Rampant botting and RMT..nothing being done

[Ergumenus]

I got this game on release and took a break for quite a while. Coming back I am being spammed with gold selling messages every 2 minutes. And that's not even the worst part. It seems that botting is just a common thing everyone does in this game. While leveling my new character doing fates the amount of bots I saw was shocking. Just doing it openly and obviously. I joined a Linkshell on the new server I rolled on that was really populated. 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.

This is really really sad. I was excited for Heavensward but I don't think I'll be getting it anymore. This game has zero integrity and honestly just seems like a joke to me now.

[Imoye]

There's a ton of complaints being written every single day about the situation. So they'll have to do something soon. The solutions are many and obvious.

Can't be hard to have a couple of GMs instant banning RMT spam players or to add a simple instant block feature without filling your black list instantly. Probably PS3 limitations are a reason we haven't seen more UI options.

[Canadane]

Report 'em. Hold no remorse.
You may not see anything happen right away, but if anything was said in-game it's pretty hard evidence against them and include that in your report.

[Ashkendor]

Seriously, there's 2-3 new threads about this daily... -.-

[Powercow]

Time Period: May 7, 2015 to May 13, 2015
・Accounts receiving disciplinary action for RMT advertising: 2650
・Accounts receiving disciplinary action for RMT/illicit activity: 6467
・Action Details: Permanent ban from FINAL FANTASY XIV

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?

[Teryaani]

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?

It is. They are doing something but it's the equivalent (in terms of effectiveness) of trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun. SE has shown a real knack for social engineering in this game. I'm surprised they haven't gotten a better solution than what we have now.

[BreathlessTao]

Seriously, there's 2-3 new threads about this daily... -.-

That only shows how serious the situation is. Has been, for quite a while. And how whatever SE is doing does not seem to improve the situation at all; while tons of other options are suggested time and time again, seemingly never even considered for implementation. Yes, it's tiresome seeing this same subject in "2-3 new threads daily", but, well, that's where we are in-game as well.

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?

But that's just the issue, don't you see? They post these numbers every few weeks, yet the situation does not get any better. Bots everywhere, RMT messages / friend requests just as frequent as last week - and sure, one can't hope for that all to be erased, but we haven't even gotten any better means to battle it, save for the rightclick-blacklist thing ages ago. No settings for receiving /tells, no stricter filters, no any other option that's been suggested a million times by a million of us. In fact, RMTs have gotten bold enough to actually create characters with their site names as character names now. What's that say about all the bans then?

[Radkat]

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!

[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.

[RedShipRaider]

Not really. Having an algorithm ban 9k accounts for gold spamming is a good start, but they will just be replaced. More worrisome is the line from that post that was left out.

・Accounts receiving disciplinary action for participation in RMT/illegal activity: 1
・Action Details: Temporary ban from FINAL FANTASY XIV

If botting players (as opposed to botting RMT operators, who know that account banning is a cost of business) had been perma-banned by the thousands there would be quite an uproar about it. That means that this sort of suspension is much more likely the route that they will take (if any at all) for dealing with players who bot sometimes. There was all of one suspension during the period you mentioned. A single one, across the entire game. Given the number of bots I see (and report) running the same patterns for a few hours most every day.... yea..... calling SE out on not addressing this issue does seem quite reasonable.