To The FFXIV Developers: Addressing the Ongoing Win Trading Issue in FFXIV PvP

This is for FFXIV Devs and the community in general:

If you may or may not be aware, win trading in FFXIV Ranked Crystaline Conflict PvP has been a major issue for a long time, specially at the highest ranks Crystal, Omega and Ultima. This is hurting the PvP scene and most importantly, the many legitimate players who are striving to reach the top ranks fairly.
I know some detractors will claim “everyone wins trades,” but that is just not true. We have clear examples of top PvP players who push themselves legitimately, and they often showcase their efforts openly on streams and social media. These players are proof that competitive integrity still matters to many in our community.
Sadly, there is an infestation of bad-faith cheaters in ranked PvP. This undermines not only the credibility of the ladder, but also the trust of those who genuinely want to enjoy PvP as it was intended. Square Enix needs to heed our voices and take stronger action against this issue.
Some potential solutions could include:
• Implementing stronger detection systems for suspicious queues and match behavior.
• Enforcing stricter punishments and permanent bans for repeat offenders.
• Increasing transparency disciplinary actions.

As PvP in FFXIV continues to grow and become more popular, that growth can get stagnated if the highest levels of play are dominated by cheating and manipulation. We want a scene where effort, skill and teamwork is rewarded, not cheaters who abuse the system.
Please, SE, take this seriously and act to preserve the integrity of PvP. I know that the development team does listen to constructive criticism, I hope they listen to this and improve the overall experiences in PVP Ranked

I have linked a twitter post regarding this situation in FFXIV PVP Scene. the Tweet comes from Brian Ricardo a prominent figure in the PVP Scene
https://x.com/brianricardos/status/1962560144178586091

this is the reason why SE should just bring back all the season 1-20 FEAST REWARDS by using WOLF COLLARS or CRYSTAL TROPHIES on the NPC. like what they did to the HELLHOUND WEAPONS, ARCH FIEND SET, and FALSE MONARCH SET!

Would be nice to have active moderation. Keep reporting enough and occasionally action can get taken, but it's admittedly way more difficult than it should be. To give context to people, this is re: achievement farmers external from the PvP community queuing up as the same job to feed points.

I see you tweeted about this in response to Brian. Why not link that as well?

Wrote this 6 days ago in another thread...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Achievement hunter and collector, trying to game the system.

---

I wish they would just publish scoreboards of all ranked diamond to ultima games publicly during each season. Then it is way easier to tell who often loses on purpose to a certain player.

You know what? You are correct, I should have added the tweet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Guntank81

As PvP in FFXIV continues to grow and become more popular, that growth can get stagnated if the highest levels of play are dominated by cheating and manipulation. We want a scene where effort, skill and teamwork is rewarded, not cheaters who abuse the system.

I have linked a twitter post regarding this situation in FFXIV PVP Scene. the Tweet comes from Brian Ricardo a prominent figure in the PVP Scene
https://x.com/brianricardos/status/1962560144178586091

---

Is it really growing? For EU I don't see the difference besides a few new players. Most of those new names are alts. You'd be surprised how many alts those in high rank have. PvP is already dead for most of the time until its 18-20+. It always becomes like this. Alive at the start and then drops dead because people can't be bothered to play it. At least here in EU situation is always bad with pvp and people already gave up.

So no pvp scene will never grow up that much thanks to developers who have no clue what they are doing of buffing and patch 7.31 really shows that. Then we have big toxicity involved and discord servers that which hunt and name + shame people who aren't decent.

If they want to stop wintrading, then besides checking games (which is already too much for them as it involves paying mods doing it), they need more players in pvp. More people in games --> less chances for wintrading. We are tired of seeing 10 to 20 SAME PEOPLE every single day. This is very tiresome and makes you wonder why even play when statistically, the climbing ratio is very bad when you are all known to each other. It's just mixing teams or you always get worse team and others get easy wins. This just ain't fun. Not to mention that in EU pvp is only "alive" when discord members decide to queue up. Otherwise you won't find games at all. So no it's not growing, at least in EU.

What's kidn of funny the other week i had a GM message me about a report i sent in on someone refusing to help the team. Haven't seen the person since but it might be because they stopped PVP or their sub ran out.

yeah I played some games today, its so bad to the point that everyone stop queueing all together.... the queue time just went from 5min to 15min after one guy throwing every single match. What is worst is that the match making system somehow doesn't like shuffling players, so sometimes you can stuck with a wintrader for a few games until you give up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NevaehQuest

yeah I played some games today, its so bad to the point that everyone stop queueing all together.... the queue time just went from 5min to 15min after one guy throwing every single match. What is worst is that the match making system somehow doesn't like shuffling players, so sometimes you can stuck with a wintrader for a few games until you give up.

---

That is why people leave fast so they often get the people already in queue. If you leave slowly you get the same 8 people + 2 new or so. What the system should maybe do is, just pop ranked every 5-10min. So there is no reason to leave so quickly.

oh wow, may be i will try that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Wrote this 6 days ago in another thread...



I wish they would just publish scoreboards of all ranked diamond to ultima games publicly during each season. Then it is way easier to tell who often loses on purpose to a certain player.

---

Tbh, This is the best solution. I really really wish SE will listen sometimes....

Honestly, i don't know what people expect. This is pvp. Every pvp game i have ever played has had trouble with cheats/win trading and such.

Team Fortress 2 has its aimbot snipers. Rust has its fly hacking and resource hacks. Mordhau, DOTA 2, etc... And it's no different in FFXIV it seems. Trying to remove cheating from pvp is like trying to remove the stank from a hunk of feces, they go hand in hand. I do NOT condone it, but i also fail to see how people can act surprised or appalled. IT'S PVP! Of course there will be cheating! Fact of life.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jesseleewelch

Honestly, i don't know what people expect. This is pvp. Every pvp game i have ever played has had trouble with cheats/win trading and such.

Team Fortress 2 has its aimbot snipers. Rust has its fly hacking and resource hacks. Mordhau, DOTA 2, etc... And it's no different in FFXIV it seems. Trying to remove cheating from pvp is like trying to remove the stank from a hunk of feces, they go hand in hand. I do NOT condone it, but i also fail to see how people can act surprised or appalled. IT'S PVP! Of course there will be cheating! Fact of life.

---

I think the bigger problem is that SE doesn't really try. I played Feast for 14 seasons and in every season it was so easy to point out the trouble makers and if a GM that had knowledge about PvP they could have taken care of the problem in 5 minutes but despite weeks of reporting people just could keep doing their thing. Every season it was only couple of players who cheated in some way and even that was too much to handle for the report team :p Of course some got punished but that was months of reporting at worst. Same continued in CC and I just hope SE would get someone to specialize into PvP and monitoring it (SE I volunteered all the way back in Stormblood :p)

Thanks for uplifting my post OP.

The "Networking" cheater was removed from the leaderboard and their Ultima rank is gone.