GINA gives very little if any advantage, players can already use in game audio triggers. I prefered ingame ATs until and used them up until a couple of years ago, when I got lazy and decided to switch to GINA and let someone else create my ATs for me. One thing I did notice from using in game triggers and GINA....my in game triggers triggered faster than GINA triggers.
First - Using your logic you could say there should be no: - Forums/website - because you can find write ups about how to do a raid and counter a mechanic - Voice chat - because your raid leader can tell you want to do to counter a mechanic - Raid chat - because you can get information from your raid leaders about mechanics - Group chat - because .... Second - GINA doesn't just read log files? ... The main difference between GINA and the built in voice triggers are: - Easy to distribute so only a couple people need to know how to build the triggers - Overlays with timers. I think you are really stretching to make an argument.
No, it’s not stretching. It’s the FF14 approach to add-ons. When players are more efficient and successful to responding to raid mechanics, then it makes the event easier. The dev response is then to make the raid harder by shortening mechanic timers. So, it leads to creating an arms race between 3rd party tools like GINA or WoW’s Weak Auras. Now, it becomes required for everyone to use it. There’s also the side effect where the raid designs are worse like AE circles are clipping into the ground, no audible cues in sound design, visual cues through NPC animations, etc. WoW even released a new game mode that bans all the add-ons because they’re seeing the problems it creates. Will EQ ban it? I don’t think so, but it checks all the boxes and it’s not as innocuous as it seems.
My experience indicates its not that they shortened timers, but that they added more stuff. Enough stuff that there are parts where its beneficial to have a text catcher to help make sure people dont miss the important stuff mixed in with the spam. But regardless of that your own post implies that devs approved of it. If you believe they shortened the timers then you must also believe they are aware of and ok with it.
First off, that's great for FF14, but this isn't FF14 and it doesn't appear that EQ is trying to make super challenging content nor limit people in how they interface with the game. As far as the arms race, sorry, but I don't want to have my nose buried in text channels trying to decipher all the spam. So if the fallout from voice trigger app is that they put harder mechanics into the game, then I welcome it. They also don't have to escalate the arms race at all and just accept that voice triggers will be a thing and be fine with it because following text for raid mechanics is dumb to begin with. AE circles clipping into the ground is because they don't do decals right in their graphics engine. Instead of doing a overlay decal that would follow the contours of the map, they create a flat disc object that is statically placed in the game world. Audible/visual cues and NPC animations would be a welcome change, but I think the lack of such things is a limitation of the game engine itself. And if they were to attempt those things, they'd have to do it right and make the mechanic match the visual cue precisely. EG if the dragon is going to tail swipe anyone standing behind it, then the game needs to track the positioning of the player model and the dragon's tail and check for collision before applying damage instead of just hitting everyone who happens to be in the rear arc of the dragon. This isn't a competitive game in the same way a game like Starcraft is competitive, so add-ons that reduce workload or increase efficiency is a welcome addition. It's highly unlikely that in-house devs will think of all the ideas that the player community will come up with and even if they did, they often won't have the time to develop them all in-house. Especially if it serves niche function that in-house devs can't justify spending the time on when "only X% will use it." TLDR: Add-ons good, wish EQ had an official in-game add-on API. We asked for it circa 2003 and it was always "no time, doesn't fit The Vision(tm)." But there's time for broken personas that no one asked for. /rolleyes
Does having a fast ISP give you an in-game advantage? Does having 20/20 vision give you an in-game advantage? Does having a large monitor give you an in-game advantage? Does being under 50 give you an in-game advantage? No GINA is NOT against the rules, any more than Notepad is.
I remember a raid in blackburrow where the boss mob would just emote things like "Boss turns into a mass of tentacles" or "boss turns into a giant bat", etc. Always thought it was a bit lame. If you want to boss to change it's appearance, then actually make the boss change it's appearance.
I think people who have found ways of being better at the game than me should be banned. They are obviously cheating.
Yeah, definitely agreed when they used 3rd party tools. Those same people get into Beta, and send feedback based on playing the game with the tools. It's a bad cycle that only serves to make the 3rd party tools more required. Look at all the guild pages, they all require it.
That's because AT triggers don't need to read a log text file. They read the chat filters in game exactly as they come through. They will always be faster than anything that has to "wait" to parse output to a text file. I wish AT triggers were shareable in game, used regex, and used a built in voice system like GINA.... But wait... that means it does need to become GINA To say that GINA doesn't offer any advantage is not true - as people who lead raids can quickly see other players who get called out or fail emotes, among other things. But I guess if you don't lead raids, or don't lead classes or don't contribute to any raid input/strategies, none of that may matter to you. And in a group setting, it certainly won't matter for a majority of players. Lastly, GINA can basically tell someone how to play their class, if they use the right trigger sets.
In fact, a dev was asked whether in game audio triggers would be improved and he basically said "just use gina". I make my own triggers because I know my class and I know what I need, such as a timer to tell when someone else's funeral dirge expires. When I was a noob I took a bard share and it was awful. Over half the triggers were just clutter.
I wouldn't really point to that as any sort of concrete stance. Maybe, next year Absor will be tired of it being used.
As long as he agrees to design all raids with self explanatory visual and audio cues in lieu of the text prompts and they reconfigure the buff and song windows to be configurable such that the user can choose to show or hide each individual buff/song and corresponding timer bars in a format large enough to easily evaluate at a glance, I'm all for getting rid of gina.
1. No it is not. It has been stated time and again that simply reading the log files is not against the rules. 2. Using your logic, using Notepad to edit map files is against the rules.
