Integrity sensored? Conspiracy?

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

So a relevant topic was removed from FFXI official forums.
This topic made transparent a vulnerability not just within the transmission of data between client users and FFXI servers, but also design construction of game play.

Jerbob of Phoenix laid out one of the single best replys I have had the pleasure to read concerning the issue of corrupt client user behavior.

Jerbob, I hope you saved that honest and frank critique.
I would love for you to post it again.

Grievances stated showed the truth of the matter between the relationships and interconnections between ToS violations, dishonorable conduct, cheats, bots, prohibited 3rd party computer programs, Mercenary culture, RMT, craft products, transferable items, materials, currencies and gil.

Proposals for solutions additionally were submitted. These too, received the removal from public view, apparently because they was a reply under the controversial topic.

As for the "Conspiracy"? Ask just why is it that coveted equipment in the game have requirements of fetching and dispensing of a transferable currency or item. Items which can be bought or sold for gil, that which can be sold through mercenary arrangements if they carry a "EX" tag.

I declared that detrimental behavior (3rd party program usage, Mercenary culture, RMT, bots, cheats, and scams) all have their origination firmly rooted in these transferable currencies, materials, items and gil.

The procurement activities and requirements for coveted equipment (including crafting Escutcheons) in FFXI has INDUCED RMT, CHEATING, BOTS, MERCS, and completely disregards the desired happiness of the conscientious PlayOnline CUSTOMER.

So now that this topic is no longer a reply for a controversial vulnerability, will it be taken down too? The information is out, there's other forums, websites, social media, discord.

The proposal to set things right was submitted, possibly someone employed on behalf of Square-Enix was competent enough to preserve it.

[Alhanelem]

This isn't about conspiracies, it's about security. vulnerabilities and stuff need to be handled delicately lest they be exploited further, peoples privacy gets violated, etc. etyc. etc.

That being said, I don't ever buy into conspiracy theories. Ever. The vast majority of them are unfounded at best and outright false at worst. The way your post is written it's hard to even make sense if what you're talking about in the first place. And from the look of it, you're probably HOPING it will get deleted for ammunition added to this alleged conspiracy.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

I shouldn't have to lay out an illustrated diagram on how account servicing policy could be prioritized. I'm sure you can connect the dots.

[Alhanelem]

I shouldn't have to lay out an illustrated diagram on how account servicing policy could be prioritized. I'm sure you can connect the dots.
You honestly should because I don't have a something something clue what you're talking about. Your entire post was a bunch of gibberish to me. I can barely even tell what it is you're complaining about as your post lacks context. All I get out of it is some vague cokmplaint about RMT and I guess SE not doing enough or some such thing like that.

"connecting the dots" is how conspiracy theories work. That's a fancy phrase for "making assumptions." And assumptions are not facts.

All I can tell is you feel like SE owes you something. They don't. If you're not satisfied, cancel your subscription. That's what I would do and that's what any responsible customer should do.

[Jerbob]

Thanks for the endorsement, Tullemore - I'm glad that you found my post interesting. While I'd like to submit it again, I feel it would be unwise for me to repost my feelings verbatim; that may have triggered the deletion of the thread, and I value my ability to post on these forums as well as other people's ability to discuss matters without their thoughts disappearing. Nevertheless, I absolutely stand by my previous post. As a community, we need to actively reject cheating, refuse to support it, and challenge those who may cheat in our parties. Turning a blind eye to what some people would call "the little things" would allow them to gradually get away with things that aren't so little, such as the contents of the deleted post. And, despite claims that might be made by some, that would make the game worse for the rest of us, either by changing the statistics that SE has available or by directly messing up the economy, availability of pickup groups, availability of camps in zones, the availability of items, etc etc etc.

I'm not sure we necessarily agree on the best solution to this problem, Tullemore, but I think we agree on the cause, and I appreciate that. I agree that transferable currency potentially enables cheaters to do very well for themselves, but I think that the benefits of having a game economy that is in part run by player demand are significant - and it's more fun. I feel it's better to address a potential abuse of a fun system rather than to remove the system; while that would work, we lose something in the process, and I think that would be a shame. We shouldn't have to sacrifice our own enjoyment of the game to combat an aspect of the community that can't play by the rules. Perhaps I am just being too idealistic, though.

I know that Runescape did something similar with transferable currency some time ago and that the measures were universally hated and extremely unpopular, to the extent that it was reverted. I wasn't there at the time, nor am I a big Runescape player, but the records are certainly out there and might prove interesting reference material for such a proposal.

Regarding feeling like we are "owed something", I would argue that we are absolutely entitled to expect a game that isn't overrun by cheaters - that's explicitly laid out in the terms of service. Note that this statement very precisely does not give my opinion on whether this expectation is being met - it is an abstract observation.

I also agree with Alhanelem that we're not entitled to demand a very specific solution to a perceived solution. Our expectation should simply be that a solution is provided - and, again, I offer no opinion regarding whether this is happening or not. But providing suggestions for solutions to problems should absolutely be fair game on these forums, and I support the fact that Tullemore is obviously working hard on his suggestions, even if we may not necessarily agree on the best course of action.

At any rate, I feel like continued and frank discussion (to the extent permitted) of this topic is valuable. It draws attention to any individuals that may exist who believe themselves to be exempt from both the rules of the game and general standards of decency re: not messing up the game for everyone else around them. And because this discussion is both valuable and touches on problematic concepts, we need to be extra careful not to break the rules of this forum - while, of course, simultaneously being as constructive and critical of events as possible.

I agree with Alhanelem that there is no deliberate conspiracy here, just violations of the forum rules regarding direct criticism of SE and the posting of exploits. I do also, however, agree with Tullemore that sometimes the dots are there to be connected and might lead to some interesting conclusions that are supported by observed reality and therefore deserve further thought. We just need to be careful how we express things here, in particular.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

Certainly, I have always included in a reply or at the start of the topic terms such as proposal, idea or suggestion.

I have given praise where i felt it was worthy.
True that over the years my evaluation of cheating is leading to more assertive criticism.

Upon a version update, upon a new upgrade tier and each addition the FFXI team has ability to create processes that are counter-measures against cheating.
They can do so proactively and retroactively. It is the composition of design that determines whether it has effective or poor counter-measures built in.
The standard that needs to be applied is if lessons are learned. Are mistakes corrected? When a foundation is repeated, how does one expect to attain different results?

The veterans know the hazards that should be avoided. The veterans know when design has effective counter-measures at the design layer.

Truly the devs will make their own evaluations. A great extent of what they evaluate properly should be from recommendations submitted by veterans who condemn cheating.

[Stompa]

It really cheers me up, that Tullemore and Jerbob, and many other true FFXI fans, are posting about the game that they clearly care deeply about. It makes me so happy to know that I am not alone, in my profound and life-defining love for Vana'diel and all things FFXI.

Tullemore in particular, takes the time to write extremely lengthy and detailed clerical breakdowns of the facts at Ground Level, based on his own empirical experiences, and the surrounding available information. I find his analysis to be extremely intelligent, and rooted in a deep respect for the original FFXI core game, and in many ways he is voicing the really strong feelings that exist in a remarkable fan culture, that has evolved among FFXI fans for almost twenty years.

Obviously, I have nothing but contempt for Rmt, Botters, or other cheaters. I see these as enemy attacks upon the world of Vana'diel that I love.

But I do not see any conspiracies here, rather I see a sad aspect of modern life, which is that honourable behaviour is no longer prized in the mainstream, and those of us who live within the self-imposed confines of a strict honour code, are considered old-fashioned and kooky.

Personally, my happiest moments were hunting NMs in the open-areas, out in the wilderness. I liked the RA-EX drops, and I didn't mind spending years camping NMs. In my experience, the Rmt did not have the patience or the skill to farm NMs generally, and they tended to ignore 70% of NMs altogether, because the drops were not only RA-EX but also they were exotic kooky drops that the mainstream players didn't care much about. Obviously the Rmt always botted the high Gil value NMs, or those NMs that dropped popular RA-EX gear.

I have said before, that there should be thousands more new open-area NMs that drop fun, unusual, exotic gear, gear that is not game-changing or essential or super-popular or High Gil Value, and this would allow people like me to go Hunting again. A RA-EX fun hat, a nice earring, anything that says I farmed the ferocious NM and finally got the drop. If it is not a popular or valuable item, so much the better, because I was farming the NM as a challenge and test of skill and persistence.

But open-area NMs were pretty much stopped in 2010, something that I consider a huge mistake.

The trigger-pop NMs in Aby, and the entirely mechanical instance NMs in SoA and Ambuscade etc., are not real NMs, they are not To Be Hunted, but rather delivered to you at a Drive Thru window.

I believe that mechanical instance NMs / instance battle content, is far easier to farm mechanically by Rmt Botter types, than are the exotic remote open-area NMs of the original game.

All that being said, I greatly admire and thank the FFXI Dev Team for working so hard to keep the game online, and for adding a lot of fun and cool QOL features in recent years.

I am always happy that FFXI is still available online, and I am grateful for every single day that I can spend in Vana'diel.

[Sirmarki]

Very valid points in this thread.

I find myself filling out the STFU form far too much. Again, I had to do it today because a crowd of undesirables were hi-jacking every single group of monsters and ??? points in Abyssea. Using all kinds of tricks to get around the map (I won't go into details, but I'm sure you can imagine). It is frustrating, so I logged off, and haven't logged in at all today. Competing against genuine players is one thing, competing against things that shouldn't be possible is another.

It has gotten to the point where some players simply do not care. Full blown conversations in linkshells and even /yell sometimes about using this and that. It is accepted as the new normal.

Maybe the players can help out? Maybe if somebody has reported enough violations that turned out to be genuine, get some kind of moderator status prioritising their reports. At the moment it is like a leaking hole in a bucket which by the time has managed to be fixed, another 4 holes have appeared.

[Alhanelem]

It really cheers me up, that Tullemore and Jerbob, and many other true FFXI fans, are posting about the game that they clearly care deeply about. It makes me so happy to know that I am not alone, in my profound and life-defining love for Vana'diel and all things FFXI.

I love and care about FFXI as much as anyone else here, and I want to see something done about the cheating. But there is no conspiracy. The idea that SE is in league with the RMT and cheaters is absurd and there is no basis for this nor proof of it.

If you have concerns they should be expressed in a civil manner. This conspiracy theory Tullemore has cooked up is beyond ridiculous, and isn't going to have any positive effect on anything. I'm not going to praise people for making thinly veiled threats.

As I said, people should speak with their wallets. If you don't have faith that they can or will address this problem, then let them know your satisfaction level with your sub fee.


The trigger-pop NMs in Aby, and the entirely mechanical instance NMs in SoA and Ambuscade etc., are not real NMs, they are not To Be Hunted, but rather delivered to you at a Drive Thru window.

I believe that mechanical instance NMs / instance battle content, is far easier to farm mechanically by Rmt Botter types, than are the exotic remote open-area NMs of the original game.I don't think we should not have these things just because RMT abuse them. They should do something about the RMT themselves, or take steps to make them less abuseable. I don't want to see another case of bad apples ruining something that works pefectly fine with legitimate people.

Ever heard the phrase, "This is why we can't have nice things?"

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

I really like the concept of the voidwalker NMs, although correctly debated about in regards to the irritation of some unnecessary repetition with abyssite tier functions and time sink with the color change mechanic.

If all the abyssite had just been made to be independently purposed for their particular hunt, then as far as an open world NM system, that would have been ideal.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

@ Alhanelem The flaw is when a method of cheating produces a result by which a gain or advantage can be transferred to an accessory of the act, or a consumer who unknowingly obtains some gain that was originated through the conduct of a prohibited behavior.
Encouraging design counter-measures to deter prohibited behavior from being orchestrated and exploited for obvious nefarious purposes is the desired outcome of identifying flaws and proposing improvements.

[Alhanelem]

Encouraging design counter-measures to deter prohibited behavior from being orchestrated and exploited for obvious nefarious purposes is the desired outcome of identifying flaws and proposing improvements.
I don't disagree, but it doesn't sound to me like that's what you're doing,it sounds more like you're just pointing fingers and also implying that SE is in league with the RMT or something like that. I've not seen them delete any legitimate thread discussing RMT problems and what could be done to improve the situation.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

You're right, this is not a specifically focused conversation about RMT. The post that got deleted was not either.
When you go about reading testimonials, do you get the idea that an account used to accumulate FFXI proprietary data with the intent to illegally commercialize would adhere to any other ToS mandate?
Here's a metaphor; Life comes in all shapes, forms and sizes.

[Selindrile]

While I'm never a fan of censorship, and wish the previous post still existed so that it could be discussed openly, I can't agree with most of the conclusions drawn here, I personally believe that a large portion of things that violate the ToS aren't actually detrimental to the game and it's players overall as a whole, in fact quite the opposite, though of course some things certainly are detrimental, painting them all with the same brush seems very off base. While I wish we could discuss openly what might and not be good things to target to affect change, I don't want to speak in specifics for obvious reasons, just wanted to throw in my vague two cents here, for what it's worth.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

Yes, as it has been stated, accounts utilizing third party programs enjoy their advantage, enjoy the 'enhanced capabilities' and they are going to stubbornly refuse to comply /w FFXI ToS as long as the risk/reward ratio heavily favors the unlikelihood of consequence.

[Jerbob]

I don't think we should not have these things just because RMT abuse them. They should do something about the RMT themselves, or take steps to make them less abusable. I don't want to see another case of bad apples ruining something that works perfectly fine with legitimate people.
I agree with this sentiment entirely. Of course, the difficulty is that it requires consistent, direct action against the abusers of those systems. That's something I'd like to see more of.


I personally believe that a large portion of things that violate the ToS aren't actually detrimental to the game and it's players overall as a whole, in fact quite the opposite, though of course some things certainly are detrimental, painting them all with the same brush seems very off base.
I can’t agree with this unfortunately.

For each thing that violates the ToS, we should ask whether it confer an advantage upon the user, no matter how small, that cannot be precisely replicated by another player without the same setup. The answer to this, for the vast majority of cases, is going to be yes - an advantage is gained. Why go to the trouble of using some tool if there is no benefit? Perhaps there are a very small number of purely aesthetic things that don't confer a benefit other than "ooh shiny", but these are going to be vanishingly small in the greater context of ToS violations. And, of course, anything that improves shininess while simultaneously increasing game engine performance is an advantage to the player too.

The benefit can be minor - hypothetical examples like something that speeds up moving gear around various inventories, or streamlines some aspect of the user interface, etc. One could argue that there's no mechanical benefit to these examples, but that's not true. They save time. They save faffing around in menus. Most critically, they allow the player to allocate their attention to more important things. It's a small thing, but lots of small things together make a huge difference.

And I think we all know that some of the ToS violations that a lot of people use as a matter of course are not just time saving things. They make a mechanical difference to how people can play the game - they simplify actions, speed up this or that, add new functionality, improve other functionality.

These "small things" are intrinsically damaging because they are objectively, absolutely unfair. An advantage is gained by possessing them over players that don't. A distinct, measurable advantage. And they stack up to make a very significant net advantage.

Beyond that, they are absolutely affecting the development of the game. SE has to watch us to see how to balance new content. If people are cheating to make the game easier, SE reasonably ramps up the challenge. Now the game is harder for people who aren't cheating. The gap widens. The cheaters gain a further advantage. More cheats are developed. More cheats are seen as "mandatory". The scale of the cheating increases. The gap widens further.

This is particularly true when a given aspect of the game is a bit clunky, and people cheat to streamline or bypass it. If people talk about how Aspect Y of the game is terrible and needs fixing, if they make enough noise about it, there's a chance something will be done about it. If the majority of the population takes it upon themselves to cheat in order to avoid Aspect Y, nothing will be done to fix it. And the minority who aren't cheating suffer, because Aspect Y becomes yet another source of advantage for cheaters.

I hear a lot of justification for why Thing X isn't cheating. The cold hard fact is that Thing X always grants an advantage. That's why people use it. That is cheating, and gaining an advantage is damaging to others and to the game as a whole.

[Pixela]

The point of posting something is to inform the developers, if they saw it and deleted it then you did what you wanted to do.

The point isn't to tell everyone else about it.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

The devs didn't see the replies in that topic. HA! if they had even seen the original post that began that topic they would have issued an official communication concerning it.

[Selindrile]

I hear a lot of justification for why Thing X isn't cheating. The cold hard fact is that Thing X always grants an advantage. That's why people use it. That is cheating, and gaining an advantage is damaging to others and to the game as a whole.

For what it's worth I never made a statement one way or another on what is "cheating", what is and isn't "cheating" is purely up to SE to decide, cheating is a disallowed act, pure and simple, and of course people only do things that they perceive to give them an advantage, in some form or another, over not doing a thing. The only thing I mentioned that would be a reasonable debate is "does said thing harm the community or game as a whole" or not, you have to remember when people were banned for idling with Carbuncle out, passively farming materials with no third party tools, or my friend who was thrown in GM jail for engaging a campaign defense object to skillup and then going afk, having no clue that such would be considered cheating, "cheating" does not always need to be synonymous with third party software. And before FFXI had an official windowed mode, or lockstyle existed, or the ability to display party member's TP, or ability to see your own buff durations, using other things to gain these abilities would definitely be considered cheating, but now they are part of the game, so clearly SE decided that these acts themselves were not always damaging to the game as a whole, or else they would not have been implemented into the client.

[Jerbob]

You have to remember when people were banned for idling with Carbuncle out, passively farming materials with no third party tools, or my friend who was thrown in GM jail for engaging a campaign defense object to skillup and then going afk, having no clue that such would be considered cheating, "cheating" does not always need to be synonymous with third party software.
These are certainly interesting cases. However, they are likely classified by SE as "unintended exploitation of legitimate game mechanics" or something along those lines. As you've stated, whether these are "cheating" or not, they are different to what I was talking about - I was referring exclusively to third party tool usage when I used the word "cheating". That doesn't mean your examples deserve any less discussion - just that I think that discussion is a different one. I should have defined my vocabulary more carefully, sorry.


And before FFXI had an official windowed mode, or lockstyle existed, or the ability to display party member's TP, or ability to see your own buff durations, using other things to gain these abilities would definitely be considered cheating, but now they are part of the game, so clearly SE decided that these acts themselves were not always damaging to the game as a whole, or else they would not have been implemented to the client.
These features are only damaging to the game if they are not available to everyone. That is the fundamental point I'm trying to convey.

I agree that all of the examples you give would be considered cheating. We were lucky that, despite widespread cheating employed by players to create these features independently, SE decided to incorporate them into the game anyway. We're lucky that everyone can enjoy these features now. The existence of these features became legitimate when everyone could use them without breaking the ToS.

But we should not make the mistake of thinking that cheating is actually beneficial to the game, suggesting that gives SE a template to follow when creating updates. I see a lot of people say that, and it's absolute nonsense. The number of ways people cheat in this game is vast - obviously SE is going to come up with the same stuff as some of those cheats. And this thinking ignores the vast number of enhancements to the game cheaters use that SE hasn't adopted.

I don't meant to say that every instance of cheating becomes harmless if they're legitimised by SE, of course, but in these examples (and potentially in many others), no harm is done, and player experiences are enhanced, if they are freely accessible to all.

From a personal perspective, the introduction of equipsets completely revolutionised the game for me. I can't imagine life without them now. I can do so much more. I've directly experienced first hand how much of an impact this sort of thing has on my capabilities as a player. And knowing that this is still a fraction of what cheaters can achieve makes it very clear to me that cheating creates a vast gulf in ability between players, because I can compare my experiences before and after equipsets.

This is what I mean by damage. Division in the ceiling of player capability caused by cheating. This affects development. This affects game experience for people playing legitimately.

Of course, this is mostly invisible to people who are cheating because SE is now developing using the statistics they generate, because they are the majority. They get to stay ahead of the curve for free. It's only when a subset of cheaters is confident enough in the status quo of abuse that they can start doing things that make even casual cheaters squirm that a majority starts raising an outcry - and the bar of what's "acceptable" and what isn't just keeps dropping.

A few years ago no-one would have dared to use cure bots in the same party as the type of people I play with. Certainly they existed among some groups, but now they're so widespread that no-one one bats an eyelid, at any level of play. The crafting cheat is just another consequence of years of people claiming that cheat after cheat doesn't "really affect gameplay". It does, and this is what we're left with.

[Alhanelem]

While I'm never a fan of censorship, and wish the previous post still existed so that it could be discussed openly, I can't agree with most of the conclusions drawn here, I personally believe that a large portion of things that violate the ToS aren't actually detrimental to the game and it's players overall as a whole, in fact quite the opposite, though of course some things certainly are detrimental, painting them all with the same brush seems very off base. While I wish we could discuss openly what might and not be good things to target to affect change, I don't want to speak in specifics for obvious reasons, just wanted to throw in my vague two cents here, for what it's worth.

Part of the reason I feel like this isn't as bad as it's made out to be (DOESNT MEAN IT SHOULDN"T BE ADDRESSED, just means the impact could have been a lot worse if this was going on more in a different time) is just because we do so much stuff in the game either solo or just with known friends these days (especially outside of Asura, where what community remains is much more close knit and mainly consists of circles of friends who had been on the same server forever). There is less dependence on random people- gil is fairly easily obtained without even dealing on the AH these days. Because of this I know all or most of my gil is completely legitimate because the vast majority of it was earned from my own actions and not from trade or any other external source, and I know quite a few people in the same boat, we only buy from the AH what we really need to, and the stuff we do buy isn't typically the stuff most likely to be contaiminated. Also not being on Asura helps a lot (Sorry, Asura, but it's true) here as the RMT tend to stick to where the most people are. of the most recent incidents of duping/cheating, nearly all of it was confined to Asura.

That being said, of course I want everyone to have a great experience, so a close look really needs to be taken at this for everyone's sake.

[Dragoy]

Meanwhile, at least somewhat related to the discussion at hand here, Special_Task_Force (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/members/51296-Special_Task_Force) has posted an update in 不正行為に関するSTFからのご報告スレッド.

It also links to a reply by Yoji_Fujito (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/members/10-Yoji_Fujito) regarding the recent crafting exploit.

Nothing really out of the usual, mainly stating that they are aware, have already acted on some of it, but still have more investigation to do, and that things are a bit slower than usual due to the COVID-19 business.

[Alhanelem]

Meanwhile, at least somewhat related to the discussion at hand here, Special_Task_Force (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/members/51296-Special_Task_Force) has posted an update in 不正行為に関するSTFからのご報告スレッド.

It also links to a reply by Yoji_Fujito (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/members/10-Yoji_Fujito) regarding the recent crafting exploit.

Nothing really out of the usual, mainly stating that they are aware, have already acted on some of it, but still have more investigation to do, and that things are a bit slower than usual due to the COVID-19 business.
which altogether too many people feel the need to exploit rather than help. Scalpers selling game consoles at 200% MSRP, RMT in FFXI, fake/crappy products, doing stupid things, etc. It's not just here, it's everywhere ppl are doing this crap.

Edit: cleaned up language, sorry.