And the dominant population on Spriggan so far is....Bots!

[Joven]

I've seen tons of lala bots all over Cactuar. They warp into an area en mass and then disappear. I stopped reporting bots years ago because every time I did I'd be the one recieving an email stating "your account has been flagged for suspicious activity".

[KageTokage]

I've seen tons of lala bots all over Cactuar. They warp into an area en mass and then disappear. I stopped reporting bots years ago because every time I did I'd be the one recieving an email stating "your account has been flagged for suspicious activity".

They've been gone from the server ever since character creation was suspended.

I personally don't even bother reporting the RMT-related bots because they seem to get banned automatically. I've also kind of lost the desire to report the DoL/H bots after failing to get any of them banned despite years of attempts on the same invidiuals.

I don't understand what it is they're looking for when it comes to "suspicious activity", because I'd think players who literally do nothing but craft/gather 24/7 would be easy qualifiers.

[Joven]

I don't understand what it is they're looking for when it comes to "suspicious activity", because I'd think players who literally do nothing but craft/gather 24/7 would be easy qualifiers.

I couldn't say either. I had heard a long time ago that if you falsely report someone then you could be penalized, but I made sure that the ones I reported were actually bots. I mean, when you have three people running the same circuit the same way for hours and they don't respond when you send a /tell, it's kind of obvious.

[AlliciaCapulet]

I couldn't say either. I had heard a long time ago that if you falsely report someone then you could be penalized, but I made sure that the ones I reported were actually bots. I mean, when you have three people running the same circuit the same way for hours and they don't respond when you send a /tell, it's kind of obvious.

You can't use the "they don't respond when I send them a /tell" thing. First of all, people don't own you an explanation, and it's 100% up to them if they want to answer or no, they can be shy, they can have difficulty or just not read english (after all this game comes in 4 language) and NA isn't just english, you have lots of spanish people or french people in Canada (Québec) that can play the game in french on a NA server and don't understand a word in english. They can only simply play on a controller and don't have a keyboard. So it's a 0% valid argument to call someone a bot.

But, seeing them doing the same route over and over, afking at the same spot, etc, now you can have legit suspicion and report them. But sadly, SE almost unofficially accept bots, since they do almost nothing to avoid them, or they don't take direct measure like banning the account of the player. Just remember when Stormblood was released, doing PVP match was giving like 10-15% of a level worth in experience point, and was taking less than 10 minutes to do. There were real player who were playing that, and also stupidly lots of bots all over the place. What was the reply of SE? They almost removed the experience point bonus, you were earning like nothing after their action. It was maybe too much, but why did they have to penalize everyone instead of just banning botters?

Same goes all over the place, some bot let you do the squadron in loop, or gather, craft, chocobo racing, etc. I don't see the point of botting since the game become boring when you have everything done, but I guess that some people are just lazy, and also, since SE doesn't do anything against it... And why? I don't know if it's because there is too many bots out there and banning them would hurt their active subscription, but I can't explain to myself any other reason why they do nothing. They probably can code countermeasure to how bots are working, or maybe something to directly detect if someone is using a third party program, even if this means the end of ACT and other program, it could be an improvement, but they seems to just don't care. They will also just ban people who sell money (RMT), but never someone who buy some. It should be easy to find people who buy it....

But, to come back to the screenshot of the OP. I'm someone who love to find good name for my character, I know it's not the case of everyone, but... seeing like a stack of 5-6 person, all called stuff like "asjkldaslkd fjknslafskl" and doing the same exact thing, I mean... it's obvious on that case and the chances that they are bots is... really high.

[Joven]

You can't use the "they don't respond when I send them a /tell" thing. First of all, people don't own you an explanation, and it's 100% up to them if they want to answer or no, they can be shy, they can have difficulty or just not read english (after all this game comes in 4 language) and NA isn't just english, you have lots of spanish people or french people in Canada (Québec) that can play the game in french on a NA server and don't understand a word in english. They can only simply play on a controller and don't have a keyboard. So it's a 0% valid argument to call someone a bot.

Lol, I'm not subjecting them to 20 questions or anything like that, just a simple "hi" or "hello". Even using the /wave emote. Sure they don't owe me a response, but at the same time it's considered courtious to say "hello" back and most people understand that word. I'm as introverted as they come when it comes to social interaction, but if someone is addressing me then I respond.

[Halivel]

Lol, I'm not subjecting them to 20 questions or anything like that, just a simple "hi" or "hello". Even using the /wave emote. Sure they don't owe me a response, but at the same time it's considered courtious to say "hello" back and most people understand that word. I'm as introverted as they come when it comes to social interaction, but if someone is addressing me then I respond.

Silence is still not an argument, though. In my country people often do not know even "hello" so they will not answer you. And, for example, I personally ignore people who uses emotes on me in 95% of cases (mostly because I don't read chat and when I focused on something I also ignore players around me).

Moving on sircles could be an argument or could be not, it depends on how chracter behaves. If there are some noticeable glithces, yes, it's most likely a bot.