How do you deal with constant undercutting?

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Originally Posted by Fytayn

Undercutting by 1g is just childish...

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I'm not sure why people dislike this. You are going to be undercut regardless, that's how markets work. A 1g undercut means the market value of the item hasn't really dropped. That's a good thing. If the buyer is on your market (let's say your retainer is selling in Ul'dah and your undercutter is Limsa) your item will sell. Not worth teleporting to save 1gil. Also good.

A 10-30% or more undercut significantly drops the market value of your item. Undercutting is a bigger loss to you, but the only other option is to wait until they sell. If other sellers undercut the new guy, the market for that item crashes.

The most difficult sellers to compete with are the very frequent relister and the guy who undercuts 10-20% but is a consistent seller on that market long term. Anyone else, including 1g undercutters and the guy selling at half price to clear his bags are perfectly fine and no more than a bump in your sales.

To be honest, I've never had big issues with undercutting. Markets are bonkers sometimes and people sell at odd prices, but they're entitled to, just as I am and I take it in my stride. Very often markets stabilize later. Over time I'll still take in a consistent profit too, so it's all good to me.

Being undercut by several people all dropping 1gil lower than the last quickly make your item less appealing.
Saying it's simply going to happen in markets or "that's business" doesn't make it any less cut throat.

We're all climbing over each other to grab gil.
Some of us choose to simply knock you down and run past, while others will slit your throat from behind then set you on fire and charge people a fee to watch the body burn.

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Originally Posted by CainCrimson

others will slit your throat from behind then set you on fire and charge people a fee to watch the body burn.

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Now there's someone I can respect.

Pass me the gasoline.

I usually just give it a few days and if it doesn't sell just check price and adjust if needed

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Not really sure if this belongs here, but I figure others who are into crafting would have the best idea of how to handle it.

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There's not much you can do. It is frustrating, i know but, the competition for sales in the market place is ever bit as cut throat and competitive as it is in the real world. There are a few things you can do but it takes a lot of work to get it going. As one person pointed out you can try selling items that your competitor doesn't sell or you could make more of the item and sell it at a much lower price. Cutting down your time/overhead can be accomplished by using retainers and your spare time while in que for groups to gather the items you need using your land skills and hunting drops. Once you have have the materials gathered to make a lot of the item then you flood the board with your wares at a lower price and in that way corner the market on the item. Make sure you place the items in as many of the cities as you can while maintaining superiors numbers. Also know your market. On my server most people seem to gather in Limsa and Uldah in order to raise their skills or catch up on skill leveling so there is a lot of need for lower to mid level items like Ore, gems stones, Alchemy and weaving materials. So i tend to gather as many as i can of all materials not sold on merchant NPC's and i usually make a decent profit doing so. You can also make a good profit by gathering up stacks of 99 of the harder to find items such as hidden items from mining and botany. Lots of people dont want to or haven't the time to put in the time to gather these items and it sells well and if you have the max number for a stack its more likely to sell. people are looking to level up their skill asap. the m,ore mats they can get at a decent price the more they will buy.

If I see MB listings like:

119,996gil
119,997gil
119,998gil
119,999gil
120,000gil

I'll probably buy the one at 120k (assuming there's not another one above it at 120,001 gil). I try to take another couple seconds to see if the top of the list item is only a few gil less than something further down. I almost always make it a point to buy an item a little further down, provided it's only 1-10 gil more. I know just me doing this doesn't really make any difference, but I do it to occasionally give sales to the people who don't have the time (or better yet, don't consider it worth the time) to sit by their retainer bell and get an e-rection every 2 minutes when they undercut someone.

I get that it's one of those "If everyone could just do _____, the world would be a better place" scenarios and it's not a reasonable solution for the same reason that if someone accidentally early-pulls an S rank and several people yell to reset it, the whole swarm of people wanting to get their credit will just burn it to the ground anyway. But I can't help but wonder...if enough people bought things that way, could it possibly lead to the people who 1gil undercut every minute getting confused as to what actually sells and maybe even deciding it's not worth remaining retainer bell-vigilant every minute of their day to get things sold.

I don't mind undercutting, it's part of the system and it's obviously going to happen - I do it plenty. But specifically the MB ninjas who relist every couple minutes make it really hard to sell things sometimes - and a lot of times those are the same people who are so used to winning MB struggles since they're always on, that they get really butthurt when someone starts relisting anywhere close to as often as them, and decide to tank the market. That needs to be addressed. In my small, insignificant way I try to do that by spending 5-10 more gil here and there. But honestly would a relist timer be a good idea or a bad one? Like some sort of "Heyyy we see you've relisted that same item 2 times in the last hour - time to chill for an hour (no idea how it'd work, just an example). Seems like anytime someone has a good idea, there are 1,000 repercussions they haven't thought about that actually end up making the system worse somehow - therefore I'm asking rather than saying (saying your opinion usually ends up with someone yelling at your "dumbness" in a reply, whereas asking lets them instead share their wealth of knowledge with you and everyone else.) But I think with enough thought something like that could be put in place and it would at least help alleviate that issue without creating too many new ones.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Not really sure if this belongs here, but I figure others who are into crafting would have the best idea of how to handle it.

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Sorry, I never know how much i can type in a reply so i split my response to two posts. Another good way to make many, and i'm sure you have heard this term before, Diversify. Make sure that you are supplying the most variety of items on the market. You can never tell just what the public is going to be in the mood to buy and or when. Some items alot of people are buying mats for crafting other times they are looking for stacks of items to hand in to the provisions NPC for the grande companies hand it exp and seal boost. Other times people want decorations for their houses. One of the best sellers when it comes to items is making High quality items that are used in the guild quest for the disciplines. For example if you make high quality potions used to hand into the alchemy guild masters quest then it will sell cause many people are catching up their crafting buy chain questing. they put off leveling their crafting skills in favor of leveling their characters and now are taking time to go back and catch up. So while they do have money to spend but not the skill to make these items they will most likely buy your high quality quest item to hand in and speed through their quest lines.
Make everything you can. furniture, indoor out door items for houses, potions, quest hand in items for every quest you can find, materials for crafting in both large stacks for leveling and smaller stacks for individual item creation. Never let your retainers slack off. make sure they are constantly on ventures and make sure your handing in all unneeded item drops and or old gear you don't need into the provisioner to get seals to buy more venture coins. Once you build the momentum of your money making machine it will be easier to maintain your in game business.
once last thing. While hunting and or gathering materials do not forget to do the hunt boards because they give you money for each marker and while gathering be sure to do all your treasure maps because they drop many materials and money. Every Gil counts. Never forget that. Also if you are lucky enough to get the portal from a dragon skin map be sure to have a friend or two standing by before using the map in case a portal appears. You will need help to finish that rare dungeon and the pay out, if you manage to succeed, is very nice.

With the constant undercutting, I do wish there was a like a lock-in timer preventing someone from constantly updating their prices to undercut. Doesn't have to be long. Maybe like 30 minutes or an hour. You put up an item for sale, set your price, then when you dismiss the retainer, it locks in the item and you can't retrieve it or change the price until some time has passed. Probably not gonna be a popular suggestion but would prevent the undercutting bots and the no-lifers who do nothing but sit at a retainer from undercutting every 5 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Thamorian

Probably not gonna be a popular suggestion but would prevent the undercutting bots and the no-lifers who do nothing but sit at a retainer from undercutting every 5 minutes.

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I don't see why people feel they deserve to get the same results as players who invest more time and effort into it. If someone wants to undercut something every five minutes, let them. They'll spend all of their time doing that, while you're presumably having fun and getting your money's worth for your sub off doing other things. The game already puts a pretty huge limitation on players in the form of retainer slots, even if you buy extra retainers. This generally ensures there is a niche for everyone to occupy in your server's economy.

Furthermore, it will prevent people who make a mistake in their pricing from correcting it as soon as they realize it. I'm sure the people who spend all their time watching the market board will be thrilled for that though, since it means more cheap goods for them to keep undercutting you while still turning a profit.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

I don't see why people feel they deserve to get the same results as players who invest more time and effort into it. If someone wants to undercut something every five minutes, let them. They'll spend all of their time doing that, while you're presumably having fun and getting your money's worth for your sub off doing other things. The game already puts a pretty huge limitation on players in the form of retainer slots, even if you buy extra retainers. This generally ensures there is a niche for everyone to occupy in your server's economy.

Furthermore, it will prevent people who make a mistake in their pricing from correcting it as soon as they realize it. I'm sure the people who spend all their time watching the market board will be thrilled for that though, since it means more cheap goods for them to keep undercutting you while still turning a profit.

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And how many of these "people" are actually human? When I see the same few people undercutting no matter the day or time, then I think we need some kind of limiter. And people can check their prices before closing the retainer.

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Originally Posted by Thamorian

And how many of these "people" are actually human? When I see the same few people undercutting no matter the day or time, then I think we need some kind of limiter. And people can check their prices before closing the retainer.

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Probably more than you think. After all, if you're on to see them undercutting you, then all you've discovered is that their play times are similar to yours.

I tend to message the competitor and crush him by totally flooding everything he's selling until he stop being an ass and play the pricematch game :D

They're usually pretty cocky at first, but after selling jack-shit for 2 weeks they changes their mind

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'm not sure why people dislike this. You are going to be undercut regardless, that's how markets work. A 1g undercut means the market value of the item hasn't really dropped. That's a good thing. If the buyer is on your market (let's say your retainer is selling in Ul'dah and your undercutter is Limsa) your item will sell. Not worth teleporting to save 1gil. Also good.

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Agreed. Myself and anyone crafting X item are doing so for profit. Unless an item is not selling then I see no reason to lower the market value significantly each time when we can just take turns propping ourselves up to the top now and then to achieve some light sense of symbiosis. I find it far more respectful of your fellow sellers to abide close to their price point rather than force them to cut more than they like/are willing to.


With that said, I've noted that certain people seem to get irritated by this regardless, so if I ever see a trend where the undercuts are much larger - but systematic - then I will follow along with that.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

Probably more than you think. After all, if you're on to see them undercutting you, then all you've discovered is that their play times are similar to yours.

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I'd wager at least a few of the constant, instant undercutters are botters. If you're always getting undercut instantly by the same people what are the actual chances that they're always on at the same time as you and always able to undercut right away? It's like when I tried to give the benefit of the doubt to gathering botters, that we just had the same play schedule and goals. There's almost zero chance that they'd always be at the node at the same time as me, playing at the exact same times.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

I'd wager at least a few of the constant, instant undercutters are botters. If you're always getting undercut instantly by the same people what are the actual chances that they're always on at the same time as you and always able to undercut right away? It's like when I tried to give the benefit of the doubt to gathering botters, that we just had the same play schedule and goals. There's almost zero chance that they'd always be at the node at the same time as me, playing at the exact same times.

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I'm not saying there are no botters, but in my many years of playing MMORPGs and other online games, it has become clear to me that people frequently rush to the bot explanation over every little action that doesn't fit into their narrow idea of how people play the game. For instance, how do you know you're getting undercut every five minutes unless you're checking the MB that frequently? And if you're checking it that frequently, why is it so unreasonable for them to do the same that they must be botting?

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

For instance, how do you know you're getting undercut every five minutes unless you're checking the MB that frequently? And if you're checking it that frequently, why is it so unreasonable for them to do the same that they must be botting?

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Me? I dont run into these problems because i am an erratic seller. Ive already made more money then i could reasonably spend, so i dont actively try to make more. I list a few things here and there, but i only check the prices a couple times a week. But if i was still actively making money and i suspected that i was competing with a bot then i might change my behavior. Back then i used to check prices when i logged on and logged off. But if i suspected a bot, i imagine i would check a minute or two after relisting something to test my theory. And knowing the way my mind works, i would probly try to tank the market for that item as a way to "deal" with the bot. And i know youre right that people blame bots for other player behaviors that they dont understand, but gathering bots are real. Ive seen a horde of them magically appear at a timed node, swing in unison, and magically disappear after finishing.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Me? I dont run into these problems because i am an erratic seller. Ive already made more money then i could reasonably spend, so i dont actively try to make more. I list a few things here and there, but i only check the prices a couple times a week. But if i was still actively making money and i suspected that i was competing with a bot then i might change my behavior. Back then i used to check prices when i logged on and logged off. But if i suspected a bot, i imagine i would check a minute or two after relisting something to test my theory. And knowing the way my mind works, i would probly try to tank the market for that item as a way to "deal" with the bot. And i know youre right that people blame bots for other player behaviors that they dont understand, but gathering bots are real. Ive seen a horde of them magically appear at a timed node, swing in unison, and magically disappear after finishing.

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Yeah, gathering bots I've definitely seen as well. I ran into a swarm of them in Central Thanalan once. They were mining something at the botany nodes in the Clutch and just kept moving together underground. They all had gibberish names too. At that point your choices for explanations are basically 1) bots or 2) it doesn't matter because they're still clearly exploiting.

Trying combat botters by undercutting them doesn't really work because they don't feel a need to factor in the labor cost involved in gathering/crafting and will readily drop their prices much lower then legitimate players would be comfortable with if it means getting faster sales and/or making their competition back off.

Most of the food/infusions on my server are going for a measly 3.5-4K a piece right now because of them and that feels too low in the time/profit ratio to even bother with.

"then undercuts the lowest price on the MB by one gil "

I don't worry one bit. Personally,I refuse to buy ANYTHING from someone who plays that game, and I know a lot of people who believe the same way. But if you figure the varied tax applied to items, a lot of times it's cheaper to pay a little extra from your local vendor or even travel to the selling city if it means saving 100k in taxes. But if you're a crafter and you've been playing this game more than 6 months, you count your gold in tens and hundreds of millions. My little Lalafell, Ish Kabibble, uses 100 gil notes just to light her Cohiba Red Dot cigars. If you really want to have the best price, charge 10 or 20% less than this goombah. Hell, charge 50% less. IT'S JUST A GAME! IMO the best idea of how to handle it is to not handle it at all. Yes, the gil is a measure of our success as crafters, but it's actually meaningless. It won't buy me a bigger fishing boat, it's not going to pay for my grandkid's college, and it won't pay for my wife's new boobs.

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Originally Posted by Maxsdad

"then undercuts the lowest price on the MB by one gil "

I don't worry one bit. Personally,I refuse to buy ANYTHING from someone who plays that game, and I know a lot of people who believe the same way.

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Who do you think this helps?

I think patience is your best bet unless you are being targeted or a change has made a particular mat easier to get and so on. People will always list lower if that is their perogative and most people do so that they can get a quick sell.

Yes, patience... definitely agree.

Most of the time, the undercutters who drastically lower their prices unfortunately don't have a simple understanding of patience.

If I see the board looking something like this:

49,999
50,000
52,000
52,000

I will buy the 50,000 one, because the 49,999 guy is being a #$!.
It's like the #$% on The Price is Right that bids $1 more than the guy right behind him. It may technically help but it's a @#$! move.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

I will buy the 50,000 one, because the 49,999 guy is being a #$!.
It's like the #$% on The Price is Right that bids $1 more than the guy right behind him. It may technically help but it's a @#$! move.

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I don't understand this tbh. Why is he being a #$%?

He's undercutting the guy at 50k, but has the good manners and sense not to crash the market for the both of them. The guy at 50k still has a solid chance to sell his item if he's on a different market, like Uldah instead of Limsa. It's better for both sellers.

I mean, as a seller I'd much rather be in competition with that 1 gil undercut guy than Sir Marketwrecker. A 1 gil undercut doesn't necessarily mean a bot or someone undercutting every 10 min either, that's a different topic. Just curious what it is about 1 gil undercuts that irks people so much?

I don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm not exactly drowning in gil, so every time I log in and something I thought would have sold by now didn't, and I check the history and one sold for one gil less, that's irksome.
When you have a lot of money I think you view the MB as a steady long-term source of income. When you don't, its more like "I need gil NOW"

I'm sure if I had a couple million I couldn't care less. :)

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Originally Posted by Fytayn

Undercutting by 1g is just childish... I can see that they're just trying to keep theirs at the top of the board but when things don't sell very often it means my incidental items never sell. I'll usually check the history and put an item up for what it seemed to sell for in the past. If someone keeps 1g undercutting me I start lowering the price by about 2% each time. Usually others will follow suit, adjusting a bit, so mine is never so low as to be attractive for resale. If they match my price, even if their listing is above mine due to Retainer name, I don't undercut at all.

The fact is that I am the worst monster when it comes to the board.

Have you ever bought out an item that was confirmed for Fashion Report to put it up for over ten times its original price? Then someone puts 3-5 of them up all weekend, adding more when they sell, and regularly undercutting by 5-10% until they're selling for near what you paid.
Perhaps you found something people like for glamour that uses very cheap mats and listed it for nearly one-hundred times what it cost you? One day ten of them are listed for half what you're charging, driving the price down, with more following until your price looks ridiculous compared to the sale history.
Or perhaps even buying vendor items and listing them for double or triple their cost? It seems good until they start being listed for vendor price plus market tax and an additional 1000g.

That's what I do.

I see people in this thread complaining about listings being under the regular price, that it annoys them, and it annoys me just as much to see listings trying to take advantage of situations to charge way more than the item is really worth or previously sold for. I attempt to correct this. It's not completely altruistic: seeing prices shift and change over the course of time, desperately squeezing as much profit as possible from the situation, while I make steady returns is pretty funny.

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You're nicer than I am, I will half something if I get undercut. It usually sends a signal pretty quickly :P

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

There used to be a few people like that on Zalera too, which attracted a lot of hate! One of them claimed that he ruled the marketboard... which I thought was pretty arrogant and silly. By contrast, another one said he/she just wanted to maximize income, and this was his/her interest. He/she turned out to be a really nice person.

I don't think any of them use bots. I think a lot of people just play the undercutting game every 1/2 hr when they're online. Personally, I try to do that too as much as I can while online. But there's a limit to how far this can go...

For example, Person A was selling something at 1.2 million. I undercut him with 1.19 million. Person B then undercut me at 1.18 million. I will then undercut again at 1.17 million. Person B then undercut at 1.16 million. I now slow down, and undercut with 1.159 million. Person B then undercut with 1.158 million... the depreciation rate is slow so far, so we just continue this undercutting game non-stop.

But then, Person C appears and undercut at 850K. Person B then follow suit with 840K. I now go down to 830K. Person C then undercut at 450K. Person B then go 440K. At this point, I increase my price back to 1.19 million, and quit the undercutting game. Both Person B and C's items were sold 3 days later at around 380K, and they continued to sell more at low prices. Then, 2 weeks later, my item was suddenly sold... at 1.19 million. This is a true story! This is how I play my undercutting game.

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How do you know who they are? Does the Market Board only list the retainer's name on the selling list? Not your character's name? Is there something I'm missing? Is there a way to find out?

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

You're nicer than I am, I will half something if I get undercut. It usually sends a signal pretty quickly :P

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A signal to crash the market BIG TIME!

"Ain't no time to wonder why WHOOPE we are all gona die!"

Change price to 2gil and buy them off. problem solved.

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Originally Posted by RuleofThree

How do you know who they are? Does the Market Board only list the retainer's name on the selling list? Not your character's name? Is there something I'm missing? Is there a way to find out?

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If the person is making the thing that theyre selling, it should have a makers mark on it. So even if i dont recognize the retainer named comebuymyshniz, if its selling crafted gear that has the maker marked as "Allup Inyourshniz"(not a real person as far as i know, just an example name to explain) then you can reasonably expect thats the player youre dealing with.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

I don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm not exactly drowning in gil, so every time I log in and something I thought would have sold by now didn't, and I check the history and one sold for one gil less, that's irksome.
When you have a lot of money I think you view the MB as a steady long-term source of income. When you don't, its more like "I need gil NOW"

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Aye, understandable it's frustrating to lose a sale to someone else. But if the other seller wasn't a 1 gil undercutter the result would have been exactly the same, except the market board history would show an item 20% cheaper was sold instead of yours. A 1 gil undercut actually gives you a better chance to get gil quick, since there's a chance to net the sale if you're on a different market area. But a 20% undercut is guaranteed to ruin your sale.

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Originally Posted by Zephanoa

You're nicer than I am, I will half something if I get undercut. It usually sends a signal pretty quickly :P

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It's nice to imagine this, but it really doesn't.

Let's say an item is selling at 2m and has 7-8 sellers. 3-4 of those sellers might be happy making far less, but hey it's up at 2m so they'll list around that price. Then you come along and half the price to "send your message". It works on half the sellers, but a buyer doesn't come along fast enough and the other half go "oh well, a million is lots of gil!" and undercut you. The market for that item is now crashed to 1m and you haven't made your sale much faster.

I see this happen constantly.

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Originally Posted by TattersailNightwish

I don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm not exactly drowning in gil, so every time I log in and something I thought would have sold by now didn't, and I check the history and one sold for one gil less, that's irksome.
When you have a lot of money I think you view the MB as a steady long-term source of income. When you don't, its more like "I need gil NOW"

I'm sure if I had a couple million I couldn't care less. :)

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Probably because people like you decided your undercut was a jerk move and bought the more expensive item. :^)

This has changed over time. When I needed more gil or was more centered in crafting and selling, I usually checked the retainers twice a day and lowered the price of unsold items (in expensive items by a higher amount, in cheaper by a lower one.) If some item is sold at a nice price I would make another and put it for sale. If it had taken a long time and several undercuts, I craft some other one.
In this game you don't need that much gil, so since a long time ago I craft for my personal use. Sometimes when it looks it will sell nicely and soon, I craft one item for myself and another for sale, or two for myself and one for sale (looking to sell one that sells nice and has not a lot for sale and the price is high.) I gather the mats and usually you can choose among several items to sell with similar mats. This would be items of the latest crafted tier (war/magic or hand/land.)

When I check retainers I would undercut by 1000, 500, 200 or 100 gil, depending on the item's price. If possible, list in another city as the cheapest one.
If the item is expensive and has several sellers that undercut, tipically some seller gets fed up and undercuts by a lot. Then I forget and put a reasonable price. After some time the lower ones sell and mine finally sells.

One thing I have noticed is that if I look for an item that has few sellers and sells for a high price compared to other similar items (for example a tank bracelet is much more expensive than the other bracelets of the same tier and with similar mats and few people sell it), I craft one and put it at current price, and then more people make it and sell it and eventually the price lowers a lot and finally sells for a price similar as other similar items. It is not always like that, sometimes you are lucky and your item sells before this happens, but it is likely eventually the price arrives to a normal stage. So it is a bit of a trap.

Lately I have seen that maybe top tier items don't sell at that much higher prices than previous tier, so if you craft for gil it may be more practical to sell the lower ones. If you craft for yourself you gather the mats for yourself and with the extra mats you can craft and sell items to recover the cost or to pay for the melds, so you would sell the higher tier ones.

What I don't know is how people that craft a lot and sell a lot manage their decisions. It is not the same selling a couple of things now and then than selling a lot of items. It looks more practical to get someone to ask you for the craft, give you the mats, and you charge some quantity. If you can craft hq with confidence, you save all the time of gathering and listing things on the market board. You get nice gil for the time you spend on crafting, and save all the time on gathering and updating prices on the retainers.

I have observed a lot of times crafted items that say Obtaining Signature as the crafter. It seems if the crafter is no longer a character (deleted character, maybe changed name character?) the item will have that name. But it is a very frequent thing to see, so there is a way to have your crafted items to not show your name, but just Obtaining Signature as the crafter name. And a long time ago I searched if a character named Obtaining Signature existed, and it did not exist. Someone correct me if I am mistaken please : )

I could be wrong about this, so if anyone has better info feel free to correct.

Obtaining Signature. This is used as a makers mark on crafted items when the original crafter hasnt logged on recently. I was told once that after a patch items lose their mark until the crafter logs on their character, at which point they update. So the first day or two after a patch its not at all uncommon to see a bunch of these on the boards, as the items created before the server went down all need an update. The more time that goes on between server outages the less likely an item is to keep its anonymous naming.

Obtaining Signature is also used if the item was crafted by someone on another server. You see a lot of that from people who move servers and take a lot of junk with them to offload on the new server to make money back.

And here I had always thought Obtaining Signature was just an oddly named character. I guess there is a character that actually has that name on Balmung, but they're a level 1 of every crafter, so they're definitely not the person making the high level crafts I see with that tag.

There's some kind of grand undercutting scheme going on on Cactaur, as I've noticed a multitude of low level players from the same FC as the individual who crafts all wares that are being sold by its infamous undercutter, each parked at a retainer bell in a different ARR capital city.

They just sit there targeting/untargeting the bell as long as they aren't AFK, presumably because they're cycling through their retainers to undercut/relist items as necessary.

Some crafters on the Balance discord noted seeing the exact same thing happening on Leviathan and Sargatanas and also that if the suspected bots are offline on one of the servers, it's the same case for the rest, suggesting someone is mass multi-boxing. I can only assume they're trying to run a RMT business because this seems a little too extensive for someone who simply wants to make gil.

When you see someone undercutting by a ton, they actually just handed you free gil. Buy all of what they posted for super cheap, then relist it just under what everyone else is selling for. I made almost 500k gil just today doing this. Someone undercut the Super-Ether market by a crap ton. Most were going for 5k a pop, and this guy undercut all the way down to 2k. I bought up all of his Super-Ethers for 2k and relisted them for 4,999. They sold in less than an hour, and now I'm free to list more at 5k. That's how you deal with massive undercutting.

Here is an example of someone who just gave you a bunch of free gil: https://imgur.com/a/VTGxLev Buy up all that ore and relist it for 874 and boom, the market is restored and you make a quick buck.

EDIT: As for the people complaining about those of us that undercut by 1 gil, it's actually the best thing for the market. It preserves the price of the item for everyone else, as opposed to people undercutting by, say, 500 gil, eventually crashing the market.

Something odd with our Rakshasa market at the moment. Half the market has been flooded by some guy with retainers with nonsense RMT names (like rtghljhyd or such). He lists about 5-10 of each gear piece at a time with 200k undercuts. All his items are made by a number of different players, which turned out with a Lodestone check to be an army of crafters with no FC, all from Carbuncle (I'm on Zodiark). He's been generating fresh supplies over the week.

Not going to call "bot" immediately, but not sure what's going on there.