With Activision and Bungies recent wins against cheat providers it is time SE's

[KisaiTenshi]

I mean, this is Final Fantasy XIV. It's the MMO for using mods, and it's the only one that lets you get away with almost everything. Not even WoW lets you do that. FFXIV is one of the most add-on friendly multiplayer games in general. And people love this. For many people, cheats are the only reason why they play this game. Just read this thread for proof. FFXIV's most popular features are modding support and letting you play other games. Why would Square Enix choose to go bankrupt? And what other reason is there to play FFXIV when every other MMO has better gameplay?

This post does not condone the use of illegal-third party tools and is in full compliance with the Final Fantasy XIV Terms of Service.

Mentioning third party tools by names, is endorsing them. Certain tools, particularly ones mentioned in this thread ARE cheat tools. If it reads the games memory, injects itself into the game, or otherwise changes anything IN the game client, it is the definition of third party tool and cheating.

What doesn't count? External tools like network monitoring, ping, traceroute, etc, and tools used to capture the screen or improve the render quality, because OBS used for streaming and NVIDIA's DLSS/AMD's FSR features do operate the same way cheat tools do by definition (by intercepting the screen before it's displayed), but they only affect the game image AFTER it's been rendered. It doesn't reveal information the player isn't supposed to know, it doesn't call out information the player shouldn't be able to know, doesn't add overlays (other than FPS or GPU temperature or something like that, which isn't game data, but hardware performance.)

The trouble comes from how SE enforces this rule. Mention certain things, either on the forum, or in the game, and you will find yourself banned. You think SE doesn't know about these tools? I assure you they do. I bet their internal policy is "no crackdown unless reported".

Speaking of which, you know why SE can do ban waves easily? Go back to this thread from 2015:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/226596
Notice something? Those incessant spams are pretty much gone. Yes, the "say" spam still pops up in the major cities, but there's no longer any shout/yell spam. Those spammers would create accounts, spam for several minutes, and then delete the character and repeat. You know what enables spam? the same tools people defend as quality of life junk. Anti-cheat's do not stop spam. Anti-cheats only stop a certain subset of players who are too lazy to write their own tools.

This copyright ruling only matters in that the people were "selling cheats" that utilize, interact with internal API/structures, or otherwise modify the game client. The program everyone loves to defend as harmless, does all of this. So yes, I could see a day that every player using it gets warned to stop because a crackdown is coming. But they also know if they blindside the userbase with a crackdown, that will probably send a large chunk of paying customers fleeing.

FFXIV is the only MMORPG that doesn't operate invasive anti-cheat stuff, and has instead relied on server-sided means to detect nefarious activities. Most of the obvious cheating stuff I used to see on a daily basis is gone or is so much less visible than it used to be that it's not distracting. If anything this just proves that anti-cheat programs are not effective at doing anything but chasing people away from the game.

[Azureskies01]

If anything this just proves that anti-cheat programs are not effective at doing anything but chasing people away from the game.

So Fortnite, R6, OW2, LoL, Val, WZ, HD2, DotA2, CS2, and every other popular competitive game that has at least 1 form of anti cheat (and some are starting to put in 2, like Fortnite) doesn't exist and they aren't super popular? Seems like you have your conclusion backwards.

[caffe_macchiato]

But they also know if they blindside the userbase with a crackdown, that will probably send a large chunk of paying customers fleeing.

Most of the obvious cheating stuff I used to see on a daily basis is gone or is so much less visible than it used to be that it's not distracting.

These two statements contradict each other. How can "a large chunk" of customers be alienated if the issue has also been largely dealt with?

I assure you they do. I bet their internal policy is "no crackdown unless reported".

And I'm reporting it now. I'm urging Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. to search their game on Twitter or any other social network to see what comes up. I also urge them to look in party finder, look in every major city, look at people's search info, read news articles, and so on. There was even a billboard showing these things outside of their headquarters--a BILLBOARD--and they did nothing.

You're forgetting something: This is Final Fantasy XIV by Square Enix. Everyone in 2024 knows exactly what that means. This is what Square Enix's game represents because the company chose this direction for the North American audience, either intentionally or through doing nothing.

[KisaiTenshi]

So Fortnite, R6, OW2, LoL, Val, WZ, HD2, DotA2, CS2, and every other popular competitive game that has at least 1 form of anti cheat (and some are starting to put in 2, like Fortnite) doesn't exist and they aren't super popular? Seems like you have your conclusion backwards.

And those anti-cheat's have done nothing but chase people from those games. Or less you forget how people balk at kernel anti-cheat tools because of how invasive and unstable it makes the entire computer. When people don't want to play your game because it makes their computer or network suffer, perhaps the problem is your game engine is designed backwards. All these games use single-player game engines (don't know about OW2) that were designed for single player games (so was FFXIV 1.0) and thus have all the baggage of dealing with client-sided cheating tools that the server implicitly trusts because that's how it was designed to work.

These two statements contradict each other. How can "a large chunk" of customers be alienated if the issue has also been largely dealt with?

Go look at the thread I linked.

Things were so, SO, much worse in 2015. I'd rather not show my hand, but it is very easy to just go to the lodestone and search for certain combinations of things to find all the RMT bots to report.

[Azureskies01]

And those anti-cheat's have done nothing but chase people from those games. Or less you forget how people balk at kernel anti-cheat tools because of how invasive and unstable it makes the entire computer. When people don't want to play your game because it makes their computer or network suffer, perhaps the problem is your game engine is designed backwards. All these games use single-player game engines (don't know about OW2) that were designed for single player games (so was FFXIV 1.0) and thus have all the baggage of dealing with client-sided cheating tools that the server implicitly trusts because that's how it was designed to work.

So you are saying all of those multiplayer competitive games use single player game engines?..... wat. WoW uses the same anti cheat that OW2 uses and no one is running from those games (for that reason :P). Also VaC is not a kernel level anti cheat. It is like I'm having to explain the same things over and over and over for people that haven't read through the thread. Lazy stuff

[caffe_macchiato]

And those anti-cheat's have done nothing but chase people from those games.

Look, the whole "30 million players" thing is just a meme. It's a funpost. I invented it to make fun of people who constantly brag about our player count. Many of those games listed have hundreds of millions of active players--monthly. We only manage to get one million per month on average. We have 1% of the player base of these games that use anti-cheat. Not only are we not one of the most-played online games, we aren't even the most popular MMO. We aren't even the second most popular. It's time that people ditch this attitude that FFXIV is somehow a smash hit that dictates the rule of gaming. People like playing games that are well-funded and don't rely on third-party tools.

[Menriq]

People like playing games that are well-funded and don't rely on third-party tools.

Just to play devil's advocate, the largest MMO by far allows third-party tools (addons). Not sure this point really stands.

[Kuroka]

Its also always fun to see who openly uses em and supports em... truth is many play on consoles, or just vanilla on PC and dont even have a clue.. heck i play basically every day for 10 years and barely touched any RP as i dont seek it out, never touched an Venue except for the very few weeks one was in my neighborhood (until the true owner returned and kicked em all out lol)

I just did some more pvp and its sometimes you just immediately notice how much better some players are... and while im the first to be into lewd stuff, i just dislike how someone can just nude mod my Char whenever he feels like... it just shows a lack of... idk, decency?

[Xylira]

Just to play devil's advocate, the largest MMO by far allows third-party tools (addons). Not sure this point really stands.

There's a huge difference between using addons that hook into a framework added and supported by a game's developers, and unofficial third party tools that work through memory injection. With a supported addon framework developers can pick and choose what players are and are not allowed to modify within the game's client, where as unsupported third party tools basically have no such limit and can allow players do to things that entirely trivialize or outright automate gameplay.

Blizzard has in the past, on multiple occasions over the years, actually reigned in the amount of functionality supported by their addon framework because creative individuals were able to make addons that circumvented too much of regular gameplay.

[Johners]

There's a huge difference between using addons that hook into a framework added and supported by a game's developers, and unofficial third party tools that work through memory injection. With a supported addon framework developers can pick and choose what players are and are not allowed to modify within the game's client, where as unsupported third party tools basically have no such limit and can allow players do to things that entirely trivialize or outright automate gameplay.

Blizzard has in the past, on multiple occasions over the years, actually reigned in the amount of functionality supported by their addon framework because creative individuals were able to make addons that circumvented too much of regular gameplay.

Yeah, people that equate plugins in XIV to WoW addons (or modding single player games as I've also seen) are really missing the point. Blizzard ultimately control what we can do in World of Warcraft to expand the UI functionality and have the ability to live patch the game client without requiring a client or server restart. They can and have broken functionality they dislike during world first progression before. There's a ton of debate lording that goes on from plugin users every time there's an attempt to have a nuanced discussion about third party tools.