Just had the most fascinating conversation with a GM

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Originally Posted by FengZhou

According people on Balmung, there are still bots running gathering stuff that have been doing so for YEARS... so the whole ban WAVE is clearly missing clearly reported bots out in the open.

I wish that GMs had more power to perm ban bots on the spot.

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The number of non-RMT bots that actually get caught in each ban wave is pathetically small. Last week there was 34 bans for botting vs. 6K+ bans for illicit activity (Which is the category the gil-farming bots get shoved into, as their hacking is likely viewed as a more serious offense then the botting).

That figure is being gathered from across every single server, so on average they banned less then one bot per server...which is not going to cut it when there's over 30 people I can recall on Cactuar alone who do it regularly...

Behemoth is more "congested" than Hyperion (husband checked if he could make a Character for days on behemoth and had to settle for Hyperion) , but there was a far greater wait time today on Hyperion than on behemoth (queue of 1500 vs 29) was it all the bots? Was there a sudden bot surge today? O_o

Edit:Not sure if it works, but Hubby says there's a certain phrase you can say that makes Chinese-based bots almost instantly leave, due to the unique firewall situation over there, so depending on where the bots are from, you might be able to get rid of some, as a sort of work around, but again I am not sure if it works.

I'm a little confused... if you can't get into a zone because it's full, how do you know it's full of bots and nothing else?

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

I'm a little confused... if you can't get into a zone because it's full, how do you know it's full of bots and nothing else?

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There's a pretty telling video of this happening that someone posted earlier

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

Edit:Not sure if it works, but Hubby says there's a certain phrase you can say that makes Chinese-based bots almost instantly leave, due to the unique firewall situation over there, so depending on where the bots are from, you might be able to get rid of some, as a sort of work around, but again I am not sure if it works.

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The great firewall of china does react badly to some things being said, but the more dedicated botfarms take precautions. Course if we discussed the forbidden knowledge here, then this entire forum could end up blocked by china for a while...

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

I'm a little confused... if you can't get into a zone because it's full, how do you know it's full of bots and nothing else?

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Because if you try hard enough, you can, eventually, force your way in. Watching the video you can see a botstack walking itself through town, and bouncing off the exit gate as the room it's walking into is full. A new bot tries every second or so, and some of them entering time up with some of them leaving. If you wanted into central shroud, you had to get lucky and enter as a level 5 was leaving.

did you submit a report to the RMT taskforce?

https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...=5382&la=1&p=0

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Originally Posted by SerLuke

did you submit a report to the RMT taskforce?

https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...=5382&la=1&p=0

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It takes 300+ users to lock a map and prevent people from entering. I hope you're not suggesting OP spends several weeks writing up reports for 300 bots? Sadly this problem is bigger than reporting a botting user here and there.

Other issues are also preventing people from completing quests, not just entering maps.

Further video evidence of bots hindering play to go along with the one I posted earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DyfDTQtba0 & https://clips.twitch.tv/FitAlertDelicataPrimeMe

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Originally Posted by Youkulm

It takes 300+ users to lock a map and prevent people from entering. I hope you're not suggesting OP spends several weeks writing up reports for 300 bots? Sadly this problem is bigger than reporting a botting user here and there.

Other issues are also preventing people from completing quests, not just entering maps.

Further video evidence of bots hindering play to go along with the one I posted earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DyfDTQtba0 & https://clips.twitch.tv/FitAlertDelicataPrimeMe

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No, I suggest he write that in the comment box, not submit the report 300 times, I thought that was common sense though unless you are trying to troll me or make me look stupid or something.

It's likely there's a documentation process that has to occur before any ban regardless of how obvious it seems to us in game. Someone I used to play with and know IRL got banned shortly after he got reported for using a gathering/crafting bot (which he certainly was) and I'm wondering if the speed was there because the person who reported him could provide specific information. It may not be as easy with people who are much more likely to know more obscure exploits. That said, I hadn't heard of whole zones being blocked off to other players before, so this definitely seems like a real outlier of bot activity.

The more frustrating thing though is that they wouldn't be doing this if there weren't other people in game who used their services.

I don't think there really is any clear cut way to dealing with the bots, maybe what the GM can do is mark the bots for us if they see them (since their hands are tied in other ways), and we can just PVP/tele death them to some hellscape prison whether they are found out in the field or in a town (imagine casting HOLY in one of the towns, that would be a spectacle lol). Treat them like actual monsters we can just defeat.

I know my suggestion is silly and not a permanent solution, but it would be a rather fun way to getting rid of bots in a comical way.