In your opinion, which rule violation is the worst?

To me I think it has to be data mining. I think data mining is an insult to all the developers who worked tirelessly for the game. It affects everyone unfortunately and not just those who want spoilers. I think it outranks gil sellers imo

What ToS violation do you think is worse?

I do not see how data mining is different from the people who clear all content day 1 of the patch dropping. It is not possible to see things that are not in the actual game at the time since there is no PTR here.

Datamining is something that is expected as a software developer. Even Google gets datamined.

Botting, the original sin of MMOs, is still probably the most severe rule break, with RMT taking an extremely close second; like, nose in the scalp levels of close behind.

non-cosmetic mods e.g. boss mechanic callouts
not even joking. get lost. at least bots play the game legit

Extreme harassment such as death threats and stalking.

Botting. Not talking about the RMT bots, but the crafting/gathering bots and auto-undercut bots that crash markets. Report them with copious amounts of evidence that this is absolutely not a legit player, and nothing is done about them.

I don’t consider data-mining bad. Especially since it doesn’t give people huge advantages, and most datamining is for the cosmetic things or boss models. The main dataminers for FFXIV specifically won’t publicly share/release the songs out of respect for Soken, so gotta give them credit where credit is due.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not see how data mining is different from the people who clear all content day 1 of the patch dropping. It is not possible to see things that are not in the actual game at the time since there is no PTR here.

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Datamining can be done before the servers even go live, and can be used to do things like extract tooltip and debuff text/icons, which can create an unfair advantage in worlds first races.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

non-cosmetic mods e.g. boss mechanic callouts
not even joking. get lost. at least bots play the game legit

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Full on agree.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not see how data mining is different from the people who clear all content day 1 of the patch dropping. It is not possible to see things that are not in the actual game at the time since there is no PTR here.

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They banned someone who spoiled Perfect Alexander from TEA on twitter during the patch downtime it was released. So obviously SE cares a lot about spoiling high-end content.

People who can't take no for an answer.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

non-cosmetic mods e.g. boss mechanic callouts
not even joking. get lost. at least bots play the game legit

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Incoming argument about how a third-party program interpreting puzzle mechanics in real time isn't cheating.

I think datamining is actually very good for the industry. It gives a lot of insight into how games are developed, and how much care (or lack thereof) the developers put into them.

For example, in Civ VI, each of the leader models have a secret Firaxis logo hidden somewhere (the model, the textures, the alpha mapping, etc.). Many of them wouldn't even be discoverable without datamining, and some of them were hidden very cleverly.

Also, spoiler culture is nonsense. If spoiling media ruins it for you, you don't have a very deep appreciation for the work in general and only care about banal surprises.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

Datamining can be done before the servers even go live, and can be used to do things like extract tooltip and debuff text/icons, which can create an unfair advantage in worlds first races.

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That didn’t matter for UwU. People still didn’t figure out the Woke mechanic for the primals until progging it for ~10 hours and constantly dying to the magitek bits. Also didn’t really make a difference for TEA despite them having access to the Enigma Codex tooltip.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

non-cosmetic mods e.g. boss mechanic callouts
not even joking. get lost. at least bots play the game legit

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Please explain how automating processes with a botting program/script is “playing the game legit”. I’m curious as to your reasoning here.

Right now, the afk avoiding shitheads.

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Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

I think datamining is actually very good for the industry. It gives a lot of insight into how games are developed, and how much care (or lack thereof) the developers put into them.

For example, in Civ VI, each of the leader models have a secret Firaxis logo hidden somewhere (the model, the textures, the alpha mapping, etc.). Many of them wouldn't even be discoverable without datamining, and some of them were hidden very cleverly.

Also, spoiler culture is nonsense. If spoiling media ruins it for you, you don't have a very deep appreciation for the work in general and only care about banal surprises.

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Yes, I find it weird that there are people who scream bloody mary every time someone mentions "the moon" in the game. Like, it was in the trailer, what do you expect? 99% of the things that people say "omg spoiler!" really isn't one. But what I mean about datamining is that people turn the game into a spreadsheet. It should really be about the journey and people shouldn't be called out because they don't have BiS. It's really the result of datamining that I don't like. I appreciate learning more about the intricacies about how whatever game I am playing works because that's just how I am and the more lore, the better. But it's the spreadsheets that come after the datamining that bothers me most.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

To me I think it has to be data mining. I think data mining is an insult to all the developers who worked tirelessly for the game. It affects everyone unfortunately and not just those who want spoilers. I think it outranks gil sellers imo

What ToS violation do you think is worse?

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using parsers of any kind is datamining own and others data.

Botting; market bots, gathering bots, crafting bots, fried bots, steamed bots, boiled bots, RMT bots, any sort of bot.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

Yes, I find it weird that there are people who scream bloody mary every time someone mentions "the moon" in the game. Like, it was in the trailer, what do you expect? 99% of the things that people say "omg spoiler!" really isn't one. But what I mean about datamining is that people turn the game into a spreadsheet. It should really be about the journey and people shouldn't be called out because they don't have BiS. It's really the result of datamining that I don't like. I appreciate learning more about the intricacies about how whatever game I am playing works because that's just how I am and the more lore, the better. But it's the spreadsheets that come after the datamining that bothers me most.

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You seem to have some misconceptions here.

The removal of datamining would not change the aspect of theorycrafters creating BiS spreadsheets. The gear spreadsheets that come out via datamining only serve the purpose of jumpstarting BiS theorycrafting. At most, it gives a few hours headway of which pieces certain jobs want for those interested in obtaining BiS. It’s not gamebreaking in the slightest.

And it’s actually very rare for people to even get called out for lacking in gear/BiS outside of high-end content. If you don’t do high-end content, the likelihood of someone berating you for not having BiS is slim. Since most content doesn’t even require it to clear.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

using parsers of any kind is datamining own and others data.

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The data belongs to SE. Not the players. That said, it’s the same stuff you can find in the Battle Log for the most part—which is publicly available.

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

Yes, I find it weird that there are people who scream bloody mary every time someone mentions "the moon" in the game. Like, it was in the trailer, what do you expect? 99% of the things that people say "omg spoiler!" really isn't one. But what I mean about datamining is that people turn the game into a spreadsheet. It should really be about the journey and people shouldn't be called out because they don't have BiS. It's really the result of datamining that I don't like. I appreciate learning more about the intricacies about how whatever game I am playing works because that's just how I am and the more lore, the better. But it's the spreadsheets that come after the datamining that bothers me most.

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This is more a parser argument than datamining. The latter only expedites the process, though not by much. Even without datamining, people will have BiS figured out within a day or two of a new raid patch. No one really "calls out" a lack of BiS unless you're noticeably undergeared for higher end content.

All of them

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This is more a parser argument than datamining. The latter only expedites the process, though not by much. Even without datamining, people will have BiS figured out within a day or two of a new raid patch. No one really "calls out" a lack of BiS unless you're noticeably undergeared for higher end content.

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Fair enough, for some reason while typing that parsers skipped my mind. But yes, I really dislike how people turn games into spreadsheets these days. While spreadsheets don't violate ToS, the method to which gaining said information accurately is. It causes huge headaches for developers as well and it's impossible to really make a game that goes around this, maybe.

Datamining is great. Because it became so prevalent nowadays no game company can get away with just any kind of lies about their design decisions. Thanks to dataminers I dodged the bullet that was the newer Pokémon games.

Nobody's mentioned account theft yet?
I still get a message of "You've been invited to join our 300M giveaway raffle, please go to http://totally-the-real-SE-forum-guys-we-swear.co.ru" multiple times daily.

Bots. Data mining is irrelevant

With the login queues as they are, I'd say bots are currently the worst. Every bot online right now is taking up space on the server which could be used by a real player who would actually want to play the game. The worst are those anti-afk bots which stand in the same spot for 10+ hours at a time, taking a step or two every few mins to avoid the afk kick. If you're going to be away from the game for that long, then you should just log off so someone who wants to play can actually get a chance to play.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

Nobody's mentioned account theft yet?
I still get a message of "You've been invited to join our 300M giveaway raffle, please go to http://totally-the-real-SE-forum-guys-we-swear.co.ru" multiple times daily.

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yep I was scared a lot but i changed the password before the worst could happen :-)

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Originally Posted by Eriane_Elis

To me I think it has to be data mining. I think data mining is an insult to all the developers who worked tirelessly for the game. It affects everyone unfortunately and not just those who want spoilers. I think it outranks gil sellers imo

What ToS violation do you think is worse?

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One player abusing another for any reason is the worst.