March 2022 Version Update

A bot isn't going to report you most of the time, neither will RMT.

However, yes it's still considered a rule violation.

I reported a bot 15 years ago, and I got impatient waiting for the GM to arrive. So I got on my BST and I killed a bunch of them over and over again. The GM I called was watching, saw what I was doing and I got a temp ban for it.

Nothing I said had any impact at all, he acted like police officer following the letter of the law.

I killed a "player character", that it was a bot or rmt was irrelevant.

Yes, releasing on a party is the definition of MPK

In todays game it is essentially impossible to force a mob to attack a player and it is impossible to force a player to attack a mob.

(you can bring mobs into their or their trusts AOE and there are very few mobs you can force to aggro a player by warping/dieing)
((or diaga/poisonga their pulls))

I was bored one day and there was a bot casting single target spells on an elemental. I was able to maintain enough hate on it from behind while another mob spawned so it deselected his target. Since his bot only casted a spell in his line of sight, he never killed my mob and it kept attacking him, ultimately killing him in time. It was way more effort than it was worth tbh.

out here ruining someone's day for taping their enter key down on aero lmao

Dude, get bent. Also: they aren't "your mobs" they're white ergo free game. If you engage in MPK activity then you're breaking the ToS, end of story.

Lol, someone's salty. I don't care either way, whether it breaks the conditions or not. SE won't do a thing.

Never thought I'd see players defend bots but here we are.


Poor BLU's so demarginalized what ever will jobs like THF,DNC,BST,and PUP will do.

That's where you're wrong, guy.

I would also be surprised. Long ago when gain exp was still a thing, some brilliant person on Shiva would often show up about an hour in and set up the world's slowest, most tragic bot party right on top of my ls's camp (like, it was beyond obvious the camp was already in active use).

We would just pull around them, but it happened a couple of times where their bots died while following our pulls or attacking an ascended mob that had gone unclaimed. It's not like we could have stopped them from doing that, guy never acknowledged a single message lol

Lol do you actually think a bot would report an MPK and SE would do something about MPK when there are hoards of bots running around farming at flee speed? Hard to tell if the horse **** that comes out of Jetackuu is trolling or just low INT

Bit of both, always been that way. SE does not give a crap or it would have done more. Why would they bother with me? I'm invisible compared to the RMT bot armies. And I'm gaining absolutely nothing from doing this, aside from wasting my time, unlike these bots.

SE isnt going to ban anyone. They've even laxed on their auto ban system from what I have noticed. They probably arent going to do anything until the next exploit surfaces. I highly doubt they will do anything to someone casting diaga to MPK an RMT, almost 0% chance.

Lol this is so wrong/naive/plain stupid. Automating equiping a set of gear is mainly quality of life (as macro sets exist in game). Of course removing the thinking and user control speed element through automation improves performance, but the important piece is, does this impact other players experience? Botting has a negative impact on players who are actually playing.


Your comparison is more like saying both broke the law when comparing a jaywalker and serial killer.

botting is a quality of life

Not having to stop while activating JA's. Knowing a monsters actual level, or seeing the buff / debuffs of everyone in the party :D

Quality of life = usability improvement/development/engineering. If you remove the user altogether this is no longer impacting usability.

it is impacting my usability.

No, it is permitting you to use/engage in/experience something else, which is not the same as QoL for FFXI.

damn when did they add macros that can read what time of day/day of the week it is and what element spell I'm casting to equip an obi

can guarantee 99% of gearswap files out there do this

gearswap goes well beyond the scope of just QoL making easier to use and more responsive macros. it automates several gameplay functions, and some of the most popular ones out there these days can almost be classified as bots themselves with how much automation they have packed into them. you barely have to think about ***because the file does it all for you. some of them even weaponskill for you. and no, there aren't a bunch of good boys running around just using it to replace in game gear sets, there's a handful of them out there sure but that is absolutely not the norm. majority of gearswap users that I know use selindrile's files, partly due to the fact that they can't be bothered to make their own but also for all those automations that i talked about earlier. I don;t think his has an autoWS function but it does a whole lot of questionable ***that no one really seems to bat an eye at these days.

anyway that was just a long winded way of saying that gearswap isn't necessarily "just QoL" and I'd wager a vast majority of its users do not use it just for QoL.

This is perfectly possible in game and has been for many years, but as I stated above the automation does improve performance (but importantly, doesnt really impact the game experience of other players).

The 'read' part is now done by the player instead of automation. Player sees it is firesday > hits macro for equipset(which contains obi) > hits macro to cast fire > hits macro back to idle/tp/whatever.

it sure as ***does impact the experience of other players if the person using gearswap is doing twice as much damage to ongo as the *** using in game equipsets. just cause gearswap isnt directly causing inflation/deflation or taking your EXP camps doesn't mean it has no impact on other players who the gearswap users are playing with.

I swear that if Windower died tomorrow, at least half the player base would quit the game. Don't make out like things like Gearswap doesn't go beyond just general "quality of life" features. It lets you play in a way you'd very seriously struggle to do without. Glad I never relied on it, I'd hate any kind of automation in my play.

In this imaginary world where a player is relying on in game sets and getting upset that ongo was killed too fast/or their dps was lower than the other player using gearswap? Not a situation I can say i've experienced lol you? Botting pisses off most players at the keyboard. I agree gearswap is not devoid of impact, but context and impact to the player base is important, and it is not comparable to botting:

Not me personally, but if a person under performs versus the expectations (which could technically be raised due to the aid of tools), this can lead to not only losing future invites but also to literal harassment. Sometimes the more toxic folks don't even have the full picture and just rely on what Scoreboard tells them.

I've seen this. Those who use all the tools may sometimes look down on others who don't, and refuses to invite them because they know they'll under perform compared to someone who does. It's easier to show off your potential when the game plays itself half the time.

^Seriously, if you don't think this mentality exists then it's not me in the imaginary world. Gearswap (and spellcast before it) has been no small variable in where the game's overall "unfriendliness" at endgame has come from. It isn't difficult to measure an average player using gearswap vs an average player without. I know exactly one (1) person who uses in game sets and plays better than anyone else on this website and beyond, but they are not the norm and are an exceptional player in general. There are a lot of people out there who won't want to see their time wasted by "lesser" (i.e. vanilla) players.

Try topping a parse with no tools to stop JA delay, no clipping through enemies, no gearswap, or any other tool like React, automation of medicinal items, and the like. Better yet, ignore the parse and think about the group for a change. It shouldn't be a competition.

I agree with you, it's a good point. But most people are using gearswap to at least swap gearsets so the impact is near negligible. Again, I dont claim gearswap has no impact - Personally I disagree with using it for anti-knock back, auto-turn or whatever other shite that doesnt have an in game equivilant. The point is swapping gear and botting are not comparable as per the original comment: Do notice this specifies "automating gear swapping", not all the other crap which is being compared..

Now, it you manipulate gearswap as suggested here:
This is just botting, using a program that doesnt have to be used for botting.

I don't remember who on here said this, but SB really should be used mainly as a tool for self-improvement. It helps me at least, with keeping track of roughly how I'm doing compared to other players, and it gives a numerical value to tie to my in-game performance. As silly as that may sound, having a numerical quantity of my output makes it easier to set goals and further incentivizes me to play the job better.

Other than that, it sometimes helps diagnose problems with failed runs. Usually if an AFAC strat fails during some HELM, we can get an idea of if someone messed up, and that info helps us when we try again.

If someone posts a parse and they're 5~10% ahead of me and intends to use that to put me down, I just tell them that I don't use luas, that usually that shuts them up.