Necessity of RMT prevention

I recently moved to NA datacenter "Primal" from Japan datacenter "Elemental", and it seems that there are many RMT advertisement in party finder screen, where they are posting their advertisements through roulette party finders. This was not a thing that I observed while I was playing in Japan datacenter, and would it be possible for someone from square enix to monitor the party finder screen, so that we would be able to remove all of those RMT advertisements from party finder? Since roulette contents come at the beginning of the party finder screen, I find it to be extremely uncomfortable to see those advertisements. It really makes me think that square enix is not doing anything to abolish RMT from the game, and would it be possible for someone from the team to monitor the party finder screen at least once a day, and suspend those accounts from playing the game? Thank you for your consideration.

I doubt it.

seriously, I do, because any, and I mean ANY RMT things seem to need to go to the 3 person STF team in Japan.. and if you can imagine, I doubt 3 people is enough to do a proper job of investigating RMT, 3rd party software usage and cheating....

so, welcome to NA

Yoshi P mentioned in one of the media tour interviews that apparently the only reason those guys aren't getting punished is because of a loophole in the ToS (Which is due to get a revision so they can be removed).

I doubt it's going to stop the problem permanently, though, as they're liable to just switch to using /say spam on trial accounts as a lot of the gil sellers have.

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Originally Posted by golden123

I recently moved to NA datacenter "Primal" from Japan datacenter "Elemental", and it seems that there are many RMT advertisement in party finder screen, where they are posting their advertisements through roulette party finders. This was not a thing that I observed while I was playing in Japan datacenter, and would it be possible for someone from square enix to monitor the party finder screen, so that we would be able to remove all of those RMT advertisements from party finder? Since roulette contents come at the beginning of the party finder screen, I find it to be extremely uncomfortable to see those advertisements. It really makes me think that square enix is not doing anything to abolish RMT from the game, and would it be possible for someone from the team to monitor the party finder screen at least once a day, and suspend those accounts from playing the game? Thank you for your consideration.

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That would be nice, yeah. Trust me, we're sick of it too. I really hate how RMT clear sellers have set up shop in PF and nobody is doing anything about it.

But square doesn't care. Square doesn't listen. They aren't doing anything about it, so..

There is most likely a fountain of money and/or fame to any person who can make an online game completely bot proof from developers.

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

That would be nice, yeah. Trust me, we're sick of it too. I really hate how RMT clear sellers have set up shop in PF and nobody is doing anything about it.

But square doesn't care. Square doesn't listen. They aren't doing anything about it, so..

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Yoshida literally just said that it's a problem but they're in the process of working in their ToS to ensure they can get rid of them without any loopholes or issues.

On the EU servers I've seen people posting links of run selling on gil selling websites. Reported it in game just to get a 'thank you for reporting this, but please forward to special support team'.

I reported it for about 3-4 weeks every couple of days. It's kind of sad that those players were basically allowed to keep posting it for that long, if not a bit longer.

These advertisements are not going to be looked at until the user agreement has been modified. SE wants a rule in it they can use as a reason.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

These advertisements are not going to be looked at until the user agreement has been modified. SE wants a rule in it they can use as a reason.

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I am pretty sure that the user agreement specifically states that automating play with 3rd party software is against the rules... yet we still have bot map parties, bot market users, bot crafters etc... and yet they are never acted on. not sure this will be any different.

buying gil is against the user agreement as well, but ever heard of ANYONE being banned for this?

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I am pretty sure that the user agreement specifically states that automating play with 3rd party software is against the rules... yet we still have bot map parties, bot market users, bot crafters etc... and yet they are never acted on. not sure this will be any different.

buying gil is against the user agreement as well, but ever heard of ANYONE being banned for this?

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I haven't. They'd need to start tracking large trades and bank exchanges.

But I think it would hurt more of the legit players than getting at the buyers.

they cracked down pretty heavily on RP'ers advertising, but for some reason, the bots get away with it?

seems a little weird that people NOT making real money get cracked down on, but not the people doing RMT.

all I am saying is dont get your hopes up. after this many years, saying SE does not currently have a rule in place to deal with this is ridiculous. what is more accurate is they do not have the people in place to properly investigate and act on reports. they require a team PER REGION not just based out of Japan. They also need more people than what they have now doing it. They also need a better reporting system. the "thanks for sending this to us GM's but it should go to the STF instead, here is how you do that" is old fast and just means less people actually go through the system to report. The ones that do put in the extra effort, realize its for nothing when the same bots generating gil for RMT continue to operate as if nothing is wrong for months to years....

yeah... changing the user agreement is going to change something, you'll have to excuse me if I find that idea hilarious at this point. I will definitely be surprised if anything changes at all....

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I haven't. They'd need to start tracking large trades and bank exchanges.

But I think it would hurt more of the legit players than getting at the buyers.

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thats why they NEED to put money into the team investigating this. Its very doable, they have all the data on their end.

and you cant tell me some "legit player" is going to pay 5 million gil for a level 20 bracelet that normally sells for 1200....

The only thing you can do is report them and carry on.

I find it interesting that just like in my previous game experience with WOW, people always assume no action is being taken for ANY wrongdoing just because they haven't been informed of any punishment to the offender.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

... and you cant tell me some "legit player" is going to pay 5 million gil for a level 20 bracelet that normally sells for 1200....

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That's essentially the only way to move gil between alts. Otherwise they need to be in the same guild with gil withdrawal privileges. Not the easiest thing to accomplish and impossible to do if they're homed on different worlds in the DC.

How about, if 100 different players report the same ad, the spammer's account gets taken offline until an appeal is made to bring it back.

In WoW, if you report a spammer, it blocks all further ads from that person for the reporting player for the current login session (It should block them for several months, without tanking up space in the ignore list).

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

That's essentially the only way to move gil between alts. Otherwise they need to be in the same guild with gil withdrawal privileges. Not the easiest thing to accomplish and impossible to do if they're homed on different worlds in the DC.

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then a legit player, moving gil between alts has a reason for it dont they? and in that case, are safe. any kind of investigation into it will see that the buyer, is not doing that with multiple people.

the whole myth that "legit players will suffer' does nothing but enable RMT to continue. I have yet to see any numbers that support that position about legit players suffering, in any game, where that is brought up.

Unfortunately this has been a thing since SB — and myriads of threads have been made about it asking SE and the devs to do something, but they won’t. It’s strange how they say it’s a loophole in the ToS, but do little to fix said loophole. If they are aware that the ToS needs revision to fix an issue that’s going on 4 years now, then I have to wonder what is their reasoning for not having a solution yet. Does ToS revision take an extensive amount of time? Or is it just indifference to the problem because it isn’t a thing on JP servers?

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

then a legit player, moving gil between alts has a reason for it dont they? and in that case, are safe. any kind of investigation into it will see that the buyer, is not doing that with multiple people.

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After the rash of RP bannings? I have no confidence in their desire or ability to fairly investigate these matters and I don't have the benefit of the GDPR so that I can review the data and conclusions for errors.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

After the rash of RP bannings? I have no confidence in their desire or ability to fairly investigate these matters and I don't have the benefit of the GDPR so that I can review the data and conclusions for errors.

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again, points to their desire to do... nothing.

the rash of RP bannings was VERY loosely based on the ToS etc.. but RMT is specifically a no no. and yet it goes on without fear of consequence it seems.

and yeah, they proudly post what they have done about it, but never post what regions those are from. do I think they are doing "something" of course I do. they pick off the low hanging fruit, the city RMT barkers, which isnt really much of an accomplishment or action. I imagine even the poor GM's can do that task. but if I had to guess what the STF does? my guess would be they dont venture much into issues outside of Japan....

I think the only way this completely goes away where we can see it in game is if they make it against tos to sell clear runs for gil no matter what.

Even if they did this though people would just do it via other places on the internet. But at least I wouldn't have to look at it every time I open party finder lol.

Though I get the feeling it would not go over well depending on how they write the TOS. Unless they specifically state that selling clears of fights for gil or anything else is not ok then people who use party finder for selling something like crafting services for gil would get screwed too.

Maybe this is why it's taken so long for them to deal with? Maybe they are debating the best way to handle it without screwing over other people? Dunno but I wish they would figure it out. Its annoying to see at the top of pf.

I'm not sure why they even allow people to post listings for content they can't actually access because most of the adverts are posted by level 2 alts that don't have any of the roulettes unlocked.

Disabling that would at least force them back into the "other" section of PF where they aren't the first thing you see.

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Originally Posted by Flipityflu

The only thing you can do is report them and carry on.

I find it interesting that just like in my previous game experience with WOW, people always assume no action is being taken for ANY wrongdoing just because they haven't been informed of any punishment to the offender.

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I mean...all of the listings are from the same accounts I blacklisted several months ago, so it's pretty safe to assume they're not banning anyone at least as far as PF adverts go.

People have interacted with XIV's enforcement teams more then long enough to tell how consistent they are about acting against certain offenses, and they really only have a good track record when it comes to RMT spam via say/shout and the hacking gil farmers that teleport around the place (Which are empty gestures as they're banned too slowly to actually hinder their efforts and they return almost immediately). This applies even to the cheaters themselves who are known to feel out the moderation using expendable alts to determine what they can/can't get away with easily.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

and you cant tell me some "legit player" is going to pay 5 million gil for a level 20 bracelet that normally sells for 1200....

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Maybe this is not common but that's the method I used to utilize to transfer gil between my alts. After the hassle (and lost gil due to taxes) I just created my own FC.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

then a legit player, moving gil between alts has a reason for it dont they? and in that case, are safe. any kind of investigation into it will see that the buyer, is not doing that with multiple people.

the whole myth that "legit players will suffer' does nothing but enable RMT to continue. I have yet to see any numbers that support that position about legit players suffering, in any game, where that is brought up.

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What I'm saying with it could hurt legit players is if it's a automated system. It's humans doing the investigation, you'll have no objections from me.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

What I'm saying with it could hurt legit players is if it's a automated system. It's humans doing the investigation, you'll have no objections from me.

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yeah, I am not thinking automated, that would be a bad call on their part.

but their team should be expanded. and in my opinion should have regional teams so no language barriers as well.

Thanks all for your message! I even saw no RMT advertisement shouts when I was in Japan DC as well, so something must be done to prevent those advertisements.
Anyway, it seems that square enix recently made an announcement saying that posting advertisements in party finder is banned now
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...ca93e6cb552c29
I'm really enjoying the NA datacenter, and I really hope that the situation improves!

I'm glad they're actually doing something about this now, but I have doubts that it's going to work that well in practice when considering the seemingly infinite number of back-up accounts RMT vendors have access to.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm glad they're actually doing something about this now, but I have doubts that it's going to work that well in practice when considering the seemingly infinite number of back-up accounts RMT vendors have access to.

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One change I liked that WoW made recently is that in order for you to list it, you had to be at the position to run it. So for example, a level 1 person couldn't list in roulettes, trials, etc. because they aren't that level. So in essence, in order for the PF to be listed, I would think you could even add more to the restrictions by enforcing the poster to be on a job and above the min ilevel to list the duty. Is it going to stop all the listing? No, but every little bit helps.

I think I hit the nail on the head lol. At any rate glad this is finally not going to clog up the party finder anymore :)

Now they have started doing it in the Fellowship Finder.

Hopefully it doesn't take too long for them to correct that loophole.

The fellowship finder is scarcely used in general but it still doesn't belong in there regardless.

Well this topic aged like an avocado.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Well this topic aged like an avocado.

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Hard for a while then tasty for a short timeframe? Ruined by bruises if you poke it?