Do you feel that you have the "right" to AFK bot, or take other necessary measures?

[xxmiamorecadenza]

One of my closest friends actively bots.

He's perpetually logged in. And he often asks me on Discord if his character is still active when he's at work.

Not excusing it. Just saying I've seen folk do it.

[Vahlnir]

I don't blame anyone for doing this. I always ask my SO to get me in queue or move my character when I am making dinner or running quick errands. I do log out if I know I'll be away for the night or a few hours. I don't use bots though.

There's a huge difference between using 3rd party automation tools and simply doing it yourself by hand. I don't see how the latter is punishable in any way. It's not breaking any rules, and it's really not detrimental to anyone else's gameplay.

[CoffeeBuns]

There's a huge difference between using 3rd party automation tools and simply doing it yourself by hand. I don't see how the latter is punishable in any way. It's not breaking any rules, and it's really not detrimental to anyone else's gameplay.

I actually got people mad at me in game when they asked me about it when I was waiting for a certain fate to spawn.

[HazyAssaulter]

There's a huge difference between using 3rd party automation tools and simply doing it yourself by hand. I don't see how the latter is punishable in any way. It's not breaking any rules, and it's really not detrimental to anyone else's gameplay.

Yes, I should clarify there is Huge difference between manually keeping yourself logged in, versus literally starting up an AFK bot before you go to work for the day, come home, and immediately start playing.


It's a huge insult to everyone in the queue.

[Canadane]

Botting or otherwise automating gameplay is never okay.
I wish SE was harsher on this.

Doing it yourself is fine.
Some people legit wanna play by idling around in town. If they meet the criteria of interacting with the game every 29 minutes then so be it. I won't police how they wanna spend their time and money.

[van_arn]

Anti-afk botting is a natural consequence of the high demand. I don't play during hours when it's an issue, but I can understand the appeal to someone who can only play for an hour a day but needs to sit in a 3 hour queue to log in. Bots will beget more bots, but that's also inevitable with multi-hour queues in multiple servers.

Similar issues were posed during the ARR launch, and the only real solution is new servers. Frustrating, I know, but players are always going to do whatever they can to access the game until then. I can see software safeguards being put in place (such as an enhanced anti-bot afk timer) but I'm uncomfortable with people getting banned from playing when the problem's source is Square's (understandable) inability to meet demand.

If anything, I prefer Square to be cautious on how much they intend to expand. There's real pressure for them to overshoot and get everyone in all at once during the launch rush, but adding so many servers we'll need merges in 6 months wouldn't be the right path for the long term. Especially when we're going to be adding a new datacenter within the season.

[Faafetai]

After being locked out of the game for over 2 weeks, I must admit that I have cooked dinner while periodically every 5 minutes touch my keyboard, so I do not have to wait in a 5 hour queue when the food will take less than 30 minutes. I feel guilty just doing that alone. I have been super lucky with the queue actually saving my place, but that means nothing if my partner gets booted to the back of the line resulting in both of us just not playing and going to do something else for the night.

I am kind of torn because on one hand I feel bad, but on the other hand I promised friends I would help them with various things in game and if I just leave for 5 hours by the time I get back they will have gone to bed. Some also have very limited time, so if we are all on and I have low blood sugar I am going to hit that space bar to not get booted until my getto grilled cheese is out of the microwave/toaster.

That being said, I don't think people should be botting or running a program just to go afk all day doing nothing in the game. Unfortunately people will do this, many will do this, and all you can do is report them if they are doing it maliciously. Today I just logged in to do shadowbringer beast tribes dailies and their was apparently a speed hacker, I didn't even know that existed in final fantasy until today.

Like many posts of similar nature there isn't really a way to stop this besides reporting the offenders. I would rather not have square spy on every piece of software I have on my PC to check for a bot program, because as I have seen with steam and other anti hack software they flag the most random things such as a trainer being installed for darksiders 2 to fix the lack of depth of field options in the game. This was flagged in 7 day to die a long time ago which is an entirely different game.

[Razkine_Blazehawk]

i find it okay to afk bot, if its only for a short period of time - 1 or 2 hours, if you are walking your dog, making dinner etc....

[Kaelah]

No I don't.

I do afk for short periods if I gotta go make lunch/eat, or do something else that I'll be gone a short period of time for though. I'll walk by and press a key to keep myself from getting booted. If I know I'll be away too long to stay logged in though, like to go to work or collect my kids from school - I log out. Only fair to give others a chance to play. (Plus I don't know how to keep myself logged in without being nearby to prevent it, nor do I care to know how.)

I do know a couple of people that log in at work and press a key every 25 mins to stay logged in until they get home though, I get why they do it, their jobs mean they literally wouldn't get to play if they didn't because by the time they get through the queue when they are home they will be going to bed. However this makes them part of the problem... it's like people who don't understand how zip merging works when driving and block two lanes to prevent people "skipping the queue". /eyeroll

[Sathona]

Nah, i taught a relative how to log my character in, i just text her my one time pass when she asks for it and when im home its usually good to go or close to logged in.

If you're going to sleep or to work, you have no bussiness staying online the entirety of it, but at the same time i cant blame people for doing it.
Its a no win situation regardless.