Honest question about the dreaded sim

[Valence]

I'm sure some of you have already heard of the *gasp* simulator. You know, the thing that apparently literally runs on your browser and allows a group of players to connect together, pick any mechanic of a savage fight or ultimate, turn damage on or off, and practice said mechanic again and again without having to go through the whole fight every wipe?

The horror, right? That's cheating! But it got me thinking about a few things:

- What does it say about the encounter design of this game? Or even the whole way fight progression is done, and sometimes heavily gated behind time (notably ultimates where you have to go over 10+ minutes of excruciating fight to have a new opportunity at wiping after 10s on your current prog point)? Is this respecting our time?

- Does it mean I'm a very bad person when I sometimes feel like I'd like to use that tool in order to directly skip to the parts of the game that I actually find fun? (aka: progging mechanics, not going over things past the group every time, which constitutes 95% of the time spent in prog) Does it mean I'm missing something fundamental about the game? Does it mean I'm just... playing the wrong game?

I honestly don't have clear answers about this, but it makes me very conflicted, especially with how this tool seems to get more prevalent in raiding circles.

[Mosha]

Humans make tools to make their lives easier a sim was bound to happen and strictly speaking, using said sim isn't TOS so you shouldn't feel bad. Work smarter, not harder.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

This isn't a question with a single answer, as it really comes down to what you value as an individual.

Having done world prog basically every tier since Final Coil, I'm more the opposite. I live for the adrenaline of finally conquering that one hard mechanic deep into the fight through high consistency at getting to your prog point as a team. Getting past Intermission 2 in A8s on week 3 of Midas only to see brute justice unfold his wings is still one of my favorite moments in my raiding career. Or finally conquering wormhole just to see Perfect Alexander's megazord sequence within a few pulls.

Using the simulator would ruin that experience for me. It's easy to conquer any mechanic regardless of difficulty when you can ram at it for 30x an hour due to starting right at it again. Which is also precisely part of the design behind encounters - you could technically de-incentivize the simulator by putting every hard mechanic right at the start of the fight, but it results in a very boring fight once you get past the initial zerg rush. They spread mechanics out, sometimes deep into the fight, to increase the time people spend progging fights, and to attempt to create a more smoother difficulty curve through the fight overall.

That being said, people are free to do whatever they want. It's become more popular lately since at the end of the day, the majority are motivated by rewards, and have little qualms using stuff that helps them achieve those rewards quicker. Like I mentioned at the start, it really comes down to what people value.

[Saraide]

I'm sure some of you have already heard of the *gasp* simulator. You know, the thing that apparently literally runs on your browser and allows a group of players to connect together, pick any mechanic of a savage fight or ultimate, turn damage on or off, and practice said mechanic again and again without having to go through the whole fight every wipe?

The horror, right? That's cheating! But it got me thinking about a few things:

- What does it say about the encounter design of this game? Or even the whole way fight progression is done, and sometimes heavily gated behind time (notably ultimates where you have to go over 10+ minutes of excruciating fight to have a new opportunity at wiping after 10s on your current prog point)? Is this respecting our time?

- Does it mean I'm a very bad person when I sometimes feel like I'd like to use that tool in order to directly skip to the parts of the game that I actually find fun? (aka: progging mechanics, not going over things past the group every time, which constitutes 95% of the time spent in prog) Does it mean I'm missing something fundamental about the game? Does it mean I'm just... playing the wrong game?

I honestly don't have clear answers about this, but it makes me very conflicted, especially with how this tool seems to get more prevalent in raiding circles.

It probably means that your group has limited time and wants to make the good use of that time. It means you arent blind progging. It adds to the pile of reasons why you'll have an easier time progging than world first racers. If you're having fun progging a fight while using a sim, then clearly you arent doing that much wrong.

[TBerry]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The sim is a website.
It doesn't break ToS, nor does SE care, likely.

[Valence]

The point I was trying to make was less about whether it's ethical or not to use a third party website with a sim on it, and more of the implications. And also what it means for me, and what it means about the design of the game. I want to reiterate that I didn't really make that post to disucss whether it's TOS compliant or not, or kosher or not.

This isn't a question with a single answer, as it really comes down to what you value as an individual.

Having done world prog basically every tier since Final Coil, I'm more the opposite. I live for the adrenaline of finally conquering that one hard mechanic deep into the fight through high consistency at getting to your prog point as a team. Getting past Intermission 2 in A8s on week 3 of Midas only to see brute justice unfold his wings is still one of my favorite moments in my raiding career. Or finally conquering wormhole just to see Perfect Alexander's megazord sequence within a few pulls.

Using the simulator would ruin that experience for me. It's easy to conquer any mechanic regardless of difficulty when you can ram at it for 30x an hour due to starting right at it again. Which is also precisely part of the design behind encounters - you could technically de-incentivize the simulator by putting every hard mechanic right at the start of the fight, but it results in a very boring fight once you get past the initial zerg rush. They spread mechanics out, sometimes deep into the fight, to increase the time people spend progging fights, and to attempt to create a more smoother difficulty curve through the fight overall.

That being said, people are free to do whatever they want. It's become more popular lately since at the end of the day, the majority are motivated by rewards, and have little qualms using stuff that helps them achieve those rewards quicker. Like I mentioned at the start, it really comes down to what people value.

Thanks for answering to the point. I'm actually interested to hear from people that actually enjoy the parts that I don't. If anything it tends to point at a me problem, which is me not liking 90% of endgame challenging content being about rehearsal. And it also goes a long way to show that the parts I like (progging and job gameplay) doesn't stand itself on its own for that yes, no matter how hard you make those mechanics, they're easy to conquer relatively "fast" on their own (or on a sim).

There is some interesting aspects I've found on different bosses bringing up a certain amount of pattern rng like P8S doorboss (unfortunately made some annoying due to boss going away at non equal timers), or O7S making teams actually prog on different mechanics every time. I don't know what to think of those, but it felt less tedious to me, less repetitive. I think I have a real issue with repetition overall.

[Jojoya]

The point I was trying to make was less about whether it's ethical or not to use a third party website with a sim on it, and more of the implications.

What implications?

What it means to you can only be answered by you.

It doesn't mean anything about the design of the game. What is created by one set of programmers can be recreated by another set of programmers.

If the existence of the simulator is saying anything, it's saying that the general gaming population has changed over the years. There's now a preference for combat content that can be tackled in more convenient and smaller pieces than tackled as a larger progressive whole (likely because of more exposure to mobile gaming now compared to the past). It's not an issue of good/bad or better/worse. It's just a change in preference over time. What players enjoyed in the past may no longer be as enjoyable. Or perhaps they never really had the option in the past and would have preferred the smaller pieces even then.

I brought this up in several discussions last year and it seems appropriate here. If you're not enjoying the way content is designed, don't do that content. Developers generally aren't collecting information on how players feel about content. They're only checking to see if players are doing it or not, and at what point they quit doing it. If players doing it, they're going to assume players okay with the content as designed. It's when players quit participating in the content much faster than they expected that they start listening to feedback.

[Valence]

I brought this up in several discussions last year and it seems appropriate here. If you're not enjoying the way content is designed, don't do that content.

Let's not put words into my mouth? I have never said anywhere that I am not enjoying the content at all. If I didn't, I wouldn't be playing, and wouldn't be here in the first place.

Developers generally aren't collecting information on how players feel about content. They're only checking to see if players are doing it or not, and at what point they quit doing it. If players doing it, they're going to assume players okay with the content as designed. It's when players quit participating in the content much faster than they expected that they start listening to feedback.

Do you work in game development? Or at SE's? I'm sorry but that sounds like a lot of cookie cutter answers that people fantasize about the industry and how it works..

[Bun_Vivant]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The sim is a website.
It doesn't break ToS, nor does SE care, likely.

From what's being said here, this "simulator" ihas a high probability of being copyright infringement.
Copyright is like many things: if you don't defend it, you may lose it.
So SE will care, and they will probably take down the website eventually.

That they haven't already sent a take-down notice may just be because no one at SE noticed it.
But they have notice of it now, thanks to this thread.

[Reinha]

Console players have access to it so it's totally fair to use it if that's your preference.