Mods and cheat engine

[Caurcas]

Maybe if they fixed their code some programs wouldn't be necessary for those of us with high ping to get the most out of the jobs we play.

[JanVanding]

Also to put up the actual rules so people better understand.

2.1 Cheating and Botting. You may not create or use any unauthorized cheats, bots, automation software, hacks, mods or any other unauthorized software or hardware designed to modify the Game and gameplay. In addition, you may not take advantage of game system bugs and exploits during gameplay.

Cactbot and ACT do not modify the game or gameplay therefore are exempt, nor are they using any exploit or bug. ACT and its plug ins (such as Cactbot and Hyabasleep) has worded exemption from Yoshida himself but it should be used sensibly and not as a tool to harass or bully.
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This next rule is important.

2.2 Real Money Trading, Farming and Power-Leveling. You may not sell, purchase or exchange for real-world money or value any in-game currency, accounts, characters, in-game services, or in-game virtual items. You may not play the Game for the purpose of acquiring virtual items or advancement in game play on behalf of a third-party or for the purpose of selling any virtual assets to a third party for real-world money, specifically including "gold-farming" and power-leveling services.


This is an ongoing and very real problem. Selling Ultimate clears by piloting someone's account for example is RMT and strictly against TOS, there's no special exemptions given here, nor will there ever be.
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This is the rule where people's argument even without exemption falls apart.

2.6 Hacking and Circumvention. You may not hack, disassemble, decompile, or otherwise modify the Game or server computer code, whether the Game code is located on a DVD, Blu-rayTM disc, your computer/console or on Square Enix's servers, except as expressly permitted by Square Enix or applicable law.

ACT reads client side network data, it does not inject packets into the server and does not interfere with the server code. There would be very noticable lag when using ACT and its plug ins if this were the case and it simply doesn't it reads the network file Client side, your own data. Anyone claiming otherwise is spreading lies or does not understand how ACT actually works.
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Now this one is the one people misread a lot.

3.2 Disruption. You may not in any way disrupt or interfere with the Game experience of other players, including the disruption of Square Enix's computers and servers

This includes harassment in all its forms, Witch hunting, bullying, stalking and making nuisance requests to GMs to ban people for doing nothing that affects your actual gameplay experience.

Thems the actual rules.

[Apeachs]

2.5 Data Mining. You may not intercept, mine or otherwise collect information from the Game using unauthorized third party software.

ACT is unauthorized third party software and it collects data from the game. And players can send collected data into services like fflogs.

Very nice you took up the rules

And about the Witch hunt part. Im sure heavy users of mods might feel this. But again no naming here on the public forum.

It's simply not allowed to modify files.

2.7 Modifying or Creating Derivative Software. You may not modify or cause to be modified any files that are a part of the Game or Service in any way not expressly authorized by Square Enix, and may not make any derivative works of the Game.

[JanVanding]

What is worded exemption?

When the Games Director acting as company ambassador speaks about a certain subject and gives a statement on its existence and usage. This is an exemption.

ACT and its various plug ins were granted that exemption when Yoshida sat and spoke about the tool and its plug ins specifically and made a very clear statement on it.

Funnily enough some other mods were also addressed in this same other QA session, pertaining to screenshots and while it wasn't 100% clarity it was clear that as long as it's done not in a public server space (I.E Limsa) then it's not bothering anyone and not an Avenue the dev team will be pursuing.

This was all said by the Director, you can go watch the video yourselves and note the two spoken exemptions and their provisos.

So unfortunately Karen brigade, this is one fight you won't be winning any time soon.

ACT, it's plug ins and some photo modifications will be here to stay, the dev team will just not officially support them

But they do want you to stop trying to report people for it because it's just getting in the way of actually important reports that need handling.

[Shougun]

Kind of said in the other thread but my position on mods in a short summary is if they're not going to allow them like a few other MMOs do then they should take mods as an active, important, and playful challenge. The players throw down the gauntlet of what the UI should do and the devs, imo, should take that gauntlet as seriously as reasonably possible. For example the addon that basically plays triple triad for you.. maybe not, but there are A LOT of huge QoL, and feature to be honest, mods as well.

If someone at SE isn't actively with responsibility to watch the addons, at least from popular sources (not reasonable to see everything all the time, and maybe a waste of time at that point) then I think that should change. Just.. be careful in case one of the mods is capable of being a security threat. What a terrible story "SE hacked by addon creator" lol. If it needs to be so, just watch youtube videos XD.

IMO to me the shame is whole swathes of people not being able to enjoy it, while the game potentially also being influenced by them (like DBM did to WoW, which FFXIV does have a vaguely similar variant), while also losing a lot of potential QoL and honestly community creativity (although addons also have an annoying side, where they break- anyone in WoW remember an update destroying your addons? lol.......... /tableflip).

The two systems that currently support this have made huge strides over time, and it seems recently, at least one in particular, is getting even more attention. So this issue / concept is only going to become stronger. It honestly took longer than I thought it would (not the devs on these tools, just their existence in the first place- minus the parse specific aspect that's been around AGEs).. but now that it's here it seems to be growing quite quickly.

"How do you know all this!?!?!" Just actually read reddit sometimes... It's posted there semi-frequently, and from there the websites that run it are usually well documented - learning about this is like a lazy 10 second google.

As for safety, none of those tools are safe to say you use within the game or likely here (except reshade like tool), yet FFXIV doesn't want to malware our computers so that's really where the harm is going to come when you're not actively cheating (teleport hax or what have).

[JanVanding]

ACT is unauthorized third party software and it collects data from the game. And players can send collected data into services like fflogs.

Very nice you took up the rules

And about the Witch hunt part. Im sure heavy users of mods might feel this. But again no naming here on the public forum.

It's simply not allowed to modify files.

Worded exemption from the Gamed Director.

Look it up, you're fighting a battle you already lost.

[Shougun]

Worded exemption from the Gamed Director.

Look it up, you're fighting a battle you already lost.

Yoshida has said "Cactbot is okay to use" ?

I saw something recently where he mentioned some of the tools are just "don't be harassing people and we're not going to bother", but I never saw him say "Cactbot is okay!". Which honestly would make me feel bad he said that.

He says a tool that gives you better combat comprehension is okay, which to me reads as perhaps he should have made the game itself do that instead... ....

[Apeachs]

Worded exemption from the Gamed Director.

Look it up, you're fighting a battle you already lost.

I don't think I lost any battles here. I simply ask for a system to detect unauthorized third party software. And a way protecting the game files so they cant me modified. And this is really important for the future of the game. If everyone just say "its okay to run unauthorized third party software" what will then happen with the game? Sure World of Warcraft have add-ons, but they are allowed to. Thats the big difference here.

[JanVanding]

Yoshida has said "Cactbot is oaky to use" ?

I saw something recently where he mentioned some of the tools are just "don't be harassing people and we're not going to bother", but I never saw him say "Cactbot is okay!". Which honestly would make me feel bad he said that.

He says a tool that gives you better combat comprehension is okay, which to me reads as perhaps he should have made the game itself do that instead... ....

ACT and it's plugins were all exempted unless a plug in literally allows you to bot/autopilot of actually begins to mess with server code then there's no issue

None of ACTs plug ins do.

[JanVanding]

I don't think I lost any battles here. I simply ask for a system to detect unauthorized third party software. And a way protecting the game files so they cant me modified. And this is really important for the future of the game. If everyone just say "its okay to run unauthorized third party software" what will then happen with the game? Sure World of Warcraft have add-ons, but they are allowed to. Thats the big difference here.

Already ruled out in that same QA.

"We do not want to put intrusive software on your machines"

Because of a little thing called GDPR, SE would end up in court and their product pulled from Europe and Stream for breaching GDPR.

Sorry California man, time to look beyond your box and see that Japanese game company follows international laws and policies, not US "do whatever we like" policy.