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.
Fates and Bots - Like Bread and Butter.
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07-03-2015, 09:18 PMRaifuruFates and Bots - Like Bread and Butter.
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07-03-2015, 09:38 PMVantol
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. -
07-03-2015, 09:47 PMJahaudant
Hey, this looks like exactly what I do in N Than FATE downtime. Move to the central point, open my map, and alt tab.
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07-03-2015, 09:48 PMSicno
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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07-03-2015, 09:52 PMRose-WildIf 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sicno
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. -
07-03-2015, 09:56 PMSylve
To this day, I'll never understand why people FATE train instead of doing Dungeons and Leves.
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07-03-2015, 10:07 PMRose-WildIt's not hard to understand most are not even there. Doing dungeons and leves takes effort. Botting just lets you afk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylve
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07-03-2015, 10:12 PMScholar-
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 -
07-03-2015, 10:16 PMSicnoWhat 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose-Wild
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. -
07-03-2015, 10:17 PMRose-WildIt 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scholar-
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07-03-2015, 10:19 PMRose-Wildhttp://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-in-my-server.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sicno
You don't pay much attention to the vid did you? Just go minute 10 when dark devices is up. But there's tons of time in the vid where you can see evidence. -
07-03-2015, 10:23 PMRaquelleAvarosaMy dear, a ton of them are definitely botting, you can see them all getting stuck at the foot of the giant crystal where the FATE of the giant ahriman boss is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sicno
All the human players jumped onto the crystal to hit the boss and the bots just stand there mounted on their chocobo, when the FATE ends, they all leave together in a bunch. -
07-03-2015, 10:25 PMSicno
Ok, I guess I'll have to check in more detail (especially because I'm not familiar with fates there, I always kept on Coerthas Central fates or dungeoning or spamming Mor Dhona leves on my way to 50)
Edit:
Yeah, I'm starting to see it now o_O it's basically like going away after a phase of the Svara fate chain. And I'm surprised it's on this scale. Nvm what I said previouslyQuote:
Originally Posted by Rose-Wild
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07-03-2015, 10:31 PMVlady
People are just trying to downplay the issue because they bot as well most likely. When you can buy a bot program for 5 bucks the weak willed fall right into the trap of I don't give a damn that this hurts other players.
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07-03-2015, 10:50 PMJahaudantI have played a lot of games where bots genuinely cause issues for other players and FFXIV is certainly not one of them. While it's easy to get annoyed at FATE bots (re: jealous?) it's difficult to justify that they are hindering you in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlady
Do as I do and just don't FATE. It's mind numbingly boring anyway. -
07-03-2015, 10:52 PMRaquelleAvarosaThose bots actually improve the rate of Northern Thanalan FATEs popping up because there's more traffic. Well at least on my server.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jahaudant
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07-03-2015, 10:53 PMRose-Wild
I wonder how many of the people in this topic that are defending it/playing the fool are actually botters XD
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07-03-2015, 11:02 PMSicnoWe all know denying it only means you're 100% a botter!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose-Wild
Now tell me, are you a bot? -
07-03-2015, 11:04 PMNaliaBrownBut they also make it a lot more difficult to get a gold rating, especially if you're not in a full party. Usually you can get one on party finder, but if you're a DPS waiting for duty finder queues and fate-ing while you wait, good luck.Quote:
Originally Posted by RaquelleAvarosa
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07-03-2015, 11:09 PMRose-Wild
WoW had to ban 2 mil accounts because it got out of hand. Bots not only hurt farming fates. People use them for pvp and pve too. To farm relics to do dailies. Hursts the market prices and many other things.
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07-03-2015, 11:18 PMArkista
The bots on our server are crazy! Its good and bad, the only time that they really piss me off, is when DD is up and GGG will pop at the same time. This is also how you know who is botting. During DD it is several fates, when GGG or another fate pops the bots will leave and go to it after a phase fate is done. Its so funny too, but when GGG is up, it sucks cause they'll have it 50-75% when the last DD is done.
Also when its the turn in fates I heard they can't "Turn In" hahaha.
Nope. Alma is right, Excalibur has a crap ton of fate botters. I did 40-51 out there over the weekend, I swear 75% of the people were botting. Like I said during DD (Dark Devices) you know who the botters are. No one in there right mind are going to leave the 2nd phase to head to East Meets Worse or w/e, but you can clearly see dozens of players leave and not turn around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sicno
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07-03-2015, 11:26 PMSpookyGhost
Bots exist, you can go to Limsa and see them daily.
But the OP's video isn't full of bots. Maybe there's a few hidden in there somewhere, but this is literally what it was like in 2.0 when people actually did NT fates because of the cut off point around lvl 48 and that one fate existed that infinitely spawned mobs until you finished the phase it was on. You went and zerged any FATE that was up until there was a lull, then you would stand in the Ceruleum Processing Plant and afk/watch Netflix with your map opened until another one spawned.
If you do see someone botting in NT, report them, move on. There are certainly people who do this, maybe it's more common on Ragnarok or something, but it's generally not the majority as this is currently the best way to level a second 60 and of course you're going to see a million people zerging FATEs. -
07-03-2015, 11:33 PMRose-WildHidden xD I was there when this video was being recorded and i can assure there's like x5 more bots than real players there specially because this was recorded late night..Quote:
Originally Posted by SpookyGhost
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07-03-2015, 11:52 PMCatwho
I didn't believe it at first but just watching 5 minutes of the OP's video was enough to convince me. I've participated in NT fate parties many a time back when I was finishing up all 50s, and the behavior recorded is NOT the behavior of the actual FATE parties in that zone. Probably at least 20 bots in that video.
SE needs to bring down the banhammer hard. -
07-04-2015, 06:09 AMHyunckel
SE will never ban them, their task force has only 3 persons in it and they will lose their subs' money...
T_T -
07-04-2015, 06:44 AMxpiros
This thread needs to be frontpage material. I've always known that there were bots in-game but boy was I in for a surprise when I went to grind FATEs in NT.
I got there and I shit you not, there were literally hundreds of bots. Hundreds. Its ridiculous, theres so many. I can tell the difference between a real player and a bot, its not rocket science. The PF fate group I was in was talking about how bad things were because there were just so many of them.
These weren't RMT bots, these were player bots. Bots that they turn on before they go to sleep to grind fates to lvl from 50-60 or whatever their lvl is.
To the people saying "well theres not really much SE can do, ban them and they lose sub money" while I can see and appreciate this logic, does that then mean, I am free to bot as well? Knowing I won't be banned, cause well I am a paying customer. The temptation of turning on a bot and going to sleep, waking up to a 1 or 2 lvls levelled character is extremely alluring.
I am no genius and have no solution to this problem, but then again, I am not paid to manage/develop this game now, am I? Don't get me wrong I am not mad, but this is a legitimate problem and I am very concerned.
People can do what they want, they have that freedom, but if in exercising those freedom they break rules, there has to be repercussions. How many out of a 100 are being banned, if found truly guilty? A one week ban? Thats a joke, thats putting a band-aid on a knife wound.
Really interested to see if we get an official response regarding this problem, not necessarily a solution, but a response at least acknowledging that this is a serious issue and that they are thinking about it. After all that they have been preaching about balance, fairness, and no unfair advantage, they need to address this problem because how is it not unfair that I have to grind my brains out from 50-60 on an alt while people can sleep and wake up to a levelled character.
Inb4 Fates nerfed. For the love of all that is holy, please do not nerf fates. Thats more of a punishment to us good citizens than to them. -
07-04-2015, 06:58 AMRose-Wild
I can't agree more but they seem to avoid the topic just like they ignore the reports of people that you see doing it everyday all day.
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07-04-2015, 07:00 AMAurra
Quick show of hands, who here has ever felt the need to automate leveling in a single player FF game?
Botting in this fashion shows failure in the game's design. Forced repetitive grinding is not a task most Humans enjoy (especially when you figure that players are paying money, rather than being paid) and many people will do whatever it takes to bypass it so they can get to the parts of the game that are actually enjoyable.
FF14 leveling, especially in regards to alternate characters, is excruciatingly mind-numbing. You may make an argument that the class specific quests are interesting, but they give what, 5% of a level at best? Every 5 levels or so?
Make the leveling process either enjoyable (or ideally get rid of it entirely) and the demand and usage for automation of this nature would plummet significantly. -
07-04-2015, 07:04 AMGyson
It blows my mind that there are actually people in this thread who can look at that video and claim they don't see a massive amount of botting occurring.
The argument about SE not doing anything out of fear of losing too may accounts loses a lot of weight when you start to factor in the risk of losing accounts of those players who are tired of no action being taken against continual rule breakers, in addition to future accounts lost by people who steer clear of a game that doesn't enforce its ToS on cheating.
Either way there's a risk of losing accounts. You might as well lose the ones that aren't interested in playing the game legitimately. -
07-04-2015, 07:13 AMSolaria_Luna
They should apply that afk logout thing to those who use afk bots to grind fates...cause technically they're still afk, but using computer automation to keep them moving.
Also if caught continuously using these things to farm fates or just avoid the auto log out they get put in a queue full of people (for that world) that used the same programs. (queue can't be circumvented the same way we circumvent the queue when non-afk bot (totally legit) players get auto-kicked for 10/30min afk, they have to wait in a line of over 500+ people with no cancel button)
Yes I agree with the tl;dr sentence of the post above me. (I'd rather see the people not interested in playing the game legit gone) -
07-04-2015, 07:23 AMBorascythe
I am a bit skeptical about this. Sure, some of them may be bots, but I really don't think all of them are. I often travel back to town and wait for fates to spawn and then immediately run towards them. That's kinda how fate grinding works.
EDIT: Okay, towards the middle and end, it does seem like there are more bots than I initially thought. -
07-04-2015, 10:27 AMRhysatiYou'd have to be blind to not see the botting. They all start, stop, mount, demount, etc all at the exact same time. They also get confused by chaining FATEs and all turn and leave at the same time, then all come back at the same time, all stop together in the same spot at the SAME TIME and then turn and run off again at the same time. It is beyond obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpookyGhost