Mods and cheat engine

[villadelfia]

I love that these threads always bring up cactbot, which is basically a timeline of events with some fights better implemented than others. But they never bring up Triggernometry, which literally, using text to speech, will say "blue three - opposite boss then swap" for P2S limit cuts, or for P1S will say things like "in then out", or "in, right, red".

[Packetdancer]

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.

GShade (and other ReShade variants) is kind of an odd duck with regards to third-party software, since the devs have explicitly said—on these forums, even—that they have no problem with it, though they have asked in the past that folks not include the copyright line that the game usually includes in images, just so folks don't mistake it for the stock game. Nvidia's ReShade variant—Freestyle—even lists FFXIV on the officially-supported-software page; if you've got an Nvidia card and are running an even remotely recent version of GeForce Experience, Freestyle's already enabled in-game and you can pull up that particular ReShade variant with Alt+F2 (unless you've changed the keybinding, obviously).

So those are less "unauthorized third-party software" and more "authorized third-party software". I mention this only because that renders them (mostly) irrelevant to the topic at hand.

(Though in the interests of full disclosure, I'm also a contributor to GShade; I write shaders that are included with it and have made bundled presets that are also included. So where my interest in most of the tools folks have brought up in this thread is academic, that one I'll confess to having some actual direct relevance to me.)

[Risvertasashi]

GShade (and other ReShade variants) is kind of an odd duck with regards to third-party software, since the devs have explicitly said—on these forums, even—that they have no problem with it, though they have asked in the past that folks not include the copyright line that the game usually includes in images, just so folks don't mistake it for the stock game. Nvidia's ReShade variant—Freestyle—even lists FFXIV on the officially-supported-software page; if you've got an Nvidia card and are running an even remotely recent version of GeForce Experience, Freestyle's already enabled in-game and you can pull up that particular ReShade variant with Alt+F2 (unless you've changed the keybinding, obviously).

So those are less "unauthorized third-party software" and more "authorized third-party software". I mention this only because that renders them (mostly) irrelevant to the topic at hand.

(Though in the interests of full disclosure, I'm also a contributor to GShade; I write shaders that are included with it and have made bundled presets that are also included. So where my interest in most of the tools folks have brought up in this thread is academic, that one I'll confess to having some actual direct relevance to me.)

The problem here is if you consider this "authorization", SE has also said in interviews they know people are using ACT and don't really have a problem with people using it for self improvement. You can call it "authorized" from that but it's a stretch and you can still get suspended if you say you use it in game. SE's official policy is no third party apps, full stop. They've also noted in a live letter that technically this could include discord or using microsoft excel to calculate DPS.

So, GShade, ReShade, etc aren't really in any better standing. SE's official policy is "just don't use it." For everything, including shaders.

Though, it's also worth noting - on games willing to implement anticheat, they often tell people not to use shaders because, apparently, it looks just like a cheat program in how it interacts with the game. If official anticheat ever comes to FF14, shader mods would probably be in the same boat. (But, probably one more reason SE feels it's not worth it...)

[Sarnai]

One thing are mods that change looks of a dress on your side, only visible to you. And completely different story are mods that give you competitive and other advantages over players that dont use them or cant use them even if they want to (consoles).

Should people get banned for the mouse/keyboard with extra buttons and macros?

Not on any side but I'm just curious. PC will always have more advantage than consoles, be it graphics, FPS, network connection or accessories that you can't ban or track.

[Risvertasashi]

Should people get banned for the mouse/keyboard with extra buttons and macros?

Not on any side but I'm just curious. PC will always have more advantage than consoles, be it graphics, FPS, network connection or accessories that you can't ban or track.

Some competitive games actually do try to ban people for that, but I think it's more of a token gesture because - as you allude to - it's very difficult to detect/track.

In FF14, technically speaking, you could get banned for making a macro with a gaming keyboard/mouse to, say, avoid the AFK timer... but the chance of enforcement is probably close to nil.

[Packetdancer]

So, GShade, ReShade, etc aren't really in any better standing. SE's official policy is "just don't use it." For everything, including shaders.

Fair, but someone oughta tell Nvidia that, then, because they have it on the list of Officially Supported with Developer Blessing games on the Freestyle website.

(To be fair, though, while most ReShade forks function by replacing the Direct3D DLLs and getting loaded into the game, then proxying all calls it makes to Direct3D and post-processing the resulting frame, Freestyle went way off the beaten path; it doesn't seem to hook/replace anything because it post-processes everything in the actual Nvidia driver, and just uses GeForce Experience to hook the activation hotkey outside of the game itself and provide the Freestyle UI.)

[EaMett]

I love that these threads always bring up cactbot, which is basically a timeline of events with some fights better implemented than others. But they never bring up Triggernometry, which literally, using text to speech, will say "blue three - opposite boss then swap" for P2S limit cuts, or for P1S will say things like "in then out", or "in, right, red".

Reality is that none of this matters. Unless you're in a competitive environment (world first, PVP, MB, housing, etc..) cheat or no cheat doesn't make any difference. PVE isn't competitive outside of world-first races. You could have a bot doing all of your inputs in savage, who cares? Are people worried that it "it dilutes [insert title/gear]" or are they resentful that "they had to suffer through it and so should other people"? All pretty selfish reasons.
And that example is extreme compared to simple callouts, which BTW, static leaders/callers do callouts for the group and even individual players all the time. So a real person is ok but a tool isn't.. Kind of a blurry line. Or we could also ban discord as a third-party tool? At least hat would be consistent
Not only that, but the ACTUAL competitive PVE players don't care about people using ACT/cactbot/trig.

Enforcing harassment should be the extent of the resources SE puts on dealing with this. Anything more would be a useless cat&mouse chase and a waste.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Not only that, but the ACTUAL competitive PVE players don't care about people using ACT/cactbot/trig.

I don't think there are world first players out there that don't use parsers/have a friend parse them, but yeah, cactbot and trig need to be coded by people that cleared the content, and that doesn't happen before weeks of the content being released. So yeah, competitive players don't use them, because they can't, and because they are all able to process what happens/have good enough RLs to not care.

Once more : midcore PvE players are the real issue.

[EaMett]

I don't think there are world first players out there that don't use parsers/have a friend parse them, but yeah, cactbot and trig need to be coded by people that cleared the content, and that doesn't happen before weeks of the content being released. So yeah, competitive players don't use them, because they can't, and because they are all able to process what happens/have good enough RLs to not care.

Once more : midcore PvE players are the real issue.

World racers could do what wow does and have people on the side code their cactbot/trig stuff live. The reality is that they don't need it because they're good enough to remember where in their rotation the mechanics hit. (and you have enough time to adjust in FF, wow plays differently)

Midcore raiders aren't an issue either. Why would they be? What does it matter what they use?

[Saraide]

Reality is that none of this matters. Unless you're in a competitive environment (world first, PVP, MB, housing, etc..) cheat or no cheat doesn't make any difference. PVE isn't competitive outside of world-first races. You could have a bot doing all of your inputs in savage, who cares? Are people worried that it "it dilutes [insert title/gear]" or are they resentful that "they had to suffer through it and so should other people"? All pretty selfish reasons.
And that example is extreme compared to simple callouts, which BTW, static leaders/callers do callouts for the group and even individual players all the time. So a real person is ok but a tool isn't.. Kind of a blurry line.
Not only that, but the ACTUAL competitive PVE players don't care about people using ACT/cactbot/trig.

Enforcing harassment should be the extent of the resources SE puts on dealing with this. Anything more would be a useless cat&mouse chase and a waste.

People who see savage only as suffering to get through really should consider not doing savage. The sheer number of people who have savage or ulti glams has already diluted whatever they stood for to a point where you just dont notice it anymore. Oh you stand around in limsa with your uwu sword? Cool, be careful or you'll trip over the countless people who do the exact same thing.