100's of level 25 botters teleporting from behind Twin Adders desk to Aetherye. Why?

[Hasrat]

They don't go any speed. They just tell the game "I am here now" and the game says "oh, ok." If it were so easy to implement a system to check how long it should take any character to travel that distance, it probably would've been looked into already. Moreover, it wouldn't stop anything. It would just slightly slow them down while they travel out of sight between destinations.

[Iscah]

If it were so easy to implement a system to check how long it should take any character to travel that distance, it probably would've been looked into already. Moreover, it wouldn't stop anything. It would just slightly slow them down while they travel out of sight between destinations.

On the one hand, that would slow down the bots, and reduce the speed they can accumulate money.

On the other, given that people tend to find the shortest ‘parkour’ route through an area, there’d probably be a risk of real players finding a quicker way that the programmers estimated and setting off the bot trap.

[KageTokage]

They don't go any speed. They just tell the game "I am here now" and the game says "oh, ok." If it were so easy to implement a system to check how long it should take any character to travel that distance, it probably would've been looked into already. Moreover, it wouldn't stop anything. It would just slightly slow them down while they travel out of sight between destinations.

They are actually traveling between points on the map at a finite speed, as I've seen them aggro hunts while they were flying around on multiple occasions (One of which was a S rank who was promptly killed by trigger-happy players who thought it was pulled proper). I didn't actually see the bots responsible but I did see their name show up as the hunt's current target a split second before the thing reset.

I think it's been more or less proven that they have some kind of hack check in place in Frontlines and PotD/HoH as well, as the game will randomly DC you for using gap closers in ways that result in unusual movement, such as by going over uneven terrain or using it on something just before it dies, causing the skill's movement to kick in without actually putting it on cooldown.

[LalaRu]

That wouldn't solve the issue this thread is addressing, which are the RMT Gil farming bots. Those aren't trial accounts.

You mean, botters are paying all that accounts for farm?

[HyoMinPark]

You mean, botters are paying all that accounts for farm?

Yes, probably through stolen credit cards. Gil bots can make it all the way to 50 and they can form/join bot FCs, which would automatically exclude them from free trials - neither of which trial accounts are able to do.

[Moonlite]

You mean, botters are paying all that accounts for farm?

Here is the thing from FF11. SE had so many credit card issues they created a different system. One can guess that it wasn't from the player base. I just can't believe that by the time in the life cycle of 11 that this happened it was from disgruntled players. It is true though credit card companies seem to side with the card holder over the company. So the other obvious explanation is that stolen card numbers were being used in RMT operations. Instead of working on the issue to lower the amount of charge backs. They created the crysta system, fun times.

[KisaiTenshi]

You mean, botters are paying all that accounts for farm?

Yes in some shape. Most likely credit card fraud (card number generators have existed for decades, but the more likely thing is simply stolen or bulk purchased prepaid cards.)

Prepaid cards don't require a valid billing address, or even a valid name. They're just a card number, expiry and CCV. You usually activate them online and fill that info out. SE likely won't tell us how they're doing it to prevent copycats from engaging in it. Like you can buy the US cards off eBay precisely because region locks prevent you from paying for foreign services with a domestic card. (eg Apple will not let you use a non-US card to buy from US itunes.)

There's also plenty of abandoned FFXIV accounts with no authenticator, and likely a blackmarket for them, but that's speculation. As I've pointed out before, SE could end all the bot activity by requiring a physical authenticator, but that would likely result in cutting off all their non-US customers, due to the need to replace them, and the software token on a mobile phone is simply not good enough since they can be emulated. Also, it's not like the authenticator can't be duplicated either. A better thing would be U2F (A physical USB authenticator for multiple services), but that is still basically beta-level adoption right now.

[AngelCheese77]

I feel for you OP.

It has gone done some on Mateus, but I used to park my character, turn on Camtasia, and record tons of bots in Gridania by the Twin Adder NPC in the HQ there. And yet ... nothing. Heck, I still have my blacklist full of bots and none have been deleted. So I'm assuming they "delete" the bots by just closing accounts but not deleting the characters ... which is stupid.

[laurtias]

Actually saw these guys today. I've been finishing up Stormblood, so it's the first time I've returned to Gridania in a while. Wouldn't you know, three identical hyrs in the same red shirt and cone hat kept spawning at the Twin Adders. One was spawned into the ground.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to report them in game (on ps4), and then wondered if I could try to disrupt their teleports. ... So I invited one to a party.

Nothing. I leave, doing other quests. Ten minutes later, I get the notice "bot" has joined your party. I think they had a SAM job icon, but I couldn't tell their level. Then, I get a notice to accept a teleport to Uldah Steps of Nald. I stayed where I was, waiting to see if I'd get any more teleport notices. Then I get the notice "You dissolve the party" when I didn't do anything.

It was really weird.

I took screenshots, but don't know if the rules about character names would apply.

[KageTokage]

The bots will basically accept party invites from anybody which makes it really easy to mess them up if you feel so inclined.

They'll only drop group specifically when their script calls for it, generally if they need to complete a solo duty or party up with other bots.

This also means you can get into instances with them and see exactly how they do their thing.