Measures to counter botting

Hi,

I play FFXIV for like somewhat more than a year now.
The amount of bots I encountered and the blatant way they abuse the engine really surprised me.
I hail from other games so I can't really find channels except the forums and the Support Desk where I could get and give feedback on this issue. I reported some bots but considering the amount and the frequent action taken this is certainly a very useless endeavour. It just looks like alibi-action taken on SE side.
There what seems to me easy tools you could use to counter bots.
For one you might add a report-bot rightclick in the in the UI that prioritizes the report depending on some "if". Like if the name-pattern fits the typical botnames prioritize it to customer support for investigation and instant banning.

There is another very powerful and effective way to fight against bots but due to the history of FFXIVs engine and connectivity issues this might be rather hard to implement.
I know of some games that check the positioning of the client vs. the positioning of the server of the player character including some variables that force a disconnect if the data deviates too heavily on certain parameters. Especially for players with a high latency this would pose an insane risk of disrupted gameplay but you can finetune that. At last you can ofc. check hardware ID as well as connection identifications parameters such as IP. This might post problems for multiboxers.. or at least provide them with more effort if you go enroute with requesting a confirmation once several clients are connected with the same IP or hardwareIDs.

I wonder why not at least the report function is something that is implemented. Is there a specific reason for that?

If I went to the wrong forum or "address" with this please if you would be so kind to point me in the right direction where I would be able to provide this feedback.

Thank you very much for your reply in advance.

Daniel

I think it's a combination of them not caring and the bulk of the playerbase not caring enough for them to consider it a high priority issue. It took Yoshi P being bombarded by RMT spam just to get them to implement a quick report function for RMT (Which doesn't even matter since whenever a bot does actually get banned or muted a replacement just shows up almost immediately). It's extremely difficult to get any kind of response about the matter from them, and every instance where they did actually respond, it boiled down to "Just keep sending in reports" (Despite that clearly not accomplishing anything of significance).

Hopefully that will change once the abundance of DoL/H bots compromise the integrity of the Ishgard Restoration rankings since unlike their dominance over the economy that serves strictly to inconvenience legit players and thus is less likely to be ignored.

Word on the street is that SE staff have a hand in some those RMT sites, I mean look at them.. they all look the same pretty much lol.With that said SE will never do anything to stop bots as long SE staff gets their cut of it.

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Originally Posted by Chrisnetika

Word on the street is that SE staff have a hand in some those RMT sites, I mean look at them.. they all look the same pretty much lol.With that said SE will never do anything to stop bots as long SE staff gets their cut of it.

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If the gil farm/RMT spam bots were actually paying for their accounts, that reasoning might be sound but it's fairly well-documented that RMT companies resort to methods like credit card fraud to skirt around the potentially heavy expenses they'd have to make for creating accounts.

It's a business they've been constantly refining since the earliest days of MMOs and finding loopholes to abuse is a large part of how it's able to thrive.

http://i.ibb.co/gTXd7hv/1.png

It's unfortunate, but there's not much that can be done about it. Reporting is pointless because it's difficult to verify that someone is playing a bot to the point that they would be comfortable perma-banning; and the person REALLY REALLY looking like a bot doesn't count.

The amount of time it would take to confirm, coupled with the fact that people would be reporting basically everyone who doesn't respond to a /whisper, makes the entire proposition futile.

The only solution with a reasonable shot at success would be to allow SE to install spyware on all of our clients, and monitor everything we have running while in the game.

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Originally Posted by DumdogsWorld

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Sure, only WoW actually has actual countermeasures to deal with sellers; that's why they're a plague here and not on WoW. They have better filters in the chat system, they have a mailing system that filters out mails sent with the key words (along with other character criteria). It has been several YEARS since i have ever heard anyone advertising gold in WoW, and i had been playing since the game came out on the busier servers.

On XIV? I visit any world and the first thing i hear when popping into a world is "buy gil, yadayadayada".

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

The only solution with a reasonable shot at success would be to allow SE to install spyware on all of our clients, and monitor everything we have running while in the game.

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Except that the RMT dont use legit clients with anticheats knowing they will get banned, they use modified ones to go around this kind of things. The only annoyed ones will be legit players dealing with your spyware bugs, false positives and more taxing hardware requirement to make it run in the game's background.

And i dont even talk of all the legal and privacy issues there would be with spying all that your customers are doing, and the huge backslash it could lead to on the internet with a community used to make a big fuss of everyting.

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Originally Posted by Chrisnetika

Word on the street is that SE staff have a hand in some those RMT sites, I mean look at them.. they all look the same pretty much lol.With that said SE will never do anything to stop bots as long SE staff gets their cut of it.

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If so, SE should be arrested for fraud.

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

...the person REALLY REALLY looking like a bot doesn't count...

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GM can question you, and ignoring GM is one legit reason for getting banned. Even if you aren't a bot.

Runescape had an interesting counter-bot measure that was pretty fun. If you were doing something for extended periods of time, you'd occasionally get teleported into mini games, where you'd get items and exp as a reward when you complete it. The teleport would break the bots, and the minigames were fun for players.

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

...and the minigames were fun for players.

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Except if you didn't know the name of a certain type of bread and were instantly teleported to Varrock.

Good times.

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Originally Posted by Arcadious

Except if you didn't know the name of a certain type of bread and were instantly teleported to Varrock.

Good times.

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Didn't they change it to just pick the matching silhouette? I can't remember, it's been at least 8 or 9 years since I played :P (I miss talking to my purple fat cat with a cat speak amulet now)
The things like your hatchet breaking and you had to find where the head went was annoying though. The evil chicken killed me a few times when I was a noob also

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

Sure, only WoW actually has actual countermeasures to deal with sellers; that's why they're a plague here and not on WoW. They have better filters in the chat system, they have a mailing system that filters out mails sent with the key words (along with other character criteria). It has been several YEARS since i have ever heard anyone advertising gold in WoW, and i had been playing since the game came out on the busier servers.

On XIV? I visit any world and the first thing i hear when popping into a world is "buy gil, yadayadayada".

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Keep in mind WoW also has the WoW token system which is basically legalized RMT through official Blizzard channels. Not that I would necessarily be opposed to SE implementing a similar system in FF14.

So in essence the issue is so bad and the topic so neglected by SE that you can REASONABLY think that staff from SE is involved in illegal and fraudulent online activities.
I am not one to say SE should copy wow but there are certain things in customer support they are far ahead of SE.
SE needs more creative thinking in countering fraudulent activities.
They need a better designed customer support (especially in terms of payment issues I had very frustrating and negative experiences, to a degree that is just unacceptable in todays possibilities) and they need to show and communicate better that they actually care about this issue.
I don't know if it's maybe a cultural thing.. that in asia you are so conditioned to spammy commercials that they maybe don't care... or turn a blind eye to what seems like minor crimes to them?
But in all honesty they damage their company and their reputation way more than they think in the long run...
Especially the amount of chargebacks can turn into a real headache once your playerbase and amount of cheaters is big enough... 1 Chargeback can equal up to a full game purchase and more and the charge can increase going to 1 game and like 3 years worth of subscription..
But are they willing to improve these areas and where would I have a platform were I could bring in specific suggestions?
I am working in that area IRL and all the way I would usually contact a responsible department are not existing or behind a japanese language barrier.
I would ask for something like customerservice feedback representative and a community manager or open platform.
Anyone know such contacts?

Build a better bot trap, and they build a better bot.

Could just be botting has reached a stage, in general, not just this game, where devs recognize the wasted resources just to try slowing bots down for a couple weeks until they find a workaround.

I think the only way SE could really and effectively combat it is if they added anticheat software. However, doing this itself presents a lot of problems - the main parser people use would get hit. Modders would probably get hit. And so on. Basically what's currently the big DADT grey area would become a black area, and that'd make a lot of people very angry and SE would lose a lot of their playerbase if they didn't manage to find a way to allow those things or a replacement.

make all the areas bots operate in insta-death. fall thru the map? you die. bots flying thru the air in ARR zones? insta gib.

I find it very difficult to identify bots in this game. I thought I had one a few days ago, given that it seemed to be stopping in the exact same spot to mine every time, and was taking six seconds between mining hits every time.
On closer inspection, it had slight variations in it;s landing position, and the time delay could have been player with some disability, playing with a pointing stick or something. I eventually gave up after 10 minutes of watching.

Gil sellers: After 100 different accounts report a gil spammer, inspect that they all point to the same site, and block that URL from appearing ever again, forcing the spammer to get a new domain name and scrap the old one. This could be automated.. Just take 5 random segments of text from their message, and if any further chat message appears with 3 of the 5, block it. This way, the spammers will have to completely change their add each time it gets blocked, eventually running out of ways to get the message across.

Or, just make it impossible to transfer more than 1000 gil per week between characters that aren't on the same account.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I find it very difficult to identify bots in this game. I thought I had one a few days ago, given that it seemed to be stopping in the exact same spot to mine every time, and was taking six seconds between mining hits every time.
On closer inspection, it had slight variations in it;s landing position, and the time delay could have been player with some disability, playing with a pointing stick or something. I eventually gave up after 10 minutes of watching.

Gil sellers: After 100 different accounts report a gil spammer, inspect that they all point to the same site, and block that URL from appearing ever again, forcing the spammer to get a new domain name and scrap the old one. This could be automated.. Just take 5 random segments of text from their message, and if any further chat message appears with 3 of the 5, block it. This way, the spammers will have to completely change their add each time it gets blocked, eventually running out of ways to get the message across.

Or, just make it impossible to transfer more than 1000 gil per week between characters that aren't on the same account.

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When I encounter some again I will record them and upload the footage on a hidden video and post it here. I see them almost every day.. especially when I with 2 accounts at the same time and level in low level areas.. thats the weirdes thing.. they are very often in low level areas.. tho it is hard to catch them doing a specific thing since they literally teleport from mob to mob and place to place (without the aetheryte system, they abuse that the server doesnt check that your clients character position (coordinates) is the same as the characters position on the server.. in other games like wow that causes an automaatic disconnect)soo it looks kinda weird but its very visibly bot.. a lot of people.. all looking the same.. same gear.. all weird naming scheme (not a real name but also not against any naming schemes like KKKK1 kkk1 kkk3, they have names like AAhhZuuF Keeddoosisuf)
So they are not damaging your gameplay directly since they are stealthy.. but their impact on economy and their level of annoyance is.. at least for me.. infuriating

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Originally Posted by DumdogsWorld

http://i.ibb.co/gTXd7hv/1.png

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I love this post, I wish it was true and all the bots would become "FFXIV Refugees" on WoW Servers... that would be admirable in its absurdity hahaha :D

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Originally Posted by TnTaLuS

you can REASONABLY think that staff from SE is involved in illegal and fraudulent online activities.

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Yep. And I've got a bridge to sell you.

If they want to axe the gil-farmers, strategically placing out of bounds killzones in areas they need to pass through for MSQ completion would likely work because they can't run their three DPS/one healer party set-ups if they're forced to remain in bounds and take hits from the later bosses and they're also too stupid to avoid the mechanics in solo MSQ duties.

For everything else, they should just be having a GM contact players who demonstrate suspect behavior like repetitive movement and/or abnormally long periods of activity time then banning them if they keep ignoring them.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

Keep in mind WoW also has the WoW token system which is basically legalized RMT through official Blizzard channels. Not that I would necessarily be opposed to SE implementing a similar system in FF14.

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First, it is not legalized RMT, if you think that, you don't know how the system works...
Second, i said years. The tokens have only been in since legion, and i hadn't seen a gold advertisement in several years before that. The last gold advertisement i've seen in game was at the end of vanilla (or there abouts); since then they have actually made a good filtration system.
So it's not the token system that kept it out of people's hair, it was actually actively working on the issue.. finding keywords and filtering the chat when they would attempt to spam their advertisements, etc. Whether its bots or real people, advertisements get caught in the net and filtered out so people don't hear them. It doesn't matter how many people are selling if no one hears them.

So we don't need some fancy solution like teleporting people with repetitive play style to mini dungeons, or spyware or getting GMs to talk to each and every person after a report is filed. All SQEX needs to do is stop people from hearing the advertisements, all this requires is a more robust chat system; and when no one hears their advertisements and it impacts their bottom line, the gil sellers will interact less with the market because less customers mean less profitability. After that, then SQEX can start going after the large currency trades as well.

SE initially did try to filter to their chat to a degree but seem to have just given up after they started using weird symbols/characters in their text.

Diligence is the key thing when it comes to dealing with bots because they will eventually get backed into a corner if they're persistent about enforcing their methods.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

SE initially did try to filter to their chat to a degree but seem to have just given up after they started using weird symbols/characters in their text.

Diligence is the key thing when it comes to dealing with bots because they will eventually get backed into a corner if they're persistent about enforcing their methods.

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Gold sellers tried the same thing with Warcraft; the only thing is, is that Blizzard didn't throw their hands up and say there's nothing they could do when the sellers started getting cheeky with how they put their advertisements out.. they kept updating their filters. As the sellers changed tactics, so did Blizzard to keep ahead of them.
SQEX could do the same thing, but they don't for some reason.

Some things they could try:

- Implement server-side character motion auditing to detect teleport/speed hacks, a feature that WoW has had for years, and any responsible online game developer in this day and age would implement as soon as possible, preferably with the launch of the game.

- Limit character deletion to 3 charges, recharging at the rate of approximately 1 per day, like in ESO.

- Restrict the privileges of new players for features such as public chat, creating party finder groups, trade, in-game mail, and the market board, lifting the restrictions after analysis showed no suspicious behavior after a reasonable amount of activity.

- Auto-ban accounts if they engage in behavior that would be impossible for a legitimate player, i.e. progressing the main story campaign faster than would be physically possible for a legitimate player, harvesting "honeypot" resource nodes in inaccessible areas, etc. Speaking of which...

- Add "honeypots", gathering nodes and enemy mobs in areas that legitimate players cannot see or access, but can be easily be accessed by bots. If any honeypot node is gathered or honeypot enemy mob is killed, the player responsible will be automatically flagged as a cheater.

- Automatically apply suspicious activity locks to accounts that engage in behavior that indicates a high probability, but not necessarily 100% proof, of botting/cheating. (I.e. entering the same dungeon too many times in a short period of time) The accounts will remain locked until reviewed by the special task force. If found innocent, the player will be compensated for lost play time.

- Implement an anticheat system such as BattlEye or PunkBuster, or make you own, (I.e. Warden in WoW). Maybe even license Warden from Blizzard.

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

First, it is not legalized RMT, if you think that, you don't know how the system works...
Second, i said years. The tokens have only been in since legion, and i hadn't seen a gold advertisement in several years before that. The last gold advertisement i've seen in game was at the end of vanilla (or there abouts); since then they have actually made a good filtration system.
So it's not the token system that kept it out of people's hair, it was actually actively working on the issue.. finding keywords and filtering the chat when they would attempt to spam their advertisements, etc. Whether its bots or real people, advertisements get caught in the net and filtered out so people don't hear them. It doesn't matter how many people are selling if no one hears them.

So we don't need some fancy solution like teleporting people with repetitive play style to mini dungeons, or spyware or getting GMs to talk to each and every person after a report is filed. All SQEX needs to do is stop people from hearing the advertisements, all this requires is a more robust chat system; and when no one hears their advertisements and it impacts their bottom line, the gil sellers will interact less with the market because less customers mean less profitability. After that, then SQEX can start going after the large currency trades as well.

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I'm guessing you didn't hang around the main AH in SW or Org much because the spam bot problem never went away, it was just reduced (at least as of when I quit WoW at the end of Legion). What got it under control was the chat restrictions on trial accounts plus auto-squelch if enough players reported the character for chat issues. I had fun visiting the cities, seeing the obvious spam bots, reporting them if they weren't already squelched then hitting them with my Turkey Shooter to make them the turkeys they are.

The bot operators continue to get creative with their messages, making it hard for SE to keep up with which text strings should result in the message blocked. What SE needs to do is implement am auto-squelch like WoW has so the character is muted after a certain number of RMT reports are submitted by other players. Let the squelched characters stay muted so their operators don't get alerted and send in a new bot to replace them. If a legitimate player is falsely reported, a GM can be contacted to lift the squelch then squelch the players making the false report.

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Originally Posted by Rymm

Yep. And I've got a bridge to sell you.

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At first I thought that sounded like some illuminati conspiracy theory and that even saying that would cause trouble but the more and more I take time to get in this stuff the more and more it confirms.. oh wait isn't that how the phenomenon of conspiracy theories works?

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Originally Posted by frostmagemari

Gold sellers tried the same thing with Warcraft; the only thing is, is that Blizzard didn't throw their hands up and say there's nothing they could do when the sellers started getting cheeky with how they put their advertisements out.. they kept updating their filters. As the sellers changed tactics, so did Blizzard to keep ahead of them.
SQEX could do the same thing, but they don't for some reason.

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That's one of the reasons why I stayed with Blizzard so long and still have a lot of admiration for many parts and the history of that company... They were insanely passionate about EVERYTHING. Not just the prestigious parts... With Activision they kinda started building a 2-class employee company which is horrible but their Customer Support is still industry leading performance. Especially at the end of the Blizzard era.. when there was the Money and corporate abilities of 2 companies but still the heart of Blizzard beating they grew on all parts positively.. And most companies severely underestimate how important Customer Support is and that it is a key part of what makes you survive.. the happiness of the customer...
So I still hope SE will wake up.. hell.. if they have a Job offer for Customer Support Lead or require assisstance in Customer Support Design I'm going for it..

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

The bot operators continue to get creative with their messages, making it hard for SE to keep up with which text strings should result in the message blocked. What SE needs to do is implement am auto-squelch like WoW has so the character is muted after a certain number of RMT reports are submitted by other players. Let the squelched characters stay muted so their operators don't get alerted and send in a new bot to replace them. If a legitimate player is falsely reported, a GM can be contacted to lift the squelch then squelch the players making the false report.

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If I remember right the RMT report function does do that if a user is reported enough. The RMTs just learned to cycle the Adbot characters regularly and players seem to have started reporting less and less. The current amount of RMT advertising is far less than it was pre-right click to RMT report.

They can tell when they've been muted from the report RMT function because a new bot will show up and keep spamming while the original just sits there doing nothing.

I wonder if maybe they could shadowban them in a way that makes it so they can't tell they've been muted and thus when to bring in the replacement.

The same could also potentially work on the gil farmers if they can do something that prevents them carrying out their full routine but doesn't make it obvious that anything is going on until they actually try to conduct a transaction or some such.

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

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The actual most effective thing to do would be regularly and consistently punish people for getting involved in RMT or cheating.

People do it because there's little to no risk of being banned due to SE either not caring or having extremely limited methods of tracking violating players.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

People do it because there's little to no risk of being banned...

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I understand. Is this strong feeling of not being caught, more damaging than the act of rmt itself ?

I consider leaving the game due to SEs weak stance against cheating and botting. As soon as I've found a viable alternative I might leave for good.. very sad tho but it's just not a game where I want to be.. with people so blatantly cheating and not being punished.. thats just disappointing, sad and pathetic.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

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Arent they banning people for buying gil or what?