There's a Literal Army of RMT BOts Doing the MSQ

[Pintsized]

So far this weeks I've reported 20 .. yes 20! .. named-mashed characters who are doing the MSQ, I first saw them when I was in the 30s and now they're infesting Coerthas.

They're all either Bard or White Mage, wearing the Ilevel 90 AF set you get at 50, with random bling.

Like how do RMT mange to get these bots to 50 if Square Enix IS banning them as they claim they do. Do we have any proof, apart from SE's 'word', that banning actually happens. I can't believe RMT have an infinite supply of free accounts they can continuously create new bots on.

They're botting the entire questing system, insta-porting around the world to NPC and mob spawns, it took me 10 minutes to get to kill 5 crocs as I had to compete with this bot army!

Doing the NSQ will be making 100,000s of gil in a matter of a few hours.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Botters can spam them out faster than SE's task force can ban them. It's fully automated for them, whereas the task force has to do it manually.

[Pintsized]

Botters can spam them out faster than SE's task force can ban them. It's fully automated for them, whereas the task force has to do it manually.

Yes, I realise it's automated, however:

1) How to RMT get so many accounts and continue to do so for years? How come SE haven't closed down their major sources of accounts?

Yes, SOME are stolen, however the numbers of bots are way more than is beleivably due to such theft.

2) Given that they're so damned obvious, with their key-mashed names, totally conformant builds, etc, writing an AI to detect them (or at least flag them) would be easy if SE had the desire.

3) The fact that SE have refused to provide a right-click method of filling in the 'report cheating' dialog with even just the name means it's a real PITA to report them .. seems to me SE are at best half-hearted in their protestations of their desire to eliminate bots as much as possible.

4) SE were able to eliminate pos-hacking is FFXI because it's EASY .. the server knows how fast characters can move, add on a cushion and it's EASY to detect if a client has moved a character beyond what's plausible .. again, lack of desire is the only reason I can SE for SE not doing it.

Yes, bots are perennial, and some of their techniques are sophisticated but the vast majority of bots are simply pos-hacking around the world and following their scripts to talk to NPC and kill mobs .. hell, the fact that bot herds are now botting the entire MSQ including dungeons is IMO a damming indictment of SE's lack of effort or will, or their inability to write code that isn't trivially subverted.

[SamSmoot]

Botters can spam them out faster than SE's task force can ban them. It's fully automated for them, whereas the task force has to do it manually.

Identify botter. Trigger built-in kill function in their client that makes all the stuff they collect impossible to trade. If they try to transfer / sell anything, the item / gil disappears from their inventory, but the receiver gets nothing. The only recourse will be to reinstall the client.
Add to this a random registry key or other buried flag in their system that causes the kill feature to trigger after client reinstall. Then, they'd have to reinstall the entire OS. (or just start a new VM copy from a fresh drive image copy.)

[Reap00]

So far this weeks I've reported 20 .. yes 20! .. named-mashed characters who are doing the MSQ, I first saw them when I was in the 30s and now they're infesting Coerthas.

They're all either Bard or White Mage, wearing the Ilevel 90 AF set you get at 50, with random bling.

Like how do RMT mange to get these bots to 50 if Square Enix IS banning them as they claim they do. Do we have any proof, apart from SE's 'word', that banning actually happens. I can't believe RMT have an infinite supply of free accounts they can continuously create new bots on.

They're botting the entire questing system, insta-porting around the world to NPC and mob spawns, it took me 10 minutes to get to kill 5 crocs as I had to compete with this bot army!

Doing the NSQ will be making 100,000s of gil in a matter of a few hours.

You are playing an MMO. There will always be bots. The current situation is VASTLY improved over how it was at launch. SE bans them and they create more. The cycle will not end.

[Canadane]

You are playing an MMO. There will always be bots. The current situation is VASTLY improved over how it was at launch. SE bans them and they create more. The cycle will not end.

The cycle will end if people stop buying gil.

[Krotoan]

The cycle will end if people stop buying gil.

Well yes.. but how likely is that? Even if we managed to change the forums minds (I've never seen this successfully done for ANY subject), we are a tiny representation of the whole population.

[Canadane]

Well yes.. but how likely is that? Even if we managed to change the forums minds (I've never seen this successfully done for ANY subject), we are a tiny representation of the whole population.

It’d be easier if SE came down harder on buyers, rather then the wrist slap they apparently get currently. If the buys start losing years of progress, they might reconsider their actions. Instilling the fear of bans in others for doing so.

[Krotoan]

It’d be easier if SE came down harder on buyers, rather then the wrist slap they apparently get currently. If the buys start losing years of progress, they might reconsider their actions. Instilling the fear of bans in others for doing so.

this punishes "invested" players but not people with lots of disposable income and no real investment in the game. People 'buying in" to setup a new account and just spend to glory aren't going to really care. So while yeah, it'd make it a little less desirable, the market would still be there.