Botting: Good or Evil? lol

[Callinon]

Cheating is bad.

[Dragonblanco]

And remember, I didn't ask what your definition was. The gaming community and the world at large already has determined the meaning of these words. All you need to do is Google to ask what botting is and you'll get your answers. The dictionary, which is universal for everyone, will spell it out for you. So anyone trying to say automated macros which will non-stop do a pre-programed set of commands is not botting....what are you missing? This is why I said reading comprehension and all. I quoted where SE already spelled it out, I had specifically been mentioning in as simple means as possible what it means, and you've had access to the internet and any dictionary in the world. All you had to do is look.

But instead I have the handful of you who try saying it's not gray area just because you don't want it to be. Then you try telling me that macros and botting are different...which developers and dictionaries the world over will disagree with you on.

But maybe you need to see that elsewhere. How about someone who answered about the difference for WoW, their former Community Manager? https://twitter.com/Bashiok/status/598594151874039809

Bashiok
@Bashiok
·
May 13, 2015
Botting is defined as automation of any action, not just character movement. If a program is pressing keys for you, you've violated the ToU.

Again, that was in reference to WoW but it's the same here. Macros pushing buttons for you = botting.

[Kes13a]

Maybe this will help define things for you. "botting" as you defined in your original post, is "absentee play", so that the player can be at work, play, spend time with family etc. In those cases, I would think they should log off and spend time with real life people, but we seem to have a differing opinion on that. They are not referring to "macros" which have a limited line amount, if you program a macro button on your keyboard for instance to run eternally, that is absentee play. if you have a macro set up that you have to press or click for it to continue every cycle, that is not absentee play.

■Behaviour that disrupts the game balance
Square Enix strictly prohibits the use of third-party programs or tools – including programs and tools that permit automated or “absentee” play – in Final Fantasy XIV. Accordingly, the following activities are prohibited:

- Modifying, analysing, integrating, and/or reverse engineering game software or data.
- Creating, distributing, using, or promoting utilities that interact with the game.
- Exploiting Square Enix programming bugs or glitches.
- Automating gameplay processes.

The Game Master (GM) may speak to players to investigate and confirm “absentee” play, and if the player continues with this behaviour, contrary to the GM's instructions, this will be treated as “absentee” play and subject to penalties. The following behaviour is also prohibited.

since you want examples of pros and cons:
pros, none, its cheating.

cons: many, but to bring up a few for you
cheaper prices on material, seem like a good deal, but the only buyers for the cheap materials will be the people using absentee play, because they are the only people selling anything
- reason, bots change their pricing every 1--15 minutes to maintain the lowest price so they are the only ones selling gear
- a player can replicate this, but to sell, they need to be active on the market board and change prices, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, it is a job at that point
excess amount of materials on market
- yes, the nodes do not disappear, but you only need materials if you are crafting, and since crafting can be expensive for gear and materia, see first point, if there is no reason to sell, since market/crafting absentee players can churn out many more items than a non abesentee player, why would you enter crafting?
destruction of 8 crafting classes
- need or desire to craft would become much lower as a majority of the player base would no longer see a point in it.

I mean long and short of it is you are okay with absentee play, and many of your posts and redfinition of what it is definitely point in that direction. I am not.

anyway, since your recent posts have become increasingly hostile towards people not okay with absentee playing, I am done here. have a good journey.

[kaynide]

1) you asked several questions in what was an already longwinded post. I answered if I supported them or not. I don’t care about your question if they were suddenly allowed because it’s a dumb question.

I am not obligated to respond to some specific part of your post.

2) I gave my opinion. You can take it or leave it. I don’t know why you think it’s a debate or that I’m supposed to convince you of something.

3) again, incredibly rude. There is nothing else to discuss here. Either you are fishing to make an argument or you genuinely don’t realize how rude you are being to people. I will assume the later and wish you a good day.

[QooEr]

If this is your world view then just wow, like WOW. Morals be damned, who cares who I **** over. Me, me , me, I , I , I.

who is a botter bleeping over, realistically?* i have quite a few friends who use bots and literally all they use them for is to gather/craft stuff for raid like food and pots, and then they share it with the static.

The more contentious one was this girl who also liked to sell gil to random people she knew. but again, who is she ***ing over by doing that?

Bots arent inherently evil and "rules" arent inherently righteous. Also a rule is effectively meaningless is nobody enforces it.

*i know theres some hardcore rmt botters that probably make a lot of money and are involved in stuff like tax evasion, but that is merely a subset and its clear where the wrongful action is.

FYI, the more you bot (and I bet you do) the more resources you take from the development of the game for your "enforcement". So next time people complain about content drought just know that the GM payroll costs money and it's coming out of the same budget....

ah yes the literal Four people that deal with bots have such a fat salary that they had to cut ultimate and deep dungeons and other stuff... right.

[Awha]

I do not agree with their approach but if we are all being honest with ourselves with SE's lack of enforcement it does create an environment with more reasons to cheat verse not.

I get cheating is bad but let us be real an action in itself being wrong is moot that does bit stop people from doing the action. Active enforcement and other actions to disincentivize someone from cheating.

[Illmaeran]

One of my favorite things ever in the game was during ARR there was the native, in-game, option to create macros. It made crafting mass quantities of HQ items much less painful than it got in later content when new skills that proced became a thing. I don't know if I'm in the minority or not, but I'm the kind of guy who'd rather spend more time gathering a ton of mats and click a macro to mass-produce for leveling than craft fewer items but have to pay careful attention to a skill rotation while doing it.