DPS Meter Usage?

[EveK]

Indeed. No actionable terms of service violations by association. But if you know someone's bad, you probably don't want to hang out with them anyway.

Once you have another computer program running that's analyzing data from the game client, do you suddenly develop a strong moral imperative and ensure it's only used in a completely fair way? Unlikely. In fact, I recall a variety of scandal and banning back when people could not beat content on their own for a while and the first group that did, did so using what is very likely the exact program people have alluded to. It wasn't its ability to tell them "Hey, Fred, you did more damage than the bard that fight!" It was its ability to provide significantly more obvious cues for when they needed to perform certain combat tasks (Twintania's Twister, mostly, if memory serves). This is obviously something people can see on their own (especially if they have enough sense to focus target Twintania). And now Twintania tends to most often die without even getting a chance to cast Twister (Twisters?). But this declaration that it's not cheating becomes increasingly blurry even for stalwart supporters of DPS parsers when you start to replace fight's actual cues with more idiot-proof ones.

This is "New Player Help." Let's not try to encourage new players to cheat.

Oh, and regarding letter of the law ... the terms already say Square can just ban anyone for any reason. They have that very thoroughly legally covered. They don't need to be additionally vague or ominous. The text about third party software that analyzes game data seems genuinely intended to say that this is cheating, not that they want to have extra legal support in case someone is mean about it. And here's the quote for you (all caps theirs, not mine):

SQUARE ENIX MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNTS, CHARACTERS, VIRTUAL GOODS, OR THE SERVICE ALTOGETHER, AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY TO YOU.