I was thinking about ways that FFXIVMinion could be made more 'realistic' in terms of convincing players that you 'arent a bot'.
Came up with the following list
- In Party Banter: For when you are running a party of bots, you could create a series of 'fake' conversations. Eg: Bot1 says x, Bot2 says y : with programmable delays etc
- Ready Checks: Not everyone uses them, but if you were doing a 'Duty' with the bot, maybe getting the party leader to ready check before battles, and having the slave bots respond accordingly.
- Hunt Mob Helpers: How many times has someone asked over shout channel 'where A Grade X Monster is'. Perhaps FFXIVMinion knows? What if your Bot could be configured to 'shout out' the coordinates of the monster, if/when your bot comes within x range of the monster. The 'public' shout would throw people off, making them think you really are a human player - because after all, you just offered some public information to everyone. (alibi)
having hte bot talk in ANY way is a horrible idea, this will spot the bot as a bot if anyone is around long enough. if you are in duty you are with other bots or your own bots so no need to use a duty ready check.
Yeah, but the current theory on how people are getting caught in duties is that a GM is monitoring what goes on inside duties (spot checks etc)
If there is absolutely no communication between 'players' it might not raise any alarms.
That being said - if there is some communication between players, it would make an observing GM think twice before writing them off as bots.
This obviously doesnt take into consideration tele-casts etc
That sort of thing would still raise a red flag.
the fact that your doing hte duty in the air with 4 black mages doesnt matter how much the bots talk... and looping the same 3 conversations over say a week would be just another metric for them to track.
That and most people don't talk in duties.
outside of new content people dont talk in instances. maybe a hello at the start.
If gm's are loading into duty servers and checking instance by isntance. They probably dont even load / look at chat.... why would they? they probably looks for consistency in positional data / floating height values.
If a unspoiled node bot called out every hunt mob It passed you would probably get white knighted inside a week. People would get to know your name, and people who were actually looking for those mobs would probably whisper you to say thanks. NEVER do anything to draw attention to yourself.
If you dont want people to know your a bot theres a lot of things you can do to alter your appearance or stats.
-dont rock blm Af with an astrolabe longer then you need to
-upgrade soldiery / poetics in a different order on your bots (get a hat on one, a coat on another ect.)
-If you have a botting LS, have more then 8 people in it. make alts and join them in
-level an alternate class / crafts. spend a few hours to WPE some crafts up, gathering bot.
-change your LS tag from time to time so it doesnt become recognizeable (applies to gathering bots mostly)
-make a chat log just for /tell and emotes and scan it once a day (applies to gathering bots)
-put a little effort into your gear / look. if you're mining unspoiled nodes 24/7 with base gear people will notice and think your an uber jew or a bot.
The things you do as a player are often more of a give away then the actual bot. If you have 4 blms in AF with astrolabes in a 4 man LS you will get white knighted without breaking any actual rules infront of that person who reported you.
Nobody is going to report my i125 blm with a dreadwyrm staff lol.
If you do a lot of unspoiled nodes. people who suspect you for botting will talk to you, and emote at you. /pet them back (emote of choice for suspected bots on my server) and speak to them if they are on when you check up on your bot (importance of a log that only has tell and emotes checked) but dont be social, short concise answers so they dont continue to talk to you. It may sound like a lot of work but i've been unspoiled gathering for 4 months essentially 24/7. I have not been banned, and only spent about 30 minutes talking /emoting at people.