5555 FC botting and or using gold farming tactics

[Turkeysammich]

When gold farmers first started on my old server they would always have groups of 4 botting, all dressed the same, 3 black mages and 1 white mage, it was early on so you could definitely tell they were bots. They'd usually be hanging around the mender NPC and queing for dungeons (I assume, they'd just disappear) over and over.

The other day I saw this 5555 Free Company for the first time, doing the same thing, just standing at the mender, dressed the same. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed they were 3 blm and 1 whm. I forgot about them until I spotted them later on in all of the most popular farming spots. They never move, and never talk, they just stand there casting aoe, 3 blm and 1 whm. I tested by getting their mobs, before they could, and leading them away. They will attack the mob, but not go after it if it goes out of range, they don't move at all or acknowledge any communication. They don't attack anything slightly out of cast range. Then they just disappear, no teleporting at all.

[SCUBA_Instr]

Hi Turkeysammich,

Black mage bots are a nuisance on adamantoise. Before last patch the 16 bots occupied the Rowena stand at R Toll, appearing and disappearing about every 10 seconds, 24/7. After the patch they moved to Uldah, and still appearing and disappearing several times a minute. All have been reported to Square Enix many times, yet they persist.

Fellow FC members encountered them in dungeons. One reported that if he drags a trash mob/boss to them, they teleport within the dungeon, or simply walk thru walls.
They have to be vote kicked. There are youtube videos of them walking thru air, and moving down into the floors.

Probability is high that they use either packet injection to modify the data stream or some other nefarious interference with normal server operation.

The difficulty lies with trying to persuade the Square Enix staff to delete these bot accounts. Report after report after report over 3 months hasn't even slowed down these bots.

[SCUBA_Instr]

Hi Turkeysammich,

Now we're seeing FC bots, typically 7 identical members, usually 1 gladiator and 7 THMs, all level 1, all same battle gear, and FC closed to new members.

Persuading the Square Enix staff to delete Botanist bots is extremely difficult, if not impossible. We see a lot of Level-50 BTN or Miner bots wearing level-1 battle gear.

Some of the giant RMT corporations are hiding their level-1 spammer gladiator bots, others position them facing the wall just outside the Quicksand outer side door. They protect spammer bots, but not their BTN/MIN bots

They dont seem to be using "real-player detection" with their botanist bots.

Sometimes bots or RMT employees positioned at the Uldah moogle mail will vanish when a real player seems to notice, but most of the time they just remain at the moogle mail 24/7 (Level-1 THM who's only purpose is to remain at the moogle mail).
It isn't rocket science to guess their role.