Resurgence of people using third-party programs to find hunt marks?

[enthauptet]

It is kind of annoying being at a location when a hunt spawns and then you see a message from someone not even close to it that it is standing in front of me...

[Tridus]

It is kind of annoying being at a location when a hunt spawns and then you see a message from someone not even close to it that it is standing in front of me...

Keep in mind that Relays are a thing. If I get a notice from one hunt LS/NN that it's spawned, I can push a macro that relays it to the others without needing to target the mob.

Is the person sending the original notice using an external program? Maybe. I don't know. But once they post a coordinate, I can fire it off to half the server from anywhere.

[Tridus]

It would be nice if the information from XIV's servers such as S rank/FATE/gathering node coordinates was more...secure, because both hunt detectors and bots are dependent on getting that information in order to function.

I'd expect the server end is plenty secure. Trouble comes when the client needs to know about it. As Mwynn mentioned, large draw distances on some of these targets mean the client has to know about it from a very large distance away, and SE may just be doing it at a zone level to avoid the calculations of which clients to tell for large targets like that (in that case it just notifies every client in the zone).

Once the client is notified, it's in RAM somewhere, and securing userspace program RAM against someone who will run programs elevated to let them read memory of other programs is effectively impossible in Windows. They'd need to obfuscate the game's memory to make it harder to find, and it's probably not worth it to them.

Sadly, it's entirely on SE to do something about this, which given their track record with handling hackers and bots, isn't likely to happen. They did actually break the original hunt detecting program at some point (Though whether it was intentional or accidental is another matter entirely), but I noticed people starting to popularize a new one not long after SB released, which incidentally, is when I first started running into these strange instances of people calling hunts seconds after they spawn (I saw someone call a spawned Okina in shout and linkshell the moment they loaded into the zone next to me, and there weren't any other players next to the thing when we arrived at it).

Without changing the visible distance of S ranks and also changing the communication model to limit which clients get that information, there isn't much they *can* do. They could play whack a mole by changing the memory layout to make it harder for the program to find it, but that's whack a mole. If the people behind the radar programs are dedicated, they'll always get it working again.

[Kazgrel]

ACT can be set with triggers to call out a hunt if you get close enough to it (or when you enter the zone in the case of a S rank). The plug in does not give the exact coordinates of the S ranks, nor does it relay them to linkshells and other chats in game.

[Feves]

I wont say the FC's name but lets just say there is an FC on Odin thats known by the entire server as grief pullers for the last year or so

1. Our FC found/spawned tons of A ranks and S ranks at the start of the expansion. The hunts weren't getting pulled instantly either.
If people are getting there slow, that's their fault, when people started acting entitled to stuff they didn't bother to find, that is when a few people (not everyone) took upon themselves to pull the hunts earlier.

They are banned from most if not all hunt linkshells.But are magically at every hunt before most hunt linkshells even get there.
I suspect thy are useing 3rd party tools to detect hunt spawns.

2. No one in the FC uses the hunt programs you are talking about. We aren't banned from every hunt LS because there's actually people in the server that see passed the mindless drone thinking of people on Odin who can't even bother to go find A ranks/S ranks for themselves and want to point fingers when they miss them. First it was Mi6 and now it's us.

On top of that they also troll all the s rank and a rank report sites to hide spawn times so they can try prevent players from killing them.

There is a literal FC with the slogan "Want a S Rank? Ask for permission" (in bad english) who publicly admit to messing up the trackers + keep track of them on a private google document so that they don't miss an S rank so they can get their Tiger mounts. Their previous FC leader was permanently banned for talking about a hunt program in game (surprise!) but of course I'm not surprised at this servers's circlejerk way of thinking and wants to blame everything on us.

Please don't post such lies if you have no idea what is going on.

[KageTokage]

Welp, I just popped some leves for Lampalagua and as per usual, someone linked its location mere seconds after, with nobody being there when I arrived.

Overall, this isn't actually benefiting anyone other then the few people using the sniffer to detect the hunts in this manner, and as some have previously stated, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is using it nor is it likely anyone can actually be punished for it (Unless you can somehow goad them into admitting that they're using it).

[Metalwrath]

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Please don't post such lies if you have no idea what is going on.

Hunts were and are getting instantly pulled by your fc and this is a known fact.Ive had instances when as soon as i found an A rank as long as there was a healer with said person he immediatly attacked the stormblood A rank and tried to fight it duo.
There is no trying to lie about how your fc carries on.It is well known by the entire server of the hunt griefing your fc engage in on a day to day basis.And no a lot of these s ranks arent being spawned by your FC.
Furthermore certain members of your fc try to brag as much as possible over this on the server in shout.
You're well aware of it.There probably isnt a single FC on Odin by this stage that doesnt know your fc by name purely over this.

[Mavrias]

Hunts were and are getting instantly pulled by your fc and this is a known fact.Ive had instances when as soon as i found an A rank as long as there was a healer with said person he immediatly attacked the stormblood A rank and tried to fight it duo.
There is no trying to lie about how your fc carries on.It is well known by the entire server of the hunt griefing your fc engage in on a day to day basis.And no a lot of these s ranks arent being spawned by your FC.

No offense, but hunts are open world content and designed to be competitive as well. Attacking an open world mob before others isn't griefing. A ranks were designed to be beaten by light parties, S ranks for 8 mans. If they wait for others, thats nice but its not a ToS violation if they don't.

[Metalwrath]

No offense, but hunts are open world content and designed to be competitive as well. Attacking an open world mob before others isn't griefing. A ranks were designed to be beaten by light parties, S ranks for 8 mans. If they wait for others, thats nice but its not a ToS violation if they don't.

Yea i know the argument.Honestly if you were hunting on Odin you'd understand how its been going down.We are probably the most toxic server for hunts now because of this FC.
There's a difference between pulling early to kill and pulling early to troll other hunters.Their FC is pulling early soley to troll and nothing more.
I doubt the Odin community would be so annoyed over it if the peoples motives werent driven for the purpose of trying to deny as many as possible a kill.

[Feves]

Uhh.. we did spawn S ranks at the START of Stormblood and find a lot of A ranks. You can't say we didn't cause we used to have 8 man parties throwing items in the lochs, I used to teleport to the 3 instances of Azim Steppe and look for the Tribute fate. I stopped caring to hunt because of the needless drama.

There's only one person in our FC who is "instant" pulling hunts to this day, try to prove me wrong. He does it for the legacy salt because he doesn't care what you guys think. I mean, our FC has dozens of membes but the actions of two individuals gets put on the rest of us. If you see me in game, I don't "instant" pull and I'll gladly wait for people. I personally haven't "early" pulled and I can't say I condone it. I missed hunts due to people in my FC "instant" pulling too but I don't get mad over it since it's how the game works.

You're accusing us of using hunt programs and messing up the trackers. Do you have any proof on your claims? I can tell you in game exactly the four individuals that mess up those trackers and none of them are in our FC. They don't want any S rank to spawn while they aren't online yet no one wants to harass them or try to tear them down. We actually spawned Salt and Light 2 weeks ago and these people came and flamed us for doing so when we relayed it to everyone.