Discussion: How Can We Handle Botting Better?

[TwistedTea]

As a newly leveled BTN/MIN on Balmung, seeing gathering bots from large FCs/well-known crafters is utterly demoralizing.

For the most part, I've given up on trying to make gil through direct gathering activites. Because even when you find a niche, those who bot will drive the price so low, it's not worth it for anyone who legit does DOL.

I second the notion that others have stated: Go after the coders/sites behind these bots.

[KisaiTenshi]

I second the notion that others have stated: Go after the coders/sites behind these bots.

Careful what you ask for. The reason why most of these bots are created outside the US is because they don't see these things as copyright violations. In the US... well take this recent one as an example:

Look up "epic games lawsuit"

7. Defendants’ cheating and (name removed)’ inducing and enabling of others to cheat ruin the
game playing experience of players who do not cheat because they create an uneven playing
field, violate universally understood notions of fair play, and diminish the integrity of the game.

8. The software Defendants are using to cheat infringes Epic's copyrights in the
game and breaches the terms of the agreements to which Defendants agreed in order to have
access to the game. The same is true for Defendants' unauthorized public performances and
displays of unlawfully modified versions of Fortnite on YouTube.

Take note that using a parser would also be lawsuit material. While Square Enix has generally looked the other way for some of this, it is not a sanctioned thing, and if they really want to sue someone, they can.

[JackHatchet]

I feel like the community is going to face a reckoning if they keep pushing to curb third-party applications.

Bots are obviously the most 'devious' example, but look at all the people who mod their characters to be naked, and then all the people who use ACT to handle mechanic call-outs and damage meters. The issue is that 'all' of these things fall under the exact same umbrella as third-party application use that violates the ToS. And given just how large the modding/ACT community is, I can't imagine Square-Enix effectively going after bots without catching a lot of non-botters (but equally guilty) abusers in the cross-fire. And I honestly don't think those nude-mod dudes and dudettes are going to forfeit their mods on the principle of getting rid of bots. They'll get angry, and the community will suffer for it.

[JackHatchet]

It's one of those situations where Square-Enix should have nipped modding and damage meters early on, and kept a firm stance on the matter, because as time goes on--people will test and push those boundaries until either the community as a whole comes to accept that Square-Enix doesn't care (which is what is happening now), or Square-Enix will go through some massive purges to reassert dominance of their own game, of which would decimate half the community. I'd be willing to be that if you combined the modders, parsers, and botters into one group--they're probably 20-30% of the community.

[Canadane]

I'd be willing to be that if you combined the modders, parsers, and botters into one group--they're probably 20-30% of the community.

I'm going with something like 80% or more of PC players.
And that's just a guess on parsers. I don't even consider botters real people/players.

[KageTokage]

The GMs are active enough in taking action for non-cheating offenses such that they could easily keep the non-RMT bots under control if they were given the authority to enforce them (They apparently can only forward claims to the STF, judging from the past several times I've gotten in touch with them).

As for the RMT bots, they could probably nip them in the bud by simply removing gil drops from ARR dungeons (Like they've already done for every HW/SB dungeon to my knowledge), because they get the vast majority of it by farming the NPCs/chests in Amdapor Keep. No instanced methods of farming would heavily limit how much gil they're capable of generating in a given amount of time, though there is a risk that it could push them to resort to methods that are more intrusive to other players...

[Tiraelina]

The GMs are active enough in taking action for non-cheating offenses such that they could easily keep the non-RMT bots under control if they were given the authority to enforce them (They apparently can only forward claims to the STF, judging from the past several times I've gotten in touch with them).

As for the RMT bots, they could probably nip them in the bud by simply removing gil drops from ARR dungeons (Like they've already done for every HW/SB dungeon to my knowledge), because they get the vast majority of it by farming the NPCs/chests in Amdapor Keep. No instanced methods of farming would heavily limit how much gil they're capable of generating in a given amount of time, though there is a risk that it could push them to resort to methods that are more intrusive to other players...

Bending the game around bot behaviour doesn't work. It never has in any game. They just find another way until your players are left with nothing. Bots don't fatigue or care about what they are doing unlike players.

[KageTokage]

It's not as though anyone would actually miss the piddly amounts of gil you get from doing the ARR dungeons (You can make more gil with the few company seals you can get from a single piece of gear then you would from all the gil drops in an ARR dungeon) and they already realized how pointless it was since gil drops don't even exist in the HW/SB dungeons. The only reason their method of farmining is even practical is because they do it with several dozen parties of bots simultaneously and warp hack to skip straight to all the parts of the dungeon that matter.

While it is true they'd likely just try to find an alternative method, it would at least get them to buzz off until they find it. They really need to implement some kind of countermeasure for the basic forms of hacking they abuse, though.

[Tiraelina]

I mean, I think it would still be better then letting them continue have their way.

It's not as though anyone would actually miss the piddly amounts of gil you get from doing the ARR dungeons and they already realized how pointless it was since direct gil drops don't even exist in the HW/SB dungeons.

It's still basically doing nothing in the grand scheme of things. Much like their text filter that was broken by changing a single character at end of a message. They are constantly cycling new characters through the story which is already going to pile up the gil.

[KageTokage]

The gil they make from farming Amdapor Keep is much more then they get from the ARR MSQ for the time investment, but the amount from the latter definitely isn't negligible (It's close to 500K if I recall correctly?). I guess even if they did axe the gil drops, they might just decide to switch to running the MSQ full time to make gil and possibly produce even more bots to compensate for the slower gains.

They're definitely a tougher nut to crack then the "real" bots owned by players for gatherng, crafting, etc.

As as aside, I'd really love to know what's going through the heads of these players who are so obsessed with making gil through less then legit means in the first place. I feel like they have a problem for some of them to be buying additional retainers/accounts just so they can store more gil and/or run more bots (Though if they were secretly running a RMT business on the side then that would explain it). I guess if I look at it that way, they seem more sad and pathetic then anything else, because they're basically ruining the economy just for the sake of sating a silly obsession that's also costing them extra money out of their wallets.