Time to deal with those hiding in their house to afk

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Originally Posted by ijuakos_xqwzts

Server resets is a stupid idea.

Case 1: reset them when there is high activity. Obviously a bad idea. You'll have everyone hammering the login server once it comes back up. All you're pretty much doing is shaking the player base and get a new set of people on. More people will be annoyed.
Case 2: reset them when there is low activity. Useless idea. You might get a higher percentage of AFK persons. However, how many server slots do you think that'll free up? It's even more moot if these AFK folks are the ones who get on regularly low-queue times.

Either one of these solutions would impact fewer AFK folks than they realize. Server reboots are only really good if the issue was server stability (such as resource leaks). That isn't the case here. This suggestion just makes people sound as if they are just being spiteful because they cannot get onto the servers.

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Actually, Absentee Play is actually against the TOS to my knowledge.

Lol, why is the one way to avoid the AFK timer being advertised all across the forums? Now I'm inclined to try it out when I go to cook today.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

Lol, why is the one way to avoid the AFK timer being advertised all across the forums? Now I'm inclined to try it out when I go to cook today.

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Because the angry mob has designated house owners as their new targets for their rage. Gods help them if they happen to be mentors too.

Tbf, if they did something to prevent people from afking inside their house like autokicking them after 1 or 2 hours, they can simply afk under their house but outside.

They will not do anything else about this except get more servers in the future. Get over it. This is SEs fault and they know it. They also spend way less time thinking about how to punish their customers than the people in this forum do, that’s for sure. They won’t ban anyone either, so all that evil you are wishing on others for trying to play a game they paid for will never be realized. Have a good day, and rest in the knowledge no amount of anger or TOS claims will get anyone in any amount of trouble because they are paying customers and hardly criminals to blame for this situation.

See you in the queue folks

What about those of us who are in our inn rooms huh?

A lot of the time I am in my FC apartment, I am crafting. I go there to do it, or an inn room to do it, because for me, when I am running around a city, hearing crafters dings and messages (which I finally discovered how to turn off the messages), kinda triggers my sensory issues a little, so I try to be off on my own, doing my thing in private, because I don't want to cause someone else with similar issues as I have, to struggle. At least for me, it's the easiest way for me to avoid sensory overload.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

What about those of us who are in our inn rooms huh?

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I personally log out in an inn room whenever I can. It is a tradition I have carried on across many mmos. Sort of putting my character to bed when I log out. Besides I just love the way female Miqote do the kitty facewash animation when they wake up. Makes me smile every time. :)

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

It's like people WANT to bring back the forced global logouts of Stormblood. Just accept that when you need go to sleep or work or something it's time to log out and let someone else in.

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Until they bring them back people will do what they can to avoid queue times.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Because the angry mob has designated house owners as their new targets for their rage. Gods help them if they happen to be mentors too.

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Doesn't matter, botting to keep the connection alive is against the TOS, and houses don't have a 1h timer to them, like, for example, solo instances do. So you can just close your house to the public and run an AHK script that sends your char running in circles all day long, and nobody would know.

This seems to be needlessly targeting people in their houses when nobody knows what they're actually doing in there. An hour is no time at all to spend in a house. I craft for hours in my FC house listening to the Orchestrion. I'd be annoyed getting a popup like that in the middle of a hard recipe or Twelve forbid if I got up to go to the bathroom or get a snack and didn't meet whatever time limit to respond so got booted out.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

This seems to be needlessly targeting people in their houses when nobody knows what they're actually doing in there. An hour is no time at all to spend in a house. I craft for hours in my FC house listening to the Orchestrion. I'd be annoyed getting a popup like that in the middle of a hard recipe or Twelve forbid if I got up to go to the bathroom or get a snack and didn't meet whatever time limit to respond so got booted out.

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I just posted this, but you seemed to have missed it, so I repeat:

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Doesn't matter, botting to keep the connection alive is against the TOS, and houses don't have a 1h timer to them, like, for example, solo instances do. So you can just close your house to the public and run an AHK script that sends your char running in circles all day long, and nobody would know.

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

So you can just close your house to the public and run an AHK script that sends your char running in circles all day long, and nobody would know.

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Any basic afk detector notices a lack of diffirence in key presses and still calls you afk. So obviously these buttons are randomized, and the house therefor restricts their movement so they dont go anywhere.

This is where extended afk detection starts to play. These check the pattern of your movement (if you hit walls etc, and how you react to them). But at the same time, these are resource heavy and will most likely cause even less players to be able to play in the first place. Unless its client sided, which instantly would defeat the check.

The last check is however easier, because this check is a clear indicator of botting, account sharing (which usualy is against the ToS), or serious health issues. And that is based on the time you are online. You cant stay online for 22h every day. 2h sleep is not enough. This is a simple check they can perform which has a very high rate of catching abuse. (sidenote, even blizzard failed to implement this check in diablo3, which caused their leaderboards to contain a list of cheaters.,.. and guess what, they never got banned... i wonder why people hate blizzard these days...)

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Originally Posted by PredatoryCatgirl

Dodging a timer isn't against TOS. Using a bot to do it is.

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I saw a video earlier of someone using a household fan to make their character jump (forget what helped push across the keyboard for the spacebar when the fan went left and right), but it was a bot in its own way. I thought it was funny lol. And a outside hack they found. It doesn't always have to be a bought. People just think outside the box (which squeenix could avoid by just clearing and cleaning the servers by logging everyone out every hour (or something like it?)

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

Any basic afk detector notices a lack of diffirence in key presses and still calls you afk. So obviously these buttons are randomized, and the house therefor restricts their movement so they dont go anywhere.

This is where extended afk detection starts to play. These check the pattern of your movement (if you hit walls etc, and how you react to them). But at the same time, these are resource heavy and will most likely cause even less players to be able to play in the first place. Unless its client sided, which instantly would defeat the check.

The last check is however easier, because this check is a clear indicator of botting, account sharing (which usualy is against the ToS), or serious health issues. And that is based on the time you are online. You cant stay online for 22h every day. 2h sleep is not enough. This is a simple check they can perform which has a very high rate of catching abuse. (sidenote, even blizzard failed to implement this check in diablo3, which caused their leaderboards to contain a list of cheaters.,.. and guess what, they never got banned... i wonder why people hate blizzard these days...)

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It's so easy to set up your scripts so it won't get caught with a pattern detector, this wouldn't have any effect.

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Originally Posted by Viirin

Do we have a working definition of what SE considers a "bot"? I ask because, using a bot, at least what I consider a bot, to dodge an afk timer would be overengineering something that can be done pretty simply. A lot of players have Logitech G keyboards (or an equivalent from some other manufacturer) with macro keys that you could easily configure to keep you from idling for 30 minutes. Is that a bot?

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The technical term is "automated gameplay", and I believe this qualifies. It might have been some other game, but I've seen a definition where one physical input causing multiple actions to be sent to the game server counts as automated. In FFXIV allowances have to be made for in-game macros, though I don't know how exactly those are handled. With a macro keyboard it's not possible for the game to directly tell if a macro is being used or not, so it would have to be inferred from the regularity of successive inputs.

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Originally Posted by Viirin

Someone with a fairly basic keyboard could get a small weight and place it on their W key so their character is constantly running forward into a wall. Is that a bot?

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This does not count as automated, nor does it prevent the automatic logoff. A friend of mine tried the other day; they got logged off regardless.

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Originally Posted by Viirin

A controller user I suppose could tape their analog stick so their character constantly moves.

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Same thing as with putting a weight on the keyboard.

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Originally Posted by Viirin

It's a simple thing to bypass. If it's not actually against the rules to bypass it, it probably should be. If I was using any of those methods, I would expect to get kicked with some sort of temp ban if I was caught - I have no idea if that's what actually happens or not though.

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Automated gameplay is against the ToS. The difficulty is detecting it in a way which won't accidentally punish legit players. I can think up about three different ways of automating gameplay which I (as a professional software developer) have the skills to implement and which would be extremely hard for the game to reliably detect. I'm not going to use any of them though; I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can log on in the morning when the queue is non-existent and intermittently play throughout the day while working. Watch a cutscene here, do a fate there. Just enough to keep the AFK logoff at bay, but not so much that it would prevent me from getting work done. No need to risk my account by using prohibited tools.

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Originally Posted by Soraki-Muppe

Ya, time to do something about them.
Today I was logging in before primetime in order do the event, getting in is not a problem around that time.
Then to enter my house in order to deal with retainers which I like to do inside my house. Took a few tries to get in due to the housing server being under a lot of stress.
Then I did the event and wanted to get into my house again, this time I was unable to due to the same housing server issue.

This is not on SE but rather on those who hide inside their houses while they do things in order to not get kicked for being afk, which they most certainly are. This is something SE should look into, perhaps by sending a big message that pops up in the center of the screen of those who stay inside their house for more then 1h, if the person does not respond to the message within 30min they get kicked. Pretty sure this would make it possible for more people to actually play.

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Mommy told me a story some time ago about people who lived long time ago. She told me they weared straight pajamas and tried to hide on their attics or basements and sometimes even inside other people houses! They his there becouse evil people with german accent who wore black costumes of war world 2 soldiers tried to hurt then and they hated straight pajama wearing people for beeing different. History is scary!

Honestly you people are funny, if they game would work probely like it did before EW no one would care if people play normaly or afk dance in Limsa or their house all day because no one would have feel a negative impact on their game experience. But since SE screwed up people get mad at the first bad thing (in their opinion) they see. Sure staying afk all day dosnt help, but the reason why so many ppl now doing this is SEs fault. Is it bad behaviour? Sure Should they get kicket or banned for? absolutly not Its their solution to an issues that SE created

Careful, if they ever add "Guardian-Anti-Cheat" type background processes to this game it will not be pretty for many. Letting AI call the shots can be tricky. Some mmo's have done this and it was never really amazing. kupo <3

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Originally Posted by Viirin

A controller user I suppose could tape their analog stick so their character constantly moves.

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Can confirm this doesn't work, tried using a shoelace to run backwards at a zone line, constantly changing zones, while I went to the grocery during the first few days of expansion, came back 45 minutes later to title movies.

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

I saw a video earlier of someone using a household fan to make their character jump

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Next time I go to the store:
https://frinkiac.com/video/S07E07/7T...HTWH66vo0=.gif

I don't have a problem with people using manual methods, like coming back to their PC every 20 minutes, to stay logged in. Even having someone in your house do it is okay in my mind - but that's a totally debatable position.


Starting up an AFK bot before you head out for the workday is where you're completely crossing the line, I feel.