Final Fantasy 14 team sets a raid world first, then gets busted for cheating
The game’s director calls it “extremely disappointing.”
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On Monday, a Japanese Final Fantasy 14 raid team was the first in the world to defeat The Omega Protocol (Ultimate), a grueling endgame boss fight that was recently added to the MMO. A week later, they’re the subject of the MMO’s biggest controversy, their achievements having been stripped by the game’s developer, who called their use of third-party UI mods"extremely disappointing."
Shortly after publishing a stern response to accusations that a Japanese raid team “cheated” by using third-party mods in their world first Omega Protocol kill, Square Enixrevoked the achievement and titles from all eight players.
“It is extremely disappointing for me personally to see this commotion surrounding third-party tools once again in the wake of what happened withDragonsong’s Reprise (Ultimate),” Yoshida wrote in the post. “As the individual who is entrusted with full supervision over [FF14], 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.”
Yoshida reiterated that any use of mods, or “third-party tools” is forbidden in FF14, and said that, “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.”
Even before Square Enix punished the raid team, the director said that if its investigations did prove they used third-party mods, “I, at the very least, will not recognize that team as the true World First.”
The Omega Protocol (Ultimate) scandal — in brief
The time has come for you and yours to clear TOP pic.twitter.com/tmdywX1NGGJanuary 31, 2023
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for…““Uhhhhh Houston. You won’t believe what I’m seeing right now.” pic.twitter.com/U6fkGWQJ7rJanuary 31, 2023
HELP pic.twitter.com/Vg57bIEFGaJanuary 31, 2023
It’s still unclear who owns the YouTube account that uploaded the video. One of Unnamed_’s members, Feuer E', who observed the raid through Discord screenshare,claimsthe channel belongs to them, but that the account was hacked and the video was uploaded by someone else. The channel’s name translates to “Divine Judgement” and was created on January 27, two days before the video was posted.
Many people in the FF14 community havepointed outhow common it is for teams to use mods when making an attempt at a world-first raid. Much like high-end raiders in World of Warcraft, FF14 players use UI mods to help visualize and track boss mechanics so they can focus on playing their characters efficiently. It’s basically assumed that everyone is using them at this level of play, despite it being against the game’s ToS. Usually nobody uploads a video showing them breaking the rules, though.
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Frosty, the creator of the World Race Tracker, wrote ina response to the newsthat the verification process has always relied on official achievement tracking posted toThe Lodestone, communication from Square Enix, and their personal verification of screenshots and VODs.
Frosty says that from now on, they will no longer track teams who clear the raids. “It’s outside my abilities to give full integrity when all I have to base the clear off of is a screenshot and any data sent to other websites.” They encouraged teams to provide VODs for “the level of legitimacy the community is looking for.”
One of the members of Unnamed_ posteda screenshotof a conversation with a FF14 GM detailing their punishment. Ina translation of the messagesthat I’ve verified is correct, the GM says, “Although you did not commit any cheating directly yourself, you still took advantage of that cheating, and therefore profited from it.” They explain that they won’t ban the player but that their achievement and titles will be removed. The conversation ends with the GM politely asking them to delete the daggers they received from the raid “as soon as possible.”
Japanese translations for this story were provided byKazuma Hashimoto.
Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his speciality is in action RPGs and MMOs, he’s driven to cover all sorts of games whether they’re broken, beautiful, or bizarre.
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