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

[Komarimono]

Bots do exist, but the method you describe of them makes little sense. I've seen them, they literally teleport to the mob, each time in each Fate. They don't run, turn, nada. They teleport right atop the monster and attack away, doesn't matter if caster or melee.

As for why you're not seeing them gone right after reporting, SE bans in waves. The manpower needed to investigate every report is massive, this is coming from someone who used to do it in a game from long long ago called Anarchy Online. The game wasn't even super popular, and watching, chasing, and logging one person took a long, long time.

SE, and most MMO companies know it takes ages to check each person, hence they ban in waves, using detection software and reports.

[HyoMinPark]

Bots do exist, but the method you describe of them makes little sense. I've seen them, they literally teleport to the mob, each time in each Fate. They don't run, turn, nada. They teleport right atop the monster and attack away, doesn't matter if caster or melee.

As for why you're not seeing them gone right after reporting, SE bans in waves. The manpower needed to investigate every report is massive, this is coming from someone who used to do it in a game from long long ago called Anarchy Online. The game wasn't even super popular, and watching, chasing, and logging one person took a long, long time.

SE, and most MMO companies know it takes ages to check each person, hence they ban in waves, using detection software and reports.

You're describing RMT gibberish name bot behavior. KageTokage is describing player-bought or player-made scripted bot behavior. Both exist. RMT bots tend to hack themselves beneath the map for things or employ teleport hacks, where as players that buy/create botting scripts just follow a scripted pattern above ground.

SE also does not employ client-side detection software to detect things like third-party scripts or botting programs. Fairly certain the only thing they have to go on is player-made reports - which isn't the greatest considering they won't allow us to send in video or screenshot evidence due to it "maybe being manipulated".

[KageTokage]

Bots do exist, but the method you describe of them makes little sense. I've seen them, they literally teleport to the mob, each time in each Fate. They don't run, turn, nada. They teleport right atop the monster and attack away, doesn't matter if caster or melee.

As for why you're not seeing them gone right after reporting, SE bans in waves. The manpower needed to investigate every report is massive, this is coming from someone who used to do it in a game from long long ago called Anarchy Online. The game wasn't even super popular, and watching, chasing, and logging one person took a long, long time.

SE, and most MMO companies know it takes ages to check each person, hence they ban in waves, using detection software and reports.

There are two distinct crowds of bots.

You have the gil farmers who utilize hacks to speed through the MSQ and dungeons by teleporting around the place so they can amass gil for RMT (Which are the ones you decribed). These are the ones most people notice, and they're constantly being generated through an automated process that almost certainly involves credit card fraud as they're created by the thousands each week and all of them use paid accounts.

Then you have the "everything else" bots who show up virtually all forms of content. These guys often are actual players who are just lazy and thus refrain from resorting to methods that would readily out them as cheating. They are more subtle but as I pointed out, they still exhibit weird quirks that make them stand out from legit players, mostly in regards to their movement patterns.

Also, I'm fairly convinced at this point that they simply aren't recognizing most of the latter crowd as bots I've been reporting the same group of players intermittently since late HW and they're still at it (They do literally nothing but farm scrips constantly and spam the market with DoL/H materia).

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.

A sad truth, but I feel compelled to bring attention to it anyways because it's a given they're going to ruin the Ishgard Restoration rankings (Which sound like SE's first move to give DoL/H classes a proper "endgame" to work on).

Then again, that might finally generate the backlash we need for them to actually do something.

[CazzT]

Bots do exist, but the method you describe of them makes little sense. I've seen them, they literally teleport to the mob, each time in each Fate. They don't run, turn, nada. They teleport right atop the monster and attack away, doesn't matter if caster or melee.

As for why you're not seeing them gone right after reporting, SE bans in waves. The manpower needed to investigate every report is massive, this is coming from someone who used to do it in a game from long long ago called Anarchy Online. The game wasn't even super popular, and watching, chasing, and logging one person took a long, long time.

SE, and most MMO companies know it takes ages to check each person, hence they ban in waves, using detection software and reports.

As someone who did bot investigations for Lineage 2, I can tell you it doesn't take long to recognize a bot. You don't need to spend more than about 10 minutes watching the behavior to know if it's a bot or not.

As for ban waves, this is laziness on the part of the company. It lets the bot teams build up, distribute the resources, and make numerous sales or slip under the radar. It also lets the bot teams keep their next wave of bots on standby, ready to go as soon as the ban wave hits. It doesn't slow them down. Ban waves do nothing. Consistently banning, however, prevents build up resources by taking it out before it can be stockpiled. And it doesn't even take any more work on the part of the company.

[Komarimono]

As someone who did bot investigations for Lineage 2, I can tell you it doesn't take long to recognize a bot. You don't need to spend more than about 10 minutes watching the behavior to know if it's a bot or not.

As for ban waves, this is laziness on the part of the company. It lets the bot teams build up, distribute the resources, and make numerous sales or slip under the radar. It also lets the bot teams keep their next wave of bots on standby, ready to go as soon as the ban wave hits. It doesn't slow them down. Ban waves do nothing. Consistently banning, however, prevents build up resources by taking it out before it can be stockpiled. And it doesn't even take any more work on the part of the company.

It doesn't take long, no. But you have to be able to prove they are a bot, meaning things have to be recorded etc. Average person took 10-15 minutes, then on to the next. At most you're getting 30-40 people a shift. Compared to the thousands out there, doesn't make much of a dent vs the cost.

[KageTokage]

The RMT bots really do need to be getting banned on a daily basis if they want to keep them from actually accomplishing anything.

It only takes a day for them to hit max level and start farming in Amdapor Keep, so waiting a whole week to ban them is providing ample time for them to amass gil and make sales.

[HumanNinjaToo]

I found this thread interesting. I only have played FF14 for a few months several years ago, and recently started playing again last month. During the in-between time I played a lot of ESO (it's like bot fantasy land there btw) and I learned to recognize a lot of those behaviors. I would get frustrated sometimes when I found a bot cluster and literally spend an hour or so reporting each one. Mostly this was to no avail, as I would check those areas several times a week and see dozens of bots.

I guess I am not familiar with what FF14 bots look and behave like yet, because I haven't noticed any in the last few weeks since I've been playing again. But I am also only playing in lower level areas at this time. How do we go about reporting bots within the game? If there is a report option somewhere in the menu, I am missing it. O.o Although, I admit that I haven't been looking for it.

[KageTokage]

I found this thread interesting. I only have played FF14 for a few months several years ago, and recently started playing again last month. During the in-between time I played a lot of ESO (it's like bot fantasy land there btw) and I learned to recognize a lot of those behaviors. I would get frustrated sometimes when I found a bot cluster and literally spend an hour or so reporting each one. Mostly this was to no avail, as I would check those areas several times a week and see dozens of bots.

I guess I am not familiar with what FF14 bots look and behave like yet, because I haven't noticed any in the last few weeks since I've been playing again. But I am also only playing in lower level areas at this time. How do we go about reporting bots within the game? If there is a report option somewhere in the menu, I am missing it. O.o Although, I admit that I haven't been looking for it.

There's a "Report Cheating" option available in System > Support Desk, but the chances of it actually accomplishing anything are almost nil.

[alacruxe]

The people in here jumping to the defense of players exhibiting bot-like behaviors are drawing my suspicions tbh. Almost like they've got skin in the game.

Anyway, if somebody asked me if I'm a bot, I'd just respond that I'm not a bot and ask why the accuser thinks so. There's nothing wrong with an honest concerned inquiry and I really don't think that counts as harassment. It's not like taking a few seconds to type a response to a tell is going to affect your gathering or FATE grinding substantially.

[RareItems]

I miss the Aethersand bots on Balmung. They helped lower the price of Crystals. 9999 Lightning crystals for 3 gil each was nice while it lasted.