Measures to counter botting

[NessaWyvern]

Runescape had an interesting counter-bot measure that was pretty fun. If you were doing something for extended periods of time, you'd occasionally get teleported into mini games, where you'd get items and exp as a reward when you complete it. The teleport would break the bots, and the minigames were fun for players.

[Arcadious]

...and the minigames were fun for players.

Except if you didn't know the name of a certain type of bread and were instantly teleported to Varrock.

Good times.

[NessaWyvern]

Except if you didn't know the name of a certain type of bread and were instantly teleported to Varrock.

Good times.

Didn't they change it to just pick the matching silhouette? I can't remember, it's been at least 8 or 9 years since I played :P (I miss talking to my purple fat cat with a cat speak amulet now)
The things like your hatchet breaking and you had to find where the head went was annoying though. The evil chicken killed me a few times when I was a noob also

[Feronar]

Sure, only WoW actually has actual countermeasures to deal with sellers; that's why they're a plague here and not on WoW. They have better filters in the chat system, they have a mailing system that filters out mails sent with the key words (along with other character criteria). It has been several YEARS since i have ever heard anyone advertising gold in WoW, and i had been playing since the game came out on the busier servers.

On XIV? I visit any world and the first thing i hear when popping into a world is "buy gil, yadayadayada".

Keep in mind WoW also has the WoW token system which is basically legalized RMT through official Blizzard channels. Not that I would necessarily be opposed to SE implementing a similar system in FF14.

[TnTaLuS]

So in essence the issue is so bad and the topic so neglected by SE that you can REASONABLY think that staff from SE is involved in illegal and fraudulent online activities.
I am not one to say SE should copy wow but there are certain things in customer support they are far ahead of SE.
SE needs more creative thinking in countering fraudulent activities.
They need a better designed customer support (especially in terms of payment issues I had very frustrating and negative experiences, to a degree that is just unacceptable in todays possibilities) and they need to show and communicate better that they actually care about this issue.
I don't know if it's maybe a cultural thing.. that in asia you are so conditioned to spammy commercials that they maybe don't care... or turn a blind eye to what seems like minor crimes to them?
But in all honesty they damage their company and their reputation way more than they think in the long run...
Especially the amount of chargebacks can turn into a real headache once your playerbase and amount of cheaters is big enough... 1 Chargeback can equal up to a full game purchase and more and the charge can increase going to 1 game and like 3 years worth of subscription..
But are they willing to improve these areas and where would I have a platform were I could bring in specific suggestions?
I am working in that area IRL and all the way I would usually contact a responsible department are not existing or behind a japanese language barrier.
I would ask for something like customerservice feedback representative and a community manager or open platform.
Anyone know such contacts?

[Hasrat]

Build a better bot trap, and they build a better bot.

Could just be botting has reached a stage, in general, not just this game, where devs recognize the wasted resources just to try slowing bots down for a couple weeks until they find a workaround.

[Risvertasashi]

I think the only way SE could really and effectively combat it is if they added anticheat software. However, doing this itself presents a lot of problems - the main parser people use would get hit. Modders would probably get hit. And so on. Basically what's currently the big DADT grey area would become a black area, and that'd make a lot of people very angry and SE would lose a lot of their playerbase if they didn't manage to find a way to allow those things or a replacement.

[DrWho2010]

make all the areas bots operate in insta-death. fall thru the map? you die. bots flying thru the air in ARR zones? insta gib.

[SamSmoot]

I find it very difficult to identify bots in this game. I thought I had one a few days ago, given that it seemed to be stopping in the exact same spot to mine every time, and was taking six seconds between mining hits every time.
On closer inspection, it had slight variations in it;s landing position, and the time delay could have been player with some disability, playing with a pointing stick or something. I eventually gave up after 10 minutes of watching.

Gil sellers: After 100 different accounts report a gil spammer, inspect that they all point to the same site, and block that URL from appearing ever again, forcing the spammer to get a new domain name and scrap the old one. This could be automated.. Just take 5 random segments of text from their message, and if any further chat message appears with 3 of the 5, block it. This way, the spammers will have to completely change their add each time it gets blocked, eventually running out of ways to get the message across.

Or, just make it impossible to transfer more than 1000 gil per week between characters that aren't on the same account.

[TnTaLuS]

I find it very difficult to identify bots in this game. I thought I had one a few days ago, given that it seemed to be stopping in the exact same spot to mine every time, and was taking six seconds between mining hits every time.
On closer inspection, it had slight variations in it;s landing position, and the time delay could have been player with some disability, playing with a pointing stick or something. I eventually gave up after 10 minutes of watching.

Gil sellers: After 100 different accounts report a gil spammer, inspect that they all point to the same site, and block that URL from appearing ever again, forcing the spammer to get a new domain name and scrap the old one. This could be automated.. Just take 5 random segments of text from their message, and if any further chat message appears with 3 of the 5, block it. This way, the spammers will have to completely change their add each time it gets blocked, eventually running out of ways to get the message across.

Or, just make it impossible to transfer more than 1000 gil per week between characters that aren't on the same account.

When I encounter some again I will record them and upload the footage on a hidden video and post it here. I see them almost every day.. especially when I with 2 accounts at the same time and level in low level areas.. thats the weirdes thing.. they are very often in low level areas.. tho it is hard to catch them doing a specific thing since they literally teleport from mob to mob and place to place (without the aetheryte system, they abuse that the server doesnt check that your clients character position (coordinates) is the same as the characters position on the server.. in other games like wow that causes an automaatic disconnect)soo it looks kinda weird but its very visibly bot.. a lot of people.. all looking the same.. same gear.. all weird naming scheme (not a real name but also not against any naming schemes like KKKK1 kkk1 kkk3, they have names like AAhhZuuF Keeddoosisuf)
So they are not damaging your gameplay directly since they are stealthy.. but their impact on economy and their level of annoyance is.. at least for me.. infuriating