Friend suspended for too many S rank attempts

[Athenaeum]

Everyone makes mistakes, and in fact, I do believe that most GM actions tend to be warranted, because SE wouldn't pay for something with a low success rate, and players wouldn't play that. Part of the reason Primal is mad is because this person spends most of their time in Thavnair spawning this as their comfort activity, on a PS4, as they showed with their login records. They actively chat during attempts, and interact with the people on the field as they run around. I do think it's a natural habit to be skeptical when you don't know the person. Like the GMs.

I'm bringing attention to this because I want GM, or other SE employee, attention on this. I don't think they get many reports involving SPAWNING S ranks, just perhaps early pulling and resets/despawns. Since players had to figure out spawn conditions every expac, I doubt GMs are well-versed on them. GMs usually don't point to specific instances, to prevent retaliation and circumventing anti-bot measures. But nearly everyone that knows the person agree they're just being humanly weird. This is also a worrying trend because how do other spawners know when SE considers them a bot for doing content SE created? It really seems like the GMs just looked at say total kills over a week/month/year, and then ignored or didn't have access to:
- chat logs
- movement/actions
- motive
- effect
- why anyone would develop and run a bot for a PS4
- there's content specifically requiring this.

Thus I also feel safe complaining about it with their consent, because it's not a case of someone crying their bot was caught and then getting publicly roasted with proof. People that bot tend to do so for monetary gain, achievements, or glory in some other form. So, when I thought about making this post, I thought about comparing it to what I consider bot behavior, which would be when they either mass kill mobs on the field (to level up), or farm instances. There's also the gather/crafter botting. So when it's not achievement or glory related, I assume it's related to drops.

[DoorMattFE]

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.

Ignoring the last part since obviously you aren't reading what is being said

It is not weird that people hoard one thing when there is no reason to. Things like lockboxes and stuff commonly have this, but people like tracking things based off of how much they get from one thing. People do this often for Pearl Eyes with fishing, also in vein of that is someone buying as many Mamora Moras and is around like 30k total of that one fish. Is that bot behavior? No people are silly and its fun to look back at how hard one commits to a bit. Also WHAT would the point of botting be if you just held onto one item and didn't sell it or use it. If they managed to make botting work on PS4 (if possible) then farming,,, amra???? would be easily one of the worst things to bot for.

Also in regards to selling Amra which are the drops used, this is neither a effective thing since of the 300 enemies needed to spawn this S Rank, only 1 things drop items. And that item is NOT worth much, and would not be sold in bulks of 99 really since you would need so few for random crafting log stuff/Splendorous Tool step.

I talk to this person on occasion because I see them and will jump around them and they will do the same which would be insane if a Bot could do that!! But also during fishing I see them in chat talking, or during a hunt train they'll go "hey hunt train" "bye hunt train" so they are at their desk at the game obviously. That doesn't mean people can't be botting if they are talking but its very likely, but ontop of everything else stated? It makes 0 sense how this happens. I swear I've been seeing people get warning or bans for things like this and it makes me go insane how there are so many people obviously being a problem and they don't get the boot, but these people are actively a pillar in a community that betters everyone's experiences and gets PUNISHED.

[VGramarye]

That said, it would be interesting to read the email sent to this person, if OP can provide it. Since it is strange to get a severe penalty from the go and skip the warning/3 day ban steps.

I think that's just the minimum punishment for botting

Anyway, I also know the spawner in question. He definitely doesn't bot. What he does do is attempt kill count spawns dozens of time per week (most involving 300 mob kills) because he enjoys it, and I'm sure that puts him in the top small fraction of a percent of accounts in terms of mobs killed. S rank spawning is a niche activity, and I doubt all GMs are familiar with the requirements to spawn each of them. Absent that context, I'm sure the behavior looks suspicious, but he really is just playing the game in a way he finds fun that actually helps out a lot of other people by spawning a ton of high effort S ranks.

[Orea]

I also know the person in question, and have passed by them plenty of times during their spawning attempts and they're movements certainly don't seem like bot behavior. I'll often fly by /pet them and always get pretty quick replies, and can also vouch that they're always responsive and helpful in CWLS even during their spawn attempts. They're just a generally helpful and nice dude who loves his Sphatika attempts (and if all the Sphatika are down, then maybe a Nunyunuwi, Udumbara, Okina, or Ixtab to tide him over).

And to echo the other's concerns here, it's not super reassuring to know that going for the kill chain S ranks could lose you your account with apparently no real recourse. :(

[callmenat]

If they're a PS4 player how in the world can they be botting?? SqEx really messed up here with not even looking at the appeal fully. Can activity like this be flagged on the server or would this have to be some sort of situation where they got hit via manual report?

[MitsukiKimura]

Sounds like someone did a personal report against them and the GM's did a bad evaluation. Their ToS is so against the player they can just ban you outright without reason. Not all Gm's are bad but you'll get that one where nothing you say can help you and that's the end of it.

[Infindox]

Banning someone for this seems extremely bizzare when the S ranks are literally set up that way. There's other problems in the hunt community that need more attention.

[Jojoya]

First, coming here isn't going to change anything. He has to go through the appeal process as explained in the email he would have received. Any attempts to appeal in other ways won't work.

While I have no doubt you are all honest and accurate about his hunt activity, I suspect your friend may not be sharing all the relevant information honestly with. There are some suspicious things about what you're saying he's told you.

- Just because someone says they play on PS4/5 does not mean they don't also play on PC as well. I have several friends that play using both, usually depending on whether they're at home (PS) or traveling (laptop PC). Or it could be they're lying about playing on PS4 altogether, though if what my PS friends have told me is correct that could easily be confirmed if you're also using PS and are friends on PSN.

- A check on google shows that a very simplified form of botting is possible on PS4/5 using a programmable mouse in place of a controller (didn't see any results related to programmable keyboards, all the results were mouse specific). While I'm sure your friend's hunt related activities are on the up and up, what is he doing in his downtime? Even KC spawners have some downtime on occasion.

- GMs aren't going to care about how much amra is dropping or what your friend does with it. That your friend would even bring it up is a sign that they're trying to spin a tale to cover for the real reason.

- If GMs were banning players simply for working on KC spawns, we'd see a lot more spawners getting banned on a regular basis.

There's always the chance that what your friend is telling you is 100% complete and accurate, and that the GM was poorly trained for doing botting reviews but as I said at the start of my reply coming here does nothing to help. It has to go through the required appeals process. You're not going to get your friend reinstated by making a forum post.

[DoorMattFE]

First, coming here isn't going to change anything. He has to go through the appeal process as explained in the email he would have received. Any attempts to appeal in other ways won't work.

While I have no doubt you are all honest and accurate about his hunt activity, I suspect your friend may not be sharing all the relevant information honestly with. There are some suspicious things about what you're saying he's told you.

- Just because someone says they play on PS4/5 does not mean they don't also play on PC as well. I have several friends that play using both, usually depending on whether they're at home (PS) or traveling (laptop PC). Or it could be they're lying about playing on PS4 altogether, though if what my PS friends have told me is correct that could easily be confirmed if you're also using PS and are friends on PSN.

- A check on google shows that a very simplified form of botting is possible on PS4/5 using a programmable mouse in place of a controller (didn't see any results related to programmable keyboards, all the results were mouse specific). While I'm sure your friend's hunt related activities are on the up and up, what is he doing in his downtime? Even KC spawners have some downtime on occasion.

- GMs aren't going to care about how much amra is dropping or what your friend does with it. That your friend would even bring it up is a sign that they're trying to spin a tale to cover for the real reason.

- If GMs were banning players simply for working on KC spawns, we'd see a lot more spawners getting banned on a regular basis.

So just general update no this was never looked at from any GMs and the spawner was not unbanned. Which is insanely disappointing. For the people such as the person above I am just assuming this is their gimmick as a human being because they are making things up and using that as defense. However I will nonetheless just show that is the case

"Just bc they say they play on PS4 doesn't mean they play on PC" they showed their log in history. they log in on PS4.

"What is he doing in his downtime" like in general??? They play the game, you can check their page on the Lodestone for that cause I can't list off everything cause again, he PLAYS the game.

"GMs aren't gonna care about amra/this them spinning the tale" No this is something we talked about to them and he went "oh yeah that makes it even weirder" so unless we had multiple individuals come to that conclusion independently and they used that as a back up, this is you just making things up. Again.

"i googled this which means this has to be an applicable defense" you literally. okay so with this logic. have to delude yourself and assume everyone has to be botting thus everyone including yourself are fair game to be banned.

i hope you grow as a person <3

[Jojoya]

i hope you grow as a person <3

I hope you come to grips with reality.

I don't know your friend. I don't know the truth of the matter. You don't know the truth of the matter. Only your friend knows the truth of the matter.

What I was doing was pointing possibilities and not trying to claim that your friend was doing any of those things. None of those possibilities were made up. They do happen.

If I'm judging anyone, it's you and a few of the other posters here because you're coming off as naive. When something about someone's story doesn't make sense (no GM with the authority to ban players is going to confuse doing kill counts with botting or the spawning community would have long since been filled with banned players), it always turns out that there's more to the story that wasn't shared.

When we only know someone through online interaction, there's a very good chance we don't know that person as well as we want to believe.

At least your friend's ban, just or unjust, is long since over since the OP said it was only for 10 days. Hope you've all been having a good time spawning together since.