Teleporting Group of Bots

So few days ago I found a group of maybe 10 bots completely breaking the rules of the game. They've clearly hacked the game in a way that allows them to instantly move from one place to another, repeatedly (every few seconds), to any place they desire without casting anything.

The bots were found inside a cavernous area in Central Thanalan in "The Clutch" area. The bots would appear above a group of monsters, kill, disappear, then appear above another group of monsters. The bots were also seen in Ul'dah, zipping in and out of thin air en masse. I'm assuming they are turning in quests. I've taken screenshots and recorded the bots but I can't post here due to forum rules.

I've reported it to GM ingame but unfortunately (as expected) they haven't responded in any way, not even a "we received your message" notice. I'm relatively a new player here, about 1 month old. Are bots like these a normal occurrence?

Yes sadly it is a normal occurrence throughout the lifetime of the game. You are encouraged to report them in-game and there's supposed to be a team responsible for dealing with them, but more bot characters will be created.

I'd be just about willing to put money on bots being common in nearly any game. If someone somewhere can make money off of selling game resources for cash, bots will flourish. Stopping them is like trying to stop counterfeiters. You can do everything you can to craft the perfect defense, but sooner or later, someone will find a way around it.

Only way to counteract bots is to make everything in the game untradeable, and having a queue system where you were put into parties at random and couldn't do anything in a premade group. But then you have a terrible game.

They used to be very visible at the start of the game, including spamming the /shout chat so it was basically unusable. Now bots tend to only spam certain gil selling sites around main hubs, and they warp around underground to do MSQ stuff, always as blm lalafell

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Originally Posted by Omegabear

So few days ago I found a group of maybe 10 bots completely breaking the rules of the game. They've clearly hacked the game in a way that allows them to instantly move from one place to another, repeatedly (every few seconds), to any place the desire without casting anything.

The bots were found inside a cavernous area in Central Thanalan in "The Clutch" area. The bots would appear above a group of monsters, kill, disappear, then appear above another group of monsters. The bots were also seen in Ul'dah, zipping in and out of thin air en masse. I'm assuming they are turning in quests.

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Oh nO! ThAt roBoT iS a GhoSt!

That's common and they don't care (bots pay sub too) even on the ghost JP server (we still have large house spot) here, there are lots of BLM bots.

If that teleporting thing is real that's an exploit.

Multi-boxing, as far as I tell, is not against the rules. This is where multiple characters from multiple accounts respond to the same manual input.

Botting is when there is no human input; it's just running a script, usually repeating. if they are turning in one time quests it's probably not botting. I suppose one could script repeating leves, but those change from time to time.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

If that teleporting thing is real that's an exploit.

Multi-boxing, as far as I tell, is not against the rules. This is where multiple characters from multiple accounts respond to the same manual input.

Botting is when there is no human input; it's just running a script, usually repeating. if they are turning in one time quests it's probably not botting. I suppose one could script repeating leves, but those change from time to time.

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Teleporting is just how it looks to the client. What's actually happening is the bots are moving without sending the movement vectors (the actual animation.) So they go from X/Y/Z to X+Δ/Y+Δ/Z+Δ without going "I'm moving at Q rate of speed on Axis T, rotated by R degrees"

There are about 200 active on Excalibur alone. They start creating new bots on monday morning, and then they run all week until next maintenance, which is when I assume the bots are actually banned, but they've already laundered the gil through the FC and market by then.

Stopping the gil farm bots would honestly be as simple as changing boss AI to auto-reset if they're being hit from a location that's impossible to reach legitimately.

They break the boss AI by hacking to float above them at max casting range which makes most of them do nothing.

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Originally Posted by Bacent

Only way to counteract bots is to make everything in the game untradeable, and having a queue system where you were put into parties at random and couldn't do anything in a premade group. But then you have a terrible game.

They used to be very visible at the start of the game, including spamming the /shout chat so it was basically unusable. Now bots tend to only spam certain gil selling sites around main hubs, and they warp around underground to do MSQ stuff, always as blm lalafell

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They used to be able to spam /tells as well. It was so bad that I knew plenty of PC players that actually downloaded a third party program known as Guildwork to completely block tells if they contained certain keywords or phrases set by the player. Shortly before Stormblood release, the SE staff disabled the ability for trial accounts to send /tells, which appears to have completely destroyed that intrusive advertising method. The creator of Guildwork hasn't updated the program since (and it no longer works for FF14 as far as I know), likely because the primary function is no longer needed.

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening. I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

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At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

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That's exactly like on Excalibur, except the bots are behind the FC chest's in Ul'dah - Steps of Nald, and New Gridania. I haven't been able to locate them in Limsa Lominsa but it makes me think that they're all using the same bot software and there's at least three different bots.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

They used to be able to spam /tells as well. It was so bad that I knew plenty of PC players that actually downloaded a third party program known as Guildwork to completely block tells if they contained certain keywords or phrases set by the player. Shortly before Stormblood release, the SE staff disabled the ability for trial accounts to send /tells, which appears to have completely destroyed that intrusive advertising method. The creator of Guildwork hasn't updated the program since (and it no longer works for FF14 as far as I know), likely because the primary function is no longer needed.

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening. I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

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People on trial accounts can't use /tell. They also can't shout, trade, or use the market board. Just because people don't respond to a tell doesn't mean they are a bot. Paying players ignore unwelcome advice.

There's always a group of teleporting BLM in Gridania at the GC reception on Cerberus. I think it's just accepted now.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

If that teleporting thing is real that's an exploit.

Multi-boxing, as far as I tell, is not against the rules. This is where multiple characters from multiple accounts respond to the same manual input.

Botting is when there is no human input; it's just running a script, usually repeating. if they are turning in one time quests it's probably not botting. I suppose one could script repeating leves, but those change from time to time.

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It can't be a human input. These bots are basically "flickering" in and out of existence right in front of me, every 2~3 seconds, btw groups of mobs and NPC's. You can't control 10+ characters to do that with human appendages lol.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

They used to be able to spam /tells as well. It was so bad that I knew plenty of PC players that actually downloaded a third party program known as Guildwork to completely block tells if they contained certain keywords or phrases set by the player. Shortly before Stormblood release, the SE staff disabled the ability for trial accounts to send /tells, which appears to have completely destroyed that intrusive advertising method. The creator of Guildwork hasn't updated the program since (and it no longer works for FF14 as far as I know), likely because the primary function is no longer needed.

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening. I haven't actually seen any bots advertising /say messages in Limsa as of late, unless they stopped advertising in Sargatanas entirely. These days, I only ever see adverts from trolls/moles in novice network inviting advert bots in before said bots are swiftly booted out.

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/Say is definitely possible during trial and I've seen advertisements on /Say before.

At least botters haven't realised that they'd never get caught if they rolled Roes, everybody would think that their names were just lore.

(inb4 yes, 1) I know that they usually 'have' to be lalas bc those fit underground & 2) I know that roegadyns have actual language/naming conventions)

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

At least on Cactaur there's bots in Limsa hiding underneath the market board that still advertise via /say. They also speak proper English unlike the guys spamming shout chat so I'd assume they're a US group.

I've noticed there's two distinct groups of gil farm bots, as well. One is all Lalafells that use pure gibberish names, while there's another group that's all Hyurs who use names that incorporate random words in the gibberish.

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Right, so it seems more like they just stopped advertising entirely in Sarg (outside of the douchebag that keeps inviting bots into the novice network). Curious.

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Originally Posted by Omegabear

It can't be a human input. These bots are basically "flickering" in and out of existence right in front of me, every 2~3 seconds, btw groups of mobs and NPC's. You can't control 10+ characters to do that with human appendages lol.

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You seem to be mixing up what I said. The point is exploiting, multi-boxing and botting are three different things.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

You seem to be mixing up what I said. The point is exploiting, multi-boxing and botting are three different things.

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As far as I know, the bots are operating by manipulating the game client's own API. However the fingerprints show through the server's own data, hence why they appear like they're teleporting.

What is very likely going on is that groups of bots are running on a single machine via sandboxing tools that allow multi-clienting. That's of course different from multi-boxing. There are also tools you can use, legitimately to control two or more machines from one input source. So it's absolutely not a stretch that one tool at the end of a multi-tool is controlling multiple machines and multiple game clients.

Though the occam's razor is really that the spammers are just common macro programs that have been used to torment MMO players for years because they allow arbitrary clipboard or keyboard API input. They could disable clipboard paste into the game client and it wouldn't stop them.

The bots that are "teleporting" however are probably easier done by packet hacking, but that would raise flags when checksums and timestamps don't match. So it's more likely they're just manipulating the "move to x/y/z" instruction without the actual "animate" instructions, and hence why they appear the way they do.

You can see the bots FC tags in both Gridania and Ul'dah sticking out from behind the FC chest if you stand between in the fountain (Ul'dah) and the pillar and zoom out most of the way. Gridania you just stand on the rocks outside of it, and you'll see the tag stick out.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

People on trial accounts can't use /tell. They also can't shout, trade, or use the market board.

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If they really can't use /shout, that means that all the spammers that show up Limsa are paid accounts.

I feel like they have to be getting these accounts for free somehow, whether through credit card fraud or some other means because I seriously doubt they actually sell enough gil to cover the sub fees for several thousand bots on a weekly basis.

Here's an example of how I know where the bots are:
http://i68.tinypic.com/vcxpwk.png
(This pic is 10 days old, if you can even pick out what the bot names are) These are a stack of Thaumaturges standing on EXACTLY the same spot.

http://i64.tinypic.com/imnzbk.png
Name censored because they still come up in the lodestone, 4 day old screenshot. That's a Level 1 Gladiator who stands in the same spot with no FC, on several different days, just within reach of the FC chest and the bots behind the wall.

http://i68.tinypic.com/hv5wzc.png
17 day old screenshot, same guy.

http://i64.tinypic.com/eziu05.png
Level 38 Aetheryte, all wearing the same gear, same button mash fc, same <noun>+2 letter button mash names, same appearance.

http://i65.tinypic.com/148krpk.png
The bot that was standing here, 2 days ago, was using a bunch of items consecutively for a few minutes before disappearing.

http://i65.tinypic.com/i5ok5s.png
Same location 30days ago

http://i65.tinypic.com/24uz5f5.png
Same Location, level 60 bots, 37 days ago.

http://i68.tinypic.com/fyir20.png
23 days ago, stack of bots in the Vesper Bay area

http://i64.tinypic.com/vgoff9.png
Bots behind the FC chest in Ul'dah - Steps of Nald

http://i63.tinypic.com/21oc029.png
Bot underneath NPC in GC area, Ul'dah - Steps of Nald

With the exception of the last one, all the same character model. I have more screenshots of the RMT bots in places, but it's the same pattern.

Wait...level 60 bots? Are they stepping up their game now? That's a disturbing thought.

I don't think even SB is going to be safe from them pretty soon.

EDIT: I just did a player search and spotted some on Cactaur. They're not in a FC and there's only four of them (So far...) operating out of the inn in Ul'dah, so I have a hunch it might be a private thing rather then a large-scale operation.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Wait...level 60 bots?

Are they stepping up their game now? That's a disturbing thought.

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That's how I know they have to be paid accounts.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

I think that recently, the devs might have disabled their ability to send messages in /say as well, judging from the amount of players in Brayflox and below dungeons who don't type back when others ask them questions/try to give them advice regarding their skill usage, but the players are clearly behaving/gesturing as if they are listening.

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I'd certainly hope they don't disable /say for trial accounts! It's prettymuch all they have. It was terrible as a new player not being able to respond to people who sent me tells. (Even /r to reply is disabled.) I'd have to try to find the person in-game so I could speak to them within hearing range.

People "listening but not responding" might just be PS4 players without a keyboard connected.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Here's an example of how I know where the bots are:
http://i68.tinypic.com/vcxpwk.png
(This pic is 10 days old, if you can even pick out what the bot names are) These are a stack of Thaumaturges standing on EXACTLY the same spot.

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That is multi-boxing. That alone is not against the rules. If those same people use exploits, hacks or try to sell gill for real money, then they are in trouble. You didn't show that they are the same people spamming rmt sites.

If you've ever actually seen these guys before, you'd know they'll go flying away/disappear right after they're done talking with the NPC so yes, they are hackers and botters, not innocent multi-boxers.

Though honestly the gibberish names should be enough of an indicator, unless you seriously know somebody named Icxcvsd Drupfsaqx or something along similar.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

That is multi-boxing. That alone is not against the rules. If those same people use exploits, hacks or try to sell gill for real money, then they are in trouble. You didn't show that they are the same people spamming rmt sites.

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The spam messages are from a completely different bots. Those bots in front of vorsaile, are all standing on exactly the same XYZ coordinates. Floating point coordinates to 6 decimal places with Noun+2button mash characters.

They "teleported" to that position, they didn't walk there.

According to my notes:

***horsegs Dru****mx, level 21. 27 bots standing in the exact location:
D**qf Dxg*p
Knd **f*p
*h*tmh Brnvrf*
Jqz Gwt*rn*lr*m
Zg Wn*c**nh*r
D*mp*r*r D*l*s*r*sx
C*l*cch C*r*n**n*k
Bh*m*hd Bl*bb*rql
H*l*z*n*cc H*ggl*r*ld
Lspvf*nw* Cslk*f*xb
B**t**xt B*nk*l*njm
D*c*r**k* D*l*m*xs
D*m*s*t**r *n*ptxb
*nh*l*ntrl J*d*r*pw
F**gn*ng*b Fl*rt*ngjf
K*ff***h*m K*r*s*nzt
*d**t*smt* *n*rm*s*t
K*r**t*nkj K*r*nt*dr
F*sc*d Fl*t*g*m*
B*tt*rsp* B*nd*ngpf
D*v*l*smzs D*s*l*k*gc
D*sh*rs*gs Dr*p*t*mqx
G*r*nt*l** G*th*smbg
*s*n*nt** **sh*rhr
Cl***shmz C*p**n*v*
*r*n**dw* *sh*ttd
Cl**m*z C*d*c*scq

Please tell me you see the naming pattern.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

If you've ever actually seen these guys before, you'd know they'll go flying away/disappear right after they're done talking with the NPC so yes, they are hackers and botters, not innocent multi-boxers.

Though honestly the gibberish names should be enough of an indicator, unless you seriously know somebody named Icxcvsd Drupfsaqx or something along similar.

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If they are doing that then they should be reported. Really why is this being discussed here? This is pretty much a social forum.

I've known plenty of people who really don't care what they name their characters and very few names in this game correspond to real life names. Multi-boxers will often start with one name they want and name each of their clones the same thing with one letter changed, with some ending up as gibberish. Some just use random characters cause they don't care.

The spammers I've seen have game generated names. The random ones you get from the dice.

The point is to focus on the real crimes and the real evidence. "There's five identical characters with with weird names!" is not evidence of a crime. Characters teleporting around at will, regardless of number or name, is.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

The spam messages are from a completely different bots. Those bots in front of vorsaile, are all standing on exactly the same XYZ coordinates. Floating point coordinates to 6 decimal places with Noun+2button mash characters.

They "teleported" to that position, they didn't walk there.

According to my notes:

***horsegs Dru****mx, level 21. 27 bots standing in the exact location:
D**qf Dxg*p
Knd **f*p
*h*tmh Brnvrf*
Jqz Gwt*rn*lr*m
Zg Wn*c**nh*r
D*mp*r*r D*l*s*r*sx
C*l*cch C*r*n**n*k
Bh*m*hd Bl*bb*rql
H*l*z*n*cc H*ggl*r*ld
Lspvf*nw* Cslk*f*xb
B**t**xt B*nk*l*njm
D*c*r**k* D*l*m*xs
D*m*s*t**r *n*ptxb
*nh*l*ntrl J*d*r*pw
F**gn*ng*b Fl*rt*ngjf
K*ff***h*m K*r*s*nzt
*d**t*smt* *n*rm*s*t
K*r**t*nkj K*r*nt*dr
F*sc*d Fl*t*g*m*
B*tt*rsp* B*nd*ngpf
D*v*l*smzs D*s*l*k*gc
D*sh*rs*gs Dr*p*t*mqx
G*r*nt*l** G*th*smbg
*s*n*nt** **sh*rhr
Cl***shmz C*p**n*v*
*r*n**dw* *sh*ttd
Cl**m*z C*d*c*scq

Please tell me you see the naming pattern.

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You are totally missing my point.
(also I believe that spot is a place the game puts you after a certain story quest)

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Originally Posted by MsQi

You are totally missing my point.

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Perhaps you've missed MY point. It is impossible for a player to stand exactly on top of another player without hacking. Those bots existed just long enough for whatever quest dialog box popped up, and then disappeared. like Maybe 3 seconds.
http://i67.tinypic.com/vxhfy9.png
http://i63.tinypic.com/2d0c3kl.png
http://i63.tinypic.com/35m1dty.png

That last one is from April. The middle one is from May.

Edit: Here's a video recorded in April:
https://youtu.be/us7mk3iXUZI

Their names can be considered evidence when it's been part of a consistent pattern since the earliest days of the game's life (The other commonalities being that they wear the exact same gear and constantly stack on top of each other) and it's become something of a "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck" situation at this point.

Heck, even the less obvious gathering bots exhibit enough common traits that I can identify them with minimal observation time. Just look for the jerky, repetitive movement (Bots look like they're playing a game of connect-the-dots with how they move precisely between specific coordinates), hopping in place when taking flight (This seems to be a limitation of all bot clients, as I've literally never seen one jump out of movement into flight like a player does), and prolonged periods of idling by aetherytes between nodes (It makes more sense to just wait by the next node, but you'll see these guys warping all the way back to Mor Dhona/Ishgard/Idyllshire/etc even if the next node is in the same region).

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

Perhaps you've missed MY point. It is impossible for a player to stand exactly on top of another player without hacking.

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That is incorrect. The game often puts people in the same spot after a quest with a cutscene is completed.

If they then disappeared that is something. Stop lumping in irrelevant information as if it is evidence, focus on the relevant facts.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Their names can be considered evidence when it's been part of a consistent pattern since the earliest days of the game's life.

There's a point where it starts becoming silly to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.

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I never did. I'm just trying to get people to think.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MsQi

That is incorrect. The game often puts people in the same spot after a quest with a cutscene is completed.

If they then disappeared that is something. Stop lumping in irrelevant information as if it is evidence, focus on the relevant facts.

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You can not be this ignorant.

https://youtu.be/us7mk3iXUZI

LOOK.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

I never did. I'm just trying to get people to think.

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There is no Point to think about this "Issue".

RMT Bots and their Methods are already known to the Community, even the Way they manage to jump from one location to another.
This has been even an Issue in back old T5 / T8 where People manipulated the Client to be stuck in Air so the Boss A.I would do nothing.

The NPC above doesn't put you on a Location, in fact, the RMT Bots will jump to to that certain NPC and they all get stuck like that.
Doesn't really take much to figure that out, they do this even in South Shroud in Quarrymill near the Palace of the Dead NPC.

Let's not talk about how annoying the Pest becomes... once they get access to Novice Network, they spread like a Virus and you're just removing them all the time...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MsQi

That is incorrect. The game often puts people in the same spot after a quest with a cutscene is completed.

If they then disappeared that is something. Stop lumping in irrelevant information as if it is evidence, focus on the relevant facts.

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Wrong, they do jump to their next Location right after turning in / accepting a Quest.
This is Part of their Botting Script afterall :

Jump to NPC A, Accept Quest, Jump to Location B, Jump to Location C infront of a NPC, Turn in Quest. <--- repeat 300x times until they all do run Ampador.

Have you seen so many Sprouts at once being cluttered together on a single NPC?
Exception are the RMT Bots, otherwise you will never have that amount of Legit Players all together in a single Spot, that's just too far stretched.

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Originally Posted by MsQi

That is multi-boxing. That alone is not against the rules. If those same people use exploits, hacks or try to sell gill for real money, then they are in trouble. You didn't show that they are the same people spamming rmt sites.

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It's not. Who the hell would multi-box only THM/CNJ/ARC and run Ampador with that Setup? Wouldn't you think that's a bit absurd?
In fact, all RMT Bots that do MSQ / PvE are only Thaumaturges / Black Mages, Conjurer / White Mages and Archer / Bards.

Another Fact : The RMT Bots who jump from location to location are not the ones advertising.
You will only encounter Spammers in the three Main Cities, while they're only Lv.1.

Well, to be fair the number of bots are a LOT less here than it is on ESO. It's hard to not see a group of bots in ESO anywhere unless you're instanced.

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Originally Posted by Omegabear

Well, to be fair the number of bots are a LOT less here than it is on ESO. It's hard to not see a group of bots in ESO anywhere unless you're instanced.

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There's at least 80 per server, per Gridania, and another 80 or so for Ul'dah. I compared the numbers from Excalibur(Primal) to another server on (Aether). So I'd say "A lot less immediately visible", but the secondary effects are all over the place. In fact I also found level 60 bots on that server, though they appear to just be chilling in the inn.

And they stand in the EXACT same place on both servers.

The only missing piece of the puzzle that Mwynn alluded to appears to be what exactly they do at each level. I know they're doing MSQ.

As for bots: There are MRD bots in Limsa, they appear to be exclusively spammers, and my thought as to why is that Limsa is not a starting location for CNJ or THM, so it's not convenient for them, but that is where more people hang out. I haven't seen more than two ARC's with the button mash names.

There are at least two different kinds of naming schemes. one is <noun>+two or three button mash letters, the other is all button mash letters. The more concerning thing is, I looked up several of those bots from April and May, and they still have lodestone pages, which makes me wonder if SE suspends the account and doesn't ever delete the characters.

They never delete accounts, just permaban.

I know because some of the spam bots I blacklisted way back when they could still send tells aren't showing "Unable to Retrieve" like a properly deleted character would.