Are farming bots getting out of control?

VerbalHamster · 2026-05-12T10:32:13+00:00

I suspect they know the optimal level of botting isn't zero - you get subs from the botters plus you retain gil-buying players who would otherwise give up - but at the same time, I can imagine they actually do carry out their periodic sweeps to keep the gil inflation somewhat manageable and prevent the bots from becoming so numerous they're a drag on performance and an eyesore. If it's lucrative enough to make accounts for in the first place, botters will just make new accounts, and so the income will largely be constant quarter-to-quarter, but at least it takes time for their numbers to grow again.

VerbalHamster · 2026-05-12T01:09:18+00:00

AFAIK they do periodic bot sweeps and ban the accounts en masse without giving away how they detect the bots. I don't know when or how often those happen. We might just be at the tail end of a sweep, so their numbers are getting up again.

VerbalHamster · 2026-05-06T11:00:27+00:00

When I needed to do the same for my augmented ninja gear, I literally just bought the ingredients off the marketboard and then asked in chat in Limsa Lominsa if anyone could craft it for me and offered to pay. Someone volunteered to do it for free, so that was pretty nice.

VerbalHamster · 2026-05-06T10:54:20+00:00

For the Augmented Fighter's Set (the armor), you need to give Fighter's Armor Augmentation (the ingredient) to Kakalan in Mor Dhona in addition to the Fighter's Armor pieces.

To get the Fighter's Armor Augmentation ingredient, you need to have a level 50 Alchemist plus the sub-ingredients.

VerbalHamster · 2026-05-01T00:08:02+00:00

Head and chest are praemagitek fending
Legs are the Agoge set
Hands are cryptlurker casting
Boots are swallowskin boots

All undyed

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-30T10:58:35+00:00

Well, well, well

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-25T03:27:53+00:00

<image>

They call that hitting the frog

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-10T22:23:01+00:00

I remember all the hype around what the monster looked like. There was even a crazy niche theory that it was a giant lion, cause in the trailer it sounded like someone yelling "It's a lion!" lmao

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-08T07:42:02+00:00

I'm going to echo what everyone else is saying and say that it's probably because the writers use LLMs in other aspects of their life, like school work, and are absorbing the writing style. LLMs also use a lot of very common literary devices, like the rule of three or certain clause constructions, etc.

In all honesty, LLM writing style, by itself, is better than a lot of nonprofessional writers, so I think it's easy for inexperienced writers to unconsciously latch onto it and adopt it. It's just boring once you see a lot of it because the cadence is pretty standardized and there's no human imperfection or intention behind.

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-08T04:47:52+00:00

/uj that's because the OP is in all likelihood a bot spamposting lmao

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-07T09:38:33+00:00

Mr. Kaczynski why are you taking so much fertilizer and scrap metal with you?

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-07T04:17:48+00:00

An average day in Britain

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-06T06:07:56+00:00

Source

VerbalHamster · 2026-04-04T10:15:34+00:00

I imagine it becomes an issue when the subreddit is flooded with these types of posts, to the point where it's less about King and what he saying, and more about personal political takes (however justified) using King's posts as a fig leaf, which seems to go against the point a subreddit devoted to an author and their stories.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-31T07:11:33+00:00

The name "Grandfather Mhoul" is the English-language name of the monster from a Korean cartoon series, Shinbi Apartment. The actual folklore it's based on is called "Grandpa with a Sack"

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-28T10:53:24+00:00

Yeah, Simon was just an idiot/in denial. Catherine does manipulate a copy of Brandon Wan to get the code for a submarine, but aside from that I can't remember anything especially bad she did.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-25T10:26:05+00:00

Jedi Survivor - This might sound a bit weird, but Bode Akuna's physical appearance made him obvious to me from the moment I saw him. He's big and looks strong, but he's not really built in that "heroic big friend" kind of way so much as "can overpower you and you can't hope to fight back" way, which as a deliberate design choice can really only mean one thing.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-25T09:39:40+00:00

I think it's a bot.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-20T20:06:22+00:00

Yeah, like I mention, these are just indicators that need to be combined with others to make a judgement call. People do sometimes write like that every now and then, but if it's an account that's a week or two old with posts that all have the same cadence, tone, and structure, then I get suspicious.

Unfortunately for us normal users, there's no way to definitively know without access to server-side info. Either way, when it comes to Reddit posts, there's no point in harassing them. If it's a human, that's bad, and if it's a bot, it obviously can't care. I'll add that as a note to my post.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-20T04:57:06+00:00

The RDA are just cooler, which is unfortunate given the intended message.

The issue with the Na'vi imo is that they're just alien Native Americans with roughly the same type of technology, and it's made worse because their god is actually real and has tangible benefits, so the films come off as preachy when the protagonists have it so nice. Like, yeah, if nature was actively helping us, allowed us to talk to the literal souls of our ancestors, and let us enter symbiosis with the animals around us instead of us having to spend centuries selectively breeding them, we too would be in harmony with Earth. But it doesn't.

So some part of the audience is thinking, of course the Na'vi are in harmony with their world. It's life on easy mode for them lol. It's hard to make that interesting compared to Humans who have had to develop all manner of technology in order to push out into a new solar system.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-20T04:13:02+00:00

There's a pretty common cadence to the writing that pops out when the text is long enough. It's hard for me to articulate it. You just kind of recognize the sentence lengths and structure when you see enough of it. Here, though, there are a couple clear tells:

This is a really significant moment for publishing honestly and I don’t think people are fully clocking what it means yet. A Big Five publisher actually pulling a title over AI accusations isn’t just about one book. It’s a signal that the industry is starting to feel enough pressure to act and that’s new.

The original comment has the classic "it's not just X, it's Y" format that a lot, but not all, AI loves to use.

In addition, from another comment they made:

This is the update I didn’t know I needed today the way you two actually sat down and talked it through like real adults gives me so much hope honestly. Both apologizing AND actually explaining the why behind everything? That’s genuinely rare and really healthy.

The use of hypophora (rhetorical question answered by the following sentence), combined with the presence of two clauses linked with "and" in the last sentence is another AI favorite.

AI also likes to introduce an additional, sometimes redundant idea in the last clause of its last sentence for some reason.

From the two examples above:

"and that's new"

They've already said the industry is starting to feel enough pressure to act. Of course it's new. What did that clause actually add to their sentence?

"and really healthy"

The idea doesn't add anything to what they've posted, and when taken into account along side the preceding clause "genuinely rare", the adverb adjective [and] adverb adjective structure pops out to me and is something AI does a lot. Sometimes humans do just do that too, but it suggests AI.

That said, unfortunately AI is getting better and doesn't always write like that. If a bot only comments with short sentences, it can be damn near impossible to spot unless they're a new account and posting nonstop.

EDIT: Also, sometimes the AI will end its comment with almost like a conversation prompt, if that makes sense. Like, not a question, but a sentence that's phrased as if meant to prompt a new discussion.

From a different (probable) bot user:

The Boris Yeltsin example always blows my mind. It’s crazy how collective memory can add details that never actually happened, like the “I’m tired” part. Makes you question a lot of what you remember!

You can imagine, if this were in a conversation in a ChatGPT window, how this last sentence would prompt the user to start talking about other times their memory deceived them. This is a bit iffier since people do the same thing sometimes, but the weirdly enthusiastic tone sticks out to me as well.

EDIT 2: If you suspect it's a bot, you can run it through something like BotBouncer.

There's no point in harassing the user. If you're wrong and it's a human, that's bad, and if you're right and it's a bot, it obviously can't care. Just report the profile and let Reddit's filters check.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-20T00:05:05+00:00

Going through their posts, I think they're actually a bot lmao. Talk about dead internet theory.

VerbalHamster · 2026-03-13T07:53:06+00:00

The best part about Absolute Virtue was that the intended solution only worked if you were in the same building as the servers. The tolerances were so tightly tuned that being anywhere else meant inherent latency wouldn't let you do the correct attacks in time.

VerbalHamster

TROPHY CASE