Has Square Enix given up on countering RMT and botting?

Lost Ark has a severe RMT spam issue and lo and behold:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...302-162113.jpg

I wonder when we can see the same in FF14? Are the developers even aware of all the undercutting bots and long-time crafting and gathering bots that exist right now in NA and EU? Or have they completely given up?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Market-botting

The fact that we can have a 64-page thread on market undercut botting all the way from 2020 (and believe me it was a thing prior to 2020 already. The problem has started since at least late HW), and yet there has been zero progress and zero developer feedback either indicates that Square Enix has completely given up on this issue or they're not even aware of it.

And what about people speedhacking in Feast? And of people hacking the GCD in Savage fights? Of people using bots to do their rotations for them in Savage?

Why has there been not a single word from the developers that they're even AWARE of this issue?

I can't believe Lost Ark has a better response to RMT and botting than FF14! It's time to take this seriously, SE.

Lost Ark is banning more bots than FF14 did in an entire year LOOOL

https://forums.playlostark.com/t/inc...ot-bans/233996

https://preview.redd.it/edlt32039gl81.png

What do you mean by no response? They post every week on the Lodestone the number of accounts that have been banned.

This doesn't really say much of anything though. They claim bots don't last longer than 10 minutes in game, but if that's true then why restrict the chat so much? I haven't seen RMT advertising in area chat myself but I suppose it is a problem elsewhere if people are complaining about it. As for botting in Savage, I have never heard of it before now so if it is a thing no one is complaining about it enough outside of very tight raiding circles.

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Originally Posted by Espon

What do you mean by no response? They post every week on the Lodestone the number of accounts that have been banned.

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Which are the ones teleporting under the ground with likely stolen (thereby chargebacked) money, yes?

Remember, bots are marked separately from rmt too. They even mention it on their report. Them slapping the lowest of low hanging fruit isn't much. I'm sure anybody just playing the game could catch those obvious ones, even a brand new player.

I've noticed considerably less of the ARR gil farmers, but whether that's due to them moving onto more "sustainable" methods of farming or actual improvements in their enforcement is anyone's guess.

The fact that they had apparently found some kind of long-standing exploit with NPC vendors in some ARR zones/cities that mandated an emergency maintenance a few weeks ago speaks a lot for how diligent they are about finding new methods to abuse for gil, though...

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Originally Posted by Espon

What do you mean by no response? They post every week on the Lodestone the number of accounts that have been banned.

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Yeah, then those accounts are replaced nigh instantaneously. There's a difference between a response and a meaningful response, as simply banning every mass-produced, easily detected bot that pops up without taking measures to prevent them from earning/transferring their gil accomplishes nothing as they're still managing to fulfill their purpose before any action is taken.

If they want to actually hurt them, they need to be banned immediately, as a full week between ban waves is more then enough time for them to farm up a substantial amount of gil then either sell it or transfer it elsewhere.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

Them slapping the lowest of low hanging fruit isn't much. I'm sure anybody just playing the game could catch those obvious ones, even a brand new player.

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The thing that bugs me is that even the "advanced" bots that farm EW materials or treasure maps are still painfully obvious but the enforcement teams either haven't learned how to recognize their extremely systematic behavior or they're not even using certain factors like movement patterns as a reference point in determining which accounts are suspicious and worthy of investigation.

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Originally Posted by Espon

What do you mean by no response? They post every week on the Lodestone the number of accounts that have been banned.

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To anyone who actually unironically believes in this:

The weekly RMT ban announcements target the lowest hanging fruits. These are the bots that advertise Gil in the main cities, and teleporting bots that rush the ARR MSQ.

Actual endgame RMT bots and bots in general are hardly targeted. Read the thread linked in OP to see how disruptive undercutting bots are. These undercutting bots, many of which serve as vehicles for RMT, are banned at an extremely low rate, so much so that some of them have lasted years and are still undercut botting on the market board.

The very fact that there is a 64-page thread over years in a FRINGE subforum indicates that this is an ongoing and serious issue with the game.

And Square Enix has not fixed this issue, nor have they even ever talked about the existence of undercut botting.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Unless it’s your level 1 GLA/ARC/MRD bots named Aalsdkjflaj Galskdjfalskjdf sitting in Ul’dah/Gridania/Limsa, then the answer is no. People have been reporting things like Market Board undercutting bots and crafting/gathering bots for years, and a lot of them are still around happily botting away.

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That is just ONE issue of many that relate to RMT and botting. Many other issues have never ever been mentioned by the developer team, like speedhacking.

How is it that people keep taking these bait posts?

BroJobs, the god of trolls.

I posted in a Skiros thread March 2 2022

No idea, but they've let these forums become something akin to the "Wild West" with all of this low quality bait floating around.

So how effective has this actually cut down RMT in lost ark. Is it a ton of improvement or a bunch of wasted effort?

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...2b976839960cae

Just so you know they take care of the bots at Limsa near MB when it happened at my server

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...tac4bjIWQK.png

Yep. Game totally sucks now. Might as well just quit.

Hey OP, how bored are you?

Ummm, they do something against it:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...vities-(Mar.-3)

:)

Cheers

OP:
"Look at this lost ark dev message. This shows how quickly they deal with RMT and botton. Why doesn't SE do anything like this?"

Also OP after being presented with examples of SE giving regular reports on how many accounts they banned that engaged in botton/rmt trading:
"Oh please who actually believes those devs. Don't kid yourself"


Skiros let's not pretend there isn't a constant RMT spam in chat in Lost Ark

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Originally Posted by Miiu

OP:
"Look at this lost ark dev message. This shows how quickly they deal with RMT and botton. Why doesn't SE do anything like this?"

Also OP after being presented with examples of SE giving regular reports on how many accounts they banned that engaged in botton/rmt trading:
"Oh please who actually believes those devs. Don't kid yourself"


Skiros let's not pretend there isn't a constant RMT spam in chat in Lost Ark

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I mean, I'm not someone who's even touched LA, so I'm not gonna comment there, but I'm not going to sit there and pretend they're actually taking care of bots that aren't the lowest hanging fruit. Even the linked announcement from Larira is only a few bots (Notice, they do always separate the low hanging butchered teleporters from other bots) and the last time they actually terminated one (ONE) was like... early January. So it takes them almost 2 months just a snatch a couple, while I STILL see the trains of gather, market, and map bots just doing whatever they please for as long as their hearts desire.

I'm not gonna pretend LA is doing anything better. Again, don't play, literally can't comment if it's better or worse (probably worse, given free 2 play), but I'm really not gonna sit here and pretend we're doing anything better. Heck you can even find some bot threads here where players straight up defend bots, saying they're good for the game's economy so we should be embracing people literally cheating, not banning them. It's... a scary idea.

Oh u at it again go outside or something get a hobby.

Give up? Don't they let us know somewhat regularly how many accounts relating to RMT have been suspended? If I remember correctly it's always a number in the thousands. I don't think they've given up, but I don't fully know how they tackle the issue.

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Originally Posted by CrayonsAndPaint

BroJobs, the god of trolls.

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Not trolling! I was just surprised Lost Ark is even putting effort into banning RMT bots! I've played FF14 for so long I never expected any MMO dev to care about banning bots anymore! Then I thought - hey, why *is* it surprising that Lost Ark is banning these bots and communicating with its players on what steps they are going to take?

Guess I've been too numb to the inaction and the general laissez-faire attitude to this problem among the playerbase these days!

It is refreshing to have a game that at least pretends it gives a damn about the botting! And the fact that the average bot lasts 10 mins in LA when endgame bots last for years in FF14 (which as you probably know I am intimately familiar with) is just sad!

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

I mean, I'm not someone who's even touched LA, so I'm not gonna comment there, but I'm not going to sit there and pretend they're actually taking care of bots that aren't the lowest hanging fruit. Even the linked announcement from Larira is only a few bots (Notice, they do always separate the low hanging butchered teleporters from other bots) and the last time they actually terminated one (ONE) was like... early January. So it takes them almost 2 months just a snatch a couple, while I STILL see the trains of gather, market, and map bots just doing whatever they please for as long as their hearts desire.

I'm not gonna pretend LA is doing anything better. Again, don't play, literally can't comment if it's better or worse (probably worse, given free 2 play), but I'm really not gonna sit here and pretend we're doing anything better. Heck you can even find some bot threads here where players straight up defend bots, saying they're good for the game's economy so we should be embracing people literally cheating, not banning them. It's... a scary idea.

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Exactly! It's sad that 95% of the playerbase is fooled by the weekly ban post when 99.9% of that "4000 banned" figure are just the RMT ad bots! Anyone in the know realizes this.

Honestly at this point I'm ready to believe they aren't doing the most they can because bots still have to pay for a license and subscription. Lost Ark is free.

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Originally Posted by Meowdyj

Honestly at this point I'm ready to believe they aren't doing the most they can because bots still have to pay for a license and subscription. Lost Ark is free.

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Ney. It is not that easy to detect bots programmatically without many false-positives. :) And you want to avoid many false-positives at all costs because this are regular customers who did nothing wrong. :) I do not know how the bot detection in FF14 works. But i have surely some ideas how to improve it. :) Provided those mechanisms are not already in the game.


Cheers

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

Ney. It is not that easy to detect bots programmatically without many false-positives. :) And you want to avoid many false-positives at all costs because this are regular customers who did nothing wrong. :) I do not know how the bot detection in FF14 works. But i have surely some ideas how to improve it. :) Provided those mechanisms are not already in the game.


Cheers

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From what I've *heard* (so take it with a grain of salt), there are mechanisms to trap bots and make it more visible but I don't have any specifics on what. Just what I was told from someone else who actually got a GM out to investigate a bot they noticed.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Give up? Don't they let us know somewhat regularly how many accounts relating to RMT have been suspended? If I remember correctly it's always a number in the thousands. I don't think they've given up, but I don't fully know how they tackle the issue.

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Despite SE's statements about ban-waves, there is little to no real impact on the prevalence of botting on 14. They make a show of banning the silly teleporting bots and a few RMT spammers, but the more impactful types of botting go more or less totally unpunished. An ex-FC mate of mine has been botting for 2+ years straight, running his in character in gathering loops 24-7, and has never gotten so much as a warning about it. There are many people like him out there, and they are doing significantly more damage to the in-game economy than RMT bots. On most servers, if you gather timed nodes regularly you'll pretty quickly become familiar with who is botting.

They haven't done anything since day 1. Even in version 1 the botting and rmt were so bad the same characters would root themselves in place for months and would actively prevent you from farming some materials and they still did absolutely diddly. XI is in an even worse state and they do nothing. Any ff mmos in the future will likely be the same thing. SE just does not care because they are getting that monthly sub from them and there is no way you can change my mind of that.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

Lost Ark has a severe RMT spam issue and lo and behold:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...302-162113.jpg

I wonder when we can see the same in FF14? Are the developers even aware of all the undercutting bots and long-time crafting and gathering bots that exist right now in NA and EU? Or have they completely given up?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Market-botting

The fact that we can have a 64-page thread on market undercut botting all the way from 2020 (and believe me it was a thing prior to 2020 already. The problem has started since at least late HW), and yet there has been zero progress and zero developer feedback either indicates that Square Enix has completely given up on this issue or they're not even aware of it.

And what about people speedhacking in Feast? And of people hacking the GCD in Savage fights? Of people using bots to do their rotations for them in Savage?

Why has there been not a single word from the developers that they're even AWARE of this issue?

I can't believe Lost Ark has a better response to RMT and botting than FF14! It's time to take this seriously, SE.

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Oh god that would suck for new players. Whenever I came back and rerolled someone was always nice and gifted my 1 million gold. :)

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

Despite SE's statements about ban-waves, there is little to no real impact on the prevalence of botting on 14. They make a show of banning the silly teleporting bots and a few RMT spammers, but the more impactful types of botting go more or less totally unpunished. An ex-FC mate of mine has been botting for 2+ years straight, running his in character in gathering loops 24-7, and has never gotten so much as a warning about it. There are many people like him out there, and they are doing significantly more damage to the in-game economy than RMT bots. On most servers, if you gather timed nodes regularly you'll pretty quickly become familiar with who is botting.

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Adding to this, I've raided with people who used a second character to test what sort of hacks and crap they can get away with before doing them on his main. To quote them, "Surprisingly, almost everything I've tried." Another person knew someone else who bot crafted and she basically said, "I could crash the pot market in a day if I wanted to. Even if it's selling for 500 gil, it's still free gil to me." They're both still playing to this day and these conversations were years ago now. Cactuar has two notorious botters who have infested the crafting market for years and SE has done nothing.

The whole RMT reports are a complete show and little else. They do absolutely nothing towards impact botting, which is why people have become more emboldened over the years.

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Originally Posted by CrayonsAndPaint

BroJobs, the god of trolls.

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The irony is his new "trolling" seems to be posting relevant or factual claims and banking on people dismissing them over his reputation. Say what you will about BroJobs/Skiros' history, SE's response to botting has been utterly laughable at best. I don't doubt for a second Lost Ark handles them better because virtually every other mainline MMO does.

If you want to take RMT filters into your own hands, there's a plugin that does just that from what I hear. Apparently you select what you want to block and can write your own filters and you never see those messages again. But it is against the ToS. What do people consider RMT anyway? I consider it cash for gold since it's Real Money Trading. RMT isn't putting yourself as a mercenary on the PF, Yoshi P said that was what the PF was intended to be. I have reported botters before and they were never banned. I think we can all remember what happened during the Ishgard Restoration with players turning in crafts equivalent to 24/7 crafting. Obviously this is impossible to do but somehow they weren't banned. lol...

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Originally Posted by Skiros

Not trolling! I was just surprised Lost Ark is even putting effort into banning RMT bots!

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Lost Ark depends on selling players the materials to succeed in future gearing attempts. Why would they not shut down a competitor to their source of income?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Lost Ark depends on selling players the materials to succeed in future gearing attempts. Why would they not shut down a competitor to their source of income?

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Oh, so is it somehow acceptable for FF14 to permit RMT now?

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Lost Ark depends on selling players the materials to succeed in future gearing attempts. Why would they not shut down a competitor to their source of income?

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You could ask the same for FF14. :) In FF14 you can legally buy Gil for real money.


Cheers

A lot of people seem to operate under the illusion that the only bots in the game are those teleporting gil farmers you see in ARR areas when they can be found in virtually all forms of content.

As far as I've noticed, the only time people actually get semi-reliably punished is if their program glitches out and has them repeating a fruitless sequence of actions for hours on end and that same player is also reported by several different people, as a couple of cheaters did get removed from the Firmament rankings, but far more did not.

I'd agree that the weekly ban reports honestly are probably encouraging people to start cheating now that they've made a distinction between the bots that are easily discernable as being RMT-related and the ones that are more ambiguous. It's rare to see even a single temporary ban in the figures when an average server tends to have dozens of people automating the farming of DoH/L items.

Is there a reason to report players botting? I was in Ul'dah at like.. maybe 3am EST or so a week ago and there was someone with like, idk 7-8 characters following them. All sprouts, same outfit/race/ect, named like "FC Support 1/2/3/ect". I took screenshots and reported it, but is it actually actionable? They weren't doing anything reportable perse, just using Peloton to make them zoom, but would anything actually happen?

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Originally Posted by Skiros

Oh, so is it somehow acceptable for FF14 to permit RMT now?

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I never said anything beyond offering an explanation, given your level of surprise: "Not trolling! I was just surprised Lost Ark is even putting effort into banning RMT bots!"

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

You could ask the same for FF14. :) In FF14 you can legally buy Gil for real money.

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I am so very interested in hearing how you legally purchase Gil for real money in this game. Go on. Give me some links that aren't example to a purported "bank".

Or was that supposed to be sarcasm? irony? You have to do a bit better.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I am so very interested in hearing how you legally purchase Gil for real money in this game. Go on. Give me some links that aren't example to a purported "bank".

Or was that supposed to be sarcasm? irony? You have to do a bit better.

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You get a bunch of gil for every job you skip with a jobskip.

You can also pay a real money subscription for additional retainers, which increases your ability to generate passive income.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

I am so very interested in hearing how you legally purchase Gil for real money in this game. Go on. Give me some links that aren't example to a purported "bank".

Or was that supposed to be sarcasm? irony? You have to do a bit better.

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I mean, if I do wanna be technical here, legal's not really a word to use, and it's not illegal as there's no literal law saying "You can't do this".

But if we say legal as in "will I get in trouble for this or not", considering there are players who straight admit it in game, including one of my ex-fc members who tried to use his rmt and botting flex's to make the fc's crafters do his bidding, Square certainly makes it clear what's actually okay or not when he's not punished for it, despite OPEN ADMISSION

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Originally Posted by Padudu

Is there a reason to report players botting? I was in Ul'dah at like.. maybe 3am EST or so a week ago and there was someone with like, idk 7-8 characters following them. All sprouts, same outfit/race/ect, named like "FC Support 1/2/3/ect". I took screenshots and reported it, but is it actually actionable? They weren't doing anything reportable perse, just using Peloton to make them zoom, but would anything actually happen?

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Anything that isn't immediately discernable as cheating seems to be seldom actioned in general, though even some more egregious stuff like people hacking in PvP to increase their movement speed has been known to go under the radar frequently.

By principle botting in general is against the ToS and something that can enforced, but it's generally not going to be directly interfering with your gameplay unless you get someone using a poorly programmed bot in duty finder or someone multiboxing in PvP.

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Originally Posted by Padudu

Is there a reason to report players botting? I was in Ul'dah at like.. maybe 3am EST or so a week ago and there was someone with like, idk 7-8 characters following them. All sprouts, same outfit/race/ect, named like "FC Support 1/2/3/ect". I took screenshots and reported it, but is it actually actionable? They weren't doing anything reportable perse, just using Peloton to make them zoom, but would anything actually happen?

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No, that's role-playing most probably. Player trains happen often especially when people are guild recruiting or bored unless I misunderstood what you're saying. I doubt any report you make would be actionable since there's really nothing going on that would violate the ToS