Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[ko_]

I actually had a dream recently - an american news agent appeared and said "A life without ice cream is what most people would describe as hell".
Has been my FFXIV-profile-description ever since because I very much agreed with the news agent my subconcious created.

I agree too. See, mmos are the way to go to make friends

[HyoMinPark]

What is it with that guy? It's like ACT ran over his dog or something. For that matter how the hell did ACT even come up in a discussion about modding?

This is normal for them. They always go off on tangents like this, twist words to try and fit their narrative, and constantly post misinformation. It isn't just related to ACT, either. Just whatever they want to argue about in whichever thread they wish to hijack.

[Sebazy]

This is normal for them. They always go off on tangents like this, twist words to try and fit their narrative, and constantly post misinformation. It isn't just related to ACT, either. Just whatever they want to argue about in whichever thread they wish to hijack.

Pretty much this. They follow a similar approach in many other threads as well.

This whole argument of ACT writing to the game clients memory space still has me puzzled as to where it's come from.

[JackHatchet]

Ok, serious question, because I'm a newbie.

Is it really a lie that Act isn't a hacking tool? Does it change anything in-game or is it just an overlay? I mean, at its core it is against the ToS for being third-party, but is it hacking into the game? I'm not asking if calling it a hacking tool is hyperbole or not. I'm asking if the statement is actually factually true or if people are lying to themselves and saying it's not? I have no idea.

Again, I don't know about act. But you could still argue that modding actual files in the game is hacking into it. Don't you have to access files to hack into it?

[AmurT]

snip

It's an overlay that displays data taken from the game, a separate window that you can put anywhere on screen. Most common use of it is to simply display DPS or HPS numbers and taking the logs to upload to FFLogs, etc. There are additional things that it can also do, such as notify you that a certain world boss is in the area, for example. It doesn't tell you where specifically, just that it's somewhere in the zone or your general vicinity if it's an A rank mob or lower.

Another, more controversial, feature of ACT is to have a robot lady tell you when a boss is casting something. One side of the spectrum argues that it makes the game easier and gives you an advantage, but you have the other half of the people saying otherwise because all it's doing is vocalising the information that you can readily see but might miss due to tunnel visioning. But this probably only ties into a minority of the community. There is no such thing as it "hacking" into the game, unless you have a different definition of hacking; it takes data you can already see and simplifies it.

Modding, which is what this thread was originally about, doesn't use ACT and, in a sense, I guess it could be considered "hacking"? But really, modding is just replacing files from the game folder and it's entirely client side.

[Alien_Gamer]

Ok, serious question, because I'm a newbie.

Is it really a lie that Act isn't a hacking tool? Does it change anything in-game or is it just an overlay? I mean, at its core it is against the ToS for being third-party, but is it hacking into the game? I'm not asking if calling it a hacking tool is hyperbole or not. I'm asking if the statement is actually factually true or if people are lying to themselves and saying it's not? I have no idea.

Again, I don't know about act. But you could still argue that modding actual files in the game is hacking into it. Don't you have to access files to hack into it?

In the strictest interpretation, yes ACT is a hacking tool. It is a program that accesses another parties data without consent; the data belongs to SE and they've said no to parsers and mods. That said, ACT can't be used to manipulate your account or anyone elses to its actual use as a hacking tool as most people interpret hacking is nonexistant. All ACT really does is read the data and create an overlay (Think of that as a transparent browser window open over FF14) that it puts your data onto.

You can actually do for yourself what ACT does with the information in the battle log, ACT just save you a lot of time and effort doing it.

MODs are often less of a hacking tool and more of a file replacement. As an example, anytime the game shows your character it will call use the file shirt.jpg. So what you do to mod your shirt is replace that file with a different image also named shirt.jpg. Now when the game calls that file it will show your replaced image instead of what it came with. Sometimes for more comprehensive mods you'll need to edit a database file somewhere and thats where you get more into hacking territory by its strictest definition. But nobody would seriously consider a mod a hacking tool.

[ko_]

When people say " In the strictest interpretation " would it be wrong for people to go by that term? Simply asking. And I ask cause if you go by that term then wouldn't people who say it's wrong to hack be right? Or a better question is should SE go by the strictest interpretation?

[HyoMinPark]

When people say " In the strictest interpretation " would it be wrong for people to go by that term? Simply asking. And I ask cause if you go by that term then wouldn't people who say it's wrong to hack be right? Or a better question is should SE go by the strictest interpretation?

You would normally go by what the company considers to be the “interpretation” of an action, I would think. It is difficult for me to say, because, as far as I am aware, there are pros and cons by going by the “strictest interpretation” of something, and by “what the company considers X to be”. I don’t think this is an easy question to answer. Safest bet, in my opinion, is to just go by what the company considers.

That being said, SE has already adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about ACT. The developers are well aware that it is used by the majority of raiders, and just about every world-first/speed-kill group. They watched the Ultimate streams, which had and ACT overlay present usually, and did nothing to the individuals in the streams. They have consistently said, in the past, that so long as ACT is not used to harass other individuals, and as long as people keep it under wraps, they will not do anything about it. Probably because they realize that it would negatively impact the raid scene (e.g., a lot of raiders would stop playing), or that people would just invent a new program with new workarounds (e.g., ACT v2.0). Keep in mind that, when people report ACT harassment, the punishment is usually under the “harassment” portion of the report; rarely is it ever about the program usage itself. The same would be said if people were harassing you with screenshots of your character naked, or with lewd /tells.

It’s my personal opinion that, if SE has not shown any outward concern or any plans to actively punish the usage of third-party tools (this includes ACT, ReShade, Chromatics, and mod usage), then why are other people getting so up in arms over them? If the sheer possibility that someone could be running ACT or a mod of any kind (not just the nude mod) bothers you that much—again, just the possibility of it—maybe you should take a few steps back from the game to clear your head. A program like ACT, or things like clothing or hair mods, are not going to suddenly ruin this game. If this game crashes and burns, I feel certain in my guarantee that it will be because of something far more larger, and probably with the design of the game itself.

[Alucard135]

When people say " In the strictest interpretation " would it be wrong for people to go by that term? Simply asking. And I ask cause if you go by that term then wouldn't people who say it's wrong to hack be right? Or a better question is should SE go by the strictest interpretation?

Yoshi P's response

[Alien_Gamer]

When people say " In the strictest interpretation " would it be wrong for people to go by that term? Simply asking. And I ask cause if you go by that term then wouldn't people who say it's wrong to hack be right? Or a better question is should SE go by the strictest interpretation?

Usually the strictest interpretation is a taking the face value of the rule as its written. Hacking is using a computer to access data in a system you don't have permission to access, so any program that does that, is a hacking tool by the strictest definition. If I wrote a program that would pop up a text message on my monitor whenever someone on my friends list logs in it would be a hacking tool because it would need to read the game data without permission. The less strict interpretation to focus the idea on tools that are used to access and manipulate data with malicious intent; IE people trying to change their game data or steal someone elses data.

In my opinion things like ACT and mods should not be considered hacking tools because they only affect the client side of things. If they affected the servers or other peoples clients, then yes it should be considered hacking.

As for SE, they right the rules as strict as they can make them. That way when the rule is broken they can point to it and say this is what you did wrong. But SE also knows that if they applied such a strict view to everything they would drive off all the players and the game would shut down. SE doesn't have to enforce their rules strictly, they just need to have strict rules to protect themselves.