Square Enix Strips Cheating World First Team Of Titles, Gear, And Achievements From FFXIV's Omega Protocol

The Final Fantasy XIV The Omega Protocol Ultimate cheating drama seems to have escalated pretty quickly – at least for Team UNNAMED_, who was outed for using a zoom hack to complete the fight before the others. This morning, Yoshi-P addressed the issue in a post, using his best "disappointed dad" take. He noted the “commotion” was “extremely disappointing [for him] personally” and that it’s “especially unfortunate when [he], as a gamer, is cheering on everyone”. He also went on to discuss the impact such cheating has not only on the community but the dev team who put effort into making this kind of content for players that – supposedly – want to play hard content and then have them circumvent it.

The truth is, there are definitely players who want to beat their heads against this kind of content, learn it, and get good at it. And some of these World First teams might be among those people. But, when you throw things like viewer subs, sponsorships, and the like into the mix, sometimes coming out on top (no pun intended) no matter the cost ends up becoming the bigger objective.

Speaking of cost. There’s definitely a cost for the players this time around. In his post, Yoshi-P noted that if their investigation showed the team did make “illicit use of third-party tools” he, “at the very least, will not recognize that team as the true World First”. That alone may not have meant much. After all, they still have the title, weapons, and everything that marks them as having completed the ultimate, right? Right?

Wrong.

In addition to all the memes coming out of this, both on social media and in the Final Fantasy XIV party finder listings, there’s actual news. In this case, the news is that the team is being stripped of its title, weapon, and achievement.

Note for those that don’t play Final Fantasy XIV: Despite the difficulty of this content, the rewards are pretty limited. You get a “Legend” title appropriate to the ultimate in question, the achievement, and a totem that will allow you to choose a very shiny weapon, whereas savages and extremes offer mounts and other gear. For the team to be stripped of these items is a pretty big deal – and one that according to a tweet from Arthars hasn’t happened in the ten years that he’s played the game.

The original news came via one of the UNNAMED_ team members, Haruka Setsuna, who shared a screenshot of their conversation with one of the game’s GMs on Twitter. The translated version of the tweet reads “I apologize for the delay in posting. To all the community related to FF14 and friends who have supported me, I am sorry."

お騒がせしております
発信が遅くなってしまって申し訳ありません
先程FF14ゲーム内での処罰を受けました
FF14関連のコミュニティ、応援してくれた友人の皆さん、申し訳ございませんでした
クリア報告は撤回します
今後の活動についてはまだ検討中ですが二度とこのようなことがないように気を付けます pic.twitter.com/7MdE4KEexz

— マ遙デヴァータ (@Haruka_Setsuna_) January 31, 2023

A translated image of the conversation (which to our knowledge at this time we credit to @pokedext on Twitter) shows one of the game’s Game Masters, G.X. telling Haruka Setsuna that although they “didn’t directly commit cheating” they “were able to capture the benefits of cheating, and [they] will be profiting from cheating. As they didn’t directly commit the act they’re not getting an account penalty, but the devs are taking back the “profits made from cheating”. The GM then tells them that the achievements and titles obtained during the clear will be “deleted at a later date”, and tells them to throw away the weapon they bought with their totem, the “Omega Sickle [Absolute].

The upside here is that they won’t be losing their entire account, but at least one person is going to be. And things don’t seem to be going great for the team overall right now. If you’ve ever wondered if cheaters might actually prosper. The answer appears to be, “not every time.”