They need to find a way to detect XIV Alexander and ban people

[Rhysati]

In E4S, Cactbot would tell you the safespots for the left/right punches, which were random and only communicated via an animation, before the animation tell.

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

[Driavna]

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

?

Once the game decided what action the boss will do that data is send to all players and is sniffed by said addon to create a warning. If said addon is showing a warning even before any animation happens it's just mean said information was already there but not necessary accessible to anyone without said addon.

[Shurrikhan]

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

Again, the information was given BEFORE the first animation cue. Players, no matter how inhuman their reaction speed, would not yet have had any information from which to glean where to go.

That's the kind of thing that wouldn't happen at this point in WoW, for instance, because they don't send that kind of information as would be player-readable until the moment of actuation (at which point it would just be a matter of a plugin yelling at you what the visual information was already simultaneously telling you).

But as it stands, XIV offers up a significant amount of information to the client that can be read early, just not through in-game tells. That's left policing what should and should not be offered by plugins up to plugin distributors to curate or ban as they see fit.

[Somnolence]

Again, the information was given BEFORE the first animation cue. Players, no matter how inhuman their reaction speed, would not yet have had any information from which to glean where to go.

That's the kind of thing that wouldn't happen at this point in WoW, for instance, because they don't send that kind of information as would be player-readable until the moment of actuation (at which point it would just be a matter of a plugin yelling at you what the visual information was already simultaneously telling you).

But as it stands, XIV offers up a significant amount of information to the client that can be read early, just not through in-game tells. That's left policing what should and should not be offered by plugins up to plugin distributors to curate or ban as they see fit.

Cactbot is rather benign in the bigger picture. It does not make bad players good, its just 100% accurate shot-caller with maybe 1s advantage. If it causes less idiots to ruin PFs by repeatedly failing mechs then this is a good thing.

Problem is, because modding is not officially supported it makes console players second class citizens. Even PS5 players are playing visually inferior game as PC players don't even need Reshade for that, they can use NVidia Geforce Experience filters to spice the visuals up.

[Driavna]

Cactbot is rather benign in the bigger picture. It does not make bad players good, its just 100% accurate shot-caller with maybe 1s advantage. If it causes less idiots to ruin PFs by repeatedly failing mechs then this is a good thing.

Problem is, because modding is not officially supported it makes console players second class citizens. Even PS5 players are playing visually inferior game as PC players don't even need Reshade for that, they can use NVidia Geforce Experience filters to spice the visuals up.

Dumbs down any mechanics center around being aware of what the boss is doing.

[Johners]

Dumbs down any mechanics center around being aware of what the boss is doing.

In a way, combat addons like Cactbot (in FFXIV) or DBM/BigWigs (in WoW) are dumb. At the same time, having an additional UI element that pings at you when X bad spell is coming in doesn't really make you a better player. You still have to know what do with mechanics. You still have to know the effective cooldown rotation (say you're getting a timer as a tank because high tank damage is coming in). You still need to know how to effectively deal damage while managing whatever mechanic.

Having a slightly nicer UI that tracks more doesn't break the game so drastically that it needs to be urgently fixed ASAP. We don't exactly see 50% of players bursting through Savage on the first day, do we?

[Miles064]

In a way, combat addons like Cactbot (in FFXIV) or DBM/BigWigs (in WoW) are dumb. At the same time, having an additional UI element that pings at you when X bad spell is coming in doesn't really make you a better player. You still have to know what do with mechanics. You still have to know the effective cooldown rotation (say you're getting a timer as a tank because high tank damage is coming in). You still need to know how to effectively deal damage while managing whatever mechanic.

Having a slightly nicer UI that tracks more doesn't break the game so drastically that it needs to be urgently fixed ASAP. We don't exactly see 50% of players bursting through Savage on the first day, do we?

I'd say WoW does fights with dbm in mind and the base functions of dbm are part of the base game anyway so it isnt an issue. FF14 has it's own "dbm" with all the symbols and sounds that it uses so it doesnt really have a use for dbm so this "cactbot" does seem a bit off.

Hard agree on needing to still know how to deal with things though. Dbm has never told you how to solve everything together and mostly tells you some things on the field atm. The player still has to solve the puzzle of all the mechanics going out while still preforming well. One of the things I do like about ff fights over wow is that they tie these visuals to them. WoW also has the dungeon journal that you can open in game so I feel WoW isn't really trying to hide how things work. A lot of mechanics in FF and WoW are pretty simple after you figure how it works. WoW is just more upfront about it.

[Johners]

I'd say WoW does fights with dbm in mind and the base functions of dbm are part of the base game anyway so it isnt an issue. FF14 has it's own "dbm" with all the symbols and sounds that it uses so it doesnt really have a use for dbm so this "cactbot" does seem a bit off.

Hard agree on needing to still know how to deal with things though. Dbm has never told you how to solve everything together and mostly tells you some things on the field atm. The player still has to solve the puzzle of all the mechanics going out while still preforming well. One of the things I do like about ff fights over wow is that they tie these visuals to them. WoW also has the dungeon journal that you can open in game so I feel WoW isn't really trying to hide how things work. A lot of mechanics in FF and WoW are pretty simple after you figure how it works. WoW is just more upfront about it.

I don't think it's as clear cut as designing fights with or without addons in mind. It's a grey area and while I do think it's a consideration for higher level gameplay, especially when you consider WeakAuras also, you can play all of these fights on any difficulty without addons. There's a general community expectation to use these addons in a lot of content though, especially if you don't play in a raiding guild/team (static in FFXIV). This expectation also spreads into Mythic+ which has Raider.IO etc on top of using DBM/WeakAuras.

[Coatl]

Dumbs down any mechanics center around being aware of what the boss is doing.

If people need it to have a chance let them have it. It is not a good substitute for actually knowing what you're doing. Plus cacbot usually doesn't update for new raids for awhile, so those who are dependent on it tend to not be progging week 1.

[Shialan]

Dumbs down any mechanics center around being aware of what the boss is doing.

You mean as in Zodiark EX, where people just need to follow around that one person with a marker?