Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Angelhearth]

I have no idea how the STF works and how they review cases like this. I don't even know if they only review cases written in Japanese or if they google translate cases written in English. No clue at what rate they review cases. But I guess that's what you get with a zero transparency policy.

I think the big problem is that many Japanese people don't understand English very well (have a look at the crazy names some things get in Japan, when they try to give them catching English names) and prefer to rather skip reading English post, so not to missunderstand and make a blunder of themselves when they reply (loosing face and all that stuff).

[KageTokage]

I wasn't aware they even had such a specific statement about the matter in the ToS.

Maybe if more people start reminding them about their own rules they'd feel slightly more compelled to enforce things.

[Kes13a]

I wasn't aware they even had such a specific statement about the matter in the ToS.

Maybe if more people start reminding them about their own rules they'd feel slightly more compelled to enforce things.

at this stage, I wouldnt hold my breath

[Veridian]

37 pages to this thread, looks like I'm not the only one noticing the rampant rise of price bots since last patch. Update your price on most i510 items and it gets undercut within a min or two. Like many others, I now simply find the bottom or set the margin super low. I guess if this is the free market Invisible Hand then so be it. There isn't anything expensive to buy in game, housing's not doing much for inflation.

[Prrringles]

I think the big problem is that many Japanese people don't understand English very well (have a look at the crazy names some things get in Japan, when they try to give them catching English names) and prefer to rather skip reading English post, so not to missunderstand and make a blunder of themselves when they reply (loosing face and all that stuff).

They are digging their own grave. You can't let a would to fester cos eventually you will have to cut off the leg. I would just retire your retainers man. Do something nice with the money you will save. This game is not worth it anymore imo.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I remember how taboo it was to use bots in one of my previous private server MMO I played ( I forgot which ).
Their anti-bot measure was to implement a captcha test in 'somewhat' random interval, normally it pops once between 10m to 120m. They give players 3 chances to input the right answer (the captcha answer randomizes itself every failure/time running out) before the game teleports the said 'player' to a random map while also branding them with a very debilitating debuff for 30m (i.e. All stats -90%, Move speed -90%). This debuff gets even worse if the said 'player' continues to fail more and more of those captcha tests regardless whether their previous debuff has ran out or not. The test will also reward human players for answering correctly with temporary buff, which was pretty nice imho. The game was bot-free as well, or at least very low amount that it never make any difference to the community as a whole.

"But what if players are inside dungeon?"
As far as I can remember, that game never shoves captcha test to players inside dungeon. The test pops whenever players are doing something outside dungeon area (killing mobs, gathering, fishing, etc).

It would be nice (?) if something similar can be implemented in this game because I've only begun to notice these gathering/market bots right after I wanted a small break from combat classes and diving into world of gathering & crafting

[Anhra]

A great approach to be able to deal with bots would be to allow open world pvp, so that players could simply hunt bots down for a sport, which would not only make things alot harder for them, it would also force them to go for more drastic measures like cheating openly, which usually gets noticed a GMs rather easily.

But since FFXIV's EU/US community is as herbivore as it can get, i highly doubt we will ever see something like that.

[Dragonkat]

I'm sitting here right now watching two bots undercut themselves by 1 gil over and over on rings of crafting. It's hilarious and sad because i'm in the middle not being able to sell a damn thing because i'm being undercut in seconds. the frustration is actually quite real. and a STF report has been sent for all the good it will probably too.

The kicker? One player is in topmast, the other is in Kholusia NOWHERE NEAR A BELL!

I mean for gods sake how much more obvious can the cheating get here?

As a legit crafter who basically is finding it impossible to sell a single damn high end item this is all kinds of stupid. Bout to just flood the market with super cheap Aesthete gear and say screw it. Any gil is better than none but this is ridiculous

[Kes13a]

I'm sitting here right now watching two bots undercut themselves by 1 gil over and over on rings of crafting. It's hilarious and sad because i'm in the middle not being able to sell a damn thing because i'm being undercut in seconds. the frustration is actually quite real. and a STF report has been sent for all the good it will probably too.

The kicker? One player is in topmast, the other is in Kholusia NOWHERE NEAR A BELL!

As a legit crafter who basically is finding it impossible to sell a single damn high end item this is all kinds of stupid. Bout to just flood the market with super cheap Aesthete gear and say screw it. Any gil is better than none but this is ridiculous

according to some, legit crafters apparently only care because we are exceedingly greedy.

but, how can someone change prices not near a bell? its easy, the crafter has an Fc with various... shall we say..members (usually below 30 that live by retainer bells) they are the bot marketers. the crafter can be anywhere and the bots just cycle in and out changing prices.

[Dragonkat]

according to some, legit crafters apparently only care because we are exceedingly greedy.

but, how can someone change prices not near a bell? its easy, the crafter has an Fc with various... shall we say..members (usually below 30 that live by retainer bells) they are the bot marketers. the crafter can be anywhere and the bots just cycle in and out changing prices.

Duh me, I should have thought of that.

Honestly either way though I just like selling things cheap anyway because the inflation on Bryn is stupid. I mean 300K for a Ase ring of crafting? At that point it's the crafters paradox, you need to craft to make money, but by the time you've made the money you pretty much can craft it yourself because it's cheaper AND easier. More so if you have a few friends like me who help you with the mats.

Of course we can probably thank the bots for some of that inflation too I imagine, but the fact the in game economy is pretty much busted for anyone trying to actually use it is... yeah... frustrating is the most diplomatic word i can use. Anything else would get me a forum ban.