Yoshi P says it's gray area. The philosophy of the game is to enjoy it and to not worry about DPS numbers etc... He wants to avoid people being reported for using ACT and other third party programs like texture mods because he find its mundane but it crosses the line when it becomes harassment. Don't ask, don't tell is a pretty obvious policy. Most importantly, he understands that part of the community will want to use such tools and he can't stop and will not want to stop people from using third party applications / modifiers. He said something like "where is the line drawn? You can copy and paste everything in excel and macro it so you know. You can use a calculator and do it by hand, it would take time but you can do it. You can have multiple buttons on a mouse, so is that a third party program?" etc... (A bit paraphrased ofc)

Basically, in a hypothetical situation -- if you use it for your personal references, they can't condone it but they don't want to be bothered by other players reporting this player because it's a waste of time. HOWEVER, if you take those numbers or have a nude mod let's say and you publish it publicly, then that becomes harassment and you will be penalized for harassment first and using a third party tool second.

He doesn't ever want to know what programs you have installed or running, that's our privacy he says. He also doesn't want to see things like "Prove DPS XXX" in party finder as the normal thing and well, there's never going to be official ACT support either because he's 100% confident it will cause harassment.

As long as you're not harassing others, it shouldn't be a problem I think. He's pretty clear that if you want to use it hypothetically, know that if one day they decide to ban third party tools you may get suspended but until then; definitively don't use them to harass other players. I think that players can also get into trouble for needlessly reporting other players about allegedly using third party tools since unless a player says it in chat, there is no evidence.

I don't know his opinion on using bots, or what is considered a bot. Is a macro a bot? Is using an instrument player a bot? I'm not sure. I do know that if there are actual RMT / player bots gathering and playing dungeons I'm sure to report those. But I don't really care about the ones in cities playing music using a third party program. In fact, how the heck do you even play an instrument with a game controller or keyboard? It's really hard, you literally will need a third party program at the very least to connect to your piano.

(reached character limit) pt 1....