Ridiculous amount of Bots...

[Mikki]

This has probably been brought up in the past, since I know they have always been a problem. But when I was on Excalibur, mostly the issue was getting tells from gil-sellers. I saw a few bots harvesting sometimes, too. But not too, too much. This was over a year ago though so it could have changed.

Anyway, now I play on Tonberry and the amount of bots I've seen is absolutely ridiculous. I reported over 20 yesterday alone and I saw even more today... MOST of them are THMs for whatever reason. If a GM just sat inside the THM guild all day, they'd probably be able to blast a crap load of 'em.

As much as I'd love to make the game a better place for everyone, I have to wonder if it's even worth it to waste my time reporting all of these bots. It's tedious to do and I feel like I'm not making a difference at all.
Thoughts? Do you report bots when you see them? Do you feel like (or know if) SE actually investigates all the bot reports?

[Ayuhra]

I have been noticing an uptick in bots on multiple servers (Famfrit, Excalibur, a little bit on Gilgamesh). Sometimes I actually see the buggers and their nonsense names and lines of clones or see whoever it is whispering folks standing next to me. It seems like it's gotten worse lately.

There was a ban wave recently right? Maybe they're recovering. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of botters.

[Nomad-phx]

Seems like a pointless battle to me. Those boys buy copies of the game and pay subs so from a business standpoint SE probably loves botters lol I've always thought they only ban em after an unspoken amount of looking the other way while soaking up $.

[AsahinaMyLove]

Im still playing on Busy Mode!

Since end 2014. <<;

But I still get rmt spam from bots standing around on Big Blue teleport Crystals and/or near Market Boards and spaming there crap on "Say chat" -.-

[zandervont]

only one spam since 3.0 here. wopwop.

[Welsper59]

I have been noticing an uptick in bots on multiple servers (Famfrit, Excalibur, a little bit on Gilgamesh). Sometimes I actually see the buggers and their nonsense names and lines of clones or see whoever it is whispering folks standing next to me. It seems like it's gotten worse lately.

There was a ban wave recently right? Maybe they're recovering. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of botters.

Ban waves do nothing. The instant a long withheld ban wave is done, they've already prepared other accounts to be in full force with the gil to sell. Recreating dozens, hundreds, thousands of characters and accounts is literally what RMT bots do every single day. That's exactly why anytime someone links to their actions against RMT post on Lodestone, as some form of meaningful movement, it makes me facepalm. Unless the devs/GMs are willing to actively take a stand against them every day (which means account bans, credit card lockouts, etc. every hour), it's a losing battle. The original strategy of giving it time to pinpoint the cluster RMT to ban them does not work anymore. If it did, we'd see them go away... but it literally does nothing to stop them.

They've always been around, despite many people claiming not to have seen their presence for a long time. Folks should not mistake situational circumstance for credited actions taken. What server are you on? What time of the day do you play? How populated is it? Does your server suffer lockouts at any given point of the day? Is it a JP server? Was it when a new patch went live? Was it during the population spike caused when Heavensward launched? So on and so forth. Any given variable, including ones like frequency of people on your server being potential buyers (be it a lot or none), can affect this. The only way to minimize their presence is to improve quality of life so they're not as annoying. They're an inevitable evil that cannot be stopped from doing what they do. The sooner the devs and playerbase realize this, the sooner changes can be made... unless the devs honestly couldn't give a damn, which is likely the case here. I mean, even the players (myself included), have learned to just ignore them and /tell in general (/busy). Some folks use addons to filter chat, since SE will not. Proper chat filters are seriously the best way to quell the angst about their rampant advertising. SE refuses this, for some stupid reason... probably under the reason that the servers can't handle it. We're two years into this reboot games life and there's been very little done to improve this elementary level problem since 2.0 launched. The last thing was to remove the ability to send friend requests from free accounts, which, while significant, was something that should have been done LONG before 3.0 patch. Them not having done that earlier is more of a blunder than it is a result of actions taken against RMT... since free trial accounts was an intentional addition after launch and the knowledge that RMT exists here.

I like the devs for this game, but man can they be ridiculously naive about the bad habits that exist in their game and how things work because of that. Honestly, it's likely just a "meh" situation for them. It's just like botting in this game. 99.9% of the time, you'll be perfectly fine with no repercussions. As long as you're not blatantly hacking or something, GMs will generally turn a blind eye because it's next to impossible to determine bot from player with the lack of resources they're given and the time-frame they decide to investigate it. I know of many non-RMT players on the server that bot, some of whom use speed hacks while doing it, but nothing has ever happened to them despite numerous reports AND video evidence of suspicious behavior over many months. This is unfortunately not unexpected, given Yoshi-P's leniency towards cheating behavior (i.e. win trading). Back to the RMT though, it is what it is, so don't expect much change lol. They're actively a part of your FFXIV experience, just like bad groups, so just gotta accept that.

[Mikki]

I actually haven't received a single tell about buying gil, so thank the twelve for that! But it's just that I see a ton of them lined up with keyboard mashed names all mirroring each other, hopping around the map from one spot to another with their strange instant teleporting.

It saddens me to think that SE would keep bots around just for the sake of them purchasing a subscription. Honestly though, wouldn't it be more money? Since then they would have to pay for another sub in order to continue doing what they're doing. Although I suppose at the end of the day it would have to be profitable enough for them to continue doing it. I'd continue reporting them if I felt like SE was listening, but with how many I've been seeing lately it's hard to believe that they are..

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I don't get why people think bots "buy" more copies of the game. At least a good chunk of accounts are stolen.

[Mikki]

@Welsper59: Well, that's kind of what I was assuming which is why I asked in the first place. Didn't want to be wasting my time if SE doesn't take it seriously. On one hand, I thought it could be that most people don't report because they think it's pointless and that's why there's so many. But on the other, it could be that they just don't care. Unfortunately, it seems like it's the latter then. :/

My server is almost constantly locked out. I guess I realize why now; it's not because it's actually super populated, but just that bots are constantly making accounts. That's such a shame. I bet if SE offered some players to be bot-GM's where they had the power to ban bots, and asked them to do it x amount of hours a week in exchange for a free sub or exclusive items, there'd be tons willing to do it (although then you may run into issues of people banning real players for spite, etc). But I mean, there are options. They're just not interesting in fixing it, it would seem.

[Amberyl]

I don't get why people think bots "buy" more copies of the game. At least a good chunk of accounts are stolen.

Usually from people keylogged whilst trying to buy RMT on websites that don't have any yet to sell.

Supply and demand, where the demand creates the supply. Ironic, isn't it.