Console Players don't need Addons

[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.

[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.

[Myrasil]

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.

.

That one point confuses me a lot, i do call outs to my group out of my memory of the fight "Tank buster", "Spread", "stack", "Clock position", "move", "X mechanic inc" and all of it before the thing happen so everyone has time to prepare..
all this from my memory
The end result is the same, someone or something is giving the fight calls to make everyone ready for it.
To me most of the fuss of "decrising dificulty" boils down to, "you have information", with is weird, bacause information alone does not make you clear the content.

[QooEr]

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.

this is the crux of the issue, and why many people are dissatisfied with people wanting anyone who uses 3rd party tools to be banned or whatever. categorical rules have no nuance and common sense is extremely subjective.

of course i do not think square enix is going to ban people who use even a million plugins as long as they dont stream it, but the current uproar is from square themselves being "fine" with streamers having things like act open in the past, and now suddenly banning them without even so much as a warning. while you could say they "had it coming" i dont really think they did if square has been turning a blind eye to act overlays and UI mods for almost a decade now.

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.

theres a bit of ignorance around this topic on triggers. there are built-in act triggers and then there are act plugins (as in, plugins you install to act).

act triggers arent clairvoyant. the simple built in triggers go like this: you make act read the battle log (ex: "Twintania begins casting twister"), then act uses TTS to say a message of your choice in response.
is this trigger fine, or cheating? i personally think theyre fine because all they are doing is swapping a visual cue (looking at the castbar) for an audio cue (hearing an anime girl say "twistaaaa").

then theres act plugins like cactbot or triggernometry. those have a saved fight timeline that actually predicts what is going on, read the actual packets instead of the battle log, and can tell you how to resolve entire mechanics. personally i think these cross the line because theyre not just presenting information the game is already showing you differently.

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.

i think we are in agreement then