How is the botting situation in this game?

[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.