Just give us a list of what addons we can use.

[Krotoan]

Spoken like someone who has absolutely zero clue into what goes into getting world first.

Think what you like, I was around when MMO's were born. I may sound like an old man yelling at clouds, but I remember figuring out an encounter for weeks with no clear because we wanted to do it ourselves. If you have something telling you all the answers to all the basic building blocks, you haven't figured anything out, you're just looking for the triangle hole for the triangle piece.

[ForteNightshade]

I’d like to say that add-on users are a small minority; but while reason suggests they are a minority (I’d be surprised if half of the PC players use them, reducing the most that could be to 25%) reason does not suggest how large or small that minorty may be.

Based on the downloads numbers of all these third party programs, we'll looking at well over 300,000 players using at least one of them. While a minority, it's hardly small considering the active character numbers (not actual players) was estimated to be 1.7M as of 6.1.

You are vastly underestimating the impact if even a small fraction of those players quit the game if every single third party tool was somehow banned. At just 20% of the aforementioned 300k, SE is looking at a near 10M loss, annually.

[Silver-Strider]

Your point being? Again what parsers tell the player is what said player would eventually figure out.

Putting a little too much faith in people if you believe that. I've carried groups that could not grasp Hydaelin's Form mechanics and died to them every single time throughout multiple deaths and wipes that I just legitimately stop rezzing them all together, it's not worth it. Hell, even with 3rd party tools, I've seen people fail despite bots explicitly telling them what to do. It would be comical if it wasn't so sad how common it is.

I'm not saying that I approve of 3 rd party tools, but some people legitimately can't figure stuff out no matter how much time or effort is given.

[Rolder50]

Based on the downloads numbers of all these third party programs, we'll looking at well over 300,000 players using at least one of them. While a minority, it's hardly small considering the active character numbers (not actual players) was estimated to be 1.7M as of 6.1.

You are vastly underestimating the impact if even a small fraction of those players quit the game if every single third party tool was somehow banned. At just 20% of the aforementioned 300k, SE is looking at a near 10M loss, annually.

Even better, if you look at the official ACT website, they track how many times the FF14 parsing plugin has been downloaded. That number is over 17 million. Now it's clear the number of unique users is smaller then that, people re-downloading during a reinstall or whatnot, but that is still a lot.

[HyoMinPark]

Your point being? Again what parsers tell the player is what said player would eventually figure out.

How would a player figure out what they are doing wrong when this game gives zero feedback? Not hitting an enrage only tells you “overall damage too low”. It does not tell you who was responsible—be it a single person or multiple people—or even why their damage was low in the first place.

[Jaquan]

How would a player figure out what they are doing wrong when this game gives zero feedback? Not hitting an enrage only tells you “overall damage too low”. It does not tell you who was responsible—be it a single person or multiple people—or even why their damage was low in the first place.

First of all you can look at logs afterwards. Second of all are you advocating that parsers are necessary and content is designed around the idea that everyone is using them? I get it. We humans, gamers especially are self centered half brained idiots that won't be able to recognize their mistake unless something points it out with irrefutable proof. We loathe the idea of putting extra effort into anything which can lead for some to expect instant gratification for little effort. But at that point I have to ask. Why the hell we beg for harder content if in our perception we need 3rd party tools to complete it in the first place?

[LittleImp]

Second of all are you advocating that parsers are necessary and content is designed around the idea that everyone is using them?

No, like, the content we have today very likely wouldn't exist without them.

The only reason the community has become skilled at this game to the degree that content like DSR is possible is because of analytical tools like ACT. The game absolutely would not have been pushed as far as it has without players on the cutting edge frequently using these types of tools to collect and interpret data.

You seem to be confusing tools like Cactbot, which actually automate portions of gameplay, with vanilla ACT/FFLogs which simply package and chart existing information in a more human-friendly and accessible way.

[Jaquan]

No, like, the content we have today very likely wouldn't exist without them.

The only reason the community has become skilled at this game to the degree that content like DSR is possible is because of analytical tools like ACT. The game absolutely would not have been pushed as far as it has without players on the cutting edge frequently using these types of tools to collect and interpret data.

You seem to be confusing tools like Cactbot, which actually automate portions of gameplay, with vanilla ACT/FFLogs which simply package and chart existing information in a more human-friendly and accessible way.

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

[LittleImp]

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

This isn't how these tools work. FFLogs/ACT doesn't make suggestions, and XivAnalysis' suggestions are seen as virtually useless at the high-end. Most of the actual 'pinpointing' that is actually important comes from reviewing VoDs. Combat logging is more important from an optimization standpoint, where you're able to more conveniently review and share player ability timelines and statistics. Calling it a crutch is akin to saying a business using graphs to understand and improve their sales is a crutch.

Where are all of the top-end players that supposedly don't use these tools? Why aren't they coming out and making statements against them? The top players of this game, across all regions, make heavy use of programs like ACT and have done so continuously since ARR. Virtually every piece of information any player has taken from sources like The Balance or AkhMorning has been produced with assistance of these types of tools. The entire identity of the game, and the way the players play it, has been actively shaped by this for like 10 years. Content is designed and increased in difficulty around player capability. DSR was made more difficult due to the ease with which players devoured the last Ultimate. The developers couldn't even beat their own ultimate without adding additional checkpoints.

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

We're talking about the analytical purposes of third party tools here, not automation. That's an entirely different can of worms.

[LianaThorne]

So wait we'd never improve without those tools? I'm getting confused. I was lead to believe the content was designed to be beaten without a single third party tool and that includes ACT. Yet here you are telling me that players as a collective would never reach a level of doing so without analytical tools that let them pinpoint basically everything much faster than we'd do it without them? Is that how entire getting better process look like? Check the numbers, throw the log into analytical tool and do what it suggests? Now I question if I even want to reach that level

As of ACT wasn't one level of outrage coming from the fact that World First group used automatic call-out they programmed into their software?

To answer your first paragraph: Yes it does.

To answer your second: ACT and Cactbot are not the same. You can have ACT without Cactbot. I can understand the outrage over that but at the end of the day, all that it is is accurate callouts. It shouldn't be used in world first races for sure, but outside of that I don't see it being a problem as it usually benefits the entire party via the caller.

Last, since you brought this up, do you personally read through the entire log after a fight and crunch those numbers?