Please make "impossible" levels of playing worth investigating for botting

[Lucerna]

Seeing what other programs are running is more sketchy. But having Square Enix actually investigate player reports would be a huge help. I just went to gather Duskglow sand and counted eight (8) bot characters at the node gathering whom I have been reporting since Heavensward. If these cases were investigated and the bots banned, non-cheating players would take their place and NOT funnel the gil to RMT sites. However, it is very hard to work up the motivation to gather because every time we do we face a raid of bots who can generate massive amounts of materials we can never hope to match without cheating.

[boxer1201]

I agree wholeheartedly. I have been playing FFXIV for several years, starting with a Realm Reborn and it's re-release. Just as you and several others have mentioned, I cannot express into words how frustrating and aggravating the bots have made the game. It has destroyed the economic system in Final Fantasy. For us true players it makes it nearly impossible to benefit from crafting and gathering and hope for any form of profit off of the market board. And then for those characters to severely undercut the market board forcing us to sell our materials and items for significantly less just to survive. And then they go and buy out the market board at the lower rate that they caused and then resell it at ridiculous prices. And the fact that we cannot match their money we cannot hope to even begin to reset the market board.

Unfortunately after considering everything I do not believe that much will be done about this. As we all know Square Enix makes money from our subscription fees. If you consider that they find the bots and ban their accounts. They will just create new accounts and pay a brand-new subscription fee just to remain in business. Also if you consider how much money that the bots are making from the RMTs that they can afford to continue to pay those subscription fees after they've been banned. For all the complaints we are only paying $12-$15 a month, per person. If you were to say that bots owner is banned four times in a month Square Enix has made about $60 off of that one person. Creating an email account, is free . Just as creating a Square Enix account is free. So even though that account has been banned , they just create a new one. So I believe the banning will continue, but a true fix of eliminating the botting or RMT altogether I don't believe they will do anything about it considering the money that they are making from them as well. It saddens me, I must admit. And I do hope that they care enough about the true fans and not about money to do something about it because it does make this game feel like it is not worth playing.

[Lucerna]

For the bots that focus on crashing the high end material market, I think banning would do more. Getting a character to that level and gear takes time. Unfortunately, nothing has been done to the same bots who have been active for years. It's the second day of a new patch and on Balmung they are swarming the nodes along with the legitimate players- who are getting more and more disheartened by the lack of action done by Square Enix.

[KageTokage]

I feel like they really ought to just give the GMs power to enforce cheating because they seem a lot more diligent then the STF and with them on the job 24/7, it really wouldn't that difficult for them to catch the bots at a hour where they're truly AFK and unable to respond.

The traditional method of checking for bots is for a GM to simply PM the suspect player if it isn't totally obvious that they're botting, then drop the banhammer on if they keep going about their business and ignoring them for a prolonged period of time. Why XIV is relying on some manner of extremely flawed method (Assuming they're even trying at all) instead of that is beyond me.

In other news, after being absent for two days, most of the bots on Cactaur suddenly resurfaced last night. I guess it took them longer to get the memo then the ones on Balmung.

[Lucerna]

I feel like they really ought to just give the GMs power to enforce cheating because they seem a lot more diligent then the STF and with them on the job 24/7, it really wouldn't that difficult for them to catch the bots at a hour where they're truly AFK and unable to respond.

The traditional method of checking for bots is for a GM to simply PM the suspect player if it isn't totally obvious that they're botting, then drop the banhammer on if they keep going about their business and ignoring them for a prolonged period of time. Why XIV is relying on some manner of extremely flawed method (Assuming they're even trying at all) instead of that is beyond me.

In other news, after being absent for two days, most of the bots on Cactaur suddenly resurfaced last night. I guess it took them longer to get the memo then the ones on Balmung.

I completely agree that the GMs should be allowed to enforce consequences for botting based on responses and player activity. Every GM I have recently spoken to on the matter (including a supervisor) has been incredibly courteous and understanding.

[Lucerna]

There looks to be some good news! With the bot report last Thursday, I noticed a few bots on Balmung stopped coming around. However, they are back today- which could mean they got a 3 day suspension. If this is the case, we just need to keep reporting the bots as we see them! Everyone please help Square with this!

[KageTokage]

See, that's the other problem.

Since they refuse to offer responses to reports, you can never actually know whether or not the bots got temp banned or if their owners just took a break. I've had far, FAR too many instances of thinking they finally did something, but they didn't, because all of the bots on my server have had significant periods of absence multiple times (Presumably just due to them getting bored of the game). A lot of these players are not simply alt accounts, so if they had a shred of sense they'd have stopped after a single temp ban due to the risk of losing absolutely everything (Which comes to another sad reality that even if these people get a temp ban, they'll still be loaded with enough gil to manipulate the economy as they see fit for eternity).

It's standard practice in other MMOs to state if a report has been read and/or acted on, but SE seems to value the privacy of their players over any actual efficiency with their report system.

Things have just gotten several times worse in the past few months, as I'm counting nearly a dozen gather bots active at night at its peak and there's now three or four people flooding the market with infusions instead of just one.

[Lucerna]

See, that's the other problem.

Since they refuse to offer responses to reports, you can never actually know whether or not the bots got temp banned or if their owners just took a break. I've had far, FAR too many instances of thinking they finally did something, but they didn't, because all of the bots on my server have had significant periods of absence multiple times (Presumably just due to them getting bored of the game). A lot of these players are not simply alt accounts, so if they had a shred of sense they'd have stopped after a single temp ban due to the risk of losing absolutely everything (Which comes to another sad reality that even if these people get a temp ban, they'll still be loaded with enough gil to manipulate the economy as they see fit for eternity).

It's standard practice in other MMOs to state if a report has been read and/or acted on, but SE seems to value the privacy of their players over any actual efficiency with their report system.

Things have just gotten several times worse in the past few months, as I'm counting nearly a dozen gather bots active at night at its peak and there's now three or four people flooding the market with infusions instead of just one.

That's unfortunate. I hope more bans for serial botters come out soon. Though I think for using botting to amass wealth to either control the market or funnel to RMT, a straight permaban would be more appropriate. I also wish there was more of a GM or Square Enix response on what's being done to combat these bots, and what they look for in player reports.