Proposal: A Solution to Third Party Tool Problem

This is mostly a Brainstorming attempt.

Wouldn't it be easier for both sides to clearify what is allowed an what isn't, if there was some sort of ground both parties could ground their Statements on?

Instead of saying that they would implement some functions some third party tools provide, wouldn't it be better to make those which are not harmful to the game experience available for Console players as well?

tl;dr: If the FFXIV development Team would create official interfaces for some Game relevant data to clearify that this data is accepted to use in a thrid party tool and NOTHING else but data these interfaces provide, would that somewhat solve this dilema?

I believe that is what the Lodestone article is sharing about.

Guess they would be priortizing on upgrading and changing the in-game UI.
Pretty sure they already know what are the popular ones being used, I think some others have opened threads to showcase the third party UIs.

My ultimate guess is that they want to ensure that the console players won't lose out in terms of UI usability.
Currently, the console players do not have the ability to tap into these tools to modify their UI like the way PC players do.

Deciding which third party tool is fine and which isnt requires thought and effort by SE. Sure some examples are obviously going to be fine like voip programs, others like the pvp scripts obviously shouldnt be. But there it's not going to be clear on all of them.

Ultimately this discussion fails to adress the actual problem. Why is ACT officially not allowed and never will be? Because toxic people cant be trusted with it. The only thing they cared about so far was if it was used to harass people and while that does ignore gathering bots and most pvp cheaters, it's not the worst approach. If a third party tool is in reality harmless, why should SE care about the rules? Debate lords love nothing more than parroting around rules as if they were some divine enlightement but that is actually not a smart way of handling things. You need to follow the spirit of the law, not necessarily the letter. And that has been 'dont harass people with third party tools'. Many streamers followed the spirit of the law and when they didnt, they already got suspensions.

If you're asking for an official plugin/addon framework, that's not going to solve the problem and in reality we'd just end up like World of Warcraft. You'd get quality of life UI changes and some of the combat stuff like ACT and Cactbot at the very best. You wouldn't get XIVAlex or NoClippy. You wouldn't get any texture or model swapping for Viera hats (or the lewd stuff that some people enjoy).

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Originally Posted by Johners

If you're asking for an official plugin/addon framework, that's not going to solve the problem and in reality we'd just end up like World of Warcraft.

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This is not necessarily the case. If the game would have an official addon API then the devs would have the full control what is allowed and what is not. The situation in World of Warcraft is a special one. The addon API is very huge and the addons have access to literary everything. But there also other MMOs with addons. And in those MMOs the situation does not get out of hand.


Cheers

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Originally Posted by hotakako

Guess they would be priortizing on upgrading and changing the in-game UI.
Pretty sure they already know what are the popular ones being used, I think some others have opened threads to showcase the third party UIs.

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I mean yeah, What I am mostly going on about is stuff like lists for crafters which count up whenever they gather a certain material for their current craft.
So an external organise tool that use ingame data to keep track of stuff, so stuff that currently is widely used and in regard of reading data breaks the terms of service.
I know that Square has tried to impement some functions, but they aren't close to the third party stuff, from what I gather.

Why not allow those kind of tools by giving them an interface to do so?
As in, they already exist, are more advanced then what is given ingame rn, while not impacting gameplay itself and are more adaptive cause they are not bound to patches from square itself.
And implementing an interface is less time consuming and complicated than to respond to small little tweaks that are sometimes needed when something new is implemented or an idea from a player is rather nice.

I do understand what you mean. and act is also against the "everyone should have fun" part of the game, since it only usage is to determine who does not enough damage to clear a boss.
(I also know these who use it to see what they can change in their own rotation to get better at their class, but ulitmately it is really that)

What I try to address with this is more to put an end to the "is this and that allowed" debate.
Since if you can just say "does it collect/push the data from/to this interface? no? then it isn't"

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Originally Posted by Reelos

This is mostly a Brainstorming attempt.

Wouldn't it be easier for both sides to clearify what is allowed an what isn't, if there was some sort of ground both parties could ground their Statements on?

Instead of saying that they would implement some functions some third party tools provide, wouldn't it be better to make those which are not harmful to the game experience available for Console players as well?

tl;dr: If the FFXIV development Team would create official interfaces for some Game relevant data to clearify that this data is accepted to use in a thrid party tool and NOTHING else but data these interfaces provide, would that somewhat solve this dilema?

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This would change nothing besides making some of the plugins/mods not break the ToS anymore. Which would as i said change absolutely nothing at all besides maybe prevent "some" bans but seriously the work that would take is not worth it for the results. The other mods would still flourish and everything would be basically the same. And most of the peps who get banned nowdays are anyways not those who just use mods but those who harass others with parses etc. which would be still not allowed.

All it would do is create more work for the devs to install a framework for these mods and police them so no harmful virus or gamealtering plugins get into the players hands. Which is actually not that uncommon in WoW, there was a incident i well remember where you could force other players to certain actions like trading through a plugin. Which would be a nightmare for XIV i bet.

I am not really going on the UI stuff really. Cause from what I gather after playing this game for about 10 years, it really shows enough information and the design isn't that bad (while I agree that more designs would be appriciated).

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

And most of the peps who get banned nowdays are anyways not those who just use mods but those who harass others with parses etc. which would be still not allowed.

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Which is excatly my point. there wouldn't be any "if you don't talk about it, it is fine" stuff going on anymore, but a clear "no. unallowed in all cases".
The side point would be, that console players would get these allowed addons accessable, which is also a win in my book.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

All it would do is create more work for the devs to install a framework for these mods and police them so no harmful virus or gamealtering plugins get into the players hands. Which is actually not that uncommon in WoW, there was a incident i well remember where you could force other players to certain actions like trading through a plugin. Which would be a nightmare for XIV i bet.

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Only if you are able to push any information into the interface. if it is a read only interface, that would not be possible. (trust me. I faced this before myself)

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

This is not necessarily the case. If the game would have an official addon API then the devs would have the full control what is allowed and what is not. The situation in World of Warcraft is a special one. The addon API is very huge and the addons have access to literary everything. But there also other MMOs with addons. And in those MMOs the situation does not get out of hand.


Cheers

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Yep. ESO for example. it uses a LUA Framework which is still highly restricted.
As far as I know. it also is a read only framework

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

This is not necessarily the case. If the game would have an official addon API then the devs would have the full control what is allowed and what is not. The situation in World of Warcraft is a special one. The addon API is very huge and the addons have access to literary everything. But there also other MMOs with addons. And in those MMOs the situation does not get out of hand.


Cheers

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I'd rather FF14 just make an official addon browser. Save them the developer time. There is no way FF14 will implement even half of DelvUI's functionality any time soon. I doubt they can even do it by next decade.

Most of the vetted plugins on XIVLauncher (i.e. not random ones on GitHub) don't give any gameplay advantage in the first place. All they do is improve comfort.

Things like chat bubbles or having larger fonts on your ability cooldowns should already be in the game at this point.

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

This is not necessarily the case. If the game would have an official addon API then the devs would have the full control what is allowed and what is not. The situation in World of Warcraft is a special one. The addon API is very huge and the addons have access to literary everything. But there also other MMOs with addons. And in those MMOs the situation does not get out of hand.

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This still relies on Square Enix taking a stance on what tools are acceptable and those that aren't. At the end of the day, the vast majority of third party tools in the entire toolset are never going to be deemed acceptable so an official plugin framework would still results in a lot of lost functionality for many users.

Not to mention that a lot of the problem also relies on the fact Square Enix seemingly have very few if any client-side mechanisms to detect or prevent the use of these tools. An official plugin framework doesn't really solve the wider problem in this discussion as the existing tools would continue to work.

This entire discussion on third party tools is a useless loop of people getting upset at those using it and people getting upset at the prospect of them going away. Until Square Enix just come out and say they're adding a kernel level anti-cheat like Riot Vanguard (used in Valorant and League of Legends) or something of that nature, the situation will never change and you'll be able to keep using these plugins without Square Enix knowing about it.

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Originally Posted by Johners

This still relies on Square Enix taking a stance on what tools are acceptable and those that aren't. At the end of the day, the vast majority of third party tools in the entire toolset are never going to be deemed acceptable so an official plugin framework would still results in a lot of lost functionality for many users.

Not to mention that a lot of the problem also relies on the fact Square Enix seemingly have very few if any client-side mechanisms to detect or prevent the use of these tools. An official plugin framework doesn't really solve the wider problem in this discussion as the existing tools would continue to work.

This entire discussion on third party tools is a useless loop of people getting upset at those using it and people getting upset at the prospect of them going away. Until Square Enix just come out and say they're adding a kernel level anti-cheat like Riot Vanguard (used in Valorant and League of Legends) or something of that nature, the situation will never change and you'll be able to keep using these plugins without Square Enix knowing about it.

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No. They need to take a stance on which information they are willing to provide. not which tools are using them or how they use them. It is a massive difference

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Originally Posted by Reelos

No. They need to take a stance on which information they are willing to provide. not which tools are using them or how they use them. It is a massive difference

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I should add, that this would also be groundwork for those detection mechanisms. since they can then start to create a watcher for the game's data.

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Originally Posted by Johners

This entire discussion on third party tools is a useless loop of people getting upset at those using it and people getting upset at the prospect of them going away. Until Square Enix just come out and say they're adding a kernel level anti-cheat like Riot Vanguard (used in Valorant and League of Legends) or something of that nature, the situation will never change and you'll be able to keep using these plugins without Square Enix knowing about it.

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You are not wrong about that. I gotta add this then. I am not mad. I am as annoyed by this loop as you are. What I am trying to is break this loop. Since there would be clearity which we are lacking right now

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Johners

This still relies on Square Enix taking a stance on what tools are acceptable and those that aren't. At the end of the day, the vast majority of third party tools in the entire toolset are never going to be deemed acceptable so an official plugin framework would still results in a lot of lost functionality for many users.

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Yes and no. Some functionality like parsers would not work anymore. But otoh you could have new functionality, which is not in the current mods. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Johners

Not to mention that a lot of the problem also relies on the fact Square Enix seemingly have very few if any client-side mechanisms to detect or prevent the use of these tools. An official plugin framework doesn't really solve the wider problem in this discussion as the existing tools would continue to work.

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There are some non-intrusive methods to prevent the usage of modifications. They could start to encrypt parts of the client or use methods like ASLR. This would make it way harder to create reliable interface mods. But atm they do nothing.


Cheers

New to MMOs eh? This isn’t a negotiation dawg.