Discussion: How Can We Handle Botting Better?

[Alucard135]

And you can't right click and report a character, only if they say something.

That's why I use an emote with them. You get the name in your chatlog and you can easily copy and paste it. Another way is by doing a player search in the zone you're in to find them. Still they should allow you to right click and report. They can prevent it from being abused by a lot of ways.

[KageTokage]

I'm kind of curious as to whether or not the STF even bothers doing the tried but true "Send a tell" method of identifying bots, because it's probably the most quick, simple and reliable method of weeding them out, because only a fool is going to ignore repeated tells from a GM or some other authority.

Granted, some bots are simply being run in another window while their owners play a different game or on their main account and can still respond to tells, but the majority of them are being run while there's no one there to respond.

[Jijifli]

I see them early (EU) morning on Chaos when all is quiet...all level one going through their first quests. I'm sure it's been said before but it's very difficult to report them as they have horrible names and move so fast you can't always catch them. And you can't right click and report a character, only if they say something. Which these bots levelling up don't - so no real way to catch them.

But as has been said, that would only be open to abuse anyway with peeps reporting non-bots due to some quarrel

Ya, those hgeryiwbgewbg ones are difficult to get on a list just because of how their names are.

My post was actually dealing with gathering bots that have legit names, but these are an annoyance too.And unlike the gatherer bot, they can deny a low level player the ability to finish a quest, since they snipe kill everything instantly with their 35 fire's.

[JackHatchet]

Selling gil like Warcraft does will not cause inflation.

Because the way Warcraft does it is allow people with gold to exchange their currently in-game gold for game-time tokens. The people paying with dollars are basically buying subs for people in exchange for their gold (which is already in the ecosystem). So it doesn't add to inflation.

However...

FFXIV is not Warcraft, and there's a lot of FFXIV crafters sitting at millions and billions of gil with nothing to spend it on, because gil is worthless to a point. So if that gil all of a sudden had value (game time tokens or mogstation items, the release of gil from gil-barons into the market could cause an inflation. But on the other hand. How damaging can gil be when so many people have so much of it and just hoard it anyways? Gil can't do you squat beyond a house and crafted gear.

[KageTokage]

The gathering/crafting bots are annoying mostly because they drive down prices which makes it harder for people who aren't rich yet to make money and give their owners an unhealthy amount of control over the economy.

Some people also just enjoy making gil for the heck of it, but these players still interfere with that, especially when they're working in tandem with an undercutting bot. I've noticed one on Cactaur that can be seen constantly targeting/untargeting a retainer ball for hours on end as it checks the prices on everything it's selling, and it'll undercut anyone within a few minutes of them trying to sell at a lower price.

[JackHatchet]

The gathering/crafting bots are annoying mostly because they drive down prices which makes it harder for people who aren't rich yet to make money and give their owners an unhealthy amount of control over the economy.

Some people also just enjoy making gil for the heck of it, but these players still interfere with that, especially when they're working in tandem with an undercutting bot. I've noticed one on Cactaur that can be seen constantly targeting/untargeting a retainer ball for hours on end as it checks the prices on everything it's selling, and it'll undercut anyone within a few minutes of them trying to sell at a lower price.

Keep in mind that if you were to remove all the gathering bots that prices on gathered goods would skyrocket. But it would eliminate any excuse to be poor. The moment someone complains about being poor--you give them a pickaxe and tell them to stop being a lazy scrub!

[KisaiTenshi]

Selling gil like Warcraft does will not cause inflation.

Because the way Warcraft does it is allow people with gold to exchange their currently in-game gold for game-time tokens. The people paying with dollars are basically buying subs for people in exchange for their gold (which is already in the ecosystem). So it doesn't add to inflation.

Don't even propose this. That's what the botters run by players want to happen. The RMT botters won't be put out of business as long as the game has a means to trade it. All game tokens for gil would do is put a cap on the price, not get rid of it, and it's a failure in games that have implemented it. The core problem here is that SE doesn't do enough/anything to combat the bots in the first place.

Keep in mind that if you were to remove all the gathering bots that prices on gathered goods would skyrocket.

That's the point.

A player may have another PC or "alt" that they run their market stuff via multi-boxing just so that they can wait in queues on their play machine and market on their weaker machine that is otherwise too weak to play on. But that's just a theory, as I doubt there's many players multiboxing, just players who have more time than sense and what floats their boat is being that guy who has everything people want.

[Jijifli]

The gathering/crafting bots are annoying mostly because they drive down prices which makes it harder for people who aren't rich yet to make money and give their owners an unhealthy amount of control over the economy.

This is a valid point of why it's an issue.

The bots can gather so much materials you could honestly make a weapon for everyone quickly. Kinda kills the market when you can do that.

[Tyrn]

You can report the same bots for half a year with detailed notes on the bot routes and times it runs yet they'll still be there years later. Don't waste your time writing reports for anything other than mean words because that's the only thing they'll do anything about.

[Jijifli]

You can report the same bots for half a year with detailed notes on the bot routes and times it runs yet they'll still be there years later. Don't waste your time writing reports for anything other than mean words because that's the only thing they'll do anything about.

Or emoting more than 14 times in a minute.

#PersonalExperience.