New server that is actually policed, 1 time transfer

[Divaud]

A thought struck me about the state of the game and how SE has, let's say, an enforcement issue when it comes to ToS issues.

Whether it's their fault or simply a bandwidth problem is irrelevant.

With that said how would people receive the idea of a fresh server that is


Actively policed 24/7
You are allowed to transfer there, but you can't bring your gil.
If you would like to leave the server you may, but you may not return again. This would prevent "shopping" trips
Extra $1 or $2 on top of the normal sub cost perhaps to cover monitoring?


As for the other servers, they can become free-for-all servers that aren't monitored outside of blatant things like duping/hacking etc. (basically as they are now)

I realize this may be an unpopular idea but I think it could be a nice middle ground for those of us who are tired of seeing bots, cheaters, and all the other unsavory ToS breaches that crop up.

This would also allow SE to focus their energies on a single server where the players that choose to go there are investing in that specific sort of environment, so by default you'll have fewer likely issues in the first place.

Thoughts?

[Sirmarki]

I think players who have proven experience with producing STFU reports that ended up being 100% accurate would be the best of moderators. I'm willing to bet that there are many players out there that are sick to death of
the seemingly vast amounts of people abusing the game mechanics.

[Soraii]

First, that doesn't work at all, because alts and mules exist. You cannot possibly stop a person from coming and going as they please, if you allow server jumping.

But sure, it's a fine idea, provided you never allow anyone to leave once they arrive, and cannot bring sellables onto it. and no eschuteons, inability to make them.

[Pixela]

There really aren't that many bots on smaller servers, you greatly exaggerate the problem.

[Sirmarki]

There really aren't that many bots on smaller servers, you greatly exaggerate the problem.

That's because there isn't much of anything on smaller servers.. I know, I moved from one 3 years ago :)

And yes, it is a massive problem on Asura..

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

If you've been glued to the forums, I have personally mentioned this idea several times. {With a bit more ferocity.}

Page 2 (begins with 8 step process)

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/56408-Please-close-Asura?p=623932#post623932

[Divaud]

There really aren't that many bots on smaller servers, you greatly exaggerate the problem.

Can you quote where I exaggerated..... anything?

And sure there aren't that many, but everyone has a subjective line of what they'll tolerate.

[Alhanelem]

I'm sorry but this is just stupid. All servers should be "policed." not just one. Everyone has or should have the same expectation of the least amount of RMT etc. that could realistically be acheived.

But basically, transfer off asura and your problems will be greatly diminished (unless everyone takes this advice and some other server becomes the overcrowded one)

[Jerbob]

I have to agree with Alhanelem. We should expect an active STF presence on all servers. Running away and hiding on a single server and letting the cheaters run rampant is not a good solution.

I don't know how Phoenix rates in terms of population, but we have more than enough scum here. I've never had the misfortune to visit Asura, but I just want to emphasise that this isn't just an Asura problem, and that ideally all of the servers need to be more closely monitored to purge them of cheaters.


There really aren't that many bots on smaller servers, you greatly exaggerate the problem.
Most of the Adoulin zones here on Phoenix are crawling with bots, especially at the weekends, and even more so with COVID-19. There are curebots in my parties, multibox armies in DI, skillup bots spamming Indi-Voidance outside cities, even spark bots in the basement of Garlaige Citadel. We have a character literally called "Jobpoints" selling JP in /yell, we have currency bots in Dynamis.

I can't go a day without being adversely affected by a bot or someone doing something automated. I can't buy HQ items on the AH as they're all generated by cheaters, and if I'm really honest with myself, the gil I receive from selling items on the AH has probably been botted or bought by someone recently.

Let's not downplay the problem. Everything single thing I do in the game is affected by botting and cheating these days. It's rife, and it needs to be stopped.

[Soraii]

There's no money in banning accounts.

You should be so lucky as to have one server where they can enforce the rules, instead of zero.

[Sirmarki]

We have a character literally called "Jobpoints" selling JP in /yell, we have currency bots in Dynamis.

Oh, it gets better:

https://i.imgur.com/blXjxRv.jpg

[Pixela]

Comedy is lost on some people.

[Sirmarki]

But basically, transfer off asura and your problems will be greatly diminished

Then you get rid of a one problem, to face another. I was considering this, stepping down to an apparently less busy server, however:

I was watching a live stream the other night with a player on said server. He was in /yell trying to create a CP party for the livestream.
Firstly /yell was dead, sure, no RMT, Mercs or JP sellers, but nothing else either.

After an hour or so, he had to give up and change the planned video because he could not get one single person to join, in the height of a CP campaign. We are talking about an established player here.

So no, that does not appeal to me at all.

There is a reason SE record live streams from Asura, because it has people featured in the video and the game appears very busy. This is what any business want, a game looking busy.

[Jerbob]

There's no money in banning accounts.
A common assertion, but there's no proof. It's more complicated than "more accounts more money". How people have stopped playing, or play less frequently and skip months, because of the rampant cheating? How much has the quality of the game decreased because people cheat to complete content early or have an impact on the development of new content, and how as that affected player retention? How many cheaters quit early because they've made the game too easy for themselves? I don't have the answers to these questions - no more than anyone knows for sure that multiboxers and botters are benevolent angels who keep the game alive for the rest of us non-cheating proles.


Comedy is lost on some people.
The fact that it's a recently-created mule with a crafting shield basically proves that the owner is cheating, regardless of whether they are guilty of the ToS violation implied by their name. The fact that cheaters think this is all so hilarious is part of the problem.

[Sirmarki]

Comedy is lost on some people.

Yeh, I have a sense of humour, but what are the odds of people cheating the system when it comes to crafting?

I wonder how many shields were made legit? Seems to be quite a few anon players running around in circles in the likes of Palborough Mines, Crawlers Nest etc for days/months on end, with no sleep so it seems.

[Alhanelem]

Then you get rid of a one problem, to face another. I was considering this, stepping down to an apparently less busy server, however:

I was watching a live stream the other night with a player on said server. He was in /yell trying to create a CP party for the livestream.
Firstly /yell was dead, sure, no RMT, Mercs or JP sellers, but nothing else either.


/yell is dead on every server, even asura, where the RMT drowns out anything else. I'm on shiva and I've had no problem finding people to do JP when I want to have a group But I like to do unpopular things with some jobs so I save other people the trouble and do it with trust instead anyway.. The problem, if anything, is a good chunk of the regulars don't have a real need to do it anymore because they have the jobs they play mastered.

People do this sort of thing in linkshells, not /yell. Sounds like your streamer needs to get himself a linkshell. I'll take a light population over half that population being RMT or hackers any day.

"looking busy" looks nice from the outside, but in reality the game experience is just better on not-Asura. But if people didn't decide to pile on it in the first place, things would be much more balanced out today. SE honestly should not have removed the world pass system.



The fact that it's a recently-created mule with a crafting shield basically proves that the owner is cheating, regardless of whether they are guilty of the ToS violation implied by their name. The fact that cheaters think this is all so hilarious is part of the problem.
The fact that cheaters are so unconcerned that they'll openly admit that they're doing it and even make fun of it says SE needs to step up their game.

[Sirmarki]

/yell is dead on every server, even asura, where the RMT drowns out anything else. I'm on shiva and I've had no problem finding people to do JP when I want to have a group But I like to do unpopular things with some jobs so I save other people the trouble and do it with trust instead anyway.. The problem, if anything, is a good chunk of the regulars don't have a real need to do it anymore because they have the jobs they play mastered.

Not really, you do get people yelling on Asura wanting to create CP parties, and they get filled quickly, for the most part - Same with the likes of SR and Ambuscade to name a few.. I am, however, wondering how much % of people pay the botters/RMT/job point sellers and simply afk at night. I'm guessing they are popular seeing 1. They are still there and 2. There seem to be an increasing number of them yelling.


People do this sort of thing in linkshells, not /yell. Sounds like your streamer needs to get himself a linkshell

They are in a linkshell, and they are very popular on Youtube.


The fact that cheaters are so unconcerned that they'll openly admit that they're doing it and even make fun of it says SE needs to step up their game.

Yeh, they are pretty blatant now.

[Pixela]

Most people do not care about this stuff at all, there are a handful of people with a stick up their butt about it but that's it. Same people complaining over and over.

As long as they don't a) bot ambuscade and cause massive queues, b) hack peoples accounts or c) cheat in a way that directly impacts others I don't care. They can bot their insane grind shields all they want, they can bot farm sparks, they can cheat win stuff on Very Hard mode. It doesn't hurt most people and actually has a positive impact in many ways because it lowers prices on endgame gear we buy and stocks the AH.

[Jerbob]

As long as they don't a) bot ambuscade and cause massive queues
Why is it not okay for botters to block access to Ambuscade, but okay for them to restrict my access to Ceizak delve by making it harder for me to get pop items?
Why is it okay for them to restrict my ability to farm in Dynamis - Jeuno by hording all the mobs 24/7?
Why is it okay for them to infest all the CP locations on Asura?


b) hack peoples accounts
I've not heard of this happening, so fair play to you on this one.


c) cheat in a way that directly impacts others
You know what directly impacts me?

Cure bots in my parties.
Sparks bots fueling RMT.
Sparks bots causing massive inflation.
Sparks bots denying me access to pop items.
CP bots denying people access to JP camps.
RMT /yells every time I enter a town.
Longer lines in merit battlefields because people take their bot army instead of joining parties.
HQ cheaters forcing me to either become an accessory to cheating or never buy HQ items.
Gilbuyers forcing me to become an accessory if I ever sell items on the AH.
Constant cheating causing players to get tired of the nonsense and quit, reducing the effective game population

And of course, let's not forget

Skewed statistics reported back to SE on fight difficulty when people evade mechanics by cheating
Skewed statistics on crafting shield creation because people bot them 24/7
Skewed statistics on the usability of latent effect items when people have programs auto-equip them when latent conditions are in place
Skewed feedback on integral game systems that desperately need updates, like macros and equipsets, because people just don't use them
And the subsequent lack of fixes, balancing and updates for these things because, as far as SE can tell, everyone's fine with how things are.

And of course, straight up not being able to be as good as people who cheat, no matter what I do.

It DIRECTLY impacts me, and anyone else who is affected by any of these things.


actually has a positive impact in many ways because it lowers prices on endgame gear we buy and stocks the AH.
The reason the prices are so high is that people can literally print money with bot armies, and people who don't have bot armies can buy gil from people who do.

Buying items created by cheating makes you an accessory, whether you like it or not - you shouldn't have to make a moral choice every time you buy an item from the AH.

And of course, statistics on all of this are fed back to SE. If everyone's got the cheat-crafted gear, that's the new baseline, and those miniscule HQ percentages must be acceptable if everyone's got the gear, right?


stick up their butt
It's lodged up there pretty far, I'll freely admit. And every time someone tries to make excuses for the cheaters, it gets pushed up just a little further.

[Sirmarki]

Most people do not care about this stuff at all, there are a handful of people with a stick up their butt about it but that's it. Same people complaining over and over.

As long as they don't a) bot ambuscade and cause massive queues, b) hack peoples accounts or c) cheat in a way that directly impacts others I don't care. They can bot their insane grind shields all they want, they can bot farm sparks, they can cheat win stuff on Very Hard mode. It doesn't hurt most people and actually has a positive impact in many ways because it lowers prices on endgame gear we buy and stocks the AH.

Did you even think about each and every element of what you just wrote and the potential consequences?

Same people complaining you say, against the same people cheating (and endorsing cheating by the looks of it)..

Read the history books, games that got infiltrated with cheats didn't end up in all that great of place...

Remind me to just skip past your comments from now on :P

[Alhanelem]

They are in a linkshell, and they are very popular on Youtube.I'm sorry, but FFXI and "popular on youtube" just don't go in the same sentence.

[Divaud]

I'm sorry but this is just stupid. All servers should be "policed." not just one. Everyone has or should have the same expectation of the least amount of RMT etc. that could realistically be acheived.

But basically, transfer off asura and your problems will be greatly diminished (unless everyone takes this advice and some other server becomes the overcrowded one)

I wont sit here and claim it's a perfect solution. Ideally we should all expect and receive proper enforcement so our play isn't compromised, but we have to be realistic and pragmatic.

This problem may be more prevalent on Asura, but it is an issue everywhere, and the only practical solution as I see it is to create a chokepoint. Will it stop 100%? No, but it'll be much better than the situation we have now. As you said:




The fact that cheaters are so unconcerned that they'll openly admit that they're doing it and even make fun of it says SE needs to step up their game.

Which is exactly why I proposed this idea. If we can create an environment where actual policing takes place and the people there are less inclined to do it (since they've opted in and invested in it) then its at least worth a try.

I'm not trying to make this out to be a gamebreaking issue, I play regardless and don't give it much thought because I still enjoy the game.

But there are definitely times where I run across these things and it puts a bad taste in my mouth.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

The user that can't examine conduct inside of ffxi ethically beyond a clinical sociopath will refuse to believe the relations between consequence and conduct.

[Alhanelem]

Which is exactly why I proposed this idea. If we can create an environment where actual policing takes place and the people there are less inclined to do it (since they've opted in and invested in it) then its at least worth a try.my point is enforcing the rules that ALREADY EXIST shouldn't take place in a special environment. It should take place across the game.

I'm figuring your logic is "well if they are only strict on cheaters on one server, then they can't complain about it taking too much money away" or something like that. But that's BS. SE needs to demonstrate their integrity and put obvious instances of cheating above profit.

(Now, if they had a way to and banned everyone for using tools which aren't intended to harm other players like winCOUGH GASP HACK COUGH, they'd have to ban like half of everybody- i'm talking about people who are harming others for their own gain, like poshacking between monsters or gathering points, duping items, etc, which SE should honestly be able to detect without computer scanning)

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

@Alhenelem Correct, which is why the proposal from my link would not remove ToS authority on any given server.
It would, however, forcibly move accounts from a traditionalist designated server found to be in violation of ToS to a declared anarchy server and lock them there with their own identified class of players.
This would be a deterrent against cheating of any sorts on the traditionalist server and also a excellent motivation for players who desire the most unblemished experience to subscribe to the traditionalist server.

[Jerbob]

using tools which aren't intended to harm other players
I know it's not a popular opinion here (or anywhere), but the widely-held belief that certain community-sanctioned tools are not harmful just isn't true. The entire point of them is to make the game easier, even if that's just by streamlining inconveniences. If the majority are using them, then the game's development is based on the level of capability that the tools enable. That makes the game disproportionately challenging for people who don't use the tools.

Let's be honest here. Are we ever going to see the expansion of equipsets - something I desperately need before I can even consider playing another job? We're never going to see those kinds of updates because everyone bypasses that limitation - there is no feedback on the matter, and anyone who suggests that they might be necessary is met with an avalanche of responses claiming that it's not needed. It's a huge advantage most people have over me; it enables them to do things I simply can't do.

It's also worth pointing out that these tools aren't monolithic. What some people consider acceptable is different to what others consider acceptable. The umbrella term is effectively meaningless. It applies equally to a person just using it to play the game in windowed mode as it does to a person using its functionality to marshal a bot army. Where is the line drawn? Who decides?

I'm not so stupid that I expect SE to start stamping down on these tools. The rot goes too deep for them to root it out anymore without damaging themselves massively. But that doesn't mean that they're harmless. The fact remains that I can never achieve the same level of game mastery as most other players, and it's tiresome to constantly read about how "harmless" that is.

I'm not having a go at you specifically, Alhanelem, so apologies if it comes off that way.

[Sirmarki]

I'm sorry, but FFXI and "popular on youtube" just don't go in the same sentence.

I'll rephrase that then.... As popular as FFXI gets on Youtube. Better?

[Sirmarki]

We're never going to see those kinds of updates because everyone bypasses that limitation - there is no feedback on the matter, and anyone who suggests that they might be necessary is met with an avalanche of responses claiming that it's not needed. It's a huge advantage most people have over me; it enables them to do things I simply can't do.

Very valid points here once again Jerbob and a difficult situation that has probably gone too far now for any kind of reversal.

[Sirmarki]

Well one thing is for sure, this subject does cause a degree of division, both on the forums and within the game.

We need some guidance from the powers that be, and some intervention. After all, it is all there in the ToS.

[Pixela]

Lets do some common sense thinking:

RMT RMT because they make money doing it, many of them do this as their main means of making money.

"cheaters" "cheat" because they have played the game for many many years and are annoyed with stupid long grinds or are used to their easier means of doing things (that don't really hurt anyone else much), most windower addons are "cheating"

The goal of the STFU (keep in mind these people work on FFXI and FFXIV too) isn't to stop all cheating and RMT, because you simply can't. The point of the STFU is to control both of these things to the least disruptive versions of these things and not impact the profitability of the game. To use an analogy, you train your cat to pee in the litter box and not on the bed. You don't train your cat to not pee anymore.

Lets say the STFU listen to you guys and take a zero tolerance policy, what will happen?

Firstly the price of GIL will skyrocket in price (cause the demand is still there), making selling gil procurement far more profitable.

You will have all these people with a lot of time and knowledge of automated systems and programs, really angry:
The higher price of gil will get the attention of the more vicious RMT sellers.
The current "truce" between the RMT and the company will end, all forms of making gil will now be taken advantage of full force.

What will this mean?
The sellers who cannot adapt will go full force into an automated DDOS campaign enmasse, so almost everyone won't be able to login or stay logged in for months or longer.
The hardcore sellers will start hacking FFXI websites and hacking FFXI players (who are not the most tech savvy people) to put trojans onto their computers, so they can steal all your gil to sell that instead. Can't farm it? ok they will steal it from you and sell that.
The farmers will now go for the fastest means of farming gil, this means doing content like spamming ambuscade or mass auction house manipulation or scams.

Right now the RMT know they are watched, so they do their "job" in the least obnoxious way possible. They farm sparks out of the way of others etc.

For the "cheaters", and keep in mind "cheating" is a fairly minor thing in ffxi. I've played f2p mmorpgs, you have no idea how bad it can be on other games.

These people will simply stop paying to play the game, and many of them have multiple accounts. There will be a drastic drop in revenue for almost no gain at all, this makes zero business sense.

Square right now stop the most egregious forms of RMT and cheating, there is a control system in effect and both sides know it.

If you are mad about "botted" shields, this is a failure of content. Make the shields less of a boring grind or add a harder way to get them, like clearing master trials or something. If you make something, long, easy and boring, people will bot it. If you are mad about bots for CP, they need to find better ways for players to get Job points.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

There is no truce. It is ineptitude of monitoring capabilities.
I've submitted a comprehensive design change solution to eliminate prohibited conduct from peer to peer interface last year in a digest reply.
If it's Square-Enix's choice not to implement that design change to the interface, they can and should establish one traditionalist designated server so honest players can seperate from those who are not.

[Soraii]

The problem is not hacks or the game. The problem is money.

Figure out how to keep the same amount of cash flow or don't bother. If the solution makes less money, the answer is lolnope.

FFXI is no longer a game it's a meth lab. You can't not make meth.

[Alhanelem]

I know it's not a popular opinion here (or anywhere), but the widely-held belief that certain community-sanctioned tools are not harmful just isn't true. The entire point of them is to make the game easier, even if that's just by streamlining inconveniences. If the majority are using them, then the game's development is based on the level of capability that the tools enable. That makes the game disproportionately challenging for people who don't use the tools.I mean,, it's not a popular opinion because it isn't "not true."

How does it harm you if I use a UI mod to move my HP bars somewhere else on the screen and make them bigger so I can actually see them? How does it harm you if i use a tool to calculate how much XP I'm earning over time? How does it harm you if I keep a map of the current area on screen, which I can do with a web browser too (just a little less convenient)? Most UI mods are harmless and don't affect anyone but the user in any way- its quality of life, not gameplay advantage.

FFXIV's UI lets you move everything around and make it bigger or smaller and it's one of the best stock UIs on the MMO market- its one of the reasons why you don't really see anyone hacking the game to change the UI, because there aren't that many thing you can't do with it compared to other MMOs, even wow, which has UI mods up the wazoo precisely because its stock UI is too limiteded in customizability?

These mods exist because the XI team can't (now) or wouldn't (in the past) spend the time and resources to revamp the UI to bring it to modern standards.

Had the new UI they promised actually got finished, the need for any external UI mods may have been greatly diminished. I don't condone tools that amount to cheating (i.e. things that give you information you couldn't determine or have access to yourself, or any of the more obvious cheats out there), but I don't see how making the UI more readable and useable harms you or anyone else.

[Sirmarki]

I mean,, it's not a popular opinion because it isn't "not true."

How does it harm you if I use a UI mod to move my HP bars somewhere else on the screen and make them bigger so I can actually see them? How does it harm you if i use a tool to calculate how much XP I'm earning over time? How does it harm you if I keep a map of the current area on screen, which I can do with a web browser too (just a little less convenient)? Most UI mods are harmless and don't affect anyone but the user in any way- its quality of life, not gameplay advantage.

Ok, so you have singled out the community made 'quality of life changes' by using third party software, but unsurprising failed to name any other so called 'features' that DO affect other people and give an overwhelming benefit to that person that another person playing stock retail version does not get. This is why we have a ToS and official guidelines, or it becomes a free-for-all. It's not about what you want, its about what is permitted, regardless if you see it as a benefit or not. SE decide that.

[Alhanelem]

Ok, so you have singled out the community madeI feel like you didn't read my post. Yes, I did single those things out, because that's what I'm talking about. And I specifically noted things I'm NOT talking about.

The point is, many of the tools out there are out there for the benefit of the community and not the detriment. Unfortunately there are some out there that enable cheating as well, and of course I'm against that.

Most players using these tools are doing so for their convenience and the betterment of their experience- NOT to cheat and NOT to ruin anything for anyone else.

Ultimately, permitted or not, the things so many players are using do not harm you. Again, I listed a bunch of common things people use, and you have tried to tell me they are harming you but haven't demonstrated any way in which they are doing so.

My vision is pretty crappy. I depend on some of these UI mods as an accessibility feature. It would actually be very difficult for me to play the game without them. SE only provides one option for this- pixelating the UI. If SE wants people to stop using these things, then they need to create comparable features of their own.

If anything, part of the reason these things were made in the first place was to convince SE that they needed to make these things themselves. SE had the ps2 limitations excuse for long enough, but then they drop ps2 and yet since they took so long to do it, we're still bound by those limitations.

[Jerbob]

How does it harm you if I use a UI mod to...
I will accept that some of the UI mods are less problematic than a lot of the cheating, particularly if they're predominantly used in low-pressure environments, but broadly speaking, why are people using UI mods? If they find the UI frustrating or difficult to use, removing that frustration is going to make them a better player. Of course, in a low pressure environment that may not matter significantly in terms of fair play or feedback affecting game development, but what about battle content?

I'm torn on the idea of making HP bars more visible. For you this is clearly a necessary feature and I obviously support you being able to actually access the game. That's not an aspect that I'd considered before, and I apologise if I was insensitive. But could such a feature improve a player's performance when playing any job that cares about other people's HP bars? As someone who plays WHM more often than any other job, I'd argue yes.


Most players using these tools are doing so for their convenience and the betterment of their experience
In battle, even the most minor benefit is important because they all stack up. Removing this irritation, adding this extra feature, putting that UI element over there so it's next to something else... at what point does that transition from meaningless to meaningful? At what point does that loss at 1% become a win?

And, of course, a lot of the convenient tools are game-changing. Changes to the macro system, for example.

Even for trivial things, when things are made more convenient, by definition a person's attention is freed to work on other aspects of the game. I'd love it if I didn't have to worry about the game's UI slowing down when lots of stuff is on screen - I'd be a far better player if I knew my keystrokes were actually going to work first time every time. But they don't, so my attention is divided, and I'm frustrated, and I'm less effective. On the surface, it's an aesthetic thing, when in reality it significantly affects my abilities.


These mods exist because the XI team can't (now) or wouldn't (in the past) spend the time and resources to revamp the UI to bring it to modern standards.
I think I remember that you were really looking forward to the new UI when it was announced, and I'm also disappointed that it didn't happen. But I don't remember it being something many other people were very excited about. I know SE had some difficulties with it, but would they have shelved the project if people showed more interest? Would people have showed more interest if they didn't already have a UI they could customise? We'll never know. But feedback is important, and if a lack of feedback on new features caused by cheaters already having those features has a material effect on game development, then those cheaters are damaging the game for everyone else.


If anything, part of the reason these things were made in the first place was to convince SE that they needed to make these things themselves.
I don't believe that this is how third party features actually affect SE in the majority of cases, and I don't believe for a moment that they're intended to motivate SE to update the game. If a tool is made available in a way that's considered acceptable by the majority of the community, most people will just use that instead of asking SE for a replica. And when SE does provide a replica, it's often ignored by the community in favour of their third party versions that have more features, while simultaneously being held as an endorsement for the third party software creators that are explicitly condemned in the ToS. Of course SE's feature development is going to parallel third party tool development at times - they're both working on the same game for the same set of users!


"cheaters" "cheat" because they have played the game for many many years and are annoyed with stupid long grinds or are used to their easier means of doing things (that don't really hurt anyone else much), most windower addons are "cheating"
They hurt me every day that I play this game.

Off the top of my head, these are some disadvantages I have compared to a significant proportion of the population:

I don't have access to an arbitrarily sized set of enhanced macros that include conditional logic. This is a massive deal. I can elaborate in excruciating detail if necessary.
Everyone on my screen blinks when they swap weapons. A lot of people don't lockstyle because they have some means of not blinking client side, so I have to look at everyone in starting gear. <stal> breaks under certain conditions that I'm willing to share if necessary.
I can't see through HP cloaks to know when NMs are about to use Catastrophic Move X.
I can't tell when my job abilities and spells come off recast at a glance. I have to dedicate precious macro space to a /recast macro that I have to hammer.
I don't have advanced chat filters, so I can't clearly see what's happening to who and when.
I can't play more than 3 or 4 jobs because I don't have equipset space.
Even if I could, manually moving 80+ pieces of gear between bags on every job change is horrible and discourages me from changing jobs if I can help it.
Ditto using porter moogles for any gear I regularly use.
I don't have access to an improved graphics system. Graphics lag affects UI lag, and when it's bad, controlling the game becomes a whole new battle.
I can't distinguish between half of the identically-iconed buffs I have at any given time.
I've seen some of the enhanced text commands people have when they hilariously mess up typing them. I don't have those.
I have to manually faff around if I want to convert accolades and sparks to gil. Every. Single. Time.
I can't control my own personal army of functional (read: non-trust) characters to complete any content of my choice at a whim.
I can't move when I'm using job abilities or raising.
I can't automatically perform action X based on condition Y.
I'm affected by knockback.


Because most of the population use at least some of these things, SE's feedback for new development assumes that I am just as capable.

Please, explain to me how I am not MASSIVELY disadvantaged compared to other players who routinely have access to all of this, and a whole lot more stuff that I probably don't even know about.

I know some of these seem trivial - moving gear between inventories? Porter moogles? Converting sparks? Yes, those things are trivial, but there are reasons that people have automated those things. They're frustrating to do with the interface we have, and we have to do them a lot. When all my PLD gear is in a porter moogle and the mog case, and I have to manually copy my equipsets back out of a spreadsheet every time I want to play it, I'm not very keen to play PLD very often.

More impactfully, enhanced macros are a game changer. I've seen what people can do. I can never replicate it, and I'll never be as good as they can be.

I'm sorry but I have little sympathy for people perceive themselves to be above the "stupid long grinds". I've played for many years - I know how the grinds work, and I want some things to be easier. I've heard all the arguments in the "But I Have A Job Now" category. The difference is that I don't unilaterally decide that my experience of the game is more important than everyone else's.


For the "cheaters", and keep in mind "cheating" is a fairly minor thing in ffxi. I've played f2p mmorpgs, you have no idea how bad it can be on other games.
I mean, that does scare me a little, particularly as tolerance to cheating is increasing in FFXI. But ultimately I'm not interested in other games. "It's worse elsewhere" is a poor justification to mess things up for people.


If you are mad about "botted" shields, this is a failure of content. Make the shields less of a boring grind or add a harder way to get them
I absolutely agree with you that the content is terrible. However, SE will never make it less ridiculous, and it's because people are already making them by the hundred. SE sees the shield creation statistics are fine, so the process won't change. People willing to cheat couldn't be bothered to give critical feedback, or put in the work (admittedly absurd work) themselves, or even just not make them. They've reinforced the problem that they've tried to solve by cheating. They have affected the development of the game by cheating.

I'm not a brainless optimist that assumes that everything that's broken (like the shield creation process) will be magically fixed. But it certainly isn't going to be fixed now. Cheaters have locked any sane person out of the ability to make a shield. This means that legitimate players are even more dependent on cheaters for gear that is now common enough to be the new standard.

This logic applies equally to job point acquisition. If people are willing to auto-grind for absurd quantities of job points, SE sees that people are actually doing the insane tasks they set. The next challenge has to be bigger. The numbers increase. The cheaters come up with a new hack, while everyone else sighs and trudges back down to Dho Gates.

The statistics are collected. The new normal is even more informed by cheaters. And so the cycle continues.


Lets say the STFU listen to you guys and take a zero tolerance policy, what will happen?
It's entirely possible that you're more informed about the consequences of rooting out RMT than I am. I'd be interested to see where your information comes from. I agree that you can't root out all RMT, but at the moment there seems to be zero control over it.

RMT aren't acting benevolently towards players by being unobtrusive. They're doing literally the easiest thing they can do to get their gil. Setting a bot off in Ceizak and coming back a week later to a mound of gil is less labour intensive than doing actual difficult content or paying someone to develop and distribute malware for them. They aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts to support the game and stay out of people's way. They're operating on the principle of minimum effort, maximum gain.

I honestly don't know what will happen if the bots are squashed - no-one does - but I can't recall a time when it was this bad. I don't remember entire zones crawling with bot armies that subsequently fleehack and poshack completely openly around one of the most populated zones in the game (West Adoulin). I don't remember Dynamis zones crawling with THF/DNC bots that run around in circles trying to proc statues with steps 24/7. And even if it's been this bad before, that doesn't make it okay!

And this isn't just some shady business operation - these are also players of the game that just can't be bothered to work for what they want. I've read the forums on certain community sites. I've seen how clever these people think they are, on both sides of the RMT operation.

Obviously, if you're correct in your assessment of how RMT get when they're challenged, then there are some unpleasant consequences for slamming RMT. But that doesn't mean we should let them get away with whatever they like. If we really have to settle for some middle ground - and frankly I don't believe that we do - then that middle ground shouldn't be "do nothing".

Sorry, that got a little excessive. I'm fully prepared to accept a TL;DR on this one.

[Sirmarki]

Ultimately, permitted or not, the things so many players are using do not harm you. Again, I listed a bunch of common things people use, and you have tried to tell me they are harming you but haven't demonstrated any way in which they are doing so.

Read Jerbob's reply to Pixela regarding their cheating comment, and you will find all of the answers you seek.

[Divaud]

We can quibble about which add-ons do or don't make a difference, how much difference, and whether they should be baked in to ffxi or not at this point.

All valid discussion topics.

Some of us however would prefer none of that be left up to question. I don't like having to question whether the purchase I just made was a legit 100% vanilla crafter, or someone who botted their shield.

I don't like having to question if the Delve items on the AH were from legit parties or 1 dude multi-boxing.

We can go down the list of "what if's" but I think the point is clear.

Again, we can quibble about how things do or don't negatively affect us on the aggregate, but it frankly shouldn't be a question in the first place.

I would appreciate being able to log in knowing that everyone on the server with me is playing the same game as me, with the same tools.

And if I had to pay extra for that assurance? Absolutely.

[Alhanelem]

In battle, even the most minor benefit is important because they all stack up. Removing this irritation, adding this extra feature, putting that UI element over there so it's next to something else... at what point does that transition from meaningless to meaningful? At what point does that loss at 1% become a win?Making the UI readable does not give me an advantage in battle in any way. It only makes me able to play at your level.

Making information more easily accessible doesn't either. The game is slow paced enough that you can press through the million menuis this game has to get the information, it's just annoying.

Ultimately there have been inequalities throughout the game's history, since PC users had inherent performance advantages over PS2 even with zero tools. Trying to make a case that such tools which don't modify gameplay give me a tiny advantage are absurd. It's not even measurable.



They hurt me every day that I play this game. I really don't like this air of pompous righteousness you project. It does not harm you in any way if I use a tool to make the game screen easier to read, it does not harm you if I put an XP count on the screen so I don't have to press through a couple menu buttons to check my TNL and back out of said menu again. Most MMOs today have customizable UIs and you can make things bigger or smaller, add or remove elements, configure how they work, to your personal tastes, and nobody on the planet playing these games sees that as harming any other player. Many other MMOs, even WoW, which didn't come out that long after XI, initially had very set-in-place UIs but have gradually improved them. FFXI's UI has seen minimal improvement/updating over the years, probably the biggest change they ever made was adding the second log window feature (and I might argue the context menu in the full screen log).

Arguably the reason the game's combat is slow compared to most MMOs is because it's so slow to navigate the game's clumsy menus. I love the game, but I do so in spite of the user inteface that fights me at every turn.




Some of us however would prefer none of that be left up to question. I don't like having to question whether the purchase I just made was a legit 100% vanilla crafter, or someone who botted their shield. In defense of the tool creators, they generally didn't intend for any of this and don't condone cheating. Things like the medal duping and voidwatch exploit were possible because of security flaws in the game that anyone with the proper knowledge and skill could have exploited.

But tying back to the topic at hand, ultimately every player deserves an economy free of item duping and RMT-farmed gil, and I'm against the idea of creating a special space for this- They simply have to stop half-___ing (I really can't think of a sanitized alternative to that term...) it: either devote more time to keeping the game clean or just give up entirely. I'd really like SE to demonstrate that integrity is worth something and not let the fact that a client is paying them money get in the way of them receiving punishment for breaking the rules.

They absolutely should not capitulate and create a "safe space" and leave the rest of the population who doesn't feel like they should have to pay more for a cleaner experience (since they didn't have to for up to the last 18 years) stuck in an increasingly corrupt environment. Those players are more likely to just leave than transfer, do you really want to see more legit players quit?

[Jerbob]

Some of us however would prefer none of that be left up to question. I don't like having to question whether the purchase I just made was a legit 100% vanilla crafter, or someone who botted their shield.
I agree with almost everything you've said, but I don't believe we should have to pay more for a single policed server - that should be a basic part of the service.


Making the UI readable does not give me an advantage in battle in any way. It only makes me able to play at your level.
As I stated, I hadn't considered the game's lack of accessibility options in my previous assessment of UI-related tools, and I apologise for that. If someone is using such tools as accessibility measures to allow them to actually interface with the game, my personal view is that it's acceptable, and I absolutely support you being able to access the game.


The game is slow paced enough
Sometimes, yes - if I'm working on job points or farming wild onions. I'm less inclined to be tolerant of this viewpoint when I'm the sole WHM in an alliance of melee DDs flailing wildly at Kin while it spams back to back Interference, which is something I had the dubious pleasure of experiencing on Monday. Yeah, that's bad tactics (and not tactics I'd endorse), but someone with the appropriate tools can perform better in that environment than I can. That's an advantage. That's turning a 1% loss into a win. That's cheating.

Having to do annoying things is distracting. If I'm playing a role where I have to focus, that's detrimental. Perhaps only to a tiny extent, but it all adds up, and the majority of people who use tools don't just use one or two.


I really don't like this air of pompous righteousness you project
It's not pompous righteousness. I'm frustrated, and I'm angry, because I don't like the air of legitimacy people try to cultivate around cheating.

I am angry that people around me feel that they can flaunt the rules and then have the audacity to insult me for being annoyed.

I am angry that I can never reach the same level of capability as other people, no matter how hard I try, because they feel that they're above the rules.

I am angry that the development of a game that I enjoy is being influenced by people who can't play fair and then in some cases go on to think it's funny.

I've provided a list, off the top of my head, of some tools that significantly widen the gap of capability in this game. I've done so before, and I've yet to see anyone successfully dispute that I am at a disadvantage as a result.

I've acknowledged that certain UI interface additions are significantly less damaging than some of the other, extremely prevelant tools, and I support your ability to use UI enhancements for accessibility reasons. But this is like me accepting that dropping a banana skin is hugely less damaging to the environment than pumping mercury into the sea. Both acts are on the same continuum - messing up our environment - but they're at completely opposite ends.

I've seen the threads on community sites for game updates. One of the first things people talk about is the tools they use breaking. They find the game (and I quote) "completely unplayable" without them. That's not something people say if they're not gaining some advantage from a tool.

I'm sorry that you feel I'm being pompous and righteous, but I don't think I should have to apologise for feeling that I'm right to call out people who defend cheating when I've experienced the negative side effects, day in and day out, for years. It's not like I have to put up with this only occasionally. I party with people using tools using equipment I've obtained with the help of people using tools. I'm faced with an action house stocked with items generated by tools. I play a game where the difficulty bar is set by people with tools. Even the gil I've earned has likely been generated by bots, and then possibly been passed on to me directly through a person buying gil. Tool use is in every facet of the game that I interact with, every day. I think I am justified in being angry about that, and I think I'm justified in wanting it changed.


Most MMOs today have customizable UI
That's true, but this one doesn't. I recognise that the static, janky UI is a pain sometimes, and that it should have been improved, but we're all stuck with it. When someone decides to unilaterally improve their own experience, they gain an advantage. Perhaps it's relatively innocuous, like the ones you have suggested. Perhaps it's not, like displaying recast timers.


I love the game, but I do so in spite of the user inteface that fights me at every turn.
We're in absolute agreement here. Especially when the UI becomes unresponsive due to graphics lag. It's a complete nightmare when macros just decide you've not pressed them. And as someone who plays WHM, that usually means someone dies. It's hard not to feel bad about that.

I don't want to accuse you of discussing in bad faith, but the examples you select in your reponse are examples that I've already accepted have a low (but not zero) impact on game fairness. I also agree with you with regards to accessibility. But the list I provided earlier contains a subset of tools people use that clearly affect their ability to interact with the game to a far greater extent. These are the kinds of things I'm focusing on because their impact is the highest. Particularly with macroing, their use by the community has become the standard. Go to any community site and you'll find next to nothing about using in-game macros - it's all based with the assumption that you're using tools. These tools are vastly more capable than what I have. I don't know how this is defensible.


they generally didn't intend for any of this and don't condone cheating.
Tool authors update their tools with every game update and distribute them to the community immediately. They aren't providing people with an interesting piece of programming that they can study. They intend for their tools to be used. I'm not sure how that's not condoning cheating.

Specifically with regards to cheating to create HQ items, perhaps the authors of the widespread tools don't condone it, but the tolerance of the average player for cheating in this game has built and built over the years, and the tool creators have to take some responsibility for that. I know that some of these exploits aren't necessarily new, but the community is far more willing to turn a blind eye now than they did before, and that's because of the creep of tool usage and its normalisation. When people condone crafting cheating because it lowers prices, there's something wrong in the community. And I've seen people's reactions on community sites - some think it's hilarious, and that they're very grown up to be so faux-pragmatic about it.

Beyond this point I think I agree with you for the remainder of your post. I agree that SE should police the whole game. All the servers should be safe servers, not one.

[Divaud]

In defense of the tool creators, they generally didn't intend for any of this and don't condone cheating. Things like the medal duping and voidwatch exploit were possible because of security flaws in the game that anyone with the proper knowledge and skill could have exploited.

But tying back to the topic at hand, ultimately every player deserves an economy free of item duping and RMT-farmed gil, and I'm against the idea of creating a special space for this- They simply have to stop half-___ing (I really can't think of a sanitized alternative to that term...) it: either devote more time to keeping the game clean or just give up entirely. I'd really like SE to demonstrate that integrity is worth something and not let the fact that a client is paying them money get in the way of them receiving punishment for breaking the rules.

They absolutely should not capitulate and create a "safe space" and leave the rest of the population who doesn't feel like they should have to pay more for a cleaner experience (since they didn't have to for up to the last 18 years) stuck in an increasingly corrupt environment. Those players are more likely to just leave than transfer, do you really want to see more legit players quit?

I'm reading your posts and wondering if you are just unaware of how ubiquitous some "tools" are, or if you truly think they have little to no effect? I can understand your perspective how some tools actually make the game accessible for some people due to things they can't help (eyesight/disability/etc)

But lets look at one of the most prevalent "tools": Gearswap

Are you of the opinion that it is simply a QoL tool?

Because I'd argue it quite literally fits the definition of cheating. It allows you to do things you otherwise are not able to do. The game has a 1 second cooldown between equipment swaps yet this tool circumvents that.

Where do you stand on that issue?

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

Today, the first 10 mins spent in game was adding names to /blist. These names are unworthy of a millisecond of my or anyone else's attention because they was obvious bot entities polluting /yell with offers to sell capacity points.

Do we need an officially sanctioned forum topic per server to report these publicly for Square-Enix to take notice?

[Sirmarki]

Today, the first 10 mins spent in game was adding names to /blist. These names are unworthy of a millisecond of my or anyone else's attention because they was obvious bot entities polluting /yell with offers to sell capacity

I gave up with that, with a limited 100 space on the /blist, I had to remove all of those in order to make space for the trolls and mercs. I then have to repeat the process every few days, it is just impossible to keep up:

https://i.imgur.com/d3zOzcC.jpg

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

That's very true if you're attempting to squelch mercs.

[Jerbob]

You should very much make use of the addon that blocks all of that.
This is an excellent example of seemingly innocent addons potentially affecting the game to the detriment of legitimate players!

Before everyone starts hammering "reply with quote", in this unique instance I'm not going to claim that people using the addon are cheating and gaining an advantage in the game (be sure to bookmark, that won't happen often). I also understand the desire to block out this nonsense as quickly and efficiently as possible, because I am also sick of it.

However, if only a very small number of people complain about this nonsense, because most of them can't see it, SE aren't going to update their own chat filter to block it. Voila - addons having a material effect on game development to the detriment of everyone else!

Yeah, unfortunately they probably won't do that anyway, I'll readily accept that. But if the majority are using tools to block it, they definitely won't. And, of course, everyone who's completely oblivious to the spam is much less likely to complain about the infestation of RMT to the STF. Again, I'm not claiming that'd cause SE to fix the problem, but by ignoring it they definitely won't.

I'm not gonna get ranty about this one, but I do think it's an excellent example of a principle that applies to a lot of the cheating that takes place.

[Soraii]

I've been complaining about the garbage in yell since yell became a feature.

I've mentioned a hundred or more times that blocking people does nothing (because of limitations and alternate accounts), but blocking words is effective. The best way to get square to do something is to show them it works, so they can steal the idea with minimal effort.

[Jerbob]

The best way to get square to do something is to show them it works, so they can steal the idea with minimal effort.
It's not rocket science or a new concept. They don't need to steal any complicated idea. They already have the framework in place for /tell filters. It's a little bit arrogant for us as players to assume that SE needs tool authors to instruct them how to apply a regular expression.

What they do need is for people en-masse to highlight that something needs to be done. And again, I'm not saying that always works, because it doesn't. But not saying anything is worse.

The idea that tool usage is the best way to spur on game development is nonsense. People who are using tools don't need SE to create those tools again because they already have the functionality they want. When those people are in the majority, any effort from the minority to ask for features is going to be ignored simply by rule of numbers.

[Alhanelem]

I'm reading your posts and wondering if you are just unaware of how ubiquitous some "tools" are, or if you truly think they have little to no effect? I can understand your perspective how some tools actually make the game accessible for some people due to things they can't help (eyesight/disability/etc)

But lets look at one of the most prevalent "tools": Gearswap

Are you of the opinion that it is simply a QoL tool?

Because I'd argue it quite literally fits the definition of cheating. It allows you to do things you otherwise are not able to do. The game has a 1 second cooldown between equipment swaps yet this tool circumvents that.

Where do you stand on that issue?
"gearswap" doesn't really do anything you couldn't achieve in some fashion with the game alone (at least, not anymore). Before the advent of gear sets and switching to them with macros, you'd have a point, but not any more. the gear set feature is by far the best new feature they've ever added to the game. Does that tool make it easier? Yes. Can the things it does be achieved without it? Yes, most definitely. From my view it fits squarely into QoL (That said: I've never once used it because I just don't see it as necessary). It rarely comes into play that that cooldown or lack thereof has any impact on anything, I'd challenge you to find an actual measurable difference that extends beyond margin of error. I'm also pretty confident the minimum gear swap delay is for server performance reasons and not game-play balance reasons. It kind of toes the line. But I'd want to see proof that gs makes anything that wouldn't be possible possible, or has a measurable effect on making hard content easier (provable dps increase outside of margin of error, etc) before I would entertain the idea of it being cheating.

I'm well aware of how prevalent external tools are. I'd wager even a majority of the population uses one particular program for one reason or another. But most of these tools weren't created to cheat, they were created to make our lives easier by mitigating the flaws in FFXI's UI and technical limitations.

I'm also well aware of the prevalence of people actually cheating- speed/pos hacking, exploiting exploits for duping (which at least some of those have been addressed), etc). But these things are (or should be easily detectable by SE, as you have to manipulate information that's being sent to the server to do them, and they do punish this, though it seems like they can't keep up. But as far as I'm concerned, stuff like this is a different ball game entirely

For me, the game is nostalgia at this point. If SE isn't going to fix/update their UI and finds a way to start banning people for things like putting the HP/MP/TP bars on the screen where I can see them, I really don't HAVE to play this game. It would be unfortunate, but there's always FFXIV, or some other game made by not-SE.

I stand by my feeling that UI tweaks are not cheating. If they were, you'd have to ban most of the otherwise legitimate players in this game, and wow would have to ban literally everybody, as well as numerous other MMOs.

FFXIV is still one of the very few MMOs that offers a UI customizable enough that external tools and mods aren't necessary for anyone.

[Alhanelem]

It's not rocket science or a new concept. They don't need to steal any complicated idea. They already have the framework in place for /tell filters. It's a little bit arrogant for us as players to assume that SE needs tool authors to instruct them how to apply a regular expression.

What they do need is for people en-masse to highlight that something needs to be done. And again, I'm not saying that always works, because it doesn't. But not saying anything is worse.

The idea that tool usage is the best way to spur on game development is nonsense. People who are using tools don't need SE to create those tools again because they already have the functionality they want. When those people are in the majority, any effort from the minority to ask for features is going to be ignored simply by rule of numbers.
It's harder than you think to create a filter that suppresses RMT without also suppressing some amount of legitimate chat. And this is an important consideration because you won't know if your message wasn't sent.

Also: Yes, tool users may already have the functionality they want, but they can still encourage them to make that functionality available to everyone. Not everyone is so selfish.

[Sirmarki]

"gearswap" doesn't really do anything you couldn't achieve in some fashion with the game alone (at least, not anymore)

History has says otherwise on that matter.

While I understand your need for a clearer/more attractive UI and your justification for it. The problem is this:
When you have users determining what is right or wrong to use, you end up with blurred lines and different opinions (as we can see here). Any third party option outside of the native format opens up the possibility of cheating, kind of like Pandora's box.
Especially when people are able to initiate automation by the use of scripts/code that wouldn't otherwise belong in the game, and never would be added as a native feature.

The other problem is with what I have mentioned above is people reporting technical difficulties on the forums, that are likely to be caused by third party software. Said person will fill out a bug/tech-report, but not mention then external program being used giving SE a massive headache, and of course, none of that stuff will be Technically supported here.

I worked for a large IT support company once and we were only permitted to support what we were instructed to support, any kind of interaction from third-party software would be a case of referring them to the vendor of that software.

[Jerbob]

Can the things it does be achieved without it? Yes, most definitely.
I would like to know how to do the following things without third party tools:

Use Fast Cast gear to reduce the casting time of spells that aren't already extremely long, like Raise, while also landing the spell in potency/etc gear. This one is very significant.
Use obis and other situation-specific latent effect gear without having to create entire additional macro sets, books and equipsets for every possible combination.
Have my macros operate differently depending on my subjob, my current HP, MP and TP, etc etc.
Use more augmented items of a certain type than I have equip-compatible inventories, or store these items in the same inventory
Switch more than 6 pieces of gear (realistically 3-5) more than once per second.
Have my gear swap as expected when I accidentally press two macros too close together.
Use /equipset in conjunction with /equip and not end up with flip-flop behaviour.
Lock equipment slots so that I don't need entirely new, almost identical macro books for when I melee and when I don't, or when I use a capacity points cape and when I don't.
Use Quickcast gear and also be sure I can land spells at full potency.
Use a job to its full potential without locking myself out of doing the same for other jobs due to a lack of equipsets
Equip sets with the right amount of haste or dual wield based on my buffs without having to dedicate entire macro pallets and equipset pages to each scenario
Replicate a mode toggle function (another massive deal)
Cast spells from the menu in appropriate gear instead of the macro bar in situations where the latter is struggling due to UI lag
Cast spells using the console in time-sensitive contexts AND in the appropriate gear
Automatically reapply non-overwritable buffs without manually cancelling them

These are a few things that I can recall off the top of my head. And I don't use this nonsense, so I obviously don't know the full scope of what someone can do with it.

Some of these things are a bigger deal than others. Some are huge. All of them present an advantage that tool users have over legitimate players.

I understand the appeal of referring to such things as "quality of life" when FFXI's UI struggles under the demands we place on it, but when those "QoL" features have a direct impact on someone's performance that grants them an advantage over others, that is cheating.

Ultimately I can't give you numbers because I don't use the tools I'd need to produce the numbers. But I don't see how it's possible for someone familiar with those tools to look at the list above and suggest that at least some, if not all, of those examples make their characters more capable. And this is just one tool.

Just look at the ubiquity of the terms "pre-cast" and "mid-cast" in all contexts where spells are involved, even ones like Cure. I can do a pre-cast for my Raise spells, certainly, but for Cure? Absolutely impossible. That means my Cure spells land in hybrid sets that have to cap fast cast as well as every other variable relevant to Cure - there's no way my cures will be as good. Same goes for nukes - I sacrifice casting time, or I sacrifice potency. Tool users get both.

And, to anticipate a response, this example of fast casting at full potency may seem trivial - it's only shaving off a little time per cast, right? - but all of these cheats need to be considered in the wider context of the game - what they actually enable. Black mages that are able to -ja down Omen mob packs and take nearly no damage / lose MP via manawall because their -ja are nearly instant and they auto-swap back into -DT gear almost instantly? I just can't do that.


Also: Yes, tool users may already have the functionality they want, but they can still encourage them to make that functionality available to everyone. Not everyone is so selfish.
Does that ever happen, though? I don't think I've ever seen someone who uses gearswap come to the official forums and ask that the things be made equal. After all, their friends already have the same advantages they have.

[Pixela]

Switch more than 6 pieces of gear (realistically 3-5) more than once per second.

You can do this in the game now. You can swap every piece of gear in one macro, you can have a macro that will swap every slot then wait 1 and swap every slot again now. Use gear sets in the menu, you can call a specific gear set in a macro line.


Use Fast Cast gear to reduce the casting time of spells that aren't already extremely long, like Raise, while also landing the spell in potency/etc gear. This one is very significant.
Use obis and other situation-specific latent effect gear without having to create entire additional macro sets, books and equipsets for every possible combination.

The addition of this gear makes very little sense to me, then you realize that the developers intended you have a tradeoff. As in, if you want fast cast you aren't supposed to get the potency boost. Gearswap gets around that and lets you have both but that wasn't the intention of the gear.

It sucks really since this one addon gives players a massive boost that others simply never achieve.

[Jerbob]

You can do this in the game now. You can swap every piece of gear in one macro, you can have a macro that will swap every slot then wait 1 and swap every slot again now. Use gear sets in the menu, you can call a specific gear set in a macro line.
I was trying to illustrate that I can't do this more quickly than 1/second, which is the limit enforced by equipsets and results in several frustrating limitations. Nevertheless, I appreciate you drawing my attention to this in case I didn't know.


the developers intended you have a tradeoff. As in, if you want fast cast you aren't supposed to get the potency boost. Gearswap gets around that and lets you have both but that wasn't the intention of the gear.

It sucks really since this one addon gives players a massive boost that others simply never achieve.
I agree that that was probably SE's intention. However, people have been doing this for so long that the game's feedback-based development now assumes people can have their cake and eat it. Whether that's SE's intent or not, it's baked into the capabilities of the majority of players and thus must be reflected in the challenges they set for us. And I agree with you - it sucks - though I don't believe this is the only addon that has the same sort of effect on the game.

[Divaud]

"gearswap" doesn't really do anything you couldn't achieve in some fashion with the game alone (at least, not anymore). Before the advent of gear sets and switching to them with macros, you'd have a point, but not any more. the gear set feature is by far the best new feature they've ever added to the game. Does that tool make it easier? Yes. Can the things it does be achieved without it? Yes, most definitely. From my view it fits squarely into QoL (That said: I've never once used it because I just don't see it as necessary). It rarely comes into play that that cooldown or lack thereof has any impact on anything, I'd challenge you to find an actual measurable difference that extends beyond margin of error. I'm also pretty confident the minimum gear swap delay is for server performance reasons and not game-play balance reasons. It kind of toes the line. But I'd want to see proof that gs makes anything that wouldn't be possible possible, or has a measurable effect on making hard content easier (provable dps increase outside of margin of error, etc) before I would entertain the idea of it being cheating.


Before I give examples i'd simply ask; if it offers no advantage why is it so much preferred over the in-game equipset function and why do so many use it and suggest it to new players?

Couple examples off the top of my head:

Cure spells being able to be cast as fast as possible with max potency. This can't be done with equipsets due to the 1 sec cooldown.

Gearswap lets you cast cure 6 in .4 seconds, at max potency. Equipsets the best you can do is 1 second at max potency.

Same for cure 4 and 5, gearswap you can cast them in .5 seconds, with equipsets 1 second minimum (and often times if you are at exactly 1 second cast time, the equipset may not take effect in time.

You may claim you don't see how that has a measurable affect, but again i'd say if it didn't then why would people do it? And if you don't see how casting a cure 6 in .4 seconds vs 1 full second has a measurable affect, i'd be curious as to what content you are doing, because the stuff i'm doing (especially solo) that .6 seconds can mean dead or alive.

Another example would be multiple magic bursts. Depending which spells you are bursting with you can fall into the same trap of not having your equipment take effect in time for the second spell and miss out on the gear taking effect.

When that gear is for instance the Ea Attire Set which boasts a 30% Magic burst bonus (1 and 2), i'm sure you can see how to gear not being calculated for the cast can make a significant difference.

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, I mainly play mage jobs so that's where it sticks out to me.

Does this all mean there is some content that cant be done without Gearswap? No, not necessarily. But it certainly helps people accomplish things at a much higher and more successful rate than others.

And if it didn't, people wouldn't be using it.

[Alhanelem]

I was trying to illustrate that I can't do this more quickly than 1/second, which is the limit enforced by equipsets and results in several frustrating limitations. Nevertheless, I appreciate you drawing my attention to this in case I didn't know.I've legitimately never found this to be a significant issue. It can't really be a lot faster than this given the server update rate.



Use obis and other situation-specific latent effect gear without having to create entire additional macro sets, books and equipsets for every possible combination.
Have my macros operate differently depending on my subjob, my current HP, MP and TP, etc etc.

This stuff can be done without tools by just using more macros. Not saying GS doesn't make it easier, because it does, but the goal of the above points can still be achieved without GS.

Use more augmented items of a certain type than I have equip-compatible inventories, or store these items in the same inventoryYou got me there, but I question the number of people for which this is actually an issue (or SHOULD be an issue). I suppose if you want to be a hyper min max perfectionist, you could make a cape for every ability weaponskill and/or spell but that's just ridiculous overkill and not in any way necessary. I do have more than one cape for some jobs, but for others, it really just does not matter enough. I can't imagine legitimately needing more than five (4 wardrobes and inventory) for any job.



Have my gear swap as expected when I accidentally press two macros too close together.This is probably a bug, honestly, not a design decision. Or a more legitimate tangible result of the 1 second limitation- but this can also be avoided by simply not pressing wrong buttons. A player skill issue, more than anything else.


Use /equipset in conjunction with /equip and not end up with flip-flop behaviour.Have never had an issue like this, but maybe you can give examples that would occur regularly for ordinary players and not just the top 0.1%.




Automatically reapply non-overwritable buffs without manually cancelling themThe point is that you can do these things manually without tools, so saying "can do them automatically with tools" doesn't negate the point. The point is, you can still perform these tasks without tools, it just might be less convenient.

These tools are used, in the majority of cases, because it makes their in-game lives better, not because of any perceived gameplay advantage like "more dps" or some kind of instant win button or what-have-you. i.e. virtually no-one is doing this with the objective of harming another player or to make themselves better than another player- the focus is entirely on improving one's quality-of-life experience.

[Jerbob]

I've legitimately never found this to be a significant issue. It can't really be a lot faster than this given the server update rate.
My understanding is that people routinely use what is effectively a /wait with 0.5 seconds - often significantly less - quite successfully. 0.5s may seem irrelevant, but it allows whole new sets of spells to be pre-cast with fastcast gear. It's significant because it allows whole new sets of equipment to be used with spells.


This stuff can be done without tools by just using more macros.
Theoretically yes, but let's consider an example of a job that makes heavy use of obis - BLM. If I want to use obis, I have to make completely different sets of macros for each nuke I want to cast. Let's say I have macros just for tier III - VI nukes, and -ga III - ja AoE nukes, of all elements - restricting some options, but not too unreasonably. That's eight sets of macros. I have to have both Stone >> Thunder freenuke and Stone >> Thunder magic burst macros on each set. Now I have to duplicate that entirely for obi use. That's 16 sets of macros. Switches to those sets barely fit on my "home" macro pallet - completely infeasible if I need some of the other bread-and-butter mage macros available, as well as switches to other groups of spells such as self-enhancing, enfeebles, cures.

Certainly, there are ways to do this, such as stacked macro set switches, but they all involve flipping through two, three or more sets to find the spells I want. Each set adds a delay, and each set flip can fail to complete properly if activated too quickly in succession. This all adds up to be a noticeable inconvenience. Add in the variable lag of the interface caused by graphic lag, which makes the necessary delay in macro presses itself variable, and the chances of making a mistake with stacked macro switches increases. And if I poorly judge this variable timing as WHM, and it takes me a couple of seconds to resolve, someone dies.

This is one example where streamlining with tools improves performance. Now add in all the other little tricks that people can do with macros and it builds up to become a very significant overall increase to proficiency.


You got me there, but I question the number of people for which this is actually an issue (or SHOULD be an issue).
This is what I mean when I mention a ceiling in effectiveness. For some tool use I can usually make do in some sort of hacky, less effective, error prone way. I'm still not as good as the cheaters, but I can cope. But I can't be the best - it's impossible. Part of the fun of this game is squeezing the most one can out of everything a job can do, even if it's not what the job is designed for. I know that's not something everyone enjoys, and I absolutely respect that, but the fact remains that someone who is cheating can absolutely do things I just can't. That's absolutely unfair.

I would also argue that no one person should be in a position to judge what "should" be an issue in terms of trying to optimise one's performance. We all play differently, and that's great, but asserting that someone is playing the optimisation game "too much" is no different to someone condemning another player because their main enjoyment of the game comes from HELM activities.


but this can also be avoided by simply not pressing wrong buttons. A player skill issue, more than anything else.
I agree that it's a player skill and dexterity issue, but it's a skill that cheaters don't need to possess to the same level. They've removed a skill requirement from a certain level of play. That's cheating.


Have never had an issue like this, but maybe you can give examples that would occur regularly for ordinary players and not just the top 0.1%.
Firstly, even if cheating only benefits the top 0.1% then it's still cheating. I'd argue it's almost worse; when new content is released, it often caters to the most proficient players. If they cheat to increase the ceiling, then only the cheaters get to access that content (or some part of it).

Secondly, let's revisit the BLM example. If I have an equipset for nuking, and a Quanpur Necklace that specifically enhances Stone spells, then I have two options: I waste two equipsets, one for Stone and one for other nukes, or I /equip the necklace in the Stone macro after the equipset. If I cast two Stone spells consecutively, one will /equip the necklace and one won't. I'm not sure why, but this is how it works.

This is a problem for any spell that uses niche, spell-specific or situation-specific gear. Cursna is another example, as are obis. I can either sacrifice precious equipsets, which are limited, or I can deal with half my spells landing with reduced potency, or I can use another equipset in-between to "reset" the process, adding at least 1s of delay. Or I can cheat with a tool, removing this entire layer of complexity.

You could certainly argue that this is a bug that needs fixing, and I'd agree, but I'd also question why it hasn't been widely reported to SE. The answer is that so many people cheat that they don't even know this bug exists.


The point is that you can do these things manually without tools, so saying "can do them automatically with tools" doesn't negate the point. The point is, you can still perform these tasks without tools, it just might be less convenient.
I have tried to argue that convenience affects performance, and that lots of small conveniences significantly affect performance. Anything that I can replicate without tools is more difficult, more time consuming, or more resource intensive for me. In a challenging battle, time and difficulty matter. Without tools, my resources are limited. And, of course, there are things I just can't do at all.


virtually no-one is doing this with the objective of harming another player or to make themselves better than another player- the focus is entirely on improving one's quality-of-life experience.
Let's assume that you are correct and that no-one is using tools (including gearswap) deliberately to enhance their performance. I absolutely don't believe this is true, given what I have consistently read on community sites, but I can't prove it in a meaningful way, beyond inviting people to check these community sites.

Whether someone intends to damage the game or be better than a legitimate player is irrelevant. The consequences of their actions are what matters. First and foremost, making the game easier is cheating because it's unfair, and I'd argue that's reason enough to condemn people who are cheating. If that's not an important consideration, however, then consider the effect on game development. When the top tier of players are all cheating, the top challenges of the game will cater to the cheaters. When the majority of the players are all cheating, the majority of challenges in the game will cater to the cheaters. This game becomes a game driven by the achievements of cheaters. Those that don't cheat have to compete in an environment that is the product of cheating. That is absolutely unfair, whether the cheaters intend it or not.