The scary paradigm shift of Balmung.

[lucatracy]

Simply don't use TOS breaking tools and you won't have to interact with that section of the playerbase.

Straying away from the original post a bit, because this isn't actually exclusive to Balmung, but part of the issue is that the community dependence on these tools has changed the social aspect entirely. Not using them to stay away from one specific subgroup of the community just makes it harder to seek or interact with others who also use said same tools.

No "moon"? Good luck finding a roleplay partner that'll last, good luck trying to find people that are willing to interact with you in venues... Hell, I don't even think /erp/ is as accessible as it used to be if you don't have said tools and that's all sfw roleplayers complained about for a period of time. There have been multiple instances where I just hang out on Balmung (I do this passively), gotten an unprompted tell asking me for "a code" or if "I have it", and get absolutely NO further response after telling them I'm a console player. Don't even get me started on the abundance of people with the not-so-discrete plugin name right in their search infos.

[Heavenchild]

Straying away from the original post a bit, because this isn't actually exclusive to Balmung, but part of the issue is that the community dependence on these tools has changed the social aspect entirely. Not using them to stay away from one specific subgroup of the community just makes it harder to seek or interact with others who also use said same tools.

No "moon"? Good luck finding a roleplay partner that'll last, good luck trying to find people that are willing to interact with you in venues... Hell, I don't even think /erp/ is as accessible as it used to be if you don't have said tools and that's all sfw roleplayers complained about for a period of time. There have been multiple instances where I just hang out on Balmung (I do this passively), gotten an unprompted tell asking me for "a code" or if "I have it", and get absolutely NO further response after telling them I'm a console player. Don't even get me started on the abundance of people with the not-so-discrete plugin name right in their search infos.

I heard about that problem. For me it's the opposite. When I read moonstuff in adventurer plates my interest to talk to them drops a lot. I don't like how much many players disfigure their characters to something unrecognisable to FF14.
And I prefer it when we all are able to see somehow the same characters, no matter on which plattform. I also appreciate it much more when people have beautiful vanilla characters. I don't blame the ones who use cosmetic mods. But for me, this feels not like FF14 anymore. And I just look at the chars in the way, how they 'really' look ingame. That's why my interest to talk to people who use assets other than intended is so low.

But honestly, even if I refuse that stuff, I can understand very well why so many people are using cosmetics mods. Character customization and for example vanilla hair is often not very good.