Change to the ban system.

[Alleo]

Going to go contrary to the general vibe here. But I think perms bans for abuse should be 6month sentences. Or something along those lines. It’s not like permanent bans keep the players away from the game anyways, and being locked out of your main for so long gives you time to reflect on how much it fucking sucks to be a dick.

Also past warnings should be voided if they were given a long time ago (maybe it’s already the case). To cover good behavior.

Just saying that I think that would be healthier.

I agree that at least some bans should be gone after a time of behaving really well but there should still be a perma ban. There are enough bad people in the game that would not change with a simple short term ban. This imo would just tell them that the worst they would get is a bit of a slap to the hand and then they could just go on. (Its not like someone did something for the first time and got perma banned, you did get warnings and short time bans before that which you could use to reflect) Abuse is horrible, no matter in which way its done. And someone that uses vocal abuse that much should not be allowed to play the game. Of course they could buy another account and start again but they would still have to put in alot of work to raise their character again and they could be perma banned with the new one too. This way if someone is doing it all the time there might be a point where they will stop playing the game because creating new accounts all the time would be too expensive. Thus one less abusive person in the game.

[Warghoul570]

If anything I think they should also penalize the instigator. If a toxic player reports someone that retaliated to a personal attack the GM should also look back at the logs to establish what triggered the offense in the first place. If the person that filed the original report started the problem they also deserve to get punished

[Mixt]

If anything I think they should also penalize the instigator. If a toxic player reports someone that retaliated to a personal attack the GM should also look back at the logs to establish what triggered the offense in the first place. If the person that filed the original report started the problem they also deserve to get punished

This, so very much.

This schoolyard teacher type behavior where they walk in on bullying and punish the students who are defending themselves while letting the comically aggressive and violent bully who instigated the whole mess walk away untouched is just sad.

Having moderators in an online game display the same behaviour is downright disturbing.

People seem to love pulling this kind of stuff, seeing as it keeps happening.

Selective Enforcement is nasty.

[Penthea]

If the OP is having as much trouble as they claim with either a mental or psychological disorder, they should be more concerned with getting professional help than worrying about being banned from the game. In all honesty, being banned from might actually be good for them in the grand scheme of things if it forces them to confront and work on their real-life issues.

I feel that this is quite unfair to say. Not to OP specifically, but to anyone who uses escapism.

It can be very upsetting, even traumatic, if your only means of escaping the harshness of real life is being taken away from you. I am not saying these people shouldn't seek professional help. Just saying that it's pretty insensitive to say that a person with mental issues should just prioritise what appears to them as a more difficult and lengthy route (getting help) instead of the easier and shorter route (escapism). While it may look like a simple logical choice to an outsider, it's not to the person who is literally fighting a battle within themselves.

Ideally what OP should do is both seek professional help as well as find a form of escapism that doesn't aggravate their issues, which is why I suggested in my first post they should at least take a break if not outright quit multiplayer games. Escapism is a very important thing to everyone. We all need a space where we can relax, forget about problems, and just live in the moment to enjoy ourselves. Everyone needs time to reboot. The key is to not let the access to escapism make you neglect the vital things of real life.

And I don't disagree that OP getting banned may be good for them long-term, but short-term it's going to cause them a lot of grief. And that is normal.

What you could do, after a very long period of good behaviour on your main account, is appeal the status of your account. I have no idea if SE would look into it but if you are able to prove that you can play for a long time without causing trouble they might lift some of the strikes from your account. I estimate you would need at least six months of good behaviour.

While this is true, it's actually not unheard of for people to have made successful appeals for bans and strikes based on long periods of good behaviour, or so much time has passed that it can be argued that the individual has since grown up.

I am bringing up what I said about this again because it seems to have mislead some people. The underlined and bolded section states that I really do not know if SE ever revoke bans or strikes on accounts. I suggested to OP that they could make an appeal at a far later date after proving they can play for a long time with good behaviour because I know of instances where this was successful in other games that are not run by SE. So there might be a chance that SE may do the same. Even if they do not now, perhaps they will in the future.

But these successful appeals were not a simple case of "hey I played for a year with no hiccups, can I get the strikes removed now?" or "what I did was three years ago when I was a stupid teenager, and I have grown up. Can I have my account back?". They were made very eloquently with great care. In order to be successful you need to very clearly show in the appeal that you have moved on and have become a better person. And of course not every appeal ends in the favour of the player. Only a small number do. These cases while not impossible, are exceptional.

[Rymm]

I feel that this is quite unfair to say. Not to OP specifically, but to anyone who uses escapism.

I'll not deny that my response was fairly callous. But I've seen the OP's "problem" likened to addiction several times over the course of this thread. If that's truly the case and their problem really is that severe, then SE 'forgiving' one of their strikes or granting them some sort of reprieve would be nothing short of enabling them. At some point you have to draw a hard line and stop buying booze for the alcoholic (or, maybe a more accurate analogy in this case, stop giving them a ride to the liquor store.)

Escapism can be a wonderful or even sometimes a necessary thing, but either one of two things is happening in this particular case-

Either this person has an extreme problem and is not physically or mentally able to control their impulses. In which case, something this severe would have a large and detrimental impact in their real life which should definitely take priority over an MMO. In such a case escapism should not be used as a crutch if it is allowing them to hide from and avoid fixing their real life problems. Taking the game away may genuinely be the kindest and most helpful thing you could do for them if it spurs them to confront their issue and improve their overall quality of life.

Or this person is exaggerating their condition and can function normally in real life. In which case they are simply choosing not to exert the same level of control over themselves while playing the game and they absolutely deserve their inevitable ban.

[Iscah]

Editing posts after submitting them will allow you to bypass the 3000-character limit - but in any case you thought to split it into two posts, so why not add those line breaks and just move more text into the second post to begin with?

In any case, regardless of why you crammed it into one long paragraph, the result remains: people are much less likely to read your post, even if you are making good points within that wall of text.


And unfortunately I would still say the original issue is still not in your favour. If you are genuinely unable to control your behaviour and keep yourself from being rude to people, however much you believe they might deserve it, that doesn't mean the moderators should have to make exceptions for you because it opens them up to all sorts of appeals based on "I can't control this, why should I have to follow the rules?" - and then it becomes a mess as other people try to insist that their case deserves to be an exception too, until there are too many exceptions. Or perhaps they're convinced that they're in the right, but actually they're mistaken and being awful to people who don't deserve it.

There are ways to speak out and defend someone without resorting to insults or swear words. Or just step back and report it to the moderator, and focus on supporting the person being attacked rather than 'fighting back' against the attacker, if you don't want to do nothing.

Perhaps give some thought beforehand to things you should say in such a situation, rather than exploding at the time and saying things that you shouldn't.

[Normalizer]

"I can't control this, why should I have to follow the rules?"

I think OP didn't say they should not getting punished? They said instead of a perma ban which make you lose your account and everything you worked for, you get a very long ban instead. 1 month, 2 month, etc. And that is what i find a better option. Perma ban is severe and should be used for more severe cases.

Using colorful language is bad yeah, but to lose your long time account over it is too harsh. Maybe a 3 month ban? On other hand though, it's generally hard for people to agree on what kind punishment is right for what case and i doubt SE would put that much effort in changing their ban system/policy. Why change something that works? Still i do hope it get adjusted someday.

[Iscah]

I think OP didn't say they should not getting punished? They said instead of a perma ban which make you lose your account and everything you worked for, you get a very long ban instead. 1 month, 2 month, etc. And that is what i find a better option. Perma ban is severe and should be used for more severe cases.

Sorry I misremembered that.

I think I did skim the original post because it was too hard to follow, and absorbed most of the argument from the comments.

I've had to go back and quote it and add line breaks myself to actually be able to read it.

Hello, I've been reported in the past to the point of the next one being an account deletion and thous I feel like I'm unable to even use my main account anymore.

This is my second account that I'm working on in the event I do slip up and lose everything. Each time I've been reported on my main account besides the first time ever have all been caused by someone else provoking me into the situation and it is not hard to make me upset and start to say things I don't mean.

What I'm about to suggest would make it so that I won't feel as if I do slip up or someone takes something I say out of context, that I won't lose my main with almost 800 days of play time on.

Well here is my idea for a new ban system.

Currently the system is something like this. First time is a warning depending on what you're being reported for. Second time is a 24 hour ban, third time is a 48 hour ban while the forth is up to 1 week depending on what the report is and then after that, the last time is your account deleted for ever.

What I'm suggesting is that you keep everything as is but change the deleted account into a 1 month long ban depending on what your being reported for. Things that would be a account deletion would include but not limited to, Hate speech, death threats, botting, hacking, RWTing. All of my bans have been made because I have extreme emotions so it is easy to set me off when someone is attacking my friends or another player who I'm siding with against the toxic player.

My last report not long ago was because I told someone who was being toxic to a tank in o12s for not tanking the way this player expected. When we backed out and the tank left, I told this player to F off before leaving myself. This resulted me me being contacted by GMs and could of been the end of my account. It's not fair that I could lose my account all thanks to a lack of context. I understand my words said was not the right ones at the time but like I said, I'm really emotional and I end up speaking with out thinking most of the time so now I'm kinda forced off of my main in fear of for ever losing it due to my mental health.

Please take a look at the banning times and rework it so that you will not lose your account unless it is a serious rule break like the ones I listed above. Here is another Idea that would give me some peace at mind. Have it so that after x amount of time without being reported you could take bans off your record. For example say I'm on my last warning but I've been good for a couple of months with no problems, my account would be reset back to as if I've not been reported before so that next time if I did get reported it would be a 1 day ban and not account deletion.

I've learn to be nice and report people who are being toxic now but before I wasn't well informed on all of the rules that I broke. Please change something for people like me who got upset over someone saying/doing something to upset me and make me say things I should not of.

There are arguments for and against more temporary bans, though the current system doesn't sound that sudden to me. Three temporary bans of increasing length before you're actually banned? If people haven't been "scared into behaving" by that point, what will it take? (And in this particular case, why has it taken until the final warning to start getting worried about saying the wrong thing and losing it, instead of being careful earlier?)

Perhaps it's more of an issue combined with overzealous moderators or the lack of context they receive, but it doesn't sound unreasonable on its own.

It could also be a cultural difference again. Perhaps Japanese players wouldn't possibly manage to rack up four warnings unless they really are someone who shouldn't be allowed to continue playing. (And I wonder if the Japanese moderators are better resourced?)

[NanaWiloh]

I am going to be straight forward about this, The change the op suggested will not save her account from getting perma banned. Her issues pretty much ensure she will eventually lose every account she makes. This all comes back too the OP getting a handle on her issues so that they are less of a problem. SE will not change the rules everytime someone who has personal issues decides the rules are not befitting of their problems.

[Haruka_R]

After reading Dragorath's post, I think I've lost a bit of respect for Square Enix if they truly run things the way they do. And to everyone looking down on the OP with your condescending, holier-than-thou attitudes, you are some awful people and should be ashamed of yourselves. You even see a huge, meaningful post, and label it as fake and/or didn't even bother to read it. You really think a post that was put a lot of effort and emotion into such as Dragorath's is fake?

I made a forum account to present some ideas I had for this game, but after everything I've seen and read in this thread, I don't think I wanna be a part this environment. Dragorath, thank you for sharing your experiences with us and shedding some light on their BS moderation practices. Hope_For_Change, I'm truly sorry for what you're going through. I myself am on a 216 hour ban, my first ban, the very severe one, and am dreading the permaban hammer. But after reading Dragorath's post, I'm suddenly not all to worried about it anymore. And even if I don't get banned, I'll have to permanently hide the chat window. People say some provoking stuff, and some people find even breathing to be offensive.

So Hope_For_Change, keep fighting the good fight and I hope everything turns out well for you.