Updates to the Prohibited Activities in FINAL FANTASY XIV and Account Penalty Policy

[Hatfright]

It's the passive-aggressive dum-dums who are the kind of people who would spam the report function. I've reported people. One for racism and one for homophobic statements in alliance raids. It's not difficult to make a report. Takes less than 3 minutes to open the window, pop the info in and submit.

You give passive-agressive dum-dums too much credit.
Besides, don't you think GMs gonna see in logs if some passive-agressive dum-dum is provoking a reaction? You really need to be a dum-dum to do that and then file a report.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Every time I see someone come in here crying about "free speech", I crack a rib laughing.

Please, think of my poor ribs.

[Sicno]

A big thing I don't like about these "clarifications" and "examples" is that they assume too much. The whole thing about making "suggestions" and not being "demanding" assumes too much from all players:

1) Assumes all players can be reasoned with. Some people are like talking to a wall or are uncooperative. You can suggest as much as you want but if they refuse for the sake of refusing the natural thing many human beings will do is "escalate" their language, addressing the issue more fiercely. I don't even mean being "rude", I don't mean using insults, I mean people eventually will have enough and will ask you to get things right because it's hindering progress for the rest of the party. The examples provided protect "the wall" and give them ammunition to keep being a wall and if people don't comply with them they can report you.

2) Assumes everybody acts in their honest, rational behavior. It doesn't account for trolls. Like with "the wall" case your "suggestions" will lead nowhere because their whole intent is to bother people. They may be doing things more complicated for the party on purpose to bait a reaction. Twisting those reactions to file a report and get you suspended is their crown achievement. Now you may be thinking "but the troll will be rude so you can report them too", but the troll doesn't need to be rude to be inflamatory. They could just get on your nerves by being undergeared, taking off their soulstone, failing every mechanic on purpose, use single target attacks only, spam ice spells, not free people from gaols, etc. and be silent about it or feign ignorance. Again, if you "escalate" your language (without being rude or insulting) so that the troll stops their behavior these new "clarifications" give them ammunition to report you.

3) Assumes people won't try to abuse the system. There are other MMOs where they have automated bans after a certain number of reports (even when the devs claim "they investigate first"), and people have abused those systems to mass report and get people banned. Let me reiterate that. People HAVE abused systems to get people banned on purpose. It's not "the potential is up in the air for the system to one day be abused". People HAVE abused such systems. Of course FF14 doesn't have such automated systems (or at the very least I hope it doesn't). But these "clarifications" and "examples" provide new scenarios where people don't need be "rude" to get reported, just a bit too insistent or demanding. Some examples of "prohibited" messages are WAY too general and normal to use in the fray of getting things done or that can happen in normal conversation, like "just follow my instructions" or "I'm not asking for your opinion". THAT is reportable? Are you for real? Some of those examples are relatively easy to find during regular player interaction and someone trying to get you banned for whatever reason (a cross ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, someone you crossed after a hard day at work and not having it, a rival FC or pvp team, a chat troll trying to get a streamer banned, etc.) has an easier time twisting your messages into a report.

[KOPF]

Every time I see someone come in here crying about "free speech", I crack a rib laughing.

Please, think of my poor ribs.

Please, do not use expressions that provoke and belittle other people. Other people's opinions aren't laughable.

But to be serious, I will probably not change my behavior from before since I haven't received a warning or penalty (as far as I know) since I started in ARR. Although, I can see the easy ways you could exploit the rules now that they have been clearly cut. If I get banned, then I guess I'll get banned.

[Halivel]

Seriously, i doubt it. One example: rezz macros. Some players had put a mean text to them ala "rezzing xyz, wasting 2000 MP" etc. But nobody knew that this was a reason for a talk with a GM so nobody wrote a report. But now, everybody knows that and if you have such macros then maybe you will wake up in a jail one day for this.

I expect way more reports because of the new TOS. Ironically report wars are what the devs wanted to prevent.

Cheers

People were crying "it's over!" back when nuiscance behavior was added as well, yet nothing really changed since then. What makes people think it will now? If somebody is petty enough to report people for an innoffensive macro they don't like - they would have done so even without those clarifications in place.

Also I think "everybody knows" is a bit of a stretch. I'll be surprised if even 50% of a playersbase reads ToS and all its updates. Even on this forum we saw people wondering what they were warned for while showing chat logs that clearly fell under ToS violations even without newly provided examples of rude behaviour.

[Reinha]

It's also incredibly unfair to say 'if you might be interrupted while playing, you shouldn't play at all,' considering that you're basically telling anyone who is a parent, and especially women, since the onus of childcare statistically falls more heavily on them even if all other factors are equal, to just not bother playing at all.

As someone who has been getting disconnects lately, this is pretty concerning. Yesterday I got none and was able to finish getting the BLU spells I needed. Should I have not played all day because there was a chance I would disconnect and not be able to login for the rest of the day? How do you define "frequent disconnects"?

I have also been to extreme farming parties and unreal parties in the past couple of weeks, and iirc, I did disconnect from 2 parties. Does Square Enix think I shouldn't have played with other players to get those mounts and other loot items? That's an odd stance to take considering this is an MMO. What solo content even is there? PotD and HoH? Well guess what, you can't disconnect in those either!

[Kaurhz]

As someone who has been getting disconnects lately, this is pretty concerning. Yesterday I got none and was able to finish getting the BLU spells I needed. Should I have not played all day because there was a chance I would disconnect and not be able to login for the rest of the day? How do you define "frequent disconnects"?

I have also been to extreme farming parties and unreal parties in the past couple of weeks, and iirc, I did disconnect from 2 parties. Does Square Enix think I shouldn't have played with other players to get those mounts and other loot items? That's an odd stance to take considering this is an MMO. What solo content even is there? PotD and HoH? Well guess what, you can't disconnect in those either!

The keyword for that clause is "Intentionally" - Just don't do it intentionally and you have nothing to be concerned about. I'd find it pretty damn convenient if you were to 'disconnect' for every single cutscene in Praetorium, for example. Which I would argue this is largely where the clause comes into effect, in addition to people just outright disconnecting when they get Aurum Value with sprouts, or a duty that they do not like.

Their first key point was in fact:
"Since the game relies on internet connectivity, it is inevitable that there will be network disconnections or real-life circumstances which prevent you from playing the game. As such, simply disconnecting or remaining inactive in the game will not result in a penalty."

[TheMightyMollusk]

Please, do not use expressions that provoke and belittle other people. Other people's opinions aren't laughable.

On the contrary, I find the idea that peoples' "right" to be rude and abrasive is more valuable than other peoples' right to be treated like a fellow human being is entirely laughable. And every time they try to defend it with "free speech" while lacking the self-awareness to accept that their actions have consequences, it gets funnier.

[Halivel]

As someone who has been getting disconnects lately, this is pretty concerning. Yesterday I got none and was able to finish getting the BLU spells I needed. Should I have not played all day because there was a chance I would disconnect and not be able to login for the rest of the day? How do you define "frequent disconnects"?

I have also been to extreme farming parties and unreal parties in the past couple of weeks, and iirc, I did disconnect from 2 parties. Does Square Enix think I shouldn't have played with other players to get those mounts and other loot items? That's an odd stance to take considering this is an MMO. What solo content even is there? PotD and HoH? Well guess what, you can't disconnect in those either!

That's not what the point about disconnects says.

"Frequent disconnects" imply going systematically offline under certain conditions that don't quite line up with having bad connection. If you're going into MSQ roulette and then there's somebody who gets disconnected on every single cutscene and then early pulls on top of that - it pretty much falls under suspicious behaviour. Especially if their logs (that I'm fairly sure SE has access to those as they ask when you played last time among other things if you lost access to your account and try to regain it through support) also say that it happens every time they're in Praetorium, but never outside of it in other dungeons or in the world.

They added a part about frequent disconnects quite a while ago after people started exploiting them during Moogle Hunt events, because that's when it became a problem so to speak (though it annyoed players even before that with disconnects in dungeons like Aurum Vale). They won't punish you for having several disconnects across game session if they don't fall under quite specific patterns.

[EgilTheStressedMage]

On the contrary, I find the idea that peoples' "right" to be rude and abrasive is more valuable than other peoples' right to be treated like a fellow human being is entirely laughable. And every time they try to defend it with "free speech" while lacking the self-awareness to accept that their actions have consequences, it gets funnier.

No one here is defending being rude or abrasive. We just don’t want farm parties that wipe more than clear parties ever could.