Mods and cheat engine

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

All your opinion is "its not THAT big of a deal" and "i PERSONALLY dont care" it doesnt anything of a value to a conversation.

Either you don't read me, either you don't want to understand. I'm not sure myself, at this point.

Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.

As said many times in this thread, cactbot only reads things that can be accessed through the base client, but sure, let's go your way.

Why should youtube guides exist ? They do give you information on how to beat content. WHAT ? YOU USE THEM ? But that's illegal, since the guide doesn't exist in game. How dare you ?

Hey, let's push it further ! Why should the lodestone database exist ? It gives recipes to people that have not acquired them yet. That's ILLEGAL. Wait, it's made by SE...

NO THE REAL PROBLEM IS google sheets that compare stuff or people sharing information on Discord about rotations and stuff.

It's a multiplayer game, Koldan, people share their intel, they share strats, they share gear optimizers... And that's for the best. If Yoshida went as far, in an interview, as to say that to some extent, Excel and Discord could be considered as third source programs that interfere with the game, that's because he was adressing witch hunters like you that make this game far more toxic than you save it from cactbotters.

Why you think you are entitled to something console players cant have access to also questions your character.

You seem to be under the impression I am using Cactbot. I'm not. You're probably gonna say I'm lying, whatever, I like the thrill of discovering fights, so I don't watch guides except if I plan to PF things, but I do use shaders for screenshots.

But even if I was using cactbot or other add-ons... When did I say I should use them and not console players ? I am not entitled to anything, not anymore that you're entitled to keep your precious titles for all eternity. You're just a random player, I'm just a random player, and we both do what make us feel good in this game. The difference is that I'm not a maniac obsessed with what others do and have. Take care of yourself, you need some help.

[Koldan]

Either you don't read me, either you don't want to understand. I'm not sure myself, at this point.



As said many times in this thread, cactbot only reads things that can be accessed through the base client, but sure, let's go your way.

Why should youtube guides exist ? They do give you information on how to beat content. WHAT ? YOU USE THEM ? But that's illegal, since the guide doesn't exist in game. How dare you ?

Hey, let's push it further ! Why should the lodestone database exist ? It gives recipes to people that have not acquired them yet. That's ILLEGAL. Wait, it's made by SE...

NO THE REAL PROBLEM IS google sheets that compare stuff or people sharing information on Discord about rotations and stuff.

It's a multiplayer game, Koldan, people share their intel, they share strats, they share gear optimizers... And that's for the best. If Yoshida went as far, in an interview, as to say that to some extent, Excel and Discord could be considered as third source programs that interfere with the game, that's because he was adressing witch hunters like you that make this game far more toxic than you save it from cactbotters.



You seem to be under the impression I am using Cactbot. I'm not. You're probably gonna say I'm lying, whatever, I like the thrill of discovering fights, so I don't watch guides except if I plan to PF things, but I do use shaders for screenshots.

But even if I was using cactbot or other add-ons... When did I say I should use them and not console players ? I am not entitled to anything, not anymore that you're entitled to keep your precious titles for all eternity. You're just a random player, I'm just a random player, and we both do what make us feel good in this game. The difference is that I'm not a maniac obsessed with what others do and have. Take care of yourself, you need some help.

Yeah, you cant adress my points and only go for a character which is pretty pathetic not gonna lie.
There is a difference between watching/reading a guide and running software that literally read game's memory/network packets and modifies them. There is a difference between knowing what mechanics and how to solve it with your group and running software that coordinates that all for you. There is a difference between single weaving and adjusting your rotations for that because of high ping and running network tampering software that allows you tripple weave. Stop justifying cheating in multiplayer games.

[ArcaviusGreyashe]

Yeah, you cant adress my points and only go for a character which is pretty pathetic not gonna lie.

I would feel bad if I and others hadn't answered your concerns at least fifteen times in the last pages. At this point, I don't feel bad about anything regarding you.

There is a difference between knowing what mechanics and how to solve it with your group and running software that coordinates that all for you.

They don't.

There is a difference between single weaving and adjusting your rotations for that because of high ping and running network tampering software that allows you tripple weave. Stop justifying cheating in multiplayer games.

They don't, because, as it has been thoroughly said, it's very easy for SE to know who uses "network tampering software", and they would ban people that abuse it. Which means they probably know who uses it right now and they don't care as long as they play the game in a legit way, aka have the ability to double weave if you play well.

Stop justifying being a bigot, pretending you're a guardian of purity in the game, and answering. I sure will.

[LianaThorne]

Yeah, you cant adress my points and only go for a character which is pretty pathetic not gonna lie.
There is a difference between watching/reading a guide and running software that literally read game's memory/network packets and modifies them. There is a difference between knowing what mechanics and how to solve it with your group and running software that coordinates that all for you. There is a difference between single weaving and adjusting your rotations for that because of high ping and running network tampering software that allows you tripple weave. Stop justifying cheating in multiplayer games.

First off, you're not earning any favors with anyone talking like you have in this thread.

Second off, your complaints for why consoles can't have plugins and mods has nothing to do with Square or FF. Consoles are not built to handle modding the same way that PCs can. I highly encourage you to Google and read up on this so you can actually understand what's going on. I'm also very aware mods have existed in Bethesda games for console but that's really the only major company ever to have dipped a toe in it. Again, feel free to Google.

Consoles are not built for it, accept it and move on. Square also has no obligation to implement fan made mods or plugins into their game. They also are not going to add anything to PCs to scan for mods or plugins because it's illegal in several countries and this is a globally supported game.

[LittleImp]

Why should youtube guides exist ? They do give you information on how to beat content. WHAT ? YOU USE THEM ? But that's illegal, since the guide doesn't exist in game. How dare you ?

Hey, let's push it further ! Why should the lodestone database exist ? It gives recipes to people that have not acquired them yet. That's ILLEGAL. Wait, it's made by SE...

NO THE REAL PROBLEM IS google sheets that compare stuff or people sharing information on Discord about rotations and stuff.

It's a multiplayer game, Koldan, people share their intel, they share strats, they share gear optimizers... And that's for the best.

Comparing static information available on external platforms to an explicitly banned program which dynamically solves mechanics for you is a complete nonsense argument.

It isn't hard to understand why Cactbot is cheating; The more important question would be 'does it really matter?', or 'why do you care so much?', rather than attempting to frame Cactbot as legitimate or just as legitimate as something.. created by SE.

[Packetdancer]

Any tool that gives you any information or fuctions thats not accessible by base client has no place in multiplayer game.

See, I think this is the fundamental disconnect in this conversation: I think almost everyone in this thread is in agreement on that fact. The problem is that people aren't really in agreement on what "accessible by the base client" means.

Mini Cactpot Solver stuff isn't reading anything the player doesn't see; it can just see "There's a 5 in this square, which means this row and this column can only be these combinations. If you check the number in one of these three squares, we can see where a high-value line is likely to be." It doesn't see what's behind the scratch-off stuff (because the client doesn't know), and I can do the same math with a pencil and paper (or using a website). Does "a mod that marks which ones I should pick one of to see where the high-value row is likely to be" count as fundamentally different than a website a Playstation player can open on their laptop or smartphone that does the same thing? It's more convenient, but I'm not sure it's fundamentally different.

Cactbot's Raidboss callouts can be faster than a human (in some cases, or way worse in others), but generally speaking I've yet to see Cactbot able to call something I-as-a-raid-caller cannot. Yeah, it could hypothetically call out, say, your specific debuffs for E12S's Intermediate Relativity and such, which is harder for a raid-caller to personalize, but given that those are set patterns I could still call out "DPS have flare, get the hell out". In P1S, I've run with someone learning the fight who had trouble reading where they needed to be, so I just added calling their temperature resolution to the general callout, like, "Alright, resolve your squares. <X>, you'll want to head south." (Which, from what I've been told, is better than what Cactbot calls there anyway, as it will tell you to resolve the second hit in a way that may get you killed on the third.)

Hence why I say that I don't think that on balance, Cactbot gives any meaningful overall advantage to having a human raid-caller.

Stuff that does things like mark invisible AoEs on the ground for you, or lets you ignore debuffs inflicted on you in PvP, and stuff like that? Things which give you capabilities that are, as you put it, beyond those exposed by the base game? I agree those are an issue. I think everyone in this thread agrees those are an issue. (Or anyone who doesn't is probably not saying much.)

XIValexander is the one thing that's been explicitly named in this thread that I honestly have qualms with, as I find myself dithering on it. I've watched friends with terrible ping try to play weaving-heavy jobs and fail due to technical limitations rather than limitations of skill, so I can definitely see the appeal of something that uses the animation lock system to basically try to negate/counteract bad ping. But it could also absolutely be used to cheat, and I'm not sure "functioning on the honor system" is a great approach here. (Though, again, one assumes that if your weaving falls outside of what's actually rationally possible, the server can and will flag it as suspicious. And if it doesn't do that, it ought to.)

Mind you, I think Square-Enix should add that animation-lock-reduced-by-ping-time functionality to the base game, as it would be a great counter to terrible ping. I don't think they will, because glancing at the code for XIValexander suggests that while it would be pretty easy to implement in the client on Windows, it would probably not work well inside the Crossover bottle on Mac and might be a headache to do on Playstation. And SE has demonstrated an understandable (if sometimes annoying) reluctance to implement something on one platform that it cannot readily put into all of them.

At any rate, like I said: I think the reason people are arguing in circles in this thread is not so much that half of the people think "yes I should be allowed to cheat" but rather that people are going "it is unfair when people can use tools to get access to information I don't have", while the other half is going, "Sure, we agree, but the particular tools named don't do that (with maybe the exception of XIValexander, which doesn't give you information you don't otherwise have but does definitely modify the game experience in a more substantial way). They take information you do have and just package it in a more-easily-processed form."

Now, if the argument is "it feels unfair that people can add better accessibility/QoL options to the game on PC when that's denied to console players", yeah, I think a lot of us can get behind that; it does feel like it isn't an equitable situation between the two. It sucks that a PC user can, say, load in a mod that makes the buffs/debuffs you put onto a target displayed with their icons larger than the rest, meaning you can tell at a glance "is that Higanbana on the boss that's about to expire mine, or is it the other SAM's?" and that a Playstation user does not have that option.

There's basically nothing Cactbot can call that I as a raid-caller can't, and I feel like the places it has advantages over me are countered by the parts that it does way worse. But yes, it does still feel unfair in some ways inasmuch as someone who's in a PUG without voice-chat still has a raid-caller (more or less) if they're using Cactbot, whereas if you're on Playstation and venture into PF without your static's raid-caller you're on your own for a read of mechanics.

But if the argument is that QoL changes to repackage information you do have in a more-easily-processed form is cheating... I think that's where folks are disagreeing with each other. Because something can be unfair without being cheating; I think we'd all agree it's unfair that someone who lives in San Jose will have an easier time playing NIN -- personal skill aside -- than someone who lives somewhere in Argentina, simply by virtue of ping and how this game's netcode works. (Or, frankly, an easier time than even someone who lives in like... Philadelphia.)

But I don't think any of us would qualify "I live in San Jose" as meaning that person is cheating, even if it's still unfair.

(And I think I've probably been wordy enough for this thread for... uh, a while. Especially since this is apparently giving my phone's autocorrect an aneurysm.)

[Towowo]

XIVAlexander can be used to cheat for sure but anyone that I know that uses wouldn't even know how to use it for that purpose. Such a tool wouldn't feel required if the game didn't punish you so hard for having a bad connection one day.

[Koldan]

Cactbot can and does call out faster than any human possible and if you coordinate your group through it and triggonometry it also does PERSONALIZED callout where to go, how to do mechanic and such, still gonna defend that?
People tripple weave while I single weave without any tools, thats also fair for you? You can look up my logs, i am not the best player but i am certainly qualified to speak about raiding environment since i am calling out in my group.
Is showing you were hunt spawned with DIRECTIONS on your screen fair to you too instead of looking for it yourself?
Stop justifying cheating in multiplaer games. Noone cares what you do in your single player game, but cheats and tools like that have no business being present in mmos.

[KageTokage]

The situation with the hunting apps is particularly awful as they piss off most of the people who are actively involved in spawning the hunts as they're no longer able to discreetly relay things to ensure that the people actually putting in effort arrive first if at all.

It got bad enough that the creator of one of the more popular apps implemented a mandatory delay into its relays specifically to make the whole hunting experience more relaxed and fair to the spawners, but then the lazy "hunters" who have no involvement in actually spawning anything got mad and pressured them into removing it under the laughable pretense that we were somehow "gatekeeping" them when they do it themselves more often then not due to the randoms generally being the ones to pull things ASAP because they just want to get it over with, everyone else be damned.

[Sarnai]

We are comparing software that can literally draw aoe outlines for you, call out where and how to do mechanics BEFORE it appears on your screen, software that removes intended animation lock to allow tripple weaving with mouse and keyboard to justify it.
Mental gymnastics some people go through to justify cheating is always surprising.

I'm not justifying cactbot, but I'm just curious which fields are "cheating because it gives you an advantage over console players" and which are ok. Since Having a mouse with 20 buttons will definitely improve your reaction time and help with triple weaving or binding a macro to do 3 actions in one click for example, in comparison to having just a gamepad.