It wouldn’t be a FFXIV world-first race with out some debate over streaming or not streaming, however the RWF for the Futures Rewritten Final has gotten even crazier because the successful staff seems to have used banned plug-ins throughout their raid.
To make issues worse, the static, GRIND, was a non-streaming staff – that means their progress wasn’t broadcast, solely their last completion time.
Because of this their time has not been counted on the unofficial World First leaderboards and one other staff, Kindred, which cleared the raid a day later, is presently on the high of the standings.

Picture Credit score: Sq. Enix
FFXIV Futures Unwritten Final World First Race Ends in Controversy
The FFXIV Futures Unwritten Final race began on Nov. 26 and two days later, at round 7:30pm PT on Nov. 28, GRIND reported they’d cleared the raid. With different groups, akin to Echo having the boss down to five% on the identical time, it was big lead, and a shock – given GRIND don’t stream their makes an attempt to protect their methods.
The non-streaming of RWF makes an attempt has been an on-going controversy in FFXIV for nearly so long as there was aggressive raiding. The groups who play off stream will report their runs, however not reside streaming, main some to criticize their aggressive integrity.
Nonetheless, on Nov. 29 it was revealed that GRIND had allegedly used prohibited third-party instruments throughout their clear. Not like different MMOs, akin to WoW, FFXIV has a fairly strict coverage towards plug-ins, mods, and third-party instruments, even issues akin to harm meters. Through the Omega Protocol Final, lead producer and recreation director Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida expressed his disappointment that the ‘successful’ staff had used plugins, condemning the act.
MogTalk creator and leaderboard admin ‘Frosty’ introduced on Nov. 29 that the plug-in would trigger GRIND to be faraway from the leaderboard.
The plug-in was allegedly one thing known as “pixel excellent.” In FFXIV, gamers’ hitboxes for space of impact assaults are literally solely a single invisible pixel on the middle of their character. The sport will register the situation of this pixel on the time the assault completes, and resolve whether or not you get hit or not (this can be a simplified rationalization for the purpose of brevity). This plug-in makes that pixel seen, successfully making the method of dodging assaults easier.

Cloud of Darkness (Chaotic) would be the subsequent top-level problem for FFXIV gamers. Picture Credit score: Sq. Enix
What Subsequent For FFXIV RWF?
There’s been a number of points with the FFXIV RWF over current years, from gamers not streaming their makes an attempt, to plug-in controversy, particular person points surrounding gamers, and even the suggestion that hardcore raiding is incompatible with FFXIV’s ToS.
These are additional compounded by a basic malaise within the FFXIV group across the present state of the sport and growth – and the timing of the brand new FFXIV content material releases.
Some have been upset that each the brand new items of endgame hardcore content material, each the Futures Unwritten Final Raid, and the upcoming Cloud of Darkness 24-man Chaotic Raid, are scheduled to conflict with holidays (Futures Unwritten launched on Thanksgiving week, Might of Darkness will launch on Christmas Eve).
Regardless, there’s now an enormous asterisk on this World First Race, and there’ll probably be adjustments to the format going ahead.