North Thanalan Botting

[Kosmos992k]

A lot of "fixes" require validating every action, which immensely slows down the server and it's capacity, which increases the amount of network traffic. So unless we want much smaller maps I don't see these things happening in real time. Rather mass-data-entry systems could check player velocities and locations and anything that is more than 0.1% out of normal gets flagged. Like there is absolutely no excuse for bots being "underground", the server is being told by the bots they are under the map, an out of bounds checker could scan every player on the server in seconds against the actual map's geometry and ban the accounts instantly... if there was a will to do it.

Thats the kind of thing that I am talking about, except performing some real-time sanity checking should be possible, the client already does it for every invisible wall players encounter. One thing I have to say though about the other information you gave about the hacks essentially editing, or reconstructing data packets en-route to the server. There is zero excuse for allowing that to occur.

The communication between the game and client should be secure enough that without some decent effort it's not possible to perform live packet modification. Hell, even if the encryption is hacked and the key reversed, we have sufficiently frequent patches to allow the encryption scheme to morph each time, as well as changing the keys. Not securing the communication between client and server is a pretty horrible data security failure.

From a database point of view, the coordinate system should have validation rules on the coordinates themselves, to do exactly what you stated. I also agree that the player movement and teleportation commands could and should be validated off-line by a system that has no impact on the game servers. As you say, violations detected there should result in account suspension. Hell, every reported bot/cheat should be put through that ringer at least, to facilitate faster/more accurate detection.

I'm not familiar with other MMO's and how they do their thing, but in the world of corporate databases, systems, networks and data security, the lack of security and integrity in the data seen here would be inexcusable.

[Arkann]

So, there's this guy who used to be in my FC then left to make his own with another member (a girl he literally showered with minions, glamour items, money for a house, furniture, etc. despite not being a crafter, gatherer, raider, anything that makes money). It's been a week (maybe more) since he's been botting in N. Thanalan, not answering my /tell or emotes. So there is not the shadow of a doubt he's botting. And I've noticed many of those who bot use the same gear:

When the bot was leveling his Dragoon, it was also wearing the Dragoon-equivalent on the left side, and level 30 strength accessories instead of level 30 vitality accessories. Looks like there's a pattern here.

[Mwynn]

Blubb

It's probably the same Guy running tons of Characters at once. It's a common thing for Gil/Gold/Whatever Farmer.
They level up to 60 and then they only run Duties (No Random Group but his own Group of 4 Bots run these) to farm Gil and other Stuff which they sell on the Marketboard.

You'd be surprised how stupid some Bot Owners are, they gather all their Characters in a Spot, wearing all the same Items.

There are also a few "Clever" Bot Owners, you won't see them hanging out in Town or in populated Spots such as North Thanalan as there are other Methods to grind your Levels.

When they made enough Gil, it's extra $$$ / €€€ for them. This is not just in FFXIV, you'll mostly see it in F2P MMORPG Titles.