The red line is crossed now - Bots, cheaters, hackers, gil-seller

[Lastelli]

Not much point competing when someone can put up 70+ stacks of 99 Tinctures in a day.

This problem won't be solved as long as they don't let us craft batches of tinctures by increasing the materials used in a single attempt.

The whole crafting system is based on the idea that you should waste time to make gil. That's unacceptable for most players and that's why there are so many bots.

[ForteNightshade]

This problem won't be solved as long as they don't let us craft batches of tinctures by increasing the materials used in a single attempt.

The whole crafting system is based on the idea that you should waste time to make gil. That's unacceptable for most players and that's why there are so many bots.

While I do think this is a good idea, provided there remains some restriction to how many, the bots will remain even if they did make such a change. Instead, you'd have consumables crash even harder since people could easily make stacks of 99 within a couple minutes.

Bots like this exist not for convenience sake but often to sell their gil to RMT. And they've become increasingly rampant because more and more people are realizing how comically lax SE is on banning them.

[Jack_Nightfall]

MB bots, while annoying, are just an expedited version of someone sitting at a computer undercutting people. Makes it hard at times for certain items to get that sale so you can get gil, but its not outright preventing it.

This is one of the worst takes I've seen on botting in my life, and could not be more wrong. If someone is using an undercutting bot and undercutting you every couple of minutes, you will not get sales unless all of their items get bought out first. Most items sell so infrequently that this is likely to not happen. So it does actually prevent you from getting sales.

I can tell you do not craft for gil and have seemingly zero experience with this, and even the very concept of what an undercut bot does.

Now Farm bots is where it gets a bit more nuanced and why SE doesnt exactly outright ban every single one. The most pragmatic reason: It would crash the MB. The issue is you dont have enough people doing gathering. Bots in teh game add to that pool and end up driving costs down by creating higher market saturation. Since most MMOs have bots, it can be reasoned to some extent that MB prices has to take into account farm bots adn the game is somewhat tuned in this way. SE most likely has the tools to outright ban this kind of bot pretty easily, but to do so we would see scarcity of a lot of mats just shoot through the roof and make massive fluctuations to the in game gil economy which would end up hurting hte game

Snipped this post a bit in the quote.

Another really awful take that literally condones botting due to personal laziness.

MBs would not "crash" or "stall", because people will make and gather things that other players will buy. The wells do not dry up. The rivers do not run dry. People will craft and gather the things. The only reason they wouldn't would be specifically due to bots driving the value down so low it isn't worth their time to do. There is no magical shortage of mats or items people aren't crafting either because the vast majority of items I used to make to make gil have had their prices destroyed due to Quick Ventures giving out so many for free that nobody wants the stuff. So they get posted for like 1k or less on MB when they used to sell for 100-400k in the past. There is an oversaturation of most items.

Clearly you have a vested interest in botting continuing since you, again quite clearly, do not craft much yourself (don't post me your lodestone and show me that you leveled them either, it does not mean you craft seriously). You would rather there be bots because you can go buy cheap items without having to put any effort in yourself. for you, that's it.

Imagine buying food buffs today for 10k gil for a stack of 10, and tomorrow or this weekend it jumps to 200k for the same stack due to scarcity.

Imagine spending a couple minutes to craft it yourself if you don't like the price.

[TurtlesAWD]

What expansion was recent when this thread was first made?

I know people feel like necromancer is likely but still.

Well, I guess one of the biggest threads on the front page of this particular subforum is from 2015 and has 3k pages so maybe that's more normal here...

[KageTokage]

This thread was made back in SB which is when the marketboard abuse by RMT botters got particularly bad due to them easing the endgame crafting in basically every respect.

It's only gotten worse since then with the bots trying or succeeding in worming their way into even more markets then before, so the topic is plenty relevant.

As far as I'm concerned, trying to craft for profit outside of a window where the bots are broken (The biggest window is at the start of new expansions as they need to script new gathering routes) is largely pointless these days.

[Nightroad]

On the point of "Tread necromancy".

It seems SE looks at the age and number of post in said thread.
I remember something to that effect from the Japanese side of the forums.
(If I am wrong there , I apologize.)

So , a thread with lots of posts has a better chance of getting attention the a new thread made by every special snowflake that HAS to have its own thread.
That dos not mean any old thread will be listened to , like when it goes against a design condition they made and like.
But it sure can not hurt to try.

Anyway my 5gill on the matter

[Vickii]

A bot with one combat job and all crafters levelled on my server sits in an apartment 24/7 making aesthetic HQ gear, updates prices every 5 minutes or so, undercuts by 1 Gil, only goes down to base material costs.. replaces any sold item straight away. Has several retainers.. only disappears at patch when he’s either giving it a rest or broken down.

So basically this whole market is closed off, and this bot makes millions if not billions of Gil. Reported it but they don’t do anything.

[SavishSalacious]

Square will never do anything about this, why? Money. The bots pay a subscription fee plus buy the games and expansions = $$$$$ for square. They only step in when the community gets really upset. Lets look at the market as an exmaple:

- I list an item that is currently selling for 599,999 gil (for example) So I list mine for 599,998 - like you are suppose to, sometimes Maybe 599,000 - so that's what 1000 gil I undercut, not that big of a deal. So I come back the next day and see some idiot listing the same item under mine for 599 gil., not thousand, hundred. This sh** needs to stop.
- Diadem - nothing but bots on the weekend.
- DOL - Nothing but bots with few players out and about getting what they need.

The market is run by idiots and bots who undercut each other severely. Ya sure some one comes a long and cleans up that section of the market board, but you are still then re-undercutting others just so your stuff will sell quickly.

[TurtlesAWD]

Square will never do anything about this, why? Money. The bots pay a subscription fee plus buy the games and expansions = $$$$$ for square. They only step in when the community gets really upset. Lets look at the market as an exmaple:

- I list an item that is currently selling for 599,999 gil (for example) So I list mine for 599,998 - like you are suppose to, sometimes Maybe 599,000 - so that's what 1000 gil I undercut, not that big of a deal. So I come back the next day and see some idiot listing the same item under mine for 599 gil., not thousand, hundred. This sh** needs to stop.
- Diadem - nothing but bots on the weekend.
- DOL - Nothing but bots with few players out and about getting what they need.

The market is run by idiots and bots who undercut each other severely. Ya sure some one comes a long and cleans up that section of the market board, but you are still then re-undercutting others just so your stuff will sell quickly.

Bots will undercut but not by the amount or in the way you're describing, and it's honestly hard to say based on your description that this is even a bad decision on the undercutter's part. What item are you selling? How much do they typically sell for? How often do they sell? How often do other players list it? If you're as confident in your listed price, why aren't you buying their item at 1/100th of the price and relisting at your own?

People will put items up at vastly inflated prices in addition to selling things for less than they're worth. If you're just price matching whatever else is listed you might be price matching with someone using their market board slots as storage. The highest price listing of an item is not its baseline value, not when even a lot of serious market board listings are guesses.

[SecretIsland]

....

Did you just advertise the bot for everyone? Is this secretly made by the bot creators to get people looking up whatever the heck the bot program is?