Formal Letter to SE about RMT situation.

[Khalithar]

The RMT issue was a huge turn off for me as a new player. Getting spammed like that makes it a very unpleasant experience for someone just coming in to the game.

[aesteval]

some sorta user controlled filter where we set the words... then just copy and paste the common words they use, i'll play :P don't forget the challenge log block 100 spams and get 10,000 MGP!!! we'll kill the bots for you \^_^/

A user controlled filter with support for regular expression statements would be great for blocking the spam in the log. And a user controlled filter with regular expression support to block friend requests from players with names following patterns.

[aesteval]

You mean postings like this that they do every couple of weeks...

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...922c46b287c736

Too many steps required to report that sort of activity vs the frequency at which it occurs. Takes too much time out of actually playing.

[aesteval]

Yes, go to:

Character Config >> Log Window Settings (on the side) >> Notification Sounds tab (at the top)



From here you can either uncheck "Tell" to turn off sound or change the sound to something lighter and less annoying.

Thanks for sharing. Been playing for a week on PS4 and the options menu are a beast to navigate through with the controller so I haven't dug into them yet. This should help some of the annoyance I experience from this spam (I'm sound sensitive) and I should probably hook up a mouse to dig more into the options.

[odie]

on Balmung, for me, it has been mostly nonexistent…when I was on Lamia though, about once a minute like you are dealing with.

[Gramul]

Hello?
Square?
Are you going to address this at all? This and housing are some of the biggest issues surrounding the game at the moment.
We need a clear game plan, please.

[Haibel]

Hello?
Square?
Are you going to address this at all? This and housing are some of the biggest issues surrounding the game at the moment.
We need a clear game plan, please.

LOL It's so comical to see everybody up in a tissy about text on a screen. SE's game plan is to not say anything, because quite frankly they don't need to.
there are ways to get rid of them without going /busy if you're on a PC.

[Zabuza]

LOL It's so comical to see everybody up in a tissy about text on a screen. SE's game plan is to not say anything, because quite frankly they don't need to.
there are ways to get rid of them without going /busy if you're on a PC.

They don't need to? Why is that? These other "ways" to get rid of the /tells that you speak of, if it's what I think it is, is for one against the ToS, and for two new players are not going to know to do it, which was the main concern of my entire thread to begin with. Do you get how many new players they will drive away with this come Heavensward? They absolutely need to do something about this.

This "text on a screen" is making the /tell channel unusable. People are having to inconvenience themselves just to communicate to one another privately. They have to deal with constant harassment of friend request and garbage /tells if they don't go busy. I made this thread because they have the opportunity of a lifetime right now with Heavensward, with the state the other MMOs are in right now, they can rake in MASSIVE subs if they play this right. I want them to succeed, but this RMT harassment bs is going to put a serious handicap on their western subs.

[jnaze2]

LOL It's so comical to see everybody up in a tissy about text on a screen. SE's game plan is to not say anything, because quite frankly they don't need to.
there are ways to get rid of them without going /busy if you're on a PC.

It's comical to think that some people are ok with the current situation. There are a lot of players on PS3 and PS4 so I guess the solution is "Man, all these RMT tells, guess its time to buy a PC". Also, by saying they don't need to is a rather big statement to make by someone, who I am assuming, doesn't work for SE. I'd think they do if they don't want to lose players and want to continue to grow their player base. A chatlog full of spam is a HUGE turnoff to a new player, and a guaranteed way for someone to not want to continue. Add that to the rampant friend requests they send now and its starting to become infuriating. As the OP stated, it's harassment.

[Welsper59]

It's comical to think that some people are ok with the current situation. There are a lot of players on PS3 and PS4 so I guess the solution is "Man, all these RMT tells, guess its time to buy a PC". Also, by saying they don't need to is a rather big statement to make by someone, who I am assuming, doesn't work for SE. I'd think they do if they don't want to lose players and want to continue to grow their player base. A chatlog full of spam is a HUGE turnoff to a new player, and a guaranteed way for someone to not want to continue. Add that to the rampant friend requests they send now and its starting to become infuriating. As the OP stated, it's harassment.

That's actually an interesting point to make. I'm fairly sure if Player A would spam unwanted invites, FRs, and /tells to Player B, that B could report A for harassment. Would a GM take action? Probably, as they would use harassment as the violation committed (a serious offense). Therefore, isn't the lack of effective filtering (see "protection") a subtle statement that SE would give up on offenses, including serious ones, if it were rampant? LOL. Quite a bit of a leap there, but it's slowly beginning to seem plausible.

Solutions are rather obvious and not difficult in the least to utilize. Like everything else, a fix will come with some potential detriment, but it's not game breaking in the least. For example: making any fix an optional player setting - block incoming Friend Requests (outgoing still allowed) - block /tell from anonymous players or from level of player choice (Friends List excluded) - Right click report (or just a shortcut in general to report for RMT from name dropdown). Would that stop RMT from doing what they do? Of course not... but it'd alleviate WAY more than having nothing at all set up, like it currently is. Oh and let's not forget finally fixing the initial decline of an FR. No means no people... "no" does not mean "hmm I'll say no, then contemplate for the next split second whether that was the right decision as I choose to decline again!"

I can tell you this much: Heavensward will not be as enjoyable as they think it will be for the NA/EU servers if, like the majority of players, we have sound on for our /tell functions and we sit through story with that crap going off non-stop like it happened for many with the 2.55 ending. RMT will hit hard come the expansion launch or shortly after, if SE has zero plans to filter them. They've always been a company that the devs underestimates the problems their international players face, but in the case of FFXIV, I guess that's not surprising when you don't play among them. Source: Experiencing the impact of RMT, and SE's slow (if not non-existent) approach to stopping them since 2003. I will admit though, the addition of the Bounty Hunter goblins in FFXI was an interesting and awesome measure to combat RMT fishing bots. Didn't stop them, but it reduced their numbers significantly for a long time.

Come on Squeenix. It's getting ridiculous.

Actually, it's been ridiculous for a while now. And clearly you don't give a damn about the non-Japanese.

It's likely not that they don't give a damn about the non-JP, it's that they don't understand the magnitude for whatever reason (and perhaps the concerns of non-JP are slightly lower priority... this is sadly NORMAL practice when dealing with international, be it legit reasons or not). Perhaps our CMs/GMs don't/can't properly report the matter to the devs. The devs don't believe how irritable its been. Perhaps they're just afraid to deal with the matter, as stupid as that sounds. Heck, it's possible that by the time they understood how it is, they were so swamped with Heavensward and closing ARR content that they forgot or lowered the priority drastically. Out of sight, out of mind is a VERY real possibility.