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

[Rolder50]

You know what? I'm tired of console players holding back the full potential of PC games. It just isn't worth preserving your fragile ego with making everything equally accessible to you. The base game is equally accessible, but apparently that is not enough, even the stuff that can be made and used on PC, a machine that costs 5 times the price of a PS4 for just a decent rig, has to be equally accessible even though that makes no sense. You selfish pleb.

Don't worry, PC will inherently have advantages mods or not. Have you seen people using ultra-wide screens? Expands your field of view so you can see the whole arena, making safe spot mechanics and the like way easier.

[Arkfrost]

God and people wonder why us PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes.

I'd argue that this goes both ways:

- PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes byy console players, because they don't want to be held back by consoles
- Console players are viewed as self-centered assholes by PC playyers, because they want PC players to be held back to the console level

[Droxybrobotnik]

Selfish pleb? You looking into mirror or something? God and people wonder why us PC players are viewed as self-centered assholes.

This really isn't hard to understand. There is the game as it is, and while you don't need anything else to play it just fine, being on PC means you can install user made content for a personalized experience.
And the vast majority of these mods are harmless fluff or assists with incredibly unimportant things, like cactpot. The amount of people who actually uses addons to cheat mechanics is very small.
The "pleb" remark is not for being on console. It's for examplifying the uninformed gamer who is mad he can't have the stuff people on PC does, despite knowing he bought a cheaper and more limited system.
You get called what you are. I'd love if this just died down because nothing has changed at all, just that since some random jp dude got banned for using ACT this is suddenly on the radar, and the collective ignorance of the community comes out.
And it mostly seem to be from the console side.

[Johners]

Snip

This recent situation just highlights several friction points in the global community of this game that reflect cultural norms around modding, the platform choices players have made and even just people's desire to use mods/addons in MMOs full stop. Given that World of Warcraft was a titan in the Western MMO market for so long, there's a big cultural around using third party tools even if we'd prefer not to but this doesn't exist in Japan were a large portion of FFXIV player base was and still is from. Not to mention the platform divide as a cross-platform game which is why many other online games have a strict no third party tools rule for PC players.

The problem is downstream from Square Enix's inability to actually enforce their own terms of service. The vast majority of these tools run client-side and without protection mechanisms in place to detect and moderate what interacts with the game client, they're unable to have an actual moderation stance beyond picking off users that broadcast third party tool usage via Twitch and other social media platforms. The lack of any anti-cheat is astounding when you consider it's norm for online-only games on PC, even those without console versions.

That said, an anti-cheat alone doesn't truly solve the problem as a small portion of tools will always get through any cracks and SE would still need a moderation stance. Riot Games, for example, are very strict and their anti-cheat will either refuse to start the game or kick you from it if anything unusual is detected. As a comparison point, Blizzard typically opt for ban waves in games such as World of Warcraft based on what their anti-cheat detects and the investigations they run internally. Neither approach is right nor wrong and ultimately reflect the genres they're in. Nobody wants an FPS game filled with hackers so just kicking people that seem "sus" is better than having obvious cheaters ruin lobbies. Likewise you wouldn't an anti-cheat throwing a wobbly, potentially, during a raid or Mythic+ dungeon in World of Warcraft so banning after internal investigations works better there.

If you read the statement Square Enix released the other day, it's pretty telling that they're unaware to the extend of third-party tools available to this game. That's also a failing in my opinion because at the very least, if they're not going to correctly enforce a terms of service, they should at least be documenting all the ways it's being broken via the range of plugins available publicly on the internet to better inform their game design choices rather than waiting for outrages like this to occur.

[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.

[SwingLifeAway]

It's going to be hard to convince me. Especially now where I see takes like "Without ACT the high level content we just got would not exist" or "You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down" or "You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT". It didn't seep to lower level content probably thanks to "nothing is obligatory" design of non MSQ content but it's there.

I'm going to address each take individually.

"Without ACT, the high level content we just got would not exist"
This is 100% true, but it doesn't make the usage of ACT mandatory. What it means is that the average skill of the raiding community is increased because of tools like ACT, that allow people to do complex calculations to determine which substats are better, what rotation is most effective, etcetera. Remember that ACT is just a calculator. SE doesn't design the game around callout bots like cactbot, and they never should.

"You need to use ACT to improve so you don't drag others down."
This is a bit of an incomplete statement and comes from people who are very tired of dealing with toxic casuals who just expect to be carried through content without even doing the minimal level of contribution. I'm sure you can sympathize that it feels unfair to buy food, pots, etc for content, only to have someone show up who doesn't even have materia in their gear, but posits that they deserve the clear as much as anyone else. So basically the issue stems when you have a group of people with a misalignment of investment and expectations for the game experience.
If you join a casual static that doesn't use mods, then it's not going to matter. And there are plenty statics like that. But, for example, if you joined a hardcore static that wants to push for week 1 clears - then yes, it would be pretty unfair on them for you to not be analyzing and optimizing your gameplay when the rest of them are. I hope this better explains where this statement comes from.

(1/2) (EDIT: I'm post limited for a bit, I'll post the other bit later)

[Welsper59]

This topic is very disingenuous just based on the notion of looking at it like a "failure". Mods are used and created for personal preference. So unless any video game will allow you to do anything with it, literally anything, mods will always be a thing. Don't like the way a spell looks? Mod it. Don't like the fact graphics may look a little more realistic and prefer a cartoon look to it? Mod it. Want Macho Man to fly around yelling signature quotes? Mod it.

That's not to say that improvements shouldn't happen, but the argument being made by OP is that the very presence of 3rd party tools is a failure of the game. That's just simply not true.

[Ralphe2449]

No, certain addons are created for the sole reason to turn a raid difficulty into easy mode by providing timings and announcement of mechanics.

Those literally go against the design of the game but players want them anyway because it makes the "difficult" high end group encounter easier.

[SwingLifeAway]

"You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT"
If you are solely using the tools the game provides you, and not reading any job guides, then this is just true. But it still doesn't make it mandatory, people can make plenty of mistakes and still clear content. My static is very midcore, I make plenty mistakes, as does everyone else in my group. We're almost done with the tier. Again, as long as you find a group that has the same expectations, nobody is going to expect you to have any addon.

In addition the the above, savage and even ultimate fights can be cleared via the Party Finder in game. Nobody in any PF group has ever asked me if I have mods, or any such thing relating to them. And I have played REALLY badly in some groups, causing wipes in several instances and doing really bad damage. The only person who ever criticized me for those poor performances, was myself, as it should be. So in the end, I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions and allays some of your concerns you might have surrounding the topic, and explains why some of us feel the way we do, and think that people such as Johners are being particularly spiteful. I know that the culture in WoW regarding addons is atrocious - I've been through GearScore, Raider.io, DBM and I genuinely hated it all, but that doesn't mean that XIV cannot be any different. We just have to ensure that toxic behavior using the addons is not allowed, but that doesn't mean the addons themselves are to blame. Chances are someone who would flame you for low DPS will just find any other reason to flame you anyway. They can catch a ban.

(2/2)

[Ralphe2449]

"You won't know you make mistakes and how to fix them without ACT"

If people read their own skills and passives then the "optimal" path is blatantly clear, when I do a mistake it is clear and obvious, I dont need a dps meter to tell me otherwise because the vast majority of mmorpgs have rotations that are very clear and obvious IF you take time to read your own skills and passives.

If you choose to not do that you have nobody else to blame but yourself