Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Part of the reason why the fashion industry is so vast is because we do perceive people differently by what they wear (and don't wear). A guy who walks by in a perfectly tailored suit gives off the image that he's confidant, powerful, and knows what he's doing. Yet if that same man walked by you in baggy jeans down to his knees and tattoos, a lot of people would be far more wary of being around him (just to give some extreme examples). In the case of women, there's always been people judging a woman's personality according to what she wears and how little she may wear (or overdressing).

... this has never been up for debate though. You are literally arguing an entirely different subject now. The discussion boiled down to why it matters what people do with mods on their own screen. Putting your example into gameplay context, people who mod their game are not going to care whatsoever whether your character is well dressed or wearing baggy blue jeans. They aren't likely to bat an eyelash towards you one way or another. Likewise, without prior knowledge that particular person has a mod run, you will also be none the wiser. An equivalent is, once again, if someone were to imagine me naked while I was talking down the street. I can't control their thoughts nor does it matter what types of clothing I'm wearing. If they want to imagine me naked, they will. Mods occupy a similar space, except as stated, modders generally aren't interested in anyone else but themselves.

This is what prompted accusations of people being overly sensitive, especially since the OP went out of their way to join the very discord where all these mods exist, knowing it was going to bother them.

snip

I sincerely hope you realize this post, were it taken purely at face value, depict Square Enix and the FFXIV development team has wholly incompetent at even an amateur level.

ACT does not work the way bot programs do. The former simply reads data relayed into the chat logs. Were that information made unavailable, ACT cannot parse. Bot programs, meanwhile, prompt script to play the game for you—something ACT cannot do. In crude terms, parsers are little more than live calculators. If getting around these things were as simple as you make it sound, piracy and ad blockers wouldn't exist. Facebook boasted the same rhetoric you have—claiming to have beaten Ad Block. They were made to look foolish in two days.

Could they attempt to block ACT? Theoretically, yes. It, however, would garner an immense amount of backlash, and change little as people would make alternatives.

[Malkria]

SE can something please be done about this? Feels like my peers around me have X-Ray eyes and are always starring at my chest.

...Is this for real or a troll? What do you care if people who you don't know, when you don't know they are doing it, are looking at your fictional character naked? I mean this makes as much sense as the people who freaked out about the app that supposedly removed make up from pictures.

[KageTokage]

They honestly don't seem to understand how to address the botting issue when the only "lasting" measures they've taken against it so far were band-aid fixes that were laughably easy to get around.

They made it so the Report RMT function will auto-mute the RMT spammers if they say certain things, but now they just break up their sentences with weird symbols.

They introduced that "The fish sense something amiss" mechanic to prevent macro/bot fishing in the same spot for prolonged periods, but it's easily circumvented by just casting your line at a different fishing hole every once in a while, and programming variables that will tell the bot to do so seems fairly trivial judging from what I've seen both gathering and FATE bots doing (The former will adjust their collectible rotations in response to Discerning Eye procs, while the latter know how to heal themselves and/or flee if they're in danger of dying).

They moved the items the bots were farming for gil in Amdapor Keep to a boss chest later in the dungeon, which didn't matter at all because the bots just teleport over there instead and go about their business as usual.


They don't need anything other then a competent team policing the small-scale botters, as their numbers are low enough even on high population servers they could be cleaned out in a matter of days if they know what to look for and don't rely exclusively on faulty monitoring tools to pass judgment. There's literally no way to differentiate a properly programmed bot from a real player judging strictly from the data they're sending the server, and I'd assume the few people who do get punished are spamming the server with invalid/faulty data from a shoddy bot that their monitoring tools easily catch, while the guys who keep getting away with it only manage to do so because they're not actually observing them in person to see how abnormal they look.

[Sebazy]

Indeed, but it most certainly isn't writing to the game client's memory which was what was implied.

[KisaiTenshi]

Indeed, but it most certainly isn't writing to the game client's memory which was what was implied.

The ACT plugins can read and write to the game memory, just because the FFXIV plugin doesn't do it, doesn't mean another plugin can't import data from the FFXIV plugin to write back.

Likewise, there is no way to get consent from other players that the parser is being used against, nor is there a way to block people from parsing you. If these "battle logs" type of programs wanted to be legit, they would do nothing but write the player's own combat activity and ignore everything else.

[KaivaC]

It's mighty funny how someone managed to link the original post together with parsers. It's even funnier how those who are either against parsers or ACT tend to be the ones who don't raid or don't parse. Mighty convenient how that works.

[Calladan]

It's even funnier how those who are either against parsers or ACT tend to be the ones who don't raid or don't parse.

The entire concept of being "against parsing" is absolutely ridiculous. Your in game performance is public. I can scroll through the chat log in game and read the exact same information that a parser sees. If you don't want your in game performance to be public, Don't play a public game.

Likewise, there is no way to get consent from other players that the parser is being used against, nor is there a way to block people from parsing you.

You gave your consent for me to monitor your performance when you joined my group. In my group, my success relies in part on your ability to perform. If you aren't okay with that, there are 13+ other solo Final Fantasy games for you to go play. This level of nonsense is pathetic.

[KaivaC]

The entire concept of being "against parsing" is absolutely ridiculous. Your in game performance is public. I can scroll through the chat log in game and read the exact same information that a parser sees. If you don't want your in game performance to be public, Don't play a public game.

^ Basically this.

[KisaiTenshi]

You gave your consent for me to monitor your performance when you joined my group. In my group, my success relies in part on your ability to perform. If you aren't okay with that, there are 13+ other solo Final Fantasy games for you to go play. This level of nonsense is pathetic.

Nonsense. You joined a multiplayer game, with terms of service among other things prohibits third party tools, data mining, and harassment. You are not entitled to ignore the rules while others abide by them.

[Calladan]

Nonsense. You joined a multiplayer game, with terms of service among other things prohibits third party tools, data mining, and harassment. You are not entitled to ignore the rules while others abide by them.

So if I judge your performance solely on what I see in the chat log thats okay? I highly doubt it. Also, the terms of service on these forums prohibit harassment, but you take every opportunity to break them by harassing people who use parsers, so don't you dare claim you're abiding by the rules.