Teleporting Group of Bots

[KageTokage]

I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

[KisaiTenshi]

At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

That's exactly like on Excalibur, except the bots are behind the FC chest's in Ul'dah - Steps of Nald, and New Gridania. I haven't been able to locate them in Limsa Lominsa but it makes me think that they're all using the same bot software and there's at least three different bots.

[MsQi]

They used to be able to spam /tells as well. It was so bad that I knew plenty of PC players that actually downloaded a third party program known as Guildwork to completely block tells if they contained certain keywords or phrases set by the player. Shortly before Stormblood release, the SE staff disabled the ability for trial accounts to send /tells, which appears to have completely destroyed that intrusive advertising method. The creator of Guildwork hasn't updated the program since (and it no longer works for FF14 as far as I know), likely because the primary function is no longer needed.

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening. I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

People on trial accounts can't use /tell. They also can't shout, trade, or use the market board. Just because people don't respond to a tell doesn't mean they are a bot. Paying players ignore unwelcome advice.

[Ilyrian]

There's always a group of teleporting BLM in Gridania at the GC reception on Cerberus. I think it's just accepted now.

[Omegabear]

If that teleporting thing is real that's an exploit.

Multi-boxing, as far as I tell, is not against the rules. This is where multiple characters from multiple accounts respond to the same manual input.

Botting is when there is no human input; it's just running a script, usually repeating. if they are turning in one time quests it's probably not botting. I suppose one could script repeating leves, but those change from time to time.

It can't be a human input. These bots are basically "flickering" in and out of existence right in front of me, every 2~3 seconds, btw groups of mobs and NPC's. You can't control 10+ characters to do that with human appendages lol.

[Omegabear]

They used to be able to spam /tells as well. It was so bad that I knew plenty of PC players that actually downloaded a third party program known as Guildwork to completely block tells if they contained certain keywords or phrases set by the player. Shortly before Stormblood release, the SE staff disabled the ability for trial accounts to send /tells, which appears to have completely destroyed that intrusive advertising method. The creator of Guildwork hasn't updated the program since (and it no longer works for FF14 as far as I know), likely because the primary function is no longer needed.

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening. I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

/Say is definitely possible during trial and I've seen advertisements on /Say before.

[InkstainedGwyn]

At least botters haven't realised that they'd never get caught if they rolled Roes, everybody would think that their names were just lore.

(inb4 yes, 1) I know that they usually 'have' to be lalas bc those fit underground & 2) I know that roegadyns have actual language/naming conventions)

[SaitoHikari]

At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

Right, so it seems more like they just stopped advertising entirely in Sarg (outside of the douchebag that keeps inviting bots into the novice network). Curious.

[MsQi]

It can't be a human input. These bots are basically "flickering" in and out of existence right in front of me, every 2~3 seconds, btw groups of mobs and NPC's. You can't control 10+ characters to do that with human appendages lol.

You seem to be mixing up what I said. The point is exploiting, multi-boxing and botting are three different things.

[KisaiTenshi]

You seem to be mixing up what I said. The point is exploiting, multi-boxing and botting are three different things.

As far as I know, the bots are operating by manipulating the game client's own API. However the fingerprints show through the server's own data, hence why they appear like they're teleporting.

What is very likely going on is that groups of bots are running on a single machine via sandboxing tools that allow multi-clienting. That's of course different from multi-boxing. There are also tools you can use, legitimately to control two or more machines from one input source. So it's absolutely not a stretch that one tool at the end of a multi-tool is controlling multiple machines and multiple game clients.

Though the occam's razor is really that the spammers are just common macro programs that have been used to torment MMO players for years because they allow arbitrary clipboard or keyboard API input. They could disable clipboard paste into the game client and it wouldn't stop them.

The bots that are "teleporting" however are probably easier done by packet hacking, but that would raise flags when checksums and timestamps don't match. So it's more likely they're just manipulating the "move to x/y/z" instruction without the actual "animate" instructions, and hence why they appear the way they do.

You can see the bots FC tags in both Gridania and Ul'dah sticking out from behind the FC chest if you stand between in the fountain (Ul'dah) and the pillar and zoom out most of the way. Gridania you just stand on the rocks outside of it, and you'll see the tag stick out.