Okay now the botting is getting a little out of hand...

[ICountFrom0]

Hey whatever happened to those two new Mods that we were blindly congratulating a month or two back?? Oh right, they're gone already. Maybe they can relay our concerns to the dev team since English seems non-existent on their end. But that's just me reaching. Carry on.

Oh, I pointed out that the most important part of the job would be them trying to pretend that bots where not an issue, and the moment they showed any sympathy for the plight of the average person trying to play they'd be fired.

... and I don't see them anywhere, oh well, looks like they failed to be blind enough.

They cannot do anything. It would be pointless to try to go one by one.

Truth is, both things have to be done. Both special task force members that try to prevent the bots from getting on, and clean up after, AND GM's that are allowed to take action. Picture if just one was sitting at the GC chest, where the bots deposit things, and put anybody who was accessing it from "clipped into the wall" into a time out box.

do you have any actual proof to this? Or are you just making stuff up?

As I said, I've seen it done twice now. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the last two times it happened, but one of them has a video of ul dah being completely unable to be entered on a server for 10 minutes.

[Hysterior]

Truth is, both things have to be done. Both special task force members that try to prevent the bots from getting on, and clean up after, AND GM's that are allowed to take action. Picture if just one was sitting at the GC chest, where the bots deposit things, and put anybody who was accessing it from "clipped into the wall" into a time out box.

CM/GM certainly have tools. I am sure they can ban a user in a couple of clicka.
But from experience, it is absolutely useless against these types of bots.
You could have 100 CMs in a starting area clicking buttons the whole day, it will solve absolutely nothing.
They can probably create new characters faster than a CM can ban and log them.

[ICountFrom0]

CM/GM certainly have tools. I am sure they can ban a user in a couple of clicka.
But from experience, it is absolutely useless against these types of bots.
You could have 100 CMs in a starting area clicking buttons the whole day, it will solve absolutely nothing.
They can probably create new characters faster than a CM can ban and log them.

Nope. If a GM removes a bot, they get fired. They are not allowed anymore, ONLY the task force.

But yes, you don't do it at the start of the bot run, you don't ban the new level 1 bot, you ban the level 15 bot that's already done the quests, just before they turn in. And they don't ban it to throw the flag in the obvious way, you teleport it to the "bad player" room, and just wait to see what they do. You cost them as much time as possible.

[Nedkel]

CM/GM certainly have tools. I am sure they can ban a user in a couple of clicka.
But from experience, it is absolutely useless against these types of bots.
You could have 100 CMs in a starting area clicking buttons the whole day, it will solve absolutely nothing.
They can probably create new characters faster than a CM can ban and log them.

It would solve 80% of the problems.
Just make these bans system and IP wide bans, any account that has logged in the past and in the future on certain PC and IP will get banned and i could guarantee you the population of bots would decrease dramatically.
Once you got a ban like this, you get all your account terminated, and its literally GG, there is no way to avoid stuff like that.

[Jojoya]

It would solve 80% of the problems.
Just make these bans system and IP wide bans, any account that has logged in the past and in the future on certain PC and IP will get banned and i could guarantee you the population of bots would decrease dramatically.
Once you got a ban like this, you get all your account terminated, and its literally GG, there is no way to avoid stuff like that.

IP bans don't work for numerous reasons, with the main one being botters have been hiding their IPs for years.

I'm really surprised that there are people who are still unaware of this, especially now that VPN services have gone mainstream to serve individuals worried about privacy.

[Hysterior]

It would solve 80% of the problems.
Just make these bans system and IP wide bans, any account that has logged in the past and in the future on certain PC and IP will get banned and i could guarantee you the population of bots would decrease dramatically.
Once you got a ban like this, you get all your account terminated, and its literally GG, there is no way to avoid stuff like that.

That works for banning accounts of real users buying from goldsellers. Yes.
But not against the bots themselves. They can change IP on the fly and they continuously create multiple accounts from multiple IP every minute. It does not matter if some accounts fall in SE's net.

SE needs some AI algorithm that identifies patterns early enough in new account's journey and tie it to an automatic mass ban. But even then you would probably still have bots in the starting areas. It is VERY hard to prevent bots if your game is appealing to them and they can make a profit out of it.

Best way is and always will be for no one to buy from gil sellers, they would leave the game. SE needs to be drastic on people buying gils on not go through temporary bans or warnings. Permaban for any gil buyer. 0 tolerance policy is the best policy

[Dirwen]

Permaban for any gil buyer. 0 tolerance policy is the best policy

Permaban might be too harsh because I think most gilbuyers are hardcore raiders or RPers as it is those roles that probably need gil the most. I don't care if hardcore raiders get banned but it be a shame for RPers to get done in. I moved to Crystal due to some interest in their communities.

I don't have much use for gil as I don't own a house so money been piling up. My main character is a generic midlander hyur so very few glam options worth buying too.

[Hysterior]

Permaban might be too harsh because I think most gilbuyers are hardcore raiders or RPers as it is those roles that probably need gil the most. I don't care if hardcore raiders get banned but it be a shame for RPers to get done in. I moved to Crystal due to some interest in their communities. I don't have much use for gil as I don't own a house so money been piling up. My main character is a generic midlander hyur so very few glam options worth buying too.

Disagree. As long as people buy gil, no matter the reason, bots will be here.
And it is probably new players who are more likely to buy gil, thinking that money is relevant in this game.

[Jojoya]

Permaban might be too harsh because I think most gilbuyers are hardcore raiders or RPers as it is those roles that probably need gil the most. I don't care if hardcore raiders get banned but it be a shame for RPers to get done in. I moved to Crystal due to some interest in their communities.

I don't have much use for gil as I don't own a house so money been piling up. My main character is a generic midlander hyur so very few glam options worth buying too.

I doubt the majority of gil buyers fall into either category. Most of them are probably people who want a hot new glamour, minion or mount but can't be bothered with putting in the effort to farm the materials to make it or earn the gil.

You also don't need gil to RP. Gil buying to try to change your character's status in RP might as well be god-moding. Please don't use the tired "but you need a house to RP" reason. No house is required to RP.

Gil buyers should all be treated the same, regardless of what content they do.

[TalithaSolarien]

That works for banning accounts of real users buying from goldsellers. Yes.
But not against the bots themselves. They can change IP on the fly and they continuously create multiple accounts from multiple IP every minute. It does not matter if some accounts fall in SE's net.

IP bans don't work at all. Virtually any IP provider is handing out dynamic IP address these days. At best they are ineffective and at worst you hit some unsuspecting other player that happens to got one of the banned addresses.