Need a better tool to report suspicious activity

This morning I was at Mutamix getting a bunch of materia transmuted. While I was there, I saw multiple groups of level 24 Lalafell thaumaturges with no GC affiliation (at least the ones I was able to click on to examine) appear halfway in the ground directly under Mutamix, jump up, go into cinematic status for about 2 seconds, go back to sprout then instantly disappear a couple of seconds later (no cast animation for teleport, just gone). The few I was able to click on had the typical gibberish names.

Bots really don't get more obvious than that. They were probably completing the MSQ where Minfilia has you visit Mutamix to learn about materia.

So took screenshots of what I could to try to capture a few names out of the mess then opened a Support Desk ticket to report cheating with an imgur link to the screenshots. Yet I can't help but feel like it's mostly a wasted effort because what I could do doesn't adequately identify what was probably 70-80 bots going through the area in a fairly short period of time.


I can't help but think of Blizzard's critical error reporting tool they use on their test servers. Critical error occurs and a report is instantly created that gives character information, location information, lists other characters in the same general location and what logged actions the characters were doing, etc. Then a window appears for the player to add in more information about what they doing and what they observed that wouldn't necessarily be captured automatically by the reporting tool.

It would be nice if that same sort of information could be captured automatically via a Support Desk option so that information about all characters present and what they were doing was automatically recorded, then a window would appear for the player to give additional details about what they observed. It would give SE far more accurate information about exactly when and where the activity occurred than relying on potentially faulty player memory or typing.

Just something that it would be nice to have. I think most players would be more likely to take an active role in helping to report suspicious activity if the process was simpler.

I also noticed a ridiculous number of gil-farming bots today. I'd assume whatever group is responsible for them probably set up their script to mass-produce them across multiple servers simultaneously.

But yeah. The reporting functions are woefully inadequate, and I'm not sure they even read my reports when I haven't managed to get a single player banned out of the dozens of bots I've reported. The whole "No responses for reports" deal makes it impossible to know whether or not you provided enough information for them to take action or feel a matter is even worth investigating.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I can't help but think of Blizzard's critical error reporting tool they use on their test servers. Critical error occurs and a report is instantly created that gives character information, location information, lists other characters in the same general location and what logged actions the characters were doing, etc.

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The game client has all this information, all SE has to do is let players "snapshot" it. If there was an official API, one could simply track the last 5 minutes of players in the area in a round-robin log file, do some math to get a list of names, jobs and targets, and it would be easily done since actual players move.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I also noticed a ridiculous number of gil-farming bots today. I'd assume whatever group is responsible for them probably set up their script to mass-produce them across multiple servers simultaneously.

But yeah. The reporting functions are woefully inadequate, and I'm not sure they even read my reports when I haven't managed to get a single player banned out of the dozens of bots I've reported. The whole "No responses for reports" deal makes it impossible to know whether or not you provided enough information for them to take action or feel a matter is even worth investigating.

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No response to reports is standard fare because otherwise players would know how to circumvent countermeasures in place. Even naming which bots are banned would provide ammo for botters to change their activities.

Don't notice them on my main server, but I realized the other day when I was lvling an alt on a bigger server and I can't even report them because I guess sprouts can't report people because reasons.

You can only use report rmt for chat bots. It doesn't let you right click report on just player names.

But the better tools is not the issue , the main issue is the GM needs to take action ASAP once we reported the BOT. Otherwise, theres no use for having better report tools.
Theres a gathering BOT in ultros , i send the report since 1st day i meet him at 7/5. and 7 days later , the Gathering BOT still gathering 24/7. HEY GMs what are you doing?! Why you not BAN them or even watch my report!
PS: does anyone notice the BOTs are getting smarter? seems they had minor movement difference between each move.

they ban bots in waves so that they can't determine what it is that got them caught.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

No response to reports is standard fare because otherwise players would know how to circumvent countermeasures in place. Even naming which bots are banned would provide ammo for botters to change their activities.

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Funny enough, I noticed that on the Chinese servers they actually do this in tandem with their "actions taken against illicit activities" reports (publish a list of who was banned, and why)

My favorite shaming system is the one arenanet uses (or used) with guildwars 2. They allow players to publicly appeal their bans on the forums. 99 times out of 100 the GM's absolutely tear their excuses to pieces with the evidence available. Its hilarious. And its glorious.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I also noticed a ridiculous number of gil-farming bots today.

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Tell me about it. I've seen over 12 lala bots teleporting through the grand company NPCs in New Gridania today.

The biggest issue right now is that we have no way of knowing why certain players aren't getting banned.

I'd have to conclude at this point that they'll never physically go up to a player and observe them, because it would be inexcusable for them to let anyone off with how obviously patterned and repetitive their movements are.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

No response to reports is standard fare because otherwise players would know how to circumvent countermeasures in place. Even naming which bots are banned would provide ammo for botters to change their activities.

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But it feels like they aren't doing anything anyways.

I've been seeing this same gatherer bot for most of Stormblood and they still haven't been removed yet. They're even using a teleport hack on a few of their different routes, and it's stupidly obvious. I guess teleporting's legal now.

It does seem that there's a 'wave' of bots coming in. I haven't seen any in a while, but came across several in the cities yesterday.

yes, a friend of mine is new and very low level, have been standing at gridania and uldah main aethryes to see a cavalcade of bots zoom in and out. The ridiculous names and identical clothing give them away. All a GM needs to do is stand at a main city aetheryte in uldah or gridania for 5 minutes and what is going on would be quite obvious to them. In fact, they can stand at just about any spot where you pick up a main scenario quest and watch them zip past. I've been watching my new friend, by the time they have picked up a new quest 5-6 bots have tped in and out doing the same thing. They are in and out so fast you'd be lucky to select a single one of them to report - and then the report form is ridiculously long and complicated.

They should just allow right-click reporting of players from the player search, as it's the easiest way to keep track of people and no amount of warping or hiding in the floor can keep bots from escaping notice there.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

But it feels like they aren't doing anything anyways.

I've been seeing this same gatherer bot for most of Stormblood and they still haven't been removed yet. They're even using a teleport hack on a few of their different routes, and it's stupidly obvious. I guess teleporting's legal now.

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They Did but too slow to make this effective, Since i hit gathering job lvl70 at August 2017, they only Ban 2 Gathering BOTs that exist quite long time. 1st one is 8/2017-30/1/2018. then 2nd one is 7/2/2018 to 26/4/2018.(yeah i track the Gathering BOTs every day) and now things are getting worst... there are 2 BOTs gathering together and trying to report them but still no actions

Every time I've thought a bot got banned, it turned out their owners had just decided to unsub for a while.

Most of the ones on Cactaur who disappeared a few weeks ago have returned, presumably because 4.3 is near.

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Originally Posted by XiXiQ

yes, a friend of mine is new and very low level, have been standing at gridania and uldah main aethryes to see a cavalcade of bots zoom in and out. The ridiculous names and identical clothing give them away. All a GM needs to do is stand at a main city aetheryte in uldah or gridania for 5 minutes and what is going on would be quite obvious to them. In fact, they can stand at just about any spot where you pick up a main scenario quest and watch them zip past. I've been watching my new friend, by the time they have picked up a new quest 5-6 bots have tped in and out doing the same thing. They are in and out so fast you'd be lucky to select a single one of them to report - and then the report form is ridiculously long and complicated.

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I've also noticed many of the same bots belong to the same guilds so that is another way SE could go after them. Sadly SE doesn't seem interested in disassembling bot guilds either.