The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[KageTokage]

Last I recall, the STF team only had three members on it (As of the latest staff credits) and was also based entirely in Japan.

I feel like that might be the largest factor as to why none but the most obvious of cheaters get banned as there's both a language barrier that needs to be overcome when reporting on top of them being so woefully understaffed that they likely have their hands full just dealing with the endless stream of RMT bots.

The simplest solution to this would be to just give the GMs the authority to issue bans to cheaters because they're a much bigger workforce that's also much easier to communicate with (Which is important because the vast majority of bots are not going be detectable through automated processes).

On a related note, that infamous Sargatanas bot farmer is known to actually operate across multiple servers and has a set of alts on Cactuar who perform a smaller scale, but still extremely annoying routine of listing/undercutting the latest gear.

[Mwynn]

Now Farm bots is where it gets a bit more nuanced and why SE doesnt exactly outright ban every single one. The most pragmatic reason (beyond a sub): It would crash the MB. The issue at the end of the day is you dont have enough people doing gathering and the like as professions. Bots in teh game add to that pool and end up driving costs down by creating higher market saturation.

SE could fix the problem, but theyre probably keeping the bot count in check rather than outright exterminating it due to reasons like this. Is it great? No, its annoying to the average player. Is it so game breakingly bad? No, its not.

Maybe there is a thing why nobody likes to Gather...? Personally I'm fed up and Gathering becomes a torture when you know that someone is Gathering 24/7 entirely when you yourself need to make all the hard work.

It becomes Game Breaking for those who play the Game mainly because of Crafting/Gathering, and yes, there are People like that.
Just like there are People logging in to just sit in the Golden Saucer for their Enjoyment, different tastes... different aspects.

Bots have killed other MMORPGs easily when their Company decided it was best not to outright ban them out of their Games.
Imagine what happens when Square Enix ultimatively gives the "We-won't-Ban-Subscriped-Bots" Card out, it's a get go for the Developers of Bot Programs to really mess up FFXIV.

In the end : Bots should not be tolerated at all for the price of the enjoyment of others.

[KageTokage]

Banning bots will fix the economy, not break it.

Tons of people back out from gathering/crafting to profit because of the bots constantly undercutting them and tanking prices to the point where the time/profit ratio becomes so bad that it's not even worth the effort to do either legitimately (Which just leads to even more people botting).

If prices get too high, people simply will gather/craft their own stuff until things normalize.

[Melichoir]

In the end : Bots should not be tolerated at all for the price of the enjoyment of others.

Except in the case of farm bots, theyre not impacting anyone directly. Their existence doesnt stop you from collecting from a node. It only impacts MB pricing by creating higher saturation.

Furthermore, its not bots being tolerated, its the level of bot saturation that affects the games performance. While I said its possible and probable they could, there are draw backs to that that would impact the game negatively as it currently stands. The nuance here is that a slash and burn policy regarding bots will not likely yield better game play at large and actually hurt the player base. Much the same not pruning bots will result in issues as well. Thers a very fine edge that would have to be walked if they were to take into account bots when ti comes to teh games economy and player interaction.

If you want to remove more bots from the pool, more players need to start participating in those activities. This does mean some of that would require a redesign of gathering, but some of that is players being incentivized or forced to do some level of gathering. Im not sure either of those options is all that practical. And mind you, to redesign gathering means drawing resources away from other projects (dungeons, raids, MSQ, glamour, etc). So theres that.

Banning bots will fix the economy, not break it.

Tons of people back out from gathering/crafting to profit because of the bots constantly undercutting them and tanking prices to the point where the time/profit ratio becomes so bad that it's not even worth the effort to do either legitimately (Which just leads to even more people botting).

If prices get too high, people simply will gather/craft their own stuff until things normalize.

Mmm no, it wont. Itll break the economy flat out because banning those bot accounts means removing those items from the MB immediately. There will be a sudden shortage. Furthermore, theres no real evidence that 'tons of people' dont do gathering cause of the lack of price incentives. If this were the case, more people would be flocking to do things like maps and we should see lower pricing on specialty materials (whisperfine, as an example) but we dont typically. While people DO do maps, its not something people do in large amounts. Maps, btw, are excellent source of Gil in this game yet its not something people get into to much. Might even be better income compared to farming world mats.

Whats more likely and practical is people dont do gathering cause they dont like it as an activity. You may see some uptick in gatherers if there was better profit incentives, but not substantially enough to cover the supply differences bots give. This gets more complicated by considering what you suggested.

According to you, bots are driving prices down, particularly since theyre competing among themselves. This means the average player gets cheaper items as they dont have to do gathering as its not worth the time put in. Its more time/cost effective to buy it. This is pretty much supply vs demand thats been heavily 'automated'. Each bot is doing the work of a few players, drastically increasing supply. If demand doesnt change, costs drop to incentivize buyers. If prices rise to much for whatever reason, then people are going to go out and gather it themselves. This occurs whether or not botting takes place so thats a moot point.

Mind you this doesnt mean let bots just free farm all day. Again, to much of them can and does destabilize the economy (and game at large). Which goes back to what I suggested: Bots are probably factored into the games economy to some extent as a means of price control and are pruned if to many become apparent, but not outright exterminated. This is probably why SE bans some bots but not all. Keep in mind if its all about keeping that sub, they would be almost not inclined to get rid of bots of any kind.

Thats just a grey area concerning bots. People like to see this issue as black and white, and typically want an all or nothing solution (usually along the lines of Burn all bots to the ground, no matter what). Unfortunately thats not quite how these things work. There is probably a margin they allow for. This isnt a popular opinion, I get it, but its just what Im seeing from a pragmatic point. To be clear, Im not saying "Oh bots are a ok and you shouldnt be banned" rather that the issue is a bit more nuanced than "Get rid of all bots."

[cicatriz313]

I would like to see how many people in this game suddenly disappear if Yoshi does a bot ban-wave, honestly. I've seen quite a few people on my server bot to gather special nodes and even bot to level alt jobs. Would be interesting to log in one day and a tenth or more of the server population is just missing.

[Vnolan]

I just not understand, why SE does accept this behavior and breaking of so many rules. My only guess is, that the paid monthly
fees of these cheaters are more important to them, than the fun of loyal and legal player.

Money is the reason, but it's more they ignore ToS violations wherever possible. If the number of bots greatly increased you'd see them do something.

You're wasting your time trying to get SE to do anything. It's not like housing where you'll get an enormous outcry from the community since many benefit directly from the presence of bots.

Would be interesting to log in one day and a tenth or more of the server population is just missing.

Which is why it (mass permanent bans for botting) will never happen. That's a lot of money to pass up for no good reason. If they ever start to take player bots seriously, you'll see an announcement about a change to something before they do anything as a means to give players a heads-up.

[MaybeOliverB]

Literally everyone benefits from cheap materials, you people just have it backwards.

[NYCAcimStudent]

Melichoir gets it.

World of Warcraft did 2 things to successfully combat bots. They decided to become the RMT directly, thus eliminating the need for RMT bots. They also cracked down hardcore on farm bots.

Result: Massive inflation + Scarcity of raw materials. The scarcity just drives up the price even more. There are less and less goods and players have more and more gold. It is a vicious cycle. The majority of people have an obscene amount of gold because they can just buy it (rather than earn it) and will pay whatever is charged. There is no free-market mechanism to control prices because Blizzard is essentially printing money.

FFXIV does not want to copy WoW policies. Is there some way to ban the bots in FFXIV without annihilating the in-game economy?

[Kuroka]

To options:

Ban ALL bots, including their owners accounts, with no mercy. MAybe even list em on Lodestone lol.

Or

Offically admit that Gathering, MB and Crafting bots are ok then ill start using one too.


theres is no grey area. while some might not care, many just give up as its this bad...

[Mwynn]

Blubb

This is your Opinion and that's fine, tho I don't see how your Statement becomes valid when your only Crafter Class is Carpenter at Lv.42 next to your Gatherers being below Lv.60.
You might have a better Opinion about this matter if you'd became an Omnicrafter and a Gatherer at Lv.70, just so you can see how frustrating this matter is.

It becomes an Issue when a single Player owns a entire FC with their Botting Characters.
(Multiple Crafters sitting in the FC House that is closed for others and the Gatherers doing mostly Ephermal Node Botting).

There is a Guy on Gilgamesh who sits 24/7 in the FC House being Alchemist on their Crafters while having Retainers named after Infusion Pots.
Amount of Infusion Pots for each type is close to 1000x, do that with your own Hands, riiiiiight.