Measures to counter botting

[Ultimatecalibur]

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.

If I remember right the RMT report function does do that if a user is reported enough. The RMTs just learned to cycle the Adbot characters regularly and players seem to have started reporting less and less. The current amount of RMT advertising is far less than it was pre-right click to RMT report.

[KageTokage]

They can tell when they've been muted from the report RMT function because a new bot will show up and keep spamming while the original just sits there doing nothing.

I wonder if maybe they could shadowban them in a way that makes it so they can't tell they've been muted and thus when to bring in the replacement.

The same could also potentially work on the gil farmers if they can do something that prevents them carrying out their full routine but doesn't make it obvious that anything is going on until they actually try to conduct a transaction or some such.

[LalaRu]

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

[KageTokage]

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

The actual most effective thing to do would be regularly and consistently punish people for getting involved in RMT or cheating.

People do it because there's little to no risk of being banned due to SE either not caring or having extremely limited methods of tracking violating players.

[LalaRu]

People do it because there's little to no risk of being banned...

I understand. Is this strong feeling of not being caught, more damaging than the act of rmt itself ?

[TnTaLuS]

I consider leaving the game due to SEs weak stance against cheating and botting. As soon as I've found a viable alternative I might leave for good.. very sad tho but it's just not a game where I want to be.. with people so blatantly cheating and not being punished.. thats just disappointing, sad and pathetic.

[Omymy]

I'm still convinced that the most effective way to counter bots is educate players to play fair and don't buy "services" from rmt.

Arent they banning people for buying gil or what?