AFK boot dodgers

Cap for playing should be no more than 8 hours and then you get a 8 hour cooldown before you can play again. If it picks up no movement of your character for 30 minutes it starts a 30 second logout that you have to cancel if don't want to logout.

Honestly, when this was a problem in SB, periodic server reboots solved the queue problems instantly.
It was annoying for about a week, and then people realized the fear of the queue was the cause of the queue.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Doesn't discord show that if you are just at the movie screen, before logging in? I don't tell people what i am playing, so am not 100% sure, but I think it's just if the client is active. Doesn't mean they are online. So it's possible that they play, log out and sit at char selection until they want to play again. That they are online at any particular minute isn't a guaranteed 2 days.

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Yeah Discord shows you as playing if the client is open - it can't tell the difference because all it's doing is looking at the processes running on your computer. So it is a terrible metric to go by for how long someone has been logged in, because you could login, do nothing, get kicked by the AFK timer 30 minutes later, and then not touch your computer for a week and if nothing caused the game client to crash in that time Discord would say you'd been playing for a week.

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Originally Posted by lezard21

It's really a no brainer how to fix AFK cheaters, aside from bans but we don't have the GMs for that.

Put a hard cap to how long you can stay continually logged in at 12 hours, whether you are moving, crafting, watching a cutscene, ERPing or bot farming. You hit the 12 hour continual logged in mark and BOOM, boot and you get a 12 hour cooldown in which you can't queue again.

If the devs haven't done this already is because they can't be more obvious to how little they care about the queue situation.

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Are you suggesting there is no one that is legitimately playing for over 12 hours in a day? Does any MMO limit daily playtime? Such a limit would not go over well.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

Cap for playing should be no more than 8 hours and then you get a 8 hour cooldown before you can play again. If it picks up no movement of your character for 30 minutes it starts a 30 second logout that you have to cancel if don't want to logout.

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It's probably not likely to help as much as you think. Most everyone, including those dodging the AFK timer, are going to be playing during the prime hours anyway, so people are basically going to all be trying to get on during the same 8-12 hour window still. I suppose anyone who is actually leaving their computer unattended with some afk dodging measure in place for multiple days without ever playing during the day would be taken out of the equation by this, but that has to be the extreme minority.

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Originally Posted by ijuakos_xqwzts

Did you at least contact them before you start making accusations? The wording in your post strongly suggests you do not. Some "friend".

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"I know people don't HAVE TO reply to you, but I still think most people will at least give you at least minor acknowledgement if you say hi. Usually the people I suspect are using these third party tools are.. probably doing so, because I have never got any reply from the people I suspected."

Did you even read. I conveyed that I tried to send a couple private messages first.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

"I know people don't HAVE TO reply to you, but I still think most people will at least give you at least minor acknowledgement if you say hi. Usually the people I suspect are using these third party tools are.. probably doing so, because I have never got any reply from the people I suspected."

Did you even read. I conveyed that I tried to send a couple private messages first.

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I would ignore a random "hi", and I would blacklist someone who repeatedly sent it after no response.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

I have been reporting them under cheating when I see them, but only after messaging them a couple of times during the evening or day to see if they are actually there. I know people don't HAVE TO reply to you, but I still think most people will at least give you at least minor acknowledgement if you say hi. Usually the people I suspect are using these third party tools are.. probably doing so, because I have never got any reply from the people I suspected.

Some people on my friend list try to hide it by going into the inn, house, or a private apartment. They usually restrict all guess access as if we can't see what they are doing when they go "invisible" for 7+ hours a day.

The key things to look for are:

- AFK for SEVERAL hours in the same place.
- Busy icon
- Hiding the AFK icon
- In apartment, house, or private chambers
- No guest access in apartment, house, or private chambers
- No Teleport for friends in apartment, house, or private chambers
- Some people use the same emote all day in place. That simply isn't practical for the equivalent of an entire work day if someone is actively playing. The average player is going to change spots at least a few times in that period.
- Crowd blending. Some of these people will look for busy crowds and hide the AFK icon to blend in. I'm not fooled.
- Not replying whatsoever in any form. It's possible someone doesn't have a keyboard, because sometimes I swivel my TV around to my bed in order to play when I'm not feeling well, but its not hard to to at least use the auto translation feature. They have phrases for letting people know that you don't have a keyboard on you at the moment. You can also type a sentence with a controller, but it isn't fun.

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Just a friendly warning that I'd report you or anyone else for stalking, should I notice you trying to play detective on me or repeatedly PM me when I'm not responding or attempt to teleport to my inn room/Squadron barracks/House without my express consent.

For those who are curious, the GMs will supposedly give you a free vacation for using a keyboard macro or something similar to idle.

Just had a friend come screaming onto our discord claiming he got one for spamming peloton overnight and now can't play for a few days.

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Originally Posted by Denji

For those who are curious, the GMs will supposedly give you a free vacation for using a keyboard macro or something similar to idle.

Just had a friend come screaming onto our discord claiming he got one for spamming peloton overnight and now can't play for a few days.

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With how little SE has done to combat bots in the past this sounds entirely made up.

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Originally Posted by Naridar

Just a friendly warning that I'd report you or anyone else for stalking, should I notice you trying to play detective on me or repeatedly PM me when I'm not responding or attempt to teleport to my inn room/Squadron barracks/House without my express consent.

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And you will receive a ban for troll reporting if you did that.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

With how little SE has done to combat bots in the past this sounds entirely made up.

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Spamming skills in non-combat areas was always bannable behavior, just like the WHM that thought it was okay to spam Holy in Limsa.

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Originally Posted by sevendog_

https://i.imgur.com/1GreO7n.png

and when you search their ign, they're online. Not there, but they're online.

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It doesn't tell if you're in game or just at the title screen. Discord doesn't know and it only detects if the app is running. A poor way to judge if someone is hogging the server space.

Also, I press my key every 25 mins while I work from home.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Honestly, when this was a problem in SB, periodic server reboots solved the queue problems instantly.
It was annoying for about a week, and then people realized the fear of the queue was the cause of the queue.

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This. Restarting the servers at 8 or 9am in the morning would solve the problem big time. Punishments and reporting is a waste of time and energy the main fear behind people staying online is being kicked off for 4 or 5 hours in a long wait. However if everyones booted off at the same time every morning for a fortnight it would make afking pointless and people would realise its better to just log out at night as your gonna be booted regardless.

Reminds me of the 2 catgirls on Excalibur doing the moogle dance for 3 months in Limsa. Whenever i was there, they were dancing in Limsa. Always. No matter if 2pm on a workday or 3am on a sunday. Then i moved to EU datacenter.

But this was long before anything was done because of afk people.

When i'm done playing i log out and turn off my PC during the night.

Why have they not done the queue kick thing like they did in SB?
Daily server boot or whatever it was.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

Why have they not done the queue kick thing like they did in SB?
Daily server boot or whatever it was.

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I imagine the flack they would receive if everyone got smashed into a 15k queue at 8am kind of thing, since they only process 75 actual logins at a time before the next queue update. The massive logout worked in SB because the population online at the time wasn't as massive as it is now too.

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Originally Posted by technole

I imagine the flack they would receive if everyone got smashed into a 15k queue at 8am kind of thing, since they only process 75 actual logins at a time before the next queue update. The massive logout worked in SB because the population online at the time wasn't as massive as it is now too.

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But 8 am is when balmung has no queue at all.
And a 15k queue that moves is much more preferable to a 4k queue that doesnt.

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Originally Posted by technole

I imagine the flack they would receive if everyone got smashed into a 15k queue at 8am kind of thing, since they only process 75 actual logins at a time before the next queue update. The massive logout worked in SB because the population online at the time wasn't as massive as it is now too.

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There are almost no queues at all in the morning. They could do it at 11 am when most people have already left for work.

Are we starting to witch hunt now?
Are we that desparate?

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Originally Posted by Reinha

There are almost no queues at all in the morning. They could do it at 11 am when most people have already left for work.

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Just because theres no queues on in the morning doesn't mean there's not people online who never logged out it just means there's not enough online to swamp the data center's connection is all. Also it needs to be early in the morning when fewest people are around and online.

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Originally Posted by Raiya

Just because theres no queues on in the morning doesn't mean there's not people online who never logged out it just means there's not enough online to swamp the data center's connection is all. Also it needs to be early in the morning when fewest people are around and online.

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If the purpose is to clear out people who are botting to stay online until they come back from work, it has to be done after those people go to work. Otherwise they will just quickly login in the morning and set up their macro/program to avoid the evening queues.

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Originally Posted by Raiya

Just because theres no queues on in the morning doesn't mean there's not people online who never logged out it just means there's not enough online to swamp the data center's connection is all. Also it needs to be early in the morning when fewest people are around and online.

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The number of people working from home in general increased after Covid 19
Reboot is something worth to try but it won't resolve much.
People WFH can just relog in and periodically touch the control every 25 mins

Also, I thinks PS Vista still can remotely control PS4 from wireless connection. (Not sure about PS5)

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Originally Posted by Reinha

There are almost no queues at all in the morning. They could do it at 11 am when most people have already left for work.

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Cause it's not swamped at everyone logging in at-once, it's spread out. There are also people logging off around the same time and that keeps it moving quicker.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

With how little SE has done to combat bots in the past this sounds entirely made up.

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There's literal news posts of them reporting the number of RMT/Botters that have been temporarily/perma suspended/banned. I think they do more than you think and you're just being a pessimist about it.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

I know people don't HAVE TO reply to you, but I still think most people will at least give you at least minor acknowledgement if you say hi.

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To be fair, I turned off /tell messages in my chatbox for several days, because a friend on a different server encountered some jackass standing in Old Sharlayan sending unsolicited /tell messages of MSQ plot spoilers to people just arriving in the zone. I went "yeah, I'm not going to deal with that" and told my friends to poke me on Discord instead of in-game for a couple of days.

Once I hit the end of the MSQ, I turned all my linkshells and /tell back on in my chatbox.

But yes, generally people will reply to /tell messages; I just don't think it's a universal right in the beginning of an expansion, even when folks aren't using tools to stay online. Sometimes it's just trying to desperately avoid spoilers. :/

I do not respond to tells from people I've never met before unless its clearly a newbie asking me a question. I know I'm far from the only one who does this.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

With how little SE has done to combat bots in the past this sounds entirely made up.

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That or they foolishly were standing in the middle of Old Sharlayan while doing it. The few people I've heard get dinged for AFK dodging have all been in highly populated areas or made it otherwise blatantly obvious what they're doing. At which point, I have to ask, "What were you expecting, my dude?"

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Originally Posted by Denji

There's literal news posts of them reporting the number of RMT/Botters that have been temporarily/perma suspended/banned. I think they do more than you think and you're just being a pessimist about it.

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Which are near entirely pointless as RMT bots like that can be remade in less than an hour. They, however, do virtually nothing to play controlled bots. Case in point, I have several on my server who spammed upwards of 10,000 potions on the marketboard within days every raid tier. Several people have caught them cheating, and even recorded videos of them clearly botting. Guess what? They're still in the game right now, leveling up to 90.

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Originally Posted by SionDurant

Should be a timer that logs out anyone for over 24 Hours continuous runtime just as a hardline. Should be so for their own health.

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I can't get behind this. I don't buy the "for your own good" line coming from a position of authority.

That just leads to unnecessary and ineffective garbage rules, regulations and laws.

See: cigarette taxes and sugar taxes.

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Originally Posted by Imora

I can't get behind this. I don't buy the "for your own good" line coming from a position of authority.

That just leads to unnecessary and ineffective garbage rules, regulations and laws.

See: cigarette taxes and sugar taxes.

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I agree only because of the precedent it sets. I think most of us would agree that someone doing a 24 hour gaming session needs to get some sleep, but if you say you can't do it for 24 hours, what's next? Cutoff at 12 hours? 8 hours? 5 hours?

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Originally Posted by Roda

But 8 am is when balmung has no queue at all.
And a 15k queue that moves is much more preferable to a 4k queue that doesnt.

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Not when it's been proven the Lobby Server simply cannot handle it. I suspect they're afraid queues may actually get worse for people unable to log in before peak hours because the Lobby Server will be utterly flooded with requests to join the second the servers come back.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Quite a few people did 48 for their "saint" titles. Yeah, some were bots, but not all.

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Saint title?

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Doesn't discord show that if you are just at the movie screen, before logging in? I don't tell people what i am playing, so am not 100% sure, but I think it's just if the client is active. Doesn't mean they are online. So it's possible that they play, log out and sit at char selection until they want to play again. That they are online at any particular minute isn't a guaranteed 2 days.

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Does it if you have the launcher open too i think.

How do you know they've been online for 48 hours?

Are you just making assumptions because they're on whenever you are? Maybe they took time off work to play and are simply on more than you are. They could very well be logging off at normal times and you just don't know it.

I wouldn't make false reports on something you can't prove.

Hunches and guesses a aren't good ways to conduct yourself.

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Originally Posted by Imora

Saint title?

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The Ishgard Restoration had three 'seasons'; the people with the top 100 scores on every crafter and gatherer per server got a 'Beata of the Firmament' or 'Beatus of the Firmament' title, and the top 10 in each got a 'Saint of the Firmament' title. Some of the folks who went for the Saint title were... a little bit crazy. Like "stayed on gathering and crafting for multiple days" crazy.

(Beata/Beatus wasn't hard to do, but the Saint title got... hotly contested towards the close of each season.)

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Originally Posted by PredatoryCatgirl

I agree only because of the precedent it sets. I think most of us would agree that someone doing a 24 hour gaming session needs to get some sleep, but if you say you can't do it for 24 hours, what's next? Cutoff at 12 hours? 8 hours? 5 hours?

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There should be a hard cap for any expansion release only until que gets under control. There are people that are literally logged into the game for days hiding in house doing nothing while they sleep or do real world things so they don't get in que which ruins the game for the thousands of other paying players that have not been able to access the game since Endwalker launch. SE taking in all this money from the expansion knowing full well they can not deliver on the product. That is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Mythos12

There should be a hard cap for any expansion release only until que gets under control. There are people that are literally logged into the game for days hiding in house doing nothing while they sleep or do real world things so they don't get in que which ruins the game for the thousands of other paying players that have not been able to access the game since Endwalker launch. SE taking in all this money from the expansion knowing full well they can not deliver on the product. That is wrong.

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Great. So when a successful MMO like FFXIV does it, "playtime cap" becomes the new goto answer for any company that doesn't want to or can't upgrade its servers. It'll become the new lootbox. That's why I don't want it to happen. Better to suffer through a few months of this garbage than to negatively affect the entire MMO industry.

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Originally Posted by Mythos12

There should be hatsa hard cap for any expansion release only until que gets under control. There are people that are literally logged into the game for days hiding in house doing nothing while they sleep or do real world things so they don't get in que which ruins the game for the thousands of other paying players that have not been able to access the game since Endwalker launch. SE taking in all this money from the expansion knowing full well they can not deliver on the product. That is wrong.

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No.

Terms of service do not guarantee server availability or playtime capability.

Whats wrong is people trying to get SE to regulate FFXIV like China.

I wish the one doing that in Mist was doing it in their own place. Had a bard sitting by Topmast spamming their instrument keys obnoxiously all night long. It was annoying to come out of dungeons and hear violin key smashes.

Capping playtime is never the answer. If you can play you should be allowed to play as you want. I am not totally against them doing server restarts however.

Americans saying "you can't make a company refuse service to me like this is China!" when their own courts have consistently upheld the right that companies are allowed to refuse service to anyone they wish, no matter who they are. (see: the cake thing).

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Originally Posted by Myrany

The only way they can truly handle it is random server resets with minimal (1 hour) lead time. If I remember right they have done it before. Players threw a fit though so no idea if they would risk it again.

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Because the server wasn't really that congresses, they did it not because of the log in time, but just to stabilize the server. I was in the middle of my play when those boot happen, and I didn't mind because it would take 30min max to get in. But if you choose to boot people that entail a 4+ hours queue ... that will NOT fly very well.

Also it would be redundant. Right now people are just grabbing for straw at whatever issue they think might be a problem, regardless it's true or not, and I can tell you the AFK bot is definitely not. Why? Because the server kinda already reset pass midnight till early morning. This weekend I woke up at 7am and the queue were in 2 digit on Gilgamesh. This means the majority of players already log out daily, a 24h server reboot will not improve that in any meaningful way.