Now that the game is dying can we just have bots for all content?

[Kandraxx]

Tl;dr hardest part in this game now is to find 7 other players who can all align their schedule to spend hours upon hours learning a script which naturally gives an unfair advantage to a certain social bracket I don't wanna call out here.

The myth that there is any ounce of skill in raiding in this game has been dispelled countless times, it's all about being able to hang out in some weird discords all day to find the required people and then it's about having even more time so you can learn choreography after choreography, where there's nothing but 8 individuals mashing their own personal rotation and then selling it as 'MMO' or 'Multiplayer' and there's essentially zero reason why this can't be bot-supported single player content other than you (SE) wanting to keep up the artificial difficulty/gating and the illusion that this game is something that it's not.

Seeing what the mechanics design is all about it really shouldn't be too hard to do the bot behavior/pathing at the same time you create the encounter, especially not for a monthly asking price of $12.99++ and added micros.

[AstreaLove]

...................

[Kandraxx]

Perhaps you should inhale your next dose of copium?

Someone identified with my post. No need for hard feelings bro. Life can get better for you.

[Kuroka]

Shes kinda right... I dont really want it but the last years i feel more and more resistance even doing ex trials and i never did savage, partially due how stupid the systems are and how hard it can be to align with others, plus im HORRIBLY unlucky with loot...

The climate changed and im sure thats not true for everyone, but for some it is... yet we love the game and dont want to leave it...

[BelegErkhten]

Tl;dr hardest part in this game now is to find 7 other players who can all align their schedule to spend hours upon hours learning a script which naturally gives an unfair advantage to a certain social bracket I don't wanna call out here.

The myth that there is any ounce of skill in raiding in this game has been dispelled countless times, it's all about being able to hang out in some weird discords all day to find the required people and then it's about having even more time so you can learn choreography after choreography, where there's nothing but 8 individuals mashing their own personal rotation and then selling it as 'MMO' or 'Multiplayer' and there's essentially zero reason why this can't be bot-supported single player content other than you (SE) wanting to keep up the artificial difficulty/gating and the illusion that this game is something that it's not.

Seeing what the mechanics design is all about it really shouldn't be too hard to do the bot behavior/pathing at the same time you create the encounter, especially not for a monthly asking price of $12.99++ and added micros.

sounds like a skill issue m8

[Voryn]

There’s some reasoning from OP that’s hard to follow:
- There’s no skill involved in raiding
- Everyone just remembers what to do

But somehow
- Raids can only be completed in statics
- Since your schedule doesn’t let you join statics then you want bots to clear with

If there’s no skill needed then why can’t you PF and get it done with them? That’s what people with inconsistent work schedules are doing, and all the raids are getting cleared there. If raiding doesn’t require an ounce of skill, and you want to clear them then where’s the problem? How is PF going wrong?

Or if you don’t like the raids then what do you want the bots for?

[AmiableApkallu]

People talk about "skill," but to quote my previous self:

The only reason why we have 10s or 100s of recordings of any given "set piano piece" is because each musician -- each artist, each performer -- brings their own understanding and interpretation to it. At one extreme of this reality, Beethoven Blues comes to mind.

By contrast, a simple minded robot -- or 8 of them working in concert -- can get you through modern FFXIV encounters, and it's not at all clear to me whether "skill expression" means, or can mean, anything more than "am better able to impersonate said collection of robots."

Like, yes, on the one hand, impersonating a simple minded robot is actually a skill that takes time and effort to acquire. On the other hand, is that really the pinnacle of "raiding"?

[StonedUnc]

yeah I think this is bait

[MonsutaMan]

Now that the game is dying can we just have bots for all content?

You mean Trust.........In all seriousness, I'll bite.........

.....I don't think XIV is "Dying," merely coming back down to earth pre-WoW immigration.

[Amarande]

Incidentally, that's something some people may have forgotten about using NPCs; If you die, it's an instant wipe, which would make having an NPC practice mode for Extreme/Savage all the more of an effective training tool because the player will literally have to restart the whole fight on just their death. (IE: Quantifiable and individual "prog point" completely separate from the performance of others, bonus points if the practice mode leaves a marker everywhere they died per retry until they quit the practice duty.)

Or hell, even if they DID let players do the real Extreme/Savage with bots, the human player still can't coast if they're death alone is all it takes to reset the whole fight

This is actually a really neat idea, and I expect its only flaw will be when (as is likely) the human player community don't settle on the same strat that the NPCs teach the player.

I think Duty Support/Trust even has reduced rewards? So I could picture an NPC-powered Extreme/Savage that does the same thing. (Like say... never dropping mounts?)

I'm pretty sure that the rewards are the same with NPCs as with people, clear speed is the price you pay for using NPCs (although EX/Savage trusts would have to probably maintain the same damage output as average human players that clear, given the fact that we're talking about single fights with assumedly the same enrage timers) - it just rolls the loot automatically behind the scenes when you open coffers, so you only actually see the items that you won (Loot with NPC teammates in Guild Wars 1 worked in similar fashion).

If you could clear content with bots, how would the gatekeepers be able to maintain their self-esteem?

I should hope SE has an "eff them" stance towards those that actually gatekeep for ego.

The grumpy thing is I'm not sure that's the majority of people that gatekeep; with difficulty trending up and free time down, most likely have been put to curating their groups more tightly through experience (it's hard to "be the change" in rough content spells like this, it reminds me of Shadowlands season 1 from WoW where I started off trying to be a kinder player and invite pretty much anyone that didn't have completely paper gear, and I couldn't even reliably get my mythic+ key past something pathetic like a 4 ... eventually ended up thinking about RIOs like everyone else lol).

The fact that these people would no longer need to do so is probably something that all involved would be relieved at.