Rampant botting and RMT..nothing being done

[Chiramu]

Blizzard just banned 100,000 botters in WoW, big enough to make news in any respectable site. This is how things should be done to deter botters. I'm sure Blizzard had been banning RMT bots all the time like SE, but there must have been a policy change and they suddenly targeted regular player bots, which is how they suddenly have 100,000 players to kill.

Congratulations, Blizzard! Get with it, SE!

Permanent ban or temporary ban?

[Vlady]

Well it is sort of like in wow. There are two classes of people. Those who play legit and those who pay for botting software to win. Those with botting software can make 5-10 million a week farming near 24/7 off one account while also being an instant master of their job with only having to worry about dodging mechanics in raids. Pretty much botters look at everyone else and think sucker.

It is just a wild guess but with the ease and cheapness of bot programs (aka pay to win cheat codes) 30-40% of pc users probably cheat in this game. WOW did the massive ban and it wiped out about 35% of top 50 raid guilds with alot of them complaining there multiple raid teams have been banned. MMO's whether free to play or sub will always have a pay to win option via third party software as long as cheating is treated with kid gloves. Those perma bans are most likely from the chinese/rmt bot crowds and not the run of the mill cheater which I have reported and have a private log of 200+ bots on Balmung alone and I see them online every single day going on years now after probably sending in hundreds of reports.

The scary thing is the places where these cheaters circulate to post on the forums are talking about how they may move to here. Incoming 100k botters.

[Noshpan]

Nothing happening, eh? I guess it's because they're not being more public about it like Arena Net was with that pvp cheater, but then, neither is Blizzard. Blizzard will only say "x amount of accounts for cheating were banned". Also, speaking of Blizzard, the staff that they have allocated to different features of World of Warcraft alone is many times bigger than the staff that SE has allocated to Final Fantasy XIV.

The anti-cheating staff for FF XIV has to thoroughly investigate every single report because they don't want to accidentally ban someone whom was maliciously reported by a troll. Because if they just banned or suspended every single reported account, then there would be a slew of threads filled with people saying that their account was wrongly reprimanded. So dealing with the rmt and botting and cheating takes a painfully long time.

So patience, patience. Not even Blizzard is always capable of doing something immediately.

Right now, I'd just settle for an easier method to report and mute spam bots (so I don't have to empty out my blacklist so frequently).

[Teryaani]

Nothing happening, eh?

Most of us aren't saying that they're doing nothing. What we're saying is that what they're doing isn't stopping the spam. Because it isn't. Botting and gil selling is going to keep happening, I think most of us just want the being bothered to stop.

The bots and RMT sellers are on the JP servers just as much as they are on the other servers. The only difference is that there they do not spam/send whispers/send friend requests...because they know better than to shake the hornets nest in the owners' back yard.

I think that's part of it. They do send /tells on JP servers, but only in text swapped English to defeat the filters and it's much much more rare. I suspect that it isn't as lucrative to advertise that way which is exactly where I wish we could get on NA/EU servers. In other conversations about this, it's been made perfectly clear to people that players on JP servers buy gold. It's just marketed differently.

[SummerSkye]

In other conversations about this, it's been made perfectly clear to people that players on JP servers buy gold.

Yep. Go make a character on a JP server. Then search for level 50 BLMs. You will see the same army of "Sasfdsg Kldsalld" type names just like on any NA server. The people that say that it is not an issue on the JP servers are simply wrong. That being said, what bothers me most about RMT, is that they deter new players that are trying this game from taking it serious or subscribing. No other subscription based MMO has this level of spam. I know friends who have came out of their initial cut scene to a wall of spam from RMT. Not good. This game, like any MMO, needs new players coming in.

[silverhope]

I feel like they are doing what they HAVE to, to mkae it seem like there trying to fix it. But jp servers have no issue with RMT and I dont see a big fix coming .. ever. It is what it is. Maybe when they add addons theyw ill have a built in anti botting program but thats just wishfull thinking.

[Riepah]

Yesterday botting came up and dozens of people in it pretty much admitted to botting and said that everyone they know bots because they said SE doesn't care. Since I started playing again I see bots everywhere. Tons of people in the LS online 24/7 grinding fates and stuff with their bots.

Report them, every single one who admits it. If they have an actual confession to go on, they'll most likely actually do something about it. The number one excuse why botters aren't banned tends to be "No way to tell if they're really botting!", so a confession takes care of that.
For the record, none of my friends in this game use bots. Or they wouldn't be my friends anymore.

[Gemma]

Yesterday botting came up and dozens of people in it pretty much admitted to botting and said that everyone they know bots because they said SE doesn't care.

If I were you I would have taken screenshots of that LS chat and reported the people who admitted openly to botting.
That is something I've made very clear in my LS/FC, if you buy gil or cheat in any way & I find out I'm booting you and reporting you.

But yes OP I share your pain as well. I can't even enjoy killing the bots anymore cause they are now programmed to force logout if their HP gets too low >_<
While SE may be going through the motions and banning random RMT accounts its obviously not enough since as soon as I logged in today BOOM! Friend requests galore -_- Help us out SE! Heavensward is gonna be a nightmare, especially for new people trying to get into the game.

[Sebazy]

Playing devil's advocate here somewhat, but I really don't see why so many people get so massively up in arms over bots, the consumables market is practically dependant on bot to farm up mats. /tells and friend requests used to be done by farm teams sat in net cafes and you'll never eradicate that, not to mention, it's absolute bliss now compared to how it was at 2.0's launch. And frankly, whilst it's lazy, fate grinding bots don't really affect me in the slightest so eh, if someone want's to tarnish their reputation with that nonsense then so be it.

I'm more worried about the content lull and keeping motivated till 3.0 hits =(

[abzoluut]

Ok, yes, the botting is still a problem and annoying as all hell. But to say they're doing nothing about it when they banned over 9000 (insert meme here) accounts in a single week is a little disingenuous, isn't it?

You may find it disingenuous, but I find it rather odd when people credulously assume this 9000 ban information were to be true.

They need to give us something to create the illusion they try hard. Else more and more people would feel like the OP.

Why only ban bots? No one can really check that, it's just a number SE gives us. I bet none of OP's LS are banned. Why not ban 9000 gil buyers too? Now that would be a blast. It also means 9000 * $X subscription gone. No way they'll do that.

At the wnd of the day, bots stay. We need to be given the tools to cut down the spam/friend requests etc.