Let's talk about placing markers during fights.

[Phantom_Wings]

For those not aware, there is an 3rd party tool that automatically places waymarkers at specific locations mid fight in accordance with triggers/received packets. For the sake of brevity, I'll call this tool Park. Park was used quite a bit in TEA due to the fights length and need for specific positioning all throughout the fight.

Well, this change stops Park from working, and that's great! But hold on, it also directly hurts the players that replaced markers legitimately. Not only do the former Park users have a harder time, players that did markers legit have a harder time. It's even worse for the legit players, since whoever replaced markers mid fight had to practice this skill, maybe struggled with it, and maybe caused wipes in prog trying to figure it out. It takes some skill and mental bandwidth to place markers quickly and accurately mid fight, and this change invalidated a real skill of certain players in an effort to stop a plugin SE considers cheating.

You may not be sold on the importance of legitimate players being able to place markers mid-fight, so let me try and sell you. In my static, the other dudes gave me a role called "keeper of the marks", mostly as a joke because I'm the one always placing markers everywhere. I marked divebombs during nael for ucob/t9s, did many marker changes mid fight during ucob, TEA, and some savage fights to help out as much as possible. I'm a sch, what else am I to do while pressing broil/physick? Might as well mark shit. I feel like I have some skill set that I bring to raid to help prog go quicker and help reclears go smoother, and it has been stripped of me because SE couldn't find a better solution to stopping cheaters. It's upsetting, because I've figured out so many great ways to help my team just a little, almost unnoticeable, bit. But it helps. I change markers for important mechanics so everyone is crystal clear where they need to be, everyone is crystal clear how to coordinate, and have a clear visualization that everyone shares. An example of more great usage would be recent healer trials. We trialed a healer that had cleared but used a different wormhole strat. We take dashes through the middle so we bait them on the "open side". Mid pull, the healer panicks, "where is the open side?" as wormhole is happening. I quickly place 1 and 2 where the open sides are, and we get through it perfectly fine and the trial understands very clearly now what we meant. There are also many many other things you do with markers mid fight that are going away such as adjusting slightly incorrect markers to prevent a wipe. It's truly unfortunate that SE has taken away a skill that can be used for so much good as a crude solution for cheating.

That's all I have, let me know what your thoughts and opinions are. I'd love to discuss it with you guys. I would also love to hear anyone from SE discuss this change with me.

-(Former) Keeper of the Marks

[VenKitsune]

Unfortunately its about the only logical solution that can be taken - They said in that same live letter that they cant tell whats on or running on your PC, and it would be illegal to scan for such without the users consent.

However, with the new presets system....Why not allow it so that marks cannot be MANUALLY placed mid-fight, but still allow it so that Presets can change the placements of markers mid-fight, so when you go from phase 1 to phase 2 in a fight, and you need new markers, you simply click on the 2nd preset and it swaps it over. Something like that would be good.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

From what I understand they aren't being removed you just can't place them In combat right? So you can set them up before combat even starts and save it by my understanding of it.

[Bright-Flower]

From what I understand they aren't being removed you just can't place them In combat right? So you can set them up before combat even starts and save it by my understanding of it.

Yeah. The concern I have though is what about fights where the scenery changes? Like say Zurvan where the first phase is in one spot, then transitioning into phase 2 you 'fall down' to a new platform. Or Shinryu etc where you're taken to a different platform.

[linay]

However, with the new presets system....Why not allow it so that marks cannot be MANUALLY placed mid-fight, but still allow it so that Presets can change the placements of markers mid-fight, so when you go from phase 1 to phase 2 in a fight, and you need new markers, you simply click on the 2nd preset and it swaps it over. Something like that would be good.

Likely because they then have to make sure there is no flaw in the coding that would allow third party tool to piggyback on that preset exceptions and move the markers that way. So they just block it entirely. Or they just don't want too much automation during combat, including from in-game tool.

[whiskeybravo]

However, with the new presets system....Why not allow it so that marks cannot be MANUALLY placed mid-fight, but still allow it so that Presets can change the placements of markers mid-fight, so when you go from phase 1 to phase 2 in a fight, and you need new markers, you simply click on the 2nd preset and it swaps it over. Something like that would be good.

This is actually an incredible, common-sense suggestion that SE probably won't see in time to implement before the patch (if ever lol)

I would think one of the main factors that drove the development of this particular mod would be the fact that it's slightly irritating to place waymarks on the fly to begin with, especially in high-end content where there's constant pressure to flawlessly execute mechanics.

If they had implemented this preset waymark feature sooner, assuming we'd still have the ability to swap on the fly, then the mod probably would've never been developed.

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Yeah. The concern I have though is what about fights where the scenery changes? Like say Zurvan where the first phase is in one spot, then transitioning into phase 2 you 'fall down' to a new platform. Or Shinryu etc where you're taken to a different platform.

I see maybe they Will allow people to load a save per phase maybe? Like you set phase 1 markers before combat and when the enivorment shifting leave a window where the 2nd phase markers can be loaded from a save?

[Barraind]

I dread any fight like Shinryu, or Seiryu, where you really want markers for later phases to herd a derp or two to their position.


My response when they announced "we fixed it" was 'they couldn't have without breaking something major, and they certainly did that.

[Saccharin]

Unfortunately its about the only logical solution that can be taken - They said in that same live letter that they cant tell whats on or running on your PC, and it would be illegal to scan for such without the users consent.

So bake an anti-cheat into the game and add it to the EULA. Just like other games. The dont ask, dont tell policy is ridiculous.

[Phantom_Wings]

From what I understand they aren't being removed you just can't place them In combat right? So you can set them up before combat even starts and save it by my understanding of it.

Correct, but that doesn't matter in Ultimate fights or even Savage fights when they are really new. Being able to move markers in the middle of the fights can really help your teammates out and make the fights easier to clear. Nearly every great group moves their markers around in the middle of the fight to set up waypoints for upcoming challenging mechanics and new phases.