The new concept screenshot is a real-time in-game render!

[Nuru]

You're also assuming there will be all kinds of addons. As another person already stated, it will likely be only addons for the actual UI, not addons that work off the coding of the game like a lot of WoW's addons. I highly doubt SE would be dumb enough to allow PC users access to addons that show boss moves like DBM in WoW or damage meters, unless they separate PS3 and PC users onto different servers.

That is what I am concerned about. If the UI Customization is only for the aesthetics, then I don't think that will become much of a problem. If it is used for the coding aspects, then something is seriously wrong. :P

[Payadopa]

That is what I am concerned about. If the UI Customization is only for the aesthetics, then I don't think that will become much of a problem. If it is used for the coding aspects, then something is seriously wrong. :P

I agree. UI customisation in essence is a good thing, but not, if it's being abused by showing informations that others can't/shouldn't see. Say what you want about the 'need' to see certain things on the UI for the raid's sake. If you can't beat a dungeon without it, then it's either the developer or you/ your party, who's at fault.

I also don't understand the need of knowing literally everything about every single 100111100100 in the coding of MMOs. But then again, I'm just a mid-core gamer, as Yoshi put it.

Oh, well. That's just my personal opinion, which is as valid as anyone's.

[Zenaku]

I agree. UI customisation in essence is a good thing, but not, if it's being abused by showing informations that others can't/shouldn't see. Say what you want about the 'need' to see certain things on the UI for the raid's sake. If you can't beat a dungeon without it, then it's either the developer or you/ your party, who's at fault.

I also don't understand the need of knowing literally everything about every single 100111100100 in the coding of MMOs. But then again, I'm just a mid-core gamer, as Yoshi put it.

Oh, well. That's just my personal opinion, which is as valid as anyone's.

Casual and hardcore use addon but that not the point i still don't understand why people can't be a tank or a healer without a pop or sound saying someone else have hate i could understand in wow where there lot's of people around while fighting and it get crazy but in FFXIV i think it would never be needed only if your lazy and can't play a mmo without addon.

I know myself wont be using any addon maybe the one i like from ffxi windower display how much EXP i'm getting. The only reason i hate addons is in wow to do anything like raids they make you download addon A,B,C / D to even do there events i hope that never happen in ffxiv if it does then w/e i play my way and learn how to play the game without using addon i did it in wow and in ffxi i can do it in ffxiv.

[ellohwell]

Casual and hardcore use addon but that not the point i still don't understand why people can't be a tank or a healer without a pop or sound saying someone else have hate i could understand in wow where there lot's of people around while fighting and it get crazy but in FFXIV i think it would never be needed only if your lazy and can't play a mmo without addon.

I know myself wont be using any addon maybe the one i like from ffxi windower display how much EXP i'm getting. The only reason i hate addons is in wow to do anything like raids they make you download addon A,B,C / D to even do there events i hope that never happen in ffxiv if it does then w/e i play my way and learn how to play the game without using addon i did it in wow and in ffxi i can do it in ffxiv.

Addons are just a crutch for those lacking skill and intuition.

In Call of Duty, if you use an aimbot it's called hacking because it automates the entire skillset the gameplay is based on.

In FFXIV, if players use addons which automate the skill-set of the gameplay, then that too should be deemed "hacking".

There is a difference between a helpful UI and something that plays the game for you, and sometimes I think addons cross that line.

The dev team should be the only people that get to define the skillset of the game. Addons/hacks which automate that skillset should not be allowed.

Customising the layout should be the only thing that is allowed.

[Zenaku]

Addons are just a crutch for those lacking skill and intuition.

In Call of Duty, if you use an aimbot it's called hacking because it automates the entire skillset the gameplay is based on.

In FFXIV, if players use addons which automate the skill-set of the gameplay, then that too should be deemed "hacking".

There is a difference between a helpful UI and something that plays the game for you, and sometimes I think addons cross that line.

The dev team should be the only people that get to define the skillset of the game. Addons/hacks which automate that skillset should not be allowed.

Customising the layout should be the only thing that is allowed.

I agree with you 100% i can care less about addon as long as other players don't make me download something just to do a endgame event i'm fine with the idea having addon. I for one be switching over too a addon Ui that does not look like that in that picture Something like FFXI with a big chat window like i have my ffxiv right now would be fine play 6year i dislike having small chat .

Let's hope SE would ban and not allow addon that does stuff for you opening addon people could easy make addon to bot Mobs and other stuff and may take sometime to even ban that type of addon not if they have a system set up for that type of stuff.

[Aradon]

A lot has been said about concerns over add-ons, and there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what they mean for the game. Incoming wall of text, unfortunately, but I tried to segment it a bit. There's a short summary of my points at the bottom, support is in the post.

First off, add-ons that allow people to check gear level will have very little impact on group formation. Anyone that would care about ilvl would just as easily look at your gear and make a decision based on that. Fact is, most people don't really care about gear level. It's a useful number that gives people a quick impression of the level of your gear. People will only be cut from groups based on gear level in two situations:
1. The people in the group are only interested in the highest level of gear and players. These people are probably mostly in the same linkshell/company for the most part, and they would kick you after looking at your gear anyways. The addition of the ability to get a simple number isn't going to change their exclusivity.
2. Your gear is too low to be capable of truly participating in the event. This is low enough gear that your 'skill' isn't going to cover. You simply should not be doing that content, and your group is simply carrying you. In this instance, the rest of your group kind of deserves to know this fact. Lots of people are still willing to help you out, but if it becomes a problem, they'll know right away who isn't pulling their weight.

In BOTH cases though, there is a problem, and having an add-on that tells you ilvl doesn't cause that problem. It's just a number that describes something they can already see. The groups everyone worries about that will kick you for having 'not the best ilvl' will kick you when they see you have 'not the best gear' too, and groups that kick you for having an inexcusably low ilvl can just inspect you anyways and see that for themselves.

It's also worth noting that I play WoW, and have had no ilvl issue. It's not a problem because people don't go looking for raid members for a level 359 raid and demand that everyone has 359 gear already. They'll take 350 and even lower, up to the discretion of the raid leader. Guild groups usually enter raids significantly lower than the ilvl of gear that drops because you simply can't get that gear without going in below ilvl. The thing is, the use of ilvl gives you a quick gauge to see if someone is inappropriately equipped for any given content. There is a point where skill cannot make up the difference, and you'll find that people tend to ask for ilvl just a bit above that. Groups just ask for reasonable gear, not the best. Some groups will, of course, demand the highest gear level, but those groups would kick you for having subpar gear anyways. At least this way you don't end up getting invited, then kicked shortly after.


As for the extreme amount of information and interaction, and addons 'playing the game for you,' there's a serious point that needs to be made here. The game, and it's interface, is a tool. The UI is a tool that players use to defeat challenges in the game. The more unresponsive, uninformative, and difficult to use the UI is, the worse of a tool it is. The worse the tool, the less fun it is to play the game. A simple (default) UI presents a reasonable amount of information, estimating about what the average player would want to see. If the player wants more, this is where addons are useful.

-Superficial addons are ones that reskin the UI. I haven't really seen any complaints about these customizations, so I won't really go into detail here. They're nice and handy, make the UI a cleaner, more friendly tool, and good all around.

-Informative UI addons give extra data that more hardcore players desperately want. This category includes things like cooldowns on pertinent spells, which spells are about to wear off, and things like damage meters. Damage meters provide information that people are already getting outside of the game, it just makes it a lot more accessable. These tools help players experiment more freely and with much better feedback. It's hardly a crutch to use these things, as they help you improve your gameplay mechanics and understanding of the game and class. Without damage meters, it's a lot more difficult to even identify that you need to improve an aspect of your class, since you can't compare data easily to anyone else's. For the record, I've never been asked how much dps I pull when lfg in WoW.

-Active addons that perform tasks for you are essentially UI elements that shorten actions down to a single click. Rather than clicking the target and then clicking decurse, you just click the target. These are more important for the hardcore players because it cuts down on things like "mouse travel time." I think even these forums would agree that "mouse travel time" should not be a limiting factor on someone's effectiveness. A curse-heavy fight should be focused on the healers realizing and reacting, not moving their mouse faster. This family of addons reduces mundane tasks into simpler actions, cutting out elements of the game that are really superficial UI shortcomings. By this I mean, the interface exists for us to tell their servers what we want our characters to do. The better we can do that, the better the interface is. These addons shorten the gap between our intentions and what we convey to the server via an improved interface.

-The final category of addons are ones that essentially provide cues. These addons give you reminders of all sorts of things, and some can go as far as telling you what to cast next. These are actually a pretty small minority of addons, and aren't the massive plague everyone here believes they are. The line between a reminder that a 3-minute spell is about to expire/cooldown (informative) and an addon telling you to recast it (playing your game for you) is pretty vague. In any event, these addons are useful for people picking up a new class to and even those looking to fine tune their reactions. They're like tutorials or practice engines, and eventually you can play without them. I don't think any WoW player ever would agree that their addons are playing the game for them. They still have to make all the judgment calls, and they have be prepared for their rotations and cues, otherwise all the addon-interfaces in the world won't help them play efficiently. These addons are interface aids that help you learn and efficiently play your class. Subpar addons will help players and then get disabled, but the best ones will stay active. Believe me, the top tier of WoW players are not idiots incapable of playing their classes, and they are the ones using these addons.

-------

In short, addons are not the evil people here feel they are. They help enhance an interface that in turn makes the game more enjoyable and more playable. The interface exists to translate your intent to the servers, and the better the interface accomplishes this, the better. Addons that assist gameplay may help players learn their classes, but exist to make veterans of their classes hone their skills even further. Addons that actually play classes for people are called bots and aren't actually allowed.

[Synfrag]

In short, addons are not the evil people here feel they are. They help enhance an interface that in turn makes the game more enjoyable and more playable. The interface exists to translate your intent to the servers, and the better the interface accomplishes this, the better. Addons that assist gameplay may help players learn their classes, but exist to make veterans of their classes hone their skills even further. Addons that actually play classes for people are called bots and aren't actually allowed.

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is detrimental to the game no matter how you spin it. If we end up with shortcut add-ons like decursive for example (I'm sure there are better examples) it's all over. I am absolutely fine with things like UI skins, CD timers, parsers (AKA DPS meters) and non-altering add-ons. The second you throw in shortcut add-ons you break FFXIV. Even if, only for the simple fact that at leas 1/2 the population will be playing with a controller and targeting a shortcut will be nearly impossible.

Shipp actually illustrate my point perfectly with "You claim your GF has healed without any healing addons. This is simply ridiculous. No serious raid healer is not going to have a healing addon." If the game requires a 3rd party add-on in order to fulfill your task then it is broken, end of story.

On top of that comes serious balance issues and the result of inaccurate game balance is Elite mobs with 500k HP and no tactical strategy required to beat them. There is no other way around it besides making everything generic like Blizzard has done. Because the field is so vastly split due to which add-ons are used and by whom that the designers have to compensate with simplicity and numbers e.g. more trash mobs, higher HP and less or no visual clues.

Personally I cannot stand most of the WoW add-ons on my screen. They are designed by amateurs with literally no understanding of aesthetics or visual design and they clutter up your screen so bad that all you see is add-ons and nothing in the game. But, because WoW is such a cluster**** of a game, I have to use them. There is no choice and therefore I am forced to live with an even uglier version of an already ugly game.

Yes, some are great to have and I'm not completely against them as a whole but to say that there is nothing negative about them is absolutely ignorant.

[Lavani]

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is detrimental to the game no matter how you spin it. If we end up with shortcut add-ons like decursive for example (I'm sure there are better examples) it's all over. I am absolutely fine with things like UI skins, CD timers, parsers (AKA DPS meters) and non-altering add-ons. The second you throw in shortcut add-ons you break FFXIV. Even if, only for the simple fact that at leas 1/2 the population will be playing with a controller and targeting a shortcut will be nearly impossible.

Shipp actually illustrate my point perfectly with "You claim your GF has healed without any healing addons. This is simply ridiculous. No serious raid healer is not going to have a healing addon." If the game requires a 3rd party add-on in order to fulfill your task then it is broken, end of story.

On top of that comes serious balance issues and the result of inaccurate game balance is Elite mobs with 500k HP and no tactical strategy required to beat them. There is no other way around it besides making everything generic like Blizzard has done. Because the field is so vastly split due to which add-ons are used and by whom that the designers have to compensate with simplicity and numbers e.g. more trash mobs, higher HP and less or no visual clues.

Personally I cannot stand most of the WoW add-ons on my screen. They are designed by amateurs with literally no understanding of aesthetics or visual design and they clutter up your screen so bad that all you see is add-ons and nothing in the game. But, because WoW is such a cluster**** of a game, I have to use them. There is no choice and therefore I am forced to live with an even uglier version of an already ugly game.

Yes, some are great to have and I'm not completely against them as a whole but to say that there is nothing negative about them is absolutely ignorant.

This UI has all of the "essential" addons people claim are ruining the game. Tell me where the cluster**** is?

[Synfrag]

This UI has all of the "essential" addons people claim are ruining the game. Tell me where the cluster**** is?

Yes your layout is clean and you are running @1080. But you aren't in combat which means a bunch of flash indicators and such aren't running. If I still played I would ask you what you are using for UI and raid frames but idc now.

The look of it was a side comment. And more primarily directed at the terrible aesthetic design than the space they take up.

I still find this to be a lot cleaner

[Aradon]

Wrong!

Add-ons have the complete power to destroy a game without any abuse or misuse. Exactly as they have in WoW. There are thousands of players who do not understand how to play their class in WoW without add-ons. I am one of them. I was convinced into playing wow by co-workers and so the first thing I did was copy a friends add-on profile and have him show me what to do. When the game gets patched and it breaks my add-ons I have no clue if someone is cursed or if my Fingers of Frost are up and what have you. Add-ons that tell you what to do next after a skill only add to the lack of knowledge in how to properly use your class.

This is you mis-using add-ons. When I started playing WoW, I played with no add-ons. Then, when I became frustrated with being unable to relate my performance to anything else, I installed recount. Then, when I decided I could react better to bosses with timer displays, I installed DBM. When I had trouble keeping my threat in check, I installed something to monitor my threat. They're tools, and you get the ones you need.

Your comments regarding balance are an issue the Devs would have to be aware of. The WoW dev team decided to embrace add-ons at the highest level content, to extend the range of skill and challenge at the top end, while leaving dungeons to be balanced without expecting add-ons. Even then, there is grey area, as I expect Firelands could be managed without healer add-ons, just not heroic Firelands. Still, if the Dev team felt that the FF XIV playerbase wants the game to be balanced without add-ons, then it can be balanced so they aren't expected or needed.

To address a couple of the other things you have said as well:
- You said that things like decursive will be unfair to controller users. This isn't really true, as controller users have other options for their add-ons. Things like bumpers to shortcut to party selection for healing, or in this example, simply holding L2 or something to shortcut a spell like Remove Curse. There's no reason that add-ons can't be made to take advantage of controller input methods; they simply don't map over 1:1.
- You said that you can't stand most of the WoW add-ons, but are forced to use them. This is simply untrue. Once I learned to manage my threat, I could turn my Omen meter off. Once I brought my dps up to an acceptable level, I hid my recount damage meter. Having Deadly Boss Mods on is hardly an information overflow, and even that isn't absolutely required. You could totally get through fights just listening to raid communication, skill, and timing memory if you cared to put that much effort into it. If you don't care that much, then I guess you'd prefer having the raid interfaces available to you. It's always an option, and I doubt the Dev team would start balancing to require add-ons, considering how vocal those against this have been.
- No matter how much you claim that add-ons will deter someone from learning there class, it is impossible to dispute the fact that most add-ons improve someone's understanding of the class. Threat meters teach you what is an is not appropriate for skill timing, and most of all, dps meters allow you to gauge your overall efficiency, and if and where you need to improve. The feedback allows players to experiment with different rotations or ideas and actually see if it was effective. You will note that players already do this with parsers outside of the game because it is so important. Whatever harm is done by those add-ons that tell you what spell to cast is vastly outweighed by the benefits of instant feedback and learning through playing offered by other add-ons. In terms of being good or bad for player learning, you can't say to remove all of them just because of the few add-ons that give you your rotations.