bots bots and more bots

SE you really need to contain this bot problem . it seems worse then its ever been since started playing . you have NA servers locked down to no new characters unless you sit there and wait for hours for a brief second to make a character but yet once in you see bots galore , guilds of bots , literally . do a local search in midgar server in uldah for example , out of 200 people 100 + are bots .. zipping around the server ruining the immersion , sitting in que for group finder .
there's the problem with the servers its not that we need more , they need to contain this bot problem and plenty of room will be made for actual players . i mean your ahead of the game here , your sub base is climbing , your leaps and bounds better then most other mmo , so why not tighten up on bots . get rid of them
there's got to be something better on your end to tend the problem

Yes bots are a problem but if the players helped out also but not using the services provided by these bots then they would be less of an issue.

Bots exist mainly because of RMT.

RMT keeps existing because people keep using them.

Two sides of the same coin.

See a bot, report it, move on.

No online game is free from botting sin.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crystal_Raven

Bots exist mainly because of RMT.

RMT keeps existing because people keep using them.

Two sides of the same coin.

---

Also think this is in large part to SE not cracking down on bots hard enough,especially considering many of the bots are subbed accounts...

While the whole "bots exist because people keep buying gil"or w/e argument is valid-ish, my one wishful thinking dream for this situation would be for SE to develop a means to seriously crack down hard on the wall/floor hacking "teleporting" the botters get away with. It wouldn't solve everything. Maybe nothing would change, and we'd just start seeing all the bots out in the open. They've probably got plenty of other tools to mitigate the danger of down time for the bots. And yeah, it'd probably have a negative impact on players, seeing bots be even more obvious than they already are. But maybe that'd set off a reaction to really knock them down if the player base starts getting put off by how rampant botting is.

Or, maybe that's exactly why they don't do anything about it. As long as the bots stay mostly out of sight, they can be a little less intrusive.

Idk. I used to try reporting them. But it's an awful tedious process, especially trying to type out their names, and I'm kinda at a state where I just expect the STF is likely plenty capable of spotting the bot accounts with each ban wave. I'm probably overestimating their abilities/resources, but, eh, my game time is limited, I'd rather spend it playing instead of mini-modding.

I don't even care about the RMT bots anymore.

It's the "everything else" bots that actively affect my game experience that annoy me. DoL/H bots tank prices so I can't sell anything, PvP bots are dead weight, duty finder bots waste everyone's time with their stupidity, the list goes on.

Their numbers have positively exploded during the pre-ShB stretch, and they're likely going to stick around during the expansion, too...

Bot's exist in every game, however, some companies put more effort into eradicating them than others, Blizzard Entertainment for all their shortcomings over the last few years did a pretty good job by targeting the bot creators themselves and dragging them into the courts, eventually the botting company gave up. I feel SE need to show the same dedication by targeting the bot creators just as Blizzard did.

Blizzard's enforcement team was competent enough that you'd basically never see people botting on their mains due to how high the chances of getting caught were. If I reported a bot, I'd get a response within a day and the bot would usually be purged, but if it wasn't, they'd actually encourage me to file additional reports if I still believed the player was botting.

There's absolutely no fear in XIV and I regularly see characters with Mogstation mounts and all classes maxed involved in the practice. Heck, there was even players with the Ultimate Legend title doing it on Gilgamesh...

I've made recordings of what bots do in FF14, and some are still around. I mean they show the teleporting and all the names etc. I've kind of gave up as well.

Heck, even ESO did a huge crackdown on the teleporting bots. You used to literally SEE them moving across the map and up and along building floors and under the map.

Sheesh.

The only way to get rid of bots is to stop buying what they sell. Don't buy crystals or ores or fish or botany items. Don't get involved in RMT. As long as people buy from them, they will be there. Report them and move on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zarabeth

The only way to get rid of bots is to stop buying what they sell. Don't buy crystals or ores or fish or botany items. Don't get involved in RMT. As long as people buy from them, they will be there. Report them and move on.

---

This is a pretty big problem because you don't know which retainers belong to bots and which belong to legit players.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zarabeth

Report them and move on.

---

Is there a way in-game to report for things other than RMT?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lalarrific

Is there a way in-game to report for things other than RMT?

---

Escape > Support Desk > Contact Us > Report Cheating

That's how I've been reporting botters.

I've been reporting the same players for over a year with no success in getting them banned, so it's become fairly clear to me that something is horribly wrong with their screening process.

I've seen like one since I returned a week ago. Maybe its my data centre?

Maybe.

High pop servers like Cactuar inherently are going to have higher numbers of "normal" bots, though all servers get flooded by the RMT bots.

My partner and I saw a couple gathering bots on Primal, specifically Ultros (really easy to spot sometimes because they don't seem to jump, and sometimes get stuck on the environment), but so far we haven't seen any on Crystal. But I'm sure they're out there.

It always baffles me that people will pay money outside the intended ways with the game to just have more money (which isn't even hard to get to begin with) or so the game will play itself. The risk of getting caught and perma-banned alone you'd think would deter a lot of people, but based on the numbers each time they show who gets banned for RMT stuff, apparently not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Doozer

My partner and I saw a couple gathering bots on Primal, specifically Ultros (really easy to spot sometimes because they don't seem to jump, and sometimes get stuck on the environment), but so far we haven't seen any on Crystal. But I'm sure they're out there.

It always baffles me that people will pay money outside the intended ways with the game to just have more money (which isn't even hard to get to begin with) or so the game will play itself. The risk of getting caught and perma-banned alone you'd think would deter a lot of people, but based on the numbers each time they show who gets banned for RMT stuff, apparently not.

---

Its human nature, in game behaviors reflect real life.

You ever see a politician take advantage of a system to put more money in their pockets? Because easit's easier, and makes them richer? Even if they end up in prison?

Well now apply the same logic to the game and add a dose of zero repercussions and healthy squirt of anonymity and you have the market the is RMT baby.

Then you start artificially inflating the economy with the influx of gil. Sure it's not a problem for people who been playing to pop down 200k, but for someone who just started? Good luck. the artificial inflation has gotten to older players heads. They THINK they should sell something at 200k because that's how they value it. In reality it only has the price tag because of inflation. Newer players arent exposed to this inflation and thus are priced out.

Now those new players are priced out, older players have baby boomer syndrome "because it's so easy" and RMT looks pretty attractive to newer players.

So they buy 30 million gil for 10 bucks, can afford the gear and get into end game and have fun, while additionally adding to inflation themselves and furthering the older players mindset of pricing scales.

It's literally a self feeding feedback loop that is impossible to stop.

Well its possible, but just like children and not wanting to take their medicine, they wont like it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bearded

Yes bots are a problem but if the players helped out also but not using the services provided by these bots then they would be less of an issue.

---

Then that needs to be cracked down on just as much as the bots. Both the bots and players fueling them are the problem. Therefore being confirmed of using RMT services should be an instant lifetime ban, no warning or first chance. They should also investigate it more actively on top of investigating botting. Send a very clear message that it's zero tolerance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I've seen like one since I returned a week ago. Maybe its my data centre?

---

Do a player search, World, lv50-50 and see how many pop up.

same here, i kinda give up after year of reporting bot. i sitll have few screenshot of the bot that i report, months later i happen to be in the area and the bots still there, even in the same spot.

starting to have a feeling that some of this bot might from the SE staff itself, when you work in this kind of place, you want to try the game too but have no time to do so, so the best way is just use it to earn few more money for your life.

my friends who work like this also doing the same practice (black dessert, ragnarok online for example)

Wait wait wait.... people ACTUALLY go to those websites like the funny looking ones "PVP BANK" or w/e? LOL, that's just identity theft waiting to happen. Jesus Christ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

same here, i kinda give up after year of reporting bot. i sitll have few screenshot of the bot that i report, months later i happen to be in the area and the bots still there, even in the same spot.

starting to have a feeling that some of this bot might from the SE staff itself, when you work in this kind of place, you want to try the game too but have no time to do so, so the best way is just use it to earn few more money for your life.

my friends who work like this also doing the same practice (black dessert, ragnarok online for example)

---

I chalk it up to incompetence coupled with lack of staff more then anything else.

The STF is only four people and can't realistically be doing proper investigations for every report that's sent in. The GMs have repeatedly stated to me that the STF uses "tools" to determine whether or not people are actually cheating, but the problem is that if those tools are flawed or people figure out how they work (It is actually very common for people to test bots and hacks on dummy accounts to determine what will/won't get caught by automated enforcement measures), then cheaters are going to be slipping past them constantly as they do now.

The easiest solution would be to just outsource the enforcement of ALL aspects of the ToS to the GMs, not just social matters. I doubt they're having to deal with so many social cases each day that they wouldn't have time to ban some bots after a cursory investigation that could basically boil down to:

1. Observe suspected bot for telltale signs like awkward movement.

2. Attempt to communicate with suspect, then issue ban if no response is given after repeated attempts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aurelius2625

Wait wait wait.... people ACTUALLY go to those websites like the funny looking ones "PVP BANK" or w/e? LOL, that's just identity theft waiting to happen. Jesus Christ...

---

I seriously doubt the legitimacy of a website that doesn't even seem to know how the game functions to be claiming it sells BoP items like Eureka gear...

I thought they had taken out an fc of botters I had reported repeatedly some time ago while they were fate botting Coerthas Centreal Highlands, but I ran into them fate botting the Forelands the other day while doing daily hunts. It's extremely discouraging when the reports either don't actually go anywhere or the people seeing them can't/won't do anything against accounts showing obvious botting behavior. I get that they may take time to study the behavior to pick up on cues they can use to automatically detect cheating, but we're talking something that was reported repeatedly back in HW. Saw a few other fate botters I had reported at the tail end of HW doing the same thing in SB content mid expansion as well. Can we please get region based teams to take action? The STF has had years to work against this now. I'm happy they took care of the friend/invite/whispers/linkshell spam, but they have to keep at it and it's more than just the RMT bots that need purging.