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.

[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.

[Garnix]

I know it's bait but why are people acting so dumb about ToS? Seriously...
Nobody is going to report you for using discord.
People can report you if you say "Join discord or leave".

Nobody is going to report you for watching guides.
People can report you if you say "watch guide X or leave".

Just don't be stupid about the way you use external tools. That's the ToS.

[Ranaku]

Yeah discord is not allowed nor is any other program with voicechat and SE is soon heading out to purge every single static in existence cause how dare they talk over their pc?! DO YOU GUYS NOW HAVE PHONES?!

And yes guides are also not allowed, when the day of reckoning comes Yoshi P will smite all the sinners who ever laid their eyes upon a rotation guide to send them to the shadowlands where they belong!

[UkcsAlias]

I know it's bait but why are people acting so dumb about ToS?

Thanks to the way the US law works... there have been too many of those disgusting lawsuits in which you wonder 'how did this ever happen?'.

The EU is a bit better by generaly also including the part that things have to make sense and are not allowed to circumvent the law (which also applies when the law is changed to avoid the need for a new agreement). But even here there are some cases that do not make any sense.

Lawyers and trolls generaly like those flaws as they can exploit that. And thats why strictness and clear boundary setting is important.