Naoki Yoshida "extremely disappointed" in Final Fantasy 14 mod use
World First clear of The Omega Protocol (Ultimate) revoked.
Final Fantasy 14 director and producer Naoki Yoshida has once again hit back at the use of third-party mods in the game, which are strictly prohibited.
Yoshida's latest post on the Lodestone follows the success of a Japanese raid team who were the first to defeat The Omega Protocol (Ultimate), a new challenging boss added in the most recent patch update.
It has since transpired the raid group was using third-party mods, so their achievement has been stripped.
"It is extremely disappointing for me personally to see this commotion surrounding third-party tools once again in the wake of what happened with Dragonsong's Reprise (Ultimate)," wrote Yoshida.
"As the individual who is entrusted with full supervision over Final Fantasy 14, it is my responsibility to enact countermeasures and police the use of these tools, as well as educate people to not use these types of third-party tools - this is especially unfortunate when I, as a gamer, am cheering on everyone who is learning this content by trial and error and putting in the effort to clear."
The race to World First clear of new content is unofficial, though this may change in the future. Said Yoshida: "We hear the community voice that an official raid race should be supported, and regulations should be decided upon - this is a topic which needs to be discussed internally, so please allow me to keep this as an item for future consideration."
He continued: "The ultimate raid series is the most difficult battle content within Final Fantasy 14, and we release this content after testing that it can be cleared without the use of any third-party tools. However, if the presumption is that this content will be tackled and cleared with the use of third-party tools, then any reason to develop high-difficulty battle content seems to be lost. It's very difficult for me to understand as a gamer what the meaning behind using numerous third-party tools to compete to clear first would be."
He concluded: "If the illicit use of third-party tools is made clear through our investigations, I, at the very least, will not recognise that team as the true World First."
In the blog post, Yoshida reiterated the penalties for those using third-party tools, such as temporary account suspension or permanent account bans - though penalty information is not publicised.
The terms of service for Final Fantasy 14 state that the use of third-party tools is strictly prohibited and Yoshida himself has said he has never permitted the use of such tools.
The blog post also references the illicit publicising and spreading of post-clear cutscenes, as videos of the cutscene that plays after The Omega Protocol (Ultimate) fight have already leaked online.
The person responsible for leaking videos has since been penalised and countermeasures have been put in place.
A similar statement was released last year in the wake of the Dragonsong's Reprise (Ultimate) raid being completed by a team that also used third-party tools.
At that time, Yoshida said the team would "review the most prominent tools, and in order to discourage their use, endeavour to enhance the functionality of the HUD".