Starting to think GMS should be more active in the world.

[DamianFatale]

The whole NN thing is that people are not being upfront about what's upsetting them because what is upsetting isn't necessarily people violating TOS because that gets taken care of. There are mentors, returners and sprouts alike who simply were not prepared that people would have different opinions on how to play the game, which puts them in conflict, which escalates into "an incident". As to whether the "incident" involved personal attacks, harassment, profanity and a gamut of TOS-violating things, that is irrelevant because someone will report and SE will do their job about that but it's the lead-up that no one really addresses.

In my server's NN, we've had these hot takes. They don't appear all the time but all it takes is for someone to say something wildly opinionated and before you know it, "NN is toxic". Well of course is toxic. Not because someone actually is but because we know in our current era, toxic means someone I don't agree with. Doesn't matter the person has said their piece as within the TOS rules or they were being super respectful: it's now an incident.

Also, one last thing here to rant about: what strikes me is that here on the forums, we accept that SE is very strict when it comes to harassment and we laud them for taking immediate action once they receive reports but on the same turn, people also make it look like SE is totally lax and don't open their report tickets. This annoys me. You can't have it both ways. Which is it: is SE really doing their job or are people hoping they'd turn into super police and eradicate all traces of an offending player by making a grand spectacle of it?

You have no idea how common this is in irl social circles. People just hate one person for some perfectly valid reason, but then expect everyone else to follow through, and before you know it, someone is getting bullied. I wish people lived by a healthier mentality of letting the people you despise have lives. They don't have to just stop existing because you don't want them to be around you. They deserve to be happy, and they deserve to be loved.

[Kes13a]

Also, one last thing here to rant about: what strikes me is that here on the forums, we accept that SE is very strict when it comes to harassment and we laud them for taking immediate action once they receive reports but on the same turn, people also make it look like SE is totally lax and don't open their report tickets. This annoys me. You can't have it both ways. Which is it: is SE really doing their job or are people hoping they'd turn into super police and eradicate all traces of an offending player by making a grand spectacle of it?

you can have it both ways.
yes, SE is very attentive when going after things like RPers, or apparently the spam bots in major cities (though those can stick around for hours)
No, SE is not reading tickets when you have hordes of bots running through the ground, attacking from under the ground, forming map parties, etc

so yes, you do get both ends of the spectrum.
I am under no impression that SE does any better or worse in this regard than any other company that tries to save money by cutting real people out of the process of overseeing the game in the belief that "people can police themselves"
the problem is, time and again... we know people cannot.

[SturmChurro]

Novice Networks are TERRIFYING. There is no regulation! You cannot expect us mentors to regulate anything ourselves. Servers are filled to the brim with trolls, and when they go off too far, like in the case of that one incident going in a novice network we all hear about lately.. THEY DO NOT STOP. I have chosen to not join the novice network for very good reasons. I instead help outside of it, and I'd like to think that I'm doing good. I'm usually eager to help any new, or inexperienced player. But, there is no incentive that we as players are being watched, that action is being done to naydowells, and its getting bad. When we asked for GMs to be held accountable for corrupt behavior, we did not expect the policy change to become total silence and lack of involvement. We just wanted them to do better at their jobs.

I'm glad there are players who have taken the initiative and are helping others! Me? I don't need a mentor crown or access to the Novice Network to provide help (when asked), nor do I feel the need to flaunt that crown. We are all equals in this game, and helping each other should just come naturally!

If the GMs can't properly enforce things like the NN, they should definitely get rid of it. It's the most logical solution, in my opinion.

[Saefinn]

I think whilst a mod presence would be beneficial, I can see problems, particularly with cost of hiring enough GM's to do the job weighed up against costs that go into development and with that accountability and managing and training of GM's etc. but I think more transparency and clarification could go some way to help. Heck transparency could help reduce the number of reports because you're going to get fewer repeat offenders and few complaints because transparency goes two ways, it tells people what they've done wrong and gives more clarity on what they won't act on. That in itself can free resources and avoid the "I don't know what I did wrong" complaints that people will inevitably to challenge.

I realise they have a privacy concern in identifying the person who reported them through the actions described, but a better middle ground needs to be found because sometimes these offenses can be so out in the open that anybody could have reported them and the GM is still vague and people are left guessing. I expect that is more like policy than the GM's fault.

Heck, dare I say, they don't even need to say they're responding to a report, GM's can be present in the world, they can see logs and so on. They could just refer to logs they've read and emphasise that mods see people's logs regardless of whether the offense was reported they can still see it.

I'm glad there are players who have taken the initiative and are helping others! Me? I don't need a mentor crown or access to the Novice Network to provide help (when asked), nor do I feel the need to flaunt that crown. We are all equals in this game, and helping each other should just come naturally!

If the GMs can't properly enforce things like the NN, they should definitely get rid of it. It's the most logical solution, in my opinion.

If the Novice Network is too over run by trolls and toxicity then yeah, probably better to can it, because it's not helping new players like it's intended and if anything gives a negative impression of the community to newer players. When I was a mentor, the times I went into Novice Network it was like that too and I've heard people talk of positive experiences too but if the negative outweighs the positive and they can't moderate it properly then it's not fit for purpose.

The mentor system is also not fit for purpose. It's supposed to signal that you're a mentort therefore somebody who is available to help and mentor new players learning the game. It's more of an achievement crown because of the requirements needed to get it and a crown is nice and regal too. In reality it should be a different symbol (so it's less regal) and granted maybe on the completion of current story and you just turn it on if you want to help somebody, no rewards, no incentives just good will (Or maybe give it when you're no longer a leafer). Because as you say, you don't need a mentor crown to provide help.

[Shibi]

...In reality it should be a different symbol (so it's less regal)...

It doesn't really need a symbol tbh. Remove the icon and let them be plain-namers and a lot of the troubles would go away.

[strawberrycake]

I remember in the early days of WoW the GMs would be really active, they hung out on GM isle, came into cities and towns, were really hands on, WoW and XIV both boast having over 20 million players, ARR and Vanilla WoW had maaaaaaaaaybe 600,000 across the entire game. The thing here is that (at least with my own experience) these games are Way bigger then what a group of GMs can deal with and being more active would require more money then what SE is willing to spend on FF.

Hypothtically if older MMOs in the early parts of their life cycles had maybe a 60-100 person GM team that dealt with all servers, FF would need to have at least 200 per data center just to deal with the shear bulk of issues and reports daily. And thats a bare minimum.

[KageTokage]

I feel like they should at least increase the range of behaviors the GMs can enforce to include obvious cheaters because the STF's tiny Japan-based team really is not adequate for a game as big as XIV.

[Sotaris]

I feel like they should at least increase the range of behaviors the GMs can enforce to include obvious cheaters because the STF's tiny Japan-based team really is not adequate for a game as big as XIV.

Agreed. I don't know the background to it still being like that. I understood it back in XI days but given XIV size and more globally success compared to XI, they should knowledge share the work with NA and EU GM teams.

[DBriggs304]

I've never seen mods in other mmo's walking around. It would be cool though to know that they are connecting with the community.

I've never had any issues in the nn. At least on excal

[MrPresident]

For whatever reason I think they want them to act less human and more corporate, so having them milling around would go against that.

I can’t remember what the issue was but I contacted a GM at some point during ARR and I got a personal response, instead of copy and paste corporate spiel, and actually had a proper conversation with them in a special type of /tell for like half an hour. That would never happen now. No matter what you report or respond you get the standard response and if you try and keep talking to them they direct you to “leave your feedback on the forums” aka go away.

Having a visible in game presence may decrease harassment but I don’t see it ever happening.