Integrity matters

[BigCheez]

You're mixing things here. Your first point is the exact same in FFXIV, they even update us whenever they banned a wave of RMT bots again.

The second line is first of all [citation needed], in particular because a simple google search readily finds an endless litany of battle.net posts complaining about being banned for automation, in particular around gathering tasks such as fishing. Seems to happen, at least to me? /shrug
Secondary [citation needed] about the claim that this differs from FFXIV, which would imply you don't get banned for botting here. Well... do you not?

Yes, FFXIV has similar RMT bots and yes, similarly they get banned.

Why do I need to prove that players don't get banned for automation but you seemingly don't need to prove that they do get banned and we're just supposed to take that as fact?

Just go over to Firmament or Cosmic Exploration and you'll see years old accounts botting all over the place without being banned for it.

And the third line gets weird, because automation is baked into the very game. Take crafting automation, the game already allows executing 15 actions in sequence with a single button, with many crafting recipes need <15 actions (and the rest <30). We also can already copy these macros from external websites, there is no player-discovery needed, you just create a bunch of macros based on the stats of the items you want to craft, and press them. Effectively, crafting 20 items, full automation collapses 20-40 actions into 1, despite the character performing 300-600 actions total. (that is, 260-580 actions are automated officially, cheaters automate up to 39 more).
Yes, that's definitely full automation, and definitely bannable. But you gotta admit that the relative impact here is small compared to the damage it can do in other games, no? This is also what I meant above when I said FFXIV is designed to be partially mitigate to such cheating efforts, it's design just reduces the comparable benefit this could bring you in other MMORPGs to make cheating less a problem for the non-cheating players (this does not excuse cheating, of course).

If you can't understand the difference between 1 button = 1 craft and 1 button and then go AFK while my game plays itself for 3 days then I don't think we can have a worthwhile conversation.

This is a crazy display of mental gymnastics.

[Carighan]

Just go over to Firmament or Cosmic Exploration and you'll see years old accounts botting all over the place without being banned for it.

I am in Cosmic Exploration, Auxesia. There's about a dozen people sitting near the middle, crafting, and a few more I see running by every so often. How do I spot these botters?



There's another person standing behind me AFK, and two more are off the left of the screen, one crafting, the other AFK and in crafting pose but not crafting. Are all of these botting? Are some of them genuinely playing this themselves? How do I tell one from the other?

[Len_]

Something tells me that you aren't going to play that game where all this is implemented

Just reading that part you quoted and I realized that OP literally wants the book thrown at people doing harmless TOS violations like botting FATEs but wants to be able to violate TOS when it comes to conduct to other players "without fear." It's so telling and funny lmao. All these people are like this.

[ZephyrMenodora]

No it doesn't. You're just blowing hot air. If you had reasons for disagreeing beyond "I don't care about this" then it would add something to the discourse. Or if you're saying you don't think it's worth SE's time figuring out solutions to get rid of widespread cheating to protect the games eco-system, then I suppose you have added something. Not anything worth discussing, but something.

Anyway, to stay on topic. I do agree with what was mentioned regarding SE developing their own set of in game mod functionalities maybe similar to what WoW has done (WoW also restricted this further recently as they felt people had too much power from function) so that they can have some measure of control over what is able to be done and what isn't. It'd be a good compromise between what we have now and having no plugins/mods at all. Though I admit I have little faith in them implementing anything like that in a way that actually feels like a compromise or is to a satisfactory standard.

Considering you think I've had nothing of value to say, you sure spend an awful lot of time quoting me.

[Evermomo]

Modding =/= botting and cheating =/= botting. You can bot without modding, mod without cheating, and cheat without botting.

You could remove every plugin in existence and people would still automate content, because all you have to do is simulate user inputs, that doesn't require modifying anything about the game. A closed mod ecosystem won't touch automation at all. And if it required an anticheat, the cure could be worse than the disease.

[Kup]

Modding =/= botting and cheating =/= botting. You can bot without modding, mod without cheating, and cheat without botting.

You could remove every plugin in existence and people would still automate content, because all you have to do is simulate user inputs, that doesn't require modifying anything about the game. A closed mod ecosystem won't touch automation at all. And if it required an anticheat, the cure could be worse than the disease.

Nobody thinks that it would remove all automation and botting, things that have existed in every MMO ever. People are saying that it's far more widespread and accessible than in other games. Most people don't want to cheat or bot in other games as there's a good chance they'll get banned. It's also a lot more effort to set up and utilise those tools as they have to search online for third party programs, sus them out and usually pay for them if they're actually worth a damn.

A closed mod system absolutely will drastically reduce the number of people automating various systems. As for everyone's worst case of an anticheat (I don't want one either), it wouldn't kill the game no matter how many people think otherwise. The game was fine before plugins came along and while there would be a large number of people who leave as they've come specifically for the type of social gameplay they enable, most of us are well aware they could be taken from us any time and will continue to play regardless.

[DiaDeem]

To those that seemingly HATE the crafting plug so damn much with burning suffocating uncontrollable rage:

What's the "law abiding non-sinful Christian" way to do it?? To use an online solver or copy-paste the Gillionarie solution into a Macro and spam the same one button for 5 hours?? That's better??

Does anyone actually press the 13 buttons manually every single time they're crafting anything? Even back on PS3 I was already copying Macros from third party websites.

[Len_]

To those that seemingly HATE the crafting plug so damn much with burning suffocating uncontrollable rage:

What's the "law abiding non-sinful Christian" way to do it?? To use an online solver or copy-paste the Gillionarie solution into a Macro and spam the same one button for 5 hours?? That's better??

Does anyone actually press the 13 buttons manually every single time they're crafting anything? Even back on PS3 I was already copying Macros from third party websites.

They don't care. What they HATE is actually getting in trouble for typing slurs in chat meanwhile knowing that there are people running mods that let them change how their character looks in their own client and not being punished for it. That's all this is. That's why they keep appealing to the amorphous "problem" with how the developers choose to enforce their TOS as they see fit, which is their prerogative, without being able to articulate how it actually hurts anything other than their feelings.

[Zarkovitch]

First they need to show what they are doing. Evercold is the first good step to moving foward but lets see how goes with jobs, gameplay and how long it will feel fresh.

[Kup]

They don't care. What they HATE is actually getting in trouble for typing slurs in chat meanwhile knowing that there are people running mods that let them change how their character looks in their own client and not being punished for it. That's all this is. That's why they keep appealing to the amorphous "problem" with how the developers choose to enforce their TOS as they see fit, which is their prerogative, without being able to articulate how it actually hurts anything other than their feelings.

You don't speak for me and are extremely far off anything resembling a correct analysis. Plenty of people have articulated exactly what the various impacts of widespread automation are and how it can negatively affect systems. What a baseless and reductive comment, centered around nothing more than strawmanning and insulting a group you disagree with.

As for the other commenter, yes, it is better as the person is actively doing it and will be limited to what they can tolerate doing rather than being able to pump out an unlimited quantity of any item they choose so long as they have the mats for it while not even at their PC. If the game itself had an auto-craft feature regardless of item type/skill required/difficulty, this would be okay but as it doesn't and is clearly unintended behaviour, it is cheating. It is prohibited behaviour and is bannable and will be banned if someone can prove it and send evidence to SE of an individual doing it. The solution is both overhauling the crafting systems and preventing such ease of access to automation tools.