Why isn’t the third party software ban enforced?

[jamjeeshoul77]

I learned today that people can install plugins for third party software that give them VISUAL and AUDIO notifications for things like Dots and spell cooldowns, and what the boss is going to cast next, making their rotations exceedingly easier to keep up during busier fights. Why is this not considered cheating? This puts me, a console player, and any PC player who refuses to break the rules, at a SEVERE disadvantage. Why isn’t this considered cheating and/or botting? It literally screams in your ears what to press next for your rotation and where/when to move. That’s cheating...or maybe I’m missing something?

[HollowedDoll]

Something about them not being able to scan your pc for content cause like that's not legal?
I dunno..

[jamjeeshoul77]

Something about them not being able to scan your pc for content cause like that's not legal?
I dunno..

Mmm that can’t be true, otherwise Blizzard, Discord, steam, and many other highly visible companies would have been shutdown over a decade ago

[Vyrerus]

It is cheating, but it happens on the client side only, and SE will never make the game invasive enough to out people who use the software.

Plus, a lot of raid leaders use it, and so everyone benefits from it, because it lets them play better/do calls themselves.

Personally, I don't like it. It turns a lot of otherwise good players into lazy people who want a trigger for the simplest of things, just so they can pay attention a little less. It also cheapens the harder fights.

It usually gets rationalized as being comparable to having voice chat with someone who's memorized the fight, but we humans do tend to rationalize away cheating that we find acceptable.

It's not botting cause, afaik, none of the tame stuff actually moves your character for you. You still have to dodge the moves. You just get training wheels for extra early telegraphs for the mechanics you can't do with the in game ones. Some people even set training wheels for the procs in their rotation, because they can't keep up, otherwise.

As long as we're all having fun, right?

[HollowedDoll]

Mmm that can’t be true, otherwise Blizzard, Discord, steam, and many other highly visible companies would have been shutdown over a decade ago

Oh you mean Blizzard that doesn't detect that you have pirated blizz stuff installed on your pc, or discord that has an entire version where you can use javascript and whatever to modify your client, or steam that has an exploit that makes it so all dlcs load?

[jamjeeshoul77]

Oh you mean Blizzard that doesn't detect that you have pirated blizz stuff installed on your pc, or discord that has an entire version where you can use javascript and whatever to modify your client, or steam that has an exploit that makes it so all dlcs load?

Not sure why you’re being so passive aggressive. Yeah that’s all true, but blizzard also uses anti-cheat software and discord actually scans your machine so it can see which game you’re playing. I’m no programmer but we put a man on the moon in the 60s, I don’t see how there isn’t a way to detect the use of software that effectively plays the game for you without breaking privacy laws

[gotaname1]

ITT: people complaining about being better than others because they are not using trainingwheels and are frustrated to the point of wanting others to stop using those trainingwheels because those players suck by definition for using trainingwheels.

[jamjeeshoul77]

As long as we're all having fun, right?

Yeah that’s true! Just after watching some videos about these programs it’s astounding to me how streamlined it is for people who use them to manage their rotations versus console players who have to do everything manually while also executing fight mechanics. These programs make content intended to be difficult a bit of a joke when compared to doing them without using the software. It puts players on certain platforms at a huge advantage. I don’t think that’s fair

[HollowedDoll]

Not sure why you’re being so passive aggressive. Yeah that’s all true, but blizzard also uses anti-cheat software and discord actually scans your machine so it can see which game you’re playing. I’m no programmer but we put a man on the moon in the 60s, I don’t see how there isn’t a way to detect the use of software that effectively plays the game for you without breaking privacy laws

You can disable that discord thing with the aforementioned version, but yeah I mean... it'd be effort and there's only so much they can really do, for not a lot.. I mean have you seen the actual bots that plague the servers?

[Tsukino]

Two main reasons, which are mostly separate but each have a bunch of complicated little parts to them.

First, as already mentioned, they can't actually tell if anything is running on someone's PC that doesn't alter the game. So things that take data from the game like parsers or notifications are basically undetectable. This is distinct from things like bots, which do get caught, because they interact back with the game and create conspicuous behavior. It's not strictly illegal, but they wouldn't have as many subscriptions as they do if their TOS let them install spyware.

Second, when it comes to the many other ways they could (and in some people's opinion, should) find people and take action, such as streamers visibly using the tools, people uploading parse data, etc., they're simply deciding based on the assumption of profit, like most any company. They want the subscription fees of as many people as possible, including the cheaters. Additionally, they consider the potential difference in subscriber numbers based on PR - right now, they probably believe there would be "collateral" loss over the reception of banning a bunch of people for using tools, but if there was somehow massive data showing that the opposite was the case then they would probably do it instead. As a hyperbolic example, if there was a petition out there with a million signatures saying they would pay for FFXIV but for all the cheating they see on Twitch, then they could easily ban a few hundred or thousand raiders and come out ahead.

tl;dr: Game companies don't really care about anything but money, even if some specific people who work there obviously care about other things, and even if sometimes the things they do to make money involve looking like they care about something. Like all companies.