Bot's on Market Board...? Really?

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

They may be, but that 3,577 has got to include a lot of bots.

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I always assumed those numbers are the guys shouting in Limsa and other places advertising RMT. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

From google searching on this, it seems MB bots are far less publicly available than gathering or combat bots. Probably the main reason is because releasing it to the public is impractical, for example 2 or more bots competing and the fact that for the average player it's just not worth camping a MB for tiny profit and grinding prices into the dust when your bot could be out gathering or gil farming. The usual ff14 bots won't add the feature. MB bots do seem to exist, but they're created and sold by commission, or used by, private developers.

I find that sort of thing rather interesting, but it's very disturbing how much of a botting community there is. I think the biggest issues for prices are gathering bots creating massive supply and the fact crafting is just far too easy now, with demand at an all time low since there are ten times more sellers, but far less buyers since more people can just make their own.

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There was a rather prominent bot in WoW that was used for farming a PVP currency and while I was surprised to learn just how much of a community it had, I guess I really shouldn't have been. It forms for the same reasons as any other community: people have some sort of shared experience they wish to discuss. I think the fact that they saw the bot developers as helping them against Blizzard's "unfair" insistence that they actually play the game to earn the rewards helped.

Of course, then Blizzard found a way to easily and reliably identify people who were using the bot and was basically able to just nuke them from orbit. The people developing the bot finally gave up. The community that formed around it went supernova. Not sure SE is really capable of the same though, as I believe WoW did it with their Warden stuff, which basically just spies on your computer and keeps tabs of what programs are running and interacting with the WoW client (it's been a while and I don't remember exactly what it did anymore). I don't think SE has an equivalent for FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by ElazulHP

I always assumed those numbers are the guys shouting in Limsa and other places advertising RMT. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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RMT advertising is its own category.

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・RMT advertising
　・Accounts terminated: 922

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

The community that formed around it went supernova. Not sure SE is really capable of the same though, as I believe WoW did it with their Warden stuff, which basically just spies on your computer and keeps tabs of what programs are running and interacting with the WoW client (it's been a while and I don't remember exactly what it did anymore). I don't think SE has an equivalent for FFXIV.

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1. SE has said in the past and still holds firm today that they do not and will not use anything to spy on your PC. This opens a lot of doors for litigation as Blizzard, Steam, Activision (lately) have gotten into hot water about. The one that springs to mind is DOOM eternal having a warden that had an software that went on the actual kernel to watch dog for cheating software. This ruins clock cycles and performance. Google this and you can clearly see the problems it introduces and for a game like WoW would be MUCH easier to implement as it requires much less in the resource department.

2. Sony and SE have strict understanding on how the game will work and operate through PSN and SE servers. PSN is merely the door to SE servers. If SE were to implement a program to watchdog something for PC they would have to introduce this for PS4 as well. I doubt SONY would offer that up anytime soon as the software/hardware is propriety and under lock and key outside the dev kits they issue. If you affect one part of the FFXIV world you have to assume they would do the other half of the world.

This is mostly why it is very hard for SE to fix this, and was the exact same situation for FFXI. When you cross console, it limits your control on the game as you have to abide by the rules of who you are having allow access. This is why FFXIV is NOT on XBOX 1 this console generation as SE and Microsoft's corporate values didn't line up, and I believe is was centered on how the patches were implemented is what SE walked away from. I think this has been addressed for XBOX series X iteration.

This is why DDoS attacks, security breaches, credit card information, and bank information is held in such high regard and is also very tricky to implement.

The only company that does this as a shinning example is probably Valve (steam). They seem to have figured it out and have been for some time, and have a good track record which the customer trusts.

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

1. SE has said in the past and still holds firm today that they do not and will not use anything to spy on your PC.

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I was unaware that they had commented on that matter, but it makes sense. It's not like they couldn't develop a Warden equivalent if they wanted to.

And even if they did, botting is still a very difficult issue to tackle. I'm not sure what has transpired in WoW since the event that I mentioned as I quit over two years ago, but having monitoring software did not do a whole lot for Blizzard for a long time, and I even personally knew people who botted things like gathering with impunity, albeit for personal use and not for gold selling purposes. It was only during Legion that they seemed to get quite good at identifying botters, which probably has to do with how intrusive Warden or any similar programs are combined with game systems that increasingly make botting worthless, not some brilliant breakthrough in anti-botting strategies.

maybe you find it interesting? please comment or like:

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/4571972/

/shin

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Originally Posted by Shinzan

maybe you find it interesting? please comment or like:

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/4571972/

/shin

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Thank you for the update on the STF report feature. I had no idea about it until now. I will be utilizing this shortly!

This bot situation on the market is out of hand. Does anyone KNOW if SE plans on doing anything?

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Originally Posted by Sqwall

Well I'm not crying about it at all. I'm simply privy to this information and it makes sense that I have to constantly check the MB as there is this insane undercutting game going on behind the scenes. This ruins the crafting gameplay, and I don't have the time to out bid a computer program as it's going to win every time. This isn't about profits or costs of materials, it's about manipulating a market from a game that the BOT controller has NO STACK IN.

This individual or group that admins 20-30 or even 50 bots do this not to upset the players. They do it because it's actually lucrative real money business. If they made $250 a day selling gil for real money that's $7,500 a month! this is still a win for the them as it covers there costs of subs for the month, and more money then I can generate in a month given my career. This is cheating and a sheer exploit. WoW had this. FFXI had this. LoTRO had this. And countless other MMO's.

If I was a company and a select few people were EXPLOITING and USING my product for there own personal gain, they would be in violation and I would bring the ban hammer down hard on these people, as well as legal action and seize there capital gained.

This is NO different then cheating in an eSports tournament when real money is at stack. Or rigging a gambling event (poker, slots, blackjack). Or someone writing a song and someone else downloading it for free (napster gone, limewire gone) Or someone infringing on patent regulations until the patent runs out. This is called fairness. There is NO SKILL in cheating, that's why it's called cheating. Same goes for making a bot program do all the work for you to attain real money.

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How in Hydalens butt, does one play the MB and not care about profit?? The bots undercutting effects your ability to sell goods at prices you agree with. Which is why you are complaining about them cause they are killing your selling power. If you dont care about profit then it stands to reason you should not care about undercutting.

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Originally Posted by NanaWiloh

How in Hydalens butt, does one play the MB and not care about profit?? The bots undercutting effects your ability to sell goods at prices you agree with. Which is why you are complaining about them cause they are killing your selling power. If you dont care about profit then it stands to reason you should not care about undercutting.

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I suppose what I meant there the principal is that bot's don't care about profit. If they have a nearly unlimited supply due to not sacrificing time they can price however they want. The simple explanation: The village get's it's water from the man that owns the well, the well is bottomless and infinite, everyone in the village needs his water and they don't want to go to the next village over as it would require 3 hours one way by walking.

The man that owns the well understands he is the only supply of water which everyone needs, so he starts to increase his prices to quit his job. The village isn't happy, but pay the man anyway because they need the water to live. The man continues to raise his prices alongside the villages ire towards him. Until one day another villager has had enough of paying for exuberant prices and attempts to find his own water source. He drills on his own land and finds a water source deep and infinite. He installs a larger pump which can pump water faster and without any maintenance or supervision. It just run's day and night pumping and pumping.

Well the original man selling water is outraged of this and tries to undercut the man, but he can't keep up with demand as his pump is small and requires many repairs. The man never invested to keep his operation running, which allowed for competition to destroy him.

"How can you sell water so cheap and make a living?" asked the man.
"Easy" said the new water mogul. "It's your water I tapped into. It just so happens to stretch to my land. The only difference is I don't care about profits to be happy, but the villagers don't care where the water comes from, as long as it's cheap."

Moral of this "story" is. Economics is delicate and everything can be taken from those that don't defend it. If you don't care about profits? How do you combat that?.... These bot's only care about selling, and selling fast. Profits don't matter to them as long as they have an infinite supply over us.

Fix the gathering....Crafting will take care of itself.

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Originally Posted by Xoto

This bot situation on the market is out of hand. Does anyone KNOW if SE plans on doing anything?

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Seems to be a negative. I just keep reporting, the bots just keep botting. Not a word in any threads here from SE

I came back on FF after 4years, thinking i would take back some crafting, and right on my 1 day of play, i noticed something wrong, i craft an chest lvl 70 for gatherers, where there was none of it on MB, and when i come check later, a person appear, i think it's normal, a player, but no, cuz while i started crafting items and stuff around 70to80, i didn't even got the time that every mins, the bot changed the price by 1gil.

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

I didn't wanted believe that Bots got into MB, but yes they did, and it's frustrating on the fact, crafting was my only way to get money to support my FC and friends, but now with theses ridiculous prices that have no sense, you got final result less expensive than if you crafted it by yourself, where is the pleasure in it ? I crafted an minion that his mats costed me more than buying directly the minion crafted by bots. And SE wont resolve this, if they failed in FFXI, don't expect miracle in FF14, the economy is broke, no wonder alot of players just buy gils. It's so disapointing, i will try ask refund of my expansion, cuz i regret my come back. Really. Courage to the others craft-lovers, i EXACTLY understand what you guys/girls feel.

Squeenix dug their own grave on the matter of botting in this game, since we as players can't do anything about it on our own (griefing or having the option to pk them for example) without violating the terms of service, the matter falls completely into their hands.

The current Marketboard situation, at least on chaos datacenter, seems so far quite bearable, even for MMO standards but unless the whole situation goes completely out of hand, i will doubt we will see anything being done about it.

SE needs to take a harder approach to bots. Bots on the market, farming and housing. These cheaters need to be taken care of

At this point, I'd just say to put relisting/trade cooldowns based on the level of the item. The closer it gets to max level, the longer you have to wait before you can adjust price/relist. It won't eliminate undercutting, but it will stop bots from constantly shaving a few gil off every few minutes unless they're massively overstocked. At which point, I'd argue it becomes even easier to identify them if routine scans find x of the same item on cooldown despite having multiples listed.

FFXI-style AH wasn't any better and prone to its own exploits, imo.

End of the day, player-run economies in games tend to fail precisely because of bad actors, where you either have to join in on the cheating or suffer through its effects as a more casual player. I'm kinda nearing the point where I'd just prefer solely interacting with NPCs, selling and buying things at nominal prices instead of dealing with the proper time of the day/week to sell things, hopping servers because mine is backwater on value, etc.. Major patches/expansions only temporarily reset that sort of decay, which on its own, doesn't address the bot problem that, given the age of this thread, seems to be half a year strong now.

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Originally Posted by Selphyna

I came back on FF after 4years, thinking i would take back some crafting, and right on my 1 day of play, i noticed something wrong, i craft an chest lvl 70 for gatherers, where there was none of it on MB, and when i come check later, a person appear, i think it's normal, a player, but no, cuz while i started crafting items and stuff around 70to80, i didn't even got the time that every mins, the bot changed the price by 1gil.

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

I didn't wanted believe that Bots got into MB, but yes they did, and it's frustrating on the fact, crafting was my only way to get money to support my FC and friends, but now with theses ridiculous prices that have no sense, you got final result less expensive than if you crafted it by yourself, where is the pleasure in it ? I crafted an minion that his mats costed me more than buying directly the minion crafted by bots. And SE wont resolve this, if they failed in FFXI, don't expect miracle in FF14, the economy is broke, no wonder alot of players just buy gils. It's so disapointing, i will try ask refund of my expansion, cuz i regret my come back. Really. Courage to the others craft-lovers, i EXACTLY understand what you guys/girls feel.

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We have the same issue in Primal (same situation, one person owner of a closed FC, having 9-11 people, which active constantly are between 3 and 4, have easily each character 6 retirners) I reported the player with a good amount of details, the use of multi accounts, timer cycles, etc, and... nothing happened. They are still out there with impunity, the GMs were more worried banning people for posting "unrelated things" in the PF.

I'm laughing so hard right now. After all that back and forth I decided to take that one players advice. So, I just googled it. Low and behold, on the first page, not only did I find requests of people asking for it.. I found someone selling it, a discord name of the individual, a discord server promoting it and the price the app was being sold for. All within the span of 1 minute.

One of the GM's told me to put in a form to their task force for bots, HAH! I did about 50 times, probably the most laziest bunch of people I've ever seen. The guy who I reported harassment to was right on the money, those guys do fine, but whoever is in charge of bots, cheating, RMT's, etc are just flat out lazy and enjoy a free paycheck just like the botters do probably won't ban them out of the fact their kindred spirits and doing so would result in hurting one of their own. The team who handles the harassment though, very good at their job.

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Originally Posted by Selphyna

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

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...That sounded almost like me last week while I was leveling last few levels of my crafter jobs (other than culinary) and then starting on my path to craft the aesthete’s set for myself. >_>

I have a solo FC to ward off random invites, too.

When your DoW/DoM job is far below your crafting jobs, you’re content locked from gathering your own mats anyway. Lower-level mats can be gathered by sending out retainers, and the rest can all be purchased off MB. The only time you’d actually need to step out of your apartment/house is for trips to MB which is right outside the apartment.

I had to rely on GC turn-ins and Ixali dailies for venture coins. And I turned to fishing glamour for additional gil source. (I guess I’m a gambler at heart). Plus I made daily trips to Providence Point. So I probably was out more than a more well-funded crafter would.

In short, aside from the constant market price adjustment, what you described is simply a pure crafter/merchant that’s not all that interested to other aspects of the game. It’s not proof for botting.

But I only adjust my MB prices once or twice a day. (Too lazy)

As for the finished product costing less than mats combined, that seems nearly always the case while leveling. (It’s probably result of leveling crafters buying mats and then dumping finished product on MB) Plus there are HQ quest rewards, kupo stamp and venture drops. I tend to just give up on an item when I don’t see a maker’s signature on MB listings.

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Originally Posted by Selphyna

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

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This doesn't inherently mean they're a bot; there's tons of people I even know personally that like, never ever log out. I also know folks that stand around the summoning bell day in and day out just to make gil, and undercut by a single gil.

As for the free company, I know of soooo many companies that are 'solo' because folks hate getting invite spam from others, as already mentioned.

Be careful if you're reporting these people who may or even may not be bots if you are; some may be actual players trying to simply make gil; I undercut by a single gil too sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Chiibors

One of the GM's told me to put in a form to their task force for bots, HAH! I did about 50 times, probably the most laziest bunch of people I've ever seen. The guy who I reported harassment to was right on the money, those guys do fine, but whoever is in charge of bots, cheating, RMT's, etc are just flat out lazy and enjoy a free paycheck just like the botters do probably won't ban them out of the fact their kindred spirits and doing so would result in hurting one of their own. The team who handles the harassment though, very good at their job.

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This made me laugh so hard, lmao.

Yesterday I found a bot party as I was doing my botanist things. They just don't move like normal people... They warp around as soon as a monster appear.
Too bad I didn't know how to report them. And no, it's not gonna be easy remembering aknsdbrvw-like names to put in the form.
I think it's a good strategy for them using random names. It's gonna be hard for the reporter.

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Originally Posted by kiagenwa

Yesterday I found a bot party as I was doing my botanist things. They just don't move like normal people... They warp around as soon as a monster appear.
Too bad I didn't know how to report them. And no, it's not gonna be easy remembering aknsdbrvw-like names to put in the form.
I think it's a good strategy for them using random names. It's gonna be hard for the reporter.

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Isend them tells or use emotes on them. This way I have their names if I want to report.

Ah... I forgot about that.
Will do that next time seeing them.

Looks like the next 5.5 patch is addressing collision detection. Translation is a little loose, but this partially to address the player or bot position between the client and the server.

This has been normal for quite a while, but is subject to the original 1.0 code of x,y,z coordinates being constantly reported.

Bot's get around this by running a third party software that alters the incoming and outgoing packets by offsetting their x,y,z cords. So this allows them to be undetected.

Now with that out of the way. Improved collision detection will be changed to feedback of a character/player/bot interacting with the world. FROM MY UNDERSTANDING this means SE is monitoring the environment and how it interacts with the client positions.

When you think of a three dimensional space you can have it empty or full of something. Water for instance is an asset, once you break the plane you are now in water, swimming animation, refraction filter added, you can basically fly in the area. You have this transition when you go below the surface and the assets are "loaded" and your client is altered to be "underwater".

Improved collision detection would work the same way if I think this is how I would program this. You fall below the world..."loading" loading would take place. Your client is now in "floating" state. This would be a red flag to the server as saying.... "floating" can not take place in this area.....you are breaking the rules.

Water = "swim" mode if/then statement = water surface -2meters = true
Flying = "mount" mode if/then statement = ether currents unlocked = true
Floating = "bot" mode if/then statement = floor plane broken = true

This is kind of genius and would mean if you fall/through the plane of land, wall, edge, surface you're client would be in an altered state.

Same could go for run speed, mount speed as well.

To Fast = "cheater" mode if/then statement = beyond acceptable movement speed (accounting for all values allowed on mount/walk/run/party bonuses)

I would really like to see this.

Dispatch = "bot" mode if/then statement = amount of material farmed in zone abnormally high (undisclosed amount of mats). Flag player. Case statement = list retainers on account /follow sales and report to data export.

Data includes:
Time played
Time to Max (80)
Jobs maxed
level of chat activity
friends list
mog mail history
Gil transactions

Prolly never happen, but I would like to see that data vs. some of the known bot's on my server to see how it stacks up.

I have an issue with a bot inside the MB it's unfair to those people bargaining on the market, but this bot constantly changes prices by 1 cent lower of the original price I tested it out the item name Aesthete's Doublet of Gathering was going over 200000 Gil and I changed the price of 75000 the bot match my 75000 Gil .That can't be a human being changing those prices that's ridiculous and a normal human being will know better not to sell it at that price it's definitely a bot. There is proof of me manipulating the bot. Sorry it's a long video but you can skip a couple of minutes to see what happens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEg5eCb8mhY

I reported them to the GM but it's been two weeks and nothing has been done but my guess is that SE knows about this problem but the gm's not wasting their time because you get rid of one cockroach another one come back

As someone who crafts end-game gear, mainly Aesthete and Exarch, I can verify that on numerous occasions that I have severely undercut others selling the same thing. Something that takes less than 5 minutes to make and is necessary for players hoping to go further than what they can manage to scrounge from repeated clears of dungeons or buying with white scrip, should not cost 100k+. Holding players back, especially ones who don't feel comfortable with begging others for a handout, by charging stupidly high prices for gear is toxic as hell. Naturally, the only way to combat price gouging on the MB is to mass produce HQ products and sell them for far less than the standard price. The worst part is that crafters who engage is toxic behavior like this will lie to admin about the presence of bots to try and get their competition removed. Talk about greed.

100-150k for one exarchic gear item is not holding players back. You can make this daily through roulette.

Logic doesn't apply to people who can level multiple crafters and gatherers to 80, gear them, meld them, acquire food, gather from timed nodes, scrip farm for sublimes, start craft and make Exarchic items in under 5 minutes total. I wish I knew their secret.

Nor does logic apply to people who need a full Exarchic set the moment they hit 80 because stepping foot into any sort of content and farming gear in what is possibly the least grindy MMO out there to obtain gear, is somehow too much work.

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Originally Posted by KapraGoatmog

Something that takes less than 5 minutes to make and is necessary for players hoping to go further than what they can manage to scrounge from repeated clears of dungeons or buying with white scrip, should not cost 100k+.

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You didn't walk into a guild, unlock the needed class then make the item 5 minutes later. There was still considerable effort to level, gear, meld, etc. before you could attempt to craft the item.

Don't undersell the value of the personal effort you put in to get the to the point you're able to craft an item.

And of course it should cost 100k+ when you're comparing to the value of the effort the other player would have to put into farming the equivalent items in the intended gear progression path. The value set needs to be high enough for the player to weigh the decision whether they are better off buying or doing the content. Buying off the MB should never be seen as the cheaper option.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Nor does logic apply to people who need a full Exarchic set the moment they hit 80 because stepping foot into any sort of content and farming gear in what is possibly the least grindy MMO out there to obtain gear, is somehow too much work.

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I'd stretch your second point a bit and say logic doesn't apply to the marketboard in general because it's just a convenience system with optional items of subjective value. Those who provide the convenience are going to value their time differently based on their own needs and wants.

The problem is the bots out there that take that convenience to a whole new level, upsetting the markets for those who can't AFK to do other things while crafts continue to spit out.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Logic doesn't apply to people who can level multiple crafters and gatherers to 80, gear them, meld them, acquire food, gather from timed nodes, scrip farm for sublimes, start craft and make Exarchic items in under 5 minutes total. I wish I knew their secret.

Nor does logic apply to people who need a full Exarchic set the moment they hit 80 because stepping foot into any sort of content and farming gear in what is possibly the least grindy MMO out there to obtain gear, is somehow too much work.

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When you have infinite GIL....you don't farm....you buy VAST amounts of mats. I do this with sublime solution to keep me away from the time sink of collectibles. Before I had my wealth...yeah I would scrip all day for maybe a little sand or sublimes. Now those days are behind me where I just buy sand. I crafted my whole Ashesthes (spelling) gear and Penta melded it. They only way I got ahead was I had a FC mate make my HQ Facet crafting. I purchased ALL the mats needed and had my FC mate craft it. Cost me around 8 mil (1 million gil tip for their time), and I was off to the races. I turned that 8mil investment into 20 mil in about a month.

Then I spent 9 million on Materia. 1. to horde 2. to pentameld my new gear.

Then I worked on my gathering set, but I made my own HQ Facet gathering set. Didn't meld that. This fueled my crafting even further as I was able to get HQ mats for free.

Eventually my crafting didn't need HQ mats anymore and just sold all my HQ mats for free gil. I was making around 4-5 mil per week, then 8, then 10.

Now. I don't own an ingame house. Nor do I want to. I have postioned myself to gather less....and less....and less. As I buy more...and more...and more mats to feed my crafting.

This is where I hold the idea up that if SE fixes gathering then the bots will simply vanish. Here's how...Make gathering RNG style like collectibles is now. Gathering Thunder Rocks for ethereal reduction is simple, yet requires actual thought process. Not to mention you need GP to actually interact with the node. I'm not saying duplicate the collectible gathering completely, but make it along those lines rather then just using "Pick Clean" which guarantees HIGH volumes of mats while you don't even need to use any GP to gather also.

If SE fixes gathering....they subsequently fix these crafting bots from having they're gathering bots go out and just auto-farm an areas node over and over until their inventory is full of 1 type of mat. It's a lot harder to have a bot go out and interact with RNG, while also being forced to use GP.

Once the gathering markets are more stable and high volumes are down to normal amounts, then crafting will follow suit. It will take time for the crafting market to stabilize until all the bot farmed mat's dry up, then the crafting bot's will be forced to use non-bot farmed mats to supply their endeavors. Crafted gear/materials supplies will diminish, and prices will go up. The crafting bot's will still be there, but at much more reduced amount. That is why I hope SE implements Expert style crafting for all "Star" items. This will GREATLY reduce the bot's HQ success rate as they try to deal with expert RNG. Crafters get the complexity back, and gathering becomes lucrative again.

Will this all happen....I doubt it.

There’s always the officially sanctioned “bots”, aka retainers, doing the gathering.

Personally as gatherer I like not having to compete for nodes, and as crafter I love being able to send retainers out to gather stuff for me. But the virtually unlimited supply of mats is probably one of the reasons why inflation in this game seems out of control.

First off, I'd like to compliment you on the excellent choice of being a Duskwight, you are a player of culture.

Secondly, while I agree botting is a serious issue, I've seen them all over the place since ARR, and it's unfortunately why I have to gather my own shards/crystals/etc as I don't want to support that. People selling large stacks or quantities of stacks aren't always bots though. Back in HW, I was able to get a zone or two ahead of the pack and spent days doing nothing but gathering and selling stacks and stacks of materials, some raw, others processed (logs, etc). A canny player will be able to prepare for upcoming patches and be ready to capitalize on an emerging, short-term, market. Sometimes a returnee clearing out inventory looks like a bot too...I've got thousands of pieces of various Skybuilder's materials that I'm trying to dump after coming back and I'm sure people think I'm a bot.

If you're on Atomos and need to level a crafter, please buy my stuff! LOL

Regards,
IQ

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Originally Posted by Seleni

There’s always the officially sanctioned “bots”, aka retainers, doing the gathering.

Personally as gatherer I like not having to compete for nodes, and as crafter I love being able to send retainers out to gather stuff for me. But the virtually unlimited supply of mats is probably one of the reasons why inflation in this game seems out of control.

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Imagine being able to turn raw materials in for mounts etc that are better than the current scrip stuff. If there was something that ended up being more appealing than the Gil I could earn selling ore/logs or ingots/lumber/gems that I could earn by turning in large amounts of materials (not finished goods like rings), I'd be all about that. Until then, I'm going to be making as much money as I can on the off chance I'm actually able to procure a house plot. It's good to dream, right?