Why are people rewarded for cheating?

[Ashkendor]

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

So much this. Gathering shards/crystals kills my soul to the point that I'd rather either buy them or send my retainers to gather them. I don't do it myself unless I'm doing something else like digging for a map.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Pretty much what was said; people want the path of least resistance, so they are going to take the easy way out. Frankly, i have no idea why shards and the like are even required for crafting to begin with.

[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.

[myahele]

they cheat because they can get away with it. We can vote kick people for cheating, but is anything done?

People will buy gil and use that gil to buy expensive crafted gear and will buy multiple ex primas/ coil. It's really a dont ask dont tell type of thing since a large sum of their gil come from dirty sources.

[Firepower]

It's more efficient and simpler to monitor the reported people and follow the trail of where the proceeds of the activity ends up. Instead of banning hundreds of low level accounts that get remade and redone over and over it is much more effective to wait until the gil is pooled for distribution to the buyers and hit the character that it is all stored on thus removing the maximum amount of gil into the economy and causing the most damage to the gil sellers. They also post reports of how many people they effectively suspend/ban every now and then.

Time Period: Feb. 5, 2015 to Feb. 11, 2015

- Accounts receiving disciplinary action for RMT advertising: 521
- Accounts receiving disciplinary action for RMT/illicit activity: 7,283
- Action Details: Permanent ban from FINAL FANTASY XIV

- Accounts receiving disciplinary action for participation in RMT/illegal activity: 102
- Action Details: Temporary ban from FINAL FANTASY XIV

If you keep going backwards it is quite evident that every 6 days they ban over 500 accounts for RMT advertising alone, at least 4000+ for RMT/illicit activity and only a minor number receiving temp bans which is most likely your general people who get caught as a first time offence.

[Meier]

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.

I never said it was FFXI I was just using it as an example...

Nor did I specify a time frame. Point is, and stands for any MMO - if majority of their players are botting, something is wrong and needs to be fixed no? Botting isn't fun. ; ;

Rufalus pretty much nailed it. The tasks can get so mundane and boring that people rather just bot it.

Honestly I do not know what Yoshida is thinking or doing, so I won't try to speak for him..but if you want to speculate, then go for it. I highly doubt they will allow this to continue forever though.

[Faelandaea]

First let me say that I do not support botting or cheating, and i don't do it myself.

However, I always wondered about human psychology and the crazed need to always worry more about the behavior of others than the behavior of yourself. I have friends like this in real life as well, who always seem to come crying to me about something John Doe or Jane Doe did that they absolutely HAVE to do something about . . . . no they don't . . . . Let John and Jane do WTF ever as long as they aren't doing it in my house. It is the same here.

I play the game. I progress. I do it at my pace. I could give a fuck about the guy standing next to me in Mor Dhona wearing some badass gear or how he got it. When out gathering i don;t sit there and start staring at other gatherers and monitoring them. Why? I'm just wasting my own game time.

As long as everyone is so obsessed with how others are playing instead of yourself, you will NEVER be happy. Stop worrying about others and do what I do . . . just play the damned game and enjoy it LOL. And if what others are doing bothers you so much, log off and play a single player game (may I recommend Dragon Age: Inquisition? That is a badass game!)

[Jynx]

I have friends like this in real life as well, who always seem to come crying to me about something John Doe or Jane Doe did that they absolutely HAVE to do something about . . . . no they don't . . . . Let John and Jane do WTF ever as long as they aren't doing it in my house. It is the same here.

This is a common thing I hear from people and it could never be more wrong. How does what other people do effect you?

In the example of a MMO it has massive far reaching implications into things like the markets. To pretend otherwise is foolhardy.

[Aerowaffle]

First let me say that I do not support botting or cheating, and i don't do it myself.

However, I always wondered about human psychology and the crazed need to always worry more about the behavior of others than the behavior of yourself. I have friends like this in real life as well, who always seem to come crying to me about something John Doe or Jane Doe did that they absolutely HAVE to do something about . . . . no they don't . . . . Let John and Jane do WTF ever as long as they aren't doing it in my house. It is the same here.

I play the game. I progress. I do it at my pace. I could give a fuck about the guy standing next to me in Mor Dhona wearing some badass gear or how he got it. When out gathering i don;t sit there and start staring at other gatherers and monitoring them. Why? I'm just wasting my own game time.

As long as everyone is so obsessed with how others are playing instead of yourself, you will NEVER be happy. Stop worrying about others and do what I do . . . just play the damned game and enjoy it LOL. And if what others are doing bothers you so much, log off and play a single player game (may I recommend Dragon Age: Inquisition? That is a badass game!)

This is an MMO, you're constantly being compared alongside other players.

Let's say that earning 10 million gil was an accomplishment for a new player. Doesn't the knowledge that someone could easily cheat and buy their way to that accomplishment belittle the achievement of earning 10 million gil the real way?

It's like getting a perfect grade on a hard exam at college, only to learn that there are those who cheated to get a perfect grade as well (and got away with it). Sure, their grade doesn't affect your grade, but it makes your accomplishment mean much less to you since others have received the same accomplishment, but with none of the effort.

[kyuven]

Pretty much what was said; people want the path of least resistance, so they are going to take the easy way out. Frankly, i have no idea why shards and the like are even required for crafting to begin with.

It's actually a feature in a lot of games, but most just use straight currency. To put it simply, in order to increase the "value" of a crafted item, there needs to be something lost on each and every combine, since you can never get crystals back once they're used. Think of it like a "utility" cost. Otherwise we wouldn't have the ability to have a chance of having supplies returned to us, and high end crafts would basically "cost" nothing but time. There's even less value in removing it now since returning crystals is a major plus of having a leveled desynth.
To give an example of this in other games, EQ2 had "fuel," which varied in cost depending on the tier, WoW usually had some sort of "thread" or "coal," TERA used "kits," and so forth. Basically things used only for crafting.
Plus from a lore perspective, crystals are what allow us to do things like sand wood or power stoves without a large set of complex tools. It's also a carry over from FFXI, which required the use of crystals to craft anything at all.