My Proposal on Recent Drama

[Cach]

The thing is, Square's statement is basically "that sounds too hard and looks like a big headache, I ain't doing it".
Considering they won't hire two extra guys to help with class balance or saddle a couple of interns to adjust some hats, I believe them.

The only smart response is to turn around and just use stuff at your own discretion, including streamers and shills.
But hardline anti-mod people and trolls finally have an angle of attack and won't let go.

Interesting times ahead.

[Nethereal]

Telling SE to hire people for a non-issue while they refuse to hire people for actual issues the game has suffered from for years.

This will go well.

[Theodric]

Telling SE to hire people for a non-issue while they refuse to hire people for actual issues the game has suffered from for years.

This will go well.

How is it a 'non-issue' when we've seen an established trend for the development team to change and add things in order to increase the number of quality of life features that players have access to?

I say this as someone who loathes the use of mods. I don't blame people for making use of them, I simply think they make a lot of people far too complacent. As someone who argued endlessly for more customisation features for player characters over the years - particularly for male characters - it rubbed me the wrong way when players who heavily modded their character tried to tell me to do the same or proposed that resources didn't need to be used because mods solved the problems I had with the lack of short, masculine hairstyles and muscle definition.

I know we're now getting an update to the quality of player character models, of course - but my example still holds weight, I hope.

There's also arguably a responsibility for companies to be flexible enough to adapt to consumer trends. They certainly don't appear to have any issue doing it when it comes to certain other angles...

[Banggugyangu]

To those who are trying to argue if 3rd party tools are right or wrong, or if they should it shouldn't be used, I already said this thread is not about that. There are plenty of other threads in which you can debate that all day long.

Long story short, right now, we have a problem. The problem is that 3rd party tools use has been publicly rampant for a short while, and the blatant use of a few of them has forced the Devs' hands. There are only 3 possible solutions to this problem:

1: Double down on the no 3rd party tools stance and bring a heavy, but fair hand down upon everyone who uses them. I see this as the wrong approach as it will alienate a large portion of the player base. This is also coupled with the fact that the game is lacking in certain aspects when it comes to usability. This stance would stagnate growth of the game's maturity from a design stance.

2: Sanction 3rd party tools usage and stop worrying about it. I see this as an equally wrong approach, as it would lead to a bad situation all around. I don't need to mention examples for people to know what I'm talking about.

3: A progressive approach along the lines that I outlined above. This allows SE to evolve the game's engines using the mod devs as inspiration. Many of those devs aren't looking for financial reward, fame, or even recognition. Many just want to improve the game. Alongside that, it allows SE the ability to then bring an extremely firm hand against the exploitative mods with much less chance of community backlash. They then have the ability to say "we already go this far for you guys... Cheating is not going to be tolerated under any circumstances" with no chance for any valid argument from the opposition. These are the reasons I made my proposal. I see it as the best path forward for the game on multiple aspects.

[kpxmanifesto]

3: A progressive approach along the lines that I outlined above. This allows SE to evolve the game's engines using the mod devs as inspiration. Many of those devs aren't looking for financial reward, fame, or even recognition. Many just want to improve the game. Alongside that, it allows SE the ability to then bring an extremely firm hand against the exploitative mods with much less chance of community backlash. They then have the ability to say "we already go this far for you guys... Cheating is not going to be tolerated under any circumstances" with no chance for any valid argument from the opposition. These are the reasons I made my proposal. I see it as the best path forward for the game on multiple aspects.

It should be this, the middle-ground, imo. To go to the extremes and completely allow or deny mods would be silly, but if SE approved certain mods or created their own that would be a fair compromise.

[Eraden]

Forgive me for asking but after seeing nearly three full pages of various threads about addons, I have to ask: Is this really that much of a big deal? I mean I am serious here. I want to know if this is really important. I don't use addons myself but I also don't do the really high end content. Are these addons really important for clearing high end content? Is it possible to clear high end content without them? If the answers to these last two questions are yes and no, respectively, then perhaps the high end content has been tuned too high?

[Rolder50]

Forgive me for asking but after seeing nearly three full pages of various threads about addons, I have to ask: Is this really that much of a big deal? I mean I am serious here. I want to know if this is really important. I don't use addons myself but I also don't do the really high end content. Are these addons really important for clearing high end content? Is it possible to clear high end content without them? If the answers to these last two questions are yes and no, respectively, then perhaps the high end content has been tuned too high?

Addons are not needed for high end content.

Very few people use any addons that actually make it easier. Many use QoL and parsing addons, however. The main QoL plugin has 795k downloads.

Some people are mad about the world first race but fail to realize that the addons that do make it easier, need to be programmed first to know what the strat for the fight is. Therefore, they cannot be used for world first.

Really this whole bout of drama isn't that big a deal since all they did was ban a few streamers (for 10 days) who were being super blatant about it. Now if they start trying to implement an anti-cheat or going after your average joe, then it'll be a big deal.

[LittleImp]

Some people are mad about the world first race but fail to realize that the addons that do make it easier, need to be programmed first to know what the strat for the fight is. Therefore, they cannot be used for world first.

The world's first clear did have automated callouts in it.

All they need to do is see the mechanic a single time, and then make the network log available to their 9th/10th man and have them extract ability IDs to configure triggers with. Cactbot takes time to update because it's 1.) often programmed by people who don't do the fight and rely on consulting people who do and 2.) uses more complex methods to read and solve compound mechanics.

Forgive me for asking but after seeing nearly three full pages of various threads about addons, I have to ask: Is this really that much of a big deal? I mean I am serious here. I want to know if this is really important. I don't use addons myself but I also don't do the really high end content. Are these addons really important for clearing high end content? Is it possible to clear high end content without them? If the answers to these last two questions are yes and no, respectively, then perhaps the high end content has been tuned too high?

It's unlikely that DSR would exist today in its current form had ACT never existed, but that doesn't mean the content requires addons. It's possible to benefit from the culture / knowledge that exists because of addons without directly using them yourself. Simply put, the game never would have been pushed to the extremes that it has if people couldn't measure and analyze stuff.

[kpxmanifesto]

The world's first clear did have automated callouts in it.

All they need to do is see the mechanic a single time, and then make the network log available to their 9th/10th man and have them extract ability IDs to configure triggers with. Cactbot takes time to update because it's 1.) often programmed by people who don't do the fight and rely on consulting people who do and 2.) uses more complex methods to read and solve compound mechanics.

That's pretty disappointing to be honest. I'd say that's a pretty cut and dry case of cheating. No bueno.

[Kisshu]

Problem is that if SE made a list of allowed 3rd party tools, it's never ending work. The tools aren't static, they're constantly being updated and each update would mean that SE has to spend time re-checking it to ensure that it is ok. And then you could get the cases of someone taking an allowed mod and further adding functions to it like call-outs and then claim they are using an allowed mod.