Crafting and Marketboard botting

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Originally Posted by Reap00

The people that say there will always be bots are 100% correct. Bots make money. They will ALWAYS be a part of mmos. ALWAYS. SE bans one they create 100 more. It is a constant battle that will never end. The only way the war on bots could and would end is if people stopped buying gil. We know that will never happen.

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It was not a problem in the past like it is now. In the past crafted items sold for a decent price and many sellers were recognizable crafters, even in mid-Stormblood when we saw the first of the crafting nerfs to make it easier. Bots existed, but they didn't have complete control of the markets.
It's true that items would not sell for the same prices as in the past even if bots didn't exist, due to the sheer simplicity of crafting/gathering driving up supply and lowering demand. But it definitely has an effect when one botter can churn out thousands of pieces of gear a week at close to material cost, while extracting thousands of materia from their gear in the process from Spiritbond.

Bots existed, but they're rampant now. Several things contribute to this issue.

-Crafter/Gatherers are so easy to level. Even if Enix caught and banned your character, it's a simple matter to bot back to 80 again and get back on track.
-Crafters are so easy to gear, materia is so cheap, materials are so easy to gather with bots and items are so easy to craft.
-Cross world trading exists. Set up retainer alts on other worlds and not only are your gil coffers harder to detect, you get the entire data center as your market.
-You can craft in the safety of your home. Enix can't scan your computer for botting software so as long as you don't admit you bot, you're undetectable.
-The STF is not equipped to handle bots and reports rarely work unless the bot screwed up. Therefore it's absolutely fine to bot without consequence.

Basically Enix have created a Bot Heaven this expansion, while simultaneously having no tools whatsoever to combat them.

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Originally Posted by MevariNavalo

Man, I wish our bots were that entertaining.

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It was pretty entertaining to watch at first. The bots would teleport really high up in the sky then fall and die on impact. That's how they killed themselves.

https://i.imgur.com/ZKdIDii.jpg

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Bots existed, but they're rampant now. Several things contribute to this issue.

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I think the biggest change is bots went from just being something RMTs used to being something lazy gamers used.

You still see the weirdly named obvious bots about but watch an older node get picked by botanists on the dot every time exactly the same way and you’d think it was a normal player if it wasn’t so perfect and doing it every single time 24-7.

Shame we can’t have a console only server.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

I think the biggest change is bots went from just being something RMTs used to being something lazy gamers used.

You still see the weirdly named obvious bots about but watch an older node get picked by botanists on the dot every time exactly the same way and you’d think it was a normal player if it wasn’t so perfect and doing it every single time 24-7.

Shame we can’t have a console only server.

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And those are the players that should be severely punished. Any sensible person knows RMT is a never ending battle. Bot player bots should be inexcusable and should be regularly wiped out. People have no fear. Keep their mouths shut in game and cheat 24-7. This is where GM interaction is important. And so strange that it doesn't happen at all in 14 but does in 11.



SMN could bot mote(am i remembering the right item) farming in 11, with just the way in game mechanics were designed with no 3rd party tools. GM asks a question and moves your character a bit. No response equals multiple suspensions and then a ban. When i made fun of the person who this happened to his response. It is in game it is not cheating. He doesn't play 11 anymore, haha.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

Shame we can’t have a console only server.

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I think it might be part of why other game companies still keep console and PC players on separated servers. Console players don't end up affected by PC player hacks.

It would also be sad, though. A lot of the good friends I've made here are console only while I'm PC only and we would have never met if the two were separate.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

I think it might be part of why other game companies still keep console and PC players on separated servers. Console players don't end up affected by PC player hacks.

It would also be sad, though. A lot of the good friends I've made here are console only while I'm PC only and we would have never met if the two were separate.

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I'm in the same boat.
Most of my FC would never have started if there wasn't crossplay, especially because there are a lot of couples / siblings there where one of them uses the computer and the other the PlayStation.
The PlayStation version of the game would be better protected from PC hacks, yeah, but the population would def take a hit. If the game didn't have crossplay and a household has more than one 14 player it's much easier and cheaper to just get a second laptop than to get an additional PlayStation and have to worry about getting a second TV, getting a couch and a table for it trying to set up another space for console gaming (assuming you have the room in your house / apartment / whatever) . . . and cuz of space / noise reasons you probably won't set it up right next to where the other person plays so you wouldn't even be able to physically be together while you're online together despite living together and it's just UGH so much easier to just play on 2 computers, especially if you wanna get together with you FC for lan parties.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I'm in the same boat.
Most of my FC would never have started if there wasn't crossplay, especially because there are a lot of couples / siblings there where one of them uses the computer and the other the PlayStation.
The PlayStation version of the game would be better protected from PC hacks, yeah, but the population would def take a hit. If the game didn't have crossplay and a household has more than one 14 player it's much easier and cheaper to just get a second laptop than to get an additional PlayStation and have to worry about getting a second TV, getting a couch and a table for it trying to set up another space for console gaming (assuming you have the room in your house / apartment / whatever) . . . and cuz of space / noise reasons you probably won't set it up right next to where the other person plays so you wouldn't even be able to physically be together while you're online together despite living together and it's just UGH so much easier to just play on 2 computers, especially if you wanna get together with you FC for lan parties.

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I don’t think the population of the PS4 server would be noticeably different. You just take PS4 players from different servers and put them in their own. May end up with an even bigger server.

Unless you mean less people will play because they can’t cross play with their friends.

But honestly as a console player I think it would be a much better experience for us. We’d be on a level playing field in terms of pvp/raiding and we wouldn’t have to worry about gold farmers and bots nearly as much.

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Originally Posted by Vickii

I don’t think the population of the PS4 server would be noticeably different. You just take PS4 players from different servers and put them in their own. May end up with an even bigger server.

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(Emphasis mine)
Hahaha somehow this had not occurred to me.
I retract my post.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

It was not a problem in the past like it is now. In the past crafted items sold for a decent price and many sellers were recognizable crafters, even in mid-Stormblood when we saw the first of the crafting nerfs to make it easier. Bots existed, but they didn't have complete control of the markets.
It's true that items would not sell for the same prices as in the past even if bots didn't exist, due to the sheer simplicity of crafting/gathering driving up supply and lowering demand. But it definitely has an effect when one botter can churn out thousands of pieces of gear a week at close to material cost, while extracting thousands of materia from their gear in the process from Spiritbond.

Bots existed, but they're rampant now. Several things contribute to this issue.

-Crafter/Gatherers are so easy to level. Even if Enix caught and banned your character, it's a simple matter to bot back to 80 again and get back on track.
-Crafters are so easy to gear, materia is so cheap, materials are so easy to gather with bots and items are so easy to craft.
-Cross world trading exists. Set up retainer alts on other worlds and not only are your gil coffers harder to detect, you get the entire data center as your market.
-You can craft in the safety of your home. Enix can't scan your computer for botting software so as long as you don't admit you bot, you're undetectable.
-The STF is not equipped to handle bots and reports rarely work unless the bot screwed up. Therefore it's absolutely fine to bot without consequence.

Basically Enix have created a Bot Heaven this expansion, while simultaneously having no tools whatsoever to combat them.

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All points noted what you said is exactly what is happening. Just came back from 3 month break and wow what happened? I don't log in for 24/7 straight but you do notice the same people ruling the market board are sitting in their apartments always online. I don't mind competition from other players but it is hard to compete with bots crafting non stop and running programs to auto undercut. Why isn't this obvious to SE?

Coming from playing FFXI for 15+ years in its early days players feared the STF team. They would ban hammer and set a example of not to cheat. Now or days bots rule that game also. It isn't just plain RMT it is largely the player base because they know SE has gotten lazy. Either they don't care and/or there is still a great language barrier that has never been broken. You can tell by forums responsive from both games over the years. Sure you see them make a example by banning or at least posting they ban.

They created their own monster even though they always had the tools to combat it. It is their game we just play by their rules.