A few questions for my fellow crafters/gatherers:
How have the recent crafting changes affected you? Affected your outlet for crafting/mats markets? Motivation? Demand? Enjoyability?
How useful do you think the majority of gear/weapon recipes are? Have MSQ/dungeon changes affected demand for crafted items? Do you think there is enough glam/housing/endgame gear/consumables demand to balance any changes?
What adjustments would you want to see that would affect the overall economy to make it better for both buyers & sellers -- and make the game more enjoyable to play as a merchant/crafter/gatherer?
My own thoughts:
FFXIV has some limited crafted consumables: some basic dyes, pots, crafting/gathering/raiding food....aaand that's kinda it. When did you last use a remove paralysis potion? One tweak I would love to see (spitballing) are consumables that are crafted that make the game more interesting or interactive. Give me the ability to craft wedding or social emotes, like a prism for throwing roses at the couple. Or potions that allow a player to use an ability in a fight with a long cooldown--like a jump move or to dump all aggro. Or perhaps something that would be extremely fun or interesting to use, like putting a funny status effect on an enemy -- like wearing a stupid hat. Just some ideas. Something that players would /enjoy/ buying to have fun with, but wouldn't be something that raidmasters would be like "you must now have this". Pots like this could be restricted to unsynced duties, perhaps, to avoid causing issues for other players in matched duties.
Another tweak that could help the market just a touch would be to be able to toggle player housing to allow non-tenants to interact with the furnishings. This could potentially be an issue for blank walls or flower pots, but the goal would be so that those who have cafes or throw parties could allow guests to eat the food that's laid out before them. It would be a toggle, so that a player could toggle it on during a party, and switch it back off afterwards.
I would love to see other changes that increase the value of content that the game already has. SE has obviously put a lot of hours into creating the content the game already has, and I am a little sad to feel like a lot of it gets crammed into the corner and ignored. I encounter a lot of players who show up for patches and then flee because they see a game devoid of any other content. I think that if the game were made a bit more flexible (to what extent that is possible given the coding), to allow players to achieve more social connection and have more tools for player-driven events and content, then the player base could bring a lot more value to the game, given all the beautiful assets that already exist. I think SE recognizes this, with their mindfulness to increase props for screenshots and RP.
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09-30-2020, 01:54 AMKatCnaaDiscussion & Suggestions: What do you think of FFXIV economy?
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09-30-2020, 04:16 AMKes13a
I want to see zero changes until the bot issue is addressed. seriously, they suck any enjoyment out of crafting
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09-30-2020, 06:40 AMEloc^ This first!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
I would like to feel like i am providing a service to the community instead of crafting for the sake of craftings sake. Crafting for scrips or some event meant as content for crafters seems like it took away the purpose of having crafting all together. Remove all crafting and the game pretty much stays in tact. One of the changes they made was to how materia was earned in the game. When extracting materia stopped destroying the item it took away the need for crafters to constantly add supply. Right now as 1 person i feel i could single handedly flood the market of all items in a day.
Its almost like they need to make it so raid gear can only be repaired with a material from destroying crafted gear.
Make Crafting Relevant Again -
09-30-2020, 07:00 AMJojoya
It's hard to separate out what economic impact comes from the crafting/gathering changes versus the economic impact of increased botting versus the economic impact of an increasing player population.
I doubt the crafting/gathering changes have contributed that much. Based on my personal experience talking to friends and others I know, it's removed some veteran
player buyers from the market (they're making their own items now) but hasn't really added new sellers. The increase to player population would offset the reduction in veteran player buyers since new players are more likely to turn to the marketboard for the things they want as they learn.
Increased botting has had much more of an impact but the bots would be there regardless of what changes were made to crafting or gathering since the time invested to level has no meaning to them.
There's still plenty of gil making opportunities for crafters/gatherers. It just takes watching the marketboard to see what players are buying and what the bots are ignoring.
Adding more items for crafters to make can help - but only if players are interested in buying those items. There don't seem to be a lot of players interested in using the Magicked Prisms and like items on a regular basis, at least not on the NA servers. I don't see players who stick to doing roulettes wasting gil on consumables that aren't needed to complete the content. A more diverse selection of crafted cosmetic gear would stimulate the markets considering the popularity of glamour. The relatively limited current offerings gated by treasure map RNG doesn't do much to stimulate that part of the market.
Making more housing items interactive would not impact the market economy because the Mannequins and Retainer Permits are the only items directly connected to marketboards and non-tenants can already interact with them. Making food items interactive by non-tenants would just get most house owners to stop using them - they place them for decoration, not for others to turn into an ugly empty plate. They're not going to keep rebuying items getting consumed by trolls. I don't see SE going to the effort of creating a food toggle for housing when they won't even give us shared food items for parties.
The value of content ultimately comes from how much fun we're having doing it, not how much gil we earn in the process. It's only different if you're trying to play the game as wealth accumulation simulator, which most players aren't doing. Gil is only useful if you want to buy the things you want instead of do the content required to earn them.
Personally, I'm having fun. The presence of bots is an annoyance since cheating should never be tolerated but only an annoyance. Outside of a couple of occasions where I had to go to extremes to kill some quest mobs that bot groups were farming, they haven't blocked my access to doing things and so haven't impact the value that content has for me.
There's also nothing wrong with players showing up for a few weeks when a patch is released then going off to play other games. It's healthier for gaming in general - more money getting dispersed to more game makers, which in turns inspires game makers to come up with more ideas for new games. It's not realistic to expect any game to keep all players satisfied 20+ hours a week every week.
That's easy - reach out to new players in Novice Network and offer to make gear for them. Until they're in a good position to start farming tomestones, they could use some reliable gear sources since they're generally leveling faster than MSQ keeps up with gear rewards. That's the part of the community that needs service, not veteran players fully capable of providing for themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eloc
And it's easy (too easy in all honesty) to get into Novice Network as a tradecraft mentor. Half the players I know who have done it don't have a clue how to craft a master recipe without using a macro they got from someone else. -
10-01-2020, 08:07 AMKatCnaa
These are really good points I hadn't thought about. Thank you for your perspective.
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10-02-2020, 12:06 PMNixxe
They need to stop with the "accessibility." Crafting was accessible from the start, since it was only ever a question of resource investment and not skill. The changes they're making now just undermine the value and purpose of crafting to make it more appealing to players who obviously aren't terribly interested in it at the expense of players who actually focus on it.
Needless to say, with "accessibility" comes worse markets. I like making gil and I like making gil by crafting rather than flipping, which is boring, but I don't want to grind for pennies. -
10-02-2020, 01:36 PMDrWho2010
i mean that's the tradeoff. they looked at the numbers of people who were crafters/gatherers and those who were not and said "we don't like how this looks - we want to see those numbers get bigger, but without having to feel like players are being forced to do so." and so here we are.
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10-02-2020, 02:21 PMJojoyaI don't mind the XP increases for crafting and gathering. Any MMO hits that point where you need to tighten up the leveling experience so new players don't get overwhelmed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nixxe
The change to recipe difficulty wasn't necessary, though. -
10-02-2020, 03:55 PMNixxeI don't care very much about the ease with which people can hit the level cap, save for the fact that they devoted an entire beast tribe to three classes this time around. I'd much rather have a second DoW/M tribe. Leveling DoH/L really doesn't need more help at the expense of opportunities for DoW/M. I'm fine with beast tribes and the like for crafting and gathering in general though. I wouldn't have been an omnicrafter by the end of HW without using them myself, and once you catch up, it's ridiculously easy in comparison to keep them caught up. Can't hate on people wanting the same opportunity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
I mostly want endgame crafting to really require current crafted gear, at least half-decent pentamelds, and food and/or tea. If people want to use casual scrip gear, they should be limited to last tier's crafts (so 2 star at the moment, with gear good enough for 3 star coming in 5.4). If you have top tier gear and melds, I'm fine with things being reliably macroed rather than having to use something like Rath's or trying to make expert crafts the normal state of affairs, but it should require that buy-in, especially since spiritbonding changes made materia cheap enough that anyone can reasonably afford it if they put the effort into doing so. Exclusivity and more relevant crafts can help people make a profit at any level of crafting, just as I made millions in ARR with just GSM leveled and no clue what I was doing by selling Sanguine Scepters melded with w/e the BLM relic required.
The desynth change is probably the only balance-affecting change I liked in ShB though. Desynthesis needed to have something done with it. It was functioning like a deprecated game system (because it was), was quite expensive to level if you needed to catch up, and carried the persistent threat of eventually being relevant again. -
10-07-2020, 06:30 AMArch58
Observation based upon my server only.
Economy is dead. Too many sellers chasing too few buyers.
Three reasons, I think:
A) General reduction in size of active player base
B) Crafting ruined by Ishgardian Restoration and resultant increase in players being able to craft more of their own requirements.
C) Botting ........ -
10-07-2020, 07:06 AMAniona
Bot problem is n.1 I guess.
Because they are crafting and selling items, then they selling those Gil for $.
Ppl often buy items from MB...well...guess from who.
Problem n.2 we need some items at NPC's which will cost some millions of gil, glam, mounts, minions and etc.
It will help in-game economy by deleting tons of extra gil from game. -
10-07-2020, 08:14 AMNixxeI don't think anyone would say no to more uses for gil, but your suggestion wouldn't do much for the economy. The volume of gil only matters to the extent that inflation matters and inflation only matters to the extent that it prevents players from buying essentials, but in this game essentials all come from vendors with fixed prices. In addition, if you start making drastic changes to the gil supply, the short story is that well-established players with a lot of accumulated wealth will be the ones who benefit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aniona
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10-07-2020, 10:42 AMNamidaTekikaThing is those established players stockpile the gil because there aren't really many gil sinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nixxe
There needs to be big ticket things on vendors to vaporize that gil from the economy. The RMT bots don't spend gil (since it just circulates to idiots who buy it) and the people hoarding gil have no reason to spend it. This just builds on inflation in the long run. Part of why they honestly should also have some kind of rent or maintenance payment for housing to slowly and steadily pull gil from the system. Doesn't need to be insane like 100k a month for a plot would pull millions of gil a month out of the system, but overall most players would make more than that who actively play (heck just roulettes daily in a week would make more than that, but it would slow inflation). It would also help people get housing and such (which would pull gil from the system) since house squatters having the pay rent would discourage squatting.
Big ticket items would also siphon a lot out to make gil actually worth more too. Healthier economy because it would slow overall inflation. What are the people with gil getting though? Nothing that alters the actual gameplay experience and if you consider that as benefitting than honestly you need to remove large plots too for the same logic.
Gil sinks and slowing inflation is good for the game health. Nuking bots also would help greatly too because it would allow for more gil liquidity instead of it going to bots and sitting in RMT coffers. -
10-07-2020, 12:39 PMNixxePretty much everything you said is wrong. People "hoarding gil" do not cause inflation. They in fact functionally remove gil from circulation, which decreases inflation. Inflation is tied to new gil generation and increases in the amount of gil in circulation. Wealthy players primarily get their wealth from other players via the market board, and thus contribute little to increasing inflation.Quote:
Originally Posted by NamidaTekika
And that's not even taking into consideration that inflation is not a problem in this game, likely due in no small part to how stingy this game has always been with handing out gil. Aimlessly decreasing the gil supply does not automatically lead to a healthier economy.
Your housing tax isn't even worth addressing. -
12-23-2020, 02:08 AMReynTimeLord Yoshida said 1.0 Nightmare and players have since parroted it (along with everything else he says) ad nauseum. No 1.X tendencies for you, everything about 1.X XIV is bad. Bad!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Eloc
No but really on paper they had something neat with the importance of crafters back then but Yoshida follows the mindset that they must absolutely try to please everyone even if it means making it so nothing matters except if you raid. So this kind of change will never be considered. -
12-23-2020, 04:06 PMKes13awell they have certainly pleased the hell out of botters and RMT sellers.Quote:
Originally Posted by ReynTime
maybe its time they try to please the actual people who PLAY the game and dont automate it for real money off their IP -
12-23-2020, 06:19 PMPrrringles
Economy is dead like some others have said. There is no fix. FFXIV has been made super casual and that is the way they want to go. Crafting is there becasue it is a staple in any MMORPG but it's optional and by no means instrumental to their narrative. The days of FFXI or early FFXIV are over. Accept it and move along. SE has made it clear serveral times that crafting (and thus selling) is not a priority for them. MSQ and raiding is everything for them and all the rest is extra (read optional).
EDIT: Here is an example why crafting and everything else related is dead.
A friend of mine returned to the game recently and decided to lvl his crafters (all lvl 1). He had basically only a few 100k gil to start with. Guess what, Ishgard restauraion > 1 week later > all crafters at 80.
I had to sell my soul to the devil to lvl all my crafters to max back in the day (talking all pre SB here. I play since 1.0). Yet my hard work and dedication was rewarded. Thats why only few people were super wealthy back then. NOW, guess what, no one is wealthy. All the players boasting they have multiple gil caps (like me) made that gil during HW and maybe early SB. My point is that SE went casual and killed off crafting and the economy in general. Throw in the bots now and the clown fiesta is complete. No one is getting rich now 'cept for the botting cartel(s). -
12-23-2020, 06:21 PMJojoyaConsidering how many people are currently playing the game, it seems they are pleased enough overall. If they weren't, they would quit playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
Not everyone is going to get upset over bots when most players only see a minimal negative impact on their game experience. It's mainly those trying to get rich by selling on the marketboard who get upset because the bots are now direct competition. Few of them are so upset they're bothering to quit the game over it, or at least not enough to get SE to take a stronger stance. -
12-24-2020, 04:20 AMKes13aso, your theory, is that all I am out for is to make as much gil as possible?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
its wrong, I am against people cheating. not that it matters much to you, and because I am not inclined to be rude towards you, I'll keep my theories about you to myself ^^ -
12-24-2020, 01:16 PMJojoyaDidn't say that at all. I'm not making any assumptions about your particular style of game play. You probably should stop taking general discussion points made in reply to your own comments personally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
I was speaking of how players react to botting in online games. As long as those bots don't have a significant negative impact on the player, the bots aren't enough to get players to quit. Their simple existence is generally not enough to create that significant impact.
The impact comes when bots block players from completing content (such as bot hordes swarming quest mobs so legitimate players can't kill them to meet quest objectives), gaining standing in ranked competitions (such as PvP) so legitimate players are hindered in earning rewards, etc. When it comes to market bots, players who play the game to accumulate wealth are seeing their rate of acquisition diminished by bot activity (though bots are not the only factor) and that's got them upset. Are they upset enough to quit? You'd need to ask them.
Are bots negatively impacting my game experience to the point I want to quit? No. I'm still able to complete quests. I'm still able to hunt. I'm still able to craft. I'm still able to sell on the marketboard for profit. I'm able to do roulettes, mount farm, open world content, etc. As much as I hate cheaters and want to see them gone, they aren't actually hindering my game play at all so I'm not going to let simple knowledge of their existence ruin my experience. I'm not going to give them power over me so they get to dictate how much or how little enjoyment I get from the game.
I would still much rather see SE take a stronger stance against those who cheat whether RMT buyers/sellers, non-RMT bot users, exploiters using loopholes in the game's coding to gain advantage over other players, etc. Crack down on the cheating and problems like the bots will mostly disappear because there will be few players left willing to risk repeated loss of accounts due to their cheating. Because there's little perceived enforcement (and seems to be little in truth), the cheaters are out in force.
Oh well, that's the human race as much as we hate to admit it.
Think what you want about me. You're probably dead wrong. -
12-24-2020, 01:50 PMItMeIronic, because I think you're on point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
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12-24-2020, 03:32 PMKes13a
I am guessing you missed completely the competition aspect in terms of Ishgardian Restoration then
bots essentially cleaned up and garnered a majority if not all the "awards" and rankings.
The bottom line is whether its the market or combat/leveling, SE does little if anything to fight cheaters in any way . their token releases of 'bans' without any sense of what servers is more along the lines of patting themselves on the back because there is NO context. for all we know those could be figures from only the JPN servers. -
12-24-2020, 05:20 PMPrrringlesOr made up entirelyQuote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
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12-25-2020, 04:05 AMItMeCan you support this claim in any way?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
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12-25-2020, 09:47 AMShaliaK
It would be fine if not for the rampant botting on the market board. Square enix needs to do something about it, or at least let us know they're aware and trying... even if at the very least, aware of it.
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12-25-2020, 10:22 AMJojoyaExcept they didn't. The majority of the awards went to legitimate players who put in the needed effort to earn their rankings. No one is going to deny that there weren't some bots in there but we also saw SE banning accounts for non-RMT bot activity during that ranking period. A few players reported in these forums suspected bots that they had been tracking during the ranking period had been removed from the leaderboards toward the end of the ranking period.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kes13a
It's really easy to say if someone scored higher than you that they must have been a bot but that doesn't make them a bot. They might have had more time to craft/gather than you did. They might have had a more efficient farming route in Diadem. They might have gotten better ratings on the crafted collectables they submitted.
I look at the scores for 5.3 on Zalera and I'm not seeing any among the crafters that weren't possible to obtain through human effort. You could get 10k points a hour or more, which means the most time even the highest score needed was 130 hours if it was someone who is good at crafting. The gathering scores are really quite low except for one Fisher. Was that one a bot? Could be. Or could have been some good RNG over how ever many hours they spent in there. A lot of the gatherers were putting in 15-18 hour days trying to get their top ranking.
Are you really going to go around and claim almost everyone in the top 12 on Zalera was a bot? If so, that's you being ignorant of what a good crafter/gatherer is capable of doing. -
01-22-2021, 01:02 PMDragonkatI think I'd like to personally address that last sentence. Let's talk about content. I ground out today my second Dragonsong Tool. I'm starting in on the next phases of gobbie goo. Primary because i'm trying to help a friend by getting enough stats to craft top tier gear for him. Since a full crafter set with overmelds still can't reach that insanely high control cap for exarchic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
But I'd like to ask. What incentive do I have to work my ass off for those tools, why should I work to become one of the top crafters on my server. Why should I try to ply my goods and provide them to players who need it. When all the content I enjoy can be undercut in seconds by a ******* BOT?!
It's not about the gil and the entitled attitude of "if it doesn't hurt me what's the big deal?" while thinking it's about the greed shows just how little you understand the actual problem. Speaking as someone who will gleefully tank a market on purpose because I hate under cutters that much?
It's about content.
And the market is part of that. You talk about bots blocking objectives? I watched today not one, but three different bots not only undercut my sales but undercut each other constantly for hours. I managed to bring the 300K ase rings of crafting on Byrn down to 70K before the three I casually made for a test sold. Which to be blunt I consider a fair price, trying to pay 300K if you aren't a crafter yourself is stupid, (the paradox of needing to craft to make money for items, at which point why by them when you can make them yourself) but that and inflation is a whole other issue.
Regardless I had to sit there and waste a lot of time checking the MB every couple minutes till I finally found the floor these bots were programmed at. So I ask you. How is THAT any different from people jumping up and down in front of a quest objective? It's still automated bull blocking what I'm attempting to do. And yes it ruins my incentive to play the market game when this is the end result.
Just because you can't see a negative happening to you doesn't make it any less of a problem for those of us who would like to make an honest living. Actually try to supply a playerbase in a stable economy not rigged and broken by these bots. And actually enjoy the competition of crafting and market pvp (see above, I have no problem being that girl). And just because it's not a style you like doesn't make it any less valid then the rest of the combat content out there. -
01-23-2021, 05:25 AMJojoyaExcellent, let's hear how the market bots have blocked your access to content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
You haven't described how you had access to content blocked. You've only described how you made the choice to pursue one type of content - "gleefully tanking a market" as you put it - over doing other content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
So back over your individual points.
The incentive is that you want the tools. They're not needed to do any crafting in the game, they just ease the process a bit. You can use other tools the game makes available. I know several crafters not bothering to get the Skysteel tools.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
What is a top crafter? How do we determine what a top crafter is in a digital environment where all standard crafting comes with a readily obtained mathematical solution and only the RNG of Expert throws some challenge into the mix?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
Because you enjoy crafting and because there are other players who need/want what you can make.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
Any player can undercut you within seconds with the simple serendipity of checking their unsold listings to see if they've been undercut just after you list your items. Compulsive sellers are going to be doing this constantly because that's how they like to play the game - always checking their listings to make sure they're the lowest. You know, just like you are about to describe doing yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
It's crazy how often I have to tell people this but you're your own worst enemy if you keep undercutting those who have undercut you (and who then turn around and undercut you again so you have to undercut again ad nauseum). Stop obsessing over being the lowest on the MB. List then walk away and do other things. If your item hasn't sold in whatever the standard sales period is based on sales history, then worry about whether or not you've been undercut. If the item sells 4 times a day, check 6-8 hours later or longer if you're currently outside of peak traffic periods for your world instead of 6-8 minutes later.
Oh, please. Of course it's about the gil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
If it wasn't about the gil, you'd be giving away what you've made for free to any random stranger passing by because it's really about you enjoying being one of the top crafters on your world. Right?
But you don't. You list the items on the MB and then complain about how you get undercut on the MB instead because it means you're making less gil. And when you complain about making less, even though what you make is still profit above and beyond what you need, it absolutely is greed at work.
I never said anything about bots blocking personal objectives you set for yourself. I talked about blocking access to content.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
They have not blocked you from crafting items. They have not blocked you from listing those items on the marketboard. They probably haven't even blocked you from selling your items if you would just take a chill pill and stop playing the undercutting game.
It's not up to the game to make certain you achieve your personal objectives. It's up to you to do that.
Being sincere and honest here - good for you. You're right, there's no reason why rings or other gear should be going for such high prices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
Yet others would accuse both of us of being bots for being willing to accept 70k instead of selling at 300k.
Except you didn't have to. You chose to do it. You decided you want to see how low the other seller would go instead of listing your item and walking away to do other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
Can you understand the difference?
And if you genuinely want prices to be affordable for the players who "need" the items (which they don't, they can get gear from other sources that will work just fine for the content they want to do), why didn't you price the items that low in the first place?
You still haven't offered any evidence the price cutting was automated. Are you familiar with TSM, the auction house add-on in WoW? It's not automation but it makes it very easy for the player to rapidly scan and do price adjustments. Considering the other mods that players have come up with for this game, it wouldn't surprise me if there's an equivalent here. Still technically against ToS but definitely not a bot and within that grey area SE avoids discussing.
But there's also nothing to prevent a player from doing it manually if they desire considering you admit you do it yourself as you try to tank the price to see what the other seller's floor is.
Once again, you start talking about gil despite trying to claim it's not about the gil. If it's not about the gil, you would list and walk away.
That's what I do. I list and walk away. Either my item has sold the next time I go to check my listings or it hasn't. If it hasn't I check to see if the item was sold recently, at what price, and if others are currently undercutting me then I decide if I want to match the lower price (if there is one) or pull the item and sell something else instead.
I never said bots aren't a negative to the game. I abhor cheaters who aren't willing to earn their rewards through honest effort. I did say you will find there are other players who don't necessarily cheat themselves but do enjoy the lower prices that result from bot activity and so don't see it as a negative.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
How are you not making "an honest living"? The honest living in this game is to beat up primals and other villains. We're the Warrior of Light, that's what we do. We even get rewarded with gil when we do it, enough for our basic game needs like repair and teleport fees.
It's the extras we want that require the extra gil. I can't account for how you don't manage to get the extra gil. I don't have a problem getting it. If I spend gil, I usually have it all back, plus a bit more, very quickly.
What have you been unable to buy in this game because you don't enough gil to do it?
As for stable economies, bots are the least of the problems with the game's economy. Unlimited resources, constant fresh gil generation, lack of viable gil sinks to drain some of that fresh gil back out of the economy, lack of price regulations, quick ventures flooding the marketboard with previously rare items, players having differing opinions about how effort should be valued, etc. - those things are what are destablizing the game economy.
Are bots a problem? Yes. There will always be players finding ways to cheat to get what they want.
Is everyone selling items on the MB and being accused of being a bot an actual bot? No. Even if they're rampantly undercutting those who are undercutting their listings, they're still doing it through human effort. You prove it when you describe how you use the same tactics against them (at least I assume you're not botting yourself).
Is it worth getting our panties in a bunch over it? No. You can still enjoy the game even if others are cheating. Ultimately, it is our satisfaction in knowing what we did and how we accomplished it that means something, not how we compare to others.
If you've got reasonable evidence that a seller is a bot (being undercut 1 minute after you list is not evidence), by all means report them to SE with as much detail as you have. I've done it myself.
But cheaters are going to cheat and it's not worth your good mental health to let them get to you. -
01-23-2021, 06:24 AMDragonkatI could say the same of the multi quoting above. So I'm not going to waste my time with it. Have fun passively accepting your cheating and making excuses for it one moment while saying it's horrible the next. I'll just go back to being a "greedy" crafter while you decide to just ignore things that don't bother you. Since you aren't the one who is being undercut in the space of the seconds. Which makes it oh so easy to just list my stuff and move on. *eyerolls at the sheer cluelessness of this sentiment* Good luck with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
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01-23-2021, 06:53 AMJojoyaYour choice, just as I've made my choice based on years of experience with cheaters in MMOs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
I wish you luck with your sales. -
01-23-2021, 10:02 AMItMeIf bots are this crippling and systemic an issue... aren't we all being undercut in seconds?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragonkat
If someone isn't being undercut in seconds please lemme know what you're selling lol. -
01-23-2021, 11:39 PMPrrringlesI never get undercut in seconds. If you get undercut in seconds then it is 100% a "human player" camping the bell with retainers on that main character. Bots cycle their characters/retainers at regular intervals. It can take up to 15 minuted for me to get undercut again by a bot. The only thing I noticed is that they seem to cycle their "high value" retainers more often (e.g. their retainers with expensive items like glamour).Quote:
Originally Posted by ItMe
Anyway, bots don't undercut in seconds unless that exact retainer is being cycled. The fast undercuts are players camping the bell (in my experience). -
01-24-2021, 11:12 PMKes13a
I agree Prrringles, if I am wanting to sell any high end things that are going for decent prices, I'll stand on the market board and check prices constantly. with several bots selling they are staggered so want to always be under them so yes, it could indeed be seconds. So anything that fast is definitely a player doing it.
Bots you can generally set your watch to. -
01-26-2021, 02:53 PMKageTokage
The economy is stale because a lot of the high demand items like the crafted gear are way too accessible and easy to make.
I honestly think it would be a net positive to have more character-bound/time-gated materials involved in endgame crafting simply to limit how much influence any one individual can have on the market because the bots have been abusing the heck out of things ever since SB relaxed the difficulty of the endgame crafts by making specializations less important and making it much easier to get the materials for said items. -
01-27-2021, 10:39 AMJojoyaI think that was probably part of the intended role of the materials that are purchased with end game tomestones. Most players found it tedious to farm them and that kept the supply in check to some degree, which in turn helped keep the number of gear items reaching the MB lower.Quote:
Originally Posted by KageTokage
Cross world hunt trains have totally changed that. It's very easy for large numbers of players to cap tomestones without weekly restrictions once if not twice a day. It's weird seeing the tomestone materials already down to 1k where the past they'd still be sellng for 6-8k. I don't know if that's something that SE took into account when opening up hunts cross world.
There's also the chance that this is exactly what they wanted to happen - more supply reducing prices to get the gear into the hands of more players. -
01-27-2021, 11:21 AMItMeYo, I hadn't thought of that... that's an interesting notion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojoya
And might lead to another side of the issue: the game has grown super fast and it's possible SQEX is struggling to deal with the influx of players to the economy and overshooting some things and under shooting others. -
01-31-2021, 02:37 AMVeridian
Bots undercutting and setting prices back up high whenever they squeeze regular players out of the market must be dealt with.