Why are people rewarded for cheating?

[Altena]

The issue is that it is very difficult to prove. POS hacking? Sure thing, as there is a blatantly obvious tell for that (teleporting around the map), however while an automated bot may seem "obvious" to you (and also may seem obvious to the GM that is dealing with the case), there is little that can be done to legitimately prove it. I mean, you can spot people that have been farming for days - and you can also spot some "bot-like" movement, however how do you genuinely prove that it is automated and not just some guy sitting behind a desk doing the same thing over and over?

[Felis]

There should just be a gameplay version of a captcha test -- some random element built into the gameplay that only humans can pass. Content that can be passed by sub-human intelligence with no consciousness is not really fit to be used as entertainment by real people. Machines are much better at menial, repetitive tasks. The current gathering system is similar to working on a production line. Making a more complex system doesn't have to mean lower yields; it could simply be a fun and engaging mini-game that takes slightly longer to produce results, but accordingly yields a much larger amount of materials for the extra time invested.

Like a "hot and cold" mini-game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=P...2Tt2kuuo#t=642

[Miakisu]

Or we could have SE monitor large gil transfers, investigate when large sums of money are exchanged between players, flag when it occurs

[Galdous]

The issue is that it is very difficult to prove. POS hacking? Sure thing, as there is a blatantly obvious tell for that (teleporting around the map), however while an automated bot may seem "obvious" to you (and also may seem obvious to the GM that is dealing with the case), there is little that can be done to legitimately prove it. I mean, you can spot people that have been farming for days - and you can also spot some "bot-like" movement, however how do you genuinely prove that it is automated and not just some guy sitting behind a desk doing the same thing over and over?

Every decent MMO developer should have within its means a method to go through and and see third party programs hook into the client to manipulate at minimum id codes which is how the majority of bots operate. Its detectable but the question is do they care enough to go that route as long as they feel it is not on the leve of RMT.

[ChriZirhC]

if they banned everyone that caused some sort of toxicity/bad behaviour that affects the community then they will lose a lot of money. lol

[Meier]

if they banned everyone that caused some sort of toxicity/bad behaviour that affects the community then they will lose a lot of money. lol

FFXI banned people for breaking TOS and it still had plenty of players. If they aren't enforcing rules because they need cheaters as a majority of their sub base..then something is very wrong with this game.

[Avenger]

In an MMO, cheating has complicated effects; it can affect the game economy by lowering the price of common goods due to oversupply while raising the price of rare goods due to inflation. RMT bots (and players who wholesale to RMT for real money) feed the RMT machine which constantly spams us. Bots detract from the social aspect of a game because they don't act like real players and you can't interact with them (though tankbots - and idiot players - can be kind of hilarious in duty finder as they rush ahead oblivious to healing or anything else.) They can also occupy good hunting locations which real players might want to use. Most players want fairness and usually don't like it when others have an unfair advantage, even an MMO like FFXIV which is largely cooperative rather than competitive.

As a result, game designers strive for balance and usually ban cheating as something that interferes with enjoyment and play of the game.

[Avenger]

Another thing I hate about bots and RMT is how they manage to place ads on FFXIV wiki and community sites. I would really like to see those ads banned from game wikis, but apparently the site operators are willing to accept them in order to make money, an unhelpful attitude which contributes to the plague of bots and RMT in games.

[ChriZirhC]

FFXI banned people for breaking TOS and it still had plenty of players. If they aren't enforcing rules because they need cheaters as a majority of their sub base..then something is very wrong with this game.

Yes but this isnt FFXI. Different time, different players, different competition. Yoshida and the crew dont have the luxury of just banning accounts at a whim at this point. We're still on our first expansion and we dont have a steady playerbase yet. FFXIV is still a baby(steadily growing) compared to other MMOs there. Maybe in a year or so they can. At the moment I think they're just milking money on those suspicious accounts and will just ban them one day.

[kyuven]

The real problem is crystals are gathered so slowly that many resort to using bots to collect a respectable amount.

I think this is a big issue right here.
Crystals and Shards are gathered at about the same rate, with shards being marginally faster because of some key nodes having multiples, and retainer ventures returning more per run, on top of the early quests and crafting leves that just plain give them away.
Clusters are rare, and pretty much rightfully so.
However, there's a bit of a disparity in shard acquisition vs. crystals: Crystals drop from more mobs (they drop from anything over about lvl 30, shards only drop off things under lvl 30, and clusters don't drop off anything) and with the exception of retainer ventures, anything that gives you more shards also gives you more crystals. The problem is the number of SHARDS you actually need for things increases exponentially, with combines for artisan tool items requiring 10-11, and minions requiring 99. meanwhile the number of crystals or clusters required for something never really exceeds 5 of a single type.
We need double the number of shards to make things compared to crystals, but the acquisition rate is closer to equal barring retainer ventures and leves (the latter of which you need to use shards to get shards from, and it's random as to what type and whether you'll get any at all.)