Integrity matters

[uwaa_a_catgirl]

Where is this "obvious cheating problem"? As in, how do you spot it? If it's so obvious, can you give us a simple run-down list? Ideally with some examples? And is it just "obvious", or is it also "widespread"? Because if it ain't, then it ought to be easy to report and action the limited number of players who so obviously cheat, yet? And if OTOH it is widespread (and obvious!) then it should be easy to provide tons of examples that every one of us can easily verify with just a single evening of play, yes?

I asked someone earlier who said CE is always full of botters to point out some botters from who I found ingame, and they didn't get back to me either.

If cheaters and botters are so prolific, I'd like to help report them, but everyone who says they're prolific always fails to point out individuals I can report when I ask for help with that.

So erm... how do I go about that? I would like to turn words into actions.

The thread may have moved on, but I feel compelled to respond to this post.

The problem with identifying bots is it requires paying attention to player actions and time. I saw a few bots in OC a couple months back. Identification required close attention over the course of several fates. These bots were not collaborating or part of any multiboxing effort; they were separate individuals botting on their own. What gave them away is that, each fate, as they dodged AOEs they would inevitably converge to the same location and move in unison point to point from there. People are too chaotic for this to happen to the degree of consistency I observed. Bots are not.

But I don't spend much time in OC, and there's a lot of people to keep track of besides. However, I do spend quite a bit of time in CC and the bots have been quite prevalent there. Over the past two weeks, I have reported 90 occurrences of botting across 20 players, with an additional 38 players I suspect are botting but I haven't seen them enough to come to a conclusion. I don't know how many games I've played, but it feels like half of my games have 1-2 bots, sometimes as many as 4. It is quite frustrating.

The bots are quite good, and the plugin they are using is quite sophisticated. I could give enough specifics for how I identify bots that anyone playing CC could identify several in an evening of play, but since the plugin is in very active development, I worry writing a detailed write up would be sufficient for the plugin author to vibe code something to address it.

Identification comes down to observing players again and again, which is easy to do in CC; 10 players at a time, and smaller population overall. Eventually you notice a particular player exhibits peculiar behavior, so you start observing them more closely, and then the tells become obvious. A very tedious process.

As for how to report them, GM services directed me to this form: https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...=5382&la=1&p=0

[Thurmnmurmn]

I use to be in the boat of "you can totally identify who's Botting" but that is no longer the case.
After playing OSRS for the past few years I've noticed that there's some special kind of people who can repeat the same thing over and over at the exact same rhythm without ever skipping a beat.
Honestly it's pretty impressive.

[jomas_45]

. The comment on the raid was not directed at you, but another post that stated the game hasn't had sexual elements since Shadowbringers. That's factually untrue

I said it had lessened, not that it had gone away entirely. We still get outfits with booty shorts/mini skirts for women, trousers for men. We still get that succubus boss recycled over and over and over again like it's the only female mob we have and designing another is too hard. We still get Vamp Fatale.


But the male bosses have become sexier to women as well, so equality is going the wrong way, but it's happening. We don't get escort missions for courtesans. I think the last real courtesan we had was Yotsuyu, and she was an actual character.

[VeyaAkemi]

We still get that succubus boss recycled over and over and over again like it's the only female mob we have and designing another is too hard.

Now now, that's not true, we also get the Siren model recycled a lot, though DT did give us the Deceiver in Oriogenics, and she is a recycled Scathach, she is a funny case because you can look at her hands, her left hand is relaxed while her right hand is clenched, this is because Scathach held a spear on her right hand, her left hand is even in the exact same position as Sca's.

Also since the Siren recycles are most often tree women, I tend to call them "trussy mobs".

[jomas_45]

Now now, that's not true, we also get the Siren model recycled a lot, though DT did give us the Deceiver in Oriogenics, and she is a recycled Scathach, she is a funny case because you can look at her hands, her left hand is relaxed while her right hand is clenched, this is because Scathach held a spear on her right hand, her left hand is even in the exact same position as Sca's.

Also since the Siren recycles are most often tree women, I tend to call them "trussy mobs".

I stand corrected. "Trussy Mobs" lol. Still, can we have a female model with actual clothing whose magic isn't allure?

[Len_]

I stand corrected. "Trussy Mobs" lol. Still, can we have a female model with actual clothing whose magic isn't allure?

Halicarnassus (Deltascape) reigns supreme. Also because she's like one of the ones you can count on one hand who actually stands and doesn't float.

[Aidorouge]

Just so you know, that is whataboutism. Have you looked it up? There's no hypocrisy.

It's hypocritical for me personally to single out one thing for XYZ while giving something else a free pass for doing XYZ also. Someone was condemning one game for supposedly "enabling" sexual misconduct and crimes while they simped for another game that was equally guilty of the same thing. If that person had any "integrity" of their own, they would have held both to the same standard, but no, they were some Blizzard fan thinking everyone else had forgotten that part of their torrid history, which was WORSE because it involved actual developers. They could have even made it a point of how they held companies and communities to different yet strict rules, but that wasn't the case, but rather they used this opportunity to be a shill with no self-awareness.

Hell, I even left the "wait, but aren't you judging the ENTIRE company by what a few employees did" card right there on the table, plain as day wondering if anyone would notice and take me to task on that. One can't bring up matters of integrity, right from the topic title even, and not expect me to fine-comb my own opinions and statements to avoid hypocrisy just as much as I zeroed in on someone else's.

Also, the purpose of whataboutism is to deflect and downplay, but I don't think I've said anything to suggest that Square-Enix or the community is absolved of any mistakes or wrong-doing, I've simply said I'm not going to bury them 10 feet deep while every other franchise and fandom gets to waltz on by (or in caffe's case, they drew deliberate attention by bringing up one of the worst examples possible in this context), and that I'm holding FF14 to no higher or lower standard than the rest.
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Ultimately, we're all arriving at the same place, slowly, one at a time. First it was, "doing anything about mods will ruin the game". Then it became, "oh, maybe it's okay if we have a dev-approved toolkit". First it was, "barely anyone cheats or automates", and now it's "oh, let's do a server side solution that actually data logs when people do those things". First it was "we are a puritanical, 'nothing to see here' culture". Now it's "hey, every game has this problem. So it's not on Final Fantasy XIV alone to fix it." so did OP have valid points or did they not? I'm very confused (/s).

Even my first post in the topic was telling someone they were better off not dealing with obnoxious mod users (beastly or otherwise), mocking said mod users myself, and more or less stating contentment (or neutrality I guess depending on how you read it) about Square-Enix banning mods which is all entirely on topic with what the OP brought up.

My third-party sympathy only goes as far as not supporting the banning of the actual users, because several mods are entirely benign and somebody shouldn't lose their entire account just because they wanted their Hrothgar or Viera to wear a hat or hairstyle they purchased. If that means the cheaters and degenerates get a mulligan and avoid banning too then so be it, but I won't be bothered at all if every single collective mod got banned along with Mare, even the "innocent" ones.

But it's not a "whataboutism" to bring up the harmless mods or the people that use them, it's about me being personally consistent (ergo avoiding hypocrisy) by pointing out the nuance of our peculiar situation and how I navigate it. Someone will inevitably argue that its not right of me to say even the harmless mods should be banned, while someone else will scoff at me letting the worst offenders off the hook with the rest. If the ToS is gospel, then no mods are permitted, but if Square-Enix says they'll look the other way, then I suppose there's no hands to be slapped. The end result is the same though where plugins cease to exist and people continue to play the game as intended.

That said, other people can apply their personal standards if they want, I'm not really trying to dictate how people view modding as a whole. I don't care who uses them, and I won't care if they're gone, because outside of maybe a handful of PVP matches I have not been impacted by them and could not positively identify anyone using them, so it's not like I could assist in removing them anyway.

[Aidorouge]

This game does have sex adjacent content, but it's become less of a thing since ShB. Actually, there's less sex talk in the German translation. All the creepy NPCs hitting on simpering girls in Limsa either say something different, or the girls tell them where they can stick it. Main storylines are preserved, but the random flavour text is not.

I think the over sexualisation may be on the English translation, which is famously quite different from the Japanese script.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the English translation actually REMOVE some of the sexualization? I've been told that Haurchefant treats you VERY differently in the Japanese version.
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There's an important distinction between depicting something and endorsing it. The presence of sexual or suggestive flavor text doesn't necessarily mean the game condones the behavior being depicted, especially when the text itself may portray an unwanted advance negatively.

And even if EN Localization has more sexual content than the other languages, that's still a separate question from whether that content causes or facilitates criminal behavior among players. That latter claim would need evidence of its own.

I think it's a little silly to think "This game has Limsa prostitutes, so it's okay to sexually harass other people." Like, no. It's actually reportable:

Limsa prostitutes aren't even the "worst" of it. Players under 18 (level or age) are made to run Sastasha as their very first dungeon and that place literally has a rape den, and where enemy NPCs will shout "Take the women!" if female player characters are present. (Male players get "Kill the men!" instead.)

I would think most people would understand though that Square-Enix isn't encouraging and condoning players to say or do those kinds of things to others, in-game or real life. But there's some people in the community who are having trouble separating fiction from reality, and actually do think Square-Enix is being an enabler or otherwise endangering those underage players (or anyone period) by subjecting them to dialogue and locations where non-consent was heavily implied for narrative reasons. (You are sent in there to wipe out REAL pirates, not Lazytown ones.)

And we won't even get into everything we were told about Garleans and what they did to conquered nations for several expansions, or what they would have done to Eorzea and the Warrior of Light (or at least female ones) if we lost... which is why I never understood the players that wanted a whole expansion where we hang out and buddy up with them... like, literally eww gross no.

And whoa, deja'vu. In a different topic trying to condemn ERPers and how sexual content had "no place" in FF14 back when Mare got banned, other people brought up the sexualized content the game its self possesses and that if that if those folks were going to be prudently loud, why didn't they condemn Square-Enix as much as the ERPers and modders? They never did give anyone an answer, and even mysteriously stopped talking in that topic... huh, go figure.

But yeah, mods are a separate issue from content warnings, though I suppose the reason FF14 remains T for Teen is because none of what's said is actually depicted. It's KNOWN how pirates, Garleans and other unsavory NPCs conduct themselves, but its not SHOWN.

Now if someone wanted to make the argument that this game needs "trigger warnings" or some other kind of filter to remove the more sexualized elements from someone's viewing, I'm not really adverse to that. Why, we even have an active topic going on right now about being able to toggle off other people's glamour and I'm supportive of it, despite being exactly one of those players who runs around in skimpy outfits. But then I've always been an advocate of "tag your crap and use the blacklist" when it comes to places that are entirely pornographic, so why wouldn't I support similar filtering functions in a place that's merely spicy? Again, I do try to be consistent.

[VanillaWafer]

Limsa prostitutes aren't even the "worst" of it. Players under 18 (level or age) are made to run Sastasha as their very first dungeon and that place literally has a rape den, and where enemy NPCs will shout "Take the women!" if female player characters are present. (Male players get "Kill the men!" instead.)

I would think most people would understand though that Square-Enix isn't encouraging and condoning players to say or do those kinds of things to others, in-game or real life. But there's some people in the community who are having trouble separating fiction from reality, and actually do think Square-Enix is being an enabler or otherwise endangering those underage players (or anyone period) by subjecting them to dialogue and locations where non-consent was heavily implied for narrative reasons. (You are sent in there to wipe out REAL pirates, not Lazytown ones.)

There's an important distinction that's been getting blurred in this discussion. A game depicting sexual, violent, or otherwise objectionable behavior ≠ an endorsement of that behavior. I mean, using the Sastasha example you provided: You, the adventurer/Warrior of Light, had to deal with that threat, which resulted in the end of their (digital) lives. That was the only option given to you, there were no other endings to explore, thankfully.

The same applies to the broader argument about FFXIV's social environment. The game containing suggestive dialogue doesn't establish that Square Enix condones sexual misconduct, just as the game depicting piracy, war crimes, or violence doesn't establish that it condones those things either.

And I'd still keep that separate from what individual players choose to do with mods or outside the game. If we're going to argue that the game's content actively facilitates harmful behavior, that's a much stronger claim than simply pointing out that the content exists, and, once again, it needs evidence to support that connection.

(Will continue in the next post. 3k char limit is limiting and I do want to respond to your points.)

[VanillaWafer]

And whoa, deja'vu. In a different topic trying to condemn ERPers and how sexual content had "no place" in FF14 back when Mare got banned, other people brought up the sexualized content the game its self possesses and that if that if those folks were going to be prudently loud, why didn't they condemn Square-Enix as much as the ERPers and modders? They never did give anyone an answer, and even mysteriously stopped talking in that topic... huh, go figure.

While I think the consistency question is fair, I wouldn't read too much into people stopping participation in a thread. There could be any number of reasons for that.

But if someone's argument is specifically that sexual content has “no place” in FFXIV, then I think it's reasonable to ask how they're distinguishing the sexual content already present in the game from sexual content created or shared by players. Those are different things, but the distinction should be explained rather than assumed.

Now if someone wanted to make the argument that this game needs "trigger warnings" or some other kind of filter to remove the more sexualized elements from someone's viewing, I'm not really adverse to that. Why, we even have an active topic going on right now about being able to toggle off other people's glamour and I'm supportive of it, despite being exactly one of those players who runs around in skimpy outfits. But then I've always been an advocate of "tag your crap and use the blacklist" when it comes to places that are entirely pornographic, so why wouldn't I support similar filtering functions in a place that's merely spicy? Again, I do try to be consistent.

That's a reasonable thing to want. If someone doesn't want to encounter sexualized or otherwise uncomfortable content, having filtering or visibility options seems like a much more practical solution than treating the existence of that content as evidence that the game or everyone participating in it is doing something wrong.

You can be uncomfortable with certain content without needing to argue that it shouldn't exist at all.