[Feedback] Add Epic Easy Anti-Cheat to FFXIV before is too late

[MilkieTea]

you mean punishing anyone that uses 3rd party tools

And potentially anyone that happens to have .net frameworks on their PC, gigabytes RGB Fusion software/any software that controls your RAM RGB, ccleaner, ReShade (even if you don’t use it on your current game - ie if you have it for The Sims and nothing else.), mouse software like g hub, corsairs software etc, overclocking programs, drawing tablet drivers, among any other ACTUALLY HARMLESS softwares. I’ve had both EAC and VAC false flag on a BRAND NEW PC where the only programs were the game running, Clip Studio Paint, and my drawing tablet’s drivers (which are required to get pen pressure).

Not to mention that if they went with anticheats, they run the risk of alienating people who just wish to have a faster PC, as anticheats are notorious for slowing down your PC.

[redheadturk]

You wouldn't even need to use the same server infrastructure, you could just pump the data into AWS instances and analyse there. They'd be modelling gameplay patterns using server side logs and client side anti-cheat data (if they implemented one like other games). It's a completely different challenge to running a live game environment that would be handled by a different team but it's valuable work for Square Enix to do to ensure a fair online environment for the entire player base.

Client side anti-cheat is a useful data collection point and while you can call it spyware or a rootkit, it's a standard toolkit in many games. Bad implementations exist but so do good ones like Blizzard Warden and Riot Vanguard. Cheats will always exist as it's a cat and mouse game here and there's even some AI-powered anti-cheats that I've seen demonstrated on YouTube. However, publishers have a duty to their legitimate players to ensure the online environment is fair. Riot's anti-cheat is pretty aggressive and will often just disconnect you from the entire game the moment it suspects any funny business. This would honestly be fine in FFXIV and would deter most modding/plugin usage and take out 95+ percent of low hanging fruit in one sweep.

Most plugins and texture mods are harmless. Making it so Alexander and my vpn would not work for XIV would make my client *unplayable* due to currently living in a hotel and being on hotel net. Plus, I enjoy texture mods. If they ever did that, it'd be the only thing that could ever make me quit.

[redheadturk]

you mean punishing anyone that uses 3rd party tools

People should not be punished for using third party tools that are harmless and not actually cheating.

[Mosha]

Riot's anti-cheat is pretty aggressive and will often just disconnect you from the entire game the moment it suspects any funny business. This would honestly be fine in FFXIV and would deter most modding/plugin usage and take out 95+ percent of low hanging fruit in one sweep.

I mean yeah I would love that to happen during savage/ultimate prog, the anti-cheat throws a bit of a wobbly because of Razer Synapse and DC's me during a pull we would have cleared.
You are really convincing me to accept getting a rootkit installed on my system.

[Johners]

I mean yeah I would love that to happen during savage/ultimate prog, the anti-cheat throws a bit of a wobbly because of Razer Synapse and DC's me during a pull we would have cleared.
You are really convincing me to accept getting a rootkit installed on my system.

Except no major anti-cheat actually has an issue with Razor Synapse, Logitech G Hub and other peripheral configuration software. You can also point the finger at those peripheral makers for not saving profiles to the peripherals so they function without the software but that's another matter entirely (mostly because the software is a telemetry collection point anyway).

[SenpaiH]

I don't think you understand or realise how many people use 3rd party tools simply for cosmetic and harmless QoL, they're never going to ban everyone for 3rd party tools or add an anti-cheat. 2/3 of the player base would be gone, content creators would be gone. Never going to happen.

[Liam_Harper]

Anti-cheat software that scans your computer is a bad idea, but they need to do something.

I'm personally tired of how the economy is in tatters, crafting and gathering and dead, maps are botted, Eureka is botted, PvP is riddled with bots, addons exist that gain big advantages in Savage and Ultimate, there are successful rotation bots and so on.

The botters are completely aware that SE has no power over them as long as they aren't stupid and announce it in chat. SE might announce that they banned X amount of bots per month, but these are largely RMT hack bots or spammers which are designed to be throwaway accounts that make as much gil as possible before each banwave. Player bots and craft bots are a different matter. There's nothing they can do about these and the players using them know it, which has lead to a large surge in them.

At this stage they might as well just add legal bots into the game or give us the green light (no, not a serious suggestion), because it's simply a punishment to play legitimately. It's so bad I actually wonder if the devs are treating the cheat bots as a "don't ask don't tell" like dps meters.

[Mandudez]

I don't care how you remove cheaters but do it NOW. Not tomorrow, not next patch, NOW.

[Lily_Skye]

from /r/FFXIV subreddit:

This really needs more visibility so I'm posting this here, as I made a comment in another thread along these lines.

A friend showed me a screen caps of cheater's discord, cos they wanted to know what their capabilities were and what to look for.

Here's some from those screencaps:

It also includes auto LB when enemy is low enough.
Auto partner for dancer.
Auto jumps/gap closers.
Auto target switching between low HP enemies, including not switching to chitan/guard/living dead targets.
Auto guard.
15 metre circle around you for powerful shot range.
Auto LBing when bursting a target.
Multi-target Chitan detection for auto LB.

These capabilities were as of the 17th, and seemed like were being constantly updated.

I've put the screencaps in an imgur gallery, there's 2:





As fun as this mode is, the fact people cheat to this extent in it is ridiculous.

[StriderShinryu]

I don't think you understand or realise how many people use 3rd party tools simply for cosmetic and harmless QoL, they're never going to ban everyone for 3rd party tools or add an anti-cheat. 2/3 of the player base would be gone, content creators would be gone. Never going to happen.

I'm curious about this. Not saying you're wrong or anything as I really honestly have no idea what the numbers is so don't take this as some sort of call out.
Of course, given that console players can't use 3rd party add ons of any sort, I do wonder how many PC players there are who do use add ons for reasons not involving cheating and what the breakdown would be between QoL, visual upgrade and performance appraisal (which are all valid uses IMO).