I give up, the bots win AKA: My flight is scheduled for departure

[ItMe]

Then theres how they actually handle banning. Unless Ive misunderstood this, it happens in waves. So collect evidence and ban all at once. Why? And even then, it appears they do actually get the evidence necessary to ban bots without issue, they just dont act upon it. If anything, batch banning like this appears more like a culling effect rather than resolving it completely. Cut down the number of bots rather than outright stop bots.

Nice analogy.

[Jojoya]

If bots can do high end crafting, then it's not hard enough. It needs to be made so it can't be reduced to a sequence of scripted actions.

And how would you suggest accomplishing that with something that's essentially just a math puzzle? Even the random conditions have specific math that allow us to choose how we want to react and some bots are sophisticated enough to have similar decision making as part of their script.

Increase the difficulty enough and you're running the real risk of putting the bots permanently in control of the marketboard as players give up on it being too much effort. That's not going to deter a bot that will just keep repeating its script over and over without concern for success or failure until either booted from the servers or interrupted by its operator to do other things.

[KageTokage]

The ban wave system is flawed as it's still giving the ARR gil farmers enough time to generate their gil and move it off to some other account before they're removed.

If they wanted to actually have an impact on that particular type of farming they'd need to be getting rid of them much more regularly then once a week.

The main issue with the other types is that they're just not being detected in the first place.

[Kes13a]

Increase the difficulty enough and you're running the real risk of putting the bots permanently in control of the marketboard as players give up on it being too much effort. That's not going to deter a bot that will just keep repeating its script over and over without concern for success or failure until either booted from the servers or interrupted by its operator to do other things.

I submit its too late. the botters ARE in control of the market, and most real players have given up

you yourself have said you sell only to niche markets now. why? because even you admit obliquely that you cant sell high end items without far more effort than what its worth

[KageTokage]

I assume the two gil sink mounts they're adding in 5.5 are meant to be a band-aid fix to the overflow of gil in the economy.

Unfortunately, it's never going to truly fix itself as long as the RMTers are having the run of things by both generating millions of gil with their farm bots and reducing the market prices into nothingness (And by extension, the amount of gil being taken out of the economy via taxation).

The highest priority really should be cracking down on people buying gil and the accounts selling the gil, as if they can't actually sell anything the number of bots will taper off as a side-effect.

[Titor]

They can already do expert recipes.

Fundamentally speaking, the crafting system isn't complex enough. It has never been complex, and nor will it ever be. It's very limited in dimensions.

If the system is algorithmic or mathematical in anyway, it can generally be solved (Unless we get into really complex stuff that would be a challenge for your average human). The way to make it more 'bot proof' while still being understandable to a human would likely rely on even -more- rng.

[Kaurhz]

If the system is algorithmic or mathematical in anyway, it can generally be solved (Unless we get into really complex stuff that would be a challenge for your average human). The way to make it more 'bot proof' while still being understandable to a human would likely rely on even -more- rng.

That is what I mean it's largely, as Jojo eloquently put it; a mathematical puzzle. You're doing very limited problem solving on both a per step and per craft basis, and this is further eased by simulators that we have now that we didn't previously. Bots will and have only ever gotten more sophisticated with time so developing systems that make it untenable for botters, whilst also making it feasible for the average player to go for is not an easy feat.. They could add layers upon layers upon layers of RNG, but that will only shaft your average player away from the system completely as fatigue will take over for the majority of people. Then people who develop botters will only continue to try tackling the task until they inevitably do succeed at doing such.

[Jojoya]

I submit its too late. the botters ARE in control of the market, and most real players have given up

you yourself have said you sell only to niche markets now. why? because even you admit obliquely that you cant sell high end items without far more effort than what its worth

And what's wrong with that? If the point is to make gil, I'm still making gil selling off the "ordinary" items that average players are buying every day. Some of the items I make on one of my alts sell out multiple times a day so I'm frequently logging back in on that alt to relist them (I love you Trained Eye).

Once I finish off Diadem achievements on this character (only another 210k points on Fishing to go), I'll return to doing Expert. Both the Diadem gathering and Expert are ways to make gil thanks to the scrip and the ongoing demand for Diadem mats from those who are leveling crafting or doing their own scrip farming through crafting.

Gee whiz, whaddya know? I'm still making gil despite the presence of bots on the marketboard because I'm willing to be flexible about how I make my gil instead of going "end game gear or bust".

[KageTokage]

It would be nice if SE didn't kill off potential markets by constantly shoving old glam items into quick ventures or deep dungeon/eureka/bozja lootboxes.

I've noticed some things I was able to move semi-reliably in the past have become totally flooded strictly from people spamming quick ventures.

[Jojoya]

It would be nice if SE didn't kill off potential markets by constantly shoving old glam items into quick ventures or deep dungeon/eureka/bozja lootboxes.

I've noticed some things I was able to move semi-reliably in the past have become totally flooded strictly from people spamming quick ventures.

Quick ventures have definitely had a huge impact on the MB, especially now that more players are using them as a way to make gil. On the other hand if you've been using them consistently for some time, you generally have a good idea of what was on but has recently been removed from quick venture tables. You can do some forward looking and start desynthing items that have bottomed out in price for the usually rare materials. I did that with Mariner Cotton Cloth when the Moonfire items were showing up in quick ventures last year so I'd have a nice big supply for this summer (but then SE added the cloth to the Moogle event this time around, oh well). I had also done it with the Cashmere glamour items and Bearskin Rugs when they were showing up frequently in quick ventures though I wish I had pursued those more aggressively considering FC workshops now tend to focus only on subs and not airships.

What has bugged me most this expansion is the number of relatively new items that have shown up in quick ventures. It started with the new housing items showing up in quick ventures just a few months after the expansion launch and has continued with Facet/Neo-Ishgardian gear being fairly common drops. There's little point in adding new recipes for crafting if you're going to undercut the crafters by dumping those items into quick ventures a couple of months later. While there are still new items not added to the quick venture loot tables, it has pushed all the active crafters into much narrower markets instead of leaving them spread out.

I have to assume that SE is using quick ventures as some sort of price regulator. Rather than put hard caps on what players can use as listing prices, they simply change the quick venture loot tables to flood the market when they don't like how high prices are getting on some items and want them to remain more accessible to newer players who haven't had time to accumulate gil.