Why are people rewarded for cheating?

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Originally Posted by Galdous

It is obvious unless you are RMT that SE does not mind you cheating and botting in this game. For the first time after watching this free company on my server are full of mining/botony bots. They are sort of becoming a notorious free company that I guess has been doing this for 9+ months. Reporting them does nothing but they farm 24/7 and despite several people on a daily basis reporting them at first we have all but given up.

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Same problem on my server, there are mining/botany bots everywhere, along with some people even speed hacking. I know tons of people who have reported these cheaters but weeks and months later they are still there botting or speed hacking or both. So really I am not sure what SE is doing. I can think of a lot of ways to tell if a player is a bot, yet they aren't getting rid of them even with dozens of reports from different players on the server.

On my server, there is pretty much a whole fc full of fate botters.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

It is obvious unless you are RMT that SE does not mind you cheating and botting in this game. For the first time after watching this free company on my server are full of mining/botony bots. They are sort of becoming a notorious free company that I guess has been doing this for 9+ months. Reporting them does nothing but they farm 24/7 and despite several people on a daily basis reporting them at first we have all but given up.

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How do you prove definitively that a player is a bot? And not just a player (or players) who really loves mining or harvesting?

Someone show me a tool that will let you do FATEs and dungeon runs autonomously?

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Originally Posted by Aerowaffle

This is an MMO, you're constantly being compared alongside other players.

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Maybe you compare yourself to other players. That doesn't mean other players do.

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Originally Posted by Faelandaea

I could give a fuck about the guy standing next to me in Mor Dhona wearing some badass gear or how he got it. When out gathering i don;t sit there and start staring at other gatherers and monitoring them. Why? I'm just wasting my own game time.

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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

You are part of the FFXIV world, if you are so unattached to the game that you could just quit anyday and play another game, good for you. But the need to worry about what others are doing is the basic foundation of a community (in real life, too), and community makes the MMORPG. Not giving a fuck just means you don't want to be part of this community, you are just a tourist to the Eorzea world and will pack up and leave the moment something that bothers you too much shows up (that's your own words).

In which case I advise you against providing "advice" to others who love the community and want to make it better, because you don't plan to join the community anyways. It isn't really something to be proud about. :(

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Originally Posted by Laraul

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Those tools exist, but I'm 99% sure we're not allowed to mention their name on the forums. Voldemort kind of thing, y'know?

Bots currently exist for (afaik): Crafting, Gathering (including unspoiled nodes), Grinding, Questing, FATEs, Dungeons, Multibox Dungeons, and PvP (including Wolves Den and Frontlines). And that doesn't include any that have to do with actual hacking (such as speed hacking, teleport hacking, etc).

That being said, as you mentioned, it's very difficult to prove somebody is a bot, especially in a game that offers controllers. A person who doesn't respond to you might just not be at a keyboard. I have people try to drag monsters AoE on me because they were "checking if I was a bot" while I'm fishing and it's utterly ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Zaft

Those tools exist, but I'm 99% sure we're not allowed to mention their name on the forums. Voldemort kind of thing, y'know?

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Read the forum guidelines. It does not forbid disclosing the names of third party tools that may be used for the purpose of violating the ToS.

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Originally Posted by Laraul

Read the forum guidelines. It does not forbid disclosing the names of third party tools that may be used for the purpose of violating the ToS.

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OBJECTION!

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•Posting content that seeks to interfere with the running of FINAL FANTASY XIV.

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additionally,

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•Doing anything that is prohibited in the the Square Enix Account Terms of Use.

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which, within those terms is:

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x. Use, transfer, distribute or dispose of any information contained in the Website or Services in any manner that does or could compete with the business of SQUARE ENIX;
xi. Engage in or instigate any illegal activities;

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Botting competes with SE's business in keeping the economy on its feet.

Case closed. do not post the names, they are quite against the guidelines..

this is also why the forum thread about that pc only hunting assistance tool got removed. someone named it, which killed the whole thread.

more on the main topic, though, botting will only get you so far. and it really removes the "fun" aspect of the game anyways, so its not really worth doing.

Besides, as someone who made 25 mil last weekend, in only 6 hours of game play, gil is so easy to make, botting isn't even worth it. if you are botting, then you aren't making gil the most efficiently possible.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

This is a common thing I hear from people and it could never be more wrong. How does what other people do effect you?

In the example of a MMO it has massive far reaching implications into things like the markets. To pretend otherwise is foolhardy.

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Well I guess if the argument here is markets, then yeah it doesn't effect me. I sell all my materia, gear, mats, etc to in-game vendors. They depend on our business in order to feed their families and have roofs over their heads, and I like to think I am helping them out. Players already have those amenities so they don;t need my stuff :) But, true, as far as I can tell the only community effect bots could possibly have are on the markets . . . but . . . I still wonder if people even know what a bot is.

Bots are so easily detected by every game I play. You bot - you get detected and banned instantly. It's that simple. But players love to stalk you (this thread really is full of stalkers by the way) and if you run the same direction twice in a row you are a bot. When i gather, I pick a good area and run an efficient pattern between the nodes I am farming. It seems simple enough to me, but multiple times I have gotten a tell "Hey are you a person?" Of course I facepalm, stop what I am doing, and answer them . . . . UNLESS they come off as assholes, like this one idiot who said "Hey I am reporting you for botting." . . . to which my reply was to completely ignore him, and I did my best to walk even straighter lines between nodes while he followed me just to waste his time and have fun with his stupid ass. The idiot followed me for 2 hours, probably recording to a video or something. Did SE ever contact me? No, because if I was botting their software would have detected it and I would be banned immediately.

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Originally Posted by Aerowaffle

This is an MMO, you're constantly being compared alongside other players.

Let's say that earning 10 million gil was an accomplishment for a new player. Doesn't the knowledge that someone could easily cheat and buy their way to that accomplishment belittle the achievement of earning 10 million gil the real way?

It's like getting a perfect grade on a hard exam at college, only to learn that there are those who cheated to get a perfect grade as well (and got away with it). Sure, their grade doesn't affect your grade, but it makes your accomplishment mean much less to you since others have received the same accomplishment, but with none of the effort.

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And this is where it becomes interpretation. Fortunately the game has ways of knowing if you are legit for achievements. Looking at the available achievements, most of them are attained in ways that bots can;t accomplish.

For me, a "win" in this game is through player interaction, and I main heal as a role. When i come out of a dungeon, I check to see if I received any commendations. If I did, I smile. If I didn't, I assess my performance and see where I can improve in my next run. But just communicating gets me comms on a regular basis because I . .. well . . . communicate.

People are blowing what I said into a "you hate the community bit", which is typical of the type of people replying to me. So I guess I need to really point out that "not giving a fuck how you got your armor" is NOT me saying "I don;t give a fuck about you as someone I'd game with". I care for friends in this game. I care for fellow FC mates. But it is very clear that what I stated explicitly meant that I DON'T care if your armor is better than mine, because eventually I will have it anyway, at my own pace, and I will have earned it on my own which makes me good enough for me. I was very explicit in that statement and still people did their best to misread it. And this is as I expect from most of this community - you all look for darkness and hate everywhere you can. What are you guys? Emo or something?

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Originally Posted by tocsin

more on the main topic, though, botting will only get you so far. and it really removes the "fun" aspect of the game anyways, so its not really worth doing.

Besides, as someone who made 25 mil last weekend, in only 6 hours of game play, gil is so easy to make, botting isn't even worth it. if you are botting, then you aren't making gil the most efficiently possible.

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Exactly. The only thing botters are doing is denying themselves. HOWEVER in getting stirred up about Bots, the players in this thread are also denying themselves. Can't we all just form a group, go dungeon hopping or fate farming or whatever it is we do as friends, groups and peers and not worry about some guy supposedly botting when, as I showed in my example above, he probably actually isn't?

I think I shall do that tonight. I was planning to level an alt, but I am going to go do some gathering and see how many stalkers I can get to follow me :) It's going to make a great video :) See? I;m not denying myself. I'm so totally having fun with this XD

Uhh what? What does this thread have to do with caring about someone's fear. Bots artificially sky rocket the number of items into the market at an accelerated pace se never intended causing mass deflation and the ability of legit people who did mine as a form of earning money as no longer viable. It affects you whether you give a flip or not.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

Uhh what? What does this thread have to do with caring about someone's fear. Bots artificially sky rocket the number of items into the market at an accelerated pace se never intended causing mass deflation and the ability of legit people who did mine as a form of earning money as no longer viable. It affects you whether you give a flip or not.

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Yeah....I dumped a ton of money into botany only to find out that even the high tier stuff was in the market for a little pocket change. There needs to be something that runs up and kills them or something.