Is it OK to use bots in FFXIV?

[Peace-Division]

Sadly someone in our FC posted a rudimentary bot script they found for free because someone was complaining about the length of time required with crafting. Cost is becoming less of an issue. Caused some issues within our FC since we found out they have been doing this for fairly long time.

Reputation is also kind of an odd one since as our FC mate said not like interact with strangers most of the time nor care what people think. Not like it sill hurt his sales, since people will just buy the cheapest itme possible and not care why it is cheap.

SE neess to accept outside evidence, or expand the STF or train GMs to deal with bots.

And vastly improve server code. The bot programs are memory hex editors at the core. This never ever works in online game environments if, one the memory pages sent to RAM are encrypted and two the server refuses the altered data as gospel.

The warping a character anywhere the bot program chooses to is a fine example of server code just accepting what the client tells it. They desperately need to improve server code and the game client to encrypt its own data so it cannot be as easily manipulated by memory editors as it currently appears to allow.

But this requires work, and quite a lot of it. Do SE consider it worth the effort in comparison to the effect it would have if they bothered. Would people play more, sub more, by mogstation fluff more, if they vastly reduced they freedoms bot programs currently have?

[Riardon]

It's ok for SE unless it's an RMT bot spamming the chat near aetherytes.
Se does nothing to ban gathering bots.
I''ve reported the same bots again and again and SE still permits them to do it.

[HadesNight]

I think the only reasons a lot of people don't bot are:

1. They don't want to have to pay for a botting program.

2. They're not willing to accept that extremely tiny risk of them getting banned.

3. They don't want to damage their reputation.

In the long run though, the amount of bots has just continued to snowball as time goes on.

Since SE has made it evident they don't actually care about botters, I've gone from hating them with a passion, to now being grateful for the cheap crystal, shard, cluster, sand cost. (It's me just trying to turn a negative into a positive in my mind because it was driving me insane on Midgardsormr)

It felt like wasted energy to video record and send them a report with a link to the video showing them follow the same pattern for hours and not have anything happen to those characters.

Knowing now that SE doesn't do anything, it's highly tempting. I mean why not? You get all the reward and profit at no effort. Paying for it is not an issue, and people would never know it's me in how i'd set it up. But I've been playing this game too long and totally fall into the #2 category. I'd be devastated if I got banned and lost my houses, so I'll never touch it.

I'm assuming the people that bot might not have anything to lose?

Honestly, it's not fair that I work really hard in this game to gather and craft. I am completely jealous and envious of botters but it no longer is something I can healthily say is worth getting angry over since it's been close to 4 years now and nothing has changed. I'm assuming turning on anti-cheat measures isn't possible with our game code but I don't know enough about that topic to have an informed opinion on why SE hasn't acted yet.

[Kes13a]

I would happily challenge any SE programmer, customer rep, even Yoshi-P to make gil without cheating on the market these days. Its almost at the stage where you need a bot to do so. Seen what I suspect is a couple more come online in the last couple days and with more than one "competing" on the market, you do not have the "luxury" of fitting in between their cycles, or having a chance to sell once they have to replenish stock.

Something needs to change. Either SE needs to say they dont give a damn about market botters and cannot do anything or they need to come up with tools so they can do something about an aspect of the game many people do without cheating. Either way, a part of the game they produce is quickly becoming unplayable and they need to fix it... or scrap it.

[KageTokage]

I don't think it's realistically possible to make a reliable automated detection system for DoH/L bots because while there are certain things they do that are literally impossible for legitimate players to do, they could easily adjust their scripts to stop raising those red flags if it actually started being a problem.

The only thing that might work is some kind of invasive program that monitors the game client and terminates it if it detects any kind of outside applications connecting to it...though judging from WoW's track record, those are also extremely easy to work around, plus SE has gone on record as saying they don't want to use those due to valuing customer privacy.

There's honestly not enough DoL/H bots that they couldn't realistically be kept under control by a small dedicated team because it takes a long time for anything other then shard bot to get a point where they can start raking in significant profits due to so much being MSQ gated. Realistically, I think they need to just train the GMs to identify bots and place them under their jurisdiction as well. I doubt they're having to deal with so many reports that they can't spare some time at night to banhammer some bots during the graveyard shift where they tend to be most active.

[Kes13a]

I don't think it's realistically possible to make a reliable automated detection system for DoH/L bots because while there are certain things they do that are literally impossible for legitimate players to do, they could easily adjust their scripts to stop raising those red flags if it actually started being a problem.

There's honestly not enough DoL/H bots that they couldn't realistically be kept under control by a small dedicated team because it takes a long time for anything other then shard bot to get a point where they can start raking in significant profits due to so much being MSQ gated.

Not being a programmer I am not sure what is or isnt possible. And I am sure that there is no program to detect a bot program logging in a character set to use the market like they do. BUT, a person would be able to recognize that a typical player would not be doing that on an account 24/7, changing prices at inhuman speeds then logging out to log back in on the next character in the same order on a 20 minute cycle.

Oh right, I forgot, some players think thats just the way these "people" play and there is nothing illegal or cheating about it. SE seems to agree...

[Garten]

I often craft and sell, even if i am not a dedicated crafter.. when i am undercutted by a gil i feel a bit of irritation because i think.. could you (that undercutted me) go down at least of 1000 gil?
So i started to STOP buying the lowest price item that i see on the market of i am on the side of the customer.
If i Need an item X and there Is One at 9999 and One at 10000 for example i buy the 10000 One.
Ah, and i identified a bot too in moogle, sometimes It sells something i Need (even on other worlds) but i refuse ti buy from him.

[KageTokage]

Unsurprisingly, I've started seeing bots in Bozja, though in the first case I witnessed, it was one actual talking/responsive player being tailed by a pack of bots with very generic names and no title that I presume were either the player's alts or those of friends. They were also all using the company chocobo mount, which was another giveaway on top of their janky movement as it's the default mount option for most botting scripts.

Also, the people on my server who got removed from the Ishgard rankings for cheating are now back and playing again after an absence, so they just got a slap on the wrist as I was expecting.

[Shahi]

Totally ok. SE doesn't care. They are paying for the game like everyone else. Reported gathering/leveling bots and they are still doing it so nothing happened, not even a warning.

[Chasingstars]

Iunno from my wildlife safari notes of bots in the wild

Low level (1-5) midlander warriors/gladiators that are usually sitting somewhere and spamming /say with whatever message in capitals where most people tend to congregate.
1-30 level midlander conjurers off in gridania, farming mobs, and being six yalms under.
1-50 level midlander archers/bards in practically anywhere and are usually just doing the msq.
1-30 level midlander thaumaturges/black mages mostly doing the msq.
(if you do see them arrive at a dungeon entrace, they hop through the geometry)

I could understand DoH bots.
Never seen DoL bots tbh.