Reporting Botting Activities

[Breakbeat]

Accept that crime is a facet of life.

People still speed and drive like idiots; you see it daily. Does that mean cops don't care?

People still murder. Detectives don't care? That's why?

Just because you don't see it with your own two eyes doesn't mean those in charge are apathetic.

You see the crime, you report it, you move on.

Yes, you may still be affected by the crime. Accept it and deal. You might still get in an accident on the freeway today, despite the DOT's best efforts to make freeways safe.

Life. Dig it.

[Sankaritarina]

I just checked and our bot friends are still going strong. They showed up in force tonight, too, including a rare Viera.

I honestly don't know what accounts they banned, or whether that number is entirely made up. They are clearly not banning the gathering bots though, that much is certain. Or at least not in EU. Perhaps they are very stringent in Japan or NA, who aside from SE really knows?

Whatever it may be, the "banning bots in waves through automated systems" is clearly not working - if banning bots was the primary goal. The cynical part of me isn't even sure if they actively want to ban bots. They are paying customers after all. Every gathering bot like that pays a monthly subscription, if they are selling these materials on the market without further processing then they are probably paying for additional retainers, too. Every gathering bot also paid for a level boost and a story skip. In that sense they are probably better customers than those people who only subscribe whenever a major content or story patch is released. So there is not a whole lot of incentives to pay a person to go after paying customers like that.
It could be weighed against the potential downside of losing customers who are fed up with bots, but the messages they are putting out about banning bots clearly seem to work to keep the players placid. It's easy to buy into the "More and more bots just keep popping up, there is nothing anyone can do about it" mentality.
Remember the money that I mentioned SE is making off the bots? Most of that cost is upfront for the bot owners. If they see that they can operate a bot like that for a couple months, it's easy to do the calculation on whether that is worth it or not. And it clearly is for them at the moment, as we can see. But if they spend that money on a bot as well as their time to get the bot high enough to unlock the zones they need to in order to gather these nodes, and then their bot is banned after less than a week or so, that is somewhat discouraging for bot owners. They might try again, perhaps more than once. But if your bot keeps getting banned in these lucrative spots, you will think twice before investing another 50€ into your next bot if it hasn't made you any money.

[Sankaritarina]

(Continued, because arbitrary 3000 characters limit per post.)

"The bots are everywhere" only really works as an excuse for games that are free to play. The people operating the bots aren't stupid. They know when they are losing money. And this is why you cannot do waves every couple months or so, bots have to be hit hard and fast.
And the gathering bots I am talking about are not hard to find. They are not hiding in obscure places, they are not sitting in a private house or apartment and are crafting. They are not in instanced areas. They are out in the open for everyone to see and for everyone to report. You just have to show up and you have to have someone to do just that. That IS all it takes.
And these are the bots that have one of the biggest impacts of the economy of the game. They are the ones flooding the market board with cheap prices that discourages players from going out and farming those resources for Gil. Those are the ones who supply the crafting bots that spam the market board with unreasonably cheap consumables.

Accept that crime is a facet of life.
People still speed and drive like idiots; you see it daily. Does that mean cops don't care?
People still murder. Detectives don't care? That's why?
Just because you don't see it with your own two eyes doesn't mean those in charge are apathetic.
You see the crime, you report it, you move on.
Yes, you may still be affected by the crime. Accept it and deal. You might still get in an accident on the freeway today, despite the DOT's best efforts to make freeways safe.
Life. Dig it.

If you have a person come into the a store every day to rob the owners in broad daylight, at some point the authorities will step in.
I don't know where you live that your system or justice is this disfunctional, but if people keep seeing that same person rob places and keep reporting them to the authorities, including the place where that person lives AND where that person will rob the next place, and then nothing is done, you will have to agree that something is not working as it is supposed to - especially if this continues for months. You walk down the street to do your shopping, you see the same person going into the next store to rob it and all you can think of is "Ah well, nothing we can do about that person, I wonder what store it is going to rob next"?
You don't get to claim that you have a working justice system and working law enforcement and then also tolerate that. These two are not compatible with each other.

[Sankaritarina]

The full squad is active again tonight.
This is clearly an active investigation that simply needs time to properly investigate the investigation targets for proper investigationing. Or at least the support person told me something along those lines. That's what the Special Task Force is for after all. Right?
But then again, the Special Task Force is responsible for A Realm Reborn and this is clearly an Endwalker zone.

[Breakbeat]

If you have a person come into the a store every day to rob the owners in broad daylight, at some point the authorities will step in.

Yes, but if that same store gets robbed again the next night, it doesn't mean the cops don't care. It means crime is perpetuated by humans, continually. Life.

You don't get to claim that you have a working justice system and working law enforcement and then also tolerate that. These two are not compatible with each other.

You say that, fellow human, but that's how Earth works. People busted and prosecuted every day for petty crimes, misdemeanors, antisocial behavior, battery, murder, sexual assault. And yet, we still have these things happen daily.

That doesn't mean the authorities don't care. It doesn't mean they aren't trying. That just means humans are really sick.

Anyway, kids will be kids and there will always be that one kid who melts down over bots in video games and doesn't have anything more pressing in their lives that draws their attention away from their obsessive, compulsive behavior over these bots.

You are that kid, congrats. Maybe you will be the first MMO player ever to cause a lightning bolt to come out of the sky and ban bots. This has never happened, mind you, not even way, way, way back in the day when "MMOs" were ASCII-based (we boomers called them MUDs). And believe me, bots in MUDs sucked, too.

No bot-killing-lightning-bolts since 1985, but hey, you hold out hope.

In your world your problem is super, super serious, unique and totally having an oppressive effect on your life. Ninth grade must be really tough. I hope the FFXIV SWAT team swoops down and solves those bots for you, because clearly you cannot move on until you can make 8 million gil off whatever you're selling without interference from the evil bots.

I really hope you never have a family member get cancer because, dear god, we spend billions on that a year to eradicate it. Your brain won't be able to process why this happened, considering everyone "reported" cancer and all the research in the world has been done on it, the preventative measures are in place, etc. Your head will essplode?

Or if you get mugged or your car broken into a couple of times? How will you rationalize that in your brain? People reported muggings already - on this very street! People reported car break-ins! Why is this happeneing?!?!?

Good luck with your saga here. You could possibly read other accounts and see that bot bans - in any MMO - don't work like how you're insisting they work; but nah, you do you.

When this thread reaches 465 posts and 461 of them are you, I'll come back and have a chuckle.

/shrug

[DrWho2010]

most of those bot accounts are bought with stolen credit card information so they're not really fronting much cost themselves.

bots that farm fates are farming gil from them to sell online to RMT buyers. yes it's 2022 and yet people are still buying gil online with real money. the market is there.

gathering bots are much harder to detect and investigate. the Special task force has to be absolutely sure they can prove that they're bots before they can take any action on them.