Suggestion to S-E Devs about bots

[Kutch]

I am willing to pay an extra $20 (!) a month to get someone at S-E to permanently ban everyone caught cheating by means of 3d party programs that automate various aspects of the game, such as fishing and Auction-house hogging for specific items.

I am ALSO willing to pay an adittional $10 bounty for each notification message that a player has been permanently removed from the game because of the use of 3d party software.

In return, I would like to see the anti-fishing code removed. It makes the game less fun for those of us that fish on a regular basis.

This is no bogus post.

[ifandbut]

Re: Suggestion to S-E Devs about bots

Originally posted by Kutch
In return, I would like to see the anti-fishing code removed. It makes the game less fun for those of us that fish on a regular basis.

What anti-fishing code? :confused: :confused:

[Kutch]

Re: Re: Suggestion to S-E Devs about bots

Originally posted by ifandbut
What anti-fishing code? :confused: :confused:

it's code introduced to make botting less appealing. It basically forces you to zone every hour or so (looks like the time varies with different areas) to continue catching fish or get skillups.

It has the sad bi-effect that it ALSO forces those of us that do honest fishing to change areas, hence the anti-fisherman code term.

[ifandbut]

Intresting......how would you know that you have to zone....would you just not cautch anything constantly without loosing bate or would you still be using bate when it says that something cought on the hook.

One point about botting, you tecentaly *can* bot as long as you are watching your char and not running it while at work. Look at the Absentee play section of Rules of Conduct:

A player should personally attend to the game at all times while playing a character and should be ready to take control of the character's actions at any time.

I'm personaly thinking of getting a bot to run when I watching TV right next to my computer, so if a GM does send me a tell or moves my character I can kill the bot without being baned, I will never run the bot while I'm at work or sleeping.

[VTECsam]

Hmm...interesting point but in all honesty I want the anit-bot software gone more than the fish bots themselves. If someone wants to cheat at a game then that's just sad. Personaly I don't think I'll be devoting too much of my life to this game so I'm not going to get angry at bots. HOWEVER

During the last 3 or so updates where I'm assuming they put this new software into affect I noticed that my catch rate dropped by ALOT. I know im only lvl 5 fishing but during my first two days fishing I caught a total of 8 stacks of moat carp (lvl 0-2.5) After the updates I reached lvl 5 and purchased the complete fisherman's outfit.

At this time my catch rate fell to about 25% of what it was before the updates. Along with that, since the updates, I have been booted from the server(Diabolos) by means of "timing" me out atleast once a real life day. Everytime I get "POL FFXI-0011" error message.

Maybe I'm just rambling here but I want to know what other affects this anit-bot software is having on the game.

[Johnnybigone]

rofl not this again..

The leader of my LS talked to a GM about botting..

The GM said that as long as you keep an eye on your char and not disturb anyone, its none of their business.

[poweryoga]

gms in this game = worthless.

all they do is get people out of stuck corners and spank people who spam/curse too much.

They can't touch anything or anyone even if they're blatently being an assprick, botting, etc.

[Lakario]

It would seem as though several of you have skewed concepts of your various topics of conversation.

First of all- botters have learned to make profit from the anti-bot code which causes people to start catching more items than fish. A fisher with a rogue rig in Rabao that has been fishing for several hours straight will pull up nothing but rusties pretty much- Rusty Caps can be synthed to Padded Caps with a light crystal and smithing level 34. Padded caps go for about 2650 with max fame to NPC and I know people who make their fortune this way.

Secondly, regarding GMs and their power- GMs have varying levels of power- but it extends to the point that *any* GM can suspsend your play by either placing you in jail or having a Senior GM suspend your account entirely for a few days. Ultimately only certain GMs can delete your account alltogether.

Anyhow, botting doesn't really hurt anyone- it is an efficient way to make money without hurting anyone else. Consider this, if I were to use a bot to catch fish while you stood next to me fishing unassisted- your catch rate would remain unaffected by mine in all respects. It is not as though I am going to catch all the fish and leave you with nothing. A bot is nothing more than assisted key pressing and I really think that the fuss about them is trivial. Furthermore, botting supplies high demand; how is that bad?

[Mal]

Because some people believe "botting" always = "cheating and ruining the game."

In this case, it DOES NOT. Fishing is BORING, and if some players are willing to spend hours hitting the same button over and over again, how does that make things very different from somebody who leaves a bot on for the same amount of time as "honest" fishers?

Sorry, fishing does not ruin the economy. I'd say putting a spotlight on the botting itself has caused more harm to the game (via the anti-fishing code) than the botters themselves.

SE knows how to make video games, so how come it didn't occurr to them that if they made fishing more fun and/or less tedious, maybe, just maybe more people would want to fish legitimately during their game time.
Of course not, because then botting would be EASIER, right? So let's make aspects of the game really boring and dull to prevent people from "Cheating" the system, because that takes priority over making the game fun.

Or, there's my theory: SE designed this game the way it was to maximize players' game time. Everything from levelling to crafting right down to little things like having only seven auction slots (meaning you can only sell so much, meaning you can only make so much Gil, meaning you spend more time trying to make money to buy new gear!) is all based around making subscribers play as long as possible.

Now, of course that's NECESSARY to an MMORPG, but there's a right way of doing it, and developing code to make the tedious practice of standing at a dock hitting a button over and over again even MORE tedious, is not the right way.

[Mandosse]

It's a tough call. I by no means agree with botting. At the same time, it is a rather tough thing to catch.

I've been seeing alot of these posts on KI, though none took the proposal as far as you o.O\

You could always pay me... <(`.o)b

[LawDawg]

actually... fish botting (unattended) DOES affect the economy. If you are going to be at your computer and using a bot... well then thats your choice. Its not against the rules, so I only think it makes you smart. However, using a bot unattended DOES affect the economy. This is because if you werent botting (for the time you are away), then you wouldn't be fishing, and thus, you wouldn't be making money. The majority of fishers make their money by selling to NPCs (correct?). Thus by fish botting, they are introducing more money into the economy, ie INFLATION. If high level fishers can make 60k/hr fishing, after 10 hours of botting, thats 600k gil. Thats "controlling" more gil then the IGE gil sellers (see thread about DRG/WHM pair camping....). Regardless, the "effect" may be small, but there is an effect.

[Mal]

So this "inflation" affect does not occurr if regular people are fishing, then? (Some DO fish very much like botters do, so the results can be quite similar.) What if you go to work and leave your younger sibling in the computer room to fish for you? Is that botting or legitimate playing? A better question would be, does that ruin the economy, as well? Or are we all still holding horribly skewed opinions about how awful fish-botting is, compared to how harmless it actually is?

Fish-botting affects nobody but the botter himself. Especially if he's just selling to NPCs. I see no problem in having more Gil. The botter makes more money, which he can spend on things at the Auction House, meaning more sales for people selling stuff, meaning, if anything, the economy is circulating pretty well.

Look at it this way: Botters set up their fishing bots so they don't have to sit there and do the same boring process over and over. If they didn't have the bots, they'd be fishing themselves. Maybe in far less time, because it's so boring and tedious to them. However, for somebody who's willing to sit up for eight hours fishing (I've talked to a few who actually do that) the results will be nearly the same.

Sitting in front of a computer while the bot runs, and going to bed while the bot runs, as much as you want to argue, results in the same outcome. If you're going to bitch about bots causing inflation, bitch about the "legitimate" players who fish with the same amount of fervor as the bots - they're contributing just as much...
Except they're spending their time fishing instead of sleeping or cleaning their house or whatever - personally, I don't think what a person does with his time is any of our business.

[LawDawg]

first off, I never said botting while at your computer is bad, I actually said it was smart. Secondly, I never said the effect on the economy was HUGE, i said it was small... (please read). That said, a small effect is much bigger than no effect. Consider the number of unattended botters increases by 100, or even 1000. Is this going to affect the economy? Of course!! there will be massive inflation. (this is a discussion for another topic). Of course, using your logic, you will just counter by saying, "its the same as have 100 times the legit fishers, or 1000 times". The response to this is when is botting not ok? is it not ok if a single person has 10 accounts, and is running 10 fish bots? Is it ok if the person is asleep and running their bot?

and NO "Sitting in front of a computer while the bot runs, and going to bed while the bot runs, as much as you want to argue, results in the same outcome." -- this is a blatant attempt at being very "michael moore" like. The statement itself isnt false, however, what if the person does BOTH. does the outcome remain the same? HMMM?? obviously not. And if bots were eliminated, the person would still fish (in the same tedious manner) as if their wasnt a bot. Without bots, there is a "reasonable" limit to how much a person can fish a day (I'll be nice and say 20 hours). With a bot, this "reasonable limit" now becomes the maximum. So lets say every hour, a fish bot can make 50k (to simplify calculations). since a bot can fish 4 hours longer, 200k MORE is introduced into the economy per day. multiply this by 100 fish botters, and you are looking at 20 million gil into the economy... if you don't think this will cause inflation... /shrug

[Mal]

First of all, how dare you compare me to Michael Moore. You claim "this is a very blatant attempt" at being like Michael Moore; funny, I don't recall sitting at my computer today saying "I THINK I'LL ARGUE WITH SOME GUY ABOUT A TRIVIAL MATTER IN A GAME THAT HE FEELS IS REALLY IMPORTANT, BECAUSE I WANT TO BE LIKE MICHAEL MOORE." "Blatant attempt" is a very pretty phrase to use, if you know how to use it!

You call me Michael Moore, and yet here you are with the "WELL WHAT IF THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF BOTTERS FISHING ALL DAY LONG??? OMG INFLATION!!~~#142"

How exactly are these people having more money affecting you, or me? All I'm hearing is "IT CAUSES INFLATION!!!" but you're not explaining how when a lot of fishers have a lot of money in their hands, how that's going to ruin the economy. AH Prices, I thought, were based on supply and demand, not how much money people have.

And furthermore, why are you getting so upset about this? Your drastic and ridiculous examples of the horrors of fish-botting may have gotten your panties in a bunch, but I feel you're angry over nothing. Botting, in terms of fishing, is not going to ruin the game.

I think the time and resources SE spends on putting a stop to these players could be better spent on either improving the game (punishing legitimate fishers is not "improving") or working on ways to punish the Mining/NM-hunting bots out there - the bots that actually DO ruin other players' experiences.

And if a person out there REALLY has 10 accounts, and 10 computers all running fishing bots on each account simultaniously, I'm still not seeing the problem. That person, who is incredibly foolish to waste that kind of money, now has an inhumane amount of Gil which they can now spend on whatever equipment they want (giving Gil to those who sold the equipment, which they can then use to spend on what THEY want) or to raise a Craft skill. Plenty of ingredients out there are sold by NPC merchants, for relatively cheap prices. Gil in the economy is then filtered back out by those merchants, possibly to a much lesser degree than it comes in, but still.
I am seeing no detrimental effects of players having a lot of Gil.

[LawDawg]

um... wow, getting a little excited? I never said it would get "drastic or rediculous". All I said was, if there were to be a large increase in bot fishers, then there would be an increase in inflation. It appears that you are countering my "insult" of calling you "michael moore-like" by claiming that my inflation claim is false. And that people making more money doesn't affect you or me.... (maybe you should, instead, explain again why my argument against "Sitting in front of a computer while the bot runs, and going to bed while the bot runs, as much as you want to argue, results in the same outcome" being wrong, is itself, wrong?)

I don't see how you don't understand that more money into the system leads to inflation... your argument is that if theres more money, people will send more money buying things from NPCs... except you have no PROOF that this will happen, just your "assumption". However, more money into the system leads to inflation... thats the way things work. And you even admit that the amount of gil coming into the system (from NPCs) is a lot more than going back out (to NPCs)... this has nothing to do with individual players having "lots" of gil. Those players with "lots" of gil arent just going to sit on their millions of gil... they are going to go out and put the money into the economy...

And when did I ever say SE should do something about it? I dont recall if I ever did... all i did was tell you that, yes in fact, fish botting has an effect on the economy, and a SMALL one at that.... but i guess its YOU who got his "panties in a bunch"?