Would you be opposed to SE implementing a program to scan for addons/parsers?

[Zebraoracle]

If anyone needs a 3rd party plugin that solves the mechanics for them to clear high end content, they are a bad player and clearly don’t have the skill level for that content.
Also if anyone needs to see their DPS value, they are not playing the content for the reward (which is a beautiful weapon), but they are playing to min-max.

If you need any of this to enjoy the game, then you are not only playing the game incorrectly, but also not playing the right game for you. This is not an esports game and we have no official leaderboards showing how long it took which team to kill a boss.
Addons for PvE content are not quality of life features, they are only an ego boost.

I don’t raid much, but when I do, I do it for the challenge, and not to circumnavigate my way around the challenge.

This is one of the most ignorant posts in this thread lol.

Who are YOU to tell someone they're playing wrong? Who are YOU to complain about how people enjoy the game? Who are YOU to say it's wrong for people to enjoy trying to parse well? Who are you to claim your subjective opinion on the weapon appearance is fact (spoilers: I think almost all of the ultimate weapon skins are ugly).

Why do you think people raiding to parse aren't "doing it for the challenge"? Why is trying to be better at the game "the wrong way to play"? The sheer arrogance of this post to act like your way of playing is the only correct way of playing, good lord.

[Tulvi]

This is one of the most ignorant posts in this thread lol.

Who are YOU to tell someone they're playing wrong? Who are YOU to complain about how people enjoy the game? Who are YOU to say it's wrong for people to enjoy trying to parse well? Who are you to claim your subjective opinion on the weapon appearance is fact (spoilers: I think almost all of the ultimate weapon skins are ugly).

Why do you think people raiding to parse aren't "doing it for the challenge"? The sheer arrogance of this post to act like your way of playing is the only correct way of playing, good lord.

1. First of all, it isn’t only my way of playing the game. The devs of the game clearly don’t want players to use these tools especially in PvE, because they create an unfair advantage. So if somebody clears an Ultimate with these tools and apparently thanks to these tools, they have not cleared the content as intended by the devs. In a sense they’ve cleared something else.

2. Most of the time, what wipes parties in FF is not DPS checks, it is incorrectly solved mechanics or standing in an AoE. Therefore using DPS meters brings no value to the fight. Regarding other tools, like zoom hacks and mechanics solvers / announcements, I stand by my claim that people who need them, are not playing the content as intended and are missing the entire point of high-end content in FF14. Which again, is not about DPS, but about solving mechanics.

[Midareyukki]

1. First of all, it isn’t only my way of playing the game. The devs of the game clearly don’t want players to use these tools especially in PvE, because they create an unfair advantage. So if somebody clears an Ultimate with these tools and apparently thanks to these tools, they have not cleared the content as intended by the devs. In a sense they’ve cleared something else.

2. Most of the time, what wipes parties in FF is not DPS checks, it is incorrectly solved mechanics or standing in an AoE. Therefore using DPS meters brings no value to the fight. Regarding other tools, like zoom hacks and mechanics solvers / announcements, I stand by my claim that people who need them, are not playing the content as intended and are missing the entire point of high-end content in FF14. Which again, is not about DPS, but about solving mechanics.

...okay, enough of this please.

If you are going to start debating on this topic, at least make sure you understand what actually is being used, how it affects the gameplay and whether or not led to the current problem. You and everyone else.

1 - Parsing does not create an unfair advantage*. What it does is present numbers to you. The issue with parses that makes them illegal isn't the fact that people can know numbers or not. Those numbers are available on the Battle chat, so if anyone collects it, runs it through excel and makes a graph, it might take a long time but it's still going to yield the same result. What makes them legal is that this information is being accessed directly from the server and calculated in real time. And there's a potential danger that it can then be used to harass others on the spot.
FFLogs doesn't give anyone any upper edge. All it does is take all that data, whether from Excel or from ACT (but since ACT is a lot more standardized and less prone to mistakes, that's what they'll take) and make it public. The illegality here is having in-game stuff being made public outside of Lodestone, and again the aforementioned potential danger for harassment.
*You can argue, however, that the advantage exists against Console players, which is a correct statement to make. But the use of parsing alone does not mean you will have an advantage of clearing the fight, which was what you're saying.

No one clears Ultimate because they know how much the Bard dealt damage. That's not how it works.

Stuff like Cactbot are things attached onto ACT which give out call-outs by parsing server information. That is an advantage.
And what led to this particular Ultimate being cleared were people using zoomhacks to get information that wouldn't otherwise be displayed to them in full. That is an advantage.
Same for UWU whose script was datamined and later used to clear the fight. That was an advantage that people who got that information had.

ACT doesn't enable datamining or zoomhacking, but does enable Cactbot. Not by default, however, and Cactbot needs to be programmed to work out the fight. So the fight needs to be cleared first so Cactbot is then fed.

People who parse aren't cheating just because they parse, they're just being fed information that would be monotonous otherwise to obtain.
Prior to 6.3, you could argue "Ah, but they're getting information on which hit is magical or physical". That advantage no longer exists.
You could argue "Ah but now they have a more accurate timeline of the fight", which sure, but they won't be keeping track of time. To do so, you'd need other tools than parsing. And at that point, you're already going outside of parsing altogether. Not everyone who uses parsing tools does this, and to claim that they do is just unrealistic and fearmongering.

What led to this ultimate being cleared was Zoom Hacks. Not parsing. It never was parsing.

2- Failing DPS checks is too broad a thing to point out, you know? Because if the majority of the party is dead or has died recently and has the penalty, they will not get enough DPS in the long run to clear things. And nothing kills more people than mechanics that weren't properly executed. So one leads to the other: both statements are correct.

And the people who are using zoomhacks and call-out bots like Cactbot inherently are cheating anyway, so...

[Zebraoracle]

1. First of all, it isn’t only my way of playing the game. The devs of the game clearly don’t want players to use these tools especially in PvE, because they create an unfair advantage. So if somebody clears an Ultimate with these tools and apparently thanks to these tools, they have not cleared the content as intended by the devs. In a sense they’ve cleared something else.

2. Most of the time, what wipes parties in FF is not DPS checks, it is incorrectly solved mechanics or standing in an AoE. Therefore using DPS meters brings no value to the fight. Regarding other tools, like zoom hacks and mechanics solvers / announcements, I stand by my claim that people who need them, are not playing the content as intended and are missing the entire point of high-end content in FF14. Which again, is not about DPS, but about solving mechanics.

Lmao, there are many different ways of playing this game, that's one of the joys of an MMO. There is nothing wrong with people wanting to improve their skill level and ability to perform in the game. And until you pay other peoples' subs, you can get right down off your audacity and arrogance filled high horse telling other people how to play the game. You realize SE knows ACT and FFLogs exists and if they really wanted to, they could nuke them right? Really makes you wonder why they don't.

The absolute arrogance of your posts is amazing to the point between that and the fact that you're yet another account that comes here with a very low post count just indicates you're only here to stir the pot like so many others. You've all come crawling out of the woodwork and it's honestly hilarious.

[Tulvi]

Lmao, there are many different ways of playing this game, that's one of the joys of an MMO. There is nothing wrong with people wanting to improve their skill level and ability to perform in the game. And until you pay other peoples' subs, you can get right down off your audacity and arrogance filled high horse telling other people how to play the game. You really SE knows ACT and FFLogs exists and if they really wanted to, they could nuke them right? Really makes you wonder why they don't.

The absolute arrogance of your posts is amazing to the point between that and the fact that you're yet another account that comes here with a very low post count just indicates you're only here to stir the pot like so many others. You've all come crawling out of the woodwork and it's honestly hilarious.

What has a post count anything to do with what I’m saying? I just rarely post on the forums.

And I’m not talking about different play styles or looking for something different in the game. If people do Ultimates for the gear, fine. If they do them for the challenge and don’t mind the gear, also fine.

All I’m saying is that they shouldn’t cheat their way to whatever they are looking for in that content.

Because if someone uses mechanics-solving / assisting addons to clear an Ultimate while doing it for the gear - they are cheating to get the gear faster.
And if someone uses mechanics-solving / assisting addons to clear an Ultimate but they are only interested in the challenge - they get rid of the true nature of that challenge by cheating with addons.

[RobynDaBank]

1. First of all, it isn’t only my way of playing the game. The devs of the game clearly don’t want players to use these tools especially in PvE, because they create an unfair advantage. So if somebody clears an Ultimate with these tools and apparently thanks to these tools, they have not cleared the content as intended by the devs. In a sense they’ve cleared something else.

It's definitely an advantage to NEED AddOns to fix the Job the game's own developers broke and refuse to hotfix: see Ninja Mudras. I get it, Cactbot and AoE telegraphers really dumb down the encounter - honestly, people who use these and then shriek at you for not being an endgame player and still telling them how to play don't have a good leg to stand on - but there really is no denying that plugins can do a LOT that make the game fun and wondrous. There's one that always displays your location next to your World for example, and honestly I'm baffled that's not default. Can just open the Map, I know, but when small micro-problems like this happen it builds up. I've seen GShade and custom-pose screenshots, and I feel envious at times. On the one hand, you have the Cactpot solver. On the other, you have something that actually makes the countdown in-game not as awful as it is. OFC, who can forget the Viera/Hrothgar fixers? The world of plugins is huge, they enrich the game as often as they make it brainless, so if you want to go around angrily shoving the ToS and Yoshida's statements in people's faces, carry on with knowledge.

I encourage anyone wanting to engage in vigilante justice to understand how AddOns work, how open-source they are, and how they go past your average callout bot to better the game, fix where the developers messed up. "Know thy enemy" as is said.

[Tulvi]

It's definitely an advantage to NEED AddOns to fix the Job the game's own developers broke and refuse to hotfix: see Ninja Mudras. I get it, Cactbot and AoE telegraphers really dumb down the encounter - honestly, people who use these and then shriek at you for not being an endgame player and still telling them how to play don't have a good leg to stand on - but there really is no denying that plugins can do a LOT that make the game fun and wondrous. There's one that always displays your location next to your World for example, and honestly I'm baffled that's not default. Can just open the Map, I know, but when small micro-problems like this happen it builds up. I've seen GShade and custom-pose screenshots, and I feel envious at times. On the one hand, you have the Cactpot solver. On the other, you have something that actually makes the countdown in-game not as awful as it is. OFC, who can forget the Viera/Hrothgar fixers? The world of plugins is huge, they enrich the game as often as they make it brainless, so if you want to go around angrily shoving the ToS and Yoshida's statements in people's faces, carry on with knowledge.

I encourage anyone wanting to engage in vigilante justice to understand how AddOns work, how open-source they are, and how they go past your average callout bot to better the game, fix where the developers messed up. "Know thy enemy" as is said.

Absolutely agreed. My whole point from the beginning was not against every addon, but specifically those that create an unfair advantage (zoom hack, mechanics announcers / solvers etc.) or create toxicity (DPS meters).

That Ninja issue is all on SE and they should be ashamed that a 3rd party plugin fixes what they refuse to fix. Same goes for Viera and hats. If an addon can fix that, then SE’s claims about “impossibility of a fix due to head model shape” is just pure laziness.

There clearly are QoL addons and blatant cheating addons. I only have a problem with the cheating ones.

[Zebraoracle]

Absolutely agreed. My whole point from the beginning was not against every addon, but specifically those that create an unfair advantage (zoom hack, mechanics announcers / solvers etc.) or create toxicity (DPS meters).

That Ninja issue is all on SE and they should be ashamed that a 3rd party plugin fixes what they refuse to fix. Same goes for Viera and hats. If an addon can fix that, then SE’s claims about “impossibility of a fix due to head model shape” is just pure laziness.

There clearly are QoL addons and blatant cheating addons. I only have a problem with the cheating ones.

If this is the case, you should have worded your original post better instead of making it seem like you're attacking people for having a different idea of a playstyle than what you have. You would have had people actually agreeing with you (except about the ACT creating toxicity part), because yes, the cheating mods definitely gotta go. However, this is not the message that you got across in your first post.

[Tulvi]

If this is the case, you should have worded your original post better instead of making it seem like you're attacking people for having a different idea of a playstyle than what you have. You would have had people actually agreeing with you (except about the ACT creating toxicity part), because yes, the cheating mods definitely gotta go. However, this is not the message that you got across in your first post.

Sure, looking back I can see where exactly I could’ve worded it better or explain my point in more detail. Especially the play style part. I’ve tried to explain it better later. It’s absolutely fine to look for different things in a game, even in an Ultimate. But Ultimate is specific because of the challenge it provides.

No matter what one is looking for in an Ultimate raid, clearing it with an addon that creates an unfair advantage (e.g. zoom hack) is still not right and it takes away a huge portion of the challenge. Let’s say I would want a weapon from an Ultimate. If I cleared it using a zoom hack, I would have not only cheated, but also missed the whole point of doing an Ultimate (“playing the game incorrectly”).

When it comes to DPS meters, I just really have the experience of these being used much more to either flex or harass other players, than to optimise gameplay and become a better player. I’ve ofc seen DPS meters being used to help someone get better, but only rarely. If I recall correctly, these are the reasons Yoshi refuses to give them a pass in FF, which is what made me love FF even more when I learnt about his stance on this.
And since the devs’ official stance on DPS meters is that they are against them, I’d expect people that prog Ultimate to not use them. Aren’t raiders that prog Ultimate usually the most skilled players anyway? Don’t they form static groups with people they know are good at their classes?

[Zebraoracle]

Sure, looking back I can see where exactly I could’ve worded it better or explain my point in more detail. Especially the play style part. I’ve tried to explain it better later. It’s absolutely fine to look for different things in a game, even in an Ultimate. But Ultimate is specific because of the challenge it provides.

No matter what one is looking for in an Ultimate raid, clearing it with an addon that creates an unfair advantage (e.g. zoom hack) is still not right and it takes away a huge portion of the challenge. Let’s say I would want a weapon from an Ultimate. If I cleared it using a zoom hack, I would have not only cheated, but also missed the whole point of doing an Ultimate (“playing the game incorrectly”).

When it comes to DPS meters, I just really have the experience of these being used much more to either flex or harass other players, than to optimise gameplay and become a better player. I’ve ofc seen DPS meters being used to help someone get better, but only rarely. If I recall correctly, these are the reasons Yoshi refuses to give them a pass in FF, which is what made me love FF even more when I learnt about his stance on this.
And since the devs’ official stance on DPS meters is that they are against them, I’d expect people that prog Ultimate to not use them. Aren’t raiders that prog Ultimate usually the most skilled players anyway? Don’t they form static groups with people they know are good at their classes?

I think everyone that's reasonable is against cheating mods, despite the crap some people in this thread have tried to fling at myself and others ("you disagreed with me therefore you're defending mods and are a cheater yourself" among other idiotic attacks).

Regarding DPS meters, I mean, sure, but part of learning the optimal way to play their jobs and all that literally comes from the information ACT provides, because the game itself does a pisspoor job of doing it for us. I'm pretty sure The Balance, the discord that helps people with optimizing their rotations, wouldn't exist without ACT, meaning we would have very little idea how to actually make sure we're playing our jobs correctly, something that's definitely needed for ultimates.

And it's because of SE's stance on mods that ACT will never become the toxic cancer that people are scared of. The way this game is handled, both by the community and the devs, ensures that it will not, and as long as people are smart about it and not complete idiots, we can safely fall back on YoshiP's stance of "don't ask don't tell, we're not going to hunt you down unless you show it, and I don't want players witch hunting other players over it".