Increasing number of players using 3rd party tools

[Ranaku]

I'd say it's a legitimate cause for concern.

SE doesn't support add ons and they're not actually legal to use, but that won't stop the community at large from requiring them if they become a common crutch for high tier content.

Raiders always used them, mostly. And those who don't mutually agree on not using them. If someone calls you out in random groups for not doing enough damage and mentions your act numbers etc. you can report them and SE will ban them.

To me that is a great compromise, cause people will still get their butt kicked if they use these addons to talk down to others but people can still use these addons in silence to better themself or for theorycrafting. Not to mention that SE doesn't want to literally put spyware on our computers to check if there are any other bad programs running if it's just clientside. If it's not client side ofc the already in place system takes notice of that and such "hackers" get banned rather swiftly.

As Yoshi P. said, instead of calling for a crusade against anything and everyone maybe rather enjoy the game and don't look so much at others, if they bully you with your numbers from act you can report them and that's it. No need to scream for a purge.

[TaleraRistain]

They are technically against ToS. But SE doesn't really crack down on things outside the game so long as they're not used for harassment or egregious cheating. Some of the ones described in this thread like the hunt radar and that PvP one definitely sound like some that SE needs to look into. Anything related to botting as well.

I don't ever think that SE is going to acknowledge any of these officially or start content around their use. They've been pretty firm on their stance on that. They just turn a blind eye since some in the community find some of these useful and so long as they're using them responsibly, they aren't going to rake anyone over the coals.

[Nightshade3226]

Does nobody really see that this is the EXACT situation that WoW found itself in years back? DBM, damage meters, weak auras, and their ilk were not designed to serve the purpose they now serve. They were "tools" to help with your personal "performance". Now look what monstrosity those have mutated into. Slippery slope arguments are traditionally weak arguments and I don't like them, but we have all seen it is very real. These things propagate like a virus. How long until we start seeing people getting kicked from the duty finder for not having ACT or whatever mod everyone else starts to have? Thankfully FF has something of a time barrier before players can be kicked to prevent abuse in this fashion and by the time the lock is released, it's usually not worth it to boot someone unless they are being a piece of garbage.

Every single argument being made by people, saying it isn't a big deal and it won't affect anything, said the same exact things back then in WoW. And look where it is now.

And while it's a great idea in theory to simply enjoy the game and ignore what others are doing, when what others are doing are affecting how you play the game, that is a problem. And if we have learned anything over the years, people simply cannot be trusted. How long will it be before we see the group finder littered with 'Must have 5000 Fantasy Score to join', or whatever arbitrary metric people come up with to divide the player base?

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[ForctyusGold]

tho they really should be more active about it . and yeah. Playstation users cant use it . so having someone to monitor me is just meh way . other mods just need to be ban .

[IckeDerTyp]

What do you mean, increasing amounts?

Dps meters didn't make wow into what people seem to perceive it as nowadays ^^

[Ranaku]

Not to mention that dps meters also existed all these years in XIV. It's not some new thing that is suddenly cropping up everywhere. xD DPS meters etc. where used by the community since the dawn of time (or coil that is) what do you think where all the class guides come from? From players hitting the stupid training dummies with a irl calculator in one hand?

[Vyrerus]

Having to glance at your chat box and decipher a phrase within less than five seconds just isn't fun nor challenging.

Clearly it is, or it wouldn't be so widely circumvented. I'll grant you that it's not a fun idea for most folks, since most raiders tend to be on the side of things where reading is not something they want, but if it wasn't challenging then there'd be no need for circumvention.

Same thing with Gaols, and any other mechanic that has its tells circumvented, whether by ACT triggers or Cactbot.

The difference between a human callout and a bot/trigger callout is that the bot/trigger is infallible if setup correctly. The human can do a wrong call, the human can call too late/too soon. With human callouts there are many mechanics within the game where if the human doesn't know to callout well before the actual tells, then the call is too late (which means there are quite a few mechs where human callouts do almost no good). Not too mention whenever there are team jump rope style mechanics where each person would need individual calls.

Bot/trigger callouts can be setup for every single mechanic for every single raider. They are a HUGE advantage. And without them there would be far fewer clears.

It's not really an issue if raiders kept to themselves and were humble about clears achieved using advantageous software crutches. However, a lot of them aren't, because they use high end raiding as a social hierarchy sorta thing/ego boost/ego justifier.

I have fond memories of a SMN main talking shit to PUGs and other people on A11S clear attempts in 2016. He'd beaten the fight, and was lording around like he was an expert. He linked me footage from his clear, and he had triggers rolling for everything. Laser Sword left call came out before the in game tell. Bait/Out/Spread/Shiva circles call came out before the in game tell. He had triggers reminding him when to reapply DOTs. When Enkindle came off cooldown.

For some things, bot/triggers are comparable to VoIP, but for many things they are not. A human cannot call a mechanic before its in game tell, unless they also use bot/triggers.

Much like FFXI and Windower or LUAs, though, people are going to justify these things no matter what. And every time a serious game changing thing is revealed to be possible via these things, they will double down and say things like, "Well, I don't, and none of my posse do either!" even if that's not entirely true. People like to have the edge, especially in areas where being perceived as skillful because of said edge is a thing.


Of course, it's also true that a lot of raid leads or people who like providing calls use these things to help far more casual players in lower end content like Extremes/Savages. Also sometimes, people are using them because they recognize they will never get as good at the game as some of their more dedicated/savvier gaming friends, so they narrow the gap with the advantage inherent in having them. These types of things keep the area grey, and I like to think of them as the reason why SE doesn't really want to do anything about them.

[Sotaris]

Much like FFXI and Windower or LUAs, though, people are going to justify these things no matter what.

To be fair in 11, it's nearly impossible to play effectively without GearSwap and lua scripts to it. But it has the capability to automate gameplay which is the dangerous part.

[Skiros]

can mods please nuke this thread

lmao people advertising bots and even the names of those bots. you'd think the bot creators are here trying to low-key advertise them

[Yeol]

Just dont want this game to turn into a bloated plugin addon game like WoW.

Every single argument being made by people, saying it isn't a big deal and it won't affect anything, said the same exact things back then in WoW. And look where it is now.

This game has PlayStation playerbase. It's unlikely that the development team will start designing encounters with addons in mind.

The WoW mentality of every raid member must use addons is not because addons exist, but because their developers acknowledge the use of addons and started designing encounters with it in mind. A patch update in WoW will not break their addons. This is done intentionally.

While FFXIV patch will break all 3rd party addons for about 24~74 hours. A lot of players who clear Savage week 1 do it without addons.

This does not mean that WoW raiders are bad without addons, they are good players. It's just that some addons are a must because of their developer's approach.