Console Players don't need Addons

[Droxybrobotnik]

"Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P.
I have decided to take a rest from the game due to the communities obsession with 3rd party tools, hoping one day they will go back to WoW or whatever.

Before you leave, mind linking the source for this post so we have a proverbial fish to slap the ignorant with?

[QooEr]

To define what we could potentially call cheating or for a less grievous term, artificially lowering content difficulty. One of the simplest ways to define it would be anything that does something for you instead of doing it yourself. There's no ambiguity nor doubt about it I believe?

there IS some ambiguity. what separates qol from actual difficulty? if someone has a tiny monitor and uses a zoomhack to see things that they'd otherwise be able to see with a bigger resolution, is that "artificially lowering difficulty"? is buying a new monitor also "artificially lowering difficulty"?

if someone has 200ms ping and is constantly clipping their gcd because the game increases animation lock depending on ping, and uses a plugin to make them have the same animation lock as if they lived in sacramento, is that also "artificially lowering difficulty"? is moving to california that too then?

i could keep going.

Parsers, ACT, whatever DPS meter you like to use. A tool that serves to analyse someone's efficiency. In my humble opinion, I believe you don't actually need any of that to just clear.

you would be correct. in fact, its just a meter. if anything act is the least controversial of all the plugins, because all it does is... measure dps. its the least gameplay intrusive one, it does not lower difficulty at all. and yet its the one that seems to garner the most hate for some reason. of course if you add triggers and other plugins thats a different story, but DPS meters on their own are the most innocuous ones. the harassment pseudo-argument is a different point and theres already rules against harassment so its honestly a non-sequitur.

As far as I see it, some people are trading the fun in playing the game for over-efficiently clear content. Not saying there isn't any fun at all in being good but when you get a random thing telling you how to play...I don't know, to me it feels cheap, weak, bland, empty.

to each their own. to me, just barely clearing and doing mediocre damage feels just as cheap, weak, bland and empty. and i dont need any parser nor xivanalysis for me to notice areas to improve, thats just a thing i like to do. its like trying to lecture people that like making better builds for their characters in rpgs. why bother? well sometimes pushing your limits is fun. its as simple as that.

Can we please talk about these points I made? About the whole trivialising content or not?

what is trivializing content? i had a similar discussion with someone else 1 2. The plugins the vast majority people use, want or defend are not some piloting nonsense. theyre just QoL to make the game less clunky.

[HyoMinPark]

To define what we could potentially call cheating or for a less grievous term, artificially lowering content difficulty. One of the simplest ways to define it would be anything that does something for you instead of doing it yourself. There's no ambiguity nor doubt about it I believe?

Parsers, ACT, whatever DPS meter you like to use. A tool that serves to analyse someone's efficiency. In my humble opinion, I believe you don't actually need any of that to just clear. As far as I've observed so far, content works in a way that, as long as you regularly make use of your CDs, keep your GCD rolling as much as you're able to and prevent mechanics from killing or lowering your damage, then you can clear. The whole parser, ACT and so on only serves so you can do it faster, which is arguably trivial.

It is a bit more nuanced than “just keep your GCD rolling and use CDs properly”. There are rotational nuances that give distinct damage increases over other variations, and these sorts of things were figured out with a parser because the game does not tell you.

A parser by itself is just a calculator that takes the combat log data and streamlines it into a far easier to read format. Any “advantage” it has purely boils down to consoles are unable to make use of it. In my opinion, it in no way trivializes content the way some people in this thread would lead you to believe; and I’ve never been one to say using a calculator over a paper-and-pencil method is “cheating”. To me, it’s simply streamlining a long and arduous process into something far more bearable.

You can not die but still not be doing the amount of damage you should be doing due to rotational issues that you are not aware of simply because this game does not make you aware of them. It honestly gives very little direction in terms of formulating a rotation, and you are basically expected to just figure it out independent from the game. People do this using parsers, if we want to talk about the optimal rotation versus a more “this feels good/bad” feelycraft rotation.

Personally, the lack of feedback is something I have always criticized about this game. Even before I became a raider. I think it could do better in terms of instructing players on adequate ways to play their jobs—but that would also require the developers to accept that we play said jobs quite differently from what I think they intend. This sort of clash in intended playstyle and actual playstyle has existed in this game for years.

With regards to the “artificially lowering content difficulty” argument: there is nuance there as well. I haven’t seen anyone explain how some of the more popular tools such as NoClippy or cooldown timer mods on your UI “make content easier”. In all honestly, this game shouldn’t have artificial latency and animation lock attached to our characters, and we should be able to customize our UI to display buff timers in a better way—our own and our party members. How is using combo consolidation add-ons over in-game macros with built-in delays cheating as well? Or “making content easier”? People love to ask for the option to have combo consolidation, and there are plugins that do just that. And, it’s optional, so you don’t even have to use it if you don’t want to. You can even pick and choose what you want consolidated and what you don’t want consolidated. Again, how is this “making content easier” by making hotbars less bloated/cumbersome?

There’s a phrase people use to describe all these things I mentioned: it’s called “artificial difficulty”.

As far as I see it, some people are trading the fun in playing the game for over-efficiently clear content. Not saying there isn't any fun at all in being good but when you get a random thing telling you how to play...I don't know, to me it feels cheap, weak, bland, empty.

It is your opinion that being efficient or overly efficient sucks all the fun out of the content. And you are entitled to that—but others are allowed to contest it with their own opinions that efficiency equates to a more satisfying gaming experience. Not every add-on tells you what to do or plays the game for you. Even triggers that shot-call mechanics rely on you knowing the mechanic, how to react to/handle it, and executing it properly. They do not do it for you.



I think the main issue here is a combination of people trying to place themselves on a moral high ground and say they are better than others because they don’t use third-party tools, and ignorance when it comes to what each add-on/tool does. Not every third-party tool hacks the game to make invisible AOE indicators visible or move markers around automatically a la Paisley Park or Triggernometry. But people insist on lumping them all together anyways.

There is also the issue with disingenuous arguments and ad hominem attacks where the anti-side wants to imply that raiders who use these tools are simply bad at the game and couldn’t actually clear Ultimate-level content otherwise when evidence points to the exact opposite—and, honestly, some really have no business trying to belittle the skill of others when their own leaves much to be desired. Some glory in wielding and weaponizing their own ignorance. And that’s just a general statement; not one targeted to any specific person.

[Saranade]

Before you leave, mind linking the source for this post so we have a proverbial fish to slap the ignorant with?

Absolutely: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...0c5d56cb2e4547

[Myrasil]

Before you leave, mind linking the source for this post so we have a proverbial fish to slap the ignorant with?

Did anyone here said otherwise? please show me its being a lot of pages , maybe i skiped where someone said it was impossible to clear without addons.

[Lufir]

Absolutely: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...0c5d56cb2e4547

They might need an addon to help find that quote in there because reading is too hard.

[HyoMinPark]

Did anyone here said otherwise? please show me its being a lot of pages , maybe i skiped where someone said it was impossible to clear without addons.

As far as I have seen, no one has said that, in order to clear hard content, add-ons are required. It’s just a made-up argument/strawman that people are using because they either lack reading comprehension or they cannot come up with a decent rebuttal to people’s counterarguments.

They might need an addon to help find that quote in there because reading is too hard.

Indeed, I would agree that some posters’ reading comprehension and argumentative skills need improvement.

[SaltyDaddy]

Hot take: If SE didnt wanted damage meter that badly, they wouldnt put the official one into the PvP.

[Droxybrobotnik]

They might need an addon to help find that quote in there because reading is too hard.

No worries, just hit ctrl+f and... oh right ^^

[Serolithia]

Thank you for the answers. Let me go over in reply.

there IS some ambiguity. -snip-

i could keep going.

In this regard, when we consider there being people that have a, say, severe base disadvantage due to normally uncontrollable circumstances, I am of the opinion that it'd be relatively fine to let them use what they need to as far as to simply remove that disadvantage. Even the playing field to say. I'd put that specific situation to be outside the scope of what anyone could call even anything close to cheating. I'd say an application of common sense and comprehension of what could make something fairer for someone with a determinate problem or have it fixed.

you would be correct. -snip- the harassment pseudo-argument is a different point and theres already rules against harassment so its honestly a non-sequitur.

I've read that one of the varied functions that ACT can have is the ability to add sound callouts and stuff. I think that possible function is one of the things that draw a large part of that hate. We can argue that having something automatically telling you the next mechanic callout at the time or right before it even starts is a significantly large advantage.

For DPS meters, it's simply people not having to just...go extremely dumb about it honestly to be telling people off with how little dps or healing or whatever they do. That's just something you do not do. Can argue that you can have a civilised discussion about it but we all know...this is the internet and it can be anything but civilised when you try to give constructive criticism and advice to a random person.

to each their own.-snip- its as simple as that.

That's...really fair all in all. To each one their fun as long as it's not disruptive to someone else. Actually disruptive, not an illusive feeling of someone apparently offended that someone else is trying to make their own rotations be as good as they can make them using analysing tools. I don't know, some people can just get pissed about literally anything and everything that anyone else does without affecting them in any bad way.

what is trivializing content?-snip- The plugins the vast majority people use, want or defend are not some piloting nonsense. theyre just QoL to make the game less clunky.

I do agree with you in this regard that the vast majority just go for these nice little things. The complication comes when there's apparently a potential threat of them being unfairly punished because others have crossed the line one too many times and too much in public.

As sad as it is, we have to admit there'll always be the few people making a loud stand, creating an actual problem for everyone else. Whichever side they stand on.

PS: 3k characters not enough for long segmented reply quotes.