At this point will FFXIV collapse if all mods and third party tools disappear?

I remember reading somewhere that the devs are constantly implementing modded QoL stuff that modders have put into the game first, like what with the checkmarks next to collected minions and rolls?

Is this a surprise? Black ops 3 is a very old game, but there are still a good number of people playing it because treyarch allowed people to mod it and create custom maps. Se is smart to keep one eye closed on this because community can create a lot of content for them. I consider letting people getting away with 3rd party tool part of the game's feature.

can "we" actually say that a significant portion of players use mods? where is this appraisal from?

can some leave, I am sure they would, likely clear up some of the housing situation. personally, coming from a game that mods were an absolute requirement to play (WoW) coming here was refreshing, and I doubt I am alone in that. WoW is also very adept at "stealing" the work of others to enhance their game with new "features", so SE doing it is hardly a first in the industry. the mock indignation of them doing it is hardly worthwhile or newsworthy. but shock and indignation is the calling card of the OP.

but without the actual information that the OP is apparently privy to, it is really difficult to determine what portion of the playerbase would leave. I am more concerned about the progress towards a solo game as opposed to a scorched earth policy on mods.

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

Is this a surprise? Black ops 3 is a very old game, but there are still a good number of people playing it because treyarch allowed people to mod it and create custom maps. Se is smart to keep one eye closed on this because community can create a lot of content for them. I consider letting people getting away with 3rd party tool part of the game's feature.

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Meanwhile a fair portion of the players do not even have access to said 'illegal tools' because they play on console.

Should console players be getting 'removed' from roleplay because they don't have the illegal ToS breaking tools that PC users do?

Should console players be getting disadvantaged by raid tools that PC users can use?

This is an issue the community caused for themselves by being too heavily reliant on the cheating software available to them. If ACT and every other RP mods were removed from the game, and the players quit because they can no longer play, Its either:
A) Skill issue, get good and dont rely on mods
B) The game was not meant for you in the first place if you cant RP with vanilla game assets. Go play IMVU.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

can "we" actually say that a significant portion of players use mods? where is this appraisal from?

can some leave, I am sure they would, likely clear up some of the housing situation. personally, coming from a game that mods were an absolute requirement to play (WoW) coming here was refreshing, and I doubt I am alone in that. WoW is also very adept at "stealing" the work of others to enhance their game with new "features", so SE doing it is hardly a first in the industry. the mock indignation of them doing it is hardly worthwhile or newsworthy. but shock and indignation is the calling card of the OP.

but without the actual information that the OP is apparently privy to, it is really difficult to determine what portion of the playerbase would leave. I am more concerned about the progress towards a solo game as opposed to a scorched earth policy on mods.

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I dont think there is a single PC player on my datacenter that has played the game for longer than a year that does not use a mod/tool in some fashion.

The entire raiding discord use mods and act, even advertise the use of them.
Every single club discord is full of modded pictures/videos of some of the most hideous characters i have ever seen.
Every single FC discord has a mods channel or has a gpose channel full of modded assets.

Its a plague that has all but destroyed what the game originally was, a combat based MMO.
People cant raid without tools, people cant RP without tools.

XIV has literally just become WoW 2.0 but the addons are 'illegal but not really because they are unmoderated'

^square has done far more to destroy 14’s old design style of a “combat MMO” than the community ever has, dropping the average ShB baby into HW would give them a full on heart attack and those design changes were entirely square enix decision

I’m on console so I don’t use mods but I’d argue mods are half attempting to fix the games terrible source code (Alexander/no clippy) or spicing up a massively homogenised and dated feeling game (RP mods, changes to skill designs)

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Should console players be getting 'removed' from roleplay because they don't have the illegal ToS breaking tools that PC users do?

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Depends: are they trying to engage in roleplay that requires said tools?

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Should console players be getting disadvantaged by raid tools that PC users can use?

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No, but to disadvantage someone with something is to somehow hinder them. I somehow sincerely doubt that raiders in any country are using any tools specifically to trip up other players. Using a tool for their own ease of use is not a direct slight against you or anyone else.

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This is an issue the community caused for themselves by being too heavily reliant on the cheating software available to them. If ACT and every other RP mods were removed from the game, and the players quit because they can no longer play, Its either:
A) Skill issue, get good and dont rely on mods
B) The game was not meant for you in the first place if you cant RP with vanilla game assets. Go play IMVU.

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It's also an issue that stems from the game not providing enough for the players, regardless of the reasons provided by the developers, if any were provided at all. Most people don't make mods for games when it meaningfully provides that which the mod is intending to add.
Have things gone too far?
I don't know. I'm not part of the scene to know. But I do know that I have been basically wearing the same outfit for like 6 years (except for small periods of time here and there, and minor changes to the headdress every now and again) because I just don't like anything else in the game, and I'd be lying if I said I don't envy the mods I've seen for dresses and the like. All that other stuff? It's "whatever," as far as I'm concerned, because nothing that anyone has done has been done specifically to hurt me.

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

Depends: are they trying to engage in roleplay that requires said tools?


No, but to disadvantage someone with something is to somehow hinder them. I somehow sincerely doubt that raiders in any country are using any tools specifically to trip up other players. Using a tool for their own ease of use is not a direct slight against you or anyone else.


It's also an issue that stems from the game not providing enough for the players, regardless of the reasons provided by the developers, if any were provided at all. Most people don't make mods for games when it meaningfully provides that which the mod is intending to add.
Have things gone too far?
I don't know. I'm not part of the scene to know. But I do know that I have been basically wearing the same outfit for like 6 years (except for small periods of time here and there, and minor changes to the headdress every now and again) because I just don't like anything else in the game, and I'd be lying if I said I don't envy the mods I've seen for dresses and the like. All that other stuff? It's "whatever," as far as I'm concerned, because nothing that anyone has done has been done specifically to hurt me.

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The way i see it is that regular players are sharing a world with people that are playing a completely different game.

I had a chat a while ago with somebody who frequents the club scene in game, and they admitted to spending thousands of dollars on illegal mods for their character... from body alterations to outfits, hairstyles and other things. THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. It's kind of sad that people spend that much money on something that isn't even allowed to be in the game to begin with, and the mod developers scalping off these people are the ones that should be the targets for any crackdowns, hence why they try to hide from the public view.

Let's be completely honest here #1 PlayStation does not have mods, so the release of the Xbox will probably be the exact same thing. #2 morning is mostly big in Western culture as you can see by the Japanese top static that got caught modding. In America it would have been a deal but not as big a deal, in Japan they literally got harassed off the game because they were seen as dishonoring them. #3 not everybody cares enough about mods to quit the game on PC in America. #4 probably the biggest one is where would people go, I mean I'm sure some would go back to wow but they left that for a reason so I don't think they would stay extended period time there so in the end some of the initial wave that ends up quitting will come back. Now is SE going to do this highly highly highly doubtful, and even if they did do this I think it would be something that's inactive on your PC until you enter something like PVP or a raid. So once you enter those queued instances it would scan to see if you're using third-party addons but even then I think that's highly unlikely they would do that

Let's put it this way:

Let's say a community balance patch comes out for a PvP game you like, finally fixing a huge portion of the playerbase's complaints that had lingered for *checks date* over a decade.

Players play on this community balance patch via a limited-time unofficial Mode that cycles around maybe once per year... and they really, really like it.

But then the limited-time mode ends and access is again limited to the normal game, with all its long-critiqued problems that the playerbase only recently saw solutions to -- by their own hands, no less -- which the developers continue to say would be impossible to address.

Many are miffed and leave the game entirely, or at least until such time as the official game catches up with the quality that'd already been presented by its unofficial offerings.

Would the game be thereby improved for having access to the community-generated improvements? Would it be unreasonable for players to be miffed when told that the solutions they said they wanted, actually went and made, and then subsequently enjoyed pretty much exactly to the extent they thought they would... are again put on the decade-long "Soon™" list or are outright called impossible?

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

Meanwhile a fair portion of the players do not even have access to said 'illegal tools' because they play on console.

Should console players be getting 'removed' from roleplay because they don't have the illegal ToS breaking tools that PC users do?

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Then, unironically, the devs should just continue to pick the most essential elements of those addons and to collect free value from others' unpaid labor. If you'd gain players from easy QoL improvements, you should do so. If you'd lose players from their being miffed at how much better the game could be if you only they were on PC or if you didn't threaten them into curtailing their options, then you should provide those improvements and/or, at the very least, limit what you're threatening.

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

A) Skill issue, get good and dont rely on mods
B) The game was not meant for you in the first place if you cant RP with vanilla game assets. Go play IMVU.

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Neither of these 'retorts' make much sense.

A) If we're getting more players as a result of QoL features in the mods, and --as you have repeatedly claimed-- those QoL features are not required nor balanced around or what have you, then why gatekeep arbitrarily?

B) That applies no more to this game than to any other. "Not impressed by baseline Skyrim, to the point you wouldn't bother playing it? Then shame on you for enjoying it with mods. Get ye gone!"

Plug-ins and addons are fine they are QOL stuff that's mostly client side.

But changing models / clothing /rework entire races / poses or adding functions that are impossible to do for normal players shouldn't be allowed.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Probably not.

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There we go. That's the answer.

Next doom and gloom thread!

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Originally Posted by TheNight

What kind of people are playing the game long-term?

How many people use ReShade? How many people use mods? We can now say that a significant portion of this game's playerbase are only here because of the mods, which allow them to fix the game's issues, like Viera hats, or for more, shall we say, mature activities. And what about more advanced mods that synchronize your modded appearance? Or poses that depict characters in... suggestive poses with others?

What about raiders? What even drives people to do reclear after reclear once they get BiS? FFLogs and going for high percentiles. And most of the game's clunky systems and opaque mechanics like the damage formula could not have been figured out without the aid of third party tools. The openers and rotations that you copied from the Balance are partially the product of ToS-violating third party tools.

Even many non-raiders depend on ToS-violating third party tools to fix this game's atrocious systems, such as being able to double-weave without clipping, or to be able to block out a persistent stalker completely from the screen.

Even third party tools that are not ToS-violating:

Crafters and gatherers depend on having Teamcraft and simulators to create rotations and macros + set up crafting lists, then share their macros through Discord.

BA and DRS depend on Discord to coordinate runs. Even Savage and Ultimate depend a lot on Discord especially if you want to get an early clear.

Achievement hunters compete on leaderboards like lalachievements.

I ask you: If all these fixes and features that the community developed disappear, with not one iota of help from the game developers, will the game even survive? To who do we owe our gratitude really? The community creators or the actual devs?

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I think I owe my gratitude to these absolutely terrible troll posts you manage to pump out day in and day out. If you focused your creative efforts in something lucrative you may find it actually bears fruit.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I think I owe my gratitude to these absolutely terrible troll posts you manage to pump out day in and day out. If you focused your creative efforts in something lucrative you may find it actually bears fruit.

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I’m sure these people would actually prefer to be playing 14 but there is no content

Seriously the fandom is in full on doom posting mode and DT is a year away at a minimum

I've been playing since 1.0 and I've never used a single mod, not even a macro.

I don't do discord either. I've capped all battle jobs and can pretty much figure out the rotations reading tooltips and some hours practice on a dummy.

I've never really been into cosmetic add-ons either as the game looks fine as is to me, although looking forward to the graphics update.

However I don't do savage or higher level content but I think most players of the game are in my space of "casual to mid-core" gamers.

So I really think the game will do just fine without all the extras mentioned in the OP.

Only maybe the hardcore gamers would suffer without....but then again if hardcore gamers are always looking for "add-ons" to make the game easier are they really "hardcore" ?

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Originally Posted by WickedSensei

if hardcore gamers are always looking for "add-ons" to make the game easier are they really "hardcore" ?

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I would say that it's because they're so hardcore that they end up looking for add-ons that make things more comfortable for them.
A true casual wouldn't give a damn, because what do they care if they can't see or do something that they should probably see? They'll hopefully do or see it anyway, eventually.

I don't think so. People who use mods is a very small percentage of player base despite what people in this forums says. Even the people who uses it will shrug and continue playing without them. You also should count the people who plays on consoles, which cannot use mods even if they want. I would say only very small mount will actually quit if they can't mod.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I’m sure these people would actually prefer to be playing 14 but there is no content

Seriously the fandom is in full on doom posting mode and DT is a year away at a minimum

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15 or so (maybe less depending on multiple accounts) are doomposting on a singular community (these forums). Other places rightfully do have critical components to the game, but I haven't found a doomposting community yet: Maybe they exist in small bubbles, or smaller discord servers and the like, but EW hasn't been some monumental failure: The Relic weapon situation is bland but acceptable if it isn't a standard-affair for all future relics (though more ways to grind materials in the grindy phase is a welcome change if kept). A lack of an exploration zone would be worth doomposting but we had 2/3 in the last 3 expansions: If Dawntrail fails to deliver one then it's worth concern (there was no DD in Shb nor a second ultimate, savage was also long in the tooth for eden's verse where DSR-ult would have been dropped).

At this point it seems similar to MoP doomposting: The game was still very good, but had changed up a lot of things that weren't necessarily palatable to the main audience of WoW. WoD, on the other hand, was a dumpster fire. I'll join the Doomposters if DT shits the bed, and yes, although I am not a fan of exploration zones, the fact people enjoy them means I hope they arent' retired or neglected, but I would also be okay if they were also produced "when the devs can produce a good one" and not just cyclical to expansions either. EW has been pretty good, but it has some blatant misses (damn if CC isn't DoA with ranked not degrading, isle sanctuary is very rudimentary and lacking in the one thing that would have made it sublime content: Instanced island housing proper), and no open world zone for those who like that. The raids have been good, ultimates have been awesome, I like EO minus the first 20 floors being glacial in pace and the story has been fine. If this is the "worst case" scenario for an xpac >I< am at least satisfied with it.

Some of the class changes, though, have been between atrocious and "decent". Why did smn lose so much gameplay identity to get VISUALLY upgraded (the egi summons are pretty baller, shame about half the rest of the kit) but play worse than dnc? Why did NIN have that awful raiju movement glued on? MCH was trash for half an xpac and only now plays pretty okay. Meanwhile BLM is just flat out better, SCH has been more enjoyable with the shield and pet fixes, PLD is engaging but still not that ShB glory.

At the end of the day, EW just does what it needs to. I'm not unhappy/doomer about it, content that the good is still solid but the bad is a bit more niggling. For the sake of the Exp. zone enjoyers I hope a good one lands in DT; it's not my cup of tea but not all content needs to be.

I can't think of any rp venues that will exclude you in any way if you're not using mods, especially since all of them are client side. Can't think of any bartender that'll go "ohp laddie yeh ain't got no mare, getcher smart tuckus outta here." As far as paying for mods, yeah some do and its weird. $1,000 in mods though...feels like at that point the person was a whale already, and if they didn't spend it on XIV mods they'd have dumped it on a gacha. Either way, not my cash so I won't judge.

As for raiding plugins, none are needed except ACT. Noclippy is extremely nice for people not parked on the server though, since SE is stubborn about how animations work. Clearly the smartest way to handle ping is to run the animation lock twice, once when client says and once when server says, that won't cause issues for people with >40ms ping! "Fixing this is impossible." -SE.

I don't think the game would die. I think it would choke and sputter out of the big 5, perhaps, especially when not during patch week because a lot of people would vanish between story patches. Square would probably put XIV on maintenance mode eventually after that point, or push the devs to return to a 3 month patch cycle as they see the money printer run out of ink. General player anger at getting locked behind "Soon:tm:" would grow immensely since SE would be directly taking responsible for any and all qol.

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Originally Posted by Minifie

snip

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The problem is repeatable content

Say you are a person who started any earlier than mid ShB so barring any very out of left field “I don’t start ShB till I have every eureka relic” this group has totally caught up on the MSQ, the MSQ aside (eden, coils, ShB job story etc) and has probably dabbled in most casual content to an extent (eureka, Bozja, fishing, ishgard restoration)

For this group of players (which also includes anyone who started later and plays more than 2 hours a day) what repeatable content did EW offer that encourages them to log on more than 2 days after the patch, criterion/variant died on release due to a lack of reward structure and variant is basically just another dungeon with a fake illusion of choice, EO is Just a third reskin of POTD with nothing unique and unlike the other 2 is very new person unfriendly due to how overscaled 1-30 is, island sanctuary automates itself and even before that is basically vanilla gathering for people who never levelled the gatherers. Hell they even integrated the trial story into the MSQ so we don’t get a sorrow of werlyt style story this expansion

What are these players who genuinely want to play supposed to do in EW, as a legacy player this has been the worst content drought since legacy itself and that is a very very low bar to clear considering legacy didn’t have any content

And even ACT is arguably only needed by one player per static, if that. Beyond that it's just a helpful individual learning tool, rather than a way to check where a group's strategy can be revised on review of a pull-log (or whether the current strat would be able to make it ahead of enrage or would need to be greedier, though such considerations are rarer these days).

I'd bet the majority of the playerbase doesn't even know mods are a thing that can happen. So... no.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

I don't think so. People who use mods is a very small percentage of player base despite what people in this forums says. Even the people who uses it will shrug and continue playing without them. You also should count the people who plays on consoles, which cannot use mods even if they want. I would say only very small mount will actually quit if they can't mod.

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ffxiv active playerbase according to a quick google is roughly 0 - https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...2406/image.png

One of the simple tweak plugins has 3.3 million downloads, chat bubbles half a million, unsure on mare but going off how regularly people have it in their adventure plate probably somewhere of that order.

Taking a modest 50,000 as active users and a generous 1,000,000 as active players, that's still 1 in 20 or 5% minimum who use mods. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was 1 in 5 or 20% or as high as 1 in 3 or 33.3% using a more realistic set of values.

Of course I don't know how central this is to their enjoyment of the game, but it definitely looks like everyone involved including SE is playing with fire.

I mean if mods were fully endorsed by squeenix i would be playing right now.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The problem is repeatable content

Say you are a person who started any earlier than mid ShB so barring any very out of left field “I don’t start ShB till I have every eureka relic” this group has totally caught up on the MSQ, the MSQ aside (eden, coils, ShB job story etc) and has probably dabbled in most casual content to an extent (eureka, Bozja, fishing, ishgard restoration)

For this group of players (which also includes anyone who started later and plays more than 2 hours a day) what repeatable content did EW offer that encourages them to log on more than 2 days after the patch, criterion/variant died on release due to a lack of reward structure and variant is basically just another dungeon with a fake illusion of choice, EO is Just a third reskin of POTD with nothing unique and unlike the other 2 is very new person unfriendly due to how overscaled 1-30 is, island sanctuary automates itself and even before that is basically vanilla gathering for people who never levelled the gatherers. Hell they even integrated the trial story into the MSQ so we don’t get a sorrow of werlyt style story this expansion

What are these players who genuinely want to play supposed to do in EW, as a legacy player this has been the worst content drought since legacy itself and that is a very very low bar to clear considering legacy didn’t have any content

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Ah okay I get your argument, you are after INCREDIBLY specific content niche and if it isn't met the whole thing is bad. Unsub is the goal there, honestly, since the game isn't offering the thing you want.

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At this point will FFXIV collapse if all mods and third party tools disappear?

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No.

FF 14 has a long way to go, can manage without them.

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Originally Posted by Minifie

Ah okay I get your argument, you are after INCREDIBLY specific content niche and if it isn't met the whole thing is bad. Unsub is the goal there, honestly, since the game isn't offering the thing you want.

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I would love a diagram of the mental gymnastics required to get that response out of the comment I made

Regardless of your opinion on mods, you cannot deny the fact that mods exist for a reason.
The need for mods pretty much shows that there is a desire for improvement/change!.

Some ppl use mods bc of disability, and their only way to even play this game is by using mods to help them.

Uhm…
There are really cool stuffs if someone knows how to brows by their interest.
I’d tell to you to check on XIV Archive and if NSFW stuffs bother you just uncheck the option.

Modding is also used by comm to enchant their experience.
Game devs, all of game devs not only CBU3’s one work with limitation…a lot especially if they are working on an old MMO who must run on a wide range of different systems.
That’s fair but if someone has a god-like build and they like to play the game, why the can’t have the possibility to go further?
There are mods that enchants the texture definition of hairs for example or mods that upscale the normals eyes textures and mods that upscale the resolution of in game armours/items.
They are easy cool stuffs to do and try, to be fair.

How many of you like tattoos?
It’s a pity that the game has no option for them, beside the things you can affix to your chara’d face in the editor.
Also, VFX mods are a thing you should check too.
There are so many mods that are unrelated to the NSFW scenario which are made just to make the game feel more modern.
Of course you don’t have to use them.
You can choose and whatever is your choice it never has to diminish and disrespect the work behind them.
Mods are not a kick in CBU3’s face.
They are an helping hand.

For the raiding part.
It is true that there are some cheats out there that helps people in clearing contents.
Surely those plugins were made by the intent the amplify the audience within the “hardcore” player base.
They are made with the intent to help people with disabilities.
Cactbot helps who lacks of focus.
XIV combos helps who has difficulties to press 1-2-3.
Zoom hacks and AoE detectors helps to build strategies.
But, as for the things are now, the most of Hardcore raiders don’t use any of them and if they used them and those plugins were removed from the game it would be a drop in the ocean.
The big fact is if ACT would be removed.
Once you have learned the fight it’s just a matter of get gud and repeat the same skills in the same order.
Once you leaned it the only thing left to do is to go high in the chart, a chart that is unofficial and run by this bad guy known as FFXIV Logs.

ACT doesn’t provide any help in game.

If plugins were removed, indeed a lot of raiders would quit and this would be because there would be nothing left for those raiders to play with.
The fun is to reach the 99/100 and to know “I’m above the avarege”, the fights are just a part of it.

I’m a mid-core raider.
I’ve used all the plugins/cheats for the sake of knowledge.
I got my 99s just using Party Icons and Bubble chats.
Now, a tier later, I’m even tired to open up ACT and I can tell you that the only way to know the worth of something is when you dive your hands into that dirty mud and feel with your own sense how it looks like.
The rest is just bla bla bla…nosenses.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

Can we have a conversation about this where people don't pretend that discord is what the Dev's mean?

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That isn't the point of my post though? I said Discord is not ToS-violating. The point is that the developers are exploiting free labor from the community, and without Discord servers sharing information and creating hubs for socializing, a lot of players would have quit by now, and cotent like BA will be truly dead.

Mods would never go away because when you burn one bridge down another is rebuilt. Modders would find a new loophole to leak mods back into the game. It may not be as stable and secure, but I've never known a game to actually mod proof themselves forever unless that community simply gave up and did not think it was worth the effort. It's the same vein as when game devs patch out glitches and the speedrun community finds new ones. As long as there is community will, there is a way.

Now for fun theory crafting sakes: This game would experience probably one of the, if not the biggest earthquake it has ever experienced if Mods went away (including Discord though I highly doubt they'd erase third party sites, especially ones that they themselves use). If ACT went away, it'd probably go back to how ARR raids felt where people were judged on their mechanical ability and not their damage. People would stare at the aggro bar like they used to, to think they were doing good DPS. The PF would fill up with static recruitment ads as well as Reddit. I'd imagine Reddit would still be permitted even if Discord was removed. The SQEX team has been known to browse the unofficial Subreddit. The world races would take a serious blow and quite frankly they'd still find ways to "cheat" for lack of a better term. The amount of people that are already fed up with the direction this game is going would quit the game citing that it was the final straw. It'd be very catastrophic. Every social media influencer would be covering this subject and it'd make global news. Linkshells would make a comeback, Free Companies might make a comeback. Fellowships would probably remain dead because without external cites like Discord they still serve no purpose. Venues would come crashing down and struggle to stay afloat. For most purposes, to put it simply, just remember what 1.0 and 2.0 were likely and the community would most likely become a similar environment to that except a bit more ghost townish since we're super spread out. The game would quite literally have its own exodus. Some people might gradually return a few years along the way overtime. But the population would probably significantly drop down to its old ARR/HW population. (Which is more than a 50% decrease). The reason it won't completely plummet is because of loyalists, purists who never modded in the first place. And console players who were unlikely tainted in the first place. The other thing is there is a severe lack of other games to play, so even though the population would drop, there would be some that stick around because there still isn't anything else to play, and removing mods isn't going to magically make another game sound worth picking up.

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Originally Posted by WickedSensei

So I really think the game will do just fine without all the extras mentioned in the OP.

Only maybe the hardcore gamers would suffer without....but then again if hardcore gamers are always looking for "add-ons" to make the game easier are they really "hardcore" ?

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Depends on your definition of hardcore. Would you consider speedrunners in other video games as being hardcore? If so, it might surprise you that the speedrun community is plagued with add-ons. Not for their live runs, but to measure game mechanics and discover new ways to break the game. A speedrunner using a modified practice rom isn't much different imo to using ACT. (cooperate legality aside). I'd even argue that it's the hardcore players that make the add-ons in the first place because they know what kind of data they are trying to draw. A true casual would probably never know the difference between Direct Hit and Crit's potencies if a hardcore player didn't research the truth out. Often times, it's the hardcore players that figure out why some additions to the game are actually bad. If we were unable to graph and process data, we'd just live in a world where the devs make changes, tell us it's good for us, and we'd accept it without ever proving them wrong.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

when half the screenshots posted on X (Twitter) are hardcore porn, some of which includes child NPCs. I guess that also doesn't affect the game, right?

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And these kind of images just appear on your twitter feed out of nowehere!!! I wonder why

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

And these kind of images just appear on your twitter feed out of nowehere!!! I wonder why

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Here we have to type of people : Those who will come across a turd on the street and walk around and those who will actively look for said turd, roll in it and complain about the smell :D

Most of what the OP said is a detriment to the game while also conveniently leaving out console players. I guess they don't exist then? lol

Modders say the same brain dead crap about literally every game.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I would love a diagram of the mental gymnastics required to get that response out of the comment I made

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I doubt I could make it simple enough that'd help you out, I'm afraid.

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Originally Posted by Minifie

I doubt I could make it simple enough that'd help you out, I'm afraid.

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Implying you had to do some seriously complex gymnastics to achieve a totally different point than what I made

Thank you for the clarification

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Originally Posted by MintnHoney

I would say that it's because they're so hardcore that they end up looking for add-ons that make things more comfortable for them.
A true casual wouldn't give a damn, because what do they care if they can't see or do something that they should probably see? They'll hopefully do or see it anyway, eventually.

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I've personally never cared if people use them or not as you said, it doesn't affect me mostly.

My comment was mostly in response to the "the game would die without add-ons, as most people use them"

I wish the game had in game voice chat though as I would do Savage and harder content more often but as of now when I've tried I've been forced to download discord to participate.

I have heard that WOW got to a point where you can't do most content without third-party tools I don't really want FF to get to that point.

But I'd adjust either way.

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Originally Posted by WickedSensei

I have heard that WOW got to a point where you can't do most content without third-party tools I don't really want FF to get to that point.

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WoW was at that point almost from the start. this was not for raiding or anything but to make the UI usable. could you play without them? kinda, but it was more agonizing even for just being casual about it. thats what made this game much nicer to play, because mods are not a necessity to play

here, I only know of a handful of people that use mods. their screenshots that they think are of course wonderful, I dont feel enhance the game at all (in some cases downright hideous) but everyone has a different taste I imagine.

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Originally Posted by TheNight

What kind of people are playing the game long-term?

How many people use ReShade? How many people use mods? We can now say that a significant portion of this game's playerbase are only here because of the mods, which allow them to fix the game's issues, like Viera hats, or for more, shall we say, mature activities. And what about more advanced mods that synchronize your modded appearance? Or poses that depict characters in... suggestive poses with others?

What about raiders? What even drives people to do reclear after reclear once they get BiS? FFLogs and going for high percentiles. And most of the game's clunky systems and opaque mechanics like the damage formula could not have been figured out without the aid of third party tools. The openers and rotations that you copied from the Balance are partially the product of ToS-violating third party tools.

Even many non-raiders depend on ToS-violating third party tools to fix this game's atrocious systems, such as being able to double-weave without clipping, or to be able to block out a persistent stalker completely from the screen.

Even third party tools that are not ToS-violating:

Crafters and gatherers depend on having Teamcraft and simulators to create rotations and macros + set up crafting lists, then share their macros through Discord.

BA and DRS depend on Discord to coordinate runs. Even Savage and Ultimate depend a lot on Discord especially if you want to get an early clear.

Achievement hunters compete on leaderboards like lalachievements.

I ask you: If all these fixes and features that the community developed disappear, with not one iota of help from the game developers, will the game even survive? To who do we owe our gratitude really? The community creators or the actual devs?

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The game did quite well before any mods had been developed.
Everyone who plays on a console - and they are a significant chunk of the players - manage just fine without being able to use any mods.

Should all mods somehow cease functioning all at once - which is unlikely in the extreme to ever happen - then I am sure there would be a noticable drop in players, but I am also sure the game would survive handily.