Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[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.

I do see the bots. I switch to the items they aren't focused on. I still make gil crafting and selling on the MB.

Again, show me a MMO that doesn't have bots. You're going to find these same conversations in other MMO forums, and the same accusations that the development teams don't care enough, that players who try to point out the reality of the situation are just apologists.

Think it can be handled better? Then go start up your own MMO and prove how the existing ones are incompetent.

[Aniona]

I do see the bots. I switch to the items they aren't focused on. I still make gil crafting and selling on the MB.

Again, show me a MMO that doesn't have bots. You're going to find these same conversations in other MMO forums, and the same accusations that the development teams don't care enough, that players who try to point out the reality of the situation are just apologists.

Think it can be handled better? Then go start up your own MMO and prove how the existing ones are incompetent.

Ok, in any other game we would find gathering bots, oh well, yes they are everywhere.
But where could you find Auction house bots? WoW, Elder Scrolls? No.

And what do you offer? Ok, cheaters, continue to ruin the game?

We should talk about it, SE should do something with them. More bans, better security, anything helpful for real players.

[Commander_Justitia]

But where could you find Auction house bots? WoW, Elder Scrolls? No.

In WoW setting up an item for the auction house costs a fee. Might be worth in FFXIV too.
In guild wars 2 you have a bid/ask order system, where you can instantly sell to a price somebody is offering. Would make markets more stable and foreseeable.

But true, bots in ff14? They are all real players ofc and you can't blame the game for it, its us who are wrong (irony off)

[TheLoveJenovan]

And what do you offer? Ok, cheaters, continue to ruin the game?

We should talk about it, SE should do something with them. More bans, better security, anything helpful for real players.

Thanks Aniona.

No one reasonable on this thread has asked SE to eliminate all bots. That's a straw-man counter argument. We're only asking for an official response, since so many of us have sent in dozens to hundreds of reports on obvious bots, and nothing happens. I did an accounting of 18 bot rings on Crystal, and those bots have been running from 90 days to 952 days (2.5 years).

Again, no one is asking that they eliminate all bots. We're asking them why bots run for months to years with impunity.

There are users on this thread that are strongly arguing for the status quo. Who wouldn't want Square Enix to improve their detection and elimination of bots and to make a fairer game? The only reasonable explanation are people that use bots or are friends with bot users.

[TheLoveJenovan]

A PSA: In case anyone else would find this useful, you can block a user's comments on the forum by clicking Settings at the top, then clicking Edit Ignore List.

[Angelhearth]

Sadly SE doesn't give a damned about the problem. I'm guessing they don't know how to handle it. I've suggested they make an algorithm that will scan all market boards constantly, looking for repeated and predictable biddings, which shouldn't be very hard, and then monitor those accounts, with other algorithms, 24/7. It shouldn't be that hard. I've reported it several times the last month, since the market on Spriggan, as most others, to my understanding, have been completely destroyed from a crafters perspective. I have also sent emails to SE trying to make them aware of the problem, but all I get back is "You have to open a ticket with the GM's". The problem is that the GM's doesn't react, or at least don't give feedback, showing that they react. Maybe if more players started sending emails directly to SE support, they would start understanding how big of a problem this is turning into. I notice some players write that you should just let it be, and find other things to do, well, some of us play this game for the gathering, crafting, and selling, which we are silly enough to find much more interesting than to do the same raids/dungeons over and over again.

[NamidaTekika]

I don't even know why some of the low hanging fruit bots need manual intervention. I swear you could probably script things out on the back end to easily detect and suspend/ban. On the less low hanging fruit side you could then redirect efforts to actually hunting the bots. A few database commands too and you could even easily identify those since humans don't do things the same way constantly for hours on end at exact intervals. Easily identify, easily crush.

[Kes13a]

I don't even know why some of the low hanging fruit bots need manual intervention. I swear you could probably script things out on the back end to easily detect and suspend/ban. On the less low hanging fruit side you could then redirect efforts to actually hunting the bots. A few database commands too and you could even easily identify those since humans don't do things the same way constantly for hours on end at exact intervals. Easily identify, easily crush.

NOOOO, we wouldnt want to do that. what if someones completely honest and unsuspecting friend does things exactly the same at exactly the same intervals for hours?!?!? we wouldnt want their friend to go through the pain and trauma of trying to get their account back would we? I mean I am certain they didnt mean to download that bot program, go through the effort to set it up only to be perma banned

[NamidaTekika]

NOOOO, we wouldnt want to do that. what if someones completely honest and unsuspecting friend does things exactly the same at exactly the same intervals for hours?!?!? we wouldnt want their friend to go through the pain and trauma of trying to get their account back would we? I mean I am certain they didnt mean to download that bot program, go through the effort to set it up only to be perma banned

I want to meet that friend if they can do like 72+ hours straight doing the exact same process non-stop never taking a bathroom, food, or anything else break, never logging off or even the briefest afk. Either they've got a full catheter and IV setup to prevent needing to ever stop or something else is up. Either I would want to make sure they are enjoying their life or find out what form of OCD drives them on.

[DPZ2]

I don't even know why some of the low hanging fruit bots need manual intervention. I swear you could probably script things out on the back end to easily detect and suspend/ban. On the less low hanging fruit side you could then redirect efforts to actually hunting the bots. A few database commands too and you could even easily identify those since humans don't do things the same way constantly for hours on end at exact intervals. Easily identify, easily crush.

I can tell you right now that "time/position/action" information is not maintained in a database for query. The raw amount of data that would need to be collected makes it fiscally irresponsible to consider it.