Gil stolen through market board

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I see mods also have a good sense of humor moving this from bugs, to technical support, to general discussion so everyone gets to see the karma in action ♥

They.. actually did this? LOL
How’d you know though? I love them lmao.

This thread is getting soo gooooddd.

[TurtlesAWD]

Well no. It's more like someone buys a ticket legally, while the autoclicker is given a large wad of free tickets.

If one of those free tickets wins, the person who paid will likely not be as happy. At the same time, the person who paid might be quite happy for another genuine winner who also paid.

I don't think "given" is quite the right way to look at it - if someone writes a bot to auto-buy all lotto tickets from a specific retailer for instance (let's assume lotto tickets could be sold online which is probably illegal), that's a pretty close comparison, and while I likewise wouldn't think this is great for the people not using those tools, they're still having to pay the money, and they are still risking losing on each ticket.

Maybe a better comparison than lotto tickets is PS5 scalping since the stock for those get bought up via automation very quickly, and much like in-game housing there's utility a ps5 directly provides that something like a lotto ticket doesn't compare to. Personally I don't have a lot of sympathy if scalpers get stuck with consoles they can't sell for months - but the solution to the problem doesn't really involve them I don't think, it lies more in something like waiting list signups or less bulk ordering, or some kind of purchase verification... or just, more available stock.

[Jinglybell]

They.. actually did this? LOL
How’d you know though? I love them lmao.

This thread is getting soo gooooddd.

Been following the thread, lost it for a bit when it was moved to tech support. Thought they deleted/locked it in some lost corner, but they moved it here to get devoured by wolves instead lol

[Penthea]

Been following the thread, lost it for a bit when it was moved to tech support. Thought they deleted/locked it in some lost corner, but they moved it here to get devoured by wolves instead lol

Well it's not a technical issue. It's player error, hence the move. I do wonder if they moved it instead of deleting it as a way to indirectly say "this is the risk you take when you use an auto-clicker, don't do it if you want to keep your gil." Basically trying to get OP to serve as a cautionary tale for others.

RIP OP though...they lost their gil and are now being ridiculed on the forums.

[TurtlesAWD]

There could be a chilling effect that comes from seeing bad outcomes for people that use auto-clickers, but... I'm a little skeptical on how much of an impact that would have on someone's willingness to use a tool like that or not. There isn't a way to tell from a character model if someone is auto-clicking or doing it manually after all so I feel like player assumptions that a ton of other people are all doing it is still possible.

[Penthea]

There isn't a way to tell from a character model if someone is auto-clicking or doing it manually after all so I feel like player assumptions that a ton of other people are all doing it is still possible.

If they're still spam clicking the placard after the house has been bought then it's pretty safe to say that character is being controlled by an autoclicker. Most players leave or at the very least stop constantly interacting with the placard after the house has been bought because...what's the point in continuing to spam the placard if the plot has been bought already? No one spam clicks the placard because it's fun.

[Jijifli]

Maybe a better comparison than lotto tickets is PS5 scalping since the stock for those get bought up via automation very quickly, and much like in-game housing there's utility a ps5 directly provides that something like a lotto ticket doesn't compare to. Personally I don't have a lot of sympathy if scalpers get stuck with consoles they can't sell for months - but the solution to the problem doesn't really involve them I don't think, it lies more in something like waiting list signups or less bulk ordering, or some kind of purchase verification... or just, more available stock.

As you are saying yourself here, while yes there are ways to fix it, that doesn't mean what people are doing is okay.

Just because scalpers are using bots to buy a ps5, doesn't mean using a bot to insta-buy the ps5 is still okay.

Same thing here. Just because there are people that bot buy a house (And I will note, some of these are to resell the house, aka scalping), doesn't make the bot okay.

[MrMagic]

So should players be punished for manually clicking a house until it becomes available for purchase? I think if you believe that auto clickers are a form of cheating for a house, you're stuck believing that spam clicking at all is cheating for a house.

Nope. It's both automation to make playing the game easier and it's also absentee gameplay, absentee being the key word here as to why your argument fails:

"Behaviour that disrupts the game balance
Square Enix strictly prohibits the use of third-party programs or tools – including programs and tools that permit automated or “absentee” play – in Final Fantasy XIV. Accordingly, the following activities are prohibited:

- Modifying, analysing, integrating, and/or reverse engineering game software or data.
- Creating, distributing, using, or promoting utilities that interact with the game.
- Exploiting Square Enix programming bugs or glitches.
- Automating gameplay processes.

The Game Master (GM) may speak to players to investigate and confirm “absentee” play, and if the player continues with this behaviour, contrary to the GM's instructions, this will be treated as “absentee” play and subject to penalties."

Also, why in the world should manual clickers be punished?

[Packetdancer]

Auto-clickers aren't a tool that modifies the game, and in fact probably actually shouldn't be excluded via game rules as they likely have accessibility utility for people with disabilities, so truthfully if I had used an auto-clicker I would tell you.

Eh.

I had a friend who had severe nerve damage in his hands sustained during his military service. He had a lot of trouble playing MMOs, even though he enjoyed them a lot. I do not think anyone would've held it against him if he had, say, a one-button macro on his keyboard to do things like the button-mash for Active Time Maneuvers or whatnot, so that he didn't end up in agony.

And I know a lot of people who have a macro-key on gaming keyboards that'll do something like smack Numpad 0 repeatedly (like, 7 or 8 times with a small delay between them), just so that in Praetorium during MSQ roulette they can click the elevator and hit that macro to slip through quickly, rather than getting interrupted if they happen to have mobs aggroed on them (and thus unable to go through the elevator and thus dying).

But the key difference there is that there is someone there pushing the button; it requires someone actively and literally at the keys. It's assistive input, yes, but I'd argue that's not really automation. If people were doing the placards that way, they'd have a single macro key that did '0, 0, 4, 0' or whatever, and then they'd push that macro key, see it fail, and push the key again.

And honestly, I don't think anyone would begrudge people that sort of macro use, since all it does is reduce the number of key-presses by 75%; you still are sitting there activating the placard, you're just (slightly) less likely to get immediate carpal tunnel while doing so.

But it's rather a different thing when you touch off a script, walk away, and let the computer just keep doing it for you without you being present at all.

I mean, yes, the housing system is demonstrably broken; right now, the only ways you seem to be able to get a house are "dumb luck" (i.e., finding a placard with the timer already run down and clicking), persistence to the point of insanity (sitting there for hours and hours on end), or... well, cheating. So yeah, I can certainly understand, logically, why people who really want a house badly would use tools like that.

But the honest truth is that, frustrations aside, if anyone wants to argue that using a script to buy a house is legitimate (even though someone isn't actually at the keys)... then honestly, the purchases from an NPC retainer like this are just as legit (despite the fact there's not someone at the keys making the conscious decision to buy those things). And if these sort of purchases should be reversed because a player wasn't there to actually be making the purchases... then honestly, the purchases of houses should be reversed for the same reason.

So while I'm not going to judge someone too harshly for using a placard-clicking macro/script/whatever, because of just how deeply broken the housing system is, neither am I going to feel much sympathy for someone losing gil like this. Much less agree there's any grounds to reverse the transactions.

(Though I admit, that's probably easier to say since I have a house. If I were still trying to get one, I can see how I might be a great deal more bitter about people using placard scripts; it might seem less of a minor wrong, and more of an egregious one.)

[KageTokage]

Technically, both players involved are in the wrong as one was presumably using third party software while the other was using a known exploit to get their retainer into a position to make the "stealing" happen...but I don't have much remorse for the former.

The Game Master (GM) may speak to players to investigate and confirm “absentee” play, and if the player continues with this behaviour, contrary to the GM's instructions, this will be treated as “absentee” play and subject to penalties."

If this was actually the case, I think bots would be getting banned a hell of a lot more often then they do.

Virtually none of them are programmed to respond to tells or any kind of communcation in general, but from my personal experience, trying to get a GM to do anything about them just leads to them saying they'll forward your report to the STF, (Who will proceed to do nothing about even the most obvious and persistent of bots unless they're straight up hacking).