I give up, the bots win AKA: My flight is scheduled for departure

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Originally Posted by MariaArvana

The RMT bots aren't trial accounts. The trial has far too many restrictions on it for them to actually accomplish anything. They use sophisticated fraudulent credit card schemes along with stolen credit card #'s & chargebacks to make accounts on the game, hence why it's basically impossible to keep them under control. Anytime you ban them, they load up the next credit card number on their endless database and are back in 0.5 nanoseconds generating gil.

Due to the volatility of their accounts since they get banned on the next wave after their chargebacks show up, they can't mess with the MB outside of extremely easy to farm stuff like Shards. The actual accounts that control MBs are 99.9% actual players using automated systems, which is where jijifli's point is extremely true. Any legit player they ban is less $$$ each month since many might not choose to return, and Square might simply value profit since its quantifiable that they'd lose $15/month losing them (especially if they've paid their sub every single month for years), but its un-quantifiable what they'd lose by not banning them.

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The marketboard bot rings I've run into do seem to be two accounts per botting FC. But it's hard to say much they generate in money on SE's side of things. Would they return if banned? I think so. I've seen the same person create the same scheme on every server on the Crystal DC (and I suspect they've branched out to other DCs). That's quite a few accounts, so yes it would hit their 'so many subscribed' number by like... 14 accounts? And they'd lose each account's $15 a month. But those accounts do nothing else. They don't buy anything on the cash shop (other than maybe a boost and story skip for the main crafting bot, that's $50 once, or less if the boosts/skips are on sale at that time.). Their second account *might* have bought extra retainers for listing items. I'd have to research that tbh. If they only have the standard 2 you get with an account though, that's 14 retainers and just $15 a month.

So bare minimum you have two accounts running at $30 a month (less if the main crafter pays the lesser cost of $12.99 a month and less still if they buy it in 6 month chunks). And a one time purchase of at most, $50 for story skip and job boost. Compared to players who frequently purchase more than one retainer, buy plenty of stuff on the cash shop, and tend to pay the full $15 a month in order to have more alts than just 1 per server.

Meanwhile, the botter is likely selling the gil they make as RMT, so paying out $30 a month with a one time $50 fee is worth it, they make more without really having to do much as their operation is 95% automated.

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

The marketboard bot rings I've run into do seem to be two accounts per botting FC. But it's hard to say much they generate in money on SE's side of things. Would they return if banned? I think so. I've seen the same person create the same scheme on every server on the Crystal DC (and I suspect they've branched out to other DCs). That's quite a few accounts, so yes it would hit their 'so many subscribed' number by like... 14 accounts? And they'd lose each account's $15 a month. But those accounts do nothing else. They don't buy anything on the cash shop (other than maybe a boost and story skip for the main crafting bot, that's $50 once, or less if the boosts/skips are on sale at that time.). Their second account *might* have bought extra retainers for listing items. I'd have to research that tbh. If they only have the standard 2 you get with an account though, that's 14 retainers and just $15 a month.

So bare minimum you have two accounts running at $30 a month (less if the main crafter pays the lesser cost of $12.99 a month and less still if they buy it in 6 month chunks). And a one time purchase of at most, $50 for story skip and job boost. Compared to players who frequently purchase more than one retainer, buy plenty of stuff on the cash shop, and tend to pay the full $15 a month in order to have more alts than just 1 per server.

Meanwhile, the botter is likely selling the gil they make as RMT, so paying out $30 a month with a one time $50 fee is worth it, they make more without really having to do much as their operation is 95% automated.

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Pretty sure one of the forum trolls is a botter. Accounts on so many servers all crafting focused

bye, crafting is still good money, bots are an issue yes, but they aren't going away anytime soon.

Crafting is obviously still profitable, but it's sucky that you're basically forced into niche markets when the bot farmers dominate everything mainstream.

They should never be so oppressive that you're forced to adjust your gameplay to accommodate for their presence.

Sometimes I honestly wish they'd bring back the specialist requirements for the top end gear because it restricted how much influence a single player could have on the market.

I see comments of how "bots exist in every MMO, it can't be helped" but this wasn't really an issue until the crafting nerfs started late Stormblood and only got worse the easier they made it. Between cross-world markets, simplifying 2-4 star crafts, tripling exp, spamming Ishgard collectibles to level and making materials far easier to obtain, they've gradually turned crafting into a mindless bot heaven. I'm sure the occasional bot existed before late Stormblood but they didn't control the markets like they do today. The issue has become 10 times worse and only continues downhill, with bots constantly improving their AI and leaking into all aspects of the game, PvE, PvP, treasure maps, leveling, dungeons, raids, market board, housing, Expert crafts and so on. This is because Enix have all but confirmed they have no power over player bots and you won't be punished as long as you don't announce it in chat or make it extremely obvious.

It says a lot about the state of crafting when spamming Coffee biscuits for the 6k leve reward is becoming one of the more lucrative ways of making quick cash. 6k used to be peanuts, but in todays economy it's often easier than trying to sell 4 star items on the mb.

Imagine rage quitting because you can't sell something at the profit you want. Check your privilege. I'm glad that Medium sized house which you don't seem to appreciate will be going back into circulation.


Signed, someone always looking for the best deal.

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Originally Posted by Nafreyu

Imagine rage quitting because you can't sell something at the profit you want. Check your privilege. I'm glad that Medium sized house which you don't seem to appreciate will be going back into circulation.


Signed, someone always looking for the best deal.

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No, it's actually a matter of principle, if they continue to do nothing, as this guy has clearly seen first hand then there's no reason to stay in his case since it infests his last avenues of play and the precedent being set here is they're too afraid to step on players' toes, and this will continue to happen until it truly gets out of control. It's not a matter of privilege, people shouldn't be botting in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Nafreyu

Imagine rage quitting because you can't sell something at the profit you want. Check your privilege.

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It's less "sell at the profit you want" and more "can't sell anything at all" ever since the undercutting scripts went mainstream.

More then a few of the bot farmers sell their gear on dedicated alts that adjust their prices so often that it's virtually impossible to move items unless you sell it below their price floor which is generally going to be so low you'd be better off just spamming coffee biscuit leves.

The prices have tanked so much that it's not even worth trying to sell anything mainstream on the marketboard for the most part.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It's less "sell at the profit you want" and more "can't sell anything at all" ever since the undercutting scripts went mainstream.

More then a few of the bot farmers sell their gear on dedicated alts that adjust their prices so often that it's virtually impossible to move items unless you sell it below their price floor which is generally going to be so low you'd be better off just spamming coffee biscuit leves.

The prices have tanked so much that it's not even worth trying to sell anything mainstream on the marketboard for the most part.

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Yeah, also here's a thought.
Imagine if every non-botter burned their monthly leve allowance on coffee biscuits leves after being fed up with competing with bots. And now imagine if come 6.X we get leves giving greater gil reward in a similar scheme. And then think about the number of gil being generated into the economy thanks to SE's negligence...

And then imagine the "best case scenario" where SE realises that and, they don't do anything about the bots, they just nerf the rewards.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Yeah, also here's a thought.
Imagine if every non-botter burned their monthly leve allowance on coffee biscuits leves after being fed up with competing with bots. And now imagine if come 6.X we get leves giving greater gil reward in a similar scheme. And then think about the number of gil being generated into the economy thanks to SE's negligence...

And then imagine the "best case scenario" where SE realises that and, they don't do anything about the bots, they just nerf the rewards.

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I've been thinking for a while that they'll do exactly this.

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Originally Posted by Nafreyu

Imagine rage quitting because you can't sell something at the profit you want. Check your privilege. I'm glad that Medium sized house which you don't seem to appreciate will be going back into circulation.


Signed, someone always looking for the best deal.

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its good to know someone supports cheating

You've said more than enough. Take a break from the game.

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Originally Posted by Nafreyu

Imagine rage quitting because you can't sell something at the profit you want. Check your privilege. I'm glad that Medium sized house which you don't seem to appreciate will be going back into circulation.


Signed, someone always looking for the best deal.

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I don't mind competition, strangely enough. It's a free market and that's always going to happen.

However, I would like my competition to not be a machine that can function 24/7 without break that can always change its price almost instantaneously after I put mine, thereby making me never ever able to even compete.

And even outside of that, consider the following. People are using third party software to mess with the game, which is against the rules, no? That thing we all agreed to when we signed up? Square is basically putting the notion forward that the rules ARE in fact allowed to be broken. That's not a good system to have, or to stand on, because if that's the case why even make that rule if it's just not gonna be enforced to the point where players are ACTIVELY ADMITTING IN GAME CHAT that they bot, with 0 punishment?

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

Now do not get me wrong they are a problem and SE has always failed at handling them both their mmos so far.

But with that said...remove all the bots then what.

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

And due to the above this will lead to all those 100s of legit crafters per server to... well constantly undercutting every few minutes to try to off load their 10 armor pieces they just crafted along side a market that has 120 already on there with everyone else trying to mass sell before the prices crash.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

Now do not get me wrong they are a problem and SE has always failed at handling them both their mmos so far.

But with that said...remove all the bots then what.

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

And due to the above this will lead to all those 100s of legit crafters per server to... well constantly undercutting every few minutes to try to off load their 10 armor pieces they just crafted along side a market that has 120 already on there with everyone else trying to mass sell before the prices crash.

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I don't think you realize how fine with that we'd be. Just knowing we're competing with other crafters, who are at their keys, not botting their way to mounds of gil to sell to players via RMT.

Also I don't agree with your assertions, but all the same, I'll take that over the botters anyday.

The issues do run deeper then just the bots, but getting rid of them would at least give other people a fair chance to actually push sales outside of the brief post-patch windows where their scripts are broken.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

Now do not get me wrong they are a problem and SE has always failed at handling them both their mmos so far.

But with that said...remove all the bots then what.

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

And due to the above this will lead to all those 100s of legit crafters per server to... well constantly undercutting every few minutes to try to off load their 10 armor pieces they just crafted along side a market that has 120 already on there with everyone else trying to mass sell before the prices crash.

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as someone else said, I have no problem competing against other PEOPLE. think of it this was, this is my version of pvp. simple as that. I am not in it to make billions of gil, for me its fun.

just like people who pvp really arent into doing it against bots, neither am I. so our venues are different.

you remove all the bots, the prices still drop because.. people like me who will drop prices just to sell things. will they drop every 5 minutes on cue? maybe not, but at least real people will be selling them and not making real money profit off SE

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

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I mean, I could sit here and explain how all the big listers that have all that over-saturation are generally the botters (at least a good chunk,) but I'll pretend for a moment that somehow nothing actually visibly changes.

I would still prefer that, because I'd rather the market crash by a players choice, than a machine. A player has to eventually eat, sleep, go to work and take care of the kids. A machine? 24/7 activity. The fact some players aren't even afraid to admit to it anymore is concern enough (One example being the player admitting to house botting on these forums, another player admitting to me in whisper he bots his crafts so he can go watch tv, and even one that straight told me in chat how his bot works and how it responds to things, such as turning off with enough whispers in case it's a GM to fake being afk.)

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

I mean, I could sit here and explain how all the big listers that have all that over-saturation are generally the botters (at least a good chunk,) but I'll pretend for a moment that somehow nothing actually visibly changes.

I would still prefer that, because I'd rather the market crash by a players choice, than a machine. A player has to eventually eat, sleep, go to work and take care of the kids. A machine? 24/7 activity. The fact some players aren't even afraid to admit to it anymore is concern enough (One example being the player admitting to house botting on these forums, another player admitting to me in whisper he bots his crafts so he can go watch tv, and even one that straight told me in chat how his bot works and how it responds to things, such as turning off with enough whispers in case it's a GM to fake being afk.)

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Very much what I've put in bold. It is the same for housing. I fought against a lot of people for housing and I never begrudged the people who put a lot of man hours camping for it getting them, because they're putting the effort in with a system that's broken and aren't taken the unfair exploitative easy answer out. It means I always drew a lot of joy when I saw a bot continuously click on a person's pet and somebody else got the house. And joy when I found out that people relocate and set up a retainer with items to sell so the person botting/using an auto clicker spends all their gil.

Undercutting is annoying as heck and it's just gonna happen, but at least it requires effort to be on the ball. Bots just add that much extra unfair edge that it is taking it too far and makes for a bigger problem.

I feel like maybe there ought to be a restriction on how frequently you can update a market price or limit how many times a day you can adjust it. This would address both bots and people who excessively undercut people.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

Now do not get me wrong they are a problem and SE has always failed at handling them both their mmos so far.

But with that said...remove all the bots then what.

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

And due to the above this will lead to all those 100s of legit crafters per server to... well constantly undercutting every few minutes to try to off load their 10 armor pieces they just crafted along side a market that has 120 already on there with everyone else trying to mass sell before the prices crash.

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I'll quote you a friend of someone I raided with once last expansion who unapologetically botted. "I could crash the market down to 500 gil if I really wanted to. It's still profit to me."

Let that sink in and you'll realize why bots are far worse than any regular person crafting ten armor sets. Not only is a person held back by time, they have an incentive to maximize their cost to profit margin. Bots don't because they aren't actively spending time. Someone who bots while at work essentially gets a free eight hours. Anything they make from those materials is pure profit because they wouldn't have had them otherwise. That's what makes competing with bots so difficult. They can and will crash markets simply because it doesn't matter if something sells for 500, 1000 or 5000.

As people not buying stuff. Raiders aren't your main income source, and never have been after the initial first few weeks. It's the midcore and casual players who buy that gear. Back in Stormblood I made millions months into each patch primarily on people I suspect never touched Savage, or maybe were playing an alt job. Either way, selling stuff only became an issue towards the midway point of Stomblood when more people realized SE does absolutely nothing to bots. Come Shadowbringers and it's a running joke on Discord, Reddit and so forth how incompetent they are handling bots.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

Very much what I've put in bold. It is the same for housing. I fought against a lot of people for housing and I never begrudged the people who put a lot of man hours camping for it getting them, because they're putting the effort in with a system that's broken and aren't taken the unfair exploitative easy answer out. It means I always drew a lot of joy when I saw a bot continuously click on a person's pet and somebody else got the house. And joy when I found out that people relocate and set up a retainer with items to sell so the person botting/using an auto clicker spends all their gil.

Undercutting is annoying as heck and it's just gonna happen, but at least it requires effort to be on the ball. Bots just add that much extra unfair edge that it is taking it too far and makes for a bigger problem.

I feel like maybe there ought to be a restriction on how frequently you can update a market price or limit how many times a day you can adjust it. This would address both bots and people who excessively undercut people.

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This. What we want is a player run economy, not a bot run economy.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

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No one said bots are the entire issue. We're well aware crafting is in a terrible state. However, bots just take a bad situation and make it far worse. They're taking that excessive supply issue and multiplying it. Just because crafting itself needs work too doesn't mean players breaking ToS should be ignored.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

As people not buying stuff. Raiders aren't your main income source, and never have been after the initial first few weeks. It's the midcore and casual players who buy that gear. Back in Stormblood I made millions months into each patch primarily on people I suspect never touched Savage, or maybe were playing an alt job. Either way, selling stuff only became an issue towards the midway point of Stomblood when more people realized SE does absolutely nothing to bots. Come Shadowbringers and it's a running joke on Discord, Reddit and so forth how incompetent they are handling bots.

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Speaking as a midcore player, this is spot on. I have lots of jobs to gear and I have no real incentive to do that when patch drops when my gear is fine as I'm not diving straight into Savage and gearing them all through the MB can be expensive, especially on patch day. I'd say casual and midcore players probably outnumber hardcore players and probably are more likely to gear more than 1 job with this method.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

fat chance. they have three people that look into bots and I think they dont really care about any server that isnt based in Japan.

they have been sent tons of evidence by people doing their job for them, and RMT rings and bots are being run without consequence while they ban RP'ers.

SE has a weird priority set. but do not delude yourself, they do not listen to verifiable evidence either.

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Man this is still a developer that has comments turned off on their Youtube videos and Up/Down voters still disabled. I PROMISE you they are still super sensitive to bad press on FF14 lol

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Originally Posted by Nafreyu

You've said more than enough. Take a break from the game.

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You're aware the same ppl using bots also sell gil on "special" websites for their own profit right?
Its obvious that mb botting is far more than just some "bargains" for the players.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

fat chance. they have three people that look into bots and I think they dont really care about any server that isnt based in Japan.

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I wanna go back to this post (since someone just recently responded to it) to point out another potential problem.

There's actually also a good chance that it might not be that the STF just doesn't give a lick of a care (though that'd shock me), but that the translation team isn't providing them any information, since the entire 3 people are all Japanese.

Let's not forget Ungarmax was a huge issue in Mid SB's raiding scene for O6S for months without any fix, simply because (And they admitted this) the translation team never actually sent that information over, so the JP never even knew.

I mean, I think the simplest solution is to just have more STF members (as 3 is already way too little for this) that cover more languages. If we have one's designated for NA and speak English, that means that we'll at least know 100% someone is seeing it and understanding the report. Currently it's hard to tell which end's being the problem and I'm stuck here doubting both because of it.

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

I mean, I think the simplest solution is to just have more STF members (as 3 is already way too little for this) that cover more languages. If we have one's designated for NA and speak English, that means that we'll at least know 100% someone is seeing it and understanding the report. Currently it's hard to tell which end's being the problem and I'm stuck here doubting both because of it.

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This. 3-4 people who only speak Japanese handling reports for all data centers is overwhelming, and it doesn't help that they're not getting the reports we send in translated and sent to them. We need specific STF teams for NA and EU as well. Who speak the languages for those DCs. (Also, more than 3-4 people would be nice, should be at least 1 person per SERVER, not just a handful for a DC with multiple servers.)

But that's just a thought. Until someone forces SE to take a hard look at this, we get this.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

As people not buying stuff. Raiders aren't your main income source, and never have been after the initial first few weeks. It's the midcore and casual players who buy that gear. Back in Stormblood I made millions months into each patch primarily on people I suspect never touched Savage, or maybe were playing an alt job.

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Don't forget about the people (like me) who get that gear week 7 so they can raid after getting their weapon and gear prices drop.

The botting is getting absolutely ridiculous in this game. Though I'm not sure exactly how to fix it without it having a negative impact on the gameplay of average players.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

The botting is getting absolutely ridiculous in this game. Though I'm not sure exactly how to fix it without it having a negative impact on the gameplay of average players.

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Tbh the average game players will likely be just fine. Without having to compete with bots anymore, they can easily do some incidental auctions and make enough money from that to buy whatever they want. I remember being a new player with no understanding of the marketboard back in ARR. Even then, I made enough money selling a few things here and there to buy gear I wanted and donate to the FC housing fund.

I don't think it will ever return to that, but I think casual, average players will be just fine.

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

Tbh the average game players will likely be just fine. Without having to compete with bots anymore, they can easily do some incidental auctions and make enough money from that to buy whatever they want. I remember being a new player with no understanding of the marketboard back in ARR. Even then, I made enough money selling a few things here and there to buy gear I wanted and donate to the FC housing fund.

I don't think it will ever return to that, but I think casual, average players will be just fine.

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I was speaking more to removing something the botters profit from somehow would negatively impact all of us. Like removing trading and limiting how often you can change prices on the MB etc. Though most bots have seemed to move on to spamming maps. It's one of those things where you could easily fix the problem to where the bots would find no value in the game, but in doing so I'd worry that the players would also see no value in playing the game. Because outside of removing gil there's no way they are going away. Because even if that goes away there's still prestige items and paid leveling, farming and etc. I just think in fixing it they would ruin the game for everyone. That is unless they actually paid GMs to handle nothing but bots on 12 hour shifts and let's face it these tech companies aren't going to do that.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

That is unless they actually paid GMs to handle nothing but bots on 12 hour shifts and let's face it these tech companies aren't going to do that.

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The STF is specifically meant, by description, to deal with people that cheat the system, either with hacks or automation, and give punishment if they are discovered in investigation to be doing such.

Well, the problem here obv is that they aren't, but that is a job, and people do get paid for it. It's just whether they're actually doing it or if they're just paid to slap ghuntgwn nhrwegh the 3700th for chargebacking.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I love how people think Bots are what is wrong with the economy.

Now do not get me wrong they are a problem and SE has always failed at handling them both their mmos so far.

But with that said...remove all the bots then what.

Crafters will still make 10xs the armor as needed by the market.
Gathers will mass gather 100xs the materials that crafters need.
And raiders/endgame ppl will continue to not buying stuff a month into raid patches because the gear is complete trash compared to tome/raid drops.

And due to the above this will lead to all those 100s of legit crafters per server to... well constantly undercutting every few minutes to try to off load their 10 armor pieces they just crafted along side a market that has 120 already on there with everyone else trying to mass sell before the prices crash.

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There are plenty of markets to cover for real people to fill, there's not exactly an overwhelming supply problem. The problem is you have single bot crafters keeping the market supplied for the top 80% of items on the mb, while everyone else's items rot. You massively underestimate exactly how prolific the problem is.

Something I find particularly baffling is that they opted to remove the gil reward from Rowena turn-ins as well nerfing the sell costs on materia in interest of reducing how much gil is coming into the economy, which hurt both the bots and actual players alike.

Yet, they've left the gil drops from ARR dungeons in the game all this time when those have been heavily exploited from the earliest days of the game strictly by the RMT farmers, as only they can actually make it efficient via their usage of hacks and sheer numbers.

You'd think they'd look at whether or not a particular source of gil is lopsidedly in favor of cheaters before deciding to axe it, but I guess not. It's weird decisions like this that make it really hard for me to tell how much they actually care about the state of the economy among other things.

Mmm. Another RMT ban notice, another day of seeing the same botters running around as per usual. You know, they stopped banning botters in any significant way back in Sept of last year? Wonder why. Some sporadic banhammers going down the last few weeks. 1 botter here, 2 botters there. But otherwise, the aren't paying much attention to it.

RMT bot banning is down too. Peaked around Sept of 2017 with over 60k bannings for RMT/Illicit activities. Now it's a big deal if they ban 5k in a week if you check the slow news day articles written about it.

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

Mmm. Another RMT ban notice, another day of seeing the same botters running around as per usual. You know, they stopped banning botters in any significant way back in Sept of last year? Wonder why. Some sporadic banhammers going down the last few weeks. 1 botter here, 2 botters there. But otherwise, the aren't paying much attention to it.

RMT bot banning is down too. Peaked around Sept of 2017 with over 60k bannings for RMT/Illicit activities. Now it's a big deal if they ban 5k in a week if you check the slow news day articles written about it.

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Its because they say this Nepentha "We will continue to take stringent disciplinary action against any accounts with confirmed involvement in RMT/illicit activity"

translated that means "If you send us an email, with a lawyers attestation, that you bot and use it in our game, with 5 confirmed witness testimonies, we will ban you for botting"

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Originally Posted by Fyrefox45

There are plenty of markets to cover for real people to fill, there's not exactly an overwhelming supply problem. The problem is you have single bot crafters keeping the market supplied for the top 80% of items on the mb, while everyone else's items rot. You massively underestimate exactly how prolific the problem is.

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Frankly I disagree. I think people massively overestimate what bots do. Or rather, they incorrectly place bot influence in the wrong areas of the MB and extrapolate weird conclusions if bots didnt exist. There are a bunch of things bots do, for better or worse, that matter. For one, they pump more and more gil into the economy causing inflation. Inflation, however, isnt inherently bad if NPC goods remain static in price. So for example, if you had an item worth 100k, but inflation allows you to sell the same item for 1 million gil cause theres so much excess gil in the economy, this works out in your favor if your ultimate goal is to purchase a house because housing prices remain static. In certain situations, your buying power will INCREASE with inflation caused by bots. This, btw, also works in the cases of certain common goods (like crafting materials that are acquired by simple gathering). Bots end up driving down the price by flooding the market with the mats. Inversely, cause inflation is a thing, on high end items that are release specific (think new crafted Armor sets when a savage tier drops) those items will also sell 'higher' than what should be expected because there is so much Gil in the economy. You can game this aspect, even with bots, by doing a relatively massive undercut that still puts you ahead. You just wont have as large a profit margin if you keep competing by that 1 gil undercut. Reason this works, btw, is bots do undercut but they typically wont undercut something that is drastically lower in price. They will do 1 of two things: Keep their price about the same with a possible slight drop, or buy out your item and re-list (which is a risk to them). If they do the second thing, you get your money while they have to continue to compete. They may end up ahead a little bit in gil, but youll still be well off.

Now, this isnt to say botting cant be a problem. It does limit some of where you can generate money. Youre not going to be as successful generating money from crafting low to moderate level items or anything that is accessible to bots without extreme effort or luck. So gathering mats probably wont make you rich, nor will crafting items that have a MB lifespan, like armor sets. But there are other avenues which bots cant effectively tap into that you can and can make money off of. An immediate example: Casual coffer price points are still pretty high (1.7-2.2 mil depending where and when you look). Bots dont effectively flood this market, so its price point is taking quite a while to decay. Certain deep dungeon items are also items that are difficult for bots to grab. Maps are hit and miss with bots, and it takes a little while for current tier glamour materials to drop in price point.

Beyond that, to many bots do degrade server stability (they can cause server wide lag in high enough numbers), as well as degrade subscription counts as people generally dont want to play a game where a majority of the people they encounter are bots. To much inflation to quickly can also cause problems because it makes it harder and harder for entry level players to catch up (though inflation is inevitable, bots or no bots.)

I think, however, that the big take away is that while bots can and generally are overall bad, this idea that bots stop wealth generation completely or that theyre the cause of all the problems on the MB is a misplaced idea. They do cause problems, but there are things that inadvertently prove beneficial to the broader player base. I think most companies that run MMOs know this fact and have just figured out that the game probably runs better with a certain level of botting. Im very skeptical of the idea that for how many years MMOs have been around, and all the research thats been poured into studying all the Big Data that these games produce on a daily basis, that no company has figured out simple counter measures to wipe out most of the bot population in a game.

Seems more reasonable that these found out bots are probably a necessary evil, but dont say anything cause players would refuse to accept it (or would consider it a tacit approval to bot). Not a popular opinion, and I know Nepenthe has choice words about it, but I think again people arent critically looking at the whole picture. Bots are bad, therefore no good can come from bots and etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I think, however, that the big take away is that while bots can and generally are overall bad, this idea that bots stop wealth generation completely or that theyre the cause of all the problems on the MB is a misplaced idea. They do cause problems, but there are things that inadvertently prove beneficial to the broader player base. I think most companies that run MMOs know this fact and have just figured out that the game probably runs better with a certain level of botting. Im very skeptical of the idea that for how many years MMOs have been around, and all the research thats been poured into studying all the Big Data that these games produce on a daily basis, that no company has figured out simple counter measures to wipe out most of the bot population in a game.

Seems more reasonable that these found out bots are probably a necessary evil, but dont say anything cause players would refuse to accept it (or would consider it a tacit approval to bot). Not a popular opinion, and I know Nepenthe has choice words about it, but I think again people arent critically looking at the whole picture. Bots are bad, therefore no good can come from bots and etc.

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People likely wouldn't accept it because it's quite literally admitting that breaking the rules is okay. This already feels true enough when they do nothing at all, and at that point, why am I going to care? I'm only subbed at this point because of my house, and if I managed to lose that, my money is going to 100% go elsewhere because I don't enjoy paying my $15 a month to sit here and constantly see people literally cheat (for the record, not just botting, I'm referring to things such as teleport hacks to quickly traverse fates for relic too.)

Also, you are right, bots do have a bit of good in them... For people who do literally nothing that matches what the bots do. If you get on the game to just do expert roulette and level in dungeons, then yes you're going to benefit as gear for those would be super duper cheap for you. But are you gathering? Enjoy all those botted mats you're competing with. Crafting the new stuff? I hope you enjoy all the bots undercutting you. Oh, I could make leveki-- Nope those're posted by bots too. Maybe I can just do maps inst-- OH WAIT THEY'RE JUST BOTTING MAPS NOW TOO.

It's actually disgusting I can find the bot underground in 5 minutes with a player based feature, while it's taking weeks for the guys being LITERALLY PAID TO FIND THEM to do the same, and those guys are capable of using a lot more useful tools than /icam.

Last I checked, being super lazy and crap at your job usually would get you fired. Here at Square Enix however, we consider it "having a paid vacation" I guess.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Snipping because lol.[/I]

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My problem with your take on things is you clearly have no idea how the markets even work. And you like to act like an authority on it.

Of course people can make gil selling lower level stuff, it happens all the time. Lower level items and materials can be the meat and potatoes of any market buff's diet. However, we have a overabundance of bots at the moment, making sure that doesn't happen.

I mean... your suggest is people just sell dificult to get items? The night Pegasus comes only from deep dungeons. The casual coffer is a rare items you get from kupo cards, that's an entirely RNG based item you're not likely to get. That's why it's so highly priced right now. That's the solution?

tl;dr: You talk down to people who know more about this than you do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jijifli

People likely wouldn't accept it because it's quite literally admitting that breaking the rules is okay. This already feels true enough when they do nothing at all, and at that point, why am I going to care? I'm only subbed at this point because of my house, and if I managed to lose that, my money is going to 100% go elsewhere because I don't enjoy paying my $15 a month to sit here and constantly see people literally cheat (for the record, not just botting, I'm referring to things such as teleport hacks to quickly traverse fates for relic too.)

Also, you are right, bots do have a bit of good in them... For people who do literally nothing that matches what the bots do. If you get on the game to just do expert roulette and level in dungeons, then yes you're going to benefit as gear for those would be super duper cheap for you. But are you gathering? Enjoy all those botted mats you're competing with. Crafting the new stuff? I hope you enjoy all the bots undercutting you. Oh, I could make leveki-- Nope those're posted by bots too. Maybe I can just do maps inst-- OH WAIT THEY'RE JUST BOTTING MAPS NOW TOO.

It's actually disgusting I can find the bot underground in 5 minutes with a player based feature, while it's taking weeks for the guys being LITERALLY PAID TO FIND THEM to do the same, and those guys are capable of using a lot more useful tools than /icam.

Last I checked, being super lazy and crap at your job usually would get you fired. Here at Square Enix however, we consider it "having a paid vacation" I guess.

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These are personal bones to pick. My points talk about the econ of the game broadly. When you break it down to the individual level, it can be frustrating, because many people see it like "Im just one guy against an army of bots", when its more accurate to say "Im one guy against one bot.(at best)" The simple truth is bots have limited complexity. Not that it doesn't allow them to complete all sorts of tasks, but its more indicative that the tasks dont require that much thought to complete. They mainly require time, something bots have an abundance of. Ironically, the push from the player base to dumb down content actually makes bots more prolific. The more simple tasks that dont require nuance exist, the more areas bots can function in. Raising the player base level, which in turn means raising game complexity, would actually hamper bots. But I digress.

As I suggested, given the age of the MMO experience and how much money and study has been poured into it, to suggest that no company has figured out a way to deal with bots seems unlikely, especially since they can use bots to catch bots. More likley they figured out the math on whats best bang for their buck overall and are running with that model. That might not be something the player base wants to hear so they probably dont say anything about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nepentha

My problem with your take on things is you clearly have no idea how the markets even work. And you like to act like an authority on it.

Of course people can make gil selling lower level stuff, it happens all the time. Lower level items and materials can be the meat and potatoes of any market buff's diet. However, we have a overabundance of bots at the moment, making sure that doesn't happen.

I mean... your suggest is people just sell dificult to get items? The night Pegasus comes only from deep dungeons. The casual coffer is a rare items you get from kupo cards, that's an entirely RNG based item you're not likely to get. That's why it's so highly priced right now. That's the solution?

tl;dr: You talk down to people who know more about this than you do.

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I understand markets well enough that the suggestion you made in the last thread that it was impossible for you to generate money via the market board was bunk. I also am suggesting that the concept that bots are a 100% net negative to the games economy is unlikely to be true. The stances that are often brought up tend to ignore what bots are doing and make vague suggestions that "If it werent for those dang darn bots, wed be swimming in cash and the market would be 100% healthy." That is a load of bunk and an over simplification of the issue. It is literally behaving like players are all faithful actors and wont do anything to abuse the MB system at the cost of the game's economy.

If you want to tackle bots, you need to be looking at the entire picture, and not discarding information because "Bots are bad". Sometimes the info thats pretty key to understanding whats going on is information that hurts your hypothesis. Or are we giong to suggest that SE, Blizzard, ArenaNet, and virtually every single company whos ever produced an MMO has not figured out how to handle bots, let alone mathed out what the impact of bots are and the effect they have on MMOs.

This being said, the general TLDR is if you want to make a lot of money, like oodles of it, then yes. You need to target sell items that are a bit more complex to acquire. Any activity that is simplistic will be monopolized by bots. This is why casual coffers and those whistles stay high in price, and even with bots in maps, map materials are generally a decent source of income with less and less value the longer the item has been out. But thats to be expected. My argument isnt to protect bots, its to get to the core of the issue and understand where things are coming from. And as I suggested above, if you really want to tackle bots, increasing the games complexity will hurt their efforts to be prolific. But that argument is never made cause "Games gotta be easy." But hammering on about "Bots are Evil, SE lazy, Game is stupid" isnt accomplishing anything. It's not even an academic exercise, but just you venting because Bots exist and are the source of your income woes. It offers nothing to the discussion, and saying SE just lazy or stupid I think is just another exercise in catharsis.