Rotation bots have killed off the end game in FF

[The Casualty]

The problem with your concept of "gatekeeping" is that you expect other people to "play" with you even if they don't want to.
Or with other words you value your own fun above other people's fun.

You should rather seek people who share your value of fun, whether that is based on your values or your abilities (handicaps).
Expecting that people that are higher skilled than you should carry you is the definition of toxic entitlement.

that is the main problem with FFXIV. That it actively encourages toxic entitlement.

What are you on about? I never said anyone had to play with me. I am strictly in the camp of finding your own sphere of competition, and agree that you should find people who share your abilities/handicaps.

But telling people that they can't compete because they aren't world first is asnine. People should be encouraged to engage in sports, games, or content and engage in healthy competition at whatever level they are at.

I've cleared all savage fights on content since Heavensward, usually in the first few weeks (depending on my group's schedule - this tier we took a few extra due to people moving and others having covid), and have clears on-content for ults, and have played with world first folks. I just don't compete in WF races. I do not have the time to even attempt that. I'm not suggesting anyone carry me, nor do I need it.

[Jazzhands]

The raids themselves are already their own form of competition, being first to clear the tier, clearing week 1, or just clearing as soon as you can. Parsing culture is just an excess level of competition far above and beyond what even the developers designed for. And yet, developers begin to design fights with such things in mind. In the past, fights had far more forgiving DPS timers while still having that same level of mechanical difficulty. Now we have stuff like unnerfed P8S, since 4th fights are already designed to be for those min maxers, and the internal testing team was just too good at the fight.

Also would like to point out, this ultra min maxing/parse culture is what is causing certain "weaker" classes to be blocked out of week 1 and week 2 runs because they're not "optimal". I realize having a WAR week 1 was a crutch, but it was only a crutch because the team is designing fights with this ridiculous min maxing parse culture in mind. It's the entire reason the two minute meta has become a thing.


So when parse bros start crying that bots can and do out perform them, I just feel a tad bit of ironic justice.

World first races last 1-2 days tops, except for Ultimates which only happen like once a year if even. Most parsers don't even participate in the race, they just enjoy trying to climb the leaderboard, and these bots are basically cheaters on said leaderboard. Parsing is literally the only form of competition people can do of 98% of a patch, and it's how they practice and improve for the next race. Also, do you ever think developers might develop these fights for Min/Maxers because they also enjoy it? Tools like ACT allow players to improve, so developers have to improve to. Personally if I were a developer I'd enjoy that, I feel like it would keep the job more fresh and interesting instead of just designing basic fights for people who only press half their buttons.

World first DSU used Dancer, which was considered a weak class at the time. They also had a paladin tank I think, which wasn't exactly meta at that time either. DRK was also used in the world first for the first Ultimate, despite being "weak". Both players were interviewed and said they just ran them because they enjoyed the class. Pugs will always lock out "weak" classes because they're pugs and player quality fluctuates wildly, so only taking "strong" classes is within everyone's interest because it's simply better chances at winning. You can always form a static and run whatever classes you want.

The two minute meta was developed by developers, they're the ones who set the timers for everything, players simply play the classes they're given and clear the fights. Should people have just not followed the optimal rotations?

I get that people have a hate-on for parsers because some of them can be shitheads, but most of them are just trying to have fun and push themselves, and they want to play with others of similar mindset, which is why they "gatekeep" bad players. Thing is, we're allowed to play with who ever we want, if I'm putting in 110% I certainly don't want to play with people only putting in 60%. Why should I? Why should lazy players benefit from my effort? I think bad players hate parsers because it calls them out and makes good players not want to play with them, and instead of improving, they just blame the thing that calls them out and want it gone so they can get lucky clears again.

[The Casualty]

I get that people have a hate-on for parsers because some of them can be shitheads, but most of them are just trying to have fun and push themselves, and they want to play with others of similar mindset, which is why they "gatekeep" bad players. Thing is, we're allowed to play with who ever we want, if I'm putting in 110% I certainly don't want to play with people only putting in 60%. Why should I? Why should lazy players benefit from my effort? I think bad players hate parsers because it calls them out and makes good players not want to play with them, and instead of improving, they just blame the thing that calls them out and want it gone so they can get lucky clears again.

Agreed. It also lets you vet prospective groups to find one that shares your abilities and skills. I get that parsers don't tell the whole picture, but outside of trying to find people with a similar goal like (clear first week or w/e), you can separate out prospective teammates based on past parses, assuming there are enough of them.

I also think that a lot of the worry that people have about others judging them about their parses is actually internalized fears that once they see their own parses, they will judge themselves for it. No one likes to find out they aren't as good as they thought they were.

[schwank05]

I mean when your rotation has a 13 bagillionty button opener followed by a 16 bagillion button rotation I can't really blame someone for needing help to execute them properly.

[Ghost of Cow]

Pugs will always lock out "weak" classes because they're pugs and player quality fluctuates wildly, so only taking "strong" classes is within everyone's interest because it's simply better chances at winning. You can always form a static and run whatever classes you want.

Sure, because they're mostly clueless and are usually looking for just as much of a "lucky clear" as the next guy.

[Alcsaar]

Are you suggesting that the solution is to do nothing, then? Runescape almost 20 years ago at least considered the concept of random events to break up their easily-bottable game. Running a script that plays a character in WoW's mythic raiding to a rank 1 parse would be nigh impossible. Your comment reads like an excusing Square Enix to say that anti-cheat is too 'invasive' and encounter design is too hard so people should just accept it when 9/10 people they play with aren't actually playing their characters. At that point it isn't actually a video-game, it's Bandersnatch with transmog.

Rotation bots in WoW are incredibly common, but you still need game sense to avoid encounter dangers.

[KrayZ33]

ETA2: One thing that strikes me about FFXIV is how little I have to care about what the rest of my team is doing. You coordinate buffs (which is usuallly "pop them every 2 minutes, don't drift it") before the pull, and then the pull starts, and I don't think about my teammates again til the fight is over. If you need to spread while having an AoE marker on you, there's 8 spots to spread to, 4 in melee (for the two tanks and two melee), and 4 in ranged, and you just assign those spots, and you don't have to react to anything. This was a bigger problem in a game like, say, GW2, where the trinity has devolved into role-less classes, so you're just doing your rotation against a boss with 3 other people, but it's prevalent in FFXIV as well. Meanwhile, in WoW, to be a good endgame mythic raider, you need to be aware of what your team is doing at all times. Part of this is the larger group size - in a 20 man raid there might be up to 12-14 ranged+healers making things cramped - but a lot of it is that what your teammates do affects how you have to play. There's a lot of "drop off this bad area somewhere" in WoW, and it can change from pull to pull based on the randomly-placed boss mechanics (another thing that doesn't happen in FFXIV), so you have to adjust on the fly, both as the person dropping off, say, a Defile on Heroic Lich King, and as the people avoiding that person's Defile.

That's pretty much a given considering FFXIV boss mechanics have like a minute or so between them most of the time and tank busters and the like are their own "boss mechanic" for the whole group, while in WoW they are woven in between
It's part of the reason why everyone has set positions in the first place because the game basically gives you 30 seconds to get in position before mechanic X happens (yes, the scripted mechanics obviously matter even more)
However, the funny thing is, is that the frequency of a player getting targeted by mechanics are probably roughly the same in both games. At least on heroic, considering that I've played encounters where I basically did absolutely nothing other than doing my rotation and switching targets - can't say I cared about what my raid was doing during those.

FFXIV has some of these mechanics as well btw... the kind where you could technically adjust, it's just that they are never going to be "chaotic" because 8 players are in order and drop puddles where they need to be. And if they don't it's just easier to start again because after all, beating it once means you can beat it like that again *always*.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVV8-fsYsR8

[God Save The King]

Added to that is the fact that a lot of damage is gained by properly timing your damage to fight mechanics.

Barring a handful of specific boss mechanics, you follow your priority list, don't waste any cds, and you'll get an outstanding parse. When I review logs for people on my class discord, the overwhelming majority just fail to get in all the uses of their cds they could. It's always someone 'holding' a cd for a better window to line up, or waiting for a proc, or something else. I can't speak for every single class, but I have gotten CE on every fight since CE became a thing and I've always just used a custom WA to guide my rotation/priority list.

Holding an ability/button is almost never worth it, unless you won't waste a usage in the fight and it genuinely results in more dps. That's generally the gap between like a 95 and a 99 parse though.

[HansOlo]

The End Game... How can something that doesn't exist... BE KILLED!!?

[Biomega]

Holding an ability/button is almost never worth it, unless you won't waste a usage in the fight and it genuinely results in more dps. That's generally the gap between like a 95 and a 99 parse though.

I didn't say "hold your button". I said PROPERLY time it to fight mechanics. And that usually includes not wasting CD uses over the course of the fight. Don't misread this as "always hold all your damage for some fight mechanic".

[Jazzhands]

Sure, because they're mostly clueless and are usually looking for just as much of a "lucky clear" as the next guy.

That bit was in reference to week 1-2 clears, not the general over all state of pugging. No one gets a "lucky clear" in week 1-2 by getting carried, the only luck involved is finding 7 other people of passing skill, everyone has to be playing on par to clear Savage that early. Plenty of people try to pug week 1-2, and some people do manage to get clears, but it's the people putting in effort, parsing, and trying to perform well, not people just hoping to get carried that hate on parsers because they're the reason they don't get carried.

[Granyala]

Also, please look at how you view disabled people. Using words like "retarded" and suggesting that they essentially could be viewed as a "different species" in the spirit of competition is not healthy, and pretty offensive.

I'm disabled myself, thank you very much. I know all about getting laughed at by healthy people and them being offensive. *chuckles*

I stand by my analogy, even if it is haphazard. Anyone who actually thinks about what I said, knows that I did not state that in order to offend people but in order to illustrate the rather stark differences between a healthy person and a disabled person in the context of them competing in a sport setting. Also, I never used the word retarded to refer to us. There is a difference between calling an activity retarded and calling a person by that moniker.

Please read more carefully next time.

[Yarathir]

The End Game... How can something that doesn't exist... BE KILLED!!?

?

FFXIV has an endgame.

[Granyala]

I mean when your rotation has a 13 bagillionty button opener followed by a 16 bagillion button rotation I can't really blame someone for needing help to execute them properly.

Except: you don't need to execute them perfectly in order to get an acceptable performance out of the class. Encounters, for the most part, are tuned to people doing the dance correctly first and foremost. I've never met a group in FF that did all mechanics perfectly and still wiped to the enrage timers. Usually people fail hard and collect damage downs etc. Once that was fixed: oh look: the boss is dead.

So there is no gameplay reason whatsoever to use automation. It only becomes a factor when people obsess over their parsing performance way, WAY past anything the actual game would request of the player.

[Yarathir]

On the topic, sort of, apparently I have a nasty habit of subconsciously quadweaving or double weaving Stardiver.

[Grinning Serpent]

?

FFXIV has an endgame.

Yes, glamour :P

XIV doesn't really have an endgame in the traditional sense. Raids are designed and tuned to be cleared with crafted gear. The gear you get from tomes or from the raids themselves isn't important. It's just for glam and to add a bit of in-line "difficulty adjustment" to the game.

And once you have your BiS, there's nothing to use it on unless there's a new ultimate to work on. And even then, most raiders don't do ultimates because the time demands for ultimates are fucking insane.

I honestly think XIV could remove gear entirely and the game would be better off for it. That's what I'd do if I was making an XIV-2, anyway, assuming the design goal is "refine and iterate on core gameplay concepts without dramatically altering the core gameplay experience." Replace leveling with a rolling tracker that gives you a credit every time it ticks over, with a cap. Credits used to buy cosmetics, consumables (open world/non-duty content only, stuff like long-duration move speed buffs and the like to make things like FATE farming more fun) and so on. You can prestige when you cap out, getting X ranks of prestige unlocks access to extra cosmetics and consumables and whatnot.

You'd still keep crafting professions, dungeon drops, etc. Except it'd all be cosmetic. Probably make crafting more focused on being its own separate puzzle-oriented kind of gameplay... probably really iterate on the expert crafting concept, I think.

I dunno. Either way, XIV is already so horizontal I don't think there'd be much lost by just taking that final couple steps. I've always thought that horizontal progression was possible in an MMO, XIV is proving it's viable.

[Cynical Asshole]

Expected when the devs can't help themselves but make rather annoying and downright complicated rotations that many people cba with.

I quit The Old Republic because too many buttons, I didn't play FFXIV because I saw it has too many buttons, and I don't play certain specs in WoW because they have too many buttons.

Thankfully, Ashes of Creation doesn't seem to have too many buttons.

[Nzx]

If you have access to the game's data (which you will through a client) you can script it. Go onto basically any WoWhead guide for dps and you'll see the best dps priority list. Build a bot that reads the game's state, makes the right decision, and broadcasts the keypress. But you'll be basically instantly banned as that kind of bot is fairly trivial for warden to detect. FFXIV doesn't have an intrusive client side bot detection software, so they rely on server-side detection which is a lot harder.

I mean heck, I routinely build Weakauras that tell me the next button to press in my priority list so I don't have to actually think to dps, I just blast. I always get 99s and a few 100s as dps. I could build a bot to just do that for me pretty easily, but I'd be banned right away so no point. I'm surprised I don't see more mythic raiders doing WAs like I do, but I guess there's some value to just knowing your rotation so well that you can essentially ignore it and entirely focus on mechanics.

Do racing vehicles select gears for their drivers, or do the drivers select the gears?

[Pannonian]

On the topic, sort of, apparently I have a nasty habit of subconsciously quadweaving or double weaving Stardiver.

Our tank upgraded to fiber optic internet this week. According to him he can now triple weave without clipping. So, that would be a way to double weave stardiver at least

[The Casualty]

I'm disabled myself, thank you very much. I know all about getting laughed at by healthy people and them being offensive. *chuckles*

I stand by my analogy, even if it is haphazard. Anyone who actually thinks about what I said, knows that I did not state that in order to offend people but in order to illustrate the rather stark differences between a healthy person and a disabled person in the context of them competing in a sport setting. Also, I never used the word retarded to refer to us. There is a difference between calling an activity retarded and calling a person by that moniker.

Please read more carefully next time.

"I'm <blank> myself, so I can't be offensive" isn't as strong of an argument as you think it is. And "retarded" is still offensive even if you mean it toward an activity. It's like calling something "gay". I'm sorry you are self loathing.