Does Square intend to address Market botting?

[Jojoya]

You do not need to identify [snip].

All you need to do is find a worthy item (Check Shinryu's Gunblade and Chakarms for example) and see if there's someone undercutting the price by 1 Gil.
Check their profile and company of that character: If it is a company of 9 characters, 1 main omnicrafter with 1 LV80 DoM or DoW job and 8 mules and no company estate then BINGO you found the [snip]

Which is a process of identifying likely botters.

So yes, identification is necessary. Otherwise SE might as well just ban your account because there's no need to identify who's actually botting, they can just pick players at random. Right?

[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

[Kes13a]

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

what better way to throw things off? I mean its kind of telling that an 8 "member" FC is ranked number 7 on Zalera, with the FC leader the only one past 30 and the only one that isnt in a starter city. now, I realize that people can measure their worth by how much virtual money they have, thats awesome, but if you never do anything with it apparently, and never do anything else in the game... why "play"? The only thing I can imagine is RMT

I dont care how "life-like" they try and make themselves, cheating is still cheating and they should be perma banned (after all, they arent playing anyway)

[NamidaTekika]

what better way to throw things off? I mean its kind of telling that an 8 "member" FC is ranked number 7 on Zalera, with the FC leader the only one past 30 and the only one that isnt in a starter city. now, I realize that people can measure their worth by how much virtual money they have, thats awesome, but if you never do anything with it apparently, and never do anything else in the game... why "play"? The only thing I can imagine is RMT

I dont care how "life-like" they try and make themselves, cheating is still cheating and they should be perma banned (after all, they arent playing anyway)

Ya still cheating, still think they should be punished. Just kinda impressed how far they will go to try to "See I'm a real person! I just play on several servers and regions and give a real name out in search comment so you can google me and see I'm totally a real person!" (shame the results kinda prove its a sock puppet at best).

Or "We went offline, totally rested for 3 hours then all 3 came back online at the same time and back to gathering. Totally not bots see!"

[TheLoveJenovan]

We have to agree that people that make money like this aren't that sharp to begin with. Dumb behavior like you shared is interesting but not unexpected. Thanks for the post, and I hope I can find and read more about the bot you've posted.

Separately, I was thinking that this problem is too easy to not address--at least for the egregious cases discussed here. At this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if either SE got a cut from these companies, or SE was relying on the inflation in their economies to somehow bolster other sales.

I've never thought that SE was making a good faith effort with eliminating botting. Now, I'm more convinced that the botting system itself is allowed to continue in bad faith. From my experience with the in-game support, they'll readily address cases of harassment or phishing attempts. For bots, they're conspicuously silent. There is no way they don't know about the extent of this problem. They likely receive hundreds of reports for any given bot. Additionally, they likely carefully monitor how users interact with their product--all other software companies do. At this stage, they're not doing anything about it--including even acknowledging the problem--for a reason.

[tierney12]

I think that this thread being one of the most viewed on the NA/EU forum, speaks to how big a problem it is. This thread had 5k views a couple weeks ago after having being up for several months and now it has over 11k. There is definitely a lot of players who must be frustrated enoguht with the bots to come here and look this thread over

[Muutaras]

After the end of the "Restoration of bots", there were even more bots, prices just dropped. Several new trading bots have appeared. They are no longer shy about calling their retainers by type "Softpower" and etc.

[Kes13a]

After the end of the "Restoration of bots", there were even more bots, prices just dropped. Several new trading bots have appeared. They are no longer shy about calling their retainers by type "Softpower" and etc.

Yeah, I dont think they even bother to hide any more. One of the RMT crafters in the Crystal group is still using the same methods and the same network of sellers. yeah, being banned didnt affect very much since the "original" crafter is gone, but a new one is back.

[Eloc]

Why doesnt SE enforce their TOS? Crafting is actually one of my favorite things to do in this game but the botting has gotten so bad i now sell about 2 items a day. Even when i went out of my way to try and wage a war against them and get really aggressive with undercutting and trying to crash their preferred markets and literally updating my prices like a madman just to try and get a sale to stick it to them. I gave up though, too exhausting, cant beat a bot i need sleep and life. I thought i cant be the only one who sees this and is fed up. So i found this thread!

1) Is there actual steps to take that gets results?
2) I report them 2-3 times a week but what if we all did it daily and spread the word?
3) Can we spread the word to the server populace without getting banned? It seems ludicrous that we cant even point out the problem.

Or is SE just looking at the $$$. Bots pays subs too! So if they banned 1k bots they would loose a lot of income so SE policy is only as good as their next dollar. <--------- This seems to be the stinky fish methinks. An RMT bot that pays subs 12 months a year, year after year is a better customer than me who subs for about 3-4 months a year so the content SE made is actually for botters not me.