Bot Bay/Bibiki Bay - Something needs to be done.

[Zenion]

I'm on Fenrir. Bots aren't an Asura only problem.

Other servers have bots, but they don't have a bot problem. There's enough space to play around them in most situations. (Dynamis - Jeuno is still a mess because it only takes two of them to ruin that but whatever.)

Asura might need an immediate crackdown and indiscriminate banning like some people seem to want to advocate, but the rest of the game would probably benefit far more from just addressing the root causes and letting the bots fade into obsolescence.

[Sirmarki]

So players have adopted the attitude that everyone does it and it is out of control.

How proud they must be writing all their achievements in their comment box, but yet, worked for/earned none of it

[Zenion]

How proud they must be writing all their achievements in their comment box, but yet, worked for/earned none of it

... as opposed to, what? "I spent eight weeks spending every waking hour killing the same ten mobs to reach master level 50, respect me?"

Levels of any kind aren't an achievement, they're a chore, and anyone who tries to say they are some kind of achievement has a fundamentally poor understanding of the game. Achievements are what you get to go do after you're done with your chores.

[Sirmarki]

... as opposed to, what? "I spent eight weeks spending every waking hour killing the same ten mobs to reach master level 50, respect me?"

As opposed to doing it the way it was designed and how you are meant to do it, maybe?

Levels of any kind aren't an achievement, they're a chore, and anyone who tries to say they are some kind of achievement has a fundamentally poor understanding of the game. Achievements are what you get to go do after you're done with your chores.

What do you actually class as an achievement in FFXI then?

[Zenion]

What do you actually class as an achievement in FFXI then?

Feats of skill and cunning; things that you don't just do the same mindless thing a million times to accomplish.

I've gotten my BLU/SMN/GEO Kin trio fight down to a pretty reliable win. That's something I feel like I achieved. I do it using a rank 15 Nirvana; that's something I feel like I shoveled time and resources into until I could be done with it.

I've been doing Odyssey vengeance 20 fights with my linkshell; if we don't clear the fight in the first 15 minute attempt, we walk out and restart. The two that we've toppled (in the three weeks or so I've been involved)? Those are definite achievements. Master levels might have made them easier, and Odyssey gear levels probably possible at all, but the wins still came down to actually playing the game hard.

Learning how to actually play a job? That's an achievement all its own. You can be master level 50 with all the best gear, but if you still don't know all the fiddly uses for all your job abilities, all you've done is run on a treadmill. I know one guy, freakin' hardcore corsair. He's got nearly identical gear to mine, and maybe 20 master levels over me at best; he can put out twice the numbers I can over any time scale you want to name, and that's if he's feeling lazy. That is an achievement.

As much as everyone hates on Sortie for all the dumb stuff it makes you do, figuring any of that nonsense out without hints from the devs? Huge achievement for the community, and for anyone who managed one on their own. I'm pretty proud of being one of the first players in the English community to try rematerializing hall C mobs to get the entry item for basement G; none of my other dumb theories paid off, but I was dead on the money with that.

In short, in my eyes an achievement is something you do by being good at the game, not something you do by playing the game a lot.

[Sp1cyryan]

... as opposed to, what? "I spent eight weeks spending every waking hour killing the same ten mobs to reach master level 50, respect me?"

Levels of any kind aren't an achievement, they're a chore, and anyone who tries to say they are some kind of achievement has a fundamentally poor understanding of the game. Achievements are what you get to go do after you're done with your chores.

If the game is a chore, then don't play it. Players are fun of plenty of excuses, and they are just self-serving.

[Zenion]

If the game is a chore, then don't play it. Players are fun of plenty of excuses, and they are just self-serving.

... are you... tacitly endorsing the botting, then?

Because again, the endless grinding is a chore, sure. Given a choice, I wouldn't. I usually don't, to be honest, but there comes a point where you do see how it hurts your performance against other potential party members. But the stuff that's not grinding, but that tends to heavily encourage, if not outright require, having done the grind? That's fun. I like that. That's why I'm here.

So, if (part of) the game is a chore, I should just not play (that part of) the game? Isn't that a logical extrapolation?

Which would mean... I dunno, using, like. Some kind of... automated... number-go-upper... thing, to not play that part?

You know the sad part about all this though? I'm a pathological power-grinder. I played a run through Final Fantasy IV once (well, properly Final Fantasy II, it was the SNES edition) where I got my party to level 50 between Cecil's job change and leaving the area it happened in. I'm stalled in a game of Final Fantasy X right now because I'm rewriting the entire sphere grid to max out every stat (including luck and 99999 HP!) There are other examples I could offer, but I figure sticking to Final Fantasy gives the most likely shared experience base. Point is, I'm generally the kind of person who will absolutely sit down and grind for far, far longer than any reasonable person ever would.

And I still think master levels are just too much to even consider seriously.

My bottom line here is the same as it has been. The exemplar bots are not the problem. They are the reaction. The problem is the grind is too little reward for too much effort, to fill too large a pool. Find a way to reward active engagement, turn it from something you do constantly until you die of boredom to something you can reasonably chip away at an hour or so at a time, and people will lose their reason for running the bots; the issue resolves itself, and we can all go back to, what are the kids into these days, trying to solo Warder of Courage?

[Sirmarki]

Feats of skill and cunning; things that you don't just do the same mindless thing a million times to accomplish.

I've gotten my BLU/SMN/GEO Kin trio fight down to a pretty reliable win. That's something I feel like I achieved. I do it using a rank 15 Nirvana; that's something I feel like I shoveled time and resources into until I could be done with it.

You beat that fight because you were at the level to do it. Without the level (or the mindless grind as you put it) - You wouldn't have been able to do it.

[Sirmarki]

Because again, the endless grinding is a chore, sure.

Depends what you define as a chore. I actually like doing the RoE and getting some ML solo, I can stop when I want and continue when I want. I can go do something else. No chore here. If you think it is a chore, then maybe you should play something else... Tetris maybe?

[Zenion]

You beat that fight because you were at the level to do it. Without the level (or the mindless grind as you put it) - You wouldn't have been able to do it.

... yes? That's exactly why I keep saying that the master levels are the thing that it feels like we're forced to get through to do the stuff that actually feels engaging and rewarding to accomplish? Though, having said that, it wasn't just the master levels. It wasn't just "run in, fight it, done", we still had to actually practice and refine our strategy.

Depends what you define as a chore. I actually like doing the RoE and getting some ML solo, I can stop when I want and continue when I want. I can go do something else. No chore here. If you think it is a chore, then maybe you should play something else... Tetris maybe?

I mean, okay, if that's your thing, you do you man. But maybe if what does it for you is just repeating the same motions over and over to make numbers get bigger, you should consider playing something more like Cookie Clicker?