Integrity matters

[TheOperator3712]

Nothing in this game matters – not individual skill level and certainly not any achievements

Does any video game actually matter? I mean really stop and think about it, do they? And to the degree do that they matter, how and why do they matter?

Achievements don’t mean anything

They never did? Especially other people's achievements for that matter.

Nobody looks at an Ultimate title or Savage weapon and think “wow, they’re good”, they wonder which plugins they used.

Actually I think "Visa or PayPal?"

but there are far more bots than legitimate players in Cosmic Exploration (which is just a levequest simulator).

Citation needed.

PVP

Not everyone that beats you is a cheater, and anti-cheat software won't help. Human moderation with AI assistance that actually acts in a timely fashion would be useful though.

Game design incentivizes automation

Agreed, they should really fix that.

Market boards across every server are run by crafting and market-sniping bots that undercut legitimate players. Automated “bot trains” farm FATEs, gathering nodes or warp between hunt marks without fear

Citation needed.

What started years ago as innocent user interface tweaks has metastasized like a cancer into what we all refer to as “modbeasting”

I fail to see the connection between UI modding and modbeasting, unless of course you mean to say that *all* people are morally contemptible perverts who are unable to stop themselves from hypersexualizing something the second it becomes possible to do so. Which, would certainly be one of the takes of all time.

Moderation is a joke

I *HATE* the GMs and post-ShB ToS in this game with a burning passion. Regardless of that, conflating them with the STF or conflating the GM/ToS situation with these other topics isn't helpful to anyone.

I want the game to be designed better,

Agreed.

I want anti-cheat implemented,

You want an endless arms race that consumes a ton of money that could otherwise be spent on making the game more fun? What an odd thing to say.

I want our level of skill to be rewarded and for our achievements to mean something.

Mean something to whom? I'm never going to care about your achievements. Nor will 3/4 of the playerbase. You might find Richard A. Bartle's "Players Who Suit MUDs" a worthwhile read on this topic (available here: https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ). The TL;DR is that there are four types of players in online games, and three of the four just don't care and never will.

[ZephyrMenodora]

As someone who never looked up what achievements people had or care how ugly they mod their characters on their own screens, I'm surprised this thread is so popular.

The joy of being casual and not needing to spend energy caring about these things.

[Kup]

I don't really understand why so many people have the opinion of "I don't really care so it's not an issue" or "It doesn't harm anyone so it's fine" or a particularly strange one here "it's not as bad as you think, barely anyone does it" like that makes it okay?

If you don't care about other peoples achievements or how they obtain them, good for you. Many people do. They don't want to work hard for something only to see someone zoom ahead and achieve the same and more because they cheated to get there. How can this be hard to understand when there's more than enough of that IRL and most of us don't like it and wish we could stop it.

With how often topics like this get discussed, it is quite clear that a lot of people do value their in game time and achievements and believe in and value integrity of gameplay. It's very clear that this game means a lot to a lot of people and they don't want to see it deteriorate more and more over time which is exactly what has and will continue to happen when people shrug and say "it's no big deal" and "i don't care, why do you?" or whatever other excuse or apathetic attitude they may voice.

The game has a lot of issues both on the side of the developers and on the side of the community and it does no benefit to anyone to ignore or deny it. And certainly we shouldn't be tolerating cheating at all and should be expecting and demanding the developers do as much as they can to stop it.

[CCheshire]

Typically, achievements in MMO are very pointless, but it only matters if you personally value them and other achievement hunters so if finding 2b worth of fate carrots for the title is important, then go for it since it doesn't hurt me at all.

Also, I've played various MMO and online games which have anti-cheat, and they are still overrun by bots, cheaters, RMT, and they specifically were told that it would reduce cheating but not really in the end. Then, if SE nuked all the mod sites tonight, then you will wake up tomorrow with the same bots in all zones who will carry on like nothing happened because botting is already illegal and they slap players with a perma-ban if reported.

The same exp for those who buy content like Ults like you can go into the game and create a PF asking for Mercs to pay them in gil for the loot and this is totally fine. The main exp for me is progging or practicing to clear content, but if others don't care for it, then they can do anything else in-game, and the raider's audience is smaller than casual players for ages too.

Finally, if you see anyone botting/RMT/breaking TOS, then report them otherwise what else can you do about it? If you asked for SE to increase their task force or to ban more botters than I can see it being reasonable vs thinking I think everyone should play XYZ because of "integrity" which doesn't make sense in a game of all things.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I don't really understand why so many people have the opinion of "I don't really care so it's not an issue" or "It doesn't harm anyone so it's fine" or a particularly strange one here "it's not as bad as you think, barely anyone does it" like that makes it okay?

If you don't care about other peoples achievements or how they obtain them, good for you. Many people do. They don't want to work hard for something only to see someone zoom ahead and achieve the same and more because they cheated to get there. How can this be hard to understand when there's more than enough of that IRL and most of us don't like it and wish we could stop it.

With how often topics like this get discussed, it is quite clear that a lot of people do value their in game time and achievements and believe in and value integrity of gameplay. It's very clear that this game means a lot to a lot of people and they don't want to see it deteriorate more and more over time which is exactly what has and will continue to happen when people shrug and say "it's no big deal" and "i don't care, why do you?" or whatever other excuse or apathetic attitude they may voice.

The game has a lot of issues both on the side of the developers and on the side of the community and it does no benefit to anyone to ignore or deny it. And certainly we shouldn't be tolerating cheating at all and should be expecting and demanding the developers do as much as they can to stop it.

What's so hard to understand? I have more important stuff going on in my life. I never cared about achievements in any game - lots of them are artificial time wasters rather than accomplishments in the gaming medium as a whole. Also no one in my life cares about my gaming achievements, and I don't care about my own either.

People in MMOs have bought clears of raids and stuff in every MMO I played that had them. At the end of the day, who really cares and why? And for how long? And how meaningful are they in the grand scheme of things?

[Len_]

I don't really understand why so many people have the opinion of "I don't really care so it's not an issue" or "It doesn't harm anyone so it's fine" or a particularly strange one here "it's not as bad as you think, barely anyone does it" like that makes it okay?

If you don't care about other peoples achievements or how they obtain them, good for you. Many people do. They don't want to work hard for something only to see someone zoom ahead and achieve the same and more because they cheated to get there. How can this be hard to understand when there's more than enough of that IRL and most of us don't like it and wish we could stop it.

With how often topics like this get discussed, it is quite clear that a lot of people do value their in game time and achievements and believe in and value integrity of gameplay. It's very clear that this game means a lot to a lot of people and they don't want to see it deteriorate more and more over time which is exactly what has and will continue to happen when people shrug and say "it's no big deal" and "i don't care, why do you?" or whatever other excuse or apathetic attitude they may voice.

The game has a lot of issues both on the side of the developers and on the side of the community and it does no benefit to anyone to ignore or deny it. And certainly we shouldn't be tolerating cheating at all and should be expecting and demanding the developers do as much as they can to stop it.

I don't care because none of this is real it's just 1s and 0s stored in a database somewhere and when this game eventually goes EOS one day no one will ever know I played it or anything I "achieved" in it and the only thing of value left will be my own memories and the enjoyment I derived from it. I think that's easy to understand.

[Valence]

I don't really understand why so many people have the opinion of "I don't really care so it's not an issue" or "It doesn't harm anyone so it's fine" or a particularly strange one here "it's not as bad as you think, barely anyone does it" like that makes it okay?

If you don't care about other peoples achievements or how they obtain them, good for you. Many people do. They don't want to work hard for something only to see someone zoom ahead and achieve the same and more because they cheated to get there. How can this be hard to understand when there's more than enough of that IRL and most of us don't like it and wish we could stop it.

With how often topics like this get discussed, it is quite clear that a lot of people do value their in game time and achievements and believe in and value integrity of gameplay. It's very clear that this game means a lot to a lot of people and they don't want to see it deteriorate more and more over time which is exactly what has and will continue to happen when people shrug and say "it's no big deal" and "i don't care, why do you?" or whatever other excuse or apathetic attitude they may voice.

The game has a lot of issues both on the side of the developers and on the side of the community and it does no benefit to anyone to ignore or deny it. And certainly we shouldn't be tolerating cheating at all and should be expecting and demanding the developers do as much as they can to stop it.

If it worked like this IRL I wouldn't care either. In the game most things are infinite with the same chances for everybody to get them (minus a few exceptions like leaderboard based stuff).

There is scarcity in real life for all things, and cheaters will shaft others by that very base fact, and that's why it affects you.

And that's also why I start caring when it affects me in game, which isn't the case for most automation issues, outside of leaderboards and pvp. And world first if I was a world first player I guess.

[Anonemoose]

I've been quite amazed by the responses to this thread. So many are unable or unwilling to understand the point. In the case of the latter, it would seem maliciously so. Many replies have demonstrated a lack of basic reading comprehension, or have otherwise been unable or unwilling to make an attempt at reading before joining the dogpile with snarky attempts at gotchas. To those of you that have meaningfully contributed to this thread, thank you. There have been some good insights shared. There's a few common themes that are worth addressing.

"If achievements mean nothing then why do you care so much" - Achievements aren't inherently meaningless. They have become meaningless because of the rampant cheating and lack of integrity in the game. It's not even just about achievements. It's about everything in the game because everything in the game can be freely automated. That's the problem. I care because I want the time I spend in this game to matter, just like any sane, reasonable person would in the pursuit of their endeavours.

"There will always be people willing to cheat so there's no point trying to stop it" - There will always be people willing to commit crimes in real life, so why don't we just legalise all crime. See how silly that sounds? The problem is that there is no penalty or fear of punishment for cheating in FFXIV. Square Enix aren't even trying at all. There is no other major game on the market where cheating is permitted to this depth and scale.

"Mods and plugins gave us so much QoL" - Cool, a lot of that is in the game now and there is no longer any utility in those tools. There's nothing stopping Square Enix from continuing to implement those outstanding QoL features. Just because there were useful QoL features in plugins previously doesn't justify an open license on modding in perpetuity.

"Maybe you're just bad at the game and its a skill issue" - This might come as a surprise to you, but not everybody is as bad at the game as you are. There are people who play a lot of PVP, who are good at PVP, and know exactly what cheating is when they encounter it. No amount or manner of explanation of these issues, technical or otherwise, will ever convince those who are unable or unwilling to understand.

"Cheating isn't real, but even if it is I don't encounter it, and even if I do encounter cheating it doesn't bother me and I still get my rewards so who cares?" - Many players do see and encounter rampant cheating and automation and many players are bothered by it.

"Who cares if people modbeast you can't see it and it doesn't impact your game" - Sure, it doesn't acutely or directly impact another player's experience at a particular point in time. The people who make this claim, however, generally cannot understand second order effects or think beyond their own immediate self-gratification. It's about the culture that is created and the resulting conduct that indirectly impacts the experience for everybody else.

[Anonemoose]

I don't care because none of this is real it's just 1s and 0s stored in a database somewhere and when this game eventually goes EOS one day no one will ever know I played it or anything I "achieved" in it and the only thing of value left will be my own memories and the enjoyment I derived from it. I think that's easy to understand.

If you really believe it's so trivial, delete all of your characters right now and start again, completely fresh. After all, none of this matters and you've still got your memories, right?

[ZephyrMenodora]

If you really believe it's so trivial, delete all of your characters right now and start again, completely fresh. After all, none of this matters and you've still got your memories, right?

As someone who is "amazed" and claiming they don't understand your point because they have different priorities for their time and what they care about, you follow up with this? ROFL.