Handling Cheaters Gracefully vs Hardline ToS + Questionable legality of bans

[Arzalis]

While there are moderation issues with how some people choose to use these platforms, they're ultimately for the platform holders to deal with and not for Square Enix.

While I would personally agree with what you're saying here, SE has made clear in their ToS (and clarification earlier in the week) they do think they can moderate things said and done on other platforms too. They're wading into territory they really shouldn't get involved in imo.

One of those things where I appreciate the intent, but I don't think they have any right to do this.

[StealthPaladin]

...Voice chat is not a grey area of the terms of service and it's absolutely the worst thing that Square Enix could choose to fight...

Ok... please show me the EXACT sections of the ToS you are refeering to that would make discord "a bannable 3rd party app" if you are refeering to the "prohibited action" lists of "behavior that affects game balance"...

Yes indeed, I'm referring to prohibited activities

"Square Enix strictly prohibits the use of third-party programs or tools as these disrupt the balance of the game. "
Discord does this

- Modifying, analyzing, integrating, and/or reverse-engineering game software or data.
Discord does this, Discord bots do this

- Creating, distributing, using, or promoting utilities that interact with the game.
Discord does this, Discord bots do this

That said, I mean, I'm not advocating for them to crack down on Discord. That would be crappy lol. I'm pointing out that the lack of clarity in the ToS is not a good thing because it jeopardizes reasonable use cases. Please keep in mind, the problematic scenario is triggered IF, AND ONLY IF, cheating forces them to crack down.

If they crack down, then you can be sure that people will complain about unequal enforcement on this addon and that, the end result will be NOTHING can be used. If we come to some kind of consensus with each other, that gives them an out where no one has to be the bad guy.

.. if interacting with the process itself is illegal then... litteraly any program ever would be banned as almost any programm interacts with the process list, and by extension FFXIV

weeeelll... not really the case. for instance a normal browser session does not generally interact with other processes. Word processors would not place overlays or poll FFXIV for data. Discord crosses that line in more ways than the big obvious one too.

Using it for team chat, most would never dream of fully utilizing the potential, but cheaters would if that's the last available platform for them to abuse. Not so hard to make a Discord plugin you see, some team software make it even easier

With Discord's overlay interacting with the framebuffer, you can absolutely make it backload displays of market data or change the rendering of textures

Any 3rd party program interacting with the game should be against the current ToS as written. I am all with you in the idea that this is sort of ridiculous and of course people need to be able to use Discord. It provides accessibility and a huge quality of life improvement right?

And so do many other tools from what I gather across the web. Soooo the ToS needs to be more clear, and IMO penalties should be in-game so that people have some flexibility to figure out where the line is without the ToS being 90 pages long.

[StealthPaladin]

You do realize that if you are given a suspension, it literally takes 7 to 10 years of perfect behavior before your "points" are gone and you won't get a stiff punishment for any infraction?

Dunno what this three strikes thing is. AFAIK, you can get a warning, suspension, or a ban.

If you get a warning for something, then you have to be perfect and not break any rules for 3-5 years or more, before things are okay.
IF, on the other hand, you break another rule before then? You will likely get slapped with a 3 day or 10 days suspension no matter how minor it is.

If you get that suspension, like I said, the decay is 7 to 10 years, minimum.

The decay thing is nice...but be realistic. Most aren't going to pay any attention to it. Because it takes far too long to actually decay to where you aren't under threat once more. And one of the things they said when it was announced was that it was being put in place so that "people wouldn't feel as if they had nothing left to lose".

But with that amount of time, it doesn't quite work out that way.

That’s probably what they said, and yes it’s against ToS. But the thing is they would have to insert a detector into game file to scan players’ processes to prove & this is actually illegal in some country. They will not, and cannot do this without alienating some countries, period. This adds to another reason why this still has not happened yet.

Henceforth the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’-policy.

Hmmm well combined this is actually pretty comforting. That does sound awfully heavy handed but they have limited resources so makes sense. BUT if there is an internal policy that's more clear than the ToS it does solve some of the problems.. as long as the current cheating trend doesn't flip the apple cart, so to speak.

At least with limited warnings and suspensions, we can hope that the non-enforcement is like a soft go-ahead for things that they don't even issue warnings about. I have never heard of anyone getting a warning for Discord lol. Still, it would be NICE if they could at least say (in the ToS) that they'd rather you not use anything but x, y and z wont get the GMs after you.

[Johners]

Using it for team chat, most would never dream of fully utilizing the potential, but cheaters would if that's the last available platform for them to abuse. Not so hard to make a Discord plugin you see, some team software make it even easier

With Discord's overlay interacting with the framebuffer, you can absolutely make it backload displays of market data or change the rendering of textures

Any 3rd party program interacting with the game should be against the current ToS as written. I am all with you in the idea that this is sort of ridiculous and of course people need to be able to use Discord. It provides accessibility and a huge quality of life improvement right?

And so do many other tools from what I gather across the web. Soooo the ToS needs to be more clear, and IMO penalties should be in-game so that people have some flexibility to figure out where the line is without the ToS being 90 pages long.

You're putting way too much effort into trying to argue about Discord being a bad third-party tool. Fighting voice chat is never going to happen and people aren't going to use the Discord overlay as a mechanism to inject cheats into the game. More importantly, people can just use Discord on their phones or PlayStation voice chat (something that console players can use while playing any game without restrictions because Sony allow that and I'm 99% certain publishers can't block it).

I'm starting to get the impression you have an invested interest in the actual grey zone third party tools and rather than admitting it, you're trying to workaround it with really poor diversion. The vast majority of people that complain about a ToS or anti-cheat are people breaking the rules in the ways that are actually meaningful to the game, not voice chat.

[StealthPaladin]

You're putting way too much effort into trying to argue about Discord being a bad third-party tool. Fighting voice chat is never going to happen and people aren't going to use the Discord overlay as a mechanism to inject cheats into the game. More importantly, people can just use Discord on their phones or PlayStation voice chat (something that console players can use while playing any game without restrictions because Sony allow that and I'm 99% certain publishers can't block it).

Discord isn't a bad third-party tool. Exactly.

I'm starting to get the impression you have an invested interest in the actual grey zone third party tools and rather than admitting it, you're trying to workaround it with really poor diversion. The vast majority of people that complain about a ToS or anti-cheat are people breaking the rules in the ways that are actually meaningful to the game, not voice chat.

well anyone can think anything
see previous responses to such insinuations if you want one

[Johners]

Yoshi-P has given another statement on the use of third-party tools while playing Final Fantasy XIV. It's focused on PvE rather than PvP but also doesn't appear to be a change in the overall stance on implementing client-side anti-cheat software such as EAC.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5122b8b8d6ec3b

[StealthPaladin]

Yoshi-P has given another statement on the use of third-party tools while playing Final Fantasy XIV. It's focused on PvE rather than PvP but also doesn't appear to be a change in the overall stance on implementing client-side anti-cheat software such as EAC.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...5122b8b8d6ec3b

With this statement, it clarifies quite a bit even beyond what I had hoped. Especially:

- Use of tools that allow players to more easily complete content.
- Modification of the UI to display additional information.* (more info further down the page)
- Use of packet spoofing tools.
- Any actions or public statements that promote use of third-party tools.

If the first three are primary samples of what they mean by "3rd party tools", then I think it is probably safe to say Discord does not count under normal usage. They are indeed taking the hardline stance I was concerned about but apparently chose to go ahead and clarify what counts as tools.

At least they say they will incorporate some of the top mods into the game UI proper.

No sanctioned SDK and no in-game judicial system haha.. but for now at least it makes things clearer and sounds like a technical line is going to be drawn in a future info drop. I'm guessing that will allow GShade and be about non-battle effecting vs mods that make the game unfair -- but until then, and maybe after, everything is off the board. Still, pretty sure Discord will be in the clear and not count as a 3rd party tool given the tone and focus their showing .. probably lol

All in all pretty helpful. Plus now we know they are at least considering some changes in the ToS since they said they will provide an update if such a change ever makes it to approval.

Appreciated SE

[KageTokage]

I would be entirely okay with them cracking down on things like Cactbot that automate call-outs, mark players for mechanics or otherwise remove a form of player input from an encounter.

[Kes13a]

I would be entirely okay with them cracking down on things like Cactbot that automate call-outs, mark players for mechanics or otherwise remove a form of player input from an encounter.

agreed. full ban for using anything that automates gameplay... I mean, if you wanted to actually play, the people wouldnt be botting it would they?

as for ToS changes, I would not expect them to fully allow mods that automate gameplay, or state specifically what mods are allowed as Yoshi stated in his letter. if anything, they may state areas that allow for disabled to use something OR, change accessibility.