So its a given that is an issue dealing with automated bots running around the ARR areas and farming Gil, Every MMO has this issue these days.

But seeing Real money services being advertised while I'm sat crafting in The Crystarium is bordering on "Taking the Mick".

Its a given that the Support services and the GM's wont take action against a player without proof, but the folks that choose to only accept contact about a service they are advertising through platforms like discord are side stepping the very support services and GM's that are in place to prevent people being scammed because no interaction in game took place, So no chat logs are even there to reference to use as evidence.

There needs to be a policy change on these issues, and a change on how the "Special Task Force" is handling the bot situation because frankly, its getting out of hand.

Now, before you run off shouting "Oh, just another complainer", here are a few "possible" solutions and policy changes that could be considered.

1. Ambiguous and shady advertising services promising content clears (like for the Ultimate raids and Current Primals) Should Fall under RMT.

2. Advertisements that ask for a player to contact them through a third party platform (e.g. Discord) Should be considered RMT. (Why? The servers log EVERYTHING, even tells between players, so taking it to an outside platform prevents logging of a transaction, cuffing the special task force from taking action against these people that breach the ToS)

3. Bots, as they come in swarms, is a rather hard task to handle, but having the bans come in waves gives bots and their controllers time to offload gil and make a profit between these waves.

A heavier handed tactic needs to put in place, and GM's in general should be given more power to handle these bots.

Giving your GM's the ability to issue a ban on the spot for obvious bots as and when they come across them breaks the cycle, preventing botters from banking gil and turning a profit.

If its a man power issue, then, you have a growing player base, maybe its time to recruit more people to combat that issue.

If a profit cant be made by botters and RMT services, they will leave.

There are my suggestions in an off the cuff post, by all means folks, add to it, or suggest more, but its something that we do need addressed (obviously, changes take time, but please, Dev team, lets work on this in a more proactive manner <3)

And please, keep the thread constructive, we all hate the bots, lets get this handled. <3