Barring people from joining if they can't achieve some number determined by a third party tool is >>>THE

"And for that I say: you're about to watch a ten minute video in 5 minutes." I actually busted out laughing.

If the devs can complete all content on console, without any addons, so can everyone else.

The idea the game is too easy is silly. Specially when the greater FF14 community is still stunlocked when YoshiP told them to take their pug ass to Ultimates.

As someone with diabetes and limited feeling in my fingers there are certain addons that significantly aid in completing combo's and the like. I won't argue that these add-ons are fair in any way but they do help me do normal content without feeling like my diabetes is causing me to be a burden on the group.

Note on you speaking fast: I'm a fast-talker too. My mouth tries to catch up with the runaway freight trains racing along the multiple interweaving tracks in my brain and often ends up tripping along the way. So I get it. I do still need subtitles to understand you, but that's mostly because I'm not british. The full-speed words combine with the accent I'm not used to in a way that turns my brain to mush. No need to feel self-conscious over something you can't really control, we all just work with what we got.

I don't use raiding addons at all, but I do use addons to give my catgirl a fluffier tail :D (no NSFW on my WoL, so it's wholesome as well!)

I cant afford to pay both an exit lag and a game sub, and playing at a ping that fluctuates between 150-200+ depending on the moment really sucks ass

I used to be in an FC that had a static, keyword being used because the leader had favoritism towards those who raid and the static leader was a narcissistic asshole. The kicker is that one of the members who completed all ultimates had a plugin that TOLD THEM what mechanics were about to happen and how to solve it. When I brought it up, the FC leader told me not to worry about it. Suffice to say, that static led to the FC's downfall because they started adding randoms not in the FC into the Discord and the static leader liked to make false accusations towards people he didn't like. Never tried being snappy towards me because he knew I'd destroy his fragile ego within seconds

This, the amount of cope I heard during the last ultimate when cheating was called out with people trying to act like playing the game from space with some players using Splatoon and stuff wasn't actually cheating and didn't actually make the game easier. It really does instantly fall apart when you change to another game. If you play a fighting game and you have an add on that makes the enemy hitbox appear in bright colors before the attack they're going to do or playing a shooter with the ability to see the entire map over head like an invisible drone and still fire from your location while everyone else can only see normally. And it'a always the same people that will say high end raids and ultimates are easy when they can't do them without 1000 crutches.

I said it before, and I'll say it again, the combat log output should just be turned off by the devs, it'd fix most issues.

The game doesn't need Add-ons. The game is enjoyable without it, as the game designed without the need for one. We just need more Quality of Life changes in the game. Like in the nameplates, their buffs and debuffs, make it optional. In addition, they need to add another Macro page, 2 ain't enough, since I like using macros like hell. And now, we'll have three, THREE new jobs!

My argument against addons is: World of Warcraft raiding That's it, if that's not enough for anyone to understand, then I'm afraid their brain is just rotten

I wish Square would just add NoClippy as a feature to the game because when you live at the end of the world no amounts of vpns and optic fiber can save you from doing singleweaves

I use ACT, Im not toxic with it in-game. I use it to parse my own damage, because SE has me smacking a fucking rock to guess...

I'm a filthy casual, but I have tried raiding more than once by my friends request. They knew how I play and how little experience I had with raiding. What did they do? They told me "Go get this equipment!", "Meld this materia!", "Practice this rotation!", "Hit the dummy!" and I did just that. Not once did they told me to get an addon, or even asked me how much damage I was doing. I have the floating numbers off, they know, and they don't mind. So when someone at Bojza makes a comment about an addon, I bombarded him with questions like a 5 year old "Why would anyone need to know how much DPS they're doing?", "Why do I need to get an addon to achieve something I can do without it?", "If everyone's putting their effort for the struggle, why should I skip it?". I never pointed fingers at them for using them and called the cops, I was legit curious as of why would anyone take the trouble of risking their accounts? I mean, if one takes a risk like that, there has to be a valid reason, right? I'm still waiting to hear one...

learning the game for me has made blind running future content easier especially when you can start treating most repeats as recycled encounters rather than a brand new encounter and wait for the next copy and paste guide from an old encounter to rebrand itself as the new one

Thank you for giving voice to my own feelings on this topic. I appreciate your levity and ability to speak quickly and concisely. The captions helped. Gg Eric.

Feel like this was secretly in response to that random response video I saw thinking they had a gotcha moment on you when it was clear your og video was mostly jokes, lol

This is why I've limited most of my 'addons' to visual stuff through Penumbra. Yeah, I do use some addons like JobBars, but that's mostly because I find it hard to keep track of so many things all at once. The little bars and meters help remind me of DoT timings and show me if I need more skill speed to get an extra hit out of No Mercy.

The closest thing to an add on that I use is TeamCraft, because the downloadable version has a packet sniffer to keep track of your in-game inventory.

For Lalas the kindness comes after the kneecap collection is completed so it’s good to see you making those milestones. Even if my cucumber of a pc could run add ons I probably wouldn’t out of paranoid laziness. That said I wouldn’t expect people not to cheat but there is no need to gatekeep people for not participating Also to the new prisoner of the lop mafia, hi

I've seen people making videos about FF14 being too easy, and then in those same videos those people are using addons like automarkers. When I was in High School and college, we were not allowed to use calculators on exams. We had to do all of our math by hand or in our head. I heard someone say "Just because you use a calculator, doesn't mean you don't know how to do the math, it's just way faster and more convenient." But the argument against that is if you're playing for a challenge, why are you using a tool to make said challenge easier? It's a good thing these people represent a fringe minority of the community as most players don't even bother with the harder content. But I do agree with you, you don't ever need to use an addon, period. And to be clear, I'm only talking about addons that help you with combat, I'm not talking about purely cosmetic addons like shaders and modded clothing. Lighting and other visual mods are typically not frowned upon, even though they too violate the terms of service.

i was my first ever raiding group for the final tier of Eden and i was told to DL act, FFLogs and cactbot. i'm not a confident player, so when they said it'd help me i just listened to them. it became an immediate crutch. i would use it for every fight and even then i'd still only get greys. We managed to clear the first three fights, but then the static went the way of the dodo cos of romance drama lol when the remnants of the group moved on to another static... i was told politely that they didnt want me in the group;;; never tired savage again

Between the proliferation of Automarkers and Mare, I'd not be surprised if we got some actual, for real enforcement mechanisms in Dawntrail - which would suck for one of the very few arguably legit use cases: Added accessibility. I will admit I used some addons to show where I was clipping and highlight rotation breaks. I've since wheened myself off them, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done these either, but instead just ground it out on the dummy

I love my plugins, but I went through my first bit of XIV without knowing they existed, and if I did well without them, I'd be fine now realistically. The only thing I'll really miss if Quicklauncher were to go down today would be the plugin that stops Xbox controllers from randomly disconnecting in the middle of gameplay.

I'm saying this from a position I don't care if people use addons really. I dont use them. I said around some savage players including a close childhood friend that addons were like mods in WoW. I got completely flambeed for saying addons are mods. I wasn't trying to argue with anyone. I wasn't trying to start anything with anyone. My now ex friend (due to many other reasons) didn't stop trying to argue with me over it and didn't take it to Discord DMs when I asked and made it totally public. It just made me feel less sympathetic for any savage raiders in regards to addons. Plus not wanting to even deal with raiding. I just dont even bother talking about them at all. It gets so toxic.

Following the last comment thread where I talked about me choosing to use Alex to well make the game not miserable when playing monk you did suggest Exitlag there too, I admit I just had never considered it as an option and decided to check it out but then the pricing of it being 5 euro/month makes this way too steep to achieve the same thing I get with Alex that modifies the client animation lock to accommodate my own ping. I can tell you that even with Alex if I try to triple weave/pot+weave/sprint+weave or any other 'illegal' combo that's going around with latency reduction I still clip my gcd (tested it to confirm that). Perhaps there is a way to modify the plugin to allow for stuff like that (at least I heard of it being possible) but at least on my connection and on it's out-of-the-box configuration it's not possible. By all means the game is playable without it I would just play a different job that has a 2.5 gcd (and be sad I can't enjoy my fav one). There is something to be said that a solution like that exists and square still hasn't yet implemented it to the game, that way everyone would have responsive gameplay without the option to tamper with the values to make it cheating

I play on ps4 and I clear Ultimates. I put up 99 parses in Savage content on PS4 with a controller that is on its last legs and some of the buttons stick. Oh and my internet speed is slow too. Take it from me, you don't need add-ons in battle content. If I can clear fights in this game and perform to a level of the top percentage of the playerbase on console with a scuffed controller. Than people playing on Pc should be able to do it too. If you feel like you need add-ons, skill issue.

I only use qol add ons if I think it will give me a clear benefit over someone else like idk extra zoom as a completely random example I won't use it (BTW my definition of qol is something that will have the same effect as having a second monitor)

I like ACT it breaks a lot all on its own.😂 i just like to know how much DPS I am doing.

I proudly state that I only use addons for ERP purposes and to enhance the fashion -- after being an adventure for eight years, I have literally bought or looted every single possible glamor item in the game. And as the true end game is fashion, I am far too impatient to wait for the devs to create awesome new looks that I will spend millions of Gil on from crafters instead of putting in the hard work to become an omni crafter myself. as for "cheats" bleh. The game is so easy already, I'm unsure why anyone would need to use a mod that makes the content easier. Heck I know the Ultimate raids are hard, but all they really take is some dedication, which translates to an actual worked for achievement -- something that is becoming kind of rare in the ever homogenised player experience of FF14. also also, give us WHM's our AoE DoT back!

ill be real, I started playing 14 last year in January, I went through and slogged through every expansion up to current content without mods, granted i use external websites to make some things easier on myself because theyre resources that ANYONE can use. A lot of the friends i play with, all play with visual addons and the ones who did raid mostly had addons to track diagnostics to then send to an external site like fflogs. I'm of the opinion of, if I, an aussie on Aether can make it to final phase Thordan Unreal, second to final phase P4S, Prog up to Nail in UCOB and is currently trying to actually clear UWU with managing to make it to Ifrit prog ALL within 1 instance on all these fights, only being backed up by people who knew what they were doing and having supportive friends WILLING to drag me through this undertaking, ANYONE can do higher end content without addons to assist them. It takes finding the right people who are equally supportive and well educated about the game who will get you far when ur getting into this sort of thing.

to be honest i would just like them to fix the button bloat and the tab targeting and ff14 is perfect

See ! Lalafells can be wholesome to. Lemme no what you thought of the tonal shift down below x ! and as ever hit that subscribe button to make me part of your daily roulettes.

only addon i have that i would say could count as cheating is XIV combo, which just turns 123 combos into a single button like in pvp. i still have to press the button 3 times to cycle through the 3 actions, but theyre all in the one hotbar slot and that makes my bars cleaner

As someone who regularly has to watch videos at 1.5-2x speed because of how slowly people talk and how much they belabor a point, thanks for letting me listed to a video on 1x :) That said, I think that the fact that WoW basically required addons because everyone was using them was part of the toxicity of the wow raid scene and I don't want to see FF go that way. I think that even suggesting someone else should use an addon should come with spyware included in your next patch that scans your active processes and bans you if you're using them. I have zero empathy for people who cheat to gain advantages in an MMO. And by cheating, I don't mean "using addons in any game is cheating" - I mean "breaking the rules is cheating, and using addons in FFXIV is breaking the rules, so yes, using addons in FFXIV is cheating." Using addons is only not cheating if the rules say you can use them (e.g. WoW). If you want to play an MMORPG with addons, go back to wow and feel free to play with as many as you want where you're not cheating anymore. If you can't prog Savage without addons, it's a skill issue. Git gud or go do something easier instead of cheating. Also, subbed.

I’m one of the few players that uses ACT to judge myself and my raid team. However, you are not booted from my team due to low dps. I see low dps, I see an opportunity to teach and to learn. You want to be booted from my team? Be a dick. Had a player whose personality was his parse and he was swiftly replaced

The tonal shift was a suprise, but I don't know about wholesome, so never fear.

So are things that are purely visual okay?

I do use mods. but i don't do any hardcore raiding, nor PVP. just with my friends group we have a mare syncshell, and we just have alot fun with emotes that are replaced to memes. we just have fun. there is alot of wholesome moments in my group like someone opening up and getting in love with each other with very cute adorable emote mods. or just goofing around :3 i also have ACT, but that is only for my eyes only for my own feedback how i'm doing. i dont want to be a bad DPS and holding the party hostage if someone has a low dps, it makes me remember when i started playing because i was also really bad and was new to the game. and still i'm still pretty bad xD

I use ACT to help myself but if someone tried to block doing context because some parse bs are the ones that can kiss my ass lol. Parse only applies to DPS an thats all people focus on when thats not the game lol

From what I can tell, btw, ACT and Cactbot don't directly interface with the game files. I think they just pull the data that's being sent out from the program over the internet already, or something like that. Not that this makes it okay, just a minor detail. For what short time I did experiment with Cactbot, what I found was that at first I didn't know "Oh hey, that's an AOE coming up. Oh hey, there's about to be a mini-buster. Oh, I didn't know I should interrupt THAT mob!" It helped me learn about these things, while FFXIV base would just throw me to the wolves (veteran players) without so much as warning me that it's dangerous to go alone. And JUST the other day, I had the shittiest Dohn Mheg run I've *EVER* had while leveling my SCH, because the tanks and DPS didn't know that the baskets NEED to be interrupted to prevent their ridiculously hard-hitting punch ability. I did know better from past experience leveling tanks and did my best to adjust, but there were still wipes (and in my experience, TELLING other players directly about things just gets met with attitude and injured pride, so I don't bother anymore). FFXIV is notoriously bad at helping players learn these dangers - especially because these dangers are RARELY thrown at us, so they're complete wildcards. And as I got used to those mechanics, I found Cactbot itself less and less useful. I stopped having it play sounds at all, because those got distracting, but I found myself completely ignoring the text that popped up on the screen and actually recognizing enemy abilities properly. Maybe my first time in a fight, Cactbot proved to be a crutch that I leaned heavily on, but after that I started picking up the normal telegraphs that veterans got used to. I was able to make the connection "Okay, the boss is positioning like so with THAT animations, which means THAT mechanic is about to happen..." This proved especially true with raids, trials, EXs, and savages. I began to recognize the common mechanics the devs like to regularly used, and how often they get repurposed or reflavored and eventually stopped noticing the addon trying to tell me ANYTHING because I was like "Oh, I know what that boss movement means!" I say all this, again, not to say that it makes Cactbot okay, but to point out WHY mods like this get used, and I wish the devs would notice this and respond to it: The game is notoriously bad at explaining things and helping players learn. We get telegraphs and buff/debuff icons aplenty, but often our first encounters with a fight are full of anxiety and stress because we don't have ANY idea what's going on. I remember when WoW first added the "dungeon journal" feature, where you could look up boss descriptions and basic capabilities before going in to fight them *in the actual game*. This would give you an idea of what is coming in terms of boss lore and some description of their abilities/spells, but you still had to learn how to actually resolve them yourself (and trust me, there were still SO MANY bad players even with that released). I'm not saying that's the ideal solution, but Blizzard recognized this as a problem and did SOMETHING to try and respond to it. I'd like to see Yoshi-P try to deal with it because I imagine he would have a more unique solution. Hall of the Novice was a nice attempt, but what barebones advice it gives can sometimes even be outdated, and it doesn't apply practically to current content design. (same with guildhests) TL;DR: Players need a way to learn and improve in the game, and new players in particular need a way to catch up to long-time veterans. Cactbot is what many of them will turn to because the game doesn't have any good alternative right now I think that's WHY the topic of addons is so divisive. Some players see the need behind them and respect that, while others respond with this stubborn "elitist jerk" attitude insisting that everybody should "git gud" the way they did, and often use increasingly condescending/insulting wordage. (In a way, it's even a form of gatekeeping) It ends up being a problem of supply and demand. When a player's needs aren't being met by the devs, modders will step in.... and then modders will get REALLY carried away, beyond what they should be doing. And I think this is low-key why the devs try to embrace a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, even while openly telling us not to use mods. They recognize it both as a necessary evil and a slippery slope.

dynamis makes. me cry . starts video feels EMOTIONS? ahhh! lol jkjk, ty for making this very good vid, you're right!

lol this game is so much less toxic nowadays than it was during the 2.x patches.

Thing is there's a lot of great HC players that teach new players how go start HC content. But it would be nice to see the game having more resources for teaching players about how to use their 'aoe' rotation etc. You know some basics of rotation, mechanics

o7 to all the people banned for buff timers, something we now have base game and something that i can't believe didn't exist before. o7 to people that used chat bubbles and got banned, a feature they're adding... Now can we get some people to put hats on bunnies so they add those too? o7 to you

I don't care if people use addons so long as they don't try to force me to use them or gatekeep others by making it a requirement to have them. Personally I'm against them and while I understand some reasons for why people use them, I don't agree and think people huff copium because they want to find excuses to be lazy and cut corners instead of using their brains and learning how to adapt. The people who say it's the game's fault for why they cheat are the same people who blame the world and everyone else for why they aren't successful in life or just an unlikable person.

I'm a returning player that's been casual as fuck since starting, and was curious about playing around with an addon or two honestly. Nothing game breaking, or cheating, maybe like a texture enhancer, or like model/effect changes for attack animations or something, I don't know. Eh. I'm probably too scrub for any of this to apply to me.

Parsing is related with add-on use? What a surprise....

i use one addon, cause WHY ON EARTH IS MONK GCD TIED TO MY FPS IN SUCH A CURSED FUCKING WAY xD (also, i could just run the 1.93 set, but i'm omni melee, and don't want to remeld every piece of gear every time i want to play another strength dps)

Well I feel if I do not leave a comment here something will seem unfinished. 1. I will subscribe to say fuck that guy, becuase those who are experinced are those who can give a real answer to many new players questions. The most toxic thing in FF14 is the bucket crab mentality of the community, it is better to drag others down then help lift them out. Why during farm when some gear was not needed by core we would use those boses to help train new players and use the data to help improve them inreal time all while giving them the gear as we moved on to the content people need gear from or is progresstion. Oneo fthe major issues people will yell to get an addon but not tell you why. 2. 99% of players for any PVE content are not "Competing" they are playing in there own small ponds having there own progrestion with the content. One thing I would argue is toxic is the idea of being better the somone makes you an expert of the game when most of the time its blind leading blind. The real take away is find a group that is the same commitment level as you, no one wants to play with someone who is vastly different on that scale in either direction for hours to days at a time without reward. 3.Add-ons are a scale from This is RP stuff who cares?, should just be in the game already Yoshi P, disablity options, information accessablity, revealing information, questions of gamer ethics and games journalism of it might be playing it for you, to lastly "Call the GMs that man is cheating". I feel this video does a better job showing this scale and name dropping what is felt to be the problem children ehlps the argument on certain offenders since it helps getting a head of more obvious counters. (ChatCoordinates should be in the game, I should not have to DL an addon to havea flag placed on my map when I click corrdinates in the text box when runing maps with friends, fucking unplayable.) 4. I do find it realy sad so many dont use these tools for good, because how can one coach someone getting better and find the problems without the information to see them in the first place? It might be the ivory tower issue is when you are someone who is up there and use the tools for good or as they are built for you are blind to the evil the common man uses them for? Who knows with all our back and forths we might have to do a colab on the topic.

F*ing Brilliant love the comedy and you are correct on those points as well

I should become friends with Erik too.

I've been thinking about this a lot.. I think FFXIV should bite the bullet, and create some form of in-game parsing tool/leaderboard. Maybe not something as complex as ACT but enough to be able to see what your relative contribution was compared to party members. This would include separate meters for mitigation/healing done so tanks and healers can also gain value. A big argument on the side of ACT: I want to optimize, and I want teammates to optimize A big argument against ACT: Ad-ons gatekeep players and especially console players who can't use them even if they wanted to It may not be the best solution, but I feel like it's an elegant one.

I hear no lies in this video

I'm not advocating addons. I'm not saying you need them to play the game. I'm not saying their good. And I'm also not saying they are justifyable from both a moral or ToS standpoint. However... I've got a bit of a nuclear take: Cheating is not possible in a PvE environment. I think of things in FFXIV like radars, cactbot, autorotation, etc to be equilvalent to things like creative mode or X-Ray in minecraft. Do these programs enhance the ability of their users beyond what's normally possible? Yes. Here's the thing though, no one is being exploited. There is not any "advantage" to be had (unless you're racing or parsing - which is a whole other conversation), which is a fundamental pillar of cheating. "Cheating", definitionally speaking, requires a group of people to be put at a disadvantage. FFXIV is a PvE game, and as such, having a "cheater" in your party only stands to benefit you. The only person being exploited is the boss, the NPCs, or (arguably) the improvement of the addon user. Addons in FFXIV doesn't infringe upon anyone else's ability to play or enjoy the game. And the "It takes away the feeling of an honest victory/clear" arguement doesn't hold up either. How you feel when you clear as it pertains to someone using addons requires you to have prerequisite knowledge that someone is, in fact, using addons - which, most of the time, you don't know that (unless they openly tell you). You'd almost never know the difference between who is using addons and who isn't, and as such, the only person of whom's pride is at risk - is the "cheater." Again, I'm not defending addons, but I think attempting to draw paralells from this to, say, someone using an aimbot or ESP hack in a PvP shooter is a bit unfair. *Super TL;DR:* People using addons in PvE environments doesn't infringe on anyone's ability to play or enjoy the game without prerequisite knowledge thereof - which you almost never have - unless you're world's first racing or parsing. Which, in the latter case, you'd also be using addons/"cheats" and therefore be a hypocrite lol. The reason addons suck is because people become dependant on them and can't improve at the game - _not_ because they are cheating.

Bold of you to assume that people would find robbing a bank to be immoral /s Only point I'd make is that not all addons are created equal, and most addons mentioned in this video are straight up cheats (barring the High-Ping one). For example, there is an addon that prevents you from seeing and interacting with another player. It basically removes them from your perspective, which is a great way to combat stalkers since SE doesn't really have a solid system to help players with their ingame functions (It's 2024, why does unfriending someone not remove you from their friendlist?). Chat bubbles is also something that should be default, frame-limiting options as well. Or hell - just having concept art as loading screen instead of everything going black! I'm not surprised that this video has received 25% dislikes because from what I gather most people who use plugins are using the addons/plugins mentioned above and only a fraction are using the ones you mentioned in the video. So you might've targeted the wrong crowd overall and they probably didn't bother finishing the video :(

I like no clippy, so I can actually play MCH

Yeah I have never used addons in my 4 years of playing

game is too easy: make a duty that cannot be queued for preformed or unsynced and forced minilvl, have it be savage difficulty, then lock behind a reward and sidequest to surpass ultimates, thatl make the game go from its too easy, to its too hard

It doesn't really have "addons", these tools for XIV are reallly "hacks" or "mods" since SE doesn't expose any interface themselves to create these things. The difference with other games like WoW or ESO is the developer intentionally exposes an interface for developers to use.

What I'm salty about are all of these fantastic job action reskin mods that I don't feel comfortable checking out because I'm skirting the line enough running the game on linux.

Mare is whatever. We all degens can degen however we like. But I'm actually glad that I'm playing this game on PlayStation and can clear content (savages/Ultimates) without all this Allisae Mom bullshit.

TextToTalk best addon

I feel cheated on... I'm not upset -.-

would you consider having more than two or three words on screen at the same time for your subtitles? I’m finding the automated CC to serve me better when it’s accurate but it’s really distracting to have those and yours on screen at the same time especially with the highlighting swapping back and forth with the cadence of your speech

I take it you are talking add-ons that alter the game play is some way rather than simply being entirely cosmetic, like shaders.

I don't really care if it's cope or not at least on the mnk gcd this game feels like complete ass without alex/noclippy so I will use it and pity anyone who is stupid enough to eat playing with the busted base gcd

Hey so while I agree with all the sentiments regarding addons, I also have a use case for some that is really on the edge. I like challenging content. I love XIV. The only problem I have is that the only challenging content really is savage and extreme etc. now you might be going yeah no manure but hear me out. As someone with a rather unique mental health profile I find it incredibly difficult to remember and react to some of the really long multiple phase fights. This normally wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but I also live in Aus. Even though Material DC is there, from what I have seen it’s kinda trash. Plus I have always played on Aether anyway. The issue is that even with good internet and everything, quite often I will run into the issue of being outside of a marker and still get hit. Yes I know I have to move earlier but this also puts even more cognitive load on me. And I think the issue is that for the devs and most JP there will be no latency because Japan is a small couple of islands and so they are close to the servers. So for me being able to run something that will take the cognitive load of moving early off of me is actually really helpful

Also a EU player here, playing on NA, what the fuck is wrong with your ping lmao, get better Internet connection, i have a ping of 30-40

10/10 takes

The only addons that I got no problem with are the purely cosmetic ones, like viera hat mods and the ones used by folks running around in their undies...

0.5x gang↙

I think we're going to disagree on this topic no matter what arguements I bring up since it seems you have your mind set on this. I'm a cheater in your eyes and honestly I don't care. I use both ACT and NoClippy, those two being the only things I will ever put my hands on and I will refuse to even touch the game as long as NoClippy doesn't work, and if CBU3 were to disable the use of 3rd party tools alltogether in form of an anti-cheat, I would find myself in the boat of people quitting. As you brought up, using these tools are like a crutch. You might be able to get from point A to point B reliably albeit slow with a broken foot and no help, but with a crutch you will be able to do it with much less pain and more speed. I play on NA Datacenters from EU. All of my friends online are Americans/Canadians, and I've known most of them longer than I've even played FF14 to begin with. I tried playing the game without addons to begin with, since I had the same mentality as you, I thought addons made WoW unfun and the community Elitist. But after even just a short while of doing the story casually (Started around Endwalker release) I noticed how clunky the combat in this game felt. I didn't know it had to do with my high ping of 220 since most modern games don't base animation lock via latency. But I thought its how the game was meant to be played. After finding out about the glaring issues related to high ping I tried everything to lower my ping, I downloaded and paid for VPN after VPN, tried Exitlag (the one you suggested) but at most my ping got lowered from 220 to around 180. Still unable to reliably double weave without clipping I put down the game when I beat the story. The combat wasn't fun and it felt like no matter what I do, I have an inherent disadvantage. But come patch 6.2 the new Savage tier got released and I saw the shiny Abyssos axe and got enthralled into trying my best to clear the content just to get my hands on it. After finding a casual group to start P5s, the glaring issue was worsened, tank busters during burst windows made it impossible to even consider keeping my dps rotation up to even survive. Thats the moment I gave in. I downloaded XIVAlexander for the first time (switched to noclippy shorty after) and never looked back. The game was playable for the first time. And here comes the crazy part. I now LOVE XIV's combat, I think it feels amazing to play if you have the ability to actually fully experience it the way it was intended. Nothing feels quite as rewarding as the DRK opener to me. Spam buttons and do massive damage. I got into optimization and wanted to become the best I could be. Abyssos down, I went into TEA. Leading into the next Savage Tier, leading into DSR and TOP. This game can actually be fun if you have the ability to play it. And all that is thanks to NoClippy. It is a crutch yes. But in no universe am I going to walk without it again. I really urge you to try making an alt character on a Datacenter across the world, preferrably a tank, level it up to level 20ish. And then try to hit a target dummy, and double weave inbetween GCDs, it feels horrible. I am okay with adjusting in mechanics and doing homebrewed shit due to ping (DSR P6 Wroth comes to mind) but in no world can I agree that the game is working as intended when it comes to rotations and animationlock. It has to be changed. They day they do, I will return to vanilla. But until then, I will PROUDLY be a filthy cheater.

i cant follow what he is saying. but i like the video :D

IDGAF about optimization addons. Addons should just be for visuals and aesthetics. Granted a DPS meter would be baller if it was native to the game. But it's not, so meh.

Tbh, even bozjan characters have more main character energy than the scions sometimes-

If you are using addons to clear endgame content, here are some VERY HARD truths for you: 1) You are cheating. No ifs and/or butts. It gives you an advantage, and is explicitly against the rules. It is cheating. and 2) You are cheating to clear content that was designed to be cleared without cheating. This means you suck, and are a little wus. Any bragging rights you think you earned are null and forfeit. The sprout that just complimented your glowing weapon or mount would probably laugh at you if they knew you cheated for it. And deep inside, your friends think you're hollow, fake, and are less as a player. lastly 3) You can never un-cheat. If your first clear was using cheats, it does not matter if you ever clear without cheating later. No one will care. Because you're a cheater. Once someone knows you did, EVERY clear is suspect. Go ahead and say you don't care about other people's opinion. You definitely don't afk with your weapon out in an edgey pose in Limsa every night. Or fight the e-girls and cosplay freaks for the highest visibility spots.

Tools that are used for their intent, and tools that get abused, muddies the water for add-on, and you speak well that, it mostly creates the gatekeeping culture that high-end content can have. And this is just the first symptom of an add-on being a problem. If people continue to claim the game is too easy due to addon help, it will create a arms race with the add-on vs. The devs thus make the game more exclusive to those that use add-ons. Wow suffer greatly from this. FFXIV not so much but it a long term evolution since it tied to the development of the game.

While I don't necessarily disagree with your take here, its important to note that not all addons are crutches.

based

I play both wow and ff14 but can't stand raiding in FF anyway lol. You get spoiled by combat in WoW and other games tend to feel a bit sluggish and such.

I've actually considered ACT to be worse than Cactbot. Cactbot solves the execution puzzles for you; it's a blatant cheat tool that is basically the MMO equivalent of an aim tracker. It only requires you to pull the trigger correctly. It's quite bad. But ACT is worse: it's the MMO equivalent of map and wall hacks. It sees all and knows all, logs everything and exposes everything, destroying any mystery that creates the fun in the game. Things that a human player might chalk up to RNG can be disclosed as player error by these tools, driving gameplay to a standard beyond the design of the game itself. This, in turn, creates a culture of exclusivity and harms the game community overall. Cactbot is a tool you can learn do to without, by simply using it; ACT is a tool that fosters a dependency, the more you use it.

I feel like most people dont give a shit either way as long as they are having fun with or without cheats. The PF guys with superiority complexes on both sides are kinda shouting at clouds. It wouldn't be too hard for the devs to block these tools or ban people using them but they choose not too. People will continue to use them until the devs crack down, but they will likely continue to pretend they dont exist as they would lose alot of subs.

You know all those nice QoL improvements we got during Endwalker? Yeah, they wouldn't exist if people weren't using plugins. Literally all of them were plugins first. Plugins are driving the game forward in a positive direction.

Thank you! I keep telling people any combat add on is cheating. It is like a doctor using AI to be just as good, not better, as his coworkers then expect to be treated and paid the same. It is like someone dressing up in military surplus gear and spending a night in the woods then saying they are just as tough, trained and demand the same respect and benefits as I get, a real US veteran. No one likes a poser. And that is 100% what these people are. They have to make the game easier because they suck at the game. If people cannot play the game with out add ons they suck at FFXIV bottom line end of story. The game has been beaten without them. It is like they give people canned pasta and demand everyone call them a chef and give them the same respect as the top 1% chefs in the world. They have to tell new players that the NEED the add ons to hide and justify their cheating and bring the general player skill in game DOWN to their level. And they will say, "ACT and Auto markers are not the same," but a kiss and making love are different as well but both are still a form of cheating.

Imagine an MMO where addons are looked down upon. FF14 and its community are a joke.