Third party tools are a game design failing in a multi-platform game

[SwingLifeAway]

My personal perfect spot already existed here. "Fight Club" rules we adopted were good because they both prevented from mods becoming obligatory (got bad experience from WoW) while not actively going on a hunt for QoL/Fun mods.

"Fight club rules" are not rules, and it's incredibly self-centered to just accept it as the best solution because it has no affect on you, while people who have realistically done nothing wrong get punished for it. The biggest problem is the inconsistency and the grey area created by this method, which allows everything you describe that you are mad at to take place. If ACT and UI tweaks were allowed, the streamer wouldn't have gotten mass reported and banned for it.

I'd like to reiterate that WoW is not a fair comparison at all because the harassment rules don't just vanish when just using ACT isn't a bannable offense. Square does and still will ban people for harassing others over their performance, and this should never change, even if ACT is allowed to be used. The culture of the games is still totally different, and the fact is that mods have been a part of XIV culture for a long time.

We are not asking for links to be posted on the launcher, we're not asking for an official endorsement, and for the love of God we're not asking for them to become mandatory. We're trying to criticize square for being criminally vague in their rules and inconsistent in their rulings, both of which are deserving of discussion and criticism. All most of us want is to play the game in peace with these tools without the fear that some goblin is going to try and dig up evidence to use in a GM report so we get banned for it. Anyone who still wants to use cheat plugins or harass people can catch a ban, as they rightly deserve.

[Jaquan]

I'd like to reiterate that WoW is not a fair comparison at all because the harassment rules don't just vanish when just using ACT isn't a bannable offense. Square does and still will ban people for harassing others over their performance, and this should never change, even if ACT is allowed to be used. The culture of the games is still totally different, and the fact is that mods have been a part of XIV culture for a long time.

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

[Mosha]

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

You could argue that people got a better ultimate thanks to ACT pushing the community to higher levels, even though I didn't partake I was very engrossed in the RTWF since there was something always around the corner.

[SwingLifeAway]

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

I'm going to address each take individually.

"Without ACT, the high level content we just got would not exist"
This is 100% true, but it doesn't make the usage of ACT mandatory. What it means is that the average skill of the raiding community is increased because of tools like ACT, that allow people to do complex calculations to determine which substats are better, what rotation is most effective, etcetera. Remember that ACT is just a calculator. SE doesn't design the game around callout bots like cactbot, and they never should.

"You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down."
This is a bit of an incomplete statement and comes from people who are very tired of dealing with toxic casuals who just expect to be carried through content without even doing the minimal level of contribution. I'm sure you can sympathize that it feels unfair to buy food, pots, etc for content, only to have someone show up who doesn't even have materia in their gear, but posits that they deserve the clear as much as anyone else. So basically the issue stems when you have a group of people with a misalignment of investment and expectations for the game experience.
If you join a casual static that doesn't use mods, then it's not going to matter. And there are plenty statics like that. But, for example, if you joined a hardcore static that wants to push for week 1 clears - then yes, it would be pretty unfair on them for you to not be analyzing and optimizing your gameplay when the rest of them are. I hope this better explains where this statement comes from.

(1/2) (EDIT: I'm post limited for a bit, I'll post the other bit later)