Unusual botting activity across Aether DC: FATE botting archer lalafells.

[KageTokage]

I want to clarify that these guys are not the usual gil farming bots everyone is familiar with (Gibberish names, identical gear, tend to show up around aetherytes or near quest NPCs then suddenly vanish) and while significantly more subtle, are still obvious in many ways and significantly more intrusive,

I noticed while doing my usual rounds for S ranks there was a bunch of Lalafells using normal names from the game's generator, but were very obviously botting judging from their ridiculously jerky movement while pathing between FATEs and tendency to get hung up on walls (Which would make them start jumping endlessly until they dislodged themselves...though the jumping wasn't actually helping with that). More unusually, they were all archers still despite being level 30+.

They were all in Coerthas Central Highlands and seemingly only targeting non-boss FATEs. They're also evidently progressing the MSQ as I saw one of them queue up for the Stone Vigil the instant it hit level 41 (And woe to whatever group got it).

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the other servers on my DC, and sure enough, there were other bots exhibiting all of the same traits, though not always in the same zone since they're progressing the entire MSQ, albeit extremely slowly because they seem to rely heavily on FATE EXP and neglect doing any sidequests. There appeared to be exactly four bots per server, though they aren't sync'd up as their levels usually differed, presumably due to random deaths from their general stupidity.

I'm really hoping the STF will be diligent about curbing these guys because unlike the gil farming bots, they're interacting with the play environment a lot more by queueing up with randoms for dungeons and can be a legitimate nuisance outside of their likely gil farming activity. It also stresses the need for a quick "Report botting" function.

If you do happen to get matched with one of these guys in a dungeon, they're readily identifiable by their tendency to hug the tank and stand directly on top of them while they're not in combat, coupled with the usual unresponsiveness and obvious lack of a soul stone. I actually tried to get matched with one on purpose just to see how it behaved, and my group members thankfully agreed to kick it immediately when I pointed out its weird behavior.