Square Enix does not care for the US players. Got perma banned for reporting bots [Feedback]

[Maris]

Before I begin this post, I wish to specify as a disclaimer. This is not a troll or a joke to me. I was legitimately permanently banned after not breaking any rules for years for simply reporting bots and trying to assist the GM team as I would see the same set of names for months botting and not being removed from the game. I am a Global Mentor on 2 different accounts and I am also a player moderator on Runescape. I am very compassionate about FF14 and other Square Enix games and as a player of seven years I wanted to discuss what I have learned and hopefully this reaches Naoki Yoshida himself. I ask that you keep all negative comments to yourself and only listen as what I learned greatly shows the neglect to US Western players of Final Fantasy 14. I can assure you, I was on recording and broke no such rules. They refused to look at a YouTube video as evidence. Let that be a consideration of how serious of a matter I took this as both personal and professional as a content creator and streamer. I might not be a big name, but that shouldn't matter.


I have played Square and Square Enix games for years. I have enjoyed the original Final Fantasy first several games, Kingdom Hearts, and even Deus Ex to name a few. Streamed them off and on for years. Square Enix makes great single player story based games where I been supporting the company my whole life of almost 30 years old.


For the first time in 30 years, I will finally stop supporting Square Enix, I will not stream any of their games, purchase them, play them, or pay for any services that would fund Square Enix after playing Final Fantasy 14 for 7 years. I learned about how it's online gaming experience is handled behind the scenes of which many North American players do not know. It's an awful and backward system to the Western US playerbase and I will explain it here and why I have decided to do so.

The reason I write this article is to help Naoki Yoshida, the director of Final Fantasy 14 understand a huge error in their system; a cultural international error. I'm an American player who was permanently banned from Final Fantasy 14 for reporting bot farms. You read that correct. Banned for trying to report bots. Appeal rejected. Wrongfully banned and I have it all on film. Even the bots in question, but for name shaming I will not state of course. but that isn't just what I wanted to discuss. It was my findings afterward while I was appealing.

Their reporting system is a nightmare even to their own North America Square Enix Supervisor of Customer Support, as they expressed to me for hours how tied their hands are and absolutely zero communication or information from gamemasters besides a Yes or No and in addition they need permission to speak on recording. It's a recorded line and I find it very strange that there isn't any transparency and even the supervisors must feel their job security at risk, but I say this. Why should it be at risk? He's just answering customer questions and concerns. I was put on hold 5 times for the supervisor just to get permission to speak to me. Very odd, but I am getting ahead of my self and completely skipped my introduction. My apologies for this. Allow me to give you insight on my experience aswell.

My name is Maris. I created with my friends a +300 member Free Company and we're one of the top Free Companies in Cactuar called "Dreams of Light" and I've also been a Global Mentor for quite awhile across 2 accounts. My other account is not suspended, but I will be halting that subscription after I post this as that character has many ultimate clears. As a player, I usually don't have much to do in the game as I have done everything across many characters. Instead, I help teach others in my FC to grow the confidence to not be daunted by harder content like Extremes and Savage and teach said fights till they become confident in joining farms alone even. In my free time I'll farm random things like fates, happy bunnys, or maps.

During that time, 99% of the time I run into bots in current content Endwalker zones, In Eureka, and even Full Party Bots that do full party maps. I figured this expansion would have been different and moderated better however since Asmongolds arrival to Cactuar the server I play on in 2021 of May last year, I have never been able to contact a GM with as many tickets as I have sent regarding many different issues. Even asking to speak to a GM in a support desk ticket, My tickets are closed without a response. This has been going on for over a year before Endwalker. I now learned why that is. Allow me to explain the cultural error and huge mistake that I firmly believe Square Enix, Naokida Yoshida, and the Japanese team made.

When a player outside Japan makes a report to the support desk for possibly someone swearing or griefing in a duty. You would think that ticket is handled on the spot by a GM in your region. Believe it or not, That isn't the case. Your report filed in game aswell as issues sent to any Square Enix support gets sent to the Japanese GM team. They and they alone make the decisions and unlike a court, You have yourself and the individual reported obtaining no information and it's completely unknown to you what you did wrong or how their punishment system even works. Meaning. If your an American player and you typed the ticket in English. A Japanese GM MUST TRANSLATE YOUR TICKET and send that information back to the American GM team who just follow their orders. The American GMs have no decisional authority of account actions and neither does any Square Enix employee for that matter.

This is a huge cultural international issue for account security and general customer protection. A simple example of culture difference is for people in Japan, It's kosher to pick your nose in public, but sneezing is offensive as it means someone is gossiping. In America, It's considered disgusting to pick your nose in public and ok to sneeze with a tissue. Culture differences are as simple as everyday actions. A Japanese GM of Square Enix. A person with a different culture that could possibly mistranslate or misunderstand the western difference could take things much differently as a result. Even the long periods of time it takes to respond to tickets now shows and gives you an understanding as to why getting a response takes too long.

■Months even and you have no idea if they even understood you correctly.■

I was surprised to learn all this. Even more surprised that a North American Square Enix Customer Support Supervisor needed permission to simply speak on a recorded line and tell me these things. A system never listed or mentioned to the western community. Square Enix and Naoki Yoshida's main issue is they never adjusted to the community Asmongold and other MMO streamers brought to the game from other MMO's like WoW. WoW is generally a game with open swearing and parsing. That is typical behavior of a WoW player. When that influx of people signed up to Final Fantasy 14 in 2021 of May to follow their favorite streamers, The GM team was quite non-existent as their was no adjustments made to policies that would have protected the new influx of customers. The policies I will talk about after, but the Aether datacenter which is the most common US played server is typically neglected in full with bots running rampant at off hours between 2am to 7am Eastern GMT-4 in many areas including current content. So much so that the marketboard prices are affected on Aether.

Lets take a look together at how unsecure a customer must feel playing the game as I certainly did and many others that did aswell. The linked article below takes us to a list of prohibited activities with many drop down examples from the official site.

https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?id=5382&la=1&kid=68216
Some of these are quite ridiculous. Here is an example of one:
・Expressions that attempt to unilaterally exclude someone from the game or content/community, etc.
(Except when in accordance with rules set by an administrator such as a Free Company Master)
"Let's ignore them."
"Let’s leave [person] out."
"Don't join if your equipment is that bad/such a low item level."

So having a guy in a PF join, Grief the party or throw essentially. Kicking them and telling the rest of the party to ignore them if they bother the other party members from outside the PF. That is against the rules and can result in having action taken against you. Even I wasn't aware of this ruling. So Free Company Masters can "break" rules others cannot? It's absurd and preposterous to think anyone in the western community could walk on egg-shells like these risking their whole account that they pour hundreds of hours into like any other MMO.

Lets now take a look at how punishments are handled and removed via their punish point system which is not describe to the playerbase. The link down below goes to that page.

https://support.na.square-enix.com/faqarticle.php?kid=68098&id=5382&la=1&ret=rule
Reduction of Penalty Points

"If the previously issued penalty was either a Caution or Warning, accrued Penalty Points will continue to decay until it reaches 0 points in a one-to-two-year period. However, if the previously issued penalty was a Temporary Service Account Suspension, then the accrued points will not start decaying until a minimum of a three to six-year period has passed and will not reach 0 points for a minimum of seven to ten years."

I am also a player moderator for Runescape. Which is why I typically report bots in the first place since Runescape is known for MMO botting. Jagex, The creators of Runescape use a blackmark system. They show the player how long till such things "decay" and even show the evidence with the individual who reported you. The entire chatlog with one exception. Their name is censored and yours isn't. Keeping to the same No Name Shaming policy Square Enix uses. Furthermore, Jagex typically takes harsher steps toward people continued harassing if they noticed the person from the censored text and can remember their name. A much better system than this "x to x years" system that isn't specified.

Typically Square Enix will call this "Feedback". Allow me to stop you right there.


The lack of Transparency to the Customers and even Square Enix' own Support team hurts because the needed tools aren't present. Square Enix' GM Team made changes to reward players, but still choose to not reveal any information to either its players or support team to properly assist players. It's very odd and makes absolutely no sense to do so. With a system like this, You could be banned for one thing and the reason was a totally different situation and any apology for human error. They don't care for that.

What happens when your account is suspended or terminated? Well. Last time I was suspended was 2 years ago for saying "♥♥♥♥ Ya!" in Prae. The game has a profanity filter that even if your words are censored can result in a ban and I was unaware that already censored words can result in a ban. News to me as my friend did the same thing in the same place and also got suspended. His words? "So what? I guess it's just better to not talk to protect my account then huh?" Even the customers/players of FF14 are afraid to speak. Such a draconian system is an insult to the Western world that plays FF14. The Japanese GMs should have no right to judge US players. The American GM Team should have a say, but they do not.

I was told by the Customer Support Supervisor that I could appeal older account actions with a chance to be unbanned, but the new question is how? I know I can check back in emails, but if the customer support team doesn't know why or what specific instance I was punished for previously and if its been years and I can't remember. How can I possibly appeal it with no information to go on? Keep in mind the GMs will punish you for stuff you did months ago and you won't know which thing you did. You can only guess.

As a customer of seven years breaking MMO addiction is extremely hard. Getting wrongfully banned by their Japanese GM team that neglected my video appeal, refused to view it, or translate it(Which they shouldn't have to, It's more obvious to let the US team handle it as the response is faster and more accurate to native language.) was probably the best thing that happened to me. Games that I previously called lame or boring as I didn't want to buy or try them. I can now play freely with no MMO addiction. Games like Elden Ring, I tried for the first time yesterday and REALLY enjoyed the online with my FC mates.

That being said, I hope what I had to say may influence Naoki Yoshida, The director of FF14 to make major changes needed to appeal to the western playerbase as we are neglected, but not just by rules and ingame help. A few months ago they did a EU Community Stream of which the US was again neglected and yet to taunt the players. All of Aether, The main US played datacenter all got the ingame message announcing the EU stream and that message was cross datacenter. We have never gotten a US Community Stream. Further showing neglect to the US players.

My ban for reporting bots... To make sure the information I send in is valid. How exactly is a player to define and identify bot activity? The most common way its done in any game is to try and contact that player. A private message or some kind of interaction. If no response and their character is doing things in some kind of automated fashion this is the usual way to catch and report bots. Is it not? /tell, sending a party invite, trade request, triple triad request. Anything that contacts the player regardless how the command acts. Any more than 1 attempt to contact even with apology results in punishment to the reporter. In this case me.

I am ashamed that Square Enix neglected the care of its online and banned me for simply trying to help. To punish customers trying to report cheating with valid evidence is both an atrocious and disrespectful act. Customer Support can see support desk tickets made ingame as I was told on the phone, if that information is wrong. I suppose another team can look at the neglect. I reported more than just bots. Harassers, foul mouths, rescue abuse into death, and hacking. I even had people threaten me outside and inside the game and SE did not take action as those individuals harassed my entire FC for months with everyone in my FC reporting them for bothering them and not leaving them alone. That said I had great personal joy even during the pandemic playing Final Fantasy 14. My support will now end unless huge changes happen otherwise. I have proof I am in the clear and the JP GMs refuse to see it because of Square Enix' neglect on both their policies, transparency, and lack of respect to the Aether.

[GodMan]

Only by the title I can assume that the OP looks like typical self centered person.

[Last Place]

Sounds like you went way overboard with your personal sense of justice and vigilantism. Like, bless ya for trying to get the "sufdhwehf wdrihwe" bots out of the game with reporting, but calm down my dude.

Do you do the same things as a RS mod? Just spam messages and if they don't reply in 5 seconds you perma ban them?

[Last Place]

Methinks you missed the part where he chat spams them and everything else

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

but guys hes a Runescape player moderator!

[Scarsick]

Publicado originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

but guys hes a Runescape player moderator!

And he's been playing SE games for 30 years, so that gives him the right to harass people ingame. Also, he obviously knows better than the FFXIV team on how to detect and catch bots.

Imagine being this old and act like an entitled little brat. Someone pointed out there was no way this was his first time harassing people ingame, and his own "review" of the game confirms it.

[Oberon]

Publicado originalmente por Scarsick:

Publicado originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

but guys hes a Runescape player moderator!

And he's been playing SE games for 30 years,

Which is especially impressive considering he also claimed to be "almost" 30. Meaning he was playing SE games in the womb!

Never mind that SE didn't actually exist 30 years ago.

[Xirho'tan Tayuun]

As others have said, you likely reported people who weren't actually botting. It does say when you report someone,that false reports can lead to action against your account. Assuming this is the cause,you may have falsely reported a lot of people who did nothing wrong.

[ʙᴜɴ.ᴇ]

Publicado originalmente por Scarsick:

Publicado originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

but guys hes a Runescape player moderator!

And he's been playing SE games for 30 years, so that gives him the right to harass people ingame. Also, he obviously knows better than the FFXIV team on how to detect and catch bots.

Imagine being this old and act like an entitled little brat. Someone pointed out there was no way this was his first time harassing people ingame, and his own "review" of the game confirms it.

yep! guessing that random luck you need to get player moderator from spamming reports on Runescape went to his head and he thinks hes some sort of anti cheating vigilante now when hes just harassing innocent people on his ridiculous quest for self accomplishment, makes you wonder what he does on Runescape to people when his reports can actually mute innocent players

[Sneep Snorp]

Publicado originalmente por 💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕:

Publicado originalmente por Scarsick:

And he's been playing SE games for 30 years, so that gives him the right to harass people ingame. Also, he obviously knows better than the FFXIV team on how to detect and catch bots.

Imagine being this old and act like an entitled little brat. Someone pointed out there was no way this was his first time harassing people ingame, and his own "review" of the game confirms it.

yep! guessing that random luck you need to get player moderator from spamming reports on Runescape went to his head and he thinks hes some sort of anti cheating vigilante now when hes just harassing innocent people on his ridiculous quest for self accomplishment, makes you wonder what he does on Runescape to people when his reports can actually mute innocent players :fomtlaugh:

That one episode of spongebob where they gave them walkie talkies and let them run around pretending to be police

[Sneep Snorp]

Publicado originalmente por Spamton G Backroom Salesmen:

Publicado originalmente por Princess Pilfer:

My guess:

OP harassed random people (probably Roegadyn with lore accurate names) to attempt to get them to prove that they weren't bots and when they didn't pay any attention OP reported them, and now OP is mad that OP got banned for being toxic and harassing people.

Like, news flash, people don't owe you their time. They don't owe you a response. Sending multiple invites or spamming tells after having your tell ignored doesn't make you a genius bot detector it makes you a jerk.

Moral of the story: Finding bots is not your job. Report (ONE TIME,) black list, move on. That's what everyone else does.

Why would you assume I would talk about Roes? I'm a lalafell main.

Because the Roegadyn naming scheme feels like someone turned their keyboard upside down and and just started banging on keys and whatever combination of letters it ended up as is a lore friendly name

[galacticcorgi]

Publicado originalmente por Sneep Snorp:

Publicado originalmente por Spamton G Backroom Salesmen:

Why would you assume I would talk about Roes? I'm a lalafell main.

Because the Roegadyn naming scheme feels like someone turned their keyboard upside down and and just started banging on keys and whatever combination of letters it ended up as is a lore friendly name

My main's search info is literally, "Let's play a game: keysmash or Roegadyn name"

[The Catman]

I find it really strange.
Not that I don't believe you, but I too reported hundreds of bots just in Gridania.
HUNDREDS of "WEWSZEDF CVYUBUJ" teleporting everywhere, farming quests.

Nothing ever happened to me.
I also reported players harrassing other players, and 2 times I reported 2 players harrassing me.

Nothing ever happened to me.

Maybe write an email.
If you were in the absolute right, there must have been a mistake.

[Slaanesh]

Publicado originalmente por The Catman:

I find it really strange.
Not that I don't believe you, but I too reported hundreds of bots just in Gridania.
HUNDREDS of "WEWSZEDF CVYUBUJ" teleporting everywhere, farming quests.

Nothing ever happened to me.
I also reported players harrassing other players, and 2 times I reported 2 players harrassing me.

Nothing ever happened to me.

Maybe write an email.
If you were in the absolute right, there must have been a mistake.

He didn't just report them.
He first messaged, asked multiple questions, and even invited them multiple times to partys and games when they didn't respond to him.
So he harassed them multiple times, when they didn't react to his harassment he reported them.
And in response to that, as it looks like, many or most people he harassed this way reported him for harassment thats what got him banned

[Tflojo]

I'm still waiting responses to two tickets. 1 Is almost 2 years old now, another probably around a year.

[Tflojo]

Publicado originalmente por The Mayor of Murder Town:

Publicado originalmente por Scarsick:

And he's been playing SE games for 30 years,

Which is especially impressive considering he also claimed to be "almost" 30. Meaning he was playing SE games in the womb!

Never mind that SE didn't actually exist 30 years ago.

Not saying his story isn't nonsensical, but your comment on the SE bit is somewhat uninformed.

Anyone who has played RPGs that long is likely to associate Square and Square Enix with Final Fantasy (or for that matter any of the popular square games!). The First Enix games released on 1983 and square released Final Fantasy in 1987. The merger of 2003 (creating Square Enix), doesn't invalidate that the two companies were creating games long before merging under one name. Indeed, It's possible for someone to have played a game release by Square OR Enix within about 30 years!