February 2023 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Sp1cyryan]

Nope, this doesn't block normal communication in any way (except maybe some weird edge case where someone actually wants to say something like "Dynamis, 2hr/run; Sortie, 1hr/run.")

The letters I used in that filter aren't the ones you get typing with your keyboard. I doubt they're what anyone gets just typing with their keyboard. The Ｃ one specifically is "fullwidth latin capital letter c", unicode 0xFF23; in comparison, the C that you get typing normally is just "latin capital letter c", unicode 0x43. A computer isn't going to mistake the two, no matter how similar they look. This is why they get used in shouts - you can block any of the normal Latin character set you want, and it's never going to catch that fullwidth Latin set.

As to the specific letter choices, I'm assuming any gil seller is going to want to say "FFXI", "gil", "gold", or ".com" in their shout; it would be possible to just use all 52 of these fullwidth characters and guarantee a catch, but that's a very wide net to cast and I prefer not to waste the space right now.

Any non-Latin character shaped like an F, a G, or a C will still bypass this filter, but those shouldn't be all that common; if you see it happening, you can always use the newly-added in-game copy to clipboard feature to grab the offending characters and add them to your filter if they do slip by. (And if that happens, maybe post that text somewhere on the boards here so we can keep pace with the bots?)

EDIT: ... well, okay, actually, I say all that, then look at FFXIAH and just immediately see a shout where someone's using the fullwidth characters instead of the standard ones to shout for Sortie. Kind of thought Japanese players were using the usual ascii character set when they typed in English but I guess not. So... I guess you can hit false positives, but... well, it's a trade-off. You could consider using ＦＦ and ＦＩ in place of just Ｆ, ＣＯ in place of just Ｃ, and ＧＩ and ＧＯ in place of Ｇ; ｃ, ｆ, and ｇ shouldn't see any normal use and are likely fine to use as-is. There's more risk of a nuisance shout slipping by though, decide which you're more comfortable with.

Amended lower-loss version, then:

ＦＦ
ＦＩ
ＣＯ
ＧＩ
ＧＯ
ｃ
ｆ
ｇ
hr/

Ah, nice. The Unicode on mobile looks very close to the latin characters compared to how it's noticable in game.

Other than copying the message to add. There's no way a player will be able to identify which one to block without a third party tool though.

[Zenion]

I like how the Term Filter is implemented. Instead of just choosing a few fixed words that are problematic, players are being allowed to set and change the terms that they'll block as needed; that's a lot more useful. RMTs will still be able to get around it, but it will take them longer than it takes any given player to update their terms, so it should actually work. Well done!

[xiozen]

Great job with this update; love the chat filter QoL.

[Okieeomi]

Greetings and salutations adventures,

We've updated the version update notes to be a bit more clear on the formatting players should use when adding terms to either the prohibited or allowed .txt files.

* Each text file can have up to 100 lines of text, with each line consisting of no more than 30 characters.
* The Term Filter will not reference terms listed after the 100th line.

For example each term should be on a new line:

Mithra
Galka
Tarutaru

As mentioned in the version update notes, we are looking to expand upon the Term Filter's functionality and would appreciate any feedback you may have after trying out the feature.

Happy version update day!

[Alhanelem]

Greetings and salutations adventures,

We've updated the version update notes to be a bit more clear on the formatting players should use when adding terms to either the prohibited or allowed .txt files.



For example each term should be on a new line:



As mentioned in the version update notes, we are looking to expand upon the Term Filter's functionality and would appreciate any feedback you may have after trying out the feature.

Happy version update day!

I have to say I've always wanted to block tarutaru.

The biggest problem is most are not very tech savy, and they will not really understand how to make this work.

I don't think simple text files with one word on a line is hard to understand. If you're "tech savvy" enough to install the game, I think you're tech savvy enough to put words in a text file.

[Pixela]

A warning message should to come up if the txt is over 100 lines, cause people will cap it with how often new shout bots are made.

It would be good to have a button that opens the folder so you can go directly to it, instead of going looking for it. The folder is so nested away it's a little annoying to get to. I suppose people can make a shortcut on the desktop to it, but still.

The best option would be being able to write to the txt from the game, but limit what is written to just the players name. So it works as an effective blist but without having to type the persons name as is the case with normal blist. The way yell bots win currently is the make the name so hard to type out to blist that nobody even tries.

Possibly have a temp txt that is deleted with every maintenance if the paragraph above is used, this is becasue the majority of the yell bots are deleted in a few days anyway and they make a new one.

Another simple way to address the spam is to make /yell have a level 15ro 20 level restriction. This will make it harder for the RMT to make new shout bots, and less willing to delete them to make a new one every day. New players have assist and don't even know yell exists anyway so level it isn't a big deal.

The biggest problem is most are not very tech savy, and they will not really understand how to make this work. Another is that people will put too many basic words in it and block half the server, which is another reason why maybe a temp file maybe a good idea.

[Zenion]

Possibly have a temp txt that is deleted with every maintenance if the paragraph above is used, this is becasue the majority of the yell bots are deleted in a few days anyway and they make a new one.

That sounds like a lot of needless work. I don't know how bots are on other servers, but I can shut the ones I see on Fenrir up with three lines:

g i l
G I L
m/

If the filter is something players are doing, and not something the RMT bots can actually see for themselves, it'll probably take them a while to adapt and realize they need new scripts to follow to bypass it.

[Alhanelem]

Also, you can whitelist a term and set it up so people you know will be able to use the blacklisted terms by including something on the white list.


Also: They made it clear they aren't done with this feature yet, it will be expanded in the future.

If the filter is something players are doing, and not something the RMT bots can actually see for themselves, it'll probably take them a while to adapt and realize they need new scripts to follow to bypass it.

It's also being filtered on your end, the RMT will have no way to know their messages aren't getting through, so if they know about this their only real option is to constantly vary their word choice/format, currently they don't really change stuff much once it gets past the built in RMT chat filters.

[Pixela]

A common sense move would be to increase the level required to use yell however they will use /ae then, so I guess they can't really.

[Alhanelem]

Basing it on level would adversely affect new characters/players. So it's not really common sense. This feature makes it easy to block out not just RMT but anything else you don't really want to hear while allowing the thinngs you do.