Integrity matters

[JohnLakeside]

Are you deliberately missing the point, or what? Saying a tiny group of disgusting people represents FFXIV as a whole is illogical and ignorant. By that logic, if a criminal ring uses iPhones, then Apple and every iPhone user is implicated too, right? A microscopic fraction of awful people using an MMO/Discord doesn't make it indicative of a game with millions of normal players. It’s an issue with those specific individuals.

You’re arguing with a claim I didn’t make. I literally said one alleged ring does not prove FF14 as a whole has some uniquely bad problem.

The question is whether the particular social environment it existed in mattered at all. That’s completely different from saying every FF14 player is implicated.

And the iPhone analogy is nonsensical. You can't just use an analogy and pretend you're saying something. An iPhone is a tool. An MMORPG community is a social ecosystem with specific norms and practices. If abuse repeatedly develops inside a particular community, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask whether features of that environment made it easier to organize, conceal, or ignore. Those things clearly affect how misconduct spreads or gets detected. Saying that only those individuals are guilty and saying the surrounding community structure may still be relevant are not contradictory statements. Pretending they are is just a way to avoid examining the second question.

You know what, maybe I will take it there. Are we seriously going to pretend FF14 hasn’t earned a reputation for sexual deviancy in its social scene? I’m not talking about every player obviously. But, I’m talking about the unusually visible ERP culture, e-dating, bathhouses galore, sexual mods, stalking scandals, etc etc. You simply do not see that same combination as prominently woven into the social identity of the top MMORGs today. WoW has its ERP hotspots, sure. OSRS barely has anything comparable as a serious social subculture. FF14 is different in an alarming degree, and pretending otherwise is just being disingenuous.

[Carighan]

Asking for anti cheat already turns me away. If I'd have to choose between all the things that you've listed and intrusive annoying software, I'd rather have all the things that you've listed.

That's also a fair position to take, as we know from history that:

* Anti-cheats have frequently been entryways for system exploits, as they naturally sit at Kernel-level so any bug in them circumvents all other OS security for an attacker.
* Like overwrought DRM, they degrage performance unless done extremely well, naturally they have to waste some performance on what they do.
* They frequently break, preventing play by legitimate players (see Marvel Rivals recently telling people they might get banned for launch parameters due to a bug flagging all instead of just one specific one the devs wanted to prevent usage of).

There's a reason R0/KL AC has a bad rep like Denuvo or so does. And we also know they historically do not work, so the game would be made worse for entirely no positive effect.

[Anonemoose]

He doesn't care how it works or why. These people are just on a silly witch hunt. I genuinely doubt any of these people actually play the game and just come here to troll and be weird.

I actually play the game and I do care how things work. Not everybody that disagrees with you is a troll or weird, and carelessly throwing those labels around doesn't reflect well on you.

Sometimes I wonder how many of these bad faith accounts like OP and all their little supporters like the coffee lady are bots or use LLMs to create as much divisiveness and engagement as possible.

I don't know what you're talking about buddy. I made this thread because I care about these issues and I care about this game. Not everybody who disagrees with you is a heckin evil bad faith engagement troll bot, and nobody thinks you are clever when you throw those sorts of accusations around, it sounds paranoid and crazy.

Something tells me that you aren't going to play that game where all this is implemented

What are you on about? I want this game to do and be better. I'd be more inclined to spend more money on it if they banned cheaters. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by shifting the goalposts like this, and I'm not really interested in engaging in purity tests that you want me to fail.

[Ankhira]

You’re arguing with a claim I didn’t make.

Because you edited your comment lol. When I replied to it, it simply said what I quoted. Hope you're not a fisher main with such terrible bait.

[VanillaWafer]

Snip'd. sorry.

Agreed.

I also think it's fair to investigate whether aspects of a particular community facilitated the misconduct. That's different from assuming the game or its entire community is responsible for it. Until there's something more substantial than social-media claims, I don't think we should treat the broader conclusions as established fact.

A tiny correction, though: This incident didn't happen on Discord, but rather on Matrix. Yes, Discord often gets the blunt end on the stick because these gross servers exist there, too. Just not this time.

Speaking generally here: If someone genuinely believes FFXIV's community is fundamentally what they describe it as, they're free to decide that the game isn't for them and move on. What I don't think is fair is turning that personal judgment into a characterization of everyone who plays it.

This ultimately comes back to integrity. But integrity also means not painting millions of players with the same brush, not treating allegations as established facts, and not using the behavior of a few people to condemn everyone else. We should be able to take the problem seriously without abandoning that standard.

And with that, I think we've gotten pretty far away from what the OP was actually arguing.

At its core, the complaint isn't simply “FFXIV has bad people.” It's that the game has systemic problems with automation, cheating, achievement credibility, game design, and moderation that are undermining players' trust in the game.

Those are all things worth discussing on their own merits. If we're going to talk about the modding/sexual subculture or specific criminal allegations, I think we should keep those claims evidence-based rather than using them to characterize the entire playerbase.

Ultimately, the question OP raised is: What can Square Enix actually change to restore trust in the game's integrity without creating a different set of problems?

[JohnLakeside]

Because you edited your comment lol. When I replied to it, it simply said what I quoted. Hope you're not a fisher main with such terrible bait.

My edit was to fix grammar. You can even see that my last edit was 11:42pm, 6 minutes before you made your response. So don't imply that I edited my comment after you replied LOLOLOL. Keep up lil bro! Its tiring trying to have a good faith discussion with people who can't even be smart about being in bad faith LOL.

[Anonemoose]

i do not disagree that botting isnt a problem but maybe you should try doing an extreme at least before incriminating the entire player base of cheating on content youve never done

Sure, I haven't bothered with all the Extremes in Dawntrail. But what exactly is your point? That because I haven't done every single current Extreme that I am not allowed to have an opinion on the obvious cheating problem in the game? You even agree with me that it's a problem. I mean what are you trying to achieve here? That you've stalked my Lodestone profile or something? So what?

Probably some dude's alt and therefore not a proper reflection of the content they've done.
Your point is however still valid, if you've ever done an extreme in PF you would know a vast majority of people aren't cheating, the kills aren't nearly clean enough for that to be the case.

No this isn't an alt. As you well know, cheating isn't just restricted to Extreme Trials. It's amazing how much of this thread is people pretending not to understand, therefore making discourse impossible.

Just reading that part you quoted and I realized that OP literally wants the book thrown at people doing harmless TOS violations like botting FATEs but wants to be able to violate TOS when it comes to conduct to other players "without fear." It's so telling and funny lmao. All these people are like this.

You've spent the entire thread defending cheating with all sorts of mental gymnastics and I'm glad you've finally came out and admitted that you think it's perfectly fine to automate a specific, core gameplay mechanic. Yes, I want the book thrown at people that bot FATEs. Start banning them and watch how quickly it stops. The problem is Square Enix isn't banning anybody for cheating.

They don't care. What they HATE is actually getting in trouble for typing slurs in chat meanwhile knowing that there are people running mods that let them change how their character looks in their own client and not being punished for it. That's all this is. That's why they keep appealing to the amorphous "problem" with how the developers choose to enforce their TOS as they see fit, which is their prerogative, without being able to articulate how it actually hurts anything other than their feelings.

And no, it's not about being able to throw slurs or engage in abusive conduct. It's never been about that. I gave examples of what this meant in my posts, and others have given similar examples in this thread and others. It's intellectually lazy, maliciously disingenuous, and unfortunately characteristic of the GCBTW to try and shutdown any criticism of this game's moderation with "oh these chuds just want to be racist". But we can't really expect critical thinking from people that support, encourage or engage in rampant cheating.

[Ankhira]

I didn't edit whatever the heck you're implying I edited lmfao. You can even see that my last edit was 11:42pm, 6 minutes before you made your response. Keep up lil bro!

In which case I didn't click "send reply" until you had already edited and I hadn't reloaded the page, point still stands: you edited your comment? You even admitted you edited it so idk why you're arguing you didn't. Now you edited again to say "I only edited to fix grammer." what a joke of a person.

Edit: I'm not going to deal with a good for nothing for troll who can't even lie properly. Another one for the block list.

[Anonemoose]

Alright, so I have a big suggestion, how about we just stop lying? ... you just need to watch your language, don't insult anyone, and no "I meant it as a joke" isn't an excuse, and avoid swearing if you can, this is FFXIV, not Hazbin Hotel, that's all you need to do, and you can interact with anyone and everyone with zero fear.

Nobody has or is arguing for being able to freely insult others, use racial slurs, or anything like that. If you are unable or unwilling to read what I have said on this point, if you are unable or unwilling to read what others have said on this point, if you are unable or unwilling to understand what has become a common complaint among the playerbase in regards to this game's moderation, I think it says more about you than anybody else.

Nobody does this regardless of plugin use or not. Most people don't look twice at someone having a certain glam or title, at most they'll inspect to see what item it is and go on about their day. Having a rare title or glam is not the prestige some people wish it is.

Forget all the memeing and dunking on Ultimate raiders/PayPal Legends and the like. Consider a very simple proposition: do you think that the rewards for clearing the hardest content in an MMO should have some prestige within the game? Now consider why it doesn't.

It’s fricking hilarious how accusing anyone you disagree with of being a bigot or a slur enjoyer has basically become a FF14 community staple. Like lol. Just lol.

GCBTW.

"This is a problem. I think this is a problem, and I do care about this. Please, devs, consider doing something to this problem!"

"I don't care about the problem, and I don't see anyone doing anything problematic anyway, and if I saw I would know they're doing it for semi-legitimate reasons. So, there is no problem. People should stop talking about the problem, which is not the problem, and doesn't exist anyway. Doing anything to this problem would double the problems - which aren't real problems anyway."

...thanks ff14 forum for some deliciously thought provoking discussion again.

Pretty good summary, made me chuckle. These forums are really an extraordinary place filled with exceptional individuals, and should be academically studied or turned into a content/lolcow farm.

I agree with everything OP said it's all true and has caused me to be less interested in the game. I know it's all personal achievement but what does personal achievement matter if I can just bot everything to obtain it? At this point it's kind of like why shouldn't I cheat? Can't beat em, join em. That's what I say.

It's unfortunate that this is the position more and more players are finding themselves in. I appreciate and respect your honesty.

[Carighan]

the obvious cheating problem in the game

Where is this "obvious cheating problem"? As in, how do you spot it? If it's so obvious, can you give us a simple run-down list? Ideally with some examples? And is it just "obvious", or is it also "widespread"? Because if it ain't, then it ought to be easy to report and action the limited number of players who so obviously cheat, yet? And if OTOH it is widespread (and obvious!) then it should be easy to provide tons of examples that every one of us can easily verify with just a single evening of play, yes?

I asked someone earlier who said CE is always full of botters to point out some botters from who I found ingame, and they didn't get back to me either.

If cheaters and botters are so prolific, I'd like to help report them, but everyone who says they're prolific always fails to point out individuals I can report when I ask for help with that.

So erm... how do I go about that? I would like to turn words into actions.