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

[Granyala]

Tbh I don't really care about the gathering bots. Those leveling bots on the other hand, that induce queue time congestion (server as well duty based), now THOSE are the real problem. Create an alt on Spriggan or Twintania, see for yourself.

Wouldn't a gathering bot also increase the server login queue?
Luckily Cerb only has queues of like ... 20-50 when logging in.

So you believe the MB is overpriced when players charge gil that makes it worth their time to gather, yet it is "fair" when a bot is able to charge bargain basement prices because it saves everyone "time"?

I never said it was fair. I said it was realistic. (And yes: most crafters tend to overprice stuff to a rather ridiculously degree. Why? Because they are greedy and market bears it and they do it for as long as it continues to bear it. Simple economy 101)
I said it was an advantage for the consumer.

Just like in real life, most people do not care where the cheap prices come from. They don't care about absurdly low wages, horrible working conditions and destruction of the environment in 3rd world countries. All they care about is paying less for more.

So why exactly do you expect people to care about some videogame economy? If the bot's goods are cheaper people will buy them because the bot offered them an advantage.

BTW: I repeatedly stated that I want SE to crack down harder on Bots. So you can stop trying to paint me as some villain now just because I don't share your dramatic view of the situation. I probably would if Gil was an actually useful currency but sitting on 100M+ for years now with no sensible way of ever spending that I just can't see the issue.

It is supposed to take time to acquire the materials.

Having done it myself often enough: nope. It doesn't. Past the leveling process of the gatherer, mat acquisition is pretty much instantaneous.
Port to node -> gather -> be done in under 2 minutes. Esp for crafters that do not need HQ mats and can kick the gathering RNG out of the equation.

Patterns would need A LOT more materials in order for gathering time per item to become an actual issue.

[KageTokage]

Wouldn't a gathering bot also increase the server login queue?
Luckily Cerb only has queues of like ... 20-50 when logging in.

The gil farmers are a burden on the queues as their connections tend to be unstable at best as a side effect of running several hundred accounts off of the same computer and using heavily modified clients to boot.

I regularly see them getting mass DC'd in the event they leave themselves out in the open for a prolonged period of time.

[Oxidized]

Having done it myself often enough: nope. It doesn't. Past the leveling process of the gatherer, mat acquisition is pretty much instantaneous.
Port to node -> gather -> be done in under 2 minutes.

Then why are you complaining so much about things being overpriced? People can price items at whatever levels they choose, it is up to the buyer to actually spend the gil. Complaining about items being too expensive makes sense if there was a barrier to obtain them, but given you are now making it sound so easy, I do not understand your motivations for posting here except to garner attention for yourself.

So you can stop trying to paint me as some villain now just because I don't share your dramatic view of the situation.

Only one of us is being dramatic, I have never painted you as anything; if I feel your arguments are off the mark, I will not hesitate to attempt to refute them.

BTW: I repeatedly stated that I want SE to crack down harder on Bots.

Yes, along with messages such as 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.

See why it is difficult to take your stance seriously?

You fail to recognize that many people who craft and gather do it because we enjoy it, gain a personal sense of satisfaction from doing so, and want this aspect of the game to be fair and meaningful. Gil is not something we really need, but many of us use it as a personal scorecard, how does one have fun knowing in the back of our minds that we will always lose to someone who is overtly cheating?

[Kaedan]

You fail to recognize that many people who craft and gather do it because we enjoy it, gain a personal sense of satisfaction from doing so, and want this aspect of the game to be fair and meaningful. Gil is not something we really need, but many of us use it as a personal scorecard, how does one have fun knowing in the back of our minds that we will always lose to someone who is overtly cheating?

1) If you don't care about gil and only care about the "fun" of crafting/gathering, then bots literally don't matter at all to you and don't affect you in a negative way at all (even in the rare cases they DO significantly drive down prices).

2) Botting isn't actually cheating. Bot gathering doesn't allow you to do anything that player couldn't normally do (unless they are teleport hacking). All it does is automate the process so you don't have to actually be sitting at the computer. Bots (in most cases) follow all the same rules as manually operated players. Botting is actually slower than manual gathering, but the trade off is that you don't have to be present, so you can just let it run a long time to make up for the slowness.

Yes, it's against the ToS just like any 3rd party program. But it isn't cheating (teleport hacks are a completely separate thing and not intrinsic to botting).

[Oxidized]

1) If you don't care about gil and only care about the "fun" of crafting/gathering, then bots literally don't matter at all to you and don't affect you in a negative way at all (even in the rare cases they DO significantly drive down prices).

Please do not put words in my mouth, I never said I did not care about the gil. People who do a lot of DoH/DoL content use it as a way to set personal goals and to justify putting time, effort, and yes, gil, into the gear and leveling process. This is where the "fun" of the content is derived from for many of us.

I'm pretty sure that even "24/7" unemployed gamers need to sleep sometime.
So yes: a bot does allow you to do stuff humans can't and subsequently are very much indeed cheating.

Even more so if the bot starts handling the Auction house. We had those in WoW... ugh what a pain.
.
.
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Account sharing IS cheating and a a bannable offense, since it is vialation of the ToS.
The Achievements of an account are supposed to be tied to a single person.

In fact many a folks cheated arena rankings and ranks in the old PvP system in WoW by letting other players do what they could not.

And this I agree with 100%, all of it. There are more successful crafters on Crystal who dedicate more time to it than I do, and if anything, they are my friends who I harbor no resentment towards whatsoever. They are the people I talk to often about this creeping wave of bots we are seeing, and sadly, I am seeing fewer of them as the expansion goes on. I am not happy that I am seeing less competition on the MB, but upset that I have fewer friends around who I could talk about high-level DoH content with.

Bots, on the other hand, do not integrate themselves into communities; their very existence is to operate outside of them.

[Vnolan]

2) Botting isn't actually cheating.

It's automated, not everyone can use it and it provides an advantage over those that don't use it. If it's not cheating then the word has no meaning.

[BothFawn]

1) If you don't care about gil and only care about the "fun" of crafting/gathering, then bots literally don't matter at all to you and don't affect you in a negative way at all (even in the rare cases they DO significantly drive down prices).

2) Botting isn't actually cheating. Bot gathering doesn't allow you to do anything that player couldn't normally do (unless they are teleport hacking). All it does is automate the process so you don't have to actually be sitting at the computer. Bots (in most cases) follow all the same rules as manually operated players. Botting is actually slower than manual gathering, but the trade off is that you don't have to be present, so you can just let it run a long time to make up for the slowness.

Yes, it's against the ToS just like any 3rd party program. But it isn't cheating (teleport hacks are a completely separate thing and not intrinsic to botting).

Alright, we have reached a point in the discussion where a person openly starts defending cheaters.

Guess I'm just gonna make 50 characters in one date centre, set up a gathering bot on them running 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, then go sell the stuff they gathered on the marketboard and I would still get defended by him, because "I'm not doing anything that player couldn't normally do".

[Kaedan]

Alright, we have reached a point in the discussion where a person openly starts defending cheaters.

I did nothing of the sort. I corrected a false statement, full stop. In fact, I've stated multiple times in this thread that I'm AGAINST botting. But me being against it doesn't change the fact botting isn't cheating.

[Oxidized]

I did nothing of the sort. I corrected a false statement, full stop. In fact, I've stated multiple times in this thread that I'm AGAINST botting. But me being against it doesn't change the fact botting isn't cheating.

cheat
/CHēt/
verb
1. act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage, especially in a game or examination.

Botting fits this definition like a glove, am I really having to defend that botting is actually cheating now? I mean, it does not really seem like a 300 IQ stretch to label going against the ToS in order to gain an unfair advantage as cheating.

I agree with you that botting is not "hacking", but hacking and botting are both forms of cheating, plain and simple.

[NekoNova]

I did nothing of the sort. I corrected a false statement, full stop. In fact, I've stated multiple times in this thread that I'm AGAINST botting. But me being against it doesn't change the fact botting isn't cheating.

Sorry but I cannot agree with that statement.
You're using a tool to do the work for you, which is giving you the advantage because it's faster, doesn't require your input or effort to obtain results.
That's the very definition of cheating.