Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Botting and pos hacks and some percentage of reports get your name in the pool.

Then the rng pulls 10 from the pool. You win or you lose. The pool resets.

Extremely low win rate with the amount of entrants. But never zero.

They don't ban everyone, they choose to keep some people going as controlled RMT. There is zero doubt you have been reported and noticed numerous times, they allow you to survive. The reason they created the stfu in the first place was to create strategies to deal with rmt and not just ban everyone doing things.

If you have a zero tolerance approach you just get DDOS attacks and prices go so high account hacking becomes a thing, which is obviously far worse.

There's many forums where people used to pool data on suspensions and sharing why and what they used. It's common to look at data and see patterns.. It's 100% true there's a complete lack of GMs. I would even like to see someone who had gotten put in a jail or pulled aside by a GM in the last 3 years. It's commonly known the issue with this game and "the budget"

It seems almost all automated now, that was not the case in the past even with offenses like speed hacking. So it's easier to see the more risky addons/programs with the information available. Almost all of them related to POS. Probably because it's the only thing that it can pick up automatically since it was put in place probably since the beginning.

This is more or less what I was trying to say.

Jumped too much, too far.

My point was that 'too much' is a lot smaller than people like to think. No guarantee SE has their algorithms tightly tuned, but the client provides enough data that effectively any use of POS worth doing is going to be easily detectable (besides like, going 3' through a closed door).

He used to have almost every addon possible including addons that had flaws in them that caused many multiboxers to get hit. Long scripts that went thru a bucket list of buffs without interaction. It's really not a huge surprise. It's more surprising that people keep thinking his streams were that popular that an actual dev or someone at SE cared enough to look his 6 character up and take action. Not even a GM can do that, there's no precedent ever in XI.

Doesn't matter how many buff scripts you have or automated rolls/songs you do. The takoing and the pos warping and the extreme speed hacks and all the rest gets you papped.

But yeah, 6-boxing while "alt tabbing to do things". Sure.

Umm...what? I don't think they're holding back on bans to prevent RMT from DDOSing the servers or stealing people's accounts, or so that they can have "controlled RMT"...?

I think the most likely explanations for why they don't ban everyone breaking ToS is because they don't have the resources to police everything and because if they took a strict interpretation of the ToS and applied it to the entire population, the game would die pretty much overnight.

They ban in waves every month or a couple times a month to keep people on their toes by seeing stories like these and having some uncertainty, that's about it

I don't think he got hit for cheating and being on a stream, the only reason I'm willing to entertain his stream as a cause is because he spent entire videos outlining how other people can 6box using the same tools. It's obviously very bad for the game long term.

Dodik is right that buff scripts and auto roll/songs are very unlikely to be a cause of anything, because there's no feasible way to tell them apart from a manual multiboxer. You can very easily set up a few macros with <waits> to do all your songs with only 2-3 presses. For that matter, it is possible to do 6 characters mostly manual[you'd still have less APM than some starcraft players]. If you want to speculate on something being safe, I'd say greater degrees of control over alts is almost certain to be safe.

Pretty much this.

They do want 'controlled RMT', because like it or not, a considerable amount of players wouldn't play without the ability to buy. But, I doubt they're seeing Eiryl's 2-bit operation and deciding they should let his characters go right before they ban 400 chinese spark bots.

It's like some pissing contest with who knows the most super "secret" behind the scenes knowledge. Why are you acting so clandestine like some bot guru who doesn't want the secrets to get out. We are in 2024, people know how to use Google. I didn't say scripts get you banned it was to show he literally uses everything possible to automate 6 characters. You yourself said afk play can be auto detected. Somehow you seem to think it's 24hrs when it's been proven wrong. What even is your experience with this? Googling a bot and using it. If anything Thorny would have more info but he doesn't want to share his experiences. This is all from data and personal experiences not a single person here knows the exact methods they use.

Simple logic maybe. And personal experience, which I've shared. Idk why you seem to think the same addons literally everyone else uses gets you banned but not afk botting for whatever amount of time.

Yes, they are all bannable offenses, lets not go into that again.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/bdf23a5692dea624fbb355bc220248de7dec4ad8

DDOS is usually a sign they got too aggressive banning RMT operations.

Also if you ban RMT too much, the price of the gil rises and when the price rises too high account hacking starts becoming a thing. Just common sense, as a company running an mmorpg you want gil prices to be fairly low.

It's not even a wave, he's the only person and one other thread, talking about being banned. The community is small now and people still have this old school mindset of fight club so nobody discusses it and it just repeated itself. They don't even have GMs interacting, I really would like to see if anyone was even put in jail for anything recently.

It seems quite odd they would randomly add a parameter to detect afk botting when literally everyone and their grandma is doing it. Not everyone is POS warping in the same capacity, most know now that it's a big risk in comparison given the precedent for detecting it since the old days. Given nobody knows the exact checks their system does to put people on a list, none of it is safe. But clearly some things are riskier than others, that's why I asked him and really it seems likely.

FFXIV DDOS is because of FFXI RMT getting banned, is that what I'm reading right now? Or are they cracking down really hard on the FFXIV RMT right now? Do you have evidence that they ramped up RMT enforcement? Evidence that the RMT are the ones doing the DDOSing? How is this in any way relevant to FFXI? I don't think I've ever heard of FFXI being affected by a DDOS, but maybe I missed it because I was asleep at the time?


They don't want RMT prices at all, what is this nonsense about? Do you think there's a team at SE trying to balance the economies of gil and actively managing the amount of bans they do to ensure returning players can buy their way through the game...? What world do you live in?

I'd suggest everyone that doubts it start ML-ing for weeks at a time and see how that goes.

Not everyone will get papped.

Bans always happen Tuesday nights. Of everyone I know, nobody has been banned for months, now 3 people were banned in a single night. How is this not a wave? Because not enough people are posting about it on this forum? They don't ban people every day, they do it periodically, like a wave crashing on the shore.

But, you can understand the feasibility of different methods. Many things are detectable automatically, many are not.

Automation[any kind]: NOT detectable. They clearly don't have the advanced algorithms necessary to decide if pathfinding is bot-based or not. Since they don't use GM checks any more, it's very unlikely they give GMs the responsibility of visually assessing if behavior is botlike.

POS: Easily and verifiably detectable, unless used for very short distances(under 10').

Speed: Easily and verifiably detectable, unless used at extremely low levels for short periods of time.

Maintenance Mode: Easily detectable if walking through geometry or to unaccessible areas. The client reports you have it on, so if your tool doesn't prevent that, detectable in all cases. Relatively hard to detect if used to pass through doors and client is correcting the bitflag.

JA0Wait: Very difficult to detect aside from visual assessment, because the server doesn't know your animation scheduler to fit movement in. Possible to detect reliably for sch and dnc ja(unblinkable) if you were to run through the entire period, but I doubt they worried about such an edge case. Even then, dropped packets could cause false positive.

GM Flag: Very difficult to detect aside from visual assessment, because the server doesn't know whether you have entities rendered or not.

No-knockback: Very difficult to detect aside from visual assessment.

Now, I said automation was very difficult to detect, but that's on the basis of the behavior itself. It's very easy to detect that someone is playing more hours than any reasonable human could play. Where that threshold gets set is up for interpretation, but no human is playing 24 hours without a break. Most humans aren't even going to play 6-8 hours without a couple 5-10 minute breaks. If your bots aren't taking any breaks, they are very easy to detect automatically.

That they are getting a sustained 2 week long DDOS attack is evidence enough they went too hard on banning rmt on XIV? I remember them doing it to XI long ago too when they tried to nuke RMT around the chocobo blinker time.

RMT is a big money industry at the higher end, you stop them making money or ban too many of their holding accounts and they will punish the company.

Players are already demanding refunds of their monthly sub cause they can't login (talking about 14)

They are already doing it. Doesn't eiryl have a thread on OF with the same bot in SSG for over 5 months or something. Then you have to also list what addons you are using in addition to the afk botting, and in today's age also the gearswaps to see what bot like setup is written.

It's not that serious I don't think anyone is suggesting botting is safe. I just like to help someone save their account if at all possible. I think what was said earlier about SE being firm in their stance would be best, but it's not happening. They've actually hinted in past interviews that they know about windower, so clearly not all laws are equal. But given the budget situation and everyone not caring, what can you do. The best way to prevent it is with more information.


3 people? Come on. There are bans every week, of course people won't come here to discuss it. It's always been taboo, and you have people that actively try to shame them and laugh in 2024.. of course you won't hear about it.

Ok, gearswap gets you banned now.

Let's move on, this discussion is pointless.

Pointless is an understatement.

It's actively detrimental for people that don't have common sense.

Playing this game nearly 20yrs, first time I've ever actually seen this guy


(Dosetsu Tree)

Idk how much this influences their decision making, but they've been trying to eliminate RMT for over 15 years now and lost even at the peak of resources they had available to combat it. Over the years, it was a bit of a cat and mouse game, but arguably what RMT are doing now is the least impactful to the rest of the community than years prior. They've shoehorned them into a place that provides some value to people and, while not without impact, is lower than it was when they were monopolizing the market on certain items/things. It's not just SE either, other MMOs took various strategies and none of them really worked.

It does feel like there is a conscious decision to not ban some of them, though. Years ago people were regularly reporting bots in Dho Gates farming CP, yet you could see the same ones there for a long time and some of them are still running around.

Really don't get why you are trying to act cool

The only solution is that we all move to Horizon as a boicott

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/monster-hunter-world-rise-saga

30 bucks for all of that is insane

Correct me if I am wrong but 6 boxing = 6 subscriptions does it not?

In the long run 6 boxing is good for squenix, but in the short run having people advertising cheats on a stream is bad for squenix if for no other reason than it reflects poorly on the game.

I don't think this is true, bear with me for a moment. The people 6boxing successfully are largely going to be the ones more invested in the game, with greater equipment, resources, and knowledge. If they fill their party with 5 mules instead of 5 friends, they remove a leader from the pool of possible leaders.

Every time the topic of accessibility comes up here, we get reminded that nobody wants to form or maintain groups. These players aren't obligated to lead, but they are the type of people with the ability and drive to do so. Removing them makes content more inaccessible and bleeds players long term.

Horizon still has real groups for just about everything, while they're a shrinking rarity on retail. This isn't because 75 content is harder(the opposite is true), it's because they don't allow multiboxing and make an effort to clamp down on cheating.

you can be sure they count on idiots like me coming back after bans, that's the long game. multiboxing brings in a bit more per but nothing beats an eternal customer.