botting.

[TheVedis]

My friend came over a long while back and I wanted to finish up a crafting leve before we went out.

Needless to say, that's when I realized what I was doing.

going out and real life always take priority before a game
you shoulda been going out and not thinking about staying in to get to 50, regardless of what kinda game or what class/job whatever you were doing

[TheVedis]

50 before march?

I had a r50 crafter class since December without botting lol.

I agree that it's an epidemic though.

its bad, but its not as bad as some people are making it out to be
and usualy, most of the bots are all congregating in single shells so that they can try to protect each others reps or vouch for each other(we have one of those shells on besaid too)
and im not talking rmts either

[Nayt]

if a gm is trying to contact you, and sees your "turbo control" going over and over and over again
and your not responding
and hes continuing to message you
and your not responding

how do you think that looks?

its not overzelous, its just about right for them to jail and suspend you until you contact them at the least. upon which point you can explain how you feel setting a turbo control on and being away from the keyboard for hours should be legal(which is about the only excuse you can give when they check your "command" log and see you spamming enter for hours with no other commands in it at all)

Being put to jail for questioning is one thing, but banning is an entirely other.

What if I, since I don't even have to watch the screen (and I have multiple) just spammed enter while watching a movie. If I only look back every once in a while, I am unlikely to see whatever the GM said, since the log will be filled up in seconds.

How many times would they toss me into jail before they realize their methods are broken? It's hardly an offense to not pay attention to the game.

[Jinko]

^ You can easily make a second chat window and filter out everything but tells, you could also enable tell to make a sounds so it alerts you when you are sent a message.

BTW bots could potentially get much much worse when addons are added ..

[Nayt]

^ You can easily make a second chat window and filter out everything but tells, you could also enable tell to make a sounds so it alerts you when you are sent a message.

BTW bots could potentially get much much worse when addons are added ..

Why would anyone make that change, just to avoid being thrown in jail?

It's not so much the fact that I can do it, as much as why should I have to?

What I want to say is, why is being non-responsive grounds for being accused of botting?

[Raidou]

Botting on my server is ridiculously rampant. People don't even bother trying to hide it, and you basically trip over a dozen automated crafters on the main streets of Uldah. It's extremely dismaying as a legitimate player. I always feel like people who don't really care about the game and cheat at it, be it in auto leveling, power leveling, or craft botting get rewarded greatly for their efforts. And I only get a character who can't keep up and a worn out enter key.

I kind of blame a series of faults for the issue:

-The crafting game isn't engaging and people feel comfortable only using the standard method to complete a synth. This has made it possible to successfully level crafting with one key press and without looking at the game. Far too easy to automate.

-The crafting game takes too long to complete. Pairing with the above stated, even if you went through the attentive effort to try to achieve a HQ result, the probability is so flakey it doesn't feel worth it in the end. Hopefully the upcoming adjustment will help this. In the meantime, I think the length of the minigame has turned people away from wanting to do it hundreds of times required to level up.

-Admitted lack of GM monitoring by SE while trying to rework the game. Doesn't help that in FFXI there wasn't a very strong presence either. I think people feel safe to get away with anything that can't be concretely undisputed in a chat log. Like using fowl language that someone reported offense to.

-Several players don't seem to value their character as much yet and don't feel particularly threatened by being banned.

-Popular notion that a mass banning of known botters would greatly impact the server populations and playerbase. A lot of people are comfortable and confident it just simply won't be done.

-Too much emphasis and importance placed on needing all classes leveled. You may not need to have subcrafts leveled anymore but there's still a strong disadvantage in the game in not having all the crafting classes brought up. For battle classes it's pretty much mandatory. Hopefully the upcoming adjustments and job system corrects this.

-Cumbersome GM call system even if you were bothered to try to report someone.

-Since it's become such a widespread practice, people considering it feel safe that botting in this game is not only safe, but also a wiser thing to do. No one wants to tattle on friends and linkshell members, especially if they benefit from having someone around to do one stop crafting for them.

Sorry for lack of articulation, in a rush out the door. Everyone is free to disagree with my points of course.

Nice post Kio.

Bot crafting is really bad on Trabia.

I don't post much, but I'll post some thoughts on this thread.

I don't think the point of this thread is to say everyone who crafts bots. Not everyone does, but the ones that do and get away with it should be punished.

Hopefully when they start the billing cycle, the people who bot in a more casual manner will either quit, or fear using a bot will get them banned for good.

I could go on and on about why I hate people who use bots in this game. And how I feel its like spitting in the face of the players who do things legit.

Instead, I'll just post some ideas on how to punish those that use bots.

I don't think they should be banned for good, it would probably reduce the population on some servers quite a bit. While this is sad, that would not be good for the game. (Like Kio mentioned in the post above.)

I think they should set up a system. If someone is caught using a bot, they are banned for a short amount of time. I won't pretend to have the perfect amount of time, I'd just leave that up to SE.

During this time, when you go to the players lodestone profile, it should list they have been banned, and what they were banned for.

Yes, I think it should be made public. It would be a very hard lesson for those who are caught, and I seriously doubt they would even consider it ever again.

Word would spread quick, and while not everyone would be aware of it, they might get removed from the linkshell they are in, and have to work hard to rebuild the reputation they had before.

The above is just an idea, and I'm sure others would just rather see someone caught using a bot banned for good.

I like to think, as much as the people who bot might pretend they don't care about the character they play, that they are just lying. I think they care, and more than others do. I think they camp pads and pro looking at their profile, looking at the jobs they have, and how close it makes them to being the highest ranked person on the server or whatever.

They want that, they want others to look at them and say, wow, you have so much accomplished, you are awesome, etc. It's just a shame they feel like they need to cheat to do so.

(No, I'm not saying everyone who camps pro and pads and various sites and looks at their profile bots. I know all about achievement hunters, if you want to call them that. I like to unlock achievements myself, maybe not as much as others though.)

[EcchiMan]

You have to be in a questionable state of mind to level more than, generously, two crafts to 50.

Hell, people are discussing ways to do it in this very thread, that should be proof enough it's boring as sin and so very grindy. You can't even talk to people while you're crafting since the chat-box kicks you out after every animation.

So unless

you type like
this you are
not going
to be able
to talk to
your ls
mates.

That is incorrect. You can still chat with turbo mode on, Just hit space bar after it starts up, and it will pause till you have hit enter to finish your sentence.

[Jinko]

Why would anyone make that change, just to avoid being thrown in jail?

It's not so much the fact that I can do it, as much as why should I have to?

What I want to say is, why is being non-responsive grounds for being accused of botting?

I know what you are getting at, but how else would they determine you are botting or not.

The only other choice is to do what WoW does and detect 3rd party software, this is much harder to do and generally doesn't work either as there is always ways for players to get round these kinds of systems.

Fact is botting will always exist as will RMT.

How about I turn this arguement on its head just for fun lol, how about a person who uses a bot and sits at his/her computer whilst it is running, is this any different that spamming enter, is this any different than using a controller with turbo stuck on ?

[EcchiMan]

completely legal, until a gm tries to contact you after you get reported and you justr arent there to respond

I still watch my screen for tells and ls chat, when I use my turbo game pad. I only use it for locals, and each local is done in a few minutes. I use it mostly for saving my thumbs from getting numb spamming the same button over and over.

GM contacting me, haha. I wish I could get a hold of one, especially if I actually need something fixed. But you can wait hours at a time and never get a GM response...good luck with that.

Turbo also works well with the laggy UI, Instead of mashing the button over and over to pop off an ability or weapon skill, you just hold it down till it works; not so good for spells though.

[nasomi]

The problem with responding to tells is my kid doesn't know how to type or respond to people in games, but they can hold the controller and craft. And quite honestly I would rather them not communicate with people on the internet, as they are still young and impressionable. And they enjoy playing the game "daddy" plays.

Also, I have 2 kids, so they take turns. can easily grind out an hour before they switch off.