How do you think Yoshida would react to the following hypothetical regarding parsing?

[Sebazy]

Wrong on both accounts. I would ask you to stop projecting ulterior motives onto Yoshi when he has shown very little to be that type of human being. It's outright disrespectful, if I'm to be frank. Now you're getting how I feel. That should be a big difference from how I think.

I'll invite you to watch this link - https://youtu.be/3-WXYg-S05U?t=364

Probably the most open Yoshida has ever been on the matter of parsing. The TLDR from Yoshi is as follows

• It's a very delicate subject
• Officially we're not allowed to use outside tools
• But of course, there is a culture of PC gaming, that people use these addons and whatnot
• He feels that it doesn't make to big of a difference in giving users an advantage, skill is more important
• In terms of different tools that are being used, like hacking tools or bots, those are definitely not good and we would have to go in and ban those people that are abusing the system
• But I'm sure that people on the PC will want to enjoy FF to the best of their gaming environment
• So if they come to the development team and ask if they can use this tool or try this hack, of course not. We officially decline and let them know that it's not allowed
• But just please take responsibility in how you are utilising tools to make your gameplay experience more enjoyable
• There are people who are going round bragging hey look at this tool that I'm using, that's what's going to get you hurt (heard?). People need to take responsibility and be very discrete about what you're doing
• We're all adults here

Take that how you will.

Me personally, I read that as: Parsing isn't allowed, but if you're going to do it, do it quietly and considerately, don't overstep the mark, don't abuse the system or we will ban you, don't bot or we will ban you, don't brag about it or we will ban you. Be mature with it.

This is the stance they've taken since launch and it's remained unchanged and mostly untouched until the recent live letter where things shown in TEA likely made them feel that matters were getting out of hand with the scope of what could be achieved. Things had clearly gone beyond simple parsing and analysis.

My personal opinion, SE's stance on addons and parsing is heavily influenced by lessons learned from FFXI where they eventually settled on a fairly soft touch approach where if you weren't abusive with it, you were probably fine and I'd wager that the percentage of the player base that used Windower to run hi res widescreen was pretty massive towards the end of my tenure there.