Is there any better way of reporting Bots?

[VanilleFang]

I honestly feel like they probably allow all forms of botting to persist largely because it's making them money, rather then it simply being that they don't care. Every single one of those gil farmers is paying a sub so they can hit level 50, and when I've been seeing over 100 of them active simultaneously on just Cactaur alone, that amounts to a lot of money across all of the game's servers.

It also bloats their account numbers so they can make publicity claims about the game supposedly having 10 million players when only about one of tenth said players are actually subbed, if even that.

They really have little to lose from a commercial standpoint by allowing them to exist.

That's rather pessimistic isn't it?

I mean, the subs thing? Maybe. But I don't really think they need to bloat their numbers that much.

[KageTokage]

I have a hard time not being pessimistic when I've played cheap F2P MMOs that took their botting issues more seriously despite them having no hope of being able to curb the issue even slightly due to how easy it was for anyone to mass-produce bots with no sub fee involved.

It's not a big problem here, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored by any means when things like PvP bots are still directly disruptive to the experience of others when they're effectively throwing the game for their teamI. They could at least do something about those.

[Maero]

I always report them because they are a pita and it goes by waves as sometimes they are worst. Currently they are not too bad
Not like it does anything but sometimes i mark bots as target to attack or whatever

[Iscah]

Hmm... you could make them show up in the text log by emoting at them! (A suitable use for that overspammed-by-quests /doubt emote finally?)

[Cakekizyy]

Hmm... you could make them show up in the text log by emoting at them! (A suitable use for that overspammed-by-quests /doubt emote finally?)

That's not proof of anything though.

[Iscah]

I meant for what I was talking about earlier - a way to get their names into the chat log so they can be targeted for the quick "report RMT" option.

[Cakekizyy]

I meant for what I was talking about earlier - a way to get their names into the chat log so they can be targeted for the quick "report RMT" option.

But that would be abusing it by using to report non-rmt. Good way to get suspended I would think.

[Iscah]

But that would be abusing it by using to report non-rmt. Good way to get suspended I would think.

Well, that's what I was asking about earlier (and didn't actually get a direct answer for, because the discussion shifted off into whether it was possible to access their names in the chat log in the first place).

So:

Are the stack-of-identical-bots-playing-MSQ doing so to earn money to be used in RMT? If not, what is their purpose?

And even if they are not doing that, would reporting all of them at once be enough to draw the management team's attention to the fact they are clearly bots? How closely do they look at the recorded actions of the reported player - would they notice that all four are moving in sync?

It's frustrating that there is a quick report option only for RMT and not for anything else - and for that matter, there is never any in-game explanation as to what "RMT" means, or what "abuse of the system" would be. (Using it to hassle genuine players of course would be abusing it, but is reporting bots acceptable or not?) When I was first starting out I was trying to report one of the gil-selling-advertisement bots but with no idea what the only report option meant, and the warning that there would be consequences for its misuse, I had to ask elsewhere.

[Mwynn]

Well, that's what I was asking about earlier (and didn't actually get a direct answer for, because the discussion shifted off into whether it was possible to access their names in the chat log in the first place).

So:

Are the stack-of-identical-bots-playing-MSQ doing so to earn money to be used in RMT? If not, what is their purpose?

And even if they are not doing that, would reporting all of them at once be enough to draw the management team's attention to the fact they are clearly bots? How closely do they look at the recorded actions of the reported player - would they notice that all four are moving in sync?

It's frustrating that there is a quick report option only for RMT and not for anything else - and for that matter, there is never any in-game explanation as to what "RMT" means, or what "abuse of the system" would be. (Using it to hassle genuine players of course would be abusing it, but is reporting bots acceptable or not?) When I was first starting out I was trying to report one of the gil-selling-advertisement bots but with no idea what the only report option meant, and the warning that there would be consequences for its misuse, I had to ask elsewhere.

Basically what the XYZSHDJ AKHASDJK Characters do, in short RMT Bots, they're starting in one of the Main Cities, teleport from NPC to NPC for MSQ, then kill some Enemies rapidly while underground (You probably seen this).

Once they reach Lv.15, 4 of those RMT Bots will group up and go into a Dungeon, the Reason for that is that not a single normal Player might encounter them doing their "Duty".

There were Hard Cases back in ARR when it comes to Praetorium, some People suddenly got queued up with them, if not the Video about them floating and teleporting in Praetorium (2nd Dungeon) should be still on Youtube.

As far as I know they basically do the Objectives of the Dungeons in a matter of a few seconds, so each Dungeon probably takes only 2-3 Minutes.
You can observe this in Central Thanalan in one of the Houses in the North, it's a known Spot for them to hide and Queue up.

Repeating this until Lv.50 (... or beforehand) they start to create Free Companies, you may ask why?
To load all of their Gil into the FC Chest and the Main "Leader" takes it all, less of a pain compared to using Trades with the Gil Limit.

Usually at this Point Square Enix goes Nope and Bans the Leader associated with all the others, resulting in the known Mass Bans.

If Square Enix did Ban them all from the moment they just started at Lv.1, it be really hell Ingame and even more of Mess as they simply reappear in a matter of a few Hours...

[Iscah]

If Square Enix did Ban them all from the moment they just started at Lv.1, it be really hell Ingame and even more of Mess.

How so? Why would banning them earlier have a negative effect on the game? Or do you mean in terms of hypothetical measures they'd need to catch them earlier? Or I guess we'd be swarmed with lots of "new players" doing the same first few stages of the game before they were banned.

As well as coming across random groups from time to time, while I was doing one of my white mage quests there was a bot that just kept warping in and out of there literally on top of Raya-O the whole time I was interacting with her - which just seems rude on top of clearly cheating.