Best part of a new patch? Third party tools not working.

[Packetdancer]

The new 24man was so difficult I almost cried.

I did want to cry, because the server was VERY UNHAPPY when I first tried to queue into the new 24-man on Tuesday; it took our group a very long time to walk from spawn-in to the first boss arena because everyone was rubber-banding so badly, and no one could use any abilities. When someone decided to try to attempt to pull the boss anyway, it just was a stuttering slideshow of death... and anyone who tried to Return to Start was then trapped in an infinite black loading screen.

Second time I queued in was perfectly fine, but that first time was just PAAAAAIN. And definitely worth some weeping.

To be honest in our group we simply run with the policy "you can use it, but we don't recommend it" as I am calling for my group for one and we worry about overreliance on the tool. It slows improvement if used excessively.

That's more or less my stance as the person calling for my static. But I mean, I also try to encourage people not to rely on my callouts either.

If you rely on an automated tool to tell you the mechanics, that's not great. But if you rely on a non-automated tool (i.e., me) to tell you the mechanics, that's also not great. Sure, I'm still functional on patch days, but if I get laryngitis or have a family crisis and have to skip raid, you should be able to read the mechanics without me there.

I firmly believe that callouts -- whether human or automated -- should really only be a sanity-check on your own read of mechanics.

Your Operating System is third-party, please uninstall it.

Facetious joking aside, the operating system is not against TOS. It is listed in the system requirements for the game, which makes it part of the base required operating environment.

Moreover, keep in mind that the TOS forbids the use of unauthorized third-party tools. There are authorized third-party software, like that Embody surround sound add-on for the Windows edition. And for that matter, Nvidia Freestyle, Nvidia's equivalent of GShade... which has official, SQEX-blessed support for FFXIV. (Not that it would really matter if it didn't, since Freestyle happens at the driver level and, from FFXIV's point of view, is functionally indistinguishable from, say, Windows system-level monitor color calibration.)