Why isn’t the third party software ban enforced?

[Azoryl]

I totally support not cheating with botting, hacking, etc. but Why is another person playing affecting a certain way affecting your playing? Have you been excluded because you didn't have it?

Also, this is not botting as the machine is not controlling the PC... This is taking information from the game and processing it in a different way.

The point... why are we trying to ban these players if they are not directly affecting people... let them enjoy the game in their way, you enjoy it in your way. It should only be an issue if their playing directly affects you.

[KageTokage]

There are certainly ones that let you see telegraphs that aren't there, but even something as innocuous as ACT triggers still give people more time to react/preposition, because the call that it does will issue before the mechanic's telegraph.

I remember my first time seeing it was in a video replay a SMN had done for Cruise Chaser Savage. The fight has a mechanic where it either does a massive AOE in the center, denoted by giant energy balls coming as the cast finishes, shiva-like exploding circles that rotate around the arena, and invisible circular AOEs that you have to bait, and then move from.

Their automated call would say the mech name and out, mech name and bait, or mech name and shiva. They would respond accordingly, well before the tell went out in game, for all of them except the baiting one, because that one inherently requires waiting. And guess which one they complained about, "Being annoying." The baiting one.

For further context, all four variants of this mechanic are called Optical Sight, so you can't actually tell which one the boss is using from the cast bar, but they do have distinct IDs in the game's internal database, which add-ons can read and thus let you know which version is being used before the boss even gives the visual tell of which one is being used (Which happens after the cast resolves then gives you a very brief moment to position for it).

It gives players a good three or so extra seconds to react and basically trivializes one of the encounter's main mechanics.

[_Koneko_]

this game needs some real anti cheat software so the hammer of justice can be swung down on the sinners

[CKNovel]

If its information the game has, just doesn't wanna show ya, how is it cheating?

When TEA was released in China, there was videos about a cheat that would show the invisible AoEs.
Where they would spawn and how big they were.

It was only possible in China because they handle files differently, I believe.
There was also a script that would resolve mechanics for you, someone using it was caught red-handed on stream due to how weirdly they were moving on stream.
There was also cases were scripts would read the game memory and put markers for you, let's say to display where an invisible AoE would appear. This is why we can't place ground markers in battle.

DPS is a valuable information but adding it in the game is a bad idea, DPS is not enough information to evaluate a player level but many casuals would only use it as a metric.

There's a clear problem where add-ons are a massive advantages and delivers too much information you shouldn't have access to.
The content is not designed to reveal these informations.

I totally support not cheating with botting, hacking, etc. but Why is another person playing affecting a certain way affecting your playing? Have you been excluded because you didn't have it?

Short story:
We had to kick and find a new player for savage prog because they were trigger-addict, all was good for Ultimate but when the new savage dropped and no trigger would work on these new fight that person had a level way below what was promised.
We lost 2 whole weeks of progress when we intended to clear the tier before Christmas.
I was once refused in a group because I refused to install triggers and would rather spend my energy figuring the fight myself. Quite happy I never joined them, thought.

[Luluna]

I think it is like plugging the old cheats cartridge in haha.

I am not sure but in the Uk way back, there used to be a guy called the games guru I used to watch on TV and he would give codes and cheats out each week lol

On a more serious note the game is not difficult and I love a challenge but maybe I am old school. I also hate being the one that is dead but its fun, it would be really boring if I knew what was gonna happen. I like to get better and learn.

[NanaWiloh]

I think it is like plugging the old cheats cartridge in haha.

I am not sure but in the Uk way back, there used to be a guy called the games guru I used to watch on TV and he would give codes and cheats out each week lol

On a more serious note the game is not difficult and I love a challenge but maybe I am old school. I also hate being the one that is dead but its fun, it would be really boring if I knew what was gonna happen. I like to get better and learn.

The Sega stack Sega Genesis+32x+game genie+ sonic and knuckles+ another game rofl

[Haru304]

A. Wouldn't be profitable
B. It causes people, presumably, more joy than it does irritate people

Those are the two big ones, imo.

[Liam_Harper]

It's actually a good argument for an official parser, because then they can crack down far heavier on third party software, triggers and such. Right now they know they can't outright ban ACT, their raid community would take a hard hit because of how fights are designed around enrage timers and have no replay value besides log chasing and self improvement. That would trickle down to non-raiders who would lose motivation, streamers would move to other games, ect. So they've just swept it under the rug where it grows and can't be kept in check. They don't really know what to do with it.

Having an official parser in solo content, EX, Savage and Ultimate only (optionally compatible with fflogs) and continuing the no harassment over dps policy would let them ban ACT entirely, no longer exclude console players and keep casual content fully parser free.

[Halivel]

It is cheating, you aren't wrong here.
However, Yoshida specifically stated that they don't want to check our PCs for this stuff. He did also mention laws. Don't forget that Square Enix is a Japanese company located in Japan, so their legal conditions are different, we don't know the full picture as we aren't their lawyers. This quote is taken from LL translation from Reddit discord, dated by 2020, February 6th, when Yoshida talked about implementation of changes to Way Markers system.

"We cannot do anything, if people have a little window on their screen showing ACT. We don't want to "scan" your computer for the software you have installed, that's against the law anyway. There are additional plugins for ACT that influence game play a lot, this is breaking game balance and is target of more severe penalties"
"For example, during the world first race for Alex ultimate, there was a tool used to instantly replace waymarks during the fight, i am sure some of you have seen that"
"That was the first time I learned a tool like that exists"
"Players can replace waymarks on their own during the fight of course, but having a tool place them instantly sending the command to the server through the game is wrong. Please don't do this. We have taken actions on our side to prevent this from happening again, I will show you a bit on the machine later"
"There have been clips going around of a tool showing where an untargeted aoe will hit, if we catch you doing this, this will have a heavy penalty"

That said, if you encounter people who use this stuff and can prove it - you have full right to report them.

[Penthea]

Mmm that can’t be true, otherwise Blizzard, Discord, steam, and many other highly visible companies would have been shutdown over a decade ago

Some mods communicate with the game servers so by looking at their own server data game companies can detect the use of some mods. Some other mods simulate activity you would never get from a human player, for example if you had a mod that let a bot play for you for days on end without stopping. So again a game company can scan their server data to find accounts with obvious inhuman activity like this.

Also if they see you streaming with obvious mods being used they don't even need to look at server logs to catch you in the act.

How much companies can scan your pc is a bit of a grey area, but they can only legally scan it to a point. Anti-cheat measures mostly look at server data to find player activity that wouldn't be possible with only a human player.

SE have a "don't ask don't tell" stance on some mods. Using a mod that makes the game look prettier is against the ToS but it doesn't harm the experience of other players around you and doesn't change the act of playing the game, so SE turn a blind eye as long as you don't run around chatting about it all the time in game. As for parsers, SE recognise they're excellent tools so they let players use them...as long as they never mention their use in the game itself.

As for my opinion on mods...I'm honestly glad I don't have to deal with them to be able to play the game effectively. I played WoW for a very long time and I always hated how Blizzard are extremely slow to update their ui because they can rely on third party devs to do it for them for free. Because these mods haven't been QA tested by Blizzard they can be buggy which can affect the performance of other mods and even the game itself. I dreaded patch days instead of looking forward to new content because my ui would often be broken after game updates and dealing with that was such a headache. I far prefer how it is in FFXIV, in which SE update their ui regularly and I can look forward to patch content with no stress about whether my ui will still function or not.