An Open Letter: Dear SE, you and current RMT/bot issues

[Jojoya]

Honestly this is far too lenient. If they made it official that there were 2 safety nets, players would probably RMT even more.

It should be an instant perma-ban for the first time, with an official warning to ensure players are aware of it. This isn't something you can do accidentally, you make a clear choice to break ToS. There's no reason to give second chances.

I don't know about instant perma-ban the first time but it should be in terms of months (like 3-6) not days. Short term penalties rarely are an effective deterrent, especially when there are multiple chances to keep repeating the offense as you say. But the second time? Definitely permaban. If they didn't learn the first time, they're not going to learn the second.

I can remember the posts that Blizzard CMs would make regarding player behavior when it came to bot bans. If the player was permanently banned, they'd just make new accounts and do it all over again because that was the only way to keep playing. If the player was given a 6 month ban so they could regain access to the things the character had earned on their account, they rarely repeated the botting (always the tiny percentage that would be an exception) because they got back the things they enjoyed having and didn't want to risk losing them again.

I think one of the bigger problems MMOs face now when it comes to combatting player botting is the existence of things like level boost and MSQ skip potions (or in WoW's case account-wide achievements). While those are intended as QOL for new players to play with their veteran friends or for players to share items locked behind long grinds or heavy RNG with their alts, they also reduce the feeling of penalty when it comes using bans, whether permanent or temporary, as punishment for botting.

Let's say a player loves their Kamuy of the Nine Tails and it's their favorite mount. They had spent hundreds of hours EX farming back in Stormblood getting all the doggos so they would have Kamuy at the end. Then they get stupid and botted, got caught and were banned.

No level boost and MSQ skip potion, and a ban means being without the mount for months as the player either waits out a temporary ban or rebuilds everything on a new account from scratch. There's a lesson learned in both cases, but the temporary one is less likely to build resentment and determination to repeat the same mistake since it's saying "okay, you made a mistake and we're going to trust you won't do it again so here's your stuff back".

With level boost and MSQ skip potion, neither ban is impactful. Get a new account, buy your potions and you're instantly ready to start farming those EX trials again. Better yet, take about 20 hours to run MSQ to level 80 (skipping cutscenes) and you can join unsynced farm groups to get the mounts back even faster. A few weeks of inconvenience is all.

The game lacks sufficient desirable long grind/heavy RNG rewards that appeal to all segments of the player base to deter someone who wants to bot from doing so. A legacy player has a deterrent because they would lose all their legacy exclusives. Someone with the Feast ranking mounts has a deterrent because there would be no getting those back. Hunters with the Centurio Tiger have a deterrent because that's a massive time commitment to get and you can't bot your way to it like the Expert crafting pteranodon. Difficult to get titles like Necromancer might deter players who have them.

Just about everything else, regardless of rarity. is too easy to get if someone who likes to bot has to start over on a fresh account. EX/Raid mounts? Farm unsynced once you have a level cap character again. Rare drops that are sold on the MB? Buy or bot gil to buy it off the MB. Gear for glamour? Farm the content unsynced (possibly using a bot) or buy off the MB (using your RMT gil).

When it's easy to regain desirable items taken away, there's no sense of loss to make someone think twice about cheating.