Third party tools are a game design failing in a multi-platform game

[Inanegrain]

A parser isnt QOL at all..its a tool misused and abused to berate, harass and discriminate against players. Personally Id like to see parsers under a blanket ban. You dont need them to run content and people clear content w/out them easily.

Again, you can report people for harassing if they say "your dps sucks"

You can not report people if they mention "our dps is lacking" because it's the cause of the content.

You think parsers would bother to run with people with 0 intention of doing said content in the first place?

I can report people for going actively afk or respond to question with aggression because they did the same thing people with ACT would say.

[JunTao]

Ui is a huge improvement on that ageing dinosaur they use in WOW

A parser isnt QOL at all..its a tool misused and abused to berate, harass and discriminate against players. Personally Id like to see parsers under a blanket ban. You dont need them to run content and people clear content w/out them easily.

completely biased to think that a tool that automatically adds and divides your damage is the root of all evil and everyone who uses it should be blankly banned. You’re one of those people who completely chooses to overlook the dark corners of discord that sells ultimate clears, sells Gil, and provides erotic sex chats in night clubs for real money. You’re also ignoring the fact that discord is the ultimate bot, where you can create in game triggers heard by the entire alliance if they’re in your channel. “Misuse and abused” in your statement is completely overlooking everything other than what you prefer to use yourself.

In my opinion, everybody who plays this game is old enough to have access to a debit and/or credit card..therefore as a customer old enough to know what I’m getting into, and paying with my own money, I have the right and obligation to tell the provider-of-services(SE) the quality of gaming id like, and not abide by some arbitrary rule created to coddle players who refuse to learn the in game combat properly. And as a raider (and I say raider because I’m paying SE purely for their raid content), one of those qualities is to be able to compete with myself in my games with a device that allows me to track my errors and damage output. They could even creatively implement a parse option in the party mode with an on or off button so that you know the current raid you’re joining is parsing. But to say that you never need them and they should be all banned is so biased and unthoughtful that you should rethink that statement.

You have to remember that square enix is a corporation who creates games for us, and in return we pay them for access. We do not pay them to dictate our gameplay, we pay them because we like what they provide. As a community we can request changes, and those changes we ask aren’t evil, changes mean we like this game, this is how to better it in our view. This game is squares cash cow and we vote with our dollars. If a parsing tool would mean more money for them, 100% you know they’d create one. The ball is always in the customers hands. As a community paying a corporation for their online service, we should adhere to what everyone’s demands are, not just different biased corners of the player base.

[Larirawiel]

I'll drop the hot take at the start but third party tools are a failing in a multi-platform game and lack of any proper anti-cheat mechanisms on PC lets the entire player base down, especially PlayStation users.

And again, there is not something like a "proper anti-cheat mechanism". Anti-cheat-mechanisms are useless and dangerous. It is like anti-virus-software. Does it protect you? No. Does it open new security holes into your system? Propably yes.


Cheers

[UkcsAlias]

And again, there is not something like a "proper anti-cheat mechanism". Anti-cheat-mechanisms are useless and dangerous. It is like anti-virus-software. Does it protect you? No. Does it open new security holes into your system? Propably yes.

They are not useless, it deters players from using cheats because detection can have consequences. Without any detection, people would abuse any tool available and break the game massively as result.

The problem is that they are generaly not as effective as you want, and usualy this means that only the users that have an outdated version get banned as a result. But at the same time, it also prevents large platforms from being effective, because the dev themselve can actualy pay for such cheat, make detection for it, and then cause a large scale ban (and this is actualy common to happen).

The main issue starts with rootkit based cheat detection (because a lot of cheats also are rootkits). Rootkits are a security risk by default, a risk that for a cheater is not as bad as for a large company. But at the same time, other rootkits are detectable to exist using a rootkit. And while its hard, when you know how a certain cheat works, you can focus on detecting that cheat. Emulation through a rootkit is difficult, and no company has ever managed to perform this well enough for games, which is why even cheats have this as a weakness).

Thats why its important to take the effort! Even if its not a 100% ban guarantee, just the risk itself makes a lot of people not use it. Even more when reputation matters this can have a heavy impact. This is why your VAC status is shown on steam!

[Klytania]

[...] It is like anti-virus-software. Does it protect you? No. Does it open new security holes into your system? Propably yes.


Cheers

LOOOOOLWut

[Sebazy]

I think you're overlooking just how much of the blame for this lays squarely in SE's hands and always has done.

Remember BCoB turn 5? One of our tanks for prog was on PS3. Twintania's dive-bomb markers routinely wouldn't load in time or at all on the PS3 version and the client latency for EU players back then meant she had absolutely no chance if she just reacted to us moving either. We had to have her on the phone to get the clear because the game client just wasn't up to the job.

There are plenty of more modern if less extreme cases of this to this day where SE's client is just plainly subpar and the explosion of QoL features seen in some of these mods are a result of that. The ridiculously small cooldown counters. Not being able to see buff and debuff durations in the party bar. Being able to save more than 5 way marks total. Shields showing up on your own HP bar as well as the party bars. AST being able to get the Heavensward Card control style back to save on hotkeys. The list goes on and on.

These are things that a game raking in 200 mill+ a year shouldn't be overlooking.

[Thorio]

No matter how perfect a game may be people will always want 3rd party tools. I thought it was common sense.

[Johners]

No matter how perfect a game may be people will always want 3rd party tools. I thought it was common sense.

If plugins were able to everyone, it wouldn't really be a problem because then you'd just end up using them regardless of Square Enix not wanting you to do so. Alternatively they could provide a plugin framework for people to make their QoL UI changes with. The entire discussion also has to factor in texture/model swapping, tools like XIVAlex and the straight botting/cheating that's still present in this game. They added a new PvP mode and within a week people were openly distributing cheats via Discord. It's pretty absurd that you can cheat that easily in the one game mode where cheating becomes the most obvious.

These are things that a game raking in 200 mill+ a year shouldn't be overlooking.

I agree that there's many areas in which the game client entirely is sub-optimal considering the success of the game. Even beyond the UI, there's many technical areas that simply don't have the features they should have such as the terrible anti-aliasing options or the entire PS5 client performing like garbage when you considering the hardware it's running on. Many improvements to be made all around.

[Thorio]

If plugins were able to everyone, it wouldn't really be a problem because then you'd just end up using them regardless of Square Enix not wanting you to do so. Alternatively they could provide a plugin framework for people to make their QoL UI changes with. The entire discussion also has to factor in texture/model swapping, tools like XIVAlex and the straight botting/cheating that's still present in this game. They added a new PvP mode and within a week people were openly distributing cheats via Discord. It's pretty absurd that you can cheat that easily in the one game mode where cheating becomes the most obvious.

Their mistake was enabling the use of plugins in the first place, this was bound to get out of control at some point. Unfortunately the few rotten apples spoil the bunch so either accept and move on or keep crying about it on the forums instead of playing the game.
Ultimately it's your choice.

[Alaray]

I can't think of a Plug-In someone was using that interfered with my own, personal, game experience. I can, however; think of plug-ins that make some encounters possible to do - for the sake of my color blindness - without needing someone to verbally guide my movement.

Which, my point is: who cares if people use plug-ins to make their UI look more readable to them? Why does it matter if someone who has the world's worst ping is using a plug-in to play their character as if it was on 40 ping? Who does it affect for someone to be using Cactbot callouts to help them through a fight? What does it matter if someone has the timeline on their game screen, vs. a second monitor? Why does anyone actually care that some nobody is parsing their dungeon run, when literally no one but that one weirdo actually cares about dungeon performance? Why should we ban a slew of plug-in usage that can actually help people with disabilities play more smoothly? Why should they have to wait for SE to care, when it's pretty clear SE would rather not care for as long as possible? What about people with much more niche disabilities that a company isn't going to provide accessibility options for? Why shouldn't they be allowed to utilize plug-ins that help them gain the same experience from the game as... me?

There's already separate outlines for actual cheating, character automation et al. I'm sorry to say, but I don't see the value in banning everything from the community when there's so many things that genuinely are helpful to people and give them better experiences. If anything, it just hurts the community overall and enables brigading over incredibly stupid, innocuous things.

The predominant pitfall of addons in WoW had to do with raids and PvE experiences being designed around them, which in turn made them feel required to participate in the content past a certain point. SE can just... y'know... not... do that? And continue designing fights as if Cactbot doesn't exist? I don't think that's... a stretch?