Zonureskin map bots: The latest blight on the economy.

[Jijifli]

Why don't they care? "Because SE never does anything anyway. You're more likely to get banned for parsing."

This right here is exactly the problem.

Why am I more likely to get a punishment for swearing, or running a dps meter, than a guy who is not only actively cheating to gain an advantage over me, but is ADMITTING TO IT IN CHAT on top of that. This stopped even being a "Can't prove it" issue when there are literal logs from some people in game and they do nothing.

These bots are not hard to detect. Sure, some might be able to blend in quite well, but those at least are actively trying to. There's a problem when 80% of people I see gathering show all the same bot signs and are still up months and even years later, despite multiple reports, still breaking everything it can with its advantage.

If anything, Square has shown silence on that matter. And silence does speak, and what it speaks here is "It's okay to bot if it's not obv rmt"

[Wrestlefire769]

This right here is exactly the problem.

Why am I more likely to get a punishment for swearing, or running a dps meter, than a guy who is not only actively cheating to gain an advantage over me, but is ADMITTING TO IT IN CHAT on top of that. This stopped even being a "Can't prove it" issue when there are literal logs from some people in game and they do nothing.

Because there are people within the company who are in league with them.

There is no other answer, neither logically nor if you take one honest look at the history of the Square-Enix MMO's and what it has literally taken to get even a remote punishment on that level of player.

The last time they really took action against players who did this kind of stuff on any realistic level, it GUTTED endgame on XI and became a historically bad move for SE because of the number of players who openly embraced these illegal conducts, up to and including account-selling -- isn't that right, Order of the Blue Gartr?

It might be possible a unpopular opinion from my side, but i think Square Enix deserves this kind of Bot infestation were currently facing. I mean, how many times have you, i and anyone else reported them? for how long are we doing this and how long will we have to do so? i say its a war of attrition of which we, as the players, cant ever win. Every possible way that could allow players to take matters into their own hands (like griefing tactics which are aganist the terms of service or open world PK which is nonexistent in this game), cant be taken into consideration and Squeenix themselves as a company, take this way too easy on the EU/US side.

Have you figured it out yet? They've got someone buddy-buddy with them, and I can name him by name if the guy I suspect is still with the North American Community Team. (Which is one of the reasons nothing here is going to get back to SE Japan on the subject -- which is the only way things get changed, but what happens when they do and the entire top level of the game goes with the RMT and the like?)

And I don't think that person is alone. What happened is that the community of the game has become far more important than even the law surrounding it. So much so that Square-Enix actually got sued by an ex-player and WON, and the decision stated that there was no obligation on their or anyone else's part to enforce ANY ToS!! (I believe that was Leung vs. Square-Enix, IIRC.)

This company, especially on the NA side, has been in league with the cheaters and encouraging the cheaters for a decade and a half now. And anyone who's paying attention can see this. It's one of the reasons I think this is my... FOURTH? go-around -- and that the only reason I am doing so is because of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and the like... And if they found out who I was by name, they could probably ban me immediately.

From the way i see it, it will only get worse. they already control most of the content by now and the only thing they will never control completely, is PvP because that would be too much of a effort to them.

A good number of MMOs got ruined because of Botting getting out of hand, for being allowed to do as they please, i wonder if this game becomes one such a game.

And that's the goal of RMT, the botters, the third party program types, etc.: To control the content so you have to go through them to actually play the game. And now with the ToS making Obstruction (of any kind and of ambiguous nature) illegal, you now could have the situation that, if they have the backing of the community, it could be legal not only by default, but by DEMAND, and if you don't, you are holding back the future of FFXIV -- something I've been accused of in each of my previous MMO tours here.

[Jennah]

Because there are people within the company who are in league with them.
*Additional conspiracy theories*

No one with a higher level than "Summer Intern" is going to jeopardize their paycheck for status in a video game.
It's vaguely, remotely possible that someone at SE is getting (a lot of) US$ from RMT ... but they wouldn't need to deal with bots for that. They can just make gil. And sell it. For money.