Level 70 gathering bots go unpunished

[KageTokage]

Trying to offload that much work onto such a small team, let alone a foreign one we can't necessarily even communicate with properly is honestly ridiculous with how much bigger their GM team is.

I'm assuming this is just another side effect of SE trying to fund XIV as little as possible.

I have a feeling that SE is sorta trapped in their current crafting situation. If they were to exterminate all of the bots, then crafting in its current form may become unsustainable due to supply costs skyrocketing and crashing the market. Because of this, they just turn a blind eye to the whole botting system on the crafting side. I have read about the sophistication of the bots in the media and they are getting to an amazing level. The amount of resources that SE would need to invest to capture these automatons would be incredible. I'm not fond of botting in any way and wish people would not do it but I don't see any way for SE to stop the current generation of bots with the resources they have.

While XIV bots can execute some pretty complicated scripts, they're still terrible at making themselves not stand out like a sore thumb, and even if they weren't obvious, the sheer amount of time they spend online and active is still a giveaway. The GMs wouldn't need anything more then their eyes and a few PMs to determine whether or not someone is botting.

Also, the whole situation with bots and crafting/gathering isn't quite that simple. A lot of people back out from crafting/gathering to make gil specifically because the bots have tanked prices to the point where it's scarcely worth the effort. Get rid of the bots and more people will be gathering/crafting again.