Hacking and bots

[Shinraijin]

Hello,

I am a disciple of the Land, and am often in the field, levelling up or gathering materials/crystals to craft or sell.

It seems that roughly 1/4th of areas I gather in has a bot, using a hack to stay stealthed and teleport from one node to another. This may be because I happen to be at the level where I am gathering at areas where there are crystals.

I always report these players via cheating, but am uncertain if anything is being done. I once reported a cheater, and proceeded to mine at the same place as him for two hours... And he was still there when I left...


Do you understand the frustration of having to mine right NEXT TO a cheater that will always be one step ahead of you because he teleports from one node to another? Knowing that he has been doing that for a while, because he is level 30+? on top of that, you reported him and have no way of knowing if the report weht through or if it had anny effect?

I once looked up a bot the next day and he WAS STILL THERE.
This is frustrating, negatively impacts gameplay AND the economy.

The frustrating part is not as much that there are bots, but that the response time is very slow and that we have no feedback or way of knowing if it even had an effect.
Please consider:
- Implementing a program that detects client-side operations (such as teleporting). This has been done before, no need to reinvent the wheel from scratch. look at WoW or EVE online.

- Assigning more people (interns?) to go through reports.

- Implementing a system where the player can get a followup of cheater reports, to confirm what, if anything, has been done.

- Implement a faster, automated, easier way to report and tag players. right-click player, report.. Gets sent in a batch file containing, date, name of reportee, name of reporter, area, server. (people abusing this feature would be liable to punishment)


The RMT are annoying, but these bots are downright infuriating. Cheating, ruining the economy and getting away with it. And the player is powerless before them, except to report and hope vaguely that anything is being done.

[Kerensky18]

I completely agree with you regarding the bots. I recorded the video below while out playing. It's frustrating that it takes us so long to harvest and to watch this occur while we are harvesting. This allow devalues our time because it will lower the value of materials on the market. I've reported a few characters none have been banned yet. I also did a quick search on Youtube after uploading my video and the top result for "Final Fantasy XIV Boting" is a video on how easy it is to bot in this game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfpkU...ature=youtu.be

[Medura]

considering how i was whispered by a gilseller that sold 9999 of all crystals and shards for 56$ earlier ... yeah, this is a problem :P

[FlamingBeard]

If GMs have a look at -any- server's WThanalan/Horizon's Edge (Copperbell entrance) logs, they'll see lots of bots there teleporting from an iron node to another. They seem to stand way below ground, just in range for reaching the node while hiding themselves as much as they can. I have no idea how all of this is even possible to normal characters!

[Kerensky18]

Here's another video I just recorded of botters in Western Thanalan. This is live right now on Sargatanas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWFgE...ature=youtu.be

[Reiterpallasch]

Wait, people are hacking and botting in this game? Thank you for bringing this to the communities attention, as we were unaware of such a thing.

[Dorin]

^
The point of it, Mr.Sarcasm, is that nothing or very little is being done about it.

[Reiterpallasch]

^
The point of it, Mr.Sarcasm, is that nothing or very little is being done about it.

Or you're just ignorant, and a lot is being done about it. Sorry you can't see that.

[Shinraijin]

Or you're just ignorant, and a lot is being done about it. Sorry you can't see that.

What i (still) see is bots hacking and gil sellers spamming...
What am I missing?

Wow cracked down on on gold farmers a few years back, and you noticed their absence afterwards..
They also have anti-hacking software (warden) that makes hacking virtually absent from the game...

Other MMOs have implemented similar measures..

As stated previously.. No need to reinvent th wheel.

I am perplexed as to why SE has not implemented similar measures at launch... Especially considering botting was an issue in XI, its not like it was unexpected.

[Dorin]

Or you're just ignorant, and a lot is being done about it. Sorry you can't see that.

You know what I can see, though? The same bot hack-mining in the same spot for 2 weeks.

Surely, a lot is being done about it.