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

[Nixxe]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-%28Aug.-27%29

Here is your evidence right here. This is just Aug 20-27! It is a problem and an increasing one. SE is taking steps to counter this and it clearly informs everyone to report the MB botting, farming, cheating, use of third party tools if suspicious. Let SE handle the investigation portion, and everyone should do their part to report.

If you have nothing to hide SE won't find anything. It appears they aren't going out of their way to spear head the issue, like I said before, don't have the man power or resources to handle it on their own volition. They need our help reporting!

Keep this garbage out of this game.

That information is not detailed enough. It shows 41 accounts were suspended or terminated for botting. An unspecified number of RMT accounts were likewise actioned for botting, but were lumped in with all RMT related activity, which presumably includes people who buy gil and such, not just people botting. Finally, it does not address MB botting specifically, which is the only point of contention. As for whether or not it's an increasing problem, if that's the data you want to go with, then...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

The trendlines both have a negative slope. Even if I were to clean up the data so that it didn't hold the few weeks where SE did almost nothing, likely due to COVID-19, it's unlikely it would actually have a positive slope. It would likely be flat at best. In the case of the RMT advertising graph, the slope is likely negative due to a spike last fall, but it would still likely be flat even if you excluded that range. Of course the data still isn't detailed enough to tell us if botting itself is a greater or lesser problem, but this is a year of data that shows there isn't a whole lot of change and that, if anything, it has maybe gotten a tad better.

In any case, I've definitely observed and reported gathering bots, but unlike MB bots, you can easily tell if someone is botting (or at least exploiting) while gathering because their character will do stuff that should be impossible, such as cut through terrain. But MB bots? Like there was a guy on Balmung who used to be regularly accused of botting the MB and maybe he did, but whenever I went and competed in his markets, I could easily take them over and shut him out of sales. What kind of bot is less effective than a human at maintaining their MB listings? A useless one not worth not worth breaking down into hysterics over.

Or you can come to the far likelier and coherent conclusion that it is in fact bots.

Since I'm guessing you haven't even done as much as you told me to do, what exactly is your evidence? A handful of random data samples not systematically collected combined with your frustration from not being as successful of a seller as you wish?