossly oversimplify, that means that they can be effected by their environment. Obviously there is a huge difference between the XIV community and the WoW community and no action can possibly make them identical. My concern is what the tools made available might do to the personality of the community. Once again, your results may vary but my observations (which I admit could be deeply flawed and are easily falsifiable) indicate a certain quality present in XIV's community that isn't present in communities that have these quality of life addons. My studies (I am a student of game design, hence why I would have case studies on the matter) indicate that while antisocial personality types are equally represented in all communities, there are environmental qualities that encourage these fringe elements (the rough estimate is that these antisocial elements constitute about 15% across the board on all communities) to behave more proactively.

In short, of course there aren't more sociopaths on WoW and of course there are some fundamental differences between the WoW community and the XIV community just like how there are some fundamental differences between any two entities, be they people, cities or corporations. Nobody is arguing those points. What I would argue, however, is that things like easy-access damage meters and boss assistants allow the more troublesome elements of the community (including both players and developers) an easier means to express themselves.