In opposition of the inability to move waymarks in combat.

[Darkpaw]

Except none of that is going anywhere. Do you think people using mods weren't aware they were against the ToS? People did it anyway just like with parsers. And given mods are client side, literally nothing has changed as SE has no way to detect whether you have lewd mods installed. The creator of the marker tool has already said they'll make it client side.

This is a losing battle because they aren't going to do anything to disrupt client side programs and risk the backlash banning parsers would cause.

Losing battle or not isn’t the point. The game has grown quite a lot since shadowbringers, and continues to do so. The dev team had to take a stand on where the line is. They’ve made it clear.

Everyone says this alternative is so easy it’s this it’s that, or this is the wrong or worse way to go about it. That’s false. The worse way they could have gone about it is to change ToS to allow for a scan of any files attached to their game (which they admitted was illegal and arent going to do) as for affecting 99.9% of the playerbase. Outside of niche situations. Nael, TEA, UCoB most waymarks are placed pre-battle and not touched again during any pull post wipe.

So no this doesn’t really affect the player base at large in any meaningful negative way. In fact presets and additional waymarks are more positive.

The sky isn’t falling the game isn’t breaking for dealing with this convenient add on to a third party program that wasnt even available to everyone. It’s against ToS it always has been. Least they were up front and told it to everyone rather than just dropping the ban hammer without warning. Better to take the blanket solution then try to play whack a mole with every person that abuses the system or cheats to get ahead.

So stop acting like it’s a personal sleight and insult that SE is holding the community accountable. It’s life and this is a game. They were well within their rights to make this decision and in this instance they likely will not back down.

[Mikana]

Do you actually think this is going to change anything for people using third party tools ?

Because if you do think yes, then you're dreaming, this only blocks one of the most minor tools, no banhammer in sight since as they said they won't scan your PC for files, and the devs of the tools are apparently already thinking about fixes by adding stuff on the client side rather than the server side.

This is just to give hackers a tougher time for the one single tool, and they're going to find loopholes, with everything people can do with mods nowadays, it's definitely going to happen.

It doesn't cast a blanket over a burning fire, it's throwing a small glass of water.

And you say niche, maybe for you, but not for me or any of the ultimate raiders, this is thousands and thousands of players, just because we are a minority, doesn't mean it's okay to take away features that have been here ever since the start of A realm reborn and that we use all the time.

8 Waymarks in an area is a lot visually, it is common to take waymarks away if they're not needed for visibility, while savage may not need those 8 waymarks (who knows what mechanics there will be)

If they want to make their stance clear, then apply the banhammer, rather than keep saying stuff like "please don't do it" or doing things like "people are using tools to exploit a feature, rather than patch something to prevent the tool from working, let's remove the feature".

Wasephvox said it clearly earlier, they take the easy fix of removing the feature rather than making it so people can't exploit it, i do not know if it viable, i am not a programmer, but come on, a minority of raiders (which is already a minority), we are talking about a minority of a minority use a tool to automatically place waymarks and now we can't adjust them for any strat with randomness and if you think 8 waymarks (which is gonna be a pain visually, but that's not my point here) are going to cover ALL the mechanics in a 17 minutes fight (taking into account all mechanics variables due to randomness), you're sorely mistaken.

I love ultimate fights, mechanics are challenging, interesting, i especially love making strategies for my static, and this is just making it harder, forcing people to do less elaborate and in ultimates most likely, less consistent strategies.

It doens't matter the reason, it isn't a question about cheating here.

It is a question that they are removing a feature that has been there since the beginning, that have been allowing people to make strategies ever since the start of raiding in this game away and that is it.

What's next, remove the ability to see what damage your ability does so that ACT can't know what your DPS is ?
Remove cast times of boss and the entire "Battle" chat box so tools can't read it for triggers ?

[WasephVoxx]

Losing battle or not isn’t the point. The game has grown quite a lot since shadowbringers, and continues to do so. The dev team had to take a stand on where the line is. They’ve made it clear.

How is losing the battle not the point and how have they made anything clear?! If the entire point of this decision is to battle cheating then losing the battle is absolutely a point! They keep telling people to "please not do this" without actually swinging the ban hammer. You can draw lines in the sand as much as you like if people just step over them without getting hit in the face. None of what was said will actually deter someone from finding another way to cheat if they think nothing can actually happen to them.

Everyone says this alternative is so easy it’s this it’s that, or this is the wrong or worse way to go about it. That’s false. The worse way they could have gone about it is to change ToS to allow for a scan of any files attached to their game (which they admitted was illegal and arent going to do)

Cool strawman argument, nobody asked for that.

So no this doesn’t really affect the player base at large in any meaningful negative way. In fact presets and additional waymarks are more positive.

Doesn't matter how many people it affects, everyone is in their right to call it out when their QoL is compromised. Also, nobody complained about additional waymarks or presets, don't mistake the actual complaint.

The sky isn’t falling the game isn’t breaking for dealing with this convenient add on to a third party program that wasnt even available to everyone. It’s against ToS it always has been. Least they were up front and told it to everyone rather than just dropping the ban hammer without warning. Better to take the blanket solution then try to play whack a mole with every person that abuses the system or cheats to get ahead.

I have two problems with this statement: 1. You're making this sound like everyone advocating for not removing this feature is actually using this tool. Sometimes it is just as simple as "I've been using waymarks in battle for 6 years and I'd like to keep using them". 2. What the hell is wrong with asking for actual punishment for cheating?! Like you keep throwing around "tough life, just deal with it" when you could just as well ask for proper community management that sorts out bad apples until people are too scared to be bad apples. Like actually please explain to me how this blanket solution is better and healthier for the game at large than making a system that detects cheating like you claim.

[WasephVoxx]

So stop acting like it’s a personal sleight and insult that SE is holding the community accountable. It’s life and this is a game. They were well within their rights to make this decision and in this instance they likely will not back down.

Again, looks like holding the entire community accountable instead of doing actual community management is somehow preferable... We're here to tell them, as players and consumers, that we are NOT Ok with this decision/solution. This kind of feedback is what the OF is for. The nonsensical "life's unfair" argument has no place here. This is literally a service I pay for, not a freak natural disaster, I am allowed to make these statements, whether the stay unheard or not lol. They're well within their rights to do pretty much anything, it's their game, they ban you tomorrow without any cause and they're in their rights. Might doesn't make right.

[ForteNightshade]

Losing battle or not isn’t the point. The game has grown quite a lot since shadowbringers, and continues to do so. The dev team had to take a stand on where the line is. They’ve made it clear.

They reiterated what we already knew: Mods and Parsers are against the ToS. Did it stop anyone? Nope. People aren't going to stop using mods, triggers or any of the things they already did. And the very program they're trying to beat is being made client side, which means they can't detect it. I'd say that was a pretty big point.

Everyone says this alternative is so easy it’s this it’s that, or this is the wrong or worse way to go about it. That’s false. The worse way they could have gone about it is to change ToS to allow for a scan of any files attached to their game (which they admitted was illegal and arent going to do) as for affecting 99.9% of the playerbase. Outside of niche situations. Nael, TEA, UCoB most waymarks are placed pre-battle and not touched again during any pull post wipe.

That's a scare tactic and little else. They will never, ever attempt anti-cheat software. Not only does it not work (Guild Wars 2 tried), if it actually did, they would lose millions because of the sheer number of people banned. There is precisely zero chance they risk destroying their raid community, which an anti-cheat program would do.

The rest of your post is nothing but a giant Strawman. I never brought up the markers but called out your insistence they drew some silly new line and that we have to play by these new rules. Those rules are exactly the same as before and people will do what they were already doing.