Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Bebekurenai]

...so reading the new patch notes and I see to combat RMT you can now only make 5 friend requests per day. I do not think that helps at all, were talking about the constant shouts and /tell this doesn't really affect any of the major issues everyone is talking about.

My thoughts too. This also could be a lot better handled. As BreathlessTao says, it can backfire and just make RMT make even more characters. Seeing the spammers are all level 1, one could just restrict any comunication to be from lvl2 or 5 onwards. It'll buy some time until RMT level all their spammers to lvl2 and creates a hassle for them. Creating more characters will be less time efficient for them. Also don't allow anyone to send tells to more than one recipient at once, I don't think that's too hard to implement? And who legitally would send tells to more than one simultaneously in a real converstation? And I keep asking myself, how is it possible that RMTs have millions of characters and create non stop while I can't fit a single new alt into my server? Makes you think...

[Causality]

Greetings,

We're aware of the increased friend request activity by RMT characters and we’ll be implementing new countermeasures in Patch 3.1. Until then, we ask for your patience and apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused you.

The Problem isn't with Friend invites, at least not on Famfrit. I haven't been Friend spammed in over 6 months or received a random friend invite from a gold spammer. It is actual whisper spam that is the problem. The friend limitation will accomplish nothing besides encouraging people to be far more selective in who they send a friend request to and will be highly damaging to forming new statics.

A limit of 5 Friend requests a day

7 people or more to add to friends list from joining an endgame (or any other) Static (or any other non linkshell group).

This is not going to work.

Its a Logistics nightmare of determining who invites who without breaking cap.

Might I instead suggest limiting the amount of whispers/shouts/yells/say sent per minute?

There is a difference between how fast a person can type verses robotic paste and spam. If you limit the Whispers/Say/shout per minute it should reduce the overall RMT Spam. No Human is sending 60 tells to 60 different people in a minute. We can start there. If they do hit the cap then a minute cooldown or even 30 sec cool down on sending is going to reduce the RMT spam exponentially. Even if the spammers to reduce the speed of their spam to compensate, it is still a large reduction in RMT spam.

[Zeonx]

Well its a step in the right direction, though if they delete character I am sure they can resend the invite.

What they should do is basically this.

They cant send tells until they beat the level 10 boss acian also they are stuck in limbo like just like when they create a character they see nobody.

Then once they beat the acian they get to see people and send tells. Stretch it out SE and they'll get sick of seeing cutscene and doing all those quest. Just to spam or send invites.

[Nadirah]

There's already a limit to how many tells you Can send in rapid succession. This is all scripted.

You want to break them, add /anon. Don't show up in search? Can't send a tell.

[Mycow8me]

Really SE? The 2 obvious Dutyfinder gil/spiritbonding bots that I mentioned 3 days ago are still running DF right next to the market board on cactuar. A high lvl archer and thaumaturge. I just have no faith anymore, I should have left the picture up cause I dont even care if I get banned. I've already been banned before for "encouraging botting" in a thread that I created specifically targeted against botting. Shits ridiculous. In before ban.

[Resh]

How about making sending a /tell a level 20 MSQ reward. Today I had 3 RMT tells waiting before the game even loaded.

[Sykksmoke]

I'd say why not have filtering for Friend Requests / Tells with options that you can select (Friends, Linkshells, Free Company, Lvl 10.+, Lvl 20.+ and so on) I feel like that would eliminate most /tell spam and friend request spam.

[Legacy69]

I'd say why not have filtering for Friend Requests / Tells with options that you can select (Friends, Linkshells, Free Company, Lvl 10.+, Lvl 20.+ and so on) I feel like that would eliminate most /tell spam and friend request spam.

I agree with a form of filtering process that would allow the player to choose what kind of communications they'd like to recieve and from who, be it LS, FC, Friends list, or even a level range. (We should have this anyway, RMT or not)

Either that or force new characters to have to complete a string of main scenario or any kind of quests, plus reaching say, level 10 before even being able to send a tell or a friend request, shout ect. Sounds harsh yes, but the more annoying you make it for RMT to send out their messages the less they will do it, or even will result in them using the characters they are actually making the money on, which are the ones that should be targeted ultimately.

[Niwashi]

Either that or force new characters to have to complete a string of main scenario or any kind of quests, plus reaching say, level 10 before even being able to send a tell or a friend request, shout ect. Sounds harsh yes, but the more annoying you make it for RMT to send out their messages the less they will do it, or even will result in them using the characters they are actually making the money on, which are the ones that should be targeted ultimately.

The problem is that the RMT spammers aren't the ones inconvenienced by this, at least not on an ongoing basis. They're just running bot scripts. They'd have to (once only) update those scripts to go through a few more quests and levels, and sure, that would be a bit of an inconvenience when the feature is first deployed. But then after that, each character gets the same kick off a script and just let it run that they have now. There'd no longer be any difference from what they do now.

The only people this would hurt would be legitimate new players who are trying to get into their new game, learn it, meet people, etc. They'd then be forced to go it solo. Now some players like to play solo, even in MMOs, but lots of players don't, and cutting off new players from being able to communicate isn't going to keep them around. New player retention rates would plummet. (What's more, the ones who stay would lean more towards the ones who prefer playing solo, and those are the ones who get annoyed when the MSQ starts requiring group dungeons.)

[RubyShoes]

An easier way for us to report them. (That support window is slow loading all that cut'n'paste and then the nag nag nag that your support ticket has been answered).
In game GM's to catch and insta-ban.
Ban the buyers without the buyer we wouldn't have the seller.

Not many MMO's bother to do much about it the odd ones that have successfully countered RMT have used some or all of these.