Salvage Bans v 2.0

[Spicyryan]

Pre-Abyssea? Basic in-game macros vs. gearswap-ish programs were the norm. Post-Abyssea? A disturbingly large number- I'd even say half the PUGs I saw in Adoulin didn't so much as even bother. Kinda depressing, isn't it?

And yes, there's plenty in between...but guess what? It doesn't fucking matter. Were you doing stuff that let you do better than the guy sticking to vanilla macros to beat content? You were part of the problem, and you skewed the difficultly level of the game upwards, making third-party stuff increasingly a "need" to do things at the top vs. an option. Were the devs part of the problem? Absolutely, by not answering quality of life stuff earlier.

You decided to go around the rules because they're stupid? I think some of them are stupid too, but I didn't fuck with my game because I might think that not being able to use my hands to carry the ball in soccer is stupid, but it's still against the rules and you -don't do it if you want to play soccer-.

The game has been developed for years with content that's been frustrating in part because people have been doing exactly that. Lots of sidegrades? Lots of demand because hey, we can super-macro our gear for perfectly situational layouts! Long runs everywhere? Well, fuck people are clearly doing it in a satisfactory time by their standards so they must not need more shortcuts. (Never mind it was because people were just clippering in higher runspeeds vs. actually getting the devs to add in a warp/higher runspeed system). Content that takes huge feats of gear-exchanging wizardry to be the first to do? Well, we have our bleeding-edge players who can do that- as long as they're using a third party program. So the next wave of content will be built with those players in mind.

Whether it was "for the better or not", third-party programs warped the development of the game and papered over the need for changes that might have been addressed earlier, otherwise. Good in the short term, damaging in the long run. And in order to keep a decent sized playerbase, the long term was sacrificed until now.

This is complete nonsense.

Personally, before I started using SC and then later GS I would make macros for each thing (two-per per set, 1 row for tp, acc, evasion, another for ws 1 2 3 for a row) and learn the combo of alt +1 and 2 etc and preform the task of DDing the same as SC later did for me, but in a more cumbersome manner. This was ultimately rather close to the same output SC gave me for years, but in a more enjoyable manner with an efficiency gain that only mattered a lot for mages.
Basically you should be complaining that good players skewed the difficulty (not really true anyway) toward shitty players who want to have their cake and eat it too.
Look, it is a game, but if people suck they should stop whining that they either can't do the content or trying to do it until you get better. People have always wanted to just jump in and leech their strength up and complain when they aren't up to the task.

QQ people made the game harder because in reality people just suck. Soccer analogies!

Lol, whatever.

[dasva]

Pre-Abyssea? Basic in-game macros vs. gearswap-ish programs were the norm. Post-Abyssea? A disturbingly large number- I'd even say half the PUGs I saw in Adoulin didn't so much as even bother. Kinda depressing, isn't it?

And yes, there's plenty in between...but guess what? It doesn't fucking matter. Were you doing stuff that let you do better than the guy sticking to vanilla macros to beat content? You were part of the problem, and you skewed the difficultly level of the game upwards, making third-party stuff increasingly a "need" to do things at the top vs. an option. Were the devs part of the problem? Absolutely, by not answering quality of life stuff earlier.

You decided to go around the rules because they're stupid? I think some of them are stupid too, but I didn't fuck with my game because I might think that not being able to use my hands to carry the ball in soccer is stupid, but it's still against the rules and you -don't do it if you want to play soccer-.

The game has been developed for years with content that's been frustrating in part because people have been doing exactly that. Lots of sidegrades? Lots of demand because hey, we can super-macro our gear for perfectly situational layouts! Long runs everywhere? Well, fuck people are clearly doing it in a satisfactory time by their standards so they must not need more shortcuts. (Never mind it was because people were just clippering in higher runspeeds vs. actually getting the devs to add in a warp/higher runspeed system). Content that takes huge feats of gear-exchanging wizardry to be the first to do? Well, we have our bleeding-edge players who can do that- as long as they're using a third party program. So the next wave of content will be built with those players in mind.

Whether it was "for the better or not", third-party programs warped the development of the game and papered over the need for changes that might have been addressed earlier, otherwise. Good in the short term, damaging in the long run. And in order to keep a decent sized playerbase, the long term was sacrificed until now.

You come off as rather authoritarian... we must obey rules because they are rules. Good for you I guess but I don't think you are going to convert anyone.

As far as chicken or the egg I argue that it was the other way around and sidegrades came first. Sidegrades were a part of their decision to not raise the level cap and not have vertical progression. When faced with tons of situational pieces people at first tried to work them in. Remember Avesta vids with him using like 2-3/10 full macro palletes just for his solos? Eventually it became a choice between either not bothering with gear progression in which case why play, use several macro palletes per job and have to hit several over and over again which a lot did, or find a way to get past the stupid limitations. You call it horrible and cheating but guess what couldn't be that bad if SE officially came out with and supported it.

You say third party warped development I say SEs own failures created the demand for 3rd. And the only reason some things got "developed" by SE was because 3rd party did it first. And in case you are wondering yeah I played vanilla windower (not even distance or tp plug ins) until a few years ago. I was doing 2-3 hour long kite solos on rdm/nin with legit blink casting. I did things like pop vnms with flee boots to take it to pin spots and solo them on any job with ranged dmg. I even had things like latent hp lowering sets for blm before spellcast ever existed and long before I even knew windower was more than just a way of playing in windowed mode. Everyone DD I knew had at least tp and ws sets that required at least 1 macro each. And this went on for awhile but SE made this more and more of a chore and then spellcast came out. I used to fish legit too. It was easy to do without watching with macros and such... then as part of their supposed anti-botting implementations they actually made it better for botters and much worse for legit people. I'd say the vast majority of the 3rd party development/support was to bring QoL and not game breaking changes. Things you could do without but god was it an every loving pain

Also comparing competitive events to a game without direct competition is kind of fail. Even more so if you fail to consider other people might agree to the rules change and make a whole new game/variation. We could all play a game like soccer with hands...

[Spicyryan]

At least they basically admitted they have failed across the board with game design when they threw out 25% movement boost, pseudo gearswap, timestamp, mutliwindow, autoinventory sort, a pseudo //find command, warps across the land, etc

[Kyreth]

This is complete nonsense.

Personally, before I started using SC and then later GS I would make macros for each thing (two-per per set, 1 row for tp, acc, evasion, another for ws 1 2 3 for a row) and learn the combo of alt +1 and 2 etc and preform the task of DDing the same as SC later did for me, but in a more cumbersome manner. This was ultimately rather close to the same output SC gave me for years, but in a more enjoyable manner with an efficiency gain that only mattered a lot for mages.
Basically you should be complaining that good players skewed the difficulty (not really true anyway) toward shitty players who want to have their cake and eat it too.

Nope. I'm complaining because- to use another sports analogy - they clocked you on the 100 yard dash where you only had to run 80 yards and the vanilla player had to do the full 100, and then set the standards based on the guy running the 80-yard "100".

And fuck "can't do the content": I did everything from Zilart to ToAU vanilla on my first account, then everything through Adoulin on the second- vanilla. I'm saying that the "average difficulty" and where S-E thought there were rough spots was based on data produced by players who used outside programs to be more efficient- thereby covering over issues people who didn't cheat the system had. I'd say it finally came to a head around pre-nerf Pand. Warden, but when you're building content and people are going "LOL, too easy" because they've got those artificial boosts, are you honestly saying that doesn't have an effect? Do you think, say people could do Incursion at maximum level without third party programs- and would the fact that we "maxed out" the content to S-E's apparent surprise indicate they're not taking those programs accurately into account when generating and scaling content for "the rest of us"?

Look, it is a game, but if people suck they should stop whining that they either can't do the content or trying to do it until you get better. People have always wanted to just jump in and leech their strength up and complain when they aren't up to the task.

QQ people made the game harder because in reality people just suck. Soccer analogies!

Lol, whatever.

See above. If you're resorting to third party programs to play the game at a given level of difficulty that it can't be played effectively otherwise, you're not playing the game. You're playing Calvinball, not soccer, and the devs apparently got tired of that shit.

[Spicyryan]

Nope. I'm complaining because- to use another sports analogy - they clocked you on the 100 yard dash where you only had to run 80 yards and the vanilla player had to do the full 100, and then set the standards based on the guy running the 80-yard "100".

And fuck "can't do the content": I did everything from Zilart to ToAU vanilla on my first account, then everything through Adoulin on the second- vanilla. I'm saying that the "average difficulty" and where S-E thought there were rough spots was based on data produced by players who used outside programs to be more efficient- thereby covering over issues people who didn't cheat the system had. I'd say it finally came to a head around pre-nerf Pand. Warden, but when you're building content and people are going "LOL, too easy" because they've got those artificial boosts, are you honestly saying that doesn't have an effect? Do you think, say people could do Incursion at maximum level without third party programs- and would the fact that we "maxed out" the content to S-E's apparent surprise indicate they're not taking those programs accurately into account when generating and scaling content for "the rest of us"?



See above. If you're resorting to third party programs to play the game at a given level of difficulty that it can't be played effectively otherwise, you're not playing the game. You're playing Calvinball, not soccer, and the devs apparently got tired of that shit.

So basically 2-3 macros in a row is fine, but one macro to do it is another bad analogy of 20% more effort needed to keep up? It is effectively picking up the ball and running with it in soccer? Do you even use Gearswap?

Do you even macro brah?

Honestly you are just off on the impact GS has if the player was already trying, and it really has had no overall designing impact of the game. I can't imagine arguing anything conclusive about it either way.

It is not like you even had to change gear in a DRK kclub zerg, and that had much more of a design impact than people effectively swapping gear.
This is not even clipper where you could try and end up in the back and forth argument that it shaped how SE refined NNI.

[Kyreth]

So basically 2-3 macros in a row is fine, but one macro to do it is another bad analogy of 20% more effort needed to keep up? It is effectively picking up the ball and running with it in soccer? Do you even use Gearswap?

What part of "vanilla" did you miss there?

Do you even macro brah?

Yep. The ones the game lets you do. No third-party anything.

Honestly you are just off on the impact GS has if the player was already trying, and it really has had no overall designing impact of the game. I can't imagine arguing anything conclusive about it either way.

It is not like you even had to change gear in a DRK kclub zerg, and that had much more of a design impact than people effectively swapping gear.
This is not even clipper where you could try and end up in the back and forth argument that it shaped how SE refined NNI.

I'll just requote here for truth:

There is, was, and likely always will be a notable gap between a player using 3P equipment swapping and a player on vanilla FFXI. It isn't as important for melee now as it used to be because stat inflation/vomit decreases the benefit you gain by swapping to a WS set, but it's still incredible for magic. My BLM has 80% casting time reduction and some mid-teen amount of instant cast, which costs me zero delay to implement (unlike the 1+ second it would take on vanilla FFXI to swap into such a set). That's a dramatic increase in DPS. Even my Dancer had a considerable amount of fast cast and instant cast for Utsu.

If 3P gearswap and the like can produce that much improvement in performance, please tell me how the heck it doesn't skew what the devs see as "difficult" by using it, or that even at more modest amounts, it didn't end up messing with the performance data players were giving the devs in doing content.

[Gustave]

Stuff

So are you like, ok with voice comms, or do we need /p macro so SE can adjust difficulty accordingly?

[Spicyryan]

What part of "vanilla" did you miss there?



Yep. The ones the game lets you do. No third-party anything.



I'll just requote here for truth:



If 3P gearswap and the like can produce that much improvement in performance, please tell me how the heck it doesn't skew what the devs see as "difficult" by using it, or that even at more modest amounts, it didn't end up messing with the performance data players were giving the devs in doing content.

I think you read 80% casting time reduction as an 80% difference or something. As if by magically turning on gearswap a player becomes close to twice as powerful.

Now, I am done arguing the gain because obviously it is there, but please tell me how this has changed how Devs made this game. Don't forget to include tons of opinions and sports references because you have nothing beyond that to go off of really.

[Kyreth]

So are you like, ok with voice comms, or do we need /p macro so SE can adjust difficulty accordingly?

Considering it doesn't alter your character's abilities in any way whatsoever? Go to town. Or pick up a phone, or be sitting next to someone in the same room. FFXI never said "sorry, you can't talk to other people while playing FFXI", nor does Skype fuck with your game's files so you have 0 delay on a job ability.

[Sirious]

Actually, one of my first bans was because I had AIM running in the background while using windower, they said I was overclocking my pc causing lag and thereby causing my character to look like it was clipping.

At this time I didn't even know what clipper was, so, yeah, chatting outside the game is illegal too.

[Kyreth]

I think you read 80% casting time reduction as an 80% difference or something. As if by magically turning on gearswap a player becomes close to twice as powerful.

Now, I am done arguing the gain because obviously it is there, but please tell me how this has changed how Devs made this game. Don't forget to include tons of opinions and sports references because you have nothing beyond that to go off of really.

Nope. I read it as being able to easily throw on that 80% casting time reduction layout on-the-fly where you couldn't pull the same stuff with vanilla FFXI macros.

As for how it changed things? Simple logic.

Devs base difficulty on how well players deal with content- that's a given in MMO design, even in the wackiest mindfucks of a Tanaka. If a third party program results in players dealing with content easier than vanilla players do and devs can't tell the difference (or have to accept that they're doing it), then the next wave of content's difficulty is going to be based on the efforts of players who use those programs vs. "vanilla" players. Repeat for multiple expansion cycles.

If there's even one significant piece of content that can be done with 3PP's but not vanilla, then the use of those programs has changed how the developers built this game.

And to oblige: John Madden, Michael Savage, Ron Paul for the required sports references, opinions, and lack of reality.

[Spicyryan]

Nope. I read it as being able to easily throw on that 80% casting time reduction layout on-the-fly where you couldn't pull the same stuff with vanilla FFXI macros.

As for how it changed things? Simple logic.

Devs base difficulty on how well players deal with content- that's a given in MMO design, even in the wackiest mindfucks of a Tanaka. If a third party program results in players dealing with content easier than vanilla players do and devs can't tell the difference (or have to accept that they're doing it), then the next wave of content's difficulty is going to be based on the efforts of players who use those programs vs. "vanilla" players. Repeat for multiple expansion cycles.

If there's even one significant piece of content that can be done with 3PP's but not vanilla, then the use of those programs has changed how the developers built this game.

And to oblige: John Madden, Michael Savage, Ron Paul for the required sports references, opinions, and lack of reality.

So we are down to a difference of opinion that is not going to change.

There will be good players, and those who are not so good because they wan't to punish themselves because every rule and law is always just and right. Forget thinking for ourselves because it was already decided by the rules.

Instead of taking the time to go back and forth case by case I think I will just put this in instead.

Spoiler: show

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view2/345...ul-waves-o.gif

Oh, and VoIP is a third party program that augments abilities by allowing players to function more cohesively than the game natively allows and accomplish much more. Good thing that one is okay at least.

[FNH]

Nope. I read it as being able to easily throw on that 80% casting time reduction layout on-the-fly where you couldn't pull the same stuff with vanilla FFXI macros.

As for how it changed things? Simple logic.

Devs base difficulty on how well players deal with content- that's a given in MMO design, even in the wackiest mindfucks of a Tanaka. If a third party program results in players dealing with content easier than vanilla players do and devs can't tell the difference (or have to accept that they're doing it), then the next wave of content's difficulty is going to be based on the efforts of players who use those programs vs. "vanilla" players. Repeat for multiple expansion cycles.

If there's even one significant piece of content that can be done with 3PP's but not vanilla, then the use of those programs has changed how the developers built this game.

And to oblige: John Madden, Michael Savage, Ron Paul for the required sports references, opinions, and lack of reality.

What is your server and character name so the world knows to exclude you from everything

[enoch]

the average joe who doesn't even need lockstyle because he never even changes gear.

Inconsequential ramblings below, move along, nothing to see here.

Spoiler: show

I imagine most folks on these forums and especially in this thread drastically underestimate the number of "average joes" out there still playing and chugging along at their own pace. I also imagine the number of "high performance" folks who have been banned has been overestimated. I can't prove either of these things, this is just the situation as it exists in my own little mental model based on what I've skimmed here and what I've seen in-game.

What's difficult, is folks like me who are in the middle. We see the performance difference and we know what's possible, but we don't want to risk our characters. And at the same time we don't want to lose our friends who might be more comfortable taking risks than we are. I don't think this perspective gets much representation here (or there, or anywhere, really) but I have to imagine I'm not alone in this.

The thing that's helped me the most in dealing with these moral issues around performance enhancement (heh) is reminding myself that a banned character don't perform too good. Also; that each of us gets to define what's fun in our own ways and that's ok. It's about acceptance of that.

[Spicyryan]

Inconsequential ramblings below, move along, nothing to see here.

Spoiler: show

I imagine most folks on these forums and especially in this thread drastically underestimate the number of "average joes" out there still playing and chugging along at their own pace. I also imagine the number of "high performance" folks who have been banned has been overestimated. I can't prove either of these things, this is just the situation as it exists in my own little mental model based on what I've skimmed here and what I've seen in-game.

What's difficult, is folks like me who are in the middle. We see the performance difference and we know what's possible, but we don't want to risk our characters. And at the same time we don't want to lose our friends who might be more comfortable taking risks than we are. I don't think this perspective gets much representation here (or there, or anywhere, really) but I have to imagine I'm not alone in this.

The thing that's helped me the most in dealing with these moral issues around performance enhancement (heh) is reminding myself that a banned character don't perform too good. Also; that each of us gets to define what's fun in our own ways and that's ok. It's about acceptance of that.

Yeah, I don't use Clipper, ApRadar or any of that, and have been on this game for 9 years.
However, if they started banning for Gearswap I would understand that it is an early (is that possible after this long..?) retirement. Sometimes it is no longer worth playing by house rules.

[D44kpunk]

Nope. I read it as being able to easily throw on that 80% casting time reduction layout on-the-fly where you couldn't pull the same stuff with vanilla FFXI macros.

As for how it changed things? Simple logic.

Devs base difficulty on how well players deal with content- that's a given in MMO design, even in the wackiest mindfucks of a Tanaka. If a third party program results in players dealing with content easier than vanilla players do and devs can't tell the difference (or have to accept that they're doing it), then the next wave of content's difficulty is going to be based on the efforts of players who use those programs vs. "vanilla" players. Repeat for multiple expansion cycles.

If there's even one significant piece of content that can be done with 3PP's but not vanilla, then the use of those programs has changed how the developers built this game.

And to oblige: John Madden, Michael Savage, Ron Paul for the required sports references, opinions, and lack of reality.

i realize you clearly are probably bottom-tier when it comes to what you've been able to accomplish in this game, but you're saying that devs have released content that is difficult because of people using 3rd party programs correct?

maybe someone has already called you out on this but besides things that SE admitted was straight up impossible in their own way (PW, AV years ago) what exactly are you saying is "difficult"? because i have not heard or seen of anything in this game that is even remotely challenging besides the things the 2 impossible things that were added just to give people another waste of their time

[arus2001]

Not sure I'd call the CS Stun + Perfect Defense era of endgame mob design a shining mark on SE's record, with that potentially demanding hybrid TP/-DT sets or literally swapping as a mob TP moves.

Now that I think about it, I kinda wish we could've seen a legit DL kill without CS Stun or tons of zombie'ing.

[D44kpunk]

not sure if you're responding to me again or not, but why would people not make use of game mechanics that are available? are bots doing chainspell stuns in your mind?

you realize you are completely agreeing with anyone who says SE has poor game design by posting that right..? you usually just white knight for them

[Spicyryan]

Not sure I'd call the CS Stun + Perfect Defense era of endgame mob design a shining mark on SE's record, with that potentially demanding hybrid TP/-DT sets or literally swapping as a mob TP moves.

Now that I think about it, I kinda wish we could've seen a legit DL kill without CS Stun or tons of zombie'ing.

Case in point, from tactics like this to exploits that require nothing except a vanilla install. These have all affected development of the game more than GS or even any third party tool tbh.

[Cyleena]

Actually, one of my first bans was because I had AIM running in the background while using windower, they said I was overclocking my pc causing lag and thereby causing my character to look like it was clipping.

At this time I didn't even know what clipper was, so, yeah, chatting outside the game is illegal too.

This was actually a big thing going around when NNI first came out and people were shouting for must have skype or ventro or w/e in shouts to join their group. I had heard that them shouting that in town was getting people banned for using outside chatting for NNI. I did not have any "close" friends banned for it, and I find it hard for them to really ban someone over that but there was "rumors" going around that if SE heard (or saw you shouting it was a requirement in your runs) and you were doing it then it could get you banned because they looked at it as another form of cheating, so this does not surprise me to see this.