Gil farming and selling is OUT OF CONTROL!

[GomezAddams]

First of all, praise. I'm VERY happy with the game in almost every regard. I was here for beta and opening day and will honestly say I ran like hell at the mess this place was back then. I came back about 4 months ago and I'm in love. So kudos.

Having been here for those months, I've noticed a recent, disturbing trend while inside cities and on the market boards. Until about 2 or 3 weeks ago, gold seller spam was nearly non-existent, and the prices on the market board were steady, as were the sales.

Now, with the expansion approaching, the spam has become relentless. I won't even hang out in ANY town right now. The market board has also been crashed, with prices for most items having dropped to a mere 20% - 25% of what they were before, and in masse, in huge stacks.

I was an economics major. This isn't rocket science. I have been reporting some of the same names for days in many instances, and they're still going strong. I know this because your system doesn't even block a reported player.

It's not mere coincidence that the board prices crashed at the very same time these gil sellers returned to the game in droves. They're one and the same people. I've seen other posts blaming rich players for "controlling the market." I've already become one of those rich players - house, own FC, millions made and banked. I promise you it is NOT the rich players doing this. It's too easy to make gil for most people to bother. Not saying there aren't a few, but they aren't the problem. Look at the retainer names. They're the same blob of consonants as the gil sellers use. Again, not rocket science.

The problem is SE's lack of moderation and immediate banishment for those doing the selling. If they can't sell, they don't need to farm and can't break the market. Problem solved.

The real question here is why SE as the owners are doing literally nothing to stop this illegal activity. Again, as an economics major, and as an American who is well versed in capitalist chicanery, it would appear that SE is either directly or indirectly involved in these activities and makes a profit from them. Otherwise the spam would be dealt with immediately. With the rising player base, subscriptions, and cash shop, you have zero excuses not to pay someone to monitor your chatlines.

In this regard you need to do better. MUCH better. Your entire in-game economic system was crashed on what appears to be EVERY SERVER in a matter of 2 weeks. While you are doing nothing at all. Awful.

[HyoMinPark]

RMT bots spamming /say and /shout in the city states is not a new thing. It’s been fairly common on almost every server except the congested servers, where the bots cannot make characters. These bots are generally removed fairly quickly upon you using the Right-Click > Report RMT command. The issue is that more are made just as quickly to replace them. And this has always been the case.

The ARC/CNJ/THM bots that go around doing the MSQ for gil are also really common (as well as their bot FCs for gil hoarding). These bots are banned in waves, and a post is usually made about it on the Lodestone every week/ever two weeks.


As for Market Board prices dropping, that may not even be be related to the RMT bots with the exception of shards.

If you’re looking at one particular market consistently being overran with product and crashing hard (e.g., the consumables market with current raid potions and food), that’s the work of individuals that pay for botting services that automate gameplay so they can AFK craft in their houses all day long—my server has had this problem since Stormblood dropped with an individual listing multiple stacks of 99 (and I mean like 20-30 stacks of 99 for EACH infusion) of the current raid food and pots, to the point that each were a few thousand gil apiece.

I agree that those individuals should have something done about them. But simply seeing prices fluctuate doesn’t necessarily equate to a botting problem—and RMT bots generally don’t craft items for the Market Board. I believe, at most, they gather shards.


I don’t think you can really say that every server’s economy has crashed. I haven’t heard of any issues (aside from food/infusions) on Cactuar with market board prices crashing. Crafted gear may be cheaper now, but its also been out since September 2018. So that’s not surprising.

[Ssmiley_Bjakkzz]

Let me just say something.....* Inhales * AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHhahhahahhhahaa woooooooooooooooooooooooooo weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

oki continue on,

Good day

[Gula]

I love it when people say SE isn't doing anything.

Just because you can't see a GM's work screen doesn't mean nothing's being done. It's a thing in every mmo except absolute dead ones in which they'd get no profit. It's not new, and even if there's a counter solution- it wont stop it. Aion implemented a new system that completely wiped the old market and made trading money impossible between players.

But I guarantee there's people right now who've found a work around and are still raking in cash from people who don't want to spend months making kinah themselves.

[KageTokage]

I don’t think you can really say that every server’s economy has crashed. I haven’t heard of any issues (aside from food/infusions) on Cactuar with market board prices crashing. Crafted gear may be cheaper now, but its also been out since September 2018. So that’s not surprising.

I don't think it's really "crashed" per say, but the crafted gear market also presently is largely dominated by bot farmers ever since a few new ones moved in from other servers.

We're had a persistent omnicrafter bot around since HW who was already enough of a nuisance to make some crafters leave the server entirely, so having these extras competing with each other just makes it even harder to sell anything.

It is actually known that some market board bots are running "clean" RMT operations that have little to no risk of being purged due to them acquiring their gil through outwardly legitimate methods.

I love it when people say SE isn't doing anything.

Just because you can't see a GM's work screen doesn't mean nothing's being done. It's a thing in every mmo except absolute dead ones in which they'd get no profit. It's not new, and even if there's a counter solution- it wont stop it. Aion implemented a new system that completely wiped the old market and made trading money impossible between players.

But I guarantee there's people right now who've found a work around and are still raking in cash from people who don't want to spend months making kinah themselves.

When you see the same several DoL/H bots around after months/years of reporting them, then yeah, I think it's safe to say they aren't doing anything meaningful.

They do ban the gil farmers, but they come back instantly so it doesn't really accomplish anything. Weekly ban waves also do little to hinder their activity as it only takes a day for them to make enough gil to perform a sizable transaction.

[Nixxe]

I don't think it's really "crashed" per say, but the crafted gear market also presently is largely dominated by bot farmers ever since a few new ones moved in from other servers.

We're had a persistent omnicrafter bot around since HW who was already enough of a nuisance to make some crafters leave the server entirely, so having these extras competing with each other just makes it even harder to sell anything.

It is actually known that some market board bots are running "clean" RMT operations that have little to no risk of being purged due to them acquiring their gil through outwardly legitimate methods.

I'm generally skeptical of claims that someone is botting unless there are extremely obvious signs, such as a group of gibberish lalafells terrain hacking. For instance, there's a guy on Balmung a lot of people firmly believe is botting, and maybe he is, but I invaded his markets to see what would happen because conventional wisdom was you don't do that and he didn't actually do anything. There was no response, aside from like one time he slightly adjusted his prices to undercut me. For a few weeks, I basically had free rein, since I was more than willing to do volume sales for crafted DoW/M gear, and that only ended because other people started entering the market. If he's botting, he's certainly not botting the market board itself. Maybe he just bots the crafting portion, but that's of no concern to me if he can't keep control of the market.