Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Jojoya]

I'd be happy to write a script that logs the online activity of specific bots. Frankly, it's something that Square Enix should do. I also don't have much sympathy for them, as there's clearly a problem--identified by many people--and they haven't even given us a response. I'd be forgiving, if they simply posted:

"We recognize that we're getting many bot reports from users that have not led to bans of bots. We want to assure you that we've looked at each and every case, and in most cases, we could not identify the botting activity. Please include more detailed information in your reports."

From what others have said, the Special Task Force is a very small team. They're not going to be able to respond to all the reports they get because that takes time away from actually checking activity. They aren't small children who need to report to their parents that they've done their chores, nor should we treat them like they are.

I'm sure they've got plenty of reports being generated using tools and data players don't have access to. What we don't know is the standards they've set internally for deciding when action should be taken against an account, and that's information that would never get shared with the player base.

Every MMO has its problem with bots. It's unavoidable. As players, we need to do what we can to report them when noticed but otherwise leave it up to the game developer to handle it. There's no point letting something out of our control upset us.

[TheLoveJenovan]

Jojoya:
As I've posted before, this game generates 100s of millions a year. There is no reason this Special Task Force has to be small. There is no reason they shouldn't be able to easily automate the detailed information needed to identify bots. They're just being greedy by not investing more to fix the product.

It's bad enough that the company doesn't listen to its customers. I've even posted Customer Support emails that show that they're an outside company that sends form emails.

I'm not going to further argue with Square Enix apologists, and I won't reply to you anymore. The company sucks, but you don't think so. Fine. Keep giving them your money.

[Kes13a]

From what others have said, the Special Task Force is a very small team. They're not going to be able to respond to all the reports they get because that takes time away from actually checking activity. They aren't small children who need to report to their parents that they've done their chores, nor should we treat them like they are.

I'm sure they've got plenty of reports being generated using tools and data players don't have access to. What we don't know is the standards they've set internally for deciding when action should be taken against an account, and that's information that would never get shared with the player base.

Every MMO has its problem with bots. It's unavoidable. As players, we need to do what we can to report them when noticed but otherwise leave it up to the game developer to handle it. There's no point letting something out of our control upset us.

BS. as PAYING customers we have an expectation to be able to open the game and be able to play it in a reasonable fashion. so as players, you are basically saying we should just accept bots and the fact that harvesting and crafting are pointless currently and smile at the benign gods.

I dont expect that all the bots will go away. I am not a child either. but right now, SE might as well REMOVE harvesting and crafting because on my server at least, there is zero use for it. unless I use a bot.. seriously, things will never sell. unless I act like a bot, and stand on the market all day long, things will never sell. maybe things are different on your server, it sure seems like it. players shop for and buy items a few gil more expensive because you are a real person and not a bot, you have areas of the market where you can make millions of gil by putting up items at a reasonable cost and then go out harvesting and questing or farming.

your server seems to be an exception Jojoya.

none of us have any proof that they do any checking, or that they do not. because all we have is a weekly report of numbers.... strangely enough, even with those weekly reports, long term KNOWN bots still operate. since I am sure they have been investigated, are they real players? hard to imagine real people doing exactly the same thing for weeks on end, but perhaps. Do they have generated reports? who knows, not you and not I.

If you buy a car, and you cant use the a/c. radio, heater, are you thrilled with your purchase? you get letters from the company telling you they have fixed hundreds of people with a/c. radio and heater issues, but you never meet one.

would be better if they just removed the a/c, radio and heater from the car.

[Kes13a]

Jojoya:
As I've posted before, this game generates 100s of millions a year. There is no reason this Special Task Force has to be small. There is no reason they shouldn't be able to easily automate the detailed information needed to identify bots. They're just being greedy by not investing more to fix the product.

It's bad enough that the company doesn't listen to its customers. I've even posted Customer Support emails that show that they're an outside company that sends form emails.

I'm not going to further argue with Square Enix apologists, and I won't reply to you anymore. The company sucks, but you don't think so. Fine. Keep giving them your money.

not just that, but is there just one STF? does it primarily focus on Japanese servers and gets to NA servers when its slow? I dont need to know all the detail about what they do, how they do it or the methods used to catch cheaters, but it would be nice to know the particulars of who they are, how many are involved and if NA is even a blip on their radar.

according to Q4 2019 data, SE had revenue of 470 million USG and Nexon had 450M, so if Nexon can try to be more proactive about bots and large scale cheating, why cant SE?

If crime spikes in your area, no one says "well, criminals are more sophisticated now than they were in the 1850's, I am sure the police are doing...something" no, you expect the police to either hire more people to deal with the issue, get better equipment to bring that under control.

saying "it is what it is" is not a reasonable answer. neither is "get used to crime, it happens"

The STF is paid to do one thing, of course there is no expectation they get to every report made on a daily basis. but I think it would be fantasy to believe they have no method of correlation so if someone gets reported for illegal activity, they get to it "eventually"

If they get these "plenty of reports" through their own tools and data, maybe they should start doing something about them.

As I said before, they can ban or terminate thousands, but its not broken down by server so could just be a number. I dont expect cheaters or bot users to vanish, all I expect, is acknowledgement of the issue by someone from SE, and an idea they are working on a fix.

as players, there is no reason not to expect cheaters to be punished for making major aspects of a game we obviously enjoy to be useless.

[Jojoya]

Jojoya:
As I've posted before, this game generates 100s of millions a year. There is no reason this Special Task Force has to be small. There is no reason they shouldn't be able to easily automate the detailed information needed to identify bots. They're just being greedy by not investing more to fix the product.

It's bad enough that the company doesn't listen to its customers. I've even posted Customer Support emails that show that they're an outside company that sends form emails.

I'm not going to further argue with Square Enix apologists, and I won't reply to you anymore. The company sucks, but you don't think so. Fine. Keep giving them your money.

I will keep giving them money because I enjoy the game and I've got some clue about reality. Bots are a never ending problem for every game developer. No developer has ever managed to solve the problem short of destroying their game to the point no one wants to play it.

The irony is you're going to keep giving SE money as well. If you were serious about not doing it, you'd already be long gone.

BS. as PAYING customers we have an expectation to be able to open the game and be able to play it in a reasonable fashion.

What is preventing you from playing the game in a reasonable fashion?

Not one thing other than your need to be offended by something.

[Kes13a]

What is preventing you from playing the game in a reasonable fashion?

Not one thing other than your need to be offended by something.

I am actually only offended by people who blatantly cheat and are allowed to get away with it.

I have said you are obviously on a server not inundated in recent months by an unreasonable amount of bots. sure, all games have bots and I wont deny that, at all. there is a "reasonable" amount of bots which will always be difficult to completely squash. however in the last few months the number has gone well past acceptable.

in truth if I needed something to be offended by there is much to choose from, but instead I choose to focus on something most people aside from yourself (in this thread), seem to be able to agree on and think there is an issue

[TheLoveJenovan]

I am actually only offended by people who blatantly cheat and are allowed to get away with it.

Thanks Kes13a. I don’t enjoy playing an MMO with blatant cheating either. At the very least, they could make an effort to address the most egregious cases, like the bots that have been running from 84 days to 951 days (2.5 years)

I hate to say it, but I’m going to let me subscription lapse (tomorrow) until this gets sorted. I had planned to do it last month, but my friends in my old FC needed money to buy a larger FC house for the upcoming housing capacity increase. I hope to still help the community coordinate its response, but I won’t be able to check on specific bots on Crystal.

I think there is a problem that too few in the community realize there’s a market botting problem. On Zalera, most items from lvl 50-80 are being sold at 20-50% of the prices on Jenova because of bots. I think the legit crafters may be able to keep this up for some time. At some point, they may realize the futility of posting on the marketboard and give up, pushing all prices up to unaffordable prices. I hope this happens in the next 6 months.

I’m also getting a bit tired of explaining that this is a big problem. We know it’s a problem because we enjoy the game by crafting, gathering and playing the marketboard, but we’re in a minority. If bots infiltrated other game systems to the same extent, like the Duty Finder, there would be a large enough outcry to have SE do something about it. The marketboard is just as crucial a game system, but people won’t understand the problem until it becomes completely unusable.

[TheLoveJenovan]

your server seems to be an exception Jojoya.

The Coeurl server has a pretty bad market botting problem too—I mentioned the bot FC in a previous listing. The Coeurl bots have moved into most of the lvl 50-80 items. I find it hard to believe that players on that server haven't encountered them, as I did when I visited that server. I also don’t understand the dogmatic loyalty to SE in the face of such blatant cheating in the game. The only reasonable explanation, to me, is that some players are either using bots themselves or are close to other people that use bots, then they come onto threads like this to defend the status quo. People like that are a part of the problem.

[Kleeya]

but right now, SE might as well REMOVE harvesting and crafting because on my server at least, there is zero use for it.

While i understand that bots can make some people angry, saying this kind of thing is overreacting. Earning gils is not the sole purpose of crafting and gathering, it is also useful for :

- gather all the ingredients you need by yourself ;
- craft yourself some hq gear ;
- getting with Rowena's collectables tons of crafting/gathering materias for pentamelding ;
- advancing the Ishgard reconstruction while getting all these minions/mounts/etc ;
- making your own housing items for your house/appartement ;
- doing your crafter/gatherer tribal quests ;
- earning gc seals with the daily deliverys ;
- getting tons of achievements for people collecting them ;
- making some foods and potions to hit harder in raids ;
- etc.

Bots only become a problem if you try to make big amounts of gils by reselling your items. But if you don't there is plenty of things to do and enjoy with crafting and gathering, without even caring of what is going on on the market board. Saying that it has zero use and should be removed from the game is taking it way too far.

[TheLoveJenovan]

Saying that it has zero use and should be removed from the game is taking it way too far.

That's true, but the marketboard is a strong incentive to get invested in crafting and gathering. It's not just about making money from sales but also the availability of mats to buy and do more crafting (and gathering). Crafting and gathering would be significantly more difficult and less enticing without a useable marketboard.