Bot reporting?

I just noticed two characters AFK at the Darksteel Ore node in Coerthas It wasn't even close to the spawn time for it either.

Is this a common botting method, just wait in one place and harvest the node every time it pops?
If so, is there a way to report them?

No wait i do that ... i mean leaving my char afk waiting for node with alarm on

They might me not a bot

Yeah sometimes I get to a node early then go afk and do things around the house.

Just because they are afk at the nodes does not mean they are bots. They probably just want to farm darksteel ore and are waiting for the node to pop. You can set a timer in the game or use a site like XIV clock to let you know when the node spawns. Please don't report players who are obviously not botting.

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Originally Posted by Jillian

Just because they are afk at the nodes does not mean they are bots. They probably just want to farm darksteel ore and are waiting for the node to pop. You can set a timer in the game or use a site like XIV clock to let you know when the node spawns. Please don't report players who are obviously not botting.

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Ok, thanks, I just wanted to make sure..

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

If so, is there a way to report them?

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When in the game: Main Menu -> Support Desk -> Contact Us -> Report Cheating

Can also use Report a case to the Special Task Force

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Originally Posted by Jillian

Please don't report players who are obviously not botting.

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Why not? You can't get in trouble for it, it wouldn't be a waste of the STF's time since they probably don't read the majority of reports to begin with and they don't even do anything about blatant botting.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

When in the game: Main Menu -> Support Desk -> Contact Us -> Report Cheating

Can also use Report a case to the Special Task Force


Why not? You can't get in trouble for it, it wouldn't be a waste of the STF's time since they probably don't read the majority of reports to begin with and they don't even do anything about blatant botting.

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Why would you file a false report on players who are doing nothing wrong? And how do you know the STF doesn't read the reports? If they didn't investigate, they wouldn't be doing what SE hired them to do. I believe the STF is rather small so it takes them time to investigate the reports. I know a few (obvious) bots that were banned after reports were filed. As for rmt bots, they are like weeds; every time SE bans a bunch of them, more spring up to take their place.

I too sometimes afk at timed nodes.

Most of the bots run with the DND flag up. Also if you look at a characters search info and they only have mining, Botanist and either a tank or healer at max level, that's another big indicator it's a bot account.

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Originally Posted by Jillian

Why would you file a false report on players who are doing nothing wrong?

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It's not a false report if the reporter doesn't know for a fact that no cheating is going on. The reporter needs only suspect cheating might be going on to file a report. I've seen bots afk at gathering nodes, so it's not like bots don't do it. Players (including the ones suspected of cheating) can't get in trouble if they aren't doing anything wrong.

Bots tend to give themselves away through their movement patterns more then anything else, so I would not take people simply AFKing near a node as an indicator of it.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

Most of the bots run with the DND flag up. Also if you look at a characters search info and they only have mining, Botanist and either a tank or healer at max level, that's another big indicator it's a bot account.

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This also frequently holds true, but mostly in the case of alt account bots.

A lot of people have so little fear of getting banned they'll just DoL bot on their main accounts that have several classes leveled.

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Originally Posted by Vnolan

It's not a false report if the reporter doesn't know for a fact that no cheating is going on. The reporter needs only suspect cheating might be going on to file a report. I've seen bots afk at gathering nodes, so it's not like bots don't do it. Players (including the ones suspected of cheating) can't get in trouble if they aren't doing anything wrong.

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I know a person just needs to suspect a player of cheating in order to report. However, just being afk at a node is not a good reason to suspect somebody is botting. When I report somebody for botting, I look for obvious signs of it, such as the bot dismounting at the exact same time every game day to gather at a timed node.

Making general reports about suspected bots without providing specific details on botting activity that the reporter has observed does not help the STF out. The STF needs concrete evidence to take action against gathering bots and reporting a person for being afk at a node does not provide that. It just wastes the STFs time.

It's too bad that even when you give them concrete evidence they still almost never actually ban a bot as long as it's remotely subtle.

The only ones that get banned with any semblance of reliability are the gil farmers but that's mostly because they're hacking on top of their botting.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's too bad that even when you give them concrete evidence they still almost never actually ban a bot as long as it's remotely subtle.

The only ones that get banned with any semblance of reliability are the gil farmers but that's mostly because they're hacking on top of their botting.

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I've seen a few get banned but, you're right; it can be very difficult to get gathering bots banned even with proof. I'm not sure if the STF is understaffed, has too many reports to sift through, or what. This might leave them with little time to thoroughly investigate reports that have no evidence beyond general player suspicions.

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

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We get the cultist bots. All with the same bodies, same clothes, randomly disappearing into the air and ground.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

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Ive seen one bot who bots ephemeral nodes on about 20 hours a day 7 days a week get stuck in between a hut and a set of boxes near the dawn throne crystal for about an hour. He also "falls" down from his mount to get to points, it looks like hes slowly getting beamed down by aliens, but im still not sure if that's an action only done by bots. (You'll see a few people do it if you do ephermal nodes enough) he changed up his bot about a month ago so now he gets on and off a mount 1-4 times before flying off to reset the node. Oh btw hes been at it for months and S.E. hasn't done anything about it.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

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WoW actually has a competent GM team unlike XIV, which one of the things I miss most.

The "normal" bots here largely exhibit the same behavior as the ones in WoW in terms of having jerky, repetitive movement patterns, and they also unfailingly jump in place whenever they take flight after mounting up which is one of the most obvious tells. They're generally either farming material drops from enemies, gathering, or spamming FATEs for EXP.

The gil farming bots never actually walk and instead just teleport around using hacks.

WoW has a whole department dedicated to finding bots last time I remembered.

But I saw this post and just had to chuckle. There's one post where you can get reported for using emotes, and now there's a post where you can get reported for being AFK. You literally cannot win at this game! LOL

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Originally Posted by JackHatchet

WoW has a whole department dedicated to finding bots last time I remembered.

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I guess XIV technically does too in the form of the STF, but they certainly aren't doing a good job of it.

Might because they're wasting most of their time on banning the gil farmers instead of the other types that aren't so easily replaced.

Why on earth would you report players AFK waiting for a node? What a complete waste of everyone's time.

It's worth noting that under normal circumstances, people who have a botting client running will never be auto-flagged as AFK, nor will they ever be kicked from the Novice Network because it seems to be doing something in the background that leads to a player's client constantly being flagged as active even if they aren't actually doing anything.

Bots that are only targeting specific nodes also will generally return to an aetheryte to wait (Usually a capital city or a house) as opposed to waiting where the node is going to spawn, as this makes them more conspicuous due to the fact that they'll be piling on top of whatever other bots happen to be using the same script (Which was very common back in the ARR/HW days).

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's worth noting that under normal circumstances, people who have a botting client running will never be auto-flagged as AFK, nor will they ever be kicked from the Novice Network because it seems to be doing something in the background that leads to a player's client constantly being flagged as active even if they aren't actually doing anything.

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I mean, I don't want to be that guy, but this entire thread would be pointless if we actually bothered to compare the OP's story to real bot behavior.

They use obvious packet manipulation or something similar to alter their movements/coordinates. Why would they camp next to a node if they don't need to travel to it manually? They can 'teleport' everywhere.

Actually, the fact that these people are camping and AFK is more like proof that they're not bots.

DoL bots never use teleport hax anymore because it almost guarantees they'll get banned if someone decides to report them.

They just run to nodes in an extremely jerky, awkward manner that's still very conspicuous as they'll almost never take a direct route to a node due to certain limitations, such as not being run/jump off ledges and not being able to actually tell where a node is until they get close to it (You'll notice that they never move straight to unspoiled nodes and instead move to a central location between all of the possible spawn points then suddenly veer towards it once they get within 15-20 yards or so).

I'm pretty sure you can turn off the auto-flag AFK thing. I never get flagged as afk. I think I disabled that like months ago. And I never get kicked out of NN either. I only ever get kicked out if I'm transfering zones and it's full randomly.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

DoL bots never use teleport hax anymore

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Maybe they've found better ways to do it, but to say they 'never' do it that way anymore is simply false. I still see them appearing at a node, activating it, disappearing again, and then reappearing at another node.

I guess your server just has it really bad, then.

I checked every server on the Aether DC and only saw the "normal" not-hacking types.

If I really need/want the item in question I'll wait by it. Usually bots don't gather timed nodes from what I've seen, it's usually squads with names like Dfnreginres Bfnewifns running around common nodes in lower level areas. (and no, they're never Sea Wolf Roes, usually default Hyurs and the occasional Lalas)

[QUOTE=Jillian;5005701]I know a person just needs to suspect a player of cheating in order to report. However, just being afk at a node is not a good reason to suspect somebody is botting./QUOTE]

That's why I asked I was suspicious because I'd never just AFK like that. (WoW habit, where you get logged off after X minutes AFK.)
If I'm waiting for a timed node, I'll farm other stuff in the area until the node pops, then grab it.

I've done this many times when I don't feel like playing but still want resources. Although you can tell that I'm not a bot by looking at my search info and see my levels. I would recommend that you start with that if you suspect someone is botting. If they are just a DoL (1 job) and nothing else, then that's far too suspicious. DoH is a bit different as people can have alts with only DoH for specialization since you can only have 3 per character.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

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Wot
You could find bots in almost every starting city in FFXIV, they are grouping together and teleporting from place to place. They are so numerous that destroys the game economy to the point where you are unable to make gil out of marketplace anymore, because no one bothers and market is saturated with everything. I literally make more gil out of selling paints i buy in kugane than i do with materials. xD
My server is not big, but i see bots almost everyday when i am walking around the town.