At this point will FFXIV collapse if all mods and third party tools disappear?

[Remish]

Mods would never go away because when you burn one bridge down another is rebuilt. Modders would find a new loophole to leak mods back into the game. It may not be as stable and secure, but I've never known a game to actually mod proof themselves forever unless that community simply gave up and did not think it was worth the effort. It's the same vein as when game devs patch out glitches and the speedrun community finds new ones. As long as there is community will, there is a way.

Now for fun theory crafting sakes: This game would experience probably one of the, if not the biggest earthquake it has ever experienced if Mods went away (including Discord though I highly doubt they'd erase third party sites, especially ones that they themselves use). If ACT went away, it'd probably go back to how ARR raids felt where people were judged on their mechanical ability and not their damage. People would stare at the aggro bar like they used to, to think they were doing good DPS. The PF would fill up with static recruitment ads as well as Reddit. I'd imagine Reddit would still be permitted even if Discord was removed. The SQEX team has been known to browse the unofficial Subreddit. The world races would take a serious blow and quite frankly they'd still find ways to "cheat" for lack of a better term. The amount of people that are already fed up with the direction this game is going would quit the game citing that it was the final straw. It'd be very catastrophic. Every social media influencer would be covering this subject and it'd make global news. Linkshells would make a comeback, Free Companies might make a comeback. Fellowships would probably remain dead because without external cites like Discord they still serve no purpose. Venues would come crashing down and struggle to stay afloat. For most purposes, to put it simply, just remember what 1.0 and 2.0 were likely and the community would most likely become a similar environment to that except a bit more ghost townish since we're super spread out. The game would quite literally have its own exodus. Some people might gradually return a few years along the way overtime. But the population would probably significantly drop down to its old ARR/HW population. (Which is more than a 50% decrease). The reason it won't completely plummet is because of loyalists, purists who never modded in the first place. And console players who were unlikely tainted in the first place. The other thing is there is a severe lack of other games to play, so even though the population would drop, there would be some that stick around because there still isn't anything else to play, and removing mods isn't going to magically make another game sound worth picking up.

So I really think the game will do just fine without all the extras mentioned in the OP.

Only maybe the hardcore gamers would suffer without....but then again if hardcore gamers are always looking for "add-ons" to make the game easier are they really "hardcore" ?

Depends on your definition of hardcore. Would you consider speedrunners in other video games as being hardcore? If so, it might surprise you that the speedrun community is plagued with add-ons. Not for their live runs, but to measure game mechanics and discover new ways to break the game. A speedrunner using a modified practice rom isn't much different imo to using ACT. (cooperate legality aside). I'd even argue that it's the hardcore players that make the add-ons in the first place because they know what kind of data they are trying to draw. A true casual would probably never know the difference between Direct Hit and Crit's potencies if a hardcore player didn't research the truth out. Often times, it's the hardcore players that figure out why some additions to the game are actually bad. If we were unable to graph and process data, we'd just live in a world where the devs make changes, tell us it's good for us, and we'd accept it without ever proving them wrong.

[Aword3213]

when half the screenshots posted on X (Twitter) are hardcore porn, some of which includes child NPCs. I guess that also doesn't affect the game, right?

And these kind of images just appear on your twitter feed out of nowehere!!! I wonder why

[Syln]

And these kind of images just appear on your twitter feed out of nowehere!!! I wonder why

Here we have to type of people : Those who will come across a turd on the street and walk around and those who will actively look for said turd, roll in it and complain about the smell

[Payadopa]

Most of what the OP said is a detriment to the game while also conveniently leaving out console players. I guess they don't exist then? lol

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

Modders say the same brain dead crap about literally every game.

[Minifie]

I would love a diagram of the mental gymnastics required to get that response out of the comment I made

I doubt I could make it simple enough that'd help you out, I'm afraid.

[Supersnow845]

I doubt I could make it simple enough that'd help you out, I'm afraid.

Implying you had to do some seriously complex gymnastics to achieve a totally different point than what I made

Thank you for the clarification

[WickedSensei]

I would say that it's because they're so hardcore that they end up looking for add-ons that make things more comfortable for them.
A true casual wouldn't give a damn, because what do they care if they can't see or do something that they should probably see? They'll hopefully do or see it anyway, eventually.

I've personally never cared if people use them or not as you said, it doesn't affect me mostly.

My comment was mostly in response to the "the game would die without add-ons, as most people use them"

I wish the game had in game voice chat though as I would do Savage and harder content more often but as of now when I've tried I've been forced to download discord to participate.

I have heard that WOW got to a point where you can't do most content without third-party tools I don't really want FF to get to that point.

But I'd adjust either way.

[Kes13a]

I have heard that WOW got to a point where you can't do most content without third-party tools I don't really want FF to get to that point.

WoW was at that point almost from the start. this was not for raiding or anything but to make the UI usable. could you play without them? kinda, but it was more agonizing even for just being casual about it. thats what made this game much nicer to play, because mods are not a necessity to play

here, I only know of a handful of people that use mods. their screenshots that they think are of course wonderful, I dont feel enhance the game at all (in some cases downright hideous) but everyone has a different taste I imagine.

[MistakeNot]

What kind of people are playing the game long-term?

How many people use ReShade? How many people use mods? We can now say that a significant portion of this game's playerbase are only here because of the mods, which allow them to fix the game's issues, like Viera hats, or for more, shall we say, mature activities. And what about more advanced mods that synchronize your modded appearance? Or poses that depict characters in... suggestive poses with others?

What about raiders? What even drives people to do reclear after reclear once they get BiS? FFLogs and going for high percentiles. And most of the game's clunky systems and opaque mechanics like the damage formula could not have been figured out without the aid of third party tools. The openers and rotations that you copied from the Balance are partially the product of ToS-violating third party tools.

Even many non-raiders depend on ToS-violating third party tools to fix this game's atrocious systems, such as being able to double-weave without clipping, or to be able to block out a persistent stalker completely from the screen.

Even third party tools that are not ToS-violating:

Crafters and gatherers depend on having Teamcraft and simulators to create rotations and macros + set up crafting lists, then share their macros through Discord.

BA and DRS depend on Discord to coordinate runs. Even Savage and Ultimate depend a lot on Discord especially if you want to get an early clear.

Achievement hunters compete on leaderboards like lalachievements.

I ask you: If all these fixes and features that the community developed disappear, with not one iota of help from the game developers, will the game even survive? To who do we owe our gratitude really? The community creators or the actual devs?

The game did quite well before any mods had been developed.
Everyone who plays on a console - and they are a significant chunk of the players - manage just fine without being able to use any mods.

Should all mods somehow cease functioning all at once - which is unlikely in the extreme to ever happen - then I am sure there would be a noticable drop in players, but I am also sure the game would survive handily.