Fates and Bots - Like Bread and Butter.

After a decision to change to a tank after a change of RL events, I decided to give Dark Knight a try. Sure, fine, it's fast to level, the armory bonus is nice, and the fate parties are steady.

Then I get to Northern Thanalan.

Bots. Everywhere.

This isn't a joke. I had the night off, and decided I'd get in some fate party grinding with maybe a group or two. Instead I find about 60 players at 2-3 in the morning, all moving at once like a mass blob to any fate that pops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juIzzA21p8I

This is just an example. I'm on Excali, but as you can see in the video, this is Ragnarok. As soon as a fate pops, they all move as one. And as you can see about 2 minutes in, they don't go for the fate area itself -- they go to where it starts, then catch up and stand ontop of the npc. They don't even attack mobs. But any other fate with mobs? It's mass aoes.

Square, Yoshi P, please. This needs to be addressed.

Not to be devil's advocate, this is big problem of course, but I doubt SE will ever go rampage and ban half of each server. Or else there will be noone to pay for the game.

When 2.0 launched, there was war between 1.0 white-knights and 2.0 white-knights. And one of their arguments was "If not us and our money, 2.0 wouldn't even exist". Guess it's time to say the same about bots - if not them, SE wouldn't get enought profit to develop 3.0.

Unfortunatly this is necessary evil.

Hey, this looks like exactly what I do in N Than FATE downtime. Move to the central point, open my map, and alt tab.

Errrr I think you're confusing things. Yes, there are many players there, but I don't think that means they're bots. People are using Northern Thanalan fates to lvl up because they're way more efficient than the fates in Heavensward areas. And of course as soon as a fate pops up they're gonna move, that's the very reason why they're there. They have their map open just like you, waiting for fates. It's just like fate trains in Coerthas. This is nothing new or irregular at all.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

Errrr I think you're confusing things. Yes, there are many players there, but I don't think that means they're bots. People are using Northern Thanalan fates to lvl up because they're way more efficient than the fates Heavensward areas. And of course as soon as a fate pops up they're gonna move, that's the very reason why they're there. They have their map open just like you, waiting for fates. It's just like fate trains in Coerthas. This is nothing new or irregular at all.

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If you can't tell the diference between a bot and a real player you are either one of them or you need glasses. The bot situation in the game is out of hand and its because they haven't been banning the people abusing it at all even after dozens of reports.

At the start it was just a few people doing but since they saw there was no punishment now it's like 90% of north thanalan.

To this day, I'll never understand why people FATE train instead of doing Dungeons and Leves.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

To this day, I'll never understand why people FATE train instead of doing Dungeons and Leves.

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It's not hard to understand most are not even there. Doing dungeons and leves takes effort. Botting just lets you afk.

Oh my god this video made me laugh so much. I haven't grinded fates since 2.0 and today I decided I'd give northern thanalan a try to get my astrologian to 50 as I was over the dungeon grind.

I arrived and there was at least 4-500 people there and blobs of people running in lines and blobs like this I was so suprised this was such an issue. My server is tonberry

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

If you can't tell the diference between a bot and a real player you are either one of them or you need glasses. The bot situation in the game is out of hand and its because they haven't been banning the people abusing it at all even after dozens of reports.

At the start it was just a few people doing but since they saw there was no punishment now it's like 90% of north thanalan.

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What are you talking about? I'm failing to see what part makes you think they're bots. I've seen my good share of bots, reported them even, and on what I've watched of that video I have yet to see any such behavior. "They move all at once"? You may not be aware of what is happening.

Heavensward areas are not worth it to fate-grind because enemies there take a great deal of time to kill and the rewards aren't worth it for the time spent. So the most efficient area for fates post-50 is Northern Thanalan. This means that a great deal of the population that should normally be spread into HW areas are stacked in NT instead. It's putting most of the post-50 population of a server in a single area because it's more efficient than the whole expansion areas. That's why you're seeing those zerg swarms, and if you're seeing them move when a fate spawns it's because their whole reason to be in that area is to do fates, and they have to pay attention and act asap because there are 932764982674 other players doing the same and fates won't last for long, so they need to act fast to get credit.

And even if they're botting, do you mean they're individually botting or organized botting like RMT farmers? It can't be the latter because then you wouldn't see a mass of people moving, instead you would see a small concentrated mass of characters sharing the same position, and even teleporting. If it was the former then it would mean that the average population of the server (regular players, with glamours and bardings and all) would be bots, something that is very unlikely. I think you just don't recognize what's the current situation with farming in that area.

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Originally Posted by Scholar-

Oh my god this video made me laugh so much. I haven't grinded fates since 2.0 and today I decided I'd give northern thanalan a try to get my astrologian to 50 as I was over the dungeon grind.

I arrived and there was at least 4-500 people there and blobs of people running in lines and blobs like this I was so suprised this was such an issue. My server is tonberry

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It seems to be in all places and as a tank you can sabotage them because at some point they are so many that the distance of view for enemies drops and if you move it far from them then they can't see them and get stuck till the fate is over.