The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[KageTokage]

As of today, I've now witnessed people running the ShB MSQ using bots. The laziness really knows no bounds.

I also noticed that aside from their usual janky movement patterns, there's another obvious oddity in that they're able to target both enemies and NPCs from further then an actual player can (They can target anything that's within rendering distance, whereas an actual player needs to be close enough to see the target's name) and also ignore LoS while doing so (Meaning they can target things through walls). This just makes the lack of bans all the more frustrating because they are not hard to identify at ALL, but they seem to insist on continuing to use flawed detection tools when they could just be using their eyes instead.

[Nutshell]

I must be dealing with this tool now. He is blocking anyone from being able to sell Wall Planters and Planter Partitions because he auto-undercuts every 2-3 minutes by 5-10 gil. I kept wondering why someone would just sit there doing it, but it is the same four listings split between the same two retainers and like clockwork if I adjust my prices his lower. I also believe this to be a bot because I tanked the price from 20k to 4k on them and he still undercut, when most wouldn't really want to lose that much gil on them.

In the end they cost me nothing to make and I had a surplus left over from my house decorating, but I would love to unload them even for 4k a piece lol.

If it's an item you don't mind potentially losing some gil try undercutting by a large amount and then buy their stock. Try listing it for 10 gil and wait and see if they undercut you again lol

[Goji1639]

This is an issue for most MMO's, and there are multiple issues at play.

First being that it's difficult to prove. It doesn't matter how many times you report someone suspicious, or how obvious you think it is. The fact of the matter is that SE can't see the bot program running, so ending an account, that someone may have 100's of dollars invest in, based on hearsay will always require insane scrutiny. It would be expensive.

Second is I doubt they want to start doing blanket account terminations. I think this game is doing well, but I doubt it's doing so well that they're anxious to see just how many paying customers they lose if they start flagging and banning everyone who has questionable software detected.

If they want to make crafting worthwhile, I think adding some crafting content that can't be sold or traded, and thus is only available to the crafter, would be the best course. It could be purely cosmetic stuff and mounts. It could be more potent or longer lasting versions of existing food/potions. Maybe extra materia slots for armor. Maybe extra inventory or other quality of life improvements.

[DynnDiablos]

If it's an item you don't mind potentially losing some gil try undercutting by a large amount and then buy their stock. Try listing it for 10 gil and wait and see if they undercut you again lol

I am going to try this. They cost me nothing to make because I gathered all the mats so they are pure profit. I just have 40 of them clogging up my inventories and want them GONE.

[KageTokage]

This is an issue for most MMO's, and there are multiple issues at play.

First being that it's difficult to prove. It doesn't matter how many times you report someone suspicious, or how obvious you think it is. The fact of the matter is that SE can't see the bot program running, so ending an account, that someone may have 100's of dollars invest in, based on hearsay will always require insane scrutiny. It would be expensive.

The account rules fundamentally state that SE can do whatever the heck they want with your account as its their property, so they're not under any obligation to be 100% positive someone is botting instead of just 99.9% positive, especially when they're unwilling to resort to monitoring software like some other MMOs to detect third party programs.

All they'd need to do is observe a reported player for suspicious behavior, then attempt to communicate with them or otherwise get their attention and if they fail to respond for a prolonged period of time then they issue a ban.

This is basically how WoW handled its reports and tellingly, I was able to get bots removed both quickly and frequently (They actually respond to the reports and mention whether or not action was taken) as opposed to literally never over here.

[ForteNightshade]

The account rules fundamentally state that SE can do whatever the heck they want with your account as its their property, so they're not under any obligation to be 100% positive someone is botting instead of just 99.9% positive, especially when they're unwilling to resort to monitoring software like some other MMOs to detect third party programs.

All they'd need to do is observe a reported player for suspicious behavior, then attempt to communicate with them or otherwise get their attention and if they fail to respond for a prolonged period of time then they issue a ban.

This is basically how WoW handled its reports and tellingly, I was able to get bots removed both quickly and frequently (They actually respond to the reports and mention whether or not action was taken) as opposed to literally never over here.

If I recall correctly, WoW will shadow players who are reported enough for suspicious activity and immediately ban them. They will then be given a grace period to prove otherwise. A big issue FFXIV has is their GM team has no authority to ban players for botting and such. That falls under the STF, which is ridiculously small.

For all of WoW's many faults. They are leagues above FFXIV when it comes to handling bots.

[Moonlite]

This is an issue for most MMO's, and there are multiple issues at play.

SE is either seriously under manned or just doesn't care to put more effort into fighting botting. They have yet to put anything into the game that would track bots making it easier to investigate. The GM system seems to be completely separate from this type of cheating. In 11 GMs used to come and move and interact with you if they thought you were botting. You will still get a random tell.



Now will this stop cheating, never. No one expects them to eliminate bots. Just putting more effort in would go a long way.



Also at this point this expansion is pretty corrupted by bots. Which is not the end of the world. But building and putting a system in place for the next expansion and warning everyone for a year and starting to ban players before the next expansion would be nice.


Even though they made crafting and gathering easier to level. I think they would face more complaints about crafting only stuff then they do bots. Bots don't stop people from getting stuff, but making people work for stuff upsets them.

[ForteNightshade]

SE is either seriously under manned or just doesn't care to put more effort into fighting botting. They have yet to put anything into the game that would track bots making it easier to investigate. The GM system seems to be completely separate from this type of cheating. In 11 GMs used to come and move and interact with you if they thought you were botting. You will still get a random tell.

If you look up the credits, you'll see the Special Task Force, which handles this sort of thing, has only four people. I don't know if they simply couldn't be bothered or are still woefully ignorant to just how bad botting has become, but either way, they're hilariously understaffed in this department. What makes me think the latter is the dev team announcing a leaderboard for Ishgard Restoration. Pretty much everyone knows that will be a bot riddled mess within hours. Maybe it'll become obvious enough they do something out of sheer embarrassment.

[Goji1639]

The account rules fundamentally state that SE can do whatever the heck they want with your account as its their property, so they're not under any obligation to be 100% positive someone is botting instead of just 99.9% positive, especially when they're unwilling to resort to monitoring software like some other MMOs to detect third party programs.

All they'd need to do is observe a reported player for suspicious behavior, then attempt to communicate with them or otherwise get their attention and if they fail to respond for a prolonged period of time then they issue a ban.

This is basically how WoW handled its reports and tellingly, I was able to get bots removed both quickly and frequently (They actually respond to the reports and mention whether or not action was taken) as opposed to literally never over here.

Even 99.9% positive is a lot of work. World of Warcraft did a lot of vetting but they had the resources for it. This game isn't nearly as big as WoW was in it's prime, or even now. And, even with all the work Blizzard put into vetting and removing bots there were always tons of them everywhere. The market was every bit as deflated and cut as it is in this game.

Also, Square can't do "whatever the heck they want" with your account. Even if it's in the EULA that they can, there are laws that protect consumers from agreements that basically result in theft. If someone has spent $1000's on digital property on their SE account SE can't close it unless they have a damn convincing reason. Otherwise they could easily be sued.

[Moonlite]

If you look up the credits, you'll see the Special Task Force, which handles this sort of thing, has only four people. I don't know if they simply couldn't be bothered or are still woefully ignorant to just how bad botting has become, but either way, they're hilariously understaffed in this department. What makes me think the latter is the dev team announcing a leaderboard for Ishgard Restoration. Pretty much everyone knows that will be a bot riddled mess within hours. Maybe it'll become obvious enough they do something out of sheer embarrassment.

That is part of the problem with the whole situation. They used the special task force in 11. GMs were still active in bot hunting. If the bots that are regular players and not rmt are smart they will not get involved with leaderboard. SE can pretend the problem is under control, the forums can defend SE policy they just don't have the staff to handle the situation. The evil person in me hopes its like a lot of content SE implements that is new and not well thought out. Front pages of forums filled with anger at why SE couldn't see this coming. Just like last Ishgard resto patch.