Discussion: How Can We Handle Botting Better?

[JackHatchet]

a silly obsession that's also costing them extra money out of their wallets

Square-Enix is ok with that as long as they're the ones getting the extra money, lol!

[KageTokage]

Square-Enix is ok with that as long as they're the ones getting the extra money, lol!

Sad, but probably true. I can't think of any other reason they're willing to acknowledge a major problem then refuse to do anything meaningful about it.

At this point it feels like all one can really hope for is the bot farmers just getting bored of the game and quitting, but they've unfortunately been showing up faster then that's been happening.

[JackHatchet]

At this point it feels like all one can really hope for is the bot farmers just getting bored of the game and quitting,

Why would they get bored of the only game guaranteed not to ban them? Beginner's first botting MMO with training wheels! Though I could imagine some FFXIV vets switching to other games like WoW or ESO and getting banned within a week and becoming irate that 'this NEVER happens to me in FFXIV! Why I never, how rude!"

[KisaiTenshi]

Why would they get bored of the only game guaranteed not to ban them? Beginner's first botting MMO with training wheels! Though I could imagine some FFXIV vets switching to other games like WoW or ESO and getting banned within a week and becoming irate that 'this NEVER happens to me in FFXIV! Why I never, how rude!"

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.

[KageTokage]

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.

I think the gil farmers are pretty much the only exception to that rule.

But yeah, bans are so rare that there's little to no scare factor to discourage people from doing it, which is why the number of botters seems to just keep increasing as time goes on. A lot of them likely reason that by the time they actually get caught for the first time they'll have made so much gil that it won't even matter. There was also a story floating around on the PvP forums of some speed-hacking BLM who managed to get through multiple seasons of PvP at the top ranks before they finally banned him, but even when they did, it was only a temporary ban and he was later seen cheating again both in and out of PvP.

They really should have a zero tolerance policy for players who show evidence of long term cheating, though before that they need to start banning people with some semblance of frequency/reliability because I see about as many bots on my server alone as the total being banned across the entire game each week.

[JackHatchet]

The way Square-Enix handles botting, I'd be surprised more people aren't jumping into it. It's weird, because I was on an RP server once, and the whole RP community is as big into modding as parses are as integral to raiding. Basically everyone does it, and it almost reminds me of drug use in competitive sports. Where it's become so common-place that you almost feel like you're hurting yourself by not taking part. I mean, I can't speak about modding or botting, but with DPS meters. You really need to either be running them--or know someone who does.

And with the penalty being non-existent for any of those activities, botting, parses, or modding--it's hard to discourage people. Because at the absolute 'worst' end of the spectrum, we're talking about a 12 hour ban or something--right? No one knows, because it never happens.

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Not to derail too much, but after the Toyota failures, and the Fukushima incident. Japanese companies have a tendency to downplay their mistakes, and just pretend they don't happen. Although anything MMO related is nothing compared to trying to cover up car accident fatalities and mis-representing radioactivity and putting citizens at risk. I don't know. Is it a pride thing?

[Lastelli]

And with the penalty being non-existent for any of those activities, botting, parses, or modding--it's hard to discourage people. Because at the absolute 'worst' end of the spectrum, we're talking about a 12 hour ban or something--right? No one knows, because it never happens.

There's no reason to discourage parses and modding since these don't affect other players. Botting, on the other hand, does affect other players when it's used to automatize crafting and gathering. But I think botting will not die if they don't rehash the whole gathering and crafting system and make it into something that actually requires the player's attention.
The problem is, SE has no way of knowing if a player is botting if the player is smart, so at this point there's not really much they can do other than making the content itself more enjoyable and not feel like a chore, which is the very reason why people bot in the first place.

[KageTokage]

Don't forget the dumb-as-dirt PvP bots and the fact that gil farmers can ruin someone's first time with the eight player ARR trials/dungeons if they get queued with real players.

A friend of mine said the gil farmers actually managed to break a Cape Westwind instance by killing Rhitatyn while they were still stuck in the entry barrier due to someone watching a cutscene, which resulted in the instance being flagged as complete for the farmers who were able to leave through normal means, but it was still flagged as incomplete for him and the other players after the barrier dropped and the boss didn't come back, forcing them to abandon the instance to escape.

As far as the gathering/crafting goes, I don't think that any amount of actual involvement in the process could prevent people from botting, because I've already seen that they're able account for a multitude of variables like ToT procs, poor/excellent condition, and Discerning Eye procs from Impulsive Appraisal. Heck, I've even seen fishing bots that know what the weather is in a given zone and won't budge until the conditions are right for a fish to spawn. The only semi-reliable means of prevention is constant policing.

[JackHatchet]

There's no reason to discourage parses and modding since these don't affect other players.

In 'this' game it's not such a big issue, but the ability to change the texture and models of anything at will can be absolutely damaging to some mechanics--especially in PvP situations. Imagine playing a PvP game where you can repaint the walls invisible, or change the model of a flag to that of a 50 foot neon-green arrow.

Or why buy mog-station items if you can just mod your shirt to look like something others had to pay 18 dollars for. The point is, modding isn't entirely innocent. Though nude mods are probably the least impactful they can get.

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The impact of parsers can be (and has been) explained in other topics, so I won't even touch it. Suffice to say, Square-Enix's ToS shouldn't really be treated as "these third party programs are ok, but these other ones aren't." If they do decide to crack down on them--they'll probably take all of them in one fel-swoop.

[Lastelli]

The impact of parsers can be (and has been) explained in other topics, so I won't even touch it. Suffice to say, Square-Enix's ToS shouldn't really be treated as "these third party programs are ok, but these other ones aren't." If they do decide to crack down on them--they'll probably take all of them in one fel-swoop.

The combat content in this game is build around the idea of dps and healing checks. Therefore, parsers are a useful tool that perfectly integrates into the game's structure. The very existence of the battle log proves that we are supposed to do something with this data. 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. This game cannot live without parsers. They won't take them down ever, period. They know they are used by the same people that attend the fanfest, that stream savage and ultimate and rise the interest in the game.

The point is: parsers are here to stay and the actions of the dev team actually suggests that they fully accept them. If we want to talk about botting, let's forget about parsers because they're fundamentally different things.