I give up, the bots win AKA: My flight is scheduled for departure

[Kaurhz]

Do people actually think threads like this are worth anything?

Yes, yes people do.

If the thread gets a sufficient amount of attraction from the player base then it is more likely to get noticed by those that can make a change on the matter.

I'd bump this thread for eternity if it meant SE investing more resources and budget into anti-bot measures beyond a 'dedicated team'.

Not to mention it beats the typical nonsense that has been floating around from time to time

[Doozer]

Yes, yes people do.

If the thread gets a sufficient amount of attraction from the player base then it is more likely to get noticed by those that can make a change on the matter.

I'd bump this thread for eternity if it meant SE investing more resources and budget into anti-bot measures beyond a 'dedicated team'.

Not to mention it beats the typical nonsense that has been floating around from time to time

There's a thousand and one threads of people saying they're unsubbing because of this and that. That's what I'm referring to. It's still part of the typical nonsense that floats around.

[MariaArvana]

Yes, yes people do.

If the thread gets a sufficient amount of attraction from the player base then it is more likely to get noticed by those that can make a change on the matter.

I'd bump this thread for eternity if it meant SE investing more resources and budget into anti-bot measures beyond a 'dedicated team'.

Not to mention it beats the typical nonsense that has been floating around from time to time

Being blunt, this has been an issue raised countless upon countless of times in huge megathreads before over several years and expansions.
Threads of people saying they're leaving due to bots aren't going to make Square take anymore action than any of the much bigger threads have in the past.

Not to mention these kinds of 'farewell, so long' threads barely break 100 posts even in the most popular of them and the devs much preferring megathreads rather than tons of small threads, these threads are effectively tantamount to nothing of worth as far as attention from the devs.

[SturmChurro]

Being blunt, this has been an issue raised countless upon countless of times in huge megathreads before over several years and expansions.
Threads of people saying they're leaving due to bots aren't going to make Square take anymore action than any of the much bigger threads have in the past.

Not to mention these kinds of 'farewell, so long' threads barely break 100 posts even in the most popular of them and the devs much preferring megathreads rather than tons of small threads, these threads are effectively tantamount to nothing of worth as far as attention from the devs.

I don't think the devs, or even the mods, even actively read the forums. That's the funny thing.

[Shin96]

I don't think the devs, or even the mods, even actively read the forums. That's the funny thing.

I agree. One of the reasons certain users were able to create trolling threads that went on for days. These threads are wasted energy as much as I sympathize with OP.

[Jijifli]

Yes, yes people do.

If the thread gets a sufficient amount of attraction from the player base then it is more likely to get noticed by those that can make a change on the matter.

I'd bump this thread for eternity if it meant SE investing more resources and budget into anti-bot measures beyond a 'dedicated team'.

Not to mention it beats the typical nonsense that has been floating around from time to time

Except Square won't invest anything. Why would they, when bots quite literally make them money?

Every bot is an extra $15 a month. On top of that, as already pointed out, a good chunk of the playerbase actually enjoys bots existing because that means stuff is painfully cheap, so they don't have to try to make money themselves for things that they want. They don't even care if the bot cheats anymore, only if it's actually using legit money instead of stolen money that gets chargebacked (As evidence that the map bots get their maps from a bot under the ground, which I showed in my own thread.)

[Kyrj]

Except Square won't invest anything. Why would they, when bots quite literally make them money?

Every bot is an extra $15 a month. On top of that, as already pointed out, a good chunk of the playerbase actually enjoys bots existing because that means stuff is painfully cheap, so they don't have to try to make money themselves for things that they want. They don't even care if the bot cheats anymore, only if it's actually using legit money instead of stolen money that gets chargebacked (As evidence that the map bots get their maps from a bot under the ground, which I showed in my own thread.)

I mean I would love for the bots to be gone like the cockroaches they are, but it will never happen.

[Jijifli]

I mean I would love for the bots to be gone like the cockroaches they are, but it will never happen.

Agreed. When the materials to craft a new thing sell for twice as much as what they make, it's really not worth it to craft at all. The only areas available at this point in crafting are niche items and housing, and both of those sell very slowly, on top of the fact that one is even so limited on my server that it's rare for someone new to get a house and need the furnishings.

Gear? Botted. Food? Botted. Potions? Botted. Aethersand for gathering? Botted. Go get Cobalt or suffer.

[Kaurhz]

There's a thousand and one threads of people saying they're unsubbing because of this and that. That's what I'm referring to. It's still part of the typical nonsense that floats around.

Except this "typical nonsense" is a perfectly valid thread to create, irrespective of how many duplicate threads there are; it's a significant enough issue, and people shall continue to do so whilst it remains an issue like they do any other topic. It's a breath of freshair to have a post like this considering some of the posts as of late, being about trying to create false narratives on the blacklist, and whitelist terms, and so forth.

Except Square won't invest anything. Why would they, when bots quite literally make them money?

Every bot is an extra $15 a month. On top of that, as already pointed out, a good chunk of the player base actually enjoys bots existing because that means stuff is painfully cheap, so they don't have to try to make money themselves for things that they want. They don't even care if the bot cheats anymore, only if it's actually using legit money instead of stolen money that gets chargeback (As evidence that the map bots get their maps from a bot under the ground, which I showed in my own thread.)

Sure.

False, sure, they will lose some money, but many and I mean many bots operate via trial accounts thus there is no profit barring that which can be used to overinflate their population numbers. So going to disagree with this one.

What you don't accommodate for is that whilst bots will go, players making money will factor in for economic shifts so it'd put people in a position where they're more likely to resort to that previous avenue that was bot infested to make Gil. Sure, shard prices will rise up, then this price will incentivize players to actually gather it in order to make Gil, and in many cases allow some newer and lower level players to flourish. It's not as simple as this market will just die. Similarly if items from maps spike then equally more people will do maps as an avenue to make Gil once again. Besides, crafting being so 'profitless' is largely lent to the oversimplification and ease of the system as much as it is anything else

[Jijifli]

Sure.

False, sure, they will lose some money, but many and I mean many bots operate via trial accounts thus there is no profit barring that which can be used to overinflate their population numbers. So going to disagree with this one.

Aiight, I need to focus on this one. The bots causing the issues such as OP's situation are NOT trial. Trial cannot go into ShB zones. Trial cannot hit level 80. Trial cannot interact with market. Trial cannot trade.

And yet, when I see a nice chunk of the same bots for years going to get aethersand 24/7, am I led to believe these are just trials that would just reappear?

The simple answer is this. Those bots, the ones where actual investment is made, will not come back if banned. And that's exactly why Square won't do it, because they would stop getting someone's money. The only ways they'll ever care are if...
1) The Loss of profits from playerbase dips due to bots, plus the money needed to invest to stop it is greater in loss than what the bots give in gain. Even if it's 1 to 1, where 1 bot makes 1 person quit, they still wouldn't do anything because it costs money to delete it.
2) Publicity gets terrible. We've already seen proof of this, with the PvP hacking. Square did not care at all about people hacking in PvP until it not only showed up on the JP servers, be began to spread over twitter like wildfire in the JP community. They had to take a quick action (prevent trials from pvp) to put a hard cap on it. Weird how reports did nothing for such a long time, but Twitter, the king's of cancel culture, scared them enough? Almost like they could do that the entire time...