Possibility to open FFXIV up to a moddable UI?

[Ava]

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Thanks for explaining things a little more, hope you can reply to this, too! It's constructive/educational, at least for me.

I cut your post because it was big and I dont like quoting big things.

Some people will argue that mods ruin things like the element of surprise and such but this is a major misconception. LUA code is not very smart. LUA cannot calculate complex mathematical formulas or use elaborate algorithms to tell you what to do. LUA simply cannot do that efficiently. So no, boss mods don't tell you what spells to cast, LUA is not smart, it can't make decisions for you.

Adds above was in reference to additional monsters in an encounter, sometimes bosses will spawn "adds", which means monsters will come to the battlefield as a part of the encounter and you'll have to handle both the adds + the boss at the same time. A boss mod can only tell you they are coming, it can't tell you what to do with them (offtank, or kill them), LUA is not that smart.

Some guilds do insist on their members using boss mods in other games. But if you're a known good player, most guilds won't question your decision not to use them. You can argue that boss mods might be insulting to people if they're having a hard time learning an encounter, but this is a team game. You want everyone on your team to be as well equipped as the others, if you have someone that keeps wiping the raid because they aren't anticipating that super attack that kills everyone then you'll have to find a solution. If you've already tried explaining it to them, the next step is to either kick them or ask them to download boss mods. In this situation, is it not wrong? It could offend people, and that may be where a lot of the debate comes from, but let's be honest, who wants to be one of the 7 people doing things right but that 8th person just keeps screwing things up for everyone?

[Loony_BoB]

Some guilds do insist on their members using boss mods in other games. But if you're a known good player, most guilds won't question your decision not to use them. You can argue that boss mods might be insulting to people if they're having a hard time learning an encounter, but this is a team game.

Yes, but as much as it is a team game, how can you learn an encounter without actually being given a chance to learn it, even if it means making mistakes? Mistakes are exactly how you learn. I won't claim to be a known good player at all, I play for fun and I'm very social when in a party compared to most people (particularly if it involves my friends). Sometimes we all died, but we laughed about it and we got back up again and carried on where we left off.

You want everyone on your team to be as well equipped as the others, if you have someone that keeps wiping the raid because they aren't anticipating that super attack that kills everyone then you'll have to find a solution. If you've already tried explaining it to them, the next step is to either kick them or ask them to download boss mods.

Tell them when it's happening. I can understand you kicking them if they never learn even if you tell them, though, because obviously that means even if the mod was not there for anyone in the party, they still would not react to your communication.

In this situation, is it not wrong? It could offend people, and that may be where a lot of the debate comes from, but let's be honest, who wants to be one of the 7 people doing things right but that 8th person just keeps screwing things up for everyone?

I agree if they keep screwing up - but only if you are still communicating effectively with them. If you are not communicating effectively with them, if they are not given another chance after screwing up on their first or second attempt, then it does become a concern.

Basically, I just hope that everyone is on the same level regardless of what mods - if any - they use. You seem to be of the opinion that even with those mods, people will still communicate and that people should still require skill, and therefore the mods will not cause any issues. If that's the case, I hope what you believe turns out to be true, because it sounds fine.

I hope you understand the worry of others and where it's coming from, though. Particularly relatively inexperienced people like myself - my experience in modern MMO's is restricted to FFXI, and I only got to somewhere around level 40 or so in that.

[Ava]

I speak from several years of personal experience with- and without the use of mods, all types of mods, and even some personal experience with LUA coding. I see why people are concerned but I strongly feel it's being way overexagerrated, and I hope that when it comes to the implementation of UI mods, SE considers the possibility of overexagerration. I feel that FFXIV should be made as an evolution of the genre, and that they should implement what they want and with appropriate moderation, the reception should be mostly positive.

FFXI was not built with mods, and it in turn led to people using things such as windower scripts and ApRadar, these things were terrible and I am strongly strongly against such things. By allowing the use of UI mods, they gain the ability to moderate them and choose what people do with them. When you don't give people an in house option, they will use third party options that will be even worse, and SE wont be able to moderate these things.

[Nexxus]

PS. Sorry, I don't know what adds are ;_;"

Add are the minion that pop to assist the boss. (Like JoL poping mob that can astral flow)

[Loony_BoB]

Ahhhhh. Thanks.

[Loony_BoB]

Thanks again for your replies.

[Nexxus]

on FFXI/XIV you can totally miss something (maybe less on FFXIV as you can now see buff/debuff icon on target, but it's still not completely readable, missing a tooltip there so you can see what the mob have on his own), because t'chat log are small and everything goes fast.

There is one way to really know, is to page up the t'chat log, or make the log larger (take nearly one side of your window), an UI could be very helpfull there, and only track thoses thing you missed, with an icon or a smaller text somewhere in a corner.

i'm not very fan of voice chat, and i used to lead event linkshell (few years ago).
I prefer people using their own reflexe also, but what our reflexe are based on ? the t'chat log... everything is about the t'chat log actually, a "TPmove" you have to watch the log to know what he is going to do, and when you see the graphical move it's already late and land.
No mod will tell you what to do after received a massive attack.

[Zenairis]

I still don't understand why people are concerned over the point of "You have to have this mod or else" that was never a issue in FFXI even though there was plenty of mods in existence that made the game much easier.

I was never in any scenario forced or needed to ever use mods even when I was in one of the top endgame LS's of my server and that was never the case.

Edit: I would like to see some minor UI improvements like showing party or alliance member's tech points and the ability to toggle which of the two you can see, or some way to tell what enfeebles spells a monster currently has on them or what enhancing + enfeebles a player currently has on them. I disagreed with people using programs for this in FFXI, although I hope to possibly see these in UI mods when SE makes it available.

[Lapulapu]

Knowing SE they will allow you to change the appearance of your UI but not allow mods that will dumb down the experience by mods that tell you when X mob does Y action. Possibly allow us to display things that are already displayed differently? so that we can truely customize the way our screen looks? I just don't see SE allowing major changes to the UI.

[Kaedan]

First you should really make the distinction between UI mods that do harmless things like skinning, and UI mods that do harmful things like telling you what button to push and when (read: trivializing content).