3rd Party Program might as well be legalized

[Midareyukki]

There isn't a grey zone

There is a gray area, he himself pointed it out. Specifically using some forms of shaders and how you apply ACT to your experience. It's just not what people think, it's not him endorsing or turning a blind eye.

He pointed out that it's best to still maintain a "don't ask, don't tell" policy over them and that people caught will, obviously, be punished. He understood that ACT had its benefits for the raiding scene, but in no way did he endorse them. He just said "I can't stop you from using them, but just don't be dumb and use them for nefarious purposes that will get you banned". That was the gray area he put up: "If you use them, keep it to yourself".

...naturally, people can't keep it to themselves. And that's why repercussions on streamers exists: because they keep acting like they can stream with them on under the guise of "Oh, I'm raiding, I'm not doing anything wrong".

As for shaders, unlike the obvious stuff where mods modify the game files themselves, shaders can just be seen as something that SE didn't put into the game, so it can trick people into thinking that the game really looks like that. Generally what people who take screenshots with shaders do is edit out the copyright line so it doesn't get mistaken for an official piece of the game.

However, even though all this is more or less correct (I'm also no authority on this), it is true that people using and talking about specific kinds of add-ons led to the game implementing them in their own way and reconsider game design. Which on that note, I am all for.

I'd like mechanics to be a bit more recognizable when you have to distinguish them from other markers and from terrain.
I'd like certain parts of the gameplay to be made more visible. I've made a suggestion thread on the UI forums to make the yellow markers for gathering and crafting another colour because they clash really hard with the yellow-tinged map.
I'd like waymarks to have a different font, because that font isn't intuitive to me. And unfortunately, I have a bit of a hard time telling C/3 apart from D/4's colours, one just happens to be lighter than the other.
I'd also like more support for other languages or allowing subtitles for people whose native language isn't EN/DE/FR/JP, such as Spanish or Portuguese.
And much more that is currently available with 3rd party tools, but is otherwise unfortunately invalidated by virtue of being illegal.

Yoshida says to not have a witch hunt because he likely doesn't want to be overwhelmed with minor-case reports, and some instruments are more about QoL for people with problems than people actively trying to get an advantage. Hence the idea of the "gray area": he just doesn't want to care about add-ons that don't have a big impact.

But until those get properly implemented and worked on in FF14 (we do have colourblind mode, it doesn't always work because it's oddly rudimentary and just mutes out colours rather than address the problem of making things distinguishable like we can with changing Friends/FC/NPC name plates)... yeah, it's always going to be a tug-o-war.

[DixieBellOCE]

Title says it all. Latest Ultimate fiasco, we all know everyone uses it, it just so happens that the world first got caught. And considering the effort they pour into clearing, I still respect them.

But this?


The video

shorturl.at/gPS15

This is just pure laziness and against the spirit of actually playing the game. Crafters are one of the easiest job to level already. Doing this is just.. I don't know how to describe it anymore, and moreover doing it in the public where everyone, including new players, can see, send the wrong message. I reported by the way, once per day for nearly a week. She's still there. If this gives you more context, this is happening in Kujata

Just legalize it already, you're fighting a losing battle.

People have been using this since heavensward and square enix have done nothing to stop it.

I had a falling out with one of my old FC's on Tonberry because the FC leader would 24/7 autocraft in his locked FC room then brag about how rich he was.

Absolutely pathetic way to play the game, he was just botting.

[Reinha]

People have been using this since heavensward and square enix have done nothing to stop it.

I had a falling out with one of my old FC's on Tonberry because the FC leader would 24/7 autocraft in his locked FC room then brag about how rich he was.

Absolutely pathetic way to play the game, he was just botting.

It's taken out the fun I had with crafting. They use a bot program to gather while they sleep, another program to craft while they work and probably another one to undercut every second during the evening prime time. There is no way for me to compete with that unless I started using bots myself. I made a couple of the new skirts to sell when the mats cost 1 million and after being auto-undercut for two weeks I was now selling for an 80% loss and just crashed the market to get rid of the items before it became a 100% loss.

And people will defend this because they get cheap items. I have no respect for the player base anymore because half of them are cheaters and the other half supports cheating, and yet they act holier than thou when it comes to things they dislike.

[SieyaM]

ACT as I understand it's use here is mostly just a data aggregator. It is just taking data that is readily given to you through the battle log and putting it in a format that is useful for players, ACT does not need to do anything special to obtain this data, just read the battle log. Some of the add-ons used by the TOP team seem to be giving AOE markers for mechanics that are not supposed to have them and marking AOEs before the game itself does, giving them distinct advantages over how it was supposed to be experienced. And I understand his sentiment, if teams are going to keep finding ways to make this content easier then why bother continuing to spend time and effort designing it?

[Payadopa]

There's no way the TC isn't joking here... right?
Macro's aren't cheats or botting guys, macro's are literally in the game.

Either way, there may be several plugin features that should be in the game, but allowing all third party tools is absolutely a no from me.
The game is supposed to be equally playable between PC and console. PC can 'get away' with a lot of things that are just QoL improvements (should be in the game) or just cosmetic (technically not hurting anyone) but when it provides an advantage, it goes against the spirit of equal presentation between PC and console.

That's how I see it. But there is always someone pushing the envelope or making ridiculous statements like now we need to ban Discord.