Final Fantasy XIV’s newest Ultimate raid, The Omega Protocol, has been out for almost a week, and a collection of groups have been putting in a ridiculous amount of hours in order to claim the title of world first completion. Well, the title has now been claimed by a Japanese static called team UNNAMED_. The group managed to get the clear well before any other parties, and now observant fans are calling team UNNAMED_ out for using what looks to be a zoom hack plugin.
The static hasn’t widely streamed their progress like many of the other groups, and so when footage of their attempts hit YouTube, players were quick to point out that the field-of-view being used by the member of team UNNAMED_ in the uploaded footage is a lot more zoomed out than what Final Fantasy XIV’s camera allows.
While many players have taken to using plugins to address certain quality-of-life issues in casual content, a lot of the community does not take kindly to utilizing plugins that could constitute as cheating during world first races. This is not a new problem, however, as the debate about unfair plugins popped up during the previous Ultimate, Dragonsong’s Reprise, when groups were found to be using similar additional plugins to get an edge in the fight.
Related: Latest Final Fantasy XIV Ultimate Raid causes parties with too many buffs to stumble at DPS check
Game director Naoki Yoshida has addressed the issue several times. Plugins are technically against the game’s terms of service, but Square Enix has yet to take a firm stance and ban players consistently for using them. The company has basically adopted a “just don’t talk about it or show it” policy. If the culprit doesn’t bring it up in-game or display it while streaming, Square Enix often turns a blind eye.
Players may feel the need to utilize these third-party tools because Ultimate raids have become increasingly difficult with every release. The Omega Protocol actually took longer to have a world first clear than Dragonsong’s Reprise, a raid that was seen as too hard by most of the people who attempted it.
