How is the botting situation in this game?

[Nepentha]

In stormblood I don't know what happened but suddenly botting became very wide spread. It sucks because I used to be a high end crafter. I used to know all my fellow crafters and we'd compete against each other while making money. We had a community kinda. It's impossible to complete on the market board these days. Players will say "go to a different market!" But I shouldn't have to branch out of end game markets because of bots. There's something inherently wrong with that. Literally it's only the first week of new patches where you can make money on end game items before the bots get updated and go back to their nonsense.

It's actually really embarrassing that the situation is what it is. People on these forums for some reason like to diminish bots or advocate for them but there's tons of players who play this game for different reasons. I do a bit of everything and I enjoy ultimate so although it sucks to not be able to play the markert board like I used to I have other avenues of content to do. I have friends who litterly only gather abd craft. Almost all of my friends who rarely participated in battle content have quit since then because the situation has deteriorated so much. You just can't compete against market board bots.

We also have bot FCs now that are branching out into every market worth selling in on the marketboard. I've found a host of botting FCs across the Crystal data center.

Very easy to spot. The FC usually has 9 to 10 members. It's so active it's lvl 30 *and* listed in the top 25 FCs in the Grand Company Rankings. (Some of them in the top 10.) It will have no sigil, no estate built, no slogan, and closed recruiting. FC rankings will not be customized. Just Master and Officers.

The FC leader usually has 1 combat job at lvl 80 and all hand and land jobs at 80. For some reason they rarely even unlock FSH. They are a 2nd Lieutenant with a given Grand Company. Own and sit in an apartment that is locked. And are usually on 24/7 cycling through hand jobs and crafting. They are dressed in whatever the highest level crafting gear is but no glamours.

Then the next 8 members are leveled high enough to attain retainers and no further. (Usually in the 19-24 level range) They are all officers. They are dressed in whatever gear they had when they hit the magic point in the MSQ they could access retainers. ONE of them usually has unlocked a Grand Company at the lowest rung. (This one may also be dressed differently than the others, but only in veteran status gear.) None of these alts will have ridiculously obvious nonsense names, all names appear 'normal'. All of their retainers will have normal sounding names. Most of the time, these alts are randomized rather than being a default and the alts will vary in what races they are. Most of them will have namedays in the First Astral Moon. (Days may vary, though the more obvious ones are all Halone guardians born on the 1st day of the First Astral Moon.)

8 retainer bot alts are cycled through continuously, logging in and out, interacting only with a retainer bell in one of the three main city-states. Undercutting by 1 gil until they hit a floor. They will only stop occasionally to run to the FC chest and load up on whatever the main crafter has put in there. Then activate sprint to get back to the retainer bell they're programmed to be at and return to stocking and undercutting. It's almost entirely automated.

If the FC has 10 members instead of 9, the odd alt out will be around lvl 1 and just a 'Member' rather than officer. I am not sure of the purpose of this tiny alt. But I have a few theories.

This is why regular players can't sell anything on the marketboard. These types of bot FCs have made it impossible not just for people who enjoy crafting and selling things like you and me, but for smaller sellers who just want to make a few gil but aren't dedicated.

The market is bot driven, now. This isn't sustainable at all. And eventually SE is going to have to do something. Be nice if it were sooner rather than later.

[Fufusi]

We also have bot FCs now that are branching out into every market worth selling in on the marketboard. I've found a host of botting FCs across the Crystal data center.

Very easy to spot. The FC usually has 9 to 10 members. The FC leader usually has 1 combat job at lvl 80 and all hand and land jobs at 80 (except FSH). Then the next 8 members are leveled high enough to attain retainers and no further. The FC Leader spends all day and night crafting in an apartment (usually) and the 8 retainer bot alts are cycled through continuously, interacting only with a retainer bell. Undercutting by 1 gil until they hit a floor.

The FC itself is so active, they're usually rated high on the rankings charts. (To spot those, just look for an FC in the top 25 *all time* for a given server with no FC sigil, is rank 30 and has the set up I described above.)

This is why regular players can't sell anything on the marketboard. These types of bot FCs have made it impossible not just for people who enjoy crafting and selling things like you and me, but for smaller sellers who just want to make a few gil but aren't dedicated.

The market is bot driven, now. This isn't sustainable at all. And eventually SE is going to have to do something. Be nice if it were sooner rather than later.

On Mateus, you can look at pretty much any item on the MB and find either the cheapest or near-cheapest are all crafted by the same character. He's leader of an FC with (as you mentioned) a ton of market bots that are just levelled enough to access retainers and they cycle in and out online 24/7. He also is pretty much permanently set to a crafter class in an inn and only ever comes out to access the FC chest. It's been going on for years and I'm stunned SE hasn't done a thing about it, and the many many obvious gathering bots that are going at it every waking hour.

I don't know if it was always this bad, but it's something I have definitely started noticing more and more recently. Right now in fact I am watching a character crafting, only a single combat class, no FC and omni in everything but fisher, just crafting there upwards of 8 hours at a time, always moving to the exact same spot and orientation when they start another batch craft.

The whole situation is ridiculous and even reporting the obvious ones that you just need to observe for a few minutes to know they're botting, GM's do nothing. I can only assume they leave them alone because they pay a sub, which is really scummy and if they're not careful it's going to lead to people unsubbing if this gets worse...

[Nepentha]

On Mateus, you can look at pretty much any item on the MB and find either the cheapest or near-cheapest are all crafted by the same character. He's leader of an FC with (as you mentioned) a ton of market bots that are just levelled enough to access retainers and they cycle in and out online 24/7. He also is pretty much permanently set to a crafter class in an inn and only ever comes out to access the FC chest. It's been going on for years and I'm stunned SE hasn't done a thing about it, and the many many obvious gathering bots that are going at it every waking hour.

I don't know if it was always this bad, but it's something I have definitely started noticing more and more recently. Right now in fact I am watching a character crafting, only a single combat class, no FC and omni in everything but fisher, just crafting there upwards of 8 hours at a time, always moving to the exact same spot and orientation when they start another batch craft.

The whole situation is ridiculous and even reporting the obvious ones that you just need to observe for a few minutes to know they're botting, GM's do nothing. I can only assume they leave them alone because they pay a sub, which is really scummy and if they're not careful it's going to lead to people unsubbing if this gets worse...

Yep. I have an entire spreadsheet of every obvious botting FC on the Crystal Data Center. I keep track of them, hoping one day SE might actually USE the information I've gleaned for them.