I heard the Special Task Force is going to hitt the bots hard now, that the patch has

Anyone else hear the same?

i mean i did just sacrifice 1000 lala's to Ifrit and prayed for this to happen soooooooo MAYBE?


but really i have not heard

Its true.I t's TRUE.
He was sacrificing us by the bag!
I barely escaped.

In all seriousness however as far as I understand it that's unsubstantiated wishful thinking. The STF is, like, 3 people in Japan. I'm not sure what kind of big push they could even stage to take out bots in any lasting and meaningful way.

They don't announce in advance when they're going to take action. It's probably someone's wishful thinking though certainly it would be welcome if it did happen.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

In all seriousness however as far as I understand it that's unsubstantiated wishful thinking. The STF is, like, 3 people in Japan. I'm not sure what kind of big push they could even stage to take out bots in any lasting and meaningful way.

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The STF is not a completely isolated unit. There are others working with them, especially when it comes to processing account bans.

There's no lasting way to take out bots. They'll always come back because too many people enjoy cheating. It's still meaningful because it shows they are working against the problem and it deters those who are on the edge about cheating. Some players only do it because they think there's no consequence.

The biggest single change to help "push" would be to give players a "report bot" right next to "report RCM" and let regular GM"s actually take action, instead of firing them if they even admit to seeing a bot.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

They don't announce in advance when they're going to take action. It's probably someone's wishful thinking though certainly it would be welcome if it did happen.


The STF is not a completely isolated unit. There are others working with them, especially when it comes to processing account bans.

There's no lasting way to take out bots. They'll always come back because too many people enjoy cheating. It's still meaningful because it shows they are working against the problem and it deters those who are on the edge about cheating. Some players only do it because they think there's no consequence.

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we have no proof one way or the other about them being, or not being an isolated unit. we do have evidence that the GM's cannot escalate suspected bot issues to them. we do have in game proof that there is no DIRECT way to report a bot to the STF without leaving the, knowing the page to go to, and then filling out a report against a bot.

the trend lately seems to indicate that less and less are being deterred by any idea of "consequence" because there seems to be little consequence involved in even blatant cheating and the accounts being banned have likely been hacked and are just throw away accounts for the cheaters. (for example the RMT barkers)

There was a slight spike in the number of bans during the week of the restoration rankings, but it's since dropped back down to the usual disappointing levels.

A token effort to attempt to appease people, I'd assume.

I think the GM's and the STF are failing miserably

I had a turn in at waking sands and noticed some bot activity, I waited there for 20 minutes, taking screen shots, watching them run off through the ground and made a report for 105 unique bot characters...
thats on ONE NA server in ONE area

by whatever metric they use to gauge success, it seems to be rather inadequate.

the number of bots they list as "account banned" isnt even the teeniest tip of the smallest iceberg...

ps. and this is abotu the lowest of teh low hanging fruit they could get. a GM just has to sit there and hit ban... not many brain cells required for that. a two year old could do that job.. or a trained turnip...

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I think the GM's and the STF are failing miserably

I had a turn in at waking sands and noticed some bot activity, I waited there for 20 minutes, taking screen shots, watching them run off through the ground and made a report for 105 unique bot characters...
thats on ONE NA server in ONE area

by whatever metric they use to gauge success, it seems to be rather inadequate.

the number of bots they list as "account banned" isnt even the teeniest tip of the smallest iceberg...

ps. and this is abotu the lowest of teh low hanging fruit they could get. a GM just has to sit there and hit ban... not many brain cells required for that. a two year old could do that job.. or a trained turnip...

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It's largely due to them focusing on the gibberishly named bots, which is a pointless endeavour as they'll be remade within a minute or two. They need an automated process that is reviewed and constantly updated to handle those types. What the STF should focus on are legit players botting aka your speed hacks, market board botting and etc. Sadly, they almost never bother. That's a big reason botting has become so rampant. No one has even the slightest fear they'll get caught. The only thing SE did crack down on (supposedly) is third party website purchases. I can't imagine why they'd prioritize that. It couldn't have to do with losing money and thus actually hurting them. Nah...

Like Kage said. The whole process is a token effort at this point. It'll keep getting worse until they're finally forced to do something to save face.

at this point, I think the ONLY market they are doing anything is is the Japanese market. The NA and EU markets they seem to have given in to defeat if they ever even tried.

I agree, the gibberish, remade in a minute bots should be an easy and automated fix. they teleport, go through the ground and objects. you would THINK that something in the code would be flagged for such blatant cheating. I dont know of ANY legit players that "accidentally" do that to be caught up in. so the excuse of "inconveniencing real people" doesnt cut it with that activity.