Job points has ruined one of the foundations of this game

[Typral]

Why waste energy and time worrying about what other people are doing, when it doesn't even effect you?

[Sirmarki]

Why waste energy and time worrying about what other people are doing, when it doesn't even effect you?

Hoards of Job point sellers in Dho gates don't have affect on people? Of course they do.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

It's a colossal contamination of any environment whether it be obstruction and crowding in shared (open) areas, or value implications in the player driven psuedo-economy.
I completely agree with Sirmarki. Anyone that can't deduce these conclusions has no perception of society beyond a few feet in front of their face.

[Alhanelem]

Hoards of Job point sellers in Dho gates don't have affect on people? Of course they do.

Only really if that's the place you wanted to grind for real.

[TullemoreAsuraFFXI]

Sirmarki gives the example of Dho gates. The bot occurences go much much much further than the example of Dho gates.
Not only do ToS violations place illicit hardships concerning obstruction of camps; they are polluting and contaminating the market forces within player produced items (including crafted items) and the sale price values of anything that's not exclusively obtained from a NPC.
Even then, those price values are impacted from items that are exclusively obtained from a NPC if it is possible for said item to be exchanged between accounts due to inflation.

[Solonuke]

I'm not sure how these wouldn't either get caught up in AOEs and be ineffective or be an actual problem for actively engaged players.

There are actually safe spots in Dho Gates where you can stand for days if not months. I'm not sure if Shiva has an issue with bots, but you can find these bots everywhere on Asura. Apex Efts in Moh Gates don't aggro or link and are therefore very attractive for botters.

Really though, you don't need any special third party programs to "bot". simple keyboard macros available on every major gaming keyboard and mouse can do this sort of thing.

Regular macros as you describe wouldn't work, monsters vary in levels making it very difficult to measure exactly how long a macro should be. A bot needs information from the game to process what it should do next. The botters I've described always go to the closest mob after their mob is dead. In order to do that you need to be able to calculate X, Y and Z coordinates between you and the monster to create a vector. This vector is also used to rotate your character to face the monster.

. The XP grinders aren't really hurting other people much/at all by comparison. And it's really a side effect of apex grinds not being the most challenging or interesting part of playing the game. people have been automating the things they find boring for ages lol. Some people liove these kind of grindss, some don't. I play Warriors franchise games- I can appreciate a long repetitive grind, but not everyone can lol.

I disagree, try competing against a bot for monsters when they have inhuman precision. Bots don't get tired or fall asleep. The Apex bats I described earlier used to have players fighting for monsters and some of them didn't mind grouping up with you. Now there's a bot party there 24/7 that continuously pull bats. This bot party is very efficient, it's difficult to kill bats now because of that.

[Sirmarki]

I'm not sure if Shiva has an issue with bots, but you can find these bots everywhere on Asura.

I think this is the problem, no offence to Alhanelem, but they are talking from the perspective of a quiet server. Shiva, I would imagine has less than 10% (300ish) of the players on NA time than Asura does (3300ish). So doesn't really comprehend the situation as it shares no comparison.