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

[Johners]

Asmongold interviews a plugin developer on his stream yesterday and has since uploaded that section of the stream to YouTube. The developer was full of some incredibly bad takes and even the title of the video was a misrepresentation of the situation (although some of that is down to playing the YouTube algorithm) You can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVqCl7o-ANY

1. The title says "His Addons Are ILLEGAL Now" but they were already against the terms of service, nothing has changed here. This will ultimately misinform some players who don't know as much about the situation.
2. The developer seems to imply the WoW exodus was a problem but that's a little dishonest. The plugin problem was already there, it was just easier to hide in a smaller player base and not the fault of the WoW boogeyman.
3. The dev implies the game is starting to get too hard to clear without some of these plugins meanwhile there's an entire player base that clears, on all platforms, without any plugins at all.
4. The dev also implies that Square Enix are lying when they say the savage/ultimate content is cleared internally during testing before it's released. That's a spicy take considering Yoshi-P himself plays and clears content plus I'd imagine the wider dev team is also doing this if they've constantly been releasing this content without any public test realms like World of Warcraft.
5. Points a finger at plugin users who use cosmetic mods or the tools that make housing glitches easier to execute but dislike combat mods such as ACT or Cactbot. Pretty unnecessary to mention when all these tools break the terms of service equally.
6. Compares developing mods for FFXIV to developing mods for games like Minecraft and Terraria while also stating it's a strength of PC gaming. Probably the dumbest take of this interview as FF14 is not like Minecraft or Terraria and it's not a PC-only game either. The consequences of modding is completely different in a cross-platform, always online game than it is for people modding Minecraft on their own servers they have to host themselves.

The last time Asmongold interviewed a plugin developer, albeit that time it was for lewd content, it only ended up making that portion of the community look bad. Imagine putting a plugin developer on one of the biggest streams in the world and having them play victim the entire time despite openly breaking the terms of service.

[SwingLifeAway]

Imagine putting a plugin developer on one of the biggest streams in the world and having them play victim the entire time despite openly breaking the terms of service.

Imagine making a thread on the forums to crab around and whine about how Square should negatively impact the game experience of people who do content you've never even touched.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

A few responses:

1) Agreed.

2) I think trying to tie this situation to WoW is the wrong take. IMHO it's much more like the Windower situation that FFXI faced where the QoL improvements on offer were just impossible to ignore and it only ever improved whereas the official client just sat around being stagnant and stuck in the past. Windower certainly had plenty of shady things of it's own on offer, but it's core functionality was a revelation. It ballooned into what it eventually became because SE tried to ignore what it bought to the table.

3) Eeehhhhh, this is a point with no correct answer that everyone will be happy with. Would console players be playing at the same level without strats and optimisations derived from data harvested in the PC client? Would console players be able to go into an Ultimate blind and clear it without external tools such as fftoolbox, existing guides, YouTube videos, externally captured video for analysis etc? I highly doubt it would happen in any kind of sensible timeframe.

4) He's not wrong but Yoshida's not outright lying either, as ever the real story is somewhere in the middle. Gordias forced Yoshida to give some insight on their internal processes, what went wrong with that tier in particular (Testing phase by phase with cooldowns being reset basically) and what they planned to change to fix it (Test fights in their entirety, rather than phase by phase). In short, I don't think Yoshida is outright lying claiming that it's cleared internally, but as an ex Bullfrog/EA developer, I know exactly how QA works at these sorts of large studios and they are absolutely not getting QA teams that are capable of clearing something like DSR in the manner that a top fight raid team does. They will work their way through it to make sure things work sure, but they won't be doing it in the same manner as we do, they'll have various degrees of inflated ilvl or outright godmode to do so.

5) I mean he's not wrong. These mods really should be part of the discussion to emphasise how important it is that SE makes the right judgement call at the end of all of this. Actively pursuing all of these mods and such by the way of anti cheat and/or file checks would be devastating to all areas of this games community.

6) FF14 isn't like Minecraft or Terraria because the developers don't have the initiative to allow their own player base to help improve their own game for them. I don't think it's a dumb take at all. Sure there's stuff that crosses the line and takes things way too far, but completely ignoring the good because of the bad is self defeating.

[Grebeny]

2) IMHO it's much more like the Windower situation that FFXI faced where the QoL improvements on offer were just impossible to ignore and it only ever improved whereas the official client just sat around being stagnant and stuck in the past.

They banned very specific players from groups where everyone were using addons. They players that were banned had information not provited to the player intentionally even if it was UI, it was not QoL change. FFXIV devs were very responsive in the past about changes, but now people just download addons and never actually ask for changes. Lets not hide straight up cheating behind "QoL", otherwise we will not take any QoL updates in FF.

3) Eeehhhhh, this is a point with no correct answer that everyone will be happy with. Would console players be playing at the same level without strats and optimisations derived...

I played most of the content blind without external tools, cleaning it, absolutely YES, not that fast absolutely why using tools is called "cheating". I will go to the main arguments for console really fast:
Capture video (consoles can capture video, on ps4, you can start video at any time. On ps5 you don't even need to start a video, you can just click to show you last 30 minutes, I am personally using this feature during high end blind runs).
Can't find out if physical/magical - this is myth that came up from streamers with addons. I personally use Log 4 with only "actions initiated by engaged enemies". Boss casts mean magical, boss readies/uses means physical. Most of the times you can recognize that by the visual feedback of the attack or testing too, but I feel like log is pretty comfortable.
And lastely, the best ninja rotation of the Shadowbringers expansion didn't came from FFlogs optimization, but from a youtuber who used dummy and Stone, Sky, Sea calculator +controller, yes controller.
And no, youtube is not third party tool. Yet I already told you, yes we complete blind runs without any issues. I personally play on both PC and PS5, depends on my mood or where I am, if you understand the game it is equally playable on both (only annoying thing is I need external device for discord while on Ps5 because I don't gather group exclusively on PS to use their voice program).

I know exactly how QA works at these sorts of large studios...

I am working in the game industry from almost 10 years now, not only I don't know how testing works in all big companies, I can't tell you how it works even for all of the games in the company I work in. There are projects with "balance dev test team" that have nothing to do with QA, because they are working exclusively in the studio and their job is to push the limits of content. In FF we know from years Yoshi P have his dev group that are some the best players in the world, not only in Square. The argument "I worked and I know all about it" is so ilogical.

[Sebazy]

They banned very specific players from groups where everyone were using addons. They players that were banned had information not provited to the player intentionally even if it was UI, it was not QoL change. FFXIV devs were very responsive in the past about changes, but now people just download addons and never actually ask for changes. Lets not hide straight up cheating behind "QoL", otherwise we will not take any QoL updates in FF.

Put the narrative koolaid down and back away because it's clouding your judgement it seems.

They banned very specific players because those were the players that got mass reported. Lets not forget what started all of this, it wasn't a sudden crusade because Yoshida got out of the wrong side of his bed that morning. It was a crusade set in motion by angry little forum kiddies who decided to set up lynch mobs because that's what they do. Go find some PoVs of Bagelgoose, there should be plenty since his group was actually leading on day one of DSR prog and they got a ton of exposure for it.

If you still don't believe me? Note the timing in which all of these bans started. Right after Neverland (Whoops) beat TPS to the clear. Before that? You had plenty of streams and povs that were far worse than anything seen on Bagelgoose's stream and nothing was being said.

People just need to stop being salty little crybabies because their favourite team got dethroned. And yes, that goes to both sides of the fence here.

I played most of the content blind without external tools, cleaning it, absolutely YES, not that fast absolutely why using tools is called "cheating". I will go to the main arguments for console really fast:

Cool, now go back to E8S, use your PS4 video clip to try and analyse what went wrong with a mechanic like Lights Rampant. It's figureable with video for sure, but you need frame by frame playback to find the first failure on mechanics like that. PS4 playback just isn't viable in cases like these.

I've got nothing against controller input and there's good reason why some people use it on PC. I don't think it's optimal but it's certainly not a hindrance either, not really sure how that's relevant here.

I am working in the game industry from almost 10 years now, not only I don't know how testing works in all big companies, I can't tell you how it works even for all of the games in the company I work in. There are projects with "balance dev test team" that have nothing to do with QA, because they are working exclusively in the studio and their job is to push the limits of content. In FF we know from years Yoshi P have his dev group that are some the best players in the world, not only in Square. The argument "I worked and I know all about it" is so ilogical.

I know because at the EA Chertsey building we actually had our QA team located on the ground floor of our office and at least every other person in there had aspirations of moving upstairs to the development floor at some stage. Given that Chertsey was a ghost town and the building was in the middle of a glorified M25 industrial estate, developers, office staff and testers alike all ended up mingling in the same areas so we all had a pretty good idea of what everyone was up to. Large scale QA has been an established standard for a long time and outside of the impact of covid. Nothing has really changed. You have a large shared pool of testers which will get tickets for various projects assigned amongst them. FFXIV won't have it's own unique sizeable pool of veteran QA testers FYI, that's not realistic (Due to poor retention in the profession) nor is it efficient (Because you want to vary the eyes on the project to maximise the number of bugs spotted within a timeframe).

Your comment about Yoshi's dev group being some of the best players in the world is particularly far off the mark btw.

- For the last 5 years checks on balance for dungeons have been done by the same team members. The tank is a casual player, the DPS is Yoshida himself as a serious player, the other DPS is project manager M-chan, the healer is a player with experience as far as the Extreme Primal fights, but everyone ended up becoming more skilled than before. Recently the job distribution has been changed up, the healer became too good so a replacement was requested.

Do I know all about it? No. But I know enough to form some opinions and theories that both hold water given Yoshida's comments in the past and make sense in the scale of the team.

[SaltyDaddy]

...

I dont think you are speaking full truth. Did you really cleared these fight you are reffering to? Because Im not so sure about you speaking truth. We all know clearing content on console is no problem. There is no point in lying that you are the example, when not.

Also, stop thinking that Yoshida is some meta gamer. He is a busy old man managing two big projects. The only thing we know about him is he loved old hard MMOs and few old parses. Do you seriously think, he have so much time to min max his gameplay and clearing ultimate blind like WFR group? Naaah. He would love that, truth. But he doesnt have that much time for this effort. Any of the top FF14 statics that were in WFR are much better than internal testing team. Or do you think gamers, who are that good would not like to join the race, instead of just testing the fight?

[Johners]

I dont think you are speaking full truth. Did you really cleared these fight you are reffering to? Because Im not so sure about you speaking truth. We all know clearing content on console is no problem. There is no point in lying that you are the example, when not.

Also, stop thinking that Yoshida is some meta gamer. He is a busy old man managing two big projects. The only thing we know about him is he loved old hard MMOs and few old parses. Do you seriously think, he have so much time to min max his gameplay and clearing ultimate blind like WFR group? Naaah. He would love that, truth. But he doesnt have that much time for this effort. Any of the top FF14 statics that were in WFR are much better than internal testing team. Or do you think gamers, who are that good would not like to join the race, instead of just testing the fight?

The telling thing is that fights are cleared without balance changes. World of Warcraft, in comparison, has a public test realm that the majority of new bosses get raid tested on and some are still buggy or unbalanced when they hit live servers. Not to mention much hot fixing and nerfing from Blizzard over the lifespan of a raid tier. Square Enix do a much better job of just releasing a savage tier or ultimate and having it playable while also being a surprise to everyone.

Yosih-P works at a level in which a lot of his role will be oversight and delegation anyway, it's not like he's personally making and testing everything, that would be truly insane. I'd imagine the vast majority of raid design and development is entirely removed from him and it just launches in a balanced state.

[SaltyDaddy]

The telling thing is that fights are cleared without balance changes. World of Warcraft, in comparison, has a public test realm that the majority of new bosses get raid tested on and some are still buggy or unbalanced when they hit live servers. Not to mention much hot fixing and nerfing from Blizzard over the lifespan of a raid tier. Square Enix do a much better job of just releasing a savage tier or ultimate and having it playable while also being a surprise to everyone.

Yosih-P works at a level in which a lot of his role will be oversight and delegation anyway, it's not like he's personally making and testing everything, that would be truly insane. I'd imagine the vast majority of raid design and development is entirely removed from him and it just launches in a balanced state.

Why are you taking back WoW. Do you have some WoW hate boner? We all are completly fine how fights are balanced and clearable. But we dont need to say "WoW have it worse" in every thread. That wasnt the purpose of this thread.

But I agree on second part. He is a director. He have small look at every new feature in the game. But he doesnt have time to be raid tester. That is foolish to think.

[SaltyDaddy]

Asmongold interviews a plugin developer

1. Its true, but everyone, even Yoshida was taking it as a grey zone. We didnt knew about many bans before. And 10 DAYS (Again, 10 days out of nowhere during a prog) ban is devastating for the team.

2. WoW players played many years with same GUI. Making GUI in FF14 looking more what they were used to for 15 years helps them a lot. You dont even know.

3. I dont know where do you hear that. Rewatch the video again.

4. He didnt said SE is lying. He said duty testing is way different than blind prog from the start and you cant deny that. Or do you seriously think Yoshida cleared this ultimate blind with their internal team? Oh cmon. You are naive.

5. Housing plugin is not allowed. You need to inject it yourself. Because thats automatic glitching = cheating. Official plugin devs do not offer any way of automatization.

6. Im rly not sure who do you call a dumb here. Is it a person, who enjoys freedom of PC and want to use it, or person, who will always cry about PS limitation. Why dont you go to be mad at sony forum. This is not funny anymore. This is just consolist salt.