Why not a warning?

[alibutterfly]

For me, in addition to what people have already stated multiple times here about this having been the TOS all along and Yoshi having made multiple verbal/written "warnings" to the general public over the years about it, before now, I think there's also some element at this point of the "suffering from success" meme at play.

FFXIV, at this point, has more eyes on it than it ever has in the past. Therefore, it's important that they maintain the image of integrity in the game if they want people to continue to have faith in them as a dev team and their product. If there are allegations of unfairness/cheating in a fairly publicized/currently popular piece of game content, it's in their best interest to do what they can to publicly remedy that situation ASAP to show they will not tolerate that kind of behavior and people can trust them to enforce their own rules. People reported someone flagrantly violating the TOS in a public sphere (i.e., streaming), so SE's options then were to do nothing and look like hypocrites and undermine public trust, or to hand down some kind of warning/punishment/whatever you want to call it for breaking their rules to the point where you've "riled up the commonfolk" enough that they're bothering to report you.

Do I get the impression from Yoshi's most recent message that they're going to necessarily be actively going around searching for such people at this point? Still no.

Do I get the impression that they absolutely could start doing that at any time that they wished because it is indeed a violation of the TOS that every player must agree to in order to use the game? Absolutely.

Do I get the impression that they are closer to taking some kind of widespread hardline countermeasure against 3rd party addons now than they ever were in the past, for a whole variety of reasons, many of which have been discussed in this thread? Again, yes.

To the point of whether a 10-day ban was justified vs. some kind of lighter warning, in my mind, absolutely yes. If Yoshi literally just put up that long message about "don't do this" and you're still very publicly doing exactly what he said not to do - no matter how you think the rules were or weren't enforced in the past - you're basically asking to get slapped. A "don't do this again" verbal warning with no actual consequence other than a strike on your account (which, again, we don't know if this person may have already had other previous strikes on their account) will do nothing to show you mean business. If you roll into work 10 minutes late on a consistent basis and your boss tells you not to do it again, does that usually mean you're NEVER going to do it again if there's no "teeth" behind the request? If your boss tells you not to do it again or there will be consequences, on the other hand, are you willing to do it again and find out what those consequences are? If the consequences are "up to and including suspension/termination," if you're in an area that has employment-at-will, is that something you want to test out to see if they're serious? Seems a bit like Russian roulette, to me... this feels the same as that, though arguably lower stakes than a job situation (though, maybe not even, if you're a streamer).

TL;DR: My opinion is that the ban was justified after many previous public warnings not to do exactly what the streamer was doing, and to show publicly that they enforce their own rules in this current era of unprecedented popularity for XIV.

[Kewitt]

SE can see that there is an advantage to using 3rd party tools but these tools aren't coming to consoles.
So their 2 choices kill off the console which is too many users, or 10 ban people that have been breaking the rules for years anyways.

Just because you speed to work every day doesn't mean that 1st time you get caught going 20 over they are going to give you a warning because it's your 1st time.

[Canadane]

A 10 day suspension is a more than generous warning.
Should be outright bans.

[Ranhansha]

There were warnings, sure, but very little action. Two wrongs never make a right, but in my opinion, SE is more at fault here than the player base. Don't make warnings if you don't have the balls to back them up, I say. They let this situation get out of hand.

S-E were at fault for not doing something at first, for being lenient, but they can't be at fault since they are doing what they are supposed to do: applying their ToS against those players who are breaking them. They have decided that enough is enough. No one would be this mad if measures were taken against bots, no matter how late. People who use 3rd party tools were given a kind of "free pass" for a while and now they don't have it they are losing their mind. Well, you were never supposed to have it and you know it. Enough with the mental gymnastics. YOU WERE NEVER ALLOWED. End of discussion.

[Reap00]

Do people really think a 10 day ban after years of calling things grey areas and 'just don't harass people' is an appropriate response? Don't come in saying "THEY HAVE THE RIGHT", no one cares or argues they are within their rights. I'm not even saying "let them have the tools still..." I'm simply saying that pulling them to gaol, warning them, and then letting them go when they remove the offending material, accomplishes the same effect without making half the userbase angry that people are being pulled mid-prog for sudden 10-day bans.

Please dont reply with no thought comments. Actually think about the question I'm presenting and give real reasons why a ban is better than a warning in this scenario with the context of how things have been treated.

"Its against the rules no sympathy" posts miss the point entirely.

If you are stupid enough to stream a violation of the ToS you deserve to lose your account entirely.

[Vahlnir]

S-E were at fault for not doing something at first, for being lenient, but they can't be at fault since they are doing what they are supposed to do: applying their ToS against those players who are breaking them. They have decided that enough is enough. No one would be this mad if measures were taken against bots, no matter how late. People who use 3rd party tools were given a kind of "free pass" for a while and now they don't have it they are losing their mind. Well, you were never supposed to have it and you know it. Enough with the mental gymnastics. YOU WERE NEVER ALLOWED. End of discussion.

They are partially (as in...partially, not completely) at fault for being so lenient up until now. I don't use mods with FF XIV and I never have, so there's that too. But yeah, they were never allowed. Obviously. But their general inaction paved the way for players to keep pushing the limit to see what they could get away with. Apparently they pushed too far, hence the Lodestone announcement yesterday. And that is well within their right to act on. Anyone caught using mods and publicly displaying their ToS violations was playing with fire, and they burned. I have no sympathy for anyone who uses mods, knowing full well they aren't allowed, but this is a situation that SE had a bit of a hand in making.

[IdowhatIwant]

If you are stupid enough to stream a violation of the ToS you deserve to lose your account entirely.

The ToS of it was vague, and it still is vague.

The only reason this person was the fall guy and got banned was before a group of people mass reported him, that's it. SE would have never moderated his stream or found out.

Is it probably stupid to stream with add ons? Sure we can agree on that. But it also has been such a grey area and barely enforced for so long many people don't think it matters.
Funny thing is they banned him, then said we want to add some of the things that he was using in the game. Thanks SE.

The vague ToS is why this game doesn't have a lot of streamers, and its the reason people don't communicate in the game much anymore. Combine that with a community that is far more toxic than WoW could ever be by actively trying to get each other banned over petty arguments, it's a mess. Tighten the ToS tell players what the exact rules are.

[IkaraGreydancer]

The ToS of it was vague, and it still is vague.

The only reason this person was the fall guy and got banned was before a group of people mass reported him, that's it. SE would have never moderated his stream or found out.

Is it probably stupid to stream with add ons? Sure we can agree on that. But it also has been such a grey area and barely enforced for so long many people don't think it matters.
Funny thing is they banned him, then said we want to add some of the things that he was using in the game. Thanks SE.

The vague ToS is why this game doesn't have a lot of streamers, and its the reason people don't communicate in the game much anymore. Combine that with a community that is far more toxic than WoW could ever be by actively trying to get each other banned over petty arguments, it's a mess. Tighten the ToS tell players what the exact rules are.

Thats some hyperbole if I've ever seen some. And I'll say it again. YoshiP has already said not to do it. There's nothing vague about that. And they spoke of improving the UI in the future yes, but until then you still need to follow the rules until said rules change. The amount of gymnastics folks are trying to use here is astounding.

Can you prove ToS is why the game doesn't have alot of streamers? Can you prove ToS is why people apparently don't talk in game? Also news flash most of the community isn't mass reporting to get folks banned. The bad eggs don't represent the whole

[Bsrking5]

Am i late the to bait post? Where's all the hot takes?

[Ranhansha]

They are partially (as in...partially, not completely) at fault for being so lenient up until now. I don't use mods with FF XIV and I never have, so there's that too. But yeah, they were never allowed. Obviously. But their general inaction paved the way for players to keep pushing the limit to see what they could get away with. Apparently they pushed too far, hence the Lodestone announcement yesterday. And that is well within their right to act on. Anyone caught using mods and publicly displaying their ToS violations was playing with fire, and they burned. I have no sympathy for anyone who uses mods, knowing full well they aren't allowed, but this is a situation that SE had a bit of a hand in making.

They might be at fault because they allowed people to get a bit too comfortable, but, in my opinion, now players are blowing things out of proportion. This stuff was never accepted, so what are they on about?
To be honest, the last one, wasn't the first announcement on the topic and their stance was always clear. At least it was for me. If people had any kind of doubt it was because of other players spreading misinformation or "just don't say" which, apparently still applies since Yoshi-P said they can't track what your PC is doing. The problem is people are shamelessly showing off their screens filled with mods and that's as dumb as it gets. What are they supposed to do? I don't use them and, what's more, I wouldn't even report someone if I knew they were using something like a damage meter, shadders or a translator. I don't see the harm in those. However, I like the fact that they seem to be cracking down on stuff like cactbot, which I believe is the one that calls the mechs for you.