I've only seen one topic about a person being banned anytime recently, iirc. If you're not botting in Northern Thanalan with Fate Bot, you're basically safe. As with any botting software, don't risk what you aren't willing to lose.
They were basically bot trains. It may have calmed down by now, but I still wouldn't risk it there. Once flying is fully supported, it should be safer in Northern Thanalan than it is now.
It's also very server dependent. Some servers will go after botters, others don't care in the slightest. Most of all don't be an idiot and run the same thing 24/7.
I believe N Than specifically became the target of "white knight" reports, in which some players activity search for bot activity and report it when found, then spam the local channels incessantly to get others to report it. It is the player reports that SE takes more seriously, thus leading to the risk. This is why more crowded servers had a much higher risk, since the likelihood of white knights becomes much greater as the population increases. If you try to stick to less populated areas when botting, your risk becomes exponentially lower for receiving disciplinary action from SE.
Your'e definitely right to some extent, and less populated areas are safer to bot, albeit less rewarding. However the server I'm on is high population, and as far as I can tell N Than is still safe. I have never seen anything close to the "white knight" behavior that other servers have to deal with. In fact bots are the reason N Than is still the best place to fate(which makes complaints about bots hilarious), and there is still a decent train going. I recently did it in 2-3 hour increments, but around the xpac I was doing it almost 24/7, with no problems yet. For the original poster also keep in mind first time is going to be a temporary ban, and I would be shocked if the second time wasn't as well. SE only responds because paying customers complain, but they do not want to lose paying customers in the process. My feeling is that permanent bans are for behavior that directly and negatively impacts other players(gil sellers), not people that bot for their own benefit.
I have to agree it depends on the server, I believe NA servers have more of these "white knights", on my server it's widely acknowledged that N.Than has a bot train, but no one really cares because it makes the fates go down faster and quicker. But even so I just fate botted in a dead area, but it was still giving me 300-400k XP per hour. To the original post the ban all depends on how you bot, most bans I've seen on this forum have been from 24/7 Botting, but also keep in mind the server you're playing on. Some server don't have such a forgiving community. Even so bans are still few and far between. So It's like minuscule considering the size of the bot community. I mean I'm sure SE have more crazy bots to worry about, I've seen other shitty bots floating in the air attacking mobs, I reported the shit out of them and then the bots that can do duties, when those break you will just see a big group of BLM with same gear all over town. These are the kind of things more likely to get reported, than just you in a giant crowd of bots (80+ Depending on server) . As you can see RB is probably the safest bot on the market, because it doesn't put it's users at higher risk, by giving them risky options.
