Enforcement is in the toilet

[Turtledeluxe]

I did not get banned at all? I'm talking about bots not being banned. That limsa e-girl shit is an example. Maybe a bit hyperbolic, fine, but it's just a fact that bots get banned far less than real players. I'm not talking about myself. Love how you just jump to conclusions.

You gotta be really naive if you think they ever ban those CC/North Horn bots lol

In fact it is actually extremely amusing because I even directly witness just how rarely even RMT bots get banned LMAO. You can basically trade off like 10B gil on an account before it even gets banned.

Only thing I can think of is SE somehow gets kickbacks whether directly or indirectly. Perhaps reducing enforcement has a defraud effect of making the game appear more active visually, sustain systems that would otherwise be less efficient/collapse, falsely lead shareholders to see engagement where there is none, etc. Maybe the constant mentioning of RMT is less of a warning and more of an advertisement. Who knows. I'm of the same mind regarding census data, I believe it's heavily inflated by alts, double counting and fraud.

The situation with the plugins and mods follows. Every enforcement, cease and desist, potentially reduces already strained population and activity levels, to reveal not that many normal people even still play this game. Baldo said he sent SE the problematic mods directly so if you don't see action there, I mean it says it all right. They're at the stage where they can't afford to care.

[VigilantofStendarr]

Only thing I can think of is SE somehow gets kickbacks whether directly or indirectly. Perhaps reducing enforcement has a defraud effect of making the game appear more active visually, sustain systems that would otherwise be less efficient/collapse, falsely lead shareholders to see engagement where there is none, etc. Maybe the constant mentioning of RMT is less of a warning and more of an advertisement. Who knows. I'm of the same mind regarding census data, I believe it's heavily inflated by alts, double counting and fraud.

The situation with the plugins and mods follows. Every enforcement, cease and desist, potentially reduces already strained population and activity levels, to reveal not that many normal people even still play this game. Baldo said he sent SE the problematic mods directly so if you don't see action there, I mean it says it all right. They're at the stage where they can't afford to care.

People actually did their own census through plugins at some point and found that there were like maybe 10k players active at one time on NA. The activity levels now is extremely, extremely low. I truly wouldn't be surprised if SE didn't mind bots and RMT bots running amok to make it look like things are fine. But they would be terribly wrong because the bots are extremely obvious and real activity levels are easy to tell. I waited for 2 hours for The First Walk yesterday on Aether. Any player running into this kind of shit knows this MMO is dropping off a cliff in player activity. Or well, player activity in content, because god knows we have infinite ERP activity these days.

[Turtledeluxe]

People actually did their own census through plugins at some point and found that there were like maybe 10k players active at one time on NA. The activity levels now is extremely, extremely low. I truly wouldn't be surprised if SE didn't mind bots and RMT bots running amok to make it look like things are fine. But they would be terribly wrong because the bots are extremely obvious and real activity levels are easy to tell. I waited for 2 hours for The First Walk yesterday on Aether. Any player running into this kind of shit knows this MMO is dropping off a cliff in player activity. Or well, player activity in content, because god knows we have infinite ERP activity these days.

Yes, I would speculate the reasons the game keeps SE afloat financially is that not playing does not mean not subbing and of course, the cash shop. I suspect the number of people left sub and pay just enough over a spread out period that it makes financial sense, but because it's so spaced out it results in that dead experience where bots are maginified.

[VeyaAkemi]

Alright, I have a question, I get that your example is your view of something banal, and that I could agree that if someone is getting suspended for 10 days for one infraction, that's disproportional... why is your immediate example insulting someone for no discernible reason? genuinely that's the part that bugs me a lot here.

[VigilantofStendarr]

Alright, I have a question, I get that your example is your view of something banal, and that I could agree that if someone is getting suspended for 10 days for one infraction, that's disproportional... why is your immediate example insulting someone for no discernible reason? genuinely that's the part that bugs me a lot here.

"your glam is ugly"/"your dps sucks" -----> 10 days within hours of a report
botting 24/7 for one year/wintrading to get rank 1/literally hacking the game to boost movement speed in PvP ------> nothing after hundreds of report

i hope i've made the point crystal clear

[BigCheez]

Alright, I have a question, I get that your example is your view of something banal, and that I could agree that if someone is getting suspended for 10 days for one infraction, that's disproportional... why is your immediate example insulting someone for no discernible reason? genuinely that's the part that bugs me a lot here.

Because it's an example of behaviour that actually gets actioned.

The fact that people get temp bans for posting meme macros or lightly roasting someone, while all kinds of degenerate behaviours that are significantly detrimental to the overall game environment go unchecked is ridiculous. It's like playing an FPS game that's full of aimbotters and wallhackers who never get banned but the devs immediately hand out temp bans to anyone who flames their teammates.

No one is arguing that people should be able to go around hurling insults at each other. The question that's being asked is "why are these small disagreements between players given priority while much more significant issues are ignored?".

[BigCheez]

Probably tinfoil hat here, but I think part of why Square-Enix doesn't care about automation and low subscriber counts for FF14 is because the same thing exists in FF11 and that game is not only still around, but still gets updates and makes money for them.

Their lack of concern is probably because they assume they can just throw a massive NPC system at the problem once it gets big enough by giving players their own bot army to do whatever with.

I know multiple people who have lost decade+ old accounts for both RMT and botting exemplar points in FFXI. I can assure you they don't turn the same blind eye over there.

Yes, people get away with it. But only for so long.

[VigilantofStendarr]

I wasn't suggesting people don't get punished for it over there, I was suggesting that Square-Enix's lack of concern is because the existence of those things hasn't done enough "damage" to kill off the game, and even when things started to slow down due to a lack of players, their solution was to just let the remaining ones do almost everything by themselves.

I could see that being the case here as well where they don't think enough people will ever quit to make FF14 into a money sinkhole, and if content ever reaches a point where there's not enough people for something to pop, they have NPC systems in place already to pull from. I think they're almost done with all dungeons, and they've already dabbled in Trials. Even the BST job and new chocobo system seem like a test for having more open world follower mechanics that can transition easily into instanced content (as opposed to all other NPC systems being instanced only), or how Evolved jobs are about as simplified a kit you can give to an AI.

It might not be definitive proof of anything, but it's enough to wonder.

They are wrong if they believe that because in DT it has gotten to a point where if you do basically any side content you will run into bots, unless all you do is solo content. They are in PvP, cosmic, north horn, eureka, everywhere… lol

[uwaa_a_catgirl]

I have been tracking bots in casual CC since early September. I have reported 201 instances of botting (45 unique players) to the STF. I have no idea if they've acted on any of them. Names come and go, and sometimes old names pop up again, still botting. There's been 3 players in particular that feel like they've been botting non-stop for almost a week now. I know several people have reported them, but they still pop in my games. I had several matches today with 3-4 bots all in the same game. A truly frustrating experience.

So yes, I fully agree that enforcement is in the toilet. The plugin is free and extremely easy to find, so I suspect the problem will just continue to get worse long before it gets better :/

[Valence]

Speaking about ranked CC as an example, and while those aren't exactly automated bots, there is two main issues with hackers in there:

- SE takes usually about a month or more to actually enforce sanctions on them, allowing the damage to have lasting consequences on games on a daily basis until it's addressed.
- Cheaters/hackers get banned, but more often than not it's not permas (only the repeated offenders do). So you see them come back the next season, cycle and repeat. Stripped of their entire achievements or not, they don't care.

There is just a real lack of care in general in enforcement. I'm not speaking about anti cheat bs or whatever, just actual GM and task force enforcement.