Can SQ-EN draw a line in the sand w/ 3rd Parties?

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I still think this is a reach. We can use phones to communicate, or any other means, really. Play Station players can use the PS VC with their fellow PS players. Using Discord or communication tools is no different from being in the same room as someone or close enough to them for you to be able to talk to each other and communicate. Communication is not the same as using a program to automate stuff for you because it's still a human being you're interacting with.

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The EULA specifically mentions changes gameplay, and that is what voice chat does, it drastically changes the gameplay. For example, back in DAoC You could really see the difference in battles and even PvE between those using the brand new (at the time) teamspeak and those not. It does change it. Like I said, its so common now we just take it for granted now and don't think about what it actually does on the game side.

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Originally Posted by Altera

So its Rules for Thee, not for me huh? Streamer privilege I guess. They are livestreaming a breach/rule break. They should get first a 3 day ban, then if repeat offence 1 week, and another breach, Permaban imo
Soon Addons and this Simtool will be demanded implemented into the game itself. This game has done really well long before all these new streamers came to this game, and atm the problems they bring due to unavaiable parts for servers might cause EW launch log in to be a nightmare

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Please for the love of god stop with the fear mongering. The way the fights are designed makes plugins unnecessary and more importantly they wont give you any meaningful advantage over just playing well. You can do exactly the same as those streamers do. The way to not step over the line is to not harras people, that's literally the only thing you have to do when using third party tools and when not using them.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

The EULA specifically mentions changes gameplay, and that is what voice chat does, it drastically changes the gameplay. For example, back in DAoC You could really see the difference in battles and even PvE between those using the brand new (at the time) teamspeak and those not. It does change it. Like I said, its so common now we just take it for granted now and don't think about what it actually does on the game side.

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If you're fast enough at typing, you can type in chat to alert other people to stuff (at least in normal content). Should we do something about this too? After all, it modifies gameplay too. Or are you gonna say that since it's using something built in the game, it's ok? I don't think what people here are discussing is about modifying the gameplay itself but about some people having an advantage over others and relying on something that's not a human to do part of their work for them. VC isn't harmful and anyone can use it (PS players included), unlike 3rd party programs.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

If you're fast enough at typing, you can type in chat to alert other people to stuff. Should we do something about this too? After all, it modifies gameplay too.

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I feel like this exact logic has been talked into the ground with human shot caller vs cactbot calls right in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

I feel like this exact logic has been talked into the ground with human shot caller vs cactbot calls right in this thread.

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The part you quoted was actually for discussing the use of Discord for communication.

In some ways I can understand certain tools being used (like to make the UI easier to read/see or something that helps accessibility). But if you let these kinds of programs be allowed, pretty soon the party finder will be "Baddie Primal Clear. Must have X Y and Z installed." to where even if you could clear Baddie Primal without those things, you'll be playing at a distinct disadvantage and noticeably so.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

The part you quoted was actually for discussing the use of Discord for communication.

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And you dont see the similarities between 'communication via discord vs via ingame chat' and 'shotcalling done by cactbot vs done by raid leader'?

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

In some ways I can understand certain tools being used (like to make the UI easier to read/see or something that helps accessibility). But if you let these kinds of programs be allowed, pretty soon the party finder will be "Baddie Primal Clear. Must have X Y and Z installed." to where even if you could clear Baddie Primal without those things, you'll be playing at a distinct disadvantage and noticeably so.

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This would trigger an actual violation. The violations for 3rd party things has always came down to how they are used. Forcing use is one of the things that has triggered a violation.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

In some ways I can understand certain tools being used (like to make the UI easier to read/see or something that helps accessibility). But if you let these kinds of programs be allowed, pretty soon the party finder will be "Baddie Primal Clear. Must have X Y and Z installed." to where even if you could clear Baddie Primal without those things, you'll be playing at a distinct disadvantage and noticeably so.

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That's not how the game is designed. You dont have a significant advantage over someone playing well. All you do is take a shortcut to learning the fight. Putting some plugin requirement into PF will very likely get you a warning point right now already.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

If you're fast enough at typing, you can type in chat to alert other people to stuff (at least in normal content). Should we do something about this too? After all, it modifies gameplay too. Or are you gonna say that since it's using something built in the game, it's ok? I don't think what people here are discussing is about modifying the gameplay itself but about some people having an advantage over others and relying on something that's not a human to do part of their work for them. VC isn't harmful and anyone can use it (PS players included), unlike 3rd party programs.

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The game has built in text chat thus no violation of the of the EULA. Voice coms is straight up advantage. Type as fast as you want, most are not as fast as speaking it is harder to notice than a shot caller in your ear. Correct voice coms isn't harmful, and neither are other 3rd party programs unless they are forced by players, which is what triggers a violation.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...al-Fantasy-XIV

Here you go.

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I thought (stupid of me, I know) you were being serious.

Memes and shitposts made by bored people don't account for official information. Try again.

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Originally Posted by yajnaji

I thought (stupid of me, I know) you were being serious.

Memes and shitposts made by bored people don't account for official information. Try again.

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That's fine, I didnt think (smart of me, I know) you were being serious.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

And you dont see the similarities between 'communication via discord vs via ingame chat' and 'shotcalling done by cactbot vs done by raid leader'?

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I don't get your point.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

The game has built in text chat thus no violation of the of the EULA. Voice coms is straight up advantage. Type as fast as you want, most are not as fast as speaking it is harder to notice than a shot caller in your ear. Correct voice coms isn't harmful, and neither are other 3rd party programs unless they are forced by players, which is what triggers a violation.

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I see this conversation as going nowhere since we're both speaking from different points of view. The other programs are "harmful" because they give an advantage to some people over others (PS players) and automate a task that was meant to be done by humans. Programs that help people communicate or make the game look better aren't the same as these. Next thing you know, people would be defending the use of bots.

My big question is, why isn't the line ZERO, just like the subscriber contract says it is?

Do we really want to be in a world where the dev's are designing based on the assumption that tools will be used, and thus those that don't use them get a short stick experiance?

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I don't get your point.




I see this conversation as going nowhere since we're both speaking from different points of view. The other programs are "harmful" because they give an advantage to some people over others (PS players) and automate a task that was meant to be done by humans. Programs that help people communicate or make the game look better aren't the same as these. Next thing you know, people would be defending the use of bots.

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Bots are clear cut and their enforcement on it hasn't been reliant on specific actions outside of using the bots. They are only harmful when players force them. The fact that these have existed for years and have been used for years and that nothing harmful has happened to the game and it has only gotten better. BTW, should anyone using an MMO mouse of MMO keypad and software be banned (this includes Yoshi P who uses a g13)? They offer a straight up advantage unavailable to console players. How about all the exploits used in house decoration. Abuse of bugs and exploits is forbidden in the EULA.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

My big question is, why isn't the line ZERO, just like the subscriber contract says it is?

Do we really want to be in a world where the dev's are designing based on the assumption that tools will be used, and thus those that don't use them get a short stick experiance?

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Because they don't make the game based on these tools, which have been around for years. The line exists and has existed. the line is when you start harassing and forcing them on other players based on addons.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

My big question is, why isn't the line ZERO, just like the subscriber contract says it is?

Do we really want to be in a world where the dev's are designing based on the assumption that tools will be used, and thus those that don't use them get a short stick experiance?

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If the line is 0 you will no longer be able to use discord, you will no longer be able to use excel for BiS calculations (which you probably arent doing but other people are for you), you will no longer be able to have an mmo mouse with extra buttons, you will no longer have videos about the game (looking through vods makes it far easier to see what went wrong in a wipe). Those are all third party tools. That line is a stupid line to draw as it doesnt address what's important and that is that you're not allowed to harass people. If you use a parser to harass someone over their dps you get punished, if you use a parser to see where you can improve your own damage output then you are not punished because you are not causing any trouble.

How much admiration the community gives to people with savage or ulti clears is on the community.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I don't get your point.




I see this conversation as going nowhere since we're both speaking from different points of view. The other programs are "harmful" because they give an advantage to some people over others (PS players) and automate a task that was meant to be done by humans. Programs that help people communicate or make the game look better aren't the same as these. Next thing you know, people would be defending the use of bots.

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You bringing up how people could just call out stuff via ingame chat instead of talking over discord is the exact same logic as some people in this thread saying how you can just have your raidleader call mechanics instead of cactbot. In both cases the third party tool (discord/cactbot) are stronger than the strictly ingame options.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

BTW, should anyone using an MMO mouse of MMO keypad and software be banned (this includes Yoshi P who uses a g13)? They offer a straight up advantage unavailable to console players. How about all the exploits used in house decoration. Abuse of bugs and exploits is forbidden in the EULA.

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As long as it's a person playing using the mouse and keypad, I personally don't care. I know that as a console player, I probably won't be able to perform as well as a good mouse-and-keyboard player, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm not playing the game to be 100% percentile. I enjoy the controller support greatly and think it's genius. And correct me if I'm wrong but can't console players connect a mouse and a keyboard to the Play Station and play like PC players? I've never tried this, so I don't know.

As for the housing exploits, they're, again, not harming anyone and it's a person taking the time and having the patience to play around with them and everyone can use them (as far as I know, unless there's another program they use that allows for stuff that the glitching doesn't).

Lemme repeat one more time: People here are discussing stuff that gives an advantage to some people over others by automating stuff for them. They're not picking up pitchforks and going for the entirety of the EULA.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

You bringing up how people could just call out stuff via ingame chat instead of talking over discord is the exact same logic as some people in this thread saying how you can just have your raidleader call mechanics instead of cactbot. In both cases the third party tool (discord/cactbot) are stronger than the strictly ingame options.

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Except they're not. In Cactbot's case, it's a program and not a person doing the callouts. Discord or any means of communication doesn't do stuff for you. That was the whole point discussed in the thread. We're not discussing in-game stuff vs. all 3rd-party stuff. The conversation somehow got derailed and went there, but that wasn't the initial point discussed. At least I didn't see it that way.

The problem with this comparison is that discord doesn't invasively access the games memory, or intercept network packets intended solely for the game client ​in order to perform it's basic function.

Cactbot extracts and decodes typically (and intentionally) obfuscated game data in order to effectively automate an intended element of fight execution. Sometimes plugins like trigonometry are even employed for literal, input related automation.

Discord lets you talk to your team mates on a voice chat. The PS4 has voice-chat as well, that is more or less officially sanctioned by virtue of it not being disabled when you launch FFXIV.

These two things aren't comparable.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

As long as it's a person playing using the mouse and keypad, I personally don't care. I know that as a console player, I probably won't be able to perform as well as a good mouse-and-keyboard player, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm not playing the game to be 100% percentile. I enjoy the controller support greatly and think it's genius. And correct me if I'm wrong but can't console players connect a mouse and a keyboard to the Play Station and play like PC players? I've never tried this, so I don't know.

As for the housing exploits, they're, again, not harming anyone and it's a person taking the time and having the patience to play around with them and everyone can use them (as far as I know and unless there's another program they use that allows for stuff that the glitching doesn't).

Lemme repeat one more time: People here are discussing stuff that gives an advantage to some people over others by automating stuff for them. They're not picking up pitchforks and going for the entirety of the EULA.

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Yes they can connect a mouse and keyboard but functionality varies. They also can't use the software of these keypads and mice which leaves many of their advantages unusable. One advantage would be being able to use macros without delays, reduce combos down to one button, macro oGCDs for perfect timing. Your logic here literally applies to everything but bots. Even cactbot still requires the person to actually play and pay attention.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Yes they can connect a mouse and keyboard but functionality varies. They also can't use the software of these keypads and mice which leaves many of their advantages unusable. One advantage would be being able to use macros without delays, reduce combos down to one button, macro oGCDs for perfect timing.

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In that case, I'd say the advantages do sound unfair but I'm not willing to delve into that debate. I honestly don't care enough about parses to wanna die on this hill.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Your logic here literally applies to everything but bots. Even cactbot still requires the person to actually play and pay attention.

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It still gives you an advantage since a person can get distracted, can panic and forget stuff or mess up, etc. but a program doesn't. No one said Cactbot plays the game for you or makes it so mechanics don't matter or you don't have to pay attention, just that it gives an undeniable advantage by removing the possible human-error factor when it comes to making call-outs or noticing mechanics for yourself (sometimes apparently going as far as telling you what to do).

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Originally Posted by Eien713

In that case, I'd say the advantages do sound unfair but I'm not willing to delve into that debate. I honestly don't care enough about parses to wanna die on this hill.



It still gives you an advantage since a person can get distracted, can panic and forget stuff or mess up, etc. but a program doesn't. No one said Cactbot plays the game for you or makes it so mechanics don't matter or you don't have to pay attention, just that it gives an undeniable advantage by removing the possible human-error factor when it comes to making call-outs.

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So it simply does the job of a really good shot caller. The amount of errors I've seen in streams from really good shot callers has been pretty much zero, outside of them trolling. Quite literally you'd have no clue these things existed if someone didn't bring them up every now and then. I would in no way call that harmful particularly since SE's line has been harassment and forced use of these addons. As long as they actually stick with that the harm is virtually nothing.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

So it simply does the job of a really good shot caller.

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This has explained ~5 times previously in this thread, but here's a summation of the points of why comparing Cactbot to a human shot-caller is incredibly disingenuous:

Cactbot can :
- Make eight, individual, unique callouts to eight different people simultaneously and instantly.
- React with what is effectively a 0ms delay to mechanics
- Accurately call certain mechanics that haven't even been telegraphed on the client yet.
- Show a graphical list with exact countdowns to upcoming mechanics.
- Never make a single mistake while doing all of this.


How does it do all of this?

By invasively reading obfuscated game-data directly out of memory, or via intercepting network traffic.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

This has explained ~5 times previously in this thread, but here's a summation of the points of why comparing Cactbot to a human shot-caller is incredibly disingenuous:

Cactbot can :
- Make eight, individual, unique callouts to eight different people simultaneously and instantly.
- React with what is effectively a 0ms delay to mechanics
- Accurately call certain mechanics that haven't even been telegraphed on the client yet.
- Show a graphical list with exact countdowns to upcoming mechanics.
- Never make a single mistake while doing all of this.


How does it do all of this?

By invasively reading obfuscated game-data directly out of memory, or via intercepting network traffic.

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And you still wouldn't have any idea it existed if someone didn't see it. ACT has been around in FFXIV for 8 years, Cactbot for 4 years (2 expansions) so they are in no way new or something that has effected the game in some insidious negative way when it comes to the way people enjoy the game. No fights are made with it in mind. It is not updated fast enough to make a difference in world firsts. Anyone that requires it can be banned. Anyone that uses functions of it to harass someone can be banned. Get back to me when they start designing the game around it and they start caring about the race for world first.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

Except they're not. In Cactbot's case, it's a program and not a person doing the callouts. Discord or any means of communication doesn't do stuff for you. That was the whole point discussed in the thread. We're not discussing in-game stuff vs. all 3rd-party stuff. The conversation somehow got derailed and went there, but that wasn't the initial point discussed. At least I didn't see it that way.

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Who do you think sets cactbot triggers? Some deep learning AI? It's not derailing the thread, it's the logical conclusion to the question asked in the title of the thread. A silly title I might add because the line has been drawn long ago: You're not allowed to harass people. As long as you dont cross that line, you're reasonably safe in your tools usage as it's a completely futile effort to go after people who use ACT for seeing where they can improve their damage or for people modding their UI. From getting banned atleast, if another player doesnt value your ulti clear because they know you used cactbot then that's something you have to deal with.

We have to distinguish between two perspectives here, the player's perspective and the dev's perspective. The devs simply do not want you to harass other players while in the eyes of a player cactbot clears are worth far less than clears without it. The simple solution to that would be to stop treating people with ulti clears like some sort of nobility, they are just players who spent a lot of time learning if they do it legit. Literally anyone can clear ultis with enough time and effort. And if they didnt spend enough time learning then that will become obvious quite quickly (and with that I dont just mean laughing at the ultimate legend because they mess up a single mechanic in a roulette or something).

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

These two things aren't comparable.

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Those are just technical differences, they are still both third party tools so they are very much comparable because they allow you to do things outside of what the ingame tools provide. The only difference that matters is that discord vastly enhances the game while all cactbot manages to do is to not do any harm. I wouldnt be sad if cactbot just vanished on the spot. I would however mind if the devs started to spend a lot of wasted effort to sledgehammer away every truly useful tool just so that one tool that everyone looks down on anyway gets axe'd.

The biggest issue this thread is bringing forward is that the extended and continued use of 3rd party tools and software is going to cause a shift in both how the average player approaches the game as well as how the developers themselves design the game and the content therein. The arguments over what exactly counts as a 3rd party tool or an invasive tool really is besides the point and just has everyone arguing around in circles and eternally moving goalposts.

The fact is we have already had the developers adjust the way the game functions in direct response to what a 3rd party tool allowed the users to do in the removal of being able to place markers during a fight. The more invasive and pervasive the use of 3rd party tools becomes, the more likely that's going to have to be the case, or the devs are basically just going to have to throw their hands up and let everything go.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Those are just technical differences, they are still both third party tools so they are very much comparable because they allow you to do things outside of what the ingame tools provide.

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Except one requires normally inaccessible data from the game to function the other is a completely different tool that functions exclusively by itself. You're reaching too hard.

It's also extremely telling anyone thinks voice chat can somehow be related to a third party program in the context of this discussion.
Computers are not immovable sentries that require a bulldozer to excavate once installed they can be moved, they can be next to each other, people can talk to each other while on computers directly parallel to them.
All voice chat programs have done is make the internet cafe culture easily accessible to the entire world, there's no comparison.

Side note: The below statement is simply not true.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Literally anyone can clear ultis with enough time and effort.

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Also: The simple solution is to just not harass people. Not sure why you don't like legends.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

The simple solution to that would be to stop treating people with ulti clears like some sort of nobility

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Originally Posted by Nethereal

Except one requires normally inaccessible data from the game to function the other is a completely different tool that functions exclusively by itself. You're reaching too hard.

It's also extremely telling anyone thinks voice chat can somehow be related to a third party program in the context of this discussion.
Computers are not immovable sentries that require a bulldozer to excavate once installed they can be moved, they can be next to each other, people can talk to each other while on computers directly parallel to them.
All voice chat programs have done is make the internet cafe culture easily accessible to the entire world, there's no comparison.

Side note: The below statement is simply not true.


Also: The simple solution is to just not harass people. Not sure why you don't like legends.

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Literally never said I dont like legends. I would have you treat them as the normal people that they are instead there being some uncloseable gap. But please tell me who cannot clear ultimate and why.

Of course voice communication over discord is using a third party tool or do you mean to tell me discord is built into the game? The technical aspects of a tool are not important, what matters is what they allow you to do. Discord as third party tool was literally brought up by yoship exactly because drawing a 0 tolerance line like some people in this thread suggest is futile. As futile as selectively treating some third party tools not as third party tools and then fear mongering with how evil the rest of them are and how the game will now suddenly but surely die.

The game is simply not built to require the use of cactbot. And that makes literally all the difference here. Because it is not required and not designed around, you will have enough time recognizing what to do if you properly learn the fight. Extra time recognizing what to do is useless once you've already seen through the mechanic. All cactbot does is cheat the learning progress, it does not provide you an advantage over someone being good at the game.

Technically people are not incorrect stating Logitech, iCue, Razor etc programs, discord, mmo mouses etc etc is against the whole 3rd party not allowed, but it's getting quite ridiculous and extreamly amusing to read you fight over it, go on.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Who do you think sets cactbot triggers? Some deep learning AI?

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I'm starting to doubt your reading comprehension skills as this was not remotely implied in any of my posts.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I'm starting to doubt your reading comprehension skills as this was not remotely implied in any of my posts.

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Well you said callouts are done via a programm, not a person, but that's not entirely correct. Admittably a bit of a cheeky remark but someone (a person) has to set up those triggers for the callouts. Dont get hung up on that.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Well you said callouts are done via a programm, not a person, but that's not entirely correct. Admittably a bit of a cheeky remark but someone (a person) has to set up those triggers for the callouts. Dont get hung up on that.

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I'm not getting hung up on it. I just prefer it when people discuss the points actually raised. Even for bots, they don't create themselves. People create them (as far as I know). But that's not the point. Nothing comes into existence out of thin air.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Who do you think sets cactbot triggers? Some deep learning AI?

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Depending on the mechanic, specific memory signatures used to create triggers and other plugins are frequently identified using Cheat Engine. In fact, there's actually an entire section in the Cactbot official documentation on how to setup and use Cheat Engine.


edit: That is to say, the people making some of these triggers are actually violating the EULA on an even deeper level because they're using a program that can write to the games memory and send false data to the servers, as opposed to a read only parser like ACT.

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

As much as I like Yoshi P for saving this game and his continued work, his argument that discord, calculators, what have you, was a totally asinine. Tools that we're discussing here are essentially cheating, they inject code or sniff out data that isn't available to you. I think he needs to rethink his argument.

Is it impossible to have nuance with this? Or does it absolutely have to be 'ban everything'? If its the latter, then that, to me, is a cop out so they can be lazy. Forget the idea in that case.

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Because the EULA is not written in a nuanced way and if I remember correctly, Yoshi P actually wanted addons at one point. Anything that is not available in game and changes your gameplay and this includes all those things we commonly take for granted is a violation. If you are looking for nuance look at how they have enforced them and Yoshi P's own stance. If you are getting in trouble for addons you are more than likely already in trouble for something. The EULA is quite literally just to cover their butts incase something really bad happens.

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Title.

I've been watching streamers do high end stuff and I see and hear programs announcing mechanics before they even exist on screen. Certain mechanics are randomized in the order they will occur and people are reacting to them far in advance.

Folks try to rationalize this as ok by saying, 'oh it's no different than having your raid lead call it', but let me counter with this; does your raid lead have precognition and can tell the order of random mechanics before they happen all the time? If not, then you're cheating. Plain and simple.

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Not here to reject, just here to ask. I've been playing FFXIV since 1.13a/b?? I do not watch streamers outside of a youtube video to re-learn some basic instances and try to memorize.

So the program can see what's coming and throw it out there for people to respond to? No I don't do Savage/EX (last one I did was Susanoo and ARR Primals.) content because all this time I figured I was just a horrible, slow learning player that took too many breaks to keep up. When in fact these people aren't that good they just use a lil pick me up to enhance their performance and are probably just as craptastic as I am otherwise!

I am just curious, do you think there's a way to cheat the cheating system? Through coding..or some sort of detect method? I know where I work if an application is shown interacting differently with the rest of our environment an alert is made and depending on the alert, a response is given. Is there any way you think that the game can detect things like this and give a direct response of some sort? This way you aren't saying "These programs aren't allowed" you're saying "We do not support these programs, so if they don't work..they don't work..but have at it!"

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

I am just curious, do you think there's a way to cheat the cheating system? Through coding..or some sort of detect method? I know where I work if an application is shown interacting differently with the rest of our environment an alert is made and depending on the alert, a response is given. Is there any way you think that the game can detect things like this and give a direct response of some sort? This way you aren't saying "These programs aren't allowed" you're saying "We do not support these programs, so if they don't work..they don't work..but have at it!"

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Yoshida has given a response on this topic and outlined some of the difficulties related to detection of such programs, and it would essentially be illegal in some regions to implement the type of detection necessary.

Because parsers are generally read-only, there's no modified game-data to look for. Instead, they would likely need to either look at what other processes are running, or scan parts of your filesystem that are unrelated to the game itself. This has obvious privacy concerns, and as stated above, is essentially illegal in some of the regions the game operates in.

It's also extremely difficult to realistically control synthetic inputs. Many totally legitimate peripherals utilize what are considered synthetic inputs to the computer, so simply looking for a synthetic flag on inputs doesn't really work. People have been using Auto-hotkey scripts in this game for years with little to no punishment, most notably the ever-popular house auto-clicker.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Because the EULA is not written in a nuanced way

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Which is almost certainly entirely deliberate.

If you write your EULA/TOS in a nuanced way, people will try to rules-lawyer it; they'll go over the phrasing with a fine-toothed comb and try to find the way to obey the letter of the law while running roughshod over the spirit of it. And people being people, they will find ways, and then the EULA/TOS has to be rewritten again, and the whole process starts over. Writing it in a sweeping way lacking any nuance at all doesn't mean you have to enforce it in every scenario, but it gives you the freedom to do so.

If your EULA is something very precise, like, "The use of third-party tools which fundamentally alters the execution of mechanics is forbidden," then you end up with both the scenario where someone can try to argue that Cactbot doesn't fundamentally change the execution of mechanics -- no moreso than a raid caller does -- or that if it does, Discord itself also alters the execution of mechanics (by virtue of a raid-caller being able to tell you what to do). Which gets ridiculous. Similarly, if you try to change it by "The use of third-party tools which alters the memory space or rendering pipeline of the game is forbidden", now you've banned ReShade/GShade and Nvidia Freestyle (which are actually a handful of the few third-party programs Square-Enix has given official blessing to!) and Discord (by virtue of the in-game overlay)... and haven't banned Cactbot, because so far as I know, the timeline/script/callout stuff is done on a transparent window overlay and calculated by watching the computer's network traffic -- and reading but not altering the game executable's memory space -- so it doesn't qualify.

Moreover, trying to actually combat third-party tools on a technical level just leads to more and more inconvenience for people who aren't using them. Let's say they decide to block Cactbot on a technological level; they could force the game to always run full-screen -- i.e., eliminate the borderless-windowed mode -- so you can't use transparent windows atop it, and then they could engage in some shenanigans to make it more difficult (or borderline impossible) to add any additional overlays to the graphic pipeline. Of course, now you've also blocked both the Discord in-game overlay and the Steam Overlay, meaning that as a side-effect anyone who uses Discord can no longer see the list of folks speaking in-game, and those who relied on Steam's controller-remapping library to use various game controllers on PC are now out-of-luck (because for various reasons, Steam's evidently got their controller code tightly entwined with the overlay injection code). Which leads to a terrible experience for everyone else. Or imagine if they address the whatever-the-heck Cactbot-like tool handles automarking of players in ultimates by making it so you cannot set markers on mobs mid-combat -- now you can't put the 'Target to attack #1' marker on things during PUGs to let folks know that "no, you need to kill the tethered thing first!" or in Frontlines to communicate "Why are you attacking the gunbreaker when there's a white mage right there healing them?"

And doing the "install spyware that watches all programs you're running and examines what they're doing and tries to spot cheaty-tools" approach not only is unpopular with players, but has broken people's computers before when the spyware is badly written. (Plus it's, y'know, illegal in some regions.)

If, in contrast, you forego blocking things technologically save in the most dire scenarios and write your EULA to just say more broadly "The use of third party tools is disallowed and may, at the discretion of publisher/developer, lead to a ban from the game service." you're covered regardless. If someone tries to report someone for using Discord, or using NVidia Freestyle to adjust contrast for colorblindness to make mechanics easier to read... yes, technically it violates that EULA, but you-as-publisher are free to go "That's a ridiculous interpretation" and not enforce the EULA. Whereas if someone uses a third-party tool you hadn't even yet envisioned that allows them some game-breakingly large advantage over other players, you don't have to analyze how that tool works and adjust the EULA accordingly each time; you can just say "Welp, this is 'publisher's discretion' in action, you used a third-party tool" and kick them to the curb.

The devs have made it clear that because of the console players, they will never design fights around the requirement to use third-party add-ons. They've also made it fairly clear they don't actually care about parsers like ACT in the abstract -- at least, when a player or static is using them for personal improvement. (Though they care a great deal if people wield parser tools like a weapon against others, using it to harass them.) Cactbot et al? I imagine they don't like them, but I also suspect they don't consider them enough of a problem to obliterate.

After all, there's no content which is mechanically impossible to clear without them, and trying to find a way to shut them down from a technological standpoint is probably likely to cause more problems than it solves. :|

People going on about discord and spreadsheets are being disingenuous. The problem is third party tools that directly interface with the games code

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

So the program can see what's coming and throw it out there for people to respond to? No I don't do Savage/EX (last one I did was Susanoo and ARR Primals.) content because all this time I figured I was just a horrible, slow learning player that took too many breaks to keep up. When in fact these people aren't that good they just use a lil pick me up to enhance their performance and are probably just as craptastic as I am otherwise!

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Brief digression, but...

First, extremes and savages (and presumably ultimates -- I haven't yet tackled them seriously, though I want to) are 100% doable without tools like this thread is discussing; you can't use them on consoles, after all, and plenty of people clear that content on PS4 or PS5.

But second, I also guarantee that if you want to do that content, you're capable of it. And yes, even without the tools in this thread.

High-end mechanics in this game are very, very good at looking visually overwhelming and complicated, and yet almost every one of them has a simple solution. It's less "you must perfectly execute this dance, instantly spotting what the appropriate move is", and more "here is a puzzle to solve; there's a simple solution hidden within, and when you find that solution, all the pieces fall into place."

Take, for instance, the emerald weapon extreme fight, Castrum Marinum (Extreme); there's a mechanic in the second half with falling swords that a lot of people find overwhelming; three sets of two swords fall in various parts of the arena, and you must move so that you don't get hit by the giant cross AoEs they make. It looks like it would require wizardry to succeed at, but in actuality there's only a handful of possible patterns, and one spot that's safe for the majority of them (and if you're quick enough to move after a separate mechanic that can happen first, it's a spot that's safe for all of them).

Doing high-end content is a matter of (when it's brand-new) learning to look for those simple solutions inside the visually-overwhelming mechanics, and (when it's no longer brand-new and the mechanics are understood) learning to execute a fairly rote dance from one mechanic's solution to the next.

Now, in organized groups, you'll often have someone who's good at reading those mechanics -- they recognize the element on E11S just due to the color of the effect rather than having to sit there and take a moment to process, or they remember the order the crystals are in for E12S and can just look at the tether positions without having to pan the camera up to look at the images on the crystals, or whatever else. They'll read the situation and call out what folks need to do ("Knockback line AoE!" or "Under the boss at intercardinals!") over Discord, in order to keep a group more organized, and provide a sanity check on your own read of stuff.

Because everyone can have a moment of "the Distracted" as an RL debuff. Or just of "the Dumb" for that matter.

(...okay, in typical Pax fashion, I suppose my 'brief digression' wasn't really that 'brief'.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

Depending on the mechanic, specific memory signatures used to create triggers and other plugins are frequently identified using Cheat Engine. In fact, there's actually an entire section in the Cactbot official documentation on how to setup and use Cheat Engine.


edit: That is to say, the people making some of these triggers are actually violating the EULA on an even deeper level because they're using a program that can write to the games memory and send false data to the servers, as opposed to a read only parser like ACT.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but i'm pretty sure Cactbot doesn't inject anything to the game, it just reads off the memory or log data ACT gatherers?
CE manipulates the data and will get you banned if it's being detected as would most stuff that being injected to the game, this is why certain type of bots is being banned quicker than others I think.

Why do you care? Genuine question. Not enough people use them for it to be a problem. And even if they do it doesn't affect you in any way? People using whatever program to get over ping, well that's not on them now is it? SE says they have no idea how high ping works with their classes. Only reason they change anything is because of JP, and JP has what 10-30 ping on their servers? If anything it should be a wake up call to SE that the more people play their game the more problems people are going to point out and the more they should try and upgrade their servers. Playing on the east coast with 120-150 ping is just unacceptable in 2021 as it should be. As for any other third party tools. 99% of them are for user customization of their own screens that affect no one. Again, SE is usually pretty decent at seeing what players are doing (at least if they are JP players) and making adjustments based on that. Regardless of a TOS or not, what doesn't affect you or break the game for you in any way shouldn't be bannable. But that's just my opinion.