Reset time with xpansion. Lets deal with the cheating finally.

[Bobby66]

Yep, 80% of the mods are ERP mods tho. Just google ffxiv mods and open the site with archive in its name. You can find anything from 4K texture overhauls to complete body replacements, animation replacements, spell replacements. Using those mods is of course against the ToS.

80% FFXIV really likes to hate on the moving community. It is more like 50% and most of that would be 4k nipple mods.

Jokes aside 80% is harsh haha.

[Risvertasashi]

You do realize there are automated rotations, automated markers that help guide you to mechanics, and nonteleporting cheats in the game as well. And that is not even imo the worst. It's the screwed-up housing system being bot bought up and the economy of the server ruined. SE already ignores the party bots people make in the other FF online game and I am not talking about trusts. You can see entire bot groups set up in sync to play it 24/7. Its as bad here but in every area now.

So, bots are not good and SE should definitely ban all the ones they can.

But I think one consistent theme in this thread is people overestimating the capabilities of third party apps. Setesh thinks the callouts are way better than they are. Liam thinks bots in high end content are a problem while noting they're too dumb to know when to not provoke - something that will literally wipe you in savage. And while RMT bots can get by spamming a 1-2-3 combo, that also won't work in savage.

Automating rotations is not good, but doing well in savage requires very careful tuning - knowing when to adapt to movement and mechanics, boss jumps and so on, that brainlessly following a set rotation won't handle. You need a human intelligence to think situationally and make those adaptations. That's not something bots can do.

Are you thinking of addons that consolidate combos into a single button press, like what vanilla pvp does? That's... more questionable, but not the same realm as botting. Well, in any case, yes SE should keep banning bots.

But for addons that send no input into the game, detecting those without spyware is going to be very difficult, and I think they're mostly harmless. I'd prefer if SE gave us a modding API (which they said they'd do back in the 2.0 days! Unfortunately cancelled) to draw a line of the more questionable ones, but we're stuck with don't ask don't tell and SE seems really determined to not budge on that...

[Setesh45]

So, bots are not good and SE should definitely ban all the ones they can.

But I think one consistent theme in this thread is people overestimating the capabilities of third party apps. Setesh thinks the callouts are way better than they are. Liam thinks bots in high end content are a problem while noting they're too dumb to know when to not provoke - something that will literally wipe you in savage. And while RMT bots can get by spamming a 1-2-3 combo, that also won't work in savage.

Automating rotations is not good, but doing well in savage requires very careful tuning - knowing when to adapt to movement and mechanics, boss jumps and so on, that brainlessly following a set rotation won't handle. You need a human intelligence to think situationally and make those adaptations. That's not something bots can do.

Are you thinking of addons that consolidate combos into a single button press, like what vanilla pvp does? That's... more questionable, but not the same realm as botting. Well, in any case, yes SE should keep banning bots.

But for addons that send no input into the game, detecting those without spyware is going to be very difficult, and I think they're mostly harmless. I'd prefer if SE gave us a modding API (which they said they'd do back in the 2.0 days! Unfortunately cancelled) to draw a line of the more questionable ones, but we're stuck with don't ask don't tell and SE seems really determined to not budge on that...

You realize that every boss fight is nothing more than a series of commands and events being triggered by variables like the boss' health, right?
All you need is to map the fight, know what triggers each mechanic at what time, and then you can program the bots to do the fight better than people.
If you don't believe me do a Trust dungeon, your companions there are nothing but bots.

[Risvertasashi]

You realize that every boss fight is nothing more than a series of commands and events being triggered by variables like the boss' health, right?
All you need is to map the fight, know what triggers each mechanic at what time, and then you can program the bots to do the fight better than people.
If you don't believe me do a Trust dungeon, your companions there are nothing but bots.

And even with access to serverside code, trusts do dumb things and can't always avoid aoes in a dungeons nor always manage simple dungeon boss mechanics.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure that level is possible, dungeons are not a terribly high bar and teleporting bots were a problem in the past. But SE put in countermeasures (anyone remember when gap closers would sometimes trip it and kick you off the game? That was oof). But the original post was claiming bots are doing savage and that seems veeeery unlikely. You have to be able to execute tank swaps perfectly. You have to do a highly optimized rotation and adapt it to the specifics of the fight. Solving mechanics, aside from having to be done very quickly and precisely, need to be solved based on positions of certain visual queues, how other people with a marker are moving and so forth. I think it'd be pretty obvious if people were doing the fight with bots the moment they couldn't react to what other people are doing or different strats that different parties would use - if it were possible to bot at all. The degree of complexity there is high. And then there's that bots' peculiar yet consistent movement tends to give them away even when they aren't teleporting...

Anyways, I think even the usage of the callout addon in savage is lower than people think. Nevermind some superbot...

But I also think to get anywhere on drawing a line, we need an official modding API. Otherwise a hard crackdown threatens too much of their revenue from graphics modders, endgamer players that parse, and basically all the relatively harmless stuff. (Yes, I know plenty of people here would just say "ef them and ban them all," but that's not great business strategy nor community relations.)

[Floortank]

You realize that every boss fight is nothing more than a series of commands and events being triggered by variables like the boss' health, right?
All you need is to map the fight, know what triggers each mechanic at what time, and then you can program the bots to do the fight better than people.
If you don't believe me do a Trust dungeon, your companions there are nothing but bots.

What Risvertasashi is saying is true. Part of knowing your rotation is knowing when to hold your rotation. Holding your burst, for example, before a boss runs. Or losing a GCD to avoid a mechanic.

A bot cannot make these sort of decisions, especially if there is any randomness involved in a mechanic. Sometimes you get the marker and must go here, sometimes you don't. This means you hold the GCD or you don't. Bots can't do that. If you have done any Trusts at all you'll notice that they do mechanics with set, predictable patterns, and completely stop all DPS to do them. Which is different from holding for a GCD to dodge in and out, or longer to solve a mechanic, and they certainly won't play in such a way as to delay as few GCDs as possible in order to beat an enrage.

In the somewhat randomized sets of tank mechanics in E11S, the tank has to have a mitigation plan for a number of tankbusters that might randomly happen. There is the possibility of an early two way cleave that both tanks bait, as well as a regular tankbuster that has two parts that both must be mitigated. There is also the possibility, randomly, of an additional two way bait. If you don't plan for the mitigation, you will die. If the mitigation is not necessary, you won't need it. Because there is random variance, a bot would be very obvious. It would be the tank mitigating at a set moment when no shared bait TB is happening because the boss did one of its random other mechanics. That tank would then die to the next unmitigated attack.

I do not believe there are any bots so sophisticated that they outclass Trusts, much less players. I've spent so much time in PF I would have noticed it.

EDIT: Also the two way bait in E11S must be positioned so as not to hit anyone, and your party is not always in the same place every time this mechanic happens. Bots are unable to do this.

[Jin-]

Square has this policy that cheaters might get their feelings hurt so they won't do anything about that.

[Deceptus]

Honestly, I'm all for adding some kind of protection and client integrity checking tools into the game.
Yoshi-P also views this "spying" software as something bad, that's what I read in an interview years ago.

Because sniffers and spying software ARE bad and have no place on people's computers.

[Krotoan]

You seem to have a bit of discomfort. Anything about my actual post you disagree with?

Not "discomforted" just making a critical remark about people taking the game too seriously or competitively for their own good. The idea that a PVE game with story progression and co-op gameplay is greatly depreciated and has "more cheaters than not". Yes there are botters. Yes there are people breaking ToS. It affects most peoples games little to none. Win trading in PVP sucks and exists along with people teleport botting dungeons. Next to none of this is an epidemic.

Well competitive does not necessarily mean a leaderboard, but just tackling on and beating the hardest content along with other people.

And what part of "cheating" changes any of that for you? Generally we don't want cheating because it would disadvantage you from achieving something in game. If those people wish to ruin their own experience that really is on them. The only real disadvantage cheating brings in this game is in the marketboard.

[Raiya]

If you catch anyone using mods then turn them in and have there accounts banned. There the ones that wreck online games for everyone else. SE really needs to come down hard on them. Maybe even hit them with fines for using cheats.

Ah would you stop being so bloody dramatic, thats like the Helen Lovejoy of comments. Cosmetic Mods aren't an issue as they're purely cosmetic and client side only. They dont affect anyone else and never have in other games. If people want to do that and they keep to themselves thats their own buisness and noone elses and noone needs a pointless crusade over pointless things.

If people are being creepy to other players that falls under harrasement and abuse.

If they're teleporting or using POS hacks that's under exploits and cheating.

Both are completely different problems so focus your energy on the 2 real problems not on something that is harmless in and of itself.

[Wolwosh]

I used to do Ultimate for a while, just to try something new, and it was downtime..
I was unpleasantly surprised though as to how many people in my static were using Cactbot.
And looking up PoV's (pigs or vampires?) also many of those had Cactbot running.
Felt like cheating to me.