Okay now the botting is getting a little out of hand...

I know with popularity, comes bots....

Less popular, less need to actually do bot control. I think it's time for a policy change.

https://i.imgur.com/Us5UK8j.png

https://i.imgur.com/OBV8B2r.png

https://i.imgur.com/LQsR4TQ.png

The first picture kinda looks like some horror film, lol

If you're bitten by an archer, you turn into one under the full moon.

What if they become sentient O.O

Dang, I don't even think I've seen that many bots
in a F2P game, all in 1 section, Yikes.

But we cant do anything about it as we gotta wait for those 3 or was it 4 guys in japan... >_>

Bots, bots, everywhere.

"I am legion, for we are many"

This is honestly terrifying. They're all eyeing the aetheryte too much.

Not seeing anything near that bad on EU servers.
Im not saying its not an issue on EU servers but it seems far more rampant on us servers which would imply to me that there is a much bigger market there.
Much bigger market there meaning there's a lot more us players buying gil.
Sure SE need to take a tougher stance on it but clearly there is a player issue on US servers thats fueling it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Not seeing anything near that bad on EU servers.
Im not saying its not an issue on EU servers but it seems far more rampant on us servers which would imply to me that there is a much bigger market there.
Much bigger market there meaning there's a lot more us players buying gil.
Sure SE need to take a tougher stance on it but clearly there is a player issue on US servers thats fueling it.

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uhm
you see my server?

https://i.imgur.com/pwD5lf3.jpg

I will say that all this botting has done ONE good thing, the price for gold has fallen quite a bit, in the last week it's fallen 25%. There's four new websites that are selling it in steep competition with eachother, they are driving the bottom out of the market. Soon it won't be worth the time or effort even to illegally steal accounts anymore.

...and then it goes up again...

It must be getting pretty bad, since I saw some bots for the first time ever last night.

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

uhm
you see my server?

https://i.imgur.com/pwD5lf3.jpg

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Hm ok so its that bad on eu server too.Out of curiosity what time of day is this happening?
In order to create this many bots at same time they must be doing it at offpeak times on eu servers as usually there is a small queue to get on between around 1pm-10pm.
Maybe if they restrict the amount of new characters per day allowed to be created on a server this would help the issue.Although in theory it might block new players from starting.But if the bot accounts are being created late at night creating such a rule might hinder them creating characters at off peak if new accounts are created during the day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Hm ok so its that bad on eu server too.Out of curiosity what time of day is this happening?
In order to create this many bots at same time they must be doing it at offpeak times on eu servers as usually there is a small queue to get on between around 1pm-10pm.
Maybe if they restrict the amount of new characters per day allowed to be created on a server this would help the issue.Although in theory it might block new players from starting.But if the bot accounts are being created late at night creating such a rule might hinder them creating characters at off peak if new accounts are created during the day.

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It is still happening as of this very moment and as long as I made this thread if not longer today(so a few hours already).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Not seeing anything near that bad on EU servers.
Im not saying its not an issue on EU servers but it seems far more rampant on us servers which would imply to me that there is a much bigger market there.
Much bigger market there meaning there's a lot more us players buying gil.
Sure SE need to take a tougher stance on it but clearly there is a player issue on US servers thats fueling it.

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also, went to Zodiark just now....

https://i.imgur.com/l3Hbvaf.png

This is the worst I have ever seen a bot infestation. It's WAY worst than any F2P game at that. Before I would usually see them just appearing in front of npc or dungeon and then disappear into the ground. This is the first time that I would see soo many of them moving like an army through the air, ground, warping, etc. It's like someone found a way to upgrade them or something. The other day I saw a train of them in upper deck of Lominsa just coming from the ocean to an entrance to Bismark. It was freaky.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metallium

It is still happening as of this very moment and as long as I made this thread if not longer today(so a few hours already).

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Im not sure about Shiva server as it seems to have a very high activity rate but from looking at figures from your server its got a very low active rate which is likely how so many bots can be created even at peak times.Have you any idea if these bots are going to dungeons or just farming trash on maps.What SE need to do is cripple whatever they are able to farm or make the items they farm buyable at low cost on an npc.

The uprising has begun. All hail the machines. Skynet is your god now.

What are all the ones around the Aetherite doing? Just spamming RMT services?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Hm ok so its that bad on eu server too.Out of curiosity what time of day is this happening?

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basically now or at least the 40 min ago i made that screenshot. i saw many bots but usually clipped into each other... never this... id say demonstration of power?

Its kinda, ya know, the point where GM have to be allowed to act... and some com reps should say smt... inv yoshi here right now to see that, might help lol

It's still like that even now, I have never seen so many. Right now it's 5:17 pm CST

Every-time i saw one these ad spamming bots with names like "Fsdfscvsd Tasfdvcx" i though, why dont they do anything about it?
But the pic you posted, wow, they really dont give a boiling f.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...29/782/fb4.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

basically now or at least the 40 min ago i made that screenshot. i saw many bots but usually clipped into each other... never this... id say demonstration of power?

Its kinda, ya know, the point where GM have to be allowed to act... and some com reps should say smt... inv yoshi here right now to see that, might help lol

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Yeah i logged on to check myself and investigate.So ive seen some thaumaturge bots running around central thal.Seen them run through mountains.
Limsea you dont see any bots really being made.Im guessing the bots have no use of the jobs there.Grindadia seems to have the most bots.Trying to investigate where all these archers are farming.
ive heard rumors of them 4 manning dungeons?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Metallium

https://i.imgur.com/Us5UK8j.png

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This is madness!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

What are all the ones around the Aetherite doing? Just spamming RMT services?

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Those are their army of gil makers ramping up to level and grind out the gil to sell. They'll speed through the levels and then start spamming lvl 50 dungeons, gradually pooling gil through an fc chest to be sold off to some [insert not nice words here] person that is helping fund both the continued spam and the lockdown on zones/dungeons.

They could do somthing about bit in a very simple but effective way, all those retards that use bots for rmt reasons would intstantly have no reason to exist anymore, if the game would give the player full complete power over deciding

- add the feature of a customizable chat filter into which players can add words, that if they get written by someone in chat, then gets everything they said not shown to you
- Disable trial accounts completely from using any chat, you want to chat? Buy the whole game first!
- Give players the option that in general all chat gets blocked from others, if a person is not either your frriend, guild member or group member
- Add Phasing to the towns, that updates the instances of the towns based on characters MSQ progression, bots dont play the games story, so if they never progress, this one here is the poo for the flies that turns into a death trap, becaus, everyone that will be in a town of absolute zero msq progression will most likely be a rmt botter/ cheating farm bot, making it easy to detect them.


All this together should be a powerful help for real players to stop it from getting disturbed by rmt spammers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

- Disable trial accounts completely from using any chat, you want to chat? Buy the whole game first!

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RMT bots do use full accounts. Otherwise they couldn't actually give their gil to the buyer. They're usually bought with stolen credit info or fraudulent cards, but that doesn't really help us.

I've been gone for a while and it seems worse than ever, that's insane. x.x

https://i.imgur.com/8P4krJy.gif

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

That is crazy.


However, you wouldn't see this if people didn't buy Gil. And this will never change unless the buyers are banned, don't bother wasting time on the bots, they can never be stopped, obviously.

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Perhaps they have to go after the buyers? Any time a player comes into a large amount of gil, or an expensive item to sell that he didn't pay for, ban that player permanently.
Alternative: Find the gil sellers and exterminate them all. (may be illegal though.)

All games have bots. It's just a fact of the matter and something you will have to live with.

So basically it is returning to the way it was in Version 1. The bots back before ARR were amazingly abundant and horrible and they did nothing about it then either. They just thought they would be clever and delete 90% of everyones gold while sequestering them to legacy servers with a bunch of other people who would still have millions after the slash. FFXI had their fair share as well.

I have folders full of screenshots of dozens of bots standing around various aetherytes and in different areas of the field. Doing leves and farming anything that dropped anything of value back before ARR. SE simply does not care enough about bots to put the investment needed in countering them, they never have, they never will. It's just up to us to not use their services and discourage the use of their services in others.

and i thought Spriggan was bad. but nop xD but i did spot plenty of them near the aetheryte

There has been a definite increase in the number of bots RMT and otherwise even in the month or so leading up to ShB.

They also seem to be trying new methods aside from the usual "farming Amdapor Keep for gil drops", since I've noticed mobs of poorly geared level 50 THMs solo queueing for the Wanderer's Palace at intervals of every minute or two in player search and bots farming aldgoats and toads in Eastern/Western Thanalan respectively; both types on multiple servers across Aether.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tilvalia

All games have bots. It's just a fact of the matter and something you will have to live with.

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While true it doesn't change the fact that it's unacceptably bad in XIV for the fact it's a paid MMO.

This level of botting is more akin to what you'd in see in a low budget F2P MMO that have the excuse of being understaffed.

Bots come with popularity or not.

The problem is the back end tech and it's finally become too obvious how exploitable it is.

I logged in to a similar picture from yours in my server.

I'm generally surprised no interviewer has covered this towards the launch of Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by Emerald_Swords

I'm generally surprised no interviewer has covered this towards the launch of Shadowbringers.

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I honestly think bad press is one of the few things that can actually get them act on something the player base considers an issue.

People weren't just making a stink about the housing on the forums but it was being brought up in articles on fairly prominent media websites, too.