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

[Baxcel]

Just thought about something.. Since the rules changed about being banned for obstructing people's play and enjoyment of the game.. Couldn't people report those players an FCs who buy entire housing plots? The rule is 1 house per person and 1 FC house too.. Taking multiple houses or an entire ward would obstruct other players from getting a house, thus impacting their play and enjoyment of the game?

I mean if the GMs say something like "portal sniping" in Hydatos is bannable, when its a public dungeon and you can't rightfully claim ownership on a portal that's open to 144 people.. Then why couldn't those who have abused the system an taken multiple houses be punished too?

[Vnolan]

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

Except everyone doesn't agree on it. You have the botters themselves, friends/peers of the botters and players that benefit from the bots, whether it be from lower prices on goods, faster PVP queues or easier completion of FATEs.

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.

Botting activity would have to really pick up for that to happen. The average player doesn't know how to spot the bots or thinks they get taken care of in those ban waves. Whenever the topic of botting gets brought up, you either have the OP incorrectly suspecting players of botting, or they have identified them properly, but other players will jump through hoops to claim it isn't botting.

The number of unsubs would need to not only reach the number of subs lost by banning the bots, but it would need to account for the extra money spent to do it.

And yet mods ignore this thread^^

What do you expect them to say? Canned response directing players to report suspicious activity to the STF won't work because everyone knows the chance of them acting on a report is about the same as rolling a 1000 on your relic substats. Canned response saying they'll be directing feedback to the Devs won't work because this topic isn't new. Saying they can't do anything about it would have more players doing it.

Just thought about something.. Since the rules changed about being banned for obstructing people's play and enjoyment of the game..

That's always been a thing.

Couldn't people report those players an FCs who buy entire housing plots? The rule is 1 house per person and 1 FC house too.. Taking multiple houses or an entire ward would obstruct other players from getting a house, thus impacting their play and enjoyment of the game?

If you couldn't report it before, chances are you can't report it now. You can find out for sure by contacting a GM in-game.

I mean if the GMs say something like "portal sniping" in Hydatos is bannable, when its a public dungeon and you can't rightfully claim ownership on a portal that's open to 144 people..

Portal sniping is not bannable unless the sniper is doing it to inflict grief on other players. If a premade asks for all of the portals, you're free to refuse or just completely ignore their request. Remember there is an item that gives players instant access to a portal.

[Kuroka]

What do you expect them to say? Canned response directing players to report suspicious activity to the STF won't work because everyone knows the chance of them acting on a report is about the same as rolling a 1000 on your relic substats. Canned response saying they'll be directing feedback to the Devs won't work because this topic isn't new. Saying they can't do anything about it would have more players doing it.

This is what i want, ban hammer or let us make even chances.

[Final-Fantasy]

This game really needs a new Auction House system, like in FF11, i know it wont stop rmt, but it prevents anyone from seeing the price the item is listed at, you have to bid whatever it takes to buy the item, and in turn it stops direct undercuts since nobody knows how much someone else listed their item for, you just go off the sales history to see what it usually fetches.


If they don't do anything to restructure the Market Board as it is, then it will forever be open to automation abuse, though thanks to the companion app i can't see them changing it at all, even with all the damage its doing (mogboard.com).

[Kuroka]

omg such a side is a thing... ... ...

[Alucard135]

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?

You know what would be the best option in this case?? Giving players an ingame bot for crafting and gathering. In an MMO called Forsaken world, they literally give you a menu to set up a combat bot so that you can just leave it to kill 200-300 mobs. Now I'm not saying let SE add combat bots. But it should be for gathering and crafting. Botters are taking the advantage that a lot of the players are afraid to use botting tools because they will get banned. So now they control the market. But what if everyone has an equal footing? Then you won't see just a handful of players controlling the market and the prices will also be cheap.

[zztoluca]

Just thought about something.. Since the rules changed about being banned for obstructing people's play and enjoyment of the game.. Couldn't people report those players an FCs who buy entire housing plots? The rule is 1 house per person and 1 FC house too.. Taking multiple houses or an entire ward would obstruct other players from getting a house, thus impacting their play and enjoyment of the game?

I mean if the GMs say something like "portal sniping" in Hydatos is bannable, when its a public dungeon and you can't rightfully claim ownership on a portal that's open to 144 people.. Then why couldn't those who have abused the system an taken multiple houses be punished too?

GMs cant take action if it involves RMT is their unofficial stance it seems. I have reported people even with the new system. All you get is a generic response "No SE does not stand for RMT ~ We need to investigate first(hand off info to STF presumably)"

GM's in this game can not directly take action on RMT in any sort of capacity it seems. If RMT is involved only the STF can take action it seems.

Examples were GMs will not take action:

PF openly selling/buying mogstation items for gil(This is RMT as noted by SE)

PF openly selling ingame items for RMT

PF openly selling runs for RMT(not the obscure ones that link out of game)

Openly botting to purchase housing

Openly botting to hit timed gathering nods 24/7

Example GM's instantly investigate and may ban player:

Player drops an F-bomb directed toward you hurting your feelings.

[Freyt]

Except everyone doesn't agree on it. You have the botters themselves, friends/peers of the botters and players that benefit from the bots, whether it be from lower prices on goods, faster PVP queues or easier completion of FATEs.

"Basically" implies that at a more complex level there are those who disagree.

Don't be difficult.

[KageTokage]

Honestly, I think a step that could be made towards addressing gathering/crafting bots would be to simply have more untradable materials that are only available from content that can't be botted, like dungeons and raids.

Even just making Mendacity materials untradable would put a huge dent in how much market exploitation goes on. They could also add new items like materia for people who aren't interested in crafting to use them on.

And yet mods ignore this thread^^

It might be better that they do because last time I made a topic like this they eventually purged it for no apparent reason.

[Baxcel]

[QUOTE=Vnolan;4891941]Except everyone doesn't agree on it. You have the botters themselves, friends/peers of the botters and players that benefit from the bots, whether it be from lower prices on goods, faster PVP queues or easier completion of FATEs.

Except those people who agree with botting are breaking the rules There for they do not count is the group of everyone wanting bots gone.

As someone whose been doing gathering a lot lately I'd like for my time to pay off some.. Gathering a rare node only for the items to sell for 500g or less isn't worth my time when it takes sometimes hours for the node to return.