They need to find a way to detect XIV Alexander and ban people

[HyoMinPark]

The only way the GMs/STF would be able to detect the use of Alexander (or any third-party program) would be to install a separate software onto a player’s computer that scans each of XIV’s files and the computer’s system for these tools and/or any modifications. However, this sort of software is illegal in a lot of countries (including Japan, last I checked), and with this being a global game, SE attempting to attach it to XIV would be impossible.

[Lecru]

"The only way the GMs/STF would be able to detect the use of Alexander (or any third-party program) would be to install a separate software onto a player’s computer that scans each of XIV’s files and the computer’s system for these tools and/or any modifications. However, this sort of software is illegal in a lot of countries (including Japan, last I checked), and with this being a global game, SE attempting to attach it to XIV would be impossible.
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Scanning the GAME FILES is legal. Anything outside of that is not. And to my knowledge, XIV Alexander would have to be installed IN the game files to read the data going on on screen.

[HyoMinPark]

"The only way the GMs/STF would be able to detect the use of Alexander (or any third-party program) would be to install a separate software onto a player’s computer that scans each of XIV’s files and the computer’s system for these tools and/or any modifications. However, this sort of software is illegal in a lot of countries (including Japan, last I checked), and with this being a global game, SE attempting to attach it to XIV would be impossible.
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Scanning the GAME FILES is legal. Anything outside of that is not. And to my knowledge, XIV Alexander would have to be installed IN the game files to read the data going on on screen.

It’s actually not. In EU countries, installing these “anti-cheat” softwares that behave like rootkits is illegal. Aside from the privacy concerns involved, rootkits themselves can have various other side-effects on your system. Software like this that has been incorporated into other games has faced huge amounts of backlash from playerbases.

[Driavna]

It’s actually not. In EU countries, installing these “anti-cheat” softwares that behave like rootkits is illegal. Aside from the privacy concerns involved, rootkits themselves can have various other side-effects on your system. Software like this that has been incorporated into other games has faced huge amounts of backlash from playerbases.

Not really, plenty of games have stuff like that and are ok in EU. Most famous one that come to mind with a very intrusive anti-cheat system will be Valorant, Blizzard also check your files and is ok in EU. At the end of the day that stuff just block wannabe hackers, but those that know what they are doing or a willing to pay for cheats will by pass that barrier. Still, if SE decided to add it the player base will do the typical mental gymnastic of: only cheaters are against it, why do you care if you already use X social media and similars (same mental gymnastic certain people to justify certain addons/mods).

Anyway, SE should allow addons for all platforms and just break anything they consider too much. Having certain addons give you and advantage over other players and that's sucks when console players are involved.

[NzomiKujo]

The only way the GMs/STF would be able to detect the use of Alexander (or any third-party program) would be to install a separate software onto a player’s computer that scans each of XIV’s files and the computer’s system for these tools and/or any modifications. However, this sort of software is illegal in a lot of countries (including Japan, last I checked), and with this being a global game, SE attempting to attach it to XIV would be impossible.

They could use nProtect GameGuard like PSO2, if it detects any 3rd party program running that the game devs dont like it gives you Error 1013 and force you to close the game, crashes the game or gives BSOD. If that's not enough, implement checksum file that the game checks and updates regularly while you're online.
In PSO2 if the devs find people using parser they ban accounts without warning for cheating.

I guess the anti parser people would be happy.

[Naizakane]

They could use nProtect GameGuard like PSO2, if it detects any 3rd party program running that the game devs dont like it gives you Error 1013 and force you to close the game, crashes the game or gives BSOD. If that's not enough, implement checksum file that the game checks and updates regularly while you're online.
In PSO2 if the devs find people using parser they ban accounts without warning for cheating.

I guess the anti parser people would be happy.

I can't quite give you a short summary of how funny this is to anyone who knows about OverParse.

Okay great. But if it's random, any tool would be unable to predict it. You know why? Because they get their info from the server at the same time your client does. There is literally nothing any tool could do to somehow read the future.

In E4S, Cactbot would tell you the safespots for the left/right punches, which were random and only communicated via an animation, before the animation tell.

[Rhysati]

In E4S, Cactbot would tell you the safespots for the left/right punches, which were random and only communicated via an animation, before the animation tell.

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

[Driavna]

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

?

Once the game decided what action the boss will do that data is send to all players and is sniffed by said addon to create a warning. If said addon is showing a warning even before any animation happens it's just mean said information was already there but not necessary accessible to anyone without said addon.

[Shurrikhan]

So...the game communicated it to your client, you didn't notice as quickly as the plugin did so...it's psychic?

Again, the information was given BEFORE the first animation cue. Players, no matter how inhuman their reaction speed, would not yet have had any information from which to glean where to go.

That's the kind of thing that wouldn't happen at this point in WoW, for instance, because they don't send that kind of information as would be player-readable until the moment of actuation (at which point it would just be a matter of a plugin yelling at you what the visual information was already simultaneously telling you).

But as it stands, XIV offers up a significant amount of information to the client that can be read early, just not through in-game tells. That's left policing what should and should not be offered by plugins up to plugin distributors to curate or ban as they see fit.

[Somnolence]

Again, the information was given BEFORE the first animation cue. Players, no matter how inhuman their reaction speed, would not yet have had any information from which to glean where to go.

That's the kind of thing that wouldn't happen at this point in WoW, for instance, because they don't send that kind of information as would be player-readable until the moment of actuation (at which point it would just be a matter of a plugin yelling at you what the visual information was already simultaneously telling you).

But as it stands, XIV offers up a significant amount of information to the client that can be read early, just not through in-game tells. That's left policing what should and should not be offered by plugins up to plugin distributors to curate or ban as they see fit.

Cactbot is rather benign in the bigger picture. It does not make bad players good, its just 100% accurate shot-caller with maybe 1s advantage. If it causes less idiots to ruin PFs by repeatedly failing mechs then this is a good thing.

Problem is, because modding is not officially supported it makes console players second class citizens. Even PS5 players are playing visually inferior game as PC players don't even need Reshade for that, they can use NVidia Geforce Experience filters to spice the visuals up.