Lack of action against gathering bots, it needs to be changed, and soon

[BothFawn]

Stop making mountains out of mole hills here.

What the GM is meaning that you shouldn't exert punishment on your own, but instead report the suspicious individual.
'Vigilante justice' can always hit someone who isn't involved in all this, which is why support need those reports to investigate whenever those accusations are true or false.

Hellooo, literally the whole thread is about GMs not reacting to reports of cheaters doing their business, with some of them doing it since HW expansion. Wake up dude. Or did you just grab my comment out of context just to try to prove your point?

[KageTokage]

I don't think it's so much a matter of them not investigating as it is the manner they go about doing it is extremely flawed, because people wouldn't be getting banned at all otherwise (I've read first-hand accounts from botters who got banned that show that their numbers aren't just empty fluff).

I suspect they are not doing actual in-person investigations and are instead just using a packet viewer or some other monitoring tool to look for unusual data being sent from a player's client as the botting programs do allow people to do things that are not normally possible using the in-game control schemes. However, even that seems flawed as I've witnessed things like bots triggering skills while they're still in the middle of cutscenes or toggling gathering abilities while they're still on a loading screen (This manifests as buff notifications appearing in an empty space next to the aetheryte they're warping some five to 10 seconds before they actually load in visibly). I've also witnessed them targeting things through walls as well as keeping things targeted from far outside the range a normal player would be able to (Mostly can be observed with aetherytes).

Bots are pretty inconsequential. They're like hyper weeds... if they ban one, two more come back in it's place. There's really no point in wasting time and effort banning bots.

SE focuses on the end result: RMT. Every ban wave, they ban thousands and thousands of accounts linked to RMT (either selling or buying), and ultimately that is the goal anyway.

Bots being at the same mining node really doesn't hurt you as a player. And the bots themselves don't do the selling on the Market board, that is done by other accounts.

The RMT bots can't be controlled with bans. They can create new accounts literally the instant they get banned then hit level 50 again within 24 hours, leaving them with the rest of the week to farm gil; not to mention the bulk of their gil is obtained via quest completion anyways so they've already amassed a sizable sum by the time they start farming Amdapor Keep.

Also, they almost never actually ban buyers and the accounts doing the selling are expendable. The vast majority of the bans you see in their reports are for their expendable farm bots, with a fair amount of bans also being issued to their spam bots, but ultimately, buying gil being so low risk is partly why the trade is able to flourish.

On the other hand, it takes a substantial amount of time for people to create even just a DoL bot due to the MSQ locks and what not, as they need to complete all of the MSQ quests manually even if they opt to get around the EXP walls by FATE botting.. They could easily be kept in check if their enforcement teams were capable of identifying their repetitive behaviors and abnormally long periods of activity.

No, having the bots gathering with other players isn't harmful due to the thankfully instanced nature of nodes, but having them selling things at prices that are scarcely profitable for people who are actually playing the game is. Also, there very much are DoH bots who are tied to the RMT trade. There's one on Cactuar right now who's so persistent about trying to control the market via 24/7 gathering, crafting, and undercutting that I can't imagine them doing it for any other reason and they're very obviously an alt account judging from how the absolute bare minimum has been put into everything about them that isn't tied to DoL/H classes.

[Vnolan]

Judging by what I see people saying in this thread, is it safe to assume that botting is ultimately... allowed?

Basically, along with RMT. I know of some bots that were banned, but it took the STF about 2 years to do it.

by a GM who literally doesn't care that there is a cheater running around

Has nothing to do with caring. GMs are not allowed to do anything about them. If a GM threw one in jail or issued a temp ban for "automated gameplay" the punishment would be reversed and the GM would lose their job.

I really wonder what is Naoki Yoshida's stance on this. And I mean what he is REALLY thinking about it.

Along with RMT, the devs don't want players doing it, but they won't be taking any additional actions to combat such behavior at this time (because money). Now, if the number of players doing it were to spike to where it couldn't be ignored, then they might take action.

I expect some measures to either be in place by, or be set up after, the ishgard rankings start. Because bots will basically rule that

Maybe, maybe not. How long did it take them to fix Triple Triad tournaments? Hunts on release received backlash and were adjusted, but they've done nothing about radar until ShB when they gave everyone a poor man's version for B and S ranks. If crafters stay inside an inn, an apartment or their house, how would anyone know they were botting?

Bots are pretty inconsequential. They're like hyper weeds... if they ban one, two more come back in it's place. There's really no point in wasting time and effort banning bots.

Player bots can't sprout up as fast.

[Oxidized]

Bots are pretty inconsequential. They're like hyper weeds... if they ban one, two more come back in it's place. There's really no point in wasting time and effort banning bots.

This is incorrect as it pertains to the bots I am talking about. The gathering bots that do the most damage require time to level up to max (both a combat class and all gathering classes), and given most of these bots are (probably) not involved in RMT, banning these bots makes it unlikely for the problem to come back from the same source given the time and money investment.

If a player does decide to "sprout" a new bot after a ban, at the vert least, it will take some time for it to level back up.

[HWalsh]

This is incorrect as it pertains to the bots I am talking about. The gathering bots that do the most damage require time to level up to max (both a combat class and all gathering classes), and given most of these bots are (probably) not involved in RMT, banning these bots makes it unlikely for the problem to come back from the same source given the time and money investment.

If a player does decide to "sprout" a new bot after a ban, at the vert least, it will take some time for it to level back up.

Squeenix should be doing nightly bot raids. Have a special bot response team. They've got the cash. Have a team, 2 people, round the clock, working in shifts, to jump around to the known botting points to hunt down and take out bots.

No wave bans. Just bam. Insta-ban. Track who these bots gave items to, or gil to, and investigate them for a suspension. As a cost to this add a 3 day suspension Empty their inventory of mats/crafting items, and reduce their gil to 100,000.

That would teach the botters.

[KageTokage]

That's another issue is that in the odd event someone does actually get caught botting the initial punishment is so small that many of them simply just go right back to it due to how low the chance of them being caught a second time is.

They should do a background check to determine whether or not it looks as though the player has been abusing it for a lengthy period of time (Looking into their gathered/crafted item counts would be a very easy to expose them) and punish them accordingly.

[Granyala]

Instead of pointlessly raging about bots, just use their cheap resources and save some IRL time on gathering.
I don't see the problem. Gil is pretty much useless in FF-XIV.

Yes SE should curb their activity more and ban their users. Is it a drama if they do not? Not really.

[TwistedTea]

Bots being at the same mining node really doesn't hurt you as a player. And the bots themselves don't do the selling on the Market board, that is done by other accounts.

For people, who enjoy gathering, they do hurt. I started off a BTN/MIN before moving onto crafters when I observed how futile it is to compete against bot farms who gather 24/7 for months.

Why should DoLs be deprived of something they enjoy and a chance to make decent gil?

Instead of pointlessly raging about bots, just use their cheap resources and save some IRL time on gathering.
I don't see the problem. Gil is pretty much useless in FF-XIV.

Gil is the currency of time and convenience. You can bypass many grinds with gil.

Don't feel like doing Eureka but want the hairstyle,mounts and minions?

Buy them off the Market Board with gil.

Don't feel like gearing up alt jobs with tomestones?

Buy crafted gear off the Market Board.

As a crafter main, I've probably benefited from gathering bots. But it hurts legitimate gatherers who enjoy gathering and who are trying to make decent gil.

Secondly, FFXIV's economy is supposed to be a player-driven economy.

Which means it's part of the MMORPG theme park.

Why should legitimate players who enjoy crafting/gathering/playing the Market Board be deprived or hindered by cheaters?

I assume most players don't care because anything which is not combat content is not important but I'd like to point out apart from the MSQ,everything is optional.

Lastly, I'm going to be petty about this; I hope for those people who keep telling DoL/DOHs not to care about botters, the content that you do enjoy seriously gets infested with bots.

Maybe then, SE might decide to seriously tackle botting.

[BunnyChain]

Can anyone tell the bots to check prices on new aethersands? We're running out here.

[Oxidized]

Can anyone tell the bots to check prices on new aethersands? We're running out here.

Come over to Crystal, our MB is being stocked full of 1000+ new sands of each type per day on most of the servers not named Balmung or Mateus.

As a crafter main, I've probably benefited from gathering bots. But it hurts legitimate gatherers who enjoy gathering and who are trying to make decent gil.

Many of the people who operate gathering bots also operate bots that mass-produce pots and food (and probably endgame gear too), driving prices down so low it is no longer worth your time to make.

I know that the one bot I am going hardest after currently does this.

Instead of pointlessly raging about bots, just use their cheap resources and save some IRL time on gathering.
I don't see the problem. Gil is pretty much useless in FF-XIV.

Yes SE should curb their activity more and ban their users. Is it a drama if they do not? Not really.

This is not about drama, but about being able to enjoy a game that largely gets casual content right. There is no drama if the bot problem continues and I find myself unable to enjoy the great DoH/DoL systems that the devs created and expanded upon, I simply move on to a game where I believe the playing field to be fairer, even if it is an inferior product. Sadly, I know a few people who have already went this route, and I know that I will probably be joining them in a couple of weeks, only coming back intermittently to check out the major content releases that pique my interest.