On Monday, Japan's Final Fantasy 14 raid team became the first in the world to defeat the Omega Protocol (Ultimate), a grueling endgame boss battle recently added to the MMO. A week later, they became the MMO's biggest controversy, and their exploit with a third-party UI mod was stripped by the game's developers, calling it "very disappointing." (opens in new tab)

Shortly after the Japanese raid team issued a scathing response to accusations that they "cheated" by using third-party mods in the world's first Omega Protocol defeat, Square Enix stripped all eight players of their achievements and titles. (Opens in new tab)

"After what happened with the Dragon's Song reprise (Ultimate) (Opens in new tab), I personally am very disappointed to see this kind of fuss over third-party tools again," Yoshida wrote in his post.FF As the director of all of "14," it is my responsibility to take measures and crack down and educate people not to use these third-party tools." As a gamer, this is especially unfortunate when I am supporting everyone who is trying to learn and clear content through trial and error."

Yoshida reiterated that the use of mods and "third-party tools" is prohibited in "FF14," and "If the assumption is that this content will be conquered and cleared using third-party tools, there is no reason to develop high difficulty battle content." He stated.

Even before Square Enix punished the raid team, the director stated that if an investigation proved that they used third-party mods, "at the very least, I would not consider that team a true World First."

The owner of the YouTube account that uploaded the video is still unknown; Feuer E', one of the members of _Unnamed_, observed the raid through a Discord screenshare and stated that the channel is theirs, but the account was hacked and and claims that the video was uploaded by someone else (opens in new tab). The channel's name translates as "God's Judgment," and was created on January 27, two days before the video was posted.

Many in the FF14 community have noted how common it is for teams to use mods when attempting the world's first raid (opens in new tab). like high-end raiders in World of Warcraft, FF14 players have been using UI mods to visualize and track boss mechanics so they can focus on playing their characters efficiently. Despite being contrary to the game's ToS, basically everyone is supposed to use UI mods at this level of play. Usually, though, no one uploads videos showing that they are breaking the rules.

Frosty, the creator of World Race Tracker, in his response to this news (opens in new tab), the verification process is always the official achievement tracker posted on The Lodestone (opens in new tab), contact from Square Enix, and writes that he relies on personal verification of screenshots and VODs.

Frosty said that they will no longer be tracking teams that have cleared raids." It is beyond my ability to give full consistency when the only evidence of clearing is screenshots and data sent to other websites." They encouraged the team to provide the VOD for "the level of legitimacy that the community requires."

One of the members of _Unnamed_ posted a screenshot (opens in new tab) of a conversation with a FF14 GM. In the translation of the message, which I have confirmed is correct (opens in new tab), the GM says:" You yourself did not directly commit the cheating, but you still took advantage of it and profited from it." He explains that he will not ban the player, but will remove his achievements and title. The conversation ends with the GM politely asking that the dagger received in the raid be removed "as soon as possible". "

The Japanese translation of this article was provided by Kazuma Hashimoto (opens in new tab).