Too many bots, too few bans: The Shadowbringers edition.

[KageTokage]

I want to preface by saying that the RMT bots are extremely inconsequential when you have things like DoL/H bots controlling the markets, PvP bots throwing games by being dumb as dirt, and duty finder bots slowing your groups down with their lack of a functional brain.

It's been a good three weeks since early access started, and as I might've expected, the Shadowbringers zones are now positively loaded with people using bots in the late hours of the day, mainly either to grind FATEs to level or to farm crafting materials. (Aethersands as per usual are a prime target).

The Stormblood zones are also predictably experiencing high numbers of GNB/DNC bots, who annoyingly force me into a situation where I have knowingly and indirectly benefit from their cheating should I decide to do FATEs while they're around.

I've already noticed several dozen people different doing this on Cactuar alone, many of them new faces to me who've either transferred in or returned from an absence (And yes, I do make a mental note of everyone who bots around these parts, mostly so I can purge them from my hunting linkshells/parties if they try to weasel their way in).

Glancing around forums and discords pertaining to the subject also reveals that there's a disturbingly large amount of players involved, with them regularly having hundreds of active users discussing how they can game the system more then they already do. The piddly amount of weekly bans being issued are ultimately just a drop in the bucket and do little to actually discourage people from it.

The whole situation has grown extremely frustrating to me and is likely become even worse come 5.1 where the developers decided that including a ranking system in the Ishgard Restoration project would be a brilliant idea when gathering/craftng are one of the most abused aspects of the game, with the market for crafted gear and consumables regularly being kept in a chokehold by bot farmers.

Something desperately needs to change, and I feel it's mostly rooted in an extremely flawed screening process because contrary to what some might claim, people do get banned for botting and I occasionally see them whining about it on relevant forums. There's no "conspiracy" to ignore cheaters for the sake of profit (If they were following this line of reasoning they wouldn't be so trigger-happy about banning people for social offenses); they're simply not detecting most of them in the first place for whatever reason.

There is a very simple solution to this whole matter (Give GMs the authority to directly investigate suspected bots rather then make the puny STF team resort to their faulty detection "tools"), but the biggest issue is convincing SE that what they're doing now is not sufficient.

The last time they actually addressed it during a live letter, they seem to have misinterpreted that people were complaining about bots strictly in PvP when they're active in basically all aspects of the game. Their only response was to "keep reporting them", which has done squat even when it comes to the ones in PvP.


TLDR: Someone needs to give the dev team a kick in the pants and make them realize how big of an issue bots are right now and that their current methods are inadequate.

[ern815]

I suppose there's lack of resources/manpower in Square to address the RMT problem. The team may have received RMT reports but it would probably take quite some time to action on them while addressing other issues. Maybe its not in their utmost priority right now but I do hope someday they'll take a serious look at the situation.

[KageTokage]

I've come to realize that part of the problem is likely tied to the fact that with XIV being the first/only MMO of a lot of players, they are likely not familiar with the kinds of behavioral patterns that tend to be universal to bots across the genre.

There's a number of traits they exhibit that can potentially out them after a brief period of observation shows them repeating the same quirks, though the most important thing to remember is that consistency is the biggest giveaway of a bot and some of these initially innocent-seeming behaviors will look very suspicious if being repeated constantly over a prolonged period of time.:

For bots in general:

-They are always utilizing Legacy type movement and thus do not strafe and turn around very quickly

-They have awkward pauses after most non-combat actions they perform such as mounting up or finishing their gathering from a node and can almost look as though they have a GCD on everything they do.

-After mounting up, they almost always take flight from a complete standstill, sometimes running a short distance then abruptly stopping to do so (As opposed to taking flight out of a run as normal players are prone to doing). They'll then suddenly whip around to face their destination and start flying towards it. It's exceedingly rare to see bots that don't do this and it's generally the first thing I look for in a suspect.

-When moving between gathering nodes or FATEs, they tend to zig-zag around awkwardly instead of making gradual turns like actual players. Their paths are also extremely precise and exhibit little to no variation as their scripts basically just tell them to move between exact coordinates on the map until they're within range of a target afterwhich they lock onto it and go to town.

-The only time they jump (Outside of taking flight) is if they get stuck on an object like a tree, rock, or wall for a prolonged period of time. They will not jump even for the sake of reaching a destination more quickly and will take a roundabout path instead.

-They can target things that are not actually in their line of sight and also keep things targeted even if they're extremely far away (To the point of it registering as "???" until you get close enough for said target to actually render).

For FATE bots:

-Melee classes only move in perfectly straight lines to their targets and never go for positionals even if the enemy is immobile due to casting or being stunned.

-Ranged classes will land at the edge of the FATE and start " turreting" enemies, only moving if their next target is out of range or if targeted by an AoE.

-When targeted by circle AoEs, they always run directly away from the enemy to dodge, and when targeted by cone or line AoEs will run diagonally to the flank of the enemy. Again, consistency is the key thing here because they literally always run in the same direction/angle.

-They will not stop attacking their current target until it's dead, which causes issues if they catch aggro from another mob during a FATE boss as they'll just let it beat on them until they're at critical HP then run away from the FATE.

-If no FATEs are around, they'll either stand still and do nothing, run/fly back to a nearby safe spot like an aetheryte and wait there instead, or just start killing every mob in the near vicinity to squeeze out as much EXP as possible.

-They generally ignore boss FATEs unless they're already being attacked by another player or NPC. If you see them idling, you'll notice that they won't budge but the instant a boss' HP drops below 100% they'll suddenly beeline for it.

-If they get low on HP or if they're still in combat after a FATE ends, they'll start sprinting back along one of their paths away from the FATE and won't stop running until they lose aggro and in the former case will not mount up and re-engage enemies until their HP is at 90% or higher. It's not uncommon to see them get stuck in a loop of getting mobbed by enemies, retreating, then coming back to get mobbed again due to having no spatial awareness.

-They seldom travel directly between FATEs and instead follow an invisible track of sorts around the zone, deviating from it once a FATE draws near. It's not uncommon to see them take very roundabout routes to get to certain FATEs as a result.

-They will never teleport to reach a FATE on the opposite side of the map even if there's an aetheryte right next to it.


Gathering bots:

-They typically have a home point they will return to and idle at between nodes as opposed to saving time by moving to the next one and waiting there. This is presumably avoid making themselves (extra) obvious by piling on top of other bots that would end up waiting at the exact same coordinates (Some back in the HW days were prone to doing this very thing), though it can result in them leaving a zone despite there being consecutive unspoiled/ephemeral node spawns there. I've even seen them teleport away, then teleport back to the exact same zone and aetheryte immediately after...

-As they cannot "see" unspoiled nodes, they will path a central point between all of the possible spawn points, then move to it after they've detected it (In contrast to actual players who know in advance where the nodes are thanks to the minimap indicator from Truth of Mountains/Forests).

-When gathering from normal nodes, they'll often be repeatedly toggling Preparation on and off for no readily identifiable reason (Maybe it helps them avoid being detected by whatever faulty tools the STF uses...?).

-They tend to land directly on top of nodes and drop down onto them from above, but will walk to any nearby nodes in the same cluster before flying to the next group.

-They'll trigger stealth even if there's no danger of being attacked by something due to level difference or there simply not being enemies in the vicinity.

-FSH bots cannot distinguish tugs and will waste their time/GP reeling in everything they hook even if the target fish is readily identifiable from it.


*will continue to update this as more quirks are noticed*

[Addicted]

It has always been like this unfortunately, ever since 1.0 in fact. In 2.0 and 3.0, back when Northern Thanalan FATE grinding was a thing, you could see hundreds of bots happily clearing FATEs with impunity. I don't know of any ever being banned for it. I've also heard of Amdapor Keep being inaccessible to players looking to do the ARR relic quest due to the sheer amount of bots clogging up the instance server.

As far as I know, XIV has no automatic anti-cheat for this kind of stuff. It does make me feel like a sucker when I put in the "effort" to do mind-numbing content while someone else just bots away and gets off with no repercussions. I don't believe there is a conspiracy, SE just well and truly does not care. They haven't cared for 9 years and I don't see that changing.

[KageTokage]

I feel like what few bans occur might just be happening to save face.

People do get banned, just not often enough for it to actually matter or scare people off.

I feel like the breaking point for this is going to be the Ishgard Restoration because if they're seriously going to add a competitive aspect to crafting/gathering when it's likely to be exploited to death by botters then not actually do anything about it that'll be the definitive proof that none of this matters to them.

[Mistyregions]

Just because people don't talk to you, doesn't mean they are bots.. they just don't like the way you are.

[Mistyregions]

I've come to realize that part of the problem is likely tied to the fact that with XIV being the first/only MMO of a lot of players, they are likely not familiar with the kinds of behavioral patterns that tend to be universal to bots across the genre.

There's a number of traits they exhibit that can quite readily out them after a brief period of observation shows them repeating the same quirks, and you likely won't be able to unsee them once you notice (I honestly wish I could sometimes...):

For bots in general:

-They are always utilizing Legacy type movement and thus do not strafe and turn around very quickly

-After mounting up, they almost always take flight from a complete standstill following an awkward pause. It's exceedingly rare to see bots that don't do this and it's generally the first thing I look for in a suspect.

-When moving between gathering nodes or FATEs, they follow a "point A to point B" style of movement and tend to zig-zag around awkwardly instead of making gradual turns like actual players. Their paths are also extremely precise and exhibit little to no variation as their scripts basically just tell them to move between exact coordinates on the map until they're within range of a target afterwhich they lock onto it and go to town.

-The only time they jump (Outside of taking flight) is if they get stuck on an object like a tree, rock, or wall for a prolonged period of time. They will not jump even for the sake of reaching a destination more quickly and will take a roundabout path instead.

For FATE bots:

-Melee classes only move in perfectly straight lines to their targets and never go for positionals even if the enemy is immobile due to casting or being stunned.

-Ranged classes will land at the edge of the FATE and start " turreting" enemies, only moving if their next target is out of range or if targeted by an AoE.

-When targeted by circle AoEs, they always run directly away from the enemy to dodge, and when targeted by cone or line AoEs will run diagonally to the flank of the enemy.

-They will not stop attacking their current target until it's dead, which causes issues if they catch aggro from another mob during a FATE boss. Amusingly, this also applies to PvP bots and is highly exploitable.

-They generally ignore boss FATEs unless they're already being attacked by another player or NPC.

-If no FATEs are around, they'll either stand still and do nothing, run/fly back to a nearby safe spot like an aetheryte and wait there instead, or just start killing every mob in the near vicinity to squeeze out as much EXP as possible.

Sniped.

I am not a bot and you described exactly how I play? It's the most effective and efficient? Why would I do gradual turns while flying when you can straight shot a to b? Why wouldn't I mount up and immediately take off? Also if you attempted to ask me if I am a bot I would ignore you.

[CorbinDallas]

I am not a bot and you described exactly how I play? It's the most effective and efficient? Why would I do gradual turns while flying when you can straight shot a to b? Why wouldn't I mount up and immediately take off? Also if you attempted to ask me if I am a bot I would ignore you.

Yeah, the "FATE bots" bit is a bit of a stretch, a lot of that is just natural behaviour I've noticed from the average player. I know lots of people who won't go near boss FATEs alone, because some of them are actually dangerous to solo without help.

While I do believe there are bots out there, I'm personally yet to see any in my rank 3 FATE log grind, and a lot of the behaviours posted here are generally what the average casual player tends to exhibit with regards to dodging and positioning/positionals.

[KageTokage]

I am not a bot and you described exactly how I play? It's the most effective and efficient? Why would I do gradual turns while flying when you can straight shot a to b? Why wouldn't I mount up and immediately take off? Also if you attempted to ask me if I am a bot I would ignore you.

I feel like I need make a video recording of how the FATE bots behave because the way they move is far too consistent to be attributed to "normal" gameplay and perhaps not something that can adequately described with words. You can argue that your methods are just the most effective/efficient, but any actual human being is going to exhibit some deviation in their movement patterns and timing of their actions. The bots do not. When they dodge AoEs, they literally always move in the exact same direction/angle. When they move between targets, it's always in a perfectly straight line.

Another thing is that there's frequently multiple bots in the same zone, and when you notice that they keep aligning on the exact same path whenever they're traveling between nodes/FATEs it starts become a little bit of a stretch to not think something is up with that.

I don't ever actually bother asking if someone is botting (Specifically because I know people generally won't respond to that), but when I notice the players in question literally never log off (A lot of these players are mentors in Novice Network and thus can be easily monitored) and suspiciously only ever seem to FATE grind in the dead hours of the night/morning it really doesn't help their case.

[Doozer]

Also if you attempted to ask me if I am a bot I would ignore you.

That's how you get reported, my friend. I spotted a few bots a couple weeks ago (which is rare, since I don't really ever see them at all) while I was out gathering and one was set to busy so I couldn't send them a /tell, but the other wasn't, so I asked them if they were a bot. They didn't respond, so I said "if you don't respond I'll assume you're a bot and report you," and still nothing, so I reported them. You're not Cool or Edgy for ignoring people when they ask if you're a bot. You're a fool that could potentially get in trouble if you're acting shifty even if you're not actually botting, so do yourself a favor and respond to them anyway. Even if it's a "no, piss off," it's better than ignoring them like a bot does.