Lack of action against gathering bots, it needs to be changed, and soon

[UnrealTai]

GMs are too busy responding to every little Manchild or womanchild that is sending them reports for someone saying a cuss word now a days.

If ban waves were slow before theyre at a dead stop now until people learn to deal with other players on their own instead of running off to daddy GM over ridiculous reports of so and so said the F word in chat, ban him! Taking up too much GM time when they can just use blacklist.

Until then ya, Im gonna just have to put up with not making any money gathering. Prices are stupid low, worse then ever. Thanks blizzard for dumping all your poop over here.

I mean, TIMED node materials 700g each??? wth, Non timed node mats are 800-900, of any type. Who are these people and how freaking old are they?

But ya end of the day, its just going to get worse because people are treating the ToS like their own personal ban hammer and acting like little babies. SE isnt going to hire more GMs just because people want to act like theyre 12 and report everything under the sun, instead of investigate real reports that matter like gathering bots, so thats where their focus is all at now instead of on our precious gathering materials


Honestly Im surprised I dont get reported for being a viera with my cheeks hanging out at this point!

[KageTokage]

I honestly think the gather bots in WoW are less of a problem then they are here simply because while they can be created more quickly you can actually get them banned if you report them.

The number of bots in XIV has just been swelling as time goes on and the usual suspects from as far back as HW on my server are still around but have been joined by several new faces at this point.

[Oxidized]

I honestly think the gather bots in WoW are less of a problem then they are here simply because while they can be created more quickly you can actually get them banned if you report them.

The number of bots in XIV has just been swelling as time goes on and the usual suspects from as far back as HW on my server are still around but have been joined by several new faces at this point.

WoW put its clamps on the gathering bots all the way back in Wrath (although they looked into player-driven reports as early as BC), and was much better for doing so. WoW's big bot-related sin was being late in stemming the tide of the more sophisticated PVP-related bots, but at least they recognized that it was a problem and were committed to ridding the community of cheaters, developing their own automated measures over time alongside personally looking into reports when such a solution was not available.

[Kaedan]

The RMT bots can't be controlled with bans. -snip-

Yes, that's what I said.

Also, they almost never actually ban buyers and the accounts doing the selling are expendable. The vast majority of the bans you see in their reports are for their expendable farm bots, with a fair amount of bans also being issued to their spam bots, but ultimately, buying gil being so low risk is partly why the trade is able to flourish.

All of this is incorrect. They actually ban more gil buyers than gil sellers. And the accounts you see in the reports are not bots, they are gil sellers and gil buyers.

No, having the bots gathering with other players isn't harmful due to the thankfully instanced nature of nodes, but having them selling things at prices that are scarcely profitable for people who are actually playing the game is.

Bots don't do the selling. That's done by other characters. And in fact, ~60% of gil sold on websites comes from normal players who sell the gil to said websites. As for those who do sell on the market to then sell to websites, if they undercut, that isn't actually bad for the economy at all. Either a savvy marketeer takes advantage of it and buys up the stock (if it's a severe undercut), or the undercut isn't severe enough to cause a significant and permanent drop in price and in fact, it helps to balance the price equilibrium (which is often weighted in the sellers favor).

[Granyala]

This is not about drama, but about being able to enjoy a game that largely gets casual content right. There is no drama if the bot problem continues and I find myself unable to enjoy the great DoH/DoL systems that the devs created and expanded upon, I simply move on to a game where I believe the playing field to be fairer, even if it is an inferior product. Sadly, I know a few people who have already went this route, and I know that I will probably be joining them in a couple of weeks, only coming back intermittently to check out the major content releases that pique my interest.

Or maybe, if crafters in the west (I heard it's less of an issue on JP servers) would stop charging absurd premiums, botting would not be so lucrative in the first place.

Since s/o mentioned Aethersands, I checked the prices:
Scuroglow: NQ: 9K / HQ: 9K
Chiraoglow: NQ: 4K /HQ: 4K
Agedeep: NQ: 14K / HQ: 15K
Agewood: NQ: 15K / HQ: 16K
Ageflow NQ: 24K / HQ: 24K

Considering that these items take less than 5 minutes of actual playtime to gather, I'd consider them quite profitable (Scuro and Chirao aren't must much anymore because they are for low level items).

So please... forgive me if I can't be up in arms about us gatherers no longer being able to charge 50-100K for an item that is utterly trivial to obtain.

Doesn't mean SE shouldn't crack down on bots ofc. Bot users are cheaters and cheaters deserve to be banned from any multiplayer environment.
If a few survive (and there will always be survivers) it's not the end of crafting as we know it.

[KageTokage]

All of this is incorrect. They actually ban more gil buyers than gil sellers. And the accounts you see in the reports are not bots, they are gil sellers and gil buyers.

Considering that SE's policy is to never permaban on the first offense outside of major offenses, it seems safe to assume that the tiny temporary ban figure for RMT/illicit activity is the one that applies to actual players while the much larger figure is for the gil farm bots (It's 9045 vs. 19 this week).

if they undercut, that isn't actually bad for the economy at all. Either a savvy marketeer takes advantage of it and buys up the stock (if it's a severe undercut), or the undercut isn't severe enough to cause a significant and permanent drop in price and in fact, it helps to balance the price equilibrium (which is often weighted in the sellers favor).

You can't really take advantage of a bot that's packing such an excess of items that it'll relist a new item within minutes of you buying it and undercut you if you try to resell said item.

The bots on my server are able to consistently maintain low prices and drive them even lower if anyone tries intrude on their monopoly. While they do have an undercut "limit" they will not go under, they are not working together, nor do they update their bots at the same times so even if you find the price floor for one of them, one of the others will generally notice sooner then later and start going even lower.

[Vnolan]

Or maybe, if crafters in the west (I heard it's less of an issue on JP servers) would stop charging absurd premiums, botting would not be so lucrative in the first place.

How does that explain FATE and crafting bots? Players bot because it's free money or progress while they AFK and there are no consequences for doing it. If sands were cheap they would just bot something else, like they already do.

(Scuro and Chirao aren't must much anymore because they are for low level items).

Scuro is used in grade 2 tinctures

So please... forgive me if I can't be up in arms about us gatherers no longer being able to charge 50-100K for an item that is utterly trivial to obtain.

If it's so trivial, why not gather them yourself?

If a few survive (and there will always be survivers) it's not the end of crafting as we know it.

Except it's only a few that ever get banned, which is what the topic is about.

[Granyala]

If it's so trivial, why not gather them yourself?

I did.
Only as much as I need for myself though, because the process is mindnumbingly boring.
I'm a scrooge, so I won't pay 15K per sand if I can farm it myself within a few minutes.

[TwistedTea]

Or maybe, if crafters in the west (I heard it's less of an issue on JP servers) would stop charging absurd premiums, botting would not be so lucrative in the first place...

Considering that these items take less than 5 minutes of actual playtime to gather, I'd consider them quite profitable (Scuro and Chirao aren't must much anymore because they are for low level items).

So please... forgive me if I can't be up in arms about us gatherers no longer being able to charge 50-100K for an item that is utterly trivial to obtain.

Please don't try to justify cheating with crafters overcharging. Even on Balmung with its vicious undercutting,there are bots.

World Visit is also leading to the standardization of prices across the data centre although at the cost of gathering bots now having access to more customers.

For botters, even if they sell a gathered item from a timed node for less than 10 gil per item, it's still pure profit.

Secondly, if it's so trivial to obtain gathered items, why don't more people gather themselves?

The premium that is being paid for legitimate gatherers is for their time while others are doing other content.

In short,cheaters gonna cheat. Not even talking about the gil sellers but I've met players who have admitted they use bots because gathering is too tedious/grindy.

As if grindiness is an excuse to cheat.

SE needs to takes drastic actions like perma banning/deleting every single account that uses botting.

[HyoMinPark]

GMs are too busy responding to every little Manchild or womanchild that is sending them reports for someone saying a cuss word now a days.

Just so you know, GMs actually aren’t allowed to respond to reports of suspected cheating. Only the STF are allowed to answer those reports—and the STF is a team of 4 individuals. GMs don’t have the power to ban even RMT shout spam bots, much less the DoH/DoL ones.