Crafting and Marketboard botting

Is there any way to combat the bots in this game? I've reported them all atleast a dozen times or more. They have been doing it over 2 years. The same bots, day after day non stop flooding the market and undercut botting at all hours when they're in their apartment. Always on without fail. Always gathering, if not gathering they're in their apartment crafting and marketboard botting.

I've been told to just use the PF to sell that there's nothing that can be done.

It's frustrating. I've reported a few and it looked as if they were banned (they disappeared for a month or more), but either a new bot pops up or they get their accounts back. And that's when they actually get banned- many of them don't, and I've only seen the ones who gather get banned. Starting to feel hopeless.

I don't know what else to do at this point.

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Originally Posted by Nonola

Is there any way to combat the bots in this game? I've reported them all atleast a dozen times or more. They have been doing it over 2 years. The same bots, day after day non stop flooding the market and undercut botting at all hours when they're in their apartment. Always on without fail. Always gathering, if not gathering they're in their apartment crafting and marketboard botting.

I've been told to just use the PF to sell that there's nothing that can be done.

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Best of luck Nonola. many people have reported them for months and SE does nothing.

I dont think SE will notice or care about NA/EU markets and the RMT botters unless people start ditching the game because of it. by that point of course it'll be too little too late. About all I can think of is if you know streamers, get them to start doing streams on it. enough bad publicity might make SE sit up and notice. but I wouldnt hold your breath, the Special Task Force who "combat bots etc" are based in Japan, and only have 4 people. yes, thats correct... 4 people.

https://youtu.be/ItHcsIHshhs

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

Best of luck Nonola. many people have reported them for months and SE does nothing.

I dont think SE will notice or care about NA/EU markets and the RMT botters unless people start ditching the game because of it. by that point of course it'll be too little too late. About all I can think of is if you know streamers, get them to start doing streams on it. enough bad publicity might make SE sit up and notice. but I wouldnt hold your breath, the Special Task Force who "combat bots etc" are based in Japan, and only have 4 people. yes, thats correct... 4 people.

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They aren't doing a very good job of controlling the problem even on the JP side of things so I've kinda lost hope in them ever actually doing anything substantial.

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Originally Posted by ShaliaK

It's frustrating. I've reported a few and it looked as if they were banned (they disappeared for a month or more), but either a new bot pops up or they get their accounts back. And that's when they actually get banned- many of them don't, and I've only seen the ones who gather get banned. Starting to feel hopeless.

I don't know what else to do at this point.

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They do get banned and yes, they do create new bots too, even more of them than get banned. The thing is, along with stolen accounts (fishing websites hello), they also apparently buy copies of the game, as otherwise you can't use any trading tools at all, making unpaid bot account simply useless, and you can't steal that many accounts solely for botting (given that usually they are only interested in money character has, not in the account itself, as I can see people successfully logging back after they were robbed).

So it's kind of... weird, because as much as they are annoying and in some cases straightforward harmful, they also bring some cash to the company, and it's not like SE can prohibit people buying the game. Unless there will be some type of in-game tool to exchange real money for Gil, there's not much what they can do sadly (and I think they said that selling Gil for money officially is unlikely to ever happen for some legal reasons they have in Japan or something).

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Originally Posted by Halivel

So it's kind of... weird, because as much as they are annoying and in some cases straightforward harmful, they also bring some cash to the company, and it's not like SE can prohibit people buying the game. Unless there will be some type of in-game tool to exchange real money for Gil, there's not much what they can do sadly (and I think they said that selling Gil for money officially is unlikely to ever happen for some legal reasons they have in Japan or something).

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and yet, the people selling gil on website are making real money at it

I guess what you are meaning is that its more important to make the money than it is to have a reputation. this game is well liked by the bot/cheater community for its ambivalence towards botting/cheating. I dont know about you, but as a business... thats not a reputation I would want, nor money I desire.

as for banning... getting rid of a level 1 RMT barker in a major city is hardly a landmark achievement, or the underground harvesters... they go after the easy to find ones. The ones creating teh money for RMT actions are left alone to operate for years.

I do kind of wonder how much gil the "sustainable" DoL/H bots that almost never get banned are raking in vs. the gibberish-named hackers who aim to generate as much raw gil from questing/mob kills as possible before they inevitably get swept away in the weekly banwaves.

I'm honestly not sure how the latter are even able to do anything with their gil at all considering how easily the GMs should be able to trace the money flow and ban whatever accounts are pooling it.

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Originally Posted by Nonola

Is there any way to combat the bots in this game?

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Sadly, no.

Some do get banned, but it's usually the careless ones who are far too obvious with their botting and give the STF some sort of solid proof they can use, like admitting it in chat/tell or ground hacks. Otherwise, the STF are extremely limited in their regulations as for what constitutes as definite proof of botting. They can't scan your computer and they won't take 24/7 activity, extremely precise movement patterns or even a broken bot loop as certain evidence.

Not to mention the STF is tiny and based in Japan and doesn't have the manpower or inclination to tackle the tens of thousands of reoccurring bots across all servers.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I guess what you are meaning is that its more important to make the money than it is to have a reputation. this game is well liked by the bot/cheater community for its ambivalence towards botting/cheating. I dont know about you, but as a business... thats not a reputation I would want, nor money I desire.

as for banning... getting rid of a level 1 RMT barker in a major city is hardly a landmark achievement, or the underground harvesters... they go after the easy to find ones. The ones creating teh money for RMT actions are left alone to operate for years.

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It's not what I tried to say really. I'll try to explain. Rather than not caring about reputation, I'm not sure as to what exactly they can do to prevent massive botting to begin with. Other games would go for in-game tools selling in-game money for real ones (something what, iirc, WoW does, for example). I'm not sure now, but if my memory isn't broken completely, people asked about possibilities to have similar system in FF14 and the answer was no. And yet, it would have been the most efficient one - if people can buy Gil legally, there's no need for them go to sellers in general (though even then it likely won't solve the issue completely).

Another step is to prohibit using trading tools on free accounts - something what already is in the game so on this account they did it right (because otherwise it would be even worse than it already is). The thing is, without in-game erm... "gil trader", let's call it this, there's nothing really to stop the further spread, given that they can simply buy another copy of the game. You could of course hard-ban them by IP, but this will only result in hurting usual players, while bot-holders will simply use VPN and continue to do what they do. And this is what i meant by saying that situation is weird - there's no way to prevent botters from buying new copies, because you can't really say if a person is a normal player or not when they register their code on Mog Station, it's something what you can tell only later based on reports.

So the only option I see atm is to actually make their team that works specifically with bots and rmt bigger so there are enough hands to fight in the first place (you said yourself there are like, 4 people doing this, which is... nowhere enough in a game that became this big and popular). There may be better solutions (and there IS one, mentioned in first sentences) but for some reason they can't apply it, which is almost a shame, as I'm quite sure it would've been much more beneficial for them than botters buying base edition.

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They do get banned and yes, they do create new bots too, even more of them than get banned. The thing is, along with stolen accounts (fishing websites hello), they also apparently buy copies of the game, as otherwise you can't use any trading tools at all, making unpaid bot account simply useless, and you can't steal that many accounts solely for botting (given that usually they are only interested in money character has, not in the account itself, as I can see people successfully logging back after they were robbed).

So it's kind of... weird, because as much as they are annoying and in some cases straightforward harmful, they also bring some cash to the company, and it's not like SE can prohibit people buying the game. Unless there will be some type of in-game tool to exchange real money for Gil, there's not much what they can do sadly (and I think they said that selling Gil for money officially is unlikely to ever happen for some legal reasons they have in Japan or something).

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The saddest part is, I've seen one get banned recently- twice even. They disappeared for a month or more... and then another new character showed up botting, and they were eerily similar to the bot that was banned. But that's not the sad part- the first bot got their account back, twice. And they immediately went right back to botting like they were doing before. Bots are going to bot, why are they allowed to have their accounts back at any point?? Especially twice.

Doesn't help this particular bot uses a 2nd account, a lv 22 lalafell probably on a free account, who updates their prices every 2 minutes. Now they're back too, for some reason. I'm starting to think that bot-related account strikes should be more severe.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

if people can buy Gil legally, there's no need for them go to sellers in general (though even then it likely won't solve the issue completely).

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That will rarely do anything, I used to play Archeage, they had a sub token called Apex, 1 Apex cost $10. Depending on your server you could sell it for like 2k gold (that's just a random number idr the actual price people sold it for) on the auction house. You need 2 apexes for a sub so a total of 4k right? People would just buy 4k for around $4 which in turn has people getting their sub for cheaper entirely. If you subbed normally it was like $15? Or you can just buy gold for $4...

I believe it's the same in WoW, people just buy the gold to pay for the sub and it all comes out cheaper. This might be why they won't do something like that, it's obvious they can't detect the bots, so this would just help people get cheaper subs.

Also a lot of people bot to sell accounts probably takes like, what a week botting to get to max level? Sell the account and the account is not in actual hands of a player making it even harder to detect. They can't just go off "Oh this person has been mining for 24 hours" some people are hardcore, some people are neets, some people will switch out and have a younger sibling or child do it. It's based off inputs and movement and if the bot is codded nicely, it's hard to detect.

I find it crazy how common bots are here, in a game where ultimately nothing is difficult or "matters". In Archeage is a heavy pvp game, world bosses are pvp, securing your trade packs, pvp, robbing people to make gold, pvp, etc and I could count on one hand the amount of bots I saw in the 5 years I've played it. Hell maybe if that stopped with all the annoying systems (like crafting scripts) that might cut down on the botting people try to by pass.

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Originally Posted by Nonola

Is there any way to combat the bots in this game? I've reported them all atleast a dozen times or more. They have been doing it over 2 years. The same bots, day after day non stop flooding the market and undercut botting at all hours when they're in their apartment. Always on without fail. Always gathering, if not gathering they're in their apartment crafting and marketboard botting.

I've been told to just use the PF to sell that there's nothing that can be done.

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when it comes to botting, make sure to send the information to the link the GM provides. YOu will get a response pointing you to the STF link to submit your report to. At least that's what they had me do.

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Originally Posted by Nonola

Is there any way to combat the bots in this game? I've reported them all atleast a dozen times or more. They have been doing it over 2 years. The same bots, day after day non stop flooding the market and undercut botting at all hours when they're in their apartment. Always on without fail. Always gathering, if not gathering they're in their apartment crafting and marketboard botting.

I've been told to just use the PF to sell that there's nothing that can be done.

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I do this. I over run markets and drive prices down :) Hello!

As for bots, nope you gotta play their game and do it better then them.

Most of the crafter/gatherer bots on my server either have separate alts that are camped out by a retainer bell undercutting 24/7 or check/adjust the prices themselves after every single timed node they visit.

You're not going to "do it better then them" unless you're willing to constantly figure out what price they're unwilling to go under and selling for that much, but they'll quickly notice and set the floor even lower within a few hours.

I tried playing that game with them for a time but it got to a point where I could be making more guaranteed income from leve spamming or treasure maps, so I gave up.

It's amazing just how much even FFXIV's own tools will out them and yet they won't do anything. Follow the Mateus FC standings back week by week or month by month and you'll see some incredibly, spectacularly obvious outliers with consistent behavior tracking back for an eternity. Someone with access to the DBs could run a search for gear in circulation on Mateus with a certain handful of signatures on it and find at least four - again - spectacularly obvious outliers that have been mass producing for years. You can watch one run through the Quicksand on nearly an hourly basis, 24/7, with blatantly irregular playing patterns and zero attempt to even conceal it.

It's quite literally at the point that it raises the question: why *not* bot? There's evidently zero enforcement risk and zero willingness to trace things back to the source, you're at greater risk posting screenshots on Twitter or datamining content that will be public in <24 hours than you are gather/craft botting on a secondary account 24/7 and bending the economy to your will. The only way to get any attention directed on these things is apparently to make sure it happens live on an official stream, or make a big public fuss about it that can't be ignored by PR.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

Best of luck Nonola. many people have reported them for months and SE does nothing.

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There are 3 level 80 gathering bots going 24/7 that I have been reporting since early Stormblood, so going on 3 years now. SE won't ban them. I've given up and lost hope in the reporting of bots.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Sadly, no.

Some do get banned, but it's usually the careless ones who are far too obvious with their botting and give the STF some sort of solid proof they can use, like admitting it in chat/tell or ground hacks. Otherwise, the STF are extremely limited in their regulations as for what constitutes as definite proof of botting. They can't scan your computer and they won't take 24/7 activity, extremely precise movement patterns or even a broken bot loop as certain evidence.

Not to mention the STF is tiny and based in Japan and doesn't have the manpower or inclination to tackle the tens of thousands of reoccurring bots across all servers.

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The fact that you still see bots teleporting around in the game shows that the server net code is poor. So SE could start by fixing this.

I remember in my early days of playing WoW that you would see this. Bots teleporting around, going into cities and killing themselves to spell out websites using dead bodies on the ground. Blizzard over time fixed their client/server code and prevented this. Are all bots gone? no, but a vast majority are.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

The fact that you still see bots teleporting around in the game shows that the server net code is poor. So SE could start by fixing this.

I remember in my early days of playing WoW that you would see this. Bots teleporting around, going into cities and killing themselves to spell out websites using dead bodies on the ground. Blizzard over time fixed their client/server code and prevented this. Are all bots gone? no, but a vast majority are.

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I agree. there will ALWAYS be bots as the some people say as an excuse but the reality is, SE does little to even try and prevent it or punish it. if they even bothered to put in some effort to stop the problem, but that seems either beneath... or beyond them.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

... killing themselves to spell out websites using dead bodies on the ground.

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Man, I wish our bots were that entertaining.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I agree. there will ALWAYS be bots as the some people say as an excuse but the reality is, SE does little to even try and prevent it or punish it. if they even bothered to put in some effort to stop the problem, but that seems either beneath... or beyond them.

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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.

As long as people feel there is no chance of them being punished for buying gil, they will continue to do it. When SE starts going after the gil BUYERS with any semblance of seriousness, then you will see results. Going after sellers will always be wasted time since they have no investment in the game itself, whereas the buyers very much do and would very much stay away from buying gil if they actually thought they'd get banned for it.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

They do get banned and yes, they do create new bots too, even more of them than get banned. The thing is, along with stolen accounts (fishing websites hello), they also apparently buy copies of the game, as otherwise you can't use any trading tools at all, making unpaid bot account simply useless, and you can't steal that many accounts solely for botting (given that usually they are only interested in money character has, not in the account itself, as I can see people successfully logging back after they were robbed).

So it's kind of... weird, because as much as they are annoying and in some cases straightforward harmful, they also bring some cash to the company, and it's not like SE can prohibit people buying the game. Unless there will be some type of in-game tool to exchange real money for Gil, there's not much what they can do sadly (and I think they said that selling Gil for money officially is unlikely to ever happen for some legal reasons they have in Japan or something).

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I almost guarantee you that the bots that purchase the game use stolen CC information, it's not like it's coming from their gil sale profits.
I do wonder if SE ever actually sees any of that money.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

As long as people feel there is no chance of them being punished for buying gil, they will continue to do it. When SE starts going after the gil BUYERS with any semblance of seriousness, then you will see results. Going after sellers will always be wasted time since they have no investment in the game itself, whereas the buyers very much do and would very much stay away from buying gil if they actually thought they'd get banned for it.

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You expect SE to control people that are impulsive to change their ways? You expect SE to expend resources attempting to root out every case of gil buying? As I said above this will never end. I have been playing mmos since their inception and RMT has been a part of every single game. This will not change.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

As long as people feel there is no chance of them being punished for buying gil, they will continue to do it. When SE starts going after the gil BUYERS with any semblance of seriousness, then you will see results. Going after sellers will always be wasted time since they have no investment in the game itself, whereas the buyers very much do and would very much stay away from buying gil if they actually thought they'd get banned for it.

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They don't even ban the people that cheat in game. You see how many players are punished when they post their PR numbers. I haven't looked in a while, but I am not sure I have ever seen more then 5 players banned. That is just an amazing number. Less then one player per server is botting.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You expect SE to control people that are impulsive to change their ways? You expect SE to expend resources attempting to root out every case of gil buying? As I said above this will never end. I have been playing mmos since their inception and RMT has been a part of every single game. This will not change.

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Yes bots will exist. But SE also doesn't seem to make much effort. They at least used to have GMs ban paying customers that were cheating in 11. They don't even do that much.

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

They don't even ban the people that cheat in game. You see how many players are punished when they post their PR numbers. I haven't looked in a while, but I am not sure I have ever seen more then 5 players banned. That is just an amazing number. Less then one player per server is botting.





Yes bots will exist. But SE also doesn't seem to make much effort. They at least used to have GMs ban paying customers that were cheating in 11. They don't even do that much.

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I see. You don't see the effort so you assume there is no effort. Do you expect them to say HEY GUYS WE ARE GOING TO START GOING AFTER BOTS THIS WEEK! They do things behind the scenes if my exclamation wasn't on the nose.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I see. You don't see the effort so you assume there is no effort. Do you expect them to say HEY GUYS WE ARE GOING TO START GOING AFTER BOTS THIS WEEK! They do things behind the scenes if my exclamation wasn't on the nose.

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Did you not see the first part of the post you quoted? About how many non rmt players they ban. Which probably should have said "guessed" non rmt. I want you to look at this report aug 13 and the this recent report.



・Participation in RMT/prohibited activities
　・Accounts terminated: 4,754
　・Accounts temporarily suspended: 11
・Botting activity (Using any number of third party tools that allow for automation)
　・Accounts terminated: 5
　・Accounts temporarily suspended: 10
[*Botting activity by RMT vendors has been included under "Participation in RMT/prohibited activities."]
・RMT advertising
　・Accounts terminated: 573


now the most recent one


・Participation in RMT/prohibited activities
　・Accounts terminated: 3,512

・RMT advertising
　・Accounts terminated: 687


Now it is possible they decided the other info wasn't important. Or it is possible the other info was so low they didn't want to post it. They always ban rmt bots. I am not sure if they are the only company that takes the passive approach and allow the damage to be done. But players that seem to be regular everyday cheaters don't seem to get punished. In other games I have played if enough people reported someone a GM would take them out of the game. What happen after that, I don't know. But I never saw those players name again.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You expect SE to control people that are impulsive to change their ways? You expect SE to expend resources attempting to root out every case of gil buying? As I said above this will never end. I have been playing mmos since their inception and RMT has been a part of every single game. This will not change.

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Unlike the bots, you don't need to root out ever single player who buys gil, not even a large fraction of them. All you need to do is put SOME effort into getting SOME of them and most of the rest will realize it's too risky now to buy gil and will decide not to do it. It's the same as real life. You don't catch every criminal who ever commits a crime, but as long as you make a show of catching some of them, the rest of the populace tends to behave themselves that much better. People buy gil not because they just can't control themselves and have to break the rules, they do it because they know they won't get caught.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

Unlike the bots, you don't need to root out ever single player who buys gil, not even a large fraction of them. All you need to do is put SOME effort into getting SOME of them and most of the rest will realize it's too risky now to buy gil and will decide not to do it. It's the same as real life. You don't catch every criminal who ever commits a crime, but as long as you make a show of catching some of them, the rest of the populace tends to behave themselves that much better. People buy gil not because they just can't control themselves and have to break the rules, they do it because they know they won't get caught.

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They do get caught. There are RMT reports that indicate accounts banned. There is your proof of effort. Happy? I know you won't be. You want to beat a worthless old dead horse as long as you can. I say go for it. I am bored.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

You expect SE to control people that are impulsive to change their ways? You expect SE to expend resources attempting to root out every case of gil buying? As I said above this will never end. I have been playing mmos since their inception and RMT has been a part of every single game. This will not change.

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Since you are an ancient player and have been playing since the inception of mmo's I am sure you remember that at one time, there was a lot more trepidation regarding buying in game currency because the cloud hanging overhead was usually a 2 week ban followed by a perma ban for a second offence. that controls people... not the company. as someone else said, they dont need to root out every player buying gil, but they do need to root out at least some, and once that starts circulating, a lot of people who wouldnt want a suspension or ban, would stop buying.

to suggest otherwise is an indication that either you havent been around since the dawn of mmo's, or you dont mind cheating.

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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.