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

[Midareyukki]

Nah, pretty sure mods for going futa is solely a raid buff and would only ever be used by raiders.

...raiders of what, you may ask?

The Lost Ark ;D because they're in for some booty

...

I'll stop.

Knowing or not knowing usage of 3rd party tools isn't going to affect you in-game. How come people default to condemning Raiders though? Even the once that "don't use any". Think we failed as a community here... cause we're progressive and inclusive... we should be condemning everything!

Let's also not neglect the fact that UNFORTUNATELY Viera and Hrothgar players felt reliant on the modding scene to have a more complete experence in the same vein as every other paying subscriber here.

Especially, you know, the one race that needed to pay a fantasia just to change "hairstyle".

3rd Party tools should not be viewed as the norm, and I support that view. However, there are plenty of third party tools made available (for PC players, sorry console players) who have zero impact other than quality of life. Stuff unrelated to allowing more than certain waymarks, stuff unrelated to parsing. Especially when Square Enix's response to player demand has been inconsistent and zig-zaggy. And I say "Unfortunately" because at the end of the day, yeah, third party software shouldn't have as much an impact in the community as it currently is having.

But Square's stance is comprehensive. Third Party Tools are a window to a lot of nasty stuff they don't want to handle, so it's to be frowned upon and not used. However, they won't police people because there are some tools that fall into a gray area, and other tools also draw in attention to the game as it is, allowing people to feel more invested in their character if it happens to have detriments.

So if Square isn't going to police it, why are people having their knickers in a twist over something that doesn't affect them?

Because they can be lewded with mods? Sorry but that's on the modder and you can, and should, report them asap. Because that's frowned upon by modders as a whole, and there are ways to only apply mods to your own character.
Because they can be harassed with parses? You're gonna get kicked out for underperforming either way, parses just make it easier. It's still frowned upon and considered a stupid thing to do, something SE DEFINITELY slams down on when caught. But it would otherwise be no different than me using in-game stuff to achieve the same thing, like your numbers or melds.

These things happen so rarely, yet people fear it irrationally. I attribute this both to a lack of skin when dealing with these things, and also exacerbated perception of something negative.
It's like the fear of flying. You know accidents happen, but some people still fear it even though you have more chances of getting into a car crash than a plane crash.

Let's also not forget that BLM and MNK needed tools to parse the servers' ticks to ensure they made the most out of their class. Something that has since led to the classes being changed. Sometimes a wrong happens to make a right.

[CelestiCer]

*snip*

Certainly agree with your points
Many stated and I agree that largely Developers making plugins aren't doing it out of Malice, but mostly to improve FFXIV's experience and showing Square possible upgrades and features. Hrothgar/Vierra hair included to name a few. Square knows this! and rather then pooling their own resources? they have a policy that they are not policing as you said, they are looking the other way. This costs them less money and resources, solving a lot of issues on themselves by the community even if its against ToS.

For the player-base, be it I think a minority in the west? To demonize everything so quickly? And auto default relating plugins to mostly Raiders? a tad misleading and provocative... If only we had the same valor towards all Plugins like NSFW / Lewd / Nudity / RMT etc but of course they wont... even when raiding makes up 5% or 10% at best of FFXIV =u=;