Third party tools are a game design failing in a multi-platform game

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

Judging by amount of topics that boil down to "ToS stance on mods is dumb, allow us to use them risk free" I'd say very.

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So your take is basically that criticism of the ToS is bad? Or is it just because it's criticism that you personally disapprove of?

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Originally Posted by SwingLifeAway

So your take is basically that criticism of the ToS is bad? Or is it just because it's criticism that you personally disapprove of?

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Please refrain from putting words into my mouth if you could.

I do realize it's flawed but I also realize this - The moment SE allows the mods to be used within ToS or gets to curate them they'll become a feature. Feature only portion of their players can use.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

Please refrain from putting words into my mouth if you could.

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I'm not putting words in your mouth. I asked you a question. This little symbol is called a question mark: ?
But since you're being so defensive about it I suspect I wasn't very far off.

You on the other hand have put very many words in vary many other peoples mouths to try and justify why plugins should be kept banned, by using arguments nobody ever made as reasons why the criticism is invalid.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

I do realize it's flawed but I also realize this - The moment SE allows the mods to be used within ToS or gets to curate them they'll become a feature. Feature only portion of their players can use.

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A feature is something directly integrated into the game. That is not what anyone is asking for. Plus that's what makes them third party in the first place, if they were a feature it would be first party like the immersive sound experience ADDON that Square added. Bethesda is a good example of this, they directly integrated modding into their game and provided mod support, that makes it a feature that they are partially responsible for. Allowing people to just use mods without explicitly incorporating them into the game experience doesn't make it a feature or make Square Enix responsible for their use in any way.

Please understand that these arguments are not being made exclusively by people who want to be able to trash talk whoever they like, or cheat. They're also being made by players who just want to play the game with tools that improve their experience with no impact on other people, and you're essentially arguing for taking that improved experience away from them, for a reason I don't think you even truly know yourself.

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Originally Posted by SwingLifeAway

I'm not putting words in your mouth. I asked you a question. This little symbol is called a question mark: ?
But since you're being so defensive about it I suspect I wasn't very far off.

You on the other hand have put very many words in vary many other peoples mouths to try and justify why plugins should be kept banned, by using arguments nobody ever made as reasons why the criticism is invalid.



A feature is something directly integrated into the game. That is not what anyone is asking for. Plus that's what makes them third party in the first place, if they were a feature it would be first party like the immersive sound experience ADDON that Square added. Bethesda is a good example of this, they directly integrated modding into their game and provided mod support, that makes it a feature that they are partially responsible for. Allowing people to just use mods without explicitly incorporating them into the game experience doesn't make it a feature or make Square Enix responsible for their use in any way.

Please understand that these arguments are not being made exclusively by people who want to be able to trash talk whoever they like, or cheat. They're also being made by players who just want to play the game with tools that improve their experience with no impact on other people, and you're essentially arguing for taking that improved experience away from them, for a reason I don't think you even truly know yourself.

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First if all I apologize for jumping the gun. It was not justified behavior and I shouldn't have done this.

I do think your later part is going too far though. My personal perfect spot already existed here. "Fight Club" rules we adopted were good because they both prevented from mods becoming obligatory (got bad experience from WoW) while not actively going on a hunt for QoL/Fun mods. And I'm personally mad on all sides for breaking that status quo. At streamers for actively breaking the "Don't Show". At groups participating in World First race for doing the same and bringing SE attention. At 5chan "inquisition" for taking advantage of the situation to engage in pointless witch hunts. It's tiring, dumb and won't make anything positive for any of us

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

My personal perfect spot already existed here. "Fight Club" rules we adopted were good because they both prevented from mods becoming obligatory (got bad experience from WoW) while not actively going on a hunt for QoL/Fun mods.

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"Fight club rules" are not rules, and it's incredibly self-centered to just accept it as the best solution because it has no affect on you, while people who have realistically done nothing wrong get punished for it. The biggest problem is the inconsistency and the grey area created by this method, which allows everything you describe that you are mad at to take place. If ACT and UI tweaks were allowed, the streamer wouldn't have gotten mass reported and banned for it.

I'd like to reiterate that WoW is not a fair comparison at all because the harassment rules don't just vanish when just using ACT isn't a bannable offense. Square does and still will ban people for harassing others over their performance, and this should never change, even if ACT is allowed to be used. The culture of the games is still totally different, and the fact is that mods have been a part of XIV culture for a long time.

We are not asking for links to be posted on the launcher, we're not asking for an official endorsement, and for the love of God we're not asking for them to become mandatory. We're trying to criticize square for being criminally vague in their rules and inconsistent in their rulings, both of which are deserving of discussion and criticism. All most of us want is to play the game in peace with these tools without the fear that some goblin is going to try and dig up evidence to use in a GM report so we get banned for it. Anyone who still wants to use cheat plugins or harass people can catch a ban, as they rightly deserve.

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Originally Posted by SwingLifeAway

I'd like to reiterate that WoW is not a fair comparison at all because the harassment rules don't just vanish when just using ACT isn't a bannable offense. Square does and still will ban people for harassing others over their performance, and this should never change, even if ACT is allowed to be used. The culture of the games is still totally different, and the fact is that mods have been a part of XIV culture for a long time.

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It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

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You could argue that people got a better ultimate thanks to ACT pushing the community to higher levels, even though I didn't partake I was very engrossed in the RTWF since there was something always around the corner.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

Please refrain from putting words into my mouth if you could.

I do realize it's flawed but I also realize this - The moment SE allows the mods to be used within ToS or gets to curate them they'll become a feature. Feature only portion of their players can use.

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You know what? I'm tired of console players holding back the full potential of PC games. It just isn't worth preserving your fragile ego with making everything equally accessible to you. The base game is equally accessible, but apparently that is not enough, even the stuff that can be made and used on PC, a machine that costs 5 times the price of a PS4 for just a decent rig, has to be equally accessible even though that makes no sense. You selfish pleb.

I just hope a lot of the things they want to add are toggle on/off and not always on. Most of these things are not needed for the majority of content and would be a lot of UI clutter.

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

You know what? I'm tired of console players holding back the full potential of PC games. It just isn't worth preserving your fragile ego with making everything equally accessible to you. The base game is equally accessible, but apparently that is not enough, even the stuff that can be made and used on PC, a machine that costs 5 times the price of a PS4 for just a decent rig, has to be equally accessible even though that makes no sense. You selfish pleb.

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Selfish pleb? You looking into mirror or something? God and people wonder why us PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes.

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

You know what? I'm tired of console players holding back the full potential of PC games. It just isn't worth preserving your fragile ego with making everything equally accessible to you. The base game is equally accessible, but apparently that is not enough, even the stuff that can be made and used on PC, a machine that costs 5 times the price of a PS4 for just a decent rig, has to be equally accessible even though that makes no sense. You selfish pleb.

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Don't worry, PC will inherently have advantages mods or not. Have you seen people using ultra-wide screens? Expands your field of view so you can see the whole arena, making safe spot mechanics and the like way easier.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

God and people wonder why us PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes.

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I'd argue that this goes both ways:

- PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes byy console players, because they don't want to be held back by consoles
- Console players are viewed as self-centered assholes by PC playyers, because they want PC players to be held back to the console level

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

Selfish pleb? You looking into mirror or something? God and people wonder why us PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes.

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This really isn't hard to understand. There is the game as it is, and while you don't need anything else to play it just fine, being on PC means you can install user made content for a personalized experience.
And the vast majority of these mods are harmless fluff or assists with incredibly unimportant things, like cactpot. The amount of people who actually uses addons to cheat mechanics is very small.
The "pleb" remark is not for being on console. It's for examplifying the uninformed gamer who is mad he can't have the stuff people on PC does, despite knowing he bought a cheaper and more limited system.
You get called what you are. I'd love if this just died down because nothing has changed at all, just that since some random jp dude got banned for using ACT this is suddenly on the radar, and the collective ignorance of the community comes out.
And it mostly seem to be from the console side.

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Originally Posted by Droxybrobotnik

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This recent situation just highlights several friction points in the global community of this game that reflect cultural norms around modding, the platform choices players have made and even just people's desire to use mods/addons in MMOs full stop. Given that World of Warcraft was a titan in the Western MMO market for so long, there's a big cultural around using third party tools even if we'd prefer not to but this doesn't exist in Japan were a large portion of FFXIV player base was and still is from. Not to mention the platform divide as a cross-platform game which is why many other online games have a strict no third party tools rule for PC players.

The problem is downstream from Square Enix's inability to actually enforce their own terms of service. The vast majority of these tools run client-side and without protection mechanisms in place to detect and moderate what interacts with the game client, they're unable to have an actual moderation stance beyond picking off users that broadcast third party tool usage via Twitch and other social media platforms. The lack of any anti-cheat is astounding when you consider it's norm for online-only games on PC, even those without console versions.

That said, an anti-cheat alone doesn't truly solve the problem as a small portion of tools will always get through any cracks and SE would still need a moderation stance. Riot Games, for example, are very strict and their anti-cheat will either refuse to start the game or kick you from it if anything unusual is detected. As a comparison point, Blizzard typically opt for ban waves in games such as World of Warcraft based on what their anti-cheat detects and the investigations they run internally. Neither approach is right nor wrong and ultimately reflect the genres they're in. Nobody wants an FPS game filled with hackers so just kicking people that seem "sus" is better than having obvious cheaters ruin lobbies. Likewise you wouldn't an anti-cheat throwing a wobbly, potentially, during a raid or Mythic+ dungeon in World of Warcraft so banning after internal investigations works better there.

If you read the statement Square Enix released the other day, it's pretty telling that they're unaware to the extend of third-party tools available to this game. That's also a failing in my opinion because at the very least, if they're not going to correctly enforce a terms of service, they should at least be documenting all the ways it's being broken via the range of plugins available publicly on the internet to better inform their game design choices rather than waiting for outrages like this to occur.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Ui is a huge improvement on that ageing dinosaur they use in WOW

A parser isnt QOL at all..its a tool misused and abused to berate, harass and discriminate against players. Personally Id like to see parsers under a blanket ban. You dont need them to run content and people clear content w/out them easily.

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completely biased to think that a tool that automatically adds and divides your damage is the root of all evil and everyone who uses it should be blankly banned. You’re one of those people who completely chooses to overlook the dark corners of discord that sells ultimate clears, sells Gil, and provides erotic sex chats in night clubs for real money. You’re also ignoring the fact that discord is the ultimate bot, where you can create in game triggers heard by the entire alliance if they’re in your channel. “Misuse and abused” in your statement is completely overlooking everything other than what you prefer to use yourself.

In my opinion, everybody who plays this game is old enough to have access to a debit and/or credit card..therefore as a customer old enough to know what I’m getting into, and paying with my own money, I have the right and obligation to tell the provider-of-services(SE) the quality of gaming id like, and not abide by some arbitrary rule created to coddle players who refuse to learn the in game combat properly. And as a raider (and I say raider because I’m paying SE purely for their raid content), one of those qualities is to be able to compete with myself in my games with a device that allows me to track my errors and damage output. They could even creatively implement a parse option in the party mode with an on or off button so that you know the current raid you’re joining is parsing. But to say that you never need them and they should be all banned is so biased and unthoughtful that you should rethink that statement.

You have to remember that square enix is a corporation who creates games for us, and in return we pay them for access. We do not pay them to dictate our gameplay, we pay them because we like what they provide. As a community we can request changes, and those changes we ask aren’t evil, changes mean we like this game, this is how to better it in our view. This game is squares cash cow and we vote with our dollars. If a parsing tool would mean more money for them, 100% you know they’d create one. The ball is always in the customers hands. As a community paying a corporation for their online service, we should adhere to what everyone’s demands are, not just different biased corners of the player base.

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Originally Posted by Jaquan

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

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I'm going to address each take individually.

"Without ACT, the high level content we just got would not exist"
This is 100% true, but it doesn't make the usage of ACT mandatory. What it means is that the average skill of the raiding community is increased because of tools like ACT, that allow people to do complex calculations to determine which substats are better, what rotation is most effective, etcetera. Remember that ACT is just a calculator. SE doesn't design the game around callout bots like cactbot, and they never should.

"You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down."
This is a bit of an incomplete statement and comes from people who are very tired of dealing with toxic casuals who just expect to be carried through content without even doing the minimal level of contribution. I'm sure you can sympathize that it feels unfair to buy food, pots, etc for content, only to have someone show up who doesn't even have materia in their gear, but posits that they deserve the clear as much as anyone else. So basically the issue stems when you have a group of people with a misalignment of investment and expectations for the game experience.
If you join a casual static that doesn't use mods, then it's not going to matter. And there are plenty statics like that. But, for example, if you joined a hardcore static that wants to push for week 1 clears - then yes, it would be pretty unfair on them for you to not be analyzing and optimizing your gameplay when the rest of them are. I hope this better explains where this statement comes from.

(1/2) (EDIT: I'm post limited for a bit, I'll post the other bit later)

This topic is very disingenuous just based on the notion of looking at it like a "failure". Mods are used and created for personal preference. So unless any video game will allow you to do anything with it, literally anything, mods will always be a thing. Don't like the way a spell looks? Mod it. Don't like the fact graphics may look a little more realistic and prefer a cartoon look to it? Mod it. Want Macho Man to fly around yelling signature quotes? Mod it.

That's not to say that improvements shouldn't happen, but the argument being made by OP is that the very presence of 3rd party tools is a failure of the game. That's just simply not true.

No, certain addons are created for the sole reason to turn a raid difficulty into easy mode by providing timings and announcement of mechanics.

Those literally go against the design of the game but players want them anyway because it makes the "difficult" high end group encounter easier.

"You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT"
If you are solely using the tools the game provides you, and not reading any job guides, then this is just true. But it still doesn't make it mandatory, people can make plenty of mistakes and still clear content. My static is very midcore, I make plenty mistakes, as does everyone else in my group. We're almost done with the tier. Again, as long as you find a group that has the same expectations, nobody is going to expect you to have any addon.

In addition the the above, savage and even ultimate fights can be cleared via the Party Finder in game. Nobody in any PF group has ever asked me if I have mods, or any such thing relating to them. And I have played REALLY badly in some groups, causing wipes in several instances and doing really bad damage. The only person who ever criticized me for those poor performances, was myself, as it should be. So in the end, I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions and allays some of your concerns you might have surrounding the topic, and explains why some of us feel the way we do, and think that people such as Johners are being particularly spiteful. I know that the culture in WoW regarding addons is atrocious - I've been through GearScore, Raider.io, DBM and I genuinely hated it all, but that doesn't mean that XIV cannot be any different. We just have to ensure that toxic behavior using the addons is not allowed, but that doesn't mean the addons themselves are to blame. Chances are someone who would flame you for low DPS will just find any other reason to flame you anyway. They can catch a ban.

(2/2)

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Originally Posted by SwingLifeAway

"You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT"

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If people read their own skills and passives then the "optimal" path is blatantly clear, when I do a mistake it is clear and obvious, I dont need a dps meter to tell me otherwise because the vast majority of mmorpgs have rotations that are very clear and obvious IF you take time to read your own skills and passives.

If you choose to not do that you have nobody else to blame but yourself

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

If people read their own skills and passives then the "optimal" path is blatantly clear, when I do a mistake it is clear and obvious, I dont need a dps meter to tell me otherwise because the vast majority of mmorpgs have rotations that are very clear and obvious IF you take time to read your own skills and passives.

If you choose to not do that you have nobody else to blame but yourself

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I question your ability to read your own skills if you cannot even read the entirety of what I said and take it into context.

Yes, you can learn basic rotation from the game, but an optimized rotation you cannot learn from the tools the game gives you. The game also doesn't give you any feedback on areas where you may have made mistakes while focusing on mechanics, which in turn means that you do not know what you need to work on to improve.

You can clear content without it, and you can perform well without it, but in groups that are pushing for week 1 clears, where even 100-200 dps can matter then it is very important to be optimizing your rotation. This is exactly why the addon wouldn't be mandatory, because the vast majority of statics in the small raiding community don't go for week 1 clears.

If you do hard content with no addons and only using what the game gives you, then good for you. I really don't care. Neither should you care about people playing the game the way they want to play it, provided they are not cheating. Parsing is not cheating.

Are you on alt account? Or do you usually try and project your uninformed opinions onto how other people should be able to enjoy their hobbies in other communities as well?

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Originally Posted by SwingLifeAway

Yes, you can learn basic rotation from the game, but an optimized rotation you cannot learn from the tools the game gives you. The game also doesn't give you any feedback on areas where you may have made mistakes while focusing on mechanics, which in turn means that you do not know what you need to work on to improve.

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Unless there's hidden interactions the optimized rotations is more often than not obvious.

Now if you are referring on tailoring said rotation to the encounter's mechanic that is also quite clear, when you waste a combo or a cd offensive or mobility due to a mechanic the mistake is blatant and now you know what you should do next time. Unless you want to argue people dont pay attention to their buffs/dots and just brainlessly spam 1,2,3 irrespective of how many times the mechanic screws theirrotation. Maximizing uptime is also quite obvious, when you fail to do that you know that next time you need to do something different to maximize it.

You dont need the game to tell you "Hey, maybe if you hadnt wasted your cd early and lost seconds of it you would have maximized its efficiency" (obviously depending on encounter duration)

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

If people read their own skills and passives then the "optimal" path is blatantly clear, when I do a mistake it is clear and obvious, I dont need a dps meter to tell me otherwise because the vast majority of mmorpgs have rotations that are very clear and obvious IF you take time to read your own skills and passives.

If you choose to not do that you have nobody else to blame but yourself

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A lot of the in game tooltips are poorly written. There has been improvement over the years, but for example when I read all the reaper skills before trying it out, it sounded way more complicated than is actually plays.

WoW had addon since back in vanilla yet they can still ban cheaters and let the vast majority of the player base play with third-party tools. Don't pretend FXIV doesn't have the tools to do the same in 2022.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Unless there's hidden interactions the optimized rotations is more often than not obvious.

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Ah, so you really actually have no idea what you're talking about. Thanks for letting me know.

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Originally Posted by Johners

I'll drop the hot take at the start but third party tools are a failing in a multi-platform game and lack of any proper anti-cheat mechanisms on PC lets the entire player base down, especially PlayStation users.

This parts seems to be forgotten or just willingly ignored in the entire third party tools discussion. Square Enix are developing and publishing a multi-platform game that's also cross-platform and they're failing an entire group of them by not properly enforcing the existing terms of service.

Before people do the "console OMEGALUL" thing that I've seen a lot around the plug-in discussion, they're a massive part of the player base and in Japan there simply isn't the PC gaming that's in Western markets. There's a duty on Square Enix to design a game that's fair and equal for the entire player base regardless of how they choose to play. This extends to the toolset available to players via the default UI and ensuring both input methods (controller and KB+M) are both balanced.

I appreciate some of quality of life user interface mods but at the same time, some of these are a product of people playing other MMOs and wanting that same experience in FFXIV. A notable example with streamers was Limit Max getting an exact replica of his WoW UI in this game but that also extends to plugins to replicate mouseover macro functionality that WoW has which I personally know many people that use.

Square Enix seemingly don't like to truly confront the player base in a way they'd take negatively and up until now, every discussion on third party tools has mostly been rewording the terms of service and asking people not to use it. Unfortunately the game is too popular for the "don't do it stance" statement to actually work anymore and the solution is proper moderation from SE, not self-moderation from the community.

At least they finally addressed the implications of console support in the most recent letter regarding third party tools but until they're actually willing to implement the client-side anti-cheat they'd need to enforce this, absolutely nothing changes. They're between a rock and a hard place. On one side it's ever improving plugins with more visibility than ever. On the other side it's implementing an anti-cheat for the PC users so they can actually solve the problem.

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Anti-Cheat is to prevent malicious behavior in a game conducted by people that harms other players in the game. Modding itself does not constitute cheating and implementing anti-cheat simply to fight mods is a mistake. The terms of service are very clear what is and is not allowed and the only gray area has been the enforcement and punishment of violations.

If the company were to institute technology to detect the usage of third party software as described in the ToS, it would be a huge maintenance issue and liability for SE that provides no financial benefit to the company and if you believe this is false, imagine an anti-virus scan triggering your banning from FFXIV because it opens and scans the files for FFXIV, or getting banned for an overlay that is always active by default from some common communication software such as Discord or webex.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Anti-Cheat is to prevent malicious behavior in a game conducted by people that harms other players in the game. Modding itself does not constitute cheating and implementing anti-cheat simply to fight mods is a mistake. The terms of service are very clear what is and is not allowed and the only gray area has been the enforcement and punishment of violations.

If the company were to institute technology to detect the usage of third party software as described in the ToS, it would be a huge maintenance issue and liability for SE that provides no financial benefit to the company and if you believe this is false, imagine an anti-virus scan triggering your banning from FFXIV because it opens and scans the files for FFXIV, or getting banned for an overlay that is always active by default from some common communication software such as Discord or webex.

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The terms of service establishes that all third-party tools aren't to be used when playing the game. It's not about cheating, it's about quite literally everything, I don't see why the player base keeps trying to debate this. Changing a small UI element is just as much a violation as outright cheating. Bard bots, damage meters, Viera hats and whatever else is in the same boat. The massive grey area is from Square Enix's inability to equally detect and moderate third-party tool usage. You have to publicly show yourself as a streamer or via a social media in a way that's clearly identifiable for them to do anything.

There's plenty of established anti-cheat software that Square Enix could license for use within FFXIV, the question would be the moderation stance. Valorant, for example, has a fairly aggressive stance and the game will often refuse to start or disconnect you if it detects anything wrong which is the right thing for a competitive FPS title to do. World of Warcraft will simply flag your account and the suspicious activity for Blizzard to investigate and issue bans. When new cheats come along, Blizzard will typically hit in big ban waves while also making it visible to everyone else. I recall back in Warlords of Draenor when a ban wave for a paid cheat used by raiders was issued during peak raiding hours for European players. Many Mythic guilds save some of their best DPS players banned during boss pulls. Must be embarrassing having to explain that to your raid leader.

False detection on any established anti-cheat isn't going to be a thing. A bigger concern would be running some obscure anti-cheat we've never heard of or trying to develop their own technology for doing this. That said, anti-virus operating in the background or a mainstream voice chat application isn't going to throw a wobbly and get you banned if they were to implement something like Easy Anti Cheat.

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Originally Posted by Johners

The terms of service establishes that all third-party tools aren't to be used when playing the game. It's not about cheating, it's about quite literally everything, I don't see why the player base keeps trying to debate this. Changing a small UI element is just as much a violation as outright cheating. Bard bots, damage meters, Viera hats and whatever else is in the same boat. The massive grey area is from Square Enix's inability to equally detect and moderate third-party tool usage. You have to publicly show yourself as a streamer or via a social media in a way that's clearly identifiable for them to do anything.

There's plenty of established anti-cheat software that Square Enix could license for use within FFXIV, the question would be the moderation stance. Valorant, for example, has a fairly aggressive stance and the game will often refuse to start or disconnect you if it detects anything wrong which is the right thing for a competitive FPS title to do. World of Warcraft will simply flag your account and the suspicious activity for Blizzard to investigate and issue bans. When new cheats come along, Blizzard will typically hit in big ban waves while also making it visible to everyone else. I recall back in Warlords of Draenor when a ban wave for a paid cheat used by raiders was issued during peak raiding hours for European players. Many Mythic guilds save some of their best DPS players banned during boss pulls. Must be embarrassing having to explain that to your raid leader.

False detection on any established anti-cheat isn't going to be a thing. A bigger concern would be running some obscure anti-cheat we've never heard of or trying to develop their own technology for doing this. That said, anti-virus operating in the background or a mainstream voice chat application isn't going to throw a wobbly and get you banned if they were to implement something like Easy Anti Cheat.

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Let me ask you a real question:

What does it do to your day if someone uses a mod/plugin to give their Viera a hat (since the devs seem to be unable to) or play a song in one of the main cities? Does it really affect you that badly? If it does, please explain why. I'm genuinely curious.

Its pretty simple. As long there is no ingame alternative, people prefer risking their account and computer using third party software.

For Example: SE dont want a parser. Easy. Add a result screen at the end of a raid, dungeon, etc. In Savage/Ex/Ultimate maybe between pulls. They did that in PvP already.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Let me ask you a real question:

What does it do to your day if someone uses a mod/plugin to give their Viera a hat (since the devs seem to be unable to) or play a song in one of the main cities? Does it really affect you that badly? If it does, please explain why. I'm genuinely curious.

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Viera hats? Doesn't particularly bother me but for Square Enix, it does open an interesting thing to decide, what do you actually do? The same mechanisms that allow Viera hats also allow lewd modders to being their models, textures and even animations into the game (yes this is a thing now) which is something Square Enix have very much been vocally against. Not to mention that they also sell cosmetics in the optional cash store so for the men in suits, there's a business incentive to blocking third-party client-side cosmetic changes.

Bard bots are a similar thing. Aside from the usage of bard bots during Endwalker release to stay logged in which I know a few people that did so they didn't have to queue in the evening once they got home from work, it's just a little tired. Congratulations, you're the thousandth bard that's played Dragonsong using a third party program and it's even more obvious when an entire group of bards turn up with the same name. That said, you also have third-party programs that can play the entire MSQ and we've all see gibberish named sprouts playing the MSQ because it's been botted for years. SE can actually see when you're in performance mode anyway so this is really straightforward to moderate anyway and could still exist after this.

Unless they just implemented an anti-cheat in the nuclear way that auto moderated every detection, it would require Square Enix to make actual moderation policy decisions that they problem need to make at this stage. They're massively on the back foot of being able to manage all this additional functionality that's increasing in quality and quantity everyday. I can appreciate that quality of life changes people enjoy but even in this recent debate, everyone has a different idea of what QoL actually means and in the middle of all this is Square Enix being totally hopefully in moderating any of it regardless of how major or minor it actually is.

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Originally Posted by Johners

Viera hats? Doesn't particularly bother me but for Square Enix, it does open an interesting thing to decide, what do you actually do? The same mechanisms that allow Viera hats also allow lewd modders to being their models, textures and even animations into the game (yes this is a thing now) which is something Square Enix have very much been vocally against. Not to mention that they also sell cosmetics in the optional cash store so for the men in suits, there's a business incentive to blocking third-party client-side cosmetic changes.

Bard bots are a similar thing. Aside from the usage of bard bots during Endwalker release to stay logged in which I know a few people that did so they didn't have to queue in the evening once they got home from work, it's just a little tired. Congratulations, you're the thousandth bard that's played Dragonsong using a third party program and it's even more obvious when an entire group of bards turn up with the same name. That said, you also have third-party programs that can play the entire MSQ and we've all see gibberish named sprouts playing the MSQ because it's been botted for years. SE can actually see when you're in performance mode anyway so this is really straightforward to moderate anyway and could still exist after this.

Unless they just implemented an anti-cheat in the nuclear way that auto moderated every detection, it would require Square Enix to make actual moderation policy decisions that they problem need to make at this stage. They're massively on the back foot of being able to manage all this additional functionality that's increasing in quality and quantity everyday. I can appreciate that quality of life changes people enjoy but even in this recent debate, everyone has a different idea of what QoL actually means and in the middle of all this is Square Enix being totally hopefully in moderating any of it regardless of how major or minor it actually is.

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Bolded Point #1: Lewd models have been a thing for years. It's nothing new.
Bolded Point #2: This sounds like jealousy to me, but if it bothers you there's a little thing called muting Performance in your sound settings.
Bolded Point #3: This is false otherwise people would be getting banned as soon as they turn on any music related plugins or within a few days after using it. Clearly this is not the case as there are many individuals who have made in-game careers off of barding and continue to thrive.
Bolded Point #4: They have made a decision on it. They outright have stated that it's against the ToS, however they will not put anything on our PCs to detect what players are doing. This literally means: Hey we're going to say this is wrong but we can't stop you from using it unless you get yourself in hot water by using them publically.

Ultimately hun, your original post reads like you're upset that console players can't use mods or plugins and want them banned, even though if you were able to get a PC we both know you'd probably use them yourself. That's not the fault of the PC community that consoles are not able to mod (yes I am aware that Bethesda has done it in the past but they're a rare exception), nor is it on Square to level the playing field or pick sides and risk a riot by either side. Direct your anger where it matters, at the people who actually develop and produce consoles.

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Originally Posted by Johners

Viera hats? Doesn't particularly bother me but for Square Enix, it does open an interesting thing to decide, what do you actually do? The same mechanisms that allow Viera hats also allow lewd modders to being their models, textures and even animations into the game (yes this is a thing now) which is something Square Enix have very much been vocally against. Not to mention that they also sell cosmetics in the optional cash store so for the men in suits, there's a business incentive to blocking third-party client-side cosmetic changes.

Bard bots are a similar thing. Aside from the usage of bard bots during Endwalker release to stay logged in which I know a few people that did so they didn't have to queue in the evening once they got home from work, it's just a little tired. Congratulations, you're the thousandth bard that's played Dragonsong using a third party program and it's even more obvious when an entire group of bards turn up with the same name. That said, you also have third-party programs that can play the entire MSQ and we've all see gibberish named sprouts playing the MSQ because it's been botted for years. SE can actually see when you're in performance mode anyway so this is really straightforward to moderate anyway and could still exist after this.

Unless they just implemented an anti-cheat in the nuclear way that auto moderated every detection, it would require Square Enix to make actual moderation policy decisions that they problem need to make at this stage. They're massively on the back foot of being able to manage all this additional functionality that's increasing in quality and quantity everyday. I can appreciate that quality of life changes people enjoy but even in this recent debate, everyone has a different idea of what QoL actually means and in the middle of all this is Square Enix being totally hopefully in moderating any of it regardless of how major or minor it actually is.

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So why does it matter that some people use nudes mods? No seriously, they can't force other people to see it so it only affect other people who willingly took said mods... SE are the first game dev I see that actively fight addons and it weird tbh

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Originally Posted by Magikazam

SE are the first game dev I see that actively fight addons and it weird tbh

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The only reason they're openly doing so is because this is the loudest community in recent memory to actually largely believe the all encompassing ToS should not be applicable to them. The other communities that do use mods mostly understand what they're doing is against ToS. They just generally realize that it's nearly impossible to get caught for simple things that don't directly interfere with how the game works (e.g. packet sniffing or spoofing). Yoshi-P should, in hindsight, have never given a lengthy answer on the matter many years ago. He should have just always replied with "we don't support them and you use 3rd party programs at your own risk" and be done with it. It wouldn't stop people like me from doing whatever we choose to do. It would however keep a few delusional people from believing mods are okay lol.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

[...] It is like anti-virus-software. Does it protect you? No. Does it open new security holes into your system? Propably yes.


Cheers

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LOOOOOLWut

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

The only reason they're openly doing so is because this is the loudest community in recent memory to actually largely believe the all encompassing ToS should not be applicable to them. The other communities that do use mods mostly understand what they're doing is against ToS. They just generally realize that it's nearly impossible to get caught for simple things that don't directly interfere with how the game works (e.g. packet sniffing or spoofing). Yoshi-P should, in hindsight, have never given a lengthy answer on the matter many years ago. He should have just always replied with "we don't support them and you use 3rd party programs at your own risk" and be done with it. It wouldn't stop people like me from doing whatever we choose to do. It would however keep a few delusional people from believing mods are okay lol.

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That’s because most of the modding community thinks it’s like modding Skyrim. They genuinely don’t understand, or just choose to ignore, that these level of third-party tools just isn’t something you can have in an online game. Try using a variety of these tools in other games like Valorant, LoL, Fortnite or even WoW (has addons officially but that’s only UI stuff) and you’d get banned.

The key difference is that the vast majority of other online games have client-side protections to stop or detect third-party tools from being used. At the end of the day, online games have to measure everyone to an identical standard via an identical toolkit. That’s everything from random UI elements to boss mechanics and telegraphs (actually a third party tool that adds AoE markers to the hidden mechanics in an ultimate).

Square Enix ultimately made the mistake of implementing an unenforceable terms of service and even when ARR released in 2013, there was already games like WoW that had seen a decade of development in these tools. Yes, UI addons are supported there but there’s also a wide variety of paid cheats that had existed with various ban waves and other approaches to punishments for being caught using them. For a company that researched other games during design phases, they’ve managed to ignore something that’s always been a big debate in that other game many people recently switched from.

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Originally Posted by Klytania

LOOOOOLWut

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I mean they're not wrong, good practices have been more important than your choice (or lack of) anti virus pretty much since internet access became affordable.

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Originally Posted by Johners

That’s because most of the modding community thinks it’s like modding Skyrim. They genuinely don’t understand, or just choose to ignore, that these level of third-party tools just isn’t something you can have in an online game.

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Why though? I mean beyond simply 'but muhhh ToSSSSSS' :rolleyes:

WoW is an interesting example, that did actually start to get a model editing scene at one stage early on in vanilla if I'm remembering it right. That got stomped hard and fast because people started using it to put huge spikes on player models stopping people from hiding in corners/huts etc in PvP, something that was pretty important given WoW's PvP focus.

FFXIV really doesn't place anything like the same value on the PvP experience as it's client/server tick rate clearly shows. So it's a rather different situation. Model and texture edits are really only a win for SE as it keeps people invested in the game when a content drought might cause them to unsub and head elsewhere. UI stuff is a similar boat, this should be the community designing and beta testing ideas which SE should have been plucking the pick from. Honestly? Even if it's far from being for everyone, the Skyrim stuff is fine as long as people remember to keep it within Fight Club rules.

You have to step all the way up to the bots before things genuinely start getting harmful for the game proper. Below that, it's just being being stupid or toxic.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

WoW is an interesting example, that did actually start to get a model editing scene at one stage early on in vanilla if I'm remembering it right. That got stomped hard and fast because people started using it to put huge spikes on player models stopping people from hiding in corners/huts etc in PvP, something that was pretty important given WoW's PvP focus.

FFXIV really doesn't place anything like the same value on the PvP experience as it's client/server tick rate clearly shows. So it's a rather different situation. Model and texture edits are really only a win for SE as it keeps people invested in the game when a content drought might cause them to unsub and head elsewhere. UI stuff is a similar boat, this should be the community designing and beta testing ideas which SE should have been plucking the pick from. Honestly? Even if it's far from being for everyone, the Skyrim stuff is fine as long as people remember to keep it within Fight Club rules.

You have to step all the way up to the bots before things genuinely start getting harmful for the game proper. Below that, it's just being being stupid or toxic.

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World of Warcraft has interesting examples of the "grey area" the community talks about in FFXIV. Before they added transmog (glamour) into the game with patch 4.2, there was this third party tool called tmorph. This allowed you to change your character and mount model client-side to others in the game based off of the model ID. Then people started using the same tool to alter the size and model for the flag in Warsong Gulch. It didn't change the hit box but it made it easily visible from the entire map and the call for each entrance/floor to attack when pushing to return your flag became much easier.

The problem with FFXIV modding being under Fight Club rules is that everyone knows and it's not a secret. When you have Limit Max coming into this game from World of Warcraft, asking for a one-for-one replica of his WoW UI on stream in front of 1000s of people, it exposes the entire community to everyone. The same thing happened when Asmongold interviewed a lewd modder on his stream last year, it exposed that entire community to everyone beyond the existing boundaries of the FFXIV community.

WoW is also a really good example, even with officially support UI plugins, of how these tools develop over time and the impact it has on the game. Blizzard have even recognised that a certain level of combat addons go too far but they're not in a position to just flat remove them because it could remove functionality that smaller QoL addons rely on. Combine that with basically no improvements to the stock UI and having to use some addons is pretty much a requirement these days.

Square Enix would be naive and fairly misguided to keep ignoring it at this stage. Even if some of it is "harmless", almost none of it can be moderated.

Day 5 of Johners pretending he is a Square Enix employee.

The question here is not "how to punish", but "why do they use it?". I'm against plugins that measure damage, facilitate things like "what fish am I going to catch", or "press this button and do better", but there are other plugins that are things that SHOULD BE IN THE GAME.

Let me clarify better. After 10 years, they have just now implemented a system that indicates if you already have a song, mount, minion, or TT card. Do I need to say that there were plugins that did this before, and avoided having to need everything and see later that you already had the items?

Mods that fix things in the game, such as those that add hats to vieras and hrothgar, something that SE should have already done, since it failed to fulfill its promise of delivering exclusive hair and more customization options. Or mods that add ears to races, as SE has been using the methodology of amputating ears since the last expansion (see miqo'te)

Plugins that save your HUD so you can load it into another character. Something that should be basic in such an old game, and we still don't have it officially.

plugins that add chat bubbles, something I've been asking for since I started using the forum and that hasn't been implemented as an option until today.

These are just a few mods and plugins that have been commented on here on the forum recently. Things that don't harm anyone, and that should have been implemented by the company, but for reasons of ????, they still haven't.

It's no use console gamers wanting a witch hunt, and being content to force PC gamers to play the way they play. It would be much more productive to start screaming that they want changes to the game, so that no one else needs to use this type of program.

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Originally Posted by Johners

WoW is also a really good example, even with officially support UI plugins, of how these tools develop over time and the impact it has on the game. Blizzard have even recognised that a certain level of combat addons go too far but they're not in a position to just flat remove them because it could remove functionality that smaller QoL addons rely on. Combine that with basically no improvements to the stock UI and having to use some addons is pretty much a requirement these days.

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It almost as if you missed the part where they limited what combat addons could show or do after WoD. It not like addons ruined the game and that they can't fix it. Also as a WoW veteran I can't recall the models changing mods you talking about. never seen them out of non-official server so I will call BS on that one.