Yoshi-P "definitive" answer on third party tools from today's 14 hour stream

[Saraide]

Imagine players like you not realizing the current system is protecting you. Your logs are almost entirely grey and green. An open parsed game would have you basically never being able to do any savage raids.

Even if what you say about FireMage's logs was true, you'd still be wrong. You might not be able to clear week 1 but a few weeks in with a big more gear even a group of greys and greens can clear the dps checks. Just as it is right now.

https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...la=1&kid=68216

Would this help?

What you're looking for is the part that says "・Expressions that attempt to unilaterally exclude someone from the game or content/community, etc."
There are others that tangentially rub on the topic as well. Such as "・Unjustified usage of Vote Dismiss".
There's also "■Behavior that disrupts the game balance" which is basically a repeat of the TOS's Section 2 and includes a mention to stuff that operates like parsers, which take game data without being authorized.

You also have Section 2 of the TOS, titled "LICENSE LIMITATIONS", for general approach to any third party tool or modification of the game's code or assets: No.
Section 10 and 11.3 say that user disputes will not be mediated between Square, they expect you to be a grown-up and figure yourselves out. But Section 3.2 is really vague in that it kind of reads like "if you interfere with peoples' enjoyment of the game at all, it can be considered an offence"?

it's weird. This one's weird.

Vote dismiss is entirely irrelevant. We are talking about PFs. 'Expressions that exclude someone' is also irrelevant because you do not need to state a reason to kick someone from your PF. You can do so without saying a single word. No PF host is forced to keep you in the party. You have no right to be in someone's PF party, they are giving you the privilege to be there.

[Midareyukki]

Vote dismiss is entirely irrelevant. We are talking about PFs. 'Expressions that exclude someone' is also irrelevant because you do not need to state a reason to kick someone from your PF. You can do so without saying a single word. No PF host is forced to keep you in the party. You have no right to be in someone's PF party, they are giving you the privilege to be there.

I should probably edit that post since people are clearly not reading it. I said "tangentially rub on the topic". Because FireMage is right: you can kick people out for differences in playstyle.
But you can't kick someone for underperforming and pointing it out through parses. And I don't think people will sit and wait for you to count things on the Battle Log when they ask you "Hey, where are you getting the information that I'm the one underperforming to such extent?"

Okay but Midare, lets say the person just got dismissed without a word. What then?

:shrug:

Why are you asking me this? I was just answering FireMage who wanted evidence to Atelier's statement that it's against the TOS to kick someone from the PF due to parses.

...are you guys even reading the context AT ALL? xD


If they kick you without saying a word, then I suppose you can report it??? I guess???? But I didn't see anything about it, and I personally just move on with my life :P But I'm not Square, and since I haven't found anything about that, then, again: hell if I know xD

Edit: I cannot believe I have to do this but here we go!

This was Atelier's post to Azuri, claiming you can't use parses as a reason to kick people from PF parties.
To which FireMage then asked for evidence. I got curious and I posted what the ToS actually say.

Anything past this is not my purview, and I stated it as well: it's really confusing sometimes because Square's just that vague. I know as much if not probably less than you guys. The one thing I do know is what Square did write, and they wrote that much.

Edit Edit :P Because post limits!

It's not even tangentially related. There is no vote dismiss in PF.

Alright. Now that I agree, I'm ovestepping and adding in Duty Finder as a reality to this. My apologies then.

You can cite other things "Like that SAM didn't use a single Midare"

I guess. And that's something you actually can pay attention to. I've paid attention to people executing their combo finishers or not even bothering with positionals before, so this can happen. But if it's like... the heat of battle and you see a pattern but don't know for sure if the person's the reason why you're not doing enough, or if the whole party's that trash, then that can be a bit hard.

Though :P In which case! The hell are you even doing in that party xD leave

Still. That's what the TOS itself says, in its vague glory.

Actually the hell am I saying?? Dude, Atelier says "parses", you looking at what people are doing isn't parses. It's observation :| it's not the same as what you were asking evidence for!!!
(Well, Azuri, not Atelier, but you responded to Atelier's response to Azuri)

Because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just tossing the Terms of Service out like a shield to hide behind, and are actually willing to think. I updated my previous post, but the gist of it is "This is how the game typically operates; when someone is kicked, it's silently" and that "it's a bit naive to expect every elitist to be a moustache twirling monster who tries to rub salt in the wound."

Well then I hope that it became clear to you that I'm not using it as a shield (?), just answering what someone asked for: proof that you cannot use parses as justification to kick someone from PF.

The rest was a mix of vagueness that you guys helped clarify and, as Saraide pointed out, me erroneously expanding the concept over to Duty Finder. I'm not defending myself of anything xD I literally just parachuted into this convo, with limited posts!

[Saraide]

I should probably edit that post since people are clearly not reading it. I said "tangentially rub on the topic". Because FireMage is right: you can kick people out for differences in playstyle.
But you can't kick someone for underperforming and pointing it out through parses. And I don't think people will sit and wait for you to count things on the Battle Log when they ask you "Hey, where are you getting the information that I'm the one underperforming to such extent?"



:shrug:

Why are you asking me this? I was just answering FireMage who wanted evidence to Atelier's statement that it's against the TOS to kick someone from the PF due to parses.

...are you guys even reading the context AT ALL? xD


If they kick you without saying a word, then I suppose you can report it??? I guess???? But I didn't see anything about it, and I personally just move on with my life :P But I'm not Square, and since I haven't found anything about that, then, again: hell if I know xD

It's not even tangentially related. There is no vote dismiss in PF.

[SaberMaxwell]

Why are you asking me this?

Because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just tossing the Terms of Service out like a shield to hide behind, and are actually willing to think. I updated my previous post, but the gist of it is "This is how the game typically operates; when someone is kicked, it's silently" and that "it's a bit naive to expect every elitist to be a moustache twirling monster who tries to rub salt in the wound."

[Ransu]

Even if what you say about FireMage's logs was true, you'd still be wrong. You might not be able to clear week 1 but a few weeks in with a big more gear even a group of greys and greens can clear the dps checks. Just as it is right now.

Who cares about week 1 clears? The entire point is the fact that games with open parses have a tendency to use parses to blacklist certain players. He has 1 good parse in every fight minus p5s where he has some good parses. The other 3 fights are almost entirely grey and a few greens. I personally have no problem carrying a pug that doesn't parse well, but history of other MMO's show clearly that players like him would get blacklisted. He'd struggle to find groups that would allow him to join the party. Its not the end of the world if there's a grey parser in your party because the dps checks are not that strict outside of the final fight of the tier usually, but because parsing is not allowed and there's no in game parse players don't have to worry about that toxic nature.

I've seen far too often in other MMO's where groups post "must do #dps or you will be kicked" and that dps number is always WAY above the required dps to clear.

I like Yoshi's answer in the recent live letter. Basically just leave it alone. If you wanna parse, keep it to yourself. If you're on console then join a discord and ask them to upload your logs. Its not that hard to get your numbers.

[Thaciscokidd]

I've seen far too often in other MMO's where groups post "must do #dps or you will be kicked" and that dps number is always WAY above the required dps to clear.

We still have that problem even without Parsing. People tend to forget the "Skip soar or disband" mentality and its spawns. You still see X number of wipes = disband. People don't need a meter to weed out supposed bad players. You still have people misusing the threat meter as a sign of bad dps. People will still find a way to single out with or without dps meters.

[Midareyukki]

Alright then! I can post again, wee \o/

Because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just tossing the Terms of Service out like a shield to hide behind, and are actually willing to think. I updated my previous post, but the gist of it is "This is how the game typically operates; when someone is kicked, it's silently" and that "it's a bit naive to expect every elitist to be a moustache twirling monster who tries to rub salt in the wound."

Yeah, I don't get it. I had some time to think, and I don't really understand why you wanted that.

I'm not tossing out the ToS like a shield? It's the thing that Square works under when applying punishments and analyzing cases. So, as Atelier told Azuri that if you use parses as justification to kick someone from a PF party you get penalty, and FireMage asked for evidence of that, I pointed out that it's what Square themselves say. When someone is kicked, it's usually silently. But in the case someone's an utter idiot and decides to talk about logs on party chat, then yes, you can. And if you somehow gain evidence that these people were indeed parsing the runs and kicked you out for it, then you can report them. That is all. Whether this is how the game works or not is beyond me, because for what Square's concerned, you just can't do that, period. Or, maybe, consider this. The reason as to why the game is the way you mentioned is because if you do these things, you get banned. Which is what FireMage was questioning. People don't talk about ACT parses and kick people out over them because doing so would lead to a penalty.
I don't see what sort of shield you think I'm using. If anything, I wasn't using the ToS as a thing to defend myself, because I had nothing to defend. I even opened the post with something like "Does this help?". And I did concede that I didn't understand some stuff because of how vague they sounded. If anything, if I went on the defensive like I am now, I would have tried to argue against it.
Plus, how does you asking me that would yield any answer to you that I'm wearing the ToS as a shield. As you've seen, I'm not, I didn't even use the ToS as an argument. And even if I had, it doesn't really counter me bringing up the ToS to show that "using Parses to kick people out of PF is considered an offence"? Whether it happens covertly or not is up to anyone's guess. In fact didn't we already establish that most people use mods and stuff without telling anyone, since it's all mostly client side. So, naturally, realistically, very few people are caught with them on. But sometimes lapses happen.
Some people are stupid enough to discuss them in the middle of Limsa plaza xD
The whole point of what I wrote was to illustrate Atelier's post. "In the even that it happens", then yes. Whether it happens or not, no, but I doubt we'd need any justification for saying "You get punished for using someone's parses against them". Because that IS what would happen.
.w. was I meant to provide actual cases where people got banned for using parses against others? If that's the case, I personally don't know any. But someone out there likely might.
I just find the shield thing a bit odd. I wasn't a part of the conversation, I was just pointing out "well, yes, at least according to the terms of service Square operates under".

We still have that problem even without Parsing. People tend to forget the "Skip soar or disband" mentality and its spawns. You still see X number of wipes = disband. People don't need a meter to weed out supposed bad players. You still have people misusing the threat meter as a sign of bad dps. People will still find a way to single out with or without dps meters.

Legitimate question. From my limited and admittedly rather poor experience, I've come across 3 cases: Players who are pressing buttons, just the absolute wrong ones (like people hard misaligning their 2m buffs). Parties who advertise themselves as "3rd phase" but end up wiping 30s into the instance. And some parties where it looks like everything's going as it should at a baseline, but we end up still not clearing and nobody understands why until one person who was logging the fight points out a person underperforming.

On the 1st and 2nd cases it's obvious what the problem is. But on the 3rd case, people were largely unaware that the person wasn't doing their best and "needed" the parses to figure that out. Now, giving myself some margin of error because *cough* casual amateur, do you guys who tend to raid more often also experience this third case? Do you manage to quickly pinpoint who's underperforming on the spot, or does it still take you guys a bit of digging (even if it's just through replay and battle logs, you know, something sober as to not rat out anyone >.>;; ) to figure out who's not pulling their weight?

[Nekkowe]

Legitimate question. From my limited and admittedly rather poor experience, I've come across 3 cases: Players who are pressing buttons, just the absolute wrong ones (like people hard misaligning their 2m buffs). Parties who advertise themselves as "3rd phase" but end up wiping 30s into the instance. And some parties where it looks like everything's going as it should at a baseline, but we end up still not clearing and nobody understands why until one person who was logging the fight points out a person underperforming.

On the 1st and 2nd cases it's obvious what the problem is. But on the 3rd case, people were largely unaware that the person wasn't doing their best and "needed" the parses to figure that out. Now, giving myself some margin of error because *cough* casual amateur, do you guys who tend to raid more often also experience this third case? Do you manage to quickly pinpoint who's underperforming on the spot, or does it still take you guys a bit of digging (even if it's just through replay and battle logs, you know, something sober as to not rat out anyone >.>;; ) to figure out who's not pulling their weight?

Outside of more experienced party members offering that person advice for specific mechanics, that third case is something I pretty much never come across.
It's incredibly poor form, as well. By now, I think most PF savage groups understand the fallout of poisoning the atmosphere like that - and of putting third party software in the line of fire in the process.

In my experience, it's much less common for any one person to get named and shamed on the spot than it is for the PF group to agree "we don't have enough damage", completely disband, and then quietly partially reform.
And even that's only after the other, more typical reasons are ruled out - like needing to clean up mechanics, or not everyone using food/pots yet, both of which are visible without logs.

[SaberMaxwell]

Alright then! I can post again, wee \o/

Cool! But please, if you're gonna do huge posts like this, space them better, it's legitimately hard for me to parse through the sea of letters and despite proper paragraphing, the lack of additional space given by OF's poor formatting really doesn't help. EDIT: Just wanted to make it clear this isn't a dig at you; the OF formatting is garbage-tier lol

I'm not tossing out the ToS like a shield?

If you're sure, why is this a question?

It is well known that "difference in playstyle" is a valid reason to kick somebody, which someone like FireMage is perfectly within their rights to read as "because they didn't parse high." That's not the only thing that falls under that of course, but it does lead to the DADT effect of "You can kick for poor performance, you just can't explicitly say that's why you're doing it."

Coming out and dropping ToS, and then going further to drop tangential at best ToS even further, then rolling back onto the defense as people naturally wonder what your intent is, and a valid interpretation of intentions there would be dropping ToS as an attempt at ending the conversation. You'll note that my goal was to give you benefit of the doubt though, and I ask you to reread and understand what benefit of the doubt it, because I've seen you on the forums and believe you not to be the kind of person who would attempt that as a tactic, ergo I pressed you on what you'd posted and why you posted it.

It's the thing that Square works under when applying punishments and analyzing cases. So, as Atelier told Azuri that if you use parses as justification to kick someone from a PF party you get penalty, and FireMage asked for evidence of that, I pointed out that it's what Square themselves say.

Except in this case, if parses are used as an explanation, it will be implicitly under "difference of playstyles." Besides which, you cannot be coerced to PF with anyone for any reason. If you join my PF and I dislike your name, glam, FC name, preferred minion, lack of mount collection, maybe I dislike that you don't use discord, maybe I dislike you on discord, maybe I dislike people you associate with discord, twitter, facebook, or anything at all, and kick you from it for any of that? Fair game. Though by letter of law you are correct; for some reason, you CAN be coerced to play with people who you dislike the logs of.

When someone is kicked, it's usually silently. But in the case someone's an utter idiot and decides to talk about logs on party chat, then yes, you can. And if you somehow gain evidence that these people were indeed parsing the runs and kicked you out for it, then you can report them. That is all.

"And if you somehow gain evidence..." If you somehow gain evidence, I'm honestly more worried about you and thinking maybe someone should do something about you hacking into people's computers to obtain that evidence, because that's the only way you'd get anything definitive.

Whether this is how the game works or not is beyond me, because for what Square's concerned, you just can't do that, period.

No, as far as Square's concerned, you get banned for harassment first. Don't harass, period. Third party tool usage comes later, if at all, they're happy leaving it in the grey zone.

Or, maybe, consider this. The reason as to why the game is the way you mentioned is because if you do these things, you get banned.

Yeah, closer to JP blacklisting you behind your back type of toxicity and "GCBTW" toxicity than classic WoW and LoL toxicity, but I'd argue still toxic nonetheless.

People don't talk about ACT parses and kick people out over them because doing so would lead to a penalty.

People absolutely kick, boot, disband, and refuse to play with people over ACT and FFLogs. It's not super present in PF itself because it's a take-what-you-can-get atmosphere, but it happens and it happens under the title of "difference in playstyle."

I don't see what sort of shield you think I'm using. If anything, I wasn't using the ToS as a thing to defend myself, because I had nothing to defend. I even opened the post with something like "Does this help?". And I did concede that I didn't understand some stuff because of how vague they sounded. If anything, if I went on the defensive like I am now, I would have tried to argue against it.

Plus, how does you asking me that would yield any answer to you that I'm wearing the ToS as a shield. As you've seen, I'm not, I didn't even use the ToS as an argument. And even if I had, it doesn't really counter me bringing up the ToS to show that "using Parses to kick people out of PF is considered an offence"?

I invite you again to research what the benefit of the doubt is because it's clear you misunderstood me.

Whether it happens covertly or not is up to anyone's guess. In fact didn't we already establish that most people use mods and stuff without telling anyone, since it's all mostly client side. So, naturally, realistically, very few people are caught with them on. But sometimes lapses happen.

Some people are stupid enough to discuss them in the middle of Limsa plaza xD

See, here's some more benefit of the doubt. I believe you aren't meaning to say here that ToS is good only for catching the low hanging fruit that accidentally outs themselves, even if that's the logical conclusion of your statement.

The whole point of what I wrote was to illustrate Atelier's post. "In the even that it happens", then yes. Whether it happens or not, no, but I doubt we'd need any justification for saying "You get punished for using someone's parses against them". Because that IS what would happen.

If that was the point of your post, you didn't do a spectacular job. You missed entirely the fact that, under the clause of "difference in playstyle," people very much CAN reject people based on parses.

.w. was I meant to provide actual cases where people got banned for using parses against others? If that's the case, I personally don't know any. But someone out there likely might.

Likewise am I suppose to provide every case of a silent kick or a kick under "difference in playstyle" being judged legitimate by a GM through absence of action?

I just find the shield thing a bit odd. I wasn't a part of the conversation, I was just pointing out "well, yes, at least according to the terms of service Square operates under".

You simmered over the shield thing so long you missed the benefit of the doubt thing. Above in italics is how ToS can be used as a shield. In bold is why I don't think that was your intent even if you very much came across that way.

[Saraide]

Who cares about week 1 clears? The entire point is the fact that games with open parses have a tendency to use parses to blacklist certain players. He has 1 good parse in every fight minus p5s where he has some good parses. The other 3 fights are almost entirely grey and a few greens. I personally have no problem carrying a pug that doesn't parse well, but history of other MMO's show clearly that players like him would get blacklisted. He'd struggle to find groups that would allow him to join the party. Its not the end of the world if there's a grey parser in your party because the dps checks are not that strict outside of the final fight of the tier usually, but because parsing is not allowed and there's no in game parse players don't have to worry about that toxic nature.

I've seen far too often in other MMO's where groups post "must do #dps or you will be kicked" and that dps number is always WAY above the required dps to clear.

I like Yoshi's answer in the recent live letter. Basically just leave it alone. If you wanna parse, keep it to yourself. If you're on console then join a discord and ask them to upload your logs. Its not that hard to get your numbers.

All you are demonstrating is why you shouldnt be in charge of reading logs and selecting team members. I said it earlier, logs are not the end judgement of someone's skill. You still have to back up those numbers with your current performance if you join a group. Early clears and reclears are bound to have bad runs for everyone involved, fire mage's logs are just all there unfiltered. Any decent leader will appreciate getting the entire picture. The reasonable assumption would be that many runs simply arent clean but on the ones that are they can perform decently well.