Starting to think GMS should be more active in the world.

I know we all don't want to be nannied 24/7 apple corporation style, but lets be real. There is NO GM INVOLVEMENT that we can see.

You go to gaol? You don't get to know why it is that you did. They are vague, and as a result there is no player incentive to learn to be a better person through the incident.

In other MMOS you will often see a moderator walking around. I remember in my Runescape days people acted up, but every once in awhile you would see a GM, and people would just instantly try to be calm. Where is that incentive SE?

Honestly if people just SAW a moderator walking around in their red shadowy glory, one would think that people would at least go OH SHIT, they actually are watching us, and we need to behave.

As long as the moderators stay neutral, and they don't act like kings in our servers, or form friendships privately with certain users, I don't see any problem with them becoming just a LITTLE BIT more involved, and of course honest again!

Novice Networks are TERRIFYING. There is no regulation! You cannot expect us mentors to regulate anything ourselves. Servers are filled to the brim with trolls, and when they go off too far, like in the case of that one incident going in a novice network we all hear about lately.. THEY DO NOT STOP. I have chosen to not join the novice network for very good reasons. I instead help outside of it, and I'd like to think that I'm doing good. I'm usually eager to help any new, or inexperienced player. But, there is no incentive that we as players are being watched, that action is being done to naydowells, and its getting bad. When we asked for GMs to be held accountable for corrupt behavior, we did not expect the policy change to become total silence and lack of involvement. We just wanted them to do better at their jobs.

As much as I would love to see more GMs, they cost a lot of money and I do not see that kind of expenditure in their future budget.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Novice Networks are TERRIFYING. There is no regulation! You cannot expect us mentors to regulate anything ourselves.

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I agree that GMs should be more active and present, and perhaps dish out harsher punishments, but NN is fine on some servers. It can, and does, regulate itself. Not everywhere, but it still happens. This fearmongering is getting a little out of hand. I get that there's an issue with a few servers regarding one individual, and I feel that they should get what's coming to them sooner rather than later, but stop trying to label a feature that actually can (and does) do some good as toxic by default. Instead of attacking a specific chat channel, try pushing for change that matters like the rest of your post does.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I agree that GMs should be more active and present, and perhaps dish out harsher punishments, but NN is fine on some servers. It can, and does, regulate itself. Not everywhere, but it still happens. This fearmongering is getting a little out of hand.

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Back when i was still a sprout on Exodus, the NN was AMAZING. Sure there were the random trolls but everyone knew who they were and to either ignore or blacklist. NN was actually what pushed me into trying to tank, and while I’m not the best I’m also not hyperventilating afterwards anymore, simply because a lot of the NN gave tips on how to minimize tankxiety and how to maintain aggro without stressing about it.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

Back when i was still a sprout on Exodus, the NN was AMAZING. Sure there were the random trolls but everyone knew who they were and to either ignore or blacklist. NN was actually what pushed me into trying to tank, and while I’m not the best I’m also not hyperventilating afterwards anymore, simply because a lot of the NN gave tips on how to minimize tankxiety and how to maintain aggro without stressing about it.

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A great example of how it does some good. It is wonderful that it helped you overcome your tankxiety a bit.

I remember when I played WoW years ago we had a problem with [redacted] rpers using the town of [redacted] to stage their [redacted] rp. After the community cried for aid, a gm posted themself inside the [redacted] inn and began to boot anyone looking to be partaking in [redacted] rp. This caused a wave in the community with the sentiment of "they can't boot all of us" and an army of lvl 1 naked humans stormed the town.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but the thought of a GM having to sit around and police people sounds miserable.

Only MMO I've seen GMs walking around was FFXIV in 1.0 (not counting when they were summoned by a player).

As for regulation, don't we see people getting tossed in gaol and such when reported? Lots of people comment on GMs active on the forums too.

I suppose one might think "why don't they actively monitor everything" but 'das a lot of monitoring' lol. SE is going to have to hire more than GMs, their own 50 cent army XD. Quality is probably going to be better with fewer better paid GMs over a huge army (although if you could have a huge army of high quality employees, that's nice of course.. just trying to think realistically lol).

It seems to me a lot of times is people wanting harsher penalties for certain actions, but I think like general human stuff.. people want freedom when they're oppressed and they want oppression when they've power. Which kind of triggers my caution slow down yellow sign automatically.

I understand sometimes people are frustrated you've to report to gain traction, but in some ways it helps as if you're being obnoxious but it doesn't bother anyone then it's far less of a problem than when it does. It might feel inconsistent but I think it's consistent with the intent that they don't want people bothered (if you're not bothering someone then the leeway is significantly more, basically the rule is don't bother others- which has lead some people to avoid doing too much with people they might consider fragile but I think they'd have to worry about fragile people either way lol).

Not trying to say it can't be done, I guess just airing my doubt that it is entirely needed and it seems to me that they often do something, are easy to contact, and it's, imo, a bit weird to need to constantly feel that hot GM breath on your neck lol, they're their anyways just communicate to them at the crossroads ;) (report calls the crimson).

On the whole NN stuff, from what I've seen it's usually off topic of helping people, but it's rarely negative and usually when a leaf asks a question they get mostly helpful answers. In this way I think it's doing it's job generally, but it's also obvious, imo, to me that a general chat room would be used if one did exist (because I see NN consistently used that way). I've only seen NN used poorly once (not counting off topic), but just speaking from personal experience.

The whole NN thing is that people are not being upfront about what's upsetting them because what is upsetting isn't necessarily people violating TOS because that gets taken care of. There are mentors, returners and sprouts alike who simply were not prepared that people would have different opinions on how to play the game, which puts them in conflict, which escalates into "an incident". As to whether the "incident" involved personal attacks, harassment, profanity and a gamut of TOS-violating things, that is irrelevant because someone will report and SE will do their job about that but it's the lead-up that no one really addresses.

In my server's NN, we've had these hot takes. They don't appear all the time but all it takes is for someone to say something wildly opinionated and before you know it, "NN is toxic". Well of course is toxic. Not because someone actually is but because we know in our current era, toxic means someone I don't agree with. Doesn't matter the person has said their piece as within the TOS rules or they were being super respectful: it's now an incident.

Also, one last thing here to rant about: what strikes me is that here on the forums, we accept that SE is very strict when it comes to harassment and we laud them for taking immediate action once they receive reports but on the same turn, people also make it look like SE is totally lax and don't open their report tickets. This annoys me. You can't have it both ways. Which is it: is SE really doing their job or are people hoping they'd turn into super police and eradicate all traces of an offending player by making a grand spectacle of it?

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

The whole NN thing is that people are not being upfront about what's upsetting them because what is upsetting isn't necessarily people violating TOS because that gets taken care of. There are mentors, returners and sprouts alike who simply were not prepared that people would have different opinions on how to play the game, which puts them in conflict, which escalates into "an incident". As to whether the "incident" involved personal attacks, harassment, profanity and a gamut of TOS-violating things, that is irrelevant because someone will report and SE will do their job about that but it's the lead-up that no one really addresses.

In my server's NN, we've had these hot takes. They don't appear all the time but all it takes is for someone to say something wildly opinionated and before you know it, "NN is toxic". Well of course is toxic. Not because someone actually is but because we know in our current era, toxic means someone I don't agree with. Doesn't matter the person has said their piece as within the TOS rules or they were being super respectful: it's now an incident.

Also, one last thing here to rant about: what strikes me is that here on the forums, we accept that SE is very strict when it comes to harassment and we laud them for taking immediate action once they receive reports but on the same turn, people also make it look like SE is totally lax and don't open their report tickets. This annoys me. You can't have it both ways. Which is it: is SE really doing their job or are people hoping they'd turn into super police and eradicate all traces of an offending player by making a grand spectacle of it?

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You have no idea how common this is in irl social circles. People just hate one person for some perfectly valid reason, but then expect everyone else to follow through, and before you know it, someone is getting bullied. I wish people lived by a healthier mentality of letting the people you despise have lives. They don't have to just stop existing because you don't want them to be around you. They deserve to be happy, and they deserve to be loved.

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Originally Posted by LisSquid

I remember when I played WoW years ago we had a problem with [redacted] rpers using the town of [redacted] to stage their [redacted] rp. After the community cried for aid, a gm posted themself inside the [redacted] inn and began to boot anyone looking to be partaking in [redacted] rp. This caused a wave in the community with the sentiment of "they can't boot all of us" and an army of lvl 1 naked humans stormed the town.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but the thought of a GM having to sit around and police people sounds miserable.

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I'm very familiar with that event. I had guildmates who were present for part of it and relaying the drama into guild chat.

If it's the GM's job then they'll do it. I doubt it would be any more miserable than what they already do for their jobs.

The problem is that players will seek out the GM and do stupid stuff to get attention, making the GM's presence counterproductive.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

Also, one last thing here to rant about: what strikes me is that here on the forums, we accept that SE is very strict when it comes to harassment and we laud them for taking immediate action once they receive reports but on the same turn, people also make it look like SE is totally lax and don't open their report tickets. This annoys me. You can't have it both ways. Which is it: is SE really doing their job or are people hoping they'd turn into super police and eradicate all traces of an offending player by making a grand spectacle of it?

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you can have it both ways.
yes, SE is very attentive when going after things like RPers, or apparently the spam bots in major cities (though those can stick around for hours)
No, SE is not reading tickets when you have hordes of bots running through the ground, attacking from under the ground, forming map parties, etc

so yes, you do get both ends of the spectrum.
I am under no impression that SE does any better or worse in this regard than any other company that tries to save money by cutting real people out of the process of overseeing the game in the belief that "people can police themselves"
the problem is, time and again... we know people cannot.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Novice Networks are TERRIFYING. There is no regulation! You cannot expect us mentors to regulate anything ourselves. Servers are filled to the brim with trolls, and when they go off too far, like in the case of that one incident going in a novice network we all hear about lately.. THEY DO NOT STOP. I have chosen to not join the novice network for very good reasons. I instead help outside of it, and I'd like to think that I'm doing good. I'm usually eager to help any new, or inexperienced player. But, there is no incentive that we as players are being watched, that action is being done to naydowells, and its getting bad. When we asked for GMs to be held accountable for corrupt behavior, we did not expect the policy change to become total silence and lack of involvement. We just wanted them to do better at their jobs.

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I'm glad there are players who have taken the initiative and are helping others! Me? I don't need a mentor crown or access to the Novice Network to provide help (when asked), nor do I feel the need to flaunt that crown. We are all equals in this game, and helping each other should just come naturally!

If the GMs can't properly enforce things like the NN, they should definitely get rid of it. It's the most logical solution, in my opinion.

I remember in the early days of WoW the GMs would be really active, they hung out on GM isle, came into cities and towns, were really hands on, WoW and XIV both boast having over 20 million players, ARR and Vanilla WoW had maaaaaaaaaybe 600,000 across the entire game. The thing here is that (at least with my own experience) these games are Way bigger then what a group of GMs can deal with and being more active would require more money then what SE is willing to spend on FF.

Hypothtically if older MMOs in the early parts of their life cycles had maybe a 60-100 person GM team that dealt with all servers, FF would need to have at least 200 per data center just to deal with the shear bulk of issues and reports daily. And thats a bare minimum.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

As much as I would love to see more GMs, they cost a lot of money and I do not see that kind of expenditure in their future budget.

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This. They'd need to hire 100s or maybe 1000s of new employees to handle that.

I feel like they should at least increase the range of behaviors the GMs can enforce to include obvious cheaters because the STF's tiny Japan-based team really is not adequate for a game as big as XIV.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel like they should at least increase the range of behaviors the GMs can enforce to include obvious cheaters because the STF's tiny Japan-based team really is not adequate for a game as big as XIV.

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Agreed. I don't know the background to it still being like that. I understood it back in XI days but given XIV size and more globally success compared to XI, they should knowledge share the work with NA and EU GM teams.

I've never seen mods in other mmo's walking around. It would be cool though to know that they are connecting with the community.

I've never had any issues in the nn. At least on excal

I think whilst a mod presence would be beneficial, I can see problems, particularly with cost of hiring enough GM's to do the job weighed up against costs that go into development and with that accountability and managing and training of GM's etc. but I think more transparency and clarification could go some way to help. Heck transparency could help reduce the number of reports because you're going to get fewer repeat offenders and few complaints because transparency goes two ways, it tells people what they've done wrong and gives more clarity on what they won't act on. That in itself can free resources and avoid the "I don't know what I did wrong" complaints that people will inevitably to challenge.

I realise they have a privacy concern in identifying the person who reported them through the actions described, but a better middle ground needs to be found because sometimes these offenses can be so out in the open that anybody could have reported them and the GM is still vague and people are left guessing. I expect that is more like policy than the GM's fault.

Heck, dare I say, they don't even need to say they're responding to a report, GM's can be present in the world, they can see logs and so on. They could just refer to logs they've read and emphasise that mods see people's logs regardless of whether the offense was reported they can still see it.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I'm glad there are players who have taken the initiative and are helping others! Me? I don't need a mentor crown or access to the Novice Network to provide help (when asked), nor do I feel the need to flaunt that crown. We are all equals in this game, and helping each other should just come naturally!

If the GMs can't properly enforce things like the NN, they should definitely get rid of it. It's the most logical solution, in my opinion.

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If the Novice Network is too over run by trolls and toxicity then yeah, probably better to can it, because it's not helping new players like it's intended and if anything gives a negative impression of the community to newer players. When I was a mentor, the times I went into Novice Network it was like that too and I've heard people talk of positive experiences too but if the negative outweighs the positive and they can't moderate it properly then it's not fit for purpose.

The mentor system is also not fit for purpose. It's supposed to signal that you're a mentort therefore somebody who is available to help and mentor new players learning the game. It's more of an achievement crown because of the requirements needed to get it and a crown is nice and regal too. In reality it should be a different symbol (so it's less regal) and granted maybe on the completion of current story and you just turn it on if you want to help somebody, no rewards, no incentives just good will (Or maybe give it when you're no longer a leafer). Because as you say, you don't need a mentor crown to provide help.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

...In reality it should be a different symbol (so it's less regal)...

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It doesn't really need a symbol tbh. Remove the icon and let them be plain-namers and a lot of the troubles would go away.

For whatever reason I think they want them to act less human and more corporate, so having them milling around would go against that.

I can’t remember what the issue was but I contacted a GM at some point during ARR and I got a personal response, instead of copy and paste corporate spiel, and actually had a proper conversation with them in a special type of /tell for like half an hour. That would never happen now. No matter what you report or respond you get the standard response and if you try and keep talking to them they direct you to “leave your feedback on the forums” aka go away.

Having a visible in game presence may decrease harassment but I don’t see it ever happening.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

It doesn't really need a symbol tbh. Remove the icon and let them be plain-namers and a lot of the troubles would go away.

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I think the reason for a symbol is to signal to people you're a mentor and they can approach you for help...at least I think is the intended purpose. Just like we have other symbols like "Looking for Meld", "Roleplay", "Looking for Party", etc, I would look at it like that. And have it communicate to new players that you're willing to be approached, be it in a dungeon or out in the world.

If it can exist for that purpose, then I think it can work, but a crown I can see somebody using to be like "yeah, I'm king, I have a crown" and have it for decorative purposes.

They're employees whose job is to deal with and respond to reports. Where would they find the time?