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

[KageTokage]

I think part of the reason SE don't really crack down on it that hard is because crafter/gatherer mains are such a small part of the player base and they're really the only ones that get screwed over since it really devalues their time. Everyone else sadly benefits from it more than they would get screwed by it. Cheaper prices on everything, etc.. the whole thing.
Actually dedicating devs towards eradicating it is probably counterproductive for the business, especially considering it's a constant chase between recognizing patterns and then bots changing those patterns and so on and so forth. Instead they mostly focus on RMTs that do affect the game way more directly.

I could be completely wrong, but that's always what I thought when the topic of them doing nothing popped up. I figured they could put some measures that would keep third party software from attaching to the game but because FF14 doesn't have a good macro system and doesn't have an add-on system at all it would be detrimental to do that as it would lockout a lot of beloved 3rd party software.

I'd like to hope that with them pushing out a (seemingly) deeper form of content aimed predominantly at DoL/H with the Ishgard Restoration that they (And perhaps more of the playerbase) will start taking the issue more seriously, because people really only stand to lose from having bots present in a ranking system.

As far as them "adapting" goes I honestly rarely ever saw that happening even in MMOs that were very aggressive about enforcing them like WoW. There are simply some fundamental flaws in how a bot behaves that can't realistically be ironed out, particularly when it comes to movement patterns.

[Nomuno]

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.

you kidding me? If I can land on a node I will land on a node. These SHB mobs will 2 shot you!! o.O

-After mounting up, they almost always take flight from a complete standstill,*

Uhh what? I do this, you can enable it in the options....smdh

I'm glad YOU aren't in charge of bot bans lol

[thrashette]

I will say one thing-- it's a little refreshing that FFXIV doesn't make use of an invasive cheat detection program like most games do nowadays. This is the side effect. Either SE really values our privacy, or they just don't care. I noticed that most users who are banned for botting are only banned for 72 hours at first, so it really seems like SE willingly tolerates this behavior to a degree. The reason for that is anyone's guess.

To be fair, the activities that players use bots for are generally considered to be pretty boring, grinding, and unengaging. Here's my unpopular opinion-- introduce more automation features into the game itself. Let's say you hit max level on a DoL and fill out your entire log. Now you can "auto-gather" between three nodes. Extend the quick crafting feature to more high-level recipes with a decent chance at HQ once you've manually crafted a certain (high-ish) number of HQ pieces. If SE isn't going to do anything meaningful about botting (and let's be honest, people will do it no matter what as long as that content is tedious for most players), they might as well remove the incentive for third parties to profit from their game. It would also alleviate the disadvantage that console players have in that they don't have the option to run bots. I mean, if a decent portion of your playerbase is downloading and paying for sketchy programs and risking their accounts to automate gameplay... that's a pretty good sign that there's a problem with that gameplay.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

I couldn't care less about this and I'm broke as hell.

[KageTokage]

you kidding me? If I can land on a node I will land on a node. These SHB mobs will 2 shot you!! o.O

When they say "land on the node", they mean they drop down directly onto it from above, which frequently results in the visual/latency-related glitch where they enter their gathering animation in midair then slowly drift to the ground.

Normal players tend to land next to the node then start gathering as opposed to starting their gathering in midair which is what produces the aforementioned glitch.

Uhh what? I do this, you can enable it in the options....smdh

I'm glad YOU aren't in charge of bot bans lol

I don't think you read the entire sentence because it's not just the "jumping in place" thing that makes it obvious to whether or not someone is botting.

The whole sequence of actions they follow is:

Finish gathering/FATE or arrive at aetheryte > awkward pause > mount up > awkward pause> jump in place and take flight > suddenly turn towards destination before departing.

I think it would be easier to just make a gif of how it looks because it's honestly an unmistakable giveaway once you've seen this same sequence of actions being repeated with the exact same timing by the same player repeatedly over a period of time.

[RareItems]

They banned over 6000 Accounts yesterday xD.

[KageTokage]

They banned over 6000 Accounts yesterday xD.

Those are predominantly RMT/gil farming accounts and their ban figures are ultimately pointless fluff when they come back instantly and hit max level again within the day. They get pegged for "illicit activity" presumably because of their teleport hacks.

The number of bans being issued for botting activity was a bit higher then usual, but it feels like a drop in the bucket when I can now recall close to 40 different players on my server alone who regularly bot and still haven't been banned despite reporting several of them multiple times since as far back as HW.

[Mingqin]

Those are predominantly RMT/gil farming accounts and their ban figures are ultimately pointless fluff when they come back instantly and hit max level again within the day. They get pegged for "illicit activity" presumably because of their teleport hacks.

The number of bans being issued for botting activity was a bit higher then usual, but it feels like a drop in the bucket when I can now recall close to 40 different players on my server alone who regularly bot and still haven't been banned despite reporting several of them multiple times since as far back as HW.

There's a certain FC on Odin that's got a handfull of them, I've been reporting them for the past 2 months and saw no action taken against them, I saw them chain following each other from node to node, same patterns you see from most DoL bots, SE need to pull their finger out tbh.

And talking about bots, have people seen this?
https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ia_congestion/

[NessaWyvern]

As people have mentioned on another thread, bots are really starting to affect game play, Hyperion got hit by a Flood, but of bots. One of the Shroud areas were so full of bots, people couldn't enter, and whilst behemoth had a log in queue of 29, my husband had a login queue at the same time of 1500+ on Hyperion, due to the Flood of Bots. Its becoming a calamity.

When it really interferes with gameplay, something should probably be done.

[KageTokage]

There's a certain FC on Odin that's got a handfull of them, I've been reporting them for the past 2 months and saw no action taken against them, I saw them chain following each other from node to node, same patterns you see from most DoL bots, SE need to pull their finger out tbh.

Honestly, I'd consider a server abnormal if doesn't have at least one player that's trying to control the market for infusions/tinctures using bots.

The most "hardcore" botter on my server has three alt accounts that are used predominantly for scrip farming but also regularly bots both crafts and FATEs himself. The thing that pisses me off the most is that two of said accounts are occupying large houses that are completely bare save for a mailbox.