All addons are not equal

[Shougun]

I am not as curious because we have WoW as an example, even though like you said casuals are the majority even in games like WoW that mentality has taken hold since it spreads like a disease if it is tolerated even to lower level content. You would occasionally see topics about some elitist complaining about the performance of someone in heroic dungeons which are equivalent to MSQ dungeons in ff14 where you can literally do them with multiple people dead, a more adequate example would be people demanding meta for a +6 key while people are doing 20s during that time.
The mentality that comes with said addons is my main concern.

I don't want to suggest changes as big as DBM like tools cant effect the culture but given how SE designs content, as you point out- I feel, personally, that even if it was sanctioned allowed... it wouldn't be as substantial. Though I respect you feel differently.

You are correct, they will always exist, but I honestly dont mind them if they are used secretly by a tiny minority that has to actively hide from SE.

Right now SE might as well have given their approval when people watch streams with people using similar addons or even basic addons and never getting punished for it even though they are all against the ToS, the previous rule of "use it but be quiet about it" worked as long as we dont have streamers influencing thousands by using addons publicly like that and saying its cool. Because afaik only some JP streamer got banned, there's a ton of western streamers who used addons publicly and didnt get banned.

The fun part of don't ask don't tell (/s lol). I'm not particularly against addons, as I actually loved them in WoW even when they were annoying due to a patch (but that was in part because Blizzard didn't really care to ensure things worked). I understand some concerns are placed upon them, some of which I can vaguely understand and some of which I feel are stretched. I believe having a publicly allowed parser can do things like it did in WoW, but I don't really believe a private, allowed, would cause many if any issues. Some people may ask to see your parse, which you could simply lie or tell them to go get Thal'd lol. Though similarly I respect the concern, and community management is something difficult to get back on track once you feel you've lost it.. so... conservative approach isn't mystifying.

I will utterly and completely disagree with that, people usually end up tunnel visioning and having the addon or raid leader wake them up to the mechanic because you often see if the raid lead forgets to mention something many people screw up because they depend on addon/raid lead to tell them "Yo, mechanic inbound". Which imo is completely wrong, a raid lead should be there for when there's uncertainty and people have to make a decision quick, not to literally baby sit you and tell you when mechanics happen, that should be personal responsibility.

Which is a terrible thing because there's many mechanics that require you to track add positioning or some type of visual element that changes over the duration of the encounter that might come from some random direction, so if you are to respond adequately you need to also pay attention to it and not just forget it until the last minute call else you might not have enough time or space to survive.

This SERIOUS lack of spacial awareness is something very common in WoW's high end content and that is because people never learned the mechanic through in game visual signs to begin with and instead depended on addons or raid leads.

And its not just "oh our players are getting better", mechanics become far easier when you have a timer or unique mechanic announcing sounds, it literally is easy mode with them which results in dev having to make it even harder to compensate for the use of such addons which leads to more complicated mechanics and further problems, hence why such addons shouldnt be tolerated publicly, let them exist only in the shadows unlike know where they are literally public. And that will also hurt streamers who cant clear without addon help xd

I think you agree with me but maybe disagree on wording. Because what I meant is that, like a baby sitter raid leader, the tool will keep you hyper informed. GET OUT OF LAVA, STAND IN CIRCLE, GO TO "X" PLAYER. This to me is called awareness, now you might like it if I called it artificial awareness since it wasn't a skill provided by the player but rather by a parrot shouting mechanics.. but functionally it's still awareness.

As such if a player is more aware, whether naturally or artificially, this has an impact on play ability. Such that I would argue on a aggregate whole such tools have a direct impact in the ability of players and thus allow them to perform better more consistently while using less personal stress / skills. For me in WoW for example I found the tool helpful to casually enjoy harder content, as I can easily follow instructions but I just don't want to memorize the fights lol. Having used the DBM type stuff in WoW (another one existed back then too) I would argue it was a direct impact on my ability to output high performance while also feeling less challenged at the same time. Naturally this impacts perception for both players and developers. "This content is easy" says the player with the professional never wrong parrot- silly statement, and may cause damage to players who don't use the tool (and likely annoyance to the devs). Also messes with statistics and expectations devs have of players. Then again I feel given SE tests their own content, to which I assume, without tools I think they have significantly dampened the damage from the situation and such I am less worried about it and don't care. If someone uses to have a more stress free / easy experience then whatever. In most situations I don't care if someone made it a bit easier in such a way, though I can see how doing it for the hardest content in the game as a race of skill is quite upsetting.

Personally I don't think being aggressive on banning will help much on the situation, particularly if they don't scan the PCs (in that case, pretty much just hot air even if they punish a few streamers), but I do think adding the things players think are useful without damaging intended gameplay is a smart alleviation to dissuade more people from feeling the need to use the third party tools. Also may consider adding an official framework to which you could have even more control over the situation, but /shrug. The whole situation will feel like variations of losing no matter what lol. I've been okay with the don't ask don't tell type policy but certainly I see ultimate's can make that more frustrating for those who want to show off their talents (particularly speaking ultimate, as otherwise I generally think people playing how they want is fine so long as it's not like toggle god mode or infinite gil hacks lol).