[dev1031] GMs cant/wont help us

Ok after playing ffxi and xiv I have one big question that pains me, what do the GM's do, they cant fix bugged mobs, take actions on their own (it seems) all I ever get is some prepaired message in game (this is after 6years of xi and ive been playing xiv since alpha).

Here is something constructive... Hire some people to do your customer service, how about taking care of your player base not just through patches and hot glue fixes to the hole in the rubber boat of xiv.

I can recall one time in all the years of playing the ff mmos that I ever had a GM pop and actualy speak to me about a problem. The rest of the time it seems like they are either too good to help the players... or they have no ability to help us and are just there as a show to placate players into some sence of false security.



Please give your GMs the ability to fix stuck mobs, player, take care of violations on the spot etc.. I really dont think you need to spend a week "investigating" a stuck NM or broken aspect of the game, and then give some quick responce that does nothing more than distance yourselfs from your player base.

Simply put if they cant/wont do anything why even have GMs your special taskforce which we constantly get sent to can do everything.

I posted this under dev 1031 as this post relates to a current encounter with prince of pestilence who is currently taking up residence under the map where players cant reach him. Its a simple solution GM call, get him to repop where we can actualy play +1 to SE customer service and the game is a better place.

This post is also in the feedback area I reposted it here as it seems most people come here to look at posts.

Seems to me the best thing they could do is just kill his entity id and let him respawn. They did that sometimes in XI when I'd call and tell them a monster fell out of the normal map back when I played PS2. One time I saw a Damselfly out in the sea in Valkurm.

Sadly the Prince is bugged on both Besaid and Cornelia as well

The whole GM system is one of the things that I passionately and truly hate about FFXI and XIV. But its most likely not even their fault, a lot could just be the policies and how SE decided on things. GM's seem completely worthless right now, they are to non existent as far as I'm concerned because they have less power than the average Joe in-game.

What also annoys me is how long it takes them to do anything, from investigating bots to getting your account back, and then this whole "Oh you can only recover your account once", "You can only get an item recovered once" rubbish. It is really pathetic, and it is strictly related to SE and the support group, because believe it or not other games have amazing support <- But that is related to experience.

I remember having issues with Aion and the NCSoft support team were very helpful, to bugged mobs in instances, to my game not working. I emailed support a while ago when my game wouldn't work, this was prior to the forum. I've still not had a reply lol. I get a response from NCSoft within 30 mins, and its no auto generated marlarky if I supply the right stuff (eg a Dxdiag usually).

They say GM's are there to ensure balance and good community which is about as true as fairy dust.

One question I would really love to have answered (with some illustration of truth) is, What do GM's/Support Staff do? With almost everyone in-game getting no aid, almost everyone getting an automatic response. its like the only employee is the answering machine.

(I would like to exclude forum community staff, they rock, you can clearly see them on the side of the player. Though if its the same guys, then I wont exclude you, start doing your job.).

sorry guys, it takes time to fix and report these things. Blame players who prank call gms just to record them on youtube. There isn't a insta fix button. There isn't a insta ban button either. They must follow protocol.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

sorry guys, it takes time to fix and report these things. Blame players who prank call gms just to record them on youtube. There isn't a insta fix button. There isn't a insta ban button either. They must follow protocol.

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This is absolute no excuse, why do I say that? Because other studios with MASSIVELY more players and prank idiots, solve things much-much quicker than SE GM's/Support Staff. So if its taking so long, someone is not doing their job correctly.

OP, you might find this interesting, where a GM actually replied and was sad.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ll=1#post78758

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Originally Posted by viion

This is absolute no excuse, why do I say that? Because other studios with MASSIVELY more players and prank idiots, solve things much-much quicker than SE GM's/Support Staff. So if its taking so long, someone is not doing their job correctly.

OP, you might find this interesting, where a GM actually replied and was sad.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ll=1#post78758

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name an mmo. From my experience it varies based on problem. Least in you talk to gm in game. A few mmo don't. There is a lot more to it then you think. For example, in ffxi i accidentally on purpose mpk'ed my party, I reported myself and was taken to the gm jail very quickly. Also the more details your provide the faster they can look into it. They have to pretty much sit there and read logs about the game, find what they need tag it, and either report to a higher up, or follow protocol.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

name an mmo. From my experience it varies based on problem. Least in you talk to gm in game. A few mmo don't. There is a lot more to it then you think. For example, in ffxi i accidentally on purpose mpk'ed my party, I reported myself and was taken to the gm jail very quickly. Also the more details your provide the faster they can look into it. They have to pretty much sit there and read logs about the game, find what they need tag it, and either report to a higher up, or follow protocol.

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I already did, Aion lol. Hell the GM's even walked around town as giant bunny NPC's and nuked RMT :D was hilarious, they had to stop but they got a lot banned. They also help me a lot, as said in my previous post.

Battles of Immortal is another which is f2p, awesome GM support.

My GF used to play wow and praised the support, she lost her account to keylogger on fake plugin and got it back within 2hrs lol She lost her XI account and its "still under-investigation" as it was stolen by RMT, its been in that state for 3years.

Eve online have also responded promptly when I couldnt get game working, dont know what its like ingame, but their support staff is very good.

Theres a few to sink your teeth into.

Problem with FFXI/XIV is that the protocol they have must be followed and the reason stuff takes so long is they probably snail mail crap to Japan, haha. My friend got his account hacked on FFXIV and it took them like almost 4 months to get it back for him and after that he just couldn't get back into the game and quit. I have had my account taken on FFXI before and it took them 2-3 months and on WoW it took them 2-3 days at tops.

Yeh most likely, its very frustrating. I lost my Aion account and got it back in a few hrs. didnt need no stupid CD key or "the first CC ever used on it!".

Lemi see
Aion- need to email gm
WoW same
ffxi ingame communication
Never played Eve, it looked like a b rated f2p game.

I played Aion also for supposedly having gms you can see.. the community sure sucks.

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Originally Posted by viion

Yeh most likely, its very frustrating. I lost my Aion account and got it back in a few hrs. didnt need no stupid CD key or "the first CC ever used on it!".

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Lie or you got lucky... I had my Aion account hacked several times and always had to email several bits of info key code pay card code name address. All due because I took breaks. The support for that game to prevent hacking is pretty sad. I never cchecked e-mails, never clicked on sites, just went to the forum and thats it. And took breaks due to the community was pretty crappy. Keot having a person with a sticked shoved so far up their rear tell me hoe to act, type etc. And that even looking for a guild @ my levels was a waste of space. No matter what Server I was posting it on. after a 2 week break and finding me account was hacked (for a 5th time) I quit it. Oh and Don't even get me started on their first server merge.... so much fuss over something so petty.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

Lie or you got lucky... I had my Aion account hacked several times and always had to email several bits of info key code pay card code name address. All due because I took breaks. The support for that game to prevent hacking is pretty sad. I never cchecked e-mails, never clicked on sites, just went to the forum and thats it. And took breaks due to the community was pretty crappy. Keot having a person with a sticked shoved so far up their rear tell me hoe to act, type etc. And that even looking for a guild @ my levels was a waste of space. No matter what Server I was posting it on. after a 2 week break and finding me account was hacked (for a 5th time) I quit it. Oh and Don't even get me started on their first server merge.... so much fuss over something so petty.

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I didnt need Cd key, they didnt ask for one, maybe its because I got the game on steam? Anywho they asked for several bits of info and one was "anything else you can provide", which i could list stuff on the account, friends, and transactions I'd made (made things like race change, name change). And I only had to supply info of the Ccard I last used. Which wasnt the one i bought the game with or initially started with.

Apparently you started this thread twice, and I responded to the first one...

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Originally Posted by Girlie

A very nice GM helped me out once. I was fighting a puk and ended up being backflip-kicked onto a spot where I couldn't do anything except spin in place. The GM moved me to an aetheryte to solve my problem, and he was a pretty awesome conversationalist, too.

As I understand it, GM's absolutely help players, but only in very specific situations. Those are listed on the GM call screen, and there is definitely no mention there of fixing bugged mobs.

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I stated why I started this thread twice in the begining of this thread.
I am happy that you had a great experience with a GM thats a wonderful thing. The problem I am having is the lack of customer service SE provides. The very specific situations you are talking about currently are things you can fix/handle by yourself, however, GMs do not provide support for things in the game that are bugged or broken, and they should.
Currently GMs support us on:

1. Harassment by another player
Great please teach me how to use my blacklist, and then send me a generic message which says you are going to look into the matter, however, you still dont get any personal responce.. If you do you just hit the moogle lotto.

2. Inappropriate character name
Another bl issue, which you will get a distant responce from some automated system that says they are looking into the matter.

3. spam
Im starting to see a trend here

5. solicitations to buy or sell in game items or gil
A huge problem in xiv atm as everyone needs to buy items/gil since this game is soo popular

6. Stuck with in the game geometry
This relates to your problem Girlie and in this one specific situation you lucked out that it wasent a weekend where the GM's took off or were on holiday, and someone was able to help you (lucky :P)

These situations can really be boiled down to 2 situations; im stuck, and this person is annoying. Please SE lets get some good customer service for a change, if something is broken in the game lets see you be proactive and have a GM ready to kick some butt for your players and fix the issue. I would really like to see Yoshi P. come through on this and make sure that GM's arnt seen as such a joke or bother as they were in xi

The customer service for this game is a huge issue, but no one cares because it's free right now. Players are happy to blame the player when stuff goes wrong too instead of asking why the customer service isn't better. I've reported griefers and bots in action and GMs have done nothing. And then when you encounter a bug that screws you out of rare items the GMs don't care there either.

The STF in this game is a joke too, I'm not seeing any bots getting banned. It's understandable that SE are trying to cut costs right now with it being free, but there's going to be many bots with all crafts maxed out by the time the STF starts banning them and by then these people won't be botting any more so they'll not get banned.

My theory is that there are no GMs and its just a joke on se's part. Almost every gm call I have made has received the automated "we cant tell you how that works message". I dont know anyone who has got to talk to an actual person, just automated messages.

In FF11 gm's would always reply to me instantly(or within 5-10 mins) and fix my problems. No issues here. In WOW I'd have to wait DAYS(once over a week) for a GM reply. In Rift a GM did not reply to my ticket after weeks, I had forgotten I even opened a ticket, I don't think rift even has GM's tbh. Never opened a ticket in FF14 so no comment on that.

Xen SE stated the STF for ffxiv has been disbanded till the changes. And only reply on extreme cases. And All gm do is policing the game.

Remember the game is free which went into those things.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

And All gm do is policing the game.

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They don't even do that.

I had always bad experience with customer support in FFXI and seems like FFXIV is following the same way.I know the game is free now and there are a lot of broken stuff that are getting the priority, but i hope in the future that SE will improve on this aspect to be on par with other MMO's where i honestly had always great experience.

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Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus

Xen SE stated the STF for ffxiv has been disbanded till the changes. And only reply on extreme cases. And All gm do is policing the game.

Remember the game is free which went into those things.

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So why did SE issue a warning about third party tools a couple of months ago?

It's really bad if the STF really has been disbanded. There's a few bots on my server powering every craft to 50 and it's even worse on other servers. These people are going to get away with it because by the time the game isn't free they'll have all classes maxed out. I suppose it doesn't matter THAT much since gil is worthless and all having lots of 50 crafts does is increase your money making potential.

The claim bots and terrain hacks are probably worse. Was hell camping doblyns against bots back when soloing was cool because they'd warp across the map to claim the mob before you could run to it. That shit is going to be rampant if they add any worthwhile NMs.

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Originally Posted by Xenor

So why did SE issue a warning about third party tools a couple of months ago?.

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That doesn't mean STF posted it, just SE in general. Because they knew everyone was doing it.

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Originally Posted by viion

What also annoys me is how long it takes them to do anything, from investigating bots to getting your account back, and then this whole "Oh you can only recover your account once", "You can only get an item recovered once" rubbish. It is really pathetic, and it is strictly related to SE and the support group, because believe it or not other games have amazing support <- But that is related to experience.

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Hello,

My question is why in the world would you need to have your account recovered, or items given back? Dont sell things you want, and keep your system clean / get an authenticator. Poof, most of your trouble with how the systems work is addressed before it becomes an issue.

Just an idea that has worked well for me in past games :)

Thanks!

To RinL
Hey accidents can happen unfortunately. That was cool about the buyback system in WoW. Oops I sold that and didn't want to, just buy it back.

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Originally Posted by viion

They don't even do that.

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This is true. Half the time all we get are automated responses. The GM's do not converse with you, they are not friendly, they are not personable and most of the time they give you an automated response that doesn't even address the issue at hand. How about actually speaking to a human not receiving a random PM. I want to express my concerns and have someone listen and give feedback, instantly. Actual customer service, sure you can call on the phone and talk to someone but they will direct you back to the game to speak with a GM and get the same old response. Please provide a GM service with customer service that addresses the issues and speaks to the players.

The forum is nice but this place is for feedback, and most of the time your not even guaranteed a response from a Dev or Mod on here.

PLEASE! /kneel

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Originally Posted by RinL

Hello,

My question is why in the world would you need to have your account recovered, or items given back? Dont sell things you want, and keep your system clean / get an authenticator. Poof, most of your trouble with how the systems work is addressed before it becomes an issue.

Just an idea that has worked well for me in past games :)

Thanks!

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Sometimes accounts get compromised and its not always the user's fault. It's usually the user's fault, but hey there's more ways to have an account compromised today than years ago.

I put in a GM call due to Unknown Soldier being glitched and not appearing on the map- you could see his dot and do AoE hate tools to "claim" him but could not make him appear or hit him.
I got the generic response that it was not an issue under their control and to put in a bug report, which I did. Seeing that the next maintenance was due on the 25th I knew that they would not bother doing anything for the few days and just let the NM reset on the maintenance :(

The thing that makes me the most sad is that at least in FFXI you could actually speak to a real person, and they would be more inclined to come in game and have a look at the problem- in FFXIV all you get after 30mins of waiting is a message sent to you with no room for discussion. Many will probably argue that they were right and it isn't something they can fix. However, no-one could kill this NM for 3 days- what would have happened if a maintenance was not due for a couple of weeks? Would they just leave it or would they actually pay attention to the bug report put in by myself and several other LS members?

Also, what made me laugh was that under the GMs remit they mention that if you are stuck and cannot teleport then they will move you.... I have been stuck in game before where my teleport would not work (would use up anima but my character would not go anywhere); put in a GM call and all I got as a response was "try again later".

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Originally Posted by RinL

Hello,

My question is why in the world would you need to have your account recovered, or items given back? Dont sell things you want, and keep your system clean / get an authenticator. Poof, most of your trouble with how the systems work is addressed before it becomes an issue.

Just an idea that has worked well for me in past games :)

Thanks!

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Well aside from what people have said I think you misunderstood a little, i was talking about accidently dropping items mainly. Which I have done due to lag. It just happens.

And keeping your system clean / authenticator is not 100% protection (there is no guaranteed protection)

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Originally Posted by viion

Well aside from what people have said I think you misunderstood a little, i was talking about accidently dropping items mainly. Which I have done due to lag. It just happens.

And keeping your system clean / authenticator is not 100% protection (there is no guaranteed protection)

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Hello again!

I understand how problems can come up, and I think thats why SE offers to help the first time around. The thing is, people need to learn to live with their mistakes. If you continually lose items or want things restored though, there has to be a point that you are cut off at. While one restoration may seem a bit tough, it sort of makes sense. We need to live with our mistakes, and learn to not continually make them.

Also, keeping your system clean and having an authenticator may not be 100% safe but its damn close to 99.9999% safe ;) The only real way you would be hacked that way is if you told someone your information and gave them the keyfob authenticator. End of the story is keep your information safe / secret, and keep the authenticator with your keys. Boom, you are the only one who knows your login and the only one that has the keyfob if anyone else magically gets ahold of your information.

Thats my viewpoint at least, let me know what you think!

Ok so the rabbit hole gets deeper, I called SE HQ in LA and asked them a question about Guild leves retry system, to see if constantly repeating the same leve with a static group would bring down the SE ban hammer. After the rep put me on hold for 15min I was told to submit a GM call. I told the rep the game was not up atm due to maintenance, and asked if i could speak to a gm. The rep had me hold for a second and then confirmed that the game was down due to maintenance (its like they did not know there was a patch or what time it was going on.) The rep told me how to phrase my question so and tell a GM would respond to me, I was reassured that I would actually get in contact with someone who would answer my question.

I got in game after my computer finished downloading the patch and submitted a GM call following the reps instructions. Within 15min I received a cookie cutter response from a GM telling me to submit my question to the feedback section on the forums and to the special taskforce, while I would not receive a reply back on my question they may respond to the public on this issue.

It seems that even with "support" from calling SE HQ there is a massive problem here Help us Yoshi P or whoever it is that is in charge of the GM team. Let’s get some support, some customer service that will help make this a successful game!

RinL
I see what you mean, if people continually make mistakes and there are no consequences then there is no reason for caution and people can be careless with their prized possessions. I think for this reason SE could come up with a limit to how many times they could assist a player with this issue within a time period. Example: 3 Item restorations per 6months or a year? Just an example.

On the other hand, the fear in XI was that when you left the game for a time it seems some of your character data would become erased, your items would be missing, sometimes your mules would not event be recoverable. Unfortunately this is a great concern. Say if something happens in life and you return 6 months later and your items are gone. This is not always due to a hack but the data storage system that XI had. I am not sure if there would be concerns for this in the future of this game but it is certainly one that many of my friends are aware of from it predecessor.

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What Dragonhaven and Shika have noted are sadly what the majority of the player base see. I am hoping someone does address this and I will continue to post in this thread to hopefully see this be addressed.

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Originally Posted by Eclipse

RinL
I see what you mean, if people continually make mistakes and there are no consequences then there is no reason for caution and people can be careless with their prized possessions. I think for this reason SE could come up with a limit to how many times they could assist a player with this issue within a time period. Example: 3 Item restorations per 6months or a year? Just an example.

On the other hand, the fear in XI was that when you left the game for a time it seems some of your character data would become erased, your items would be missing, sometimes your mules would not event be recoverable. Unfortunately this is a great concern. Say if something happens in life and you return 6 months later and your items are gone. This is not always due to a hack but the data storage system that XI had. I am not sure if there would be concerns for this in the future of this game but it is certainly one that many of my friends are aware of from it predecessor.

______

What Dragonhaven and Shika have noted are sadly what the majority of the player base see. I am hoping someone does address this and I will continue to post in this thread to hopefully see this be addressed.

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I agree with the limits on restorations. If one is too harsh, at least setting a overall limit would help to remind players that they are responsible for their actions ;)

As for the data being lost, thats a new one to me. I would think your characters would stay as they were when you left them so long as nobody accessed your account. If there is a loss of data after a certain period of inactivity I think that should be changed. Things do come up in life, and many people (me and my friends included) sometimes take breaks from games for personal reasons. I see no reason you should be penalized for that.

*EDIT*

Then again, I dont know very much about programming and all of that. I guess if theres a valid reason then its something we would need to deal with, just seems like it would be an easy thing to get around considering other games like wow and rift dont seem to have that problem.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...een-stolen.ars in other news, a limit on restorations is wack because again it is not always your fault.