Discussion: How Can We Handle Botting Better?

[Fhaerron]

I'm sure the only reason players still use unauthorized tools on this game is because SE hasn't shown any willingness to delete accounts.

They would loose to many players with that.


A large chunk of the RP community uses mods to have different hair styles, get different body textures or to go full naked.
A large chunk of the raider community uses DPS meters and other toolkit that shows boss HP in detail and whatnot.


Funny thing was when ultimate came out when SE was linking the top progression runs and all those people had DPS meters in their streams. And when SE congratulated the world first, those where also 8 people with DPS meters in their screen.


I once asked 'Why does SE even make a ToS when they are not going to enforce the rules?' on a different thread and somebody then actually replied to me with:

Because if they actually had 14 million players like they brag about, they could actually enforce them. But when you tell the media 14m and only have maybe 500k you need to hold onto them as hard as you can to give the illusion your numbers are real.

The more the longer I do kind of agree with that post.

[Deheuty]

I once saw a bot that flew in the same path to farm that mining Ephemeral node in Azim Steppe that somehow got too close to a nearby (elephant like) mob and was attacked. It just stood there at the node and took it like a champ passively before it died - to respawn and re-take the exact same path to die the same way. Hilarious.

[JackHatchet]

I've said it already, but SE should update their tos to unequivocally legitimate the use of parsers, even if they don't want to provide an official one, because right now, considering how parsers are a vital part of the raiding community, their existence undermines the credibility of the tos.

Right, botting is not the same as parsing, but parsing helps legitimatize botting because it erodes the credibility of the ToS as you have mentioned. Ultimately, I agree with you in the way that Square-Enix should legitimize parsing, and then take a harder stance on botting. Modding seems ok as this game doesn't have any competition where turning the walls invisible would have any meaningful impact.

[KageTokage]

I've been noticing a lot of these "Obviously an alt account" gathering bots with only one DoW/M class at 70, no FC, and only miner/botanist capped turning up lately. It's often easy to tell who owns them judging from the fact that they tend wear mostly/only gear made by the same player.

The weird thing is that I literally never have seen these players before and if they had leveled to 70 on my server I'd almost certainly have noticed them with how much I get around while searching for hunt marks on a daily basis.

Do people regularly sell off accounts to be used specifically for this purpose or something? I have a hard time imagining that they're server transfers.

[JackHatchet]

only one DoW/M class at 70

I can't imagine why a bot account would get any combat job to level 70. You'd think they'd just level to 10 and begin their gathering/crafting adventure, but even a boost would only take them to 60. Unless it's a selling thing like you said. Pick your sides, and hit order!