Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Liam_Harper]

Had a glance at the Zodiark MB and it's the same thing. The main sellers come from a few 6-9 person FC's (one is rank 8 on the server), consisting of a single crafter or two (always with 1 lv80 DoW class, maxed DoH/L and only the story minion/mounts) and a set of low level retainer classes using jobs that start in Limsa for easy MB access. One of them originates from Lich, so they use trades to retainer alts on multiple worlds to cover the entire data centre. It's rampant and quite a few Neo-Ishgard pieces are below material price.

This first started happening on a large scale around 4.5 onwards, when endgame gear crafting was made much easier and cross world was implemented. Both these changes created a bot heaven, simple crafts, easy to obtain mats and the entire data centre as your market. It's a shame.

[TheLoveJenovan]

1. I reported a phishing attempt yesterday, and support replied within 10 minutes. At least they take phishing seriously. (In case you're wondering, I reported a user that sent a tell asking to comment on the removal of some content).

2. I've updated my list of FCs that dominate the markets. I found all of the FCs on the crystal datacenter. Congratulations!

Crystal

1. Alpha Knights [Balmung] — they’re ranked 2nd for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...9148295235275/)
2. Malazan [Goblin] — they’re ranked 6th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...1773411659411/)
3. Simps United [Malboro] — they’re ranked 6th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...7348481549738/)
4. Ballers [Zalera] — they're ranked 7th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...2273877462814/)
5. Heavenswrath [Mateus] — they’re ranked 8th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...9323924029532/)
6. Danktown [Brynhildr] — they’re ranked 11th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...7111458975017/)
7. SeeDs of Shinra [Coeurl] — they’re ranked 23rd on the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...6610993167589/)
8. bro [Diabolos] -- they're ranked 80th on the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...7761132928999/)

Aether

1. Free Folk [Jenova] — they're ranked 5th for the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...1536389089046/)

Chaos

1. Anonymous Neets [Cerberus] -- they're ranked 23rd on the whole server! (https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...727.1588716301)

[Rurouni_Auron]

All FCs on Chaos have the exact same setup: 9 Characters (Probably 8 in one account with 1 Main and 7 Mules + 1 Backup account in case the primary account gets suspended).
The main character in each FC is an Omnicrafter with only 1 LV80 DoW or DoM Job.
All FCs have no Estate. Only the primary characters have an apartment which they spend most of their time in.
They never go AFK (on rare cases they do) or offline unless they are switching to one of the mules to update prices. So if you tried searching for the main characters and you do not happen to find them, simply search for one of the mules and you will 100% of the time find that character in one of the main cities standing in front of a summoning bell with their busy status on.
All Minions and Mounts the main characters in each FC have are the standard ones you get automatically when you start playing - so apparently no interest in playing the game whatsoever.
Even the names of the retainers on the servers are quite similar - which indicates a high probability of them belonging to the same person or entity.
Also.. check out the start date of all FCs.. it is really interesting.

[TheLoveJenovan]

All FCs on Chaos have the same setup: 9 Characters (Probably 8 in one account with 1 Main and 7 Mules + 1 Backup account in case the primary account gets suspended).
The main character in each FC is an Omnicrafter with only 1 DoW or DoM Job.
All Minions and Mounts they have are the ones you get when you start playing - so apparently no interest in playing the game whatsoever.
Also.. check out the start date of all FCs.. it is really interesting.

Thanks Rurouni_Auron, and welcome back! Did they ban you for expletives?

Also, you might want to delete that post. I have the information.

I'll investigate and add those to the list--some I have on there already. Those look like the FC Market bots that are on every NA and Europe server. They're probably run by one guy for an RMT company. I didn't think about checking mounts, but that's another interesting data point to look at.

Also, feel free to join us on the discord if you want to post the names of other bots.

[Rurouni_Auron]

Thanks Rurouni_Auron, and welcome back! Did they ban you for expletives?

Also, you might want to delete that post. I have the information.

I'll investigate and add those to the list--some I have on there already. Those look like the FC Market bots that are on every NA and Europe server. They're probably run by one guy for an RMT company. I didn't think about checking mounts, but that's another interesting data point to look at.

Also, feel free to join us on the discord if you want to post the names of other bots.

I re-edited my post with more info.
They did not say why was I suspended.. they only said I violated the rules of the forum.
Which post should I delete?
Sure yea I would love to join.. please repost the Discord link here if you don't mind.

[TheLoveJenovan]

I re-edited my post with more info.
They did not say why was I suspended.. they only said I violated the rules of the forum.
Which post should I delete?
Sure yea I would love to join.. please repost the Discord link here if you don't mind.

You might want to edit the post to only list FC names.

Discord: https://discord.gg/Suq9vP

[Aniona]

A new person on the Chaos, Moogle server, but here is another problem, he sells goods on all the Chaos servers, he is everywhere..absolutely.

Guild ArtsAndCrafts (Moogle).

[TheLoveJenovan]

Hi Aniona, thanks for the post!

Market bots, and bots in general, are a pretty pervasive problem. There are the FC bots we've been discussing as well as "lone-ranger" bots like the one you describe. On the Crystal Server, I've found at least one of these "lone ranger" bots that sell items on multiple servers. I bet your server also has the FC bots like the ones we've been discussing as well.

Altogether, after spending a lot of time on a few servers, I've found that each server has a minimum of 4-6 market bots, which I would characterize as follows:

1. 1-2 FC bots. Each server has at least one FC with one crafter and about 8-9 dummy accounts for RMT trading. These FCs are typically in the top 20 ranking for the server. I suspect that these FCs are all run by the same RMT company (like 4000GOLD) or RMT person, and from what I've seen, they've contaminated all servers and datacenters in the US and Europe.

2. 1-2 Lone-ranger bots. These are bots often don't participate in an FC. They spread their goods to all servers in a datacenter and drop prices, like the FC bots, within tens of minutes on a 24/7 basis. I found at least one of these on each of the Aether and Crystal datacenters. I suspect this is a different RMT company using a different way to exploit the market.

3. 3-4 Player bots. Many players have realized that the only way to compete with market bots is to run their own bots. These player bot accounts will play the game during normal hours then they'll go into market bot mode to undercut competitors within tens of minutes. It's not unusual to see these player bots in price wars with the other bots by taking turns undercutting 20-40 times per day. The number of these is a bit difficult to identify, but if you spend a day in a market, you'll notice them.

This is not to mention the DOL bots that everyone has seen and identified. In the level 80 zones, it's pretty common and typical to see 3-6 or more bots stacked on top of each-other, doing the exact same script in mining ephemeral nodes.

Quality job SE.

[TheHyperFusion]

I decided to idle around and chat with friends while in Limsa today.

While checking the MBs, I always saw a particular name pop up that is in the Free Company "Alpha Knights". That said, I began to notice a "rotation" of the around Lv.20 members logging in, being at their retainer bells, de-selecting it, looking away, going back to select it for a while, then eventually log out... all while their "leader" was holed up in an apartment where I assume they have an FC chest and retainer bell.

So, I got really bored and began peering over the marketboards. Lo and behold, I found that they have at least 20 retainers across all the characters in the FC, all undercutting by 1 gil, and all posting at least one item with the crafter's signature.

Now, I have an item for sale that the crafter had also made one of - and I watched it. Unsurprisingly, when I brought my price down, like clockwork within minutes, they'd undercut by 1 gil. I decided to message one of their retainer bots, asking why they were logging in and out like clockwork, because I was curious - no response what-so-ever.

A real person would've at least replied - even if it was a "bugger off". You cannot make this up nor deny it - they are, in fact, botting.

[NamidaTekika]

Funny enough one of the bots recently put a comment in their search info with a name, that when looked up with FFXIV on it brings up old reddit and such of people accusing that name of being bot and them claiming to be just a person and their boyfriend with 4 accounts, yet that name crops up on JPN and ENG spots in looking and different servers as well.

So apparently we're seeing full botter fake lives too to try to legitimize themselves and that was a year or so ago with the name. Kinda weird.

And an interesting bit today, think I've started nailing down which ones are run by what people. 3 of the known bots all went offline at the same time, then came back on at the same time, while two of the others never did. They've been doing that like that the last few weeks all same time.

Curiouser and curiouser