Console Players don't need Addons

[HyoMinPark]

I can't argue against that, there's combo rotations simply doing more DPS, while other combo rotations give a different effect and whatnot. I haven't had a look at every single job but do all of them have that one-two-three kind of rotation always doing top DPS? Is it not situational at all?

Most rotations in this game are incredibly rigid in terms of execution. Sometimes fights will call for slight variations (usually delays in buffs or re-openers, but sometimes they could involve you using Y opener instead of X opener, where as the standard is X); but they are not as common as one might think. In Stormblood, for example, UwU required BRDs to change their song order rotation during the first half of Ultima Weapon, and then later default to the standard. Most other fights in SB just did the 30-30-20 Minuet-Mage’s-Army’s rotation with little to no variance. In ShB, DNC wanted to do the Technical Finish first opener in E12S due to the downtime in the fight and buff alignment, despite that not being the standard. There was also some nuance as to when you would weave in Devilment that depended on who you were Dance Partnering, but the general rotation did not have that much variance to it.

Keep in mind, though, that these variants and manipulations in rotations were found to be gains because parsers exist. Even if they aren’t all that common, they wouldn’t exist if ACT did not since this game does not give any indication that Y opener is a gain over X opener in this encounter versus that encounter.

Generally speaking, there is a correct way to do your rotation, and all others usually result in worse damage of varying degrees. While no one really expects perfection, there is an issue in this game and its community where ignorance is weaponized—a lot of players think they are the bee’s knees when they really aren’t as good as they think. And truly, that isn’t their fault entirely—the game never tells you if you’re doing poorly just like it doesn’t tell you that you are doing well. I’ve been on the receiving end of toxicity in the past from players who thought I was the reason we were failing mechanics or DPS checks when the actuality was that I was doing more damage than them on a job I shouldn’t have been outDPSing them on. But there was no way for them to know that, and there was also no way for me to defend myself against the abuse either.

By far, the most common battle-content add-ons people use are vanilla parsers and parser overlays. Then they use The Website That Shall Not Be Named and XIVAnalysis to further analyze the data the parser collected for both self-improvement and group improvement. I have spent hours in the countless statics I’ve been in where we go over logs and try to figure out why we died or why we hit enrage on this pull or that. They’re extremely useful; people just have a tendency to vilify the tool when it’s actually just players with trash attitudes that turn them into a weapon.

In regards to the combo and hotbar cluttering, if macros can actually do that, why use an addon? I personally don't find what's the problem in terms of number of actions and hotbar slots. To clarify, I play with controller and find that using the extended settings with the triggers can cover every single job and role action without bloating up my screen.

The add-ons do not have artificial delay like macros do. Macros cannot queue in this game, and they can causes issues with skill/GCD delay, and skill misfire. The plug-ins do not have that; they work as seamlessly as if the buttons were naturally a single button. This is especially true for any of the oGCDs that are consolidated with these plug-ins, such as AST’s Draw and Play. A macro will clip and not queue the oGCDs properly, versus the plug-in does not have that problem.

Generally speaking, macros in this game are simply bad for combat. They’re fine for things like crafting, though.

I do not play with keyboard. Though I play on PC, I play with a controller, since I started this game on the PS3 and it was what I was used to when I moved from console to computer. That said, I do have skills that aren’t as often used keybound to my Numpad, so I guess you can say I have a combination of controller + keyboard. There isn’t button bloat the way some would make you believe in this game, and controllers have tons of space for their buttons—but there are buttons that exist as separate entities that honestly should not. AST’s Draw and Play and Minor Arcana and Crown Play are two prime examples of skills that could be consolidated into one skill versus two. AST is also a job that does have button bloat problems due to extraneous and unneeded skills.

I think we could argue that consolidating combo chains to a single one or two fixed buttons do actually simplify actions just too much. I think that can get to the point on indirectly making content, in a way, easier in an unfair way.

I’m personally not a fan of combo consolidation, but others are. If the game wanted to make that an option, I have zero issue with that. So long as it isn’t mandatory, I don’t really care. I’ve seen some of the options the consolidation plugins have, and they’re quite nifty. If they were in the game, I would definitely make use of them myself. Just not all of them. Personalizing consolidations would be a decent QoL feature that would improve gameplay for a lot of people, so I hope it is in the developer’s list of things to consider. And if it’s optional, people that don’t want to utilize the feature don’t have to use it. It’s a win-win.

I don’t think it makes it more simple as it just makes it more boring to press 111111111111 versus 123123123123. But that is me. I don’t want to bring in too much of the combo consolidation arguments since that is a controversial enough topic on these forums.

At this, both sides are kinda going just too far from what I see. With it I mean, the anti-addon "faction" doing witch-hunts and reports, then the other side that takes nearly every single addon that can give them an edge over other people and then blowing up when they are inevitably found and punished by TOS for them.

This whole situation is a total mess and there's no actual right answer, can't make everyone happy.

The biggest issue with people raging over the sudden bans and suspensions goes back to the fact that this was never an issue until DRU came out. Streamers have had parsers and other add-ons present in their streams for years, and SE turned a blind eye to it—but now it’s suddenly a whole thing. That’s where I think a lot of there frustration comes from with regards to the “pro” crowd. There was a lot of just looking the other way in the past, and now there suddenly isn’t—which makes the entire punishment aspect inconsistent. People can say “don’t ask, don’t tell” and “just keep quiet and you won’t get banned” all they want, but I feel like they are missing the point where people were not all that subtle in the past and nothing really happened to them.

They also just don’t like that so many people are sanctioning the witch-hunts against streamers either. It really highlights a hypocrisy that has always been present, and really emphasizes why the “GCBTW” meme even came to be in the first place.