Frontline Bots

Very easy to notice in a 8vs8vs8 when 2 teams are almost only bots.

https://image.ibb.co/iJrTma/ffxiv_10082017_082650.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/hz9ERa/ffxiv_10082017_082820.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/ekYVzv/ffxiv_10082017_083202.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/eM8kXF/ffxiv_10082017_083238.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/f3gKRa/ffxiv_10082017_083330.jpg

https://image.ibb.co/gaCCCF/ffxiv_10082017_083421.jpg

This really made me sad.

lol exp farmers :(

I suppose that's about the only way to make Frontlines tolerable. :-/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

I suppose that's about the only way to make Frontlines tolerable. :-/

---

Orrrrrrrrr, how about if you don't like PVP, go farm your exp some other way rather than ruining it for the people who DO like it? What a strange and novel concept!

WHEN are bans coming for these utter scumbags, SE? Do you even care at all about anything related to your PVP mode except how many people are playing it ("playing" lol)? Player skill, counterplay, competitive integrity, all of this has been going down the tubes and you guys don't care as long as you get to tell some stupid analysts that participation is up. Just disgusts me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Orrrrrrrrr, how about if you don't like PVP, go farm your exp some other way rather than ruining it for the people who DO like it? What a strange and novel concept!

---

That's what I do. I don't enjoy PvP. SE could offer me 500 octodecillion gil, a large house in every district, everything instantly levelled to 70, in max Savage gear, all crafts unlocked, and all gatherers, all set to 100% HQ rate for gathers, and crafts are guaranteed HQ, and I have the stats to craft everything, with all books unlocked, in exchange for playing 1 PvP game, and I wouldn't do it. You can't bribe me into doing something I absolutely detest. The friends that tried to drag me into PvP very almost got blacklisted in game for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Orrrrrrrrr, how about if you don't like PVP, go farm your exp some other way rather than ruining it for the people who DO like it? What a strange and novel concept!

---

I'm perfectly fine with them removing all XP from it. I'm only there for the mounts and cosmetic gear.
And at ~20% win rate and matches dragging on as long as they do, it's getting tiresome.
If getting rid of the bots keeps them off my team and lets me progress faster, great, get rid of them. But if we could just make sure they're all on the opponents' teams until I'm done with the grind, I'd be down with that as well. >_>

Unless they don't fix the current PvP system, I don't mind the bots! Makes the games faster I guess, too bad if ur in the bots team rippp LOL! But since I don't even take PvP system serious anymore, I really don't care cos why should I if I'm so limited to a certain amount of skills I can use? Just mindlessly pressing the PvP macro button and get in xp IMHO!

I would imagine SE would be pretty quick to ban players who are obviously botting when being reported?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taika

I would imagine SE would be pretty quick to ban players who are obviously botting when being reported?

---

I'm...guessing you don't play PVP much? I don't mean this in a rude way, but bots/speedhackers/other kinds of shit have been reported for ages upon ages with pretty much nothing being done about it. I THINK the one speedcasting BLM in ranked finally got a temp ban after virtually a whole season of doing it? But I can't remember.

The devs basically shut down premade 4s because of wintrading and the lack of willingness to do anything about it. Deleted a whole MODE because they couldn't be arsed to police it. LOL XIV PVP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I'm...guessing you don't play PVP much? I don't mean this in a rude way, but bots/speedhackers/other kinds of shit have been reported for ages upon ages with pretty much nothing being done about it. I THINK the one speedcasting BLM in ranked finally got a temp ban after virtually a whole season of doing it? But I can't remember.

---

No I don't, that's a real shame to hear. :(

The devs don't care about PvP I stopped queuing for ranked after I ran into the same team in Gold because their FC was trying to win trade early in the A.M on NA. We kept getting them 3 times in a row and they literally just threw themselves at us and /dancing and they stopped queuing after the 3rd match when they sorta tried.

And SE never removed any rewards all people had to say was "I was teaching my friends how to PvP or heal in PvP etc" and they'd say okay. It's pretty shameful to know that the top people who have these exclusives win traded and got away with it multiple seasons. Great that it's solo but it's such a shitty fix because for the people who wanted group PvP with their friends can't and SE deleted a whole PvP mode because they can't police their own ranked matches. Brilliant.

Bots have always been rampant in PvP the only reason people care about it now is because it gives good exp and Wolf marks for nothing. People milk it and SE can't do anything about the bots so PvP was dead before, but now it's even more dead because of the changes and bots.

What's sad is that SE wanted to make this an Esport which is friggen laughable and made every PvPer die laughing in their chair. Like get serious SE fix your issues, make PvP good, ban people, get rid of the bots and just maybe you can salvage this mess.

The places I notice bots the most now are frontlines and Fringes. That zone has fate farm bots 24/7 on my world, all with their generic yellow choco companions, a thick cluster of them moving together. It would be huge for the game if S-E could identify which people have these cheat programs installed and ban them all. Just imagine a game world where every character is a real person, thinking and acting independently!

PC players.

Here's a question while you opened the can of worms anyway; there are quite a few right, this is full automation... Now, how many PC users do you imagine are using 'gaming hardware+software' to automate a lot (like target, rotation, potion, call-out), but not everything like this? Let me answer it for you: even more.

Best is to ignore them and play the way you like to play. When ignoring them becomes impossible, things are bound to change anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eschaton

PC players.

Here's a question while you opened the can of worms anyway; there are quite a few right, this is full automation... Now, how many PC users do you imagine are using 'gaming hardware+software' to automate a lot (like target, rotation, potion, call-out), but not everything like this? Let me answer it for you: even more.

Best is to ignore them and play the way you like to play. When ignoring them becomes impossible, things are bound to change anyway.

---

Well that's against the rules, so ban them too. Shouldn't be breaking rules in the first place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rufalus

The places I notice bots the most now are frontlines and Fringes. That zone has fate farm bots 24/7 on my world, all with their generic yellow choco companions, a thick cluster of them moving together. It would be huge for the game if S-E could identify which people have these cheat programs installed and ban them all. Just imagine a game world where every character is a real person, thinking and acting independently!

---

In all honesty, the only bots they should need any of kind of auto-ban detection for are those warp-hacking gil farmers, as they're being mass-produced through an automated script similar to the RMT spammers.

The other ones like the levelers and gatherers could easily be kept under control if they just had a GM or two dedicated to hunting them down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

...I'm only there for the mounts ... it's getting tiresome...

---

If you are there only for the loot, just deal with it and don't complain.
It is no more or less boring than doing same duty again and again and again for pony or bird or whatsoever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NinjaTaru72

Well that's against the rules, so ban them too. Shouldn't be breaking rules in the first place.

---

But technically, even using Razer Synapse (which let's use the DeathStalker Ultimate as an example, if you want the touch screen on my keyboard to work with apps like the internet browser, etc, you need Synapse) is against ToS. So should someone be banned for using a program for something like that as part of its overall functionality package? What about rebinding the keys on their Orbweaver so they can actually use them in FFXIV, they're not set to automate the game, they still have to press and hold the keys to move for example, but they've adjusted the 8 way thumbgrid on it to be the keys that target party members while in FFXIV? They're still technically using software that's against ToS because of its ability to repogram keys including to macros, but it's required to use the hardware they have bought (for example, they could have a guide open on their keyboard through the integrated YouTube app, but not without Synapse installed and running), should they be banned for that?

Bringing up the rules, it's very vague, and while the automation part is clear, the 3rd party apps thing is less so, as their rules also hit hardware manufacturers like Razer who use software that breaches the rules because of SOME of its functionality, such that the rules state you could be banned for simply having it installed (which it's either that or your £150 gamepad is pretty much useless, since some of the keys on the gamepad are disabled by default until you rebind them in Synapse). It creates a very slippery slope, but what are your thoughts on that?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

...even using Razer Synapse... is against ToS...

---

Nope, you can use it also for tournaments as the recent bns one. Synapse (and almost all other brands of high end gear) have a "no macro" mode you will enable for playing there.

Dunno about the logitech or others, but online drivers as Synapse can let me create on the fly an offline driver for tournament usage (aka no macros) to use when I move to tournament locations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LalaRu

If you are there only for the loot, just deal with it and don't complain.
It is no more or less boring than doing same duty again and again and again for pony or bird or whatsoever.

---

I am dealing with it and suffering through the grind, but I'll certainly complain. May not accomplish much, but at least it allows me some form of outlet.

And though taking potshots and shaking my fist is just a means of venting, so obviously none of this really matters, I will say it actually is less appealing than grinding pretty much any PvE trial to me. At the point those become mundane, they can at least be relaxing.

And just to poke at that comparison a bit more:
1) While tokens are a thing for trials now, RNG drops are still the primary source for birds and whatnot, so you can potentially get your reward one run in. The PvP mounts being achievement rewards means there's no chance of a real reward after each match.
2) PvE trials end up on farm-mode, so even if you were going to use the tokens to buy your item, you pretty much know exactly how many runs its going to take. Losing isn't much of a thing like it is here, so that's not really a barrier to progress...

When they nerfed the xp in frontline pvp they drove a lot of the human players away from the mode, because once again it was faster and better to use palace of the dead for level grinding. Little wonder its infested with bots, its easier to bot pvp then it is to try to bot palace of the dead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LalaRu

but online drivers as Synapse can let me create on the fly an offline driver for tournament usage (aka no macros) to use when I move to tournament locations.

---

But, will Synapse let you use the touch screen apps of the DeathStalker Ultimate in the offline mode (example, I use the numpad app on the touch screen to shift out certain things)? If not, then it's still kind of a no-go unfortunately. I don't have a numpad without those apps being usable. Problem is, those apps could be counted as against ToS even if I'm just using it as a numberpad.

That being said, I didn't know about the offline mode on the app. It wasn't there when I first bought my Razer gear, and they never really advertised the feature, so it came as a surprise to me. So thanks for giving me the heads up on that, I had a little play around with it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

...they never really advertised the feature, so it came as a surprise to me. So thanks for giving me the heads up on that, I had a little play around with it.

---

Maybe not much known because not much players are really going to "physical" tournaments with their hardware. I will take with me keyboard and mouse and that drivers.

You will found the feature in the account menu, it is called "Tournament Drivers", and the "include macros" most of the times must be off (some tournaments allows them).

http://i.imgur.com/IisFInL.png

Aether is a little better, atleast I haven't seen that many lately. People have been kicking bots right from the start.

SE need to put random frontline in df selection. Seal Rock and Borderline are getting neglected. I'm sure the bots will be confused as hell and i need victims for hands of mercy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

I'm perfectly fine with them removing all XP from it. I'm only there for the mounts and cosmetic gear.
And at ~20% win rate and matches dragging on as long as they do, it's getting tiresome.If getting rid of the bots keeps them off my team and lets me progress faster, great, get rid of them. But if we could just make sure they're all on the opponents' teams until I'm done with the grind, I'd be down with that as well. >_>

---

Queues will go back to 1-3 hours, did you know the queue wait timer has a cap? its 999 minutes, and 99 seconds. I left my computer on as I slept and woke still in it. Reason I did that is because back then all I did was craft anyway, so I did not care. I belive I did woke before it capped, I think the total queue time was about 17-18 hrs, it popped shortly after capping (about 1 hr)

Kinda shocked more bots don't show up in deep, but then again being a bot in 4 people is easier to notice I suppose.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

That's what I do. I don't enjoy PvP. SE could offer me 500 octodecillion gil, a large house in every district, everything instantly levelled to 70, in max Savage gear, all crafts unlocked, and all gatherers, all set to 100% HQ rate for gathers, and crafts are guaranteed HQ, and I have the stats to craft everything, with all books unlocked, in exchange for playing 1 PvP game, and I wouldn't do it. You can't bribe me into doing something I absolutely detest. The friends that tried to drag me into PvP very almost got blacklisted in game for it.

---

I am wondering if people are truly honest when they say something like this. For me, I do stuff I do not want to because of some means to an end. Personal example is feast. I hate the fact there is no chat, no social interaction, hate the fact I can't ask someone change to healer and /or tank when the set ups are like 7 dps and me healer. I hate seeing "good job" spam just because they died and I can't heal someone going 1 v 7, but I do feast when it is a wt sticker, a fast means to an end. Even though frontlines is slower I would do that for a WT sticker and prefer to do so over feast despite taking longer cuz I can at least talk to people and they can talk back. I would also not be running expert/ delta normal (and I really do not need to run delta normals) if it had no means to an end unless it is out to help a friend for something they want.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Snow_Princess

Queues will go back to 1-3 hours, did you know the queue wait timer has a cap? .

---

No it won't - well, unless you are Maelstrom and refuse to use the Merc feature but that is on you. Plenty of people do Frontlines for Tomestones...heck, that is the only reason I do it not worth the pain for the 33% chance to get acceptable amounts of XP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayerinn

No it won't - well, unless you are Maelstrom and refuse to use the Merc feature but that is on you. Plenty of people do Frontlines for Tomestones...heck, that is the only reason I do it not worth the pain for the 33% chance to get acceptable amounts of XP.

---

Have you tried frontlines before gero/adding exp? it will, because there is faster means for tomestones etc and they had that daily bonus back before gero/exp when it was 1-3 hours. I used to do them, or tried to, sometimes I could not do it every day.

If you take out exp gain now, it will revert to what it was like before gero. (since I am sure anyone that has an interest in that gear/mounts have them now) so the only reason to go do them is bot exp and due the daily for tomestones because the queue is fast since people bot exp. No reason to think it wouldn't revert to how it used to be if the dropped exp gain. The only reason that roulette got better queue times was gero, then we get exp on top of it.

On my data center, since gero , I rarely seen 24 man frontlines. I saw them here and there if I did a morning queue + nearing the end of HW but when they added the exp gain (sb?) it went back to 72 man 24/7

The Garo event was not the reason queues improved. The PvP community asked for GC restrictions to be lifted for 2 long years, and they FINALLY did so with Frontline Freelancer. We said it would improve queues and it did, because no longer would it matter if say, 14 Mael, 6 Adders, and only 4 Flames were in queue. If they went freelancer, that was 24, and enough for a match. SE conveniently hid this behind an event (and finally adding new PvP gear after 2 and a half patches).

And even then PvP saw a surge in activity, even without XP being offered.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taika

I would imagine SE would be pretty quick to ban players who are obviously botting when being reported?

---

Uhmm no. PvP/PvE they pay they don't get banned. We have had whole servers report people all through ARR and HW's they still play. They also have no proactive tracking software from the looks of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

The Garo event was not the reason queues improved. The PvP community asked for GC restrictions to be lifted for 2 long years, and they FINALLY did so with Frontline Freelancer. We said it would improve queues and it did, because no longer would it matter if say, 14 Mael, 6 Adders, and only 4 Flames were in queue. If they wentfreelancer, that was 24, and enough for a match. SE conveniently hid this behind an event (and finally adding new PvP gear after 2 and a half patches).

And even then PvP saw a surge in activity, even without XP being offered.

---

I disagree with this statement, at least partially. When you sit in queue for 1-3 hours, sometimes longer, there where days I did not get to do frontline daily, and these where always 24 man. I never seen a 72 man once and honestly had no idea it existed. To go from that, to insta queue 72 man is not fixed from freelancer alone, you are underestimating how many get motivated by glams and mounts. a few months later it did start to slow down, and you got to see 24 man about 10 min or so wait in the mornings. After the exp buff, it went back to instaqueue 72 man and SO MUCH because of the people returning FOR SB on top of things lead to DF crashes from people queueing for frontline too much.

So taking away the exp bonus will have a big impact, it may not revert to 3 hrs + because of freelancer but the wait times would be specifically longer leaving the people that do pvp just for pvp, alone to themselves again. I am sure you are willing to admit, that crowd is small.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Snow_Princess

So taking away the exp bonus will have a big impact, it may not revert to 3 hrs + because of freelancer but the wait times would be specifically longer leaving the people that do pvp just for pvp, alone to themselves again. I am sure you are willing to admit, that crowd is small.

---

Yeah the crowd is quite small no ones denying that, the problem is even if you take the bots away there's more glaring issues with PvP with that being the lack of battlegrounds, que times restricted by Data Center, there's more than that just naming some. If they redesigned the map and made the game client side instead of server side the game would be much more enjoyable, but as it stands it's all server side making PvP clunky just do a knockback or Unmend in PvP compared to other MMOs in PvP, it's so awkward.

Regarding the times I disagree with them being anything more than 10-15 minutes, the only time it'd be dead is when it's early mornings/late at night which is happening right now it's not a 24/7 thing. PvP being fun or not fun is totally subjective I still find it fun and I que and play when I have time now but lately I've been busy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awful

Yeah the crowd is quite small no ones denying that, the problem is even if you take the bots away there's more glaring issues with PvP with that being the lack of battlegrounds, que times restricted by Data Center, there's more than that just naming some. If they redesigned the map and made the game client side instead of server side the gamewould be much more enjoyable, but as it stands it's all server side making PvP clunky just do a knockback or Unmend in PvP compared to other MMOs in PvP, it's so awkward.

Regarding the times I disagree with them being anything more than 10-15 minutes, the only time it'd be dead is when it's early mornings/late at night which is happening right now it's not a 24/7 thing. PvP being fun or not fun is totally subjective I still find it fun and I que and play when I have time now but lately I've been busy.

---

Keep in mind I am talking about IF they take the exp reward away, not that it is now. On our DC it is insta queue -5 mins for 72 man, 24/7. Take away the exp bonus and now that gero is in a way over with ( in the respect everyone pretty much has what the need on a general scale) take away exp bonus now, the queues would revert back to being long, maybe not as long as 3+ hours because of the freelancer and the gero event attracting some new people to it, but it would increase.

Late HW the times was increasing to 5-15 mins and not insta, and 24 mans for mornings, the only reason it picked up again is because gaining exp + new expansion release, meaning jobs to level. So if they wait times did start to increase without the exp bonus, they would continue to do so and this trend is with the freelancer. again having the level cap change to 70 plus getting exp from it put life back into it and put back the insa-24/7. Exp gains in pvp put a lot of demand for it, and taking exp gain away will drain that demand, that is all the point is, the biggest factor is the exp bonus and back in HW gero, over the freelancer impact.

Quoting myself from another thread, this is really why things were the way they were prior to 4.0 and XP being offered:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Here's the thing:

The old system was perfectly accessible. The issue was many didn't want to try (i.e. "I hate PvP in any game", "Lol, there's PvP in this game?", "PvP is toxic, that's why I don't play it" [from someone who's never tried it]). Many didn't want to learn (i.e. "You don't pay my sub", "Who cares, it's not a serious competitive mode anyways", "I'm just here for the XP").

---

When you add to that all the negative PR it received, especially from people half-heartedly trying it, having a bad experience, then going on about how "toxic" PvP is (see again the "Many didn't want to learn" part"), PvP was all but avoided by people, scorned, laughed off, and ignored, by both players and SE.

XP did not fix this. Garo did not fix this. Finally giving the PvP community- however small we were - what we wanted and begged for is what fixed queues. Lifting the restrictions that made matchmaking rigid and difficult if the GC populations were heavily imbalanced is what improved it. XP just created a gold rush, and especially at a time when normal story progression was gated, thanks to the "Raubahn Ex" issue. There's also the fact that while the queues did improve, and XP attracted more to it, it didn't attract people for the PvP. Those of us who did play and enjoy it are actually quite alienated now; we got what we wanted, but at the cost of everything we enjoyed about PvP in the first place.

People think removing XP will kill queues. It won't. Not for people that enjoyed PvP in the first place. XP farmers will go find the next best method (and ironically, everything else IS a better method), but those of us who actually were in it for the PvP will likely still continue, even as alienated as we are.

People do it for exp, I was even harassed by asking someone them to change to healer because I wouldn't change (I was trying to level my sam while avoiding deep and explained that) I explained it was for exp and I got " do not expect people to change if you don't" Fine, whatever, don't need talk to people like that no more. Point is, if people are going to act like that and will not change roles for the team but do it for exp, well then?....

Now that it became not worth it and I do the daily for tomes to mean less running of expert, when I am on AST I ask such and such pt if someone can change to healer and all I hear is silence out of 23 people. That isn't a community, take exp away and the queues would get significantly longer.

Gotta admit I had one fun one, when people actually listened. We were behind and I put up a way point and told everyone gather to that waypoint (2 large ice left and the way point was in the small choke point between them, where a small ice appeared. Ironic that small ice poped with the big one that choke point was guarding. The other teams could not get passed our " wall" sort of speak and picked off people trying to hit the small ice as we went to town on the big one. Then because we kept our foot hold there, we where able to have an edge on the middle big ice, once that got downed, we got our comeback win. It would be nice if more people cooperated but people chose to do their own thing more often then not, and rarely change jobs for the sake of the team.

Queues where already significantly increasing (getting away from insta queue to 10-20 mins) like 3 months or so? before SB, because the gero was dying. People swarmed front lines for the gero and people spoke about it, was nothing more then that, the freelancer was a small impact compared to gero. If people spoke differently in alliance chat, I would have a different view, but that is how things are.