Another World First Clear got disqualified due to "Cheating"

[Kaurhz]

Very few people Ultimate raid. There would actually be 'more' players coming back to XIV if they used those resources on more normal and EX level content additions.

Very few people do raid, perhaps

But it is copium to think that the removal of an ultimate raid would result in more normal and ex-level content additions. That resource would go into a black hole and it would never be seen again. - Maybe they'll add an optional hard mode dungeon, but at that point they may as well do nothing at all because the overall cycle and gameplay loop is rigid as hell.

Unless the redaction of ultimate is going to result in large-scale or repeatable content being released sooner then absolutely nothing is going to get resolved because outside of relics the game doesn't really lend itself to a solid gameplay loop. You could add several extreme primals, it will still amount to very little, to be honest.

[ForteNightshade]

That doesn't change the fact that more attention gets put into hardcore content despite being supposedly asset flips only for a sizable portion of it to be CHEATED THROUGH ANYWAY to the point that Yoshida himself was asking "why bother then" at one point.

Whether you like it or not, it's players versus players competing against each other for things to do every patch cycle, and when you get a front-loaded patch for one side and nothing for the other, the casuals and midcore left with nothing are going to be banging on the hardcore's door wondering "what makes you so special" especially when the group being spoiled has the audacity to trivialize what they were given, where it's harder to prove who DOESN'T cheat at this point with how often people keep getting caught, or the general prevalence of third-party tools.

You can blame Square-Enix for creating the scarcity, but we can rightly blame the raiders for preening and crowing about the part of the pie they walked away with and then threw on the ground, smug grin and all.

Welcome to how the raid community feels practically every other patch where the bulk of content released is for casual players. If we were to do a side by side comparison on which demographic gets more in a given expansion, it wouldn't be much of a "competition."

Nevertheless, that's a silly way to look at it. This isn't a competition because many raiders want other stuff to do themselves. Contrary to what you might believe, most of the raid scene is equally frustrated with the slow content cadence. Heck, if it wasn't for FRU, I'd be playing BG3 more because this game has nothing to do right now. So on that point, I agree with you. But it has nothing to do with the raiders why there's such a dearth of content outside the hardcore scene. That's on the dev team for their continued baffling decision to delay the relic a year into an expansion's life cycle.

If I could hazard a guess, it's likely due to the assumption many casual players will take a considerable amount of time to get through everything and/or don't actually mind the delay. While purely anecdotal, most of my more casual friend circles aren't complaining. Heck, a couple have argued with me, saying there's still plenty to do. And before anyone asks, most of them are caught up to DT. Personally, I don't know how they feel that way but hey, more power to them, I guess.

With that in mind, I can only speculate it's a combination of Yoshida's infamous "we don't want to overwhelm players!" and a general sense they can afford to delay more casual content because that demographic is likely to stay around longer. Conversely, the higher end scene will push through content much faster and leave without a carrot to keep them occupied. FRU will last well beyond 7.1, and like I mentioned before, it's cheap to develop. So it makes sense from a purely business perspective to frontload it even if I dislike their content approach just as much as you do.

Its mean but id find it very funny if yoshida actually just cancels the next one... *wishfull thinking*

Realistically, it's an empty threat he will never follow through on because it will lose SE money. While yes, Ultimate is a niche piece of content, it exists primarily to keep the raid scene active during odd patches where that demographic would otherwise have nothing to do. Not to mention, it serves as evergreen content as players can and do tackle Ultimate years after its release. Even a small loss of revenue is still a loss. Less revenue means SE isn't really incentivized to add anything else. Especially when you factor in new content that might attract casual players comes with a substantially higher development cost than Ultimate does.

Very few people Ultimate raid. There would actually be 'more' players coming back to XIV if they used those resources on more normal and EX level content additions.

To be blunt, this is complete nonsense. Like I've mentioned several times now, per Yoshida's own words, Ultimate has a very low budget. That's literally the only reason they make it: a cheap and effective way to keep a demographic of the playerbase active. At best, you'd maybe see massively scaled down "Extreme" version of Ultimate, which would lack anywhere near the spectacle because several of the mechanics are simply too difficult for the lower midcore level. And then you could farm it 50-99 times for each weapon. Why that many instead of the usual 10? If there's no mount, they need another way to extend it's life otherwise you'd be done with it in a weekend. We all know how much SE loves artificial gating.

Considering the three current EXs aren't grabbing people and making them come back in droves. Do you really think a slightly harder "fourth" one would be of much interest over a 5 month period? Cause that's all you'd get if Ultimate was scrapped. And even that is a maybe. Ironically, we already know the answer because this kind of happened with Memoria Misera. Guess what, most of the casual playerbase complained about it.

The far more likely scenario if Ultimate were scrapped is nothing else is added at all. Just like Summoner's rework was supposedly just a foundation to build upon... until it wasn't. Or how healers were simplified to add more depth in future expansions... until they never did.

[Themarvin]

Yah... Modern parsing programs work by reading the game packets sent to and from the game. They kinda can't just remove those lol.

And good luck with encrypting them. It'd be broken in a day.

Most likely not, unless light encryption, the penalty will fall just this harder as well.

You don't need them, well unless you can't play without a crutch that is.

[Heavenchild]

Isn't it funny that so many people, who think of themselves as 'raid elite' or good raiders can just beat the content during the world firsts with cheating? xD

Unpopular opinion: The true challange behind hard content is to find 7 other reliable friendly people. :x

[hynaku]

Find it funny that keep reading one's complaining about ultimate content is too easy, but I keep seeing these articles about them using cheats to make content easier.

[localareanetwork]

I feel like this conversation is a CTRL+C -> CTRL+V of the last 3 Ultimates that have come out. How does anyone still have the energy to care about this anymore? Nothing will change.

[Themarvin]

...Then why rush to cheat through it if said raiders are supposedly equally desperate for content? They got exactly what they asked for, squandered it anyway, and then have to gall to come back saying "there's nothing to do" or "everything is soooo easy now".

One can't even say "they're not the same people" because I'm pretty sure PF mainstays and statics have the same small subset of players within them per data center (because it's not exactly the kind of content that pulls in newbies), and even if someone could prove they're not personally cheating, they can't really vouch for the other people they're with. How many players in the hardcore community can actually prove they've accomplished what they said they've done when even the supposed "best" going for world-first are caught cheating every single time? How many of those people with lopsided win rates in PVP actually did it legit now?

It goes beyond just questioning why content should be made for these players, but even for the ones that are fair and square about it, it just gets you side-eyed any time someone sees those titles/weapons/mounts because we're at the point where modding to the top isn't suspected, it's assumed.

Static groups and more is the ones that abuse these exploits and cheats the most that gives unfair advantages that console users wont be able to use, that is the worst group gameplay wise there is right now, what they accomplished at best is to crowd gather data to crowdfound these cheats and to feed parsers and more.

That is not saying that they are not good, they got the experience of things as it is, but they all still use the crouches which is really not needed for any gaming community to be able to beat the content easier with cactbot/ACT telling them what happens next, or what they instructed it to tell or react with if different tactics from the normal Hector or whatever strategy in place.

[Themarvin]

I do imagine that's a subject of discontent that console players can't use mods themselves thus putting them at a disadvantage if said mods are considered "the crutch standard" as it were.

There's also the very real possibility that if cheats are going to be such an assumed facet of this content, Square-Enix might throw their hands up and build-in their OWN cheats that allows anyone to blast through the content, and where doing it the "hard way" is purely optional and comes with zero additional accolades or applause, it's purely "for fun". It's not as outlandish as one might think either, given that a majority of the other Final Fantasy games on PC right now have all sorts of toggles to make playing through them easier (or harder), or how even their OTHER Final Fantasy MMO eventually turned into a purely solo-able experience with Trusts that do most of the heavy-lifting. And now we have a mobile game on the horizon, where if it plays like any other mobile MMO out there, a large chunk of it is going to be automated and/or have ways to pay-to-win.

Now keeping all of that in mind with the PC version, where cheats to clear content is increasingly rampant and people paying for clears (gil or real tender) is an "open secret" and all it does is give Square-Enix ideas to do it themselves in some capacity. So they might just keep making Ultimates after all, but now the previous difficulty is "opt-in" because it's been shown to them time and time again that even those demanding a challenge don't actually want it, or god forbid they think about letting you pay THEM to give you a clear for the drops. Just ask yourselves how much do you really trust Square-Enix to not consider it.

99% of statics use third person software or cheats on the PC front, else they will not be able to join the statics to begin with, that is a fact, there is next to no holy people about it either other than a select 1-2% of static PC people that does not use or or am affected by it, which alone should tell you the numbers of how few 'pro' players who is actually in the clear.

Stop trying to defend something that is wrong, especially as the big gun on repeated times in live has stated that it is not permitted or OK at all.

The only people that has been doing anything the hard way, is those that clear the content before cactbot or similar is released when new ex, savage and Ultimate content is out, but probably using other tools ad seen to gain advantage.

[Themarvin]

I wasn't trying to defend cheating, but rather pointing out that if it continues to be an issue, and Square-Enix remains adamant about not wanting to implement an anti-cheat program, they might think about adding their own type of cheats because it wouldn't be the first time they've added options to their games to let people do that. One might even argue that the options you can already pick from in the Duty Finder settings is similar, and there's certainly no shortage of people who just unsync stuff to farm it easier (I know because I'm one of them).

A large portion of the playerbase (maybe not 99%, but certainly a lot) are playing with fire by putting Yoshi-P on the spot to address cheating in some way and he doesn't have a lot of options to work with.

99% of Static groups, not entire population uh.

[Menriq]

99% of statics use third person software or cheats on the PC front, else they will not be able to join the statics to begin with, that is a fact, there is next to no holy people about it either other than a select 1-2% of static PC people that does not use or or am affected by it, which alone should tell you the numbers of how few 'pro' players who is actually in the clear.

I like to do my own research. Can you point me to your source for this 99% so I can educate myself?

Thanks!