Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[DreadRabbit]

I’m also against the blatant fear-mongering that “anti-modders” are boasting—that people should “be careful” about the glamours they wear, that they should “be careful” when out and about. There is no need for this overt caution: the majority of modders do not care about other toons’ appearances. Aside from the fact that the modding community is probably the minority of players in this game. I’d wager that most do not know about mods, cannot use them, or don’t even care to. But they aren’t getting all up in arms because someone may see their character naked.

And I agree that going after mods as a whole isn't the answer: report the people abusing the mod. However if enough people abuse the mod that it catches attention and causes action to be made, then that's not the fault of the people who did what they're supposed to do and report/discuss people abusing said mods. A lot of the people here are putting blame on the people feeling uncomfortable, not on the people abusing the mod.

You are missing the point. The OP and people with similar stances are not simply placing an importance on their avatar, they are drawing a correlation between it and themselves.

No, only some people feel that way. People like Clover for example are well aware that their characters are just characters, yet they still feel odd that their characters are being perceived in a way that wasn't intended. And assuming that you should only care if you do think your avatar is an extension of you is kind of...weird (though I recognize that's subjective). I mean you share screenshots and proudly display your character on your forum sig, so clearly you care that somebody other than you perceives your character the way you want (perhaps because you're proud or it makes you happy). You just don't care if they're seen naked. There's a big difference between having different lines to cross than to simply state "well they're not you so you shouldn't care at all."

Most people on this forum do care how their characters are perceived to varying degrees, including in this very thread. If we didn't, we wouldn't debate over raid gear and dungeon gear designs and how they look on certain races/jobs. We wouldn't want better quality Mogstation items. We wouldn't care about character creation capabilities. Everyone could run around as bald Midlander Males and not a complaint would be seen. And there absolutely wouldn't be so many screenshot threads made precisely to share your characters with other people.

As for this mod itself, many people have stated that it's used so that you can see your s/o or be seen by your s/o. In other words: those people care if other people can see their character is naked. In other words the character isn't them, yet suddenly their reason for wanting someone else to see them in a specific way is valid while for dissenters it's not.

That's being hypocritical, and why I personally have a problem with that particular argument. If it's important to someone that someone they care about uses the mod so that their character can be seen naked, then it's just as important for people who want nothing to do with the mod to be peeved that can be seen naked regardless of what they say or do.

If there is harassement it should get reported, but at that point it hardly matters whether mods were involved or not.

Completely agree.

Sorry for the walls of text.

Please don't apologize! This post was an excellent response I'm all for big discussions like this.

I don't approve of going after mods as a whole, for many of the reasons you stated. As I've said before I do play the Sims, and absolutely can't play Sims 4 without my mods. So I 100% understand why people want them and want to defend them. Modding helps gaming. There are far too many examples where hacking and modding helped the industry evolve. Pokemon comes to mind and the discovery of hidden IVs, as well as fan translation patches of foreign games that lead to growing international audiences. The modding scene isn't inherently bad (quite the opposite!), and so I do hope that people like OP can come to realize that most people don't have ill intentions when using such mods. Nor is it even remotely fair to punish the majority because of a few bad eggs.

Anyway, I think the argument you're making is totally fine and makes complete sense, and there are certainly some people who are going to be more interested in being dismissive of this kind of thing than wanting to really talk about it, but whichever way you follow anyone's logic you quickly wind up in that grey area you're touching on which is why I'm trying to stay out of the moral issue and focus purely on the technical one when discussing my reasons against it.

Totally not a problem! I'll be the first to admit I don't quite understand the development side of this issue (though I'm sure you saw that), which is why I stuck more to discussing the other stuff. That being said I'm happy to learn, so I'm glad you did come forward with that aspect to bring a different perspective to the thread.

I've always found this stuff super interesting and could talk about it all day, and you've been making respectful replies so I wanted to do so in-kind.

I feel the same, both about this topic in general and your posts. So thank you for taking the time!