Hello friends, I have a question.

A couple of days ago marked my first month playing this game after having a friend harp on at me for the past 6 years to buy it :D However, one thing I'm frequently seeing which is disheartening, are the hacking botters who teleport from place to place usually male hyurs with names like Jhdghfhgf Hjfjffhg and players using bots to level jobs.

I came from WoW, althought I hadn't played that game actively for about 4 months. Blizzard Entertainment were very aggressive towards bots, banning them often permanently and targeting the bot creators themselves in high profile lawsuits effectively to the point they've wiped botters out in their games.

I've reported the players I see using bots to level professions, I saw 7 of them last night in the same location on Odin, I'm sure there's a naming and shaming policy here so I won't list names, however when I mentioned it to a fellow FC member, he told me he was aware of the FC tag and had said they've been botting for awhile, to my knowledge it's a clan of mining/botany bots.

He also told me not to get my hopes up because apparently SQ aren't aggressive when it comes towards dealing with bots, he also told me that when Shadowbringers comes out, it's going to get worse as people will use bots for FATES, levelling and jobs.

My question for anyone who's had the patience to read this far (thanks <3) - How often do SQ ban players using bots? I've had mixed reports ranging from they don't to they just give them a slap on the hand.

They ban in waves every couple of months sadly. Your report went through but it likely won't be acted upon until SE decides to do another way, at which point the bot maker has already recouped their funds and have doubled it into several more bot accounts. Every player wants SE to be more proactive but their policy hasn't changed in years.

Well, they definetely don't do ban waves every day, that's for sure. But sometimes you can see official news on Lodestone where they write how much accounts were banned temporary or permanently for botting and RMT. Amounts there are generally guite impressive. Hovewer, after one bot was banned, there will be born 3 new on his place just the next day.

I actually lost full interest into gathering and crafting the moment I knew there's bot in this game. It's kinda of damages the image of the game for new players. Once I was helping a friend get interested in this game, I was helping him in the leveling and we saw bots inside walls and teleporting. I felt ashamed. Mostly because I said to him that this is not like others free to play games, this is another level...

If you reported them, they will take note but won't respond. Their action will not be immediate either.

They report to us on the lodestone how many bots they banned each week. Here is the latest report:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce1b1421efe1a

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Time Period: May 16, 2019 to May 22, 2019

・Participation in RMT/prohibited activities
　・Accounts terminated: 4,930
　・Accounts temporarily suspended: 9
・Botting activity (Using any number of third party tools that allow for automation)
　・Accounts terminated: 2
　・Accounts temporarily suspended: 13
・RMT advertising
　・Accounts terminated: 1,336

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There are so many of them that you would never notice the above had happened and they most likely don't go to any great legal lengths to stop them making new accounts, but I really wouldn't know.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

I actually lost full interest into gathering and crafting the moment I knew there's bot in this game. It's kinda of damages the image of the game for new players. Once I was helping a friend get interested in this game, I was helping him in the leveling and we saw bots inside walls and teleporting. I felt ashamed. Mostly because I said to him that this is not like others free to play games, this is another level...

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When I was levelling up and trying to do a quest, too frequently, I would see a mob taking damage and dying almost instantly with no players in sight, it made it take a long time to finish the quest as I had to run from mob to mob while they could just hack teleport from location to location, the respawn timers aren't as bad here as they are in other games but it was still an un-fun experience to witness.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If you reported them, they will take note but won't respond. Their action will not be immediate either.

They report to us on the lodestone how many bots they banned each week. Here is the latest report:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce1b1421efe1a



There are so many of them that you would never notice the above had happened and they most likely don't go to any great legal lengths to stop them making new accounts, but I really wouldn't know.

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The problem here is they only banned two players for botting activities, that's nothing, I saw a large number of bots the other day mining in Coerthas Western Highlands, bots are easy for players to detect and identify because they follow the same scripted patterns, I observed one for nearly 20 minutes, watching it repeat the same actions and take the same routes over and over again.

Many bot creating companies go to great lengths to design bot programmes with the intention of tricking the detectors, Blizzard Entertainment had/has a system called " Warden " which botters were able to trick for years into thinking they're playing legit.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

they most likely don't go to any great legal lengths to stop them making new accounts

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They don't have a reason for it, though. As much as bots are annoying and even kind of harmful for playerbase, so much they are actually profitable for the company, since it's a P2P game. Every bot is a sold copy of the game, a decent amount of money after every ban wave when accounts-holder buys new copies to continue his botting. So it is... kind of very thin balance, I suppose? Doesn't sound good when you think about it, yes, but it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

They don't have a reason for it, though. As much as bots are annoying and even kind of harmful for playerbase, so much they are actually profitable for the company, since it's a P2P game. Every bot is a sold copy of the game, a decent amount of money after every ban wave when accounts-holder buys new copies to continue his botting. So it is... kind of very thin balance, I suppose? Doesn't sound good when you think about it, yes, but it is what it is.

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Sadly it is how I imagine it too. Stopping them 100% would be a cut into the sales they make, which I suppose could also go to inflating numbers of "X amount of accounts created" or "X copies sold". Yet on the other hand not doing anything will irritate players, though I recall seeing someone botting for months and wave after wave he still kept going. So makes me wonder if they are really banning that many or just removing the most obvious ones.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

They don't have a reason for it, though. As much as bots are annoying and even kind of harmful for playerbase, so much they are actually profitable for the company, since it's a P2P game. Every bot is a sold copy of the game, a decent amount of money after every ban wave when accounts-holder buys new copies to continue his botting. So it is... kind of very thin balance, I suppose? Doesn't sound good when you think about it, yes, but it is what it is.

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Thing is botters don't legally buy a game copy. Most cases come from a stolen account or stolen credit card information. IMO your typical botter is not that problematic compared to with high-end players that do it, I guessing once the expansion arrives quite a few players are going to bot front lines to level up their classes.

To the OP: As people already told you SE ban on waves your typical gil farmer, "regular" players botting... well, at times they are never banned.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

If you reported them, they will take note but won't respond. Their action will not be immediate either.

They report to us on the lodestone how many bots they banned each week. Here is the latest report:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce1b1421efe1a



There are so many of them that you would never notice the above had happened and they most likely don't go to any great legal lengths to stop them making new accounts, but I really wouldn't know.

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I don't trust these, used to play ffxi they had same reports but the very same bot users played for years were reported many of times, one day my cousin had a GM watch in FFXI just to bust one of them and it worked he GM'd 5 minutes before the monk gloves NM was about to spawn then about 1 minute GM replied he asked him to stay to watch and sure enough the bot player teleported to the NM claimed it half way across the map and he got him banned.

bots on mal have massively inceeased since the server change. don't know if its the preferred status thing or what

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Originally Posted by savageink

bots on mal have massively inceeased since the server change. don't know if its the preferred status thing or what

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The data center split + world visit may have made a vulnerability they can exploit.

Or the more likely case: Shadowbringers is just a month away and they can dominate the expansion launch market boards so they have bots doing stuff en masse to do it.

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Originally Posted by File2ish

The data center split + world visit may have made a vulnerability they can exploit.

Or the more likely case: Shadowbringers is just a month away and they can dominate the expansion launch market boards so they have bots doing stuff en masse to do it.

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That's likely what the FC full of botany/mining bots are doing on Odin, it's sad to know they'll likely not be punished no matter how detailed a report I submit =/

I think one big firewall against bots is being able activate an account only after a credit card validation. No need to charge the card, just validate.

And, if or when the card goes to be invalid anytime (stolen, expired, etc), all and every account related to that card will be locked. Not banned, just locked. Maybe a legit user just forgot to update card after a renew...

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

I think one big firewall against bots is being able activate an account only after a credit card validation. No need to charge the card, just validate.

And, if or when the card goes to be invalid anytime (stolen, expired, etc), all and every account related to that card will be locked. Not banned, just locked. Maybe a legit user just forgot to update card after a renew...

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Could be an option. But how to deal with Steam Users then? I personally pay with Steam wallet. /thinks

I wouldnt worry about it. The bots dont level too high before they are banned. Often times you will see bots mining for crystals.

The way it works is.

1. Bots level and mine/gather crystals and other materials
2. Bots transfer those items to another bot who then sells the items on the marketboard.
3. Bot then transfers that money made from the marketboard to another bot, who then transfers the money to another bot, who then transfers the money to another bot.
4. A new bot is then created, level up to level 10 and then goes to limsa to promote x website to sell the gill.
5. SE bans the bot promoting the site and sometimes the gatherer.
6. Person creates new bots starting the process over.

The problem is it takes SE days, weeks, to track down the person with the money. And there are thousands of bots so its really hard to track them. Especially since most bots are created off the free trial.