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

[Xmbei]

1. I was never allowed to go on FFXI raids because I didn't have above basic 75 gear. So that point is invalid, their will always be elitest, with or without addons its a manner of players once they find a way they will implement it. Just like they do now "Oh you are a PUG without such and such cross-class ability?!?!?! GTFO! Level your other classes!"

2. Blizzard took the gear score thing on board and now it is displayed on gear last I checked. So no add-on required, heck I had read a early cata dev post saying in next patch we will be releasing so-and-so gear score items so you can take on the next dungeon. It isn't an add-on's fault, blizzard just made WoW gear specific on content as to artificate some of the difficulty and give the endgame players something to strive for.

tl;dr Don't blame add-on's for either game design or player community, if you don't like it, continue playing the game the way you want. Don't play with those people, because they ruin your game experience.

[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.

[Shipp]

Look i can care less at the end in wow people care too much about dps and ilvl at the end that what matter and that what i hate i understand gear matter but when a addon tell you oh this player suck due to this and matter what the player say he wont be allow to join and that what i think that addon should never be allow within FFXIV.

It's how ppl care ffxiv got 4.9score and this mmo get 9.9 they would play that over this and that what matter to them same thing at least for me.

anyways wonder why we got so off topic guess it happen in every topic.

You have very little experience about WoW. You mainly played on a private server, and you claim you've played since Cata, yet nobody uses gearscore in Cata. This sounds like you are simply repeating what you've heard other WoW players say, damned if it's true or not.

The addons don't tell you whether a player sucks. You bitching about an addon stopping you from joining a raid because you're undergeared is what shows you suck. XI had the exact same limitations, though the execution differed, as many people have pointed out. You're fooling yourself if you think it's even a valid comparison.

You don't understand how WoW works, and I highly doubt you have done any serious endgame in WoW. You claim your GF has healed without any healing addons. This is simply ridiculous. She might have healed dungeons that you leveled in, but she did not heal raids. If you're trying to say that she healed raids without addons, then she is being carried, or more likely, you're lying about your actual experience of the game to try to boost your credibility. No serious raid healer is not going to have a healing addon. Those that don't are being carried, simple. It has nothing to do with skill, before you start on that. It has everything to do with how the above poster stated, "mouse travel time." There is no extra skill involved with performing clicking on a raid frame and then pressing a button instead of clicking on that frame and it healing with whatever you press while mousing over the frame. It is faster and more efficient, and nobody is going to perform two separate steps which don't need to be separate in the first place, faster than the person using an addon to cut out the slow-down from unneeded UI clicking steps.

You don't like WoW, we all get that loud and clear. You aren't talking about personal experience though, because you're using ridiculous numbers like "500 ilvl" when there is no way to even get 400 ilvl in the game at the moment. Same with the gearscore numbers you've provided, and that addon hasn't even been used for nearly a year. It was broken when Cata launched, and I don't even know if it was ever fixed or not since ilvl is better and everyone uses that instead.

You straight up make shit up about WoW, and you treat the game as if it's an ex girlfriend who cheated on you with 50 men. You slander it, lie about it, and harass it in literally 95% of your posts. You did this on Eorzeapedia, and you said I was the reason you were leaving, and you're still doing it here. EVERY post I read from you mentions WoW. The crap is old dude. People bashed WoW back in 2004, 7 years later and you are still beating the dusty remains of that horse. Get over it. WoW did not do a damn thing to you, and anyone who plays it can tell you are lying through your teeth or you are exaggerating in the most extreme case possible.

Any change in XIV that makes it more accessible to new players and you start harping it's like WoW. You harp that the new UI SS looks like WoW. You harp that the new graphics look like WoW. You harp that 2.0 is a WoW clone. You harp and harp and harp about WoW. You bring up WoW more than any person that even plays WoW. You are obsessed with the game that you supposedly hate. YOU come off looking like a sad person who has an unhealthy obsession with a video game that you don't even play. It's almost like you're a closet WoW fan, yet you're too proud to admit that something other than Final Fantasy can be popular. You'd rather Final Fantasy continue on the failing track that Tanaka was driving it down than welcome much needed changes that will actually help this game make some modicum of a come back.

Let the WoW issue die. Even people I'd consider whiteknights on this forum have told you flat out that you're wrong about aspects like graphics in 2.0 (BASED ON A CONCEPT RENDERED SHOT) looking like WoW. It's time to give it a rest, and quite frankly, a lot of people have told you to can it, even people on "your side."

Edit: Aradon, perfect post, and I'm glad you explained what most of the addons do and how they are definitely NOT playing the game for you. Definitely a like from me.

[Denmo]

My stance on all this arguing about Add-Ons playing the game for you:

You played FFXII and had a blast. I didn't see anyone (seriously) complaining about Gambits. The game was tailored to still be exciting and enjoyable with them in place.

[Lavani]

@Shipp and Aradon

Well at least two people here understand the functionality of addons. I'm beginning to think that the people that don't want addons are the bads that just don't fully understand game mechanics therefore under perform, but wan't to be carried.

[Aradon]

@Shipp and Aradon

Well at least two people here understand the functionality of addons. I'm beginning to think that the people that don't want addons are the bads that just don't fully understand game mechanics therefore under perform, but wan't to be carried.

Well there's no need for such claims. It seems to me that the people against add-ons are those who want players to succeed on the merit of their own skill. These people probably don't have much actual experience with add-ons, and so they don't realize that add-ons only amplify skill. It's true; add-ons don't play the game for you. They merely improve the interface so that you can play the game more effectively.

[Shipp]

@Shipp and Aradon

Well at least two people here understand the functionality of addons. I'm beginning to think that the people that don't want addons are the bads that just don't fully understand game mechanics therefore under perform, but wan't to be carried.

They're either the bads like you mentioned, or they're people who have no clue what the addons actually do, and instead listen to people like Zenaku who pretend they know what they do when they really don't. Nobody with actual knowledge of what gearscore or ilvl (which is not an addon) does will object to it. It only stops under-geared people from being carried in a raid that they cannot make a difference in.

I just find it hilarious that at least one known private server players is complaining about add-ons that wouldn't even be in use on a private server. Also the fact he keeps saying the same bugs in private servers are on premium WoW servers. The only bugs I have seen in my 7 years of playing are random mobs being glitched where you can't attack them, which is rare, lag causing your target's corpse to show up in a different location that it actually is on the server, thus you can't loot it if it's a small mob (again, very rarely happens, and never on bosses), flying in ghostlands via a glitch that was hotpatched in under 12 hours when Cata first launched, and I was unable to get my Lock mount from the quest chain during a certain week in BC. Blizz knew about the bug and fixed it in 2 days, and it took all of 15 minutes for a GM to respond to me and give me my Dreadsteed.

WoW is not any buggier than any other MMO. Every MMO is going to have bugs. Private server players, nor people who haven't raided endgame in WoW should not be contributing to the WoW add-on topic, because they really have no clue what they're talking about.

[Baxter]

addon, and UI discussion aside. I really hope they do not implement the need to attain a certain gear score before you can enter/participate in a dungeon or raid. That sounds really stupid and unnecessary

[Answa]

addon, and UI discussion aside. I really hope they do not implement the need to attain a certain gear score before you can enter/participate in a dungeon or raid. That sounds really stupid and unnecessary

Nobody has said this will be the case...

I think.

[Baxter]

Nobody has said this will be the case...

I think.

I know. Im just going onto the offensive and stating opposition. Im sure it works for WoW and other games, but I really would not care for this feature. Not at all.