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

[Vnolan]

Easier to let people botting in the game than adjusting the gathering system do the market needs i guess. xD

The market doesn't factor in. If the bots did something as obvious and as easily detectable as spam in chat logs, they'd all be gone. It's not like it's just bots that get ignored.

[Yorani]

SE can just adjust gathering in such cases to make up for the lack of cheaters. Maybe make gathering class skills increase quantity gain the more you're gathering a type of material, or twelve forbid make gathering skills more active than once every 5-6 minutes. They should not be tolerated because no one wanted to gather 300 crystals for a craft.

I can agree with both viewpoints to an extent and I find that it becomes more of an ethics and morality issue than anything else. There are ToS and Code of Conduct in place to make the game fair to everyone. But if those using bots to farm, and screw with the game are doing it, while the other players who are following gameplay rules might find it immoral and unethical to do so, in a sense, those that do it aren't going to care and will continue to do it. There could be millions of threads for players who are complaining about the issue to vent, but it's not going to change the fact that if all of the current bots ARE banned, botters will either make a new account and continue to use bots, or if SE finds an actual way to ban bot programs, then they'll find another game to bot on.

[DumdogsWorld]

I don't think my server has these issues (I could be 100% wrong), but if it did, I would still sell my crafted stuff even if it's not as profitable to me. I can afford to do it, too, because I gather all my own mats instead of buying them.

Why? Simply because, if all the legitimate crafters give up and bots are the only ones left, then the bots have completely won. Not 99% won. 100% won. I can't let that happen.

[Liam_Harper]

No, I DON'T want to see that. I am a refugee from that token system in WoW. Unlimited buying power has created hyper-inflation in World of Warcraft.

Hyperinflation in WoW wasn't caused by the WoW token. It was caused by the fact that the game pumps raw currency (gold) into its economy constantly via multiple sources. This was even worse during the previous 2 expansions.

In FF14 very few activities give a significant amount of raw gil, maybe Maps and Gold Bunny chests at most. Very few items vendor for much. The bulk of your gil comes from the market board and the result is that ingame currency mostly circulates among players rather than being generated from thin air.

[KageTokage]

I had a feeling that world travel would lead to increased botting activity and sure enough, there's now DC-wide groups of archer bots attempting to complete the MSQ via FATE grinding and mandatory questing.

They're horribly inefficient and prone to dying repeatedly, but they actually queue for dungeons with randoms, which can't be anything but a miserable experience for others when they make no effort to dodge AoEs and don't have BRD unlocked at 30+.

I guess the lack of efficiency will make up for the fact that they'll probably never get banned due to the fact that they aren't painfully obvious like the conventional gil farmers.

[Gaealiege]

Yeah, it's clear the policy is to allow botting scum. If you go hurting someone's feelings, though, why that's just unacceptable.

The only people that would defend botting are people who bot. So guess which scum in this thread are partaking? (What an odd coincidence that the same individuals use rightwing rhetorical devices, eh?)

[KageTokage]

I think consumers who welcome the hyper deflation the bots encourage would also want them around.

The notion that the economy is somehow sustained by bots is also totally fallacious because there are thousands of shards being pushed into the economy by people who just passively grow them in their gardens.

[supergiz]

When they ban someone for using a bot, I imagine they have to have 100% certainty they are using a bot as they don't want to do a wrongful ban. A lot of those bot things aren't detectable without invasive software like another poster mentioned.

This would likely explain why you see a lot of people not getting banned from botting.

But damn that guy with the FC house full of bots bringing 20 plus naked people to the MB for years and not getting banned? I mean wtf Square Enix.

I'm inclined after reading stuff like that to think it's because banning those people would destroy the economy everyone has gotten used to. Probably a weird balance of banning just enough to maintain market equilibrium.

[Sandoria]

Hey now, that spammer in Limsa isn't nothing. I report him every darned day! It's my after coffee & before bed daily ritual.

[Rufalus]

I had a look at the site you referred to OP. It's a shame that programmers work on breaking all MMOs but the incentive is obvious; they are charging $10/month subscription to use their bot tool. They don't necessarily care about the games that they are programming automation tools for and certainly don't care about the experience of legit players in those game whose human efforts are rendered uncompetitive or obsolete compared to the tireless efficiency of the bot.

When they ban someone for using a bot, I imagine they have to have 100% certainty they are using a bot as they don't want to do a wrongful ban. A lot of those bot things aren't detectable without invasive software like another poster mentioned.

That's the way of it I think. The GMs can't have 100% proof of botting if the character is acting within the constraints a normal player would have (no position hack etc) so they aren't allowed to take any action.