Has Square Enix given up on countering RMT and botting?

[Skiros]

I mean, I'm not someone who's even touched LA, so I'm not gonna comment there, but I'm not going to sit there and pretend they're actually taking care of bots that aren't the lowest hanging fruit. Even the linked announcement from Larira is only a few bots (Notice, they do always separate the low hanging butchered teleporters from other bots) and the last time they actually terminated one (ONE) was like... early January. So it takes them almost 2 months just a snatch a couple, while I STILL see the trains of gather, market, and map bots just doing whatever they please for as long as their hearts desire.

I'm not gonna pretend LA is doing anything better. Again, don't play, literally can't comment if it's better or worse (probably worse, given free 2 play), but I'm really not gonna sit here and pretend we're doing anything better. Heck you can even find some bot threads here where players straight up defend bots, saying they're good for the game's economy so we should be embracing people literally cheating, not banning them. It's... a scary idea.

Exactly! It's sad that 95% of the playerbase is fooled by the weekly ban post when 99.9% of that "4000 banned" figure are just the RMT ad bots! Anyone in the know realizes this.

[Meowdyj]

Honestly at this point I'm ready to believe they aren't doing the most they can because bots still have to pay for a license and subscription. Lost Ark is free.

[Larirawiel]

Honestly at this point I'm ready to believe they aren't doing the most they can because bots still have to pay for a license and subscription. Lost Ark is free.

Ney. It is not that easy to detect bots programmatically without many false-positives. And you want to avoid many false-positives at all costs because this are regular customers who did nothing wrong. I do not know how the bot detection in FF14 works. But i have surely some ideas how to improve it. Provided those mechanisms are not already in the game.


Cheers

[LianaThorne]

Ney. It is not that easy to detect bots programmatically without many false-positives. And you want to avoid many false-positives at all costs because this are regular customers who did nothing wrong. I do not know how the bot detection in FF14 works. But i have surely some ideas how to improve it. Provided those mechanisms are not already in the game.


Cheers

From what I've *heard* (so take it with a grain of salt), there are mechanisms to trap bots and make it more visible but I don't have any specifics on what. Just what I was told from someone else who actually got a GM out to investigate a bot they noticed.

[LittleImp]

Give up? Don't they let us know somewhat regularly how many accounts relating to RMT have been suspended? If I remember correctly it's always a number in the thousands. I don't think they've given up, but I don't fully know how they tackle the issue.

Despite SE's statements about ban-waves, there is little to no real impact on the prevalence of botting on 14. They make a show of banning the silly teleporting bots and a few RMT spammers, but the more impactful types of botting go more or less totally unpunished. An ex-FC mate of mine has been botting for 2+ years straight, running his in character in gathering loops 24-7, and has never gotten so much as a warning about it. There are many people like him out there, and they are doing significantly more damage to the in-game economy than RMT bots. On most servers, if you gather timed nodes regularly you'll pretty quickly become familiar with who is botting.

[AnimaAnimus]

They haven't done anything since day 1. Even in version 1 the botting and rmt were so bad the same characters would root themselves in place for months and would actively prevent you from farming some materials and they still did absolutely diddly. XI is in an even worse state and they do nothing. Any ff mmos in the future will likely be the same thing. SE just does not care because they are getting that monthly sub from them and there is no way you can change my mind of that.

[HisShadowX]

Lost Ark has a severe RMT spam issue and lo and behold:



I wonder when we can see the same in FF14? Are the developers even aware of all the undercutting bots and long-time crafting and gathering bots that exist right now in NA and EU? Or have they completely given up?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Market-botting

The fact that we can have a 64-page thread on market undercut botting all the way from 2020 (and believe me it was a thing prior to 2020 already. The problem has started since at least late HW), and yet there has been zero progress and zero developer feedback either indicates that Square Enix has completely given up on this issue or they're not even aware of it.

And what about people speedhacking in Feast? And of people hacking the GCD in Savage fights? Of people using bots to do their rotations for them in Savage?

Why has there been not a single word from the developers that they're even AWARE of this issue?

I can't believe Lost Ark has a better response to RMT and botting than FF14! It's time to take this seriously, SE.

Oh god that would suck for new players. Whenever I came back and rerolled someone was always nice and gifted my 1 million gold.

[ForteNightshade]

Despite SE's statements about ban-waves, there is little to no real impact on the prevalence of botting on 14. They make a show of banning the silly teleporting bots and a few RMT spammers, but the more impactful types of botting go more or less totally unpunished. An ex-FC mate of mine has been botting for 2+ years straight, running his in character in gathering loops 24-7, and has never gotten so much as a warning about it. There are many people like him out there, and they are doing significantly more damage to the in-game economy than RMT bots. On most servers, if you gather timed nodes regularly you'll pretty quickly become familiar with who is botting.

Adding to this, I've raided with people who used a second character to test what sort of hacks and crap they can get away with before doing them on his main. To quote them, "Surprisingly, almost everything I've tried." Another person knew someone else who bot crafted and she basically said, "I could crash the pot market in a day if I wanted to. Even if it's selling for 500 gil, it's still free gil to me." They're both still playing to this day and these conversations were years ago now. Cactuar has two notorious botters who have infested the crafting market for years and SE has done nothing.

The whole RMT reports are a complete show and little else. They do absolutely nothing towards impact botting, which is why people have become more emboldened over the years.

BroJobs, the god of trolls.

The irony is his new "trolling" seems to be posting relevant or factual claims and banking on people dismissing them over his reputation. Say what you will about BroJobs/Skiros' history, SE's response to botting has been utterly laughable at best. I don't doubt for a second Lost Ark handles them better because virtually every other mainline MMO does.

[Eriane_Elis]

If you want to take RMT filters into your own hands, there's a plugin that does just that from what I hear. Apparently you select what you want to block and can write your own filters and you never see those messages again. But it is against the ToS. What do people consider RMT anyway? I consider it cash for gold since it's Real Money Trading. RMT isn't putting yourself as a mercenary on the PF, Yoshi P said that was what the PF was intended to be. I have reported botters before and they were never banned. I think we can all remember what happened during the Ishgard Restoration with players turning in crafts equivalent to 24/7 crafting. Obviously this is impossible to do but somehow they weren't banned. lol...

[DPZ2]

Not trolling! I was just surprised Lost Ark is even putting effort into banning RMT bots!

Lost Ark depends on selling players the materials to succeed in future gearing attempts. Why would they not shut down a competitor to their source of income?