Convenience or Cheating

[Garland]

On Quetzalcoatl, at least, there's a fierce debate over which windower plugins are necessary conveniences and which are cheating. If we want to get technical, even the windower itself is technically against the rules, but even someone as anal as me can't find it in me to hold that against someone.

Added to windower were eventually plugins like Tparty which displays alliance mp and other players' TP and what not. I don't know the specifics because I'm not using a windower. Alliance MP I thought was a good idea. I wish I had access to that info, even though I won't do so. Party TP, I think this is a bad idea. Back when the plugin was released, I was a PS2 user. I'm also a Blm. Tparty destroyed paty communication. I either had to forgo magic bursting, or forgo any early battle enfeebling of any sort, because psychic melees initiated skillchains silently. Rare was the melee who was willing to revert to party communication for the sake of the blm. Still, I didn't think this was cheating worth fighting against. I just thought this furthered the mage/melee and PC/console divides. Since I could manaburn anyway, I was happy to let the "Cntrl A and AFK" jobs do their thing. This plugin is on the line, as far as I'm concerned.

The Range plugin made rangers and bards fairly skillless jobs. I learned to guage the radius of my aga spells. Other jobs should have to do likewise. There isn't much skill in FFXI. I do think it's cheating for a few jobs to opt out of the only thing close to thinking their job has. I guess rangers wanted to be as mindless as monks. It's not like you can autoattack ranged attacks anyway. They might as well spend some time concentrating or something, if they have to be pressing buttons anyway. This plugin I do think crosses the line.

Now they have plugins to automatically sort your equipment and lot crap while you're dead. The former seems harmless but the latter is clearly cheating. The lengths people will go to defend their poor gaming is astounding.

A lot of people say SE should've given us more macro lines from the start, and feel justified making catchall super macros with their billion lines and fancy coding. A new plugin even automatically accounts for weather and whatnot. SE "should've" done a lot of things, but they didn't. I think these are squarely cheating too.

I'm beginning to think the definition of cheating is whether or not windower endorses it. For example, voke bots and fleehacking isn't a windower plugin yet, so those are condemned. Self adjusting, programmable super macros, lotting while dead, and AOE gauges are supported by windower, so they're kosher. I think windower should make voke bot plugins and fleehack plugins so that the population will either turn on the use of plugins in general, or stop being hypocrites in terms of what's cheating and what isn't. "Anything I don't use is a cheat" isn't the definition of cheating, but in FFXI, it seems to be.

[Del Murder]

Do you really think voke bots and fleehacking is on the same level as TParty or are you just bitter?

Anyway, I use Windower. My machine couldn't run the game without it. Well, it could, but it would be so ugly that I wouldn't pay for it. I don't think anything I use in windower gives me an unfair advantage over another player.

If I'm doing a skill chain I will still call out my TP before I go, but with TParty I can at least know when my partner is ready and I can say something.

I didn't even know alliance mp wasn't normally included until you just said so. That's just stupid. Anyway, I don't really use that much as I generally don't care what the alliance mages are doing.

Autosorting inventory is just because I'm lazy. I guess that gives me an advantage over people who don't bother to sort, but I don't see it as a big deal since it's something I can easily do manually, I just don't.

I only recently installed the distance thing. I find it very useful when I was soloing blm or pulling. I don't have any true mage or ranged jobs so I can't see myself taking full advantage of it. But I like it as it allows players to be better at their job. I can't see how this gives any player an unfair advantage. Wouldn't you want your party members getting their max potential? Sure it takes some skill out of it, but not much in my eyes. Compared to melee, rangers and blm still have a lot more they have to be on top of.

[Garland]

Do you really think voke bots and fleehacking is on the same level as TParty or are you just bitter?
Autosorting inventory is just because I'm lazy. I guess that gives me an advantage over people who don't bother to sort, but I don't see it as a big deal since it's something I can easily do manually, I just don't.

TParty was one of the plugins I said wasn't too serious, just annoying to me.

Wouldn't you want your party members getting their max potential?

Wouldn't you want your endgame LS getting their max potential? Camping Aery wouldn't be that much easier with cheats. Of course I want my parties to get their potential. The difference is, I want them to earn it. Give me Blms that juggle a dozen macros over one who uses souped up programmed macros anyday.

[Del Murder]

The difference is the camping hacks put you at an unfair advantage over other LS who are camping that monster. I can't see how the distance thing would hurt anyone else, except maybe their pride.

I don't like the programed macros and I don't use them.

[Garland]

The difference is the camping hacks put you at an unfair advantage over other LS who are camping that monster. I can't see how the distance thing would hurt anyone else, except maybe their pride.

I don't like the programed macros and I don't use them.

Then we have some agreement. I don't think windower users are cheaters. I wish SE would get their official one to work as well. I don't think Tparty is cheating - I just think it's horrible for party cooperation, considering 2/3's the potential FFXI platforms don't have access to the information. You still use TP reports when necessary. That makes you better than the rest. You should be proud that you have common sense and know how to play.

As for the comparison of severity between the big cheats and plugins, you're right of course. The big name hacks are quite worse. But my position is that it doesn't make the minor ones acceptable.

[Lionx]

Honestly if it isnt gamebreaking and only helps you out, it doesnt matter to me. Stuff like TP Party, Alliance MP, Auto Sort, and Ranged should have been in there imo, and only helps you with convenience. SE might state it as cheating, but i have more of a mindset where you should be able to customize GUI sorta like WoW, and also...some of those things should have been in there and quite a few things polished.

SE didnt do it themselves but if i dont vokebot/minebot/etc, i dont see the harm in those particular plugins. It only helps you, and others you party with.

The difference is, I want them to earn it. Give me Blms that juggle a dozen macros over one who uses souped up programmed macros anyday.

How i view it is, the end result is the same, one is just less brain hurting. Why cook using fire when you can use a stove?

[Mirage]

I've got a pretty clearly defined line when it comes to all these things. If the plugin or program doesn't send an automated command back to the server, it's fine by my books. Passive plugins that simply read the data the server sends you, and then displays it, are all fine with me. It's when they send an automated command back based on what data they got that I considering botting and/or bad.

I also report my TP if someone in my party doesn't have Tparty, and we've decided on an SC. Those are getting rarer and rarer though.

OOC: Hey Lionx, are you still playing on Midgardsormr?

[Roogle]

Well, didn't Square Enix allow Final Fantasy XI to run windowed, finally? So, there should technically be no need for the Windower, right? I think that it is on the fault of the company for necessitating others to go out of their way just to run the game windowed; if Final Fantasy XI had a windowed mode to begin with, Windower, TParty, and other plugins might not even exist.

[Germ Hamee]

Well, didn't Square Enix allow Final Fantasy XI to run windowed, finally? So, there should technically be no need for the Windower, right?

They may have fixed it since I played, but the official windower was pretty horrible when it first came out. The game looked really bad, and I remember my CPU usage going through the roof. I know I had other problems with it, but I can't remember what they are right now. It was really deplorable, especially for an official attempt when there's been something fan-made for years that's far superior.

I still think announcing TP and skillchains should be required, even though I use TParty. I don't see a plugin like that as a cheat, but more of an enhancement that should have been included with an expansion pack at some point in time. You don't really have an unfair advantage over anyone else with it; it's really just there for convenience. Having an advantage over someone else is where I draw the line, and I don't see how being able to see TP is a big deal as long as everyone's still chat Macroing what they're doing.

And autosort is the best thing ever. Seriously.

[Roogle]

The problem with Final Fantasy XI is that it lacks the customization of its competitors. World of Warcraft players are required to use common macros, plug-ins, and other enhancements to get by with others; Final Fantasy XI players are required to communicate everything through text and, until recently, were not even allowed to run the game windowed, officially —

If the developers of Final Fantasy XI were given the direction to develop the game as it needs to be, console players would be slowly phased out as PC players start to customize their game and their characters the way that they want.

I do not see customizing the game as cheating at all. I envision massively multiplayer online role-playing games as a dog eat dog world, and I think that it is necessary to do whatever you can to become the best player that you can be. But where do you draw the line? That is something that is up to every player to decide for himself.

[KentaRawr!]

You PC players and your fancy stuff.

[Ouch!]

FFXI is a game plagued by its relation to the PS2. PC users tend to hate PS2 users like the freaking scourge; that's the general consensus I've encountered over the years, anyway. The limitations of the PS2 put roadblocks in the advancement and development of the game as a whole. If SE just phased out the PS2, we'd be allowed to have nice things.

Until that happens, which it likely won't, I'll gladly use many of the things that the Windower offers me that SE doesn't.

[Beyond]

Unfortunately, the majority of the Japanese player base use the PS2.

The game isn't going to get any prettier.

[eternalshiva]

you can autosort without windower. ;p I use windower macroes because 5 of my 6 jobs use more then 6 lines of macroes and its more convenient for me. I use plasticsurgeon also because I'm sick of looking at my fat elvaan butt! I like EXPWatch and I like the ranged thing for COR. Yarnball is nice to see when buffs are wearing like haste refresh etc especially useful in Dynamis so you can keep track easier and tanks happy! (this is more for my mage job)

Alot of the plugins I consider cheats and I don;t use them and some are autoloaded when you get windower, I jsut disable them.