Firmament Botting Out Of Control

[DrWho2010]

i wonder if the jp side thinks botting is an issue. i wish i knew the language better.

[KageTokage]

i wonder if the jp side thinks botting is an issue. i wish i knew the language better.

There is definitely botting going on on the JP side of things, too.

Or at least I can't think of any other explanation for the numerous FCs populated by naught but obvious alts on DoH classes that have disproportionately high FC rankings for how few members they have.

Whether that also applies to the Restoration is anyone's guess.

[DrWho2010]

There is definitely botting going on on the JP side of things, too.

Or at least I can't think of any other explanation for the numerous FCs populated by naught but obvious alts on DoH classes that have disproportionately high FC rankings for how few members they have.

Whether that also applies to the Restoration is anyone's guess.

i didn't ask if botting is going on on the jp side, I wondered if they think it's an issue or not.

[Frosthaven]

Just wanted to mention something said earlier. A fisher standing in the same location isn't evidence of botting. The most efficient 45k per lockout method requires you to basically live on one island other than hard-amiss dodging.

Because of this, I've grown quite accustomed to landing on my "favorite spot" on the island. By those standard - and if I didn't miss out from working so much - I'd probably be seen as a bot too.

Edit: to be clear, bots exist and are a headache. My post is not a rebuttal of that.

[RareItems]

Its funny to watch 2 marketbot users undercut each other by 25 gil every hour, that after i returned from a break the item that usually sells for 204k is now selling at 20k...

[Eriane_Elis]

Its funny to watch 2 marketbot users undercut each other by 25 gil every hour, that after i returned from a break the item that usually sells for 204k is now selling at 20k...

Time for market captcha! lol

[Kleeya]

Time for market captcha! lol

Omg please no. Captchas are either too simple, annoying only legit people while bots are deciphering them without any difficulty. Or way too difficult, like these highly deformed letters which as a human you can not even see the difference between a S and 5 anymore, or these "check all the parts of this photo with a car on them" where you don't know if this include the very tiny little bit of the car going across another part of the picture. I did quit a couple forums because it was so annoying failing these kinds of things 3 or 4 times in a row each time you wanted to post something on them.

[Evrardoux]

You're seeing this because the design of The Firmament is a low-quality grindfest preying on your FOMO. Nobody in their right mind should be grinding points for it at all. It's a horrible abomination of game design and the only reason people tolerate it is both due to content drought making them desperate and an exclusive title for DoH/DoL which were finally made accessible to the casual player - hence everyone plays it.

The Diadem is atrocious, by the way - I'm not surprised people are botting it because it quite literally is begging to be automated. People often do not do these things out of some insane desire to cheat - risking an account filled with hundreds of hours of playtime and exclusive event rewards is not something most want to do, BUT they seek to cheat when things seem to demand an unreasonable effort for the reward given which has been a focus for FFXIV.

The Solution?
Devs: Stop dragging your feet with The Firmament and milking players. The map was long done well prior to the first phase completion, drip-feeding it to players in a Mor Dhona /Idyllshire style is cool only as a side piece, not a main feature. Also, the fact that DoH/DoL side content is eating away at Dungeons and Combat Content is really awful. Give combat players something to do again so they aren't converting to crafters en-masse.

Give DoH/DoL something to truly sink their teeth into, without abusing your player with awful currency grinds. Expert Recipes are a step in the right direction, but making them a giant eternally repetitive endless grind was a mistake. Honestly, all of the new high level crafts such as the Shinryu, Tsuku Weapons, Neo-Ishgard, etc, should have all been "Expert Recipe" style.

[Eriane_Elis]

Okay, I take back what I said. The scores weren't really that bad when I said it probably isn't a botting problem because they seemed tame but now it's really bad. I know there's a macro for crafting which I haven't used but apparently works most of the time. But even still, there's really no way people can craft over a million or gather 2million without botting. It's physically not possible.

Just be done with it, we want housing, not ishgard reconstruction.

[KageTokage]

I won't deny I'm really disappointed that they didn't take any measures to make the Firmament/Diadem experience more interesting/fulfilling.

The FATEs in the former could've been a regular thing and also more a involved process; perhaps allowing you to actually craft things to use for the repairs and gain bonus skyward points as a result.

Diadem could've had collectables/aetherial reduction as an alternative to just brainlessly hitting nodes, and perhaps some "boss" monsters that take a collective effort from the players there to reap a large reward.

As far as the botting goes, almost all of the people from my server I see doing it there have an established history of doing it pretty much any time they're on DoL/H jobs though, so it's not like it pushed them over the edge or anything; they just find gathering/crafting fundamentally uninteresting. There isn't any actual risk to doing it, either, as SE's three strike policy means that unless you had prior offenses, you're just going to get a slap on the wrist if you do somehow get caught.