Bot's on Market Board...? Really?

[Selphyna]

I came back on FF after 4years, thinking i would take back some crafting, and right on my 1 day of play, i noticed something wrong, i craft an chest lvl 70 for gatherers, where there was none of it on MB, and when i come check later, a person appear, i think it's normal, a player, but no, cuz while i started crafting items and stuff around 70to80, i didn't even got the time that every mins, the bot changed the price by 1gil.

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

I didn't wanted believe that Bots got into MB, but yes they did, and it's frustrating on the fact, crafting was my only way to get money to support my FC and friends, but now with theses ridiculous prices that have no sense, you got final result less expensive than if you crafted it by yourself, where is the pleasure in it ? I crafted an minion that his mats costed me more than buying directly the minion crafted by bots. And SE wont resolve this, if they failed in FFXI, don't expect miracle in FF14, the economy is broke, no wonder alot of players just buy gils. It's so disapointing, i will try ask refund of my expansion, cuz i regret my come back. Really. Courage to the others craft-lovers, i EXACTLY understand what you guys/girls feel.

[Anhra]

Squeenix dug their own grave on the matter of botting in this game, since we as players can't do anything about it on our own (griefing or having the option to pk them for example) without violating the terms of service, the matter falls completely into their hands.

The current Marketboard situation, at least on chaos datacenter, seems so far quite bearable, even for MMO standards but unless the whole situation goes completely out of hand, i will doubt we will see anything being done about it.

[LogicMouse]

SE needs to take a harder approach to bots. Bots on the market, farming and housing. These cheaters need to be taken care of

[Saidosha]

At this point, I'd just say to put relisting/trade cooldowns based on the level of the item. The closer it gets to max level, the longer you have to wait before you can adjust price/relist. It won't eliminate undercutting, but it will stop bots from constantly shaving a few gil off every few minutes unless they're massively overstocked. At which point, I'd argue it becomes even easier to identify them if routine scans find x of the same item on cooldown despite having multiples listed.

FFXI-style AH wasn't any better and prone to its own exploits, imo.

End of the day, player-run economies in games tend to fail precisely because of bad actors, where you either have to join in on the cheating or suffer through its effects as a more casual player. I'm kinda nearing the point where I'd just prefer solely interacting with NPCs, selling and buying things at nominal prices instead of dealing with the proper time of the day/week to sell things, hopping servers because mine is backwater on value, etc.. Major patches/expansions only temporarily reset that sort of decay, which on its own, doesn't address the bot problem that, given the age of this thread, seems to be half a year strong now.

[Adephagos]

I came back on FF after 4years, thinking i would take back some crafting, and right on my 1 day of play, i noticed something wrong, i craft an chest lvl 70 for gatherers, where there was none of it on MB, and when i come check later, a person appear, i think it's normal, a player, but no, cuz while i started crafting items and stuff around 70to80, i didn't even got the time that every mins, the bot changed the price by 1gil.

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

I didn't wanted believe that Bots got into MB, but yes they did, and it's frustrating on the fact, crafting was my only way to get money to support my FC and friends, but now with theses ridiculous prices that have no sense, you got final result less expensive than if you crafted it by yourself, where is the pleasure in it ? I crafted an minion that his mats costed me more than buying directly the minion crafted by bots. And SE wont resolve this, if they failed in FFXI, don't expect miracle in FF14, the economy is broke, no wonder alot of players just buy gils. It's so disapointing, i will try ask refund of my expansion, cuz i regret my come back. Really. Courage to the others craft-lovers, i EXACTLY understand what you guys/girls feel.

We have the same issue in Primal (same situation, one person owner of a closed FC, having 9-11 people, which active constantly are between 3 and 4, have easily each character 6 retirners) I reported the player with a good amount of details, the use of multi accounts, timer cycles, etc, and... nothing happened. They are still out there with impunity, the GMs were more worried banning people for posting "unrelated things" in the PF.

[Ronzeru]

I'm laughing so hard right now. After all that back and forth I decided to take that one players advice. So, I just googled it. Low and behold, on the first page, not only did I find requests of people asking for it.. I found someone selling it, a discord name of the individual, a discord server promoting it and the price the app was being sold for. All within the span of 1 minute.

[Chiibors]

One of the GM's told me to put in a form to their task force for bots, HAH! I did about 50 times, probably the most laziest bunch of people I've ever seen. The guy who I reported harassment to was right on the money, those guys do fine, but whoever is in charge of bots, cheating, RMT's, etc are just flat out lazy and enjoy a free paycheck just like the botters do probably won't ban them out of the fact their kindred spirits and doing so would result in hurting one of their own. The team who handles the harassment though, very good at their job.

[Seleni]

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

...That sounded almost like me last week while I was leveling last few levels of my crafter jobs (other than culinary) and then starting on my path to craft the aesthete’s set for myself. >_>

I have a solo FC to ward off random invites, too.

When your DoW/DoM job is far below your crafting jobs, you’re content locked from gathering your own mats anyway. Lower-level mats can be gathered by sending out retainers, and the rest can all be purchased off MB. The only time you’d actually need to step out of your apartment/house is for trips to MB which is right outside the apartment.

I had to rely on GC turn-ins and Ixali dailies for venture coins. And I turned to fishing glamour for additional gil source. (I guess I’m a gambler at heart). Plus I made daily trips to Providence Point. So I probably was out more than a more well-funded crafter would.

In short, aside from the constant market price adjustment, what you described is simply a pure crafter/merchant that’s not all that interested to other aspects of the game. It’s not proof for botting.

But I only adjust my MB prices once or twice a day. (Too lazy)

As for the finished product costing less than mats combined, that seems nearly always the case while leveling. (It’s probably result of leveling crafters buying mats and then dumping finished product on MB) Plus there are HQ quest rewards, kupo stamp and venture drops. I tend to just give up on an item when I don’t see a maker’s signature on MB listings.

[Coletergeist]

I live on night, and my roommate on day, we checked basically 24h to see if "Mjare Kirin" disconnect, but no, he's always connected, never absent. And drop price every mins, he's a lvl 71 whm, with only crafters at 80, in a FC with 9 people, and closed, he is as the same spot h24, an appartment. I went check others servers, to see if i find people like that. And yes, i finded one in each, with 1 lvl 70 or 80, and only crafters/gatherers full 80, with an FC closed of around ten people too.

This doesn't inherently mean they're a bot; there's tons of people I even know personally that like, never ever log out. I also know folks that stand around the summoning bell day in and day out just to make gil, and undercut by a single gil.

As for the free company, I know of soooo many companies that are 'solo' because folks hate getting invite spam from others, as already mentioned.

Be careful if you're reporting these people who may or even may not be bots if you are; some may be actual players trying to simply make gil; I undercut by a single gil too sometimes.

[Lothian]

One of the GM's told me to put in a form to their task force for bots, HAH! I did about 50 times, probably the most laziest bunch of people I've ever seen. The guy who I reported harassment to was right on the money, those guys do fine, but whoever is in charge of bots, cheating, RMT's, etc are just flat out lazy and enjoy a free paycheck just like the botters do probably won't ban them out of the fact their kindred spirits and doing so would result in hurting one of their own. The team who handles the harassment though, very good at their job.

This made me laugh so hard, lmao.