Too many bots, too few bans: The Shadowbringers edition.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

I think part of the reason SE don't really crack down on it that hard is because crafter/gatherer mains are such a small part of the player base and they're really the only ones that get screwed over since it really devalues their time. Everyone else sadly benefits from it more than they would get screwed by it. Cheaper prices on everything, etc.. the whole thing.
Actually dedicating devs towards eradicating it is probably counterproductive for the business, especially considering it's a constant chase between recognizing patterns and then bots changing those patterns and so on and so forth. Instead they mostly focus on RMTs that do affect the game way more directly.

I could be completely wrong, but that's always what I thought when the topic of them doing nothing popped up. I figured they could put some measures that would keep third party software from attaching to the game but because FF14 doesn't have a good macro system and doesn't have an add-on system at all it would be detrimental to do that as it would lockout a lot of beloved 3rd party software.

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I'd like to hope that with them pushing out a (seemingly) deeper form of content aimed predominantly at DoL/H with the Ishgard Restoration that they (And perhaps more of the playerbase) will start taking the issue more seriously, because people really only stand to lose from having bots present in a ranking system.

As far as them "adapting" goes I honestly rarely ever saw that happening even in MMOs that were very aggressive about enforcing them like WoW. There are simply some fundamental flaws in how a bot behaves that can't realistically be ironed out, particularly when it comes to movement patterns.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Bots never walk to a node like normal people they ALWAYS land directly on it. Yes they are easy to spot.

They sure make it tough on those who work for a living leveling their roles and trying to deal with the Market Place.

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you kidding me? If I can land on a node I will land on a node. These SHB mobs will 2 shot you!! o.O

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

-After mounting up, they almost always take flight from a complete standstill,*

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Uhh what? I do this, you can enable it in the options....smdh

I'm glad YOU aren't in charge of bot bans lol

I will say one thing-- it's a little refreshing that FFXIV doesn't make use of an invasive cheat detection program like most games do nowadays. This is the side effect. Either SE really values our privacy, or they just don't care. I noticed that most users who are banned for botting are only banned for 72 hours at first, so it really seems like SE willingly tolerates this behavior to a degree. The reason for that is anyone's guess.

To be fair, the activities that players use bots for are generally considered to be pretty boring, grinding, and unengaging. Here's my unpopular opinion-- introduce more automation features into the game itself. Let's say you hit max level on a DoL and fill out your entire log. Now you can "auto-gather" between three nodes. Extend the quick crafting feature to more high-level recipes with a decent chance at HQ once you've manually crafted a certain (high-ish) number of HQ pieces. If SE isn't going to do anything meaningful about botting (and let's be honest, people will do it no matter what as long as that content is tedious for most players), they might as well remove the incentive for third parties to profit from their game. It would also alleviate the disadvantage that console players have in that they don't have the option to run bots. I mean, if a decent portion of your playerbase is downloading and paying for sketchy programs and risking their accounts to automate gameplay... that's a pretty good sign that there's a problem with that gameplay.

I couldn't care less about this and I'm broke as hell.

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Originally Posted by Nomuno

you kidding me? If I can land on a node I will land on a node. These SHB mobs will 2 shot you!! o.O

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When they say "land on the node", they mean they drop down directly onto it from above, which frequently results in the visual/latency-related glitch where they enter their gathering animation in midair then slowly drift to the ground.

Normal players tend to land next to the node then start gathering as opposed to starting their gathering in midair which is what produces the aforementioned glitch.

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Uhh what? I do this, you can enable it in the options....smdh

I'm glad YOU aren't in charge of bot bans lol

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I don't think you read the entire sentence because it's not just the "jumping in place" thing that makes it obvious to whether or not someone is botting.

The whole sequence of actions they follow is:

Finish gathering/FATE or arrive at aetheryte > awkward pause > mount up > awkward pause> jump in place and take flight > suddenly turn towards destination before departing.

I think it would be easier to just make a gif of how it looks because it's honestly an unmistakable giveaway once you've seen this same sequence of actions being repeated with the exact same timing by the same player repeatedly over a period of time.

They banned over 6000 Accounts yesterday xD.

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Originally Posted by RareItems

They banned over 6000 Accounts yesterday xD.

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Those are predominantly RMT/gil farming accounts and their ban figures are ultimately pointless fluff when they come back instantly and hit max level again within the day. They get pegged for "illicit activity" presumably because of their teleport hacks.

The number of bans being issued for botting activity was a bit higher then usual, but it feels like a drop in the bucket when I can now recall close to 40 different players on my server alone who regularly bot and still haven't been banned despite reporting several of them multiple times since as far back as HW.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Those are predominantly RMT/gil farming accounts and their ban figures are ultimately pointless fluff when they come back instantly and hit max level again within the day. They get pegged for "illicit activity" presumably because of their teleport hacks.

The number of bans being issued for botting activity was a bit higher then usual, but it feels like a drop in the bucket when I can now recall close to 40 different players on my server alone who regularly bot and still haven't been banned despite reporting several of them multiple times since as far back as HW.

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There's a certain FC on Odin that's got a handfull of them, I've been reporting them for the past 2 months and saw no action taken against them, I saw them chain following each other from node to node, same patterns you see from most DoL bots, SE need to pull their finger out tbh.

And talking about bots, have people seen this?
https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ia_congestion/

As people have mentioned on another thread, bots are really starting to affect game play, Hyperion got hit by a Flood, but of bots. One of the Shroud areas were so full of bots, people couldn't enter, and whilst behemoth had a log in queue of 29, my husband had a login queue at the same time of 1500+ on Hyperion, due to the Flood of Bots. Its becoming a calamity.

When it really interferes with gameplay, something should probably be done.

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Originally Posted by Mingqin

There's a certain FC on Odin that's got a handfull of them, I've been reporting them for the past 2 months and saw no action taken against them, I saw them chain following each other from node to node, same patterns you see from most DoL bots, SE need to pull their finger out tbh.

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Honestly, I'd consider a server abnormal if doesn't have at least one player that's trying to control the market for infusions/tinctures using bots.

The most "hardcore" botter on my server has three alt accounts that are used predominantly for scrip farming but also regularly bots both crafts and FATEs himself. The thing that pisses me off the most is that two of said accounts are occupying large houses that are completely bare save for a mailbox.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Honestly, I'd consider a server abnormal if doesn't have at least one player that's trying to control the market for infusions/tinctures using bots.

The most "hardcore" botter on my server has three alt accounts that are used predominantly for scrip farming but also regularly bots both crafts and FATEs himself. The thing that pisses me off the most is that two of said accounts are occupying large houses that are completely bare save for a mailbox.

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That's similar to the FC I'm talking about, I'm literally sure at this point it's one guy and his army of bots, he has a medium house as well, fortunately right now only he is 80 his bot army are still level 70 and still running around the level 70 zones gathering almost 24/7.

SE need to sort this crap tbh.

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Originally Posted by Mingqin

There's a certain FC on Odin that's got a handfull of them, I've been reporting them for the past 2 months and saw no action taken against them, I saw them chain following each other from node to node, same patterns you see from most DoL bots, SE need to pull their finger out tbh.

And talking about bots, have people seen this?
https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ia_congestion/

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This is the real important stuff that needs to be fixed, imo. Bots affecting gameplay secondhand by crashing markets / farming fates / nodes / whatever is one thing, but stopping someone from playing the game 100% is absurd and needs to be dealt with. Amdapor Keep is the same way, although thankfully that's not a MSQ dungeon so it doesn't completely lock out new players.

Was yesterday on twintania(new server) and its filled with tons of bots, probably because of the exp buff ofc. The queue to the server is also 1000+ while other server had sub 50 queue.
Because bots are teleporting around to do mainstory too, its extremely annoying at places where the player has to kill certain mobs in order to progress in the story, like those boars in gridania central shroud in the east. Because of the limited number of those mobs, they were being farmed on respawn.
They also make the game lag and fps drop if you suddenly have 50 bots inside the aetheryte or under it, triggering that your max distance visibility gets reduced depending on your hardware and system setting.
The teleporthack from ARR times has to stop...

I find it a touch concerning that the gil-farm bot floods are still going on but they've yet to actually make any kind of statement about it.

This is arguably worse then a DDOS because those don't lock you out of zones entirely or congest the server/instance queues.

It's also going to leave people who choose to start on the new servers with a very sour first impression of the game

I'm kind of glad that the new tinctures require tomestone mats, as the previous stat-boosting consumables only used mats that could be gathered or used gathering scrip mats and thus were much more exploitable by people who run DoL and DoH bots in tandem to churn out endless supplies of them.

If they want to produce them in bulk, they'd need to cave to whatever prices people are selling the alchemics at on the MB unless they somehow set up bots that farm goetia tomestones.

I feel like legit players have more of a place in the market now, though I think a lot of people might not bother with the new tinctures just yet due to how minor the boost is compared to how much more costly they are to make...

I made a Viera alt on Exodus since Cactuar's full and was running MSQ and side missions in the Bannock when I saw a blatantly obvious bot running the same missions. The mission I was running was the one where you gather the surveyor's equipment. I saw the bot at the quest giver, but at the time I didn't know it was one. I went to gather up the equipment where I saw them again. They picked up the first object, stood up for a second, then disappeared. I saw them reappear by the second object, pick it up and repeat the process. I thought about reporting them, but haven't had good experiences in the past with reporting them.

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though I think a lot of people might not bother with the new tinctures just yet due to how minor the boost is compared to how much more costly they are to make...

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If you arent super hardcore about it (and i imagine even some people who are...) 21 mainstat isnt worth that cost.

Courtesy of the undercut happy DoH bots, the prices for most gear on my server has tanked to lower then 200K already. They aren't afraid to drop the prices by as much as 50-100K per listing if things aren't moving quickly.

It feels pretty pointless to even bother trying to push sales of anything mainstream when the bot-to-bot price wars just keep pushing the profit margin lower and lower.

I think part of the problem is that botting is client side like similar tools used for screen shots. And while both are against the ToS I have been told that they for legal reasons they cannot install client side detections onto your home computer even though their own applications such as the launcher? Which is why mods have been able to sneak by unless they brag about it in game.

You know what's awesome, is bots are the future, robotic labor dawg it will replace us.

Right now, there is a DoH/L bot on Cactuar who adjusts his prices and undercuts after literally every single timed node he goes to.

It's making it damned near impossible to sell anything unless you're willing to be similarly persistent in watching your prices.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

I think part of the problem is that botting is client side like similar tools used for screen shots. And while both are against the ToS I have been told that they for legal reasons they cannot install client side detections onto your home computer even though their own applications such as the launcher? Which is why mods have been able to sneak by unless they brag about it in game.

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A lot of MMOs like WoW do have security programs that check to see if any external programs are interacting with the game client and will either automatically report you to the GMs or simply close the game.

I can respect SE for wanting to not intrude on people's privacy but they should be compensating for a lack of automated security with more diligent manual enforcement.

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Originally Posted by Mistyregions

You know what's awesome, is bots are the future, robotic labor dawg it will replace us.

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It pretty much does eventually end up having that effect because people aren't going to waste time crafting to make money when the bots have tanked the profit margin to a point where you can make nearly as much money for your time just from doing stuff like running treasure maps.

I just end up finding some niche glam items and furniture the bots don't touch then focus on those for profit.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It pretty much does eventually end up having that effect because people aren't going to waste time crafting to make money when the bots have tanked the profit margin to a point where you can make nearly as much money for your time just from doing stuff like running treasure maps.

I just end up finding some niche glam items and furniture the bots don't touch then focus on those for profit.

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The worst part about this whole thing is the realization that for there to be so many rampant bots running around, there has to be a market. A huge market. This suggests to me that a lot of people are secretly in-fact purchasing this tainted gil. If there wasn't a profitable market, they wouldn't be botting so heavily. At least not as much. In this regard, it's just as much the players at fault as it is the lack of detection tools.

RMT is kind of like drugs. You go to work and you get the feeling that at least one of your co-workers is smoking something they shouldn't be. Now look at your FC and apply the same principal but towards RMT. They aren't going to tell you they are doing it. That would be stupid.

For example I met a level 60 leaf character quite recently infact that had over 50mil on their character and my mind just couldn't get around the how. Sometimes I wonder if it'd be better for SE to just sell the gil themselves over mog station but that would just create a whole different set of problems.