Another ban wave, another disappointment.

Month after month, I keep reporting the same bots who are controlling the aethersand and consumable market on my server along with occupying multiple large houses while leaving them totally barren, but they continue to exist for whatever reason.

I even recorded/sent footage of one's erratic movements and ability to clip through walls, but that apparently wasn't sufficient evidence (As though you'd even need more then the sheer amount of time they spend online coupled with the amount of items in their storage/shops).

At this point, I really don't understand what it takes to get anything to be done about them (I suppose I can't be truly disappointed if I don't actually have any hope that they'll take action, though).

The ban wave reports give the illusion that the GMs/action team/whatever are making a meaningful effort in curbing cheaters, but the reality is that vast majority of the bans are being handed out to mass-produced RMT spammers and warp hacking gil farmers who come back faster then they can even ban them, while the gather/craft/PvP botters/hackers who are actually having a negative impact on the gameplay experience of others regularly slip under the radar.

I feel like if there was more of an outcry (Like there was with the whole housing fiasco), they might actually pay attention to this issue.

FFXIV just need a bigger team, particularly a larger community support team. The current sized support team can't keep up with the amount of players coming into the game, I really can't believe Square is not putting money into this. If you want a growing game with a large community, you need community support.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Month after month, I keep reporting the same bots who are controlling the aethersand and consumable market on my server along with occupying multiple large houses while leaving them totally barren, but they continue to exist for whatever reason.

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No way you can know this part. For all you know the player simply has deeper pockets and thus controls the market simply because they know people will buy at their prices. Unless there's some way to track retainer names to their owners that I'm unawares of.

As to the matter of the slow bans. From what they explained before they don't want to simply ban the obvious small fries that show up. They do a lot of investigating and trace work in attempt to find sources. Or at least that's what they've said before.

Their team that handles social matters seems fine, since it seldom has taken more then a hour to get a response after I've filed a report for harassment, but when it comes to "illicit activity" as they'd describe it, they're really lacking and it doesn't help that they don't respond to reports about those matters. If they did respond, it might help me to understand why they aren't taking action against the reported players, and let me adjust my next report accordingly.

I know from experience now that a lot of bots aren't truly AFK and are just tabbed out/playing on a different character, so if they're relying on the usual "Send tell; if no response, then ban" procedure, they're never going to get anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

I really can't believe Square is not putting money into this.

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I can. Doing the bare minimum when it comes to staffing means less money being spent and more profit being made. It's a very corporate thing to do. I wouldn't expect this to change much or at all unless the player base becomes much more vocal about botting issues like what was seen in response to healer nerfs at the start of SB, the brazil/russia currency thing, and shirogane being bought out before many people could even log in.

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Originally Posted by Kyuuen

No way you can know this part.

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You can when you see them selling several dozen stacks of 99 consumables with their name on it, coupled with the fact that whenever they aren't gathering, they're sitting in/outside their houses and crafting for hours on end.

I know some people are devoted to making money and all, but these guys are online and active 24/7. Even the richest legit (?) players on my server don't spend more then a few hours crafting daily.

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Originally Posted by Texa

I can. Doing the bare minimum when it comes to staffing means less money being spent and more profit being made. It's a very corporate thing to do. I wouldn't expect this to change much or at all unless the player base becomes much more vocal about botting issues like what was seen in response to healer nerfs at the start of SB, the brazil/russia currency thing, and shirogane being bought out before many people could even log in.

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This makes Square Enix look like EA, EA being the most corporate "game" company there is. With games coming out from so many great Indie devs this corporate thinking is just wrong. Blizzard is fairly corporate but at least they have some good ideas for gamers, and they always have their patches on PTR. Battle for Azeroth comes out next year, with the new novel coming out around March; and I have a non-mmo Divinity 2(Larian Studios <3), there is no reason to play a game so corporately run.

How are they cornering the market? It's not like a aethersand is limited quantity from the nodes. I'm all for banning bots but cornering the market, really?

Let me shed a little bit of light on this, just from my little bit of experience. I used to be a GM for Maplestory for a little while. Most of the time, I would be looking place to place specifically for spam bots. Same with Atlantica. The problem is that these bots have made the users a lot of money, especially with players still doing RMT today. It's nothing to them to get banned - they'll just change one letter or number on a new character and go back to doing it. And it's not just one character - one account could have 8 characters under it. All they need to do is buy a 30-day subscription, grind out trials with a macro, and get stuff. It may not just be that the staffing is an issue, but that these accounts just make new ones. It's not hard to just get under a new IP, make a new account, and go again.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I even recorded/sent footage of one's erratic movements and ability to clip through walls, but that apparently wasn't sufficient evidence (As though you'd even need more then the sheer amount of time they spend online coupled with the amount of items in their storage/shops).

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Sadly, video/picture evidence cannot be used when making a case, because of the fact that it can be edited. GMs have stated multiple times that they cannot accept anything other than evidence from directly inside the game with regards to any sort of report, be it for cheating/botting, harassment, or anything else reportable/bannable.

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The ban wave reports give the illusion that the GMs/action team/whatever are making a meaningful effort in curbing cheaters, but the reality is that vast majority of the bans are being handed out to mass-produced RMT spammers and warp hacking gil farmers who come back faster then they can even ban them

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The RMT gil bots are much easier to catch and ban, since they’re opening advertising in /say their gil-selling websites. Again, the evidence has to originate directly in-game, and cannot be video/picture evidence. So, unless the GMs start actively monitoring the suspected bots that are gathering/crafting all the time, they cannot ban them as swiftly or as easily, like they would RMT spammers.