Honest question about the dreaded sim

[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.