/r/ffxivdiscussion Reddit Poll: Do you want anti-cheat in FFXIV?

I’ve yet to see any anti cheat that works for all these years.

The best it can do is block amateur CE script written by a guy who just watched a 5 minute tutorial on YouTube.

I don't know why so many Players are against some Anti Cheat Software, but let's face reality ... in 7 Days, SE starts the Stress Test for the Cloud Data Center.
SE says it is to expand Space for the next Expansion, but I think that there is more to the Story. A Cloud Data Center will be more secured as the 0815 Servers we have now. I have the feeling that SE can implement security Software on the Cloud Data Centers that none would notice.
Truth to be told, I hope they implement some Anti Cheat Software. My Gameplay is massive disturbed through Market Board Bots and Cheaters. Everything I liked in this Game, is now just sad. Every day, I play less and less, because I am so damn tired of checking the Market Board and what was a few hours ago something worth is now nothing worth anymore. Every few minutes, the Bots undercut, till there is nothing more to undercut. Frontline has so many cheater and so many Players who are running around, doing less than 100000 damage or idle somewhere in the Map for the Rewards and Exp. If someone is saying something to those Players, most will joke around. It is like talking to idiots. All I do since weeks is: wait for Server Reset, do the Weekly Raid, 12 Custom Deliveries, check my Island once per Week and grabbing at the End of the Week my Rewards. Friday's Fashion Report and when Khloes Book has no Frontlines in it, I just trash it. Because I can't get enough energy to do Daily Roulette or Duties. I don't care even for Novice Network anymore, always the same Power trip Players in it.

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Originally Posted by MsMisato

while reddit polls make me laugh and the ffxiv subreddit is a joke at best. the best solution is to end the wrist slaps that SE does and just flat out perma ban people that cheat simple as that.

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All of reddit is a joke. A place where people hide behind overbearing modding so their feelings are salvaged. I spend most of my time on reddit seeing how much negative karma I can accumulate.

I think, for me, it's difficult to commit to a proposed solution from other players without a more extensive idea for implementation and consideration to the other impacts that implementation would have. Since, anti-cheat won't solve cheating and, for its implementation, can cause a plethora of other issues from:

- False positives (GW2's implementation of an anti-cheat, that was ultimately removed, caused a lot of false positive flags of accounts and summarily banned them. I do recall this happening in Lost Ark, as well, which uses Easy Anti-Cheat).

Even if the software was perfect, implemented without issue, it'd still flag and suspend/ban anyone (potentially) using some extremely common tools (QOL, Damage Meter, Aesthetic modifications, etc...) which will absolutely cause a shit storm.

- There's always going to be cheating, and some games that utilize anti-cheat software still have a large issue with the prevalence of it (Destiny 2, Escape from Tarkov, Warzone) and games that have generally more successful anti-cheats still have problems with cheaters existing (this includes Valorant). (These Anti-Cheats being: BattleEye, Riccochet, and then for OW there's Warden, and for Valorant there's Vanguard).

And there are, at times, issues with Anti-Cheat programs and performance problems (like early on with Elden Ring) and there's also issues of Anti-Cheat programs also picking up on programs unrelated to the game but aren't whitelisted (as Vanguard used to pick up on system temp monitoring software frequently, for example).

For the most part, I don't really feel the efficacy of an anti-cheat would be worth the things given up just to have one. We would still likely have the same cheating issue, and developers of those tools will learn workarounds, and in exchange you're giving up a lot of things people take for granted. As well as potentially introducing new issues.

I don't really think it's a panacea that'll really fix cheating problems in enough of a way for the cost to be worth them, from my point of view.

However, I can't say I know what a solution truly is. I know there's a STF team of five people (Per EW credits), but I don't know what that looks like or what processes they use, or if they require approval to terminate accounts, etc... I don't know if they receive adequate resources, nor do I know if five people (again) is enough for the workload. I also can't say I know what the review process looks like from their end, either.

I do feel that consequences for cheating should be harsher, for things that fall under whatever SE'd consider as damaging to gameplay integrity. As, generally, risk of account forfeiture is likely enough of a deterrent for most people. But if there is a feeling that there is no risk of being actioned, then people will cheat more frequently.

I don't have a third solution to provide, but I can really just outline the problems I do have when it comes to specifically anti-cheat programs. Now, if SE implemented one and let it go ham, I wouldn't really be affected by it, but I don't know if the fallout would be... something that's... I guess, recoverable? At this stage. Or whether what you actually get is worth what you lose.

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Originally Posted by Aneshda

I don't know why so many Players are against some Anti Cheat Software, but let's face reality ... in 7 Days, SE starts the Stress Test for the Cloud Data Center.
SE says it is to expand Space for the next Expansion, but I think that there is more to the Story. A Cloud Data Center will be more secured as the 0815 Servers we have now. I have the feeling that SE can implement security Software on the Cloud Data Centers that none would notice.

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Cloud realistically provides nothing for game security that they couldn't already do.

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Originally Posted by ltsquigs

Hey Howdy, I was the person who supplied the stats on how many people use Auto-Markers in that thread, but I'll post my 2 cents here.

I am someone who does not use plugins, and I raid with a group of people who are like-minded in that regard. Generally, it does not bother me if people use plugins if everyone they are playing with are O.K. with it. After all, if everyone you're playing with are fine with it, who am I an unrelated person, to yell at you. Obviously when plugins present a problem in a game like FFXIV, it is often when people do it in scenarios where there isn't that collective consent (e.g. cheating in fall guys competitively, or secretly using things in PF without the other players knowing).

That being said, as someone who doesn't use plugins, if they added an anti-cheat tomorrow that worked perfectly with no issues (heck even if that anti cheat somehow magically only targeted the "worst" plugins) it's not like it would magically improve my experience in the game whatsoever.

To that end, I would much rather that they spend the resources identifying *why* people use these plugins and addressing the underlying frustrations and issues that drive people to use them.

Auto-Markers, for example, aren't used for every mechanic in the game or fights they are in, they aren't even used in every Ultimate. They are used because in 3 of the Ultimates there are particularly Janky/Frustrating mechanics that both have incredibly high variance due to things like snapshots and ping and are designed in a way to be frustrating for Party Finder. Often these mechanics, such as Titan Gaols, aren't even the hardest or most interesting mechanics in the fight, they are simply the most janky and frustrating. I would much rather they go in and *change* Titan Gaols to make it better for *everyone* rather than just implement an Anti-Cheat.

We see this phenomenon with a lot of other plugins as well. Some other recent examples I can think of: NoClippy/XIVAlexander rose in popularity after they released an update that made ninja a lot more frustrating to play for a week or two for players who had high enough pings. GShade VFX Filters/EasyEyes had an explosion in popularity (to the point of being mentioned in PF) after fights like Pandemonium 3 were released that were incredibly frustrating to do if you were red color blind.

To that end, rather than spending whatever limited resources they have implementing an Anti Cheat that would just anger a lot of the people using plugins to make their cat faces more yass-ified or w/e, I would rather see them actually adjust content after its released in response to how players play it.

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So mechanics being frustrating means that instead of getting better, people should cheat? Why not just git gud?

A lot of stuff that anti cheat would solve, could be solved with more GMs.

Well since this thread is about implementation of anti-cheat measures being added to the game. Doing so would require SE to take a stance similar to something Capcom said during a presentation of the new version of their RE engine they plan to use on titles going forward. During that presentation they noted that for purposes of the engine all mods are considered cheats. This had nothing to do with devs not liking people using mods and more to do with a business standpoint and that for any kind of anti-cheat software to have a chance at being effective it will have to treat any modification to files or code as a cheat. Also I suppose there is also the issue of possible things happening like having someone show up with like a nude mod in a Street Fighter tournament...

Why would they remove their free pool of QOL ideas and unpaid work force putting hats and extra hairs on viera/hroth?

Solving cheating isnt a one and done thing by just installing EAC and calling it a day. It's an arm's race with questionable results. The third party tools it will hit first is going to be low to the ground stuff that ranges from benign to beneficial, some of which have only been implemented into the game because a cheating "scandal" caused a big ruckus. The actual paid for cheats like pvp ones usually adapt fairly well or just get replaced by less detectable ones. All the while the user experience for many if not most other players would decrease. All for trying to combat market bots or pvp cheaters in a game where neither is really relevant. Anti cheat is an arm's race that is not winnable with automated programs and the actual goal is just the illusion of preventing cheating.

A no from me, it's not worth it.

Yet all MMOS games with "anti cheat" in them still suffer from cheaters all the same :)
- its just a huge waste of money!
Better spend that money on hiring more gms
and improved ways to report cheaters!

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

I’ve yet to see any anti cheat that works for all these years.

The best it can do is block amateur CE script written by a guy who just watched a 5 minute tutorial on YouTube.

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Entirely this, and going by Square's history, they're not going to crack it either.

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Originally Posted by Bellsong

Why would they remove their free pool of QOL ideas and unpaid work force putting hats and extra hairs on viera/hroth?

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Lmao, true. Why expend funds and man-hours when they can crowdsource the work by getting a bunch of unpaid volunteers to do it for them? Its ingenious.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

If the devs fixed their game, there would be no need for an anti cheat because people would use fewer addons.

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I am going to go ahead and ask you to provide an explanation on how this addon 'fixes' any of the issues going on with the game's infrastructure?

https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...c7jO/giphy.gif

The only thing I fault the devs for is tying a pretty significant achievement to a timed event. This was, for the lack of a better word, stupid. It unquestionably would goad players to exploit a flaw or cheat. It doesn't excuse it, and it makes the achievement hallow for anyone who obtains it using the addon. In any case, the misgivings from the dev team does not pardon misconduct from the playerbase. Wholesome players recognize the unfair advantage, and stay away from tools that provide them.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

I am going to go ahead and ask you to provide an explanation on how this addon 'fixes' any of the issues going on with the game's infrastructure?

https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...c7jO/giphy.gif

The only thing I fault the devs for is tying a pretty significant achievement to a timed event. This was, for the lack of a better word, stupid. It unquestionably would goad players to exploit a flaw or cheat. It doesn't excuse it, and it makes the achievement hallow for anyone who obtains it using the addon. In any case, the misgivings from the dev team does not pardon misconduct from the playerbase. Wholesome players recognize the unfair advantage, and stay away from tools that provide them.

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https://i.imgur.com/XhEvZJX.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/RrJvV1o.mp4

https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...mCWd/giphy.gif

I can do that too.

So where's the fix from SE ?

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

https://i.imgur.com/XhEvZJX.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/RrJvV1o.mp4

https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...mCWd/giphy.gif

I can do that too.

So where's the fix from SE ?

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You're not doing anything. Your links simply shows the jank, which everyone has to deal with. If real time physics matters to you, then you should also ask the devs to stop making our WoLs fall distances that would otherwise kill them.

If they fixed the server snapshotting jank

Added more language options

Added all the QoL (not convenience) things that plugins offer

And, added hats for viera and hroth




Then I would still be against an anti-cheat. I genuinely cannot care if someone else is cheating in XIV

I got to 15 wins before the cheating thing was brought to light, and I stopped bothering for the title because it was clear people will think anyone with it, is a cheater

Should they have anti-cheat?, no. Should they have stronger moderation?, yes. Should the game be drastically improved to deter "cheat-like" tools and plugins?, Absolutely yes

Remember the Gaols example from earlier in the thread?, they could add the crystal markers from E4, blue, yellow and red to the people with the gaols, and the mechanic could be easily solved without Auto-markers

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Your links simply shows the jank, which everyone has to deal with.

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Well, not everyone. The cheaters don't have to deal with it. That's why they cheat.

And I wasn't talking just about the fall guys event which I already gave up on. I meant things like invisible Hrothgar hats, how the cursor defaults to "no" when turning in HQ gear, how you can't see the timer for housing lottery in the timers menu, how the chat scrolls down when you're trying to read something further up and how that achievements nearing completion pop up and workshop cutscenes still can't be disabled. Oh, and the ping-based prolonged animation lock that's been a problem for the entire history of the game is still there.

It doesn't take much thought to figure out why someone would download a mod when there is a metric ton of jank that shouldn't be in the game. If the jank was gone, there would be fewer reasons to cheat. The devs said as much when they started to fix some of it.

PSA People cheat to get and advantage over others or bypass annoyance with the game. QOL will not do jack diddly F'n squat to stop such behavior.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

PSA People cheat to get and advantage over others or bypass annoyance with the game. QOL will not do jack diddly F'n squat to stop such behavior.

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Some people rationalize their cheating by trying to spin it as if their cheating is simply making up for some flaw in the design of the game, thus the 'QoL' comments.

I saw someone characterizing auto-marker (a plugin which automatically solves mechanics in Ultimates/Savage like Titan Gaols or Dynamis jumps) as 'QoL' and felt like I was losing my mind. Like, I guess in a way cheating can improve the quality of someone's life? lol.

I still find it weird that they aren't doing anything about paid mods, literal RMT within their game.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

All of reddit is a joke. A place where people hide behind overbearing modding so their feelings are salvaged. I spend most of my time on reddit seeing how much negative karma I can accumulate.

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Reddit is a joke
Official forums are a joke

The entire player base are just idiots who have wrong opinions

/s

I couldn't care less about "cheating" in PvE content, the only person you're cheating is yourself.

However, in PvP you are actively screwing with someone else's game and chance to win fairly, this is especially bad with things like exclusive Top 100 prizes and such. I don't think anti-cheat software is the answer, I think SE should just have dedicated PvP mods constantly in the mode watching the battle logs and looking for suspicious activity like players who are magically able to toss Ninja LB on anyone the nanosecond their HP hits that threshold, or players who just happen to CC anyone in range the very moment they are in range every time. It's like playing against the button-reading Mortal Kombat 2 AI sometimes.

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Originally Posted by LioJen

I couldn't care less about "cheating" in PvE content, the only person you're cheating is yourself.

However, in PvP you are actively screwing with someone else's game and chance to win fairly, this is especially bad with things like exclusive Top 100 prizes and such. I don't think anti-cheat software is the answer, I think SE should just have dedicated PvP mods constantly in the mode watching the battle logs and looking for suspicious activity like players who are magically able to toss Ninja LB on anyone the nanosecond their HP hits that threshold, or players who just happen to CC anyone in range the very moment they are in range every time. It's like playing against the button-reading Mortal Kombat 2 AI sometimes.

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My rules for cheating are as follows.
1. Dont cheat in multi-player.
2. Dont cheat in a competitive enviroment.
3. Outside of the above 2 rules. Cheat long, cheat hard, cheat proudly.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Well, not everyone. The cheaters don't have to deal with it. That's why they cheat.

And I wasn't talking just about the fall guys event which I already gave up on. I meant things like invisible Hrothgar hats, how the cursor defaults to "no" when turning in HQ gear, how you can't see the timer for housing lottery in the timers menu, how the chat scrolls down when you're trying to read something further up and how that achievements nearing completion pop up and workshop cutscenes still can't be disabled. Oh, and the ping-based prolonged animation lock that's been a problem for the entire history of the game is still there.

It doesn't take much thought to figure out why someone would download a mod when there is a metric ton of jank that shouldn't be in the game. If the jank was gone, there would be fewer reasons to cheat. The devs said as much when they started to fix some of it.

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The point of the gif is to show that the plug-in doesn't resolve the jank, so this argument is moot. The reason people are cheating has nothing to do with the jank and netcode, and everything to do with the achievement being tied to a timed, PvP event. The same can be said about world's first ultimate and savage clears. Even though the content is technically PvE, the nature of world's first makes it a PvP contest composed of teams competing against each other. This is a matter of players not wanting to take accountability and would instead place it on the dev team, and reaching for anything they can as the reason. Most people are going to see through this.

Housing is another example of a PvP situation created by a limited resource. And again, players will excuse their hacks by placing accountability on the dev team. And for the sake of argument let's just say they're right. Even then the players are not creating a solution that benefits everyone. Only themselves. At best they are still being selfish and more than willing to resolve their perceived unfairness by cutthroating.

Benign mods is something else entirely. They don't give players an advantage in PvE or PvP content and that's the subject matter currently.

I play at 200 to 300 ms. I double weave fine on CONSOLE. Whoever is claiming they need mods to double weave because of animations is delusional. You are obsessing over a literal 0.1ms clip of your GCD in the name of parse numbers. Brain rot. Sickness must be purged.

This would also in theory make it so it would be impossible for someone unmodded to get the same numbers if that 0.1ms clip did actually matter which in itself is another problem and yet another reason these devs need to start taking the game seriously because people actually play it now. Stop labelling cheating as QoL.

I play with a ping around 200 to 300 and have 2 bad wrists and 2 bad hands. I sure don't need use any cheats or third-party programs to play FFXIV. I have played other MMO's with anti-cheat systems and I have never had any problems playing them. I'm all for them adding anti-cheat system.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

All of reddit is a joke. A place where people hide behind overbearing modding so their feelings are salvaged. I spend most of my time on reddit seeing how much negative karma I can accumulate.

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If these forums were as moderated as Reddit, do you think you'd be getting away with openly insulting people?

I wouldn't really care. Maybe cheats are prolific in the savage/ultimate scene, but I don't do that stuff, so meh.

I have the FG event title and in all of my time getting it, I never came across anyone that was blatantly cheating (by this, I mean doing actual impossible stuff you cannot normally do, not just things like being shown telegraphs for stuff that doesn't normally have telegraphs). Maybe some people were just better at hiding it, but it didn't stop me from getting wins in a reasonable timeframe anyway. Regardless, I think it's far less of an issue there than certain people are making it out to be -- I think most of these people just don't want to admit that they just might not be good at playing the event. Which is fine/unfortunate and all, but don't try to blame others for your shortcomings.

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Originally Posted by LioJen

I couldn't care less about "cheating" in PvE content

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I guess tell that to the crafters that have to compete with marketmaking bots, tell that to the gatherers that have to compete with bots. Tell it to the devs that design ultimate fights, only to find out the progress raiders are ignoring their mechanics they thought about at for days, by some plugin that solves it for them. It will devalue the game itself if you have blatant cheating in PvE. At that point SE could sell cheats and gil on mogstation.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

I still find it weird that they aren't doing anything about paid mods, literal RMT within their game.

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They have enough awareness to realize that the money spent on paid mods(cosmetic or otherwise) would not be going back into their game if they took legal action against the developers of those mods. Having the sites that offer these mods taken down and pursuing legal action is also costly. I would assume SE has an in-house legal team that could minimize costs somewhat, but maybe not.

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Originally Posted by Darkobra

If these forums were as moderated as Reddit, do you think you'd be getting away with openly insulting people?

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She would be. Reddit mods don't baby sit their respective subreddits either. Things get pretty bad on reddit at times. I mentioned that about a year ago a couple of people in r/ffxivdiscussion were outright doxxing people in the responses section. The elusive forum mods here would have stepped in by then. Most subreddit moderators are happy with drama since it brings activity, and because of how Reddit as a site works overall they can push most of the blame back onto it. The site's ToS protects it from any backlash, and really, if something awful on there got enough attention the global mods would step in quietly to handle it.

It will boil down to whether SE can stay ahead of the cheaters or not. Otherwise, we'll just have a "better brand" of cheater to deal with.

I don't really see it enough to care, I can't actually think of any instances I've seen it outside of the current Fall Guys event on media and gathering bots

Besides, I don't think they will. Even if they did I'm sure people would find a way around it

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

She would be. Reddit mods don't baby sit their respective subreddits either. Things get pretty bad on reddit at times. I mentioned that about a year ago a couple of people in r/ffxivdiscussion were outright doxxing people in the responses section. The elusive forum mods here would have stepped in by then. Most subreddit moderators are happy with drama since it brings activity, and because of how Reddit as a site works overall they can push most of the blame back onto it. The site's ToS protects it from any backlash, and really, if something awful on there got enough attention the global mods would step in quietly to handle it.

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Doxxing people should absolutely be the line that ANY mod should step in at. It's disturbing that the other mods didn't.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

I think the only thing that ticks me off about this more than anything is that cheating has been a plague in this game for a long time, but it took a silly Fall Guys event for the greater side of the community to care and give a darn about it. Like the fact Fall Guys is the final straw for people is just kind of wild. Yeah, something should be done about cheating, I just can't get over the fact that it took a silly seasonal event to spark this revolution.

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It's easier to ignore when it's limited to hardcore ultimate "world first" raid groups, or anecdotes about "I saw this guy zooming around in PvP" when not everybody even plays PvP. The Fall Guys event is supposed to be something casual, for the general audience, and while the terrible snapshotting may be the source of most of our woes, it has brought to the forefront the fact that as long as cheaters are out there none of us have a chance to succeed or enjoy the game normally.

I've seen multiple times, players joking about the cheating mods, and saying "Oh, so it's just like real Fall Guys then." Not only has this been an embarrassment for FFXIV, but it's carrying over to those Square Enix is partnering with in a cross-promotion, making them look bad by association. The event may appear silly on the surface level, but it has put some very serious issues right in front of everyone's faces. No one respects the title you get from 100 wins, we all think it's because you cheated now. How is anyone supposed to look forward to future events in this game, if this is how it's going to be? Any company considering a cross-promotion with FFXIV from now on is going to look back at this event, and think "Is it worth it? Will this damage our brand?"

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

It's easier to ignore when it's limited to hardcore ultimate "world first" raid groups, or anecdotes about "I saw this guy zooming around in PvP" when not everybody even plays PvP. The Fall Guys event is supposed to be something casual, for the general audience, and while the terrible snapshotting may be the source of most of our woes, it has brought to the forefront the fact that as long as cheaters are out there none of us have a chance to succeed or enjoy the game normally.

I've seen multiple times, players joking about the cheating mods, and saying "Oh, so it's just like real Fall Guys then." Not only has this been an embarrassment for FFXIV, but it's carrying over to those Square Enix is partnering with in a cross-promotion, making them look bad by association. The event may appear silly on the surface level, but it has put some very serious issues right in front of everyone's faces. No one respects the title you get from 100 wins, we all think it's because you cheated now. How is anyone supposed to look forward to future events in this game, if this is how it's going to be? Any company considering a cross-promotion with FFXIV from now on is going to look back at this event, and think "Is it worth it? Will this damage our brand?"

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I wouldnt have looked in complete awe and admiration at queen/king beans even without anyone cheating. Fall guys isnt rocket science. You can still easily win a fall guys instance by just playing well. There's even graphs to learn from by the first person who got the 100 wins.

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Originally Posted by Darkobra

Doxxing people should absolutely be the line that ANY mod should step in at. It's disturbing that the other mods didn't.

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That's just the big extreme though. People insult each other on reddit all the time, in plenty of colorful ways. It's normal even on the semi-official r/ffxiv subreddit where you'd think people would get very defensive over such insults.