Twitch streamers still blatantly cheating on stream.

[VelKallor]

I am not against ACT, or triggers in ACT that just give you a audio notification that x started because you can't focus on watching a castbar for 4 hours straight.

Do other players get that audio notification? No? Then its cheating because it gives you an advantage they dont have.

[KatiaRelanah]

Do other players get that audio notification? No? Then its cheating because it gives you an advantage they dont have.

Does ACT provide this functionality natively? Or do you have to have an add-on, for the add-on?

The latter was my impression, I really don't know anything about the parsing world beyond "it tells you what your DPS is", and I thought ACT did exactly and exclusively that... And that you need other programs/applications to add in the stuff like callouts or whatever.

[drtasteyummy]

But how is it cheating, unironically?

What is your definition of cheating? Because you're conflating multiple things here, namely

- visual [aesthetic] changes (viera having hats)

How does this affect gameplay?

- visual [rendering/marking mechanics automatically and/or allowing viewspace increase]

Okay yeah this is cheating, it provides a means to perform the task of clearing a duty more easily/in a way that advantages you over players who don't have it

- informational [knowing how much damage you're doing]

I refer to my long post above, how does parsing by itself constitute cheating? How does knowing how much damage you're doing help you pass a DPS check better? The failed mechanic tells you the same thing, you're not doing enough damage, get better gear and/or use better consumables and/or practice your rotation

- mechanical [affecting ping/latency/server functions]

Cheating insofar as it provides you something that other players don't have, but I echo sentiments that such things that apparently are easily changeable should be native to the game? Idk exactly what even these sorts of add-ons/plugins are, p much the only ones I know about are ACT, derivative call-out mods like cactbot (from debates about ACT mentioning it), and visual/texture/model mods. Oh, and camhacks I guess because of the WF cheating thing a while ago.

Anyways, yeah. It makes any sort of point you have against the unfairness of cheating come across as hyperbolic and exaggerated when you label things like chat bubbles or slightly higher-res clothing as "cheating" by virtue of being mods. I can't agree with this, they offer literally and demonstrably no advantage in gameplay terms, no matter how many times you about about it or conflate it with things that are pretty clearly cheating.

People always call it cheating because they want to deliberately ride the "It's not a cheat unless it provides an advantage" wave, but the reality is that you're just the consumer of a product and the devs of that product stated they don't want to have any "plugins" in that product, which means regardless of what your "plugin" does, it's breaching the ToS. Also it has many negative effects, for one, logging creates a toxic environment, visual mods and things like "Mare" are subtly pushing new RP players to use plugins, which also means that everyone who doesn't have access to it is limited, like console users. At other times, people are pushed out of their group because they can't use cactpot. I do not condemn the use of "plugins" as such, I in fact think that they create as much positive as negative, but I still declare them as cheating. Personally, Dalamud is a cheat framework, otherwise they would have at least limited its use case against that.

My dismissal of this whole situation purely comes from these players who push fake agendas to support "plugins are good mkay" by gaslighting everyone else instead of just being real, as much as every new plugin thread that emerges that does this "Am I the asshole" plugin edition.

[KatiaRelanah]

People always call it cheating because they want to deliberately ride the "It's not a cheat unless it provides an advantage" wave, but the reality is that you're just the consumer of a product and the devs of that product stated they don't want to have any "plugins" in that product, which means regardless of what your "plugin" does, it's breaching the ToS. Also it has many negative effects, for one, logging creates a toxic environment, visual mods and things like "Mare" are subtly pushing new RP players to use plugins, which also means that everyone who doesn't have access to it is limited, like console users. At other times, people are pushed out of their group because they can't use cactpot. I do not condemn the use of "plugins" as such, I in fact think that they create as much positive as negative, but I still declare them as cheating. Personally, Dalamud is a cheat framework, otherwise they would have at least limited its use case against that.

My dismissal of this whole situation purely comes from these players who push fake agendas to support "plugins are good mkay" by gaslighting everyone else instead of just being real, as much as every new plugin thread that emerges that does this "Am I the asshole" plugin edition.

Accidentally closed my response, which was a shame because it was fairly substantial.

The tldr was this: try as you might, you aren't gonna gaslight me into believing aesthetic changes are a gateway drug to gameplay mods/toxicity:

visual mods and things like "Mare" are subtly pushing new RP players to use plugins

I say this as an ardent mod user in games where it IS dev-approved (Skyrim as a random example). Me having 8k armor textures isn't gonna make the gameplay any easier for me. And there are plenty of people playing such games who would never use anything touching the gameplay experience, instead just playing "visual overhauls" with fancier graphics.

If your main gripe is "people can use stuff like ACT to DPSshame people", that's a person problem, not a mod problem. People can be toxic in game just as easily vanilla (YPYT, two-man preformeds kicking someone they don't like out of a duty, etc.) Again, pleading the fifth, I don't use them but I wouldn't take away peoples' ability to make the game prettier in their subjective opinion simply because others are assholes.

Edit: and also, branding the existence of a framework as cheating is as asinine as saying syringes existing means all athletes dope up, because surely some of them use them to shoot up performance enhancing drugs! Ludicrous on the face of it. (Edited edit: I actually don't know how PEDs get delivered, replace syringes with cups if it's something they drink or whatever etc. The point stands).

[drtasteyummy]

Accidentally closed my response, which was a shame because it was fairly substantial.

The tldr was this: try as you might, you aren't gonna gaslight me into believing aesthetic changes are a gateway drug to gameplay mods/toxicity:



I say this as an ardent mod user in games where it IS dev-approved (Skyrim as a random example). Me having 8k armor textures isn't gonna make the gameplay any easier for me.

If your main gripe is "people can use stuff like ACT to DPSshame people", that's a person problem, not a mod problem. People can be toxic in game just as easily vanilla (YPYT, two-man preformeds kicking someone they don't like out of a duty, etc.) Again, pleading the fifth, I don't use them but I wouldn't take away peoples' ability to make the game prettier in their subjective opinion simply because others are assholes.

You seem to be unable to let go of this narrow view on this situation, and I'm not trying to gaslight you into believing anything. I merely look down on people who don't have the grit state the obvious, you need these plugins and don't want to get rid of them, regardless of whether they are breaking the ToS, you simply don't care. You are just looking for excuses to pat yourself on the back.

[KatiaRelanah]

You seem to be unable to let go of this narrow view on this situation, and I'm not trying to gaslight you into believing anything. I merely look down on people who don't have the grit state the obvious, you need these plugins and don't want to get rid of them, regardless of whether they are breaking the ToS, you simply don't care.

"Narrow view"

Says the person saying all mods, bar none with no exceptions, are "cheats".

Are you... Are you being serious right now? What's narrow about "nuance exists", at least proportionally compared to "there is no nuance, no debate, no discussion, it's all [X]"? If my view is narrow, you're looking through the eye of a needle.

[Bsrking5]

Let the witch begin, again! Ban all of them! Yoshi p and even agrees to ban them all, just shine the light on them and let the gold veil of the ban hammer smash apon them.

[drtasteyummy]

"Narrow view"

Says the person saying all mods, bar none with no exceptions, are "cheats".

Are you... Are you being serious right now? What's narrow about "nuance exists", at least proportionally compared to "there is no nuance, no debate, no discussion, it's all [X]"? If my view is narrow, you're looking through the eye of a needle.

Again, I am not arguing over your personal views. A program does X and the ToS says Y, and X does breach Y. Whatever you add to justify it is up to you.

[KatiaRelanah]

Nvidia Freestyle:

https://www.nvidia.de/geforce/geforc...eestyle-games/

This offers reshade-like post-process visual effects and is officially sanctioned by SE, by virtue of Nvidia having permission to enable it on the game.

You could argue it offers gameplay advantages as it makes visuals clearer for a user. Certain visual effects that might be meant to obscure their view don't "work as well".

How does this differ from the aesthetic mods I explicitly and specifically described not caring about?

[KatiaRelanah]

Again, I am not arguing over your personal views. A program does X and the ToS says Y, and X does breach Y. Whatever you add to justify it is up to you.

Point out where in my post(s) I said that plugins weren't against ToS? I advice you go to my first reply in the topic, it might be enlightening.

By which I mean, add-ons bad/against ToS etc. Etc.

Not once did I ever say that plugins WEREN'T against ToS. I merely am expressing my opinion on whether they should be, which I absolutely have the right to do (ToS does NOT include a line about "you aren't allowed to discuss this ToS).

I'm not particularly caring one way or the other, but this would be like a person advocating for marijuana legalization being labelled a pothead. No, bro, it's possible to discuss a law/rule/regulation/legal standard without being in violation of it, and discussion isn't in and of itself verboten.