Confused about bots, RMT, and the TOS.

[Sodaru]

Returning player here...since 03, trying to adjust to the game in it's current state. I'm so very confused why botting and RMT is still considered against the TOS. I've watched 12 character, all Bastokan THFs rank 6, do nothing but Salvage and Dynamis on the exact same path, 24/7, for over 3 weeks now. And they're all the most recent sales of Alexandrite and dynamis currency. I don't play on a large server, so maybe it's ok on small servers? Idk.

If this is normal, and ok, why don't they just say "Go for it!". It's so annoying that the attitude is "botting and rmt is against the rules. *wink wink*". Am I just too old school, and just need to abandon my accounts? This is incredibly demoralizing, and not why I thought I'd leave the game after 23 years.

[Uroah]

Because if they admit that it's ok it will get out of hand. By pretending it doesn't happen they don't have to do anything about it and hope you'll ignore it so they can continue to profit from the subscriptions.

As long as the players remain largely apathetic about it then Square can look the other way. Everyone is happy.

[Sodaru]

Kind of sucks for me right now, I usually go to Valkurm to work on relics but 3 weeks ago 6 accounts showed up and turned their bot on on top of me. Using their program to farm 24/7 and sending all that currency to a bazaar in Mhaura who has 800 of each 100 piece. They're not even being secretive about it. So it's kind of hard to ignore when it's actually affecting gameplay.

[Uroah]

All you can do is spend your time more effectively and use superior gil per hour options to buy the cheaper dyna currency.

They're helping you out. Really. You could farm 200 currency an hour, or do omen for 30 minutes and buy 500 currency. (I don't know how your server math will work out exactly)

Or shout into the void, cause Square isn't listening.

[Sodaru]

I wasn't aware you could make money off of Omen but I've never seen anyone else do it.

[Dragoy]

I wasn't aware you could make money off of Omen but I've never seen anyone else do it.

There is a lot of detritus to be had there.

As for the initial topic, yeah, it is annoying how they seem to not care.

I spent a bunch of time reporting similar bots for years. The face-rolled name-ones as well as those who sell job points and such, but nothing happens, so at some point I stopped using any time on that and started trying to ignore them.

I don't really want to pay them either, so using the auction house is weird these days... but then it can be difficult to do the actual content for them because of thse things too.

Would not let them cause me to stop adventuring in Vana'diel though, but I do admit I've felt like it more than once since 2005 too.

[Alhanelem]

They do act sometimes but it takes far too long for them to "investigate" for it to matter. By the time they do anything the bots have already moved on to their next characters and accounts, and the fact that they pay subs to do it means SE isn't really incentivized to hurry. And remember, RMT wouldn't exist if people weren't buying.

While it's not a perfect solution by any means, as server pop decreases, bot activity decreases a larger amount due to the potential customer base. There's RMT activity on Shiva, for instance, but it isn't enough to interfere with being able to do content like Salvage.

[Sodaru]

It's more just annoying they can set up a navmesh bot making burner accounts to do 24/7 ambuscade to get all possible rewards, then move them on to dynamis/Salvage. The ones on Quetzal make 7500 Alexandrite a day, and have been doing it for over 5 weeks, non stop. Can watch them on a schedule go to Whitegate, get a permit, go to Silver Sea Remnants, warp, repeat. Having played since 2003, I'm fine with the game evolving, but I wish they'd just say "Sure, pay us enough sub money and we'll look the other way" rather than this. "Botting is against the rules. You can do it, and we won't stop you, but we reserve the right to ban you at any point because of it." Put everyone on a level playing field instead of forcing people to take risks to keep up with the players turning the game into the AFK Arena crossover. Like come on...this isn't even hiding it. https://www.ffxiah.com/player/Quetzalcoatl/Quoen