Is there some NM bot/hack floating around out there?

[tracert]

when i camp NM's i use BST or BST sub with charm i cause the NM to pop red evertime ... also you should check your method spamming a macro wont win you a pop go to a low level area and practice a rythm with your macro so that you can cause mobs to pop red... it's very easy...

edit: just read what lun4tic said ... he is correct also

[Mizu]

Originally posted by lun4tic
Try Ctrl+J, hover over Provoke and keep jamming the enter button. I know another guy said that, but he said str-g >_>

My Fault, sry, got another keybord. :angel:

[Rossb2k]

There's definitly some kind of cheat out there. I was a little skeptical after Nehvar said it the first time, so I decided to go out to Oz one night with him to check it out for myself. Everything happened exactly as he said. I have expierence camping NMs too, and although not as much as he does, I've never seen anyone voke that fast, JP or otherwise. Even if you factor in a second lag, the speed at which that NM was claimed was inhuman. Without a /targetnpc macro (which he obviously wasn't using because of the explained lack of looking at PHs) I don't see how that's possible.

Then he warned me of a certain NA player who supposedly got his hands on some kind of bot. I camp Mee Deggi the following day and this guy shows up. Everything goes as normal until it's about time for the NM to spawn. I see this person run off, log, and re-appear a few seconds later. I'm spamming my chi-blast macro as usual. He stand on the corner to the right of me, and the NM pops. It pops purple running straight towards him. No voke animation, no steal, no nothing.

If that wasn't enough, when I called this person a f***ing cheater, he says the following

<*********> Dude I've been here since 10AM, I deserved this one
<Cephius> So that justifies cheating?
<*********> It will probably only drop knuckles anyway just like the last one

Made sure the GM took good note of that.

This needs to be addressed ASAP. It seems to me that some kind of program is being enabled when an anticipated NM pop time is approaching. Afterwards the bot or whatever it is gets disabled so GMs can't find it. Someone needs to catch this in the act.

[Dark Aphalite]

Bastard cheaters.
They will always come up with new schemes to cheat so I guess we will never be happy.

[Kendall]

hmmm

Ive pulled mobs before using /targetnpc to jump or provoke it before it fully spawns; beat out chi blast once miraculously when camping waraxe beak (^.- ). dont know how a bot would work but I know my fingers were hella sore from hitting that macro so fast for so long.

[Loial]

My guess is that they may have an out-of-FFXI macro program (easy to get your hands on) that has a functional /target "NM Name" type of call in it. We all know that can't be done in FFXI itself, but I see little reason why an external macro program couldn't do it.

I'd venture to say that the 3rd party program that 'may' be in use must be a packet sniffer of some sort.

However, Kyoujin said that you see the alleged "cheater's" head turning to look at all the mobs. That makes me believe that one of two things are happening:
1) A program is examining a matrix of pixels on a certain part of the player's screen(target window) for "Mee" or "Deggi" and then spamming chi blast or provoke.
2) A program is examining a hidden log of targets seen by your character where the actual text or some data that is equivalent to "Mee Deggi" appears.

If we are talking about case #1, I don't think Square can do too much. If its #2, they could safeguard this information better.

But keep in mind that no matter what Square does... even if they make it such that no NM (or mob in general) can be claimed for 3 second or more, JP provokes will still reach the server faster than yours.

Whatever program they 'may' be using is probably of the order of DAoC's Radar or that similar EQ packet sniffer. I personally see very little hope in anything getting done to fix it and I certainly dread having to do any HNM camps if I have to compete with bot-using players.

***Appended more below***
I was camping Behemoth with a few friends a few Saturdays ago. One of them was there for the last Behemoth kill, so she knew the spawn window (3 hours long). We all positioned ourselves in such a manner to maximize the area that we could "claim" the pop. Now, we were just "praying" that it was Behemoth, and not King Behemoth.

I was spamming the standard /targetnpc provoke-type macro for 2 hours 45 minutes. Every single Thunder Elem that popped in our area were claimed by someone in my PT, as opposed to the other 50 people that were around. A "few" times they spawned red.

Now, over the 2 hours 45mins I was there, all the other thunder elems that did pop away from us, were not claimed at all. However, Behemoth pops and sure enough he pops purple.

So... what does that mean? If they were spamming the standard /target provoke macro, they would've also got the Thunder Elems. So either these people were using that Tab trick that someone else mentioned.... or they had some sort of bot... or just dumb luck :spin:

[Kanopus]

ehh....

this is old news on the older servers. The program you might be referring to is commonly known as a "converter" (in japanese, it's konbata) ~

not sure exactly what it does, but apparently some people have it, and use it.

while camping the evil turkey simurgh, I had a situation where I voked a crab, actually landed 2-3 hits (registered) then had the target turn purple and some JP walks up to it and proceeds to beat the smeg out of my poor crabby.

ouch.

EDIT: While I'm off enlightening people, there's a proggie called directx unleashed, gotta pay to use it (or, find a way around) but it supports FFXI in windows mode.

there was a another program awhile back, written by some guy named cobra commander from some low level LS that allowed one to minimize FFXI, but that has since been fixed.

[Silverwedge]

I took a look into botting to know my enemy and I think Loial is dead on. The same macros that allow for bot fishing which examine the pixels can be applied to NMs.

Running in windowed mode may be an issue for some bots, but not for all. There are supposedly bots that can be started and stopped using key commands while in FFXI and you can have more than one bot running at once. Hit F10 to start your Argus bot, hit F11 to stop it, hit F12 to start your Torrent bot -- pretty goddamned ridiculous if you ask me. Will these damned cheaters ever be stopped?

[bonovoxpsu]

fascinating. i never knew botting was such a huge issue.

but it does suck big time....

[Loial]

I took a look into botting to know my enemy and I think Loial is dead on.

Trust me... I wish I was wrong. But people come up with ways to gain an advantage when in competition with others. I just don't see how Square can fix this issue. For every smart programmer working for Square to resolve these issues (if there are any trying to resolve it) there are hundreds of people trying to find a way around it.

Try Ctrl+J, hover over Provoke and keep jamming the enter button. I know another guy said that, but he said str-g >_>

Forgive me, but what exactly does Ctrl-J do?

[Machiko]

Originally posted by Loial

I'd venture to say that the 3rd party program that 'may' be in use must be a packet sniffer of some sort.

However, Kyoujin said that you see the alleged "cheater's" head turning to look at all the mobs. That makes me believe that one of two things are happening:
1) A program is examining a matrix of pixels on a certain part of the player's screen(target window) for "Mee" or "Deggi" and then spamming chi blast or provoke.
2) A program is examining a hidden log of targets seen by your character where the actual text or some data that is equivalent to "Mee Deggi" appears.

If we are talking about case #1, I don't think Square can do too much. If its #2, they could safeguard this information better.

But keep in mind that no matter what Square does... even if they make it such that no NM (or mob in general) can be claimed for 3 second or more, JP provokes will still reach the server faster than yours.

Whatever program they 'may' be using is probably of the order of DAoC's Radar or that similar EQ packet sniffer. I personally see very little hope in anything getting done to fix it and I certainly dread having to do any HNM camps if I have to compete with bot-using players.

***Appended more below***
I was camping Behemoth with a few friends a few Saturdays ago. One of them was there for the last Behemoth kill, so she knew the spawn window (3 hours long). We all positioned ourselves in such a manner to maximize the area that we could "claim" the pop. Now, we were just "praying" that it was Behemoth, and not King Behemoth.

I was spamming the standard /targetnpc provoke-type macro for 2 hours 45 minutes. Every single Thunder Elem that popped in our area were claimed by someone in my PT, as opposed to the other 50 people that were around. A "few" times they spawned red.

Now, over the 2 hours 45mins I was there, all the other thunder elems that did pop away from us, were not claimed at all. However, Behemoth pops and sure enough he pops purple.

So... what does that mean? If they were spamming the standard /target provoke macro, they would've also got the Thunder Elems. So either these people were using that Tab trick that someone else mentioned.... or they had some sort of bot... or just dumb luck :spin:

Wouldn't it have been ironic if Behemonth King spawned, then you could all laugh at the botters as the purple monster casted Meteor on them? :spin:

[Mizu]

It will popup the Abilitie table.
Dunno wich keyboard command your are using but i got a difrent keyboard with a difrent setup.