Aperntly just enterd Aurum Vale through DF with 2 bots, never seen this before

[Elusana_Celah]

Report away. He decided to ignore your first warning - you gave him more chances than he deserved. Besides, I doubt reporting him would actually lead to any action being taken.

Actually this makes me wonder something... What if the RMT bots that give /tells are using SE's website information. You can look up anyone's character on the FFXIV portal and see their friends list you know? What if some people don't get RMT messages much at all because they aren't friends with people who have bought gil? So if we have people who have bought gil on our friends list, these bots are targeting us specifically... the question is, who has bought gil and who hasn't?

More specifically even if you remove them from your friends list or make your friends list private, the gil buyers friends list may have you added on theirs and they may not be set to private on the FFXIV portal... So you are likely screwed since removing someone from your friends list doesn't remove you from theirs... GG SE

[Ichimaru-san]

Whoa what you're saying actually sounds plausible! o.o

[kyuven]

No, they won't. I, a friend of mine, and yet another friend of mine reported the same bot over the course of a couple months. Yet another couple months later, said bot is still playing. And that's only the reports I actually know of, I'm sure other people have reported the same bot as well, considering it's been around over half a year at this point.

Conversely, I reported a group of bots diligently when I saw them and they're no longer around.
Sometimes they catch them, and sometimes the bots have a means for "defending" against reports. The key is to not give up and make detailed reports.
So many people I see saying "I/We reported this bot X number of times!" don't give the correct details. GMs have LONG lists to work through, many consisting of false claims, trolls, or "HE NINJERED MAH LEWTZ!" so submitting a time, location, world name, and detailed description of their actions is very, very important.
It's their job to remove them, but without even the basics of detailed reports the evidence on their end is circumstantial, especially since many of these bots will have a means to automatically reply to tells, which as we've heard is often part of the rules: "If they respond, then don't take action." since AFK players or sometimes really, REALLY focused players (i've seen some people spiritbonding, not bots, become almost robotic in their actions. And since i know them personally, i can say for certain they're not botting) can exhibit the same behavior patterns.
However, in a GM received a report for the exact same location with the exact same players taking the exact same actions over a long period of time, they're more likely to take action.
Be diligent.

[Riepah]

The key is to not give up and make detailed reports.

Be diligent.

I did. And I was. But SE showed me that THEY aren't diligent about bots, and they still haven't given us a user-friendly way to report. All this "Server name" "Character name" "Location" "Time it happened" stuff could easily be put into a right-click "Report" function, which should bring up a text box for us to input what action the bot is performing. There's absolutely no need to make players put in every single, stupid detail every time. But yes, I have put in those details with my reports - everything the report form asks for. The result was absolutely jack. One of the bots in question has been mining at the Alumen area near Drybone time and time again over the course of months, and neither my reports, nor my friends' reports had any effect, that character is still happily playing the game today.

TL;DR: The report form is a joke, and SE's reactions to reports are as well. Maybe they should tell us exactly how many reports it takes until they "take it seriously and will look into it" for real.

[Elusana_Celah]

words

To be fair, when I go on a mining spree it's easy to mistake me for a bot too. I got /busy on so the gil sellers leave me alone and I just run repetitions around the nodes for hours. One day I did a 6 hour shift. While I want SE to ban bots and get rid of RMT, I was banned from an MMO a long time ago for botting when I never botted cuz someone reported me cuz I was mindlessly grinding enemies to level a character I was in a particular bad mood and just wanted to zone out and go numb.

If that starts happening with FFXIV where good players start being banned for botting when they don't bot... well this game will suffer the fate of that last MMO I played which destroyed itself with their aggressive bot banning practices.

[ReaperT]

Conversely, I reported a group of bots diligently when I saw them and they're no longer around.
Sometimes they catch them, and sometimes the bots have a means for "defending" against reports. The key is to not give up and make detailed reports.
So many people I see saying "I/We reported this bot X number of times!" don't give the correct details. GMs have LONG lists to work through, many consisting of false claims, trolls, or "HE NINJERED MAH LEWTZ!" so submitting a time, location, world name, and detailed description of their actions is very, very important.

This.

The more information you can put in the report, the better. Put in the time zone you're in if you're putting down what time it was in your local time. Don't just put the map the cheater/hacker/botter/etc is in, put the coordinates as well. For the description, don't just say obvious botter is obvious. Put exactly what was happening. If they're teleporting to different mobs, say that it looks like they're teleporting to different mobs and if they're are other players around who aren't, say that as well so the gms know that you're not just lagging really badly.

And to those of you who claim to make these seemingly perfect reports and the gms "ignore" them let me say two things.
Firstly, I work at a gas station and most people would be surprised at how many people have a hard time figuring out how to use a gas pump. In many of these cases, I know exactly what they did wrong due to having seen people screw up so many times, having seen exactly what they did, or our computer system tells me what they did wrong. And when I try to explain that what they did was wrong and the correct way of doing it, the vast majority of these people would rather fight me to the death than admit they did something wrong. Don't ask me why. I barely understand myself. But I'm pretty sure theres something very similar going on here.
Secondly, if the above doesn't actually apply, it is entirely possible that the "botter" is a legitimate player doing things through legitimate playing. It is entirely possible that somebody decided they were going to run around between a bunch of gathering nodes for several hours straight. They probably did something else while playing but they weren't breaking any rules.

I've also gotten the impression from a couple of the posts on this thread that if someone is banned it will show up on your blacklist. It doesn't. Deleted characters and banned characters are very different. Banned characters still exist and will still show up on your blacklist. Characters can only be deleted by their account owner and if they are deleted, it will show up as deleted.

[Wulfyn]

Sorry have to lol... damn ffxi chigoes were a pestilence.

[Riepah]

To be fair, when I go on a mining spree it's easy to mistake me for a bot too. I got /busy on so the gil sellers leave me alone and I just run repetitions around the nodes for hours.

I'm quite sure you run straight to the nodes, rather than roundabout ways and semi-circles, tracing the same steps every time, and stopping for several seconds at each node before actually gathering. /busy doesn't block your /say chat, and it doesn't render you blind to people crowding around you, watching you and talking to you, trying to determine whether or not you're a bot.

[Elusana_Celah]

I'm quite sure you run straight to the nodes, rather than roundabout ways and semi-circles, tracing the same steps every time, and stopping for several seconds at each node before actually gathering. /busy doesn't block your /say chat, and it doesn't render you blind to people crowding around you, watching you and talking to you, trying to determine whether or not you're a bot.

Well when I'm running my night shift 2/3 star nodes I do stop in front of the nodes for quite some time waiting for GP to build up. The nodes last for 3 hours before disappearing so I wait for GP and maximize my gains on each node. As for my movements well I dunno... it's whatever I feel like doing? Lol

[Riepah]

Well when I'm running my night shift 2/3 star nodes I do stop in front of the nodes for quite some time waiting for GP to build up. The nodes last for 3 hours before disappearing so I wait for GP and maximize my gains on each node. As for my movements well I dunno... it's whatever I feel like doing? Lol

He wasn't waiting around for GP. He was running in a clearly roundabout, strangely circular way from node to node, clicking the node, and standing there with his pickaxe for quite a while before starting to swing. You don't get GP after you started the node. And you don't generally run in semi-circles from every potential node spot to the next, because the *actual* nearest node is always already shown to you.

Just trust me, okay? It was a bot. A quite obvious one at that. I didn't take a video, and if I had, I wouldn't be allowed to post it here because of the naming and shaming rule, but if people just doubt "But maybe it wasn't a bot!" every time, no matter how obvious the bots are, then we can just as well forget about bots entirely and let them do as they please. I stopped reporting bots because of this. SE doesn't care, and half the playerbase doesn't care either. Reporting bots is nothing but a waste of time.