Bots ruining the Marketboard for honest working Crafters

[soul2092]

Hi

Normally i don't go to the forums, but i don't know how else to air out my complaint so ill give this a shot and see how it goes.

Since the introduction of Savage and new Crafted Gear added to FF14, i have done the best i can to try and help people get ready for savage, sorting out gear, potions, and the occasional food they need. But because of bots blatantly being used to drive the price of gear down faster than it should its put a lot of stress considering i was hoping to make a decent amount to offset my own costs from pentamelding, and to pay the gatherer’s who have worked on my behalf.

Honestly if this is what is gonna happen everytime new gear comes out then how is an honest crafter meant to be making gil, like this is so unfair especially for console players like myself who have extra steps mostly due to having to write our own macros manually.

Another complaint i have is the Master books should not have been on the same day as savage, it put’s us crafters in a more time crunch situation and costed us both time and resources, despite preparing collectable to trade in advance.

Honestly, i just want to see Square take action and maybe level the playing field, honestly not expecting much, but to be honest im seriously considering quitting ff14 if nothing is done because honestly i feel like my time is being wasted.

From
James Gilroy
Honest Omnicrafter

[Lyndina]

Yeah, i gave up trying to make gil as a crafter. You put something on the market, almost instantly it is underbidden. Just crafting for myself now. Luckily i have a own guild with 4 subs to keep the cash floating.

[SlickPaws]

The bots have always been an issue on the MB. They're annoying but they're just a part of life now if you want to try and make money via the MB.
One trick I like to employ is - when you find a bot and it's consistently undercutting you, just undercut it and relist, wait for it to react and then repeat down to a level where you can comfortably buy all its stock and make a return. I did this with some of the Gatherer Materia the other week. Pushed it down to about 5k each, relisted for 90k each, sold it overnight.

If people wanna bot, punish them for it where you can. Other than that, just gotta suck it up and accept they're never going to root out the problem after this long.

EDIT: You also might want to try plying your trade via Party Finder. I look in there quite often for people unloading materials from submarine trips - clay, lumber etc - and there's usually people listing crafting services to order. Completely circumvents the MB, and you don't have to pay a tax on the gil. It's definitely something people are turning to because of bots. I also see people advertising gathering services as well, and I've personally made a LOT of gil from gathering over the years as well.

[lolnotacat]

This has been an issue as far back as I can remember, but really started to pick up steam in Stormblood. What's sad is that it would be a relatively simple fix too. Either only allow items to be listed once per 24hr (IRL) period and/or charge the full-price listing fee again for every price change under that 24hr period.

[soul2092]

The bots have always been an issue on the MB. They're annoying but they're just a part of life now if you want to try and make money via the MB.
One trick I like to employ is - when you find a bot and it's consistently undercutting you, just undercut it and relist, wait for it to react and then repeat down to a level where you can comfortably buy all its stock and make a return. I did this with some of the Gatherer Materia the other week. Pushed it down to about 5k each, relisted for 90k each, sold it overnight.

If people wanna bot, punish them for it where you can. Other than that, just gotta suck it up and accept they're never going to root out the problem after this long.

EDIT: You also might want to try plying your trade via Party Finder. I look in there quite often for people unloading materials from submarine trips - clay, lumber etc - and there's usually people listing crafting services to order. Completely circumvents the MB, and you don't have to pay a tax on the gil. It's definitely something people are turning to because of bots. I also see people advertising gathering services as well, and I've personally made a LOT of gil from gathering over the years as well.

Since savage was unlocked i did along with my co crafter for two days, the amount of people complaining our prices too high was ridiculous and not to mention some rude people going along the lines of “Sorry i found it cheaper” right now im tools down until i can figure things out because mostly im mentally drained

[Volgia]

Hi

Normally i don't go to the forums, but i don't know how else to air out my complaint so ill give this a shot and see how it goes.

Since the introduction of Savage and new Crafted Gear added to FF14, i have done the best i can to try and help people get ready for savage, sorting out gear, potions, and the occasional food they need. But because of bots blatantly being used to drive the price of gear down faster than it should its put a lot of stress considering i was hoping to make a decent amount to offset my own costs from pentamelding, and to pay the gatherer’s who have worked on my behalf.

Honestly if this is what is gonna happen everytime new gear comes out then how is an honest crafter meant to be making gil, like this is so unfair especially for console players like myself who have extra steps mostly due to having to write our own macros manually.

Another complaint i have is the Master books should not have been on the same day as savage, it put’s us crafters in a more time crunch situation and costed us both time and resources, despite preparing collectable to trade in advance.

Honestly, i just want to see Square take action and maybe level the playing field, honestly not expecting much, but to be honest im seriously considering quitting ff14 if nothing is done because honestly i feel like my time is being wasted.

From
James Gilroy
Honest Omnicrafter

How did you recognize it was bots?

[LianaThorne]

Since savage was unlocked i did along with my co crafter for two days, the amount of people complaining our prices too high was ridiculous and not to mention some rude people going along the lines of “Sorry i found it cheaper” right now im tools down until i can figure things out because mostly im mentally drained

I've made a profit so far tbh (I'm about to touch 30m just by passively chucking things on the MB when I remember/feel like it), but I also don't use the PF or hire people to do my gathering. I'm also not selling gear because that's always been a trap imo. It's definitely not just bots but a vast majority of crafters all trying to pile into gear selling hoping it'll make them millions. Undercutting is normal there, especially on the PF where people will drop prices if anyone shows up with an ad that's lower than they are.

If you really want to be cost-efficient:
- Gather your bulk mats yourself. I took every day up till savage launching taking a couple hours to gather a 999 stack of each new mat available in DT (can do a stack in 45m tbh if you're efficient). You're not only saving the cost of someone else doing it but you can sell materia as you go which is typically a rather large gil maker.

- Take pre-orders a lot of time in advance if you genuinely want to just go with crafting gear and then stop. It's not worth fighting the crowds when other avenues offer faster gil post-savage launch such as materia & mats for crafting the gear as they tend to rise in price if they're used in new items.

- Master book purchases can all be pre-farmed as well. Just cap your scrips and fill a retainer with more collectibles to use later when you run out. I had all my books within 5 minutes using that method.

[IzailiaRen]

How did you recognize it was bots?

Good question. With the pile of crafters everywhere I feel like this is more of a ‘people undercut me and I don’t like it so they must be bots!’ problem.

This is just how a free market works or to put it another way. There is not enough demand for what is being crafted.

[Jojoya]

Good question. With the pile of crafters everywhere I feel like this is more of a ‘people undercut me and I don’t like it so they must be bots!’ problem.

This is just how a free market works or to put it another way. There is not enough demand for what is being crafted.

There might be a few bots but generally it's just honest crafters undercutting each other.

There is demand out there but a lot of that demand is from players that don't want to pay the current prices. Once prices drop down to a reasonable range, there will be a healthy volume of sales.

[Shinku_Tachi]

Yeah, undercutters have always been a problem in this game since day one. There could be bots involved, but most players don't have the know-how to do that. I can assure you, most players stand at a bell and market board constantly checking the stuff they have up making sure they're on the top of the list. And, 9 times outta 10, new sellers putting an item on the AH is just gonna undercut the person on the top of the list, like that person who bids $1 over on the price is right.

At the end of the day, that's the sacrifice one makes dealing in high value, slower selling items.

Whereas someone dealing in lower value, fast selling items can just set their prices on the high median and forget it. Being undercut doesn't matter. Sure, it wont sell first, but the item sells so fast and the price is so in flux, if you're patient, it will sell.