The alternative to a blanket ban on any mods in the ToS is the company adding its own API that has the ability to interact with the game client under certain conditions.

I don't think the mod community actually wants this, because:
  • You will be limited only to the API commands allowed by SE
  • You will be required to register your third party app with SE (as a developer) to get access to a token/key system for authentication against the main app
  • Once they add a specific set of API commands then they'll go down 10 times as hard against anyone they find circumventing it
  • They will almost assuredly limit those commands to only allowing read rights to log files or the character list on the Lodestone, or write updates to certain .DAT files for the UI - not any of the character or emote files
  • Update files to other user's systems will most likely be prohibited
  • Access to the encrypted character list will most likely be prohibited