Please add something to FFXIV that disables 3rd party software interactions.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Sarcasm doesn't translate well over text.

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It was pretty damn obvious to me and I actually chuckled. :D

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

where does the genderlock debate fit into this? :^)

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Genderlock debates has gotta be relevant for a minimum of one year. Then it graduates and gets a spot in the alumni of never-ending topics. Or at least until Principal Yoshida takes a complete black or white stance about it, where then it gets demoted and floats up during the (game) drought season.

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Originally Posted by Lalarrific

It would make botting a lot harder. I wouldn't be sad to see parsing go, either.

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All your combat log data is saved to your PC. Parsers simply take this file and read it real-time for you. It's not cheating, it doesn't violate the TOS, and it is a great tool to use if you want to get better...if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Now to the real point--no, you can't hide from it. You can choose to improve or not, but wanting it eliminated so you can hide subpar performance is not happening. As Fleece Johnson puts it, "The choice is yaaaaws."

The problem with disabling third party tools is it'd have to include all of them. Bots, parses, textures, reshades, screen shot filters, clothing mods, body mods, auto hotkey mods, ect. You get the point. If they did something that detected one, they'd have to eliminate them all; and as much as the community hates bots, there is an even bigger community that utilizes the rest of them. There would huge repercussions for disabling them. And you better believe that a LOT of people would in-fact unsub if they lost access to all third party tools. Even if they did actually go through with this, people would scout ways to counter it so that they'd still have these tools. Unless you brought the legal system down upon people which is impossible given international waters; these things are forever here to stay. Especially as long as people are receiving donations for making these tools from their supporters.

On the matter of parsers I'm somewhat in favor of them if people wanna use them for personal improvements providing they don't use it to harass others. Parse to your heart's content but keep the results to yourself unless asked. That's all I ask.

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Originally Posted by Mihana

On the matter of parsers I'm somewhat in favor of them if people wanna use them for personal improvements providing they don't use it to harass others. Parse to your heart's content but keep the results to yourself unless asked. That's all I ask.

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Results are just numbers. Anyone can scroll through battle chat, add up all the damage a person did, then divide it by encounter time. I don't see how that is harrassment. The only person that would call that harrassment would be the one that already knows they are bad but is hoping to get away with it. Now they feel harrassed bc they have to step up their game or find another party to do stuff with, until they get caught again.
By that logic you wouldnt be allowed to call out undergeared tanks for their low hp and lack of defense either, those are numbers as well, only that the game already did the conveniet math for you so you can see the actual numbers faster :P

Is it even possible, though, from a systems engineering point of view? Things like:

• Is it possible for an application to tell whether one specific input action received is automated or human? For example FFXIV currently accepts input from Windows TSF services, which itself could possibly be considered a third party tool.
• Is it possible for an application ito hide its network traffic such that not even the operating system can inspect it? Because if the OS can inspect it, then any tool that gets Administrator priviledge necessarily will be able to inspect the traffic.
• Even if all of the above are possible in practice, what are the ramifications and impact to the system while the game is running? Would FFXIV have to literally take over the whole system and the only way to interact with anything other than FFXIV is to log-off and close FFXIV?

I suppose if FFXIV is ran inside a sandbox pre-configured by Square Enix to allow only FFXIV to run, it may be possible? But I feel this is going beyond what a game company is capable of and is more likely done for software that requires the highest security, for example financial institute authentication service applications.

Original Everquest operated like that, was only runnable in Fullscreen and as soon as you tried to tab out or run other applications you got disconnected. It was an unpleasent user experienced to say the least. They even added an ingame MP3playerso you couldlisten to music at least lol.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Is it even possible, though, from a systems engineering point of view? Things like:

• Is it possible for an application to tell whether one specific input action received is automated or human? For example FFXIV currently accepts input from Windows TSF services, which itself could possibly be considered a third party tool.
• Is it possible for an application ito hide its network traffic such that not even the operating system can inspect it? Because if the OS can inspect it, then any tool that gets Administrator priviledge necessarily will be able to inspect the traffic.
• Even if all of the above are possible in practice, what are the ramifications and impact to the system while the game is running? Would FFXIV have to literally take over the whole system and the only way to interact with anything other than FFXIV is to log-off and close FFXIV?

I suppose if FFXIV is ran inside a sandbox pre-configured by Square Enix to allow only FFXIV to run, it may be possible? But I feel this is going beyond what a game company is capable of and is more likely done for software that requires the highest security, for example financial institute authentication service applications.

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There are things that can be done. The real problem is that anything done can be worked around.

So, here is an example:

To combat RMT bots - You have to cancel any and all free trial time abilities. If every account costs $60 to start (the price of the game) then it becomes less feasible to make it work.

Even then, if it is profitable enough, people would still do it.

Another thing to do is cut the inflation off at the knees. People resort to RMT because they don't want to grind for months to afford one thing off the market boards.

I grind ore sales out and in my whole time playing I've only made about 3 million gil. When there are market items in the 30 million gil range it means those are simply things I'll never get.

So a combination of price controls and removing free accounts are the best way to combat bots. This has a higher chance of working than any software solution.

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Originally Posted by HWalsh

So a combination of price controls...

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No. Have you every played BDO? That is the worst system ever. A friend has a spare weapon they want to give you to get you started?Well too bad, there's no private trading, and MB prices are set so he has to put it up for sale for a price you cannot pay. And even if you can, purchases are randomized along all poitential buyers, so GL sniping that item when 20other ppl want to buy it as well and it's random who gets it. it's the worst. There is already too little player interaction, taking away the private exchange of items/gil, including fc chests etc surely wont make the game any better,

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Originally Posted by RoyalBeef

No. Have you every played BDO? That is the worst system ever. A friend has a spare weapon they want to give you to get you started?Well too bad, there's no private trading, and MB prices are set so he has to put it up for sale for a price you cannot pay. And even if you can, purchases are randomized along all poitential buyers, so GL sniping that item when 20other ppl want to buy it as well and it's random who gets it. it's the worst. There is already too little player interaction, taking away the private exchange of items/gil, including fc chests etc surely wont make the game any better,

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Nobody is saying you can't trade.
Nobody is giving you a minimum sale amount.

Price control is a maximum sale amount and that's about all it is.

I've played games with anti-hacking/botting measures, but they were all of the oversensitive sort that would oft purge the client simply for tabbing in/out momentarily and people did start finding workarounds.

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Originally Posted by HWalsh

To combat RMT bots - You have to cancel any and all free trial time abilities. If every account costs $60 to start (the price of the game) then it becomes less feasible to make it work.

Even then, if it is profitable enough, people would still do it.

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It's worth noting that the only type of RMT bot that utilizes free trials are the gibberish-named spam bots you hear near the aetherytes.

Any other type is using the starter edition of XIV, presumably purchased via credit card fraud.

So do people just think that they can beep boop some magic coding to stop it? Like, it's an easy copy paste some code to make auto clickers and other monitoring software not work?

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Originally Posted by RareItems

Most ppl who parse don't ask and don't tell. They just Kick you.

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Because they would be banned for doing so.


Btw SE is lazy and they are not going to do ANYTHING about bots, they dont care anymore, they take all money made in ffxiv and put it all into another useless triple A garbage that nobody is going to play a week after release. Like come on, even GMs cant ban guys running on multihack tools, you could literaly teleport GM around in circles this is a disaster, why would you expect them to do anything? On one of "these" forums, there are people who are using same cheating tools FOR MONTHS on their main accounts without any consquences, that speaks for itself.

What the OP is asking for is fundamentally impossible to achieve.

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Originally Posted by Josco

All your combat log data is saved to your PC. Parsers simply take this file and read it real-time for you. It's not cheating, it doesn't violate the TOS, and it is a great tool to use if you want to get better...if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Now to the real point--no, you can't hide from it. You can choose to improve or not, but wanting it eliminated so you can hide subpar performance is not happening. As Fleece Johnson puts it, "The choice is yaaaaws."

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I don't know where this misconception keeps coming from. FFXIV does not save combat logs to a file, and the combat log available in-game is not sufficient to calculate your DPS because DoT ticks are not represented in it. The parser that everyone uses has two options available for parsing:

1. Memory reading: This one is less accurate because it has the same issue as the in-game log, being a lack of DoT ticks.
2. Network Sniffing: This one reads the actual network packets the game sends and receives. It's not possible to detect it from within the game without installing a kernel mode driver, and it's more accurate since it can sniff the dot tick amounts from the packets. Only disadvantage is that it doesn't work when the windows firewall is enabled.

The .log file you are talking about is generated by this program, not by the game. If you don't believe me, delete the log, go hit a striking dummy without your parser running, and try to find the log that the game allegedly saves.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Is it even possible, though, from a systems engineering point of view? Things like:

• Is it possible for an application to tell whether one specific input action received is automated or human? For example FFXIV currently accepts input from Windows TSF services, which itself could possibly be considered a third party tool.
• Is it possible for an application ito hide its network traffic such that not even the operating system can inspect it? Because if the OS can inspect it, then any tool that gets Administrator priviledge necessarily will be able to inspect the traffic.
• Even if all of the above are possible in practice, what are the ramifications and impact to the system while the game is running? Would FFXIV have to literally take over the whole system and the only way to interact with anything other than FFXIV is to log-off and close FFXIV?

I suppose if FFXIV is ran inside a sandbox pre-configured by Square Enix to allow only FFXIV to run, it may be possible? But I feel this is going beyond what a game company is capable of and is more likely done for software that requires the highest security, for example financial institute authentication service applications.

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Well, they could close down many avenues of botting...

• They could disable input from a non-physical device... But that would completely break the game for people needing accessibility features, and dedicated botters could and would make kernel drivers to mimic a physical device. And even if they made that impossible, it would be cheap to make an actual physical device that's controlled by bot software.
• They could limit where and how the game can be run by for example having anti-vm detection and only allowing the game to run in true fullscreen... But that would be a dreadful play experience for legit players, and it could be worked around by kernel hooks. And many virus scanners automatically detect anti-vm measures as malicious behavior.
• They could disable trading, but then they would just use the marketboard to sell gil... And if that was made impossible too, it would severely impact real players...

The moral of the story is that every measure has a countermeasure, and while it would indeed affect bots... It would only do so until they have worked around the issue, while real players have to deal with it forever. Bots are perfectly content to put in the work to keep their cash flow going, and all their tactics exist because they work. They wouldn't be spamming the main cities and the novice network if that didn't get them sales.

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Originally Posted by villadelfia

I don't know where this misconception keeps coming from. FFXIV does not save combat logs to a file, and the combat log available in-game is not sufficient to calculate your DPS because DoT ticks are not represented in it. The parser that everyone uses has two options available for parsing:

1. Memory reading: This one is less accurate because it has the same issue as the in-game log, being a lack of DoT ticks.
2. Network Sniffing: This one reads the actual network packets the game sends and receives. It's not possible to detect it from within the game without installing a kernel mode driver, and it's more accurate since it can sniff the dot tick amounts from the packets. Only disadvantage is that it doesn't work when the windows firewall is enabled.

The .log file you are talking about is generated by this program, not by the game. If you don't believe me, delete the log, go hit a striking dummy without your parser running, and try to find the log that the game allegedly saves.

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Documents/My Games/FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn/ FFXIV_CHR[character code]/log

The parser has never been perfect at reading dots because it has to estimate crits and such...UNLESS you're using one of the more invasive types you're talking about, and I do not know one single person who uses those. Those ARE potentially against the ToS, and the difference between what you get from that and what you get from reading the logs (or yes...the temporary information in memory which is destined for a log file) is so miniscule it is not worth the risk or hassle.

Parsing programs are going to generate their own log file, but the data is still saved to your PC. People need to chill...and also stop spreading misinformation.

just gonnie quote that one guys signature i see on these forums frequently.



"A parser in itself is not toxic because it just shows facts and facts are never toxic.
Toxicity occours when facts get handled between people and how the facts get formed and transfered."

legit nothing wrong with damage meters and parsers. its not my cuppa tea personally, y'all do you. the mantra of "dont be a dick" couldn't be stronger when it comes to things like parsing tho.

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Originally Posted by Josco

Documents/My Games/FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn/ FFXIV_CHR[character code]/log

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No clue what those logs are supposed to be but they are not combat logs. They are far too small and they contain a lot of data that doesn't belong in combat logs.

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Originally Posted by Zyneste

The vocal minority of the anti-parser groups flare up every once in a while, especially at the start of new content.

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Pretty much this. Just ignore them, it's better for your sanity.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

No clue what those logs are supposed to be but they are not combat logs. They are far too small and they contain a lot of data that doesn't belong in combat logs.

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Ahem...

https://i.imgur.com/ZWK5aCm.png

Cough.. cough... Ahem...

E.I. Text files are tiny, even with hundreds of pages of text in them.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Ahem...

Cough.. cough... Ahem...

E.I. Text files are tiny, even with hundreds of pages of text in them.

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Oh, god. I took a look at those logs, and yeah they've got combat stuff in them, but they've also got... what looks like loot info from everyone near you (possibly just party members?), NPC dialogue... system messages...

It looks like a log of everything, with a bunch of garbled symbols chucked in for flavor lmao

The game may keep logs, but you couldn't pay me to sit and decipher that into something usable

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Originally Posted by Avidria

Oh, god. I took a look at those logs, and yeah they've got combat stuff in them, but they've also got... what looks like loot info from everyone near you (possibly just party members?), NPC dialogue... system messages...

It looks like a log of everything, with a bunch of garbled symbols chucked in for flavor lmao

The game may keep logs, but you couldn't pay me to sit and decipher that into something usable

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I'm sorry, but you're misinformed. None of those logs contain anything but combat data of the player and party members. It's not hard to decipher the symbols you don't personally understand, since those are referred to as 'Calls'. Abrievated terms and language for quick and easy navigation for the software.

As for deciphering it, it takes a few seconds with a simple plugin to Notepad++. It's just language code, not hard to figure out.

But, as I had my friend check, you cannot access these logs on PS4, the console doesn't let you delve that deep into the file system, for them to know this. PC users though, can freely and easily check the logs, even without parsing software.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

I'm sorry, but you're misinformed. None of those logs contain anything but combat data of the player and party members. It's not hard to decipher the symbols you don't personally understand, since those are referred to as 'Calls'. Abrievated terms and language for quick and easy navigation for the software.

As for deciphering it, it takes a few seconds with a simple plugin to Notepad++. It's just language code, not hard to figure out.

But, as I had my friend check, you cannot access these logs on PS4, the console doesn't let you delve that deep into the file system, for them to know this. PC users though, can freely and easily check the logs, even without parsing software.

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No, like... hang on a second let me get a screenshot...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...48/unknown.png
This is what I'm looking at. Unless we're looking at a different log file here?

As a side note, it may be easy for you to figure out, but this is something I have zero experience with. It's basically a foreign language to me lmao. I was being a bit flippant by saying it was just tossed in for flavor. I'm aware it serves a purpose that I don't understand :P

Edit: Looking through the rest of the log files, it's more of the same. Lots of combat info yes, but also dialogue, exp gains, etc. Either I'm looking in the wrong place, or the logs have more than just combat info in them. This kinda feels like it's veering off topic though, so I'm just gonna slide on out.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

No, like... hang on a second let me get a screenshot...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...48/unknown.png
This is what I'm looking at. Unless we're looking at a different log file here?

As a side note, it may be easy for you to figure out, but this is something I have zero experience with. It's basically a foreign language to me lmao. I was being a bit flippant by saying it was just tossed in for flavor. I'm aware it serves a purpose that I don't understand :P

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Can't look at it through normal notepad, not and it make sense, no. Same log file, but not the same. Hard to explain, but the logs are there. Yours is logging chat, from the looks of it the intro the the game itself. If you've multiple characters, or have deleted and made new ones, make sure in the right FFXIV CH folder, since can be several.

Make an in-game parsing program. Then put a big ol banhammer on anyone using any 3rd party software that interfaces with the game. Problem solved?

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Originally Posted by Keddera_StormMoon

What the OP is asking for is fundamentally impossible to achieve.

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Smite (that moba game) used to have a near-spyware level of anticheat attached to their launcher.
It had all the blacklist of programs and was monitoring the memory space allocated to the game.

Once it found out you had a cheating software on your PC used with smite being played at the same time or game memory being changed in any suspicious way, it was giving you a permanent system ban for all accounts played on your PC, and all other future accounts made on your PC or logged into.
This thing already exists for many many years.

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Originally Posted by Komarimono

Can't look at it through normal notepad, not and it make sense, no. Same log file, but not the same. Hard to explain, but the logs are there. Yours is logging chat, from the looks of it the intro the the game itself. If you've multiple characters, or have deleted and made new ones, make sure in the right FFXIV CH folder, since can be several.

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Ok, that explains why it looks different lol. Normal notepad's all I've got. That file is from my alt, but my main's logs also have a lot of that info too.

Oh well. Good to know it's there, though I'm honestly not sure how to make it into something useful. Guess I'll just keep trucking and hoping I'm doing alright on my damage for now :p

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Originally Posted by Avidria

Ok, that explains why it looks different lol. Normal notepad's all I've got. That file is from my alt, but my main's logs also have a lot of that info too.

Oh well. Good to know it's there, though I'm honestly not sure how to make it into something useful. Guess I'll just keep trucking and hoping I'm doing alright on my damage for now :p

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It's just a chat log. The combat "log" is in a chat window in the game. The log files spit out everything that goes into your chat, including combat and player text.

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Originally Posted by YojimboM

It's just a chat log. The combat "log" is in a chat window in the game. The log files spit out everything that goes into your chat, including combat and player text.

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Yeah, makes sense. Just thought I was going nuts and looking at the wrong (identically named) file for a minute lmao. No longer confused, only very tired apparently

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Smite (that moba game) used to have a near-spyware level of anticheat attached to their launcher.
It had all the blacklist of programs and was monitoring the memory space allocated to the game.

Once it found out you had a cheating software on your PC used with smite being played at the same time or game memory being changed in any suspicious way, it was giving you a permanent system ban for all accounts played on your PC, and all other future accounts made on your PC or logged into.
This thing already exists for many many years.

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So is hardware ID spoofing.

There is never a magic button when it comes to stopping 3rd party tools - it's a never ending battle. It's not ever as simple as flipping a switch. And often the costs sunk do not justify the end result.

Parsing is a vital part of min-maxing for end game. If it were removed, the difficulty of encounters would have to come down. Still, you need to stop hating on it, cause many people take pleasure in being able to maximize their performance. It doesn't even have to be to play the most difficult content but simply cause they want to play their job right and get enjoyment from that. People get enjoyment from playing well and executing a rotation flawlessly.

So, i'd be up for that if they coupled it with a first party damage meter. I suppose there could be limitations, like an option to opt out or something.

With that said, i doubt that would work cause there were mmo's that have no addons before and bots still happened. The action has to be taken somewhere else. In my opinion in a sort of cooldown on character and account creation.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The RMT bots, maybe, though even they exploit very obvious flaws in the game's design that could be fixed if they actually wanted to.

It takes way too long to level DoL/H bots for them to be difficult to control with a half-way competent enforcement team.

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Enforcement team is one thing, OP is asking for a piece of software to stop all bots. It would work for about a day. Then a new exploit would be found and they would have to go back and plug that one. It's an endless cycle. Blizzard tried it at first and gave up after like 2 or 3 years. Also, having people to enforce rules costs money, which usually isn't worth it to companies. Everquest once had GMs for each server who were online all the time watching for issues to arise. In the end it cost too much to keep them around.

Prevent bots, ban bots problem solved :D
Just do it!

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Originally Posted by HWalsh

You mean people using software that violates the ToS?

Don't think their backlash matters to be honest. They're cheating.

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Parsing isn't cheating. Using one is technically against the ToS, yes, but it isn't cheating. Hell, even Yoshida accepts their use as long as you don't use them to harass someone. All the information parsers give you is readily available.

I have seen this log and its a very unreliable way it seems. I have tried to use this log file to identify which character belongs to which folder (having 16 or so of them) and i have noticed that the file doesnt allways gets updated.
Also the fact that the file is there doesnt have to mean that it gets updated in realtime. When is it written? Anyone tested this? The rest of the folder gets written when you log out that much i can say.