Niconico Super Conference - Famitsu Summary Translation (4/25-4/26)

[Null]

That was also very terrible.

[Destinye]

-Give the option to not receive tells from players below level 20 (or shouts, or says, etc)

-Don't allow friend requests to be received unless you've exchanged a tell with the player (ie. you have sent them at least one tell)

That was hard.

While this DOES have some sense to it, let's be honest: People will bitch about this in a heartbeat and cause SE to revert it or make it more convoluted than it needs to be.

[Niiro]

What's there to bitch about.

The tells option is........optional, don't use it if you don't want.

As for the Flist thing, how often do you Friend people without having spoken to them?

[Katlan]

-Give the option to not receive tells from players below level 20 (or shouts, or says, etc)

-Don't allow friend requests to be received unless you've exchanged a tell with the player (ie. you have sent them at least one tell)

That was hard.

if they prevented people from being able to send tells from under lv 5 it would be a huge difference even

[Niiro]

Or just let the player set the threshold.

inb4 something something PS3 limitations backend data pleaselookforwardtoitfuckoff™

[Dammerung]

Or how about the really obvious: just prevent free trial accounts from sending tells to more than n unique players per hour.

[Niiro]

Whoa now, this is SE, if we get too obvious things are bound to get worse.

They'll find a way, they always do.

[Kaisha]

Or how about the really obvious: just prevent free trial accounts from sending tells to more than n unique players per hour.

• - The chat options /shout, /yell, and /tell cannot be used by Free Trial characters.

Game just needs some bloody client-side options to filter them out. STF also needs to be more than just three members.

[Niiro]

Assuming that's true then it explains a lot about why they don't seem to care, making bank off of RMT buying new game codes.

(while also probably inflating subscriber numbers)

[arus2001]

I'm not entirely wild about blanketly blocking tells under a certain level, but I understand why people want to use it as a metric. Either way, my hesitation lies in legit players being able to communicate with people as readily if everyone suddenly decides, "Nope, fuck da newbies!" and clicks it on.

I do think an accountwide lock on friend requests should be implemented, however. Give 5 attempts a day. If someone accepts, refund the attempt. If not, they're down to 4/5 and so on until 0. You may still get the occasional spam requests, but the real goal should be cutting down the frequency of annoyances since total filtration is unlikely to ever be a thing.

Only other real metric that should be tracked is shout/tell frequency. Legit players aren't sending 1 message a second for prolonged periods. Trying to nail duplicate messages fail when they slip in things like 001, 003, 125, etc. at the end. We also know they'll go at lengths to pervert words like gold into g0ld, g01d, g.o.l.d, some funky accented o inserted, and so on. And of course, you can't just mute that individual character, but the entire account needs to get flagged for GM attention. Stolen accounts will still be utilized for this purpose, too, which tends to counter the level restrictions some clamor for.

Automated watch dogs only go so far. I think most will agree actual presence needs to be upped.

[Lokus]

Or how about the really obvious: just prevent free trial accounts from sending tells to more than n unique players per hour.

Free trial accounts already can't send any tells, shout, or yell. All the lvl 1 RMT we see sending tells and friend requests are full accounts.

[Dammerung]

That I didn't know.

[Sho]

That's why I surmised a built-in filter that at least learns simple word patterns. RMT tells exist based on their message, most of which will always have a specific gil amount per dollar amount, and a website where they would have to go to to purchase said gil, along with some shitty "nice guy" message (example: "Joy and happiness follow you," some shit like this). Picking up on and blocking these patterns solves about 90% of the problem. That's why the Guildwork tell blocker works so well. The only downside is that you have to update it yourself every week or so to catch the stragglers who put out intricate messages (those dudes who add stars or symbols to their messages so filters don't pick it up).

I'm actually not even sure why level 1 characters are even allowed to send tells. There's absolutely no reason to make use of the tell channel until you are at least level 15, unless it's a 2nd or 3rd character.

[Cutriss]

I'm actually not even sure why level 1 characters are even allowed to send tells. There's absolutely no reason to make use of the tell channel until you are at least level 15, unless it's a 2nd or 3rd character.

I've invited a RL friend to play the game. He installs and plays it in his house. He hasn't bought a headset yet, so vox is out. What, do I have to get him on the phone now?

This is kind of a real example, not being devil's advocate.

Niiro's suggestion allows it to be toggled on and off, which is fine. Ultimately though it only means that they'll just grind out some easy levels before breaching the low level limit.

There should just be an automatic GM flag for any account that reaches some blacklist threshold within 60 seconds, because whether or not that person is an RMT, he's at least a nuisance.

[Sho]

I've invited a RL friend to play the game. He installs and plays it in his house. He hasn't bought a headset yet, so vox is out. What, do I have to get him on the phone now?

This is kind of a real example, not being devil's advocate.

Niiro's suggestion allows it to be toggled on and off, which is fine. Ultimately though it only means that they'll just grind out some easy levels before breaching the low level limit.

There should just be an automatic GM flag for any account that reaches some blacklist threshold within 60 seconds, because whether or not that person is an RMT, he's at least a nuisance.

That's a legit example, but I'm willing to believe that scnario is far less likely than it is a new player joining the game who knows absolutely no one.

I like the idea of some sort of blacklist threshold too, however.

[Qeomash]

Honestly, whatever we do, the RMT will find a way around it.

[Destinye]

That's a legit example, but I'm willing to believe that scnario is far less likely than it is a new player joining the game who knows absolutely no one.

I like the idea of some sort of blacklist threshold too, however.

Personally, all yoshi has to do is get off the "I'm your friend!" train and start banning people. He says numerous times he can see the gil flow and how much enters/leaves/what we do with it and where it comes from..he knows who buys gil.

Punish the people, less buyers, less sellers, less need for elaborate fixes of any kind. Win/Win. Yeah you may get people pissy at you, but look at the Salvage bans in XI - It didn't help 100% but it sure as hell made people be less blatant about it even for a short time.

This is why JP servers are TYPICALLY devoid of an RMT problem, gil buying isn't so wide spread and "hey buy some gil, I'll carry you through all content" which is the biggest drive for people buying gil.

So while true, it is far and few inbetween, there are times I get random tells because someone is interested in the job and wants to know about it from someone who actually plays it. "Well there's wikis.."

Official Forums: "You shouldn't have to load up a wiki to learn about the game you're playing, that's why XIV ARR is the superior MMO and the only MMO to ever exist with content and why XI is shit and has always been shit and will always be shit." type of mentality will usually be instilled in someone new just browsing the game's forum looking for info and figure just asking someone in game may be better, so if they figure out how to search or happen to see someone that's a 50 BRD for example..why not shoot a tell?

So good chance you may get the occasional tell from newbie just joining which all of those would prevent (not the threshold) since, at least on NA Legacy worlds I played, you can honestly get a bunch of people to blacklist someone out of the blue because its "funny" or some false story about them and bam, you just got them banned. That too is a rare situation but very possible.

So the easiest solution: Start actually punishing people.

[Spider-Dan]

Honestly, whatever we do, the RMT will find a way around it.

This. The idea that putting level requirements on RMT telling would pose a significant obstacle is unlikely. RMT already have finely honed leveling skills (they have to generate the gil to sell it, after all).

The real answer is that it's just not that simple. There are already enough roadblocks to convenience put in this game to stop RMT; I'd hardly say the problem with the devs is that they aren't willing to go far enough.

[Niiro]

While I'm not about to defend Yoshi, punishing the people that buy gil is not the way to go about dealing with people that sell it.

They're sure as fuck not gonna ban any actual players for buying gil, they just won't, the economy in this game is an afterthought (and was designed to be that way) to make sure they didn't have to care about the effects of RMT, neither Yoshi or anyone else at SE gives two fucks how much gil you buy.

People buying gil is generally pretty inconsequential to the game experience as a whole, the only reason people care is because of the annoying as fuck RMT advertising in-game.

[Kaisha]

Kinda waiting on WoW to see if the recent addition of time cards alleviated RMT spam there any, since it provides a legal means of buying currency.

Add in sanctioned means of buying gil, and slam harder against those still buying it from the RMT. Trading RMT buying serial keys for new spam accounts with players paying $14.99 for time card.