Suggestion to S-E Devs about bots

[Kutch]

Originally posted by PetriW
So you'd be prepared to cough up several thousands of dollars for this? You're one passionate little fool.

No.
I would be willing to pay upto $20 a month MORE than I am allready paying to play the game to help hire "game police" that can catch & ban people who cheat on this game.

I would also pay, in addition to those $20, an additional $10 per month JUST to get a summary of how many people that have been caught cheating on my server.

Why, you ask?
Simple: ranting & raving won't help. Money talks, bullshit walks. Let SE know that they won't loose revenue by kicking out cheaters, and they would be willing to listen. For $30 per month, you can pay for 3 people to do 8 hour shifts for a full week (I work in a company that on occasion employs people from the far east to do simple chores)

If this elimintates the need to change areas every hour to keep the bite rate up, then, to me, it is worth it. But I have a more than average income, and paying those extra $30 a month mean little to me. My original intent with this post was to check whether there was any interest at all to ACT against bots by suggesting something that SE would not loose money on. Clearly, I'm not representing the majority of players, maybe not even a very small minority.

BUT, to see the problem gone, believing that SE will ban botters, or lift the anti-bot code without an echonomic alternative - THAT is something one would have to be a fool to believe.

[LawDawg]

ok kutch, go ahead and pay 30 a month... I rather pay 13 a month and leave it the way it is ... stop making such a big deal out of nothing... so many drama queens here... BOTTING AND GIL SELLING REALLY ISNT THAT BIG OF AN ISSUE!!!

[Xephoid]

calm down people

finally took a glance at this thread... and just as I was afraid of, another flaming thread.

Geez people. You got to realize that nothing ever said life is fair. Just deal with the situation the best you can, and move on.

If I wanted to pick a bone with everything I thought was unfair in life, I wouldn't have a life of my own to live. Move along, people. Let SE do their thing, while you cope the best you can.

[Kutch]

Originally posted by LawDawg
ok kutch, go ahead and pay 30 a month... I rather pay 13 a month and leave it the way it is ... stop making such a big deal out of nothing... so many drama queens here... BOTTING AND GIL SELLING REALLY ISNT THAT BIG OF AN ISSUE!!!

I stated my opinion, and to some extent also my conclusion. But in response to your point of exclamation:

What you are stating is that cheating is ok. You say that you don't mind that other people cheat to get better at something than what you and I are, well, good for you I guess.

Let's just close our eyes and pretent it's not happening, shall we?

[Alontier]

Originally posted by CarbonFibre
Kinda off topic but does anyone have any information on auction house botting? Someone in my LS said that Fairlady on Midgard and others that just stand in front of the AH for hours on end are botting somehow. Is this bogus?

Nope, there are Auction house bots.
Pretty simple to to make, only need to repeat keyboard commands.
The great thing with these is that if they are are suddenly lagged a bit,
they might have bought a stack of Moat Carps for 40.000gil ^^

[Mal]

An example is the Lu Shang quest. How am I supposed to compete with bots for buying Moat Carps? They are sold within 1 second of "landing" on the AH. I have no way of buying them, unless I make deals with other players that are fishing MC's to sell. Is this not directly cheating me of something that I would normally have a fair chance at getting?

Funny, I see Moat Carp being sold all the time.
Furthermore, we're talking about fishing bots, aren't we? Not AH Bots. I'm all for AH Bots and NM Bots getting canned. Fishing bots, despite the previous discussion we were having about the POTENTIAL long-term drawbacks in a worst-case scenario, are not that big of a deal.

Furthermore, if you want to pay $30 a month for a game that's hardly worth $13, that's up to you. You say "money talks and bullshit walks," well, this is kind of off-the-wall, but I think telling SE you're willing to pay them even MORE exhorbitant fees (they already nickel-and-dime us for extra characters, Tetra Master, and the POL+ service that I don't care enough about to even consider) just so they can change the game back to how it used to be is like giving into blackmail. I'm not saying this is what SE is doing, of course.

If you have that big of a problem with the cheaters out there getting fish while at school/work/bed, to the point where you want to pay $20 more then why don't you just take your money to another game? I mean, be realistic; SE isn't going to come here, read this, and go "WELL GOLLY-GOSH! THIS KID HAS A POINT! LET'S INTRODUCE POL++ WHERE IF YOU PAY $30 A MONTH, YOUR VOICE GETS PRIORITY TO THE GMs, AND THEY BAN ANY FISHER YOU SUSPECT OF BOTTING!! OH, AND WE'LL REMOVE THE ANTI-BOT CODE, EVEN THOUGH IT CAUSES PLAYERS TO PLAY EVEN LONGER DUE TO THE EXTRA TRAVELLING, THUS CAUSING US IN THEORY TO MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY LONGTERM." Get real. You're griping about a form of botting that has little IF ANY effects on the rest of the world. Last I checked the Vanadiel Census, they said they have something like 500,000 subscribers in the game; on average in Japan players have 3 characters, and on average here in America, 2. That's $6,500,000 they make from the game a month. And that's just from subscriptions alone. I seriously doubt fishing botters make up more than 1% (if even that) of the gaming population, so I doubt SE is worried about losing subscribers if they ban fishers; they're just making foolish attempts to automate the anti-botting process, by discouraging it.

Why is this such a big deal, anyway? If you're not bot-fishing, wouldn't you get bored standing in one spot for hours? The code, while annoying, encourages you to go fish at different spots every so often, or go put stuff up on the Auction House, or do something else. Yeah, I hate the code being in place as much as anybody, but this really isn't that big of a deal. Mumble all you want about me "encouraging cheating," but the fact is, the only way you're being affected by fish botters is from the code SE put in place.

[Mal]

What you are stating is that cheating is ok. You say that you don't mind that other people cheat to get better at something than what you and I are, well, good for you I guess.

And why does that bother you so much? If people are "cheating" in something as trivial as fishing, it's not affecting you, it's not causing your bite rate to go down (with the exception of when the anti-bot code kicks in, which I blame SE for, not the botters. There are better ways to fight cheating.)
You're at the point, it appears, where you're so upset, you're taking this personally that you're not putting words in peoples' mouths. "OH I SEE. SO YOU'RE SAYING IT'S OKAY TO CHEAT IN A GAME???"

Let's just close our eyes and pretent it's not happening, shall we?

That's what we should have done IN THE FIRST PLACE. If you walk by somebody and see them fishing, you won't know for sure whether they're botting or not. If everybody would just mind their own business, this botting thing wouldn't be that big of a deal, and perhaps the code wouldn't even be in place (due there being less of a federal case being made.)
This isn't some grandiose crime that's happening in the game, that is affecting everybody around. It's people CATCHING FISH.

So. do the world a favor, and close your eyes, and pretend it's not happening. While you're at it, close your mouth, too.

[Icemage]

Why is this such a big deal, anyway? If you're not bot-fishing, wouldn't you get bored standing in one spot for hours? The code, while annoying, encourages you to go fish at different spots every so often, or go put stuff up on the Auction House, or do something else. Yeah, I hate the code being in place as much as anybody, but this really isn't that big of a deal. Mumble all you want about me "encouraging cheating," but the fact is, the only way you're being affected by fish botters is from the code SE put in place. [/B]

Actually, the code makes some zones all but un-fishable even by legit fishermen. I'd love to go fishing regularly in places like Sanctuary of Zi'Tah or Cape Teriggan, but the fact that those zones are SO far away from anywhere I can reach by transport leaves me very little time to do any fishing before the botcode will wreck my fishing results.

I am offended by the fact that I have to put up with such nonsense simply because people are too lazy, and S-E is incapable of limiting the cheating problem with some simple changes (i.e. remove all the 500gil+ money fish from safe fishing zones).


Icemage

[Xephoid]

>(i.e. remove all the 500gil+ money fish from safe fishing zones).

They won't do that because that make fishing the only craft that's job/level dependent.

[Icemage]

They won't do that because that make fishing the only craft that's job/level dependent.

...and this would be bad in what way?


Icemage

[Xephoid]

nothing to me

Originally posted by Icemage
...and this would be bad in what way?


Icemage

but they probably wont' make that exception since the game seems to be designed so craft and job leveling are independent. It's designed so you can be a lv 1 newbie and still be lv 100 master crafter. After all, it's their design and their game.

[Icemage]

Crafting is not job/level independent, particularly not Fishing - for instance, when you have Sneak cast on you while fishing, monsters you fish up will not attack you, which gives White Mages and Red Mages at level 20+ an advantage. Square-Enix obviously does not lose much sleep over this fact, so I fail to see why removing fish like Gold Carp and Bastore Bream from places like Windurst is going to make anyone except a botter cry.

Virtually all dedicated fishermen understand that there are certain things they have to do to become a high level fisherman. Adding a few job levels to the list isn't going to make a huge dent in it, considering that a well-rounded fisherman in FFXI eventually needs either level 80 Woodworking or level 85 alchemy, and enough time/resources to acquire 10,000 moat carp for Lu Shang's Fishing Rod.

Getting a few job levels is a miniscule task by comparison.


Icemage

[Xephoid]

just to play as devil's advercate

Originally posted by Icemage
Crafting is not job/level independent, particularly not Fishing - for instance, when you have Sneak cast on you while fishing, monsters you fish up will not attack you, which gives White Mages and Red Mages at level 20+ an advantage. Square-Enix obviously does not lose much sleep over this fact, so I fail to see why removing fish like Gold Carp and Bastore Bream from places like Windurst is going to make anyone except a botter cry.

Virtually all dedicated fishermen understand that there are certain things they have to do to become a high level fisherman. Adding a few job levels to the list isn't going to make a huge dent in it, considering that a well-rounded fisherman in FFXI eventually needs either level 80 Woodworking or level 85 alchemy, and enough time/resources to acquire 10,000 moat carp for Lu Shang's Fishing Rod.

Getting a few job levels is a miniscule task by comparison.


Icemage

OK, I'll bite.. <pun intended>

Sneak is a Lv 25 spells I believe. So not like a Lv 1 fisher could sneak and fish outside of the town. Woe if you are any job that can't cast spells.

As you stated. The game is designed so that crafting and level are independent. So if you are required to be above anything more than lv 1 to raise a craft, means it doesn't meet the game design requirement. So if SE can't go over that obstacle, all other objections are moot.

Ok, end of playing devils advercate. :spin:

[Icemage]

My point was that Square-Enix did NOT design fishing to be level/job-INdepedent.

Reread what I posted - I said crafts ARE job-dependent, especially fishing.

- Sneak is level 20 WHM and RDM, not level 25. Invisible is level 25 (and is actually necessary to fish in some places, such as Den of Rancor). Still, you can "technically" use Silent Oil and Prism Powder to get around safely. There are certain places, such as Sea Serpent Grotto, Boyahda Tree, and Kuftal Tunnel, which spawn such high level monsters that you have little choice but to use Sneak/Silent Oil to fish there.

The main reasons people fishbot are:

A - They find it boring and tedious
B - High level fishing is lucrative
C - It is possible to fish without ever seeing a monster at level 1 all the way to level 96 fishing.

Removing high level, high value fish from safe zones removes reason B and C from the equation, thus extinguishing the flame of fishbotting by asphyxiation.

Legit fishermen generally do not care about fishing in monster-prone zones - sure it's nice to be able to fish up no monsters, but it's not enough of a hassle to make any of us stop fishing, especially considering that bite rates in monster-prone zones tend to be better overall anyhow, so such a change wouldn't affect us much, except to limit our income while waiting for airships, et. al. (I generally make 1-4K gil on average while waiting for an airship at level 59 fishing). I would gladly give up that income in exchange for removing the design flaws that make bots a viable choice.


Icemage

[Xephoid]

Originally posted by Icemage
My point was that Square-Enix did NOT design fishing to be level/job-INdepedent.

Reread what I posted - I said crafts ARE job-dependent, especially fishing.

How do you know that? Not a single craft I know of has anything to do with player level.

You can raise your fishing from 0 to 90+ level without ever stepping out of the protection of the city limits/safe zone. To me that seems to suggest that SE is intentionally making fishing independent of job levels, so newbies and high levels alike can level a craft.

And that makes perfect sense. What does crafting has anything to do with a job level? A complete wimp who never threw a punch in his whole life is just capable of learning... say fishing or goldsmithing... as a pro-wrestler. I think SE designed the game to be that way on purpose, so I doubt they'll deviate from their game design.