Third party software

[dan_alexandre]

Seen so much on this already, it's in every feed and since this is the correct place for feedback to SE:

- Realistically we do not need mods to play the game, game is great as is however the HUD lacks customization.

- ToS and enforcement has issues, I understand not wanting to create list of what's allowed but it's so unclear at the moment what's ok and what isn't I think something like the below could be realistically done(Just an example):

- We do not allow any third party software however we have the following exceptions:
---- We allow voice communication software that does not add any other extra functionality to the game / nor has overlay/feature that provides more detail than the base UI.
---- We allow visual enhancements that do not add more information than the base UI.

It's easier to deny everything and create exceptions than to list everything that's allowed or not, the above could be realistically altered/updated/maintained over the years.

Love the devs but honestly feel that the inconsistency of how things have been approached helped creating this situation.

The above is meant only as something constructive, I really do hope this situation gets addressed in such a way that both players and devs are mostly happy with the outcome.

The above is also not meant to be an exhaustive exploration of all issues but just a suggestion on how the ToS could be approached/updated, I'm sure it could be more in depth and better written as well but the core idea is: Deny all, allow some exceptions with proper wording to cover potential abuse.

All the best,
Dan

[Saranade]

Here is an easy pill to swallow - "Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P.

[dan_alexandre]

It really is, however why not try to improve things further? Them recently separating the conditional enhancements was a really good thing, should they just stop developing the game because: ""Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P. ?

It's not like I want mods in the game, I want the game to be better without them and enforcement/rules to be clear.

[Seraphor]

It really is, however why not try to improve things further? Them recently separating the conditional enhancements was a really good thing, should they just stop developing the game because: ""Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P. ?

It's not like I want mods in the game, I want the game to be better without them and enforcement/rules to be clear.

The rules are clear and always have been.

"Don't get caught."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4OPGYN6NGw

[Saranade]

It really is, however why not try to improve things further? Them recently separating the conditional enhancements was a really good thing, should they just stop developing the game because: ""Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P. ?

It's not like I want mods in the game, I want the game to be better without them and enforcement/rules to be clear.

Okay, here is another easy pill to swallow: "We believe that people use the aforementioned tools to expand the HUD and display more information because they feel that existing functions are insufficient for tackling high-end duties. In recognition of this, we intend to review the most prominent tools, and in order to discourage their use, endeavor to enhance the functionality of the HUD. Though it will take some time, we're determined to make it happen─not least for the benefit of those who play on consoles." - Yoshi P.

[ForteNightshade]

Here is an easy pill to swallow - "Indeed, we’ve only released duties that we have proven can be beaten with the game’s standard features." - Yoshi P.

Except this statement simply isn't true because a truly vanilla experience means not using ACT whatsoever. This, in turn, means you can't maximize your DPS for something like Dragonsong where the enrage is so tight a single DPS death can be the difference between getting passed Estinien or wiping to Revenge of the Horde. And this is from high level players pumping out as much damage as possible. Which they only know how to do because of the aforementioned third party program and a website to parse that data.

Okay, here is another easy pill to swallow: "We believe that people use the aforementioned tools to expand the HUD and display more information because they feel that existing functions are insufficient for tackling high-end duties. In recognition of this, we intend to review the most prominent tools, and in order to discourage their use, endeavor to enhance the functionality of the HUD. Though it will take some time, we're determined to make it happen─not least for the benefit of those who play on consoles." - Yoshi P.

Living Dead: Six years
Blood Weapon: Four years
Afflatus Lilies: Two years in Stormblood, and another five months in Endwalker after they screwed them up, again.
Monk changes: Six years, followed by an additional year of completely overhauling the job
Machinst: Despite three separate buffs in Endwalker alone, it's still the weakest DPS in the entire game. And it's been among the worst since late Stormblood
Healers: Three years now and counting since the entire role was lobotomized. Or to borrow your dismissive responses: "Just do Ultimate " - Yoshi P

Forgive me if I'm not holding my breath on how long it'll take for them to actually implement any of these plugins. If they even do so properly. Keep in mind, we're still limited to five waymarker presets when a plugin can offer hundreds.

[dan_alexandre]

Except this statement simply isn't true because a truly vanilla experience means not using ACT whatsoever. This, in turn, means you can't maximize your DPS for something like Dragonsong where the enrage is so tight a single DPS death can be the difference between getting passed Estinien or wiping to Revenge of the Horde. And this is from high level players pumping out as much damage as possible. Which they only know how to do because of the aforementioned third party program and a website to parse that data.

They said they have proven it can be cleared internally, I don't know how they approached it however.. it is possible that they went phase by phase instead of doing the whole fight in a row. That said.. isn't it because people got so much better due to such things that they saw the need to make something this hard? I'm sure they took into account how people cleared previous ultimates while designing this one. They also take into account people on consoles.

It just may be insanely hard but since they claimed for it to be clearable and proved it to themselves.. I don't think you can claim it is impossible nor that mods are absolutely necessary.

Edit:
Let's imagine they messed up and that mods are indeed necessary to clear Dragonsong ultimate, in that case it would be a design flaw and the fight would need to be nerfed in one way or another. In such situation what you should be asking for would be the nerf, possibly UI enhancements as well. Never mods.

I feel you on how hard it can be to track some things in the current state, I am hopeful that whatever they do to the UI will help on that regard.

[Inanegrain]

They said they have proven it can be cleared internally, I don't know how they approached it however.. it is possible that they went phase by phase instead of doing the whole fight in a row. That said.. isn't it because people got so much better due to such things that they saw the need to make something this hard? I'm sure they took into account how people cleared previous ultimates while designing this one. They also take into account people on consoles.

It just may be insanely hard but since they claimed for it to be clearable and proved it to themselves.. I don't think you can claim it is impossible nor that mods are absolutely necessary.

Edit:
Let's imagine they messed up and that mods are indeed necessary to clear Dragonsong ultimate, in that case it would be a design flaw and the fight would need to be nerfed in one way or another. In such situation what you should be asking for would be the nerf, possibly UI enhancements as well. Never mods.

The devs have their own version of measuring damage if that's what you're wondering, and their own tools obviously to keep track on what happened. I'd believe it'd be done phase by phase else it'd take incredibly long. But it could also be how they've known before hand and it could be all in 1 go, making tweaks along the way. Or both in some form.

I never kept track on it being people asking for it to be harder but I somehow vaguely remember Ultimate was were devs go ham on mechanics and push the game to the limit while making it still possible.

[Packetdancer]

Third party software = anything that modifies the game in any way.
Discord and voice clients does not. So its okay. They do not specify this because they shouldn't have to.

Discord does in fact potentially modify the game process if you have its in-game overlay enabled, the one that shows you direct messages and the 'who is in voice chat/who is speaking' widget; that hooks DirectX directly.

And if I remember correctly, even Yoshi-P has noted that yes, Discord technically counts as a third-party program. (Though if I'm remembering right, he also had a slightly pained expression on the livestream where he did so, as though he were silently asking himself "Why is this a question? Do people actually think we'll ban Discord, or are they just being pedantic?")

Except this statement simply isn't true because a truly vanilla experience means not using ACT whatsoever. This, in turn, means you can't maximize your DPS for something like Dragonsong where the enrage is so tight a single DPS death can be the difference between getting passed Estinien or wiping to Revenge of the Horde. And this is from high level players pumping out as much damage as possible. Which they only know how to do because of the aforementioned third party program and a website to parse that data.

While ACT is undeniably useful, both for improving your own efficiency in a fight and for figuring out where your static as a whole can improve, it is not required.

The optimal rotations (and ideal GCD for a rotation) can be determined mathematically outside of the game, using the information on tooltips. Arguably, it's probably easier to figure out the optimal rotations in a purely-mathematical sense outside of the game; the lack of ACT would not prevent the Balance -- or SaltedXIV, or AhkMorning, or whatever else you prefer as your combat-efficiency reference -- from posting optimal rotations and melds.

(Now, whether Determination or Direct Hit is a better meld for certain jobs is something that potentially does need to be experimented with... but while ACT makes that undeniably easier to do, it's not required.)

ACT definitely makes it possible for a group to fine-tune their efficiency far better than if they didn't have it; it's a lot easier to spot "Oh, hey, the NIN has drifted a bit, so their burst no longer aligns with raid buffs." or "We're losing the end of that burst window there, we might want to delay it a bit until after this mechanic so we don't interrupt it to move." And it's certainly a lot easier to tune your own combat efficiency if you have ACT (and can upload logs, and compare them to people who perform very well in your chosen job to see what you can do differently to improve).

But I have a friend who happens to be in a static of all console players; this wasn't deliberate, just by pure chance they all happened to play on console. As a result, they don't even have the option to use ACT, and they still clear content. I won't lie, they've expressed before that they wish their static did have the option to use ACT in order to more easily see where they need to clean things up. But the simple fact is that since the entire group are console players, they have to make do without.

ACT is undeniably an extremely useful tool to help you dial in your performance more quickly, whether individually or as a group, and so is very useful to clear content; without it, you will clear content less efficiently because figuring out what your group needs to change in order to beat that enrage can take a bit longer.

But "less efficient" doesn't mean "impossible".

[ForteNightshade]

The optimal rotations (and ideal GCD for a rotation) can be determined mathematically outside of the game, using the information on tooltips. Arguably, it's probably easier to figure out the optimal rotations in a purely-mathematical sense outside of the game; the lack of ACT would not prevent the Balance -- or SaltedXIV, or AhkMorning, or whatever else you prefer as your combat-efficiency reference -- from posting optimal rotations and melds.

This simply isn't true. The DRG channel literally spent an entire week running simulation tests on every potential GCD and gear combo to determine the best rotation and eventual BiS. They do this every expansion through ACT. The whole delayed Life window exists because of parse data showing it's better for DRG to delay Life of the Dragon. Combing through a cumbersome battle log would make finding min/max potential like this near impossible. At the absolute best case scenario, it'd increase their workload substantially for no intrinsic benefit. In fact, we'd likely have very little information going into the first Savage tier due to that alone. Sites like AhkMorning have down so far as finding the precise percentage vuln stacks and damage downs deal, which is also accomplished through ACT.

But I have a friend who happens to be in a static of all console players; this wasn't deliberate, just by pure chance they all happened to play on console. As a result, they don't even have the option to use ACT, and they still clear content. I won't lie, they've expressed before that they wish their static did have the option to use ACT in order to more easily see where they need to clean things up. But the simple fact is that since the entire group are console players, they have to make do without.

The operative word is "when" are they clearing content? If they're first Savage clear is week 4-6, it's entirely irrelevant to the conversation because they're above the ilvl requirement. That alone makes up for a lot of gameplay deficiencies, especially once you're getting tome weapons. I specifically mentioned Estinien in Dragonsong because of how tight the DPS check is. There's no gear available right now to offset gaps in job knowledge. Do you have to be perfect? No. You do, however, need to play the games at a high level, or have enough players playing near perfect. Accomplishing that comes through parsing because simply reading the tooltips won't teach you the nuances of how jobs functions.

Keep in mind, the devs have their own version of ACT. They aren't going through the content in the same manner we are. Nor would it be how they test it. Furthermore, their projection of when higher difficulty content should be cleared varies wildly from player perception. Yoshida statement never said when it can be cleared. Just that it can. Which brings us back to the ilvl argument. I'd also like to point out that at 6.05's release, a comp of PLD/NIN/DNC/MCH couldn't clear P4S. That's how poorly balanced those jobs were.