Just give us a list of what addons we can use.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

You’re not getting a list, ever.

The moment they come up with a definitive list, players will start using it to find concrete loopholes that they cannot refute. From their standpoint it’s best to let it stay vague so they can act upon any sort of 3rd party program not limited to certain list anytime they wish to.

[SieyaM]

The reason so many of them are "allowed" is because it is impossible for them to tell they are running. If a mod only effects the client side of XIV and does not interact with SE servers in any way then they cannot tell you are running it, and they do not want to plant a program into user PCs that would scan for such mods since it can interfere with a lot of other things. So if you're using mods or plugins that only effect you then there is no worry, if you are using something that will send data through the client or intercept data from the server then you may have a problem.

[Neoyoshi]

I want to blame over games for this phenomenon; it's put the FFXIV team in such a precarious position.

It's obvious that they don't want to have to punish people, but at the same time they really have to protect the integrity of the game, and the race to world first Dragonsong Ultimate, which may or may not be ruined at this point?

[Grebeny]

Still most serious communities the game has are build with and around third party tools.

You are joking, right?

Be it gposers who use stuff like gshade and tools to pose.

If you do Gposes, turn off gshape because the contrast is killing detail, you can make it high contrast in photoshop for 20 sec later. For 8 years this is the first time I heard of people claiming there is community around gshape...

Be it raiders using damage meters to gather data to improve themselves.

This is quite new btw, there were pretty small amount of people using them in the community before two years and they were considered mostly toxic (ask Xeno, he knows big portion of FF community don't like him because he was one of the open promoters of it back in the days).

Be it guide makers who rely on data from damage meters to actually find the perfect rotations for jobs, no dummy training in the entire XIV world can tell you how to play your job right.

What did you say? You think they need unacurate data from your dps meter to create rotation? The only thing you need for proper rotation is dummy and reading skills. BTW even Xeno who personally claims he can't play without DPS meter would tell you DUMMY. The best guide for ninja on Shadowbringer was coming from a guy that found the rotation exactly on a dummy and used https://ffxiv.azizarar.com/ to calculate it. To be exact, 2k extra damage from Balance's rotation back in the time.

Even if you Be is housing maniacs who rely on tools to actually do stuff that should be in the game anyways. Roleplayers who heavily rely on chataddons cause the chat in XIV is outdated and just plain bad...try to read something when hundred players are in the same house with you. These communities would most likely die out if third party tools would be gone and that would hit the game really like REALLY hard.

Housing glitchs don't need mods, they work without them even if everyone would agree, they should not be glitches, but something you should be able to do easily legit. No, the RP community is not using mods to communicate, when there are too many people somewhere, groups make their own parties to communicate between each other. Everyone will agree the bubbles would be super cool quality of life feature, but most players don't use it because if you enter savage you will get really annoyed by it if someone is writting mid battle because they died from a mechanic.

The only thing that SE really need to fix to keep community alive (we are not talking about ERP/NSFW things) is the bard system, I really believe it will not hurt to be able to write song ingame.

[DamianFatale]

They can't. They'd lose so much business so fast, and not just from NA or EU. JP, in particular, would go catatonic over the loss of housing addons.

It seems like they are handing out these bans while they develop their own graphical upgrades, UI upgrades, so that they can eventually ban all third party modifications. They just don't want to push g shade yet, because that is something they are building toward with the inevitable 7.0 changes.

[Espon]

If it reads or modifies FF14's data then it's against the ToS.

Discord is not an addon as it's an external program that does not read or modify the FF14 client. That would be like saying Windows is against the ToS.

[Rolder50]

What did you say? You think they need unacurate data from your dps meter to create rotation? The only thing you need for proper rotation is dummy and reading skills. BTW even Xeno who personally claims he can't play without DPS meter would tell you DUMMY. The best guide for ninja on Shadowbringer was coming from a guy that found the rotation exactly on a dummy and used https://ffxiv.azizarar.com/ to calculate it. To be exact, 2k extra damage from Balance's rotation back in the time.

Just in case you weren't aware, you can import log data into xivanalysis.com and it'll tell you exactly what you are doing wrong and where to improve. It can tell you where you dropped buffs, where you lost uptime, all sorts of things. An absolutely invaluable tool for anyone serious about improving and miles more information then just hitting a dummy.

[BristolRuss]

So we need a list of what is okay.

According to Yoshida as long as you're not botting they are all ok, as long as you keep it to yourself.

https://gamerescape.com/2014/02/12/p...naoki-yoshida/

"GE: Recently, there has been noise from players about parsers, mods and third-party applications being used with Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and about people getting warned, suspended or even banned by GMs for using such applications. There was also mention of a plug-in API for the game. We were wondering what the policy was, your stance on it, and how you were approaching these issues. Some players are a bit worried and don’t want to get banned.

Yoshida: This is a very difficult question to answer. We are first and foremost a software company, and as a software company we cannot really approve of anyone modifying our product in any way. We would prefer it if everyone played within the original design of the software, otherwise we can’t really guarantee the quality of the product itself. Officially, the policy is that any additions or modification to the game are against the rules and privacy policy and when playing our game, everyone has to have gone through the steps to agree to the Terms and Conditions when you sign up.

However, I too am a hardcore PC gamer so I understand that there are a lot of plug-ins and add-ons available to many games. So as a PC gamer, all I can really say is “Please, don’t get caught.” If you are going to use add-ons and plug-ins please be discrete about it. Don’t go around telling your friends you mod the game on chat, or ask a GM if using such an add-on is ok. We can’t really go around and check if add-ons and plug-ins will work with our game and debug it, and check that it doesn’t break anything – its too much. Really what it comes down to is I can’t really say “Yes” to these things, and players have to realize that by using an application that accesses game files that they are the ones that are assuming the risk of viruses and possibly compromising their account.

And as you probably know, Final Fantasy XI had a particularly strict policy on this kind of thing, so there are quite a few players out there who moved from XI to XIV who definitely view any kind of add-on to the game as bad. So please, just be discrete if you will be using tools or add-ons."

[rance-sama]

I am pretty sure that by 3rd party tools Yoshi P refers to programs that hook specifically into FFXIV executable and modify the game's UI or graphics to give the player an advantage.
Using Discord, a completely indepedent program, at the same time than FFXIV doesn't constitute a violation of the TOS.

I swear people are drawing strays to justify the use of mods.

[Rolder50]

I am pretty sure that by 3rd party tools Yoshi P refers to programs that hook specifically into FFXIV executable and modify the game's UI or graphics to give the player an advantage.
Using Discord, a completely indepedent program, at the same time than FFXIV doesn't constitute a violation of the TOS.

I swear people are drawing strays to justify the use of mods.

Imagine thinking that modifying the UI or graphics gives someone an advantage lmao