Re: Regarding the Use of Third-Party Programs and Player Safety

[brinn12]

*sigh*
People behind the framework which supports plugins have already said that anticheats are not solving this situation.

[Chaincat]

It would appear we're discussing this with people who third party programs and are unwilling to stop.

I want the issue solved as well. Adding an anti-cheat doesn't solve the problem. Cracking down on a single plugin doesn't solve the problem. Not sharing the information with the client solves the problem.

[Sarevok_Thordin]

I want the issue solved as well. Adding an anti-cheat doesn't solve the problem. Cracking down on a single plugin doesn't solve the problem. Not sharing the information with the client solves the problem.

I mean one of the reasons FFXIV is popular is because it *doesn't* install kernel level anti-cheat onto your system, which people are getting more and more antsy about nowadays. This wouldn't be a problem if the client oh...didn't get offloaded effectively a badly limited database api to the character storage. If the latter problem was handled properly before it even got patched in this would NEVER have been an issue.

[Daralii]

*sigh*
People behind the framework which supports plugins have already said that anticheats are not solving this situation.

What do you mean? Kernel-level anticheats are flawless pieces of software that have never been circumvented and solve all problems.

[VeyaAkemi]

It would appear we're discussing this with people who third party programs and are unwilling to stop.

This post has the same energy as "the only reason to not let the cops search your house whenever they want is if you are a criminal"...

The point that you are ignoring is that there are many examples of how bad anti-cheat is at stopping actual cheating, the people who care about cheating will just figure out a workaround, and it becomes an arms race between cheaters and devs, which devs invariably lose because there is a limit to how much they can do without heavily inconveniencing their actual costumer base, the person you'd hit with an anti-cheat is the guy who wants his Hrothgar to stand upright, the guy who wants his Viera to wear a hat, and yes, even the modbeast who wants their Miqo'te to have a futa shlong longer than her torso, which regardless what pearl-clutching puritans will say, is completely harmless, nothing substantive will be gained, and the game will lose a sizeable chunk of revenue, that's what anti-cheats do, not what you want them to do.

[Fatch38]

the person you'd hit with an anti-cheat is the guy who wants his Hrothgar to stand upright, the guy who wants his Viera to wear a hat, and yes, even the modbeast who wants their Miqo'te to have a futa shlong longer than her torso, which regardless what pearl-clutching puritans will say, is completely harmless, nothing substantive will be gained, and the game will lose a sizeable chunk of revenue, that's what anti-cheats do, not what you want them to do.

getting rid of ppl who treat that game like barbie online and make it more and more boring (because SE cater only to fluff content and cash shop nowaday) ? not a huge loss imo. but i can agree that anticheat won't prevent ppl from cheating, lot of companies did try and never succeed to prevent it (you can insert csgo anticheat meme here)

[WetShoelace]

So the game shares an internal account ID with the client. If this is not supposed to be seen, that seems like the root problem to me.

• Is this issue going to be fixed?
  
• When can we expect this to be fixed?
  

No matter how you look at it, the situation is bad and Square Enix has handled it in a mediocre and disappointing way. People make the argument that if you have nothing to hide, there shouldn't be a problem at all. And that is simply not the case for the many people that use social media, go to real life events or want to find people to play with. Having nothing to hide doesn't mean anyone should be able to access your private information. The fact that the game easily facilitates this information makes Square Enix liable for legal action taken against them more than the users who are simply making a tool to scrape the available data.

This problem devalues the community as a pillar of the game even more than Naoki Yoshida and Creative Studio 3 already devalued it with their design blunders. The only way to safely play the game would be completely as an anonymous individual.

Ok, so let's be clear about the situation. The leaked data is already leaked and NO MATTER WHAT, people's information is already indexed in databases. If you have logged in at any point in the past month, they have all of your alts scraped into a database. Legal action does nothing, another repository is created and another discord is created. It does nothing at all.

What are the steps forward to 'fix' the problem?

As user, if Square Enix hides account ID values from now on:
* Abandon your account entirely
* Buy the game again on a new account
* Forbid yourself from saying you play the game at all
* Never go to Fanfests again
* Absolutely never ever mention the name of one of your characters in social media
* Cover all your traces and never link your in-game characters to your personal identity

What can Square Enix do realistically?

Hiding this account ID once more would prevent future data leaks. However, it doesn't help any user whose data has already been leaked.

Square Enix could, after fixing the problem, in theory, do a good thing for their users, and re-shuffle every existing user's account ID value. It would be a pain, but the type of pain that would keep users around. This method also wouldn't truly fix the problem as it would need players to take the regular measures(which are still ridiculous) to preserve their privacy and avoid stalkers in case they need it. But at least this way they get to be relatively as unknown as it was before the blacklist change. Another thing is, even if CS3 took the time to look at these private, crowdsourced databases to attempt and help affected players individually, it's impossible to know what other databases holding leaked data exist.

They should also really stop censoring their Japanese forums, it doesn't look good.

Yoshida says he approves all of the decisions that happen to this live service. So I hope He does the right thing and takes responsibility.

[ExcellusUltimus]

This post has the same energy as "the only reason to not let the cops search your house whenever they want is if you are a criminal"...

The point that you are ignoring is that there are many examples of how bad anti-cheat is at stopping actual cheating, the people who care about cheating will just figure out a workaround, and it becomes an arms race between cheaters and devs, which devs invariably lose because there is a limit to how much they can do without heavily inconveniencing their actual costumer base, the person you'd hit with an anti-cheat is the guy who wants his Hrothgar to stand upright, the guy who wants his Viera to wear a hat, and yes, even the modbeast who wants their Miqo'te to have a futa shlong longer than her torso, which regardless what pearl-clutching puritans will say, is completely harmless, nothing substantive will be gained, and the game will lose a sizeable chunk of revenue, that's what anti-cheats do, not what you want them to do.

What you say is true to an extent, but it would do some good. The argument being made here is that an imperfect solution is a non-solution. No, it's an imperfect solution, and perhaps the best that can be done temporarily in order to make it clear what the stance is on the use of these programs. Long-term, it is an insufficient solution, and you're right it will lead to an arms race, and it won't stop all cheating. Square enix doesn't need to stop 100% of cheaters, stopping even 30% with permanent bans may be sufficient to cause others to question whether its worth it.

The other solution is for them to allow addons and to design the game with them in mind. That's an entirely separate discussion. Although, the current creepy, malicious addons would still need to be addressed in some way.

[Sunhwapark]

Well, until they have a proper solution the privacy features on the lodestone are effectively useless.

[Maulclaw]

I hope Square doesn’t make the mistake of going after the Dalamud team or Github as they had nothing to do with this issue. The real problem started with the Blacklist overhaul, and legal threats won’t fix it. The devs created this mess, so they should be the ones to resolve it. Even if mods and plugins are banned, bad actors will still find ways to exploit the game.

Pushing for anti-cheat software is also a terrible idea. Does it really bother you that there's people who want speech bubbles in their games, or that there are tools that help those with physical disabilities? As someone who’s played MMOs for years, I’ve seen the backlash and issues these systems cause. When TERA (NA) tried to crack down on plugins and added XIGNCODE anti-cheat, there were players couldn’t even launch the game because it was so invasive. The outrage led to massive player losses and even the removal of their community manager.

ArenaNet made a similar mistake when Guild Wars 2 included spyware that scanned every file on users’ machines, breaking EU regulations. (Source: https://www.pcgamesn.com/guild-wars-...pyware-banwave)

And let’s not forget most South Korean F2P MMOs. Even with anti-cheat, they’re still full of bots and cheaters.