Console Players don't need Addons

[Serolithia]

Please, can people stop throwing themselves at each other's throats?
Let me just try to make some points a bit clearer outside of the garbled mess of people going at it with emotions.

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.

Consoles can't have addons, they don't need them either. PC don't need them either but they can't be stopped from using them.

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.

I think these few paragraphs do make for a better objective of discussion about the need of addons, whether console or PC and why. Can we please talk about these points I made? About the whole trivialising content or not?

PS: Shaders and other non-gameplay affecting addons are mostly the personal preference of whoever so I don't really have a way to fairly bring points about it.

[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

[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.

[Serolithia]

Thanks for answering, I can go over yours now.

DPS, rotation and feedback snip

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?

Pretty much agree that simply having something consolidate for you the numbers of the combat log, without the arduous manual process, so you can see them after-battle to know where to improve is simply not a cheating thing. It's for looking over the mistakes done and where to improve.

While rotations may not be optimal, it doesn't seem to be too complicated to work out a verily fine rotation that just works, even if it's not the best. Tooltips may sometimes not be the best telling you about it but I think they do a just good enough by themselves. Nothing against simply knowing what's the best though.

I have read that one of the feedbacks people DO want is the differentiation between physical and magical damage and I find myself agreeing with that. For other types of feedback, I'm not entirely certain about them.

Hotbar actions consolidation and artificial diff snip

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.

Can you tell me how it is with keyboard, if you use it?

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.

Pro-addon vs anti-addon sides snip

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.

[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.

[Punslinger]

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.

Bingo. This sudden crackdown isn't something Square just suddenly decided to do on their own. It's happening in response to mass-reports being made by a braying mob, a mob that is motivated far more by a pathological hatred of streamers than by any genuine desire for "law and order." If the streamers weren't using add-ons, the mob would just look for another excuse to mass-report them, or outright make shit up.

Square's policy regarding add-ons has to change. It might have been sufficient ten years ago, when nobody was playing 1.0 and streaming wasn't as big a deal as it is today. But FF14 is currently the world's most popular subscription MMO, and it has an active streamer community. "Fight Club rules" won't cut it anymore. As we've seen with this 5ch brigading, it's too easy to weaponize as a form of harassment. Especially when people in the GCBTW are defending brigading because "hurr durr they brokeded teh rulez in public."

It's fitting you mentioned "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," because that policy was dropped by the US military for the same reason Square's existing add-on policy doesn't work: it creates a functional double standard. Technically, add-ons are always against ToS, but Square can't enforce the rule against non-streamers (unless a player is stupid enough to cite DPS numbers in chat when harassing someone else), so in practice, the rule only really applies to streamers.

This double standard makes no sense. It's all the more hypocritical when people defending the brigading and the bannings are openly advocating non-enforcement of the rules against people breaking the rules in private. If they genuinely cared about the rule-breaking (spoiler alert: they don't), they'd be looking for enforcement of the rules irrespective of whether the rule-breaking happens in public or in private. If using mods is so terribad that people deserve to be banned for it, why ban only those who do so on-stream?

[Droxybrobotnik]

The most popular combat addon is probably ACT and that is purely for cutting down on the time it would take for you to look at FFlogs and do the math by just calculating dps for you so you know when you performed below the expected standard.
If you're gonna call that cheating then I guess talking in voice chat is also cheating, because you can communicate outside pulls and explain strats between them easier. Pretty bad logic if you ask me. Do console players not use voice chat?