Nerfing the fishbotters

[swiften]

Will there be measures such as placing higher level fished monsters to kill off the gross number of RMT fishbotters across all the servers of Final Fantasy 11?

[Jei]

Seriously. Fish bots make the game a very depressing place to be in. Seeing those bots make me sad.

[Lambeaus]

I used to fish for a craft. Moat carp used to be my main source of income.

Now it isn't even worth it for the time it takes :(

[Taskmage]

Will there be measures such as placing higher level fished monsters to kill off the gross number of RMT fishbotters across all the servers of Final Fantasy 11?That wouldn't work. Fished mobs are easily distinguished and avoided by the three exclamation points at the end of the "something caught the hook" message. Almost all commonly used fish (Sole, Nebimonite, Bream, etc) only give one exclamation mark, so the bots targeting those fish just cancel all hooks with !!! and sidestep the mobs entirely.

The only exceptions I can think of are Gigant Squid and Grimmonite, both of which are fished only a short walk away from a home point, so it barely hurts the botter to die to a mob, home point, and get right back to fishing, especially if they're using a pos hack.

I wish something would be done. I'm sure my friends enjoy the super low sushi prices and all, but as someone who used to enjoy making a living of fishing and cooking it makes me depressed to see my lu shang's rod collecting dust in storage, useless. A couple weeks ago after the bannings there were only 30 fish botters in Batallia on Lakshmi. Now there are EIGHTY. ; ;

If aggressive mobs were made to wander closer to RMT's favored fishing spots that would be something, but still only a partial fix. They would just find new places to fish or actually level their characters high enough to avoid the aggro. At least if they had to do that, they wouldn't be able to instantly replace all their banned fishermen with fresh level 1 characters.

[Ayrlie]

I just made an video (uploading to YouTube right now, it will be available in approximately 45 minutes) that shows the batallia fish bots on my server. I really made it to send the STFU and FFXI development team a message. those bots are out to ruin the game and they have to be stopped.

[Nakti]

The fishbots are very depressing. Since the last round of bans, the number of new bots has doubled or even tripled in areas!

I did a /sea in Batallia and OMG. I was wondering why an RMT was synthing War Picks in the M&P in Upper Jeuno. Apparently this is one of their new moneymakers.

I don't know what can be done to "nerf" the botters without greatly hurting the legit anglers and crafters. I like being able to tell the fish from the mobs based on rod pull and stamina reduction (although I'm still having trouble telling Gigant Squid vs Mob, it's easy to see Grimmonite vs Mob).

I hate to say it, but I think SE needs to "adjust" the NPC buy-back prices on items that can be synthed from fished up items. Or maybe increase the required fishing skill for fishing up certain items.

[Ayrlie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNCCVF3uJIA

not really supposed to post videos on this part of the forums but I need to drive home my point.

[Ameroth]

If aggressive mobs were made to wander closer to RMT's favored fishing spots that would be something, but still only a partial fix. They would just find new places to fish or actually level their characters high enough to avoid the aggro. At least if they had to do that, they wouldn't be able to instantly replace all their banned fishermen with fresh level 1 characters.

I like that idea. Not only would it make it harder for RMT to just create new bots and send them off to fish, but it'd be funny as hell to watch a goblin rape each and every bot in Batallia Downs.

Only problem with this, obviously, is it'd provide no fix for botting in cities.

[Legion]

How about making the comments that come up when a fish is hooked (ie the !!! ) relative to your fishing skill. A lvl 1 fishing skill would find it hard to identify a monster granted, so this idea could use some work but it would stop fishbots with under levelled jobs for the area avoiding the mob catches. I dont think the RMT would spend a huge amount of time lvling the fishing skill to high lvls. Or do they?

[Nakti]

How about making the comments that come up when a fish is hooked (ie the !!! ) relative to your fishing skill. A lvl 1 fishing skill would find it hard to identify a monster granted, so this idea could use some work but it would stop fishbots with under levelled jobs for the area avoiding the mob catches. I dont think the RMT would spend a huge amount of time lvling the fishing skill to high lvls. Or do they? SE already does this - but with a major random factor. In some ways, having a lower fishing skill is advantageous in identifying mobs from fish. Here's an example:

My fishing skill is currently 64.

If a mob bites, I see "!!!" and the message "You've got a good feeling" or "You're fairly sure you can catch this."

If a Gigant Squid bites I see "!!!" messages ranging from "You're positive you can't catch this." to "You're fairly sure you can catch this."

The rod movements are similar so I have to look at stamina strength to differentiate the two.

(btw, even though Crayfish is cap skill 7, I still sometimes get "You're fairly sure you can't catch this." lol)

Now let's say the fishing bot next to me has lower fishing skill.

When a mob bites, they'll see "You've got a good feeling" or maybe "You're fairly sure you can catch this."

When a Gigant Squid bites, they'll see more "You're positive you can't catch this."

It could be that their program just releases any "!!!" that has a message of "good feeling" or "fairly sure you can catch this" just in case it is a mob. I haven't fished extensively in Qufim, but while I was there I never saw any of the bots fish up a mob.

[Vyuru]

Well, here's something I don't see people mention just, at all. Not only do you get a !!! when you probably caught an item or fish, but the fishing music changes as well from the normal happy music to a more dramatic music.

Much as I like being able to listen to the music to know whether or not I should cancel my cast, I have to wonder how the fishbots work and if the song/!!!s should be changed. Do they cancel their cast when they detect the !!! in the chatlog, or do they cancel their cast when this certain song is played?

[Nakti]

Well, here's something I don't see people mention just, at all. Not only do you get a !!! when you probably caught an item or fish, but the fishing music changes as well from the normal happy music to a more dramatic music.

Much as I like being able to listen to the music to know whether or not I should cancel my cast, I have to wonder how the fishbots work and if the song/!!!s should be changed. Do they cancel their cast when they detect the !!! in the chatlog, or do they cancel their cast when this certain song is played? The two types of music correspond exactly to "!" and "!!!". "!" (relaxed music) is supposed to be little fish or item and "!!!" (zippier music) is supposed to be big fish or monster. (I can't remember whether logs are "!" or "!!!")

Fishbots can't cancel all "!!!" or they can't catch Gigant Squids (for example). I have no idea how they can tell the difference between that and a mob.

[Icemage]

The new fishing system is horribly flawed. The server broadcasts the amount of stamina and the "combat stats" of what's on the hook to the player. That's how the botters are avoiding the monsters, since they have a different profile than the real fish and items they are looking for.

Even as a level 96+6 fisherman I can't make a decent profit on fishing anymore; for most of the past year my Lu Shang's has basically sat in my mog house except for rare instances when LS members needed something fished out of the waters, either for synths or otherwise (i.e. Goblin Drink).


Icemage

[Vyuru]

The two types of music correspond exactly to "!" and "!!!". "!" (relaxed music) is supposed to be little fish or item

Are you sure? I am only a lvl... 11 fisher I think, but I've put alot of work into a Lu Shang's rod already. I've fished alot more since the changes to the fishing system, and ever since the update whenever I get the relaxed music 100% of the time I catch a fish, whenever I get the zippier music (using your terms :P) then it is either an item or a monster, 100% of the time when fishing in a town it is an item, although I hardly get any items in towns nowadays for some reason.

For the record I target Moat Carp and Forest Carp, and I use a Halycon Rod with insect paste.

[Nakti]

Are you sure? I am only a lvl... 11 fisher I think, but I've put alot of work into a Lu Shang's rod already. I've fished alot more since the changes to the fishing system, and ever since the update whenever I get the relaxed music 100% of the time I catch a fish, whenever I get the zippier music (using your terms :P) then it is either an item or a monster, 100% of the time when fishing in a town it is an item, although I hardly get any items in towns nowadays for some reason.

For the record I target Moat Carp and Forest Carp, and I use a Halycon Rod with insect paste. "!" gives me items like Rings, Rusty Buckets, and Rusty Subligar (eww glad that quest is done) in addition to little fish. Big fish like Grimmonites and Gigant Squid (which don't stack) give "!!!". In general, non-stacking fish will give "!!!" but this isn't always the case.

Good luck on your Lu Shang's! I really love mine and I'm working on getting my husband's character one, too.

The new fishing system is horribly flawed. The server broadcasts the amount of stamina and the "combat stats" of what's on the hook to the player. That's how the botters are avoiding the monsters, since they have a different profile than the real fish and items they are looking for.-_- That explains a lot of things I've noticed... /sigh Can they also cheat and instantly deplete the stamina? It seems like they catch their fish far too quickly.

I'm so hoping this emergency maintenance is to mass slaughter the fish botters.

[Malevolent]

"!" gives me items like Rings, Rusty Buckets, and Rusty Subligar (eww glad that quest is done) in addition to little fish. Big fish like Grimmonites and Gigant Squid (which don't stack) give "!!!". In general, non-stacking fish will give "!!!" but this isn't always the case.

Good luck on your Lu Shang's! I really love mine and I'm working on getting my husband's character one, too.

-_- That explains a lot of things I've noticed... /sigh Can they also cheat and instantly deplete the stamina? It seems like they catch their fish far too

quickly.I'm so hoping this emergency maintenance is to mass slaughter the fish botters.

This is true. No one that i've met can catch a moat carp to a legendary fish in 1.3 seconds. Just for SNGs i timed it once with my stopwatch on my cell phone. Usually pulled up in 1.5 -2.3 seconds. Honestly i could never pull that off...only a bot could.

[Raydeus]

Those bots and the NM campers are the kinda stuff that makes me want to quit MMOGs and just go back to single player/non-MMOG online stuff.

At least inflation it isn't as bad as it used to be... I guess... gotta look at the bright side.

[Taskmage]

The fishbots are very depressing. Since the last round of bans, the number of new bots has doubled or even tripled in areas!
I did a /sea in Batallia and OMG. I was wondering why an RMT was synthing War Picks in the M&P in Upper Jeuno. Apparently this is one of their new moneymakers.
I don't know what can be done to "nerf" the botters without greatly hurting the legit anglers and crafters. I like being able to tell the fish from the mobs based on rod pull and stamina reduction (although I'm still having trouble telling Gigant Squid vs Mob, it's easy to see Grimmonite vs Mob).
I hate to say it, but I think SE needs to "adjust" the NPC buy-back prices on items that can be synthed from fished up items. Or maybe increase the required fishing skill for fishing up certain items.They're doing the same thing on Lakshmi. Probably the excess sole they fish up is being NPCed too. It's only 700g per fish that way, but that's still 250k+ of fresh gil being dumped into the economy for every full inv of sole. They seem to have two runners that go back and forth between the bots and M&P, picking up the rusties out of their inventory and selling the war picks to the vendor. I wonder if that process is automated too or if they manually trade the war picks from the bot to the runner. I might go out and trade one of them at random to see if they'll dump their picks on me ...

As a play mechanic I like the new fishing system too. Developing the intuition to tell one fish or item from another makes learning new fishing spots that much more interesting, as does fighting down the fish, even though I suck at it. But if a bot can perfectly read a fish's profile out of memory and then respond to the rod motion with perfect reflexes, then as far as game balance and exploitability are concerned the new system is even worse than the old one.

Edit: Yay fix! (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/news-ffxi/64213-all-worlds-maintenance-feb-2-a.html) Not a fix to the underlying flaws of the fishing system, but at least it addresses current RMT behavior directly.

[Jei]

As long as fishing is done client side, reading/editing memory will always be easy.

Making it back to server side may fix it, but the current fighting fish system will have to go away pretty much.

There are already complex bots out there like PLing bots, skill up bots, even a leveling up bots that join and follow PTs. Fishing just sounds like the simplest compare to those.

[seq]

fish bots read the fish/fished item's ID from the memory and cancel/continue fishing depending on the fish not on the "!!!" marks.
As a play mechanic I like the new fishing system too. Developing the intuition to tell one fish or item from another makes learning new fishing spots that much more interesting, as does fighting down the fish, even though I suck at it. But if a bot can perfectly read a fish's profile out of memory and then respond to the rod motion with perfect reflexes, then as far as game balance and exploitability are concerned the new system is even worse than the old one.
they read the rod's position from the memory too.
maybe some fish have to share the same ID with monsters, that way they've to stop fishing or encounter mobs from time to time.

[Neomage]

The problem is that SE refuses to completely revovate the fishing system and the fishbots have far exceeded SE's system. Hell, I HAVE a fishbot on my computer(no, I don't use it) but I will tell you how the current fishbots work:

With both the new and old fishing systems, each fish was assaigned a "value" in terms of difficulty to catch. Very few share the same value, and those that do often can't be cught in the exact same area. While it may be impossible for a human to tell the diffrence between a fish with a value of 2400 and 2500, the bots can. This allows the bot to pinpoint exactly one(or more) fish and reel in only that fish. Anything else that catches the line, be it monster, item, or another fish that the bot isn't set to catch(even if the message you get is the exact same as the target fish), will be instantly released.

The bots also don't fight the fish like legit fishers do. Fishbots can instantly deplete a fish's stanima bar and thus, as mentioned earlier in the thread, catch the fish instantly. Their is also a latency option you can set for the bot, i.e. if you set the latency to 4-6 seconds, the fish will be reeled in 4-6 seconds, no questions asked.

Their are also mic. options that can engage a monster and fight them if one is reeled in, for say Coral Fragment purposes, a detector that can reply to a /tell or crash the game/bot or sound an alarm so you can go and manage your bot when someone talks to you.

Oh and lets not forget the classic auto-invintory sort and auto-fishing rod & bait equipper. Where would bots be without that?
As you can see, no tweaks to the fishing system can sop the bots now. SE either needs to completely dicth the old system and add a new one or target the botters directly.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Version update removed rusty caps and greatswords from Synthesis today. So for now, RMT can catch all of those they want, they're useless.

[Ayrlie]

they removed mythril swords from batallia downs, and coral fragments from onzozo.

what they still haven't dealt with is the Love---- bots in Windurst Waters, my video of them (if it doesn't work, its because it is still processing and will be ready in a short time)

3TMeqY_fCEo

[Murphie]

How do you find time to actually play the game with all this bot tracking?

[Raydeus]

And I really wish you dropped that kind of music from your videos (it hurts >.< ), but then again I just turn the sound off. :P

[Murphie]

And honestly, if you've seen one video of RMT, you've seen 'em all.