Mod users in FFXIV are getting out of control

[Sakuraluna]

Harassment should be dealt with in accordance with the general Terms of Service. I agree.

Going after a whole community won't accomplish anything. I'm not even a part of it, but most SS I've seen happen inside modders' own four walls, with no one present.
The rest, even if others are around, doesn't do anything at all. To be able to get nudes or whatever, you need to have certain pre-requisites. Like I mentioned, no gear equipped...

I didn’t say anything about going after an entire community though. I said that it won’t do any good to go up against the community if the problem is a few players connected to the op harassing them. Even if you took the mod away, those players would find other ways if they really wanted to continue.

I’d be interested to know what exactly the op is experiencing. If he/she is being harassed by a specific player or group of players on his/her server who happen to use this mod as one of their tools of harassment, then the op has every right to feel uncomfortable, but it isn’t something that can be addressed by the modding community or by SE taking action against them.

(Though this could just be how I read your post. If you’re agreeing with me on that part, then yes - it makes no sense at all to blame people who aren’t involved. I’m very modest myself as far as how my character is displayed on my screen, and I don’t pay these mods much attention at all. I’m not sure why anyone would get so defensive over a thing they don’t have to see if they don’t want to.

[JackHatchet]

A large part of this discussion has subverted the point and had become community vs community. Pro mod people against snow-flakes. And all sorts of legit issues are getting overlooked like protesting against harassment. Ultimately, the bigger this battle gets the more attention it brings to modding. If pro-modders want to keep their mods they should self-police themselves and refrain from adding more fuel to this fire. Agree with people that harassment is wrong--and then move on. Trying to argue the legitimacy of mods will only result in more fire. And the bigger the fire gets--the more Square-Enix will notice it. And they'll nuke the modding community to put that fire out. So can we try to agree and move on?

[Alael]

All i see a group of people making the problem bigger then actually it is, All the person i know that use mod is for their personal enjoyment and add logevity to this game, Saying all those who use mod are harraser and should be all banned then lest ban all with mod all with ACT and all with reshader i wanna see how many player are left in this game after that, Cause i am storry to tell you its the majority of the player base.

Therefore should somone harass anyone for any reason mod or not blacklist and report in case and move on stop begin childish making a ocean out of a tip of a needle, Cause harasser will be there always if you not ready to accept this part you better stop playing online game.

[Dualgunner]

I am on PC. It's annoying because when you cosplay glam, you're trying to get as close as possible with what's available in game. Modding is just cheating.

It's...cheating.

Okay, fair enough, trying to create a cosplay based on limited resources is a fun challenge sometimes. Some would just like to cut through that and get their cosplay, though.

[HyoMinPark]

Ppl can use mods all they want. They should not use it to take pictures of other people's characters to upload naked, and they shouldn't approach people harassing them by something they were not aware. I didn't know this was even a thing. I have nephews that are minors, and I would hate for a pervert to approach them. The game is not Pornhub or anything like that. My nephew felt uncomfortable and confused getting hit on. So now with this being a thing it really won't make things any better.

The issue I see with this post is that you’re acting like this is some common occurrence that people just take screenshots of other individuals’ characters in the nude and start harassing them with said screens—in the case of the OP, this hasn’t even been proven to be true; they made no mention of (prior to this thread) even being harassed by such things. Instead, it sounded like they heard about mods, dived into the Discord for them, got scared that they or other people are going to suddenly be targeted by a bunch of predators, and started a crusade (much like how the individual on Tumblr started theirs, but then again, it is Tumblr). I asked them if this had ever happened to them (and I believe a few others did as well), and they have never answered.

Modders mod for the sake of their own characters, not to see other characters naked. There are obviously skeevy/shady individuals in every community (note how I said every community, not just the modding community), so you deal with them as appropriate: report them, blacklist them, and then move on. You speak of perverts, but perverts don’t have to mod to still be perverts. Just saying.

It's amazing how vivid opinions people have about avatars. Whether it's for or against them. Some people think avatars are throw-away valueless constructs and others feel like they're a part of their personality.

Telling someone “you are not your character, and they are not you” isn’t the same as acting like your avatar is just a throwaway, valueless construct. My character is extremely dear to me, but I am cognizant enough to realize that she and I are not the same, and thereby an image of her naked is most definitely not the same as an image of myself naked (unless I suddenly became a Warrior of Light/Slayer of Eikons with cat ears and a tail overnight—in which case, ugh, I’m far to lazy for this kind of life).

And the bigger the fire gets--the more Square-Enix will notice it. And they'll nuke the modding community to put that fire out. So can we try to agree and move on?

The only way SE could actually identify modders if is they install a client-side detector that can detect when game files are read/modified. This would also get rid of ACT and ReShade, and, at that point, SE would be hurting their bottom line.

[Alael]

snip

i doubt very much this is what did happen more like the OP tough people would watch at him/her and take pic like if anyone would care of his character seriusly thats like not taking a lift cause it could fall down, Then dont breath cause you could breath in some toxic gasses i wanna see where this logic lead to

[Alucard135]

And they'll nuke the modding community to put that fire out.

SE won't bother with this issue because they know it will open up a huge can of worms on them regarding parsers and bots. Furthermore, it doesn't negatively affect their sales from mogstation (the fact that they started modding the demonic and angelic attire from release day indicates that they already purchased it).

[KisaiTenshi]

SE won't bother with this issue because they know it will open up a huge can of worms on them regarding parsers and bots. Furthermore, it doesn't negatively affect their sales from mogstation (the fact that they started modding the demonic and angelic attire from release day indicates that they already purchased it).

Are you sure about that? How do you know they didn't just swap the models?

The only way SE could actually identify modders if is they install a client-side detector that can detect when game files are read/modified. This would also get rid of ACT and ReShade, and, at that point, SE would be hurting their bottom line.

That's very wrong. SE doesn't need to install anything like Hackshield or GameGaurd, or VAC, or Warden, etc. Those tools are defeated. What would be needed is hook rejection code (which would also break tools like nVidia Experience, AMD ReLive/Raptr, MSI Afterburner, OBS, etc) that requires static compilation (no third-party libraries, no CRT/CPPRT DLL) to avoid CRT patching, and encryption of both the game binaries and the assets so that tampering with either prevents the game from running.

And thus increases support costs.

However as stated, many times, the game client can never be perfectly secured unless it's simply a video stream from a secured location. So why bother with the extra complication when it would mean having to re-download the complete game every time the protection system is broken.

No, at best, SE has not cracked down on modding, third party tools, etc, because up until relatively recently people were not putting a spotlight on it. SE can continue to ignore modding at it's own peril, and then when they finally decide to ban everyone, they will get a PR blowback because they hadn't enforced their ToS at all before. Either SE starts cracking down on known ACT users, or it's going to have to live with the lewd mods proliferating and ruining the game's reputation further.

I don't expect SE to do anything, really. Not till someone carelessly shows them on a twitch stream that SE staff are watching.

[JackHatchet]

they will get a PR blowback because they hadn't enforced their ToS at all before

If I was a betting man, I would say you're right on that. It does kinda suck how it puts the majority of the player-base in a 'gray' area.

[Hestzhyen]

No, at best, SE has not cracked down on modding, third party tools, etc, because up until relatively recently people were not putting a spotlight on it. SE can continue to ignore modding at it's own peril, and then when they finally decide to ban everyone, they will get a PR blowback because they hadn't enforced their ToS at all before. Either SE starts cracking down on known ACT users, or it's going to have to live with the lewd mods proliferating and ruining the game's reputation further.

I don't expect SE to do anything, really. Not till someone carelessly shows them on a twitch stream that SE staff are watching.

SE hasn't cracked down on modding purely because of the futility of it. You mentioned yourself that players will defeat any and all countermeasures so the preventative measures are probably wasted effort that the devs can focus into other areas. I also sincerely doubt XIV's reputation will get worse because it has the same nude/lewd modding community that all major games do. If anything XIV is totally tame compared to some options I've seen for other games... and there are plenty of great SFW options too, like prettier Au Ra scales, long hair, NPC outfits that aren't available in the game or on the Mog Shop, nicer texture packs, color tweaks to existing minions and mounts, etc.

If SE suddenly starts trying to play whack-a-mole with modding communities by issuing DMCAs and other take-down notices then they absolutely deserve any negative press they get. User mods are a thing game companies have learned to live with; in some respects, it helps the game attract and keep new players since they can satisfy their own particular desires without SE spending Dev resources to cater to every niche and fancy. Since SE wasn't gung-ho about cracking down on parsers or mods before now it will absolutely be a knee-jerk reaction to placate pearl-clutchers like OP. That's worse than letting some horndogs see naked characters on their screens IMO.

Live and let live. If you don't like it, don't use it. If you get harassed by mod users, report them and sleep well knowing a GM will land on them like a ton of bricks. If you like it, go ham at your own risk and keep it to yourself.