Mods and cheat engine

[Koldan]

We are comparing software that can literally draw aoe outlines for you, call out where and how to do mechanics BEFORE it appears on your screen, software that removes intended animation lock to allow tripple weaving with mouse and keyboard to justify it.
Mental gymnastics some people go through to justify cheating is always surprising.

[Packetdancer]

We are comparing software that can literally draw aoe outlines for you, call out where and how to do mechanics BEFORE it appears on your screen, software that removes intended animation lock to allow tripple weaving with mouse and keyboard to justify it.
Mental gymnastics some people go through to justify cheating is always surprising.

It's worth noting that Cactbot cannot display AoE outlines for you, at least not that I'm aware of. My understanding is that all ACT OverlayPlugin-based stuff -- including Cactbot's various modules, and also the majority of the DPS meter displays that people use -- renders in a transparent always-on-top window (which is just made to poof when the game isn't active); so far as I know, it has zero awareness of what the game is actually displaying. Yes, it knows what's going on (by virtue of listening to the network traffic), but stuff like "what is your camera angle and how far in are you zoomed" is wholly client-side and not exposed in that manner, so there's no way it could render AoE outlines for you in the game world in a meaningful way.

I have no doubt such tools do exist, likely by modifying the game process (rather than just being an external program that sits there watching network traffic). And I would say those sort of tools which give you information not accessible otherwise in the game are definitely deeply problematic. But something like that goes way farther than anything I've seen folks doing with Cactbot. And while Cactbot can call out mechanics before a human raid-caller, in most cases that's only by a second or two at most (because the "start the mechanic now" message from the server tends to come pretty much immediately before an animation starts).

Now, from what I've seen of a friend's Cactbot setup, I do know it can remember that Mechanic A has happened already which means that the next time it will be Mechanic B -- and based on that it can call it out in advance, yes. But in all honesty, I can do that too, because -- as a raid-caller -- I end up learning how the fights work. If I'm in the second Endwalker extreme, and I see that the Dawn's Mantle/Crystallize pairing is "out and then spread", I know that the next one will be "in and light parties". If it's "in and spread", I know it will be "out and light parties". In both cases, I can call that mechanic well before the animation starts, because it will always alternate the elements.

Heck, I've run the first Endwalker extreme so many times I can see the first two hits of the Cataclysmic Astral Waffle Iron and in like 90% of cases I can call the third reflexively without looking, because there's only a limited set of possible patterns and at this point I know most of them by heart. My callouts thus sound like "One... <pause to spin camera from west to south side> ...A, Two. One-A-Two."

This is why when it comes to Cactbot's Raidboss thing specifically, I tend not to think it's a big deal.

Yes, there are mechanics it can call faster than I will ever be able to -- notably, from what I understand, P3's Experimental Fireplume, where it can apparently call whether it's the big center AoE or the spiraling Shiva-circle type hits way before I have any clue from the animation. (Which, to be fair, I find a little annoying. But whatever.) But I tend to think that balances out because there are also mechanics it cannot call consistently or correctly; every time I see someone blindly following Cactbot in P1S through Intemperance there's like an 80% chance they will die, because apparently it calls it wrong in a lot of cases as it doesn't actually know what the pattern of gems in your square is or how your party resolves it. Similarly, it evidently calls things wrong for Shackles of Time during the Shining Cells phase.

If you blindly follow Cactbot, it will eventually kill you because there's stuff it just doesn't read right; it lacks context, it doesn't know what strat your group is using, etc. Just like if you blindly follow my call-outs, someday I will be tired and say "West" when I meant "East" and kill you as a result. ("Weast" and "Snorth" are perfectly cromulent directions, so there.)

Callouts -- be they Cactbot or a normal raid-caller -- should be a sanity-check on your own read of mechanics, not an instruction manual you blindly follow. I believe that firmly, as I also believe that fundamentally -- taking all the things it does well and that it does really badly into account, at least based on my observations of folks using it -- Cactbot's callouts are fundamentally no different than a human raid caller like me. The bot's callouts are stronger than mine in some areas, yes, but from what I've seen it's also way less competent in others.

Hence why I say "I don't personally care that much about Cactbot, as a raider." And heck, I know one or two folks who have issues that Cactbot solves; I have a friend who is colorblind in a way that he literally can see no difference between the blue/purple and red chains in P1S, which makes Aetherial Shackles really challenging for him. (And, as a result, also really challenging for anyone running P1S with him.) When I've run with him in PF groups, I just make a point to call out his debuff color to him (and then he can read the timer himself), but I know he's started using Cactbot solely for the "which color chain do I actually freakin' have" aspect.

And I'm not going to begrudge him that. (Especially since it means I die to him being out when he should be in or vice versa a lot less frequently.)

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Everything that needs to be said tbh

Yes, you're absolutely right on pretty much everything. Koldan, on the other hand, has been showing for days now that he's only able to send "but it's cheating mooooom" to every reasonable argument presented to him. And he's not alone on that. At this point, we should just let this thread die, the undecisive people have read whatever they needed to be convinced of whatever they are convinced of now, and people that already had their opinion won't change it.

[Koldan]

Yes, you're absolutely right on pretty much everything. Koldan, on the other hand, has been showing for days now that he's only able to send "but it's cheating mooooom" to every reasonable argument presented to him. And he's not alone on that. At this point, we should just let this thread die, the undecisive people have read whatever they needed to be convinced of whatever they are convinced of now, and people that already had their opinion won't change it.

All your opinion is "its not THAT big of a deal" and "i PERSONALLY dont care" it doesnt anything of a value to a conversation. Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.
Why you think you are entitled to something console players cant have access to also questions your character.

[Saraide]

All your opinion is "its not THAT big of a deal" and "i PERSONALLY dont care" it doesnt anything of a value to a conversation. Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.
Why you think you are entitled to something console players cant have access to also questions your character.

So now we are on "cheaters are fine, its about how YOU feel about it" stage? Seriously? All gameplay affecting stuff SHOULD be disabled on developers lvl. Noone cares if your modded dress on your screen look different, but how you make invisible telegraphs appear on your screen with 3rd party software? Software calls out mechanics from you because you cant encrypt network packets thats also fine? How we remove intended animation lock form some abilities so you can tripple weave since some mysterious jp server dveller is supposed to be able to do it? Where do we stop with that crap?
I dont say we should ban people for using ffxivalexander or something. They just should make game fair for everyone.

I feel like there are conflicting statements coming up here. You say we shouldnt ban people for using alexander but then you say any tool that gives info or functions no in the base game has no place here. What is it now?

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

All your opinion is "its not THAT big of a deal" and "i PERSONALLY dont care" it doesnt anything of a value to a conversation.

Either you don't read me, either you don't want to understand. I'm not sure myself, at this point.

Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.

As said many times in this thread, cactbot only reads things that can be accessed through the base client, but sure, let's go your way.

Why should youtube guides exist ? They do give you information on how to beat content. WHAT ? YOU USE THEM ? But that's illegal, since the guide doesn't exist in game. How dare you ?

Hey, let's push it further ! Why should the lodestone database exist ? It gives recipes to people that have not acquired them yet. That's ILLEGAL. Wait, it's made by SE...

NO THE REAL PROBLEM IS google sheets that compare stuff or people sharing information on Discord about rotations and stuff.

It's a multiplayer game, Koldan, people share their intel, they share strats, they share gear optimizers... And that's for the best. If Yoshida went as far, in an interview, as to say that to some extent, Excel and Discord could be considered as third source programs that interfere with the game, that's because he was adressing witch hunters like you that make this game far more toxic than you save it from cactbotters.

Why you think you are entitled to something console players cant have access to also questions your character.

You seem to be under the impression I am using Cactbot. I'm not. You're probably gonna say I'm lying, whatever, I like the thrill of discovering fights, so I don't watch guides except if I plan to PF things, but I do use shaders for screenshots.

But even if I was using cactbot or other add-ons... When did I say I should use them and not console players ? I am not entitled to anything, not anymore that you're entitled to keep your precious titles for all eternity. You're just a random player, I'm just a random player, and we both do what make us feel good in this game. The difference is that I'm not a maniac obsessed with what others do and have. Take care of yourself, you need some help.

[Packetdancer]

Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.

See, I think this is the fundamental disconnect in this conversation: I think almost everyone in this thread is in agreement on that fact. The problem is that people aren't really in agreement on what "accessible by the base client" means.

Mini Cactpot Solver stuff isn't reading anything the player doesn't see; it can just see "There's a 5 in this square, which means this row and this column can only be these combinations. If you check the number in one of these three squares, we can see where a high-value line is likely to be." It doesn't see what's behind the scratch-off stuff (because the client doesn't know), and I can do the same math with a pencil and paper (or using a website). Does "a mod that marks which ones I should pick one of to see where the high-value row is likely to be" count as fundamentally different than a website a Playstation player can open on their laptop or smartphone that does the same thing? It's more convenient, but I'm not sure it's fundamentally different.

Cactbot's Raidboss callouts can be faster than a human (in some cases, or way worse in others), but generally speaking I've yet to see Cactbot able to call something I-as-a-raid-caller cannot. Yeah, it could hypothetically call out, say, your specific debuffs for E12S's Intermediate Relativity and such, which is harder for a raid-caller to personalize, but given that those are set patterns I could still call out "DPS have flare, get the hell out". In P1S, I've run with someone learning the fight who had trouble reading where they needed to be, so I just added calling their temperature resolution to the general callout, like, "Alright, resolve your squares. <X>, you'll want to head south." (Which, from what I've been told, is better than what Cactbot calls there anyway, as it will tell you to resolve the second hit in a way that may get you killed on the third.)

Hence why I say that I don't think that on balance, Cactbot gives any meaningful overall advantage to having a human raid-caller.

Stuff that does things like mark invisible AoEs on the ground for you, or lets you ignore debuffs inflicted on you in PvP, and stuff like that? Things which give you capabilities that are, as you put it, beyond those exposed by the base game? I agree those are an issue. I think everyone in this thread agrees those are an issue. (Or anyone who doesn't is probably not saying much.)

XIValexander is the one thing that's been explicitly named in this thread that I honestly have qualms with, as I find myself dithering on it. I've watched friends with terrible ping try to play weaving-heavy jobs and fail due to technical limitations rather than limitations of skill, so I can definitely see the appeal of something that uses the animation lock system to basically try to negate/counteract bad ping. But it could also absolutely be used to cheat, and I'm not sure "functioning on the honor system" is a great approach here. (Though, again, one assumes that if your weaving falls outside of what's actually rationally possible, the server can and will flag it as suspicious. And if it doesn't do that, it ought to.)

Mind you, I think Square-Enix should add that animation-lock-reduced-by-ping-time functionality to the base game, as it would be a great counter to terrible ping. I don't think they will, because glancing at the code for XIValexander suggests that while it would be pretty easy to implement in the client on Windows, it would probably not work well inside the Crossover bottle on Mac and might be a headache to do on Playstation. And SE has demonstrated an understandable (if sometimes annoying) reluctance to implement something on one platform that it cannot readily put into all of them.

At any rate, like I said: I think the reason people are arguing in circles in this thread is not so much that half of the people think "yes I should be allowed to cheat" but rather that people are going "it is unfair when people can use tools to get access to information I don't have", while the other half is going, "Sure, we agree, but the particular tools named don't do that (with maybe the exception of XIValexander, which doesn't give you information you don't otherwise have but does definitely modify the game experience in a more substantial way). They take information you do have and just package it in a more-easily-processed form."

Now, if the argument is "it feels unfair that people can add better accessibility/QoL options to the game on PC when that's denied to console players", yeah, I think a lot of us can get behind that; it does feel like it isn't an equitable situation between the two. It sucks that a PC user can, say, load in a mod that makes the buffs/debuffs you put onto a target displayed with their icons larger than the rest, meaning you can tell at a glance "is that Higanbana on the boss that's about to expire mine, or is it the other SAM's?" and that a Playstation user does not have that option.

There's basically nothing Cactbot can call that I as a raid-caller can't, and I feel like the places it has advantages over me are countered by the parts that it does way worse. But yes, it does still feel unfair in some ways inasmuch as someone who's in a PUG without voice-chat still has a raid-caller (more or less) if they're using Cactbot, whereas if you're on Playstation and venture into PF without your static's raid-caller you're on your own for a read of mechanics.

But if the argument is that QoL changes to repackage information you do have in a more-easily-processed form is cheating... I think that's where folks are disagreeing with each other. Because something can be unfair without being cheating; I think we'd all agree it's unfair that someone who lives in San Jose will have an easier time playing NIN -- personal skill aside -- than someone who lives somewhere in Argentina, simply by virtue of ping and how this game's netcode works. (Or, frankly, an easier time than even someone who lives in like... Philadelphia.)

But I don't think any of us would qualify "I live in San Jose" as meaning that person is cheating, even if it's still unfair.

(And I think I've probably been wordy enough for this thread for... uh, a while. Especially since this is apparently giving my phone's autocorrect an aneurysm.)

[Sarnai]

We are comparing software that can literally draw aoe outlines for you, call out where and how to do mechanics BEFORE it appears on your screen, software that removes intended animation lock to allow tripple weaving with mouse and keyboard to justify it.
Mental gymnastics some people go through to justify cheating is always surprising.

I'm not justifying cactbot, but I'm just curious which fields are "cheating because it gives you an advantage over console players" and which are ok. Since Having a mouse with 20 buttons will definitely improve your reaction time and help with triple weaving or binding a macro to do 3 actions in one click for example, in comparison to having just a gamepad.

[Towowo]

XIVAlexander can be used to cheat for sure but anyone that I know that uses wouldn't even know how to use it for that purpose. Such a tool wouldn't feel required if the game didn't punish you so hard for having a bad connection one day.

[Koldan]

Cactbot can and does call out faster than any human possible and if you coordinate your group through it and triggonometry it also does PERSONALIZED callout where to go, how to do mechanic and such, still gonna defend that?
People tripple weave while I single weave without any tools, thats also fair for you? You can look up my logs, i am not the best player but i am certainly qualified to speak about raiding environment since i am calling out in my group.
Is showing you were hunt spawned with DIRECTIONS on your screen fair to you too instead of looking for it yourself?
Stop justifying cheating in multiplaer games. Noone cares what you do in your single player game, but cheats and tools like that have no business being present in mmos.