I feel like there should be a limit on how often an item's price can be changed.

That or something else to deter the recent prevalence of people using bots to undercut people automatically 24/7, because it's getting seriously frustrating.

There's a DoH/L bot on my server spends his time after each unspoiled node sitting at the retainer bell until the next one spawns, constantly monitoring the prices of all his items and immediately undercutting anyone who has something listed lower then him by one gil.

It makes it virtually impossible to push sales when they're able to perpetually maintain the lowest prices on the MB (Save for the odd instance where they hit their "price floor" they refuse to go below and stop undercutting).

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

That or something else to deter the recent prevalence of people using bots to undercut people automatically 24/7, because it's getting seriously frustrating.

There's a DoH/L bot on my server spends his time after each unspoiled node sitting at the retainer bell until the next one spawns, constantly monitoring the prices of all his items and immediately undercutting anyone who has something listed lower then him by one gil.

It makes it virtually impossible to push sales when they're able to perpetually maintain the lowest prices on the MB (Save for the odd instance where they hit their "price floor" they refuse to go below and stop undercutting).

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Undercut them and then buy them out when they attempt to undercut you. I'd also be wary of accusing someone of operating a bot if you aren't 100% certain. Just because someone can do something like this efficiently doesn't mean they're botting.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

Undercut them and then buy them out when they attempt to undercut you. I'd also be wary of accusing someone of operating a bot if you aren't 100% certain. Just because someone can do something like this efficiently doesn't mean they're botting.

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There's a difference between simply being dedicated and being active and online literally 24/7. I've regularly witnessed this guy behaving in this manner on a constant loop for 12+ hours straight. Doesn't matter if it's 5 AM in the morning or 5 PM in the afternoon. He's still there doing an endless loop of gathering from unspoiled nodes then adjusting prices.

Buying him out doesn't work either because he immediately relists new items whenever they sell. This type of bot spends most of its time gathering then goes on a crafting binge maybe one or two days a week and creates several copies of every relevant piece of gear.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

There's a difference between simply being dedicated and being active and online literally 24/7. I've regularly witnessed this guy behaving in this manner on a constant loop for 12+ hours straight. Doesn't matter if it's 5 AM in the morning or 5 PM in the afternoon. He's still there doing an endless loop of gathering from unspoiled nodes then adjusting prices.

Buying him out doesn't work either because he immediately relists new items whenever they sell. This type of bot spends most of its time gathering then goes on a crafting binge maybe one or two days a week and creates several copies of every relevant piece of gear.

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Sounds like a good source of cheap product to resell, or to process into something else and then sell. If you can always force it to undercut you, then you are in control of the price.

The undercut bots can set a price floor they won't go under. In his case, it seems to be 150K on most of the 5.05 crafts.

It's really only exploitable for profit if the bot in question is not relisting items very often, but he's doing it every five minutes or so.

When I'm bored I check and relist all my items in a 15 minute intervall. So I wouldn't be very happy with that change :p Besides there wouldn't be any way to control it. If you can't manually adjust, you could always remove the item and list it anew. It would just be more annoying than it already is to adjust prices... I'm playing on PS4 and readjusting prices for like 20 - 60 items is..... time consuming.

I guess the best fix would just be to ban these players...except I've already reported one of them several times since the late HW days and they're still at it.

The market for crafted/gathered items is just doomed to be dominated by bots I suppose.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The undercut bots can set a price floor they won't go under. In his case, it seems to be 150K on most of the 5.05 crafts.

It's really only exploitable for profit if the bot in question is not relisting items very often, but he's doing it every five minutes or so.

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Then sell things for 149,999 gil.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

There's a difference between simply being dedicated and being active and online literally 24/7. I've regularly witnessed this guy behaving in this manner on a constant loop for 12+ hours straight.

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So basically you were both doing the same thing for 12+ hours straight.
That's not really evidence. Especially since you would be right there alongside him.

For all the claims that botting the MB is rampant, I've never seen any good evidence of it. Even when I directly invade the markets of people who are supposedly botting, I find they're really easy to beat and they just happen to be kind of active, making a few undercuts per day, which isn't even as many as I make when I'm really invested in this game and spend the whole day playing or whatever.

What I routinely see evidence of is that many casual MB users are instantly aggravated by any interaction with the MB and have a tendency to exaggerate how much of a problem it is because they're thoroughly upset. The system shouldn't be ruined for their benefit though, if it would even for their benefit. I definitely make items in large batches, so I often have more in my inventory I'm just waiting to post. If undercutting was limited, you'd post your item and I'd simply "undercut" by making a new post. The end result is a minor inconvenience for me and you're shut out of the market because you can't adjust the price of your item.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

So basically you were both doing the same thing for 12+ hours straight.
That's not really evidence. Especially since you would be right there alongside him.

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It annoys me how much benefit of the doubt people give others when it comes to bots, because if I suspect someone, I'll investigate thoroughly before I start making conclusions.

This player in question is not just gathering and undercutting constantly, he's always exhibiting the usual janky repetitive movement patterns that are typical of a bot. I didn't spend excessive amounts of time watching him in person (I do, however, monitor suspect players with player search), but every almost single time I've been in Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks for the past week or so over the course of my somewhat excessively long play sessions he'd be sitting by the retainer bell and if he wasn't, he'd show up within about three minutes if I waited there.

While you can find his price floor and sell lower then him for a time, he'll eventually notice and drop it even lower, so you really can't win. There's also the fact that he's only one of multiple bots doing the exact same thing, so even if you can steal his sales away it's not uncommon for one of the others to start picking up his slack because they seem to operate in different time zones.

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Originally Posted by Nixxe

For all the claims that botting the MB is rampant, I've never seen any good evidence of it. Even when I directly invade the markets of people who are supposedly botting, I find they're really easy to beat and they just happen to be kind of active, making a few undercuts per day, which isn't even as many as I make when I'm really invested in this game and spend the whole day playing or whatever.

What I routinely see evidence of is that many casual MB users are instantly aggravated by any interaction with the MB and have a tendency to exaggerate how much of a problem it is because they're thoroughly upset. The system shouldn't be ruined for their benefit though, if it would even for their benefit. I definitely make items in large batches, so I often have more in my inventory I'm just waiting to post. If undercutting was limited, you'd post your item and I'd simply "undercut" by making a new post. The end result is a minor inconvenience for me and you're shut out of the market because you can't adjust the price of your item.

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Craft bots are common, but people who use undercut bots are not. This player is only the second one I've noticed on my server; the other having been a longtime nuisance since the late HW days and whose name has become familiar to pretty much all of the legitimate crafters on the server due to how obnoxious they are. They play it safe by either using alt accounts to farm their mats or just buying it all straight off the MB and are holed up in their house crafting away about 99% of the time.

Some of them also do their selling on alt accounts, possibly to reduce the risk of their entire operation getting shut down if they do ever get caught. The latter one I mentioned has a trio of low leveled alts in their FC stationed in each of the three ARR cities that log on/off in a constant cycle whenever they're actively undercutting people.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It annoys me how much benefit of the doubt people give others when it comes to bots, because if I suspect someone, I'll investigate thoroughly before I start making conclusions.

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It is my policy to never trust the judgment of randos and certainly not on their mere assurances that they know what they're talking about. People routinely grossly overestimate their competence.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Craft bots are common, but people who use undercut bots are not. This player is only the second one I've noticed on my server; the other having been a longtime nuisance since the late HW days and whose name has become familiar to pretty much all of the legitimate crafters on the server due to how obnoxious they are. They play it safe by either using alt accounts to farm their mats or just buying it all straight off the MB and are holed up in their house crafting away about 99% of the time.

Some of them also do their selling on alt accounts, possibly to reduce the risk of their entire operation getting shut down if they do ever get caught. The latter one I mentioned has a trio of low leveled alts in their FC stationed in each of the three ARR cities that log on/off in a constant cycle whenever they're actively undercutting people.

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Sure, bots may be out there, but if the best they can manage is being inferior to me, a player who does not bot, then it's not worth treating it like a crisis and making drastic changes to the game in an effort to prevent it. By your own admission people actually botting the MB per se is rare, so what sense does it make to greatly alter the MB to prevent the rare occurrences? The nature of botting is such that you can basically make any changes you want and it will always be worth it to bot because botting is free progress. Who you end up hurting with draconian game systems are actual players whose time spent at the keyboard is made less effective.

Fair point.

I guess I'm just getting really frustrated with how consistently difficult these same few "players" in particular are making it to sell anything at reasonable prices. Though I also get annoyed when people repeatedly play the "You're just salty" card whenever I start making claims of people botting like it's extremely difficult to tell.

I enjoy crafting and enjoy selling stuff, but SE continuing to let people get away with this nonsense is stifling both. I don't like having to resort to niche items like furniture and glams that I'm lucky to sell once a week even with minimal competition, but it's certainly less frustrating then having to contend with automated undercutters.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

Fair point.

I guess I'm just getting really frustrated with how consistently difficult these same few "players" in particular are making it to sell anything at reasonable prices. Though I also get annoyed when people repeatedly play the "You're just salty" card whenever I start making claims of people botting like it's extremely difficult to tell.

I enjoy crafting and enjoy selling stuff, but SE continuing to let people get away with this nonsense is stifling both. I don't like having to resort to niche items like furniture and glams that I'm lucky to sell once a week even with minimal competition, but it's certainly less frustrating then having to contend with automated undercutters.

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149,999 gil isn't a reasonable price? Just what is it are you trying to sell? And just how much profit is reasonable?

That's what the running price for most of the crafted 450 pieces was, but it's gotten pushed even lower at this point.

I was used to seeing the stuff being moved for closer to 200K throughout SB even well into a patch cycle where the demand was lower, and that's what the prices had kind of stabilized at until this particular individual came around.

The 5.05 crafted gear is right around 250k on my server. As with all things related to pricing, the market has the ultimate say.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It annoys me how much benefit of the doubt people give others when it comes to bots...

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Keep in mind that bot users will actively defend their way of life when the subject is brought up, just as griefers will go through incredible mental gymnastics to justify why the mechanic they exploit should be left untouched in a game.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

The 5.05 crafted gear is right around 250k on my server. As with all things related to pricing, the market has the ultimate say.

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If there weren’t thousands of bots artificially increasing supply while not increasing demand I can tell you that the value of that gear would be A LOT higher, this isn’t a natural market problem.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The undercut bots can set a price floor they won't go under. In his case, it seems to be 150K on most of the 5.05 crafts.

It's really only exploitable for profit if the bot in question is not relisting items very often, but he's doing it every five minutes or so.

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So undercut their 150k floor.

I already mentioned that while you can sell below their price floor, they (Or one of the myraid other bots) will eventually notice and just keep pushing the floor lower and lower until it's not even worth the time/effort to craft.

Crafting is effectively a time/cost free venture for them due to having a constant supply of mats they either DoL bot themselves or are stocked with from alts, so they really don't care how low they have to go in order to discourage their competition.

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Originally Posted by Lunavi

If there weren’t thousands of bots artificially increasing supply while not increasing demand I can tell you that the value of that gear would be A LOT higher, this isn’t a natural market problem.

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It kind of is actually. If we look at real world trading economies we see it a lot. China, for instance, has been big on flooding markets they want to control with below-cost goods to drive other manufacturers out. It sucks, but this kind of thing is hardly new.

Oh look, it's that thread again.

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Originally Posted by Big_Bap

Oh look, it's that thread again.

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I'm assuming you're saying this under the assumption I'm just salty about being undercut in general.

I don't mind getting undercut by actual people because they're taking time out of their lives to check their prices regularly.

It's the market board spambots that annoy the heck out of me because they lack some of the main weaknesses the former have. Players can be beaten through persistence or undercutting at hours where you know they aren't awake/active. These guys can't. Going under their price floor generally just leads to them lowering it by another 50K or so, and if I'm required to sell things at less then 100K because of them it ceases to be worth the effort when I can move things like materia or glams for considerably more profit for the amount of time spent.

I suppose all we can really do is pray that the JP players notice them and convince SE to start doing something about them because they seem to actually have taken some kind of more lasting measure against the RMT bot hordes now that someone on their end complained.

Could just use the age-old WoW solution: ditch the % fee and instead just add a registry fee. No, it's not refunded when you cancel the item out of its sale (including by adjusting its price).

I'd personally rather prices remain adjustable, but /shrug.

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Originally Posted by Callinon

It kind of is actually. If we look at real world trading economies we see it a lot. China, for instance, has been big on flooding markets they want to control with below-cost goods to drive other manufacturers out. It sucks, but this kind of thing is hardly new.

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People in china have the same needs as we do as human beings, unlike bots in this game. It takes a person in china the exact same time to do the exact same thing as it would for us. They just accept selling things cheaper than we do and live at a lower standard.

Bots, however, are not playing by the same rules as we do considering they can fly through the air and walk below the surface which means they can gather faster than a normal player can ever do. They also don’t require a person to sit and give it commands, which means one person with a basement of bots running can provide Gathering materials at a highly increased rate (XYZ, where X is the amount of bots running and Y is the amount a normal person can provide it and Z being the increased speed of what a bot can provide compared to a human being, so let us hypotheoretically say someone has a bot farm of 100 accounts running and each one can provide materials at 1.5 times the normal speed for a human, that person would flood the market at 150 times the speed of one player, or alone represent 150 full time gatherers, Assuming a full time gatherer gathers 8 hours per day and the botfarmer goes out of their way to hide that they are a bot by having a natural playpattern of only 8 hours per day per account).

This is a huge problem in the economic environment for crafters and gatherers caused by ARTIFICIAL means, and is therefore an artificial problem in the game’s economic value.

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Originally Posted by Big_Bap

Oh look, it's that thread again.

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Oh look, large parts of this thread's content are still painfully relevant.

But, hey, feel free to harass any of the threads requesting that SE crack down on bots, since those threads have likewise been here since ARR?

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Originally Posted by Lunavi

People in china have the same needs as we do as human beings, unlike bots in this game. It takes a person in china the exact same time to do the exact same thing as it would for us. They just accept selling things cheaper than we do and live at a lower standard.

Bots, however, are not playing by the same rules as we do considering they can fly through the air and walk below the surface which means they can gather faster than a normal player can ever do. They also don’t require a person to sit and give it commands, which means one person with a basement of bots running can provide Gathering materials at a highly increased rate (XYZ, where X is the amount of bots running and Y is the amount a normal person can provide it and Z being the increased speed of what a bot can provide compared to a human being, so let us hypotheoretically say someone has a bot farm of 100 accounts running and each one can provide materials at 1.5 times the normal speed for a human, that person would flood the market at 150 times the speed of one player, or alone represent 150 full time gatherers, Assuming a full time gatherer gathers 8 hours per day and the botfarmer goes out of their way to hide that they are a bot by having a natural playpattern of only 8 hours per day per account).

This is a huge problem in the economic environment for crafters and gatherers caused by ARTIFICIAL means, and is therefore an artificial problem in the game’s economic value.

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The sad thing is most of these guys make basically no effort to actually conceal their activities and leave their bots running 24/7.

The Lodestone FC rankings are a pretty easy way to get an idea of which FCs on a given server are involved in illicit activity when you start seeing massive disparities in the amount of active members vs. the amount of FC credits they're generating.

Market fee should be charge for placing the items and everytime someone change the price to stop this.

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Originally Posted by Big_Bap

Oh look, it's that thread again.

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O look it someone going around discouraging people from their opinions and suggestions, while offering nothing constructive themselves... awesome!

Recently I have taken more interest in making gil than I did in the past. I think some people just like playing the MB, and I don't think they are all botting, chinese gold sellers.

I'm retired, so if I'm not out fishing or golfing or (well, THAT'S none of your business), I'm often playing FF. As a crafter, my job is to craft and SELL more than the next guy, and after playing it for 6 years (with several 6 month breaks), I'm pretty good at it. BUT IT'S JUST A GAME! I SERIOUSLY doubt that very many people are using bots... they're just spending more time (or spending their time productively) STUDYING and working the market. If I adjust my prices (which I do several times a day), and while researching the market for an "untapped" item to craft I notice that you undercut me in the last 5 minutes, I'm going to go back and undercut YOU! Because that's how the game is played. And if you steal a sale away from me by doing the same thing, good job! And if you're constantly getting undercut, them maybe you should find a product that doesn't have 20 people selling it. I'd rather sell a 200k item every day that wait a week for a 1m gil item to move. And it's not about the money, after your first year you should be counting your gil in 9 figures. It's about the fun of the competition. But if you're not having fun, or if it's "too hard" for you, quit.