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

[ForteNightshade]

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.

Do you fly in the exact same manner, retracing the precise same path you took each and every time? I'll assume now because it's virtually impossible for a real person to accurate retrace their precise movements even down to the harsh angular turns or momentary pauses.

It's very obvious when you come across a gather bot. They won't move naturally; have very precise turns; will typically "float" down from their mount, and their movements will look rigid at best. The easiest way to tell is simply watching for a couple minutes. You'll notice any jerked turns, pauses or just awkward movements will be repeated at the same spot, every single time without fail.

[LaylaTsarra]

Bots never walk to a node like normal people they ALWAYS land directly on it. Yes they are easy to spot.

They sure make it tough on those who work for a living leveling their roles and trying to deal with the Market Place.

[PonifiedBeast]

With most bot reports SE bans RMTs by the thousands but any other type of botting are usually less than 10. Frustrating when you can see hundreds of them when you know where to look and SE doesn’t take action.

[Gula]

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

I have /say disabled on my non RP character so I bet a lot of people think I'm intentionally ignoring them lol.

[Rivxkobe]

I haven't seen a bot in a while. Unless they just aren't that obvious?

But maybe its because I'm on Zalera or not seeking them out.

[Caitsithhh]

Imagine spending your time playing “looking for bots”... I get where you’re coming from but most ppl that work and play don’t have time to go observe supposed bots. It would be a terribly boring existence. You’re not a GM, you don’t work for SE, and literally THOUSANDS of bans are handed down every cycle... I would argue half of the stuff you see as botting is people that are just a lot more efficient than yourself.

[Marxam]

I would be a bit careful with the fate bot description since that comes off as more of a leech to me than an actual bot. While it is difficult to determine who is botting and who is a leech since they are almost practically the same I think the dev team needs to focus on the actual gil RMT farmers first before lazy people. I suggest some sort of machine learning tool to help with the team. Doesn't even have to be a complicated process.

1. Client side: Report PC for promoting RMT or other ToS breaking rules.
2. Client side: That PC's last thing they typed in chat (say, tell, shout, alliance, LS, etc.) or left in Party Finder comments will be recorded and attached to the report.
3. Server side: The team will see how many times this PC has been reported and what they said when reported.
4. Server side: Team proceeds to find main account holder of PC and proceed with warning, temporary suspension, full ban depending on evidence presented by up players who reported them.

Tbh average botting will always be an issue in any online game but reducing the amount of people who do RMT is my priority. It's one of the reasons I don't appreciate people with the ultimate weapons anymore since I know they can be bought. Really defeats the purpose of getting such a title and weapon but I guess anything for cosmetics and glamour.

[Gula]

OP, you've described me lazy fate grinding these past few days. I've been leveling MNK and find myself taking pauses to click something on my 2nd screen, I'd zig zag because in a party with WHM or BLM I'll seldom be able to get a full combo off before awkwardly looking for the next target to go after when they spawn in, and why jump when I have no reason to? On controller I'd never accidentally hit my space bar.

And ofc, I wouldn't be talking either because it's just FATE spam. Nothing to really talk about when you got 60 per zone to climb past rank 2.

[KageTokage]

Imagine spending your time playing “looking for bots”... I get where you’re coming from but most ppl that work and play don’t have time to go observe supposed bots. It would be a terribly boring existence. You’re not a GM, you don’t work for SE, and literally THOUSANDS of bans are handed down every cycle... I would argue half of the stuff you see as botting is people that are just a lot more efficient than yourself.

Nah. Real players don't zig-zag across the exact same flight paths through a zone like they're riding an invisible roller coaster. Honestly, I take their weird combat behavior as more of a suggestion of botting then anything else. It's how they move after the FATE ends that makes me feel certain of it.

Also, those thousands of bans being issued are just for the RMT/gil-farming bots who are making no effort to not be caught due to their hacking or blatant advertising. The "bans for botting" figure tends to be smaller then the average amount of non-RMT bots you're likely to see on a server

I don't actively search for bots, either. They're common enough in the late hours of the day that I routinely run into them while gathering or scouting for hunts.

OP, you've described me lazy fate grinding these past few days. I've been leveling MNK and find myself taking pauses to click something on my 2nd screen, I'd zig zag because in a party with WHM or BLM I'll seldom be able to get a full combo off before awkwardly looking for the next target to go after when they spawn in, and why jump when I have no reason to? On controller I'd never accidentally hit my space bar.

And ofc, I wouldn't be talking either because it's just FATE spam. Nothing to really talk about when you got 60 per zone to climb past rank 2.

I know you and others have said that my description fits you to a T, but do you really run only in perfectly straight lines with absolutely no deviation when playing as melee or not budge even an inch when playing ranged?

I virtually never see players who don't stutter step or fidget even a little bit while they're in combat.

I would be a bit careful with the fate bot description since that comes off as more of a leech to me than an actual bot. While it is difficult to determine who is botting and who is a leech since they are almost practically the same I think the dev team needs to focus on the actual gil RMT farmers first before lazy people. I suggest some sort of machine learning tool to help with the team. Doesn't even have to be a complicated process.

1. Client side: Report PC for promoting RMT or other ToS breaking rules.
2. Client side: That PC's last thing they typed in chat (say, tell, shout, alliance, LS, etc.) or left in Party Finder comments will be recorded and attached to the report.
3. Server side: The team will see how many times this PC has been reported and what they said when reported.
4. Server side: Team proceeds to find main account holder of PC and proceed with warning, temporary suspension, full ban depending on evidence presented by up players who reported them.

Tbh average botting will always be an issue in any online game but reducing the amount of people who do RMT is my priority. It's one of the reasons I don't appreciate people with the ultimate weapons anymore since I know they can be bought. Really defeats the purpose of getting such a title and weapon but I guess anything for cosmetics and glamour.

The thing about RMT bots is that they are virtually always a fully-automated process that will continue in an endless loop until they find a similarly automated countermeasure. Not even MMOs that actually have a decent enforcement team like WoW could keep them under control despite them getting banned often within less then 10 minutes of their first shout.

The lazy player bots on the other hand are not automated and would only need to cleaned up once in a while.

[Vnolan]

Wasting your time. SE knows about it and will continue to do nothing (figuratively speaking) until they receive a large backlash (won't happen because players benefit from the bots' existence) or until the problem gets so bad they can't ignore it any longer. Remember you're asking them to spend resources so they can take in less money.

By the nature of the topic, SE isn't able to issue comments like they can with housing or one-gender races, as some responses could be taken as a green light to bot.

It's SE's product and they clearly don't care about its integrity when it comes to cheating, so why should their paying customers?

I would argue half of the stuff you see as botting is people that are just a lot more efficient than yourself.

If it's being run on the same character, the one disadvantage to botting is it's less efficient, but that's more than acceptable as the alternative is zero efficiency.