Let us report retainers who sell items from bots

[Ceodore]

Just ignore the forum trolls. Some of them are most likely botters that want to try to downplay the biggest issue any mmo has in the game. I watched UO/EQ/DAOC/WOW and countless others go down the crapper from bot to win scum of the earth cheaters. I will report every single one of them and continue encouraging my friends who play with me to do so as well and send in suggestions to Square/enix website suggestions email.

Only thing I hope is Blizzard manages to do a TKO knock to these bots which benefit FF 14 as well.

You do realize that this thread is about implementing a system to report retainers, right? In other words, it's a thread about reporting someone's market representative for any kind of sale that might look shady. There is no factual evidence to say that that retainer represents a botter or a hacker. It's asking for a system to report anything that might look suspicious, despite the person possibly being innocent. If SE perma-bans a player based off this accusation, and it happens to be a legitimate player, a huge back lash with possibly massive ramifications ensues.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I agree, while I do not condone cheaters in online games that can create an unfair advantage. I also do not condone the ability to randomly report retainers. First and foremost there are too many variables that would be unaccounted for. Maybe that retainer is being pooled for a group of players trying to get a gil for a house and items, maybe that player is deciding to quit and is purging all resources to give to the gil to a friend, maybe they honestly just have the time to gather all those resources; there is NO WAY you can know for certain, like I said there are too many variables.

I will say this I can gather about 500 shards an hour on my gathering class with 600GP at my disposal. To reach 9,999 shards its only 18 hours, average gamer might play for 4-5 hours a day, that is only 4-5 days of farming to get that number. Its not impossible, and its not hard to believe that there are players out there who have all the classes maxed out and have nothing else to do but craft or gather. Not to mention just because you (hypothetical you) lack the willpower/devotion to craft or gather in large spurts of time doesn't mean that no one else can.

[Vlady]

Hmm. If you are on the Balmung server just casually look on the market board and look up wind shard. One retainer has 9999 x 19 for sale almost nightly. That is impossible for one account/human unless its a free company officer selling stuff on a retainer from a horde of 10+ people farming near day in day out. I could be wrong but logic (when this game has proof of an insane number of bots as it is) tells me it is the cockroach of MMO gamers the bot.

[Ceodore]

I have over 250 people in the FC I run. Shards can be farmed even as a level 1 gatherer. That would be less than 1k shards per person to equal 19 stacks of 9999. Now take into account larger FCs, or perhaps ones that have massive stock piles backed up, or even consider if not all those 19 stacks of 9999 sold that day but that some, or even most are from previous days. Honestly, who is going to buy a stack of 9999? I could see it if they were selling for 10 gil each, but on Famfrit, shards are priced closer to 50-100 gil each. The fact is, you can't prove that the retainer belongs to an RMT or a legitimate player. SE may be able to trace the items back, but the truth is, that investigative process takes longer than just catching the account sending tells/shouts.

Your mind set is essentially saying to scream guilty before solid evidence can be confirmed. As the saying goes: "if you ASSUME, you make and ASS out of U and ME." You shouldn't assume anything, because there will always be that one time where you're wrong. As I've said before myself, I'd rather let 100 guilty men go to try to catch them again with solid evidence, than convict one innocent man to a death injection on shaky evidence. This is the same situation. Your evidence isn't solid enough to warrant guilt. Frying even one innocent person because they happened to fall within your parameters of suspiciousness is worse than allowing those botters that would only be caught by reporting retainers continue. They will be caught by other means, using methods that can not be refuted. And in the end, the person who played within the boundaries of the rules innocently won't be a victim of circumstance.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Vlady, how do you know without a doubt that there are so many bots in the game? Seems like to me a bit of the case of paranoia. Unless of course you have some ability to monitor and watch all the players who play this game, but I would think that much like botting and RMT to be breaking the ToS.

Like I said and I will say again, I do NOT condone the act of cheating in an online based game that gives players an unfair advantage. However giving players the free nilly-willy ability to report players based on retainer activity is foolish. What is the consequence for reporting a retainer? person gets a temp ban? or maybe they cannot sell on the Market Board. You forget that RMT also would be able to report retainers. And guess what...their numbers in terms of focus and getting a job down out number those paranoia driven few players who would report, oh and what a better way then to mass report honest players and clear the MB for RMT activity.

No thanks to this half thought idea.

PS: Isn't Balmung a legacy server? You do know there wasn't much to do in the game during 1.0 besides craft and gather once you hit level 50, lots of people had massive amounts of shards and crystals. Hell my 1.0 character had like 20,000 shards of each element...

[Vlady]

Going on a witch hunt and having the ability to report suspicion are two entirely different things. Along with a stream lined ability to report people you see botting it is nothing more then a tool. It is a double edged sword with people who are out played on the market board may try to report the retainer out of spite but yeah if your pice is low enough you will see people buy 9999 or itleast in the case I see is certain retainers just slapping the max shard sale and having an insanely low price. And yeah a constant stream of max shard sales is a larger indicator of bots mailing what the mine to a main account over a FC leader selling off supplies for gil.

And if you think it is paranoia then do a search of level 50 archers and black mages. about 100 bots alone on Balmung from just the ease to spot bots. I have a list of near 200 casual botters as well from people doing atma/zodiac bot grinds to fate leveling and getting stuck in spot or mass dying/suicide on fates they are the only one trying to solo.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I disagree, having the ability to just click and report for people gathering or click a retainer name and report it is an ability that should not be in the hands of players. Grudge matches between players, harassment and all kinds of other messes can be created from this "tool". I personally prefer a players e-peen to be limited to making goofy macros. If you are really zealous about the matter you can always contact a GM, that is the only tool we [players] need. Don't be so naive to think this option--put in players hands--won't be exploited to a higher degree than what is intended.

[Vlady]

The power is already in the hands of the player in the form of a tedious report function. This is not going to change the people who will abuse the report system anymore then it already is. The ability to report bots and how they make their gil should be an easy streamlined method and your logic does not make any sense. SE is not giving the player the ability to issue the ban. It is just another tool to inform SE to possible spots to look. If they delve into the log and see a 200 player FC with 10-20 people who like to farm and support the FC for a hour or two a night then they are going to not worry about it any more.

If they see 15 miners farming near 24/7 just mailing shards to a central banker character with multiple retainers then they may delve deeper and perform a bit more detective work. You sadly underestimate SE if you think they are going to blanket ban whatever a player reports.

[Ceodore]

Going on a witch hunt and having the ability to report suspicion are two entirely different things. Along with a stream lined ability to report people you see botting it is nothing more then a tool. It is a double edged sword with people who are out played on the market board may try to report the retainer out of spite but yeah if your pice is low enough you will see people buy 9999 or itleast in the case I see is certain retainers just slapping the max shard sale and having an insanely low price. And yeah a constant stream of max shard sales is a larger indicator of bots mailing what the mine to a main account over a FC leader selling off supplies for gil.

But, again, this is an over use of the reporting tool, which means more resources from SE being put into investigating reports that have a higher chance of being false. This requires even more personnel to investigate all these reports. It takes time and money away from development of the game and new content if each report has the be investigated. Also, investigating a retainer then requires them to figure out which player the retainer belongs to, then they have to find out how the player is getting the items being sold. Are they coming from another account via mog mail? Are they coming from the FC chest? The point is, each level of separation that gets placed between the retainer and the source is another level of variability that makes the investigation more difficult. Now, report the bots you see? There is no level of separation. It's always harder to trace a drug back to its source than to follow the source down to the distributors, sellers, consumers, etc. Essentially, this method of investigation, while used by detectives (since it's all they have to go on) is much more difficult than just having the source be reported to you.

And if you think it is paranoia then do a search of level 50 archers and black mages. about 100 bots alone on Balmung from just the ease to spot bots. I have a list of near 200 casual botters as well from people doing atma/zodiac bot grinds to fate leveling and getting stuck in spot or mass dying/suicide on fates they are the only one trying to solo.

See, these are better ways to catch botting, at the source. Your method of searching for the farming bot itself is easier than tracing back to the same bot via a retainer separated by 4 or 5 different degrees of separation.

I disagree, having the ability to just click and report for people gathering ... is an ability that should not be in the hands of players.

Well, this method is more reliable than doing it via retainer. They aren't the same thing. When you report a retainer, you're essentially reporting the person selling the "drugs" and trying to trace it back to the gathering bot. Where, if you report the gatherer you think is botting, then they can just follow item code of the things the bot is selling to see where it goes and not just maybe find one RMT account, but multiple. Think of it like a Hydra. You might cut off one head, but there are probably many many more. But take out the heart, and the beast dies.

You sadly underestimate SE if you think they are going to blanket ban whatever a player reports.

It's not about blanket banning, it's about the fact that every ticket requires investigation. Starting the investigation from the consumer side is more difficult than starting from the source and following the source to the outlet. Like houses on an electrical grid, strike out one house's electricity, the rest still have power. But strike the power plant with electricity and then follow the wires to all the houses, you can then strike out multiple targets with maybe just one report.

[TheCurls]

Perhaps, they are trying to crash the market as to make profiting by normal means almost impossible. Which might drive some of us to buy Gil from them. Nice evil scheme for ya.

But if they make shards cheaper, I won't have to buy gil. I'll be able to afford all the shards without it.

Think of it like the windshield repair guy who spends the previous night throwing rocks through a neighborhoods car windows.

No, it's like the windshield repair guy tying $100 bills to the rocks and then charging you $50 for the repairs.