Using 3rd party tools to call out Box Spawns / Enemy Buffs / DR considered cheating?

[NargaHuntress]

Ffs man this is actually happing?

[TiaHariberux3]

I can understand speed hacking as cheat but using a call out program? Wouldn't

Its pretty big advantage since PvP is all about awareness and we cant be aware of everything as a legit player which leads to possible mistakes. Letting a program call out buffs/cds (you can even use it to know when someone isnt stun resist etc anymore) is a big advantage the program even calls out buffs before you even see it ingame.

[Canadane]

I can understand speed hacking as cheat but using a call out program? Wouldn't the user has to literally perform twice the duty in order to put it to use. You would literally have to pay attention visual and audio at the same time and make decisions and actions while paying attention to two things at the same time. I mean it requires a bit of skills to handle both. I wouldn't consider them low tier just because of that, plus how much of an advantages are we talking about.

You seem to have the wrong idea here. It's a lot easier to hear about buffs and such happening instead of keeping tabs on all four of your opponents at the same time and eyeing their buff bar yourself, especially when you need to generally be attacking someone at any given time.

[Nirokun]

You seem to have the wrong idea here. It's a lot easier to hear about buffs and such happening instead of keeping tabs on all four of your opponents at the same time and eyeing their buff bar yourself, especially when you need to generally be attacking someone at any given time.

I was able to impair a lot of bursts in S1 on SMN by focusing targeting enemy ranged and calling (via PT macro with sound effects) their burst (indicated via buffs) so my team could prepare and I would Virus the burst. My strategy was (almost) always to keep everyone alive through enemy burst phases and keep DoTs rolling to pressure enemy healer MP, leading to a sequence of KO's when their MP got low and they had to conserve.

The chat restriction will place a much higher burden on each player without the ability to coordinate via chat. ._. It certainly is much easier to cheat and have a program call things out compared to listening to another player mid-match. But that doesn't make it right, and we'll just have to suffer with the chat restriction because this kind of player-initiated call-out won't be possible anymore unless we somehow develop a language with the signs to indicated enemy burst phase has started. :/

[Blubbers]

There are only 3 solutions to this issue:

1. Strong Enforcement of Rules

Build anti-cheating software to detect 3rd party programs and ban/suspend people who use them. This option would take considerable resources to hire new developers to constantly keep up with the cat and mouse game of updating this software and to hire people to watch players and administrate the bans/suspensions. You can think of this like the war on drugs, the current approach is to crack down strongly, and personally I don't think this is a viable solution.


2. Track everything in-game (my personal recommendation)

Develop better built-in systems to track cooldowns, timers, etc... If SE provides this (which I don't play WoW, but I heard is what they do), the playing field will be leveled, and it will become part of the game. Nobody will have an unfair advantage. The biggest argument against this is that it dumbs down the game and means you don't need as much awareness. Personally I'd argue only the most skilled players will use these tools and learn to use them optimally. It will also free them up to strategize and co-ordinate with their team instead of tracking a stun resist timer in their head. It would especially help with solo games where it's almost impossible to co-ordinate with your group when you can have someone use an extra stun and mess up the timer. You could also argue game quality will be better as these tools will help educate new players how DR timers and such work, something the game definitely doesn't do and that a huge amount of players still don't know.

The major downside of this is that it will take development time to develop and maintain, but I would argue much less development time than building anti-cheating software and they're enhancing the game in the process.


3. Embrace Timers/3rd party add-ons

The simplest option of all - have a list of approved 3rd party add-ons and openly allow them. Right now there's ambiguity as they're not really allow, but kind of (ex: all top raiders use them and post videos of such). By approving specific ones they open up a lot of possibilities to players, and theoretically every has the same tools to use.

Major upside - least amount of development time spent, although resources would have to be allocated to evaluating new add-ons.

Downsides - PS4 users, newer players will have to do research on what tools to use, the game is less "off the shelf" as for competitive modes you now are almost required to get these addons.

My Opinion
Overall - I'm STRONGLY in favor of option 2. It is the only long term viable option that evens the playing field. It's unrealistic to play whack-a-mole dedicating the resources to investigate reports of specific users and developing software to detect these things. Option 2 is much cleaner, will help educate players, and will make the game overall much more complete.

[natyusha]

If you want to use WoW as an example just look at how powerful some of the popular third party addons are for pvp.

https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/gladius
Basically gives you a second party frame that tracks the opposing team.

https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/Omnibar
Tracks enemy cool downs allowing you to prepare interrupts / burst in advance.

https://mods.curse.com/addons/wow/trufigcd
Tracks gcds of party members allowing you see see when they are about to burst etc.

When it comes to ffxiv console players will always be at a disadvantage in both pve and pvp due to the lack of add on support, and inferior hardware for 72mans.

[FreeKingStefan]

If you want to use WoW as an example just look at how powerful some of the popular third party addons are for pvp.

WoW is a game where add-ons are not only supported, but encouraged by much of the community. That said, the higher-tier WoW PVP community can be split into 2 groups:

1) The cheaters and exploiters who use a plethora of methods and tools to cheat the system to get top ranks.
2) The players who are extremely skilled and don't even use addons because addons are not allowed at tournaments.

FFXIV is a bit different. Addons are not supported here and using callouts in PVP is very looked down upon by our small community. Maybe one day that will change, but the opinions of the players will be the same: Whoever uses these addons/tools are compromising the spirit of the game, as it takes out a large portion of skill relating to awareness. Nobody in the high level community will ever respect someone who uses these tools.

[Chocolys]

<snip>

About Blubbers #1: On top of what you said, they are the most intrusive piece of software using same technique used by malwares, commonly mess-up or terminate other legitimate processes, acts all shady with full system access while reporting to third party servers without any control of what is being reported or choice from the computer's owner. But I'm not gonna rant about that here, there is plently of discussion and arguments about that on Internet.

About Blubbers #2: I'm not in favor of the built-in system either mainly for 2 reasons:
- They modify the intended gameplay and natural feel of the game. I don't want them to become part of the game as you put it. But that's just personal preference.

- However where does it stop once you start adding "third party features" because you have to make it fair for everyone? People who wants to use third party tool to gain unfair advantage will still do it, they will just move to another advantage. For example, they might move from an "action tracker" to a "combat assistant" or "combat automated" tool. Should they also be added to the gameplay too?

What I basically mean is if you want to add such Tracker because you think the game will better with them, that's an opinion I can understand, but if you want to add them as to make it more fair to the "current non-cheaters", that's a bad reason for me and a slippery slope.

About Blubbers #3. In practice when these third party tool become openly allowed, it's not long before you have no practical choice but to use them, even if you don't like them, unless you find it fun on a regular basis to get belittled or harassed for not using them. Even if you play very well, you might simply be refused access to a public recruiting party simply because you're not running X Third Party tool.

Right now these third party tool parsers or trackers are tolerated, but at the same time the public or PUG in-game chats have remained generally cleared from them. So I prefer the way it is now. Don't tell don't ask in game.

[FreeKingStefan]

snip

#1) ACT has been around forever and does not give you malware.

#2) Having something feed you information and having something take control of your actions are two totally different tools. You argument is the equivalent to "Smoking weed will make you do heroine later."

#3) PvP is largely a Solo mode, and even then are not tolerated by the active PvP community. Use of ACT for PvP callouts has been condemned since the start.

[Chocolys]

<snip>

About @FreeKingStefan #1): There is a misunderstanding. I was talking about Anticheat-software, commenting on Blubbers's #1, and not about the game tracking tool. (I should better have said "about Blubbers #1 in my previous post, i'm gonna edit that).

About @FreeKingStefan #2): Information that you cannot practically control or simply have no access to, can be considered cheating. For example a Wallhack in FPS game, or the current existing third party tool for Diadem that allows you to see directly where is hidden stuff regardless of the distance or line of sight. These do no control your actions and I still consider them cheating.

Regarding the actual tool related in this topic, it does allow you (general) to get information you are not able to get while playing normally, like knowning a player or a NPC is activating/has just activated a particular skill while he's not practicaly in your line of sight/screen view. So yeah that's cheating for me, because a regular player (without the tool) in the same exact same position and context than you will not have access to that information.

If i had to bring a simple analogy. It would be like a race game where cars have no mirrors by design. But then one driver install mirrors on his, as to get an easier view of whats happening around him. Well clearly that last driver will have an advantage over others. And I would consider that cheating.
That's what a third party tracking tool do to the game. It brings awareness and informations not, or not easily accessible normally in the game, thus giving an unfair advantage and can be considered cheating.

I don't understand how it is open to interpretation. I mean the program literally does exactly what 2.5 says is cheating.

What I mean, and you can see that by the various reactions on this thread, is that not everyone will consider a third party tracking tool as a cheat. Some will just say it's part or should be part of the game. That's why I cited the User License which leaves no place for "personal view".