PVP bots

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Then tell me why this NIN (and several of the others in this video) is still around?

(They were on DRG when I saw them yesterday)

Besides, if getting reported does nothing, screenshots and video and even your own stream footage are invalid due to possible editing, and SE otherwise seems completely unwilling to actually do something, why would any of them stop?

[Akor]

The point though is that people cheat based on it benefitting them. Frontlines bots happened because you had very quick pops and could get a lot of exp in a short time afk. That doesn't exist any more; 400k per half-hour isn't good exp by any means (its barely 2 fates), and by now people have leveled the jobs they want to play up to cap. So I'm finding it hard to believe there is this mass bot invasion in a frontlines that can barely pop 8 mans. You can get better exp just running POTD over, and in the same time even as DPS I can get a dungeon pop for 3x the exp or more.

Bc its still gives you wolfs mark which you can turn in to gear and exchange them for gc seals.

[RuneFox]

Then tell me why this NIN (and several of the others in this video) is still around?

(They were on DRG when I saw them yesterday)

Besides, if getting reported does nothing, screenshots and video and even your own stream footage are invalid due to possible editing, and SE otherwise seems completely unwilling to actually do something, why would any of them stop?

8/10 times when someone reports a "Bot" off someone fitting a "certain" play style, they are never banned simply because they are not bots. Then the person rages that the company is not taking action against bots because they "feel" they know more simply off visual evidence Vs that company's actual, factual data. I know it's easy to say, "I have 20+ years of playing games, being a programmer, being a Dev, etc" but that still does not trump the fact that the company has the actual metrics and data to prove different.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

I get that you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it's time to be realistic about this. People openly bot on a stream and that's invalid as evidence because it could be - could be - edited? Come on. Did you watch the video I linked? Aside from standing there doing nothing while ice was up, once I had the other team's bots on me, I literally ran to and behind the NIN, and they remained untouched until I was "out of range". How about Kisama's video where they're all standing there unmoving until ice spawns "in range"?

SE's been shooting themselves in the foot with their policies on visual evidence since day 1. That's exactly what allowed some of the most notorious wintraders in the Feast to go so unchecked they got bold enough to stop being subtle about it, and even make a mocking video about it. Or the other guy that literally showed HOW to do it, and brazenly posted in a topic about wintraders, all but bragging about how SE can't do anything about it, and largely thanks to their own rules on the matter.

But tell me, if they can ban a guy live on stream for things he said, why then is it so difficult, apparently, to catch a player botting, especially when the behavior is so obvious AND frequent? This isn't an argument of "different playstyle"; this is straight up people cheating and violating the TOS, and doing it openly. AND NOTHING BEING DONE ABOUT IT. Stormblood is half a year old now. Look around for all the topics about botting or cheating in general. Try to find any post or correspondence from SE that they've actually done something about it. I can wait.

P.S. Don't play the "metrics and data" card. According to Yoshi P, their "data" shows that more people began to participate in the Feast when they implemented the chat restriction. . . at the same time they overhauled PvP reward structure and launched the Garo event. Their metrics and data are pretty damn skewed; and for anyone within SE to attempt to pat themselves on the back and call PvP as it is now any kind of success should really be alarming.

[Theodric]

It's just getting worse and worse. Honourable, honest players seem to be screwed over at every turn these days.

We recently saw a prominent, famous raiding FC brag on Twitter about exploiting the housing system. They insulted anyone who raised an eyebrow or criticised them...whilst being paid a significant amount in the form of real cash and bonus perks to promote the game on things like Twitch.

PvP is gradually dying as a result of various factors, including win traders and bots.

I have to wonder if it's an issue with funding. Perhaps Square Enix need to invest more money in hiring people to address reports? The game did, after all, grow far beyond what it expected to be after it relaunched as ARR. Do we know if the support team grew over time?

[Mofafafa]

Do we know if the support team grew over time?

Most probably not, most of the funding went towards the funding FF15 and other SE games. (if i'm not wrong, that yoshida said they have shortage of crew to handle the overwhelming of production)
This however, iirc, yoshida said that for the stormblood expansion, they receive a much more budget compared to the heavensward expansion budget.

[RiyahArp]

Bc its still gives you wolfs mark which you can turn in to gear and exchange them for gc seals.

You can get them faster through poetics and creation, since only the lvl 60 gear can be turned in. I thought about desynth too, but if you are good enough to get it high, you know there are better things than pvp to use it on.

Then tell me why this NIN] (and several of the others in this video) is still around?

Are they still botting? My guess is that botting went down quite a bit once they nerfed exp gain and queues died.

PvP is gradually dying as a result of various factors, including win traders and bots.

I have to wonder if it's an issue with funding. Perhaps Square Enix need to invest more money in hiring people to address reports? The game did, after all, grow far beyond what it expected to be after it relaunched as ARR. Do we know if the support team grew over time?

Win trading happened because the population of light party feast, and I'm guessing to an extent hi ranked normal feast, is too small to prevent it from occurring. Maybe its because of a tiny sub-population, that of healers, since healers are the easiest ones to throw a match with. Punishment is probably because they can't ban people specifically from Feast, and you can imagine the griefing potential if you could be banned based on pvp actions. Best thing would be for them to allow people to be banned from ranked mode.

[Zojha]

You can get them faster through poetics and creation, since only the lvl 60 gear can be turned in.

Botting isn't exactly about getting things "fast". It's about getting things while you're doing something else. And for that, the gains are still pretty good.

You have to think:"What else could I bot in that time?", rather than:"What else could I do in that time?". I'd imagine a lot of bots from PvP end up going gathering once they finished leveling.

[Kisama]

. So why on earth are people botting it? there's no reason.

Bots started showing up about a year ago, before exp was even a reward. Back then it was for wolf marks or Relic progress.

Some people bot so they can sell the account. These are the people with the obviously-randomized character appearances.

[saucyshortcake]

There's a number of behaviors you can pick out that you can 100% tell they're bots. Almost all of them are clearly running the same application(I obviously won't link the site here) and it's very, VERY easy to tell botted characters once you pick up the ways to distinguish them. Problem is, I can give these quirks to SE and report the same bots as much as I want, nothing ever happens. It's a waste of time. I've given up at this point and just pretty much accepted that nothing will ever be done about it. People blatantly do it on their main active service accounts with top end raiding gear/titles because there's zero risk.