Hey everyone! In this video, we’re diving into a hot topic in the Final Fantasy XIV community: add-ons. Are they a crutch? Do they hinder the true essence of the game? Let’s talk about it!
As passionate gamers, it’s easy to fall into the trap of relying too heavily on add-ons to enhance our gameplay experience. But perhaps it’s time to take a step back and reassess. Final Fantasy XIV offers a rich and immersive world that is meant to be experienced organically, without the aid of external tools.
Join us as we explore the potential drawbacks of add-ons and discuss how they might inadvertently hinder our enjoyment of the game. But fear not! This isn’t a call for judgment or criticism. Instead, it’s an invitation to embrace the beauty of FFXIV in its purest form.
With the discourse on twitter from Xenosys and Arthars keeping this topic more relevant then usual I figured it was worth talking about !
Let’s celebrate the sense of accomplishment that comes from mastering mechanics without external assistance. Let’s revel in the joy of discovery as we navigate Eorzea without the aid of add-ons. Together, let’s rediscover the magic of Final Fantasy XIV and all it has to offer.
So, fellow adventurers, let’s challenge ourselves to step away from the crutch of add-ons and embrace the true spirit of the game. Are you ready to embark on this journey with us?
Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more wholesome discussions and gaming content!
#FFXIV #automarkers #Arthars #WholesomeGaming #StopTheCope #MMORPG #GamingDiscussion #NoAddOns #EmbraceTheChallenge
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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.
Parsing is related with add-on use? What a surprise….
As the sin against god love child of a Scotsman and an Irish banshee, conceived and gestated in Texas, i understand the struggle not to tell every person you meet how much of sack o shite they are.
I learned all my curse words at 3.
The tonal shift was a suprise, but I don't know about wholesome, so never fear.
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
"And for that I say: you're about to watch a ten minute video in 5 minutes." I actually busted out laughing.
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
I hear no lies in this video
If the devs can complete all content on console, without any addons, so can everyone else.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Barring people from joining if they can't achieve some number determined by a third party tool is >>>THE<<< EXACT REASON why addons are banned.
i cant follow what he is saying. but i like the video 😀
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.
Tbh, even bozjan characters have more main character energy than the scions sometimes-
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
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.
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
I don't use raiding addons at all, but I do use addons to give my catgirl a fluffier tail 😀 (no NSFW on my WoL, so it's wholesome as well!)
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…
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!
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
to be honest i would just like them to fix the button bloat and the tab targeting and ff14 is perfect
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'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.
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.
The amount of people willing to straight up brag about using add-ons is staggering. Why is that in the PF? If this was the FC Discord under a alternate name you could skate by, but in say chats and in the PF in peak player hours like an idiot? Every day, I find a new genus of idiot that I hope is on the endangered species list.
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’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
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