Twitch streamers still blatantly cheating on stream.

[Remish]

I didn't notice someone HAD tried to explain ACT's cheating-ness to me. Okay, so honestly, I really don't know anything about it.

I THOUGHT it was literally just a meter saying "you're doing 4647 DPS right now" or whatever, and nothing else. Obviously, it can be used to "monitor" others, which again I acknowledge can be weaponized by toxic players to DPSshame people for not "keeping up"

This response to me, though, suggests that at certain points ACT provides some sort of benchmark for passing DPS checks? Like my understanding (parsing, if you will) of this is that... Some sort of... Metric shows up where like, you have to keep the DPS above a certain value and the plugin explicitly tells you "hey, BigBossGuy is casting RaidwideWipeSpell, party must have DPS of at least 55853 collectively to pass it". Is this... How it works?

If it has such functionality, I can slightly more honestly entertain calling it cheating, though I'll reiterate what I said across my replies... I'm pretty sure when you fail the check, that means everyone just needs to.... Do their rotations more better-ly? Get better gear? Like it's pretty obvious when you wipe that you failed, you shouldn't need a DPS meter to tell you that.

I'm aware (or at least am led to understand) that savage raiders will be a bit more... Aggressive, about policing people who don't "cut it"? But like, that returns to me talking about the people being the problem. They could just as easily watch the aggression order and see that the RPR is inexplicably last in aggro under like, a BRD or something. I don't even raid and even I could tell you there's an issue there. And whether you kindly say "hey RPR, have you practiced your rotation? Are you geared up? So you have any questions? Looked like you weren't aggroed very high, which suggests your DPS might have been low?" Vs "RPR your parse was 7th percentile you're literally among the worst RPR players gtfo the party"

ACT on its own isn't bad. By itself it is just a meter or calculator. ACT however acts as a hub for other plugins and features which does cross in questionable territory. ACT the program openly allows and hosts these other applications and that's why we get into some of this debate. Another such application is the FFXIV Quick Launcher. By itself, it to isn't seemingly a cheat device at first glance, but it acts as a hub for plugin creators to upload cheats into the game. Think of it like Emulators for a video game as well. The emulator isn't illegal or against the rule, but injecting the game into the program is. Maybe a bad comparison but I was hoping to find an example that painted a decent picture of my thought process.

[drtasteyummy]

They aren't (all) cheats.

It's that cut and dry.

What performative enhancement does upscaled armor textures give you? Honest answer, stay on topic, don't whatabout Cactbot or whatever. I have conceded such gameplay/mechanical modifications are cheating by definition.

But how are texture mods cheating? By your very narrow (lol ironic af) definition of "not officially made by SE? It's a cheat!", you would consider them cheats. So how are they cheats?

What gameplay advantage does shinier visual armor give you?

How does it affect raids that you can see "nicks" on an armor texture?

How does Viera having hats give a WF Savage party their clear?

You call them cheats so you can fall back on the "what is the advantage" narrative because that's what you have been trained to repeat. I'm open to calling it client manipulation or file manipulation? It's like you're hard coded, unable to accept that it's simply against the rules. You're free to rebel against these rules and even question them, but you're still breaking them.

[Yeol]

Yoshi-P (FFXIV) on ACT and Third Party Tools (eng subs).

[KatiaRelanah]

Oh this argument again. Neat. Wonder if people will somehow come to an understanding or middle ground? No? It'll end in the same place as it started? Oh.

I've conceded plenty of points about how some plugins are cheating, especially/particularly when they offer mechanical information in a means that is advantageous compared to another player's vanilla experience.

However, the problem is that, if the flavor of the argument is "are plugins cheating", then there needs to be an honest, mutually-agreed definition of cheating.

Simply saying "Not officially approved by SE" doesn't fly for me, because it flies in the face of any layperson definition of cheating for the sake of trying to claim victory before the debate is even had.

The long and short of it is that I want drtasteyummy (and anyone else who is in this weird black-and-white camp of "all plugins are cheats!" camp) to verbalize how something like armor with slightly more visual detail is cheating. As they keep retreating to the "well all plugins are cheats!" bailey, it's pointless, because no reasonable person would agree that such an aesthetic changes fits any understood definition of cheating.

It becomes a pointless feedback loop where they just declare it's cheating because... Well, it's cheating! Recursive definition. Pointless.

[Kuroka]

Think of it like Emulators for a video game as well. The emulator isn't illegal or against the rule, but injecting the game into the program is. Maybe a bad comparison but I was hoping to find an example that painted a decent picture of my thought process.

Just in this case it is illegal i think, as official software should be allowed to connect to their servers and use their service...? But yes thats a good one.

[KatiaRelanah]

You call them cheats so you can fall back on the "what is the advantage" narrative because that's what you have been trained to repeat. I'm open to calling it client manipulation or file manipulation? It's like you're hard coded, unable to accept that it's simply against the rules. You're free to rebel against these rules and even question them, but you're still breaking them.

I don't use plugins.

Anyways, how do armor texture mods count as cheating? Still waiting for that answer.

[KatiaRelanah]

I don't use plugins.

Anyways, how do armor texture mods count as cheating? Still waiting for that answer.

Maybe it'll help if I start, here's an example:

"Cactbot is cheating because it presents gameplay data in a way that allows players to perform with less expenditure of effort and/or situational awareness over players not using it"

See? That's how it should go. You declare the contention (cactbot is cheating) and then provide a warrant for your claims (the bolded part)

Your turn. Fill in the blank. "Texture mods are cheating because _____"

[Sotaris]

Oh lovely, the never-ending discussion about cactbot.

[Miracle_Diva]

SE has never cared about third party tool usage as much as some people in this thread.

[KatiaRelanah]

ACT on its own isn't bad. By itself it is just a meter or calculator. ACT however acts as a hub for other plugins and features which does cross in questionable territory. ACT the program openly allows and hosts these other applications and that's why we get into some of this debate.

And I, to the best of my understanding, conceded/agreed that these sorts of ancillary/derivative programs could reasonably constitute cheating, and I've made no secret nor avoided such judgments.

My point was merely that I wasn't sure I understood the reply I mentioned there, in that I guess I was just clarifying that I don't know the full scope of ACT's functions as a standalone. The way they made it sound, ACT itself provided some sort of yardstick functionality where it tells you preemptively if you're gonna pass a check in a particular fight or whatever. If that's the case, yes, ACT contains functionality that constitutes cheating, agreed.

If it IS literally just "you're doing X damage, so and so is doing Y, the entire party is doing Z", then like, no, I will disagree that that's cheating, and that's what drives any sort of "defense" of ACT I'm making. Maybe because I don't raid, but by itself, I don't see any feasible way for a player to see they're doing X damage or someone else is doing Y and that helps the gameplay at all. What, are you gonna... Press your 1-2-3 buttons harder?

And in a previous reply I already made my point about using the data as a tool to bully, i.e. toxicity exists even without tools, you can watch the aggro list numbers in your party, etc. If a person wants to be toxic, they'll find a way to be toxic.