Lack of action against gathering bots, it needs to be changed, and soon

[Hash_Browns]

The game suffers from having a very outdated engine, though even calling it "outdated" doesn't do it justice. This is literally a spaghetti code, which heavily limits what the devs are able to add and modify, making things like "beards for male characters", which seem easy to implement, difficult to do.

Gonna call bull on that.

I 100% refuse to believe adding facial hair is too hard/can't be done when they are more then happy to add new clothes/hair to the mogstation.


And I would also like to add:

let's say it's 100% true.

WHY.
WHY has the code of the game been so abandoned and never been updated?

[BothFawn]

Gonna call bull on that.

I 100% refuse to believe adding facial hair is too hard/can't be done when they are more then happy to add new clothes/hair to the mogstation.


And I would also like to add:

let's say it's 100% true.

WHY.
WHY has the code of the game been so abandoned and never been updated?

I am not a programist, but I don't think you can just grab a game's engine with one hand while holding a magic wand in the other one and kindly ask the game's code to update itself. This is what I was referring to in the last paragraph of my previous comment. There is no way we will not have a new FF MMORPG in a less than 4 years, because there needs to be a complete overhaul of the technical aspects of this game.

And the second thing- I have no idea what does Mogstation have to do with all this? Is there some difference between the things obtainable in-game and on Mogstation?

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Gonna call bull on that.

I 100% refuse to believe adding facial hair is too hard/can't be done when they are more then happy to add new clothes/hair to the mogstation.


And I would also like to add:

let's say it's 100% true.

WHY.
WHY has the code of the game been so abandoned and never been updated?

While this is just a guess on my part, it seems like the character creation UI is the issue SE has with adding new options. Like... it may have been originally designed to only accommodate X number of options for faces, tatoos, etc. Though they don't seem to have any trouble adding hair styles.

Ultimately though, its something that SE should invest the time and resources to address so they can add more face and detail options imo.

[ForteNightshade]

Were you actually paying attention?

The game suffers from having a very outdated engine, though even calling it "outdated" doesn't do it justice. This is literally a spaghetti code, which heavily limits what the devs are able to add and modify, making things like "beards for male characters", which seem easy to implement, difficult to do.

Like, come on. You guys surely don't think that they cannot introduce such simple additions like beards, or for example an infinite or almost infinite inventory space, like every RPG should have, just because they are "lazy" and they "don't care"?


And just a side-thought- I wonder if this whole bot problem actually pertains to this problematic code, which I mentioned above, and how would the developers actually perform against the fight with the cheaters if we got ourselves a brand new Final Fantasy MMO with a fresh and updated engine(I have recently seen such rumours here and there about it taking place after 6.X version of FFXIV).

Not a single one of these excuses is applicable to the bot crisis. You know why it's become such a pervasive issue? Because GMs literally cannot ban or even warn botters. The entire process is handled by the Special Task Force—a team comprised of only four people that operate in Japan. WoW, for example, is infinitely superior in regards to bots despite being more than double FFXIV's age. Why is that? Their GM can and will ban bots. Square's complete inefficiency and inaction have led more and more people to chance botting because hey, why not? You aren't going to get banned for it.

Bear in mind, I'm not talking about the random gibberish named bots but the players using programs to automate everything. In the end, I wouldn't call it laziness so much as underestimation at just how severe the problem actually is.

[Marxam]

They got more important things to worry about like putting "optional" things on the mogstation and over pricing them... but seriously if they let us the players help them it could improve the rate that these bots are banned and help deter any one thinking of it. Like achievements that rewarded when a bot/rmt you reported gets banned.

Ex. Achievement:

"No if's, and's or Bots I" - 100 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned.
"No if's, and's or Bots II" - 500 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned.
"No if's, and's or Bots III" - 1000 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned. Reward "Fantasia".

[BothFawn]

They got more important things to worry about like putting "optional" things on the mogstation and over pricing them... but seriously if they let us the players help them it could improve the rate that these bots are banned and help deter any one thinking of it. Like achievements that rewarded when a bot/rmt you reported gets banned.

Ex. Achievement:

"No if's, and's or Bots I" - 100 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned.
"No if's, and's or Bots II" - 500 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned.
"No if's, and's or Bots III" - 1000 rmt/bot players you helped report got banned. Reward "Fantasia".

Well, first they would have to actually START banning them. The problem, which everyone in this thread admits is the case.


I am looking forward for the Ishgard Restoration and how will its ranking look like after day 1.

[KageTokage]

I think I got more bots banned in the first few weeks of WoW's Cataclysm expansion releasing then I did in the three years I've been playing XIV. They actually reply to reports there and make a statement about whether or not they took action against a suspect player so you know that you're not just wasting your time. They also didn't give people the benefit of the doubt and actually encouraged filing additional reports if they couldn't initially find a grounds to ban a suspicious player.

This problem really isn't something with a complicated solution; it's just a matter of them actually wanting to solve it.

I've seen people arguing that they don't ban people because it would "hurt their profits", but if that's the case, I don't get why they'd be keeping a double standard and being extremely trigger-happy when it comes to social issues yet seemingly turn a blind eye to cheaters.

[Fiorinol]

I have to agree. Many players on my server brag openly about botting. Some of them own houses solely for the purpose of botting crafting. Just now I'm collecting aethersand, and there are 3 players here who I know are bots, because they told me they bot. These are the same people who flood the marketboard with thousands of aethersand, driving prices down.

[Vnolan]

Awareness of how the gathering bots have destroyed markets across Crystal is going to end up causing me to unsub from this game;

You can go ahead and get started on that unsub process because SE isn't going to change anything.

Absentee/Automated gameplay (botting) is all but promoted by SE at this point.

1. As you mentioned, it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to get player bots banned
2. GMs won't touch topics like this other than to state the ToS or direct you to the STF
3. There is no communication between the STF and players
4. The STF cannot check logs and see that someone was botting in the past
5. The penalty for botting is just a 72-hour ban, whether they were botting for a day or a year
6. Players are not monitored after getting caught and can go right back to botting after their ban ends
7. You are not allowed to name bots. Not only will your post get removed, but they will not investigate the named player

Just now I'm collecting aethersand, and there are 3 players here who I know are bots, because they told me they bot.

I saw about six when I was gathering the other day, including one that advertises RMT content sales in the PF and one I was talking about in this thread I made in January of 2017

[KageTokage]

Not to mention the community reps who are supposed to escalating matters that are repeatedly being brought up as issues always ignore topics like this.

I cannot help but wonder if they just have some laundry list of "subjects to ignore" that they refer to.