Seriously it really is annoying.
Because manually going around looking for bots to ban is a huge waste of time when it can be largely automated from player reports or anti-cheat measures.
If you actually saw a GM walking around banning bots, it’s because all other methods didn’t work and the last thing they can think of is to ban a handful while hundreds more are created.
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Same reason they respond with automated answers to legit things like the region locked DLC packs. Their support is almost non-existant to the point of I don’t even think in game GMs even exist.
If their automation was clearly a superior solution don’t you think at least a lot of these high level bots wouldn’t exist? Maybe they should have some of the bot programmers develop a better automated system for fighting the bots since they are clearly winning in the automation war. 
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Bullshit. No one is going to get banned here. If it’s not obvious for you then maybe you should ask yourself why all of these gold sellers and bots can advertise their websites all day via shout, w/o any consequences, when all they need to do is add an chat filter for those websites. How can an Bot survive till lvl 200+ when you can ban an Steam ID in 1 klick, “if” you want?! This has nothing to do with automated measures, this is just an profit sharing issue. Switch channel and get over it…
There are times where I see more bots than players. Whatever measures they’re taking now is not working.
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you do realize if you can spare 1 megaphone to tell the location of the bot it’ll help a lot and many players do that.
I’m not entirely sure how that’d help. Not to mention, why’d anyone deliberately waste something that requires real funding to use?
and they even made this loading screen that “this is a in-game GM, do not be fooled.” something like that lol
It’s a problem of automation versus manual labor. The GMs are doing the manual labor while the bot users are automatically creating new accounts and characters each time a ban happens.
So it becomes a ginormous waste of time and money for GMs to go around manually banning. The reason this game has a bot epidemic is because the entire setup down to enemy spawns and ways to gain silver and the grinding nature of the content makes it incredibly easy to just bot everything.
Captcha is a bad idea cuz it can cause players to die from that sudden popup. You can make the popup non-intrusive but players might just not notice it and then disconnected.
They can setup algorithms to detect patterns and issue automatic bans to bots which is also an incredible logic puzzle and time consuming programming challenge with the risk of false bans hitting legitimate and decent players by accident (Which is fine so long as appealing a ban is actually doable without ripping their hairs out). But botters would adapt to this as well, yet it would at least make a dent in the botting population.
I think a sort of system where a select few VOLUNTEER players can police RMT / botters themselves could work but it would require careful planning since gamers themselves love to troll or react vengefully over a little butthurt when things get competitive. You can combine a system like this with the algorithm-based system. Players can report bots, the reports would go to the volunteer GM players (that will obviously be handpicked and monitored by IMC to prevent abuse of power) as well as the company GMs.
The #1 issue for any solution is to prevent abuse and to prevent people from being falsely banned. I was falsely banned for botting in Eden Eternal years ago and I’ve never touched a bot in my entire life and Aeria Games refused to take my appeals, many other people were also falsely banned with no success appealing these bans. I lost 3 months of playing (and I was playing pretty hardcore). Speaking from experience, false bans are an absolute nightmare to a legitimate gamer, and moreso when a gaming company refuses to listen to your appeals.
It’s a very complicated issue which is why botting is still a big and growing problem in the year 2016. There is no magical instant-solution unless people stop being idiots and buying RMT (which is never going to happen).
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hot areas were theres always bots, cafri set spot, main city towns.
you can ban 100 per 10min if u stay in these spots
sigh you really love your game do you. /shrugs
"ophiuchu
Yeah! Who needs physical people in games for support when you can be lazy and have your players report people for you. They can answer their own tickets too with “Man I am screwed” while they are at it.
Maybe we can buy the $35 automation pack that runs a bot of my character around to report other bots instead of them coding something better and hiring a support a team. 
"
Idiot.
Well, your first mistake was assuming Aeria would be nice. No offense, but parent companies like that for free base games prefer to take a hand, rather than give it. Which is sadly ironic, since some of their games can be decent.
On the other hand, I do vouch for the idea that a proper report system is enabled for in-game use, rather than just the option to mute/block communications with that player. This is a mechanic that is strongly encouraged for their players to abuse in FF14, and has been proven to help some. While it’s not a fix, it does slow down the progress of the creation of these false accounts, by having the players be the ones who’d single them out.
Yeah! Who needs physical people in games for support when you can be lazy and have your players report people for you. They can answer their own tickets too with “Man I am screwed” while they are at it.
Maybe we can buy the $35 automation pack that runs a bot of my character around to report other bots instead of them coding something better and hiring a support a team.
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Did you ignored the 3 ban waves IMC made those past few days ?
@ophiuchu: you don’t know what you’re talking, handling manualy 1000+ report every day isn’t a good idea at all. Waste of time, if you’re sprouting this nonesense just because your report wasn’t take in account ?
Uhhhh no I haven’t played in weeks and just saying active GMs in the game is not a bad thing considering they can do other things aside ban bots. When is the last time this game has ever had an event in game like other ones? Oh, that’s right never because IMC does a lot and really cares.
Do you think I would expect a human to be a 24/7 slave to sit there and ban bots all day? Absolutely not but I’m sure they could have fun while doing it with various methods of teleporting them around and such. Don’t be silly now and start getting talty on me because it’s the truth and everyone would appreciate the actual human presence in game instead of some list they post of only like 100 bots.
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not true! i have seen them from afar!
they spake unto us in the shout channel, like as angels from upon high…
truly, we knew, the miracles has descended upon us that day…
lol or maybe just block them, and report them when you see them.
“automated measures” means the reporting system. the GM’s still have to actually investigate each reported “bot” to make sure it really is a bot.
I’m pretty sure they do a mass wave block like most other mmos. The chances of you noticing someone getting banned in game is very slim even if it’s a player.
Please no. Whenever a GM would announce in other games “HEY I’m banning bots now, tell me where they are” I just cringed so hard. That’s just a way for goldsellers that are babysitting their bot armies to pull out and hide. I like it that the GMs here do it in stealth and then show us a list later.
They ARE banning bots. If you guys say they don’t communicate that enough to you idk what to say anymore…