The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[PaganWitchcraft]

I think we\\'re at a point, a magical red line is crossed now. The one red line that SE accepting bots, cheaters, hackers, Gil-sellers and all their stuff
over real player more and more.... I not talk about the simple Limsa shouter. They got banned... easy. They not pay
monthly fees like all the other bots, cheaters and Gil-sellers. Regardless of 100s reports, evidences, GM talks and more, this cheaters can do or not do whatever
they want. Month for month.... SE does nothing...

Two actual examples from Sargatanas:

-The one guy, almost every serious crafter know by name. He autocraft with Miqobot-program, Telehacks, undercut the MB automated all exact 10 minutes
since months. This guy is active on 3 Servers do exact the same thing with his Gil-seller FC. He not even play the game. No 70s DOW / DOM or anything.
At least 15 persons on Sargatanas have reported him many times now. I have reported this guy 112 times myself since Oct. 2017
With evidence in form of printscreens and protocols.
Guess what\\'s happened on SE side? Right... Nothing....

-Then the other guy, Also no 70s DOW / DOM or anything. Since weeks craft thousands of Endgame items with Miqobot-program and sell em
all on the marketboard under material-costs. ATM he has 1200+ items up total on every Rakshasa Weapon, Armor, Accessories and on
all DOL / DOM gear and Accessories.
He destroys the fun of every player with his hacks, bots and trolling ppl.. Many has given up crafting due to this behavior. We all have lost the fun on it...
He is active on many Server too, with the exact same method. He not play the game, just make money to sell.
So at least 10 persons on Sargatanas have reported him many times now. I have reported this guy 15 times myself.
This is so pure against the old ToS or even morenow against the new ToS.
Guess what\\'s happened on SE side? Right... Nothing.... Again...


I just not understand, why SE does accept this behavior and breaking of so many rules. My only guess is, that the paid monthly
fees of these cheaters are more important to them, than the fun of loyal and legal player. Money rules.... Everywhere...* It\\'s just sad!

Now I\\'m waiting for all the Whiteknights defending SE again....

Explain me... If we have 10+ Mio player on FFXIV. With so many Bots and cheaters we all see every day in Uldah, Limsa, etc.
Why do SE ban weekly 6-10 ppl out of this 10+ Mio player mass?

Another point is, that two different GM told me, that I\\'m right on the matter and that it\\'s a shame. They said sorry, but they can\\'t do anything.
They also said, u can report them on the Special Task Force but nothing will happen u know... and that comes from two GMs from SE....

Think about it, before u rant at me and give me a thumb down....

[KaivaC]

Can't thumb down here...this isn't reddit....

Other than that, it's a known issue on many servers, but no matter how much we hoot and holler, SE seems to just turn a blind eye, so people just come to a point where they just stop caring, unfortunately. I know some people have given up, hell I've given up myself, because it's like beating your head against a wall over this.

[NessaWyvern]

And now that you'll be able to buy stuff of MBs from other worlds, a problem that was once only a problem on those 3 servers will now be a problem on all servers of that data center. People will just go to the bot server for cheap goods.

[ElazulHP]

The second guy you're talking about lives literally next door to me. I constantly see him and an endless procession of naked level 20 characters log on adjust the MB and then log off. House isn't decorated and his entire FC is full of what appears to be bots. He's pretty much crashed every single market you mentioned. It's completely destroyed my fun crafting 100%. Don't even bother anymore. And yeah SE has done nothing. It's pretty infuriating.

[SenorPatty]

Yep, given up here too. I know exactly who you're talking about and nothing's been done. I'm just utterly confused about why GMs can't/won't do anything about that and yet, they're super hyped about enforcing their new TOS rules...

[Ilan]

Yep, given up here too. I know exactly who you're talking about and nothing's been done. I'm just utterly confused about why GMs can't/won't do anything about that and yet, they're super hyped about enforcing their new TOS rules...

But only if they can do that with normal players.

[Theodric]

Yep, given up here too. I know exactly who you're talking about and nothing's been done. I'm just utterly confused about why GMs can't/won't do anything about that and yet, they're super hyped about enforcing their new TOS rules...

Players saying bad words make for quick, efficient and easy targets. It takes a much more thorough investigation to deal with cheating. That aside, I don't think it's a case of the GM's not wanting to do anything about cheaters so much as their hands being tied by the development team. Feast had a lot of problems, especially early on, yet the 'solution' was to punish every player by disabling the chat.

Which makes me worried that any serious attempt to stamp out cheating would result in similar 'punish everybody' penalties.

[Melichoir]

Theres probably reasoning youre not considering why SE doesnt just 'mass ban' botters and it has to do with cost vs benefit.

There are 4 kinds of botters broadly

1) Farm bots - Bots just Farm stuff and post to the MB
2) MB Bots - These just focus on undercutting prices and buy/sell algorithms
3) LvLing Bots - These are the rando bots you see just afk leveling in places
4) RMT Bots - These are bots spamming RMT messages

Of the 4, the one which as hte most direct negative impact on the health of the game is the RMT botters due to the nature of Gil Sales. Now, its easy to point out that the RMT Bot needs the other 3 more or less to function, but the other 3 Dont inherently result in game instability (unless they grow out of control). Let me explain:

MB bots, while annoying, are just an expedited version of someone sitting at a computer undercutting people. And of most of their undercutting is done at 1 gil less. Makes it hard at times for certain items to get that sale so you can get gil, but its not outright preventing it and you could drive down bot prices by undercutting them as well. Annoying, but not game breaking.

LvLing bots have even less impact on the game broadly because theyre literally just afk leveling something. Now it could be argued if theyre doing it for gathering taht would affect MB prices, but again it goes back to how MB bots operate. In most cases, theyre pretty isolated. You might get people who dont know how to play a class cause it was bot leveled, but that is again an annoyance, not a game breaking issue.

Now Farm bots is where it gets a bit more nuanced and why SE doesnt exactly outright ban every single one. The most pragmatic reason (beyond a sub): It would crash the MB. The issue at the end of the day is you dont have enough people doing gathering and the like as professions. Bots in teh game add to that pool and end up driving costs down by creating higher market saturation. Since most MMOs have bots, it can be reasoned to some extent that MB prices (or AH or whatever system is used) has to take into account farm bots adn the game is somewhat tuned in this way. SE most likely has the tools to outright ban this kind of bot pretty easily, but to do so we would see scarcity of a lot of mats just shoot through the roof and make massive fluctuations to the in game gil economy which would end up hurting hte game. Imagine buying food buffs today for 10k gil for a stack of 10, and tomorrow or this weekend it jumps to 200k for the same stack due to scarcity. Itd be great for people who want to spend their time getting those mats, but it would stall out the MB broadly as a result.

It is unfortunate, but once bots get going on an MMO, they have to be factored in to some extent when it comes to the in game economy.

SE could fix the problem, but theyre probably keeping the bot count in check rather than outright exterminating it due to reasons like this. Is it great? No, its annoying to the average player. Is it so game breakingly bad? No, its not.

Now my quick thoughts: Youre over blowing the issue. Ive had no problems, even with botters on the MB, making profit and selling things because this game actually provides avenues to gaining gil that are substantially more difficult for botters to participate in (Maps come to mind, so does crafting). You may not make tons of money on farmed world mats due to that bot presence, but there are other avenues for you to gain gil. They require more effort but arent beyond you or any player. SE, I think, knows this and thats part of the reason why certain things are in places like Maps or HoH or etc. But thats my take on it. Youre more in control of things than anything, and while Annoying (and at times frustrating) I dont see this game having an absurd bot problem. It's kept fairly in check by what I observe. Not the best, but its not making me scream in frustration.

[SenorPatty]

Players saying bad words make for quick, efficient and easy targets. It takes a much more thorough investigation to deal with cheating. That aside, I don't think it's a case of the GM's not wanting to do anything about cheaters so much as their hands being tied by the development team. Feast had a lot of problems, especially early on, yet the 'solution' was to punish every player by disabling the chat.

Which makes me worried that any serious attempt to stamp out cheating would result in similar 'punish everybody' penalties.

Yeah I get that. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying they should take our word for it (the reports). What I mean is, at the very least, open an investigation. Surely they can come to their own conclusion, no?

Anyways, if the GMs have their hands tied by the dev team as you say, then it just seems to me they're better off actually listing what kind of reports they can start investigating and which ones they can't. At least in this way, players can stop wasting their time.

[Dustytome]

Now Farm bots is where it gets a bit more nuanced and why SE doesnt exactly outright ban every single one. The most pragmatic reason (beyond a sub): It would crash the MB. The issue at the end of the day is you dont have enough people doing gathering and the like as professions. Bots in teh game add to that pool and end up driving costs down by creating higher market saturation. Since most MMOs have bots, it can be reasoned to some extent that MB prices (or AH or whatever system is used) has to take into account farm bots adn the game is somewhat tuned in this way. SE most likely has the tools to outright ban this kind of bot pretty easily, but to do so we would see scarcity of a lot of mats just shoot through the roof and make massive fluctuations to the in game gil economy which would end up hurting hte game. Imagine buying food buffs today for 10k gil for a stack of 10, and tomorrow or this weekend it jumps to 200k for the same stack due to scarcity. Itd be great for people who want to spend their time getting those mats, but it would stall out the MB broadly as a result.

SE can just adjust gathering in such cases to make up for the lack of cheaters. Maybe make gathering class skills increase quantity gain the more you're gathering a type of material, or twelve forbid make gathering skills more active than once every 5-6 minutes. They should not be tolerated because no one wanted to gather 300 crystals for a craft.