Let us report retainers who sell items from bots

[Ceodore]

I farm clusters, shards, and crystals anywhere from 5 to 10 hours a day at work. It isn't unusual for me to go home at the end of the day with several hundred clusters, more crystals, and even 1k shards. I don't even break a sweat doing it. I'm not using a bot program, I'm not hacking, I'm not cheating... I'm just someone with a lot of free time on their hands with a job that allows me even more free time while at work. So what everyone wants to do is burn me alive because they think they might catch some RMT seller's retainer? Well done, that's like the justice system sending the innocent guy to the electric chair just because he looked like all the mass murderers. Leave it to whiney players who can't figure out how a market works or how to play it to want to slash the throats of those that might be more privileged just in the name of their own pockets. If you can't figure out how to make a profit from your time, then maybe you should go back to economics to learn a thing or two. Yes, these RMT sellers are out there, and sure they are throwing shards and crystals up like a drunk teenager on prom night. But the method of targeting them mentioned in this thread is idiotic. You're asking SE for the ability to report retainers that you don't actually know if they belong to RMT sellers or not. In a court of law, it's the burden of the accuser to provide proof, and in this case, not a single person supporting this thread could even come up with a way to garner said proof. You run the risk of reporting someone who is entirely innocent, which clogs up the system of reports and verifies SE has to go through even more. What is shady behavior? What is it really? How can you prove it's shady? How about courtesy of taking a moment to think about what you're saying before vomiting this dribble into the public eye.

You want to know how to deal with RMT sellers? You ignore them. If you are tired of the tells and you absolutely can't ignore them, edit your channel to not show tells. Make one channel just for tells, and go there whenever you want to see if you got any tells periodically if RMTs are THAT much of an annoyance to you. Frankly, I request people to friend me and send me mog mail instead of tells, because while I'm online anywhere from 10 to 12 hours of the day, I'm not on 24/7, and the people on my friends list are generally the only ones that are going to want to reach me anyways. There are plenty of ways to deal with the private messages with out SE bending over backwards to address an issue that no one can HONESTLY fix foolproof. Yes, people buy gil and feed these leeches, but if these leeches are driving down market prices so that crafting isn't the easily abused system it could be, then good for them. If you want to make gil, then your best bet, the way that is 100% sure fire to make a profit, is gathering. It probably won't be the prettiest penny you ever made, but eventually, pennies will turn into millions. It's just people are too lazy to do this themselves. Even if the RMT sellers are putting shards up for low, the fact is, there is a profit to be made still. Also, it's not that hard to get a gatherer to 30 to farm crystals, or even to 50 to farm clusters. That's where I see the profits at. I've made more than 10 million gil for my free company in less than a month just by doing some casual farming while at work. This only just started too when one of my last officers stole a bunch of gil from our chest before leaving. I don't normally farm a lot or keep the majority of the profits for myself. If I had been doing this from the moment my bot and min hit 50, I'd probably be able to buy out an entire housing ward. It isn't unusual for me to place 90 clusters up for sale then come back an hour later with 90 more clusters to find 100k gil waiting for me in my retainer's banks.

Also, making gil shouldn't be so easy. Get out there and put in some effort and you can reap the rewards. The market is currently being kept stable because these RMT sellers do drive down market prices. Would you really like it if they disappeared, then someone like me steps in with the time, energy, and work ethic enough to sell the clusters I'm farming for double, even triple the current prices and dominate these markets? No, because the newer players wouldn't even stand a chance against someone like me then. So while it might cut into my profits as a player, I have no qualms with these RMT sellers because it is a good way to keep the markets in check from being abused by players like me. I'd simply have a laugh if there were anyone here who thinks they might be able to compete with someone who has 5 to 10 hours 5 days a week to simply waste, no... not just waste, but get paid real money to waste, farming clusters, crystals, and shards. Believe me, it would be in the majority's best interests to keep these farmers around so that the markets for these three NECESSARY items don't get steam rolled by players like me. If I kept my profits for myself, I could probably buy most of these markets myself and rip product from players who tried to under sell me to resell higher. But I can't do that because the fact is, the RMT sellers keep me in check. I have to wait and hoard product to sell when the times are right, like the expansion coming up. I'm already sitting on a nice dragon's hoard just waiting for the new crafting system to hit and for all the desperate and time deprived crafters who eagerly want to race to 60. Even the RMT sellers won't be able to keep up with the demand from thousands of crafters looking to shave time in the name of progress.

[WellFooled]

But the method of targeting them mentioned in this thread is idiotic. You're asking SE for the ability to report retainers that you don't actually know if they belong to RMT sellers or not. In a court of law, it's the burden of the accuser to provide proof, and in this case, not a single person supporting this thread could even come up with a way to garner said proof. You run the risk of reporting someone who is entirely innocent, which clogs up the system of reports and verifies SE has to go through even more.

Imagine tonight you look outside and see a group of people doing their best to quietly shove a struggling human into the truck of their car. They could very well be "kidnapping" their best friend for a bachelor party and its all in good fun. Or maybe not. But either way, it looks very odd. So you pick up the phone and call the police.

All that this thread is asking for is an easier way to report (not convict, not sentence, or punish) activity that seems odd. Square can then take those reports, look into things, and then decide if its a bachelor party or a murder.

[Ceodore]

Imagine tonight you look outside and see a group of people doing their best to quietly shove a struggling human into the truck of their car. They could very well be "kidnapping" their best friend for a bachelor party and its all in good fun. Or maybe not. But either way, it looks very odd. So you pick up the phone and call the police.

All that this thread is asking for is an easier way to report (not convict, not sentence, or punish) activity that seems odd. Square can then take those reports, look into things, and then decide if its a bachelor party or a murder.

Now imagine you're a detective involved in trying to bust a large drug trafficking ring. What would you rather fall into you lap? Pictures of the lowly drug seller on the street? Or pictures of the drug producer making the drugs? The fact is, your example has no relation to the situation we are discussing. You're talking about what might be a kidnapping, which is a plain as day obvious offense. There has been no establishment of a human trafficking ring (as might be the case) in which case what you are witnessing is actually the production of the product (the human) to be sold, likely via several exchanges of hands, to the lowly seller. So, your example has no real bearing on this situation as a kidnapping is not even remotely like the illegal production (botting) of goods which then exchange hands until it is sold to a consumer. Next time, get your crimes to actually relate to the situation, and then you might actually understand how to make an allusion.

The reasoning for my examples, and my reasoning for why this kind of system is ultimately more harm than good, (even ignoring the fact that it might call guilt upon the innocent) is that frankly, it's more time consuming. It involves more resources and man hours to trace a product back to its source, then to have to trace the flow of the product from the source to the rest of its selling points than it is to just have the source be placed before you. What should be suggested isn't a system where we start from the consumer side of the equation, it's one where you start from the producer. It yields faster results, and also garners far less false alarms.

[WellFooled]

Next time, get your crimes to actually relate to the situation, and then you might actually understand how to make an allusion.

You may be right, I could have picked a more suitable example, but one of your main points against this suggestion seems to be that innocent players could get reported. My point is this: Being reported doesn't hurt the innocent, so it doesn't matter if the occasional non-botter is reported (just like the police are occasionally called because someone witnessed some horse play that they thought was something else), but if it is a retainer connected to botting than the report could alert the GMs to illegal activity that they otherwise wouldn't have known about.

After all, there are many, many more players than there are GMs. Its much more likely a player will be the one to spot illegal activity.

You also make another argument,

Starting from the trunk (source) and following the trade of items to all the accounts that the items are likely being traded to is much easier than starting with one of those accounts, then tracing back to the source, then having to trace from the source back to all those accounts.

And I can see where you're coming from, but what evidence do you have that working from the retainer back is so much more difficult? Of even if it is, what makes you think that its so unproductive so as not to even be worth it?

[Sicno]

Being reported doesn't hurt the innocent, so it doesn't matter if the occasional non-botter is reported

But it hurts us all because on top of the reports pointing to actual bots the 3 people of the task force would also have to investigate a lot of erroneous reports too. Now, in the case of actual bots the investigation may be fast because the signs may be too obvious at first glance, but what about legit players wrongfuly being accused? there are 2 possible scenarios:

1) Since there are no clear signs of illicit activity a more extensive investigation is required until they can be 100% sure that the player is clean. This may take a long time, and that's time not spent into investigating actual bots. And let's not forget that the task force has a big total of 3 people.

2) The investigation is fast and not serious and based mostly on testimony from the reports, causing some innocent players to get banned in the process.

So it all boils down to something I already said before in this very thread: I know RMT and its advertising are super bothersome to all of us, but going on a witch hunt and reporting everybody at the first suspicious sign is not helping either and on the contrary, may be causing even more problems. Report a player only when you're 100% sure of your accusations.

[WellFooled]

but what about legit players wrongfuly being accused? there are 2 possible scenarios:

I don't mean to be curt, but those are not the only two possible scenarios. I would argue that neither of those situations are even very likely.

In your first scenario, why would a GM launch an extensive investigation if there are no cursory signs of illicit activity? If a player gets reported and after a brief look at their activities, nothing big stands out (no huge amount of gil or items trading hands, no crazy amounts of time logged doing a single thing, etc) I don't think they'd have any reason to delve any deeper.

And in your second scenario that policy would hurt their business and drive players away.

the task force would also have to investigate a lot of erroneous reports too

But I do understand this. If a GM has to investigate every single report, even if most of them only take a couple of minutes, it can add up quick. Though its impossible to be perfectly efficient with these sorts of jobs, other MMOs that I've played only have their GMs look into a player if a sufficient amount of complaints were filed, instead of having them investigate every single report. Which means whatever the player was doing had to be bad enough for multiple people to bother reporting them, which cuts out on a lot of the false alarms.

[tocsin]

GMs look into a player if a sufficient amount of complaints were filed, instead of having them investigate every single report.

We are talking about the marketplace. I undercut mastercraft demimateria once by 50k, and had 20 different people report me for cheating within a day. I had to show exactly how i craft, including pictures of my controller setup (I have a digital stopwatch attached to my controller to time my crafts), to prove my innocence.

In the FFXIV economy, collusion is rampant, and if one person doesn't like you, they can easily get gangs of people after you.