Let us report retainers who sell items from bots

[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.