Change GM Policies | Make GMs useful | Give GMs proper training

[noodles355]

If you're character becomes stuck and is unable to move then they will help you. If you want to make an item restoral requestt hey will help you. But this is almost all they do.

Violations of the Playonline agreement
If a character is cheating, they will send you an automated message telling you to contact the special task force. So you want me to log out of FFXI, and send a message to an agency that will "look into it" and probably not do anything? How about you just come to my location right now where you can see the damn person flee-hacking in plain sight. He's being obvious and doing it right in front of my/our faces. It's happening right now. You can come and fix the problem right now. But you wont. Why? Because it's not GM policy to investigate players for the use of third party tools.

If you look at the Help desk, one of the options is "I would like to report a violation of the playonline agreement" > "I have read the playonline agreement?" > "I would like to call a GM".

Now, this to me sounds like if I want to report a violation of the POL agreement, I should call a GM. The use of third party tools are a violation of the playonline agreement, so I should call a GM right?. The GM then states that it is not his duty, even though the menu I followed in the Help Desk lead me to placing a GM call.
Yes, this is a matter for the STF, but in that case why deos the help menu not lead you to somewhere to do with the STF?


Harrasement
If someone is insulting or harrassing you then all you will do is say "Sorry about that, put them on your black list". You will do nothing to the person in question even though you have complete access to the logs and can see whatever racist, sexist, or otherwise harmfull remarks are made. Concidering you will go out of your way when someone has something that some tiny minority has deemed offensive in their search comment, bazaar or name but that 99% of people don't care about to fix the problem, this is rediculous. A GM has before warned a player for having the Allakhazam website url in their Bazaar comment. Allkahazam is a premier site. Why would a GM go out of their way to change this, but then not give a shit about instances that actually matter such as racisism, sexism, and other such insults and flaming?

Reporting a game bug
If you report a game bug to a GM, you will get one of two possible outcomes:
A) It's a known issue, and they will say "It's a known issue, we are looking to fix it"
b) It's a new issue, with no previous data and they will say it's "working as intended".
This is completely rediculous. I once placed a call to a GM regarding the NM Genbu. Upon fighting him a few months ago I noticed that Genbu had gained the Counter trait, however his counter attacks were not appearing in the chatlog (All filters off to check of course). Now, either Genbu was meant to be able to counter and the issue was the counter-attacks not showing up in the chat log. Or Genbu was not meant to counter at all. Upon placing this GM call I was told "It's working as intended". Sorry, it's just obviously not. You're trying to dismiss the matter without actually looking into it whatsoever. I called out the GM on this and eventually he did look into it and finally admitted it was not working as intended and placed a bug report.

So the mob was broken, the GM finally acknowleged this and placed a bug report, however at the start immidiately dismissed the issue because there was no prior report of this. Isn't that somewhat rediculous? It didn't take long after he started to look into the matter to come to the conclusion that it was broken. The fact that he dismissed it immidiately at the start shows either how poor the GM training is, or how worthless and bad at his job that perticular GM is.

Contact between GMs
GMs seem to have little or no contact with each other at all. You could call one GM and get one answer about how something should work, then call another and get a completely different answer. You could call one GM and have them say "It's not part of my duty to do this" and then call another one who will say "I will investigate, please give me all the details you can". Somewhere there is a break in communication and it has lead to a very weak department.

Conclusion
GMs either overlook game bugs immidiately due to no prior bug report having been filed, or state there is already a bug report filed and it will be fixed. It is not GM policy to investigate players who have abused the ToS. GMs will do nothing except tell you to put a harrassing player on your black list.
Concidering the amount (very few) of players who get stuck and can't move, or who need a one-time item resotral, and that the almost always dismiss bugs, harrasement and ToS violation calls. What is it that GMs actually do?

Department needs an overhaul. You realise that most of the player base has given up on GMs and accepted that they are useless? Maybe that's a clue that it's time for a change.

[Rambus]

I agree, as far as harrasement GMs need to do more. I do not like being told by a gm that >I and my party< have to move across zones and find a new camp because some A*** hole is stalking me and mob killing. I roamed once in west ron s and this guy would follow my party across the whole zone trying to kill all the exp mobs. not only that but he would make trains of mobs and fight them on top of us whenever we stopped. I think he even tried to MPK us by getting undead to use aoe drain and such. Not only was he killing exp mobs but sometimes he would hold trains of mobs on top of us and a GM told us he can do whatever he wants because mob is yellow.

THIS IS BS! more needs to be done to such greifing. I wrote, others wrote a lot of complaints for SEs disregard for customer service, I would like a rep to actally see and talk to dev team about this issue.

customer serice > all game updates, been neglected for too long. reps can replay to some playful threads but not one of the most serious issue??? I do not understand.

I had a GM send a MT to the guy I was reporting once, I was really pissed off by that.

[Swords]

It's half on the GM's and half on the players. For starters there are so many GM's avaliable at any given time, and I don't know how many time's you've submitted a GM call but there is always an outstanding que of people in line before you. Since they probably get at least several hundred an hour, and each call probably takes at least 10 minutes each to investigate they can only realistically handle so many at a time. Due to this, they have to be selective which they think are actual calls instead of checking everyone calling foul, and even then you still got to follow a certain amount of conduct to be taken seriously.

Let me give you an idea of some reasons a GM might just overlook or push you aside.

1. Poorly worded discription: Both actual and fake GM calls are guilty of this, often people will give a redundant message GM's probably see a thousand times a day like "Linkshell MPK!" or "(insert name here) is Fleehacking!" or the ever popular "(insert name/likshell here) is Botting!" or "NM popped purple". GM's power is limited when working with such vague claims mostly because they have to have some proof of it happening WHEN it happens, by the time the claim is submitted it's often too late.

Fix: For starters many policies and patches have been introduced to counteract botting, fleehacking, MPK, and other violations, we know it's not perfect but just saying a person is doing something does not cut it, you have to give the GM's a unique reason out of the norm to warrent any investigation.

For instance the "Linkshell MPK" excuse let's give something more discriptive "*Name* is charming/releasing mobs ontop of my party and mobs are not despawning." or "*Name* is training mobs on my party, dieing, then letting mobs aggro us." If you are aware of a patch SE put in a while back it's hard to MPK parties now, because once a mob is too far out of it's roaming area it despawns. The suggestions I gave imply to the GM that the monsters do NOT despawn, therefore it is an actual case of MPK that might be worth looking into.

2. Player attitude: GM finally contacts you and your ready to give it your all of what happened, "expecting" the GM to rain down the wraith of heaven on your enemies. But whats this, the GM's sounding like he's ignoring you even though you just explained it three times, and now your in GM jail going "what the hell". Why you may ask this happened, because you spent half the conversation cursing every other word poorly describing the situation rather than really addressing the issue. As rediculous as the notion may seem, it happens all the time.

Fix: Ok, you got past step one and you have a GM actually contacting you for some griveance. We can all understand your pissed, but the key here is be respectful and calm. Being calm and respectful shows the GM you actually have your wits about you, and inclines them to take you more seriously. After all, what person in their right mind would take someone that sounds like an everyday internet forum troll seriously.

3. Focused and Discriptive: So you did steps one and two, but the GM still seems to not get what your saying. It might be because your derailing yourself, by straying from the original point you were trying to make.

Fix: It's qutie easy to stray from the original point your trying to make, especially when a GM requests you to state the events that lead up to this point. If you find yourself in this situation it's better to just sit and think about your response for a minute then writing it out, rather than stating a couple fragmented sentences for the GM to try and decipher.

Now for the GM's, a person has to understand the restrictions to their power. It's best to put a GM in the context of a prosecution lawyer, in order for a prosecuter to prosecute they need evidence, when theres no evidence or proof theres no case against the defendant. Now prosecutors have testimonies from witnesses, but again it comes down to no evidence no proof no case because witnesses are known to lie, be bribed, or blackmailed and are only often used to define the accuracy of the evidence once evidence has been found.

Granted, there is a degree of falsehood to what I say, because there are players who are legitimate that get shafted and there are GM's that pay no heed to their customers what so ever.

[Karbuncle]

All in all, GMs appear to have very limited power. I tell the story all the time, but i was camping an NM in Fort Karug(S) and saw this Log-Botter running around in one big circle over and over, Stopping at every single logging point (Even if it didnt have a Logging point active) Standing there for ~1 second, and either logging (if there), or moving on. When it was logging, After each log it would attempt to move to the next point, but stop and log, move back a little if it was still there, and then walk away/etc in a pattern. Several times it became stuck on a cactus and just ran into it over and over, eventually dislodging himself and going right back to logging.

It was the most obvious Bot I've ever seen, at one point he was actually POS Hacking inside Cactus to get from Logging Point to Logging point.

Called a GM. 2 DAYS later with no response at all, I finally log in with an auto-message (having completely forgot the entire ordeal) telling me to report to the Special Task force.

I did, And the guy got banned, So in the end it worked out. It just made me a little upset such an obvious bot could be actively running in the game (he was there for WEEKS) and get away with it until i finally reported him to the STF.

So, +1 to the OP, something needs to be done about this, Even minor things. I understand GM's have to sift through BS like "THIS GUY WAS TOTALLY BOTTING AND KILLED ME" crap, But it doesn't mean they shouldn't do their job.

If i just sifted through messages at my last job, and decided "auto-respond"... "auto-respond" just because i got bored of dealing with the same things... I'd be fired. they should too. I remember a while back they announced some huge over-haul to the GM policy and people were like "YAY", did all that stuff just ... stop?

Either way, i respect what the GMs have to deal with, I hate Customer Service jobs as much as everyone else... But i feel they should be given more power/responsibilities, cause it really feels like the player base now knows they can pretty much get away with anything. I see more flee-hackers, POS hackers and bots in FFXI than i have in years, because they know the GMs won't do anything anymore, and most people dont care enough to take the time to file a STFu report.

But frankly, They aren't doing Charity work, They're getting paid to deal with this crap. They can't just "shirk' their job duties when they want and copy>paste an auto-response message and move on. I've worked in Call Center jobs, Even Door-to-Door as a quality control Tech for charter, I know how it sucks to deal with people, but I'm paid to do a job, I need to do it. Same to be said for GMs.

i know most of the time they do everything in their power. i know, But i think they should be given more power to do things in game, Right now it feels the only reason to call them is for a 1-time Restore, or to get un-stuck. They barely do anything about harassment. Some guy was saying in SHOUT calling me and my brother the N-word, even in tells, for out-claiming him on an NM... Gm reponse? "Blist him". Sure i can blist him, but what about the next guy? its crap like this that gets on my nerves :|

[Fiarlia]

Apparently I'm one of the few people that has had nothing but good experiences with GMs.

There was one time my LS and I were in Abyssea - Altepa, doing a pt on the dolls. Now, since it's LS only, we don't do the typical setup for an alliance exp session. It changes from week to week depending on who isn't leeching and their jobs (we rotate). This particular week we were doing BLM Nuke-ga's. One of the BLMs would gather 5 dolls, sleepgs and the other two would join the first BLM and we'd Firaja, simple enough. Well, this new group comes in, and their WHM decides to start casting Diaga on the slept mobs, often getting claim, but we would keep hate (he tried to time it to land right after a Firaja barrage most of the time so his group had less work to do to kill them).

Now, we all know that yellow mobs are fair game - at least by the games rules. And none of us were dying because we know how to keep ourselves buffed, time cures, etc. But it was stupidly annoying. Now, two of us called a GM. My buddy got a response first, and he explained the situation. Normally, you'd expect a GM to advise us to just move, or advise the other group to just move, or at worst say that yellow mobs are fair game and he can't do anything. The GM popped himself in between our two groups and stayed there for a few seconds - probably to scare the douche WHM or some such (which I thought was cool). The WHM didn't care and kept doing it.

Well, The GM immediately jailed the guy. It was approximately 30 minutes before the guy was released to his homepoint. While he was in jail, one of his ally members was shouting for the GM to release him. Annoying at first, but then he started making threats to the GM. That guy got jailed too, and to my knowledge, nobody even called a GM on him.

Anyway, the original guy was technically working within game mechanics, but the GM still took care of it regardless. Which I thought was pretty damn spiffy.

[Karbuncle]

Seems like an Over-sight, But i should mention not all of my Experiences with GMs are terrible. I know I've had quite a few good ones.

It just feels like more times than not, I just don't get help.

One time i was in a Garlaige party (Long time ago), Some guy from a party near us came over and starting cursing out our party, calling us Racist names, making rude remarks etc (Note: We were there first, then they showed up, we still claimed more mobs = They got upset). So i made a GM call with this phrase "Rude player is harassing my party".

What followed was one of the most rude condescending GM calls I've ever received, The GM treated me like i was wasting his time. Sadly I can't recall word for word, But I remember conversation heading in the direction of "When did this take place" (etc) I told him where/time (now), and he asked me what the man was saying. I told him "Its in /say channel, I'd like to not repeat the words, I blisted him a little bit back but my party is still be threatened by him" etc and so on, He had a condescending attitude and basically the end result was "Tough Shit, Sucks to be you, Blist him" and no action was taken.

he gave me the "We'll investigate" line (It hadn't been more than ~10 minutes and all the insults/racist remark we're done in /say so.. Whats to investigate?)... and that was the end of it. For several minutes (I'm guessing until the guy got bored) he continued to harass us, then eventually went back to his party and continued to shout for a bit, don't recall much after that :|.

Either way, I don't have Entirely negative experiences, It just feels like i get more bad than good. but i do have a fair share of good GM stories.

[Greatguardian]

Apparently I'm one of the few people that has had nothing but good experiences with GMs.

I've had solid experiences with GMs, too. I really think it's a matter of the context, sometimes. If these boards (and, well, the entirety of port jeuno) are any indication, most players will try and start out a conversation with a GM by yelling at them or yelling about whatever crap got them mad enough to call a GM. Worse yet, I've heard of a lot of people who start berating the GMs whenever they don't get their way. It's absolutely no wonder that they're a bit jaded with random calls and don't respond well to people who can't respect them.

The only time I've ever had to wait a long time for a GM response was when I made a call during JP prime time. That bugged the heck out of me, because I was sitting in the queue for over 8 hours. I'm assuming it was just a matter of a lack of English-speaking/Bilingual GMs that day, but it was still a pain. However, the very minute that the POL Information Center opened (11:01 PST) I got a response from an NA GM and worked out my problem just fine.

That said, it's also true that I don't call GMs very often, if at all. I have a pretty thick skin, so I tend to just ignore it when someone tries harassing me in /s or /t. If it gets bad enough I always have the option of blacklisting them, too. The only times I actually call a GM are when someone is very obviously griefing me. Eg: I've had people diaga my sleeping Adds while I was solo'ing an NM. I've had BSTs charm a slime and Fluid Spread my mobs during a Smn Burn. Etc etc. Each time, the blatantly offending parties were most certainly jailed.

GMs are like Mall Security. If you (by you I don't mean Karb/Fi, more the average player) run up to their booth and demand they run out to The Gap to help you because "Some bitch took the last cute miniskirt off the rack, I wanted it", of course they're just going to bang their heads against a wall and attempt to kindly tell you they'll "investigate" without strangling you. If you run up to their booth and demand they arrest someone because "They were mean to me", they're probably going to do the same thing. But if you only run up to their booths when someone is actually breaking the law, and you treat them with respect and provide them with clear and concise details of the event, they'll be plenty happy to do their job.

That said, I'm not sure reporting bots is the best example for GM service. As far as I know, that's completely out of their jurisdiction. Calling a GM on a bot is like reporting Tax Fraud to Mall Security. All they can do is tell you to file a police report.

[Karbuncle]

I agree with a lot of what you say GG, except the "Mall cop" Comparison.

in a Video game(FFXI) where racist slurs and botting are against the ToS, there are clear laws being broken.

where as Taking the last item from the rack, or being rude Isn't in real life, or most malls (Which some extreme cases of asshole-ness still gets you booted).

So that comparison is really really flawed. I don't report someone for saying "lol you suck" but when someone runs over and start calling me the N-word and Racists slurs just for outclaimming them, I feel they should be punished. Or Obvious bots.

I've made like, 20 GM calls in the 8 years i've played, And i'll admit probably half were useful and helpful. I don't report small things like "You guys suck your noobs" i move on, But when Racists remarks come into play and constant harassment i feel they should be punished :|

I don't report every single person i see moving a little quicker than me, and again, dont report every bad insults, its only the Major offenses, Like Racial slurs for small things, and Obvious bots i report. I would just like It if i wasn't treated like I'm a waste of time/resources. its not so much to ask.

[Greatguardian]

I agree with a lot of what you say GG, except the "Mall cop" Comparison.

in a Video game(FFXI) where racist slurs and botting are against the ToS, there are clear laws being broken.

where as Taking the last item from the rack, or being rude Isn't in real life, or most malls (Which some extreme cases of asshole-ness still gets you booted).

So that comparison is really really flawed. I don't report someone for saying "lol you suck" but when someone runs over and start calling me the N-word and Racists slurs just for outclaimming them, I feel they should be punished. Or Obvious bots.

I've made like, 20 GM calls in the 8 years i've played, And i'll admit probably half were useful and helpful. I don't report small things like "You guys suck your noobs" i move on, But when Racists remarks come into play and constant harassment i feel they should be punished :|

I don't report every single person i see moving a little quicker than me, and again, dont report every bad insults, its only the Major offenses, Like Racial slurs for small things, and Obvious bots i report. I would just like It if i wasn't treated like I'm a waste of time/resources. its not so much to ask.

Oh, no, I do agree. It's just a matter of the average playerbase not differentiating between racial slurs and "Lol you're a gimp you suck". Racial slurs are most definitely against the ToS and thus fall under "Breaking the law", and should be reported and punished. The biggest roadblock to this, however, is the multitude of players who GM people over very stupid stuff and just make it that much harder for GMs to properly respond to legitimate calls.

I can't even count the number of times I've heard "I'm calling a GM because you took the white NM we wiped to before our Reraise finished animating". If people are taking 40 minutes on Bennu, and finally wipe, I'm killing that bird. Heck, if they're not complete Trogs to me when I do I invite them to lot the drops (bar Empyrean mats, for applicable NMs). It's perfectly reasonable and it's perfectly legal, but some poor GM is still going to have to sit through their bitching for 5-10 minutes because they're too butthurt to let it go.

It is a failing when real racist slurs are ignored, but I guess I'm just a bit sympathetic to them since I have a fairly good idea of what they have to put up with on a daily basis.

As for bots, I really am fairly sure that GMs can't do a thing about them most of the time. Before the founding of the STF, the GMs definitely did play a role in the smashing of Fishbots and the like. However, I'm assuming that the STF has more advanced tools and deeper access to server information for the use in eliminating bots/RMT. A GM could look at a player, think they look suspicious, try sending them a tell or a /poke, but that's about it. The STF would be able to look at incoming and outgoing packets, track player movement patterns, and other such things in order to make a significantly more precise determination.

Where a poke/tell/reasonable-suspicion was generally enough in the past, it seems like the utilization of the STF's resources would be less of a liability than trying to use a GM's qualitative determination.

[Karbuncle]

I see, You just confused me cause you mentioned my name -.-

I'm very conservative when it comes to GM Calls >->