Would you be opposed to SE implementing a program to scan for addons/parsers?

[redheadturk]

An anti-cheat isn’t “invasive” in the way that you think. On a basic level, the game scans its own files to make sure they match the official ones. This is the same method used when you “verify game file integrity” in Steam or other launchers. It’s also how VAC operates. In fact, the entire system can run server-side. There’s no “scanning” that needs to be performed on your hardware. And AFAIK, a game has a legal and technical right to access its own files.

Also, have people not considered the sheer difference in magnitude between the above system and Mare? Which not only scans your files, but allows arbitrary downloads and code injection onto your client? In addition to uploading information from your client to others? In addition to sharing you and your alts’ statuses? On some dude’s private PC in his basement, no less (no one knows who or what runs Mare). Far, far more intrusive and yet 20,000 people are running Mare at any given time. A large portion of the FFXIV community welcomes intrusiveness. An anti-cheat would relieve them of that.

I myself use mare and cosmetic mods. But I only share my UUID with a very small number of people that I implicitly trust. But cosmetic mods are all I use, now that they have implemented the single QoL feature I very desperately needed [aka the buff timers on the party list and the ability to make them larger] That does not mean that I am going to welcome a rootkit onto my system. The people I share my appearance with [primarily my tiny FC of less than a dozen people] I trust. The rootkits that are anti cheats from big corporations I don't.