Botting on the marketboard. Impossible to sell anything.

[ForteNightshade]

I don't even think SE are banning the big problematic bot/rmt accounts. Talking about the "1 crafter and 8 mule character" free company accounts. I seldom see those disappear. So I have no clue which thousands of accounts they are terminating each week, but not the right ones. Seems like at least 75% of the sellers are bots these days. I think the solution for me is to just quit the market board. Can't be bothered with competing against bots who automatically update their prices every 10 minutes anymore. I will happily invest my time in something else.

They aren't. I can point to the handful of notorious botters on Cactuar that have been here since Stormblood. In fact, I'll go one better and cite someone I once raided with. He tested what he could get away with on a second account. To this day, he was only ever tempbanned once. Hilariously, it wasn't for botting. Another person in a different raid group had a friend who outright said, "I could crash the pot market in a weekend if I wanted to. SE does nothing and even 100 gil is still profit."

And she isn't wrong. This degree of apathy from SE has basically taken away any concern players have over "getting caught". I know crafters who never botted before but decided to start simply to keep up with everyone else. That, and they felt why not when SE won't punish anyone. It's downright embarrassing how poorly handled botting is in this game. The STF is made up of five people meant to oversee the entire game. It's a complete joke.

[Darkmoonrise]

problem with that solution is.. the bots wont care, so it will only hurt the actual crafters to list items and then undercut the bots

They will care. Again let's say the fee is 10%. If you change the price of your item 10 times, you make barely any money. And the goal of undercutting is selling to make as much money as possible. So if they want to keep profite, they won't be able to undercut too often.

[Kes13a]

They will care. Again let's say the fee is 10%. If you change the price of your item 10 times, you make barely any money. And the goal of undercutting is selling to make as much money as possible. So if they want to keep profite, they won't be able to undercut too often.

I think you over estimate what it costs a bot to make the same thing regular crafters make. those bot armies harvesting everything from mats to tomes to get the materials are around in far more numbers than you are, and more efficient at gathering those.

the only people you are going to hurt, are the actual crafters, because they will sell... nothing. back in the day before the bot explosion, this MAY have worked, because you could put something up in the morning, come back later in the day and there was a good chance it would have sold. these days, if you dont change your price every time the bots change theirs... you will sell nothing

[Darkmoonrise]

You don't get the point here, my argument works even if the mats and times are free. Changing the price 9 times will cost more than what you get back from the sell.

Here are the calculation for an initial price of 1000 gils, 10% fee and 1gil undercutting



But it works for any combination. Here for 923467gils initial, 15% fee and 791 gils undercutting


Your benefit will be less each time you undercut and reach 0 at some point. So there is a maximum number of time you can undercut before loosing money. This number of "still profitable undercut" will decrease the more you undercut or if the fee is high.

[Kleeya]

Looks like a very good idea if you want to see the forums flooded with complaints like "i am a poor player with only 700 000 gils on my account, i did drop an item worth 16 millions, how i am supposed to pay a 1,6 million fee to list the item to maybe have a chance to get it sold ?" XD

[Darkmoonrise]

yep that's true... but I prefer flooded forum than screwed up market.

[Kes13a]

You don't get the point here, my argument works even if the mats and times are free. Changing the price 9 times will cost more than what you get back from the sell.

*snip*

Your benefit will be less each time you undercut and reach 0 at some point. So there is a maximum number of time you can undercut before loosing money. This number of "still profitable undercut" will decrease the more you undercut or if the fee is high.

nice work by the way, but I have to disagree, as you are not factoring in that bots have multiple items up. they have a floor where they wont go below usually so they always make profit.

your normal person is putting only single things up and yes, in that instance you are correct. however, it would only hurt non botting crafters. a majority of crafters who put things up dont have a clue about how much it costs to make something, so they will often go below cost, and thats where they not only lose money, but get frustrated nothing sells. when exarchic gear released, there was an RMT ring that would sell on all worlds and post 5-6 items at half of what current price was, why? quick sales. the object wasnt undercutting in that case, it was sell a decent amount fast enough for the gil to be generated. also, gil is virtual, a loss there, is no big deal if they are still getting some in to sell for real money.

the best solution is go after the buyers... hard. not adding more tax to real crafters who try and sell on the market.

[Darkmoonrise]

Ah, yes you can disagree on the fact that the proposal is not doing something it is not designed to do, obviously. It only prevents repeated undercutting, as was OP's problem, not how low the price is set.

If you want to prevent too low prices, you'll need another solution, for sure.

[Chris310]

I’ve been selling a bunch of stuff, and no idea why you’re struggling.

"The issue does not affect me, therefore it does note exist"

[rahz]

What if there was a cool down period of items showing on the market board after you change the price? Lets say you adjust the price then put it back on the board. Perhaps it can take like 5 to 10 minutes before it shows on the Market Board for purchase.


I can't remember which MMO it was, but they charge a listing a fee when you add an item to the Market Board AND when you update/change the price.