Best part of a new patch? Third party tools not working.

[Wildsprite]

FFXIV is an add-on game now. It took us nine years to get where WoW is, but we finally did it. Many people in this thread are grateful and happy for our plugins. They use them for the same reason WoW players do: QoL and to add new features that take the company a while to do.

Being the “add-on free game” has always been a bragging point for us. “We don’t need add-ons!” we used to tell ourselves. But then we did. And so the gap between FFXIV and WoW has closed. One less argument we have in our favor.

If anything, the games have become outright reversed from where they were two years ago. WoW is easier for new players to grasp thanks to Dragonflight, and WoW players don’t need a smorgasbord of third-party programs running. All plugins are QoL only (graphics mods aren’t allowed), and they all run in-line. FFXIV uses several third-party programs including ACT, Cactpot, Dalamud, and xivlauncher. Their plugins are small and modular, while ours are these behemoths running on spaghetti code and require numerous executables running in the background. And we say this is less add-on intrusion than WoW.

And that’s not to mention the massive growth in popularity that graphics mods have seen in the past year. Even if you don’t use them, you likely know someone who does. And they’re not just client-side: with Mare, you can share your mods with others. Ever see someone with “Mare Lamentorium” in their adventure plates? Yep. And if you think it can’t possibly affect you, try getting into a screenshot contest or do roleplaying without it. The community has changed and it’s not going back. And you’re okay with it.

This is the ideal FFXIV character. You may not like it, but this is peak performance.

holy crap such nonsense. this isn't the ideal character for FFXIV. this looks like something you would find in IMVU(a large cesspool of people constantly trying to break rules so they can have cyber seggs) I hope I never ever see this mod it's awful

hate to burst your bubble but the vast majority of 3rd party tools were back up and running within 2 hours after patch, and private tools were back in 1 hour, dalamud takes longer though if that's what your getting at and the reaction library gets updated after a day and after world 1st for major raids

also, if you used a monitor or keyboard or even a game pad then you used a 3rd party tool ;P

never heard it put that way before but yeah true