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

[MilitaryVet123]

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.



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?

I have seen the bot first hand from a friend.

[MilitaryVet123]

I'll also say this: if you craft in endgame markets you'll immediately know what's going on.

[Nixxe]

I have seen the bot first hand from a friend.

So that sounds really unreliable, unless you're indicating your friend was the botter, but at best you have proof of... one bot. Not exactly adequate for the claim that the MBs are overrun with bots.

[MilitaryVet123]

So that sounds really unreliable, unless you're indicating your friend was the botter, but at best you have proof of... one bot. Not exactly adequate for the claim that the MBs are overrun with bots.

You can keep living in fantasy-land if you wish.

[Nixxe]

You can keep living in fantasy-land if you wish.

The irony.

[Sqwall]

You can keep living in fantasy-land if you wish.

The irony.

I agree with Militaryvet123 as you are being fairly naive here. This is a KNOWN issue. I find it very concerning with a few bots on my server that when you throw them an invite, are literally underneath the map. Or have such a predictable pathing that is literally no strafing, jumping. Flying without a mount...like literally walking into the sky and clipping in city zones. I have been tracking one on my server for about 2 weeks. This "player" has all the symptoms.

1. Check the Market Board and find that they are in every single high end gear, high end mats, and high end miner/botanist/fisher category. You can literally SEE the name of the player that posted the mat...which is this player.
2. They have 5 retainers, and counted 3 of the retainers with 20/20 items. It took me some time to find them all, but the other 2 were in lower level mats.
3. The mats for 3 of the retainers were infact....the lowest prices on the MB. Majority were 490 gear, Brashgold plates, cobalt alloy ingots, dusk court cloth, etc;
4. I search for this "player" and found them in Am Arang, "farming". I tried inviting them...didn't respond. /tell no response. Physically looking for them in the zone...no where near the nodes...and I swept 4 times. Never ran into the "player".
5. I place an item on the MB and undercut this "player" by literally 1 gil.... a 490 crafting ring. This "player" you seem to think is legit....changed their posting as like they should. It took around 15 min of watching the MB. But they did....from FREAKING AM ARANG!!!!! There is NO retainer bell in am arang?! And I was so upset that I kept checking for 3 min were they were....STILL in am arange "farming". How could they access there retainer with out a bell?
6. Last but not least....i waited until they when to another zone....which this time was the housing in Limsa. Saw the address they were at....paid them a visit. Just a plain....jane....house....nothing special....just....a house. No decor...no paint...nothing. Now...if you would think you had all crafters leveled to 80....all gatherers leveled to 80...and only 1 level 80 tank (fast ques)...one would think....this seems suspicious as hell.

Stop being this naive....it's clear that something is up and makes no sense for even a simple detective work. The data and evidence shows this is clearly not right.

[Nixxe]

Stop being this naive....it's clear that something is up and makes no sense for even a simple detective work. The data and evidence shows this is clearly not right.

Again, share the data and evidence. I'm the only one actually bringing either into this (it didn't agree with you, if you recall). The rest of you are just all HoW dArE yOu DiSaGrE wItH mY sInCeRe CoNvIcTiOnS. Even the latest "proof" you're offering is... they didn't talk to you? They don't decorate their house? You failed to find them in a gigantic zone? Really? This is just pathetic at this point.

And again, I am not saying anything about gathering bots. I am talking about people botting the MB specifically. Gathering bots are obvious. MB bots are not, and I have yet to see anyone accuse someone of botting the marketboard and actually be able to supply anything decent. It's pretty much always players who aren't happy with someone else on their server accusing them of botting without any actual proof, as you all are doing here. You are literally never going to persuade me to agree with you if you do not provide reasonable evidence, yet it seems none of you have the slightest inkling as to the difference between worthwhile evidence and your feelings on the matter.

[ElazulHP]

[Nixxe]

[MilitaryVet123]

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?

So here is the evidence:

- A public bot capable of automatic undercutting exists
- Tracking Aesthete's gear reveals that 24/7 undercutting exists by random sampling.
- Multiple eyewitness accounts (read the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...games_economy/, https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ut_of_control/)

Short of actually linking to said bot I'm not sure what more evidence you want. If you're curious you can do it yourself, as many players before you have done. Instead of believing that dozens of crafters have done their homework and rigorously investigated this, you choose to be a contrarian for no good reason.

Finally, if you do track the market board 24/7 every 5 minutes (shared with a few friends), and see regular undercuts, unless you believe that humans do so on a regular basis, the only likely conclusion is that it's market botting. Of course it's possible for a human to do this but it's incredibly unlikely for it to be sustained over a long period of time. If you don't believe so, randomly check for 20 minutes every day at random times. The statistical likelihood that there's no botting vanishes to zero rapidly. I'm not going to waste my time explaining basic statistics and mathematics to you.

To others who need to learn how to justify their argument because people keep repeating the asinine argument that "if you track it 24/7 you just proved it can be done by a human":

What's the key here is that you're taking random samples over time. This is just another statistical technique and there is no need to actually check the market board 24/7 over a long period of time. As we take more random samples at sufficiently random points (that means sometimes you have to check at 3am etc.), you can, via this wonderful thing known as the Central Limit Theorem, eventually reject the null hypothesis that no undercut botting occurs. For most real world purposes, usually a few dozen samples (with almost all TRUE for an observation of rapid undercutting) will be sufficient to reject the null with a confidence of 95%, or 5% type-1 error rate. (or p-value < 0.05) You can collect more data if you want, as long as it is sufficiently random, to reject the null with more confidence.

It may sound weird but this is literally the same mechanism people use to check (for a timely topic) infection rate of a population. No one tests every single person in the population. They take a random sample of the population and test them and form a reasonable confidence interval of the infection rate. You're doing the same thing when you randomly check the market board to see if frequent undercutting occurs in a 5-min window.

You also don't need to actually collect the sample if you accept the very reasonable assumption that others have done it for you already and they were not lying.