The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[Melichoir]

This is your Opinion and that's fine, tho I don't see how your Statement becomes valid when your only Crafter Class is Carpenter at Lv.42 next to your Gatherers being below Lv.60.
You might have a better Opinion about this matter if you'd became an Omnicrafter and a Gatherer at Lv.70, just so you can see how frustrating this matter is.

Do I get this feeling or does something stink in here like it doesn't make any sense.

Since I dont know what part of my point above was an opinion that requires me having a lvl 70 crafter/gatherer to better understand it due to the edit, not sure what to make of your comment other than it sounds like an appeal to authority rather than anything substantial.

[Geigerette]

I want to know who this is, because I don't want a character anywhere near his operating servers. I have such a passionately strong distaste for people who cut corners, steal, hack and cheat and refuse to support them or the people who flock to their services and goods.

[Dustytome]

I want to know who this is, because I don't want a character anywhere near his operating servers. I have such a passionately strong distaste for people who cut corners, steal, hack and cheat and refuse to support them or the people who flock to their services and goods.

The forums don't allow for calling people out, so no one can give that info here without facing punishment. Your best bet would likely be a server specific discord or facebook group.

[KageTokage]

Melichoir gets it.

World of Warcraft did 2 things to successfully combat bots. They decided to become the RMT directly, thus eliminating the need for RMT bots. They also cracked down hardcore on farm bots.

Result: Massive inflation + Scarcity of raw materials. The scarcity just drives up the price even more. There are less and less goods and players have more and more gold. It is a vicious cycle. The majority of people have an obscene amount of gold because they can just buy it (rather than earn it) and will pay whatever is charged. There is no free-market mechanism to control prices because Blizzard is essentially printing money.

FFXIV does not want to copy WoW policies. Is there some way to ban the bots in FFXIV without annihilating the in-game economy?

There are multiple differences between XIV and WoW's gathering/crafting systems that make me think things wouldn't necessarily play out the same way.

Probably the most key difference in WoW is that gathering nodes are shared and do not respawn instantly. This effectively places a hard limit on how quickly a particular resource can be brought into the market, and also creates stiffer competition between players as a zone can only support a few players before people have to start waiting for node respawns.

Another major difference is that while crafting/gathering are much more accessible (You only need an easily procured tool to gather or craft and there are little to no upgrades that actually improve your performance), you're limited to only two crafting and/or gathering professions per character, meaning that unless you're an altaholic you will have to turn to the marketboard to get certain things. You're still further limited by crafting/gathering specializations.

The restrictive nature of WoW's crafting/gathering naturally lends itself to high prices.

XIV is restrictive in a different way by placing a high entry barrier for endgame crafting/gathering due to its gear requirements, but once those have been met, a player effectively has access to everything and never needs to rely on others or the marketboard to obtain/craft something.

[zztoluca]

From my understanding with conversations with GM's is SE has specifically limited GM's from taking action against RMT regardless of how blatant it is. Some internal policy or something.

All RMT reports if its even forwarded goes to the STF(special task force). Either they don't care, understaffed or don't have to the tools to do their job. See the Ungramax exploit, investigated and given the okay. Only exploded after it went viral on Reddit and Twitch.

GM's need to have the ability to openly ban RMT and even take 3rdparty site links as evidence if they them selves receive it from the offending party. Be it discord or other out of game link.

They can act instantly on harassment but not on RMT, why?


Lot of bots currently taking advantage of the inability of GM's to take action with the housing system. They will gather their entire bot FC or one member to spam purchasing a house for hours until its theirs. GM cant do anything.

[KageTokage]

From my understanding with conversations with GM's is SE has specifically limited GM's from taking action against RMT regardless of how blatant it is. Some internal policy or something.

All RMT reports if its even forwarded goes to the STF(special task force). Either they don't care, understaffed or don't have to the tools to do their job. See the Ungramax exploit, investigated and given the okay. Only exploded after it went viral on Reddit and Twitch.

GM's need to have the ability to openly ban RMT and even take 3rdparty site links as evidence if they them selves receive it from the offending party. Be it discord or other out of game link.

They can act instantly on harassment but not on RMT, why?


Lot of bots currently taking advantage of the inability of GM's to take action with the housing system. They will gather their entire bot FC or one member to spam purchasing a house for hours until its theirs. GM cant do anything.

This is the thing that confuses me the most about SE's moderation, because literally every other MMO I've played placed all of the moderation responsibilities in solely the hands of the GMs. Having multiple teams just hurts efficiency.

In WoW, if you spotted a bot, you'd just report it and it would usually be gone within the day, followed by a cheery response that said player was dealt with appropriately. There were a few odd instances where the GMs stated that they didn't see anything abnormal about a particular bot, but simply reporting them at a different time and/or including extra details did eventually get them purged.

[Freyt]

They went and changed the rules to punish more players. How about they start with punishing those basically everyone agrees on?

[ElazulHP]

They went and changed the rules to punish more players. How about they start with punishing those basically everyone agrees on?

This! Can we start banning the people who BUY the gil too please? Make people terrified of losing their accounts and it may lessen demand which means less people doing RMT. Not sure why FFXIV gives these people free passes. And it's not like gil is that hard to get in the first place using legit methods.

EDIT: If you're worried about losing subscription money keep in mind if legit players are too discouraged by these cheaters they may quit too then you just lose even more money in the long run if you do nothing.

[PaganWitchcraft]

Quick update:
The 2nd Guy i mentioned... He added 500HQ items (Rakshasa, Onishi, Yamasha gear and weapons) alone last night....
He has up 2000 HQ items now... Never online, no gameplay, empty house, naked alts, No 70s DOW/DOM job.

Example... he sell 12 Onishi Body HQ (Crafter Body HQ) for 160k. Under material cost. Average price is 500k. Just to bother fair player

[Kuroka]

And yet mods ignore this thread^^