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

[SamSmoot]

From my time playing WoW, the RMT bots were lucky to get off more then a single spam message before they got banned.

Granted, they always come back sooner or later but it's better then just ignoring them all day like in XIV.

One advantage in WoW was that one you reported a spammer, it silenced them for you for the remainder of the session, so the report gave you an immediate payback.. In FFXIV, the messages keep coming. I just switch to battle mode, ignoring them (and all other player activity).

[KageTokage]

I would like to note you can only boost to level 70. You can't boost to 60 anymore and 50 was never possible.

You're actually seeing them grind up to 50, then farm the gear, which is even more concerning.

Will the game just straight not allow you to buy a job skip if you only have the base game then?

I've seen them doing the level 30ish MSQ stuff in Southern Thanalan at level 50 and fully decked out in Ironworks gear (Aside from one of their ring slots, which is typical of a skipped character), and I can't think of any other explanation for it because they have no means of farming poetics otherwise (To my knowledge) due to all of the level 50 dungeons being locked behind MSQ progression.

[Dustytome]

I've seen them doing the level 30ish MSQ stuff in Southern Thanalan at level 50 and fully decked out in Ironworks gear (Aside from one of their ring slots, which is typical of a skipped character), and I can't think of any other explanation for it because they have no means of farming poetics otherwise (To my knowledge) due to all of the level 50 dungeons being locked behind MSQ progression.

Maybe they're making use of recruit-a-friend features and using feathers for the gear?

[Jijifli]

Will the game just straight not allow you to buy a job skip if you only have the base game then?

I've seen them doing the level 30ish MSQ stuff in Southern Thanalan at level 50 and fully decked out in Ironworks gear (Aside from one of their ring slots, which is typical of a skipped character), and I can't think of any other explanation for it because they have no means of farming poetics otherwise (To my knowledge) due to all of the level 50 dungeons being locked behind MSQ progression.

Wanderers Palace normal isn't locked behind MSQ. Hell you can unlock it before 50.

So maybe it's that. I just know you can't boost to just 50.

[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.)

[Missbone]

they should just take the free accounts out of the game, that would allready help. Let just everyone pay the 12€ Sub and the normal price for a new game and than the botters will think twice if its worth the investment.

[Dustytome]

they should just take the free accounts out of the game, that would allready help. Let just everyone pay the 12€ Sub and the normal price for a new game and than the botters will think twice if its worth the investment.

The botters are using full ARR licensed accounts already, a sub fee on top of that isn't going to deter them because they're not using their money to make the purchases.

[Tohe-Spidhire]

Solution is to deputize certain players, so they can police the situation.

If the Deputy gets out of line, then remove their badge, and issue a temporary suspension.

So mentors with more power and an ability to have their status thing removed?

Initially, the system would operate in parallel with what SE are currently doing. If successful over time, then perhaps SE will be able to reduce their expenditure of resources on the matter.

A Deputy is simply playing their game, and if they happen to spot an RMT bot, then they can take action. For a new Deputy, perhaps they are initially given freedom to take action on *ONE* suspected RMT bot. After auditing to confirm that the Deputy was correct, Deputy can again take action on *ONE* bot. Over time, perhaps this limit can be slowly incremented in recognition of good work, or decremented when mistakes made.

With respect to either status or recognition, it should not be like Mentors, who are given a little icon beside their name. A Deputy would have no visible indication of what SE is allowing them to do. They are anonymous volunteers that are doing work for the betterment of the community. If you feel you should be given recognition, then this is not for you.

For example, you would not want a posse of Deputies riding together as a group, seeking to punish an RMT bot. And Deputies should not want a visual indicator for other players because people would actively make requests of those players to put aside what they were currently doing to "take care of a bot." So being anonymous, the Deputy cannot advertise their privilege, lest that privilege be revoked.

[Lemage]

Or they could just add "report for RMT" to the target context menu instead of just the chat context menu & delegate some GMs to respond to those requests instead of making it only reportable via typing the name or if the player has used the chat function. I know plenty of us would click and report each bot one by one when bored. It's like those clicker games on mobile.

[KageTokage]

Reporting gil farming/RMT bots feels like stomping on ants because of how quickly they come back, but it would be nice to just have a generalized "Report for botting" option somewhere.

I get tired of having to copypaste the same message into my reports for the non-RMT related bots when all of them exhibit the same obvious behavioral quirks.