Let us report retainers who sell items from bots

[OMEGA_HACK]

The problem is people see Player A going to the same route across three different trees and goes "OMG ITS A BOT! LIGHT IT ON FIRE!!!!!" Seriously I cannot count on my hands how many people have stopped to "observe" me while I'm gathering.

Yes we go to the same three nodes over and over again, not because we are bots but because those nodes give benefits like HQ increase, or one additional gathering attempt, or double yields naturally. The problem is that players who have a lazier mindset or lack the fortitude to sit there and gather for an hour or so automatically assume those other people are BOTS, when its not the case. That being said I'm not saying that bots don't exist in the game, there are bots, however IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO KNOW ITS A BOT UNLESS YOU ARE USING ILLEGAL 3RD PARTY PROGRAMS YOURSELF TO MONITOR THEM. Which makes you no better than the person who probably isn't using a bot, but rather probably watching netflix and only half paying attention to the game because well its a very redundant and boring task to most. So that is probably why those players are not responding, not because there is a bot harvesting but because they are not paying attention to their chat box because a random wanna-be white knight is not worth their time.

Yes I know this post is a bit harsh, but honestly like I said, there is already a function if you want to report something you find suspicious and that is the call GM. If you think its too complicated your full of yourself you literally just go into help > Report GM and literally have to type as little as:

Your character
Your server
The time and location of incident
Person of interest
brief reason for report: ie, witnessed a possible bot in action, or group of RMT like players.

That's it. The only way to make it more simple is to give the power to right click report those players, and frankly I don't think it should ever be like that. Too many people would be harassed with it. I mean we already have players who harass people with the vote kick option in Duty Finder.

Also with the note of the retainer reporting, like mentioned by another poster, all it would do it muck up the system. Also if you think undercutting is bad what about those players who are tired of getting undercut? How do you get around that, get your friends together and report that retainer for suspicious activity. That retainer disappears from the MB while GMs investigate possible RMT activity, and bam you get to sell your $#!% for the price you wanted. Take a step farther, now you have to remember that anything given to the player can also be used by RMT. RMT has tons and tons of players in the game, whats to say they don't mass report non-RMT retainers to confuse and hold up GMs, or to remove any competition in the MB if a temp MB ban takes effect for numerously reported Retainers?

Again this kind of half-baked thinking won't help the game at all. I agree there is a problem with the number of RMT in the game, however this is NOT the solution.

[Sicno]

Snip

THIS. When I go gather a specific mat for an extended period of time I sometimes wonder if some people may believe I'm a bot. Especially something I recurrently go gather again for constantly selling at the market board (like silver ores to make silver ingots to sell or to make stuff to desynth).

Most of us are tired of RMT and their advertisers (I've made it clear on that 85 page long thread against RMT ads that SE keeps ignoring), but getting excessively paranoid as to report as possible botting anything you may find odd is actually detrimental to everybody. For instance, it means that the 3 people of the task force would have to go through a lot more of reports, and investigating someone to see if he's botting or engaging into RMT doesn't take 5 minutes, so you may be causing them to take longer to investigate the real bots. Bots in open fields tend to be obvious. They act in packs, they all look the same, they and their chocobos have random nonsensical names, they teleport around, they have absolutely no sense of fashion, etc. Suspecting people on the market board is not so simple. Even if you think a retainer's actions are suspicious you can't see the player behind them unless they sell crafted goods with the crafter's name on them, which is not the case for gathered goods. So since you can't reach to them and have a better idea of what's going on refrain on making reports on loose suspicion alone. Suspicion about a player has to be more solid to make a report.

[KisaiTenshi]

The problem is people see Player A going to the same route across three different trees and goes "OMG ITS A BOT! LIGHT IT ON FIRE!!!!!" Seriously I cannot count on my hands how many people have stopped to "observe" me while I'm gathering.

Yes we go to the same three nodes over and over again, not because we are bots but because those nodes give benefits like HQ increase, or one additional gathering attempt, or double yields naturally. The problem is that players who have a lazier mindset or lack the fortitude to sit there and gather for an hour or so automatically assume those other people are BOTS, when its not the case. That being said I'm not saying that bots don't exist in the game, there are bots, however IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO KNOW ITS A BOT UNLESS YOU ARE USING ILLEGAL 3RD PARTY PROGRAMS YOURSELF TO MONITOR THEM.

Whoa, hold the phone. Bots are pretty obvious to people who routinely see bots. The average person who wanders by and sees someone gathering from the same three nodes repeatedly, doesn't know that person is a bot the FIRST TIME they see them, but they do know they are botting when they come by 16 hours later and see them STILL gathering/mining in the same place in the same pattern.

This experience comes from watching bots in three other games.

IS IT A BOT OR IS IT HUMAN?
1) Check their gear. Bots will have HQ gear all from the same person, or all NPC/Quest NQ gear.
2) Is it gathering/mining/fishing? check the accessory slots. A real player will have a variety of gear and sources or all gear they made themselves. Bots, especially when you see a group of bots moving in the same pattern will likely have just the minimum gear necessary to mine that node.
3) Bots will not have minions summoned.... the quickest clue that someone is NOT botting is that they will have an untradeable minion summoned for no reason.
4) Search them on the lodestone and see what other jobs they have. A Bot will likely not have more than one or two classes leveled, and often only the minimum required to start that DoL class or otherwise will have only the requirements for BLM or WHM completed if they are hunting. If their lodestone is all private, that is almost certainly a bot. Someone who isn't a bot will at least have the achievement section public, because that makes it obvious to anyone searching they have been doing something other than standing there gathering for a solid week.
5) Watch the pattern, are they "turning on a dime" or are they turning in an arc? Bots "turn on a dime" eg they walk/run in straight lines to each node. Players don't generally walk in straight lines, they turn around first or turn in an arc.
6) They get stuck or die and then just stay there for hours.
7) You never see them immediately after a patch, but they run non-stop until the next patch.
8) FFXIV-specific: Bots "jump" repeatedly when they are blocked. This is most common of hunting bots/spirit-bonding bots. There are three bot sets I've seen
- Spirit-bonding bots at the Gelmorra Ruins, Uruths Fount (they all stand still until the wisp type mobs appear and then attack from a static location)
- Spirit-bonding bots at Castrum Occidens (spotted mainly during the book quests of kill "X many Y mobs" for the relic weapon)
- Spirit-bonding bots around Mor Dhona (identifiable because they will appear to be griefing you through kill-stealing, but it's always the same one or two players. It's a huge pain when you need to complete a F.A.T.E and they keep pulling aggro away from you.)

With the exception of the last one, I'm fairly certain they are bots due to the amount of time spent in those locations on several different days and times. The last one could be a player, but the movement suggests otherwise. So it's probably better to report that one for griefing than botting.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Whoa, hold the phone. Bots are pretty obvious to people who routinely see bots. The average person who wanders by and sees someone gathering from the same three nodes repeatedly, doesn't know that person is a bot the FIRST TIME they see them, but they do know they are botting when they come by 16 hours later and see them STILL gathering/mining in the same place in the same pattern.

This experience comes from watching bots in three other games.

IS IT A BOT OR IS IT HUMAN?
1) Check their gear. Bots will have HQ gear all from the same person, or all NPC/Quest NQ gear.
2) Is it gathering/mining/fishing? check the accessory slots. A real player will have a variety of gear and sources or all gear they made themselves. Bots, especially when you see a group of bots moving in the same pattern will likely have just the minimum gear necessary to mine that node.
3) Bots will not have minions summoned.... the quickest clue that someone is NOT botting is that they will have an untradeable minion summoned for no reason.
4) Search them on the lodestone and see what other jobs they have. A Bot will likely not have more than one or two classes leveled, and often only the minimum required to start that DoL class or otherwise will have only the requirements for BLM or WHM completed if they are hunting. If their lodestone is all private, that is almost certainly a bot. Someone who isn't a bot will at least have the achievement section public, because that makes it obvious to anyone searching they have been doing something other than standing there gathering for a solid week.
5) Watch the pattern, are they "turning on a dime" or are they turning in an arc? Bots "turn on a dime" eg they walk/run in straight lines to each node. Players don't generally walk in straight lines, they turn around first or turn in an arc.
6) They get stuck or die and then just stay there for hours.
7) You never see them immediately after a patch, but they run non-stop until the next patch.
8) FFXIV-specific: Bots "jump" repeatedly when they are blocked. This is most common of hunting bots/spirit-bonding bots. There are three bot sets I've seen
- Spirit-bonding bots at the Gelmorra Ruins, Uruths Fount (they all stand still until the wisp type mobs appear and then attack from a static location)
- Spirit-bonding bots at Castrum Occidens (spotted mainly during the book quests of kill "X many Y mobs" for the relic weapon)
- Spirit-bonding bots around Mor Dhona (identifiable because they will appear to be griefing you through kill-stealing, but it's always the same one or two players. It's a huge pain when you need to complete a F.A.T.E and they keep pulling aggro away from you.)

With the exception of the last one, I'm fairly certain they are bots due to the amount of time spent in those locations on several different days and times. The last one could be a player, but the movement suggests otherwise. So it's probably better to report that one for griefing than botting.

WHAT?! I jump when I am stuck not because im a bot but because I'm stubborn, again you have NO PROOF that those are bots. Not to mention you say I see person at node at 3PM I come back 16hours later and find same person at same node so he must be a bot!!!!!!!!!!!one!!!1!!! How do you know that person didn't log off, go to sleep for 8 hours, go to work/class for 8 hours and then log back in and start to farm again?! YOU DON'T UNLESS YOU ARE CHEATING YOURSELF TO MONITOR OTHER PLAYERS EXACT WHEREABOUTS AT ANY TIME.

All my gear is HQ from the same person because guess what...MY FREAKIN' FC MATE CAN MAKE IT AND I GATHER IT.

Minions being summoned as a call to not being a bot? Are you kidding me? You have to be kidding me. Seriously where is Ashton Kutcher because I must be getting punk'd.

Yes most RMT only have WHM and/or BLM leveled up, much like in FFXI. So that would be a decent tell sign but I wouldn't name it RMT just because.

Just because someone in dead for a while doesn't mean they are a bot. There could be a number of things that happened in that person REAL LIFE that took precedent over the game. Ie: child birth, dog sick, family emergency, diarrhea, uncontrollable vomiting, or all of the above and more.

While you have listed a couple tell signs for illicit activity that is not the end all be all. And having the power to report on a whim or worse--which honestly is what people are asking for without asking for--should NEVER EVER be in the hands of the players. period. I don't trust the paranoia that exists on these forums enough to entrust anyone with that kind of responsibility. I mean hell people believe SE is in bed with RMT...case and point of paranoia to the max.

NO THANKS.


Also I should note, that if you are sleuthing certain players, and watching their every move be careful, because that can be a taken as a form of harassment. In fact if I saw you stalking my character I would report you for that, so be glad if that is indeed what you are doing, that we are not on the same server.

Edit:

Whoa, hold the phone. Bots are pretty obvious to people who routinely see bots.

I reread your post and this sentence made me retch the second time. I really hope you understand that you validate my point of paranoid players with this sentence. "bots are pretty obvious to people who routinely see bots." So you know they are a bot because you routinely see bots? So you know they are a bot in the first place how? Because the things you listed below? Hardly proof to say they are a bot without a shadow of a doubt. That leaves me to believe you know bots because you routinely see them because you, yourself, are using bots, so you'd know how they work due to your own experience using them. That is the ONLY way I can see you knowing without a doubt that bots are bots; because I see a player harvesting stuff and I say "Oh look another gatherer. /wave" why? because I'm not paranoid.

[Ceodore]

.snip.

You are correct. However, this thread has become extremely derailed from the original post. We are not talking about being able to report gatherers or people out in the fields, this thread was originally about reporting retainers. Try to focus your arguments on why this system is flawed and ultimately a waste of resources instead of why the current system in game could generate bias and a higher percentage of false reports among players. We should probably get back onto that subject, because the ability to report players themselves is already in the game, and is a fair tool. No, it's not 100% accurate, but it's a fair tool.

Now, while I understand (as some people think I don't understand) that reporting a retainer doesn't mean that that retainer's player is automatically banned, what my point is (which I didn't state clearly enough before, and that's my fault) is that this kind of feature [The ability to report shady retainers] is ultimately lacking in over all quality. What I mean by this is that the general population of the game may report a retainer, but that's not to say that that retainer is actually the retainer of a bot. This means that, like all reports, this report has to be investigated, which requires man hours. Those man hours are ultimately far less productive when every report of a shady retainer has to be dealt with when compared to someone reporting what they think might be the farming bot out in the field. My example of a drug trafficking ring or a human trafficking ring is perfect because it displays the ease with which tracking a product from source to consumer when compared to from consumer to source then to the rest of the consumers. In this case, the source is the bot character in the field, farming items. Then those items can possibly change hands, move around, but the items themselves can be followed and tracked much easier when they have been tagged at the source level instead of trying to trace back their origins from the consumer level. This is essentially a network that looks much like a tree. The trunk is the bot character who is out in the field farming, and the branches are all the other characters that that bot can likely send those items to. Then the leaves are the branches' retainers, who put those items up for sale. Starting from the trunk (source) and following the trade of items to all the accounts that the items are likely being traded to is much easier than starting with one of those accounts, then tracing back to the source, then having to trace from the source back to all those accounts.

This is why this system is ultimately far less efficient at catching bots. You're trying to start from the wrong side, and it takes more time and effort to what might or might not amount to the same or even less productive work. Further, since every report has to be investigated, and the likely bias, abuse, and lack of evidence involved with this system, the number of false reports will be far higher than the number of false reports that are made out in the fields, and this will result in a much higher waste in man hours.

This system is inefficient, unreliable, and ultimately a waste of time and money for less productive outcomes. Go back to the drawing board and think again.

[KisaiTenshi]

WHAT?! I jump when I am stuck not because im a bot but because I'm stubborn, again you have NO PROOF that those are bots.

All I'm hearing in your sarcastic response is that you're just being a Troll. A Troll response deserves Text-book answer.

Let's go point by point:

WHAT?! I jump when I am stuck not because im a bot but because I'm stubborn, again you have NO PROOF that those are bots. Not to mention you say I see person at node at 3PM I come back 16hours later and find same person at same node so he must be a bot!!!!!!!!!!!one!!!1!!! How do you know that person didn't log off, go to sleep for 8 hours, go to work/class for 8 hours and then log back in and start to farm again?! YOU DON'T UNLESS YOU ARE CHEATING YOURSELF TO MONITOR OTHER PLAYERS EXACT WHEREABOUTS AT ANY TIME.

Allow me to show you:

HMM THESE PLAYERS HAVE BEEN IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION ALL MONTH

WEARING THE SAME GEAR

And only ever moving to trade with a player who stands in this space

And when they get banned/deleted, they are replaced with 7 more identical bots wearing the same gear

And look, there's the bot-lord who made all the accessories that all of these bots are wearing to spiritbond.

And there's the bot-lord making more accessories while AFK

And there's the lodestone data showing this character has nothing else leveled, not in a GC and not in a FC.

All these bots with the exception of the bot-lord were standing around the Gelmorra Ruins for days on end, running non-stop until their inventories were likely full. Or a maybe a GM killed them all:


Because they disappeared after that and haven't been seen since. Previously only disappear for a few hours after a patch. And you know what is funny about all this? There is no way those were not bots. Now go back and look at every point I mentioned previously:
- Wearing identical gear, all of them from the same players, both sets of bots.
- No other jobs
- No GC or FC
- Automatically doing actions while "AFK"
- Dead for hours.

All my gear is HQ from the same person because guess what...MY FREAKIN' FC MATE CAN MAKE IT AND I GATHER IT.

Good for you, here's a cookie.

Look at the screenshots above and you will see that is not the case.

Minions being summoned as a call to not being a bot? Are you kidding me? You have to be kidding me. Seriously where is Ashton Kutcher because I must be getting punk'd.

Someone with Puff or Darkness, Onion Knight, or Louisoix likely isn't a bot. Because these minions are only available to players who completed hard content. I have never seen a bot have a minion summoned, because they just don't do stuff they aren't required to do.

Yes most RMT only have WHM and/or BLM leveled up, much like in FFXI. So that would be a decent tell sign but I wouldn't name it RMT just because.

They only have those leveled up and NOTHING ELSE. The barest minimalist done.

Just because someone in dead for a while doesn't mean they are a bot. There could be a number of things that happened in that person REAL LIFE that took precedent over the game. Ie: child birth, dog sick, family emergency, diarrhea, uncontrollable vomiting, or all of the above and more.

While you have listed a couple tell signs for illicit activity that is not the end all be all. And having the power to report on a whim or worse--which honestly is what people are asking for without asking for--should NEVER EVER be in the hands of the players. period. I don't trust the paranoia that exists on these forums enough to entrust anyone with that kind of responsibility. I mean hell people believe SE is in bed with RMT...case and point of paranoia to the max.

Because people abuse reporting processes. A business is a business and it has to draw a line between making "most customers happy" and "making reasonable staffing service levels"

Have you ever wondered why you can call your credit card company and spend less than 3 minutes on hold, for any reason, but if you call your wireless phone company you will spend upwards of 20 minutes on hold if you call during a service outage? Wireless companies only staff "just enough" people to handle the best case scenario which is just people calling in to pay their bills and reset their passwords. That's why they are derided as having some of the worst customer service ever.

If everyone was reporting things consistently and accurately (that bot report above took no less than 5 separate reports to SE, each time I took a screenshot with the dates and names of the bots, and made a point of pointing out the connection between them all,) but the average person just wants a "report this" button and let SE try and figure out the context. That works fine for spam but not for things that require actual investigation processes like the Retainers who somehow have hundreds of grade IV materia, yet the players they belong to don't have the capability to make it.

[dayspring83]

This post reminds me that a lot of people spend more time looking for (stalking) bots than actually playing the game.