Any point in reporting crafting botters?

I seen a blatant looped crafting bot last night (crouching, standing, crouching, standing constantly for over an hour and not responding to chat). Put a gm call in and received some copy and paste response.

Whats SE stance on botting? Going to be interesting to see if this player is still running around next week.

Yes report them, be as detailed as possible in the reports

DO NOT call GMs, GMs do not handle botting, the task force does. there is a task force report function on the webpage to use instead(im sure you can find it or someone else can post a link).

What is "blatant" to you, may not warrant GM action. People are not forced to respod to the chat if they don't want to. And if a GM asks the alleged bot, and someone is actually at it (even just watching the bot running) and responds, there isn't much the GM can do.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

What is "blatant" to you, may not warrant GM action. People are not forced to respod to the chat if they don't want to. And if a GM asks the alleged bot, and someone is actually at it (even just watching the bot running) and responds, there isn't much the GM can do.

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While I fully agree with everything you said and surprised at what you said, you missed what the OP said. This person was "crouching, standing, crouching, standing", obviously bot messed up or something. I really doubt some guy is going to stand and hit his craft hotkey for over an hour for shits n giggles.

But yes as fox said dont report to GM's its not their job (tho it should be but SE has a fail setup). Report to the stf and then cry because nothing will happen, ever. STF are just as bad as GM's at their job, ban innocents, leave RMT/violators.

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Originally Posted by viion

While I fully agree with everything you said and surprised at what you said, you missed what the OP said. This person was "crouching, standing, crouching, standing", obviously bot messed up or something. I really doubt some guy is going to stand and hit his craft hotkey for over an hour for shits n giggles.

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I'm not sure why a bot would do that as well, to be honest. But I'm not saying it's not a bot. I'm just saying that not responding to other players is not "evidence", and that GMs cannot ban someone just because it looks "Blatant" to someone.
It's sufficent for the bot to be actually manned (like many botters do nowadays) to respond to GM inquiries, in order to pretty much void the danger of a ban.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

I'm not sure why a bot would do that as well, to be honest. But I'm not saying it's not a bot. I'm just saying that not responding to other players is not "evidence", and that GMs cannot ban someone just because it looks "Blatant" to someone.
It's sufficent for the bot to be actually manned (like many botters do nowadays) to respond to GM inquiries, in order to pretty much void the danger of a ban.

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Yeh exactly. You could have Player 1 who is botting but chatting, and Player 2 who is to busy crafting away and misses chat as he's maybe got a movie on the TV and guess what the legit guy will probably get reported. And this is why the system takes so damn long to process and ultimately fails because its the players who instantly get spiteful and quick judge. Really annoys me tbh. A crafter isn't forced to speak to you, a crafter who's hidden in a corner isn't an instant bot, I craft in random lone places because its lag free makes my A's feel faster haha. The crafter might also not be English or moved the game off screen so only Craft box shows.

The only way you can kind of tell is when it messes up like in the OP or if you're so sad and really want to stick your nose in then set fraps to print screen every minute, stand next to the guy, go afk for like 70hrs, then when you come back see if he's in all 4200 screenshots :D

If it bothers you then you should, not because they will do anything about it now but that they will investigate and know the kinds of things to look for when they actually do go after them. Main problem they always had was proving they are bots, they can do this if they have plenty of people reporting them to study them.

Square have shown many times in the past, they give players enough rope to hang themselves. It's far better to ban a mass of botters at once and scare everyone than pop a few heads here and there, if you are going to ban players and lose money make a statement. The more high profile and accomplished the players caught in the swarm of bans the better, as proven in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by rainfish

If it bothers you then you should, not because they will do anything about it now but that they will investigate and know the kinds of things to look for when they actually do go after them. Main problem they always had was proving they are bots, they can do this if they have plenty of people reporting them to study them.

Square have shown many times in the past, they give players enough rope to hang themselves. It's far better to ban a mass of botters at once and scare everyone than pop a few heads here and there, if you are going to ban players and lose money make a statement. The more high profile and accomplished the players caught in the swarm of bans the better, as proven in FFXI.

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Not really, look at it in a bots eye: "Woot just avoided the 1500 account ban :D im pro!". And they continue because their ego is high. Saying that if someone wants to bot, they're going to bot. No warning or ban post is going to change that. People don't do wrong because its illegal, its motive.

FFXI Has proven nothing. RMT Kept coming back, they back now, still exist just as more people left the game there is less demand for gil (and now gil is useless) so the RMT activity is reduced, they focus on games with demand. And XI got to a stage where if you wanted things like HNM you had to bot lol I got kicked out of LS's because I didnt have a claimbot. Was like wtf?! It was as if botting/hacking was the fineline.

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FFXI Has proven nothing. RMT Kept coming back, they back now, still exist just as more people left the game there is less demand for gil (and now gil is useless) so the RMT activity is reduced, they focus on games with demand. And XI got to a stage where if you wanted things like HNM you had to bot lol I got kicked out of LS's because I didnt have a claimbot. Was like wtf?! It was as if botting/hacking was the fineline.

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Yeah but with FFXI they had a very limited detection system, from what I've read they put a lot into XIV to make it easier to trace. In XI though they did the salvage bans and among those caught were some of the most accomplished highest rating players on the game, they banned hundreds/thousands at once after almost a year of letting them get away with it.

As far as I know FFXIV has no bot detection.

Reporting them is the best way. Let SE handle it.

I've not seen any action on any on players that chronically bot on the server. Seems like every four or five days some shell is catching our regular server fails in Halatali caves dinking away, like little Taliban insurgents.

Even if they're planning on taking action on many of them all at once, the longer bot tolerance goes on the less it's a sting operation and the more it's entrapment. The problem players quickly resort to botting to make something of themselves. If you wait too long, you let the problem children create problems, and you start catching people who deserve it less than the first generation of cheaters. People start giving up if it looks like no action is being taken. You can only tempt people for so long.

The first generation of botters need shown the door as quickly as possible. Waiting really serves no purpose. The STF likes to send messages with mass bannings, but right now they're sending a message that whocares lolffxiv. The cheaters are not paying for the service, offering no benefit to the game right now. If players actually heard that botters were banned, it'd be good press. We wouldn't care that some affected kid came on here to rage that SE lost his bot-ass vote. We'd laugh, point, wave, and say good for Square.

If they think that they need these players, they don't. Not only do they not need them, they certainly don't need the image that botters are tolerated. Makes the game look below average and desperate to the population.

I found one botting in a Storyline Instance.

Only thing we can do is keep reporting them to the STF. Too many people probably stop when the GM call gets returned to sender. That's a failure on SE's part. STF reports should be made in-game. You can't accurately gauge the extent of the problem if 80% of reports never get filed because they're pains in the asses to fill out. Thus, SE is choosing to make the reporting difficult, and in doing so encourages itself with how few reports they get.

Hm only 200 reports this month! I guess we must have fixed botting guys!

The captcha for crafting is also much worse than that for gathering. I kindof wish they'd do away with that entire system and implement something as silly as Squall's timed R-button hits for his limit break on each synth. Then to bot you'd need visual detection software. But then once the system becomes an obvious ploy to keep botters from doing it, it has to be fun and not monotonous. That's where the art of good, fun minigames has been lost, especially in this game. It's a task, not a game.

..was not aware people liked crafting so much. Duly noted.