Measures to counter botting

[TnTaLuS]

I love this post, I wish it was true and all the bots would become "FFXIV Refugees" on WoW Servers... that would be admirable in its absurdity hahaha

[Rymm]

you can REASONABLY think that staff from SE is involved in illegal and fraudulent online activities.

Yep. And I've got a bridge to sell you.

[KageTokage]

If they want to axe the gil-farmers, strategically placing out of bounds killzones in areas they need to pass through for MSQ completion would likely work because they can't run their three DPS/one healer party set-ups if they're forced to remain in bounds and take hits from the later bosses and they're also too stupid to avoid the mechanics in solo MSQ duties.

For everything else, they should just be having a GM contact players who demonstrate suspect behavior like repetitive movement and/or abnormally long periods of activity time then banning them if they keep ignoring them.

[frostmagemari]

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.

First, it is not legalized RMT, if you think that, you don't know how the system works...
Second, i said years. The tokens have only been in since legion, and i hadn't seen a gold advertisement in several years before that. The last gold advertisement i've seen in game was at the end of vanilla (or there abouts); since then they have actually made a good filtration system.
So it's not the token system that kept it out of people's hair, it was actually actively working on the issue.. finding keywords and filtering the chat when they would attempt to spam their advertisements, etc. Whether its bots or real people, advertisements get caught in the net and filtered out so people don't hear them. It doesn't matter how many people are selling if no one hears them.

So we don't need some fancy solution like teleporting people with repetitive play style to mini dungeons, or spyware or getting GMs to talk to each and every person after a report is filed. All SQEX needs to do is stop people from hearing the advertisements, all this requires is a more robust chat system; and when no one hears their advertisements and it impacts their bottom line, the gil sellers will interact less with the market because less customers mean less profitability. After that, then SQEX can start going after the large currency trades as well.

[KageTokage]

SE initially did try to filter to their chat to a degree but seem to have just given up after they started using weird symbols/characters in their text.

Diligence is the key thing when it comes to dealing with bots because they will eventually get backed into a corner if they're persistent about enforcing their methods.

[frostmagemari]

SE initially did try to filter to their chat to a degree but seem to have just given up after they started using weird symbols/characters in their text.

Diligence is the key thing when it comes to dealing with bots because they will eventually get backed into a corner if they're persistent about enforcing their methods.

Gold sellers tried the same thing with Warcraft; the only thing is, is that Blizzard didn't throw their hands up and say there's nothing they could do when the sellers started getting cheeky with how they put their advertisements out.. they kept updating their filters. As the sellers changed tactics, so did Blizzard to keep ahead of them.
SQEX could do the same thing, but they don't for some reason.

[Feronar]

Some things they could try:

- Implement server-side character motion auditing to detect teleport/speed hacks, a feature that WoW has had for years, and any responsible online game developer in this day and age would implement as soon as possible, preferably with the launch of the game.

- Limit character deletion to 3 charges, recharging at the rate of approximately 1 per day, like in ESO.

- Restrict the privileges of new players for features such as public chat, creating party finder groups, trade, in-game mail, and the market board, lifting the restrictions after analysis showed no suspicious behavior after a reasonable amount of activity.

- Auto-ban accounts if they engage in behavior that would be impossible for a legitimate player, i.e. progressing the main story campaign faster than would be physically possible for a legitimate player, harvesting "honeypot" resource nodes in inaccessible areas, etc. Speaking of which...

- Add "honeypots", gathering nodes and enemy mobs in areas that legitimate players cannot see or access, but can be easily be accessed by bots. If any honeypot node is gathered or honeypot enemy mob is killed, the player responsible will be automatically flagged as a cheater.

- Automatically apply suspicious activity locks to accounts that engage in behavior that indicates a high probability, but not necessarily 100% proof, of botting/cheating. (I.e. entering the same dungeon too many times in a short period of time) The accounts will remain locked until reviewed by the special task force. If found innocent, the player will be compensated for lost play time.

- Implement an anticheat system such as BattlEye or PunkBuster, or make you own, (I.e. Warden in WoW). Maybe even license Warden from Blizzard.

[Jojoya]

First, it is not legalized RMT, if you think that, you don't know how the system works...
Second, i said years. The tokens have only been in since legion, and i hadn't seen a gold advertisement in several years before that. The last gold advertisement i've seen in game was at the end of vanilla (or there abouts); since then they have actually made a good filtration system.
So it's not the token system that kept it out of people's hair, it was actually actively working on the issue.. finding keywords and filtering the chat when they would attempt to spam their advertisements, etc. Whether its bots or real people, advertisements get caught in the net and filtered out so people don't hear them. It doesn't matter how many people are selling if no one hears them.

So we don't need some fancy solution like teleporting people with repetitive play style to mini dungeons, or spyware or getting GMs to talk to each and every person after a report is filed. All SQEX needs to do is stop people from hearing the advertisements, all this requires is a more robust chat system; and when no one hears their advertisements and it impacts their bottom line, the gil sellers will interact less with the market because less customers mean less profitability. After that, then SQEX can start going after the large currency trades as well.

I'm guessing you didn't hang around the main AH in SW or Org much because the spam bot problem never went away, it was just reduced (at least as of when I quit WoW at the end of Legion). What got it under control was the chat restrictions on trial accounts plus auto-squelch if enough players reported the character for chat issues. I had fun visiting the cities, seeing the obvious spam bots, reporting them if they weren't already squelched then hitting them with my Turkey Shooter to make them the turkeys they are.

The bot operators continue to get creative with their messages, making it hard for SE to keep up with which text strings should result in the message blocked. What SE needs to do is implement am auto-squelch like WoW has so the character is muted after a certain number of RMT reports are submitted by other players. Let the squelched characters stay muted so their operators don't get alerted and send in a new bot to replace them. If a legitimate player is falsely reported, a GM can be contacted to lift the squelch then squelch the players making the false report.

[TnTaLuS]

Yep. And I've got a bridge to sell you.

At first I thought that sounded like some illuminati conspiracy theory and that even saying that would cause trouble but the more and more I take time to get in this stuff the more and more it confirms.. oh wait isn't that how the phenomenon of conspiracy theories works?

[TnTaLuS]

Gold sellers tried the same thing with Warcraft; the only thing is, is that Blizzard didn't throw their hands up and say there's nothing they could do when the sellers started getting cheeky with how they put their advertisements out.. they kept updating their filters. As the sellers changed tactics, so did Blizzard to keep ahead of them.
SQEX could do the same thing, but they don't for some reason.

That's one of the reasons why I stayed with Blizzard so long and still have a lot of admiration for many parts and the history of that company... They were insanely passionate about EVERYTHING. Not just the prestigious parts... With Activision they kinda started building a 2-class employee company which is horrible but their Customer Support is still industry leading performance. Especially at the end of the Blizzard era.. when there was the Money and corporate abilities of 2 companies but still the heart of Blizzard beating they grew on all parts positively.. And most companies severely underestimate how important Customer Support is and that it is a key part of what makes you survive.. the happiness of the customer...
So I still hope SE will wake up.. hell.. if they have a Job offer for Customer Support Lead or require assisstance in Customer Support Design I'm going for it..