Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Jojoya]

The Coeurl server has a pretty bad market botting problem too—I mentioned the bot FC in a previous listing. The Coeurl bots have moved into most of the lvl 50-80 items. I find it hard to believe that players on that server haven't encountered them, as I did when I visited that server. I also don’t understand the dogmatic loyalty to SE in the face of such blatant cheating in the game. The only reasonable explanation, to me, is that some players are either using bots themselves or are close to other people that use bots, then they come onto threads like this to defend the status quo. People like that are a part of the problem.

I do see the bots. I switch to the items they aren't focused on. I still make gil crafting and selling on the MB.

Again, show me a MMO that doesn't have bots. You're going to find these same conversations in other MMO forums, and the same accusations that the development teams don't care enough, that players who try to point out the reality of the situation are just apologists.

Think it can be handled better? Then go start up your own MMO and prove how the existing ones are incompetent.

[Aniona]

I do see the bots. I switch to the items they aren't focused on. I still make gil crafting and selling on the MB.

Again, show me a MMO that doesn't have bots. You're going to find these same conversations in other MMO forums, and the same accusations that the development teams don't care enough, that players who try to point out the reality of the situation are just apologists.

Think it can be handled better? Then go start up your own MMO and prove how the existing ones are incompetent.

Ok, in any other game we would find gathering bots, oh well, yes they are everywhere.
But where could you find Auction house bots? WoW, Elder Scrolls? No.

And what do you offer? Ok, cheaters, continue to ruin the game?

We should talk about it, SE should do something with them. More bans, better security, anything helpful for real players.

[Commander_Justitia]

But where could you find Auction house bots? WoW, Elder Scrolls? No.

In WoW setting up an item for the auction house costs a fee. Might be worth in FFXIV too.
In guild wars 2 you have a bid/ask order system, where you can instantly sell to a price somebody is offering. Would make markets more stable and foreseeable.

But true, bots in ff14? They are all real players ofc and you can't blame the game for it, its us who are wrong (irony off)

[TheLoveJenovan]

And what do you offer? Ok, cheaters, continue to ruin the game?

We should talk about it, SE should do something with them. More bans, better security, anything helpful for real players.

Thanks Aniona.

No one reasonable on this thread has asked SE to eliminate all bots. That's a straw-man counter argument. We're only asking for an official response, since so many of us have sent in dozens to hundreds of reports on obvious bots, and nothing happens. I did an accounting of 18 bot rings on Crystal, and those bots have been running from 90 days to 952 days (2.5 years).

Again, no one is asking that they eliminate all bots. We're asking them why bots run for months to years with impunity.

There are users on this thread that are strongly arguing for the status quo. Who wouldn't want Square Enix to improve their detection and elimination of bots and to make a fairer game? The only reasonable explanation are people that use bots or are friends with bot users.

[TheLoveJenovan]

A PSA: In case anyone else would find this useful, you can block a user's comments on the forum by clicking Settings at the top, then clicking Edit Ignore List.

[Jojoya]

But where could you find Auction house bots? WoW, Elder Scrolls? No.

There absolutely are AH bots in WoW and have been going back at least to Wrath (and likely farther). You could see price updates happen faster than a human can manage even if you were using the AH scanning add-ons like TSM.

I don't play ESO but my understanding there is there is no central AH/marketboard in that game. Instead, there are player organized Guild Stores that will sell to other players who visit the location of the guild store. Do you honestly think there are no botting groups running any of those stores with a network of alts joining different guild stores to keep on top of prices?

I'm not denying that botting is a problem in this game. I'm not denying that it would be nice to see some more dramatic changes in the extent of the problem.

But I am going to be a realist and accept that it's something that SE will not be able to stamp out entirely. Rather than let their existence ruin my enjoyment of the game, I'm going to keep enjoying it as I work around them where necessary. They're still going to be an annoyance but life's filled with annoyances we learn to ignore.

We're only asking for an official response.

What sort of official response are you expecting? "We know the bots exist and we're doing what we can to counter them."?

We already know they know. We get a weekly notice with actions taken against "Illicit Activities" including botting. Why do they need to say anything else?

it being so difficult to stop these bots in all levels and areas of the game, one has to wonder why the Japanese servers have so many fewer of them?

I'm not certain how you've decided how many bots are on each server.

But assuming you're correct, I'd guess it's due to those servers having much smaller populations than NA servers. One of the census sites I had looked at earlier this year listed the average population of JP worlds at 7600 versus an average of 11000 on NA worlds. Few customers would mean fewer bots needed.

It could also be a cultural difference. I don't know how RMT and botting are viewed in Japan. I know RMT is actually very popular and considered acceptable in some Asian countries but Japan is very different in a lot of ways. If RMT is a major cultural taboo, that's going to cut into the potential customers even more.