The current state of Cosmic Exploration rewards cheaters

[ServerCollaps]

i got 5 mounts, 10 suits and 6 emotes while getting all the relics + tons of other stuff
Seems like you have been unlucky

[Valence]

Thanks captain obvious

[Volgia]

Lol its not the macros that are cheating. Its the use of a 3rd party tool that uses those macros for you while you afk or do whatever it is that you're doing. Why they worded their post this way idk but surely you and others aren't naive enough to think they are strictly talking macros here.

It's cuz I don't really understand how it works. It's a third party tool that plays the game for you while you do other stuff?

[VeyaAkemi]

It's cuz I don't really understand how it works. It's a third party tool that plays the game for you while you do other stuff?

There is a specific plugin that is capable of repeating crafts and execute macros, it is also capable of handling macros better than the game itself since it won't be affected by lag spikes, it will repair your gear when it hits a specific, configurable threshold, and extract materia when you get to spiritbond 100, both being configurable in themselves and even having the option to straight up disable them if you want to for whatever reason, normally people who use that will do so in privacy, since the behavior from it can be... suspicious, but people can be shameless about it and there is no way to prove they are doing anything, as "it looked odd" isn't enough evidence.

[Valence]

It's cuz I don't really understand how it works. It's a third party tool that plays the game for you while you do other stuff?

There is various degrees of third party tools for crafting, starting with teamcraft, but also the website raphael that auto solves recipes with your own stats and spits out macros you can use. Then there is the illegal things I don't think should be explained over public forums that are directly tied to ingame mods and do the same thing, solve macros.
If there is actual botting solutions that repeat things and literally play the game for you though, I 1) don't know about them and 2) that sounds like the best way to get banned for botting.

[NightHour]

You don't need to cheat to succeed in Cosmic Exploration.

Simply go to Teamcraft or Raphael, generate your macro, copy paste it into a macro in game and bob's your uncle.

[uranium222]

We really need to stop this bs that "botting will get you banned". No will not, they don't care even if you report, they probably only ban those gold seller spam bots.

I find it funny how clueless people are about cheating in this game, that said plugin that automates crafting while you alt tab or whatever has 2.5 MILLION downloads xdd

I know so many people who openly use and talk about it, i even reported some of them with evidences, but nothing happened

[PotatoePet]

We really need to stop this bs that "botting will get you banned". No will not, they don't care even if you report, they probably only ban those gold seller spam bots.

I find it funny how clueless people are about cheating in this game, that said plugin that automates crafting while you alt tab or whatever has 2.5 MILLION downloads xdd

I know so many people who openly use and talk about it, i even reported some of them with evidences, but nothing happened

Sadly I also have to confirm this. I have reported a lot of obvious bots to the point I don't even care any longer. As soon as you start any grind in this game you will always meet bots. And they aren't even trying to hide it at all. They destroy MB prices and they destroy the little "prestige" grinded items have which ultimately made me quit the bicolor gemstones grind. For what? So I have an item which 1000s of others have simply botted without consequences?

Sadly SE doesn't realize that it lowers the perceived value of grinded items immensly when people realize a lot of people are simply botting them. Always when seeing someone with a grinded item I have that thought in the back of my head "Hm, did they bot it?" And all of that just because SE doesn't react at all to reports regarding botting. No reply even.

But I made my peace with the situation. It won't ever change.

EDIT: And I can't even blame people botting any longer as they most feel like me but came to another conclusion "If the others can do it unpunished, why not me?" For me it devalued all grinded items immensly to the point I have close to zero interest in them.

[caffe_macchiato]

How is this allowed?

Because this is Final Fantasy XIV by Square Enix. There is no anti-cheat. Square Enix knows that a lot of people use cheats, and they're implicitly okay with it because they take no action to do anything about it. It's Square Enix, you can't expect much from this company.

How is this any different from running a bot to do combat?

That exists as well. Any piece of battle content, including savage and ultimates, can be botted via the same plugin API. Square Enix knows this and it doesn't care.

I'm sorry but I fail to see the cheating? Macros aren't cheating, going on a website that tells you how to do macro is as cheating as watching a Hector guide to do savage.

This is not about macros. This is about a well-known cheat tool that Square Enix allows which does not require any macros at all. It is one-button automation. As in, you press one button and the entirety of CE is completed for you. Or any crafts that you want. Or leveling. Or MSQ. Or the savage tier. Anything.

[uranium222]

Sadly I also have to confirm this. I have reported a lot of obvious bots to the point I don't even care any longer. As soon as you start any grind in this game you will always meet bots. And they aren't even trying to hide it at all. They destroy MB prices and they destroy the little "prestige" grinded items have which ultimately made me quit the bicolor gemstones grind. For what? So I have an item which 1000s of others have simply botted without consequences?

Sadly SE doesn't realize that it lowers the perceived value of grinded items immensly when people realize a lot of people are simply botting them. Always when seeing someone with a grinded item I have that thought in the back of my head "Hm, did they bot it?" And all of that just because SE doesn't react at all to reports regarding botting. No reply even.

But I made my peace with the situation. It won't ever change.

EDIT: And I can't even blame people botting any longer as they most feel like me but came to another conclusion "If the others can do it unpunished, why not me?" For me it devalued all grinded items immensly to the point I have close to zero interest in them.

I made my peace too we are at the same boat

In my experience, all the people that I know ingame and do craft uses that plugin, every single one. It is very hard to find a true crafter who does not use that unless they are on console i guess.

And im not exaggerating once you realize that this craft "plugin"(cheat) is the most downloaded in THE ENTIRE GAME probably, has at least TWICE as many downloads as the super ofensive plugin that makes a baloon on your head once you talk

The amount of people who craft and cheats is at the same rate who raid and uses a "calculator" at this point, if not more. Again, im not exaggerating 2.5 millions downloads is not a joke.