Is it OK to use bots in FFXIV?

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

Every week. They purge every Thursday.

All TOS violations, including MPK, will be legal for the next 12 hours. All DM services will be unavailable until 7am.

[ZeroRaziel]

There are a lot of "players" who bot, and over the years it's become sadly evident that SE isn't doing anything serious in regards to stopping them.
The obvious RMT farms from china are swiftly dealt with, but actual players who opt to use bots seems to get no actual punishment.

Maybe one day SE will crack down on these and they'll get the ban they deserve. It's very sad that legit players are surpassed by others using nonstop bots.

Part of the issue may very well be that the STF and director/producer/god Yoshi-P are both mostly isolated to the experiences of Japanese servers.
You look around you don't see RMT (as much) or cheaters botting their way nonstop (as much). It exists but from what I've gathered it's not by any degree close to other data centres.
So if the people in charge of dealing with it don't see a problem, then there is no problem. This is why things don't really get done unless brought directly to him by say a fan at a Q&A or a technical issue at an important time.
I like how the sound output issue we've had for years was solved within a week of Yoshi-P having experienced it during a Live Letter.

Huh. Guess you are mostly right here... Made a character on JPN Data Centers and wasn't able to find even one Market Board bot not even on a single world. Damn, don't think that I even seen one RMT spammer in Limsa there...
And it seems that whole STF team (the one responsible for keeping an eye on botting, cheating and all that exciting stuff) consists just of 3 japanese employees



(I think it was 4 as of Stormblood)... And this 3-4 members seems more than enough to keep botting and RMT problem under control mostly on 3 japanese Data Centers.
Could we possibly get a something like "Special Task Force West" team or something?

P.S. Another funny fact: approximately at the same time Market Board botting became more severe on NA & EU servers (around 6 weeks ago) those warping around lvl 1-50 Conjurers and Thaumaturges (they prefer Archers since of ShB for some reason) suddenly gone missing.
I mean this bad boys:



Before you could just use a player search limited to levels 1-50, Conjurer & Thaumaturge & Archer and 90% of matches were those:




But since those 6 weeks they all went M.I.A. and now you can't find those pretty much anywhere (which is a good thing in its own).
Just as if people who were using those found a better ways of making gill.

[VictorTheed]

I always see those bots in the immortal flames GC, thier usually the default midlander male with low lvl caster dps gear and scribbled together names.

Every now and then when I'm in central thanalan trading in materia at the materia goblin I see em floating in the air or doing thier underground travel, I just laugh and remember that event we had years ago were you'd kill the robots but more would come back, I think that was Square's saying of joking about how no matter how many you ban more will take thier place.

[KageTokage]

They really do need a western branch of the STF.

It's honestly a little ridiculous that they're relying on a tiny Japanese team to monitor western servers, particularly when we already have our own GM team to handle the social issues.

If the STF aren't bilingual and they're needing to translate all of the reports that are sent in, that would only complicate matters even further.

[Canadane]

They really do need a western branch of the STF.

It's honestly a little ridiculous that they're relying on a tiny Japanese team to monitor western servers, particularly when we already have our own GM team to handle the social issues.

If the STF aren't bilingual and they're needing to translate all of the reports that are sent in, that would only complicate matters even further.

I really think someone needs to bring this to Yoshidas attention.
Next live Q&A at a fanfest maybe someone could ask him for some regional STF teams. Not just in the west but for EU too, I'm sure they're just as bad.

Heck, I volunteer, will work for free part time as an intern. Hire me SE.

[hynaku]

I love seeing the bots in cities doing the superman take off. Where they just all start flying away like how superman does. Another is when only see there head above the floor looks really creepy seeing just a head moving around.

[ZeroRaziel]

I really think someone needs to bring this to Yoshidas attention.
Next live Q&A at a fanfest maybe someone could ask him for some regional STF teams. Not just in the west but for EU too, I'm sure they're just as bad.

Heck, I volunteer, will work for free part time as an intern. Hire me SE.

Canadane, by "West" I meant both, NA and EU. Especially since I am from a European DC myself :P
And mostly every person I know who had some decent experience with crafting and selling via MB complained about how annoying bots presense gets last few monthes. And thats coming from both European Data Centers, Light and Chaos.

Heck, even this whole thread about busting a 1-gill undercutting bot

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...games_economy/

is from Louisoix-Chaos which is EU.

Next live Q&A at a fanfest maybe someone could ask him for some regional STF teams.

That would be sweet.
Even sweeter if that someone would specify that it's not just about RMT spammers in Limsa but more about programmable botting simulating mouse and keyboard input.

[Jijifli]

I remember arguing with someone who insisted bots were "necessary" because it isn't fair he had to buy 9k for raid pots, or whatever the prices were at the time.

This might sound cold, and it's not to you, it's obv about whoever you argued with here.

I think if a player actually defends botting, they should be instantly on a watch list at minimum (I'd prefer suspended, but let's give some 'hope' for 3 months while they 'make legit profits'). Usually if someone is defending botting, they either bot themselves, or do business with a botter. Otherwise, why would they defend something that makes an entire section of the game pointless to do, and causes inflation hardcore?

[KageTokage]

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.

[Awha]

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.

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.