[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kittahsmash]

The mod suspension discourse is peak:
"oh no i deliberatley and publicaly broke the games tos and now im getting suspended how could this be happening to me??"

The biggest thing that cracks me up is that some of the people doing the reporting are breaking the TOS themselves too with whatever addons or graphical changes (outside of Reshade. Like legit graphical mods which is just as against the TOS) they're using, and they somehow believe themselves to be superior than the person streaming their game and doing the same thing... Saw a handful of people getting called out on Twitter for being hypocrites that way.

If people are trying to get a crusade going against TOS breakers, then breaking the TOS is breaking the TOS. Streamers shouldn't be held to a higher standard just because they're streaming...everybody who posts proof of them using that stuff should get reported, otherwise people are just playing favorites. Report people on Twitter using custom poses and NPC replacements from screenshots they post showing themselves on a date with their favorite NPC!

(On a completely random side note...holy crap this thread has almost 2700 pages)

[Dakhath]

The whole TOS outrage thing is at least partially to blame on SE as well, regardless of how brazen people were in using them. They've said for years that its against the TOS but they don't care if you don't talk about it. Imagine a cop saying its against the wall to rob someone but as long as you don't brag about the watch and wallet you got, they won't really care.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The biggest thing that cracks me up is that some of the people doing the reporting are breaking the TOS themselves too with whatever addons or graphical changes (outside of Reshade. Like legit graphical mods which is just as against the TOS) they're using, and they somehow believe themselves to be superior than the person streaming their game and doing the same thing... Saw a handful of people getting called out on Twitter for being hypocrites that way.

If people are trying to get a crusade going against TOS breakers, then breaking the TOS is breaking the TOS. Streamers shouldn't be held to a higher standard just because they're streaming...everybody who posts proof of them using that stuff should get reported, otherwise people are just playing favorites. Report people on Twitter using custom poses and NPC replacements from screenshots they post showing themselves on a date with their favorite NPC!

(On a completely random side note...holy crap this thread has almost 2700 pages)

Forgot about this gem. Yeah, a lot of the people who are mass reporting for ACT use are also those using Anamnesis, something SE has ZERO tolerance for and far more people have gotten banned for using. You can use the program to change the appearance of your character in any way you like. And people think this is okay but ACT isn't. Gpose andies reporting people for ACT use is the most hypocritical thing.

[The Casualty]

The whole TOS outrage thing is at least partially to blame on SE as well, regardless of how brazen people were in using them. They've said for years that its against the TOS but they don't care if you don't talk about it. Imagine a cop saying its against the wall to rob someone but as long as you don't brag about the watch and wallet you got, they won't really care.

Not only that, but they have had people who have been using them on their streams or openly talked about utilizing them, for years, participate in past media tours.

[Yarathir]

The biggest thing that cracks me up is that some of the people doing the reporting are breaking the TOS themselves too with whatever addons or graphical changes (outside of Reshade. Like legit graphical mods which is just as against the TOS) they're using, and they somehow believe themselves to be superior than the person streaming their game and doing the same thing... Saw a handful of people getting called out on Twitter for being hypocrites that way.

If people are trying to get a crusade going against TOS breakers, then breaking the TOS is breaking the TOS. Streamers shouldn't be held to a higher standard just because they're streaming...everybody who posts proof of them using that stuff should get reported, otherwise people are just playing favorites. Report people on Twitter using custom poses and NPC replacements from screenshots they post showing themselves on a date with their favorite NPC!

(On a completely random side note...holy crap this thread has almost 2700 pages)

I get your point, but it's not entirely relevant. Sure, it might make them hypocrites, but the fact of the matter is that people have been told time and again to not publicly talk about the mods they use (if any) and associate that with their characters or CBU3 GMs will likely suspend your account. Streaming is pretty much directly publicly displaying them. If anything, expecting streamers not to get hit while they are openly streaming themselves breaking the ToS is holding streamers to a different standard.

In short: don't record yourself robbing a store and then get mad that the police knocks on your door.

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But Lucy's biggest point is that streamers are disproportionately punished by this as compared to other players, since their whole thing is on full display. But again, they're going to keep using it, they're just going to hide it.

That's not disproportionately. That's entirely proportional to how public they are about it by the very definition of streaming.

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Not only that, but they have had people who have been using them on their streams or openly talked about utilizing them, for years, participate in past media tours.

I get that, but it doesn't matter if they never enforce ToS or if they enforce it once a week, once a month, once a year, or every second of every day. It is entirely their right to start enforcing them when they see fit and just because they let you break it yesterday doesn't mean it's not still against ToS today. I get that it may be vexing, but that's how it is.

More than anything, this came about because Square gave people a finger ("Hey, we can't check your computer against mods, so just.. don't talk about them or promote them or anything.") and people took the entire hand ("Lol what if we make YouTube videos of us using mods and explain where and how to get them?", "What if we publicly streamed the newest most challenging content that is the subject of an unofficial World First race and had our many mods out in the open for all to see?")

[Onikaroshi]

If you kick for these reasons, you are the "dick" and should be removed from the group.
Also, be careful, these are not considered valid reasons and SE can (in theory) sanction you for griefing.

You're wasting three other people's time. Specially the no aoe thing, that can get tanks killed.

The spam heal thing is a case by case, some tanks need it

[Cthulhu 2020]

#gposers is literally a tag on twitter and people post supremely modded pictures under that tag, often with their character names attached. I've had people talk about graphical mods in game, in public channels. In the past SE has taken a far more firm stance against mods that change the game files than ACT which is effectively just plucking data from the combat log.

And yes, the punishment of streamers is disproportional. Plenty of people use ACT. Many use cactbot. Some even use tools that literally just show what their rotation should be on screen. Some few even use tools that just do your rotation for you, a combat bot. There's no crackdown on these.

Banning one streamer is just a token message. It's not going to change anything at all. "They deserve it" blah blah blah one person gets banned, nothing changes except for everyone just hides it from sight for a month or two until the heat dies down then they go back to using it til the next Ultimate and everyone's openly using it again.

Anyone who thinks this token ban is going to change anything is delusional. The anti-ACT andies see this as some kind of crusade to get rid of it, when in reality no such thing is going to happen. The only effect this has had is to divide the community between people who were minding their own business and those who are obsessed with others and ruining their day.



Yes, addons are against the ToS. At the end of the day, this changes absolutely nothing other than create toxicity. For as much as SOME PEOPLE seem to think that ACT users will create mass toxicity, it seems the opposite is true, and in their crusade against preventing hypothetical toxicity, they become the toxic ones.

[Katchii]

#gposers is literally a tag on twitter and people post supremely modded pictures under that tag, often with their character names attached. I've had people talk about graphical mods in game, in public channels. In the past SE has taken a far more firm stance against mods that change the game files than ACT which is effectively just plucking data from the combat log.

And yes, the punishment of streamers is disproportional. Plenty of people use ACT. Many use cactbot. Some even use tools that literally just show what their rotation should be on screen. Some few even use tools that just do your rotation for you, a combat bot. There's no crackdown on these.

Banning one streamer is just a token message. It's not going to change anything at all. "They deserve it" blah blah blah one person gets banned, nothing changes except for everyone just hides it from sight for a month or two until the heat dies down then they go back to using it til the next Ultimate and everyone's openly using it again.

Anyone who thinks this token ban is going to change anything is delusional. The anti-ACT andies see this as some kind of crusade to get rid of it, when in reality no such thing is going to happen. The only effect this has had is to divide the community between people who were minding their own business and those who are obsessed with others and ruining their day.



Yes, addons are against the ToS. At the end of the day, this changes absolutely nothing other than create toxicity. For as much as SOME PEOPLE seem to think that ACT users will create mass toxicity, it seems the opposite is true, and in their crusade against preventing hypothetical toxicity, they become the toxic ones.

I'm not disagreeing with you on the idea this ban is more a token and won't really change anything, but that works both ways I think. SE won't change their stance. It's against the TOS and has always been against the TOS, so complaining about bans because people are breaking the TOS just seems stupid to me.

If you don't want to risk getting banned, don't use add-ons/mods. If you use add-ons/mods, don't whinge about getting banned.

And calling it disproportional for streamers to get banned more is really disingenuous, or not based in reality. Just like with anything related to legal matters, the cases with the most easily accessible, irrefutable evidence move faster than those without. So you mean to say, that those people that are literally showing off their crime are getting arrested more often? :shocked pikachu face:

[Onikaroshi]

If you don't want to risk getting banned, don't use add-ons/mods. If you use add-ons/mods, don't whinge about getting banned.

TBF, its more like... if you don't want to get banned don't talk about them, and don't stream with them, they've flat out said multiple times they have no idea what we have on our pc running with the game.

[Yarathir]

TBF, its more like... if you don't want to get banned don't talk about them, and don't stream with them, they've flat out said multiple times they have no idea what we have on our pc running with the game.

This. How can you truly be surprised that if you stream with mods running at full blasts that you might get banned? That's a step beyond just mentioning ACT in passing. That's standing on a stage and going "HI GUYS I USE THESE AND THESE MODS." Especially during a world first race of the new Ultimate content.

And we should be outraged that that gets you banned? What kind of favoritism do people think streamers are entitled to, exactly?

[Katchii]

TBF, its more like... if you don't want to get banned don't talk about them, and don't stream with them, they've flat out said multiple times they have no idea what we have on our pc running with the game.

I meant what I said. The likelihood they'll catch you if you don't stream and never talk about it is, as you implied, exceedingly low. But the point is, using add-ons/mods is against the TOS, and has always been against the TOS, period.

If you don't want to risk it, don't use them.

[Yarathir]

I meant what I said. The likelihood they'll catch you if you don't stream and never talk about it is, as you implied, exceedingly low. But the point is, using add-ons/mods is against the TOS, and has always been against the TOS, period.

If you don't want to risk it, don't use them.

That brings me to something else that might worth considering too. For years, they've had a "don't ask, don't tell" approach and people have kind of overstepped those bounds countless times. If they ever feel compelled to develop anti-cheat or mod detection stuff to put inside of the client because of it, then everyone is just screwed with regards to that.

[Byleth]

I use mods.

Everyone I know uses mods to some extent. I really don't get the drama.

It's just kind of a don't ask, don't tell kinda thing.

I certainly wouldn't stream with them on though, because that's just asking for trouble.

I do want to state through that I do not use ACT. Never cared for it. Plenty of my static do though, and from what I've seen I'm doing just fine.

If they ever feel compelled to develop anti-cheat or mod detection stuff to put inside of the client because of it, then everyone is just screwed with regards to that.

I wouldn't be too worried about that. It's Square. If they were going to start doing that they would tell us and give plenty of warning.

[Yarathir]

I wouldn't be too worried about that. It's Square. If they were going to start doing that they would tell us and give plenty of warning.

Probably. And I'm not actively worrying about it. Merely considering what could happen if people keep testing the ToS and YoshiP's "suggestions" in particular.

[Katchii]

I use mods.

Everyone I know uses mods to some extent. I really don't get the drama.

It's just kind of a don't ask, don't tell kinda thing.

I certainly wouldn't stream with them on though, because that's just asking for trouble.

I do want to state through that I do not use ACT. Never cared for it. Plenty of my static do though, and from what I've seen I'm doing just fine.



I wouldn't be too worried about that. It's Square. If they were going to start doing that they would tell us and give plenty of warning.

I'm not disagreeing with the mentality, or the sentiment. Just, use at your own risk. It's the rule. If you don't want to get in trouble for breaking the rule....don't break the rule. It's not any more complicated than that. And certainly don't advertise that you were breaking it.

It's like speeding. Pretty much everyone does it and most people rarely, if ever, get caught. That doesn't mean it's not a violation, so you can't really get surprised or upset when you finally do get caught speeding and given a speeding ticket, when you were actually speeding. I mean, yes you can get upset, but it would be stupid to get upset at the cop for pulling you over for speeding.

If you never want to get in trouble for speeding, don't speed. And especially don't do it in an area you know is always filled with cops.

[Onikaroshi]

That brings me to something else that might worth considering too. For years, they've had a "don't ask, don't tell" approach and people have kind of overstepped those bounds countless times. If they ever feel compelled to develop anti-cheat or mod detection stuff to put inside of the client because of it, then everyone is just screwed with regards to that.

I've heard it might be something with Japanese privacy laws, they CAN'T look at what's running on the pcs there, legally. But that's second hand info

[Granyala]

But why carry? Why is it ok to not contribute?

As I said: it is a rare occurrence in the actual game.
Whether I am ok with it or not entirely depends on the content.
If shit evaporates in seconds either way (e.g. Eureka trash or the old MSQ dungeons) then why make a fuss about it?

If it drags things out, or we even wipe, I will most likely remove the leecher.

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True story, one time I happened to have an entire instance of fuckers who AFK'd at the magitek part, all but me and one other guy. I asked him if he wanted to leave and requeue. We did.

And yet some in here will swear that if we allow ACT at all, it will turn into mass toxicity.

Haha, I'd probably just gone into a sitting strike for the chuckles, trolling them AFKers right back. :'D


WoW has pretty much proven that there WON'T be "mass toxicity" by having accessible parsing capability. Yes, you will have the occasional asshat moaning about small numbers, but most of the community won't care enough about the E-Peen to make an issue out of it, as long as content dies properly.

Frankly spoken, whatever toxicity a parser would bring already exists.
People that do random savages already parse and they just kick you w/o telling you why, if you hold the group back. Though typically, people that do crap DPS also die to mechanics left and right, so one does not necessarily need a parser to spot the underperformers to begin with.

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Forgot about this gem. Yeah, a lot of the people who are mass reporting for ACT use are also those using Anamnesis, something SE has ZERO tolerance for and far more people have gotten banned for using.

Why would you be banned for using Amnamnesis?

First of all, unless you are dumb enough to stream, no one can tell that you are using it, since it does not interfere with server data.
Second, most of it's functions are tied to GPose anyway.

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I've heard it might be something with Japanese privacy laws, they CAN'T look at what's running on the pcs there, legally. But that's second hand info

Neither could Blizzard. You could mod the MPQs right under their noses and they were none the wiser. There were some extreme mods that required a different program to run alongside WoW, I think warden could pick up on that. Not sure, never used it myself. I stuck to a few modest texture/sound edits.

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In the past SE has taken a far more firm stance against mods that change the game files than ACT which is effectively just plucking data from the combat log.

Amnamnesis does not change game archives. It all happens in RAM on your computer.

Though any MMO I know of was always very heavy handed against mods that do change core game data, since you can do all kinds of nasty stuff with it.
Wasn't there some major modding drama in WoW when people cheated Ahn'Qiraj, bypassing a lot of the instance?

[StrawberryZebra]

As far as the addon discussion, Lucy Pyre is right on the money. There's more toxicity coming from the players who are mass reporting people for just using addons, than there is toxicity coming from people using the addons. There's so much toxicity from the anti-addon players while those using addons aren't bothering anyone and they just want to live their life. It's against ToS to shame someone for their damage, so if anyone ever does it, they get banned.

As interesting as this conversation point is, I don't see anyone talking about the reasons why there's so much resentment, or why people might be using addons in the first place in any of this.

I get console players being salty they can't get in on addons, and I do see the argument that it may be giving PC players an unfair advantage. If that advantage is real or not is something that can be debated, regardless it's an arguement I've seen put forward. I understand the concern entirely, but I consider it a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things.

Even with addons it also requires skill, preparation and hardwork to clear Ultimate content. The people using them would absolutely be able to clear content without them. They wouldn't magically make inept players good enough to clear the hard content. WoW and DBM is a classic example here, even with boss mods people are still going to fail mechanics and they're still going to have to be good enough to beat the content. FF14 is no different in this regard.

I don't get how it's spread from disputes over world first clears to witch hunting for anyone using any addons. The vast majority of them, including ACT, are completely benign. What I don't see is these people also accepting the other part of that discussion - Squenix have partly conceded that a part of this is due to UI limitations, and I do commend them for recognising part of the problem, and have resolved to looking into addressing some of them. The player base is still hung up on TOS violations that they're missing a far more important conversation that they should be a part of. UI improvements that Squenix could make that would completely invalidate the need for addons to begin with.

I'm concerned that Squenix are not going to go far enough in fixing it. UI changes alone would probably be small in scale and scope. What they're not addressing is the other gameplay design issues that feed into the problem too. These fall into 2 catagories for me, Encounter Design and Job Design.

Encounter design that needs players to be carefully scrutinising a bosses every minute movement while they're being glitterbombed by particle effects is always going to be problematic, particularly so if if there's only a short window to see what's happening or if it can only be seen from certain angles. In some cases they don't always vary the size, shape and colour of a bosses visual indicator enough to make them visually distinct. Abilities with cast bars are usually fine by themselves, but they do have a habit of having different versions of the same cast be affected by other factors in the fight too (looking at you, Nald'thal).

Then you get the occasaional boss fight that has a minor puzzle mechanic thrown in too, like Endsinger and her rewinding heads that add an extra mental burden to the player. These are why bossmods are so popular - There's a lot for a player to keep track of in group content already and having a bunch of other players just makes it worse. They free up some headspace for decision making and let you stop staring at the boss with furious intensity for a couple of seconds without the risk of failing a mechanic.

A lot of the Job UI issues, in my opinon, stem from Job Gauges. I get it, they're stylistically appropriate to each Job, but even in simple mode a lot of them now are getting very busy and very cluttered. The Black Mage one especially is bad for me on simple mode. It's got a countdown timer, a colour coded fill up bar, 6 Diamonds on the bottom, 2 on the side, one on the top and a Fire/Ice icon. Arguably there's a case for the MP bar to be an important Job mechanic too.

Thg Gauge is a catch-all for all the job mechanics. It doesn't highlight any of them in particular, it just presents all of them as though they're of equal importance. It reduces it's at-a-glance functionalty hugely because it's giving more information than you can deal with from a quick glance.

Where these create problems is in the amount of mental headspace that players have to deal with all of this. They mainly boil down to being 2 key points - A lack of clarity and a lack of information.

I'm not just going to whinge and moan without putting forward some suggestions to try solve some of these.

For a company that has a reputation for making great video game music, they're also really bad at audio cues. Being able to create more customised audio sounds for when abilities are available and cooldowns ready (outside of the generic clicking one) might go a way. Having bosses shout out audio cues is something they've never really done much of either.

They could also add on-model effects when you're using certain abilities or are in various character states. Like when you've got something like Dark Arts of Double Cast up you've got a visual identifier on your character model. Maybe even when you've got a big cooldown up too. This is one of the things WoW does extremely well - You know when your Paladin is using their wings, your Mage using Arcane Power or Druid is using Incarn.

Being able to manually filter which debuffs you want to see from other players would be nice. I want to see when other tanks are using Reprisal or Scholars using Chain Strategem without also seeing Bard DoTs on there too.

Unfortunately a lot of the other problems need a good re-think of the way content is designed. Scaling up some bosses and their relevent mechanics might be a good way to address some of the visability issues, but thats not a long term solution. Moving away from relying on only visual indicators would be one solution, as would boss mechanics that players need to intentionally trigger rather than ones on a strict timer - Think fights like Skolex in WoW, where you need the group to trigger his burrow intentionally. I don't think these would work for all bosses, but I'm putting them out there as suggestions.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Why would you be banned for using Amnamnesis?

First of all, unless you are dumb enough to stream, no one can tell that you are using it, since it does not interfere with server data.
Second, most of it's functions are tied to GPose anyway.

Amnamnesis does not change game archives. It all happens in RAM on your computer.

Though any MMO I know of was always very heavy handed against mods that do change core game data, since you can do all kinds of nasty stuff with it.
Wasn't there some major modding drama in WoW when people cheated Ahn'Qiraj, bypassing a lot of the instance?

SE has made it very clear that Anamnesis (and its predecessor) are extremely against TOS. No, nobody who's streaming will have it up, because they know they'd get instantaneously banned. However, you can go on twitter right now and find posts under the #gposers tag where people are very clearly using this program and their character names are linked to the edited images.

Altering game files is against the ToS, and in certain circumstances, tools like Anamnesis could act as free fantasias. Not just in terms of temporarily changing your character client side, but it is capable of making it server side as well, saving your character as another race or body type or whatever. Anamnesis, along with other tools that alter game files are extremely against ToS.

Yoshi P and Foxclon have both said that ACT is a gray area, since anyone can make a program that parses out a combat log and it's not actually altering the game files. They're external tools that take information pulled from the game itself, and do not modify the game files.

One of SE's biggest concerns about visual mods is nudity mods, since uncensored pornography (the nude mods) is highly illegal in many asian countries. Their big concern is legality. They said that they do not want authorities showing up to their building, asking them why there is nudity in their game, and it will be irrelevant if they tell the authorities it was a tool made by someone else, since you're supposed to prevent that from happening within your own game, and it doesn't matter if an external source did it. If nudity exists within FFXIV due to mods, it is illegal in many countries in which FFXIV operates.

[Granyala]

One of SE's biggest concerns about visual mods is nudity mods, since uncensored pornography (the nude mods) is highly illegal in many asian countries. Their big concern is legality. They said that they do not want authorities showing up to their building, asking them why there is nudity in their game, and it will be irrelevant if they tell the authorities it was a tool made by someone else, since you're supposed to prevent that from happening within your own game, and it doesn't matter if an external source did it. If nudity exists within FFXIV due to mods, it is illegal in many countries in which FFXIV operates.

Maybe, maybe not.

To be honest: this whole NSFW thing has been going on since Heavensward, if not earlier and is super easy to find all over the place. I'd wager that 80%+ of all mods are just people lewding random stuff. So I somewhat doubt SE is sincere here. I mean, a simple checksum scan of the appropriate game archives upon game start could kill any modding that changes the gamefiles outright.


Amnamnesis can NOT change anything server side (no mod can, that would require a major breach of SE's server infrastructure), nor can it change game files.
Amnamnesis can display your character as virtually anything, that is correct.
You can run around as e.g.: Gaius but only until you hit a loading screen and the game enforces a refresh. Then you have to reapply everything.

The advanced features of Amnamnesis, such as character posing (bone by bone) and animation control only work in GPose and are only designed for taking screenshots.

In pretty much all respects, Amnamnesis falls into the exact same category as ACT, as in:
it is harmless fun unless people combine it with NSFW mods.
I'd say, it's usefulness outside of the GPose thing is pretty much nonexistent, compared to ACT, that gives players who do use it (especially the triggers) a clear advantage over players who do not use it. From a DEV perspective: ACT is the bigger problem here.

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Encounter design that needs players to be carefully scrutinising a bosses every minute movement while they're being glitterbombed by particle effects is always going to be problematic, particularly so if if there's only a short window to see what's happening or if it can only be seen from certain angles.

Aye, that is definitely one of my major beefs with encounter design.
On one hand, they design beautiful spells. ... but then you have to deactivate the visuals in savage to see if the boss scratches his left butt cheek or the right one. >.<

I also have lamented the lack of audio cues since day 1. As a human, I have multiple channels of perception available... friggin use them and don't overload my visual channel all the time.