Cheaters and Add-ons

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Kes13a]

Yoshi-P has always had a don't ask, don't tell policy regarding cheating.

if I recall, that attitude only applies to mods. cheating is still frowned on.

personally I think the only thing that works against RMT is banning the buyers. Sellers with grow like weeds... but if you hard ban the buyers... thats people's time investment that they lose. banning works, but only if you ban the BUYERS

[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.

[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.

[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.

[UkcsAlias]

Why more isn't done in this area I have no idea.

Because you wont win the battle anyway. Anti cheats are only made according to an effect vs cost balance. Making it very hard, and therefor the cheat itself more expensive is a very basic thing they do. Regular detection does help, but only when reputation matters. RMT bots dont care at all here.

Its also a battle that is impossible to win as there is 1 tool that defeats all anti cheats: emulation. Sure, you can make the game heavy enough to avoid emulation from properly working (and usualy this is effective), but that is still only a race as the lowest setting defines how well it works (the lower the game requirements, the easier it is to emulate).

This is where consoles have an advantage: emulation cannot mimic the key that a device is signed with. So the console dev can ban based on that and also use that to sign firmware for your device so you cannot run your own. But with PCs this is unacceptable behaviour. Linux for example wouldnt support this at all as its not open source then, yet mandatory to get linux to run as most servers use this. Even if all home pcs have such limitation, a cheater might still own a server then and emulate the hardware on that.

Server side machine learning is currently one of the better ways to detect malicious behaviour, as it can consider a lot of factors that are very hard to avoid as a cheater. Even limiting the data sent to users isnt enough, as in most cases games still need to send a location because people emitting footstep sounds. Machine learning could already notice a diffirence in player behaviour for just such footsteps. THe main downside here: it costs a lot for these servers to run. Most of the time not worth it at all (hence only top tier matches might get checked here).

[AnimaAnimus]

SE hasn't done anything about cheating since FFXI released, so it is nothing new. FFXIV v1 had a much worse problem the it does currrently but they did nothing then either. Instead they just deleted 90% of our gil at relaunch. So I am never surprised when cheater cheat.

I still think that games need to crack down harder on ppl who buy things with real money instead of those who sell things for real money. RMT can always make new accounts with throw away characters but actual players are much more invested and a perma ban would be a much more impactful deterrent that would help curb the problem much more efficiently.

[AurisNix]

SE puts cheats and mods even super soft insignificant mods in the same bag, if they remove cheats they will have to remove every single mod out there through one of those third party anti cheat tools that verifies game files etc, anyways if that ever happens this game will die, they will see a drastic drop in their income because either you like it or not this is a very social player driven game and a huge part of the community like RP, housing use mods and if you take away their toys from them thats an instant enrage. Ironically raiders use alot of QoL tools through mods (mods that SE have been implementing into the game lol) and i already see ppl also getting mad. The thing is that SE cant and will never ban mods (and therefore cheats) cuz that will straight up kill the game.

If anything the patch cycles are so slow and there such a lack of current content since EW that ppl that keep playing are mostly RP players, Cafes etc during downtime while other players just takes breaks or quit the game till something new drops and that doesn't happen often (patchs now releasing every 4-6 months)