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

[Chaincat]

Anticheat fixes the underlying issue that the game's memory is entirely unsecured and able to be easily read and tampered with. This would not be as big of an issue for sure if there was more security preventing mods and plugins in this game.

Anticheat does nothing to encrypt or secure the game's memory. It just prevents you from tampering with it as easily as we currently can.

[VerdeLuck]

Anticheat does nothing to encrypt or secure the game's memory. It just prevents you from tampering with it as easily as we currently can.

Lmao what do you think anticheat does? it scans for files and memory that's been tampered with and checks if anything other than the ffxiv program is accessing the memory allocated to ffxiv.
Securing the memory is like 99% of what anticheat does.

[Rehayem]

Lmao what do you think anticheat does? it scans for files and memory that's been tampered with and checks if anything other than the ffxiv program is accessing the memory allocated to ffxiv.
Securing the memory is like 99% of what anticheat does.

The current issue with the ID's placed on account is being sent through network to your client, meaning anti-cheat wouldn't prevent someone from making a standalone app to harvest the data.

[ExcellusUltimus]

Lmao what do you think anticheat does? it scans for files and memory that's been tampered with and checks if anything other than the ffxiv program is accessing the memory allocated to ffxiv.
Securing the memory is like 99% of what anticheat does.

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

[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.

[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)

[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.