Friend suspended for too many S rank attempts

[Athenaeum]

A friend and well-known hunt spawner on Primal/Dynamis with no prior infractions on their account was recently suspended for 10 days. In the email sent to them, it listed botting (and related activities) as the ToS that was broken. However, they play on a PS4 and have checked their logins to make sure that their only PC access to their account was for Mogstation.

The only thing that resembles botting on their account is killing too many mobs. This spawner enjoys doing kill counts for hunt mark S ranks, and more specifically, Sphatika. For those not in the know, spawning Sphatika requires you to kill 100 of three separate types of mobs, for a total of 300. Killing these 300 mobs does not guarantee a spawn; Sphatika can spawn anywhere in the 48-hour window that it’s open, and the only way to spawn it is to complete the 300-kill count whenever the invisible timer is ready.

This person waits for people that seem to be there for the daily hunt bills. They don’t sell the drops for the mobs on the Marketboard, and just keep materials stacking up in their retainer for laughs, or to give away a stack to people who need the items for crafting. There is ZERO bonus for being the one to spawn the S rank, monetary or otherwise. They just find it calming to do these kill counts and mindlessly grind.

I was originally going to wait and hope the GMs would listen to the appeal, but they upheld their decision, even though there’s miles of difference between how a bot moves and interacts. We think that they likely only looked at the amount of kills done and did no further research.

I’m just really frustrated that they decide to suspend an outlier that isn’t generating gold or negatively affecting others at all. This also worries a lot of us in the hunt community, because if they will suspend for just kill statistics, ignoring any chat logs or player actions or lack of use of the materials gained, we’re not sure where the line is drawn and how many attempts to spawn marks we can safely do without facing action on our accounts.

tl;dr: GMs suspended someone for killing too many mobs, when they:
• Are completing the requirements to spawn an in-game mob
• Play on a PS4
• Interact and chat with others while completing kill counts
• Stop and do other things while completing kill counts
• Do not sell or use materials gained from kill counts

[Pricia]

That is not ok. The player in question is very active in the hunt community, and definitely NOT a bot, which any GM could have figured out if they had taken the time to talk to them.

[Doozer]

Sounds kind of suss to me considering how actual botting rarely gets punished. I feel like there's something else we're not being told.

[Aygi]

Sounds kind of suss to me considering how actual botting rarely gets punished. I feel like there's something else we're not being told.

I get that it is natural to be skeptical, but as someone involved in the hunt community and familiar with the individual in question, I'll vouch that OP was pretty up front about all the information at play.
There are also chat logs / screenshots / clips to backup the fact this player is definitely actually playing the game and not botting, I just don't think Square cares about that sort of evidence.

Consider instead that the fact they would action an account so indiscriminately without proper investigation should be concerning to everyone.

[MishenNikara]

The person in question really loves spawning Sphatika, is extremely active in CWLs and the like when online, and has never given us reason to believe hes botting, ignoring the fact he plays on PS4. The Primal hunting community wouldn't have tolerated it anyways. If spawning kill count S ranks can come off as suspicious behavior then stop making S ranks with massive kill counts.

[Rifneno]

For whatever my word is worth, I'll echo these sentiments. The person was active in the hunt community and would always respond when talked to.

This is a case of a GM who doesn't know the game seeing that he's in the top 0.01% or whatever of open world kills and thinks he must be botting just based off that. There's little reason for most players to kill open world mobs, so anyone doing hunts where you have to kill them literally by the hundreds is going to be wildly outside normal numbers. In 25 years of MMOs, I can safely say that GMs of any game who are well versed on the mechanics and play are rarer than astatine. This REEKS of a GM who doesn't know what's going on just looking at a statistical outlier and assuming it has to be botting.

[SuperfluousStu]

Considering how many people like to grief the hunt community seeing him getting suspended like this is definitely a kick in the teeth. Especially when it doesn't even seem like the GMs took the time to actually see what goes into Kill Count S ranks. You don't like the numbers he had then stop making S ranks like that. Honestly if he chose to not come back or spawn again I wouldn't blame him.

[Doozer]

I get that it is natural to be skeptical, but as someone involved in the hunt community and familiar with the individual in question, I'll vouch that OP was pretty up front about all the information at play.
There are also chat logs / screenshots / clips to backup the fact this player is definitely actually playing the game and not botting, I just don't think Square cares about that sort of evidence.

Consider instead that the fact they would action an account so indiscriminately without proper investigation should be concerning to everyone.

I'm always skeptical of anyone claiming there's no way they did what they were penalized for because like I said, more often than not people aren't punished rather than punished incorrectly. I also found it really weird that OP had such a fixation on not selling mats from killing enemies as if that automatically makes it botting. Why not sell drops if you're killing enemies legitimately?

Either way, I don't think a forum thread will fix anything. The person in question should send in a support ticket if they truly weren't doing anything against ToS.

[Rifneno]

Considering how many people like to grief the hunt community seeing him getting suspended like this is definitely a kick in the teeth. Especially when it doesn't even seem like the GMs took the time to actually see what goes into Kill Count S ranks. You don't like the numbers he had then stop making S ranks like that. Honestly if he chose to not come back or spawn again I wouldn't blame him.

Right? They don't do anything about actual griefers. The only time I've seen them ban a griefer of the hunt community was one that we had video evidence of them using warp hacks to maliciously fail a minion event. Yet they ban someone who spends a great deal of their own time to help the community, because they think they're botting on a PS4? I hate the phrase "ThIs Is A sLaP iN tHe FaCe" because it's so trite and overused, but it really applies to this (as it does to the bad faith actors that always pop up and say "no, the big corporation doesn't make mistakes!" everytime someone is wrongly banned).

[Athenaeum]

I'm always skeptical of anyone claiming there's no way they did what they were penalized for because like I said, more often than not people aren't punished rather than punished incorrectly. I also found it really weird that OP had such a fixation on not selling mats from killing enemies as if that automatically makes it botting. Why not sell drops if you're killing enemies legitimately?

Either way, I don't think a forum thread will fix anything. The person in question should send in a support ticket if they truly weren't doing anything against ToS.

What fixation? There's no pleasing you is there?

An appeal has already been tried, as stated in the original post.