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

[Johners]

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.

Accessibility issues are a problem across the entire game industry but some of the options you see in single player games simply can't be applied in a multiplayer game. There's always going to be less accessibility in online games even if there's more Square Enix could always be doing. People mention P3S a lot and from what I can see, it's probably something they tweak to make more accessible and I'm surprised they've not done so already.

Which, my point is: who cares if people use plug-ins to make their UI look more readable to them? Snip for character limit

The problem lies in the game client being an entire free-for-all in terms of third party functions and there's no parity for all supported platforms. I believe macOS has most of the plugins Windows has but PlayStation users are entirely excluded from this. There's a duty upon Square Enix to ensure all players have access to the same game.

More importantly, the third party tool discussion also applies to actual slam dunk cheating. People using automation bots for gathering, people using cheats in PvP, people using plugins to show AoE markers that you otherwise wouldn't see in high-end duties. There's speed and teleport hacks also. We've seen a big rise in the quality and quantity of all these tools in the last year, if left unmoderated it'll only negatively impacts the game more.

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.

Following on from above, it's also entirely unmoderated across the entire player base from Square Enix and as these tools improve, there's an entire chunk of the player base that'll just be at a bigger and bigger disadvantage from not wanting or being able to use them.