Just Another 3rd party bot BUT 1000 TIMES WORSE

[Mortikhan]

A simple software that detects pattern repetition to an inhuman degree. A specific timing always present. A path in the ground never not followed. Every bot ever created has an unmistakable visual pattern and button combination unique to it and only it. Behind that visual pattern is a mathematical expression. Quantify that expression and ban all players with that expression.

Fire the STF. Hire competent programmers with software pattern recognition experience.

Give GMs their Testicles back. Call one. Your eyes become their eyes. You watch that cheater die right in front of you, and it never comes back. That is player satisfaction.

Severity. Celerity. Certainty. The hallmarks of punishment for which presence of all ensures that behavior stops dead.

Suspension for not responding to a GM. 2nd offense, banning.

Every craftbotter, every shard farmer, banned. The first time. Retrospectively if possible extending all the way back to September. No recourse.

Public display of their names. Ten thousand players? All ten thousand names go right on the forum.

They're trying too hard. I can see a bot with my own eyes. Everyone can. They don't need mathematical confirmation if they're too incompetent to do that. I could ban ten an hour the first week. Twenty five an hour the second week. Within a month I could kill bots at one a minute, with sensitivity (I catch all bots reported) and specificity (the labelled bot is a bot) of 98% with a few software augments like autotimers, and information about everything in that players' receive packet.

Shit, I bet these bots have a characteristic recieve packet rate that exists only for them that a human couldn't duplicate if they tried.

Ok a good start. What if the bots evolve and have random interval timing? How would they overcome language barriers if attempting to speak to a player? What if a player is dividing their attention between watching TV and playing and just spamming enter to craft and only paying attention when they have to use the recipe? What if players are not AFK but still using a bot, how would you go about detecting it and confirming they are using it if they simply shut it down when you talk to them? How would you deal with rival LSs constantly accusing each other of botting or RMT? How would deal with someone who consistently makes accusations about RMT and botting but is never right? How would you compensate a player if they could prove they were not botting but were banned anyway? If the RTF were laid off or fired, what additional manpower would you bring on to compensate for their loss? How would those new employees be trained and who would monitor them? You said at the beginning of your post that software should be used to detect them and the RTF should be fired and replaced by those better suited but later said that you could accomplish the same goal through sight alone. Which should be relied upon?

That is just a starter list of questions. I have met people who swear on all their dead relatives graves that they have seen or spoken to God, aliens, mythical creatures and/or magic. I would not depend so much on peoples eyes for data as the brain has a funny way of interpreting things one can not explain into what that person wants to see based on their perception of things. I think we would be better with the method of program tracking and pattern detection but again the human mind can also mimic behavior rather consistently and does so even more when it becomes an unconscious act. On the flip side of that coin, given any lag whatsoever on the part of the person observing or the botter would make it appear as an inconsistent pattern either way. Perhaps a program that would run concurrently with FFXIV that monitored open applications and only programs approved by SE could be opened or FFXIV would close (ie internet browsers, music programs etc.)? With this in mind players would have a help section area where they could petition for an application they would like approved.