Neighborhood Watch RMT Prevention [Suggestion]

Everyday I see hoards of RMT ranking up, or craft/combat botting. Why isn't there a system where good honest players can circumvent the traditional channels of reporting them and simply have an option of flagging someone as suspected RMT? For instance, if I see "Fig Xyz" botting in a cave, why couldn't I click on that character and in the interaction menu have an option to "Flag" the character for suspicious activity. Then another player flags them, and so on. Say you get 10 flags and your account is temporarily suspended pending review.

Over time you could score the people who flag RMT and possibly increase or decrease each flagging's value based upon previous flags. For instance, if I flag 50 RMT bots and out of those 50 flags you ban 50 of them, you could weigh my flags greater than say a new Neighborhood Watch contributor. If I flag incorrectly, you could value my flags less.

Eyes and ears in the game is the best deterrent to RMT! We are ready and willing to help, just give us the opportunity.

All The best!
Wild

This is why.

You are killing the NM I wanted to kill.

10 of my ppl flag you.. you get suspended.

That system although good in intention would be completely abused to get even with people.

Yeah this is a great way to piss off even more ppl nice suggestion I guess I could abuse the hell out of this to. hey I don't like your suggestion have 10 friends flag you opps BANNED

Probably one of the worst suggestions I have ever heard. While you have good intentions it would be exploited by tons of people, especially rival linkshells.

Indeed the intentions are good, but the idea is terrible ^^: I wouldn't worry tho...i'm sure SE is leaving them online just until the game start being charged. Also, I'm sure they're tracking the already reported suspicious players to run a ban hammer when the time for PS3 version release come.

But i wish that, since GMs aren't handling RMTs/cheaters anymore, that at support desk there was the option of contacting a STF agent ingame so he could check it out right away. Its sad how RMTs are feeling they are safe ingame...they don't even mind hiding anymore...i even saw them doing behest in Cassiopeia Hollow...I was with behest tag and they came with 1 r50 playing and a shitload of mules on follow (it was when parties were made of 15 members) and got tag with all he could. In the end i got almost no SP because is kinda hard you r20~30 to compete with a r50.

Geez, ok, lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The system would work great if say a players flagging only counted after they were deemed to be a good contributor. Conversely if it is misused then that persons future flags would mean nothing. Sure you would need to police the system, but the idea has more merit than what everyone here gives it. Sure I will agree with you that if poorly implemented it would really suck; but roll with me... if it was done correctly, it could greatly diminish RMTs impact on the game economy.

I have no idea who would even buy gil in XIV. Its as easy to come by as any standard Final Fantasy game excluding XIII. That being said, there is a whole Lalafell brigade lead by two female (miqote and hyur?) in La Noscea at all times, with extremely similar names or names that are just random letters together with the reverse for last name.

I think the system he saying is allow someone to flag someone it just as going to the website and sending a report to the STF why are we not allow to easy do it in game without leaving the game. A way to report RMT without going to a dumb website is good.

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Originally Posted by Wild

Geez, ok, lets not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The system would work great if say a players flagging only counted after they were deemed to be a good contributor. Conversely if it is misused then that persons future flags would mean nothing. Sure you would need to police the system, but the idea has more merit than what everyone here gives it. Sure I will agree with you that if poorly implemented it would really suck; but roll with me... if it was done correctly, it could greatly diminish RMTs impact on the game economy.

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As soon as you put control over another players gameplay into someone elses hands, you start on a very slippery slope. I personally do not care about RMT, I don't give a toss. They aren't in my way, they hold a standard amount of economy and they keep a steady flow of crafting mats flowing. I will use the STF reporting tool on the website for these issues, and would be quite annoyed if I heard SE were implementing a system ingame where people can affect my game just by hitting a report button.

I don't care what their karma with the system is like, and honestly you don't even need to report this kind of thing. SE are well aware of it, as are every other company that runs an MMo in the world. The solution is not an easy one, and not something you can just toss random ideas at. It is massively overhyped by players, as they have found themselves bored, so they go out hunting, or start theorising as to what they are up to.

Stop worrying, let SE deal with it.

Still, the basic hope isn't a bad once.

Why not do as Mabinogi did? It's a bit gamey, but they had captcha bombs. Use it on a suspected botter, they get asked to solve a captcha. If they fail, they get flagged for suspicious activity and frozen on the spot for thirty minutes.

A character could only be hit with the item once every.. was it ten minutes? And for every time the captcha was failed, the affected characters time frozen doubled. Two fails? One hour. Three fails? Two hours. Etc.

Also, Vahzl, somewhat good points or not.. it's still damnededly annoying when the horde descends on the camp or adventurers' guild you currently occupy. Sure there's the 'just ignore it' argument but the fact remains it's a detrimental effect on the experience, and if nothing else it'd be therapeutic to be able to do something, and maybe make GMs lives a bit easier through sheer weight of evidence if a reliable automated system were worked in.

I like in game captcha's, these are incredibly easy to implement and could automatically pop up on screen. Any time a player hits x amount of crafts/kills etc in game a captcha pops up fail it and you are locked for a small period of time. Keep failing and your time creases exponentially. Fail too many times and you must contact SE.

As my current ls has ex GM's from FFXI in it I have herd that they used to use this type of /t's to reported bots they would ask basic math questions like "what is 2+3?" If they failed 2-3 in a row they were banned simple as that.

Any situation in which you give a character the ability to affect another's playing, is a terrible idea. Anytime you place things like "captcha"s in-game, it's a terrible idea. Sorry, but I don't want to be annoyed with flags simply because I'm more efficient than other players. There is no way a player-run banning system can work properly. Leave this to SE. You don't like bots? You don't like cheaters? Don't play MMOs.

Also one of the bigger reasons RMTs aren't an issue in this game is the broken economy. There's no point in removing these people yet as they are not having any impact on the game. They don't stop other players from gathering mats, they aren't inflating prices since everything is inflated anyway due to no gil sink, and they have no means to stop other players from accomplishing their in-game goals. So as of now, there just isn't a reason to remove them.

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Originally Posted by Belial

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Okay, first off.. no, forget that, we all know the 'shut up, stop talking about it, I know you won't get a better answer so leave it alone or stop playing' argument is inherently flawed.

Second, your black and white view of things is generally unhelpful, especially given how reliant on compromise this genre is. In-game captchas ARE annoying I'll grant you, and it's sad when out-game elements are force in, so. However, you either missed or ignored the part where I suggested players be safe from captchas for an extended period - say half an hour to an hour - after being hit with one.

Further provisos - like not being vulnerable to them while in combat - also serve to make it less troublesome.

Finally, there are two reasons your point about the broken economy and bots being harmless is flawed: first off, encountering bots degrades the player experience. The idea is to make things more fun, therefore dealing with bots is a good idea. The 'like it or lump it' argument is unhelpful, stupid, and not a good idea in a genre so reliant on customer relations. Second, they aren't effecting the economy right now, no. But what happens when the economy gets fixed and the millions and millions of gil being held in RMT storage characters gets dumped on the market? That will not be pretty. I'm sure there are more reasons, too, like encouraging the client hacking community, but .. I really can't be bothered.

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Originally Posted by tachikoma

As my current ls has ex GM's from FFXI in it I have herd that they used to use this type of /t's to reported bots they would ask basic math questions like "what is 2+3?" If they failed 2-3 in a row they were banned simple as that.

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Sounds like the feature GMail put in. Solve a math problem to prove you aren't drunk enough to send off an email you will regret later.

I am against the idea of a prompt or captcha, no matter how automated. Doing a simple math problem wouldn't be an issue for a well made bot. Data mining for possible bots + reports from players + GM monitoring is the method I support. Any more than that and it will interfere with playing too much.

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Originally Posted by Fensfield

Okay, first off.. no, forget that, we all know the 'shut up, stop talking about it, I know you won't get a better answer so leave it alone or stop playing' argument is inherently flawed.

Second, your black and white view of things is generally unhelpful, especially given how reliant on compromise this genre is. In-game captchas ARE annoying I'll grant you, and it's sad when out-game elements are force in, so. However, you either missed or ignored the part where I suggested players be safe from captchas for an extended period - say half an hour to an hour - after being hit with one.

Further provisos - like not being vulnerable to them while in combat - also serve to make it less troublesome.

Finally, there are two reasons your point about the broken economy and bots being harmless is flawed: first off, encountering bots degrades the player experience. The idea is to make things more fun, therefore dealing with bots is a good idea. The 'like it or lump it' argument is unhelpful, stupid, and not a good idea in a genre so reliant on customer relations. Second, they aren't effecting the economy right now, no. But what happens when the economy gets fixed and the millions and millions of gil being held in RMT storage characters gets dumped on the market? That will not be pretty. I'm sure there are more reasons, too, like encouraging the client hacking community, but .. I really can't be bothered.

Quitting the thread though.. not up to further arguing.

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Sounds like a whole lot of butt-hurt over someone not agreeing with you, and you failed to point out any validity in your own arguments. Face.

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Originally Posted by Belial

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Aaand now obvious troll (or at least total jerk) is on ignored list.

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Originally Posted by Fensfield

Further provisos - like not being vulnerable to them while in combat - also serve to make it less troublesome.

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That would protect battle classes, though I can totally see someone using this to take a healer out of a party battle just before it was initiated in order to wipe said party. However, my primary question to you would be: how would you prevent this from becoming a griefing tactic against non-battle classes since they don't battle at all? I would be very unhappy if I constantly had to deal with these capture-thingymabobs while trying to level alchemy.

And what about people that are afk? Someone goes to the bathroom and they are punished for it with 30 minutes of downtime since someone decided to send them this? I'm really not so sure I like this idea at all.

I don't want random internet white knights judging me and my gameplay thanks. I will stick with the STF. I do alot of crafting, and alot of Botany, and get accused of botting around once per 3 day period. I am always at my PC, always moving my character, and always working on it.

I don't respond to people asking me if I am a bot, as it's none of their damn business and damn rude of them to assume that just because I am grinding, they have a right to accuse me of this stuff.

There is a difference between being a bot and having no life :)

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Originally Posted by Wynn

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Well, as for protecting non-battle classes.. well to start off, as I said, 'further provisos'. Like, for instance, not being able to target them on people during gathering, either.

Further, the way the system itself worked in Mabinogi, the initial failure was only a short pause - and if half an hour is uncomfortable, you can make it longer. Personally, I would think the AFK point would be solved by a combination of the initial failure only yielding a small pause, the captcha having a comfortable amount of time to accommodate a trip to he toilet, and not being able to hit someone with another such captcha bomb until a certain (likely incremental) amount of time has passed.

Another move Mabinogi used was to give a .. small, but still appreciable amount of experience to the person targeted by the bomb in exchange for solving it correctly, thus deterring people wanting to use them for griefing at least a little. I admit, this would raise concerns about people using them on each other for experience, but in turn, being locked down for an ever increasing amount of time should, I would think, counter this (not to mention, in the example game here, you could only carry a very limited number of them at the same time). Certainly, my experience with them in Mabinogi was nothing but favourable.

I do see why you would be concerned, though - and that's aside from the experience-invasive effect of the captcha itself. In the end, I suspect a viable RMT solution beyond 'leave it to the GMs' (itself of questionable viability) is always going to be very much about trying to find an acceptable compromise, but i also think there is more could be done. They could at least point the current reporting system through the in-game support desk instead of through that difficult and obscure website.

Thanks for turning the reasoned argument on me, though, I certainly admit it'd be far from a perfect solution, if there is one at all.