Gotta love loving a house after 13 hours to blatant third party software

13 hours. The person who won was using an autoclicker. VERY obvious because the character kept targeting things in an easily discernable pattern. You could tell where the mouse was clicking by standing in certain spots, could even work out where their camera was based on it. So far? NOTHING has been done by a GM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

13 hours. The person who won was using an autoclicker. VERY obvious because the character kept targeting things in an easily discernable pattern. You could tell where the mouse was clicking by standing in certain spots, could even work out where their camera was based on it. So far? NOTHING has been done by a GM.

---

Auto clickers after the fact are hard to prove. What do you want / expect a GM to do after the fact.

Look at logs, see the reports filed, see that the person 'suddenly' started having connection issues when people talked about it in chat as they continued to hold this targeting pattern for fully half an hour after sale ended, nonresponsive to any attempts to communicate, revoke the house.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

Look at logs, see the reports filed, see that the person 'suddenly' started having connection issues when people talked about it in chat, revoke the house.

---

Check logs for what exactly? A GM will not punish someone over conjecture / speculation. I prefer GM’s and those with power to take action when they can be absolutely sure. Sure you might be right but you could also be wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

Look at logs, see the reports filed, see that the person 'suddenly' started having connection issues when people talked about it in chat as they continued to hold this targeting pattern for fully half an hour after sale ended, nonresponsive to any attempts to communicate, revoke the house.

---

The issue there is all SE would see on their end is a lot of purchase requests from a single party. Given that everyones connection to the servers are wildly varied, it cannot really be pinned down as "suspicious" very well. The GMs need to catch them in the act, rather than after the fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Check logs for what exactly? A GM will not punish someone over conjecture / speculation. I prefer GM’s and those with power to take action when they can be absolutely sure. Sure you might be right but you could also be wrong.

---

The logs would show far, far too many 'coincidences' to be simply ignored as 'speculation' everything blatantly adds up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kenky

The issue there is all SE would see on their end is a lot of purchase requests from a single party. Given that everyones connection to the servers are wildly varied, it cannot really be pinned down as "suspicious" very well. The GMs need to catch them in the act, rather than after the fact.

---

They would show that party continuing to hit requests like 'target player request info' 'target placard request info' in a discernible pattern by the location of the targets at the time of click.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

The logs would show far, far too many 'coincidences' to be simply ignored as 'speculation' everything blatantly adds up.

---

Key word would still show what could amount to a coincidence. SE GM’s go based off what they can see and be proved as a violation of TOS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Key word would still show what could amount to a coincidence. SE GM’s go based off what they can see and be proved as a violation of TOS.

---

I'm sorry, I can't give proof without going into name and shame territory but in this case? It's no more conjecture than 'two people in a room, one holding a smoking gun the other on the floor having been shot, there was a fence between them so they could not have picked up the gun after the other person shot themselves, but we didn't see them pull the trigger so it's just conjecture'

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

I'm sorry, I can't give proof without going into name and shame territory but in this case? It's no more conjecture than 'two people in a room, one holding a smoking gun the other on the floor having been shot, there was a fence between them so they could not have picked up the gun after the other person shot themselves, but we didn't see them pull the trigger so it's just conjecture'

---

Problem is using your example you have no way to prove the bullet was fired from said gun. So yeah without that then the possibly remains that something else is responsible. Sure it may be unlikely but without it then doubt can be established which personally I do not think people should be found guilty of something if the possibility remains as that they are innocent.

In the end SE GM’s go based off what they can prove. In the end yeah if they cannot prove the violation then they will not take action.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Problem is using your example you have no way to prove the bullet was fired from said gun.

---

Uh. Sorry, what? Ballistic forensics can examine a bullet, and a gun, and say 'yes, this bullet came from this gun, without a shadow of reasonable doubt' because every gun has its own pattern of microscopic marking that are as unique and identifiable as any fingerprint. That example is false, and the comparison here is 'which system did the continuous pattern of selecting things come from' which is equally clear by server logs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

Uh. Sorry, what? Ballistic forensics can examine a bullet, and a gun, and say 'yes, this bullet came from this gun, without a shadow of reasonable doubt' because every gun has its own pattern of microscopic marking that are as unique and identifiable as any fingerprint. That example is false, and the comparison here is 'which system did the continuous pattern of selecting things come from' which is equally clear by server logs.

---

Unfortunately only having the clicks doesn’t prove anything - for all they know, the person could’ve just been exhausted and didn’t realize they got the house until they finally did. Or there could’ve been internet lag on their end causing it to appear as if they didn’t have the house. The only way they can prove that the person was using an autoclicker IS by being there in person, messaging, receiving no message, and SEEING it.

Reminder: GMs have 0 jurisdiction over cheating/botting. They can sit there watch the blatant cheating with you and have the exact same power as you do to deal with it, report it and wait for the STF to hopefully get to it in the giant queue of reports.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

Uh. Sorry, what? Ballistic forensics can examine a bullet, and a gun, and say 'yes, this bullet came from this gun, without a shadow of reasonable doubt' because every gun has its own pattern of microscopic marking that are as unique and identifiable as any fingerprint. That example is false, and the comparison here is 'which system did the continuous pattern of selecting things come from' which is equally clear by server logs.

---

Thing is as another person said all SE can see are clicks and a pattern of DC'ing. As per your example not enough to determine the bullet was fired from said gun. Goes outside the scope of what they are allowed to use as evidence.

The comparison is not false your example was flawed since you are operating under the assumption GM's have the tools required to create a concrete connection after the fact. The reality is they do not. I was just following your example.

I get it sucks but GM’s are not all powerful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Thing is as another person said all SE can see are clicks and a pattern of DC'ing. As per your example not enough to determine the bullet was fired from said gun. Goes outside the scope of what they are allowed to use as evidence.

The comparison is not false your example was flawed since you are operating under the assumption GM's have the tools required to create a concrete connection after the fact. The reality is they do not. I was just following your example.

I get it sucks but GM’s are not all powerful.

---

Gonna have to hard disagree with you on this one. There is PLENTY of evidence with none to the contrary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

Gonna have to hard disagree with you on this one. There is PLENTY of evidence with none to the contrary.

---

As mentioned by others the evidence they are allowed to use does not allow them to make such a call with certainty. I get it is infuriating, but as said they are not all powerful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dustytome

Reminder: GMs have 0 jurisdiction over cheating/botting. They can sit there watch the blatant cheating with you and have the exact same power as you do to deal with it, report it and wait for the STF to hopefully get to it in the giant queue of reports.

---

They really need to increase the size of the STF..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Thing is as another person said all SE can see are clicks and a pattern of DC'ing. As per your example not enough to determine the bullet was fired from said gun. Goes outside the scope of what they are allowed to use as evidence.

The comparison is not false your example was flawed since you are operating under the assumption GM's have the tools required to create a concrete connection after the fact. The reality is they do not. I was just following your example.

I get it sucks but GM’s are not all powerful.

---

Seems like a lot of MMO's now adays are going this route. "Here GM's have all these powerful tools, but you can't use them sorry"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

Seems like a lot of MMO's now adays are going this route. "Here GM's have all these powerful tools, but you can't use them sorry"

---

Well I mean GM’s prop do not get paid well and probably just like other jobs for the most part hate working and investigating require effort.

Good luck proving that, OP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Verendal

That example is false, and the comparison here is 'which system did the continuous pattern of selecting things come from' which is equally clear by server logs.

---

Do you work at SE operations teams? How do you know what they log and don't?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Auto clickers after the fact are hard to prove. What do you want / expect a GM to do after the fact.

---

To get the Developers to build in anti autoclicking software blocks, eg. only being able to click 3 times per 30 minutes or something, that would make sense and render that kind of third party software utterly and completely useless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

To get the Developers to build in anti autoclicking software blocks, eg. only being able to click 3 times per 30 minutes or something, that would make sense and render that kind of third party software utterly and completely useless.

---

yeah I don't see that happening. I can just imagine the complaints already.
And also would change nothing, people who use bots or autohotkey or similar software will still be around.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

To get the Developers to build in anti autoclicking software blocks, eg. only being able to click 3 times per 30 minutes or something, that would make sense and render that kind of third party software utterly and completely useless.

---

Doubt they would do that but it also would not change anything since they will just time the clicks. Not making it useless, just a tad more annoying to setup.

Websites solve similar issue by using captcha’s. But I’m not sure I’d want to do a captcha for every house buying attempt.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

To get the Developers to build in anti autoclicking software blocks, eg. only being able to click 3 times per 30 minutes or something, that would make sense and render that kind of third party software utterly and completely useless.

---

Yeah, but that would also break general controls for the game because there's presumably no way to restrict it only to placard, but rather to opening menus x amount of times. When you're house spamming, you just rebind a few keys to your mmo mouse or to a controller so that you can more conveniently go through the menus. Any anti auto clicking block would affect normal gameplay that uses these menus like, say, leve turn ins, collectibles (this would affect people doing Ishgard crafting), etc.

It would whammy console players the hardest because they can only use the menus the keybinding way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seleni

Websites solve similar issue by using captcha’s. But I’m not sure I’d want to do a captcha for every house buying attempt.

---

Also one can make a script to bypass captcha's. Did that during my kissanime days.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awha

Also one can make a script to bypass captcha's. Did that during my kissanime days.

---

Yeah that would be broken in no time.

Doesn’t that depend on the sophistication of the captcha? And I’d just been struggling at such one as human…. (Does that 1/8th of a tire count as part of the bicycle? And that vehicle at far far distance that seems slightly taller than the vehicle parked to the side, is that a van or a bus? orz)

Either way, at that point you’re definitely running an add-on (versus, say, using programmable mouse doing short sequence of clicks but still having start each sequence manually), and thus more likely to be detected and make yourself subject to account suspension/termination.

On a wild thought, SE could make a mini-game as pre-requisite for buying. Highest score of the day wins the right to purchase? …I’ll show myself out.

This is the thing with logging... a lot of people assume there's more information in the logs than their probably isn't. A classic example is how people think Windows 10 is spying on them when the reality is that Microsoft just announced what the logs were doing since NT, and most of that functionality hasn't changed all that much over the years... yet somehow their mystically big brother now (when even Linux does something similar with most of the system logging).

Either way... you've got to prove it and if you don't have network traces and other hard data beyond wild speculation, a GM is going to look at this and go "oh, that's cute, but it's still wild conjecture and I can't ban someone off of a tall tale".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

Yeah, but that would also break general controls for the game because there's presumably no way to restrict it only to placard, but rather to opening menus x amount of times.

---

Unless the placard ITSELF has a cooldown.
Or you get a half hour long "debuff/status" preventing you from clicking again.
There are potential ways around that... you know, if SQEX was determined to implement something like this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seleni

Doesn’t that depend on the sophistication of the captcha? And I’d just been struggling at such one as human…. (Does that 1/8th of a tire count as part of the bicycle? And that vehicle at far far distance that seems slightly taller than the vehicle parked to the side, is that a van or a bus? orz)

Either way, at that point you’re definitely running an add-on (versus, say, using programmable mouse doing short sequence of clicks but still having start each sequence manually), and thus more likely to be detected and make yourself subject to account suspension/termination.

On a wild thought, SE could make a mini-game as pre-requisite for buying. Highest score of the day wins the right to purchase? …I’ll show myself out.

---

Making it more sophisticated just weeds out those who are lazier and don't think it's worth breaking. There's always going to be someone willing to go to the effort.

In the meantime, legit players get more and more pissed off at the additional hoops to jump through. In the end, it's done nothing to solve the problem and made the game experience worse for everyone else.

Also, SE has nothing to detect 3rd party software being run on a player's local client so there's no risk from that direction. They rely on other things for detecting bot activity.

In the end, SE needs to address the supply problem. There are always going to be upset players when there is no house for them to purchase regardless of what purchase mini-game SE adopts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItMe

Unless the placard ITSELF has a cooldown.
Or you get a half hour long "debuff/status" preventing you from clicking again.
There are potential ways around that... you know, if SQEX was determined to implement something like this.

---

How do you give the placard itself a cooldown without it affecting all of the other menus in the game, is the problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

How do you give the placard itself a cooldown without it affecting all of the other menus in the game, is the problem.

---

Yeah, hmm...
I was thinking that since they have multiple timers nested in interacting with the retainer's bell that it probably wouldn't be too hard to get a similar timer put in an interaction with another item, but maybe you're right...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

This is the thing with logging... a lot of people assume there's more information in the logs than their probably isn't. A classic example is how people think Windows 10 is spying on them when the reality is that Microsoft just announced what the logs were doing since NT, and most of that functionality hasn't changed all that much over the years... yet somehow their mystically big brother now (when even Linux does something similar with most of the system logging).

Either way... you've got to prove it and if you don't have network traces and other hard data beyond wild speculation, a GM is going to look at this and go "oh, that's cute, but it's still wild conjecture and I can't ban someone off of a tall tale".

---

I recall some old games were said to monitor programs running in the background to determine whether bot programs were being run. Of course nowadays people and software companies are more privacy-focused, and such function will likely get the game marked as spyware by the OS. So a supposed auto-click detector isn’t really possible unless you’re willing to explicitly let SE monitor your computer activities. (And be prepared for the game to possibly broken by OS security patches)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Themarvin

To get the Developers to build in anti autoclicking software blocks, eg. only being able to click 3 times per 30 minutes or something, that would make sense and render that kind of third party software utterly and completely useless.

---

That requires scanning background processes and violating peoples privacy.

Also, if you own any modern gaming mouse (Corsair Scimitar, Razer Naga, Logitech G500, etc, among countless others) or gaming keyboard, you probably have macroing software built into your mouse hub program (for razer that's synapse or the new shittier hub) that you NEED to have on in order for your multi-button mouse to have custom keybindings. Imagine banning everyone with a gaming mouse from playing your MMO because they might have Razer Synapse or GHUB running as a background process.

Having a certain piece of software also doesn't mean that someone is actively using it, let alone for nefarious reasons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arielen

That requires scanning background processes and violating peoples privacy.

Also, if you own any modern gaming mouse (Corsair Scimitar, Razer Naga, Logitech G500, etc, among countless others) or gaming keyboard, you probably have macroing software built into your mouse hub program (for razer that's synapse or the new shittier hub) that you NEED to have on in order for your multi-button mouse to have custom keybindings. Imagine banning everyone with a gaming mouse from playing your MMO because they might have Razer Synapse or GHUB running as a background process.

Having a certain piece of software also doesn't mean that someone is actively using it, let alone for nefarious reasons.

---

I've actually heard that there's been a legitimate way to use AHK with certain business functions, especially when you need to do repeated operations in Excel and it just goes faster when you script it, or you end up writing several variations on a form letter, and being able to quickly generate the pieces and stick them together in Word will make the business day go faster, and you can do that by triggering the macros. There's probably a couple of others actually useful things.

Even then, I don't want to get banned for having Logitech G Hub installed because it's what I need to control the key bindings on my G600. On the subject of MMO mice, while I have had a Razer Naga... it died - while I only stopped using a Logitech mouse because it's gotten replaced with a newer one with more functionality, and the work ones are like almost a decade old at this point. IMO the Logitech (and Microsoft for that matter) mice have so much better build quality than what I have seen from Razer (YMMV on that point).

Amusingly, I'm also using a Microsoft ergo keyboard as the gaming keyboard (it's one of the most comfortable keyboards I have used, and the stroke length is short enough that it makes for a decent gaming keyboard) ho9wever, it's got programmable keys so I need to run the Microsoft software app if I want to be able to redefine what the special keys do.

Just because I've got software that can be used for macroing, I've never actually used it for anything within FFXIV other than configuring my mouse and FFXIV so that I can combine CTRL, ALT, Shift and the 12 mouse buttons on the side to control four action bars of stuff. Oh, and adjusting the lighting to work with FFXIV because why not =D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

I've actually heard that there's been a legitimate way to use AHK with certain business functions, especially when you need to do repeated operations in Excel and it just goes faster when you script it, or you end up writing several variations on a form letter, and being able to quickly generate the pieces and stick them together in Word will make the business day go faster, and you can do that by triggering the macros. There's probably a couple of others actually useful things.

---

Yes. I develop these kind of things for a living, though we don't use AHK but RPA (Robotic Process Automation) but it essentially a similar thing. So there is for sure legitimate uses for it.

They just need to add a wait list. Board in the ward, walk up click board name added. When houses come up depending on the number it alerts that many people at the top of the list. So if 6 homes are up the 6 people at the top get notified to come get a house. You get 24 hours to buy one after that it jumps to the next person. So if 6 homes are up person 5th in line does not buy one. It jumps to person number 7, when homes come again if the player in the number 5 spot fails to buy again then they get moved to the bottom of the list.

This would apply to new buyers and relocators. It would not apply to new wards until after they have filled up. Gets rid of the stand around clicking for hours people are pulling.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

They just need to add a wait list. Board in the ward, walk up click board name added. When houses come up depending on the number it alerts that many people at the top of the list. So if 6 homes are up the 6 people at the top get notified to come get a house. You get 24 hours to buy one after that it jumps to the next person. So if 6 homes are up person 5th in line does not buy one. It jumps to person number 7, when homes come again if the player in the number 5 spot fails to buy again then they get moved to the bottom of the list.

This would apply to new buyers and relocators. It would not apply to new wards until after they have filled up. Gets rid of the stand around clicking for hours people are pulling.

---

And is totally unfair to players who are unable to log in the day their name hits the top of the list and the house becomes available even though they could have logged in two days later when another house became available. Where they had already waited in line for 2 years to get a house, they're now stuck facing another 2 year wait.

Can we please stop with the bad ideas to keep a bad system bad?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jojoya

And is totally unfair to players who are unable to log in the day their name hits the top of the list and the house becomes available even though they could have logged in two days later when another house became available. Where they had already waited in line for 2 years to get a house, they're now stuck facing another 2 year wait.

Can we please stop with the bad ideas to keep a bad system bad?

---

Read better before you reply. Post says it wont put them at the bottom of the list until after they I have missed two invites to get a home. Which that part can be taken away. As someone who is looking for a plot to relocate too, wards can go weeks between plot openings. But if you are ok with people continuning unhealthy behavior sure lets keep the place card clicking. Unless some miracle happens and SE throws out housing for everyone.

Outside of giving everyone a house which is not likely to ever happen. This idea at least gets rid of the place card headache is more fair then the half million other broken ideas that I have been posted. You got any better ideas other then crying give everyone housing then speak up.