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

[Magikazam]

Viera hats? Doesn't particularly bother me but for Square Enix, it does open an interesting thing to decide, what do you actually do? The same mechanisms that allow Viera hats also allow lewd modders to being their models, textures and even animations into the game (yes this is a thing now) which is something Square Enix have very much been vocally against. Not to mention that they also sell cosmetics in the optional cash store so for the men in suits, there's a business incentive to blocking third-party client-side cosmetic changes.

Bard bots are a similar thing. Aside from the usage of bard bots during Endwalker release to stay logged in which I know a few people that did so they didn't have to queue in the evening once they got home from work, it's just a little tired. Congratulations, you're the thousandth bard that's played Dragonsong using a third party program and it's even more obvious when an entire group of bards turn up with the same name. That said, you also have third-party programs that can play the entire MSQ and we've all see gibberish named sprouts playing the MSQ because it's been botted for years. SE can actually see when you're in performance mode anyway so this is really straightforward to moderate anyway and could still exist after this.

Unless they just implemented an anti-cheat in the nuclear way that auto moderated every detection, it would require Square Enix to make actual moderation policy decisions that they problem need to make at this stage. They're massively on the back foot of being able to manage all this additional functionality that's increasing in quality and quantity everyday. I can appreciate that quality of life changes people enjoy but even in this recent debate, everyone has a different idea of what QoL actually means and in the middle of all this is Square Enix being totally hopefully in moderating any of it regardless of how major or minor it actually is.

So why does it matter that some people use nudes mods? No seriously, they can't force other people to see it so it only affect other people who willingly took said mods... SE are the first game dev I see that actively fight addons and it weird tbh

[Welsper59]

SE are the first game dev I see that actively fight addons and it weird tbh

The only reason they're openly doing so is because this is the loudest community in recent memory to actually largely believe the all encompassing ToS should not be applicable to them. The other communities that do use mods mostly understand what they're doing is against ToS. They just generally realize that it's nearly impossible to get caught for simple things that don't directly interfere with how the game works (e.g. packet sniffing or spoofing). Yoshi-P should, in hindsight, have never given a lengthy answer on the matter many years ago. He should have just always replied with "we don't support them and you use 3rd party programs at your own risk" and be done with it. It wouldn't stop people like me from doing whatever we choose to do. It would however keep a few delusional people from believing mods are okay lol.

[Johners]

The only reason they're openly doing so is because this is the loudest community in recent memory to actually largely believe the all encompassing ToS should not be applicable to them. The other communities that do use mods mostly understand what they're doing is against ToS. They just generally realize that it's nearly impossible to get caught for simple things that don't directly interfere with how the game works (e.g. packet sniffing or spoofing). Yoshi-P should, in hindsight, have never given a lengthy answer on the matter many years ago. He should have just always replied with "we don't support them and you use 3rd party programs at your own risk" and be done with it. It wouldn't stop people like me from doing whatever we choose to do. It would however keep a few delusional people from believing mods are okay lol.

That’s because most of the modding community thinks it’s like modding Skyrim. They genuinely don’t understand, or just choose to ignore, that these level of third-party tools just isn’t something you can have in an online game. Try using a variety of these tools in other games like Valorant, LoL, Fortnite or even WoW (has addons officially but that’s only UI stuff) and you’d get banned.

The key difference is that the vast majority of other online games have client-side protections to stop or detect third-party tools from being used. At the end of the day, online games have to measure everyone to an identical standard via an identical toolkit. That’s everything from random UI elements to boss mechanics and telegraphs (actually a third party tool that adds AoE markers to the hidden mechanics in an ultimate).

Square Enix ultimately made the mistake of implementing an unenforceable terms of service and even when ARR released in 2013, there was already games like WoW that had seen a decade of development in these tools. Yes, UI addons are supported there but there’s also a wide variety of paid cheats that had existed with various ban waves and other approaches to punishments for being caught using them. For a company that researched other games during design phases, they’ve managed to ignore something that’s always been a big debate in that other game many people recently switched from.

[Sebazy]

LOOOOOLWut

I mean they're not wrong, good practices have been more important than your choice (or lack of) anti virus pretty much since internet access became affordable.

That’s because most of the modding community thinks it’s like modding Skyrim. They genuinely don’t understand, or just choose to ignore, that these level of third-party tools just isn’t something you can have in an online game.

Why though? I mean beyond simply 'but muhhh ToSSSSSS'

WoW is an interesting example, that did actually start to get a model editing scene at one stage early on in vanilla if I'm remembering it right. That got stomped hard and fast because people started using it to put huge spikes on player models stopping people from hiding in corners/huts etc in PvP, something that was pretty important given WoW's PvP focus.

FFXIV really doesn't place anything like the same value on the PvP experience as it's client/server tick rate clearly shows. So it's a rather different situation. Model and texture edits are really only a win for SE as it keeps people invested in the game when a content drought might cause them to unsub and head elsewhere. UI stuff is a similar boat, this should be the community designing and beta testing ideas which SE should have been plucking the pick from. Honestly? Even if it's far from being for everyone, the Skyrim stuff is fine as long as people remember to keep it within Fight Club rules.

You have to step all the way up to the bots before things genuinely start getting harmful for the game proper. Below that, it's just being being stupid or toxic.

[Johners]

WoW is an interesting example, that did actually start to get a model editing scene at one stage early on in vanilla if I'm remembering it right. That got stomped hard and fast because people started using it to put huge spikes on player models stopping people from hiding in corners/huts etc in PvP, something that was pretty important given WoW's PvP focus.

FFXIV really doesn't place anything like the same value on the PvP experience as it's client/server tick rate clearly shows. So it's a rather different situation. Model and texture edits are really only a win for SE as it keeps people invested in the game when a content drought might cause them to unsub and head elsewhere. UI stuff is a similar boat, this should be the community designing and beta testing ideas which SE should have been plucking the pick from. Honestly? Even if it's far from being for everyone, the Skyrim stuff is fine as long as people remember to keep it within Fight Club rules.

You have to step all the way up to the bots before things genuinely start getting harmful for the game proper. Below that, it's just being being stupid or toxic.

World of Warcraft has interesting examples of the "grey area" the community talks about in FFXIV. Before they added transmog (glamour) into the game with patch 4.2, there was this third party tool called tmorph. This allowed you to change your character and mount model client-side to others in the game based off of the model ID. Then people started using the same tool to alter the size and model for the flag in Warsong Gulch. It didn't change the hit box but it made it easily visible from the entire map and the call for each entrance/floor to attack when pushing to return your flag became much easier.

The problem with FFXIV modding being under Fight Club rules is that everyone knows and it's not a secret. When you have Limit Max coming into this game from World of Warcraft, asking for a one-for-one replica of his WoW UI on stream in front of 1000s of people, it exposes the entire community to everyone. The same thing happened when Asmongold interviewed a lewd modder on his stream last year, it exposed that entire community to everyone beyond the existing boundaries of the FFXIV community.

WoW is also a really good example, even with officially support UI plugins, of how these tools develop over time and the impact it has on the game. Blizzard have even recognised that a certain level of combat addons go too far but they're not in a position to just flat remove them because it could remove functionality that smaller QoL addons rely on. Combine that with basically no improvements to the stock UI and having to use some addons is pretty much a requirement these days.

Square Enix would be naive and fairly misguided to keep ignoring it at this stage. Even if some of it is "harmless", almost none of it can be moderated.

[Magikazam]

WoW is also a really good example, even with officially support UI plugins, of how these tools develop over time and the impact it has on the game. Blizzard have even recognised that a certain level of combat addons go too far but they're not in a position to just flat remove them because it could remove functionality that smaller QoL addons rely on. Combine that with basically no improvements to the stock UI and having to use some addons is pretty much a requirement these days.

It almost as if you missed the part where they limited what combat addons could show or do after WoD. It not like addons ruined the game and that they can't fix it. Also as a WoW veteran I can't recall the models changing mods you talking about. never seen them out of non-official server so I will call BS on that one.