In light of the recent discussions about 3rd party tools I have a bold suggestion

[Tulnekaya]

Try staying in your own lanes. I've seen too many disingenuous or outright misinformed takes from people who have no idea how raiding or parsing works. If you have no knowledge on the subject then try not speaking on it. I think we would all be happier that way, personally, in my opinion. This is me coming at you as a (former) raider who doesn’t use ACT. Just shut up. Please.

Too reasonable. People? Staying in their own lane? Impossible. We can't have civility and basic fact checking!

[EtherRose]

This argument again.
The devs fostered these communities, allowed them to grow, and now they have to deal with the consequences of doing a 180 with no warning while continuing to remain vague about what is and isn't allowed. It isn't as if the devs didn't know this was happening. It's not like they don't know about the websites, the cosmetic mods, the various discords, etc. They left them alone and, although they've warned against using various add-ons and taken on a public stance, their private stance is just as vague as their TOS.

The ToS wasn't vague. It specifically stated no 3rd party programs allowed. How is it hard to understand that? And when ACT, etc., was presented to the Dev's at the time, it's impact was low and they seemed to not care as long as nothing bad happened. However, the TOS still stands. Just because they didn't do anything about it than doesn't mean you can continue to break the rules and everything will still be ok later.

You can and still be banned. It doesn't matter if the Dev's take it lightly - The ToS is basically like the 10 commandments. Unless the ToS changes then I highly recommend you follow the ToS.

[Ryaz]

I could care less if players use mods and 3rd party stuff. The difference is when they flaunt it in game or record it like on Twitch.

Use it and keep it to yourselves, but be ready for any consequences that minght happen.

And that's pretty much Yoshi-Ps stance. Keep it to yourself. Don't show it or promote it on a stream. Don't talk about it in game. They can't read your PC and have no desire to. I have no sympathy for those who know this stance and still willfully go against the TOS. That's the way it's been since 2014.

One streamer compared it to speeding. You know the laws, and you may think they're stupid, but you agreed to them when you got your license. If you choose to speed, don't get caught. If you are caught, it's on you for speeding.

Best thing to do is reach out and make them aware that we want better UI elements, which they have acknowledged they are working on. Just don't expect a parser. That will not happen because it will be used to exclude people from parties. I still remember playing The Secret World years ago and people wouldn't allow players into a group unless they had a certain level of attack power. It will happen in this game as well. That's just human nature.

[Liam_Harper]

I'm fairly certain most players are in the group where they would probably quit if there were zero addons, meters or fflogs, but there's no loss in just throwing them up, breaking the rules and if you get caught and banned, then you quit. They literally don't care that the ToS forbids it, they'll take the risk because it's that or find another game.

I think it'd be interesting if a solid MMO that combined the quality of story and the job system of ff14 with the smooth combat and fun extras of WoW was released, that wasn't purely hardcore but also treated players like they had a functioning brain and embraced addons that weren't cheating. I'd genuinely be interested if FF14's anti-performance safety bubble mindset would pull it ahead, or whether it would take a hard hit to subs.

[PaulH]

Thanks genuinely for reminding me I need to add popcorn to my online food order.

[JanVanding]

The ToS wasn't vague. It specifically stated no 3rd party programs allowed. How is it hard to understand that? And when ACT, etc., was presented to the Dev's at the time, it's impact was low and they seemed to not care as long as nothing bad happened. However, the TOS still stands. Just because they didn't do anything about it than doesn't mean you can continue to break the rules and everything will still be ok later.

You can and still be banned. It doesn't matter if the Dev's take it lightly - The ToS is basically like the 10 commandments. Unless the ToS changes then I highly recommend you follow the ToS.

Someone doesn't remember the Live Letter with YoshiP where he actually joked about how Vague the ToS is, yes the one where he talked about ACT.