Concerning recent developments of third party addons, and SE's DADT stance

[Risvertasashi]

Over time, addons have become increasingly capable. While I realize that there's a crowd, probably a fair few who lurk on these forums especially, that would be all to happy to let SE drop the ban hammer, that's not a realistic option when the game client lacks certain basic functionalities that are needed for certain content.

Nonetheless, very recently an addon was developed that - even by the standards of people who regularly use parsers and so on - I think most would consider to be outright cheating. Nothing is needed to run some of these other than the basic framework/access that parsers provide.

I mention this particularly because this particular addon is powerful enough it might actually get an official response from SE. I'm hoping that response will be wise, and not knee jerk.

SE, once - well over half a decade ago now - you promised us addon support directly in the ARR client. Providing us this means you can also draw the line on just how capable they are, and prevent stuff like that has come out in recent developments. Both turning a blind eye to recent capabilities of addons, but also strongly enforcing a ban of all addons, both would - at least in my opinion - be grave mistakes for the game long term. I hope you will, once more, consider adding official addon support so these can exist without becoming too powerful.

Please consider this before pandora's box can't be closed again.

[TitanMen]

Can you please name the add-on so everyone knows what you're talking about

[Iscah]

Can you please name the add-on so everyone knows what you're talking about

I'm pretty sure there are rules against naming add-on programs, whether consistently applied or not.

[Risvertasashi]

Can you please name the add-on so everyone knows what you're talking about

I can describe what it does.

It shows hidden telegraphs. There's a fair chance SE can't do anything about it, as the client probably needs to have oncoming AOEs in the client to prevent the latency issues notorious in the game's early life. This means, for example, in ultimate content (which was demo'd), and probably savage and ex as well, you can see where attacks are going to hit well in advance of when the client intended to show them to you.

There's gifs that have been passed around on twitter and discord and there's one on reddit right now too.

[BristolRuss]

Can you please name the add-on so everyone knows what you're talking about

You are innately familiar with the program in question, seeing as there are videos of your main account using said program on Twitch.

[SDaemon]

What "wise response" are you hoping for OP? If it's a declaration of some newly decided support for addons I wouldnt get my hopes up.

[Yshtola]

"Let me pretend to be concerned about content I don't even engage with"

[Risvertasashi]

Due to that, I fully expect the player using this to be banned, as is their current MO. What I'm concerned about is the fix Square will attempt. Anyone who raids with a DPS parsing utility should also be concerned. It's removal would hurt FFXIV raiding harder then Gordias did, I'd expect, because having those metrics to go off of is a big part of the engagement for FFXIV's raiding scene.

This is also my worry: that this addon or addons like it that might come after make might SE feel compelled to do something instead of the usual practice of turning a blind eye. And that something might break the more mundane, but important to raiding addons.

Maybe I'm worrying too much.

[Lambdafish]

This is also my worry: that this addon or addons like it that might come after make might SE feel compelled to do something instead of the usual practice of turning a blind eye. And that something might break the more mundane, but important to raiding addons.

Maybe I'm worrying too much.

The one thing I will say that will put your mind slightly at ease: Yoshi P does see both sides of the argument. He is an MMO player, and he sees the use of addons in other games, and recognises their importance to the raid scene. They cannot officially endorse them however because they do not want to divide the playerbase or create a situation where "parsers are mandatory because the devs said so". Thats why we currently have a "don't be a dick and you wont be banned" rule.

Notably, Arthus was banned for harrassment, not use of third party tools, that is a very notable use of "you will be banned if you use a parser to be a dick", but like you said about pandoras box, what are the implications of that? I would love to see an official statement from Yoshi P regarding the devs opinion of addons, but I doubt that would happen, I'm not sure what he would even say.