Attention devs: Game Surveillance Unit re: open world Bots.

[Symbiant]

snip

Unlike gil sellers most people become attached to the character they play and losing it would cause more issues then it would for a gil seller. Most people will not start over again. Once the word gets out that buyers are being banned in masses the great majority rather have the character then the cheap gil.

Getting less tells does not mean that the tactics being used are effective. It could just mean the amount of gil purchased on that particular server is either in such a high demand that they don't need to advertise or it is so low that that have moved bots to other servers to profit.

If you check the forums you would see that just as many people are saying the amount of rmt tells have went down on there server as the other people saying it has increased. They just shift to the servers that give them the most.

As it stands you only see post (Very rarely) stating how many rmt's they have banned not how many buyers they have banned.

Hitting the customer is going to be the best bet.

[MeiUshu]

Someone killed a bunch of bots near Fallgourd on Balmung, they did not respond to someone mpking them lol, now they're just afking dead.

Also in Ul'dah aetheryte you can see ---armies--- of blackmages with the exact same gear queuing up for duty. I suppose it could be a multiboxer, but someone is going nuts on materia as every time I'm there at least 2-4 BLM --/groups/-- are spawning in and out. I suppose the good news of that is at least its not very gil generating*. Legacy servers get to thank a year of cedar leve botting for part of its awesome inflation.

*.

You play only in Balmung? because I have the same on the server I am ..Ulda'h Etherite three BLM appear and disappear together, same happen in the market near the board always the same three.

I am becoming to wonder whoever is doing this if that one is not doing it in many different worlds...

Mei

[Mjollnir]

Someone killed a bunch of bots near Fallgourd on Balmung, they did not respond to someone mpking them lol, now they're just afking dead.

I have reported this same group three times now, each time with extensive details into what they do, how they have a crafter in their FC who makes all their spiritbind gear etc. and nothing has been done to remove them. They used to be in South Shroud near Amdapor Keep entrance (I reported them way back then) but have decided that monopolising the Plasmoids in North Shroud works better for them. At this point, I'm not entirely sure what we can do to get rid of them. It's so obvious they are bots and yet they are still here, so I suppose starting a thread here is all we can attempt now.

The other thing is that while I've reported some of my my server's most obvious spiritbonding bots twice before, they are still there months later, months during which the Ixali were introduced and I now have to run past that same group in the same camp killing the same mobs like twice a day. I imagine hundreds of people do the same, and a few have likely MPKed them and/or reported them, all to no avail. I, personally, have not even received the courtesy of a "lol can't do anything sorry" response to my reports before.

I guess there is something wrong with spirit bonding now days? I know I have a great deal of time doing pretty much what you just listed. Just because they are on the same time as you does not mean they are bots. Are you on 24/7? If you are, are you a bot? I mean you must be since you are on 24/7 to monitor these 4 accounts 24/7? See how goofy that sounds?

Just because you see specific characters in a certain area a lot does not mean its a bot. Anyone that has done spirit bonding / harvesting knows that specific areas yield better results. Most people tend to hang around the places that yield the best results or an area that others do not like to be in.

I feel that people need a little more proof then I see them there every day.

Why would it have to be doing it 24/7 to be a bot?

The same group was on Sargatanas too. I did report them and haven't seen them in the last couple of weeks, so whether they were deleted or transferred or w/e idk. The report i filed never had a response.

As much as I hate cheating though, there's only a couple of few negative effects here. The first was that ominous phrase 'average gil per character' used when determining housing prices. The second is a possible market manipulation, but there's no direct evidence of this.

On the plus side, Tier III and IV materia is plentiful for all those folk upgrading Novus.

I agree with the poster above who stated that instead of worrying about these sellers, focus on the buyers. Put a notice up as you log in stating gil-buyers will have their S-E accounts permabanned and state that you've built a full list of gilseller accounts and that if a player accepts money from them and doesn't call a GM, their account will be deleted. Watch the gil-sellers' customer base disappear.

Of course, this won't happen, because with a balanced economy, everyone would be able to afford houses, tier IV materia, etc. and complete the content that's been provided a lot quicker. And that would outpace the developers, leading to people leaving the game sooner.

So I guess we're stuck with all you gil-buyers after all.

[Brine_Gildchaff]

What're they doing to you?

Well for starters, they're cheating. Isn't that reason enough?

As for your crafter analogy, as a 3* crafter on two different classes myself I have to object. There is a vast, vast gulf of difference between a crafter using a macro and a bot walking in an exactly predefined pattern between 4 gathering points endlessly, while in AFK status the entire time. The one I bumped into the other day even got stuck on a cactus for about half a minute, and instead of doing the obvious thing that any actual player would do, ran in place against the cactus for several seconds and then started jumping, never actually chnging direction, until collision detection forced him past.

[abzoluut]

I love the game. It really entertains me and keeps me busy with fun goals I set for myself.

It saddens me bots and gil buyers don't get banned. Since FFXI I have this crazy idea SE controls it themselves. xD

Here is what I don't understand. They know exactly how much gil every single player has (Yoshida's argument on housing prices. They did a scan etc..) How come they can't notice suspicious gil fluctuations? If you ask me, too many people buying gil. SE won't ban them. All about the $$$.

[kidvideo]

Saw a mining bot the other day... he must have been going at it long enough to wear down his gear. All I heard was the "tink" of a missed strike. He would run the circuit of where node might be, sometimes find a node, if he didn't he'd run to the next possible stop.

Also saw a bunch of clones appear & disappear one after the other. That's some odd add on their using.

I vote for an Eorzea Law & Order SVU! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8lDYrvTILc

[ArkAurelius]

as explicitly evil as it sounds, why not "disrupt" the bot seller websites? lol

[DefendPopPunk]

Seen the same group of lalafell black mages spamming instances for gil in ul'dah for quite some time. You can tell they're bots/RMT because they have those ridiculous names where it's just a bunch of random letters. Nothing seems to be done about them or no one cares lol. Also seen a fair share of bots farming shards, similar to the one in a screenshot in an earlier post. It surprises me how little is done about such blatant botting.

[ToffeeCoffee]

I guess there is something wrong with spirit bonding now days? I know I have a great deal of time doing pretty much what you just listed. Just because they are on the same time as you does not mean they are bots. Are you on 24/7? If you are, are you a bot? I mean you must be since you are on 24/7 to monitor these 4 accounts 24/7? See how goofy that sounds?

Just because you see specific characters in a certain area a lot does not mean its a bot. Anyone that has done spirit bonding / harvesting knows that specific areas yield better results. Most people tend to hang around the places that yield the best results or an area that others do not like to be in.

I feel that people need a little more proof then I see them there every day.

If you bothered to read my posts properly you would see that I have supplied more proof than that I see them there every day.
Do I need to watch them for 24 hours straight to justify myself to you? It's 8:14am EST and they are botting in Eastern Thanalan right now with busy status set (X27 Y24 & X25 Y24).
The reason I know those 4 bots exist is because I frequent the same area to spiritbond that they are in. Therefore no matter what time of day I choose to log in, those 4 bots are online in the same exact locations cycling the same rotation of skills with their egis/chocobos. They don't respond, they don't move. If you open trade with them they don't react other than by cycling mob targets. If you hold a trade window open with them, their pets are all that keep them alive.

I do the monotonous spiritbond and mining grinds. But I also show signs of life. They don't, unless they are turning in their materia and collecting new spiritbond sets, parts of which cannot be automated.

Interesting their spiritbond crafter tried to trade me 1 million gil last night. As if I'd be stupid enough to take it.

[Mjollnir]

Interesting their spiritbond crafter tried to trade me 1 million gil last night. As if I'd be stupid enough to take it.

$3 for your silence? lol