In March Linux Proton Users Will No Longer Be Able to Play The Game

[Avidria]

You pay for a Windows PC license, not a Linux license. The fact that PC games work on Linux, unsupported by the game companies themselves, is a testament to the creativity of programmers in the Linux community. That does not excuse Linux user complaints to Square Enix for breaking their working system when introducing a feature in their Windows software. They are complaining to the wrong people.

Technically I pay for a Steam license, which is apparently different enough to saddle me with every asinine change SE decides to make to the Steam version of the game. From my perspective this is just yet another unecessary problem caused by an unecessary change that was poorly communicated and poorly implemented.

[DPZ2]

From my perspective this is just yet another unecessary problem caused by an unecessary change that was poorly communicated and poorly implemented.

Sigh. You are familiar enough with the background of why the changes were made in the first place so that you can determine that it was unnecessary? Really?

The code was written and released back in December, when 6.0 came out. An announcement was made about the use of the new code in early February. You're telling me not a single Linux user who depended on that code working attempted to run the new code and correct the problems they encountered back in February?

Yet another unnecessary problem? Please outline how you would resolve the issues SE is addressing. Heck, I'll bet you don't even know why they've gone this route in the first place.

[SieyaM]

Sigh. You are familiar enough with the background of why the changes were made in the first place so that you can determine that it was unnecessary? Really?

The code was written and released back in December, when 6.0 came out. An announcement was made about the use of the new code in early February. You're telling me not a single Linux user who depended on that code working attempted to run the new code and correct the problems they encountered back in February?

Yet another unnecessary problem? Please outline how you would resolve the issues SE is addressing. Heck, I'll bet you don't even know why they've gone this route in the first place.

I am curious what exactly the problem was that they are trying to address, since anyone using steam has to now use the steam launcher. I don't remember SE stating that they were trying to tackle a cheating problem or botting problem or anything with this change, just that it was going to happen.

[MiaShino]

MSHTML, in all of its glory, is supported software, through 2029. It works perfectly fine on Windows 10 and Windows 11. There may be better technologies, but SE is under no contract with the Linux community to use them. Perhaps this solution doesn't cost anything to use? I know if they went to Java instead they'd be paying large amounts of money to Oracle for licensing.

MSHTML is on life support, it is as supported as point of sale implementations of Windows XP. Both MSHTML and Explorer are as dead as Windows 7, they will only receive the security updates moving forward. Using proprietary depreciated apis is terrible idea and one I should not have to explain why for.

This has nothing to do with Linux. There are plenty of open source alternatives for web rendering. Heck, if we are speaking of Java there is open source implementation of that too.

Software developed to be compatible with Linux or even macOS, running on the Vulkan api will also be compatible with Windows. It is just silly to restrict the reach of your software by using proprietary garbage.

Problem is linux users have direct access to their kernals making cheating significantly easier. Its why Bungie made a post a few weeks back straight up saying that if you try to play on linux they will ban you.

Wat? If you honestly believe people do not have direct kernal access on Windows you are smoking some seriously good stuffs.

Maybe you should take it up with valve then? Valve are the ones that wanted to cut costs by using linux so the problem is with them, not square.

Gabe has made many many public statements about his apprehension towards Windows monopoly. His pushing of Linux has little to do with cost cutting and significantly more to do with how bloated and rigid Windows is. Competition is healthy plus most good for all of us. You do not want a complete os monopoly, trust a Mia.

Jepp. I use DXVK in Windows and the game runs way smoother. In Limsa i have 30 - 40% more fps. But it seems, that Nvidia GPUs do not perform very well with DXVK and Windows.

Yup yup! Vulkan is far far far more efficient then DX11, would love to see low level api that is not DX12 become standard. Would allow games to be more easily compatible with other operating systems. Would also make porting to consoles much of the easier.

Yet another unnecessary problem? Please outline how you would resolve the issues SE is addressing. Heck, I'll bet you don't even know why they've gone this route in the first place.

Square has made plethora of asinine decisions that no self respecting software developer or system administrator would ever consider whilst still keeping their job.

1.) Partnering with sketchy third party spatial audio platform during expansion launch.
2.) Excessive floating point rounding for audio emitters resulting in audio stuttering on several CPU architectures including Ryzen.
3.) Expanding on aforementioned above, needless number of audio channels with no way to manually configure flooding sound driver so badly it outright began dropping requests. Worse, would peg one or two cores. Still worse, due to unique design of core clusters on Ryzen would overwhelm infinity mesh bandwidth starving entire core clusters. Was bad enough to compromise ring bus.
4.) Configuring sound engine track separation improperly so that muting sound channels does not actually mute them. It instead issues stop play commands for every sound source while sound continues to play as background process. Muting tracks increases cpu load? Why you do this?
5.) Failing to account for special Unix characters when pulling names from Steam Api within their database.
6.) Not properly integrating steamapi in manner that would invalidate need to even require separate launcher in first place.
7.) Using Internet Explorer, software abandoned even by its creator.
8.) Even entertaining the idea that implementing client side code that willingly drops healthy connections every fifteen minutes was good idea to solve any problem with tcpip packet size overflow.
9.) Failure to understand dynamic load balancing and redundant routing resulting in nodes eating dirt, then dropping connections (90006/90002).
10.) Lack of out of bounds detection despite server tracking player position
11.) The entire method their database uses to store item/player data is borked forked and storked. Seriously, why are they storing erroneous data instead of uncoupling appearance data from items?
12.) Running character database with world server requiring character data to be moved each time instance is changed then copied back upon returning.
13.) Claiming to not understand how latency effects animation lock while simultaneously having the most bass akwards method of insuring sanity between client - server. This makes double weaving impossible on high ping. Modders fixed this already.
14.) Stating that your testers lack access to cpu architectures suffering from audio stutter problem when said architecture powers the fricken PS4.

I could keep going! No no seriously I could.

In recent interview with IGN Gabe the fricken ceo of fricken Valve gave your game free endorsement by stating that he and his son play. What is Square's response? Break compatibility with Linux and Steam Deck during one of the most successful hardware launches in recent history. Brilliant! Many apologies if this stings to hear. I love FF14 land but tis difficult to believe the company is not run by absolute trogs sometimes.

[Sebazy]

12.) Running character database with world server requiring character data to be moved each time instance is changed then copied back upon returning.

God that one was an incredible feat of bad design. In early ARR at peak there were points where simply zoning was a huge gamble with a multitude of horrible demises. You could get locked out and stuck in limbo for hours with login attempts simply booting you straight back out. Even rollbacks weren't uncommon.

Good times

[sharknado]

11.) The entire method their database uses to store item/player data is borked forked and storked. Seriously, why are they storing erroneous data instead of uncoupling appearance data from items?
12.) Running character database with world server requiring character data to be moved each time instance is changed then copied back upon returning.

And they are not changing it for the next 10 years of the game, as per their announcement we will get more plate slots and that's it...

[DPZ2]

I am curious what exactly the problem was that they are trying to address, since anyone using steam has to now use the steam launcher. I don't remember SE stating that they were trying to tackle a cheating problem or botting problem or anything with this change, just that it was going to happen.

I would suggest using search terms such as "final fantasy xiv launcher change 6.0" or "ffxiv steam launcher" or, even better, look at the Lodestone announcement from 9 February 2022 (and game-oriented websites from the 10th through the 12th on the issue).

Probably a moot point because, TADA!, Valve just announced their Windows 10 driver for the Steam Deck (literally, like in the last hour or two). It can't be dual booted, which may still be a deal-breaker for a subset of Linux users, but ... "not ready yet" is what Valve said about dual boot.

[Avidria]

Sigh. You are familiar enough with the background of why the changes were made in the first place so that you can determine that it was unnecessary? Really?

The code was written and released back in December, when 6.0 came out. An announcement was made about the use of the new code in early February. You're telling me not a single Linux user who depended on that code working attempted to run the new code and correct the problems they encountered back in February?

Yet another unnecessary problem? Please outline how you would resolve the issues SE is addressing. Heck, I'll bet you don't even know why they've gone this route in the first place.

SE's stated reason for the changes they just made are to "enhance account security and bolster fraud prevention measures." That's it
That's all they've said. I am extremely curious as to how this accomplishes that, and what problems they were experiencing that they haven't communicated that mean that for some reason Steam users and Steam users only need to now be even more chained to Steam than they already were. Linux users getting hosed out of playing the game is just one part of the problems people have with this change overall. From a user standpoint, I'm seeing a lot of bad and not a lot of elaboration on the good.

If this specific piece of the change was purely to phase out the old launcher then I mean... Ok fair enough I guess. It sucks that this was an outcome of that, but I can understand that more.

Like I get Linux not being officially supported, ok, sure, but I don't get the frankly pretty bafflingly rude attitude some folks (not meaning you specifically) are taking with the people who are asking for this to be changed or reverted.