People seem to be exploiting Mentor Roulette for easy gil/achievement credit.

I'm not sure how the queue priorities for the roulette work, but I've noticed that when queueing as DPS, I will frequently be matched into the Under the Armor guildhest several times in a row; particularly when the in-need bonus is for DPS.

This on its own I would not find unusual, but I very frequently end up with the exact same low level tank/healer pair, who quite frankly have no practical reason to be spamming the same guildhest endlessly when considering how paltry the rewards are after the initial clear, and they will be doing it for far longer then is needed to complete the 10 guildhests challenge log as well.

I strongly suspect that these pairs are often bots, as when the entry barrier drops, they will start moving at the exact same time, then the healer starts to awkwardly stutter-step as they get into range of the boss and start spamming their DPS spell. Once the instance ends, they will immediately leave within seconds before the game warps them over to the guildhest instructor at the start of instance, which I find further unusual as the bulk of genuinely new players don't do this. If you do happen to actually come across them out in the field, you will generally see them crowded around an aetheryte somewhere constantly re-queueing into the guildhest.

I'm also noticing some of the ranged DPS mentors I'm getting matched with exhibiting similarly suspicious behavior like the stutter-stepping, so it would not surprise me if they scripted a bot that just spams mentor roulette and instantly drops any instance that is not Under the Armor, penalties be damned. I'd assume they are likely the same ones who set up the aforementioned tanks/healers in hopes of getting matched with them for some quick roulette credit (And considering how often I was running into the same mentors as well, the chance of that seems rather high).

I'm bringing this up mostly because:

1. I don't want to be getting consciously getting involved with some kind of illicit activity.

2. It's stifling my enjoyment of mentor roulette as I'd much rather be running things like dungeons and trials, but while these suspected bots are active it makes it nigh-impossible to get matched into anything but this same guildhest when queueing on DPS.

They could fix this by simply changing the queue priorities somehow, but of course, that requires them to actually notice people are gaming the system. The amount of raw gil this can generate while the DPS in need bonus is active is also pretty significant as the queues are popping nigh instantly if I get the guildhests.

It'd be lovely if they removed guildhests from the mentor roulette matching due to the continued existence of this exploit which has gone on for years at this point to give people illegitimate access to the Astrope mount.

Cheesing into it with alt accounts (even bots, as you've observed) set to a non-primary language has been a pastime of several people I know and who I've even spoken with and it needs to be stopped. Primarily because of the mount credit and gil reward for adventurer in need bonus farming, but also because guildhests quite frankly do not need to be in mentor roulette since they don't contain anything worth actually mentoring.

Just a thought but could it be so these suspicious parties run them with bots just to sell the accounts with the mount or something similar?

If you suspect a bot report it and let the GM sort it out.

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Originally Posted by Snorky

If you suspect a bot report it and let the GM sort it out.

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If that was a working solution I wouldn't have made a topic about this.

Bots might be everywhere, but this particular type of exploitation is affecting other people in a very direct manner by limiting the range of instances you can actually get queued into on DPS.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

If that was a working solution I wouldn't have made a topic about this.

Bots might be everywhere, but this particular type of exploitation is affecting other people in a very direct manner by limiting the range of instances you can actually get queued into on DPS.

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Do you know how many games have bot problems? If it was as simple as people seem to think to solve this problem I am sure the gaming industry as a whole would have done so by now. The problem is people who say oh that's a bot may not be correct so now we have reports that need to be investigated that are not bots. This takes up the time of the team who investigates also it is still important to report suspected activity. So you want them to insert a program that detects this behavior when they have expressly told us they won't do that and they won't do that for 3rd party program users either. So here we are discussing a problem which there is no obvious solution too. Other than report and move on.

There are alternative solutions like changing how the queue priority for Mentor Roulette works so that it's less likely or impossible to get matched with the same players repeatedly in what's supposed to be a roulette and therefore random.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

There are alternative solutions like changing how the queue priority for Mentor Roulette works so that it's less likely or impossible to get matched with the same players repeatedly in what's supposed to be a roulette and therefore random.

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That is a great idea. I like it.

I have a wonderful solution to fix this problem : remove the mount reward.

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Originally Posted by Karthunk

I have a wonderful solution to fix this problem : remove the mount reward.

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Well that would just deprive people who are farming it for the mount. That's really not a fair solution unless you take the mount away from those who earned it that way too.