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

[ForteNightshade]

You have a warped understanding of this game's raiding community. Ultimates are not something people want to do constantly. They are something we clear for the sake of clearing, after which most people never want to look at them again. Ultimates are, for many of the people that do them, not really even fun in the conventional sense. They're more of a test you never want to endure again once you've passed. You'll always have a minority willing to reclear, but that ain't most people.

It's fine to voluntarily revisit old content from time to time, but uh... trying to force it? Nah. People won't redo their clears periodically - they'll just quit entirely. The lion's share of the ones that didn't quit would just disengage from the content entirely, as to the majority, those weapons look like trash. Take'em away, they suck anyway.

Hey now! Some of us are masochistic and clear 30 times for the fun of it. >.>

In all seriousness though, I find the notion hilarious that they genuinely think resetting everyone's Ultimate weapons would somehow restore prestige and make people want to do them again. If we indulged this hypothetical nonsense, it would completely destroy Ultimate as the overwhelming majority of players who have earned their weapons legitimately are now being told they cheated despite no actual evidence to substantiate that. I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of players quit even many who never set foot in Ultimate just because of the draconian precedence it sets. Of course, the whole idea is completely ridiculous.

I'll be blunt as someone who has cleared every single Ultimate legitimately (I might have used "excel" ). I don't give a damn about prestige or what anyone else thinks. If my weapons inspire you to attempt Ultimate yourself then fantastic. I hope the best for your prog. If you think I'm a dirty cheater or because I meme'd a few pulls in a 24 man or hell, Savage on an off day, you think I bought my clear. That's cool too. I cleared for myself and no one else. Just like the vast majority of people doing any form of content they aspire to finish be it Ultimate raids, relic weapons or just leveling jobs to 90.

[Absimiliard]

Hey now! Some of us are masochistic and clear 30 times for the fun of it. >.>

30 times? That transcends masochism. I'm not sure we even have a word for that.

(I might have used "excel" )

So terrible. I bet you used Discord too, didn't you? All these awful third-party "spreadsheets" and voice communication mediums.

[ForteNightshade]

30 times? That transcends masochism. I'm not sure we even have a word for that.

Let's see...

UCoB: 24
UwU: 33
TEAL 28
DSR: 7

And I'll probably go back to all of them because I've yet to heal any. I may have a problem lmao

So terrible. I bet you used Discord too, didn't you? All these awful third-party "spreadsheets" and voice communication mediums.

Oh knoes! You discovered my dirty secret! I even had... gasp music that wasn't from FF playing!

[Delis]

Let's see...

UCoB: 24
UwU: 33
TEAL 28
DSR: 7

And I'll probably go back to all of them because I've yet to heal any. I may have a problem lmao



Oh knoes! You discovered my dirty secret! I even had... gasp music that wasn't from FF playing!

I am telling Yoshi, so he can come and arrest you.

[Lium]

You have a warped understanding of this game's raiding community. Ultimates are not something people want to do constantly. They are something we clear for the sake of clearing, after which most people never want to look at them again. Ultimates are, for many of the people that do them, not really even fun in the conventional sense. They're more of a test you never want to endure again once you've passed. You'll always have a minority willing to reclear, but that ain't most people.

It's fine to voluntarily revisit old content from time to time, but uh... trying to force it? Nah. People won't redo their clears periodically - they'll just quit entirely. The lion's share of the ones that didn't quit would just disengage from the content entirely, as to the majority, those weapons look like trash. Take'em away, they suck anyway.

Heh, this is my attitude towards normal raids. Do them once for the story, then never step foot inside again.

[Coatl]

prestige is lost forever in this mmo.

There's no prestige. There's never been any. Most people do ultimates because they're FUN. It's the only content in the game that can engage them anymore.

There's no need to put so much stock into a video game.

[Johners]

Snip for characters

You know they'd only be able to fully detect cheating with an anti-cheat, right? That's the entire point of anti-cheat software being part of multiplayer games. The difference maker between say an MMO and an FPS game is the enforcement policy. In a game like Valorant, for example, you'll want to remove cheaters as quickly as you detect them due to the game relying on quick matchmaking and rounds lasting around 30 minutes. In an MMO, such as World of Warcraft of Final Fantasy XIV, ban waves are methodical and are timed for impact.

I think WoW serves as two great examples for XIV to be honest. The first being in how far players push the officially supported LUA-based addon framework and the second being in how ban waves should be handled. Blizzard control the addon framework in WoW and even with the ability to change or remove functionality on the fly (they can live patch the game without needing to do server/client restarts these days), players have really pushed the boundaries to an extent that Square Enix doesn't want in this game.

As for cheating, you only need to look at the Honorbuddy ban waves in Warlords of Draenor and Legion. For context, Honorbuddy was a paid cheat that included a rotation bot. This wasn't boss timers which the game allows via the LUA addon framework, it was an external program playing your rotation for you. After identifying the tool and players using it via anti-cheat data (plus the fact they log everything you do in-game), the ban waves were issued. Except it wasn't done quietly or in the middle of the night, they chose peak hours when everyone is online and most likely to be raiding. MMOs are social games and thanks to platforms like Reddit and the official WoW forums, news spread fast. Your top 2 or 3 DPS players that suddenly went offline? Probably cheating, especially if they never came back online.

The removing of titles, weapons and achievement from the Japanese static that cheated in TOP is great but they've made an example from one prominent team. This kind of enforcement also needs to be targeted at the normal, non-streaming and non-world first players also. I'd probably extend it into savage (cheaters play there), ranked PvP (cheaters and win traders play there) and even crafting (you think all those people are actually crafting 6+ hours every day legitimately?). Actively and openly removing the rewards from cheating is a great enforcement policy. It's a social game, turn the social against them. It does work.

[Thaciscokidd]

This kind of enforcement also needs to be targeted at the normal, non-streaming and non-world first players also.

That's the problem unless they stream or post it on Social Media there is literally no way for the Game Masters to even know who is doing what with what. I mean there's a pretty nasty PvP plugin that has been around since about midway through Season 1 of CC but you don't see people even talking about that because they keep it on the DL.

That's the real reason why the hardcore plugin users really try to keep to themselves. The more they are out the more chance they have to get discovered.

[Larirawiel]

You know they'd only be able to fully detect cheating with an anti-cheat, right? That's the entire point of anti-cheat software being part of multiplayer games.

No, you are not able to fully detect cheating until the halting problem is solved. The only thing you can do is throwing heuristics on suspicious software. And then you have to deal with false positives and still not detectable cheats. And if the cheaters start using virtual machines like KVM then the propability to detect something is going to almost zero.




Cheers

[Ryvaku]

Isn't it just better to believe the majority of any region are illegitimate clears?
People are just doing it for the sake of clear so does it matter?
If those that care for "prestige" record the all fights in the game to where your entire party must do it to prove no addons are used on anyone. To be honest that won't happen.

If beloved Yoshi-P and SE was really against it. They would implement a anti-cheat. They don't have a hard line stance to stop players.
So players should do what they like for the sake of fun with their little time to play the game.
That announcement was mostly for 1st clear and legitimacy for that title.
Rules are more like guidelines than actual rules. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯