sadly GM's appear to have dropped the ball

[Saefinn]

If you wanted to offer feedback on the claim system, you could have done so in the two different threads created in the past week or two specifically to discuss such a thing in General Discussion. That is why I was frustrated with your response. If you missed them, it's because no one really cares and the threads fell off the front page.

I saw this thread as a form of feedback (even if it has its misconceptions), it highlights what in some people's eyes is a problem and I figured I'd comment on it and share my opinion on the matter and what I think should be done. Naturally 1 thread would be enough, but as I can see it's quite common on this forum for multiple threads to be created on the same subject. Most forums I visit encourage people to use the search function before posting a new thread and mods lock duplicate ones so discussion remains in a single topic. I'll try to be more vigilant myself.

As far as I'm concerned, the debate is very simple. Unless someone is actively causing you to mess up, or lose claim on the NM, then you have lost claim or messed up of your own accord. Once you have messed up, you are forced to accept the consequences of that mistake. If that means you lost the NM because you messed up, then that's that. Instead of being a sore loser about it, calling GMs and berating other groups in /say, /shout, or on forums, people's energy would be significantly better devoted to simply not screwing up the next time. Not only do you improve as a player, but you do not lose claims in the future

I can understand your complaint about the sore losers, I see people throw hissy fits around the game and berate others and I think that it's both pointless and pathetic. In the example I used, some members of the party put all the blame on the leader, called him a noob and said he wasted all of our time, when really, it was a team effort, and as it may hurt my pride as a healer, the blame falls on everyone, including myself, I just said to leader what I say to someone every time something goes wrong, "it happens" and it does. Everybody is human and therefore capable of error.

I can understand what you're saying and you make fair points, I suppose my main problem with it is on the issue of fairness (I know, life's not fair), somebody is capable of taking a NM that's just been unclaimed, so they've got an easy pop and maybe even an easy win. I suspect SE wants there to still be some challenge to the game (even if it's becoming less evident) but systems like that kind of create more shortcuts for any lucky sod out there, so you've got the imbalance: one person suffers the consequence for their error whilst somebody else gets a shortcut. Perhaps have the NM depop a few seconds after losing claim, leaving only a small window for a reclaim and anybody outside of the popping party can claim it. So it's not making the game less challenging, it's just making its mechanics work on a fairer level.

[Yarly]

Okay, I really just don't think you understand how the claim system works. It doesn't matter what actions you've taken on the NM.

Only one person ever has claim on anything at any given time. Not a party, not an alliance, one person. That is always the last person to have acted on the mob. Not the person with the most hate, not someone with a DoT (DoTs do NOT keep claim or prevent depop, that is a total myth and has never been true ever), only the person who has most recently swung at, shot at, or casted on the mob.

Thus, when your WAR was the last person to act on the NM and the WAR gets charmed, the NM goes white because the person with claim disengaged. In order to keep claim, the last person to act on the NM before charm needs to be someone who is not getting charmed. Examples:

Here are some orders of events, and the results:
Blm casts Choke on Cirein-Croin
War uses Provoke on Cirein-Croin
MNK hits Cirein-Croin
Cirein-Croin uses Mayhem Lantern
War and Mnk are charmed
Cirein-Croin goes White.

Why did this happen? Because the most recent action on the NM was the Mnk's punch, meaning the Mnk had sole claim over Cirein. When the Mnk became charmed, then, Cirein went White.

Ex2:
Blm casts Choke on Cirein-Croin
War uses Provoke on Cirein-Croin
Mnk hits Cirein-Croin
Cirein-Croin uses Mayhem Lantern
Smart WHM casts Flash on Cirein-Croin
War and Mnk are charmed
Cirein-Croin stays Red.

Because the Whm was the one to take the most recent action against Cirein-Croin, they have sole claim over the NM. Because they had sole claim, and were not charmed, the NM stayed Red.

Is that a bit more clear?

Also, it really is not a violation to wait around and take mobs that other people legitimately screw up on. As long as they were not inducing said screwing-up, they are within their rights.

Why did this thread go past this post? Discussion ENDED when greatguardian laid out the entire claim system for any player to understand.

You screw up, you get screwed. Unclaimed monsters are free game for anyone. This is not a new concept, it didn't start in abyssea and GMs are going to do something if there is something to do.

[Starcade]

Edit: Directed at Secondplanet/Starcade, since the continuity was broken

It has nothing to do with loopholes. It is simply not against the rules. Get over that fact.

In the immortal words of Yuna, "You're a bad liar."

It is absolutely a loophole for that to happen. Square-Enix has the technology to allow a mob which has been aggroed and "wins" to de-pop. It's the only reason you don't have MPK all over Dynamis, even with the new system!

The current vulture system in Abyssea is an illegal exploit, using the loophole that a claimed mob which depops is declared the same as if it were a roaming mob on the outside.

Secondly, I don't "steal" jack *** personally. I think it's an utter waste of time to stand around while another group kills an NM. It is wholly unproductive. I may not be a vulture, hell I may not even like vultures, but I will defend the right to be vultures.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

I see a vulture group take a mob, and I will very loudly call the GM. It's kill-stealing, it's griefing, and it's content monopolization and denial. It's content you don't have the right to.

But Final Fantasy XI has a proud tradition of all four of these things, going back to MPK and ability-spam-to-disconnect at Ground Kings.

To hear some of you talk, it would appear that you believe we have no right to content because we lose to it. That, in fact, the "lesser persons" of FFXI are denying YOU the content. We're the problem, then, right GG?

Ever heard the phrase, "I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?

I've heard it -- doesn't mean I believe it.

Third, games are supposed to have consequences for failure or losing. How severe these consequences are, and in what way they are implemented, are always at the sole discretion of the game developer. You don't even have a shadow of a case because, in order for the claim to be lost in the first place, the original party would have had to make mistakes. The consequence of those mistakes is a potential loss of claim and loot.

Right, but that DOES NOT MEAN that someone else can pick up your table scraps. They never earned the right to face that mob. Else, frankly, you don't own the pop -- it just exists in your inventory and, in fact, at that point, it pops to the world, not to you.

The only way, frankly, you could get away with that is to make pop NMs pop yellow, and not pop pre-claimed. I hope I don't have to explain the cans of worms opened by that one.

Think of a pop item as the piece of content that it pops. If you claim that it can "go yellow" and anyone can take it because "you suck too much to not let it go yellow", then neither the content nor the original pop item belong to the entity in whose inventory the item was.

Frankly, all this is is a diversification of all the bot stupidities which hammered high-level content.

Don't want to suffer consequences? Don't make mistakes. Don't like the existence of consequences? Don't play the game.

No. This game would be about the perfect game for those who don't like consequences.

[Starcade]

Why did this thread go past this post? Discussion ENDED when greatguardian laid out the entire claim system for any player to understand.

You screw up, you get screwed. Unclaimed monsters are free game for anyone. This is not a new concept, it didn't start in abyssea and GMs are going to do something if there is something to do.

Then it needs to be reexamined, because, then, you can't go back and then start claiming people steal kills in any respect at all -- even previous acts deemed kill-stealing would not be, with this attitude.

[Neisan_Quetz]

I felt my brain cells dying after reading that.

EDIT: on Topic: What GG Said, Suck LessTM, etc.

[Starcade]

Should it be against the ToS? Subjective.

Is it? No.

GMs did their jobs properly. That is what the thread is about.

And I will be banned the moment I express the level of my contempt for how wrong you are at that statement.

The GMs fraudulently turn their backs on massive cheating, and this is another example of it.

[RAIST]

not cheating as much as it is just taking advantage of a game mechanic, which I guess SE could proclaim is an exploit and take measures against it (like they did with the landscape tweak).

About the only thing I could see them doing about it would be apply their confrontation status I mentioned earlier if they determine it is a big enough problem to warrant taking any action on it. Otherwise, the game is behaving as intended.

[noodles355]

Any "Intruder" player requires 2 consecutive actions taken on a white mob in order to claim it.\

Are you sure it's only 2 actions regardless of hate?

[Greatguardian]

Are you sure it's only 2 actions regardless of hate?

Two consecutive actions by the same player, yes. Provoke > Chi Blast is a solid way for Mnks to quickly claim if need be. The same holds true for when a mob/NM has aggro'd someone, even if it has never been claimed. It takes two consecutive actions to claim a mob that aggro'd someone in a different group, even if it starts chasing you after the first action.

[Nynja]

cirein-croin ...the popsets we had spent the previous 6 hours gathering.

I'm not reading 7 pages to check if this was covered, but it took you SIX hours to claim a heqet and kill a cep-kamuy?!?