Four pages of obvious bots. Four. Pages.

[Wilhelm_Frost]

I just did a player search, no parameters, on Marilith.

And four pages of the results were obvious bots.

All equally leveled archers, universally 12-13.

All with such witty and clever names as; Winkjcogiv Zaguda, and Fvagpvclfcu Macho.

All in central shroud.

Square, you guys DESPERATELY need to do something about this. All I see on Marilith is bloody lalafells falling through the terrain. How about you make a few full-time staff GM positions who just... maybe do some player searches and sort out this obvious problem?

Edited to add; I just counted up 101 bots in a 200 name list. Greater than 50% of the players that showed up in that open search were bots on Marilith.

That's honestly disgusting.

[LilimoLimomo]

Genuine question: as a player, why does this matter to you? Why is this something you feel "DESPERATELY" needs to be addressed?

I can understand why this would matter to CBU3: botting is against their ToS, so they have a vested interest in enforcing that to the best of their ability.

But as a player, what makes this a pain point for you?

[Wilhelm_Frost]

Certainly doesn't sound like you're asking it in good faith, but I'll bite.

101 botters flooding a single zone, interacting with the zone in what ought to be invalid ways, a general degradation of the game experience in the immediate, and in the long-term, as another 101 million gil hits the RMT trader accounts, resulting in further spam and abuses of the system, the annoyance factor of interface and graphic, with bots blipping in and out and through world and zone while you're playing.

That and it's not very fun to be on a new server and have it feel like a ghost town run by bots. It's a lousy experience. You should try it sometime /s

[LilimoLimomo]

101 botters flooding a single zone, interacting with the zone in what ought to be invalid ways, a general degradation of the game experience in the immediate, and in the long-term, as another 101 million gil hits the RMT trader accounts, resulting in further spam and abuses of the system, the annoyance factor of interface and graphic, with bots blipping in and out and through world and zone while you're playing.

Ah, gotcha, so the annoyance of RMT spam and a compromise of the game's aesthetic fidelity due to characters half-submerged in walls. I've always just been mildly amused every time I find a bot hive so I hadn't thought to consider it negative, nor had I thought to relate their presence to the actual spam present in cities — though now that you mention it, in hindsight it seems obvious that there's a direct connection between the two. Thanks for helping me see where you're coming from. And I hope the situation on your server improves.

[Gaiinahat]

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but 2 issues I find with bots: 1) When you're trying to complete your hunt log and the bots keep insta-killing your target spawns, and 2) when you're trying to log in and stuck in the queue because the world is full (of bots).

[DrWho2010]

The queue is there so that the game lets people in at a pace that doesn't destroy the servers if a bunch of people log in at the same time. Unless it is at like 3 am, you're going to be in a queue for like 30s usually all the time. It's not because of the bots.

Also, the bots will be banned in the next ban wave. If you are having problems completing a quest in a particular area because of bots, you have the option to go to a different world and can complete the quest there.

[Autumn_Dawnfire]

The queue is there so that the game lets people in at a pace that doesn't destroy the servers if a bunch of people log in at the same time. Unless it is at like 3 am, you're going to be in a queue for like 30s usually all the time. It's not because of the bots.

Also, the bots will be banned in the next ban wave. If you are having problems completing a quest in a particular area because of bots, you have the option to go to a different world and can complete the quest there.

Would that you were right, but it's not that way on Marilith. It was 2 years of just getting worse and worse we were getting imported bots from Rafflesia even >.< SE just really needs to step up their game vs. the the RMT trade - like take LEGAL action vs. them not just ban bots. Cut off the problem at the financial source.

The new bot model is... GC seal bots.