since reporting doesnt work what does it take to ban cheaters?

[Welsper59]

There was a particular group of people from a couple FCs that became somewhat notorious for botting/hacking during the early parts of Heavensward (also likely to have done this during ARR... wouldn't be surprised if they did it for their Coil clears). At least two of them would use speed hacks while botting FATEs in N.Than at the time. I'm pretty sure that anyone doing those FATEs encountered those same bots, of which had a particular habit of instantly knowing when Dark Devices was up and ready to be started... but they'd just run into the FATE area and idle until an active player starts it.

Little to nothing was done to them, including the ones that speed hack. There's even video evidence on youtube for some of them lol. They did leave the FCs that they were a part of but formed new ones of their own. No bans. I'm assuming this is just how "legit" players are treated despite cheating. It honestly isn't surprising though, given how bad behavior is either ignored, encouraged, or simply responded with "please don't do this because it's not in the spirit of the game". To be honest, I don't really blame ANY non-RMT player that decides to bot or cheat in some way. With no repercussions in sight, why not just do it if you want to? The likelihood of you actually being banned is extremely low, even if people report you. I think the way they see it, if your botting/hacking actions do not directly affect other players (i.e. potential cause for harassment) and is non-RMT related, they'll usually let you slide. GMs are the low-man on the totem pole afterall. They have nearly no means of seeing in-depth details of specific actions and location reading data. They'd have to literally be present to see speed hacks, for example, unless you're dumb enough to constantly use them to get from zone to zone in seconds.

The reports that they make public of bans and RMT are pretty much just RMT related... and even that is hardly impacting. It's literally like the story of the Hydra. Cut off a head, and two more would grow back. Basically, there's nothing that'll be done against people that cheat if there was nothing already done lol. Until SE makes a stronger stance against bad behavior in general, things are going to be exactly as they are now. RMT is hardly something Yoshi-P and the devs focus on, and with bigger concerns such as harassment and threats definitely being a daily thing, the GMs priorities put those FAR ahead of something petty and passive things like cheats that don't either break the game (like that old marketboard gil theft and instant crafting levels hack) or create those previous priority situations. I'm still amazed at how people managed to do the marketboard one, as that's something I've never heard of before in any game. It's almost something to applaud their efforts for, if it weren't such a d-bag thing to do.