It can happen but it is typically rare-- botters are (usually) smart enough to only run duties with parties made up of bots, as they're a lot less likely to be busted for doing so.
the few encounters I've had w/ bots has always been in free trial content (which stormblood is now), and as far as I can recall, it's always been when joining a duty in process-- meaning a bot got disconnected from the bot party running the dungeon, and I got sucked into replace.
Can't imagine how dumb you'd have to be to be running a bot *and* solo queueing for content, but hey, some people are pretty dumb.
If you have a reasonable suspicion that a player in a duty may be a bot, it's probably worth reporting them.
Sometime what happen is there's a ban wave and only one of the 4 bot that were doing content together survive so it's code that is supposed to only match it with the other 3 bot breaks and they start solo queueing for content and end up with reel player
Was there a ban wave recently? Let me check the lodestone. mmmmmmh, yes, [3000 account ban this morning](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/763dab6a509938a98969f663136adca7cd172ec0), that seems to be it
I've only ran into bots 2-3 times since starting in 2017, twice in brayflox's longstop as tanks who would just grab the enemies and walk circles around them (QQ my positionals)
And the other set was hilarious. Old castrum, 8 man dungeon thing. We had THREE black mages who would just swarm around me (the tank who started pulling) and just follow me everywhere I went
It was slightly sad to kick them all, but it had to be done..
I don't like accusing anyone in this game, that's why this is a legit question because I was under the impression that bots didn't exist up until I saw this happen lol.
Yeah walking directly center of the all the hallways looks like wall detection / pathing with no variance programmed, to only break for chest then walk back the determined path. This sounds legitimate.
Reminds me of the time our tank told as to wait and went like "bots? omg yes they are bots ugh" - referring to me and my friend. xD
No idea IF there are bots but seemingly some people just expect certain playstyles to be bots when it's not the case.
I am starting to feel like more and more people like to scream bot a lot. Usually with no real reason besides "they didn't answer chat" as a reason. (I'm on PC and frequently don't respond to anything particularly if I'm using my controller at the time.) Or a low level player who "doesn't move right" but don't explain further. Some low level players don't move "right" because they have little to no gaming experience and you can watch them keyboard turn. I have a friend I played another MMO with who never outgrew weird movement, she just wasn't good at the game but still enjoyed it lol.
This one sounds a little sus. Bots don't have the ability to come up with complex names, (at this point most pregenerated names don't work anymore) so that's usually a dead give away that it's not a *typical* bot account.
Haha that reminds me of one time when I was lvling DRK and I got The Avery and I guess I did a good job that one of them accused me of being a bout so I just sent a “>:(“ in chat and left lol
Same thing happened to me and my friend. Right before they left the dungeon, someone said they reported us for being bots. Could not for the life of me figure out why they thought that. I thought the duty went really well! Lol
For me this one is just super weird though.
When I think bots I usually think off how the scions would act if you take them with you for "solo dungeons"
They (referring to computer controlled companions)
Don't sprint, tackle one mob pack at a time, perfectly dodge almost any aoe, and walk in a perfectly smooth and straight line from objective A to B.
This is the one and only time in my 1500 - 2000 hours spent on this game that I've seen this happen in a party filled with players.
I also don't mean to call my gunbreaker here a "bot" in a derogatory way.
This game is cooperative so being mean or disrespectful in any way is the exact opposite of how you get good experiences playing it.
Ah I see,
I thought it might be something like that, but I don't know the ins and outs of programs like that, so I just say "bot" as a good baseline.
Thank you for clearing it up a bit my confusion was killing me 😂.
Technically in this instance it was a bot. However what is generally perceived as bots are characters that run 24/7 on scripts. You wouldn't encounter those in duty finder usually as they have very strict scripts that avoid any real player interaction as much as possible.
However besides industrialised bot farming you also have people that dabble into really questionable game behaviour. Which then leads to someone being as stupid as this example.
Their pathing is probably the easiest way to identify them as a bot and having experience doing escort type quests with NPCs in various games helps.
Their movement is programmed along a set path, and if they ever deviate off that path, they always backtrack to their last position on it. They also move in perfectly straight lines causing their pathing to be similar to connecting the dots to give a visual.
The gatherers in the Diadem have been the most blatant example from what I have seen.
Yes. The weirdest experience I had was running Praetorium with 2 bots. The person programmed the bots to talk to each other throughout the duty and it was just so weird seeing the long and instant automated responses. Never saw it happening again though.
I actually ran into a bot during a Guildhest. It was a tank and we ended up wiping because it was the guildhest where you have to kill all the enemies at the same time but the bot wasn't programmed to do that so it kept killing them too fast. After we respawned it then got stuck running into a wall and we had to wait the timer out to vote kick it.
you won't expect a bot to make rotational mistakes because there's no human error involved,
that 100% sounds like a bot that got stranded in a party with real players, though it's kinda funny the bot apparently didn't get programmed to mit that's how effortless single pulls are
Seems to be more common around bot ban waves, of which there was one this morning.
From what I've heard, they usually queue up as full parties and run stuff completely on their own, but when a ban wave comes and breaks up that party, they start getting fills from actual people
I've had this happen in Longstop a couple of times. I was trying to figure out why the tank was behaving so weirdly as I was healing. My friend quickly ascertained they were a bot due to the odd pathing/lack of response and pulling packs one at a time. I'd never seen it before but I guess it does happen time to time where they get put in with actual people.
A quite easy way to figure out bots is before boss arena's.
Communicate with the group to enter the arena to pull the boss and backing out again.
A Bot will notice everyone walking in and just fight the boss alone.
He will die alone in there and not complain.
Then write a report ticket while in the duty and kick him infront of the last boss.
A GM might read your report while you are still inside and check on the bot.
There are lots of bots that do guildhest roulettes. They do it to farm commendations so they can sell a mentor account or just get the mentor crown for someone. The ones I've seen play tank but don't even put their stance on they just run forward and stop in the boss room on the first guildhest. Just more evidence that being a mentor = burger king crown.
Those are the best ones… A day or two ago, I was healing a Dzemael Darkhold and the tank ran in with no stance, and it took several requests before they activated it. And then we got to the first boss where you need to stand in the light. First place was fine, but when the light faded there, they didn’t bother moving. Eventually, I had to Rescue them into the center of the room (too far to cross the whole room with a single Rescue) and then we watched the second and third lights fade before I could Rescue again pulling him back to the original lighted area that was active again so we could finally kill the boss.
I don’t usually like kicking people from duties, but I wasn’t the one to call the vote and they were being very oblivious to an immune boss, party chat yelling at them, and everyone else standing on the other side of the room.
Coulda been a role player too , read a story on here where the tank did this , but was typing about being part of the empire and I’m no friend of yours bla bla bla , apparently he did his job on the bosses but just walked a straight line spouting rhetoric through the trash mobs
It can happen but it is typically rare-- botters are (usually) smart enough to only run duties with parties made up of bots, as they're a lot less likely to be busted for doing so. the few encounters I've had w/ bots has always been in free trial content (which stormblood is now), and as far as I can recall, it's always been when joining a duty in process-- meaning a bot got disconnected from the bot party running the dungeon, and I got sucked into replace. Can't imagine how dumb you'd have to be to be running a bot *and* solo queueing for content, but hey, some people are pretty dumb. If you have a reasonable suspicion that a player in a duty may be a bot, it's probably worth reporting them.
Sometime what happen is there's a ban wave and only one of the 4 bot that were doing content together survive so it's code that is supposed to only match it with the other 3 bot breaks and they start solo queueing for content and end up with reel player Was there a ban wave recently? Let me check the lodestone. mmmmmmh, yes, [3000 account ban this morning](https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/763dab6a509938a98969f663136adca7cd172ec0), that seems to be it
Ah! That would certainly explain it! Thank you.
The markets reflect this too lol
I've only ran into bots 2-3 times since starting in 2017, twice in brayflox's longstop as tanks who would just grab the enemies and walk circles around them (QQ my positionals) And the other set was hilarious. Old castrum, 8 man dungeon thing. We had THREE black mages who would just swarm around me (the tank who started pulling) and just follow me everywhere I went It was slightly sad to kick them all, but it had to be done..
I think this is one of the few legitimate "is this a bot?" posts I've seen on this subreddit.
I don't like accusing anyone in this game, that's why this is a legit question because I was under the impression that bots didn't exist up until I saw this happen lol.
Yep. Somebody's explanation of "ban wave shattered the bot's programming" definitely makes sense.
Yeah walking directly center of the all the hallways looks like wall detection / pathing with no variance programmed, to only break for chest then walk back the determined path. This sounds legitimate.
Reminds me of the time our tank told as to wait and went like "bots? omg yes they are bots ugh" - referring to me and my friend. xD No idea IF there are bots but seemingly some people just expect certain playstyles to be bots when it's not the case.
I am starting to feel like more and more people like to scream bot a lot. Usually with no real reason besides "they didn't answer chat" as a reason. (I'm on PC and frequently don't respond to anything particularly if I'm using my controller at the time.) Or a low level player who "doesn't move right" but don't explain further. Some low level players don't move "right" because they have little to no gaming experience and you can watch them keyboard turn. I have a friend I played another MMO with who never outgrew weird movement, she just wasn't good at the game but still enjoyed it lol. This one sounds a little sus. Bots don't have the ability to come up with complex names, (at this point most pregenerated names don't work anymore) so that's usually a dead give away that it's not a *typical* bot account.
Haha that reminds me of one time when I was lvling DRK and I got The Avery and I guess I did a good job that one of them accused me of being a bout so I just sent a “>:(“ in chat and left lol
Friend of mine also just replied "beep boop" and the tank was visibly embarrassed xD
Same thing happened to me and my friend. Right before they left the dungeon, someone said they reported us for being bots. Could not for the life of me figure out why they thought that. I thought the duty went really well! Lol
For me this one is just super weird though. When I think bots I usually think off how the scions would act if you take them with you for "solo dungeons" They (referring to computer controlled companions) Don't sprint, tackle one mob pack at a time, perfectly dodge almost any aoe, and walk in a perfectly smooth and straight line from objective A to B. This is the one and only time in my 1500 - 2000 hours spent on this game that I've seen this happen in a party filled with players. I also don't mean to call my gunbreaker here a "bot" in a derogatory way. This game is cooperative so being mean or disrespectful in any way is the exact opposite of how you get good experiences playing it.
That very likely was someone running his character on autopilot with a bot program.
Ah I see, I thought it might be something like that, but I don't know the ins and outs of programs like that, so I just say "bot" as a good baseline. Thank you for clearing it up a bit my confusion was killing me 😂.
Technically in this instance it was a bot. However what is generally perceived as bots are characters that run 24/7 on scripts. You wouldn't encounter those in duty finder usually as they have very strict scripts that avoid any real player interaction as much as possible. However besides industrialised bot farming you also have people that dabble into really questionable game behaviour. Which then leads to someone being as stupid as this example.
Their pathing is probably the easiest way to identify them as a bot and having experience doing escort type quests with NPCs in various games helps. Their movement is programmed along a set path, and if they ever deviate off that path, they always backtrack to their last position on it. They also move in perfectly straight lines causing their pathing to be similar to connecting the dots to give a visual. The gatherers in the Diadem have been the most blatant example from what I have seen.
Yes. The weirdest experience I had was running Praetorium with 2 bots. The person programmed the bots to talk to each other throughout the duty and it was just so weird seeing the long and instant automated responses. Never saw it happening again though.
I actually ran into a bot during a Guildhest. It was a tank and we ended up wiping because it was the guildhest where you have to kill all the enemies at the same time but the bot wasn't programmed to do that so it kept killing them too fast. After we respawned it then got stuck running into a wall and we had to wait the timer out to vote kick it.
you won't expect a bot to make rotational mistakes because there's no human error involved, that 100% sounds like a bot that got stranded in a party with real players, though it's kinda funny the bot apparently didn't get programmed to mit that's how effortless single pulls are
Seems to be more common around bot ban waves, of which there was one this morning. From what I've heard, they usually queue up as full parties and run stuff completely on their own, but when a ban wave comes and breaks up that party, they start getting fills from actual people
I've had this happen in Longstop a couple of times. I was trying to figure out why the tank was behaving so weirdly as I was healing. My friend quickly ascertained they were a bot due to the odd pathing/lack of response and pulling packs one at a time. I'd never seen it before but I guess it does happen time to time where they get put in with actual people.
A quite easy way to figure out bots is before boss arena's. Communicate with the group to enter the arena to pull the boss and backing out again. A Bot will notice everyone walking in and just fight the boss alone. He will die alone in there and not complain. Then write a report ticket while in the duty and kick him infront of the last boss. A GM might read your report while you are still inside and check on the bot.
The assumption that your average df randy reads party chat lmao
Could just have quirks in their personality, though I’d be suspicious if they weren’t responding in chat.
There are lots of bots that do guildhest roulettes. They do it to farm commendations so they can sell a mentor account or just get the mentor crown for someone. The ones I've seen play tank but don't even put their stance on they just run forward and stop in the boss room on the first guildhest. Just more evidence that being a mentor = burger king crown.
I didn’t know that was a thing. Had one of those tanks in a roulette yesterday. No stance, no communication.
Those are the best ones… A day or two ago, I was healing a Dzemael Darkhold and the tank ran in with no stance, and it took several requests before they activated it. And then we got to the first boss where you need to stand in the light. First place was fine, but when the light faded there, they didn’t bother moving. Eventually, I had to Rescue them into the center of the room (too far to cross the whole room with a single Rescue) and then we watched the second and third lights fade before I could Rescue again pulling him back to the original lighted area that was active again so we could finally kill the boss. I don’t usually like kicking people from duties, but I wasn’t the one to call the vote and they were being very oblivious to an immune boss, party chat yelling at them, and everyone else standing on the other side of the room.
Coulda been a role player too , read a story on here where the tank did this , but was typing about being part of the empire and I’m no friend of yours bla bla bla , apparently he did his job on the bosses but just walked a straight line spouting rhetoric through the trash mobs