Anyone think the bot problem was this bad?

At this point the bots on spriggan are taunting us

Hundreds of bots doing laps in uldah

Must be a lot more people buying gil. Notice that the bot issue didn't explode until the popularity did just before 5.0.

Not that I'm saying there were no bots, but it wasn't this bad....

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Must be a lot more people buying gil. Notice that the bot issue didn't explode until the popularity did just before 5.0.

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This. Ever since the game became "popular" bots started running rampant. At least it feels that way to me.

That’s crazy. So I’m guessing yoshi didn’t pay a visit to check this out himself while on eu servers? Lol can see him try to log in and have to wait in a queue of 5000, using his yoshi powers to bypass and gets greeted with a bot train D:

It took Yoshi P getting spammed by RMTers for them to implement the Report RMT function.

Hopefully he'll see this sooner then later.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It took Yoshi P getting spammed by RMTers for them to implement the Report RMT function.

Hopefully he'll see this sooner then later.

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Most likely get a "not in my back yard" response so nothing will be done really. If he doesn't personally run into it while casually playing on the weekend then nothing will be done about it.

We have some new players in my FC who hit an MSQ road block and couldn't continue because they had to kill some mobs. Well these mobs were being farmed by a good 50 bots that would instantly kill them so real players couldn't complete the quest.

This is more account trolling than an RMT issue....

What I mean by that is that real RMT Bot Farmers wouldnt likely do this. The reason being is this is 1) It's a huge waste of money, and 2) Its a giant "Look at me!" flag thatll make it harder to RMT. It's more of someone probably trolling than RMT bots. Even if theyre using a 'play for free' code and what not and using spoof accounts, its still a waste of money. Creating an account to purposefully get banned instead of using that time to make gil and then buying a sub, essentially getting you 'free' playtime and then extra time on top of that to do more farming would amount to being wasteful of money. Then spectacles like this draw a lot of attention to the RMTers, making SE pay a lot more attention to RMT spam and putting them on higher alert. This means less RMT sells over all. Its completely counter productive for RMTers.

If anything, its probably some guy trolling by making a bunch of fake accounts and running them via bot programs. To that guy, it doesnt matter if the accounts get banned. Theyre not doing it for cash, but for fun. And if they are anti RMT, All the better because that puts SE on alert. Im not trying to defend the RMTers here, but rather point out its probably not one but a player or group of players doing this. People with real accounts, and while it may get rid of RMTers, its bad for FFXIV because it puts it out there in the public space that this kind of thing 'happens'. Its false or misleading information at the end of the day and damages the look of the community, devs, and game.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

This is more account trolling than an RMT issue....

What I mean by that is that real RMT Bot Farmers wouldnt likely do this. The reason being is this is 1) It's a huge waste of money, and 2) Its a giant "Look at me!" flag thatll make it harder to RMT. It's more of someone probably trolling than RMT bots. Even if theyre using a 'play for free' code and what not and using spoof accounts, its still a waste of money. Creating an account to purposefully get banned instead of using that time to make gil and then buying a sub, essentially getting you 'free' playtime and then extra time on top of that to do more farming would amount to being wasteful of money. Then spectacles like this draw a lot of attention to the RMTers, making SE pay a lot more attention to RMT spam and putting them on higher alert. This means less RMT sells over all. Its completely counter productive for RMTers.

If anything, its probably some guy trolling by making a bunch of fake accounts and running them via bot programs. To that guy, it doesnt matter if the accounts get banned. Theyre not doing it for cash, but for fun. And if they are anti RMT, All the better because that puts SE on alert. Im not trying to defend the RMTers here, but rather point out its probably not one but a player or group of players doing this. People with real accounts, and while it may get rid of RMTers, its bad for FFXIV because it puts it out there in the public space that this kind of thing 'happens'. Its false or misleading information at the end of the day and damages the look of the community, devs, and game.

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Unless, as has been suggested here of late, nothing is actually ever done about even super obvious bots. In which case, what do they care? Clearly this represents a scripting flaw since nothing useful is being accomplished, but if there's no danger of real consequences, why would they care?

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

This is more account trolling than an RMT issue....

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I'm watching it right now. They go down stairs early twice, so their pathing on the map is obviously off from the server's side. They get just before the zone divider and don't make it far enough to cross over.

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Originally Posted by Schan

This. Ever since the game became "popular" bots started running rampant. At least it feels that way to me.

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Yep all the "refugees" who only care about end game content went and bought a bunch of gil so they can skip content, like they do in their old games.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

Unless, as has been suggested here of late, nothing is actually ever done about even super obvious bots. In which case, what do they care? Clearly this represents a scripting flaw since nothing useful is being accomplished, but if there's no danger of real consequences, why would they care?

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Because its a faulty assumption that a lot of people have that there are no consequences for botting. If SE did nothing about bots, and I mean nothing, there would be more bots than players by this point. We would see bots that were here day 1 still here. But we dont. We dont see every single chat spammed to the max with RMT spam. We dont see them every 5 seconds no matter where we go. Do we see them? Sure. Is there some RMT spam? Sure. But people seem to be thinking that this game is flooded wit bots and theyre everywhere. The oddity of seeing them is proof enough. If bots were everywhere, this wouldnt be a spectacle. This would be "Its another day on FFXIV." The fact people pause and go "Oh that must be a bot" denotes that it is not a common occurance. It's an oddity.

So yes, SE does actually take action against them. How harsh or proactive is debatable. I would imagine the best way to get bots is to have them purchase an account and pay for a sub then find and ban them after 24 hours. Punishing bot players shortly after they activate their accounts allows SE to pull money from them while dealing with the bot issue. It becomes not as profitable to be a botter as a result. That is how I would look at it, and would make sense in that light as you are more likely to see low to mid level bots, not max level bots (typically).

TLDR though: SE does take action and its a player base 'myth' that SE doesnt do anything about bots. They do. That is simply the fact of the matter. How effective they are is a different question, however.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

I'm watching it right now. They go down stairs early twice, so their pathing on the map is obviously off from the server's side. They get just before the zone divider and don't make it far enough to cross over.

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You assume that people trolling cant set up bot scripts themselves or make mistakes. If it is an RMTer, then thats bad news bears for them, but Im still more of the mind set that its not. Particularly since bots can zone out of cities and maps via teleport or other means. Just color me as skeptical.

Consider that if this is a bot net for RMT, thats how many bots? 40? 60 maybe at most? On a server pop of what? A 8 thousand? 10 thousand? 16 Thousand? Thats is a drop in the bucket in that case, and all youre seeing is a hard concentration of them. Makes it easier for them to be banned, but again, this goes back to the what I was saying: This is not as bad as people think it is, and saying SE does nothing about bots is a myth. I will guarentee that every single one of those bots will be banned within 48 hours. Every single one. That doesnt stop a RMTer or Troll from making more. But that then gets into teh discussion of how effective SE is, not whether they take action or not.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

You assume that people trolling cant set up bot scripts themselves or make mistakes. If it is an RMTer, then thats bad news bears for them, but Im still more of the mind set that its not. Particularly since bots can zone out of cities and maps via teleport or other means. Just color me as skeptical.

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I'm going for the offset map for RMT, but either way it makes SE look bad when the only thing region based staff can do is point people at the bot report form. Some of them went offline a bit ago and just came back on. Those that went offline are now making it through the zone divider, hovering over the arena inside and then floating off to wherever their next destination is.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

Yep all the "refugees" who only care about end game content went and bought a bunch of gil so they can skip content, like they do in their old games.

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Please tell me this is bait.

This seems so wrong. But not in the RMT sense. They don't move like that. They teleport to the point complete their goal and teleport to the next point. So I am siding with the trolling idea.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Punishing bot players shortly after they activate their accounts allows SE to pull money from them while dealing with the bot issue. It becomes not as profitable to be a botter as a result.

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I dunno, I'm pretty sure the people/company/whatever running these bot armies don't pay anything for them, or at most pennies on the dollar, for the same reason SE doesn't want people buying mog station items from RMT websites. There's a reason they're able to sell them much cheaper than SE does on the official store, and it's not because they get discount for bulk purchases. They're either stolen credit cards or, for mog station items specifically, many are charged back against SE, costing SE twice for each fraudulent transaction they make and the RMT getting essentially free inventory to sell at 100% profit.

There's no way in hell that selling gil can pay for THAT many subs, even without being banned, and still make a profit to keep their business running and pay overhead and whatever else their expenses are.

This is the same reason indie developers have actually asked people to just torrent their games instead of buying from websites like G2A if they really can't afford to play their game at full price and are going to get it cheaper anyway because they can literally sink an entire indie studio because there's nothing you can do to refute a chargeback, let alone thousands of them.

I seen bots move half away across the area in mid-air

one would hope the devs figure out how deal with them

Spriggan has like several Bot 'hive minds' with New Gridania seemingly being their main hub. They pack themselves up in the chamber that the CNJ quest giver is at, and they walk through walls, etc.

It seems like when the bot density hits critical mass their teleport hacks stop functioning or something.

I've seen them doing this in Gridania to a lesser degree on other servers but it only ever happens when there's several of them present simultaneously.

I have no knowledge abt stuff like this whatsoever so I just hope the redditor pixiekatt521 has it right:

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Believe it or not I consider this a sign that botting really is being countered. Do you know why you didn't see all these bots before? They were hacked to move under the map and instantly teleport from objective to objective. The fact that they are actually being seen outside of giant stacks suggests the scripts no longer work like they did. Yes, the amount of botting is still an issue, but all that's really changed is the size of the issue has been brought to the surface, literally. And now that they're in plain sight, they're much easier to see and recognize, and that means much easier for their activities to be recorded and taken down in the next ban wave (and before people say they don't ban bots because of the official report numbers, I want to respond that I doubt there are nearly 9k accounts shouting about rmt websites, and that most of the "rmt/prohibited activities" bans are probably these bots. The note for specifically bots is probably just for those that aren't banned for any other higher reason)

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Can free accounts trade goods, sell in the MB, or join FCs?

If not hiw could these bots even be used by RMT companies?

Historically RMT companies have preferred to hack accounts and sell the goods to get their “product” because that can be traded and sold and a lot of people have very insecure accounts...
(An example was the launch of Guild Wars 2. A few days into launch 15,000 or 30,000 accounts got banned. I forget which number as it’s been a while. The reason was they got hacked. A third party fan forum had it’s database stolen and kept the news secret until ArenaNet noticed a pattern and went asking around... turns out roughly 30,000 used the same login credentials on a random bulletin board as they did on their game accounts. They were lucky... they got banned before most of them were used. Many accounts are hacked like this months or years before the hackers step in and loot them... They just sit on a list if accounts and use them slowly over time.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

Can free accounts trade goods, sell in the MB, or join FCs?

If not hiw could these bots even be used by RMT companies?

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No, these are paid accounts, but likely using stolen credit cards. They buy up multiple accounts until they hit the card limit, only utilizing the free time that comes with starter edition (knowing they have a certain amount of time before the card owner notices or SE notices they're blatantly out of bounds/teleporting).

Im playing on Twintania and Im a relative newish player. The DF is terrible, waiting times, even for Tanks and Healers can be quiet long, sometimes 20 or 30 mins and if you get a Fetchquest where you have to kill a certain amount of x you better port to another World or you have your work/play for the Day cut out for yah. Everywhere i look i see Bots, they even do the MSQ in ARR. I say Bots, you may wonder how i know they are Bots? Two easy ways dor me to know are:1) They have all Names like tfvfwevdk those, random gibberish.2) They flicker in and out of existence. It looks really creepy when you have 6 or 7 or even more exactly the same looking Characters doing in Unison Emotes or such things for a Quest. I find, SE could and should more do against them as it gets really annoying

Honestly, no. I would not have guessed that it was this bad.

Shame on you SE, for letting stuff get out of hand like this in a SUBSCRIPTION game.

There was a post just a few days ago about this, it got deleted, like other got deleted before, and this one might get too pretty soon. :/

We had something similar on Louisoix when I was in northern Thanalan. Bots under the grounds were killing all the mechs in a few seconds. Not an issue unless your quest demands it or you’re looking to get the drill cannon skill from the mech for blue mage. Probably still going on. Likewise in uldah the fc chest is constantly filled with bots inside it lol

But I’ve never seen a train like in the op.

I cannot help but think that the bots have to be having some kind of negative impact on the instance servers when you have several hundred parties of them queueing for dungeons every few minutes on an endless loop.

They should at least take measures to eliminate Amdapor Keep as a gil-farming spot for them, IMO.

The amount of bans for RMT/illicit acitivities hasn't gone up recently as it should with our two fresh EU bot servers.


We used to have consistent numbers of >30k bans each week in '17. Either the bots recently found a way to circumvent whatever was set in place or the STF is sleeping on the job.

Just seen a shout in Crystal Data Center from RMT bots advertising ilvl450 crafted gear and Eden Savage Clears. Insane. Completely insane.

Proof: removed since I'm scared even sharing it would be advertising

So much for the "only get to ARR" theory.

They are summoning the king Mog!?!

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

Just seen a shout in Crystal Data Center from RMT bots advertising ilvl450 crafted gear and Eden Savage Clears. Insane. Completely insane.

Proof: [----cut image---]

So much for the "only get to ARR" theory.

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Omg... I just looked those price and now i know why they can afford all this shit... ppl actually buying from them should be banned from the internet. And tbh its frustrating they can just openly advertise and run a buisness... they should be taken down by law >_>

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

Just seen a shout in Crystal Data Center from RMT bots advertising ilvl450 crafted gear and Eden Savage Clears. Insane. Completely insane.

[snipped image]

So much for the "only get to ARR" theory.

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I would black out the keyword they want you to use as well.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

So much for the "only get to ARR" theory.

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It's not uncommon for websites selling in-game currency to also offer account piloting services as well (Which often are being provided by normal players partnered with the website, not people who play strictly for business), which is why they claim to be selling what they do.

Of course, you're taking an even bigger risk with the latter as you're compromising your account's security, not just your credit card info.

Long story short, RMT practices are a lot more pervasive then they seem at a glance and extend much further then the gibberish named gil farmers. I honestly wouldn't call it a stretch to say a lot of the people using DoL/H bots are likely involved, since people really can/do sell off their excess gil to RMT websites who'll proceed to resell it at a mark-up.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's not uncommon for websites running RMT services to also offer account piloting services as well (Which often are being provided by normal players, not people play strictly for business), which is why they claim to offer what they do.

Of course, you're taking an even bigger risk with the latter as you're compromising your account's security, not just your credit card info.

Long story short, RMT practices are a lot more pervasive then they seem at a glance and reach much further then the gibberish named gil farmers.

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Not only that but account piloting is also against TOS. So i hope anyone buying that service gets permabanned for multiple infractions.

Sadly not likely to happen because virtually all of those people selling content clears in PF also require account piloting and they're unwilling to remove their PF listings or punish them despite the intent being very obvious.

Bots have no place in FFXIV, they need to get rid of asap.
Don't ignore our wishes please SE, do something

I donno what this bots are trying not lol. It's like something out of a movie. 2 weeks ago, it looked like Borg cubes were all over Central Thanalan, and legions of bots in New Gridania.

Now it's like they are trying some kind of trans-teleportation system where they line up in mid air and then shoot straight through walls.

And whats up with them trying to blend in with players now XD?

Only see maybe 1 or 2 each day spamming. It was a lot worse in stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Rhus

We had something similar on Louisoix when I was in northern Thanalan. Bots under the grounds were killing all the mechs in a few seconds. Not an issue unless your quest demands it or you’re looking to get the drill cannon skill from the mech for blue mage. Probably still going on. Likewise in uldah the fc chest is constantly filled with bots inside it lol

But I’ve never seen a train like in the op.

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I think mines still here somewhere...

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...tion-with-a-GM


About the time where a GM admitted they couldn't do anything about bots. They couldn't even enter the entire ZONE because I'd admitted a bot existed there. The only ones who do anything about bots are the "special task force" level, who take months to get to anything, and only remove en masse.

In that post is documentation of two ARR zones you couldn't enter because bots where filling all 300 possible characters in that zone. One of them was a major location, with video.


Today I made this post

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-Elapsed-5-00

With screenshot proof of it taking more then 5 minutes to get into a gold saucer instance. If there's only 5 minutes you can enter it, this makes it impossible to enter. The good news is, leap of faith is a 10 minute, so I did get in. No big deal except, goes to self destructive patern your honor.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ties-right-now

This post was on a day when I was trying to get my relic weapon collection completed. I wanted to do an ARR dungon. I qued. It got to "reserving server" it sat there for over 5 hours before I gave up.

FIVE HOURS.

Not "it's unpopular, we're having trouble getting a party together" like you might see in bahamat savage... the party was FULL, and it still had to "reserve server" for 5 hours. Didn't get any responce to THAT little bug either.

Standard responce that seems to work with most games is to do the bot ban waves, but also to take care of any bot that gets spotted. Picture if a GM had taken each of those bots running through the wall and dumped them into the "bad player box". It might have been a few hours before the botter noticed that his minions where misbehaving, but at least they wouldn't be taking up player spots and server resources in Ul-dah. The botter would launch new ones of course, and then the hunt would be on, but at least THAT spot, that problem would stay solved for a while. But no, if the GM so much as entered that room, they'd have been fired. Not allowed to even know the name of a bot, much less do anything. SQuenix has fubar'd itself.


I see them under floors killing things for hours and preventing players from being able to complete quests until they are done with it.
I see them filling entire zones and making it impossible for players to enter them until the bots are done with that spot.
I see them stacking to the same exact pixel and then moving from that spot, one at a time, in perfect timing, and pixel exact movement.
I see them clipped into objects to prevent being clicked on, with faceroll names of max length, all perfectly aligned to be impossible to read or report.
I see rivers of them flowing through the places they can't break out of bounds within.

I SEE BOTS.

How can Squenix be so blind as to not see them?

I seriously doubt they don't see them, but the polices for handling them are probably limited for the general GMs. GM's likely can report them when they see them just like everyone else, but once things are sent to the STF there's likely policies in place that they have to follow that they don't disclose because you obviously don't want botters to know what precautions and tools are being used to sniff them out.

Anything that affects their bottom line will be cause for attention, but if you're trying to address an issue like this you can't tell folks what you're doing and be effective.

Feels sometimes even worse on Twintania. Be it stacking, moving underground/airborne, teleporting freely around or increasing lag (partially) by other means. I'm cluess about what to do or informatics as to give any suggestions, but yeah gut-based it should be obvious to see the issue in the former cases.