The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Colt47]

Okay, enough already with the posts about the modding community and what not making tools to take down the high end content. Yes, WoW development ended up starting to build fights around the existence of these tools and it caused a ton of problems, but those tools are going to exist one way or another and SE isn't going to plant a program on your PC to scour it for third party tools, ever.

The whole reason that mods exist is to solve a difficulty curve problem that plagues these kind of games. If someone sticks a fancy reward that is unique and desirable to multiple different kinds of players at the end of some hard content that is meant for only a specific kind of player, people will make tools to circumvent the difficulty of the content.

The question that the devs should be asking themselves is this: Why are these other kinds of players that do not want hardship doing content that involves taking excessive amounts of time to complete, often at the sacrifice of newer content, for excessive numbers of weeks? This definitely didn't happen as often during Stormblood, but it is obvious that the dumbing down of jobs created a rather huge swath of middle ground that was not properly explored in the current content tier.

And FYI, I'm not even talking specifically about Dragonsong. This happens in savage as well with a lot of groups and it doesn't get publicized.

[Catwho]

It is entirely possible to clear extreme fights and savage fights without third party tools or any UI add ons, because I've done it. Unless you count a notepad text file on my second monitor as a third party tool, which I don't because a PS4/PS5 user can also have a sheet of paper with stuff written down next to their screen.

I honestly think this is one advantage older players have over younger ones. I've played MMOs for 20 years, I've learned to live with crappy UI and limited information for decades. I learned to count to 30 on bard when that was my main in XIV, just like I learned to count to 30 on red mage back in FFXI.

Would I like some improvements? Absolutely. I could not make my debuff button big enough when I was progging P1S. I'm on a friggin 2K monitor and even the largest debuff bar setting is about half the size of what I would like. I had to learn to stare at the spot where I moved it for Fourfold Chains as the cast went off so I would know immediately where to run. It just took a bit more practice.

[Ranaku]

Nope, you are entirely wrong. The reason why these plugins exist isn't cause the difficulty is too hard. That is like saying weight loss is hard that's why people get their body fat removed artificially. People are lazy and don't want to learn when they can have something for less work and free. That is common all over the world and has nothing to do with difficulty curves but rather people cheating their way through life cause growing their e-boners is more important than growing their skills.

It just needs dedication and the will to actually overcome something.

[Deedlit]

The whole reason that mods exist is to solve a difficulty curve problem that plagues these kind of games...
...do not want hardship doing content that involves taking excessive amounts of time to complete...
...This definitely didn't happen as often during Stormblood...

All three of these excerpts are entirely wrong.
1. The mods being used have nothing to do with difficulty or learning whatever mechanic it calls. It's for consistency. The only two that might do that are automarker and viewableAoEs.
2. There might exist some mod that entirely solves brand new, never before seen mechanics, but I don't know it.
3. No, they were used just as often. They're just more visible now that ShB and EW made the game significantly more popular.

[Kaurhz]

The game does have a difficulty curve, but to say the whole reason people use these mods is to overcome the difficulty spikes in this game is a very one-dimensional outlook on the game.

[Colt47]

Nope, you are entirely wrong. The reason why these plugins exist isn't cause the difficulty is too hard. That is like saying weight loss is hard that's why people get their body fat removed artificially. People are lazy and don't want to learn when they can have something for less work and free. That is common all over the world and has nothing to do with difficulty curves but rather people cheating their way through life cause growing their e-boners is more important than growing their skills.

It just needs dedication and the will to actually overcome something.

This is absolutely false. Will and dedication is important but what is needed to get through content is will, dedication, and proper Leadership / teamwork.

Leadership and guidance is something that is missing from savage that is provided in-game during normal content through visual queues in the fights, which in combination with zero enrage timers enables that content to be playable by just about all people who play this game. But the issue is that the second someone steps into doing savage or extreme trials, the guidance is taken away and enrage timers are applied. Mods that were developed in World of Warcraft were designed to fill the gap of missing guidance and enabled groups with poor leadership and learning skills to tackle content they otherwise would be unable to handle, which then lead to an arms race between the devs and the community at large where they started making content to meet some arbitrary difficulty wall for player retention.

[Colt47]

The game does have a difficulty curve, but to say the whole reason people use these mods is to overcome the difficulty spikes in this game is a very one-dimensional outlook on the game.

That implication does not exist in the original post.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

It just needs dedication and the will to actually overcome something.

I do like to train and overcome fights, but...

If someone wants to use third party tools, not just parsers, but also auto-combos and whatnot, why should I care ? I know, I know, SE does now, and that may be for the best, but why would you care about what other peoples are doing to get something they want ? The fights I overcame and the rewards I got do not get diminished by them.

[QT_Melon]

You guys realize this is actually more of a promotional/public acknowledgement issue than "add ons are really bad"

As the popularity of this game grows, it's gonna be natural for SE to use the community (since they pretty much can - since we're using their copyrighted materials) to promote the game. If you're using an add on. Well now they can't link to you. They can't congratulate who made World's first in runs because the groups are showing add ons. They can't link to say a popular streamer because they're using a different launcher than what their game uses. Because that's basically endorsing their use.

There's more eyeballs on this game now...like think about what you want to show publicly using their materials?

How sad it is right now they can't directly acknowledge those that despite the add ons, worked hard to make World's first. They can't just hop on to someone's stream because the guy has No Clippy/Slidecast and other add ons all over the screen. Their interview will get mashed in with those clips. People take notice of that as a community. It's already used as a "well see he doesn't mean anything by this" when he's been giving people subtle outs that "We can't see it unless you show it"

But hey, start getting mad that the community itself than actually having some discretion especially if you're using the game as promotion ...

[Deedlit]

You guys realize this is actually more of a promotional/public acknowledgement issue than "add ons are really bad"

As the popularity of this game grows, it's gonna be natural for SE to use the community (since they pretty much can - since we're using their copyrighted materials) to promote the game. If you're using an add on. Well now they can't link to you. They can't congratulate who made World's first in runs because the groups are showing add ons. They can't link to say a popular streamer because they're using a different launcher than what their game uses. Because that's basically endorsing their use.

There's more eyeballs on this game now...like think about what you want to show publicly using their materials?

How sad it is right now they can't directly acknowledge those that despite the add ons, worked hard to make World's first. They can't just hop on to someone's stream because the guy has No Clippy/Slidecast and other add ons all over the screen. Their interview will get mashed in with those clips. People take notice of that as a community. It's already used as a "well see he doesn't mean anything by this" when he's been giving people subtle outs that "We can't see it unless you show it"

But hey, start getting mad that the community itself than actually having some discretion especially if you're using the game as promotion ...

No one in WF race gives a crap about a twitter post. They want all the publicity of an official event and none of the overhead or responsibility. None of this would be an issue if XIV wasn't stuck in 2013 UI design.