What does it take to get banned from this game?

[Kataz]

As the title says, what does it take to get banned from this game? I am genuinely interested.

I've played a lot of MMO's so I know a GM response to an in game grievance only happens 7 hours after you file it and 3 hours after you've logged off for the night, but you generally expect to see your grievance dealt with, especially if the grievance is a swarm of bots that have been farming a location for a week straight.

http://i.imgur.com/xSQvGG5.png

For anyone who doesn't want to click external links, that is a bunch of bots on my server that have been doing whatever that is for several days. They have a scholar with Eos out, a bard afk running ballad, a bard spamming wide shot, and 2 white mages spamming holy. They are killing level 45 plasmoids that spawn in North Shroud by the Ixal tribe. Not sure what they are doing, those plasmoids don't seem to drop anything. Maybe going for the Butchers Crown or something. But thats not even the first batch of bots I've reported and found still at it weeks later.

edit - fair enough, I'll go take another one. I know they'll still be there!

Also in going back to get a UIless screen shot, I caught them all converting, so there you go. Spirit bonding bots. Guess I'm a sucker for working towards novus the old fashion way.

[Enkidoh]

But you're not 'reporting bots on the forums', it could be considered slander in that an innocent player could be possibly incriminated, which is why they don't allow you to 'name and shame'.

And that also goes for quoting things the development team may have mentioned in the past which are ideas that change during the natural development process. I hate to say it, but this is game development for you - for whatever reason, ideas and concepts they may have early on may not make it through development, so quoting the developers and saying they've lied is utter rubbish (I'm going to hazard a guess here and say you're still bitter about personal housing prices?). It's why developers are usually reluctant to give information about content they're working on until it's near release, because things could easily change without notice. That's just life for you.

And in regards to the OP, SE doesn't do immediate bans of bots because the STF has to follow due process to ensure the 'player' reported really is guilty of a ToS abuse (ala, botting). They then mass ban RMT/botters wholesale at specific dates, rather than doing it piecemeal. This means of course that you see bots around for an extended period, as due process and regulations have to be followed, which of course are time consuming.

They don't one touch ban a botter immediately after receiving a report because it could be too easily abused by people who would go around reporting innocent players simply to troll, and there would be no recourse for the victim, other than legal action against SE, something they want to avoid at all costs.

So bots are investigated and dealt with accordingly by the STF which takes time.

[Kaze3434]

this situation needs a bit more explaining. unless the afk bard was moving around with the afk symbol still on, there is no "proof" of botting, and unless all the others also had afk symbol while attacking there is no proof.

[Hybris-Maenad]

There's a group on Exodus doing the exact same thing for the last few months, and before that they used the lv.37 enemies in south shroud. They have been reported many, many times over the last 9 months and nothing has been done.

Exodus GMs are either crooked or they just refuse to do their job. These people are not under investigation, any reasonable investigation would not take a year. And there is no doubt that they are bots.

[Kaze3434]

And there is no doubt that they are bots.

again, unless it is completely obvious they are botting(afk symbol while doing actions, cycling thru targets at a very fast pace, and sometimes warping) there is no way you can say that there is no doubt. people get accused of botting simply for staying in the same zone gathering things for hours on end(myself including). i spent a good 3 hours gathering shards for crafts and ended up getting a gm tell out of nowhere. replied and situation explained, and thus difused.

[Hybris-Maenad]

stuff

8-12 hours a day, everyday for 9 months. They are bots.

[Kataz]

It's easy to tell when something is a bot because it never moves and is always there. It's one thing to farm something like ore for 3 hours and have people assume your a bot. It's quite another to be doing this same thing for the past 6 days now. Additionally, everyone who does Ixal quests walks by this group of bots and everyone knows these are cheat accounts.

Nyalia, usually yeah, random bot names are easy to mix up. But this bunch of bots are all in the same FC. The FC consists of only the bots, but there is no mistaking that its the same group still doing it.

Heres todays picture of them still at it - http://i.imgur.com/By7JWRk.jpg

Very frustrating to have someone cheating right in front of you for weeks on end with no action against them taken.

[Kataz]

Not that bringing this post back from the dead is going to magically make a GM look into it, but they are still there. Whats more concerning is that since they setup shop in the middle of a high traffic and highly populated area that still somehow allows them to continue cheating right in front of everyone, is that there is suddenly a retainer selling stacks of 99 for most materia grade 3's and a worryingly high quantity of grade 4 Savage Aim and Savage Mights. Probably other grade 4's, but those are the expensive ones I keep my eye on. I can't name this retainer for the stated slander reasons, but I'm pretty sure this retainer belongs to one of the bots. So there you go, spirit bonding bots in open view of everyone selling super expensive materia, ruining the economy, and getting gil to sell on top of it. Thanks SE!