If no expense is to be spared on the game, that should include moderation.

Before anyone takes me in bad faith: I am not trying to imply that the current game moderators aren't doing their best with what they have. I am arguing that they need more resources and that the game's moderation system itself should be updated.

I can only speak to my experience as an English-speaking NA player, but we have a big problem with bots, scams, and RMT. It's blatant, and it's everywhere. I have gotten the same phishing link sent to me through tells three times in the past two days. Whenever you enter any of the three starting cities (especially Limsa Lominsa), you will see bots advertising RMT sites (though this has been reduced since the context command to report RMT activity was introduced; this was a nice improvement). There are savage and ultimate raid clear selling ads clogging up party finder urging those interested to communicate via Discord all the time, and it's common knowledge that those clears are being sold for real money. It's common to see hordes of bots teleporting through main story quests, and this is especially frustrating when we're experiencing such intense congestion with Endwalker around the corner.

In addition, I've seen a lot of frustration with the lack of transparency in moderation decisions. The story of the person who got a strike on their account for spamming Holy in Limsa Lominsa that made the rounds in the community a while back contrasts harshly with players who have made multiple reports about in-game stalking/harassment and never saw any changes in their situation. A friend of mine was suspended once and she has absolutely no idea what it was for; she tends to be crass, but what did she say that crossed an invisible line that she should avoid in the future? She will probably never know.

More resources should be invested into improving moderation in NA (and in EU as well, from what I understand, but I can't speak to that with any level of authority or experience). It seems strange to me that very obvious phishing links aren't blocked (if the link contains "forum.square-enix.com" but has something else tacked onto the end because it's not actually a .com domain, for example). Whether or not you see getting phished as the player's fault for not paying attention, it should not be this easy to spread phishing links in the game itself.

There also needs to be more tools for the moderation team to detect botting. Having crowds of bots logged in while subscribers complain about long queues is insulting, and I get annoyed when people blame players who go AFK before they blame bots. It's excellent that the development team was able to optimize existing server infrastructure to ease the congestion, but it's only going to get worse come November, and the bots are still here contributing to the problem.

Finally, the reporting and penalty system needs an overhaul. I understand the necessity of being vague enough to allow reporters to remain anonymous, but it is impossible to avoid repeating a mistake when you don't even know what the mistake was to begin with. The point of moderation is to enforce the rules so players follow them, not just punish them when they break them on accident. The inconsistent application of vague rules does not help players know where boundaries are, either. And on the side of being the reporter, it's frustrating to never even know whether your ticket got looked at, or if it did, when. I'd feel a lot better knowing that the accounts I reported as victims of phishing had action taken to lock the phisher out and return them to their owner, and people who are victims of targeted in-game harassment would likely benefit from knowing a moderator had seen their ticket.

To reiterate: I am not blaming individual moderators. I am blaming the systems in place that make it difficult for moderators to do their job consistently and effectively. If there truly will be no expense spared in making sure the game is everything that it can be, I think that should apply to giving moderation teams more people, better resources, and better guidance.

They are going to change the user agreement so that there is a rule to use against the party finder adverts before something is done about them.

RMT gets handled https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...b96e9db2cd2a71

I don't know what the plan is about the phishing tells.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I don't know what the plan is about the phishing tells.

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Its a bot so the STF handles it. And probably not going to see any change in that

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she tends to be crass, but what did she say that crossed an invisible line that she should avoid in the future? She will probably never know.

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...then maybe the lesson here isnt what she said...its that she needs to be less so in future?

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Finally, the reporting and penalty system needs an overhaul. I understand the necessity of being vague enough to allow reporters to remain anonymous, but it is impossible to avoid repeating a mistake when you don't even know what the mistake was to begin with. The point of moderation is to enforce the rules so players follow them, not just punish them when they break them on accident.

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The other side of that issue is that GMs dont want to have to deal with "rules lawyers". The rules are clear cut and very simple, in all truth.

Dont be a jerk to others, how hard is that?

If what you want to say will be over the top, or abusive, then dont say it. Bite your tongue and exercise a little self restraint. I gaurantee and agree there are times when others may push you or provoke you, we all have that, but the key here is to exercise more restraint than the other person is.

I can be crass, and sharp, and acerbic, I have been known to use language that would melt paint at 1000 yards..I just dont use it ingame.

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Originally Posted by Amnesty

In addition, I've seen a lot of frustration with the lack of transparency in moderation decisions.

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It might be frustrating but it is the only method to ensure that some rule enforcements are really in place. If you are transparent and predictable then the players will try to exhaust the limits you set to them. But if you are totally unpredictable then almost nobody will try it.

Cheers

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There are savage and ultimate raid clear selling ads clogging up party finder urging those interested to communicate via Discord all the time, and it's common knowledge that those clears are being sold for real money.

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TOS update is on the way to combat this.

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It's common to see hordes of bots teleporting through main story quests, and this is especially frustrating when we're experiencing such intense congestion with Endwalker around the corner.

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These are disposable accounts farming gil. They exist in pretty much every 3D MMO (gilfarmers exist in 2D MMOs too, but they don't teleport as often) and get banned fairly quickly.

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Finally, the reporting and penalty system needs an overhaul. I understand the necessity of being vague enough to allow reporters to remain anonymous, but it is impossible to avoid repeating a mistake when you don't even know what the mistake was to begin with.

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This is really only a problem because of the permanently escalating nature of infractions. GMs should be able to use discretion in suspension times and look at things like how long ago was the last offence and how many account actions have been recorded in total. This throws the truly toxic people, who try to game the system, out of the game while keeping an occasionally tripping player outside the permabans, without being too light on them.

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It seems strange to me that very obvious phishing links aren't blocked (if the link contains "forum.square-enix.com" but has something else tacked onto the end because it's not actually a .com domain, for example)

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They do eventually get silently blocked, but the domain is constantly changing and you can't really make an intelligent word filter without risking legitimate messages being blocked.

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Originally Posted by Bsrking5

Its a bot so the STF handles it. And probably not going to see any change in that

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No expense.... 3 person team in charge of all bot like things.

Well I know I haven't seen the person in Balmung Shout who went "I'm here to s******* assault women" ever again after reporting him.

I'm sure the team is doing the best they can and if FF14 is getting more funding will do better. I am gonna bug a GM about the item I requested to be returned when I accidentally removed it 'cause it never showed up...

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

No expense.... 3 person team in charge of all bot like things.

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which I think is ridiculous for a population base this size.

3 people are hardly enough to do one region, let alone all of them...

I think one person per data center is the absolute minimum size they should've settled on for a moderation team.

Do we actually know for a fact it's 3 people running the STF, or is it just a meme/assumption by the community?

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

No expense.... 3 person team in charge of all bot like things.

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Your source being?

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Originally Posted by DeaconMoore

Your source being?

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The credits listed the STF as being only three members up until ShB, where I believe it got upgraded to four...which still isn't nearly enough judging from how much worse the botting activity has gotten as of late.

The GMs will adamantly refuse to do anything about bots and keep redirecting you to the STF unless they're obstructing your gameplay in such manner that it could be flagged as harassment.

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Originally Posted by DeaconMoore

Your source being?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP3LiAik_-Q

21:19

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Originally Posted by Amnesty

More resources should be invested into improving moderation in NA (and in EU as well, from what I understand, but I can't speak to that with any level of authority or experience). It seems strange to me that very obvious phishing links aren't blocked (if the link contains "forum.square-enix.com" but has something else tacked onto the end because it's not actually a .com domain, for example). Whether or not you see getting phished as the player's fault for not paying attention, it should not be this easy to spread phishing links in the game itself.

There also needs to be more tools for the moderation team to detect botting. Having crowds of bots logged in while subscribers complain about long queues is insulting, and I get annoyed when people blame players who go AFK before they blame bots. It's excellent that the development team was able to optimize existing server infrastructure to ease the congestion, but it's only going to get worse come November, and the bots are still here contributing to the problem.

Finally, the reporting and penalty system needs an overhaul. I understand the necessity of being vague enough to allow reporters to remain anonymous, but it is impossible to avoid repeating a mistake when you don't even know what the mistake was to begin with. The point of moderation is to enforce the rules so players follow them, not just punish them when they break them on accident. The inconsistent application of vague rules does not help players know where boundaries are, either. And on the side of being the reporter, it's frustrating to never even know whether your ticket got looked at, or if it did, when. I'd feel a lot better knowing that the accounts I reported as victims of phishing had action taken to lock the phisher out and return them to their owner, and people who are victims of targeted in-game harassment would likely benefit from knowing a moderator had seen their ticket.

To reiterate: I am not blaming individual moderators. I am blaming the systems in place that make it difficult for moderators to do their job consistently and effectively. If there truly will be no expense spared in making sure the game is everything that it can be, I think that should apply to giving moderation teams more people, better resources, and better guidance.

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As someone who has a few accounts and have been reported many times i agree overall but it is not impossible to know what rule was broken that is just an excuse people use to avoid personal accountability.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

The other side of that issue is that GMs dont want to have to deal with "rules lawyers". The rules are clear cut and very simple, in all truth.

Dont be a jerk to others, how hard is that?

If what you want to say will be over the top, or abusive, then dont say it. Bite your tongue and exercise a little self restraint. I gaurantee and agree there are times when others may push you or provoke you, we all have that, but the key here is to exercise more restraint than the other person is.

I can be crass, and sharp, and acerbic, I have been known to use language that would melt paint at 1000 yards..I just dont use it ingame.

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Recently, I suffered a 10 day suspension under the statement of "grief tactics" 3.2 violation. I was told, as the only amount of information, that I was griefing players in game, and it is an obvious nono. Which I agree, you shouldn't grief people.

However, here's the problem. And why what OP is saying I think really shouldn't be so easily dismissed. For the past few months, I had no desire to do any group related content at all. I find roulette's unfun and frustrating, I didn't raid, even lost my wish to do maps as more and more map bots spiked up in existence with no punishment coming from Square enix anywhere in sight. I had played to do crafting, gathering, and assist players with question in the (Now not in anymore) Novice Network. The absolute worst, WORST, I had even said in Novice Network, is I told a mentor if he didn't move the topic from what it currently was (For context: Whether calling people the R word in NN was socially acceptable or not, this Mentor was forcing the topic and promoting doing that), that he was going to be kicked. To which, to note, because I told a mentor that, I was instantly kicked, because that's how mafia works.

I wouldn't call that a grief tactic though, simply a warning of, "Hey you seriously are going off the deep end here" kind of message. I didn't prevent them from playing the game, or ruin game experience. And I know crafting and gathering isn't against the rules itself either, so I still wish to understand what I did. I have absolutely no idea, whatsoever, and now my account is a single step away from permanently going away.

Have I already been slapped with punishments before? Obviously, you don't just start at 10 days for anything, even blatant horrible behavior bad enough to get someone in legal issues. I make sure I don't spam the chat, I make sure I don't swear, because those were things I was hit for that I understood what caused. My problem here is I have no idea what caused my recent one. I'd honestly been so careful, and it makes it hard to invest in anything. Wanting even a little bit more of information, to at least understand what I did that truly caused this punishment, isn't a crime. It's me wanting to know what I did, because as far as I'm aware, I wasn't being a jerk to others, because how hard is that?

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP3LiAik_-Q

21:19

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Oh, so they actually hired a 4th, after so long, and probably still JP sided.

Just putting an image for it, for those who don't wanna see shb credits (spoilers)
https://i.imgur.com/YyNhjt5.png

ngl, even with only one mod, they could literally see the same guys always in the pf, the same static (and it s not that hard to see who are in it ...) . no reason to have the same names for months in them without anything done, no change of tos will make things different if they didnt do anything for them yet.

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Originally Posted by Aiscence

ngl, even with only one mod, they could literally see the same guys always in the pf, the same static (and it s not that hard to see who are in it ...) . no reason to have the same names for months in them without anything done, no change of tos will make things different if they didnt do anything for them yet.

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GMs know all too well what is really happening with these PFs. The issue is that the current sales method is a loophole in the TOS, leading the GMs unable to enforce the TOS. I don't know what the team has in mind, but they are planning on closing this particular loophole. I just hope they think outside the box and foresee what other loopholes would be discovered.

They did something within the lines of the current TOS earlier, because the PFs replaced the term "selling" with "coaching". I hope their revisions won't be so easily rendered moot.

Can't believe SE got Masaaki Endoh on the STF, incredible.

https://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/v...ors/2/8785.jpg

I am not going to bother quoting individual people because I think this is a general misunderstanding among people responding to the thread. "Don't be a jerk" is incredibly vague. Literally anything you could possibly say could be taken in bad faith, especially on the internet. Why do you think I prefaced the thread with a disclaimer and ended it with one as well?

Telling someone to shut up shouldn't be penalized by moderators; everyone playing this game should be assumed to be 13 and older, and while this could easily be classified as "jerk behavior," I doubt being told to shut up is going to cause most people serious distress to the point where they need moderator intervention--an adult wouldn't even step in to split that sort of thing up during recess. Telling someone to unlife, however, should be taken very seriously. Everything in the middle is a massive question mark, and people who have been taken to the gaol before are careful of ever saying anything afterward, especially if they have to guess what they'd even done. My friend didn't not modify her behavior, she was more careful after, but she wondered how she got through the game for over two years with no problems and suddenly got a suspension come Shadowbringers. She's also not one to flame, she only jokes around with people. 99% of what she does in the game is crafting. Meanwhile, people who demonstrably participate in targeted harassment over a long period of time remain unpunished. That's a question that needs an answer.

With respect to legitimate messages getting removed with phishing message filtration: why would your legitimate message match a regular expression searching for the string "forum.square-enix.com" with characters between that and the next slash? They definitely monitor for known RMT sites in messages, otherwise bots wouldn't self censor. In this case, they have the technology. They're just spread too thin to put it to good use.

It's great that there are some solutions lined up to solve some problems, but that does not change the core issue of there not being enough staff with enough tools to keep up. "Not enough is being done" is not the same statement as "nothing is being done."

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Originally Posted by Amnesty

I am not going to bother quoting individual people because I think this is a general misunderstanding among people responding to the thread. "Don't be a jerk" is incredibly vague. Literally anything you could possibly say could be taken in bad faith, especially on the internet. Why do you think I prefaced the thread with a disclaimer and ended it with one as well?

Telling someone to shut up shouldn't be penalized by moderators; everyone playing this game should be assumed to be 13 and older, and while this could easily be classified as "jerk behavior," I doubt being told to shut up is going to cause most people serious distress to the point where they need moderator intervention--an adult wouldn't even step in to split that sort of thing up during recess. Telling someone to unlife, however, should be taken very seriously. Everything in the middle is a massive question mark, and people who have been taken to the gaol before are careful of ever saying anything afterward, especially if they have to guess what they'd even done. My friend didn't not modify her behavior, she was more careful after, but she wondered how she got through the game for over two years with no problems and suddenly got a suspension come Shadowbringers. She's also not one to flame, she only jokes around with people. 99% of what she does in the game is crafting. Meanwhile, people who demonstrably participate in targeted harassment over a long period of time remain unpunished. That's a question that needs an answer.

With respect to legitimate messages getting removed with phishing message filtration: why would your legitimate message match a regular expression searching for the string "forum.square-enix.com" with characters between that and the next slash? They definitely monitor for known RMT sites in messages, otherwise bots wouldn't self censor. In this case, they have the technology. They're just spread too thin to put it to good use.

It's great that there are some solutions lined up to solve some problems, but that does not change the core issue of there not being enough staff with enough tools to keep up. "Not enough is being done" is not the same statement as "nothing is being done."

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I do think generally people understand where you are coming from but an explanation is kinda moot. If people really reflect on what they have said and done they will come up with at the very least a possible reason for the suspension. I am by no means trying to white knight SE I and many others in group of friends have been reported many times, I have even had an account banned. While I personally disagree with my ban for what I have done and said over the years that what I feel is moot. Main reason I have seen why people think the vague rules make it hard to know what they did wrong is because they are operating under what they view as inappropriate. Our personal standards are moot only standards that matter are SE's.

In the end SE goes based off being able to prove something and generally I take the cases of those that get away with harassment with a grain of salt. For the same reason as above people go based off their own standards and not what SE. The ToS is not that vague if you take it face value.