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

[Krotoan]

I would have a giant problem with a company scanning my computer.

Those systems always get false positives and it's really none of their business to know what I have or to use my resources for their purposes.

[Midareyukki]

That would make an already bad situation worse. The solution would be to improve the game and lessen the desire for these things. Perhaps make some mechanics easier to read, though not any easier to execute, as an example. Players shouldn't feel the need to zoom out excessively just to see what in the world is going on. Ultimate might be the focus at the moment, but it also shines a light on a lot of other issues, too.

So far this hasn't been a problem in any Ultimate I've seen, but when people are using third party tools to play your game because they can't see what the heck is going on, that's when you realize your design choices are not the best.

And to properly illustrate your point: I'm colourblind enough to not be able to spot some colour differences. I can do Kampeos Harma because of shapes rather than colours. When people who can easily see both still screw up the mechanic, it's a sign that figuring out a way to understand the mechanic isn't a problem. Executing it is xD

But there are fights without that sort of foresight. As well as gameplay elements unrelated to combat (I can't see the gathering nodes very well, they're yellow on yellow). I had people who cleared Ultimates get utterly stuck at Construct 8 and I have to be the one telling them where to go. Dyscalculia is an actual thing, turns out, and not something people throw into the air to bail out of math class.

So allowing people to identify mechanics shouldn't be a problem. Especially not when the game has markers for most stuff rather than merely relying on minute details like animation tells, buffs or glowing castbars. Those are things that require special attention from everyone. But when the indicator is meant to be clearly visible, that's a mechanic that shouldn't be hard to identify. The challenge is on the execution, no matter how "pfft, easy" we may think it is.
So when that part becomes a problem due to design, there's likely going to be a need for ways to resolve this. Sometimes, yes, through the use of QoL tools.
An Ultimate player with some form of disability or problem shouldn't be penalized for using third party tools to help them match the level of everyone else, even if they are strictly forbidden. Because if there's no viable alternative in the game, what, should they just be expected to not engage in the content overall? It's not exactly fair.

And before someone says "Yeah well life ain't fair :A", need I remind you we're discussing an online videogame with regular updates, and under the assumption that tools that help with these things exist as alternatives?

Those tools existing is problematic, especially since they open the door for others that enable cheating. And those who want to cheat will do so, regardless of circumstance. But when lacking the alternative, making mechanics who by design should be easy to identify a bit more obvious for them, will mean these tools will have their audience.

I'll just also add, because I know some people have comprehension issues, cheating is cheating. And that is the problem. I'm just pointing out that this solution could harm more than just cheaters. And that a more viable solution, as Vahlnir pointed out, lies in how the fights are designed.

[Amenara]

Not a fan of game companies installing spyware on my PC. Would be an easy out for me to uninstall FF14.

[FireMage]

The innocent have nothing to fear. I support it.

The "innocent" have much to fear. Stagnation of QoL updates, nothing actually happening, unnecessary crashes, etc

[Zfz]

I just want to point out that a lot of games have tried to have scanners that scan player systems for cheats and hacks. The result is never a success. Cheats and hacks continue to exist, while legitimate player experiences are frequently harmed. On an open system like the Windows, it is simply not going to work.

There are other things that can be done about third party tools. For example the zoom hack could possibly be countered by implementing say a culling box that allows players to see the skybox from inside the arena, but if a zoom hack is used to zoom out further than originally designed, then the player camera would naturally be outside the culling box that would cull everything in the arena, making the game display nothing at all.

I'm sure there are other programmic and level design techniques that can be used this way.

[Zebraoracle]

The "innocent" have much to fear. Stagnation of QoL updates, nothing actually happening, unnecessary crashes, etc

I really hate this "if you're innocent you should be fine with it" mindset. How about no, the majority of us aren't doing anything wrong so don't punish us because of a select few?

[Bobby66]

If they hold an offical World first race then I would be understand if they made those who wanted to take part to down a program to scan their PC, but even then it probably would not catch that really willing to cheat. I do think they should make it so all parties have to stream to take part though. Those that hide footage should not be considered part of the race, if you hide your progression then by no means should you be considered part of the valid race.

[SannaR]

I'm in the middle as on one hand would it be nice if it felt as though they were doing more or did a better job with dealing with cheaters? Yeah, sure. On the other hand any time I hear people talk about these anti cheat software it just never seems to do the job and just ends up bogging down people's systems.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I'm in the middle as on one hand would it be nice if it felt as though they were doing more or did a better job with dealing with cheaters? Yeah, sure. On the other hand any time I hear people talk about these anti cheat software it just never seems to do the job and just ends up bogging down people's systems.

That's the issue tbh. Client side anti cheat software is just a general annoyance to everyone. It makes games less stable or lowers performance due to additional tasks and resource usage but doesn't actually stop people from cheating in any long term sense.

What would likely work better is more transparency in punishing the cheaters. Bonus points if they can make hilarious videos like that one Rust admin that goes around messing with the cheaters he finds lol.

[Neoyoshi]

Even if I was for it, they'd never actually implement it. I will always be in favor of game devs and communities looking for ways to stop cheaters, but automated anticheat software has proven to not be the way to do it in a large mmorpg environment such as this.

Anticheat software tends to have a better impact on games with smaller player groups in a single game instance, like FPS games or Arena pvp games; where these programs can have a tighter focus on what to look for with far fewer machines/clients it has to scan.

In the end, human/manual intervention just works better for FFXIV; it's not perfect, but it's much better then the hellscape of something like XIGNCODE3 or nProtect Gameguard.