Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[JackHatchet]

I don't think anyone's account has been hacked through ACT. Though I wish they would make it easier to install. It's convoluted and requires like 10 different Youtube videos to get it right. It should just be built into the game so that everyone has access to it regardless of one's ability to install it.

[Hakuro89]

The hottest take I've ever seen in the gaming community...

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?

[ko_]

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?

Icecream. People just need more icecream in their life. I'm telling you the world would be a better place with it.

[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?

[Vidu]

Icecream. People just need more icecream in their life. I'm telling you the world would be a better place with it.

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.

[Dualgunner]

ACT can read FFXIV's memory and write to it. However, even the overlay plugins are separate windows entirely; if one wants to run an overlay they need to run the game in borderless windowed so the overlays can...ya know, overlay. Or so I hear from various raiders in discord.

[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

[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.

[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.