Seeking clarification concerning third party tools

[Anthonen]

I'd like to seek additional clarification on the recent post concerning third party tools. As I understand it all third party tools are prohibited by the terms of service. Does that mean all of the following situations would be considered a violation?

Discord is a third party VoIP program that many people use to make clearing content easier by being able to more easily communicate with other players. Would this be considered a breach of the terms of service?

Furthermore many people stream or record their attempts to clear content using programmes such as OBS or Nvidia GeForce Experience Overlay (formerly known as Shadowplay) so they can watch back those attempts to identify mistakes. Is a third party tool that records or streams their gameplay a violation of the terms of service? If yes then would the only compliant way to watch back such attempts be with the in game duty recorder?

Many players watch or read guides made by other players to clear content in this game. As these guides are not distributed by Square Enix they are third party and they help groups to clear. Would using a guide be considered a breach of the terms of service?

[RitsukoSonoda]

Discord, OBS, Nvidia GeForce Experience don't modify the game client. At most there's an overlay similar to steam. Though I suppose some people could argue Nvidia does since the tool allows you to change the game's display settings from outside the client. Similarly Third Party Tools could also include physical items like controllers or other input devices like MMO mice that have additional programmable buttons or things like the razer tartarus (something SE actually advertised a FFXIV version of a similar device on lodestone made by another company). As such these types of things should be safe. The tools they're looking at are the mods/trainers/tools that manipulate aspects of the game itself.

[Ashe_Skryzil]

About Discord and Streaming Software, that's just picking out because people get butt hurt. But for some reason, I can understand it somehow, Yoshida can't throw around shit about "Don't use third party tools", when his own static or whatever it is, is parsing as well, he even has a verified FFLOGS account, if I got that right ? So Yoshida should be banned as well, oh wait you don't ban producer, he has special rights.
Having plugins like Chat Bubbles and a cleaner HUD should be allowed, but when it comes to plugins like, AOE indicator or boss positionals indicator, that should be bannable.
There are currently a lot of memes going on, about the bans and tbh there is some shit going on like "Using a chair is third party tool as well since it helps you clearing ultimate" or whatever.
You can make an elefant out of that topic, but from what I've heard as long as you don't stream you don't have to fear a ban >->

[Reelos]

It is basically any third party tool that takes information from the Game directly. As in the Game Client.

Discord does not affect the data of FFXIV so no.

Any Recording Software (also that from a console) would also not take the data directly from the game itself, but from the rendering of your graphics card, so also no.

The Last one aren't even a program or tool, so also no. This is more of a thing a Community does, which is highly encoraged.

In the end everything that shows you more information like a cooldown from a bosses tank buster would be a breach in terms of UI modification
(also to change the UI in this way you would need to Change the games data by exchanging a .dll for example, which is a breach of contract)

Anything that reads data directly from the game client while it is running (like a DPS meter or even just a item tracking tool for crafters ect) are a breach of contract.

[Kaurhz]

People who are concerned and mention Discord as a third-party tool that can or should get a ban are stretching, and I mean stretching an unbelievable amount.

[IdowhatIwant]

People who are concerned and mention Discord as a third-party tool that can or should get a ban are stretching, and I mean stretching an unbelievable amount.

It's technically not stretching. When this conversation was first brought up Discord was something that was specifically mentioned that would be a third party tool.

This is pretty much where they did not want the community to be though with third party tools, is basically turning third party tools into a report war that they now have to deal with.

[Kaurhz]

It's technically not stretching. When this conversation was first brought up Discord was something that was specifically mentioned that would be a third party tool.

This is pretty much where they did not want the community to be though with third party tools, is basically turning third party tools into a report war that they now have to deal with.

Being a third-party tool in itself is one thing. Being a third-party tool that directly interacts with, reads data, and/or modifies data are 2 entirely different things. Discord is a third-party software, but the purpose used is an entirely different 'platform' entirely.

I don't think they will ever nail the issue completely. On one hand, being vague does turn the situation into a petty report war, for numerous equally petty reasons, e.g. envy, or just general dislike and distaste for the individual. But equally, if you're specific in the matter and expand it beyond umbrella use terminology then you will have equally as petty individuals that turn around and say "Well that wasn't on the list, so why am I suspended/banned?" - Then you turn the issue into something where people do not follow the rule in principle but instead just treat their usage as a skirting checklist. Neither of which are good in reality. All they can do is be consistent with how they treat infractions, to which they aren't entirely.

Regardless of feelings though there is a stark distinction between which tools would be construed as third-party tools, yet do not mess with the game client, whereas some do, and the issues fall within the latter. Not the former, otherwise you can make some fairly petty insinuations about what would constitute as prohibited third-party.

[UkcsAlias]

Regardless of feelings though there is a stark distinction between which tools would be construed as third-party tools, yet do not mess with the game client, whereas some do, and the issues fall within the latter. Not the former, otherwise you can make some fairly petty insinuations about what would constitute as prohibited third-party.

Discord has an overlay that can be displayed in games. That is one of those cases which can be a problem regarding a vague statement. Sure, you can turn that off for each game, but in larger chatboxes, knowing who is talking is a welcome feature (during my CSS times i often was in a server with over 40 people, and another server had 64 people. And both servers had the same TS channel in which they were talking - yes, teamwork talk was impossible there).

But even here a certain question can help: Can it (the program or feature) function as standalone program that is not related to the game at all? For any generic gaming program like teamspreak, this doesnt work as you can talk while everyone is in diffirent games. And all chat programs do this. You can even have an alarm clock showing up that clearly is ment to be visible. All these things do not have a direct relation to FFXIV, but can be used as such (the alarm can be as a remainder for a raid).

[Ilisidi]

Given that anybody can upload to FFlogs without the individual players input or knowledge that one is being recorded, nope, nobody will be banned for someone else outrunning that on everything.

[UkcsAlias]

Discord is a third party VoIP program that many people use to make clearing content easier by being able to more easily communicate with other players. Would this be considered a breach of the terms of service?

While its on the same pc, its not diffirent to using a seperate PC with a voice program. As the environment is isolated, this is not included within such ToS. Not just that, it would be in violation of a law if they would act on this for multiple reasons. You cannot ensure that a voip program is used for the game specificly, it could actualy just be a completely random chat. Because of that, even if they detect usage, they are not allowed to act on it. But lets take it even further, they can see which channel you are in, and potentialy also hear your voice. In this case its a major privacy violation (the category which can quickly get you bankrupt).

Furthermore many people stream or record their attempts to clear content using programmes such as OBS or Nvidia GeForce Experience Overlay (formerly known as Shadowplay) so they can watch back those attempts to identify mistakes. Is a third party tool that records or streams their gameplay a violation of the terms of service? If yes then would the only compliant way to watch back such attempts be with the in game duty recorder?

Streaming often happens after the game is done rendering, and generaly faces delays that make gaming itself simply not work. Streams on that do however in some degree violate a tos because they can show additional information.
But here we get to the part that cheating information would be visible on platforms like twitch, and as everything is recorded and visible to the players, its very easy to act on.

But yes, there is a potential for abuse since you could write an AI that reads the output of the screen and predicts things based on that, and display that information again. This is undetectable as its not within the same pc environment. But if discovered, is a guaranteed ban. There is currently no tool known to do this for FFXIV, and usualy such tools are only applied on older 2d games due to easier parsing (even if randomness is involved in those games, usualy there is a predictable timer/frame aspect that can be read). Its a very difficult thing to do and effectively still only reads information that you can also see yourself. I would not consider this an issue. And this for that reason also means streaming atm should not be considered an issue.

At the same time, preventing streaming is generaly even hurting your own community.

Given that anybody can upload to FFlogs without the individual players input or knowledge that one is being recorded, nope, nobody will be banned for someone else outrunning that on everything.

Parsing any saved data is not considered part of the game itself anymore, and parsing recordings on that is not a ToS violation. If they want to avoid such things, saves would be encrypted using keys that arent stored on the pc itself.