Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Airget]

With the influx of players it does feel like the market needs a bit of rebalancing so those who are unable to micro the market aren't discouraged from participating in the market. One issue I see is how quantity items are currently marketted, if you remove the way listing is currently, then you would potentially only be able to sell stack items as 1 or 99, which would be rather tedious.

To fix that they would need to recode the system where a player can put X items on sale for Y amount, say 60 for 900 gil each, then another player can say they are willing to pay 1000 gil for 40. So the game looks at what's being sold for the cheapest and gives you the cheapest offers. So let's say the 60 for 900 was teh cheapest option. It would take 40 of them and leave the seller with 20 and then it would give the hold of 40k and take 36k away giving back the unused 4k.

So basically a blind market where you can look at the history to see what the item was sold for, and then attempt to add in gil to buy the product and if it goes through you get it for the value that the player set.

Say for example, you want a piece of gear and there are 10 sellers. It's a new item and you don't know what the going rate is, so you decide to do say, 5 mil for the piece of gear. The server checks the prices and notices the lowest price is 900k from Seller A so you buy it for 900k and get the 4.1 mil returned to you. You wouldn't get to choose who you are buying from , and an undercutter wouldn't be able to set an absurd price to snatch the "free gil" since it isn't working under the idea that if you say 5mil and the person was trying to sell it for 900k, they get 5mil, nope, they get the price they set and nothing more.

I think if they could design a system like this, the market wouldn't be as toxic as it currently is, it's sad to see how easily the market can be manipulated by those with gil because they have nothing to lose, meanwhile those trying to make gil struggle to keep up, when those with gil can deal with the gil loss because they think of the long term of discouraging others from continuing to attempt to play the market.

[Scardrak]

We've got these guys on Goblin that foam at the mouth and undercut people by 10-25k on everything but their pea-brains can't seem to understand that the 5 or so marketboard bots just keep undercutting them so the bottom falls out on everything. It's frustrating and hilarious at the same time. At first I was mad at the undercutters for being so stupid but really it should be on the bots. If it wasn't for the bots I'd just buy out those guys things and relist but the bots have already undercut by the time I see it so it's too late and the price bottoms out.

[kurumihayashi]

i've also done so on my DC. There are few crafters that list their items on almost every world at subpar prices and suppressing the prices to a point that we'll only make around 10-15k per craft on classical gear.

I hope action will be taken, as GM said that they wont be able to update me on the follow-up due to privacy policy.

[Unkara]

they should just add taxes for buying AND selling
everytime you change a price for an item your retainer sells, you need to pay like 0,5-1% of listed price
on the long run, some items would not be so expansive cause the seller would ned to pay more taxes, and many items will not drop so fast in price cause there will be less undercutting in general

and does fu**ing undercutting and crafting bots need to pay huge amounts of gil to list there items first every 30-60min

With the influx of players it does feel like the market needs a bit of rebalancing so those who are unable to micro the market aren't discouraged from participating in the market. One issue I see is how quantity items are currently marketted, if you remove the way listing is currently, then you would potentially only be able to sell stack items as 1 or 99, which would be rather tedious.

To fix that they would need to recode the system where a player can put X items on sale for Y amount, say 60 for 900 gil each, then another player can say they are willing to pay 1000 gil for 40. So the game looks at what's being sold for the cheapest and gives you the cheapest offers. So let's say the 60 for 900 was teh cheapest option. It would take 40 of them and leave the seller with 20 and then it would give the hold of 40k and take 36k away giving back the unused 4k.

So basically a blind market where you can look at the history to see what the item was sold for, and then attempt to add in gil to buy the product and if it goes through you get it for the value that the player set.

Say for example, you want a piece of gear and there are 10 sellers. It's a new item and you don't know what the going rate is, so you decide to do say, 5 mil for the piece of gear. The server checks the prices and notices the lowest price is 900k from Seller A so you buy it for 900k and get the 4.1 mil returned to you. You wouldn't get to choose who you are buying from , and an undercutter wouldn't be able to set an absurd price to snatch the "free gil" since it isn't working under the idea that if you say 5mil and the person was trying to sell it for 900k, they get 5mil, nope, they get the price they set and nothing more.

I think if they could design a system like this, the market wouldn't be as toxic as it currently is, it's sad to see how easily the market can be manipulated by those with gil because they have nothing to lose, meanwhile those trying to make gil struggle to keep up, when those with gil can deal with the gil loss because they think of the long term of discouraging others from continuing to attempt to play the market.

but i like this blind market idea too
the Steam market also works that way

[ForteNightshade]

i've also done so on my DC. There are few crafters that list their items on almost every world at subpar prices and suppressing the prices to a point that we'll only make around 10-15k per craft on classical gear.

I hope action will be taken, as GM said that they wont be able to update me on the follow-up due to privacy policy.

Unfortunately, there won't be. I can list off a number of rather infamous market board botters on Cactuar that have been active for years now. SE doesn't do a thing regarding player bots. Meanwhile, some UI mods being streamed. Well, that's just too much!

[Prrringles]

Bots = subs = money. World transfers to buy cheap in JP and resell in US/EU = money. SE likes money. This is my conclusion after 10 years of ffxiv.

By the way, once you figure out which bot retainers are reselling the JP items you can easily buy them out. The bots on Moogle update their prices every 10 minutes. So if I price my item super low just when their retainers disappear from the MB (because they open them to check prices) they will automatically drop to their bottom price. Usually around 50% lower than the going price at that time. I buy them out and resell the items for a 20% mark-up. The items sell pretty fast. This way I can screw over the bots, and still profit off of it. Done this with treasure map materials and mounts alike. Market board goes back to business for a few days until the bots restock their items.

[AliceVT]

How do y'all figure out who is botting the MB? I play on Malboro and have recently gotten into playing the MB for profits, it's been going super well. But it's involved updating my listing many many times by 1 gil just to stay freshest on the board. Usually a few times before I sell everything, some people could probably think I'm a bot since I sometimes keep a very close eye on it. I'm just curious if people are seeing legitemate players as bots in this case.

[KageTokage]

How do y'all figure out who is botting the MB? I play on Malboro and have recently gotten into playing the MB for profits, it's been going super well. But it's involved updating my listing many many times by 1 gil just to stay freshest on the board. Usually a few times before I sell everything, some people could probably think I'm a bot since I sometimes keep a very close eye on it. I'm just curious if people are seeing legitemate players as bots in this case.

The typical market bots:

1. Only have a single DoW/M job at level 90 with nothing else touched aside from DoH/L.

2. Are online 24/7.

3. Are only ever on DoH/L jobs and never actually doing other activities once they've hit the level cap on their sole combat job.

4. Will undercut you within 5-10 minutes of making a price adjustment regardless of the time of day.


There are also some "casual" market botters who play normally in the day but leave crafting and/or gathering scripts running overnight.

[Unkara]

How do y'all figure out who is botting the MB? I play on Malboro and have recently gotten into playing the MB for profits, it's been going super well. But it's involved updating my listing many many times by 1 gil just to stay freshest on the board. Usually a few times before I sell everything, some people could probably think I'm a bot since I sometimes keep a very close eye on it. I'm just curious if people are seeing legitemate players as bots in this case.

here you have an example for Bot using, or at least an account thats involved in RMT
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...007262/member/
one char with all DoH/L maxed out, and only one DoW/M at 90
has a FC with many alts, only played to the point were you unlock your retainers
those alts have a fixed route in any capital, from FC chest to the Summoning Bell (watched one for 2 hours)
they login every 30-60min to undercut you for 1-10gil, and everyone of those alts are using undercutting bots, cause they never need more then 1-2min to update all there items from every retainer

[AliceVT]

here you have an example for Bot using, or at least an account thats involved in RMT
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...007262/member/
one char with all DoH/L maxed out, and only one DoW/M at 90
has a FC with many alts, only played to the point were you unlock your retainers
those alts have a fixed route in any capital, from FC chest to the Summoning Bell (watched one for 2 hours)
they login every 30-60min to undercut you for 1-10gil, and everyone of those alts are using undercutting bots, cause they never need more then 1-2min to update all there items from every retainer

I see I see, thanks for the info! I'll keep an eye out and see if I notice any.