Updated June 1, 2022
Disclaimer: The following information is for educational purposes only. I do not take responsibility for any consequences, in or out of game, as a result of using this information or tools mentioned in this guide. Use of these tools is always at your own risk. Please see section "Won't using ACT get me banned?" below for additional info. Use common sense, and stay safe!
Welcome to my ACT for FFXIV guide! The purpose of this guide is to walk you through installation, setting up ACT for FFXIV, and to activate a basic overlay.
What is ACT? Advanced Combat Tracker (ACT for short), is a "parsing" program. More techinically speaking, it reads the numbers flying back and forth between the game and the server, then stores and analyzes (parses) this data for you. Not a program made just for FFXIV, ACT may be used with many MMOs for many reasons.
Why use ACT? The most popular use of ACT in FFXIV is to track DPS. Combined with a certain website, FFXIV players can compare how well they did in certain fights.
In the context of endgame raiding, ACT can help a player or an entire raid group identify and remove weaknesses in the DPS output throughout a fight. Optimizing a player's rotation (sequence and timing of skills) can and will make the difference between clearing a high-tier fight or not.
In more advanced scenarios, ACT, can be used to give a player calls for for fight mechanics, or even automatically execute actions/programs for the player!
Won't using ACT get me banned? Update, May 2022: SE has reiterated that all 3rd party tools are against their ToS (as it has been from the beginning). One of SE's major concerns is that these tools may give an advantage to the players using them over those that don't (such as mechanics notifications), particularly in the case of PlayStation players.
SE does not have a "active anti-cheat" system per-se like many other MMOs. And, as far as we know, SE doesn't automatically red-flag a player for simply installing or running ACT on their system. But that doesn't mean you're immune to consequences. It is still possible to get banned for misusing or abusing ACT. Here are known examples of actions that may result in a report and ban:
- Mentioning ACT or information received (such as DPS numbers) from ACT to other players that don't know you and don't know that you are using ACT.
- Excessive use of automation/notifications (most commonly associated with Triggernometry, an ACT plugin).
- Streaming FFXIV while running ACT/mods.
Once again, use of any tools or mods for FFXIV (including ACT) is at your own risk! Use common sense and stay safe!
Download ACT directly from the creator's website.
Install ACT as a normal program. No special settings are required here.
ACT is not ready to use with FFXIV as-installed. We still need to configure a few more things before it's ready to go.
The majority of first-time ACT issues related to FFXIV are due to not running ACT as an administrator or not having firewall permissions! ACT requires administrator and network permissions in order to access the data required for it to do it's thing.
The default location to manually install plugins is: %appdata%\Advanced Combat Tracker
You may use the startup wizard to add the FFXIV plugin or you may manually install the plugin from the developer's website. The developer's page includes basic instructions on how to set up network access.
We also need OverlayPlugin, which can be downloaded in ACT through Plugins > Get Plugins..., or manually from the developer's website.
OverlayPlugin now includes presets for popular overlays. (This page also includes a handy FAQ for troubleshooting common issues with ACT and FFXIV).
Add and activate a new plugin by going to Plugins > OverlayPlugin.dll > New. Select a preset (I use Kagerou), give it a name, then click OK.
Want lots of info displayed? Try Kagerou! Want something simpler? Try Ikegami!
Congratulations! You have set up your first overlay in ACT! Don't forget to activate Enable clickthrough and Lock overlay once you're done placing and customizing the overlay.
Options > Main Table Encounters > General: Activate and set the Number of seconds to wait after the last combat action... to at least 30-60 seconds. This determines how long ACT will wait before considering your next attack as a new mob. Due to some boss fights having extended cutscenes in the middle, I currently have mine set to 120 seconds.
Plugins > FFXIV Settings > Options > Parse Filter: Set to Party or Alliance. This will limit what data is kept and displayed to you. If you leave ACT on during a hunt train with no filter, for example, it can result in ACT processing hundreds of actions per second and possibly lagging your game!
Plugins > FFXIV Overlay Settings: Activate Hide Overlay for all types. This is a basic built-in overlay provided by the FFXIV Plugin, which is different from the overlays provided by OverlayPlugin.