Integrity matters

[Turtledeluxe]

ITT people pretend to be too obtuse to understand the basic reason we prefer people not to cut in line, defraud banks, or rig elections. We opt in to systems with the premise of fairness. It is self explanatory. It's not a preference, nor subjective. Hence why the discussion has to be narrowed around achievements or how fake the game is.

[Carighan]

No other MMO allows for this. ONLY Final Fantasy XIV as a conscious decision by Square Enix.

This is just flat-out wrong. This also feeds back into why I said that. Just like in every other thread about this, you seem to understand awfully little about the subject matter you talk in such absolute and direct words about. It's one thing to be upset about the effects that affect you, say, someone cheating in PvP. It's another thing entirely to pretend to understand how it works, be confidently wrong, then also pretend that this (fake) understanding naturally extends to every other aspect of the game, and then try to tell other people that their understanding is wrong.

Shortlist of only games I've personally played that allow this:
* M59
* EQ1 (allowed way more because the client had some trust by the server)
* DAoC (first game to not trust the client saying "I used this action 15x in this very moment all at once", server-side actions btw, delay was huge)
* GW1
* GW2

Also: the fan art comment was about model/animation swaps, which you clearly don't really know either given the way you talk about them, or you'd know that the overwhelming majority, really the near-exclusive-rounds-to-100-majority of them, use custom-built elements, the goal is after all to inject outside art/models/animations into the game, not just swap A<->B - and the thing is, I know about all of this without ever having even tried using them, just by being curious how it works and more importantly how it is used, because those videos by that animation re-worker looked fascinating and I wanted to know more. You seem to not want to know, just rage.

(edit)
And don't misunderstand me, since that seems to be your thing. I am absolutely annoyed by cheating in PvP via addons, or by bots, etc. But that's a tiny minority of what this gets used for, and importantly one other games (that supposedly do better) suffer from in a seemingly same amount. PvP cheating in WoW was absurdly commong, including botting right with it (I remember a famous fully-automated win-trading thing in early Cataclysm).
WoW in fact is a fascinating example as its design is uniquely vulnerable to people doing more than intended, even in the confines of its modding API. Recently the boss-mods side of it had to be disabled, something FFXIV avoids "elegantly" (debatable) by having a boss-fight design that is simply "pre-modded", so to speak. Unlike in WoW, where at some point bosses started to be designed with the expectation that everbody mods, here the design avoids giving any value to whether someone has a bossmod (in the WoW sense) or not, there is no discernable effect from using it.
This effect can also be seen in how laughably unpopular these mods are compared to something as benign like locking arbitrary windows to be unable to accidentally move them or making http links in chat clickable. When in other MMOs such mods are usually the #1-mod among raiders.
But, this does not excuse botters or cheaters, of course. But it means that any system to prevent these would do more harm than good (since we know that even without modding, people bot and cheat in MMORPGs like crazy!) if it disabled all such functionality, instead of just the parts that directly negatively affect other players.
And to bring this back around fully to the start of the thread: Naturally messing with the the game graphics data files cannot negatively affect another player, as it's a modification that affects all displays of item A for player 1, but only for player 1. It's a local modification. So in the long list of "How problematic can this be in regards to the integrity of the game for other players?", this is very much near the absolute rock bottom. It can be used for absolutely wild things - e.g. swapping your own character for Spider Castle from the Endwalker raids - but you are the only person who is affected by that, everyone else sees your character.

(edit2)
And we also can surmise from looking at other games with a similar setup (see list above) that this won't get worse or at least there is no indication of this becoming worse, which seems to be a common worry. A good example here is GW2, which is similarly modded by directly altering the client. This gets used for all the horrible, absolute reprehensible, game-breaking things you might imagine, such as:
* Making combo fields more visible for colourblind players.
* Adding a pie-menu for mounts.
* Enabling full play with a controller.
And so on. I know, ban them all permanently, the whole depraved disgusting lot of them! Right?

[Reinha]

are you just missing the point on purpose to be contrarian?

Welcome to the official FFXIV forums.

I totally agree though.

[TaleraRistain]

I do think they can work on the pace of how they find and handle cheaters but I think an anti-cheat will do more harm than good.

Can someone bot something? Yes? Does it change the work I put into it to get the title or reward? No.

And going back to a topic from the original posts that not many have brought up, I don't have any issues communicating with others in the game and being social. I don't have to live on eggshells. I joke in chat in instances. I've never gone to Mordion Gaol in 12 years of playing. I don't know what people are doing to spend so much time there but usually when someone claims they were innocent or didn't do anything when the full story comes out they were rude or abrasive in some manner. If you feel you have to live on eggshells, then you may want to examine how you interact with others.

[Heavenchild]

I think you are right. Mods, plug-ins, and hacks took over the game a while ago. If you don't use them, many people think of you as the boring, ugly vanilla player. This is also why visual mods are a problem nowadays. They have become the new standard, and everyone who doesn't use them is often looked down upon.

By now, I also think that FF14 needs anti-cheat to make it fair again. On the other hand, it would hurt the game financially if all the modders left.Then again, I see it as a failure on Square Enix's part that so many mods, plug-ins, and hacks are even necessary for people to be somewhat satisfied.

Sure, there are always extremes that you can't satisfy in the vanilla version. But the quality of the character editor, hair, voices, and even some of the animations is honestly pretty bad at times.

And almost all new content is just trial styled battle content (arena with boss) or mindless hardcore grinding. If I have to watch YouTube or Netflix on the side most of the time just to avoid falling asleep while playing FF14, the problem lies in the game design.

Naturally, this encourages people to automate these boring tasks. Beastmaster is just the next boring grind. Reaching level 50 wasn't exactly thrilling. Now I have to grind all beasts to level 25 while doing barely more than pressing 1-2-3. Who on earth thought that would be fun? :')

At the moment I play on Switch 2. I feel like it's sometimes more fun to engage with other consoles players. Many people on PC meanwhile see 'modding' as a normal to-do activity in the game. :x

[Heavenchild]

The only thing I would really miss if they implement anti-cheat are the bard bands.
It would be really sad to lose them.

[Carighan]

I think you are right. Mods, plug-ins, and hacks took over the game a while ago. If you don't use them, many people think of you as the boring, ugly vanilla player. This is also why visual mods are a problem nowadays. They have become the new standard, and everyone who doesn't use them is often looked down upon.

You got a source for this, I presume?

By now, I also think that FF14 needs anti-cheat to make it fair again.

This would not prevent the visual mods you decried just one line before, mind you. Everybody would still be free to do that. I guess you included that in your reasoning, right?
(in fact it wouldn't even do anything about quite large portions of automation like crafting or rotations, but that's a fact people conveniently ignore when talking about these subjects, lest they face the reality that it's no longer 2004 and a Warden-Client-like is no longer a viable solution to automation or even cheating)

[Hanzz96]

Achievements in game mean literally nothing except for the weight that you give them. I spent 2 months progging Kefka ultimate in all my spare time and what weight does the "Cruel Legend" title have to me? That I did it with my friends and we pushed through together. People can assume paypal legend or botting but whatever I know I progged and cleared it and how others value my achievements in a pretend video game doesn't mean anything.

If what other people are doing bothers you so much or devalues how you see in game achievments that you earned than thats a you problem. That being said though I can promise that at the highest level of game play people aren't botting their rotations because especially in ultimates the fights are deisgned to shatter your rotation, step on it and then challenge you to piece it back together with sticky tape. Anyone botting a rotation is doing bloody awful damage I assure you.

When it comes to "modbeasts" as you say well who cares? You can't see their character, it doesn't effect you. Let people be happy because this whole thread screams of you taking some moral high-ground for some unknown reason.

Do you want to know the real reason SE won't address mods? Because on 80 ping+ you cannot double weave in this game without 3rd party assistance because of the games bad netcode. SE has repeatedly refused to fix this and it puts players who aren't close to the data center at a disadvantage to those who are physically close. SE have chosen not to fix this because people use mods for it and they can be lazy and save money.

So if they kill plugins tomorrow 90% of raiders would leave because most cannot double weave in a game designed around being able to do so, just because of their location. And no it's not as simple as living closer to the server or playing on your own DC because regions like South America and SEA don't have their own servers and players from those locations will never get under 200 ping on NA/JP data centres. I should also point out that many of these raiders already have to pay subscriptions to expensive VPN's like exitlag in conjunction with tools to allow double weaving just so they can play at the same level as someone who lives on the US west coast for example.

If cosmetic mods that don't bother anyone at all except for the user (who once again is the only person who can see them) are gone overnight than thats 90% of casuals and raiders gone. Because everyone likes expressing themselves through a character they may have invested a decade into and many use harmless mods to do it. Losing something as simple as a modded hair style that brings someone joy in a game that they pay for would suck. Especially if it's just to appease busy bodies on the forums.

So then who's left to play/financially support this game while you sit on your high horse?

[caffe_macchiato]

And so on. I know, ban them all permanently, the whole depraved disgusting lot of them! Right?

Correct. If you don’t agree to the game’s Terms of Service, you are required to stop playing. If you don’t like the content in FFXIV or are not accommodated, you need to play a different video game. A subscription buys a license, not a clear. You are not entitled to anything but access; this is a video game, not a government benefit.

regions like South America and SEA don't have their own servers and players from those locations will never get under 200 ping on NA/JP data centres.

South America is not officially supported by Square Enix. FFXIV should not have its security blown open with arbitrary cheat injection just for unsupported regions. There are other MMOs with support for Latin America. Once again, this is a video game, not a consulate. Use the free market and play a different video game that supports your region. I am no more entitled to Dragon Quest X than you are entitled to FFXIV.

So then who's left to play/financially support this game while you sit on your high horse?

The game was doing just fine before these people showed up. (Don't semantic your way out of this, you know exactly what I'm referring to.)

[Hanzz96]

Correct. If you don’t agree to the game’s Terms of Service, you are required to stop playing. If you don’t like the content in FFXIV or are not accommodated, you need to play a different video game. A subscription buys a license, not a clear. You are not entitled to anything but access; this is a video game, not a government benefit.



South America is not officially supported by Square Enix. FFXIV should not have its security blown open with arbitrary cheat injection just for unsupported regions. There are other MMOs with support for Latin America. Once again, this is a video game, not a consulate. Use the free market and play a different video game that supports your region. I am no more entitled to Dragon Quest X than you are entitled to FFXIV.



The game was doing just fine before these people showed up. (Don't semantic your way out of this, you know exactly what I'm referring to.)

Of all the L takes in the world you win. Even in supported regions like NA Canadian's have trouble double weaving correctly because of netcode and server distance. Also Latin America and SEA spend a lot of money on this game, money that SE really needs. They would lose a lot of players and sub money in Brazil alone. So either they fix the netcode or leave the necissary to play the game mods alone.

I honestly believe you are a troll and one who sounds kinda racist. I am no longer engaging. Please reflect on your life choices and take a shower.