Bot reporting?

[Jillian]

It's not a false report if the reporter doesn't know for a fact that no cheating is going on. The reporter needs only suspect cheating might be going on to file a report. I've seen bots afk at gathering nodes, so it's not like bots don't do it. Players (including the ones suspected of cheating) can't get in trouble if they aren't doing anything wrong.

I know a person just needs to suspect a player of cheating in order to report. However, just being afk at a node is not a good reason to suspect somebody is botting. When I report somebody for botting, I look for obvious signs of it, such as the bot dismounting at the exact same time every game day to gather at a timed node.

Making general reports about suspected bots without providing specific details on botting activity that the reporter has observed does not help the STF out. The STF needs concrete evidence to take action against gathering bots and reporting a person for being afk at a node does not provide that. It just wastes the STFs time.

[KageTokage]

It's too bad that even when you give them concrete evidence they still almost never actually ban a bot as long as it's remotely subtle.

The only ones that get banned with any semblance of reliability are the gil farmers but that's mostly because they're hacking on top of their botting.

[Jillian]

It's too bad that even when you give them concrete evidence they still almost never actually ban a bot as long as it's remotely subtle.

The only ones that get banned with any semblance of reliability are the gil farmers but that's mostly because they're hacking on top of their botting.

I've seen a few get banned but, you're right; it can be very difficult to get gathering bots banned even with proof. I'm not sure if the STF is understaffed, has too many reports to sift through, or what. This might leave them with little time to thoroughly investigate reports that have no evidence beyond general player suspicions.

[SamSmoot]

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

[Yllania]

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

We get the cultist bots. All with the same bodies, same clothes, randomly disappearing into the air and ground.

[Jinglybell]

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

Ive seen one bot who bots ephemeral nodes on about 20 hours a day 7 days a week get stuck in between a hut and a set of boxes near the dawn throne crystal for about an hour. He also "falls" down from his mount to get to points, it looks like hes slowly getting beamed down by aliens, but im still not sure if that's an action only done by bots. (You'll see a few people do it if you do ephermal nodes enough) he changed up his bot about a month ago so now he gets on and off a mount 1-4 times before flying off to reset the node. Oh btw hes been at it for months and S.E. hasn't done anything about it.

[KageTokage]

I've never seen any really obvious bots here like I did in WoW. There, you'd have ones that get stuck for 10 seconds sliding around the same tree every time they hit it in their loop. or make a hard 90-degree turn at the same point every time.
I had one that was killing mobs for skins, and it mounted up every time to move to the next target.
If I pulled one of it's mobs away after it aggroed it, and hexed it (60 second CC) some distance from the bot, it kept him in combat and unable to mount, so he just stood there jumping. Eventually, it's owner would come back, say ??? a few times, then log off. I reported them with a full description of their path glitches, and they eventually disappeared.

WoW actually has a competent GM team unlike XIV, which one of the things I miss most.

The "normal" bots here largely exhibit the same behavior as the ones in WoW in terms of having jerky, repetitive movement patterns, and they also unfailingly jump in place whenever they take flight after mounting up which is one of the most obvious tells. They're generally either farming material drops from enemies, gathering, or spamming FATEs for EXP.

The gil farming bots never actually walk and instead just teleport around using hacks.

[JackHatchet]

WoW has a whole department dedicated to finding bots last time I remembered.

But I saw this post and just had to chuckle. There's one post where you can get reported for using emotes, and now there's a post where you can get reported for being AFK. You literally cannot win at this game! LOL

[KageTokage]

WoW has a whole department dedicated to finding bots last time I remembered.

I guess XIV technically does too in the form of the STF, but they certainly aren't doing a good job of it.

Might because they're wasting most of their time on banning the gil farmers instead of the other types that aren't so easily replaced.

[Rockette]

Why on earth would you report players AFK waiting for a node? What a complete waste of everyone's time.