HUD add-ons are the least of SqEx's problems with 3rd party tools

[eagledorf]

Recently, third party tools that allow people to see information not available in the native game have received attention due to their use by prominent streamers and raid groups.

Square Enix has acknowledged that the best way to discourage their use is to make the in native HUD more flexible to show this information without installing third party tools.However, these same streamers also are known to use third party tools to do more than display information, they use them to correct what could be considered flaws in the game engine.

For example:

• An issue where players viewing the game at certain refresh rate will be able to execute actions at a different speed than players with a different refresh rate.
• An issue where players with a certain ping to the server will be able to execute actions at a different speed than players with a different ping.

Similar issues actually have been discussed by the community as far back as FFXI and third party tools used to correct them have been discussed on this very forum in the past. (I believe some of the persistence of these issues has to do with how SqEx test their game in house.)

These are a greater problem in my view than HUD flexibility because these issues left uncorrected unfairly advantage players in a certain geographical area over others as well as players on PC over those on consoles, but at the same time the third party tools discussed on this forum would grant players that use them the same unfair advantage over players that do not. Therefore, the only real solution is for Square Enix to correct the problem on their end for all players.