Should SE scale high end content difficulty towards the usage of SIM ?

[Shougun]

How about SE not assume players are using third-party tools to make encounters easier until they provide their own official marketplace for them?

The addon scene is SUBSTANTIALLY more powerful than WoW's at this point and I think that is going to be a problem for these high end contents or people looking for the bleeding edge of challenge but self nerfed that challenge, without self awareness (which is hard for everyone, and imo, rare anyways lol) people will be making the game worse for others because they made it worse for themselves (tale as old as time?). I think the work these addon creators have done is quite interesting and I would not like to punish them, but /honestly/ I strongly believe the game would be better if they had created official addon support that was controlled and then did a bit more to prevent and punish third party use.

SE is in a position of being uneducated, players extremely advantaged with addon use, and ultimately creating the worst kind of content in this situation (DDR). Hilariously non-JPN PUGs still fail this, so you get this really funny situation where because the content is SO DDR you either get quite reasonable (maybe not easy, but like 'normal') if you're in a group of addon using players, and then in a hell hole because the content is 'memorize or fail' if you're not in an addon group (or a legitimately skilled group, not every skilled person is an addon user, but I bet many are). If people are not aware, there are some hilariously good quality addons that will literally draw lines on the ground on what you should do (resolving complex content FOR YOU) in content like ultimate. These addon creators have done a lot of work, so I don't want to demonize it, but it's equal to if not worse than the situation WoW had when DBM was at it's greatest strength.


I believe this makes makes the game more frustrating too, as the addon user is like "its easy you just do these mechanics, that are appearing on my screen on what to do at each moment, usually before they even show up" as they watch the person who is uninformed failing all over. "WHY CANT YOU JUST DO THE MECHANICS". Well they don't have a little voice whispering each step into their ear, is part of the problem (they are not new, and just want you to carry them, is possible still of course).


I just think its a bad situation all around.

IMO, they should 'air gap' (from their network lol) a PC go and tell someone to download and use a boat load of the third party addons, even the ones that come from custom githubs. Make a list of them based on popularity or interesting features, attempt to add any that are reasonable, and then contact the addon creators ask them to create a list of features they would need / like (officially), make that, begin to ask addon creators to move to the official system and start to create ways to catch unofficial addon use and punish it.

[VerdeLuck]

IMO, they should 'air gap' (from their network lol) a PC go and tell someone to download and use a boat load of the third party addons, even the ones that come from custom githubs. Make a list of them based on popularity or interesting features, attempt to add any that are reasonable, and then contact the addon creators ask them to create a list of features they would need / like (officially), make that, begin to ask addon creators to move to the official system and start to create ways to catch unofficial addon use and punish it.

This would not work, the most popular addons are splatoon (shows aoes that game hides on purpose), ACT (damage meters, complete no go), and Cactbot/Automarkers (Adds markers to mechanics where the devs purposely don't add them over your head).
Most of these mods explicitly exist to undo design changes that the devs do on purpose to make it harder via obscuring information or making it harder to clearly find where to stand to be safe. In the same way Ultimate's entire difficulty is derived from priority mechanics and the consistency check of needing to be good at the start to prog the next phase.

Adding or using simulators and boss mods completely removes the conscious design choices the devs made to give you that difficulty. If anyone uses these mods they are at fault if they find it too easy. You are purposely undoing the design choices to make it easier to clear.
So short answer is all they can do is make things clear enough that people can clear vanilla and if players use tools to speed up their own farm and prog, then tough shit for them specifically. If you were to implement them then all content would just be "don't stand in the orange" at every single difficulty.

[Shougun]

This would not work, the most popular addons are splatoon (shows aoes that game hides on purpose), ACT (damage meters, complete no go), and Cactbot/Automarkers (Adds markers to mechanics where the devs purposely don't add them over your head).
Most of these mods explicitly exist to undo design changes that the devs do on purpose to make it harder via obscuring information or making it harder to clearly find where to stand to be safe. In the same way Ultimate's entire difficulty is derived from priority mechanics and the consistency check of needing to be good at the start to prog the next phase.

Adding or using simulators and boss mods completely removes the conscious design choices the devs made to give you that difficutly. If anyone uses these mods they are at fault if they find it too easy. You are purposely undoing the design choices to make it easier to clear.
So short answer is all they can do is make things clear enough that people can clear vanilla and if players use tools to speed up their own farm and prog, then tough shit for them specifically. If you were to implement them then all content would just be "don't stand in the orange" at every single difficulty.

Did you skip the part where I said reasonable, or followed that up by allowing addons in an official format? I know some addons wont be brought over by SE themselves, but they would become addons* officially part of the game by the second part. Seems like you skipped reading and just wanted to rush to no.


Also it literally works, that's what WoW does lol.




*And I did also cover bringing down their power (like WoW did to DBM), and then ALSO added a part where third party addons would begin to be hunted down (even easier given they're on github to see how you can catch them). So I covered all the bases in that one post. Bring in what you can, allow as much as you can in addons without huge damage, actively target those that are out of scope. (Also noting to try to do this as much as possible with that community, to encourage a smooth transition- I am sure many would move over voluntarily if asked, some might not but.. it is what it is).

[VerdeLuck]

Did you skip the part where I said reasonable, or followed that up by allowing addons in an official format? I know some addons wont be brought over by SE themselves, but they would become addons* officially part of the game by the second part. Seems like you skipped reading and just wanted to rush to no.


Also it literally works, that's what WoW does lol.




*And I did also cover bringing down their power (like WoW did to DBM), and then ALSO added a part where third party addons would begin to be hunted down (even easier given they're on github to see how you can catch them). So I covered all the bases in that one post. Bring in what you can, allow as much as you can in addons without huge damage, actively target those that are out of scope. (Also noting to try to do this as much as possible with that community, to encourage a smooth transition- I am sure many would move over voluntarily if asked, some might not but.. it is what it is).

This would still completely screw over anyone who plays vanilla by making the mods and addons required and force it to be balanced around. There's a reason why people play this game and not WoW.

[Shougun]

This would still completely screw over anyone who plays vanilla by making the mods and addons required and force it to be balanced around. There's a reason why people play this game and not WoW.

Doubtful imo, in a substantial way at least (that you're implying that a major reason why people play FFXIV is because WoW has addons). Having addons in WoW, hundreds of them, I rarely experience an issue- its extremely easy and I'm not sure how people have a struggle with it except that they can't find the power button to their PC (doing super cool things like not reading when they install 8 different addons that all do the same thing slightly differently).


Also, having done most of the casual content in WoW- Addons are not required. For hardcore content, maybe more so, but I do not see how it is better to have our situation and I think having a well done addon storefront would be better than remaining ignorant. "There are no addons there are no addons" meanwhile a player sits there with auto marking ground, precognition of the DDR mechanics, acing everything, and asking for the game to be harder, treating their fellow players worse because for them it is indeed easy.

We will probably just end here on "will not agree", but I do not think ignorance is the preferred state and I think the shadows we have now damage the game more than if we just ripped the blindfold off. Especially as when we take the blindfold off we can make these addons more reasonable (bringing their power factor down to something less god tier).


I watched and played WoW long ago, back when DBM was insanely powerful (like our addrons ARE RIGHT NOW).. it was definitely something people thought you were silly to play without. Again, I can't speak for hard content, but doing all the non-mythic high tier type stuff- no one cares, and I imagine now that the addons are less powerful (they can't mark everything like they used to) it is less required.

Additionally! WoW is seeking to clamp these addons even further, a tool WoW has that FFXIV does not-- because we decided to cover our eyes and pretend the moon is made of cheese. So we'll probably end here, but I think remaining blind is worse for the game.