Ridiculous amount of Bots...

[Adrasteia]

They could have limited the number characters created after ban or have blacklist effect on ban person's account and not just character. I mean seriously, there are countless ways said in the forums.

Is it confirmed that they simply delete the character instead of banning the account outright?

[Mikki]

The bots seem to teleport and jump across maps. Is there no way for the game to detect these kind of things to help prevent botting? I know that won't get rid of the issue entirely, but it would certainly help if the game could pick up on these strange patterns and then ban the players immediately when it's detected. Also if it can pick up on constant patterns (such as always running the same path for hours on end - it would be difficult for a real person to run EXACTLY the same path a million times over). I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but I would think that it should be possible for them to somehow pick up on suspicious behavior...

It's such a shame. Tonberry is great other than the ridiculous amount of bots......... I haven't gotten into crafting on this character yet but I shudder to think what the market will look like...

[Welsper59]

The bots seem to teleport and jump across maps. Is there no way for the game to detect these kind of things to help prevent botting? I know that won't get rid of the issue entirely, but it would certainly help if the game could pick up on these strange patterns and then ban the players immediately when it's detected. Also if it can pick up on constant patterns (such as always running the same path for hours on end - it would be difficult for a real person to run EXACTLY the same path a million times over). I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but I would think that it should be possible for them to somehow pick up on suspicious behavior...

It's such a shame. Tonberry is great other than the ridiculous amount of bots......... I haven't gotten into crafting on this character yet but I shudder to think what the market will look like...

When I asked a GM about detecting an MPK attempt, I was told that they don't have a means to finding detailed info of common events or actions that are done by the game itself (e.g. mobs aggroing or using AoE that doesn't hit anyone). That would likely also apply to things like server based information about gathering nodes. Locally stored files that house info like time, coordinates, and so forth are likely included in the data that is sent between you and the server. Long distance teleporting gatherers, hacks that involve single swings to gather all mats from a node, and instant leveling (something RMT used a lot of during 2.0) probably have these time stamps on them, which would allow a GM or the STF (if that's even still a thing) to determine if someone is cheating. Seeing someone completely gather from 20 nodes in Heavensward areas in a timespan of 1min is an obvious red flag, for example. Likewise if you magically went from one zone to another in a matter of a few seconds.

Things like repeat patterns simply based on movement but no unusual interaction involved is evidence visually, but reading it through the server data will show nothing suspicious. This is why certain speed and teleport hacks, unless observed firsthand by a GM, will more than likely go unpunished. If they're being used somewhat realistically, even if visually not, the data will not show anything unusual. Even though this player that is clearly botting has spun around for 1 second, and runs to the next node and does other repeat movements before interacting with the node, the data will show absolutely nothing different from a legit player running from A to B. 1.5x normal speed of running or by mount will likely be unnoticeable unless done over a long period of time without interruption (dismounting, Heavy status, etc). Honestly, I can't always blame GMs for not taking actions against players who obviously cheat. A lot of the time it's just the lack of resources/tools or even just outright protocol that prevents them from doing so. Bots are (typically) next to impossible to detect unless someone applies a ridiculous hack alongside its use or a GM has firsthand account and attempted communication to determine bot behavior. The data alone usually won't be enough.

[Natsuno]

<snip> or have blacklist effect on ban person's account and not just character. I mean seriously, there are countless ways said in the forums.

Report RMT spam bots under 'report harassment', giving details (including the /say or /tell). The account will be banned (or frozen... w/ever, same result) within minutes. The account is then no longer usable, so I do not see how an 'account wide' ban would affect this issue.

Don't use the 'report cheating' option for spam bots. It's next to useless, but then the account wide blist may prove some use to you. But why bother when the account can be stopped within minutes using 'report harassment'.

[UnstablePersonality]

Oh I see a lot of these buggers on Siren, it grows old fast.

[RosaBlanche]

What do you think they should have implemented to handle the botting problem?

the option to block tells from players on free trials, like they did with friend requests.

[Blood-Aki]

the option to block tells from players on free trials, like they did with friend requests.

I would have prefferd an option to block tells from brand new characters entirely. I doubt a single legit person just starting the game will just randomly send tells to people. all day.

[Xanikk999]

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

If this is true and Square Enix really wants to kill bots why not give out free physical/mobilephone authenticators and make them mandatory to log on. It would be an inconvenience to some but wouldn't it make the likelyhood of peoples accounts being hacked and stolen for gold spamming purposes much less likely?

[reillyblair]

i just wish they got numbered like the black mages from the blackmage village as i constantly see large groups of them they don't talk or even acknowledge i am there i now know how vivi felt in ff9 lol

[MilesSaintboroguh]

If this is true and Square Enix really wants to kill bots why not give out free physical/mobilephone authenticators and make them mandatory to log on. It would be an inconvenience to some but wouldn't it make the likelyhood of peoples accounts being hacked and stolen for gold spamming purposes much less likely?

Because:

A) it still would cost Square money to give people "free" physical security tokens and those costs have to be made up elsewhere (higher price to buy the game or higher subscription fees for example)

B) Believe it or not, not everyone has a cell phone (shocking I know) and others may not want to be hassled with installing more software on their phone. It's like requiring someone to have a Twitter account before they're allowed to play a game they paid for.

C) While security tokens in general are supposed to prevent accounts from being stolen so easily, it won't protect you if the thief gets a hold of your email account or other information they can use to crack into your Square Enix account (phishing and keylogging being a few examples on how the more clever attackers can get to your stuff, even with a security token)


In a nutshell, you can't outright eliminate RMTs/gil sellers/bots completely, but you can make it more difficult for them to profit from the game. A lot of items in game can't be traded or sold to other players, leveling up past 50 requires buying the expansion pack, gathering materials in the new 3.0 areas is more busywork (and somewhat more dangerous) than in 2.0, and so on. While I am on Balmung, a server that is known for having very few RMT spam, as soon as 3.0 launched, I pretty much never gotten a single RMT message ever again. I sometimes see the occasional group of bots hanging around in the 2.0 areas, but nothing more than that. I cannot say this is the same for other servers, but I can safely assume that Square fighting the bots and RMT can involve more than just ban waves. Doesn't mean that everything is perfectly fine, but I can see what they are at least trying to do.