I’ve had a lot of people talk about third party tools and dps meters in general. I heard that there was a video of the FF14 devs giving their direct feelings on the matter which piqued my interest. Covering the topic of ACT and third party tools in final fantasy XIV.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_i6mjiGerU&ab_channel=blluist
Socials:
https://www.twitch.tv/psybear_tv
https://twitter.com/psybear_tv
https://discord.gg/U5pwbWFmZf
——————————————————————-
Want to support the channel? Donate on paypal here:
[email protected]
source
If a player wants to use 3rd party tools, go right ahead. But keep it to yourself. If a player openly announce he/she has this tool then the consequences attached is on them.
I’m a console player, I have to ask PC FC members how good or bad my DPS is. But prior to that, I just saw the target die. “My Dps is fine”. I cleared Ultimates without knowing how my dps was. Took my friends and static forever to clear Ultimates but we cleared eventually.
So, I don’t really care if PC players use tools but I also don’t care if they get caught using them.
Its not your fault if someone else uploads your log to fflogs. And if the infos already in fflogs, you could just take that fflog to xivanalysis.
See if anyone in your group was parsing and ask them if they uploaded to fflogs. Or get someone youre running with to parse next time youre in alexander.
Reviewing AFTER the raid instead of during can be effective too (and helps focus on prog over optimization during the raid). You could probably do this personally, but i bet it would make for a fun video too, if youre willing to put on the show of "well i didnt ask for this but im curious!"
From how you talk about gaming i think you would really have fun reviewing your parse on fflogs and xivanalysis.
They do not know what is installed on the PC. Also, the vast majority of FFXIV players do not use ACT. Many savage raiders do, but a lot don't. Can't use these on consoles, and pc users still have an issue believe console players play this game, or even raid, because they believe pc is superior to everything and keyboard mouse as well (forgetting that a lot of pc players even play with gamepad). Of course, that can be attributed to basic human traits.
I don't care about damage meters, but I hate how they are used to gatekeeper and bully people (ESPECIALLY in WoW). Not so much in FFXIV, because if you bully someone over DPS / Healing meters, they can report you and get you suspended.
You can use Stone, Sky, Sea in game to improve your DPS and rotations
I by choice play FFXIV like I do as a console player. Vanilla with no mods or addons. ACT would make my gaming experience a lot more stressful, and focusing on a number that 'really' doesn't matter at the end of the day takes away from a good experience. Because I say that, it does 'not' mean I don't want to go into instances without a brain. I do study jobs a lot, and I actually use the balance discord to find proper rotations, and then do a bunch of normal content to practice said rotation(s). (Striking dummies won't be enough.) I know I could probably pinpoint weaknesses using a combat tracker, but I wouldn't enjoy this game with it being there. It would stress me out, and I learned its actually unnatural for players to hit 99(s). They aren't playing the content as intended and using other methods to bloat their score. So– the number means very very little to me, but I do understand why people use them to improve their performance.
On the topic of mods, I avoid them too. I learned from other games that the vanilla base of the game becomes incredibly unsatisfying when a player gets too use to mods. I know friends who won't log on until their mods are updated after a patch. I think FFXIV by itself is a beautiful game, and I know how to work within its UI despite it having a massive room for improvements. There is no point for me to find a reason to make me feel its not enough. That however, is my 'personal' opinion of this game. I won't be telling anyone else how they should play or feel about such topics. I just hope everyone is finding joy despite having these tools or not. The point of the game is joy and community.
when you do things like TOP having a parser really helps see whats going on and where to improve dps as a party. not as bad as it used to be on patch but its still tight enough to be kind of annoying. my group kept wiping to DSR eyes because we didn't focus the right eyes properly despite having well over enough dps to get past it
i nevr upload fflogs i jsut look at what numbers soem one else posted works for me
I've always said, parsing itself is w/e but parse culture is terrible.
The way I see this issue is simple. As Yoshi P says – it's a third party tool. So is a calculator. So is Excel. The devs don't want you to use them for a reason. The reason is obvious; you should be able to figure out what you're doing wrong without logging 7 other guys. The tools in the game are sufficient to build and optimize your rotation; this means you should already be aware of when and where you're not playing optimally. Lots of high end raiders use damage meters, but not to improve their gameplay; they use it to FILTER OUT PLAYERS THEY THINK ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH AT THE GAME. That's the reason ACT is not allowed – no matter the utility, it promotes division in the community which is a far greater crime than merely calculating your damage. Remember that "calculate damage for the whole party" is logically equivalent to "snoop and judge the gameplay quality of seven other people".
Kinda wonder why they didnt just add a dps meter that only shows your own damage and nothing else if its so important to people to see theire number.
The fear of improving is wild to me. There are so many people who don't want others to enjoy their experience just because someone could potentially call them out for low performance. Why not try to improve if it bothers you that much? And if it's "just a game bro, I don't want to try hard", then why care what some randos in a roulette think?
Edit: This wasn't pointed at Psy, btw. His reasoning for not using a parser is admirable. He's making a choice for himself, by himself, without pressure from outside forces.
They know something like ACT is harmless but they also know that allowing a single exception to the rule creates a slippery slope. When I played wow in BC/wrath, mods were hud layout changes and damage meters. Blizzard allowed those. Now you basically can't play the game unmodded. It's definitely better to take the "The official answer is no but people will only know if you tell them". than to start allowing things to slip through. I would rather see them add the features of popular mods into the core game.
Everyone using an dmg meter especially in high end Raiding. Even i as a Console Players always asking my Static Member for Livelogs. Just STFU about it in Public and everyone is fine. ACT is a way more than a Dick Measuring Contest. Combined with other Sites like xivanalysis you can check about Rotation Errors, Movement Mistakes…..etc.
This is an interesting discussion. My take is this: I think it's fine that there is "tools" that puts out the data for you to understand what things you're doing right/wrong regarding your own performance but I don't think it's ok when that "tool" also logs other's data without their consent and I know privacy is a big deal for a lot of people. But I think the main reason why people don't want to be called out is quite a deep rabbit hole that goes way deeper than just a videogame. I think it stems from the fact that we've been educated in a way that making mistakes is a bad thing and you will be, at the very least, socially punished for making said mistakes, so people try to do their best to hide mistakes from others, because you don't want your group to know that maybe you're the player underperforming because most people have been trained/conditioned into being punished every single time they've made a mistake since way back when we were kids and it's hard to try to take people out of that mentality. People get paralyzed when being put in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, so it creates this mentality similar to what you see in the first Jurassic Park movie, where the group leader is the T-Rex and you're one of the chracters in the movie and you're like "maybe if I stand still, the T-Rex won't notice me".
Lifehack: when watching Youtube (or Twitch for that matter) you can use left/right arrow keys to skip forward and back a few seconds at a time instead of scrubbing the progress bar 👀
you know, square has very strict rules for harassment. They said if a bunch of guild people that usually has a very dark or "harassing" way of communicating, and just one person disagrees and gets hurt by such communication, that's reportable for everyone except the person getting harassed.
So if you see any such behavior, report their ass.
Far as I see any player using add-on that plays your character or cheatss boss mechanics should be banned.
If the add-on is cosmetic or is used for self improvement (disease meter) then it is fine.
Also dont harass others about their dps. This will get you banned.
You can offer help, but if they reject it walk away.
To be honest, I see more bullying over parses in casual content… where, frankly, it doesn't belong. Parsing is a tool that is needed for high end content and Yoshi P knows that, but keep ACT out of your leveling roulette! I also see people who don't raid feeling slighted as they can't get BiS so, people don't always make sense! Thanks for the video, awesome as always!
There are players on console without any chance to access ACT or any tool even for only personal use. Any disscusion on the topic that not include that point it is biassed
8:07 what the fu k do you mean making fun of someone isn't harassment? Turn off your monitor? So if someone starts to bully you the thing you should do is let yourself be bullied off of the game? Man, this is literally what people mean when they talk about WoW players being toxic in FF. We don't want a game full of bullies, man, get out of here with this nonsense
13:16 on the other hand, doing this kind of thing is incredibly helpful when recruiting for statics, in my experience. Combing through someone's fflogs page (note: actually digging through a good amount of their logs, not just looking at their front page) is absolutely invaluable when you're trying to decide between several different potential recruits. There's a lot of nuance that neither the devs nor the players want to accept exists.
You can run 2 copies of the game, and have 2 accounts running on 1 controller, and dual box FFXIV. Not breaking terms of service. Its all supported by the game. Yes, the amount of people who think i am cheating, is a ton. The support team at SE know who i am as i get reported a lot. I have even requested GM support on one account and they reply to both accounts, so they know. And because people think i am cheating they go out of their way to try to make things harder. I have even reported people for harassment.
You can get ACT for personal development but I would suggest you use it on second monitor, especially as a streamer.
I'm not good enough to push anything past Extreme trials, so ACT isn't that important to me. I've never done Savage and don't feel the desire to, so again, ACT doesn't really effect me.
Yeah, as Yoshi-P said in the video, 3rd party tools and harassment are two different things. They ban 3rd party tools because of what they are, random bits of code you download from a website that promises not to be a virus. Look at the Gshade scandal earlier this year, where a dev decided to have a blacklist of names that would bluescreen their PC every time they opened Gshade because that dev didn't like the people. Then when confronted about it they said "be glad I didn't do it to everyone". THAT is why they don't want to encourage 3rd party tools, you have to place your faith in them not to destroy your PC, and Square cannot take the legal cases for others potentially damaging equipment, so they say it's not allowed. The harassment that comes from certain aspects of 3rd party tools is just harassment, you're gonna get banned for being an ass, not for using the calculator to be an ass. That's why this is such a grey area and needs to be dealt with case by case. Having ACT to measure your personal DPS isn't too bad, but having a camera mod that allows you to zoom so far out you can see the entire arena giving you a ridiculous leg up against others is very not okay because you're not playing fair, hence why those players need to be banned.
I think a dps meter should be fine i mean most ppl that raid uses it and i bearly see anyone says anything to anyone who is bad.
if anyone says in comments, chat or anything like "act is bad for the game bc ppl will kick for low dmg or bla bla bla the game is full without it " then thats a lie no one gets kicked for just bad dmg(it could happen maybe but i never seen it and i have seen ppl play horrible in pf and not even once they got kicked)
its usually just for dying or messing up mechs and maybe if there was a dps check and saif person was dying alot i guess they might get kicked then otherwise it never happen.
also act helps with prog alot bc the game doesnt have death recap or idk let me see what killed me or what was the mits there(no one in their right mind would look through combat log its too much).
Actually its the other way around i have seen ppl disband a group instead of kicking one guy that is wiping the party which is very weird.
MMO, single player, fps….. No matter what game i'm playing, a game's personal enjoyment should not rely on addons.
I dunno i just like to see parse number change from green to orange over time
The thing is, they CAN draw a strict line:
If the plugin/addon/tool is a SFW purely Cosmetic thing
If the plugin/addon/tool provides QoL changes but does not impact other players or provide an advantage
If the plugin/addon/tool does not modify an in game parameter (remove cooldown time, speed hack, etc.)
The plugin/addon/tool is allowed.
If the plugin/addon/tool is NSFW in any way above the ESRB rating
If the plugin/addon/tool Provides unfair advantage in PvP situations
If the plugin/addon/tool "plays the game for you" (telegraphing mechanics not normally telegraphed)
The plugin/addon/tool is not allowed.
I'm sure there's others I missed but there it the starting point.
My suggestion would be to make ACT part of official game client for both PC and console BUT only make it enabled in high-end duties AND only if all 8 players consent to that.
Don't like "casuals looking for carry in PF"? Don't use PF, play only with your static then.
ACT is great if used with good intentions.
We had a healer, whm, that wasn't attacking enough during DSR P3 during our prog.
Tanks and DPS had optimized at that point and we were baffled as to why the DPS was so tight for us.
We used the "logs" to pin point the whm issue and we then asked if there was anything that we needed to do in terms of mitigation as maybe we were taking too much damage and he had to compensate for us there.
His co-healer then proceeded to have a talk about changes in their mitigation as a unit and that lead to it fixing the issue and both their DPS went up.
The rest of us didn't have to change anything.
Now resolved, we then had to hold DPS going into eyes and this now let people build resources and let our CDs come back for P4. 🙂
This is what act and other tools can do to help you out.
But unfortunately, there will always be those that will abuse it or use it to harm others. :/
YoshiP absolutely knows and especially people forget he's a Dev. He understands angles most players don't consider. So i get his stance on not giving anyone fuel and will do what is needed to protect the game. People will still take it as "he's taking X side" because we can't drop the us VS them arguement. Preach did have trolls reporting his chat bubbles but I think he put it back once the next loldrama trend which wasn't long. He also did confirm chat bubbles are coming during his in person meet and greet London Fanfest though as a 7.0+ update.
The thing is they have things built in to the game like “Stone, Sky, Sea” that are made to measure if you should be ready for an encounter…. Why not have an optional toggle in LFG that requires someone has done passed those tests, rather than have people asking for XXX parse. If they want people who have proven they can hit a number, seems like an ok solution to me. Would cut down on harassment I think too as people could not join unless they have completed the test.
I use one. Mostly, it's an improvement tool for my static, something to laugh and be amused about after clearing a Savage. Sometimes, it's an affirmation tool that helps me confirm I'm not crazy and that one healer never attacked, a tank never used mitigation, or that I did in fact cast Raise 11 times in that 20 minute Trial.
I would still be very concerned if they publicly allowed it. We'll call it cringe when "minimum 9k DPS parse" shows up in PF, but it'll eventually be the same as "BLU only" groups during events or people setting a minimum ilvl to join… except that this will be very performance specific.
One thing to keep in mind is Yoshi P has to walk a tightrope between both Eastern and Western fans. At least until very recently Japanese fans have been vehemently anti-TPT. A similar MMO, PSOU 2, will look for TPTs, and then if it finds one it will simply force close the client. In this video, I'm pretty sure Yoshi P was mainly talking to Japanese fans about why he didn't think it necessary to go on a crusade against TPTs.
So Yoshi P has Western fans who look at FF14 and are annoyed how they don't support TPTs and are technically forbidden, and Eastern fans who think Yoshi P is basically "an American" because of how permissive he is about it. It's a difficult thing to balance, and he has to balance these things while also keeping the community civil. So the policy of "don't ask/don't tell" is the only actual way to do that. Basically, if you have a TPT, do not be an asshole about it (even outside the game), and don't use TPTs to cheat in a World First race. Also, don't use an obvious teleport hack because the game actually will check for that.
Meanwhile, and I say this with deep appreciation as a console player, a huge number of QoL features in the games are things that started out as TPTs.
Also, the "FF14 players all have horny cosmetic mods" reputation has really only been a thing since Shadowbringers, when some huge WoW streamers highlighted some of the club culture. It's not that those didn't exist before, but prior to that, Balmung server was basically considered an ERP containment zone, with Mateus as an overflow for that (although they do tons of normie RP on those servers as well to be fair). Seriously, they had a very poor reputation just within FF14. Now FF14 outright attracts those types disproportionately. It certainly doesn't represent a majority of the fanbase though.
"They were looking to make fun of her", true! But ease of access to tools contributed to their success, one of the reasons you have laws IRL, to deterr bad actors, you can't stop them all, you mitigate. Anytime there's numbers on screen that you can compare yourself to others, competition will occur, efficiency will be looked at and some bad actors will do something they should not. The harder it is for them to bully others, the better and prevents unnecessary situations, not all, but enough to justify the rules. There's no perfect solution to stop bullying, all you can do is mitigate by not allowing them tools that make it easier and ensure proper punishment if they succeed.
"No one cares about her numbers" – Perhaps she did, public shaming was allowed because her numbers were low… think if the numbers were good they would've been successful? They would have to find some other way, ease of access is the issue because you cannot stop all bad actors, you can only make it harder on them.
Good video, enjoyed watching, these are good discussions to have. 🙂
As a ps5 player… i couldnt use an add on if i wanted to. This is my reason for being against an add on. I will never be able to compete with those with add ons. I no longer trust those rare titles like perfect legend.
I know it's kind of a meme, but stone sky sea exists. It's a target dummy with a specific amount of health tuned to 3 minutes of a specific high end fight. You can use that to feel your full rotation out. 3 minutes is easy enough to work out and feel out by hand, anything more is just part of prog.
Personally I really like that they don't allow the DPS meters. I have played other MMOs where absolutely everyone had that as an add on and for me it did really help a lot to see how good you were doing. BUT what happens to the community as a result and how so many people become so toxic and gate keeping as a result its just are not worth the benefit. The FF14 community is probably the best in MMOs but I don't want it to turn into something like you see in games like WOW or even ESO.