Cheaters and Add-ons

[caffe_macchiato]

Now I've also heard that the devs can't implement an anti-cheat or any program to check if someone is using something they're are not suppose to because of a certain japanese cybersecurity law that prohibits them for using anti-cheats in their game

unfortunately japan has laws against anti cheat software, specifically putting programs on your PC to track what you're doing

A lot of Anti cheat are essentially Root-kits and they are illegal in some jurisdictions.

This is patently incorrect. The source for this claim is this forum, specifically this post. There is no law against anti-cheats in Japan. In fact, several Japanese companies ship games with anti-cheat.

As everyone here knows, FFXIV is the most modder-friendly MMO on the market because of Square Enix. Mods and plugins can do everything from replace game assets to manipulate server packets, cheat game modes like Fall Guys, and automate the entire game from start to finish. In fact, every piece of PvE endgame content can be fully automated without any player involvement, including savage and ultimates. While regular PvP is mostly unaffected, the Fall Guys event has been completely overrun with cheaters. Square Enix has zero enforcement of game integrity. This is the only MMO where modding, botting and cheating of this scale is widely accepted.

And yet, for some reason, this is okay. The only sensible explanation is that FFXIV is just simply a lower caliber of game than most online games. The devs treat FFXIV like an indie GitHub project more than a AAA MMO.

By the way, check out the official FFXIV Community Hub on Steam for some great examples of our fine video game! And search "FFXIV screenshots" on Twitter for even more! No particular filtering here, this is just what shows up when you search for screenshots of our game. This is what you like.

[Saraide]

Wait, we're not supposed to have this discussion before ultimate world first. That's a thing for after.

I agree that its nearly impossible to stop all cheating, but it shouldn't fall on the players to report each and every case of cheatings happening.

Then dont.

[Dirwen]

Cheaters can't stop cheating and always come up with some excuse to justify it which disgusts me but what can you do. They won't stop unless there is some real fear of punishment and SE won't give it cause they can't even get hairstyles right. Their programmers are subpar from what I've seen.

[Fhaerron]

Even if they could have anti cheat they would lose so many players that it could mean the end for FFXIV, at the very least they would lose much sub money and with the financial crisis going on in SE it's highly unlikely they will do something against it.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

It's not that they can't, because they absolutely can - it's that they'd much prefer not to because doing so involves anywhere between locking down ALL aspects of reading memory and adjustments, implementation of kernel level anticheat / rootkits for a fast solution and performance problems due to those restrictions (and potentially more).

That and the potential loss of players that aren't using it to cheat getting punished and essentially being a damage to PR and possibly sub counts.

There is also the occasional set of players that got banned but ended up being pioneers for certain implementation of features we didn't have before like buff timers on Party List, damage types in float text or saveable sets of Waymarks (at the cost of moving waymarks mid fight however) - features that were often told as "impossible to implement, we can't" - yet here we are.

It is against TOS and punishment will be dished out accordingly when confirmed, but a blanket ban is not realistic due to many moving factors.

[Daralii]

It's not that they can't, because they absolutely can - it's that they'd much prefer not to because doing so involves anywhere between locking down ALL aspects of reading memory and adjustments, implementation of kernel level anticheat / rootkits for a fast solution and performance problems due to those restrictions (and potentially more).

That and the potential loss of players that aren't using it to cheat getting punished and essentially being a damage to PR and possibly sub counts.

There is also the occasional set of players that got banned but ended up being pioneers for certain implementation of features we didn't have before like buff timers on Party List, damage types in float text or saveable sets of Waymarks (at the cost of moving waymarks mid fight however) - features that were often told as "impossible to implement, we can't" - yet here we are.

It is against TOS and punishment will be dished out accordingly when confirmed, but a blanket ban is not realistic due to many moving factors.

There's also no guarantee it would work. Capcom started putting Denuvo in all their games because people were using cosmetic mods to avoid paying for microtransactions, and there was a noticeable performance hit, but people ultimately just found other ways to achieve the same results.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

There's also no guarantee it would work. Capcom started putting Denuvo in all their games because people were using cosmetic mods to avoid paying for microtransactions, and there was a noticeable performance hit, but people ultimately just found other ways to achieve the same results.

Exactly - that was what I was mainly referring to with the performance problems. Nice one.

[Jeeqbit]

why the devs do little next to nothing to stop the rampant cheating that happens in this game.

1. They do, but they are only willing to stop cheating if they can detect it from the server side. This is because putting spyware on the client side would violate laws in some countries according to them, but realistically it wouldn't be good PR and there would be ways to circumvent it anyway.
2. They are more concerned if the "cheating" actually affects the server. This tends to result in them acting quickly because anything that can affect the server stability is a concern.
3. They also do not like if it causes an unfair advantage and if they find out about it, they do act on it but like I said, they are not willing to collect evidence directly from a person's computer so it's rarely acted on in practice if it doesn't leave any evidence or affect the server.

how can we fight the rampant cheating that happens in the game?

The answer to that is for the developers to implement the features of these "add-ons" where appropriate and possible, which is what they have committed to doing to tackle this issue. After all, people are using them because they want these features in the game and they are not.

With a new ultimate on the horizon i can only imagine of what type of cheat people will come up with so they can clear the fight...

You're right that they can't prevent it, but it's happened since early in the game's history (yes it was even happening in Heavensward), so the answer is this:

If you want to feel you did it legit, don't use them.
If you want to cheat, then I guess you can just deal with knowing that you did and hopefully it makes you feel good that you did?

It's not quite as black and white as that. There are people with disabilities whom find it helpful to use add-ons to keep up with others.

I don't use them to clear raids personally because I value the muscle memory you grow from not using them and how it shapes your brain for raiding better, but if someone else uses them, I don't really care. I only care that, one way or another, they are doing the mechanics right and not holding me back when we are meant to be at a certain prog point.

[Hallarem]

Not much you can do against cheaters in pve. Only thing you can rest on is that these people don't know how to play games / can't be arsed to play them, same with pvp cheaters and are pathetic enough to rely on automatic commands or prompts to "play" the game.

One way to hit RMT hard is to have a clear "ONE FC HOUSE PER ACCOUNT" and have all your alts share one house rule and nuke the people's ownership who own full wards of submarine churning FC's.
I own a single FC house and it churns out 500k-1.7 mill per every two days. Do the math on how this might multiply if you own a full ward of houses.

Yes, this includes nuking people who had houses BEFORE the changes, no loopholes, no "Its unfair, because I got the houses before the changes " no mofo, you probably have goldcap multiple times over, there is not a single thing in this game you can do in this game with that gil to make it go away. EXCEPT SELL IT FOR REAL MONEY, which you probably are doing.

[NightHour]

Japanese law is a grey area.

While Anti-Cheat software isn't necessarily Illegal, it is Illegal to install software on a computer not belonging to you that can intervene or interfere with it's day to day operation. Kernel level aka "Root Level" anti cheats can kinda do that given that Kernel level is COMPLETE access to both the software and hardware side of your system.

Also the possibilities are endless with regards to data collection when you have complete unrestricted access to a customer's device.


The law in Japan is also the reason why they have to have this "No Addons" stance, It's Nothing to do with consoles existing


Japanese law has an "Unfair Competition Prevention Act"


This law prevents users from modifying game data, save data or installing modifications to a game unless directly approved by the game developer


This is why they cannot allow addons.



It's not illegal in the west to modify games/use addons in games, regardless of whether the developer allows it or not.


Cheating is still frowned upon but it's also the reason why "use at your own risk" is said about character mods.