Yoshi P statement regarding third party tools

"Cheating" LMAO.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Recon1o6

I feel that so much. Act and cactbot are not just advantages but are crutches and unfair on console players. If you can't do ex/savage/ult without these tools then you are not good enough to be doing the content. I noticed immediately when cactbot broke after a patch once who in the static were using it because they kept messing up mechanics

Do what us ps4 players do and learn mechanics. It will be better for you.

---

Cactbot is cheating but how is ACT cheating lol? Knowing your damage number doesn't do anything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

I suppose living in California is cheating then.

---

This is actually the example I usually use of the difference between "unfair" versus "cheating".

Is it cheating that I have a better connection than someone in Brazil or Paraguay, by virtue of living geographically far closer to the servers than they do? No, it's not cheating; it's the reality of how internet topography works. But is it fair that I get that better performance and can potentially double-weave as a result where the other player cannot? No, it's absolutely not fair.

It's why I have such mixed feelings on things like xivalexander and whatnot; they can demonstrably be used to cheat, which gives me an immediate knee-jerk reaction vehemently against them. But on the other hand, if it can be used to let someone in Paraguay play with the same performance I get out-of-box, thus leveling the playing field? I find that use-case harder to condemn.

(Honestly, I wish XIV would just do some compensation for latency natively. It's possible, as I've done it in multiplayer network code before -- and XIVAlexander and its ilk show it's hypothetically possible for XIV as well. But I grant it's a headache to do right, such that it compensates to put everyone on as much a level playing field as possible without also being able to be repurposed for cheating. I certainly won't claim my own implementations in the past were guaranteed to be 100% unexploitable; players are very creative at times.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MintnHoney

I, Aylin Bielawska, an Astrologian on the Adamantoise server, pressed buttons in direct defiance of the healer design in FFXIV's general design modus operandi, and, in doing so, have seen relative success and reaped benefits. And I liked it.
And I would do it again, too.

---

That underlined part... ouch.

I mean, accurate, but ouch.

Its always gonna be the same ... and i quote

"As stated in the terms of service for FINAL FANTASY XIV: the use of third-party tools is strictly prohibited. Players who are determined to be using third-party tools will have their accounts suspended, or permanently banned for repeat offenses."

Okay, fair. next quote

"It goes without saying that we're aware of world races for high-end duties. As the developers, we're proud to have grown into one of the few games where they're held, and it delights us to see so many players participate as well as spectate with great interest."

right ... So you say you will ban those that use 3rd party tools, it does not say to which extend, it does not say "act is ok" it says straight basically anything 3rd party tool.

Obviously no one is gonna get sacked for it, so what do they expect "please don't do it, if you do we will be disappointed but still not do anything" No one is gonna care till SE bites the bullet and throws a major player under the bus and at this point it might be about time for an example because we have been on a downward spiral of.

"new addon? Sure let me get it, SE doesn't do anything anyway" and then we act confused about why there's fully automated players. Yes ACT alone doesn't do shit, but unless someone gets sacked nothing is ever gonna change anyway.

The absolute double standard here is such a bad take, look at the vids give them a 24h ban ... does not hurt them but sends a message that you actually care about what you post and not just fire fight against all the reports you get about ppl complaining about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skiros

Cactbot is cheating but how is ACT cheating lol? Knowing your damage number doesn't do anything.

---

Cactbot is built on top of ACT. They're related to each other

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Cactbot is built on top of ACT. They're related to each other

---

Yes I know. But Vanilla ACT with just the plugin and a simple overlay isn't cheating.

Custom triggers could be considered cheating but that's no longer vanilla ACT.

Cactbot is far from vanilla ACT.

I think I stay with only a half from the players on the side "ACT Cactbot etc. should be 100% ban"

We dont need ACT to be good. We dont need any third party tool.

What gets me is the "Packing Spoofing Tools" mention. Does this mean they are targetting people who use lag compensation tools (For making MCH, RPR etc playable properly) or is there something more nefarious out there?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adamantini

this is cheating. You are using 3rd party controller to play on PC just like on consoles. Banned!

---

Wrong. I have the official Final Fantasy XIV™ Gamer Controller WITH the Minfillia AI Alexia attachment.

while i understand where yoshi p is coming from, i feel this is the wrong angle to take

mods should be embraced not prohibited or tolerated, these creators make the game better for a lot of ppl for free!!! essentially making improvements that the devs dont have to "waste" time on any more

hell it is rough to double weave on a 2.5 GCD with my 70ish ping in a game where double weaving is MANDATORY in hard content

healers need to perform a lot more actions to heal/buff specific individuals in their party while keeping uptime, much of which can be eliminated by mouseover actions that r queueable

several jobs have absolutely insane button bloat that mods help consolidate

ui perks for shields and buffs and stuff i dont even know about yet

list goes on and on, sky's the limit

if someone has a better play experience, they have more fun and can maybe perform a little bit better... how does that hurt ANYONE? This is a PVE game, if u r in a party u r a team that is working together

auto target and ownership check of items is quite frankly huge QoL, how long did that take to implement? how long will it take to devise in game alternatives for the most popular QoL mods? what about niche stuff that that is incredibly useful in a particular circle but not as widely used?

cheating is cheating, harassment is harassment, and bullying is bullying, those hurt u and r reportable and should be reported ... someone seeing that they have a juicy shield on their own HP bar, having an indicator on their castbar when they can move for a solid slidecast (which btw the game does not even tell u about), not having their camera automatically turn while running to the side on legacy control scheme, not having to use 30 something keybinds so they dont get carpal tunnel; these r as far from bullying, cheating and harassment as the next galaxy from ours

They're not going to do anything. This announcement was just their attempt to get JP players who were salty over not getting WF to shut up.

Hold up. I just woke up and haven't had my coffee. If I'm reading this correctly, does this means besides ACT, that one pvp paid mod that really deserved it, and CACTBOT but also the bard player, ping helper, and gshade like mods are done?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

Hold up. I just woke up and haven't had my coffee. If I'm reading this correctly, does this means besides ACT, that one pvp paid mod that really deserved it, and CACTBOT but also the bard player, ping helper, and gshade like mods are done?

---

No, none of them are done. This announcement was just lip service, like always. A streamer or two that gets mass reported might get banned, but normal players are, as always, perfectly safe as long as they use discretion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

Hold up. I just woke up and haven't had my coffee. If I'm reading this correctly, does this means besides ACT, that one pvp paid mod that really deserved it, and CACTBOT but also the bard player, ping helper, and gshade like mods are done?

---

No. It means the same status quo they've always had. Unless SE begins going on a sudden ban wave, nothing has changed. It's the same "keep it to yourself" policy they've already had.

And no, I sincerely doubt they intend to enforce anything because doing so would be a rather significant financial loss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

Hold up. I just woke up and haven't had my coffee. If I'm reading this correctly, does this means besides ACT, that one pvp paid mod that really deserved it, and CACTBOT but also the bard player, ping helper, and gshade like mods are done?

---

The only thing there that YoshiP has said is offically not actionable is gshade. My guess is because it's purely a directx post-processing thing and doesn't touch the game itself. The bard player they probably won't be too bothered by, the "ping helper"? That's one that I think MIGHT be one of their top priorities and considering MCH, quite unfortunate considering the location of NA servers and no cross-region DC travel.

I think this kind of clear message is important. There is a lot of confusion abou

Mods, however, I agree with the OP, are aspects of the game that people want to see. And like Yoshi mentioned, making these in an official form is a reasonable reaction. If a mod or a plugin can be made to augment the game for the better, then I believe there is justification to have that developed into the game.

OP talks about some aspects of jobs that are janky, and there is definitely scope to improve upon them, PvP-style combo buttons, for example, are something that would really help with button bloat. In my opinion, there is little difference between 1-2-3 and 1-1-1. Things like Slidecasting, well...that's only because of the game engine more than anything. Get rid of the inherent latency in the game, and you'll find loads of people might mess up their timing.

If the UI isn't good at displaying an important piece of information, especially if it helps the player read the screen, then I believe there is a developmental incentive to work on that.

As it stands at the moment, you can tell how many people are using some sort of callout tool, especially on patch days when most of these are not working. It defeats the point of a lot of challenges, no longer needing to look at the screen to work out what you are supposed to do. And that makes content boring. And that hurts other players.

Then you've got parsing, and that's a whole another beast of an issue which is pretty terrible all round and serves no purpose in the game other than to stroke egos and gatekeep.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Halobump

Then you've got parsing, and that's a whole another beast of an issue which is pretty terrible all round and serves no purpose in the game other than to stroke egos and gatekeep.

---

I was mostly agreeing with you until this moment, it's not egotistical or gatekeepy to not want to waste your time in a group that has 0 hope of clearing, nor is it a bad thing to want to strive to perfect your skills at a job you enjoy, the people who use these tools in the negative ways are few and far far between, and likely to be on the receiving end of a ban hammer within days of ever making it clear.
Meanwhile, these tools allow us as a playerbase to get an overall measure of our job's performance, how to optimize said performance, and general expectations for clears to a much more precise level than any in game tool allows.

Personally, i don't parse, i don't really care to participate in high end content myself and i'll never be a legend, but that's perfectly fine, i've never had a run in with someone who lambasted me via a parse, not once in my entire time playing this game, they're not common whatsoever.

I'm guessing ping reducers also fall into the "packet spoofing" category? I'm aware it's aimed at xivalexander or w/e it's called, but ping reducers are mostly harmless. I used one for years on another MMO to play painlessly because server were located on NA.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mat13295

RIP noclippy for us with slower internet i guess. I'm sure the small indie company doesn't have the budget like these modders do to fix packet loss so we can actually weave.

---

It's not really always their fault, I use a VPN and get a flawless connection I have literally never had ANY lag since.
There's very infamous nodes in some countries that are absolutely horrible especially during certain times a day that some people get passed through by their ISP.
That's not really something SE can do anything about that's on your ISP and it can be pretty random which is why some have no issues and some have horrible issues.
There's one in Germany and one in the US I know are especially infamous.

I had the misfortune of being connected through the German one...
4 days a week it was totally unplayable and the rest it was usually playable but sometimes random lag.

Personally with the lag compensation tools I hope that is some functionality I hope they put into the client, there is no reason not to and I know some people say they find it impossible to properly play some classes without it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

I'm guessing ping reducers also fall into the "packet spoofing" category? I'm aware it's aimed at xivalexander or w/e it's called, but ping reducers are mostly harmless. I used one for years on another MMO to play painlessly because server were located on NA.

---

A few of them have the ability to reduce your ping below what's normally possible, even if you lived very close to the servers, which would fall into the realm of cheating since it lets you triple weave.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

A few of them have the ability to reduce your ping below what's normally possible, even if you lived very close to the servers, which would fall into the realm of cheating since it lets you triple weave.

---

Which is why I'm asking if ping reducers like ExitLag fall into this category, because a lot of players will be forced to play with near impossible ping as SE can't care enough to improve their latency.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kolsykol

It's not really always their fault, I use a VPN and get a flawless connection I have literally never had ANY lag since.
There's very infamous nodes in some countries that are absolutely horrible especially during certain times a day that some people get passed through by their ISP.
That's not really something SE can do anything about that's on your ISP and it can be pretty random which is why some have no issues and some have horrible issues.
There's one in Germany and one in the US I know are especially infamous.

I had the misfortune of being connected through the German one...
4 days a week it was totally unplayable and the rest it was usually playable but sometimes random lag.

---

FFXIV employs artificial lag and animation delay, which is entirely their own doing. This is why plugins have such a dramatically better result than a traditional VPN. Both shorten the aforementioned artificial delay based on your ping to the server and reduce it enough to compensate. These plugins couldn't achieve an equivalent 10ms if it relied on Internet connection just like VPNs can't. Keep in mind, Yoshida has said on several occasions this game can be played at 200ms—an utterly laughable statement for anyone who has actually played at such a massive ping level. Jobs like MCH, NIN, MNK and DRK pre 6.1 are unplayable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

Which is why I'm asking if ping reducers like ExitLag fall into this category, because a lot of players will be forced to play with near impossible ping as SE can't care enough to improve their latency.

---

It probably is covered by that statement, those are going to be use at your own risk. I don't have much to back it up but those are in theory easier to discover from the server side by SE than something like ACT addons since they can see your information and how much ping you should have. If you're doing things that don't add up like casting before your animation lock should be over given your ping or location, that would be detectable on the server side if they're looking for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Wut.

Console players can play at 4k or 60fps just fine?

Ultra wide doesn't make the game easier at all.


What are you on with these oddball claims?

---

I doubt you're getting 60fps while in 4K. Graphics cards for PC that cost more than a PS5 can barely do that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

FFXIV employs artificial lag and animation delay, which is entirely their own doing. This is why plugins have such a dramatically better result than a traditional VPN. Both shorten the aforementioned artificial delay based on your ping to the server and reduce it enough to compensate. These plugins couldn't achieve an equivalent 10ms if it relied on Internet connection just like VPNs can't. Keep in mind, Yoshida has said on several occasions this game can be played at 200ms—an utterly laughable statement for anyone who has actually played at such a massive ping level. Jobs like MCH, NIN, MNK and DRK pre 6.1 are unplayable.

---

GNB was pretty unplayable for me before I installed XIVAlex too. The game's penchant for flashy animations really doesn't mesh well with that artificial lag.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sarevok_Thordin

Personally with the lag compensation tools I hope that is some functionality I hope they put into the client, there is no reason not to and I know some people say they find it impossible to properly play some classes without it.

---

Contrary to what has been going around neither one of those plugins actually "packet spoof". They cut into the artificial delay in a similar manner a lower ms does. They have the potential to do more but this requires completely altering what is open source code and obfuscating it in such a way as to go undetected by the launcher program. Considering how diligent they are monitoring that sort of thing, and that FFlogs will blacklist your entire character if it suspects an illegal log has been uploaded, nobody wants to try pushing that envelop even if they knew how.

What Yoshida is more likely referring to here is location hacks like RMT bots that go out of bounds or "teleport" from one spot to the next.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It probably is covered by that statement, those are going to be use at your own risk. I don't have much to back it up but those are in theory easier to discover from the server side by SE than something like ACT addons since they can see your information and how much ping you should have. If you're doing things that don't add up like casting before your animation lock should be over given your ping or location, that would be detectable on the server side if they're looking for it.

---

They aren't going to do this because the end result would be banning almost their entire upper raid scene. These two plugins are among the most popular in the entire repository. They'd be banning tens of thousands of players, including a good amount of the content creators. It just isn't going to happen. Granted, you are correct that anyone using addons does so at their own risk. Everyone already knew that though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AziraSyuren

GNB was pretty unplayable for me before I installed XIVAlex too. The game's penchant for flashy animations really doesn't mesh well with that artificial lag.

---

I forgot about GNB. My co-tank still hasn't given in yet but they've been tempted. Even at 90ms, all the weaving on GNB is just awful. The difference really is night and day.

Cheaters are the worst and I hope they all get banned.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Contrary to what has been going around neither one of those plugins actually "packet spoof". They cut into the artificial delay in a similar manner a lower ms does. They have the potential to do more but this requires completely altering what is open source code and obfuscating it in such a way as to go undetected by the launcher program. Considering how diligent they are monitoring that sort of thing, and that FFlogs will blacklist your entire character if it suspects an illegal log has been uploaded, nobody wants to try pushing that envelop even if they knew how.

What Yoshida is more likely referring to here is location hacks like RMT bots that go out of bounds or "teleport" from one spot to the next.

---

Fair enough, I forgot about those out of sheer despair that they never stop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Klytania

I doubt you're getting 60fps while in 4K. Graphics cards for PC that cost more than a PS5 can barely do that.

---

I am playing 90fps at 90 and my amd 6900xt isnt evenrunning at 100%. So i would say its definitely possible

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Twizzlers

ITT cheaters justifying cheating
should just be grateful they're even implementing popular tools as in-game features (marker presets and collectible checkmarks are two that come to mind)

---

You do realize that the marker system is a DOWNGRADE?

You can't put markers down in alliance raids mid-pull to herd groups into specific places now.

You can't use markers to indicate where Nael divebombs are going.

MFW "grateful" when they literally just neutered markers for everyone while people using the addon still suffer no consequences.

I hope some of you here realize that when they start banning these popular tools and implement their own versions, it'll be a downgrade that makes everyone worse than where we started.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Wut.

Console players can play at 4k or 60fps just fine?

Ultra wide doesn't make the game easier at all.


What are you on with these oddball claims?

---

MFW "ultra wide doesn't make the game easier"

Literally every high-end/world prog raider I know believes that ultra wide is a clear advantage.

A lot of mechanics are way easier to solve with a wider FoV that allows you to see the edges of the arena more easily. This is particularly prominent in mechanics like divebombs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I've seen pics of some of the modded uis.. They look like garbage, bright colors on every ui element, squared boxes for everything. Just ugh.

---

Yeah I'm not sure why 90% of reshade/gshade users feel the need to either have everything really bright and saturated or seem to be stuck on housing light 1 or 0 to the point I can't make out most of the details of the moded hairstyles I see or the cute outfits they have me in on their screen when people need to show me how cute I look.

Not sure what mods besides a parser I'd even want as most others I don't see the point in them. Or I've played games where they part of the base game that left me with a negative mind set about said topic. Like speach bubbles for example. I've played Flyff and original maple story where if you're in a crowded area you can't see almost anything anyone said and the chat box is just zooming along so you have to scroll up just to see if anyone responded to you

Actually I lied. I do know of things that I'd like to see be put in the devs and that's all of the helpful housing decorating mods that people use. I would also like if they could somehow separate the camera when decorating in first person from your character. Not sure if there's a mod that does that. As working in tight corners or trying to get something into the correct place at times is hard. Especially since I'm not a PC player where trying to glitch certain items that are fussy can be difficult. I'd really like it if they would allow you to readjust things once they're at the height you want them at but didn't realize they were slightly at the wrong spot or if rotating them wouldn't get them facing the way you'd like them to. Heck even allowing us to resize things would be nice. I'd use those too tall for most housing spaces spiral staircase in my designs if they could be made shorter

Isn't this the first time in the history of the game that he has acknowledged the packet loss mitigation tools? Something that should be implemented by default into the client for EVERYONE and yet still has not happened to this day. Its not even a hard fix. smh

Is this because JP be malding about world first?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by razzgrizz3

Isn't this the first time in the history of the game that he has acknowledged the packet loss problem? Something that should be implemented by default into the client for EVERYONE and yet still has not happened to this day. Its not even a hard fix. smh

---

It's been even on JP forums. See link here.

If JP people are suffering packet loss and latency issues, then the problem is bigger than SE wants to acknowledge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skiros

Cactbot is cheating but how is ACT cheating lol? Knowing your damage number doesn't do anything.

---

I am convinced now people are just nitpicking at whatever floats their boat just because all the other fools are doing it. Like how is ACT cheating? /SMH. Not talking about you Skiros but the guy you replied to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rehayem

It's been even on JP forums. See link here.

If JP people are suffering packet loss and latency issues, then the problem is bigger than SE wants to acknowledge.

---

As a fighting game fan, this wouldn't be the first time I have seen a community come up with a solution to packet loss, only to see the developers stubbornly refuse to implement it for years.