Mods and cheat engine

[Packetdancer]

You bet that, if I download cactpot, I still won't be able to land into a random ultimate party and clear it.

So, I know this was a typo, but I realized that I'm noticing a lot of things getting conflated in this thread, so it might be worth adding a little clarity.

"Cactpot" is the minigame at the Gold Saucer, both the Jumbo Cactpot (which is basically a lottery once a week) and Mini Cactpot (which is a daily scratch ticket with much smaller prizes). There is a mod that will give you suggestions on which square to scratch on a Mini Cactpot ticket. It doesn't guarantee good results—it's often wrong!—but it gives you the most likely line to have the biggest payout. The math behind that can be done with a pencil and paper or on any number of websites, though, so the mod doesn't give anything other than "convenience" by putting the solver into the game itself rather than on a webpage (or your notebook). This mod was discussed early on in the thread.

"Cactbot" is an addon for ACT (the external tool many raiders use to parse and analyze fights to improve their performance); it's named as a punny reference to the above-mentioned cactpot. Though folks keep referring to specifically the raid callouts it can do, Cactbot itself is basically a scripting engine which allows you to trigger off of and react to data as ACT processes it. So "Cactbot" is actually a collection of a variety of different modules with different purposes built on the same engine, though folks here are basically referring to one specific module.

Now, I don't use the "Raidboss" module in Cactbot that handles callouts (and which is being conflated with Cactbot as a whole); I honestly have no ethical problem with it, but I am the raid-caller in most of my groups and suspect I would find something giving me automated callouts distracting and actively detrimental rather than beneficial. (I mean, I certainly find it distracting when a second actual person decides to chime in with callouts of their own on the voice chat, so I figure I don't need to add a robot to that as well.)

That said, there are a number of other modules built on Cactbot, and the one that I do think is invaluable is "Oopsy Raidsy". When a wipe happens, Oopsy Raidsy will give you a breakdown of deaths and debuffs, showing (for instance) that the NIN died because they took 38k worth of damage when they only had 32k of health (meaning "if they'd been healed more they probably could've survived that"), or that the BRD took 98k worth of damage (meaning "something went wrong here, and healing wouldn't have been any help"). If you click on a death it'll show a log of damage and healing leading up to that death. It'll also show any instances of avoidable damage (i.e. any time someone took a vuln stack or damage down, meaning there was a way to avoid being hit by something there). When a pull goes bad and someone's like "I don't know why I died there" or "okay, did we just need more healing?" or whatever, Oopsy Raidsy can be amazingly valuable at helping a static break down just where everything took a hard left into disaster after a pull turns into a wipe.

There's also the Eureka module, which provides the functionality of the Eureka or Bozja tracker websites (i.e. tracking how long until it's possible to spawn a given Notorious Monster, Skirmish, or Critical Engagement) just in a map window right in game. Stuff like that.

"xivalexander" is a tool which subtracts a best estimate of network round-trip time from the game's inbuilt animation lock, allowing people with terrible ping to double-weave with the same degree of consistency that folks with non-terrible connections to the game can have. It could also hypothetically be used in a cheat-y manner to enable triple-weaving, though one imagines that would trip some alarms on the servers and send up a warning flag that might get someone banned; enabling double-weaving wouldn't, because it would functionally just look the same on the server side as someone who has less-terrible ping. (Because as it is, some jobs -- notably NIN -- are just straight unplayable with bad ping unless you negate the animation lock that gets added on top of that.)

There are other tools, some of which are definitely cheaty. Anything that violates the normal rules of how PvP operates, for instance. Or there used to be a tool that would shift the waymarkers around mid-fight, meaning you didn't even need a raid-caller because it'd be like "Okay, you are marker A, just follow that" and then you went wherever the tool put that marker. That one, Square-Enix quite obviously thought was cheaty, because they addressed it by making it impossible to move or place waymarks once combat begins.

And that's why I think it's hard to speak of "mods" as a single whole. There's stuff like the Mini Cactpot solver or the Eureka module built on Cactbot (which are just convenience, providing information you can get from an external website anyway, or even do by hand for the Cactpot solver). There's stuff like Cactbot's Oopsy Raidsy, which gives no actual performance aid but can be really useful for figuring out where stuff went wrong in prog. There's stuff like Cactbot's Raidboss, which I think is little different than a human raid-caller; yes, it can call some mechanics before a human raid-caller would, but it can call other ones poorly (if at all), so it's still no substitute for learning the mechanics—any more than a raid caller is. There's stuff like xivalexander, which can be cheaty but can also be used to level the playing field. There's stuff out there that's purely aesthetic, like mods to change the UI style or do artistic screenshots or whatnot. And there's stuff out there that's just straight-up cheaty and should absolutely be shut down.

[Melorie]

So, I know this was a typo, but I realized that I'm noticing a lot of things getting conflated in this thread, so it might be worth adding a little clarity.

Ooops! hah Thanks for the correction. And yes, people might branch this discussion as simply "waaah it's against the ToS ban it all" but it is way more nuanced than that. Look at the community built around g-shade, and creating their original characters exactly like they would want... There's a lot of room for creativity with these things, so acting like they're all bad isn't doing anyone favours. Seems over the top imo.

[Koldan]

So, the Coils raids used to be considered very difficult. But you can now run the Coils raids unsynced, with gear and abilities 40 levels higher, and basically solo them. Does this mean that someone who earned the Domitrix title back in ARR can take less pride in it now that the title is "easily achieved"? The presence of the title might be less impressive now, but I'd argue that most raiders who cleared Coils back then will still take pride in the fact that they did so back then, when they were still really difficult.

Heck, my FC's "Retro Raiders" group did Coils properly, synched down and everything, just last fall. And I can take pleasure in the fact that we managed to get through it properly, even if you can solo them unsynched now.

Similarly, I managed to get through Delubrum Reginae's savage variant prior to Zadnor coming out. Now DR Savage is considerably easier, what with the rays of valour mechanic added with Zadnor; people can go in and skip entire mechanics easily. But the fact that DRS is considerably easier now than when it first came out does nothing to change the fact that I'm happy I was able to clear it back then.

Things becoming easier over time is sort of the nature of ongoing online games where you have some sort of power progression (i.e. leveling of some form). If you allow yourself to be unhappy because other people who achieved something did it more easily than you did as a result of that power creep over time, you'll just make yourself miserable. That's why I, personally, choose not to let myself get upset over someone else using tools to make a fight easier (or even just more accessible to them); if I value my own achievements only by their rarity or perceived difficulty, I'll just drive myself mad.

Now, if we're talking about cheating in PvP, yeah, that's a problem; that's someone's cheating directly and deliberately impeding my ability to work towards an achievement, and I think that's wholly justified in getting upset about.

But "I ran content <X> blind, now people can run it unsynched/use Cactbot for callouts/whatever, so my achievement is lessened"? Nah, I can't find it in me to go with that logic. As I said, that way lies madness and misery, regardless of whether or not stuff like Cactbot exists. (Even aside from the fact that, as I noted, I consider Cactbot little different than having a good human raid-caller in voice chat and thus not really "cheating".)

Everything you mentioned is accessible inside the game, everyone can do it.
What we are talking about here are mods/hacks and such that allow you to do something base game doesnt give you, whats so hard to understand?
In mutlplayer environment there is no place to disparity like that.

[Melorie]

Everything you mentioned is accessible inside the game, everyone can do it.
What we are talking about here are mods/hacks and such that allow you to do something base game doesnt give you, whats so hard to understand?
In mutlplayer environment there is no place to disparity like that.

That's the whole point of modding though? They give you something the game doesn't have. Acting like it's giving you things that are destructive to the game though and affect people, is blowing it out of proportion, given it's not the case for the HUGE majority of the people that use them.

At this point, a lot of online games have/had it (E.V.E online, GW2, even RO had specific edits to the .grf to make your map more clear, TERA) and if it wasn't a plugin in-game, it could've been an external thing that gives you information that isn't easily accessible in game (BDO has very complex calculators for example). Even in Dead by Daylight, people customize their icons and other UI stuff with mods... That's the reality of online games nowadays, you can keep losing your mind like some people here because someone is using it, or you play the game like you want to. At this point, it doesn't really matter if you believe if there's "no place", they already have found their way.

It is not willfully ignorant or willfully instigating bringing up pvp when a common argument from people with the same or similar views as you argue “how does it effect you”. To point out there are ones that have a direct effect i think is valid. Just because maybe you or a few others don’t use the pvp ones specifically, doesnt mean others have a moral standing against using them for benefits that are directly against other players

It's true. I don't play PvP. And I think that people that are cheating inside PvP should be punished - I'm just saying that a huge part of the mod community, plugin creators, etc, are very against people creating things that affect others negatively, so when people pick everyone and place them in the same basket, it does seem extremely unfair to me.

I don't do much raiding, I have a terrible ping and I will never have a data center near where I live - you bet that if I tried to do savage or ultimate, I would download xivalexander. Many people I know are able to raid more comfortably because of it. And no one bats an eye because they're using something similar to it. So by all means, fight against bots and cheaters, but I ask that people in this discussion learn to separate things.

[Packetdancer]

Everything you mentioned is accessible inside the game, everyone can do it.
What we are talking about here are mods/hacks and such that allow you to do something base game doesnt give you, whats so hard to understand?

Nothing is. In fact, you have grasped the fundamental point I am trying to make (see bolded line).

If the argument is "Cactbot lets other people clear content more easily than I did when I did it, and if other people can clear it more easily my achievement is lessened as a result" — which is, in fact, an argument being made in this thread — then it's absolutely relevant. Because my actual, literal point is that "other people can clear a thing I cleared more easily than I did when I cleared it" is going to be true even without mods simply due to power creep over the course of a game's lifespan. Placing value on your achievements in-game only so long as they remain difficult is not going to be a path to happiness, even if Square-Enix found a way to magically erase all mods and third-party tools tomorrow with the digital equivalent of a Thanos-snap. Because, as I said—and you agreed—achievements are going to become easier over time naturally even just with stuff in the game.

When the argument is "someone using these tools to obtain this achievement actively impedes my own attempt to get this achievement"—i.e., PvP hackery, botting for the Ishgard restoration, etc.—then yes, I agree entirely it's a huge problem. When there's only a limited number of the achievement to be had—top 100 in a Feast season, Saint or Beata/Beatus titles for the Firmament, etc.—then anyone doing something to give themselves an advantage is absolutely a huge problem.

But when the argument is "Cactbot's Raidboss callouts make it easier for someone to clear savage content, therefore my clear of savage content is cheapened"... no. There's an infinite number of savage clear titles and rewards out there. The fact that someone else got their Eden mount from E12S using Cactbot for callouts does not lessen my enjoyment of having gotten it at level 80, any more than it does that people are getting the mount now running E12S unsynced at level 90. And that argument is being made in this thread—"are you still proud of your achievement now that other people can get it more easily"—and I will absolutely, categorically state that if you only remain happy with your PvE achievements so long as other people cannot get them, that is a recipe to drive yourself to madness and misery. Regardless of the existence or nonexistence of mods.

[KageTokage]

I get that I shouldn't let cheaters suck the joy out of my hard-earned achievements, but I can't help but feel it like it's a slap in the face whenever I run into someone using a bot to grind a difficult and/or time-consuming achievement like big fishing or the pteradactyl from Firmament points; moreso if they're clout chasers who strut around with their fancy title/mount like they're hot stuff when they didn't lift a finger to get it.

Is it really so terrible to expect/want people to put in a fair, honest effort in getting things done? Cause a lot of people certainly seem to think that's the case.

[Risvertasashi]

I get that I shouldn't let cheaters suck the joy out of my hard-earned achievements, but I can't help but feel it like it's a slap in the face whenever I run into someone using a bot to grind a difficult and/or time-consuming achievement like big fishing or the pteradactyl from Firmament points; moreso if they're clout chasers who strut around with their fancy title/mount like they're hot stuff when they didn't lift a finger to get it.

Is it really so terrible to expect/want people to put in a fair, honest effort in getting things done? Cause a lot of people certainly seem to think that's the case.

I think most people agree botting is bad.

What loses sympathy is when people advocate for nuclear options against those who downloaded a mod to make their character's eyes look better or get more glamour plates. If people didn't lump in the benign stuff with hardcore hacking I think many more people would agree.

[Driavna]

I get that I shouldn't let cheaters suck the joy out of my hard-earned achievements, but I can't help but feel it like it's a slap in the face whenever I run into someone using a bot to grind a difficult and/or time-consuming achievement like big fishing or the pteradactyl from Firmament points; moreso if they're clout chasers who strut around with their fancy title/mount like they're hot stuff when they didn't lift a finger to get it.

Is it really so terrible to expect/want people to put in a fair, honest effort in getting things done? Cause a lot of people certainly seem to think that's the case.

Nope and it's a valid sentiment. Knowing that others get the same as you due botting/cheating/paying real cash remove a needed sense of fairness.

Have to say I love how some downplay the whole thing pointing to no issues like a cactpop solver.

[Koldan]

So now we are on "cheaters are fine, its about how YOU feel about it" stage? Seriously? All gameplay affecting stuff SHOULD be disabled on developers lvl. Noone cares if your modded dress on your screen look different, but how you make invisible telegraphs appear on your screen with 3rd party software? Software calls out mechanics from you because you cant encrypt network packets thats also fine? How we remove intended animation lock form some abilities so you can tripple weave since some mysterious jp server dveller is supposed to be able to do it? Where do we stop with that crap?
I dont say we should ban people for using ffxivalexander or something. They just should make game fair for everyone.

[Axxion]

So now we are on "cheaters are fine, its about how YOU feel about it" stage? Seriously? All gameplay affecting stuff SHOULD be disabled on developers lvl. Noone cares if your modded dress on your screen look different, but how you make invisible telegraphs appear on your screen with 3rd party software? Software calls out mechanics from you because you cant encrypt network packets thats also fine? How we remove intended animation lock form some abilities so you can tripple weave since some mysterious jp server dveller is supposed to be able to do it? Where do we stop with that crap?
I dont say we should ban people for using ffxivalexander or something. They just should make game fair for everyone.

My question is to you is what about people that use them to help them play, if they have disabilities?