Bot, RMT, Cheating Megathread

[Shinokugawa]

We should stop pretending that it isn't easy to stand there and watch obvious botting on Apex and Locus mobs.

That's kindof my point. It's extremely obvious to anyone that knows what to look for, hell even if you don't, going into Bibiki Bay or Bhaflau Thickets, it is 100% bots. You can spend 5min there and immediately figure out what to pick out. During CP era I knew players who repeatedly reported these botters in Dho Gates, yet nothing happened. Still, individual players have their accounts suspended for botting, some don't, some that don't bot get reported and banned.

The RMT bots there have been operating for years (obviously in other zones prior to MLs). So they clearly aren't banning them, yet individual players botting in those places are being banned. So what is their criteria? It's inconsistent or depends on whether the GM had enough coffee or not that day. I'd take less issue with a list like this if SEs approach was to either consistently ban botters based on evidence and investigation or to have some threshold that has to be broken before they ban you, but it seems wildly random and is why you could be banned for sitting idle in the wrong place too long with someone reporting you, while other bots have been running 24/7 for years and multiple reports get ignored.

[Spicyryan]

I don't worry or wonder why the STF is inconsistent with their enforcement. It is only a piece of the picture.
The community psyche and attitude is arguably more important. A thread like this is part of counteracting a negative feedback loop that is beyond out of control at this point. Which, if need be we can have the discussion that people can't display capability in handling honestly or earnestly. On what constitutes "wrong" in a different thread, but for this thread there is no grey.

Further, if players come across obvious botting. Take multiple pictures, provide a detailed account, and then we can all report the individual. Hopefully the community punishes them socially if the STF doesn't.

[Fondue]

Remember the time you were so obnoxious the devs had to patch a monster so you stopped griefing an entire server
How did the community psyche deal with that one

[Fondue]

Can spicy be reported to the stf for implicitly requesting mass reports against an arbitrary list of players with no proof

[Draylo]

Honestly probably having the opposite effect, people see all this "exposure" and wonder, well if they arent getting caught let me try. You would probably be better off posting every day on the official forums with screens of your reports like that one guy. I honestly see 0 benefit of this. I thought maybe it could be a troll but yeah... cringe.

Just getting an already fractured community even worse as you alienate people from any interaction with you in the future. If the company doesn't police their own game of course in the long run this is the result and most saw this coming a mile away. In the past you had the community shaming(which really didn't last very long once windower came) AND the company actively policing their game. Its all automated now since they probably have 0 people even looking, just checking a list of RMT and POS hackers that got picked up in their auto ban system. They aren't going to do anything, and especially to people on a list from some guy on the internet. The fact people think anyone was taking him serious.. lol. I dont participate in anything, so good luck with your list. You are just creating enemies from people who think you are really an eccentric person but who wasn't malicious, seems not to be the case. So much for caring what the "community" thinks.

Probably 0 chance of anything "community" related given tons that would care enough are ex jaded players and private server 75 era nostalgia goggled all running every kind of addon. I think I did a thread like this when I was 14 years old.. I just can't believe someone would post this in 2023 or think it's funny to maliciously make a joke at the potential expense of others(hope it's that tbh.) Even listing leeches, the majority of those people aren't affecting game economy, mobs pop so fast there's no camp competition. It's honestly bizarre. Yikes

I have no idea what you hope to accomplish with this, at the end of the day its up to SE to police their own game not you or the community. They are too busy caring about XIV to do anything about XI, just the sad truth and they don't even care theres a private server with 4k mooches playing a free game with their copyrighted crap, yet they are gonna care about a list some guy makes online.

[Spicyryan]

I dont participate in anything, so good luck with your list.

This part stood out to me as a bit sad. Forget the whole, getting exposed, and lying about it prompting an attack from the margins; dancing around the circumstances of your participation. This is a social game. Not associating with anyone in this context comes off like bragging you can't be impacted because you have no friends. I would prefer better circumstances for you.

[Draylo]

I meant in terms of botting, your reports arent gonna do shit. As far as the "community" are you even reading the craziness you are typing? Lol, who gives a shit about the community and them attempting to shame people out of content, jeeze its insane even typing it. These people are just laughing, I also havent joined a PUG in over 5 years. I have fun with my small group of friends and I'm fine with that. I also didnt lie about anything, my character in fact does nothing in the off chance SE gives a shit again and theres weirdos still caring about people skipping a boring ass grind designed to appeal to people long gone, who are sitting on pirated private servers wishing the game death.

[Athas]

Maybe when you spend the last few hours before midnight on December 31st compiling your RMT manifesto for a 20 year old mumorpuger, don't go around calling other people friendless losers?

Just a thought.

[NynJa]

Thats the best part. Well best for us.

This dude literally spent new years eve typing up all this bullshit about cheating on Asura. Its not like it was even daytime new years eve.

[Madeline]

there's new foes in ambuscade, there's no time for this

[Draylo]

I get the sentiment but really the anger should be directed at SE and not players. They have continually showed they dont care about XI, that last anniversary was a complete letdown and a shame. If the "community" was as strong as it was, they should have complained about how SE completely screwed people over with that. They talked about it for literally years only to put dinky stuff nobody cares about. Then you have this side of the game where they don't even bother to do anything. I feel bad that Matsui tries to do things for the game and has ambition for it and they don't even let him have a budget that they probably give XIV for their dumb holiday events. The game is still fun but the obvious lack of care from SE via reduced funding is quite evident. Now you have the usual XIV people not caring about XI/hating on it, the now private server people hating on it/actively persuading players to it over retail and now someone within the remaining retail community actively trying to hunt people still playing the game to rile up some "community red scare" to publicly shame and blacklist... We are in the worst timeline lol. I have to try to convince myself this is some elaborate troll and using people he knows to help the joke.

[wipers]

A bitchy spicyryan thread what a shocker.

[Spicyryan]

I get the sentiment but really the anger should be directed at SE and not players....and now someone within the remaining retail community actively trying to hunt people still playing the game to rile up some "community red scare" to publicly shame and blacklist... We are in the worst timeline lol.

It is possible to blame both, lol. Credit where credit is due. Blame SE, and go after the people responsible for the need of enforcement in the first place.

[NynJa]

actively persuading players to it over retail

You keep saying this as if a majority of the people playing on Horizon were playing retail anytime in the past year.

I can guarantee you that maybe 1% of the Horizon population paid a retail monthly sub at any point in the second half of 2022, and thats being generous.

[Draylo]

Majority no, but it is happening because I see it thru out all of youtube. You just search "FFXI" and that garbage is the only thing that comes up. Theres even a guy who is some "big" 80k sub youtuber and he goes to all the comments literally recruiting people, this one was my favorite:





The majority are on there because its free but that doesn't mean people aren't trying to recruit players from retail. I also hate how everyone now seems to be forced to put "RETAIL" in their video descriptions. They are defintely pumping ad revenue behind this garbage. Even getting youtube comments off commenting on peoples videos that barely have subs:

"Thanks for watching and commenting,you have been selected randomly for our giveaway package.quickly contact the tele__gram above.

[Shinokugawa]

I don't worry or wonder why the STF is inconsistent with their enforcement. It is only a piece of the picture.

You are right it's only part of the picture, but you should care, because it is a big part of the problem.

People bot because they can get away with it, during 75-cap it was much less prevalent because they enforced it relatively consistently. It wasn't gone altogether but you weren't going to 3 zones and seeing 50 bots running with nothing being done. They'd try to engage with players and those that were botting were banned, the community also somewhat frowned upon it and did what I think you are more or less trying to do with this thread. If they started dropping the hammer on people in those zones, you'd see it slow down or disperse. The attitude now is that who is banned is so random that players figure if they get banned, they'll just quit the game and be free of it (I've heard no fewer than 5 players use almost this exact verbiage). You also have people being banned who are doing nothing wrong, because the GMs don't engage with players the way they once did and assume reports are correct until proven otherwise, except there is no way to prove otherwise except in limited circumstances like harassment. It's like rolling a 1d20: roll a 1 and you get banned, 2-19 nothing, we'll call rolling a 20 "rolling a Spicy": you can be reported by 500 people and not be banned for clear visible ToS violations. I'm not convinced at this point that the bans going out aren't instigated by RMT in these zones reporting players for squatting their camps.

Reporting people similarly feels useless. GMs don't even directly reply to reports anymore. Maybe that's the point and the reporting system is now it's own little RNG mini-game and if you get someone banned you get a hat. It can be like tartarus platemail lockstyles are the uniform of suckiness, except reporter hat is the lockstyle of narc so we all know to avoid you.

...but if they did that and fixed the problem, then they'd realize no one is making it to ml50 legitimately and they'd have to revise the content. They'd then realize Odyssey v25 is a mess because you can't reasonably do it at ML20 and have to revise that.

All of these problems: RMT, bots, etc can largely be solved with proper game design and mechanics. Requiring 30k Alex for a mythic is stupid, no one is farming Salvage regularly anymore and it doesn't take long sitting outside the zones to see Master Thiefs gyyydyd, ieeejddj, arrssdtv, lllyvvwdd, and dduurrddd all waiting and running the zone 24/7 to realize where their gil is coming from. Yet it continues because no one wants to do that shit. We have Odyssey, make it so if you do a full v20-v25 climb you get a KI to buy one Cats Eye. People would do that. People aren't going to go farm fucking 30,000 Alex in Salvage, they will either run bots or buy from bots. Same with HMP, Beitetsu, etc. Requiring 3m EP for 1 master level is just insanity, no one is doing that legitimately and whatever they are smoking over at SE that makes them think they are must be good shit.

Fix the game mechanics and keep the rules consistently enforced/investigated, these problems will be reduced and players who play by the rules will feel less likely to be banned unfairly.

[Draylo]

It is possible to blame both, lol. Credit where credit is due. Blame SE, and go after the people responsible for the need of enforcement in the first place.

Um sure.. if you like wasting your time. You are literally doing nothing to help the game by what you are doing right now. Lets say best case scenario, you get the "community" (I still have to laugh at this as I say it) to shun the filthy hacking cheaters and they end up quitting because nobody will play with them. Then where are you? Is it some utopia where the parent company doesnt care about its game enough to police it that you had to forcefully make people quit? I just dont get your logic behind this aside from pissing people off or spiting people who were cool with you just to scratch some jealousy itch or some kind of repressed angst towards people. You are just really appearing unhinged in all honesty, because this is like someone trying to stop pirates from illegally downloading games/movies and they go on some crusade to post peoples pictures with their names. Do you really think you're affecting anything in the end? Just looking ridiculous to most people and pushing away true fans of this game from interacting with you, not a win in my eyes.

[ConsernedAsuran]

Spicy if your fellow asurans repent our sins and sing five hail altana’s can we come off the list, and please step away from the edge

[Spicyryan]

Spicy if your fellow asurans repent our sins and sing five hail altana’s can we come off the list, and please step away from the edge

No.

Hail Satan.

[katebi]

Spicy i for one want to say thank you for putting my emotes in check with due help from my ls we are counting my emotes as to not abuse the "spicystandard" of emotes use over many years I don't know how I missed that in the rule book idk what I would have done without you buddy I say a big thank you to spicy and his ever so boring life that he has the time to sit here and remind us about emote use and what is considered proper he added awhole page on wiki about it check it out everyone and stop giving him such a hard time he is a making a better emoteless asura for us