Lack of action against gathering bots, it needs to be changed, and soon

[KageTokage]

I don't think it's so much a matter of them not investigating as it is the manner they go about doing it is extremely flawed, because people wouldn't be getting banned at all otherwise (I've read first-hand accounts from botters who got banned that show that their numbers aren't just empty fluff).

I suspect they are not doing actual in-person investigations and are instead just using a packet viewer or some other monitoring tool to look for unusual data being sent from a player's client as the botting programs do allow people to do things that are not normally possible using the in-game control schemes. However, even that seems flawed as I've witnessed things like bots triggering skills while they're still in the middle of cutscenes or toggling gathering abilities while they're still on a loading screen (This manifests as buff notifications appearing in an empty space next to the aetheryte they're warping some five to 10 seconds before they actually load in visibly). I've also witnessed them targeting things through walls as well as keeping things targeted from far outside the range a normal player would be able to (Mostly can be observed with aetherytes).

Bots are pretty inconsequential. They're like hyper weeds... if they ban one, two more come back in it's place. There's really no point in wasting time and effort banning bots.

SE focuses on the end result: RMT. Every ban wave, they ban thousands and thousands of accounts linked to RMT (either selling or buying), and ultimately that is the goal anyway.

Bots being at the same mining node really doesn't hurt you as a player. And the bots themselves don't do the selling on the Market board, that is done by other accounts.

The RMT bots can't be controlled with bans. They can create new accounts literally the instant they get banned then hit level 50 again within 24 hours, leaving them with the rest of the week to farm gil; not to mention the bulk of their gil is obtained via quest completion anyways so they've already amassed a sizable sum by the time they start farming Amdapor Keep.

Also, they almost never actually ban buyers and the accounts doing the selling are expendable. The vast majority of the bans you see in their reports are for their expendable farm bots, with a fair amount of bans also being issued to their spam bots, but ultimately, buying gil being so low risk is partly why the trade is able to flourish.

On the other hand, it takes a substantial amount of time for people to create even just a DoL bot due to the MSQ locks and what not, as they need to complete all of the MSQ quests manually even if they opt to get around the EXP walls by FATE botting.. They could easily be kept in check if their enforcement teams were capable of identifying their repetitive behaviors and abnormally long periods of activity.

No, having the bots gathering with other players isn't harmful due to the thankfully instanced nature of nodes, but having them selling things at prices that are scarcely profitable for people who are actually playing the game is. Also, there very much are DoH bots who are tied to the RMT trade. There's one on Cactuar right now who's so persistent about trying to control the market via 24/7 gathering, crafting, and undercutting that I can't imagine them doing it for any other reason and they're very obviously an alt account judging from how the absolute bare minimum has been put into everything about them that isn't tied to DoL/H classes.

[Kaedan]

The RMT bots can't be controlled with bans. -snip-

Yes, that's what I said.

Also, they almost never actually ban buyers and the accounts doing the selling are expendable. The vast majority of the bans you see in their reports are for their expendable farm bots, with a fair amount of bans also being issued to their spam bots, but ultimately, buying gil being so low risk is partly why the trade is able to flourish.

All of this is incorrect. They actually ban more gil buyers than gil sellers. And the accounts you see in the reports are not bots, they are gil sellers and gil buyers.

No, having the bots gathering with other players isn't harmful due to the thankfully instanced nature of nodes, but having them selling things at prices that are scarcely profitable for people who are actually playing the game is.

Bots don't do the selling. That's done by other characters. And in fact, ~60% of gil sold on websites comes from normal players who sell the gil to said websites. As for those who do sell on the market to then sell to websites, if they undercut, that isn't actually bad for the economy at all. Either a savvy marketeer takes advantage of it and buys up the stock (if it's a severe undercut), or the undercut isn't severe enough to cause a significant and permanent drop in price and in fact, it helps to balance the price equilibrium (which is often weighted in the sellers favor).

[KageTokage]

All of this is incorrect. They actually ban more gil buyers than gil sellers. And the accounts you see in the reports are not bots, they are gil sellers and gil buyers.

Considering that SE's policy is to never permaban on the first offense outside of major offenses, it seems safe to assume that the tiny temporary ban figure for RMT/illicit activity is the one that applies to actual players while the much larger figure is for the gil farm bots (It's 9045 vs. 19 this week).

if they undercut, that isn't actually bad for the economy at all. Either a savvy marketeer takes advantage of it and buys up the stock (if it's a severe undercut), or the undercut isn't severe enough to cause a significant and permanent drop in price and in fact, it helps to balance the price equilibrium (which is often weighted in the sellers favor).

You can't really take advantage of a bot that's packing such an excess of items that it'll relist a new item within minutes of you buying it and undercut you if you try to resell said item.

The bots on my server are able to consistently maintain low prices and drive them even lower if anyone tries intrude on their monopoly. While they do have an undercut "limit" they will not go under, they are not working together, nor do they update their bots at the same times so even if you find the price floor for one of them, one of the others will generally notice sooner then later and start going even lower.

[Lunavi]

Bots don't do the selling. That's done by other characters. And in fact, ~60% of gil sold on websites comes from normal players who sell the gil to said websites. As for those who do sell on the market to then sell to websites, if they undercut, that isn't actually bad for the economy at all. Either a savvy marketeer takes advantage of it and buys up the stock (if it's a severe undercut), or the undercut isn't severe enough to cause a significant and permanent drop in price and in fact, it helps to balance the price equilibrium (which is often weighted in the sellers favor).

This is only true in the cases where a player is collecting the resources and not a bot making the resources intended to be limited by playtime by crafters to gather it an infinite resource for anyone to buy at their own accord. While the selling part is often handled by the player themselves due to it being a slightly rougher process (huge understatement) to make an optimal bot for, the collection of resources is actually often bot handled. The only people who short-term benefit out of this are people who do combat related activities exclusively and the botters themselves. Crafters and gatherers suffers heavily from this though as the price is artificially reduced tue to the supply being artificially increased without the demand increasing at all.